Jo Nesbo - Phantom

Of course it couldn’t last for ever, but what the fuck does?

Once or twice I saw a black limousine on the opposite side of the street as I came out of the hotel, but there are lots of cars like that. However, this one didn’t go anywhere.

And then came the inevitable day when the money ran out, and I had to sell more dope. I had made a stash in one of the broom closets on the floor below, inside the ceiling tiles, behind a bunch of electric cables. But either I must have shot my mouth off while I was high or else someone must have seen me going there. Because the stash had been cleaned out. And I had nothing in reserve.

We were back to square one. Apart from the fact that there was no ‘we’ any more. It was time to check out. And inject the day’s first fix, which had to be bought on the street. But when I had to settle up for the room we’d had for more than two weeks I was fifteen thousand short.

I took the only sensible course of action.

I ran.

Ran straight through the lobby onto the street, through the park towards the sea. No one followed me.

Then I strolled down to Kvadraturen to do some shopping. There wasn’t an Arsenal player in sight, just hollow-eyed zonkers shuffling around on the lookout for a dealer. I talked to someone wanting to sell me meth. He said there hadn’t been any violin on the go for days, stocks had simply dried up. But there were rumours circulating that dopeheads were selling their last quarters of violin for five thousand kroner apiece in Plata, so that they could buy a week’s supply of horse.

I didn’t have five sodding thousand of course, so I knew I was in trouble. Three alternatives: flog, con or nick.

Flog first. But what did I actually have to flog, me who had even sold my foster-sister? I remembered. The Odessa. It was in the rehearsal room, and the Pakis in Kvadraturen would definitely fork out five thousand for a shooter that fired fricking salvos. So I jogged north, past the Opera House and Oslo Central. But it must have been burgled because there was a new padlock on the door and the amps had gone. Only the drums were left. I searched for the Odessa, but they must have taken that too. Bloody thieves.

Con next. I hailed a taxi, directed it west, up to Blindern. The driver nagged me for money from the moment I got in, so he knew the score. I told him to pull in where the road ends by the railway lines, jumped out and dodged the driver by running over the footbridge. I ran up through Forskningsparken, ran even though no one was chasing me. Ran because I was in a hurry. Why, I didn’t know.

I opened the gate, ran up the gravel path to the garage. Peered through the crack at the side of the iron curtain. The limousine was there. I knocked on the front door.

Andrey opened. The old boy wasn’t at home, he said. I pointed to the neighbouring house behind the water tank, said he had to be there then, the limo was in the garage. He repeated that ataman was not at home. I said I needed money. He said he couldn’t help me and that I was never to come here again. I said I needed violin, just this once. He said there was no violin at the moment, Ibsen was short of some ingredient or other, I would have to wait a couple of weeks. I said I would be dead by then. I had to have either money or violin.

Andrey was about to close the door, but I stuck out a foot.

I said that if I didn’t get it I would tell people where he lived.

Andrey looked at me.

‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’ he said with that comical accent. ‘Remember Bisken?’

I stuck out my hand. Said the cops would pay well to find out where Dubai and his flunkeys lived. Plus a bit more to find out what happened to Bisken. And they would fork out most if I told them about the dead undercover guy on the cellar floor.

Andrey slowly shook his head.

So I told the Cossack bastard to passhol v’chorte, which I think is Russian for ‘go to hell’, and left.

Felt his eyes on my back all the way to the gate.

I had no idea why the old boy had let me get away with stealing the dope, as Oleg and I had done, but I knew I wouldn’t get away with this. I didn’t give a shit, though, I was at the end of my tether, all I heard were the hungry screams of my blood vessels.

I walked up to the path behind Vestre Aker Church. Stood there watching some old ladies coming and going. Widows on the way to graves, their husbands’ and their own, carrying handbags groaning with cash. But I didn’t have it in me. Me, the Thief, stood quite still, sweating like a pig, scared to death by brittle-boned eighty-year-old women. It was enough to make you weep.

It was Saturday, and I was going through the friends I had who might be willing to lend me money. Didn’t take long. None.

Then it struck me who ought to lend me money at least. If he knew what was good for him.

I sneaked onto the bus, travelled eastwards, back to the proper side of the river, and got off at Manglerud.

This time Truls Berntsen was at home.

He was standing in the doorway on the fifth floor of his block and heard me give him roughly the same ultimatum I had given in Blindernveien. If he didn’t dig deep for five big ones, I would let it be known that he had killed Tutu and buried his body afterwards.

But Berntsen was cool. Asked me into his flat. He was sure we could come to some agreement, he said.

But there was something all wrong about his eyes.

So I didn’t budge and said there was nothing to discuss, either he coughed up or else I would grass on him for money. He said the police didn’t pay people to grass on officers. Five thousand was fine though, he said, we went way back, we were almost pals. Said he didn’t have much cash at home, so we would have to drive to an ATM, the car was down in the garage.

I chewed on that one. Alarm bells were ringing, but the craving was a bloody nightmare, it shut out all sensible thoughts. So, even though I knew this was not good, I nodded.

‘So, you’ve got the final result, have you?’ Harry said, scanning the crowd in the cafe. No suspicious types. Or, to be more accurate, loads of suspicious types, but no one who could be presumed to be police.

‘Yes,’ Beate said.

Harry shifted his grip on the phone. ‘I think I already know who clawed Gusto.’

‘Oh?’ There was surprise in Beate’s voice.

‘Yep. A man on a DNA register is usually a suspect or a convicted criminal or a policeman who might have contaminated a crime scene. In this case it’s the last. His name’s Truls Berntsen and he’s an officer with Orgkrim.’

‘How do you know it’s him?’

‘Well, the sum of things that have happened, you could say.’

‘Fine,’ Beate said. ‘I don’t doubt your reasoning is solid.’

‘Thank you,’ Harry said.

‘And yet you’re wrong,’ Beate said.

‘What?’

‘The blood under Gusto’s nails doesn’t come from anyone called Berntsen.’

But while I was standing in front of Truls Berntsen’s door — he had just gone to get the car keys — I looked down. At my shoes. Bloody fantastic shoes. Then I began to think about Isabelle Skoyen.

She wasn’t dangerous like Berntsen was. And she was mad about me. Wasn’t she? Perhaps?

Mad and a half.

So before Berntsen returned I leapt down seven steps at a time and pressed the lift button on each floor.

I jumped on the Metro for Oslo Central. At first I thought I should ring her, but changed my mind. She could always snub me on the phone, but never if I turned up in wonderful, drop-dead-gorgeous person. Saturday also meant her stable lad was off. Which in turn — since nags and pigs are pretty bad at getting food from the fridge — meant she was at home. So at Oslo Central I got into the season-ticket carriage on the Ostfold line as the journey to Rygge cost a hundred and four forty, which I still didn’t have. I walked from the station to the farm. It’s quite a distance. Especially if it starts raining. It started to rain.