Jo Nesbo - Phantom

Harry repressed the thoughts and set his foot on the first step. There was an admonitory creak. He forced himself to tread slowly. Still with the jemmy in his hand. At the bottom, he began to walk along between the storerooms. A bulb in the ceiling cast meagre light. And created more shadows. Harry noticed that all the rooms were shut with padlocks. Who would lock a storeroom in their own cellar?

Harry inserted the pointed end of the jemmy under one hinge. Breathed in, dreading the noise. Pressed the jemmy back quickly, and there was a short crack. He held his breath, listened. The house seemed to be holding its breath as well. Not a sound.

Then he gently opened the door. The smell assailed his nostrils. His fingers found a switch on the inside, and the next moment Harry was bathed in light. Neon tube.

The storeroom was much larger than it had appeared from the outside. He recognised it. It was a copy of a room he had seen before. The lab at the Radium Hospital. Benches with glass flasks and test-tube stands. Harry lifted the lid off a big plastic box. The white powder was speckled with brown. Harry licked the tip of his index finger, dabbed it into the powder and rubbed it against his gums. Bitter. Violin.

Harry gave a start. A sound. He held his breath again. And there it was again. Someone sniffling.

Harry rushed back to turn off the light and hunched up in the dark, holding the jemmy ready.

Another sniffle.

Harry waited a few seconds. Then with quick, quiet steps, he walked out of the storeroom and headed to where the sounds had come from. A storeroom on the left. He moved the jemmy to his right hand. Tiptoed up to the door, which had a small peephole covered with wire netting, exactly like they’d had at home. With one difference: this door was reinforced with metal.

Harry held the torch ready, stood against the wall beside the door, counted down from three, switched on the beam and pointed it through the hole.

Waited.

After three seconds had passed and no one had either shot or launched themselves at the light, he put his head against the wire and peered inside. The beam roved over brick walls, illuminated a chain, flitted across a mattress and then found what it was looking for. A face.

Her eyes were closed. She was sitting quite still. As though she was used to this. Being inspected with a torch.

‘Irene?’ Harry asked tentatively.

At that moment the phone in Harry’s pocket began to vibrate.

I looked at my watch. I had searched the whole flat and still hadn’t found Oleg’s stash. And Ibsen should have been here twenty minutes ago. Just let him try not turning up, the perv! It was life for kidnapping and rape. The day Irene came to Oslo Central I had taken her to the rehearsal room, where I said Oleg was waiting for her. He wasn’t, of course. But Ibsen was. He held her while I gave her a shot. I thought about Rufus. About how it was for the best. Then she calmed right down, and all we had to do was drag her into his car. He had my half-kilo in the boot. Did I have any regrets? Yes, I regretted I hadn’t asked for a kilo! No, of course I had some regrets. I’m not entirely without feeling. But when I came over all ‘Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that’ I told myself that Ibsen would take good care of her. He must love her, in his own warped way. Anyway it was too late, now the main thing was to get some medicine and to be healthy again.

This was new ground for me, this was, not getting what the body needed. I’d always got what I wanted, I realised that now. And if that wasn’t the way it was going to be in the future I would rather have dropped dead on the spot. Died young and beautiful, with my teeth more or less intact. Ibsen wasn’t coming. I knew that now. I stood by the kitchen window looking out onto the street, but the fricking limp-dick was nowhere to be seen. Neither him nor Oleg.

I’d tried them all. There was only one left.

I’d shut out this option for a long time. I was frightened. Yes, I was. But I knew he was in town. He’d been here from the day he found out she had disappeared. Stein. My foster-brother.

I looked down the street again.

No. Sooner die than ring him.

The seconds passed. Ibsen wasn’t coming.

Hell! Better to die than be so ill.

I pinched my eyes again, but insects were crawling out of the cavities, darting under my eyelids, scrabbling all over my face.

Dying had lost out.

The finale awaited.

Ring him or die?

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Harry switched off the torch when the phone began to ring. Saw from the number that it was Hans Christian.

‘Someone’s coming,’ his voice, hoarse with anxiety, whispered in Harry’s ear. ‘He parked outside the gate, and now he’s heading for the house.’

‘OK,’ Harry said. ‘Take it easy. Text me if you see anything. And clear off if-’

‘Clear off?’ Hans Christian sounded genuinely indignant.

‘If you can see this is going down the tube, OK?’

‘Why should I-’

Harry rang off, switched the torch back on and shone it at the wire. ‘Irene?’

The girl blinked at the light with saucer eyes.

‘Listen to me. My name’s Harry. I’m a policeman and I’m here to get you out. But someone’s coming. If he comes down here act as if nothing’s happened, OK? I’ll soon have you out of here, Irene. I promise.’

‘Have you…?’ she mumbled, but Harry didn’t catch the rest.

‘Have I what?’

‘Have you got any… violin?’

Harry gritted his teeth. ‘Hold out for a bit longer,’ he whispered.

Harry ran to the top of the stairs and turned off the light. Pushed the door ajar and peered out. He had a clear view of the front door. He heard a shuffling gait on the shingle outside. One foot being dragged after the other. Club foot. And then the door opened.

The light came on.

And there he was. Big, round and plump.

Stig Nybakk.

The department head at the Radium Hospital. The one who remembered Harry from school. Who knew Tresko. Who had a wedding ring with a black nick. Who had a bachelor flat in which it was impossible to find anything out of the ordinary. But also a house left by his parents he hadn’t sold.

He hung his coat on the stand and walked towards Harry with his hand outstretched. Stopped suddenly. Fluttered his hand in front of him. A deep furrow in his brow. Stood listening. And now Harry knew why. The thread he had felt on his face when he entered, which he had taken to be a spider’s web, must have been something else. Some invisible fibre Nybakk had wound across the hall to indicate whether he had had any unwelcome visitors.

Nybakk moved with surprising speed and agility towards a cupboard. Stuck his hand in. Pulled at something and the matt metal gleamed. A shotgun.

Shit, shit, shit. Harry hated shotguns.

Nybakk took out a box of cartridges, which was already open. Removed two large, red cartridges, held them between first and middle finger.

Harry’s brain whirred and whirred, but failed to come up with any good ideas, so he chose the bad one. Took his phone and began to press.

H-o-o-t a-n-d w-a-j-p

Shit! Wrong!

He heard the metallic click as Nybakk broke the gun.

Delete. Where are you? Out with ‘j’ and ‘p’ and in with ‘i’ and ‘t’.

Heard him loading the cartridges. w-a-i-t t-i-l-l h-e i-s

Tiny bloody keys! Come on!

Heard the barrel click into place. i-n t-h-e w-i-n-c

Wrong! Harry heard Nybakk’s shuffling gait come closer. Not enough time. Would have to hope Hans Christian could use his imagination. l-i-g-h-t-s!

He pressed ‘send’.

Harry could see Nybakk had raised the shotgun to his shoulder. And it struck him that the pharmacist had noticed the cellar door was ajar.