Jo Nesbo - The Son

‘I want you to wait in reception while I talk to Iversen,’ Simon said as they rode up in the lift.

‘Why?’

‘Because I might break a few rules and I would prefer not to drag you into it.’

‘But-’

‘I’m sorry, but that was actually an order, just so you know.’

Kari rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

‘Iver,’ the young man introduced himself as he came to meet them in reception. He shook hands firmly first with Simon, then with Kari. ‘You’re here to see my father.’

Something about the boy told Simon that he would normally be smiling and easy-going, that he didn’t have experience of the pain and grief which Simon could read in the eyes under the floppy fringe. He guessed that was why the boy seemed so lost and confused.

‘This way.’ His father must have told him they were police officers and presumed, as did the father, that their visit related to the investigation into his mother’s murder.

The office had views of Vestbanen and Oslo Fjord. Next to the door was a glass display cabinet with a detailed model of a skyscraper shaped like a Coca-Cola bottle.

The father looked like an older replica of the son. Same heavy fringe, smooth, healthy skin, a sunny but subdued gaze in his eyes. Tall, with good posture, firm chin, a man who looked you straight in the eye, friendly, but with a boyish, playful challenge. There was something assured, West Oslo-solid about these types, Simon thought, as if they had all been cast in the same mould; resistance fighters, polar explorers, the crew of the Kon-Tiki , police commissioners.

Iver Senior asked Simon to take a seat and sat down himself behind a desk below an old black-and-white photo of an apartment block, which was definitely Oslo at the turn of the nineteenth century, but which Simon couldn’t momentarily place.

Simon waited until Iver Junior had left the office and then he came straight to the point.

‘Twelve years ago a girl was found dead in a backyard in Kvadraturen in Oslo. This is what she looked like when she was found.’

Simon put the photo on Iversen’s desk and watched the property investor’s face carefully when he saw the picture. Not much of a reaction.

‘A boy by the name of Sonny Lofthus confessed to the killing,’ Simon said.

‘I see.’ Still no reaction.

‘The girl was pregnant when she was found.’

Now there was a reaction. Flared nostrils, expanding pupils.

Simon waited a couple of seconds before launching the second stage of the attack.

‘DNA evidence from toothbrushes in your home proves that someone in your household was the father of the unborn baby.’

A thickening of the artery in his neck, a change in facial colour, uncontrolled blinking.

‘The red toothbrush is yours, Iversen, isn’t it?’

‘How. . how did you. .?’

Simon smiled quickly and looked down at his hands. ‘I, too, have a junior, she’s waiting in reception. Only her brain is a bit quicker than mine. She was the first to draw the simple, logical conclusion that when the DNA on only two of three toothbrushes in the Iversen family shows a family relationship to the foetus, then the son in the house can’t be the father. Then all three members of the family would be related to the foetus. So it had to be the only other male. You.’

Iver Iversen’s healthy skin colour paled before disappearing altogether.

‘You’ll probably find the same thing happening to you when you get to be as old as me,’ Simon said to comfort him. ‘Their minds are so much quicker than ours, these youngsters.’

‘But. .’

‘That’s the thing about DNA. It doesn’t leave much room for buts. .’

Iversen opened his mouth while at the same time routinely forcing it into a half-smile. It was at this point in an awkward conversation that he would obviously normally provide what was known as comic relief, a disarming remark. Yes, that was it, something that made it feel less dangerous. But nothing came. There was nothing there.

‘Now this old slowcoach. .’ in front of him Simon tapped his forehead with his finger, ‘. . takes a little longer, but gets a little further. And the first thing he thought is that a married man like you has the most obvious motive in the world for getting rid of a pregnant and potentially troublesome woman. Wouldn’t you agree?’

Iversen made no reply, but felt his Adam’s apple reply on his behalf.

‘The police released a photo of the woman to the newspapers asking if anyone knew her identity. And when her lover and the father of her child stayed as silent as the grave, didn’t even provide the police with an anonymous tip-off, that makes it extra suspicious. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I didn’t know. .’ he began, but stopped. Already regretting it. And then regretted having made it so plain that he regretted it.

‘You didn’t know that she was pregnant?’ the police officer asked.

‘No!’ Iversen said, folding his arms across his chest. ‘I mean, I knew. . I know nothing about this. I’d like to call my lawyer now.’

‘You clearly know something. But actually I believe you when you say you don’t know everything. I think your wife, Agnete, was the one who knew everything. What do you think?’

Kefas. Chief Inspector, wasn’t that how he had introduced himself? Iver Iversen reached for the telephone.

‘What I think is that you have no proof and that this meeting is over, Mr Kefas.’

‘You’re right about the former, but wrong about the latter. This meeting isn’t over because you ought to know what bridges you’ll be burning by picking up that phone, Iversen. The police have no evidence against your wife, but the man who shot her clearly does.’

‘And how is that possible?’

‘Because he has been a scapegoat and father confessor for criminals in this town for twelve years. He knows everything.’ Kefas leaned forward in his chair and jabbed the desk with his finger with every word. ‘He knows that Kalle Farrisen killed the girl and that Agnete Iversen paid him to do it. He knows this because he went to prison for the murder. The fact that he hasn’t come after you yet is the only reason I believe you might be innocent. Go ahead, pick up the phone and we’ll play this by the book. That is to say, arrest you as an accessory to murder, tell the media everything we know about you and the girl, explain to your business associates that you’ll be away for a while, tell your son that. . well, what do you want us to tell your son?’

What to tell his son. Simon waited. Let it sink in. It was important for what was coming next. Let it take root. Give Iversen time to understand the magnitude, the consequences. Open himself up to alternatives which just two minutes ago would have been completely out of the question. Like Simon himself had had to do. And it had driven him here, to this.

Simon saw Iversen’s hand flop and heard a wobbly, croaky voice: ‘What do you want?’

Simon straightened up in the chair. ‘You tell me everything now. If I believe you, then it’s possible that not very much needs to happen. After all, Agnete has already been punished.’

‘Punished?!’ The widower’s eyes blazed, but the fire was extinguished when it met Simon’s icy stare.

‘Fine. Agnete and I, we. . didn’t have much of a marriage. Not in that way. An associate had some girls. Asian. That’s how I met Mai. She. . had something, something I needed. Not youth or innocence and all that, but a. . loneliness in which I recognised myself.’

‘She was a prisoner, Iversen. She had been abducted from her home and her family.’

The property investor shrugged. ‘I know, but I paid for her freedom. I gave her a flat where we met. It was just her and me. Then one day she told me she hadn’t had her period for months. That she might be pregnant. I said she had to get rid of it, but she refused. I didn’t know what to do. So I asked Agnete. .’