Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

I stepped back half a pace as a trailer whizzed by in front of my face and made the ground shake.

‘To the best of my knowledge they pay you three times what they pay me. So no.’

‘What makes you think I’m talking shop, Lukas? I’m wondering if you think you fuck her better than me?’

I swallowed. He laughed. A hissing laughter that began in a T and then turned into a long, jerking S.

‘I’m joking,’ he said. ‘I am talking shop. The killing of Signor Chadaux. The board of his company couldn’t decide whether it was a traffic accident or a suicide. So they called in an expert on death. Me. Because on the footage from the traffic-monitoring camera—’ he pointed up towards the facade on the other side of the road where I knew the cameras were mounted — ‘you see Signor Chadaux standing with the other pedestrians waiting for the red light right where we’re standing. But when the lights changed to green and everyone began to cross, Signor Chadaux was left standing here alone. He looks like he’s asleep on his feet as another crowd of pedestrians comes up alongside him. But then the lights change to red, he closes his eyes and moves his lips, as though he’s counting inwardly. Have you seen the recording?’

I shook my head.

‘Then perhaps you saw it when it actually happened?’

Again I shook my head.

‘Really? Then let me describe it for you. He steps straight out onto the pedestrian crossing. Know how many cars ran over him before they managed to stop the traffic? No, then you probably don’t know that either. Let me tell you something they didn’t put in the newspaper, and that is that Signor Chadaux had to be scraped off the asphalt like chewing gum.’

‘Did they find out whether it was an accident or a suicide?’

Greco laughed that thin, hissing laughter of his. Softly, but so close to my ear I could still hear it above the traffic.

‘Chadaux’s company is a competitor of one of the companies you’re working for. You believe in coincidence, Lukas?’

‘Sure. They happen all the time.’

‘No, you don’t.’ Greco wasn’t laughing any more. ‘I studied the video a few times, then I came down here to take a closer look. In particular I checked that traffic light that you can see in the video Signor Chadaux has his eyes fixed on.’

Gio Greco pointed to the set of lights directly opposite us. ‘It has screwdriver markings on it. And when I checked the security camera it turns out it was down for about an hour the previous night, not that anyone could explain why. How did you do it, Lukas? Did you install a screen in the traffic light which you could use your phone to communicate with to hypnotise Signor Chadaux? Did you tell him when to step out into the road, or was there a trigger? The red light, for example?’

Through the winter cold I could feel the sweat breaking out over my whole body. I had only ever spoken to Greco twice before, and I was afraid both times. Not because there was anything to be afraid of — this was before drivers were used to liquidate each other out. It was just his aura. Or rather, the absence of an aura, the way cold is just the absence of warmth. The way pure evil is just the absence of mercy. As I see it, a psychopath is not a person possessing a special quality, but someone just lacking something.

‘Have they put you on to me?’ I asked. ‘Chadaux’s company?’

On the traffic lights in front of us the red figure gave way to the green, and on either side of us people streamed across. If I moved, would I get a bullet in the back?

‘Who knows? Whatever, you don’t sound as if you’re all that afraid to die, Lukas?’

‘There’s worse fates than leaving this vale of tears,’ I said as I watched the retreating backs of the pedestrians who had left us alone on the pavement.

‘Better than being left — I think we can agree on that, Lukas.’

The first thing that occurred to me was, naturally, that he was talking about how Judith had left him. It would have been naive to suppose that he wouldn’t find out somehow or other that I had taken his place as both her client and her lover. But something in the way he said it made me think he might have been referring to me. That it was me who had been left by my son Benjamin and by my wife. I had no idea how he might have come by such information.

‘Hello, I’m...’ he said in English. The words came slowly, rhythmically. I stiffened.

‘Relax,’ he said with a soft laugh. ‘I’m not going to shoot you here right in front of the security cameras.’

I forced one foot forward, then the other. I walked on without looking back.

The most obvious reason Milan has become the capital for Europe’s drivers is, of course, that it has become a centre for technology and innovation. The best brains are here, the richest companies. The city is a watering hole on the savannah where animals of every kind congregate; apart from the handful of herbivores so large they’ve got no need to worry, most of us are hunters, prey or scavengers. We live in a symbiotic relationship of fear from which none of us can escape.

I walked along one of those narrow cobbled pedestrian lanes that twist slightly so you can’t see far ahead. Maybe that’s why I always choose this route to my office: I don’t have to see everything that lies ahead.

I passed the small, exclusive fashion shops, some of the less exclusive, and the workshops housing the craftsmen who experienced a renaissance after the mass production of so many goods came to a standstill as a result of the shortage of raw materials.

My chessboard was waiting at home for me, set up for my favourite game, Murakami versus Carlsen. It was a game from the years after Carlsen peaked, but well known because in the very early stages Carlsen wandered into a trap so obvious and yet so cunning that it was afterwards called the Murakami Trap and became as famous as the Lasker Trap. Murakami would later use a brutal variation of the trap in an even more celebrated game of lightning chess, against the young Italian comet Olsen, from right here in Milan.

My heart was still pounding after the encounter with Gio Greco. I knew, of course, that murder in the street wasn’t his style; he left that kind of thing to the drivers. But when he had said ‘Hello, I’m...’, I had felt certain my time was up, and I would soon be meeting Benjamin and Maria again. I don’t know whether it’s because Greco is a fan of Johnny Cash, but his calling card, his farewell to his victims is, according to legend, ‘Hello, I’m Greco.’ I know some people say he only began saying that after the legend arose. If he wasn’t actually present, that is. Because he was capable of remote killing too, as the case of the spectacular attack on the Giualli family in the Sforzesco Castle the previous year showed.

I knew no one was following me, but naturally I couldn’t help wondering why he had suddenly appeared like that and given me just half of his famous line. Because Greco had been right; I didn’t believe in coincidences. Was it a threat? But why should I take the threat seriously when both he and I knew he could have done the job there and then; it would have been a perfect opportunity. What was he planning? Maybe he just wanted me to believe he was planning something, maybe that was just an old lover wanting to make sure the new one didn’t sleep too well at night.

My thoughts were interrupted by loud voices and shouts ahead of me. A crowd of people were gathered in the narrow street, standing with their heads looking upwards. I looked up too. Black smoke was belching out from a French balcony on the floor below the top. Behind the balcony bars I saw something, a pale face. A boy. Eight maybe? Ten? It was hard to tell from below.

‘Jump,’ shouted one of the onlookers.