Jo Nesbo - The Son

They ran outside, out into the white sunshine, into a morning full of promise, into the blue city. They kept running and the morning rush of people parted in front of them. Faces flickered in and out of Kari’s field of vision. And something at the back of her brain reacted to one of them. Sunglasses and a pale grey suit. Parr was aiming for the alleyway where they had seen several uniformed police officers hurry inside. Kari stopped, turned round and saw the back of the grey suit board the ferry to Nesoddtangen which was about to sail. Then she turned back and ran on.

Martha had put down the hood of the convertible and was leaning her head against the neck rest. She looked at a seagull hovering in the wind between the blue sky and the blue fjord. Balancing the forces, its own and the external ones, as it scouted for food. Her breathing was deep and steady, but her heart was pounding because the ferry was about to dock. Not many people sailed from Oslo to Nesoddtangen this early in the morning, so he wouldn’t be difficult to spot. If he had pulled it off. If . She muttered the prayer she had repeated ever since leaving Tomte amp; Ohre one and a half hours ago. He hadn’t been on the previous ferry thirty minutes ago, but she had told herself that would have been too much to hope for. But if he wasn’t on this one. . Yes, then what? She had no plan B. Hadn’t wanted one.

The passengers appeared. Yes, she was right, they weren’t many, people tended to travel into the city in the morning, not out. She took off her tortoiseshell sunglasses. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the pale grey suit. But it wasn’t him.

Her heart sank.

Then another grey suit appeared.

He was stooping slightly as if he had taken in water and was listing.

She felt her heart swell in her chest and force sobs up her throat. Perhaps it was just the slanted morning light on his pale grey suit, but he looked as if he was glowing.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

She looked in the rear-view mirror, dried her tears and straightened her headscarf. Then she waved. And he waved back.

And as he walked up the hill to where she was parked, a thought occurred to her: that it was too good to be true. That she was looking at a mirage, a ghost, that he was dead, shot, that right now he was hanging from a lighthouse, crucified, and that she was looking at his soul.

He got into the car with great care and took off his sunglasses. He was pale. And she could tell from his red eyes that he had been crying. Then he flung his arms around her and pulled her close. At first she thought it must be her before she realised that the trembling was coming from his body.

‘How-?’

‘Fine,’ he said, without letting go of her. ‘Everything went fine.’

They sat in silence, clinging together like two people whose only fixed point is the other. She wanted to ask questions, but not now. There would be plenty of time for that later.

‘Now what?’ she whispered.

‘Now,’ he said, gently releasing her and sitting upright with a low groan. ‘Now it starts. That’s a big suitcase.’ He nodded to the back seat.

‘Only the bare essentials,’ she smiled, pushed the CD into the CD player and handed him the mobile. ‘I’ll drive the first stretch. Will you be map reader?’

He looked at the display on the mobile as the flat, robotic voice started chanting: ‘ Your own. . personal. . ’

‘1,030 kilometres,’ he said. ‘Estimated driving time twelve hours and fifty-one minutes.’

The snowflakes seemed to rise from a colourless, bottomless sky and stick to a roof of tarmac, pavement, cars and houses.

Kari was bending down on the steps and had just laced up her ankle boots so she got an upside-down view of the street between her legs. Simon had been right. You saw things differently when you changed your perspective and location. All blind spots could be compensated for. It had taken her time to realise it. To realise that Simon Kefas had been right about so many things. Not everything. But to an irritatingly high degree.

She straightened up.

‘Have a great day, darling,’ said the girl in the doorway and gave Kari a kiss on the lips.

‘You too.’

‘Sanding down floors probably isn’t compatible with having a great day. But I’ll try. When will you be home?’

‘Dinner time, unless something happens.’

‘Fine, though it looks as if something just did.’

Kari turned in the direction Sam was pointing. The car that had pulled up outside the gate was familiar and the face above the lowered side window even more so.

‘What’s up, Asmund?’ Sam called out.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt your DIY, but I need to borrow your lady,’ the inspector called back to her. ‘Something’s happened.’

Kari looked at Sam who slapped the back pocket of her jeans. Kari had hung up her skirt and suit jacket in the wardrobe back in the autumn and, for some reason, there they had stayed.

‘Off you go and serve the public, girl.’

As they drove east on the E18, Kari stared at the snow-covered landscape. Thought about how the first snow always marked a dividing line, hiding everything that had been there before and changing the world you looked at. The months that followed the shootings at Aker Brygge and the Catholic church had been chaotic. Criticism had, not unexpectedly, been levelled at the police, charges of brutality and one man’s insane mission. But, even so, Simon had been given a hero’s funeral, he was the people’s policeman, someone who had fought the city’s criminals, laid down his life in the service of justice. As Commissioner Parr had said in his eulogy the public was prepared to overlook the fact that he hadn’t followed the rule book down to the last detail. Or Norwegian law, for that matter. Parr could afford a certain moral flexibility given that he himself had pushed the boundaries of Norwegian tax legislation by placing some of his own money in anonymous trusts registered to the Cayman Islands. Kari had confronted Parr at the wake because her investigation into who paid the utility bills for Lofthus’s house had led eventually her to him. And Parr had confessed to it on the spot, adding only that no laws had been broken and that his motive had been purely altruistic; to ease his own conscience for not taking care of Sonny and his mother after Ab’s suicide. Parr said that it hadn’t been cheap, but it meant that the boy would have a habitable house to live in once he had finished serving his sentence.

After a while people also began to accept that the Buddha with the Sword had vanished without a trace. His crusade appeared to have ended with the death of Levi Thou, also known as the Twin.

Else’s sight was much better now. She had told Kari, who visited her some weeks after the funeral, that the operation in the US had been eighty per cent successful. That almost nothing was perfect. Not life, not people, not Simon. Only love.

‘He never forgot her. Helene. She was the love of his life.’ It had still been summer and they had sat on recliners in Else’s garden in Disen, drinking port and watching the sun go down. And Kari had realised that Else had made a decision to share this with her. ‘He told me that the two others who courted her, Ab and Pontius, were nicer, stronger, cleverer. But that he was the one who saw her as she really was. That was the strange thing about Simon. He saw people, he saw their angels and demons. While at the same time he fought his own demon, of course. Simon was a gambling addict.’

‘He told me.’

‘He and Helene started seeing each other, but his gambling debt made their lives chaotic. It didn’t last long, but Simon felt he was dragging her down with him when Ab Lofthus came along and saved her from him. Ab and Helene moved out. Simon was heartbroken. And shortly afterwards he learned that she was pregnant. He gambled like a maniac, lost everything and was on the verge of the abyss. Then he sought out the devil and offered him the only thing he had left. His soul.’