Jo Nesbo - The Son

Sylvester closed his eyes, heard the boy come in and held his breath. Felt a hand on his chest searching his jacket, finding his wallet and driving licence and removing them. Two arms clasped him around his waist, dragged him out of the chair and eased him up onto his shoulder; then the boy started walking. He must be very strong.

He heard the sound of a door opening, a light being switched on, footsteps staggering down the staircase, and felt raw air. He was being carried down to the basement.

They were downstairs now. There was a noise of plastic seals loosening their grip. Then Sylvester fell, but his landing was much softer than he had feared. He sensed pressure in his ears and it grew darker. He opened his eyes. It was completely dark. He couldn’t see anything, he was lying in some sort of box. The darkness is nothing to be afraid of. There are no monsters. He heard footsteps shuffle back and forth until they faded away. The basement door slammed shut. He was alone; the boy hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Now it was a question of staying calm, not doing anything rash. Wait until the boy had gone to bed. Then he could make his getaway. Or call Bo and get him and his guys to pick him up and kill the boy. The strange thing was he still didn’t feel much pain, only warm blood dripping down on his hand. But he was cold. Very cold. Sylvester tried moving his legs in order to twist himself into a position where he could reach his mobile, but was unable to, his legs must have fallen asleep. He managed to ease his hand inside his jacket pocket and pull out his phone. He pressed it and the display lit up the darkness.

Sylvester held his breath.

The monster was right in front of his face, staring at him with bulging eyes above an open mouth lined with tiny sharp teeth.

A codfish, probably. Wrapped in cling film. Around it lay several freezer bags, some boxes of Frionor seafood, chicken fillets, pork joints, berries. The glow from his phone was reflected in ice crystals in the snow-white walls that surrounded him. He was in a freezer.

Markus stared up at the house and counted the seconds.

He had opened the window, heard the bang coming from inside and seen a flash of light from the living room. Then everything had gone quiet again.

Markus was convinced that it was a gunshot, but who had done the shooting?

Dear God, please let it be the Son. Please don’t let it be him who was shot.

Markus had counted to one hundred when he saw the door to the bedroom open. Thank you, God, thank you; it was him!

The Son returned the pistol to the sports bag, removed the loose floorboard and started loading plastic bags of white powder into the sports bag. When he was done, he slung the bag over his shoulder and left the room without switching off the light.

Shortly afterwards the front door slammed shut and Markus saw the Son march towards the gate. Stop, look left and right and then disappear down the street in the same direction Markus had first seen him come from.

Markus flung himself down on his back in the bed. Stared at the ceiling. He was alive! He shot baddies! Because. . they had to be villains, didn’t they? Of course they were. Markus was so excited he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink tonight.

Sylvester heard the front door slam shut. The chest freezer was too well insulated for him to be able to hear much, but the door had been slammed so hard that he had felt the vibrations. At last. Of course his phone couldn’t send or receive anything from a freezer in a basement, so after three attempts he had given up trying. Sylvester was starting to feel pain now while at the same time he was growing drowsy, but the cold kept him awake. He pressed his palms against the lid and pushed. Felt a small dart of panic when it didn’t budge immediately. Pushed harder. It still didn’t give. He remembered the sound of the plastic seals, how they had glued themselves together, it was just a question of a little more force. He pressed his hands against the lid, pushing as hard as he could. There was no movement. And that was when he realised. The boy had locked the freezer.

This time the panic wasn’t just a prickling, it was a stranglehold.

Sylvester began to hyperventilate, but forced himself to block out his panic to prevent the dam from bursting, and letting the darkness, the real darkness, flood in. Think. Keep a lid on things and think clearly.

His legs. Why hadn’t he thought of them before? He knew that his legs were much stronger than his arms. He could easily lift over two hundred kilos on the leg press, against barely seventy kilos on the bench press. And this was only a freezer lock, it was designed to prevent people from nicking meat and berries, not stop a big, desperate man who really wanted to get out. There was enough space between him and the lid so that if he bent his knees and pressed his feet against the lid. .

But he was unable to bend his knees.

They quite simply refused to obey him. He had never had such a bad case of pins and needles before. He tried again. No response; it was as if they had been disconnected. He pinched his shin. He pinched his thigh. The dam started to crack. Think. No, don’t think! Too late. The hole in the photo album, the blood. The bullet must have severed his spinal cord. That would explain the absence of pain. Sylvester touched his stomach. It was wet with blood. But it was like touching someone else’s body.

He was paralysed; from the waist down. He bashed the lid with his fists, but it was no use, all that opened were the floodgates in his mind. The dam he had learned must never be opened. His dad had taught him that. But now the cracks appeared and Sylvester knew that he would die as in his nightmares. Locked up. Alone. In the darkness.

‘This is the perfect Sunday morning,’ Else announced as she looked out of the car window.

‘Agreed,’ Simon said, changing down through the gears and glancing at her. He wondered how much she took in, if she could see that Palace Gardens were especially green after yesterday’s violent downpour. If she could even see that they were driving past Palace Gardens.

It was Else herself who had suggested that they visit the Chagall exhibition at Hovikodden and Simon had said that it was an excellent idea, only he just had to swing by an old colleague who lived in Skillebekk which was on the way to the art gallery.

There were plenty of parking spaces along Gamle Drammensveien. The old patrician houses and apartment blocks looked decidedly empty during the holidays. The occasional embassy flag stirred in the breeze.

‘I won’t be long,’ Simon said. He got out and walked up to the door of the address he had found on the Net. The name he was looking for was listed at the top of a row of doorbells.

After ringing the bell twice, Simon was about to give up when he heard a woman’s voice.

‘Yes?’

‘Is Fredrik there?’

‘Eh. . Who wants to know?’

‘Simon Kefas.’

There was silence for a few seconds, but Simon could hear crackling as a hand was placed over the microphone on the intercom. Then she was back. ‘He’ll be down in moment.’

‘OK.’

Simon waited. It was too early for normal people to be up and about, so the only ones he saw in the street were a couple his own age. They looked as if they were out on a Sunday walk. A walk whose starting point was also its destination. The man was wearing a tweed cap and nondescript khaki trousers. This was how you dressed when you grew old. Simon looked at his reflection in the glass pane in the carved oak front door. Tweed flat cap and sunglasses. Khaki trousers. Sunday uniform.

It was taking a while; he guessed he must have woken Fredrik up. Or his wife. Or whoever she was. Simon looked across to the car and saw that Else was looking straight at him. He waved. No reaction. The front door opened.