Jo Nesbo - The Son

‘OK.’

‘Thank you, Ina.’

The boy released the trigger, put the gun down, took a roll of duct tape from his jacket pocket, walked round to Franck’s chair and started taping his forearms to the armrests. Then he wound the tape around his chest and the backrest of the chair, and around his feet, the seat post and the castor. Then he picked up the gun again. A strange thought crossed Franck’s mind: that he ought to be more frightened than he was. The boy had killed Agnete Iversen, Kalle, Sylvester, Hugo Nestor. Didn’t he realise that he was going to die? Perhaps the difference was that he was here in his safe office at Staten and it was the middle of the day. That he had seen this boy grow up in his own prison and — except for that one incident with Halden — he’d never shown any propensity or ability to use violence.

The boy went through Franck’s pockets and took out his wallet and car key.

‘Porsche Cayenne,’ the boy read aloud from the car key. ‘That’s an expensive car for a civil servant, isn’t it?’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want answers to three simple questions. If you tell me the truth, I’ll let you live. If you don’t, I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you.’ He said it in an almost regretful tone of voice.

‘The first question is, what’s the name and number of the account Nestor sent money to when he paid you?’

Franck thought about it. No one knew about the account, he could say anything he liked, invent an account because no one could contradict it. Franck opened his mouth, but the boy interrupted him.

‘If I were you I would think before speaking.’

Franck stared at the muzzle of the gun. What did he mean? No one could confirm or deny the account’s existence. No one except Nestor had ever transferred money into it. Franck blinked. Had the boy forced the information out of Nestor before he killed him? Was this a test?

‘The account is in the name of a company,’ Franck said. ‘Dennis Limited, registered in the Cayman Islands.’

‘And the account number?’ The boy held up something that looked like a yellowing business card. Had he noted down the number that Nestor had given him on it? But if the boy was bluffing, so what? He wouldn’t be able to withdraw the money even if Franck did give him the account number. Franck started reeling off the digits.

‘Slow down,’ the boy said, looking at the business card. ‘And speak more clearly.’

Franck did as he was told.

‘Then only two questions remain,’ the boy said when he had finished. ‘Who killed my father? And who was the mole who helped the Twin?’

Arild Franck blinked. His body knew it. It knew it now and was pouring sweat out of every pore. It understood it was time to be scared. The boy had put the gun down again, but he had produced a knife instead. Hugo Nestor’s revolting, curved, deadly weapon.

Franck screamed.

‘Now I understand,’ Simon said as he slipped his phone into his jacket pocket and steered out of the tunnel and into the light over Bjorvika and the Oslo Fjord.

‘Understand what?’ Kari said.

‘One of the night receptionists at the Plaza just called the police to say that the man who’s wanted for questioning spent a night in one of their suites. Under the name Fidel Lae. And that another man was found chained to the lavatory in the suite after some guests made a complaint about noise. This other man simply left as soon as they freed him. The hotel has also checked cameras at the entrance and they show Lofthus entering with Hugo Nestor and the man who was later found in the suite.’

‘You still haven’t told me what it is you understand.’

‘Oh, right. How the three men in Enerhauggata knew we were coming for them. According to the night log at the hotel, the handcuffed man left the Plaza just as we were in place outside the trafficking address. He called and warned everyone that Nestor had been kidnapped and they started evacuating every exposed position in case Nestor gave them up. They knew what had happened to Kalle, didn’t they? But just as they were about to drive off with the girls in the van, they realised we were already there. So they decided to wait for us to leave. Or for us to enter the house, so they could drive away unnoticed.’

‘You’ve given this quite a lot of thought, haven’t you?’ Kari said. ‘How they could have known that we were coming.’

‘Possibly,’ Simon said, turning off towards Police HQ. ‘But now I’ve worked it out.’

‘You know how it could have happened,’ Kari corrected him. ‘Are you going to tell me what you’re thinking about now?’

Simon shrugged. ‘That we have to get Lofthus before he wreaks more havoc.’

‘Funny sort of guy,’ Morgan Askoy said to his older colleague as they walked down the broad corridor. The cell doors were wide open, ready for morning inspection. ‘Sorensen, his name was. He just came up to me.’

‘Can’t have been him,’ his colleague said. ‘There’s only one Sorensen in A Wing and he’s on sick leave.’

‘Oh, it was him. I saw his ID card on his uniform.’

‘But I spoke to Sorensen a couple of days ago — he’d just been readmitted to hospital.’

‘So he made a quick recovery.’

‘How odd. He was in uniform, you say? Can’t have been Sorensen, he hates the uniform; he always gets changed here and keeps it in his locker. That’s how Lofthus managed to steal it.’

‘The inmate who escaped?’

‘Yes. Are you enjoying your job, Askoy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Make sure you take time off in lieu, don’t be tempted to do too much overtime.’

They walked another six steps before they both stopped in their tracks and stared at each other. Saw each other’s wide-open eyes.

‘What did that guy look like?’ his colleague exclaimed.

‘What did Lofthus look like?’ Morgan exclaimed.

Franck exhaled through his nose. His scream was muffled by the boy’s hand pressing against his mouth. The boy kicked off his shoe, pulled off his sock and stuffed it into Franck’s mouth and covered it with duct tape.

The boy cut away enough of the tape on the right armrest so that Franck’s fingers could hold the pen he handed him and raise it to the sheet lying at the very edge of the desk.

‘Answer me.’

Franck wrote.

Don’t know.

Then he let go of the pen.

He heard the rasping sound of duct tape being torn in half, smelled the glue on the adhesive side before it was placed over his nostrils and cut off the air. Franck’s body was out of his control, jerking and arching in the chair. Twisting and squirming. Dancing for that bloody boy! The pressure inside his head rose, soon it would explode. He had prepared to die when he saw the boy press the tip of the pen against the taut tape across his nostril.

He pierced it and Arild Franck’s left nostril inhaled air while the first warm tears rolled down his cheek.

The boy gave him back the pen. Franck concentrated.

Have mercy. I would give you the mole’s name if I knew it.

The boy read it. Closed his eyes and pulled a face as if in agony. He tore off another piece of tape.

The telephone on the desk started ringing. Franck stared at it hopefully. The office extension lit up on the display. It was Goldsrud, the shift supervisor. But the boy ignored it and focused entirely on reattaching the tape over Franck’s nostrils. And Franck felt the shaking that accompanied his own panic. It almost made him wonder whether he was crying or laughing.

‘There’s no reply from the governor,’ Geir Goldsrud said and hung up. ‘And Ina isn’t there, either — she picks up if he doesn’t. But before we disturb the governor, let’s run through this one more time. You’re saying that the man you saw called himself Sorensen and that he looked like him. .’ Goldsrud pointed to the TV monitor where he had brought up a picture of Sonny Lofthus.