Jo Nesbo - Knife

Well, at least now she knew how bloody awful she felt.

She heard her phone buzz in her bag. She took it out and saw that it was Kari Beal, her bodyguard, again. They would be looking for her now. She pressed Reject and tapped out a message: Sorry. No danger. Just need some time alone. Will be in touch when I’m done.

Twenty minutes earlier Dagny and Kari Beal had been in the city centre when Dagny said she wanted to buy some tulips. She had insisted that the police officer wait outside while she went into the florist’s, which she knew had another door in the next street. From there, Dagny had made her way to the metro station behind Stortinget and took the first train heading west.

She looked at the time. He had told her to be there by two o’clock. Which bench she should sit on. That she should wear something different from what she usually wore, to make her harder to recognise. What direction she should be looking in.

It was madness.

It was what it was. He had called her from an unknown number. She had answered and not been able to hang up. And now, as if she had been hypnotised and had no will of her own, she was doing as he had instructed, the man who had used and deceived her. How was that possible? She had no answer to that. Just that she must have had something in her that she didn’t know was there. A cruel, animalistic urge. Well, it was what it was. She was a bad person, as bad as him, and now she was letting him drag her down with him. She felt her heart beat faster. Oh, she was already longing to be down there, where she would be cleansed by fire. But would he come? He had to come! Dagny heard her own shoes hitting the pavement, harder and harder.

Six minutes later she was in position, on the bench she had been told about.

It was five minutes to two. She had a view of Smestaddammen. A white swan was gliding over the water. Its head and neck formed a question mark. Why was she having to do this?

Svein Finne was walking. Long, calm, terrain-conquering strides. Walking like that, in the same direction, for hour after hour, was what he had missed most during his years in prison. Oh well. Spilled milk.

It took him just under two hours to walk from the cabin he had found in Sørkedalen into the centre of Oslo, but he guessed it would have taken most people three.

The cabin lay at the top of a vertical rock face. Because there were bolts drilled into the cliff and he had found rope and carabiners in the cabin, he guessed it had been used by climbers. But there was still snow on the ground, and meltwater was trickling down the red and grey-black granite when the sun was shining, and he hadn’t seen any climbers.

But he had seen evidence of the bear. So close to the cabin that he had bought what he needed and set a trap with a tripwire and some explosives. When the last of the snow melted and the climbers began to appear, he would find himself a place deeper in the forest, build himself a teepee. Hunt. Go fishing in the lakes. Only as much as he needed. Killing anything you weren’t going to eat was murder, and he wasn’t a murderer. He was already looking forward to it.

He walked through the grey, urine-stinking pedestrian tunnel beneath the Smestad junction, emerged into the daylight and carried on towards the lake.

He saw her as soon as he entered the park. Not that he — even with his sharp eyesight — could recognise her from this distance, but he could tell by her posture. The way she was sitting. Waiting. A little scared, probably, but mostly excited.

He didn’t walk directly towards the bench, but took a detour to check that there were no police around. That was what he did when he visited Valentin’s grave. He quickly concluded that he was alone on this side of the lake. There was someone sitting on a bench on the other side, but they were too far away to see or hear much of what was about to happen, and they wouldn’t have time to intervene. Because this was going to happen quickly. Everything was ready, the scene was set and he was ready to burst.

“Hello,” he said as he approached the bench.

“Hello,” she said, and smiled. She seemed less frightened than he had expected. But of course she didn’t know what was about to happen. He glanced around once more to make sure they were alone.

“He’s running a bit late,” Alise said. “That sometimes happens. You know, being a successful lawyer.”

Svein Finne smiled. The girl was relaxed because she thought Johan Krohn was going to be joining them. That must be the explanation Krohn had given her for why she should be sitting on a bench beside Smestaddammen at two o’clock. That she and Krohn were going to be meeting Svein Finne, but because their client was currently being sought by the police, the meeting couldn’t take place in the office. All of this had been in the note Finne had found pinned to the ground with a knife in front of Valentin’s grave, signed by Johan Krohn. Krohn had also used a splendid knife, and Finne had put it in his pocket to add to his collection. It would come in useful in the cabin. Then he had opened the letter. It looked like Krohn had thought of pretty much everything to let both Finne and Krohn himself walk free afterwards. Apart from the consequences of having given his mistress to Finne, of course. Krohn didn’t know it yet, but he would never again be able to love Alise the way he had before. And he would never be free. Krohn had, after all, entered into a pact with the devil, and, as everyone knows, the devil is in the detail. Finne was never going to have to worry about getting hold of anything he needed again, whether it be money or pleasure.

Johan Krohn was still sitting in his car in the visitors’ car park at Hegnar Media. He had arrived early, he mustn’t be at the lake in the park on the other side of the road before five past two. He took out the new packet of Marlboro, got out of the car — because Frida didn’t like the smell of smoke in the car — and tried to light a cigarette. But his hands were shaking too much and he gave up. Just as well, he’d decided to stop anyway. He looked at his watch again. The plan was for him to get two minutes. They hadn’t been in direct contact, it was safest that way, but his message had said that two minutes were all he needed.

He followed the second hand with his eyes. There. Two o’clock.

Johan Krohn closed his eyes. Naturally it was terrible, something he would have to live with for the rest of his life, but when it came down to it, it was the only solution.

He thought about Alise. What she was having to go through right now. She would survive, but the nightmares would obviously haunt her. All because of the decision he had taken, without saying a word to her. He had deceived her. It was him, not Finne, who had done this to Alise.

He looked at his watch again. In one and a half minutes he would walk into the park, making out that he was just a bit late, comfort her as well as he could, call the police, act appalled. Correction: he would hardly have to act. He would give the police an explanation that was 90 percent true. And Alise an explanation that was 100 percent lie.

Johan Krohn caught sight of his own reflection in the car window.

He hated what he saw. The only thing he hated more was Svein Finne.

Alise looked at Svein Finne, who had sat down on the bench beside her.

“Do you know why we’re here, Alise?” he asked.

He had a red bandana tied around his black hair, with just a few strands of grey.

“Only in general terms,” she said. All Johan had told her was that it was to do with the Rakel Fauke case. Her first thought had been that they were going to press charges against the police for the physical injuries inflicted on their client by Harry Hole in the bunker in Nordstrand. But when she asked, Johan had simply replied curtly that it was to do with a confession, and that he didn’t have time to explain. He had been like that for the past few days. Cold. Dismissive. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was starting to lose interest. But she did know better. She had seen him like this before, during the brief periods when his conscience was getting at him and he suggested taking a break, saying he needed to focus on his family, the firm. Yes, he had tried. And she had stopped him. Dear Lord, it didn’t take much. Men. Or, to be more accurate: boys. Because every so often she got the feeling that she was the older of the pair of them, that he was just an overgrown Boy Scout equipped with a razor-sharp legal brain but not much else. Even if Johan liked to play the role of master to her slave, they both knew it was the other way around. But she let him play that role, the way a mother plays a frightened princess when her child wants to pretend to be a troll.