Jo Nesbo - The Son

‘I just want to know how dangerous staying here is going to be.’

‘All the dealers here have runners who act as enforcers and they use everything from baseball bats to regular firearms to collect debts from the other residents. Last week I raided a room and found a harpoon gun under the bed.’

‘A harpoon gun?’

‘Yep. A loaded Sting 65.’

She surprised herself by laughing and he smiled back. He had a nice smile. So many of them did.

She knocked before unlocking the door to room 323.

‘We’ve had to close off several rooms due to fire damage, so people are having to share until the damage has been made good. Your room-mate is called Johnny, the others call him Johnny Puma. He has ME and spends most of the day in bed. But he’s a nice, quiet guy so I don’t expect you’ll have any trouble with him.’

She opened the door. The curtains were closed and it was dark inside. She turned on the light. The fluorescent tubes in the ceiling flashed a couple of times before they came on.

‘How nice,’ the boy said.

Martha looked around the room. She had never heard anyone describe the rooms at the Ila Centre as nice unless they were being sarcastic. But somehow he was right. Yes, the lino was worn and the sky-blue walls full of dents and graffiti which not even lye could wash off, but it was clean and light. The furniture consisted of a bunk bed, a chest of drawers and a scratched low table with peeling paint, but it was all intact and in working order. The air smelled of the man asleep in the bottom bunk. The boy had stated he had never overdosed, so she had allocated him the top bunk. They prioritised bottom bunks to residents most likely to overdose since it was much easier to move them from a bottom bunk and onto a stretcher.

‘Here you are,’ Martha said, handing him the key ring with the key. ‘I’ll be your primary contact which means you come to me if there’s anything you need. OK?’

‘Thank you,’ he said, taking the blue plastic tag and looking at it. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘He’s on his way down,’ the receptionist called out to Simon and Kari, who were sitting on a leather sofa beneath a gigantic painting of something which might be a sunrise.

‘That’s what she said ten minutes ago,’ Kari whispered.

‘In heaven God decides what time it is,’ Simon said and slipped a piece of snus under his upper lip. ‘What do you think a painting like that costs? And why pick that one?’

‘The acquisition of public art, as it’s known, is nothing but a hidden subsidy for our country’s mediocre artists,’ Kari said. ‘The buyers couldn’t care less about what’s on their walls as long as it matches the furniture and their budget.’

Simon glanced at her sideways. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you sometimes sound as if you’re reeling off quotes you’ve learned by rote?’

Kari smiled wryly. ‘And snus is a poor substitute for smoking. Bad for your health. I presume your wife made you switch because the smell of cigarettes lingered on her clothes?’

Simon chuckled and shook his head. It must be what passed for humour among the young these days. ‘Nice try, but you’re wrong. She asked me to stop because she wants me around for as long as possible. And she doesn’t know I suck tobacco. I keep it at the office.’

‘Let them in, Anne,’ a voice bellowed.

Simon looked at the lock where a man in uniform and a cap that would have found favour with a Belarus president drummed his fingers on the metal bars.

Simon rose.

‘We’ll decide if we’re going to let them out again later,’ Arild Franck said.

Simon could tell from the receptionist’s almost imperceptible rolling of the eyes that the joke was a very old one.

‘So, what’s it like to be back in the gutter?’ Franck asked as he escorted them through the lock and over to the staircase. ‘You’re in the Serious Fraud Office now, I believe. Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m going senile, I completely forgot that they kicked you out.’

Simon made no attempt to laugh at the deliberate insult.

‘We’re here because of Per Vollan,’

‘I heard. I thought the case had been closed?’

‘We don’t close a case until it’s solved.’

‘Is that a new thing?’

Simon mimed a smile by pressing his lips against his teeth. ‘Per Vollan came here to visit inmates on the day he died, is that right?’

Franck opened the door to his office. ‘Vollan was a prison chaplain so I assume he was doing his job. I can check the visitors’ log, if you like.’

‘Yes, please. And if you could give us a list of anyone he spoke to as well?’

‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t know the names of everybody he came into contact with while he was here.’

‘We know of at least one person he saw that day,’ Kari said.

‘Oh?’ Franck said, taking a seat behind the desk which had followed him his entire career. ‘Young lady, if you’re planning on staying, please fetch the coffee cups from the cupboard over there while I check the visitors’ log.’

‘Thanks, but I don’t drink caffeine,’ Kari said. ‘His name is Sonny Lofthus.’

Franck looked at her with a blank expression.

‘We were wondering if it might be possible to visit him?’ Simon said. He had taken a seat without being offered one. He looked up at Franck’s already reddening face. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m going senile. He’s just escaped.’

Simon could see Franck composing an answer, but beat him to it.

‘We’re interested in him because the coincidence between Vollan’s visit and Lofthus’s escape makes Vollan’s death even more suspicious.’

Franck tugged at his shirt collar. ‘How do you know that they met?’

‘All police interviews are stored in a shared database,’ said Kari who had remained standing. ‘When I looked up Per Vollan, I saw that his name was mentioned in an interview in connection with Lofthus’s escape. By an inmate named Gustav Rover.’

‘Rover has just been released. He was interviewed because he spoke to Sonny Lofthus shortly before he absconded. We wanted to know if Lofthus had said anything which might give us an idea of what he was up to.’

‘ We? Us ?’ Simon raised a grey eyebrow. ‘Strictly speaking it’s the police’s job — and only ours — to catch escaped prisoners, not yours.’

‘Lofthus is my prisoner, Kefas.’

‘Rover doesn’t appear to have been able to help you,’ Simon said. ‘But he mentioned when questioned that just as he was leaving the cell, Per Vollan arrived to talk to Lofthus.’

Franck shrugged his shoulders. ‘What about it?’

‘So we’re wondering what the two of them talked about. And why one of them is killed shortly afterwards and the other one breaks out.’

‘Might be a coincidence.’

‘Of course. Do you know a man called Hugo Nestor, Franck? Also known as the Ukrainian?’

‘I’ve heard the name.’

‘So that’s a yes. Is there anything to suggest that Nestor might be involved with the breakout?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Did he help Lofthus escape or did he threaten Lofthus in prison, thus precipitating the escape?’

Franck drummed a pen against the desk. He looked as if he was deep in thought.

Out of the corner of his eye Simon saw Kari check her text messages.

‘I know how badly you need a result, but you’re not going to catch any big fish here,’ Franck said. ‘Sonny Lofthus absconded entirely on his own initiative.’

‘Wow,’ Simon said, leaning back in his chair and pressing his fingertips together. ‘A young drug addict, a mere amateur, absconds from Staten, of all prisons, entirely unaided?’