Jo Nesbo - The Son

Locked.

Damn! He pulled it again. The door refused to budge.

He looked at the white sensor plate by the door. Pressed his index finger against it. An indicator glowed yellow for a couple of seconds before it went out and another lit up red. Johannes knew it meant his fingerprint hadn’t been recognised, but he tried to open the door anyway. Trapped. Defeated. He slumped to his knees in front of the door.

At the same time he heard Geir Goldsrud’s voice:

‘Sorry, Johannes.’

The voice was coming from a loudspeaker at the top of the wall and it sounded calm, almost comforting.

‘We’re just doing our job, Johannes. If we had to down tools every time someone threatens our families, there wouldn’t be a single prison officer left in Norway. Relax, we’ll come and get you. Do you want to slide the pistol out through the bars, or do you want us to gas you first?’

Johannes looked up at the camera. Could they see the despair in his face? Or the relief? His relief that his escape had ended here and that life would carry on as before. More or less. He could probably forget about mopping the floors upstairs.

He pushed the gold-plated pistol out through the bars. Then he lay down on the floor, put his hands behind his head and curled up like a bee that had just delivered its one and only sting. But when he closed his eyes he didn’t hear hyenas and he wasn’t on board a plane heading for the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. He was still nowhere and alive. He was here.

It had just gone seven thirty and the morning rain was falling on Staten’s car park.

‘It was only a matter of time,’ Arild Franck said and held open the door to the back entrance. ‘All addicts are essentially weak characters. I know it’s not fashionable to say so, but believe me, I know what they’re like.’

‘As long as he signs that confession, that’s all I care about.’ Einar Harnes was about to enter, but had to step aside for three prison officers on their way out. ‘I’m thinking of celebrating with a few glasses of bubbly myself tonight.’

‘Ah, they pay you that well?’

‘When I saw your car, I realised I had to raise my fees.’ He grinned as he nodded towards the Porsche Cayenne in the car park. ‘I put it down as an additional charge for antisocial work and Nestor said-’

‘Shh!’ Franck stuck his arm out in front of Harnes to let some more prison officers leave first. Most of the men had changed into civilian clothes, but some were clearly so keen to get home from the night shift that they practically ran to their cars still dressed in Staten’s green uniforms. Harnes received a sharp glance from a man who wore a long coat loosely over his uniform. He knew he had seen his face before. But while he couldn’t put a name to the face, he was fairly certain that the man could put a name to his: the shady lawyer who popped up in the papers in connection with equally shady cases. Perhaps this man and others like him were starting to wonder what Harnes was doing at Staten’s back entrance. It would hardly improve his image if they overheard him mentioning Nestor. .

Franck let himself and Harnes in through several doors until they reached the stairs leading to the first floor.

Nestor had made it clear that they had to get a signed confession today. Unless the investigation into Yngve Morsand could be wound up immediately, the police might uncover new evidence which would make Sonny’s confession less credible. Harnes didn’t know how Nestor had got this information and nor did he want to.

The prison governor had the biggest office, of course, but the office of the assistant prison governor had a view of the mosque and Ekebergasen. It lay at the end of the corridor and was decorated with hideous paintings by a young female artist who specialised in painting flowers and discussing her libido with the tabloid press.

Franck pressed a button on the intercom and asked for the inmate in cell 317 to be brought to his office.

‘That car cost me 1.2 million kroner,’ Franck said.

‘I bet half of that was for the Porsche insignia on the bonnet,’ Harnes said.

‘Yep, and the other half went to the government in taxes.’ Franck sighed and flopped into the unusual, high-backed office chair. It looked like a throne, Harnes thought.

There was a knock on the door.

‘Enter,’ Franck called out.

A prison officer appeared. He had his cap tucked under his arm and made a half-hearted salute. From time to time Harnes wondered how Franck got his staff to accept military greeting rituals in a modern workplace. And what other rules they had to swallow.

‘Yes, Goldsrud?’

‘I’m off now, but before I go I just wanted to know if you have any questions about last night’s shift report.’

‘I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. Is there anything I should know about, seeing as you’re here?’

‘Nothing major except for an attempted breakout; I suppose you could call it that.’

Franck pressed his palms together and smiled. ‘I’m delighted to hear that our inmates show such initiative and enterprise. Who and how?’

‘Johannes Halden in cell 2-’

‘238. The old man? Really?’

‘He got hold of a pistol somehow. I think it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I just stopped by to tell you that the whole incident was much less dramatic than it might come across in the report. If you want my opinion, mild repercussions should suffice. The man has done a good job for us for many years and-’

‘Gaining someone’s trust is a smart move if you wish to ambush them. Because I imagine that’s what he did?’

‘Well, you see. .’

‘Are you telling me that you allowed yourself to be outwitted, Goldsrud? How far did he get?’

Harnes felt some sympathy with the prison officer who ran his forefinger over a sweaty upper lip. He always empathised with those whose case was weak. He could easily imagine being in their shoes.

‘As far as the lock. But there was never any real danger that he would get past the guards even if he had got outside. The security booth has bulletproof glass and gun slits and-’

‘Thanks for telling me, but I practically designed this prison, Goldsrud. And I think you have a soft spot for this guy you’ve been fraternising with a little too much. I’ll refrain from saying anything further until I’ve read the report, but your entire shift should prepare themselves for some hard questions. As for Johannes, we can’t be soft on him; we have a clientele that will exploit every sign of weakness. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

The telephone rang.

‘Dismissed,’ Franck said, picking up the handset.

Harnes was expecting another salute, an about-turn and march, but Goldsrud left the room civilian-style. The lawyer watched him, but jumped as Arild Franck screamed: ‘What the hell do you mean “gone”?’

Franck stared at the made-up bed in cell 317. In front of the bed stood a pair of sandals. On the bedside table lay a Bible, on the desk a disposable syringe still in its plastic wrapper and on a chair a white shirt. That was all. Even so, the prison officer behind Franck stated the obvious:

‘He’s not here.’

Franck glanced at his watch. The cell doors wouldn’t be opened for another fourteen minutes so the missing prisoner couldn’t be in any of the common rooms.

‘He must have left his cell when Johannes opened all the doors from the control room last night.’ Goldsrud was standing in the doorway.

‘Dear Lord,’ Harnes whispered and out of habit pressed his finger against the bridge of his nose where his glasses used to sit until he had paid 15,000 kroner cash last year for laser surgery in Thailand. ‘If he has absconded-’