Jo Nesbø - Headhunters

‘But she wasn’t charged?’

‘She was underage. And pregnant. The authorities sent her family back to their home country.’

‘Which was…?’

‘Er, Denmark. And there she stayed living, as far as we know, a quiet life. Until she came to Oslo three months ago. And met a tragic end.’

‘Apropos of tragic ends, I’m afraid we have to say thank you and goodbye to you, Brede Sperre.’ Glasses off, look into camera 1. ‘Should Norway cultivate its own tomatoes at any price? In News Tonight we’re going to meet…’

The TV picture imploded as I pressed the ‘off’ button on the remote control with my left thumb. I would usually have done it with my right thumb, but that arm was busy. And even though it was going to sleep through poor blood circulation, I would not have moved it for anything in the world. In fact, it was supporting the most beautiful head I knew. The head turned to me, and her hand pushed away the duvet to have a good look at me.

‘Did you really sleep in her bed after shooting her that night? Next to her? How wide did you say it was?’

‘One hundred and one centimetres,’ I said. ‘According to the IKEA catalogue.’

Diana’s big blue eyes stared at me in horror. But – if I wasn’t mistaken – there was a certain admiration there, too. She was wearing a gauzy negligée, an Yves Saint Laurent creation which was cool when it caressed my skin like now, but burning hot when my body pressed it against hers.

She propped herself up on her elbows.

‘How did you shoot her?’

I closed my eyes and groaned. ‘Diana! We’ve agreed that we won’t talk about this.’

‘Yes, we did, but I’m ready for it now, Roger. I promise.’

‘Darling, listen…’

‘No! Tomorrow the police report will be out and I’ll get to hear the details anyway. I’d rather hear them from you.’

I sighed. ‘Sure?’

‘Absolutely positive.’

‘In the eye.’

‘Which one?’

‘This one.’ I placed my forefinger against her finely formed left eyebrow.

She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. In and out. ‘What did you shoot her with?’

‘A small black pistol.’

‘Where did…?’

‘I found it at Ove’s place.’ I ran my finger along her eyebrow to the side of her face, stroked it over her high cheekbones. ‘And that was where it stayed, too. Minus my fingerprints of course.’

‘Where were you when you shot her?’

‘In the hall.’

Diana’s breathing was already noticeably faster. ‘Did she say anything? Was she frightened? Did she understand what was happening?’

‘I don’t know. I shot her as soon as I entered.’

‘What did you feel?’

‘Sorrow.’

She gave a faint smile. ‘Sorrow? Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even though she tried to lure you into Clas’s trap?’

My finger stopped. Not even now, a month after it was all over, did I like her using his Christian name. But, of course, she was right. Lotte’s mission had been to become my lover; it was she who was to introduce me to Clas Greve and persuade me to invite him to a job interview with Pathfinder and who was to make sure that I selected him. How long had it taken her to hook me? Three seconds? And I had splashed about helplessly as she had reeled me in. But then something unexpected had happened. I had dropped her. A man had loved his wife so much that he had, of his own accord, renounced a self-sacrificing and totally undemanding lover. Very surprising. And they had had to change plans.

‘I suppose I felt sorry for her,’ I said. ‘I think I was just the last in a succession of men who had let Lotte down throughout her life.’

I felt Diana give a little jerk when I articulated her name. Good.

‘Shall we talk about something else?’ I suggested.

‘No, I want to talk about this now.’

‘OK. Let’s talk about how Greve seduced you and persuaded you to take over the role of manipulating me.’

She chuckled. ‘Fine by me.’

‘Did you love him?’

She turned and her eyes lingered on me.

I repeated the question.

She sighed and wriggled closer. ‘I was in love.’

‘In love?’

‘He wanted to give me a child. So I fell in love.’

‘So simple?’

‘Yes. But it’s not simple, Roger.’

She was right, of course. It isn’t simple.

‘And you were willing to sacrifice everything to have this child? Even me?’

‘Yes, even you.’

‘Even though it meant I would have to pay with my life?’

She nudged my shoulder with her temple. ‘No, not that. You know very well that I thought he would only persuade you to write the report in his favour.’

‘Did you really think that, Diana?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Really, Diana?’

‘Yes, I think so anyway. You have to understand that I wanted to believe that.’

‘Enough for you to place the rubber ball filled with Dormicum on the car seat?’

‘Yes.’

‘And when you came down to the garage it was to drive me to the place where he would persuade me, wasn’t it?’

‘We’ve been through all this, Roger. He said this way entailed the least risk for all parties. Of course, I should have known it was madness. And perhaps I did, too. I don’t know what else I can tell you.’

We lay absorbed in our own thoughts while listening to the silence. In the summer we could hear the wind and the rain on the leaves of the trees in the garden outside, but not now. Now everything was stripped bare. And quiet. The only comfort was that it would be spring again. Perhaps.

‘And how long were you in love?’ I asked.

‘Until I realised what I was doing. The night you didn’t come home…’

‘Yes?’

‘I just felt like dying.’

‘I didn’t mean in love with him,’ I said. ‘I meant with me.’

She chuckled. ‘I can’t know that until I’ve stopped loving you.’

Diana almost never lied. Not because she couldn’t, Diana was a wonderful liar, but because she couldn’t be bothered. Beautiful people don’t need shells, are not obliged to learn all the defence mechanisms we others develop in order to protect ourselves against rejection and disappointment. But when women like Diana make up their minds to lie, they are thorough and efficient. Not because they are less moral than men, but because they have greater mastery of this aspect of the treachery. And that was precisely why I had gone to Diana that last evening. Because I knew she was the perfect candidate for the job.

After unlocking the door, standing in the hallway and listening to her footsteps on the parquet floor for a while, I had gone upstairs to the living room. I had heard her steps stop, the phone fall onto the coffee table, the whispered half-sob ‘Roger…’, seen the tears welling up in her eyes. And I had done nothing to stop her when she had thrown herself around my neck. ‘Thank God you’re alive! I kept ringing you all day yesterday and I’ve been trying all day today… where have you been?’

And Diana was not lying. She was crying because she thought she had lost me. Because she had sent me and my love out of her life like a dog to the vet to be put down. No, she was not lying. Said my gut instinct. But, as I have said, I am no great judge of human beings, and Diana is a wonderful liar. So when she had gone to dry her tears in the bathroom, I picked up her phone and checked that it was in fact my phone number she had been trying to ring. To be on the safe side.

When she came back, I told her everything. Absolutely everything. Where I had been, who I had been, what had happened. About the art thefts, about the phone under the bed in Greve’s apartment, about Danish Lotte who had pulled the wool over my eyes. About the conversation with Greve at the hospital. The one that had made me see that he knew Lotte, that she was his closest ally, that the person who had rubbed the gel containing transmitters into my hair was not Diana but the brown-eyed pallid-faced girl with the magical fingers, the translator who spoke Spanish and liked others’ stories better than her own. That I had had the gel in my hair since the evening before I had found Kjikerud in the car. Diana had stared at me in silence with wonder-filled eyes while I had told her.