Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘Alex, you have a foothold up on the right!’ shouted Victoria, who had also realised what was about to happen. But it was too late, Alex was about to get chicken wings, the elbows rose up, a sure sign that his strength had given out.

‘He’s falling, you’ve got to jump,’ I said quietly.

‘Alex!’ she called, paying no attention to me. ‘Get your foot up, then you’ll make it!’

I grabbed hold of her harness with both hands.

‘What the fuck are you—’ she snarled, half turning towards me.

My gaze was fixed on Alex. He screamed. And fell. I dragged Victoria backwards, spun her round me like a hammer thrower and tossed her off the shelf. Her short sharp shriek drowned out Alex’s longer howl. The logic was simple: I had to get her somewhere lower as quickly as possible so that her body weight could arrest his fall before he hit the ground.

Both the part of the rope on its way up and the part travelling down tensed, and then suddenly all was silence. The screams, the shouts exchanged between the other climbers, the very wind itself seemed to be holding its breath.

I looked up.

Alex was hanging in the rope some way up the face. The reverse-mounted hook had held him after all. OK, so today I didn’t save anybody’s life. I stepped to the edge of the ledge and looked down at Victoria Hässel. She was dangling on her harness on the rope below the locking mechanism two metres below me and staring up, her eyes dark with shock.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Thanks,’ I said to Victoria as she poured coffee from a Thermos into two plastic cups and handed one to me.

She had sent Alex to join a team higher up the mountain while she and I remained sitting on the ledge.

‘I’m the one who should say thanks.’

‘For what? The hook held the rope, so it would have worked out all right anyway. And you banged your knee.’

‘But you did the right thing.’

I shrugged. ‘We’ll let that be our consolation, right?’

She gave a crooked smile and blew on her coffee. ‘So you’re a climber?’

‘Was,’ I said. ‘Haven’t touched stone in almost forty years.’

‘Forty years is a long time. What happened?’

‘Yeah, what happened? What happened here, by the way? I read there was a fatal accident.’

As unpleasant as the subject was, Victoria Hässel grabbed the chance to talk about something she knew wasn’t what I had come to talk to her about.

‘It was a classic mistake. They forgot to check the length of the route against the length of the rope, and not even put a knot in the end of the rope. On the way down the safety man didn’t notice there was no more rope left until it was too late. With no knot in the end of the rope it ran out through the belay device, leaving the climber in free fall. Eight metres, you might think you would survive that. But he landed head first on the stone and in that case even two metres can be enough.’

‘Human error,’ I said.

‘Isn’t it always? When was the last time you heard it was the rope that broke or the bolts that came loose from the rock?’

‘True enough.’

‘It’s just too fucking awful.’ She shook her head. ‘But all the same. I read somewhere that in places where there’s been a climbing fatality, you often see a marked increase in the number of climbers there.’

‘Really?’

‘Not many people say it out loud. But if there wasn’t a certain amount of risk involved, you wouldn’t get many people climbing.’

‘Adrenaline junkies?’

‘Yes and no. I don’t think it’s fear we become addicted to but control. The feeling of mastering danger, mastering our own fate. Of exerting a control we don’t have over the rest of our lives. We are slightly heroic because we don’t make mistakes in critical situations.’

‘Right up until the day we lose control and make that mistake,’ I said and took a sip of coffee. It was good. ‘If, that is, it is a mistake.’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

‘Franz rang you eight times that night after he and Julian had quarrelled. The next day Julian was missing. What did he want?’

‘I don’t know. Arrange a climb maybe. Maybe he didn’t have a partner after the quarrel.’

‘According to his call log you never rang back. But you rang Julian’s phone. Why?’

She pulled on a fleece jumper and warmed her hands around the coffee cup. She nodded slowly. ‘They are similar, Franz and Julian. And yet different. Julian is easier to talk to. But I called just to make sure people hadn’t forgotten the most obvious possibility, that Julian might be somewhere and have his phone with him.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Sure, they’re similar and yet different. They obviously have different tastes in music. Led Zeppelin and...’ I had already forgotten that crooner’s name. ‘But they like the same girl.’

‘Guess they do.’

I looked at her. My jealousy radar wasn’t picking up anything. So this wasn’t about romance, she wasn’t in love with Julian, or having a relationship with him. Franz had not been trying to get in touch with Victoria to ask for help in trying to spoil things for Julian and Helena. So what was it then?

‘What do you think has happened?’ she asked. ‘Did Julian go for a swim and get into difficulties? Maybe on account of the concussion he suffered in the bar?’

I realised she was testing me. That my reply would determine the nature of her next move.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I think Franz killed him.’

I looked at her. And as I half expected, she looked less shocked than she should have done if she knew nothing. She took a large mouthful of coffee, as though to hide the fact that, nevertheless, she still had to swallow.

‘Well?’ I said.

She looked around. The four members of the other rope team were well out of earshot in the wind. ‘I saw Franz come home that evening.’

Here it was.

‘I couldn’t sleep and was sitting out on the balcony of my room on the other side of the road. I saw Franz park and get out of the car alone. Julian wasn’t with him. Franz was carrying something, it looked like clothes. When he unlocked the door he looked round and I think he spotted me. I think he knew that I saw him. I think that’s why he rang. He wanted to explain.’

‘You didn’t want to hear the explanation?’

‘I didn’t want to get involved. Not until we knew more, not until Julian had been found.’

‘And then?’

She sighed. ‘I thought that if Julian wasn’t found, or he was found dead, then I’d come and tell you. Before would only complicate things. It would look as if I was accusing Franz of something criminal. We’re a group of climbers who are friends, we trust one another, every day we trust each other with our lives. I might have ruined all that if I’d acted impulsively. Understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘Fuck.’

I followed her gaze down the mountainside. A person was on his way up the track from the road down there.

‘It’s Franz,’ she said, standing up and waving.

I peered down. ‘Sure?’

‘You can tell by the Gay Rights hat.’

I peered again. Gay rights. The rainbow flag, not the Rastafarian.

‘I thought he was hetero,’ I said.

‘You know you can support other people’s rights besides your own?’

‘And Franz Schmid does?’

‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘But at least he follows St Pauli and the Bundesliga.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Football. His grandparents come from my city, Hamburg, and we’ve got two rival clubs. You’ve got HSV, which is the big, friendly, straight rich club that Julian and I support. Then you’ve got the angry little lefty punk club St Pauli, with skull and crossbones as their badge, who openly support gay rights and everything else that irritates the Hamburg bourgeoisie. That seems to attract Franz.’