Jo Nesbo - The Son

Though Nestor appeared to have reacted to the news of the breakout with equanimity, it wasn’t the loss of composure in Nestor and his ilk that worried Franck. On the contrary, he suspected they were at their most unruffled when making decisions which were so horrifying they made his blood run cold. On the other hand, they operated with a simple, clear and practical logic that Arild Franck couldn’t help but admire.

‘Find him,’ Nestor had said. ‘Or make sure that no one does.’

If they found Lofthus, they could persuade him to confess to the murder of Mrs Morsand before anyone else got to him. They had their methods. If they killed Lofthus, they could stop him from explaining away the technical evidence against him at the Morsand crime scene, but then they wouldn’t be able to use him in future cases. That was how it was. Pros and cons. Ultimately, though, it was a matter of hard logic.

‘There’s a Simon Kefas on the phone for you.’ It was Ina’s voice on the intercom.

Arild Franck snorted automatically.

Simon Kefas.

Talk about a man who always looked out for number one. A spineless loser who had walked over more than one dead body in his gambling addiction. They said he had changed since he met the woman he was with now. But no one knew better than an assistant prison governor that people don’t change; Franck had all the insight he needed into Simon Kefas.

‘Tell him I’m not here.’

‘He wants to meet with you later today. It’s about Per Vollan.’

Vollan? Franck thought the police had declared Vollan’s death to be a suicide. He heaved a sigh and looked down at the newspaper on his desk. The breakout was reported further in, but at least it wasn’t on the front page. Presumably because the news desk didn’t have a good photograph of the escaped prisoner. The vultures probably preferred to wait until they got an E-FIT drawing of the killer where, ideally, he would look like a fiend. In which case they would be disappointed.

‘Arild?’

They had an unspoken agreement that she could address him by his first name when no one else was present.

‘Find some space in my diary, Ina. Don’t give him more than thirty minutes.’

Franck peered at the mosque. Soon it would be twenty-five hours.

Lars Gilberg moved a step closer.

The boy was lying on a flattened piece of cardboard and had covered himself with a long coat. He had arrived the day before and had found a spot to hide behind the bushes that grew along the path and the buildings behind. He had sat there, silent and motionless, as if playing hide-and-seek. Two uniformed police officers had stopped by, looked alternately at Gilberg and a photo they held up before moving on. Gilberg had said nothing. Later that evening when it started to rain, the boy had emerged and lain down under the bridge. Without asking for permission. It wasn’t that permission wouldn’t be granted, but he hadn’t even asked to begin with. And then there was the other thing. He was wearing a uniform. Lars Gilberg wasn’t sure what kind of uniform — he had been rejected by the army before he had time to see anything other than the recruiting officer’s green one. ‘Unsuitable’ had been the somewhat vague reason given. From time to time Lars Gilberg wondered if there was anything he was suitable for. And, if so, would he ever find out what that was? Perhaps it was this: getting money for drugs and living under a bridge.

Like now.

The boy was asleep and his breathing was steady. Lars Gilberg took another step. There was something about the way the boy had moved and his skin colour that told Gilberg that he was a junkie. In which case he might still have some drugs on him.

Gilberg was now so close that he could see the boy’s eyelids twitch as if the eyeballs underneath were spinning and moving. He squatted down on his haunches and carefully lifted the coat. Extended his fingers towards the breast pocket of the uniform jacket.

It happened so fast that Lars didn’t even see it. The boy’s hand locked around his wrist and Lars found himself on his knees with his face pressed into the wet soil and his arm twisted behind his back.

A voice whispered into his ear:

‘What do you want?’

The voice didn’t sound angry or aggressive, not even scared. More polite, rather, as if the boy genuinely wanted to know how he could help him. Lars Gilberg did what he always did when he realised he had been defeated. Cut his losses.

‘Steal your stash. Or if you haven’t got any, then your money.’

The boy had got him in the standard hold: his wrist bent into his forearm and with pressure applied to the back of his elbow. Police hold. But Gilberg knew how cops walked, talked, looked and smelled, and this boy wasn’t one of them.

‘What’s your poison?’

‘Morphine,’ Gilberg groaned.

‘How much can you get for fifty kroner?’

‘A little. Not much.’

The hold was eased and Gilberg quickly snatched back his arm.

He looked up at the boy. Blinked at the banknote he was holding up to him. ‘Sorry, it’s all I’ve got.’

‘I haven’t got anything to sell, mate.’

‘The money is for you. I’ve quit.’

Gilberg narrowed one eye. What was it they said? When something sounded too good to be true, it usually was. But then again, the guy might just be a regular nut job.

He snatched the fifty-krone note and stuffed it into his pocket.

‘That’s rent for letting you sleep here.’

‘I saw the police walk by yesterday,’ the boy said. ‘Do they come round here a lot?’

‘Now and then, but recently we’ve been overrun with them.’

‘Do you happen to know a place they don’t overrun?’

Gilberg tilted his head and studied the boy.

‘If you wanna avoid the cops altogether, you need to get yourself a room in a hostel. Try the Ila Centre. They don’t let cops in there.’

The boy looked pensively at the river, then he nodded slowly. ‘Thanks for your help, my friend.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ muttered an astonished Gilberg. Definitely a nut job.

And, as if to confirm his suspicions, the boy started to undress. To be on the safe side Gilberg moved back a couple of steps. When the boy was wearing just his underpants, he wrapped the uniform around the shoes. Gilberg handed him a plastic bag which the boy asked if he could have and into which he put the bundled-up clothes and shoes. He placed the bag under a rock between the bushes where he had spent yesterday.

‘I’ll make sure no one finds it,’ Gilberg said.

‘Thank you, I trust you.’ Smiling, the boy buttoned his coat, all the way up so that his bare chest couldn’t be seen.

Then he started walking down the path. Gilberg looked after him; saw the naked soles of his feet splash water from the puddles onto the tarmac.

I trust you?

Stark staring raving mad.

Martha stood in reception looking at the computer screen with CCTV images from the Ila Centre. More specifically at a man who was staring into the camera outside the entrance door. He hadn’t rung the bell yet, hadn’t discovered the little hole in the Plexiglas that covered the bell. They had had to install the Plexiglas as bashing in the bell was a common reaction when someone was denied access. Martha pressed the microphone button.

‘Can I help you?’

The boy didn’t reply. Martha had already established that he wasn’t one of their seventy-six current residents. Though the centre had had a turnover of a hundred residents in the last four months, she remembered every single face. But she had concluded that he belonged to Ila’s ‘target client group’ as it was known: drug addicts. Not that he looked high, because he didn’t; it was his gaunt face. The lines around his mouth. The dreadful haircut. She sighed.