Jo Nesbo - Phantom

Harry headed for the counter, and a rotund, smiling girl in a Salvation Army hoodie offered him free filter coffee and wholewheat bread with brown cheese.

‘Not today, thank you. Is Martine here?’

‘She’s working in the clinic.’

The girl pointed her finger at the ceiling and the Salvation Army first-aid room above.

‘But she should be finished-’

‘Harry!’

He turned.

Martine Eckhoff was as small as ever. The smiling kitten face had the same disproportionately broad mouth and a nose that was no more than a knoll in her tiny face. And her pupils looked as if they had run to the edge of the brown irises, forming the shape of a keyhole. She had once explained to him it was congenital and known as iris coloboma.

Martine stretched up and gave him a long, lingering hug. And when she had finished she still would not let go of him, but held both of his hands while looking up at him. He saw a shadow flit across her smile when she saw the scar on his face.

‘How… how thin you are.’

Harry laughed. ‘Thank you. But while I’ve got thinner-’

‘I know,’ Martine cried. ‘I’ve got fatter. Everyone’s got fatter, though, Harry. Except you. By the way, I do have an excuse for being fat…’

She patted her stomach where the black lambswool jumper was stretched to its limit.

‘Mm. Did Rikard do this to you?’

She laughed and nodded with enthusiasm. Her face was red, the heat was coming off her like a plasma screen.

They walked over to the only free table. Harry sat down and watched the black hemisphere of a stomach trying to lower itself onto a chair. It looked incongruous against the backdrop of capsized lives and apathetic hopelessness.

‘Gusto,’ he said. ‘Do you know anything about the case?’

She heaved a deep sigh. ‘Of course. Everyone here does. He was part of the community. He didn’t come here often, but we saw him now and then. The girls working here were in love with him, every last one. He was so good-looking!’

‘What about Oleg, the guy who it’s claimed killed him?’

‘He came sometimes, with a girl.’ She frowned. ‘Claimed? Is there some doubt about it then?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to establish. A girl you say?’

‘Lovely, but a wan little thing. Ingunn? Iriam?’ She turned to the counter. ‘Hey! What’s the name of Gusto’s foster-sister?’ And before anyone had a chance to answer she answered herself: ‘Irene!’

‘Red hair and freckles?’ Harry asked.

‘She was so pale that if it hadn’t been for her hair she would have been invisible. I mean that. In the end the sun shone right through her.’

‘In the end?’

‘Yes, we’ve just been speaking about that. It’s a while since she’s been here. I’ve asked lots of the people who come here if she’s left town or what, but no one seems to know where she is.’

‘Do you remember anything happening around the time the murder took place?’

‘Nothing special except for that particular evening. I heard the police sirens and knew they were probably for some of our young parishioners, when one of your colleagues here received a phone call and stormed out.’

‘Thought it was an unwritten rule that undercover officers weren’t allowed to work here in the cafe.’

‘I don’t think he was working, Harry. He sat alone at the table over there, supposedly reading Klassekampen. It might sound rather vain, but I think he came here to watch moi.’ She coquettishly laid her hand flat against her chest.

‘You still attract lonely police officers, I suppose.’

She laughed. ‘I was the one who checked you over, or have you forgotten?’

‘A girl from a Christian family like you?’

‘In fact his staring made me go all clammy, but he stopped when my pregnancy became visible. Anyway, that night he slammed the door after him, and I watched him head for Hausmanns gate. The crime scene was only a few hundred metres away from here. Straight afterwards rumours began to circulate that Gusto had been shot. And that Oleg had been arrested.’

‘What do you know about Gusto, apart from the fact that he was attractive to women and came from a foster-family?’

‘He was called the Thief. He sold violin.’

‘Who did he work for?’

‘He and Oleg used to sell for the bikers up in Alnabru, Los Lobos. But they joined Dubai, I think. Everyone who was approached did. They had the purest heroin, and when violin made an appearance it was the Dubai pushers who had it. And I suppose it still is.’

‘What do you know about Dubai? Who is he?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t even know if it is a who or a what.’

‘So visible on the streets and yet so invisible behind the scenes. Does nobody know?’

‘Probably, but those who do won’t say.’

Someone called Martine’s name.

‘Stay where you are,’ Martine said, struggling up from the chair. ‘I’ll be back in a sec.’

‘Actually, I’ve got to be off,’ Harry said.

‘Where?’

There was a second’s silence as they both realised he didn’t have a sensible answer to her question.

Tord Schultz sat at the kitchen table by the window. The sun shone low, and there was still enough daylight for him to see everyone walking on the road between the houses. But he couldn’t see the road. He took a bite of bread with cervelat.

Planes flew over rooftops. Landed and took off. Landed and took off.

Tord Schultz listened to the various engine sounds. It was like a timeline: the old engines that sounded right, which had the exact growl, the warm glow, which evoked the good memories, which gave meaning, which were a soundtrack to when things had a meaning: job, punctuality, family, a woman’s caresses, recognition from colleagues. The new generation of engines moved more air, but were hectic, flew faster on less fuel, had greater efficiency, less time for inessentials. Also the essential inessentials. He glanced at the big clock on the fridge again. It ticked like a frightened little heart, fast and frenetic. Seven. Twelve hours left. Soon it would be dark. He heard a Boeing 747. The classic. The best. The sound grew and grew until it was a roar making the windowpanes tremble and the glass clink against the half-empty bottle on the table. Tord Schultz closed his eyes. It was the sound of optimism about the future, raw power, well-founded arrogance. The sound of invincibility to a man in his best years.

After the noise was gone and it was suddenly still in the house he noticed that the silence was different. As if the air had a different density.

As if it were occupied.

He turned right round, to the living room. Through the door he could see the weight-training bench and the furthest end of the coffee table. He looked at the parquet floor, at the shadows from the part of the living room he couldn’t see. He held his breath and listened. Nothing. Just the clock ticking on the fridge. So he took another bite of the bread, a swig from the glass and leaned back in the chair. A big plane was on the way in. He could hear it coming from behind. It drowned the sound of time ticking away. And he was thinking it would have to pass between the house and the sun as a shadow fell over him and the table.

Harry walked along Urtegata and down Platous gate to Gronlandsleiret. Heading for Police HQ on autopilot. He stopped in Bots Park. Looked at the prison, at the solid grey walls.

‘Where?’ she had asked.

Was he really in any doubt as to who killed Gusto Hanssen?

An SAS plane left Oslo for Bangkok, direct, every day before midnight. Flew from there to Hong Kong five times a day. He could go to Hotel Leon right now. Pack his bag and check out. It would take precisely five minutes. The airport express to Gardermoen. Buy a ticket at the SAS counter. A meal and newspapers in the relaxing, impersonal transit atmosphere of an airport.