Jo Nesbo - The Son

‘To the car!’ Bo shouted. ‘We have to catch him before he gets to town!’

Pelle stared after the Honda in disbelief. He had heard the shots and seen in his rear-view mirror how the car had burst out through the gate, sending pieces of white picket fence flying. Seen the car plough its way across the field planted with heavily subsidised agricultural produce before it had rejoined the track and continued its dubious journey. The boy was no experienced driver, that was for sure, but Pelle had breathed a sigh of relief when in the moonlight he could make out the bloodstained handkerchief above the wheel behind the shattered windscreen. At least the boy was still alive.

He heard shouting coming from the house.

The sound of guns being loaded in the quiet summer night.

A car starting.

Pelle had no idea who they were. The boy had told him — whether it was true or false — that the man inside the house was a killer. A man, perhaps a drunk driver who had killed, and was now out of prison again. Pelle didn’t know. All he knew was that after months and years where he had made sure to spend most hours of the day and night behind the wheel of his cab, he was back there again. The place where he could react or freeze. Change the orbit of the stars — or not. A young man who couldn’t get the girl he wanted. He ran a finger over the photo beside the steering wheel. Then he put the car in gear and drove after the Honda. Drove down the hills and out onto the narrow bridge. Up on the ridge he could see a pair of headlights cut through the darkness. He accelerated, gained speed, turned the steering wheel slightly to the right, grabbed the handbrake, pressing and releasing the pedals quickly and musically like a church organist as he forced the steering wheel hard to the left. The rear of the car moved as expected as he executed the handbrake turn. And when the car stopped it was perfectly positioned diagonally across the bridge. Pelle nodded contentedly to himself; he hadn’t lost his touch. Then he turned off the ignition, put the car into first gear, shuffled across to the passenger side and got out of the car. Checked that there was a gap of a maximum twenty centimetres between the side wall of the bridge and the car on both sides. Locked all the doors with a simple key click and started walking towards the main road. He thought about her, all the time he thought about her. If only she could see him now. See that he was walking. He felt almost no pain in his foot, he was barely limping. Perhaps the doctors had been right. Perhaps it was time to ditch the crutches.

It was two o’clock in the morning and the summer night was at its darkest.

From the deserted viewpoint in the forest clearing above Oslo, Simon could see the fjord shimmer dully beneath the large yellow moon.

‘Well?’

Simon pulled his coat more tightly around him as if he was cold. ‘I used to bring the first girl I was in love with to this very spot. Just to look at the view. To make out. You know. .’

He saw Kari shift her weight.

‘We had nowhere else to go. And many years later when Else and I got together, I would bring her here, too. Even though we had a flat and a double bed. It felt so. . romantic and innocent. It was like being just as much in love as the first time.’

‘Simon. .’

Simon turned round and viewed the scene again. The police cars with the flashing blue lights, the cordons and the blue Honda Civic with the broken windscreen and a dead man lying at an unnatural angle, to put it mildly, in the passenger seat. There were many police officers here. Too many. Panic many.

For once the medical examiner had beaten him to a crime scene and he surmised that the victim had broken both legs in a vehicle collision, been flung over the hood and into the car where he had broken his neck when he collided with the seat. However, the medical examiner had thought it was odd that the victim had sustained no facial injuries after his encounter with the windscreen, until Simon had picked a shot out of the seat upholstery. Simon had also requested an analysis of the blood found on the driver’s seat, as the pattern didn’t match the cuts to the victim’s legs.

‘So he specifically asked us to attend?’ Simon said, nodding towards Asmund Bjornstad, who was standing near a CSO and waving his hands as he spoke.

‘Yes,’ Kari said. ‘Because the car is registered to Kjersti Morsand, who is one of Lofthus’s victims, he wanted to-’

‘Suspected.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Lofthus is merely suspected of killing Kjersti Morsand. Has anyone talked to Yngve Morsand?’

‘He says he doesn’t know anything; he’s staying at a hotel in Oslo tonight, and the last time he saw the car it was in his garage. Police in Drammen say it looks as if there’s been a shooting at his house. Unfortunately the nearest neighbour is a long way away, so there are no witnesses.’

Asmund Bjornstad walked up to them. ‘We now know who the guy in the passenger seat is. Evgeni Zubov. A known offender. And police in Drammen say there are nine x 19mm Luger bullets in the floorboards of the house, spread in a fan formation.’

‘An Uzi?’ Simon said, raising an eyebrow.

‘What do you think I should say to the press?’ Asmund said, gesticulating with a thumb over his shoulder. The first reporters were already hanging around the police tape by the road.

‘The usual,’ Simon said. ‘Tell them something, but don’t give them anything.’

Bjornstad heaved a sigh. ‘They won’t leave us alone. When are we meant to get time to work? I hate them.’

‘They have a job to do as well,’ Simon said.

‘The papers are turning him into a celebrity, did you know that?’ Kari said as they watched the young inspector walk towards a sea of flashlights.

‘Well, he’s a talented investigator,’ Simon said.

‘Not Bjornstad. Sonny Lofthus.’

Simon turned to her in surprise. ‘Are they?’

‘They call him a modern-day terrorist. They say he has declared war on organised crime and capitalism. That he’s ridding society of parasites.’

‘But he’s a criminal himself.’

‘It only makes the story even more juicy. Don’t you ever read the papers?’

‘No.’

‘And you don’t answer your phone, either. I’ve tried calling you.’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Busy? Oslo has been turned upside down by these murders, and you’re not in the office and you’re not in the field. You’re supposed to be my boss, Simon.’

‘Message received and understood. What was it?’

Kari took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been thinking: Lofthus is one of very few adults in this country who doesn’t have a bank account, a credit card or a registered address. But we know that he has enough cash from the Kalle Farrisen murder to stay in a hotel.’

‘He paid cash at the Plaza.’

‘Precisely. So I checked the hotels. Out of the 20,000 guests who stay in hotels in Oslo every night, on average only six hundred pay cash.’

Simon stared at her. ‘Can you find out how many of those six hundred are staying in Kvadraturen?’

‘Er, yes. Here’s the list of the hotels.’ She took a printout from her jacket pocket. ‘Why?’

Simon took the printout with one hand while putting on his reading glasses with the other, unfolded the sheets and skimmed them. Looked at the addresses. One hotel. Two. Three. Six. And several of them with guests who had paid cash, especially the cheap ones. There were still too many names. And he guessed that some of the cheapest ones weren’t even listed. Simon suddenly stopped reading.

Cheap .

The woman who had tapped on his window. A lovers’ meeting in the car, at Akershus Fortress or. . at the Bismarck. The hotel of choice for Oslo’s prostitutes. Right in the middle of Kvadraturen.