Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘Brad’s upstairs,’ said Ragnar, and turned to Dumbo. ‘You ready, Shorty?’

One of the O’Leary twins sneaked up behind Dumbo and jerked his trousers down. Everyone laughed. Dumbo too, but then he always laughs when the others do so that no one will suspect he hasn’t got the joke.

‘Hey, hey,’ said Ragnar. ‘Hey, look at that, the dwarf really is ready!’

More laughter, Dumbo’s louder than anyone’s.

‘Tell Yvonne you’re ready, Dumbo!’ Ragnar said, looking at me.

‘I’m ready!’ Dumbo laughed, thrilled to be the centre of attention, his glassy gaze fixed on the woman on the table.

‘Jesus, Dumbo,’ I said. ‘Don’t—’

‘Insubordination, Yvonne?’ Ragnar taunted, laughter in his voice. ‘Is this incitement to insubordination we hear?’

‘I’m ready!’ shouted Dumbo. He liked to repeat sentences he thought he’d got the hang of. And now the others hoisted him onto a chair, turned the music up loud and cheered him on.

I felt my blood boil. But that’s when you lose a boxing match, when you let the temperature of your blood decide. So I just said it, quietly, but loudly enough for him to hear me very clearly:

‘You will fucking well pay for this, Ragnar.’

There was a scraping of chair legs. The woman was lying with her head turned and looking at the little boy. Tears ran down her face and she was whispering something. And I couldn’t help myself, I went closer so I could hear. In spite of the effort she was making to control it her voice was trembling:

‘Everything will be fine, Sam. Everything will be fine. Close your eyes now. Think of something nice. Something you’d like us to do tomorrow.’

I stepped forward, took hold of Sam under the arms and lifted him up.

‘Let go of him!’ the woman shrieked. ‘Let go of my son!’ I caught her eye.

‘He doesn’t need to see this,’ I said.

Then I hoisted the boy up onto my shoulders, keeping a tight hold of him because he was struggling and squealing like a stuck pig. I headed for the kitchen door but then Ragnar appeared in front of me and blocked the way. Our eyes met. I don’t know what he saw in mine but after a couple of seconds he stepped aside.

I heard the mother scream ‘No!’ as I ducked down through the doorway, walked through the kitchen and out through another door into a corridor. I kept on walking until I found a bathroom. I put the little boy down on the floor and told him his mother would come and fetch him if he kept completely quiet and put his hands over his ears. Then I took the key from the door and locked it from the outside.

I climbed a staircase, passed a couple of open doors and then one that was closed. I opened it carefully.

Light from the corridor entered the room. Brad was sitting beside a bed in which a blonde girl of about my own age lay sleeping. She was still wearing a pair of headphones. I recognised the type, with noise-cancelling so good you could even sleep through the sounds of hand grenades exploding in the streets outside.

Or of your own family being tortured a few metres away.

Brad looked as though he’d been sitting there and looking at her for quite a while. And the girl was nice-looking, in a sort of old-fashioned romantic way, not exactly my type. But obviously Brad’s — I’d never seen him like that before, soft and dreamy-eyed, with a small smile on his lips. It struck me that it was the first time I’d ever seen him happy.

The girl in the bed turned away from the light without waking.

‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ I whispered. ‘We heard the screams even out on the garage — the neighbours might have called the police.’

‘We’ve got time,’ said Brad. ‘And she’s coming with us.’

‘Eh?’

‘She’s mine.’

‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’

I don’t know if it was because I spoke so loudly, but suddenly the girl in the bed opened her eyes. Brad took the headphones off her head.

‘Hi, Amy,’ he whispered in a velvety smooth and completely unfamiliar voice.

‘Brad?’ the girl said, her eyes wide open as she sort of scooted up the bed and away from him.

‘Shh,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to save you. There’s a gang down on the floor below us, they’ve got your parents and Sam. Stuff a few clothes into a bag and come with me, I’ve got a ladder outside the window.’

But the girl, Amy, had seen me. ‘What are you doing, Brad?’

‘Rescuing you,’ he repeated in a whisper. ‘The others are in the living room.’

Amy blinked and blinked. Got the picture. Got it quick, the way we all had to learn to.

‘I’m not leaving Sam,’ she said loudly. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but you can either help me or go.’ She looked at me. ‘And who are you?’

‘Do as he says,’ I said, and showed her my gun.

I don’t know if that was the right or wrong thing to do — Brad hadn’t given any instructions about kidnapping — but as she was about to sit up in the bed he grabbed hold of her hair, jerked her head backwards and pressed a cloth against her mouth and nose. She struggled for just a couple of seconds before her body shuddered and then collapsed into his arms. Chloroform. And there was me thinking we’d run out of it.

‘Help me carry her,’ he said as he stuck the cloth into his pocket.

‘But what are you going to do with her?’

‘Marry her and have children,’ said Brad.

Straight away of course I reckoned he’d lost it completely.

‘Come on,’ he said as he took hold of the limp body under the arms. Looked at me, eyebrows raised.

I hadn’t moved. Didn’t know if I was going to be able to either. I looked at the poster pinned above her bed. Same band as the one I liked listening to.

‘That’s an order,’ said Brad. ‘So make up your mind.’

Make up your mind. I knew what that meant, of course. Make up your mind whether you still want to be a member of the only family you’ve got. With the only protection you’re ever going to get. Make up your mind now.

So I did manage to move after all. I bent forward. Took hold of her legs.

I heard the sound of several motorcycles fading into the distance as Heidi staggered into the garage with one of my coats wrapped round her. She found a knife on the workbench and cut me loose. I put my arms around her. She was trembling and shivering as she buried her face in my neck, sobbing as though the tears were choking her.

‘They took her,’ she said as the tears ran warm against my T-shirt. ‘He’s taken Amy.’

‘He?’

‘Brad.’

‘Brad?’

‘He didn’t show his face, but it was Brad Lowe.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘He was the only one wearing a balaclava and he didn’t speak. But he was in charge and he went upstairs to Amy. And when the girl and the boy came into the living room one of them said it’s Brad’s orders.’

‘Said what was Brad’s orders?’

Heidi didn’t reply.

I held Heidi tight. I didn’t need to know. Not yet.

The brown-skinned girl had known that our daughter’s name was Amy and that she was the same age as her. Brad was a gang leader, that added up. For him to have hidden his face so he couldn’t be recognised, that was logical. But the fact that he was still not quite sharp enough to get away with it, that he’d been recognised after all, that was typical of Brad Lowe too.