Jo Nesbo - The Son

Simon managed to roll over and aim his pistol at the man, but the man had already slumped to his knees and folded his hands behind his head in total surrender. The engine started, the revs so high that it squealed. Simon rolled over onto his other side and could now see heads in the front of the van; the girls had clearly been hiding in the back.

‘Stop! Police!’ Simon tried to get to his feet, but it hurt like hell, the guy must have broken one of his ribs. And before Simon could point his pistol, the van was in motion and out of his firing range. Dammit!

There was a bang followed by glass shattering.

The squeal of an engine falling silent.

‘Stay where you are,’ Simon said and groaned as he scrambled to his feet and staggered out of the door.

The van had come to a standstill. Loud screaming and frantic barking could be heard coming from the inside.

But it was the scene in front of the van which Simon took a mental photograph of for his scrapbook. Kari Adel in a long, black leather coat standing in the beam from the headlights of the van which was now relieved of its windscreen. The stock of the shotgun in her shoulder and an underhand grip on the still smoking barrel.

Simon walked up to the side of the van and slid open the door on the driver’s side. ‘Police!’

The man inside didn’t respond, he just continued to stare straight ahead as if in shock, with blood dripping from his hairline. His lap was filled with broken glass. Simon ignored the pain in his side, dragged the man out and down on the ground. ‘Nose to the tarmac and hands behind your head! Now!’

Then he walked round the van and subjected the equally apathetic passenger to the same treatment.

Simon and Kari walked up to the side door in the body of the van. They could hear the dog yelp and bark from the inside. Simon grabbed the door handle and Kari positioned herself right in front of it with the shotgun at the ready.

‘It sounds big,’ Simon said. ‘Perhaps you should take another step back?’

She nodded and did as he had suggested. Then he slid the door open.

A white monster shot out of the van and flew right at Kari with its jaws snarling and open. It happened so quickly that she didn’t have time to fire her weapon. The animal slammed into the ground in front of her and stayed there.

Simon stared at his own smoking pistol in astonishment.

‘Thank you,’ Kari said.

They turned back to the van. Terrified, wide-eyed faces stared out at them from inside it.

‘Police,’ Simon said. And added when he saw from the expressions that this might not be considered universally good news: ‘Good police. We’re on your side.’

Then he took out his mobile and rang a number. Put the mobile to his ear and looked up at Kari.

‘Do you think you could call the station and ask them to dispatch a couple of patrol cars?’

‘So who are you ringing then?’

‘The press.’

Dawn was starting to break over Enerhaugen, but the press hadn’t finished taking pictures and interviewing the girls who had been given woollen blankets and tea which Kari had made in the kitchen. Three of the reporters were crowding around Simon in an attempt to milk him for even more details.

‘No, we don’t know if there are more people behind this than those we arrested here tonight,’ Simon repeated. ‘And, yes, it’s correct that we raided this address following an anonymous tip-off.’

‘Did you really have to kill an innocent animal?’ asked a female journalist, nodding towards the dead dog which Kari had covered with a blanket from the house.

‘It attacked us,’ Simon said.

‘Attacked you?’ She snorted. ‘Two adults against one small dog? Surely you could have found a way to restrain it.’

‘The loss of life is always sad,’ Simon said and knew that he shouldn’t, but couldn’t help himself and continued, ‘but given that the life expectancy of a dog is in inverse proportion to its size, you will — if you take a look under the blanket — realise that this dog didn’t have long to live, anyway.’

Stalsberg, a senior crime reporter who was the first person Simon had called, grinned.

A police SUV had appeared over the hill and parked behind the patrol car, which — to Simon’s irritation — still had its blue light flashing on its roof.

‘But rather than ask me any more questions, I suggest that you speak to the boss himself.’

Simon nodded towards the SUV and the journalists turned round. The man who emerged from the car was tall and slender with thin hair swept back and rectangular, frameless glasses. He straightened up and looked astonished as the journalists raced towards him.

‘Congratulations on the arrests, Commissioner Parr,’ Stalsberg said. ‘Would you like to comment on how it looks as if you’re finally making progress with the trafficking problem? Would you call this a breakthrough?’

Simon folded his arms across his chest and met Pontius Parr’s icy stare. The Commissioner nodded almost imperceptibly, then he looked at the reporter who had asked the question. ‘It’s certainly an important step in the police’s fight against trafficking. Before this current incident we’ve stressed that this issue must be given priority, and this prioritising has — as you can see — borne fruit. So we would like to congratulate Chief Inspector Kefas and his colleagues.’

Parr grabbed Simon as he headed back to his car.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Simon?’

It was one of the things Simon had never understood about his old friend; how his voice never changed character or pitch. He could be exhilarated or furious, but his voice stayed exactly the same.

‘My job. Catching villains.’ Simon stopped, stuffed a piece of snus under his upper lip and offered the tin to Parr, who rolled his eyes. It was an old joke of which Simon never tired; Parr had never used snus or smoked a cigarette in his life.

‘I mean this performance,’ Parr said. ‘You defy a direct order not to enter and then you invite every member of the media to come here. Why?’

Simon shrugged. ‘I thought we could do with some favourable press coverage for once. Incidentally, it’s not everyone, only those who were working the night shift. And I’m delighted that we agree that the assessment of the officer at the scene should be the decisive factor. If we hadn’t, I don’t think we would have found these girls — they were about to be moved on.’

‘What I’m wondering is how you knew about this place.’

‘As I told you before, a text message.’

‘From?’

‘Anonymous. It’s a pay-as-you-go phone.’

‘Get the phone companies to trace it. Find whoever it is as soon as possible so we can interview them for more information. Because unless I’m very much mistaken, we won’t get a word out of the people we arrested here.’

‘Oh?’

‘They’re just small fry, Simon. They know that the big fish will eat them up unless they keep their mouths shut. And it’s the big ones we want, isn’t it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good. Listen, Simon, you know me, and you know that I can be too certain of my own brilliance at times, and. .’

‘And?’

Parr cleared his throat. Rocked back and forth on his heels as if to take off. ‘And your assessment of the situation here tonight was better than mine. Plain and simple. It won’t be forgotten at your next review.’

‘Thank you, Pontius, but I’ll be retired long before my next review.’

‘That’s true,’ Parr smiled. ‘But you’re a fine policeman, Simon, you always were.’

‘That’s also true,’ Simon said.

‘How’s Else?’

‘Good, thank you. Or. .’