Jo Nesbø - Headhunters

At midnight I was still awake and through the open window I thought I heard a faint noise from the garage which might have been Ove, come to collect the Rubens. Even though I tried, I did not hear him leaving. Perhaps I had gone to sleep after all. I dreamed about a world under the sea. Happy, smiling people, silent women and children with speech bubbles rumbling and rising out of their mouths. Nothing pointing towards the nightmare that was awaiting me at the other end of my sleep.

I GOT UP at eight o’clock and ate breakfast on my own. For someone sleeping the sleep of the guilty Diana slept extremely well. I had only had a couple of hours myself. At a quarter to nine I went down to the garage and unlocked it. From an open window nearby I recognised the tones of Turbonegro, not by the music, but by the English pronunciation. The light came on automatically and shone on my Volvo S80 waiting majestically but subserviently for its master. I grabbed the door handle and immediately recoiled. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat! After the first fright had passed I saw that it was Ove Kjikerud’s oar-blade face. Night work over the last few days had clearly taken its toll for he was sitting there with closed eyes and a half-open mouth. And he was obviously fast asleep because when I opened the door he still didn’t react.

I used the voice from the three-month sergeants’ course I had gone on, against my father’s wishes: ‘Good morning, Kjikerud!’

He didn’t stir an eyelid. I inhaled to blow a reveille when I noticed that the ceiling liner was open and the edge of the Rubens was sticking out. A sudden chill, as when a fluffy spring cloud sails past the sun, made me shudder. And instead of making more noise, I grabbed his shoulder and shook him lightly. Still no reaction.

I shook harder. His head frolicked to and fro on his shoulders, without any resistance.

I placed my first finger and thumb against where I thought the main artery ran, but it was impossible to determine whether the pulse I felt came from him or my wildly racing heart. But he was cold. Too cold, wasn’t he? With trembling fingers I opened his eyelids. And that settled the matter. Involuntarily, I backed away when I saw the lifeless black pupils staring at me.

I have always thought of myself as the kind of person who can think clearly in critical situations, someone who won’t panic. Of course, that could be because there have never really been any situations in my life that were critical enough for me to panic. Apart from the time when Diana became pregnant, of course, and on that occasion I hadn’t found it difficult to panic. So perhaps I was a panicky type after all. In any case, at this moment decidedly irrational thoughts entered my head. Like the car needing a wash. That Kjikerud’s shirt – with a Dior label sewn on – had presumably been bought on one of his holidays in Thailand. And that Turbonegro were actually what everyone thought they were not, that is, a decent band. But I knew what was happening, that I was about to lose my grip, and I clenched my eyes shut and blasted the thoughts out of my head. Then I opened my eyes again and had to concede that a tiny little bit of hope had managed to sneak in. But no, the realities were the same, the body of Ove Kjikerud was still sitting there.

The first conclusion I drew was simple: Ove Kjikerud had to go. If anyone found him here, all would be revealed. Resolutely, I pushed Kjikerud forward against the steering wheel, leaned over his back, grabbed him round the chest and dragged him out. He was heavy and his arms were pulled upwards as though he was trying to wriggle out of my grasp. I lifted him up again and took a new hold, but the same thing happened; his hands swung up in my face and a finger got caught in the corner of my mouth. I felt a bitten-down nail scrape against my tongue and in horror I spat, but the taste of bitter nicotine remained. I dropped him onto the garage floor and opened the car boot, but when I tried to pull him up, only his jacket and fake Dior shirt followed; he remained firmly on the cement floor. I cursed, grabbed the inside of his trouser belt with one hand, jerked him up and shoved him head first into the 480-litre boot. His head hit the floor with a soft thud. I slammed the boot lid and rubbed my hands together, the way one often does after a manual job well done.

Then I went back to the driver’s side. There were no traces of blood on the seat, which was covered with one of those wooden-ball mats, the type that taxi drivers use the whole world over. What the hell had caused Ove’s death? Heart failure? Brain haemorrhage? Overdose of some substance or other? I realised that an amateur diagnosis was wasted time now, got in and, strange to say, noted that the wooden balls had retained body heat. The mat was the only thing of value I had inherited from my father, who had used it because of piles, and I did too as a precaution against the affliction in case it was hereditary. A sudden pain in one buttock made me jerk forward and hit my knee against the wheel. I eased myself out of the car. The pain had already gone, but something had undoubtedly stung me. I bent over the seat and stared, but could not see anything unusual in the dim compartment lighting. Could it have been a wasp? Not this late in the autumn. Something flashed between the rows of wooden balls. I bent closer. A thin, almost invisible, metal point protruded. Sometimes the brain reasons too fast for comprehension to keep abreast. That is the only explanation I have for the vague premonition that made my heart race even before I had raised the mat and caught sight of the object.

Sure enough, it was the same size as a grape. And made of rubber, just as Greve had elucidated. Not completely round; the base was flat, apparently so that the tip of the needle always pointed straight up. I held the rubber ball against my ear and shook it, but could hear nothing. Fortunately for me the entire contents had been pressed into Ove Kjikerud when he sat down on the rubber ball. I rubbed my buttock and checked for any effects. I was a bit dizzy, but who wouldn’t have been after shifting the body of a colleague and being stabbed in the arse by a bloody Curacit needle, a murder weapon that had, in all likelihood, been meant for me? I could feel myself getting the giggles; now and then fear has that effect on me. I closed my eyes and breathed in. Deep. Concentrated. The laughter disappeared; anger took its place. It was fucking unbelievable. Or was it? Wasn’t it exactly what one should expect, that a violent psychopath like Clas Greve would get rid of any husband? I kicked the tyre hard. Once, twice. A grey mark appeared on the tip of my John Lobb shoe.

But how had Greve gained access to the car? How the hell had…?

The garage door opened and the answer walked in.

DIANA STARED AT me from the garage door. She had obviously got dressed in a hurry and her hair was sticking out in all directions. Her voice was a barely audible whisper.

‘What’s happened?’

I stared at her with the same question shooting through my brain. And felt my already broken heart being crumbled into even smaller bits from the answer I received.

Diana. My Diana. It couldn’t have been anyone else. She had put the poison under the seat mat. She and Greve had colluded.

‘I saw this needle sticking up from the seat as I was about to sit down,’ I said, holding out the rubber ball.

She approached me, the murder weapon carefully held in her hand. Tellingly careful.

‘You saw this needle?’ she said without managing to hide the scepticism in her voice.

‘I have sharp eyes,’ I said, although I don’t think she picked up on, or could be bothered with, the bitter double meaning.