Jo Nesbo - Phantom

‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said.

Then he picked up the cloth from the counter, wiped first where his hands had been, then the glass, then the handle of the corkscrew, which he put back. He checked that none of his own blood had ended up on the counter or the floor. Then he bent over the dead man and wiped his bloody hand, the long, ivory knife handle and the thin blade. The weapon — for it was a weapon and useless for anything else — was heavier than any knife he had ever held. The edge was as sharp as a Japanese sushi knife. Harry hesitated. Then he folded the blade into the shaft, heard a soft click as it locked, flicked the safety catch and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

‘OK to pay with dollars?’ Harry asked, using the cloth to pick a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet. ‘Legal tender in the United States, it says.’

Small whining noises came from the barman as if he wanted to say something, but had lost the power of speech.

Harry was about to go, then stopped. Turned to look at the bottle on the mirror shelf. Wetted his lips again. Stood unmoving for a second. Then his body seemed to twitch and he left.

Harry crossed the street in pouring rain. They knew where he was staying. They could have tailed him of course, but it could also have been the boy in reception. Or the burner who had got hold of his name via the routine registering of hotel guests. If he went in through the backyard he would be able to reach his room unnoticed.

The gate to the street was locked. Harry cursed.

The reception desk was unmanned as he entered.

On the stairs and in the corridor he left a trail of red dots, like Morse code, on the light blue linoleum.

Inside his room, he took the sewing kit from the bedside table to the bathroom, undressed and leaned over the washbasin, which was soon red from blood. He soaked a hand towel and washed his chin and neck, but the cuts to his neck soon filled up with more blood. In the cold, white light he managed to thread the cotton through the eye of the needle and put the needle through the white flaps of skin on his neck, first underneath and then above the wound. Sewed his way along, stopped to wipe away blood and carried on. The thread broke as he was almost finished. He swore, pulled the ends out and started again with the thread doubled. Afterwards he sewed the wound on his chin, which was easier. He washed the blood from his upper torso and took a clean shirt from his suitcase. Then he sat down on the bed. He was dizzy. But he was in a hurry, he doubted they would be far away, he had to act now before they found out he was alive. He called Hans Christian Simonsen’s number and after the fourth ring he heard a sleepy: ‘Hans Christian.’

‘Harry. Where’s Gusto buried?’

‘Vestre Cemetery.’

‘Have you got the gear ready?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll do it tonight. Meet me on the pathway on the eastern side in an hour.’

‘ Now? ’

‘Yes. And bring some plasters.’

‘Plasters?’

‘A clumsy barber, that’s all. Sixty minutes from now, OK?’

A slight pause. A sigh. And then: ‘OK.’

As Harry was about to ring off he thought he heard a sleepy voice, someone else’s voice. But by the time he had dressed he had already convinced himself that he had misheard.

Harry was standing beneath a lone street lamp. He had been waiting for twenty minutes when Hans Christian, wearing a black tracksuit, came barrelling up the footpath.

‘I parked in Monolittveien,’ he said, out of breath. ‘Is a linen suit standard garb for desecrating a grave?’

Harry raised his head, and Hans Christian’s eyes widened. ‘Good God, what do you look like? That barber-’

‘Isn’t recommended,’ Harry said. ‘Come on, let’s get out of the light.’

Once they were in the darkness, Harry stopped. ‘Plasters?’

‘Here.’

Hans Christian studied the unlit houses on the hill behind them while Harry carefully placed plasters over the stitches on his neck and chin.

‘Relax, no one can see us,’ Harry said, grabbing one of the spades and setting off. Hans Christian hurried after him, pulled out a torch and clicked it on.

‘Now they can see us,’ Harry said.

Hans Christian clicked it off.

They strode through the war memorial grove, past the British sailors’ graves and continued along the gravel paths. Harry established that death was not a great leveller; the headstones in this West Oslo cemetery were bigger and brighter than in the east of town. The gravel crunched whenever their feet hit it, they were walking faster and faster and in the end it sounded like one continuous noise.

They stopped at the gypsy’s grave.

‘It’s second left,’ Hans Christian whispered and tried to angle the map he had printed into the sparse moonlight.

Harry stared into the darkness behind them.

‘Something up?’ Hans Christian whispered.

‘Just thought I heard footsteps. They stopped when we stopped.’

Harry raised his head, as if scenting the air.

‘Echo,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

Two minutes later they were standing by a modest, black stone. Harry held the torch close to the stone before switching it on. The letters had been engraved and painted in gold.

Gusto Hanssen

14.03.1992 — 12.07.2011

Rest in Peace

‘Bingo,’ Harry whispered without ceremony.

‘How are we-’ Hans Christian began, but was interrupted by the sigh of Harry’s spade entering the soft earth. He grabbed his own and got stuck in.

It was half past three, and the moon had gone behind a cloud when Harry’s spade hit something hard.

Fifteen minutes later the white coffin was revealed.

They both grabbed a screwdriver, knelt down on the coffin and began to loosen the six screws in the lid.

‘We won’t get the lid off with both of us on top,’ Harry said. ‘One of us has to go up so the other can open the coffin. Volunteers?’

Hans Christian had already half crawled out.

Harry put one foot down beside the coffin and the other against the earth wall and squeezed his fingers under the lid. Then he exerted pressure and from force of habit began to breathe through his mouth. Before he even looked down he could feel the heat rising from the coffin. He knew the process of decomposition produced energy, but what made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck was the sound.

The rustle of fly larvae in flesh. He kneed the coffin lid to the side of the grave.

‘Shine here,’ he said.

White slithering larvae glistened in and around the corpse’s mouth and nose. The eyelids had sunk as the eyeballs were the first parts to be consumed.

Harry shut out the sounds of Hans Christian being sick and switched on his analytical faculties: face discoloured, dark, impossible to determine whether the owner was Gusto Hanssen, but the hair colour and shape of face suggested it was.

But there was something that caught Harry’s attention and caused him to stop breathing.

Gusto was bleeding.

Red roses were growing on the white shroud, roses of blood that were spreading.

Two seconds passed before Harry realised that the blood was coming from him. He clutched his neck. His fingers felt thick blood. The stitches had come undone.

‘Your T-shirt,’ Harry said.

‘What?’

‘I need some patching-up here.’

Harry heard the brief song of a zip, and a few seconds later a T-shirt floated down into the light. He grabbed it, saw the logo. Free Legal Aid. Christ, an idealist. Harry wound the T-shirt round his neck with no clear idea of how this would help, but it was all he could do for now. Then he bent over Gusto, grabbed the shroud with both hands and tore it open. The body was dark, slightly bloated and larvae were crawling out from the bullet holes in the chest.