Jo Nesbo - The Son

‘You can?’

‘The church door up there, do you see it?’

Sonny stared. ‘No.’

‘It’s still shutting. He’s inside the church. Come on.’

Simon ran. He put one foot in front of the other and took off. It was a simple action, something he had done since he was a boy. He had run and run, every year a little faster. And then, every year a little more slowly. Neither his knees nor his breathing worked together like they used to. Simon managed to keep up with Sonny for the first twenty metres, then the boy took off. He was at least fifty metres ahead when Simon saw him leap up the three steps, throw open the heavy door and disappear inside.

Simon slowed down. Waited for the bang. The staccato, almost childish sound that gunshots acquired when you heard them through a wall. It didn’t come.

He walked up the steps. Pulled open the heavy door and entered.

The smell. The silence. The weight of so many thinking people’s faith.

The pews were empty, but candles were lit on the altar and Simon remembered that morning mass would start in half an hour. The candles flickered over the lost Saviour on the cross. Then he heard the whispering, chanting voice and turned to the left.

Sonny was sitting in the open cubicle of the confessional with the Uzi aimed at the perforated wooden board separating it from the other cubicle whose black curtain almost covered the board opening. There was only a tiny crack between the curtain and the board, but through it Simon could see a hand. And on the stone floor, from underneath the curtain, a pool of blood was slowly spreading.

Simon crept closer; he caught Sonny’s whispering:

‘All earthly and heavenly gods have mercy on you and forgive your sins. You will die, but the soul of the penitent sinner shall be led to Paradise. Amen.’

Silence followed.

Simon watched Sonny tighten his finger around the trigger.

Simon put his gun back in the shoulder holster. He wasn’t going to do anything, not a damn thing. The boy’s verdict would be pronounced and executed. His own judgement would come later.

‘Yes, we killed your father.’ The Twin’s voice sounded feeble behind the curtain. ‘We had to. The mole had told me that your father was planning to kill him. Are you listening?’

Sonny didn’t reply. Simon held his breath.

‘He was going to do it that very night, in the medieval ruins in Maridalen,’ the Twin continued. ‘The mole said that the police were on to him, that it was only a question of time before he was exposed. So he wanted us to make the killing look like a suicide. Give the impression that your father was the mole, so that the police would call off the search. I agreed to it. I had to protect my mole, yes?’

Simon saw Sonny moisten his lips: ‘And who is he, this mole?’

‘I don’t know. I swear. We only ever communicated by email.’

‘Then you won’t ever know.’ Sonny raised the Uzi again, curled his finger around the trigger. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Wait! You don’t have to kill me, Sonny, I’ll bleed to death in here anyway. All I ask is that I get to say goodbye to my loved ones before I die. I let your father write a note telling you and your mother that he loved you. Please, show this sinner the same mercy?’

Simon could see Sonny’s chest heave and sink. The muscles rippled along his jaw line.

‘Don’t,’ Simon called out. ‘Don’t give it to him, Sonny. He-’

Sonny turned to him. There was gentleness in his eyes. Helene’s gentleness. He had already lowered the Uzi. ‘Simon, all he’s asking is-’

Simon saw movement in the gap in the curtain, the hand being raised. A gold-plated pistol lighter. And Simon knew immediately that there wasn’t enough time. Not enough time to warn Sonny and for him to react, not enough time to pull out his own gun from the shoulder holster, not enough time to give Else what she deserved. He was standing on the railings of the bridge across the Aker and the river was raging under him.

So Simon dived.

He dived out of life and into the wonderful, spinning roulette wheel. It didn’t take intelligence or courage, only the folly of a doomed man who is willing to gamble a future he doesn’t value highly, who knows he has less to lose than others. He dived into the open cubicle between the son and the perforated wooden board. He heard the bang. Felt the bite, the paralysing sting of ice or heat tearing his body in two, connections being severed.

And then came another sound. The Uzi. Simon’s head was on the floor in the cubicle and he felt wooden splinters from the board rain down on his face. He heard a scream; he lifted his head and saw the Twin stagger out of the confessional and stumble between the pews, saw the bullets nip at the back of his suit like a swarm of angry bees. Empty shells from the Uzi — still red hot — cascaded onto Simon, scorching his forehead. The Twin knocked over pews, sank down on his knees, but he kept moving. He was refusing to die. It wasn’t natural. Many years ago, when Simon had learned that the mother of one of Norway’s most wanted men was working inside the police station as a cleaner and had sought her out, that had been the first thing she had said: that Levi wasn’t natural. She was his mother and she loved him, obviously, but he had terrified her from the moment he was born, and not just because of his size.

And she told him about that time when her young but already gigantic son had come to work with her because there was no one at home to look after him, and he had stared at his reflection in a bucket of water on the cleaning trolley and said that there was someone in there, someone who looked just like him. Sissel had suggested that perhaps they could play together and gone to empty the waste-paper baskets. When she came back Levi had stuck his head in the bucket and was desperately kicking his legs in the air. His shoulders had become lodged inside the bucket so that she had to use all her strength to pull him out. He had been soaking wet and his face had gone all blue. But instead of crying like most children would have done, he had laughed. And said that the Twin had been bad, had tried to kill him. From that moment on she had wondered where he had come from and she hadn’t felt free until the day he moved out.

The Twin.

Two holes appeared right above the fat folds between his broad neck and mighty back and the movements abruptly stopped.

Of course, Simon thought. A perfectly normal only child.

And he knew that the big man was dead even before he tottered forward and his forehead hit the stone floor with a thud.

Simon closed his eyes.

‘Simon, where. .?’

‘My chest,’ Simon said and coughed. He could tell from the consistency on his skin that it was blood.

‘I’ll get you an ambulance.’

Simon opened his eyes. He looked down at himself. Saw the deep red stain spread on his shirt front.

‘I won’t make it, don’t bother.’

‘Yes, you will-’

‘Listen.’ Sonny had taken out his mobile, but Simon covered it with his hand. ‘I know a little too much about gunshot wounds, all right?’

Sonny put his hand on Simon’s chest.

‘It’s no good,’ Simon said. ‘You run along now. You’re free, you’ve done what you had to do.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Run for my sake,’ Simon said, grabbing the boy’s hand. It felt so warm and familiar, as if it were his own. ‘Your job is done now.’

‘Lie still.’

‘I said the mole would be there today, and he was. And now he’s dead. So run.’

‘The ambulance will be here soon.’

‘Why won’t you listen-’

‘If you’d just stop talking-’

‘It was me, Sonny.’ Simon looked up into the boy’s clear, mild eyes. ‘I was the mole.’