by Jo Nesbo
“We’re not alone, it seems,” Harry said. “I see you have backup.”
He nodded to the shadow under the door. Another shadow appeared. A straight, oblong shadow. Truls followed his gaze. And Harry saw it. The genuine astonishment on his face. The kind of astonishment types like Truls Berntsen cannot simulate. They weren’t Berntsen’s people.
“Move away from the door,” Harry whispered.
Truls stopped masticating the chewing gum and looked down at him.
TRULS BERNTSEN LIKED to have his Steyr pistol in a shoulder holster, positioned in such a way that the gun lay flat against his chest. It made it harder to see when you stood face-to-face with someone. And just as he knew that Harry Hole was an experienced detective, trained by the FBI in Chicago and so on, he also knew that Hole would automatically notice anything bulky in the usual places. Not that Truls figured he would need to use the pistol, but he had taken precautions. If Harry resisted he would escort him outside with the Steyr discreetly pointing at his back, having put on the balaclava so that any potential witnesses couldn’t say whom they had seen with Hole before he disappeared off the face of the earth. The Saab was parked on a back street; he had even smashed the only street lamp so that no one would see the license plate. Fifty thousand euros. He had to be patient, build stone by stone. Get a house a little higher up in Høyenhall, with a view looking down on them. Down on her.
Harry Hole seemed smaller than the giant he remembered. And uglier. Pale, ugly, dirty and exhausted. Resigned, unfocused. He thought this was going to be an easier job than he had anticipated. So when Hole whispered he should move away from the door, Truls Berntsen’s first reaction was irritation. Was the guy attempting to play games now that everything looked to be going so well? But his second reaction was that this was the voice they used. Police officers in critical situations. No coloring, no drama, just a neutral, cold clarity with the least possible chance of a misunderstanding. And the greatest possible chance of survival.
So Truls Berntsen—almost without thinking—took a step to the side.
At that moment the top part of the door panel was blown into the room.
As Berntsen whirled around his instinctive conclusion was that the barrel must have been sawn off to have such wide coverage at such short range. He already had a hand inside his jacket. With the shoulder holster in its conventional position and without a jacket, he would have drawn faster, since the handle would have been sticking out.
Truls Berntsen fell backward onto the bed with the gun freed and at the end of an outstretched arm as the remains of the door opened with a bang. He heard the glass shatter behind him before everything was drowned out by a new explosion.
The noise filled his ears, and there was a snowstorm in the room.
In the doorway the silhouettes of two men stood in the snowdrift. The taller one raised his gun. His head almost touched the doorframe—he was well over six feet. Truls fired. And fired again. Felt the wonderful recoil and even more wonderful certainty that this was for real—to hell with the consequences. The tall one jerked, seemed to flick his bangs before stepping back and disappearing from view. Truls shifted his pistol and his gaze. The second man stood there without moving. White feathers fluttered around him. Truls had him in his sights. But he didn’t fire. He saw him more clearly now. Face like a wolf. The kind of face Truls had always associated with the Sami, Finns and Russians.
Now the guy calmly raised his gun. Finger wrapped around the trigger.
“Easy, Berntsen,” he said in English.
Truls Berntsen gave a long, drawn-out roar.
HARRY FELL.
He had lowered his head, crouched and moved back as the first blast of the shotgun sprayed over his head. Back to where he knew the window was. Felt the pane almost bend before it remembered it was glass and gave way.
Then he was in free fall.
Time had jammed on the brakes, as though he were falling through water. Hands and arms working like slow paddles in a reflexive attempt to stop the body rotating into the beginnings of a backward somersault. Semi-transmitted thoughts bounced between the brain’s synapses:
He was going to land on his head and break his neck.
It was lucky he didn’t have curtains.
The naked woman in the window opposite was upside down.
Then he was received by softness everywhere. Empty cardboard boxes, old newspapers, dirty diapers, milk cartons and day-old bread from the hotel’s kitchen, wet coffee filters.
He lay on his back in the open dumpster amid a shower of glass. Flashes of light appeared from the window above him, like camera flashbulbs. Muzzles of flames. But it was eerily quiet, as though the flashes came from a TV with the volume turned down. He could feel that the duct tape around his neck had torn. Blood was streaming out. And for one wild moment he considered staying where he was. Closing his eyes, going to sleep, drifting off. He seemed to be watching himself sit up, jump over the edge of the dumpster and race toward the gate at the end of the yard. Open it as he heard a protracted, furious roar from the window reach the street. Slip on a drain cover but manage to stay on his feet. See a black woman in tight jeans, who smiled instinctively and pouted at him, then reviewed the situation and averted her gaze.
Harry set off.
And decided that this time he would just run.
Until there was nowhere left to run.
Until it was over, until they had him.
He hoped it wouldn’t be too long.
In the meantime he would do what hunted prey are programmed to do: flee, try to escape, try to survive for a few more hours, a few more minutes, a few more seconds.
His heart pounded in protest, and he began to laugh as he crossed the street in front of a night bus and continued down toward Oslo Central Station.
Harry was locked in. He had just woken and noticed. On the wall immediately above him hung a poster of a skinned human body. Beside it, a neatly carved wooden figure depicting a man on a cross bleeding to death. And beside that, medicine cabinet after medicine cabinet.
He twisted around on the couch. Tried to continue where he had left off yesterday. Tried to see the picture. There were lots of dots, but he hadn’t managed to connect them. And even the dots were for the time being mere assumptions.
Assumption one: Truls Berntsen was the burner. As an employee in Orgkrim he was probably in a perfect position to serve Dubai.
Assumption two: It was Berntsen Beate had found a match for in the DNA database. That was why she wouldn’t say anything until she was one hundred percent certain; the test on the blood under Gusto’s nails suggested it was one of their own. And if that was correct, Gusto had scratched Truls Berntsen the same day he was killed.
But then came the tricky part. If Berntsen was indeed working for Dubai and had been given the job of expediting Harry, why did the Blues Brothers appear and try to blow off both their heads? And if they were Dubai henchmen how come they and the burner were at each other’s throats like that? Weren’t they on the same side, or had it been no more than a badly coordinated operation? Maybe it wasn’t coordinated; maybe Truls Berntsen had acted on his own to prevent Harry from delivering the evidence from Gusto’s grave and exposing him?
There was a rattle of keys and the door opened.
“Morning,” Martine twittered. “How do you feel?”
“Better,” Harry lied, looking at his watch. Six o’clock. He threw off the blanket and swung his legs onto the floor.
“Our infirmary is not intended for overnight stays,” Martine said. “Lie down so that I can put a fresh bandage around your neck.”
“Thanks for taking me in last night,” Harry said. “But, as I said before, giving me a place to hide is not without its dangers, so I think I should go.”
“Lie down!”
Harry looked at her. Sighed and obeyed. Shut his eyes and listened to Martine opening and closing drawers, the clatter of scissors on glass, the sound of the first people arriving for breakfast
at the Watchtower café on the floor below.
While Martine undid the bandage she had applied the previous night Harry called Beate and reached a minimalist message telling him to be brief, beep.
“I know the blood is from an ex-Kripos detective,” Harry said. “Even if this is confirmed at the Pathology Unit today you should wait before telling anyone. On its own it’s not enough to justify an arrest warrant, and if we shake his cage now we risk him burning the whole case and taking flight. So we should have him arrested for something else so that we can work in peace—breaking into the bikers’ place in Alnabru. Unless I’m much mistaken, this is Oleg’s accomplice. And Oleg will testify. So I’d like you to fax a photo of Truls Berntsen, now working at Orgkrim, to Hans Christian Simonsen’s office and ask him to show it to Oleg for identification.”
Harry hung up, took a deep breath, felt it coming, suddenly and with such power that he gasped. He turned away, felt the contents of his stomach assessing a trip up north.
“Does it hurt?” Martine asked as she ran the alcohol-dipped cotton wool along his neck and chin.
Harry shook his head and nodded toward the open bottle of alcohol.
“Right,” Martine said, tightening the cap. “Will it never get better?” she asked in a low voice.
“What?” Harry said hoarsely.
She didn’t answer.
Harry’s eyes jumped around the infirmary to find himself a distraction, something to refocus his mind, anything at all. They found the gold ring she had removed and placed on the couch before tending to his wounds. She and Rikard had been married for a few years now; the ring had chips and scratches, wasn’t shiny and new like Torkildsen’s at Telenor. Harry experienced a sudden chill and his scalp began to itch. Of course it could just have been sweat.
“Genuine gold?” he asked.
Martine began to wind the fresh bandage around. “It’s a wedding ring, Harry.”
“So?”
“So of course it’s gold. However poor or cheap you are, you don’t buy a wedding ring that’s not gold.”
Harry nodded. His scalp itched and itched; he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. “I did,” he said.
She laughed. “In which case you’re the only person in the whole world who did, Harry.”
Harry stared at the ring. That was what she had said. “Like hell I’m the only …” he said slowly. The hairs on his neck were never wrong.
“Hey, wait—I haven’t finished!”
“It’s fine,” said Harry, who had already sat up.
“At least you should have some clean clothes. You stink of garbage, sweat and blood.”
“The Mongolians used to rub animal excrement all over themselves before big battles,” Harry said, buttoning up his shirt. “If you want to give me something, a cup of coffee would be …”
She sent him a resigned look. And went through the door and down the stairs, shaking her head.
Harry hurriedly took out his cell.
“Yes?” Klaus Torkildsen sounded like a zombie. The kids screaming in the background were probably the explanation.
“This is Harry H. If you do this for me I’ll never pester you again, Torkildsen. I’d like you to check some base stations. I have to know all the places Truls Berntsen—address somewhere in Manglerud—was on the night of July twelfth.”
“We can’t pinpoint that down to the square foot or chart—”
“Movements minute by minute—I know all that stuff. Just do the best you can.”
Pause.
“Is that all?”
“No, there’s another name.” Harry closed his eyes and racked his brain. Visualized the letters on the nameplate at the Radiumhospitalet. Mumbled to himself. Then he said the name into the phone, loud and clear.
“Noted. And never again means?”
“Never again.”
“I see,” Torkildsen said. “One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“The police asked for your phone number yesterday. You don’t have one.”
“I have an unregistered Chinese number.”
“They seemed to be interested in tracing it. What’s going on?”
“Sure you want to know, Torkildsen?”
“No,” Torkildsen said after another pause. “I’ll call you when I’ve got something.”
Harry ended the call and considered his options. He was wanted by the police. Even if they didn’t find his name against the number, they could put two and two together if they checked Rakel’s calls and saw the Chinese number appear. The phone gave away his location, and he would have to get rid of it.
When Martine returned with a cup of steaming hot coffee, Harry allowed himself two swigs and then asked straight out if he could borrow her phone for a couple of days.
She studied him with that pure, direct look of hers and said yes, if he’d thought the matter through.
Harry nodded, took the little red phone, kissed her on the cheek and carried his coffee down to the café. Five of the tables were already occupied, and more early-morning scarecrows were on their way. Harry sat at a free table and jotted down the contact numbers from his Chinese phone. Sent the important ones a short text message about his new temporary number.
Drug addicts are as inscrutable as other people, but in one area they are reasonably predictable, so when Harry left his Chinese cell in the middle of the table and went to the bathroom, he was quite sure of the result. On his return the phone had vanished. It had gone on a journey the police would be able to follow around town via base stations.
Harry, for his part, walked out and down Tøyengata to Grønland.
A police car rolled up the hill toward him. He immediately lowered his head, took out Martine’s phone and pretended he was in conversation as a pretext to shield most of his face.
The car passed. The next few hours would be about staying undercover.
More important, though, he knew something. He knew where to begin.
TRULS BERNTSEN LAY frozen under two layers of spruce twigs.
He had been playing the same film all night, over and over. Wolf-Face, who had backed away carefully, repeating, “Easy,” like a prayer for a truce while they pointed their guns at each other. Wolf-Face. The limousine driver outside Gamlebyen Cemetery. Dubai’s man. When he had stooped to grab the big guy whom Truls had shot, he had to lower his pistol and Truls had realized the man was willing to risk his life to save his pal. Wolf-Face must have been an ex-soldier, an ex-policeman; there was some kind of honor crap going on, at any rate. A groan came from the big guy at that moment. He was alive. Truls felt both relief and disappointment. But he had let Wolf-Face do it, let him haul the man to his feet and had heard the squelch of blood in his shoes as they staggered down the corridor to the rear door. Once they were outside he had pulled on his balaclava and run out, through reception, to the Saab, driven straight up here, not daring to go home. For this was the safe place, the secret place. The place where no one could see him, the place only he knew and where he went when he wanted to see her.
The place was in Manglerud, in a popular hiking area, but the hikers kept to the paths and never came up to his rock, which, in any case, was surrounded by a dense scrub forest.
Mikael and Ulla Bellman’s house stood on the ridge opposite the rock, and he had a perfect view of the living-room window, where he had seen her sitting on so many evenings. Just sitting on the sofa, her beautiful face, her graceful body that had barely changed over the years, she was still Ulla—the most attractive girl in Manglerud. Sometimes Mikael was there, too. He had seen them kissing and caressing each other, but they had always gone into the bedroom before anything else happened. He didn’t know that he wanted to see any more anyway. For he liked to see her sitting there alone best of all. On the sofa with a book and her feet drawn up underneath her. Now and then she would cast a glance at the window as though she could feel she was being observed. And on those occasions he felt himself getting excited by the notion t
hat she might know. Know he was out there somewhere.
But now the living-room window was black. They had moved. She had moved. And there were no safe viewing points near the new house. He had checked. And the way things were, it wasn’t certain he was going to need one. Was going to need anything. He was a marked man.
They had tricked him into visiting Hole at Hotel Leon at midnight and then attacked.
They had tried to get rid of him. Tried to burn the burner. But why? Because he knew too much? But he was a burner, wasn’t he? Burners do know too much; that goes without saying. He couldn’t understand. Hell! It didn’t matter why; he had to make sure he stayed alive.
He was so cold and tired his bones ached, but he didn’t dare go home until it was light and he had checked that the coast was clear. If he could get inside the door of his flat he had enough artillery to withstand a siege. He should have shot them both when he had the chance, but if they tried again they would see that it was not so fucking easy to nail Truls Berntsen.
Truls got up. Brushed the fir needles off his clothes, shivered and slapped his arms against his chest. Looked up at the house again. Dawn was beginning to break. He thought of the other Ullas. Like the little dark number at the Watchtower. Martine. He had in fact thought he could get her. She worked with dangerous people, and he was someone who could protect her. But she had ignored him, and as usual he hadn’t had the guts to approach her and get the rejection over and done with. It was better to wait in hope, drag it out, torment yourself, see possible encouragement where less desperate men saw only universal friendliness. And then one day he had overheard someone say something to her, and he had realized she was pregnant. Fucking whore. They were all whores. Like this girl Gusto Hanssen had used as a lookout. Whore, whore, whore. He hated these women. And the men who knew how to make these women love them.
He jumped up and down, slapping his arms around him, but knew he would never get the warmth back.
HARRY HAD GONE back to Kvadraturen. Found a seat inside Postkafeen. That was the one that opened earliest, four hours before Schrøder’s, and he had to line up with beer-thirsty customers until he could buy himself something that would pass for breakfast.
