Jo Nesbo - Police

He held the edge of the door, cast a final glance at the TV before trying to close it. 00.01.47.

Wanted to close it but his hand wouldn’t obey. It wouldn’t obey because his brain refused to reject what his eyes had seen, but the rationally controlled section of his brain tried to ignore. To ignore because it had no relevance for the only thing that was important now, surviving, saving itself. To ignore because he couldn’t afford to do otherwise, didn’t have the time, didn’t have the empathy.

The mincemeat on the chair.

It had acquired two white spots.

White as in the whites of the eyes.

Staring straight at him through the cling film.

The bugger was alive.

Harry let out a yell and squeezed out of the fridge. Ran to the chair with the TV screen at the margin of his vision. Ripped the cling film off the face. The eyes in the mince blinked and he heard a shallow breath. He must have got some air through the hole where the bone had punctured the film.

‘Who did this?’ Harry asked.

Got no more than breath by way of an answer. The mincemeat mask began to trickle down like melting candle wax.

‘Who is he? Who’s the cop killer?’

Still only breath.

Harry looked at the clock. 00.01.26. It would take time to squeeze back in.

‘Come on, Truls! I can catch him.’

A bubble of blood began to grow where Harry guessed the mouth had to be. As it burst there was an almost inaudible whisper.

‘He wore a mask. Didn’t speak.’

‘What kind of mask?’

‘Green. All green.’

‘Green?’

‘Sur. . geon. .’

‘Surgeon’s mask?’

A small nod, then the eyes closed again.

00.01.05.

No more to be gleaned. He ran back to the kitchen. He was faster this time. He closed the door and the light went out.

Shivering in the darkness, he counted the seconds. Forty-nine.

The bastard would have died anyway.

Forty-eight.

Better that someone else did the job.

Forty-seven.

Green mask. Truls Berntsen had given Harry what he knew without asking for anything in return. So there was a bit of policeman left in him.

Forty-six.

No point thinking about it. There wasn’t any more room for him in here anyway.

Forty-five.

Besides, there was no time to release him from the chair.

Forty-four.

Even if he’d wanted to, there was no time left now.

Forty-three.

All over now.

Forty-two.

Shit.

Forty-one.

Shit, shit, shit!

Forty.

Harry kicked open the fridge door with one foot and squeezed himself out with the other. Pulled open the drawer under the worktop, grabbed what had to be a bread knife, ran to the chair and cut off the tape on the arms of the chair.

Avoided glancing at the TV, but heard the ticking.

‘Fuck you, Berntsen!’

He walked round the chair and cut the tape on the back and around the chair legs.

Put his arms round his chest and heaved.

Needless to say, the bugger was extremely heavy.

Harry pulled and cursed, dragged and cursed, no longer hearing the words coming from his mouth, hoping only they offended heaven and hell enough so that at least one of them would intervene in this idiotic but inevitable course of events.

He aimed at the open fridge, manoeuvred Truls Berntsen through the opening. The bloodstained body slumped and slipped out again.

Harry tried to stuff him in again, but it was no use. He pulled Berntsen out of the fridge, leaving trails of blood along the linoleum, let go, dragged the fridge from the wall, heard the plug come out, pushed the fridge over onto its back between the worktop and the stove. Grabbed Berntsen and thrust him up and in. Crawled in after him. Used both legs to push him as close to the back of the fridge as possible, to where the heavy refrigeration motor was housed. Lay on top of Berntsen, inhaling the smell of sweat, blood and piss that comes from sitting in a chair knowing your death is imminent.

Harry had hoped there would be room for them both, as it had been the height and width of the fridge that had been the problem, not the depth.

But now it was the depth.

He couldn’t close the bloody door behind them.

Harry tried to force it, but it wouldn’t close. There was less than twenty centimetres to go, but unless the fridge was hermetically sealed they didn’t have a hope. The shock waves would burst the liver and the spleen, the heat would burn out the eyeballs, every unattached object in the room would turn into a bullet, a machine gun spraying salvos and lacerating everything to pieces.

He didn’t even need to make a decision, it was too late.

Which also meant there was nothing to lose.

Harry kicked the door open, jumped out, got behind the fridge and pushed it upright again. Saw from over the edge that Truls Berntsen had slid out onto the floor. Couldn’t help looking past him at the TV screen. The clock showed 00.00.12. Twelve seconds.

‘Sorry, Berntsen,’ Harry said.

Then he seized Berntsen around the chest, dragged him to his feet and backed into the upright fridge. Put his hand out past Truls, pulled the door half to. And began to rock. The heavy motor was so high up that the cabinet had a high centre of gravity, and that, he hoped, would help him.

The fridge tipped backwards. They were teetering on the cusp. Truls flopped against Harry.

They mustn’t fall that way!

Harry resisted, tried to push Truls back, against the door.

Then the fridge made up its mind, fell into place and tipped the other way.

Harry caught a final glimpse of the TV screen as the fridge toppled and fell forwards.

The breath was knocked out of him as they crashed to the floor, and he panicked as he couldn’t get any oxygen. But it was dark. Pitch black. The weight of the motor and the fridge had done what he hoped, closed the door against the floor.

Then the bomb went off.

Harry’s brain imploded, shut down.

Harry blinked into the darkness.

He must have been out for a few seconds.

His ears were howling and his face felt as if someone had thrown acid into it. But he was alive.

So far.

He needed air. Harry squeezed his hands between him and Truls, pressed his back against the back of the fridge and shoved as hard as he could. The fridge swung round on its hinges and fell on its side.

Harry rolled out. Stood up.

The room looked like some kind of dystopian wasteland, a grey dust-and-smoke hell, without a single identifiable object; even what once had been a fridge looked like something else. The metal door in the hall had been blown off its frame.

Harry left Berntsen where he was. Hoping only that the bastard was dead. Staggered down the steps, into the street.

Stood gazing down Hausmanns gate. Saw the sirens on the police cars, but heard only the whistling in his ears, like a printer without paper, an alarm that someone would have to switch off soon.

And while he stood there gazing at the silent police cars he had the same thought as when he had been listening for the metro in Manglerud. That he couldn’t hear. He couldn’t hear what he should have heard. Because he hadn’t been thinking. Until he had been in Manglerud and had considered where the Oslo metro network ran. And then he finally realised what it was, what had been submerged in the darkness and hadn’t wanted to surface. The forest. There was no metro in the forest.

Mikael Bellman stopped.

Listened and stared down the empty corridor.

Like a desert, he thought. Nothing to catch your eye, only a quivering white light that erased all contours.

And this sound, the vibrating hum of neon tubes, the desert heat, like a prelude to something that nonetheless never happens. Only an empty hospital corridor with nothing at the end. Perhaps it is all a Fata Morgana: Isabelle Skøyen’s solution to the Asayev problem, the phone call an hour ago, the thousand-krone notes that had just spewed out of an ATM in the city centre, this deserted corridor in an empty wing of the hospital.