Jo Nesbo - Knife

“It’s Kaja.” Her voice still sounded close. Perhaps the Pacific wasn’t so far away after all.

“Hi. How are you getting on?”

“It’s been crazy. I’ve only just woken up, I slept for fourteen hours solid. I’m standing outside the tent, on the beach. The sun’s just coming up. It looks like a red balloon being slowly inflated, and sometime soon it might just pull free of the horizon and take off.”

“Mm.” Harry looked at the glass.

“How about you? How are you coping with waking up?”

“Being asleep was easier.”

“It’s going to be tough, the grieving process you’re setting out on. And now that you’ve lost Bjørn too. Have you got people around you who can...”

“God, yes.”

“No, you haven’t, Harry.”

He didn’t know if she could sense him smiling. “I just need someone to make some decisions,” he said.

“Is that why you called?”

“No. I called to say I’d put your key back. Thanks for letting me stay.”

“Letting you stay...” she repeated. Then sighed. “The earthquake’s wrecked a lot of what few buildings there were, but it’s incredibly beautiful here, Harry. Beautiful and wrecked. Beautiful and wrecked, get it?”

“Get what?”

“I like beautiful and wrecked. Like you. And I’m a bit wrecked myself.”

Harry guessed where this was going.

“Can’t you get a flight out here, Harry?”

“To a Pacific island that’s just been wiped out by an earthquake?”

“To Auckland in New Zealand. We’ll be coordinating the international effort from there, and they’ve put me in charge of security. I’m setting off on a transport plane this afternoon.”

Harry looked at the departure board. Bangkok. Maybe there were still direct flights from there to Auckland.

“Let me think about it, Kaja.”

“Great. How long do you think—”

“One minute. Then I’ll call you back, OK?”

“ One minute?” She sounded happy. “OK, I can just about cope with that.”

They ended the call.

He still hadn’t touched the glass in front of him.

He could disappear. Sink down into the darkness. And then he caught it again, the thought that kept escaping him, from when he was in the car under the ice. It had been cold. Frightening. And lonely. But something else too. It had been quiet. So incredibly peaceful.

He looked at the departure board again.

Places a man could disappear.

From Bangkok he could go to Hong Kong. He still had connections there, he could probably get a job without too much difficulty, maybe even something legitimate. Or he could head off in the other direction. South America. Mexico City. Caracas. Really disappear.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. The ticket desk closed in six minutes.

Katrine and Gert. Or Kaja and Auckland. Jim Beam and Oslo. Sober in Hong Kong. Or Caracas.

Harry felt in his pocket and pulled out the small, blue-grey lump of metal. Looked at the dots on its sides. Took a deep breath, cupped his hands, shook the dice. Rolled it along the counter.