Jo Nesbo - Phantom

‘You look cold,’ Vigdis A smiled.

Truls didn’t know what the A stood for, but that was what was written by her doorbell, Vigdis A. He felt like punching her, a right hook, with all his strength, he didn’t need to worry about his knuckles with those bloody hamster cheeks. Or fucking her. Or both.

Truls knew why he was so angry. It was the mobile phone.

When they had finally got Telenor to track down Hole’s phone they had seen it was located in the city centre, around Oslo station, to be precise. There is probably nowhere in Oslo so jam-packed with people day and night. Then a dozen police officers had trawled the crowds searching for Hole. They had kept at it for hours. Nada. In the end a fresh-faced cop had come up with the banal idea of synchronising their watches, spreading around the area and then one of them would ring his number every quarter of an hour. And if anyone heard a phone ring at that moment, or saw anyone taking out a phone, they had to pounce, it had to be here somewhere. No sooner said than done. And they had found the phone. In the pocket of a junkie sitting half asleep on the steps at Jernbanetorget. He said he had been ‘given’ the phone by a guy at the Watchtower.

The lift stopped. ‘Goodnight,’ Truls mumbled and got out.

He heard the door close behind him and the lift start again.

Rissoles and a DVD now. The first Fast amp; Furious, maybe. Shit film, of course, but it had one or two scenes. Or Transformers, Megan Fox and a good, long wank.

He heard her breathing. She had got out of the lift with him. Some pussy. Truls Berntsen was going to get laid tonight. He smiled and turned his head. It met something. Something hard. And cold. Truls Berntsen strained his eyeballs. A gun barrel.

‘Thank you very much,’ said a familiar voice. ‘I’d love to come in.’

Truls Berntsen sat in the armchair staring down the muzzle of his own pistol.

He had found him. And vice versa.

‘We can’t keep meeting like this,’ Harry Hole said. He had positioned the cigarette in the corner of his mouth so that he would not get smoke in his eyes.

Truls didn’t reply.

‘Do you know why I’d rather use your gun?’ he said, patting the hunting rifle he had placed in his lap.

Truls continued to keep his mouth shut.

‘Because I’d prefer the bullets they find in you to be traced back to your weapon.’

Truls shrugged.

Harry Hole leaned forward. And Truls could smell it now: the alcoholic breath. Hell, the guy was drunk. He had heard stories about what the man did in a sober state, and now he’d been boozing.

‘You’re a burner, Truls Berntsen. And here’s the proof.’

He held up the ID card from the wallet he had taken from him along with the gun. ‘Thomas Lunder? Isn’t that the man who collected the dope from Gardermoen?’

‘What is it you want?’ Truls said, closing his eyes and settling back in the chair. Rissoles and a DVD.

‘I want to know what the link is between you, Dubai, Isabelle Skoyen and Mikael Bellman.’

Truls recoiled in the chair. Mikael? What the fuck did Mikael have to do with this? And Isabelle Skoyen? Wasn’t she the politician?

‘I have no idea…’

He watched Harry cock the pistol.

‘Careful, Hole! The trigger’s more sensitive than you think. It’s-’

The hammer of the gun rose further.

‘Wait! Wait, for Christ’s sake!’ Truls Berntsen’s tongue circled his mouth in search of lubricating saliva. ‘I know nothing about Bellman or Skoyen, but Dubai-’

‘Yes?’

‘I can tell you about him…’

‘What can you tell me?’

Truls Berntsen took a deep breath, held it. Then let it out with a groan. ‘Everything.’

Threeeyes stared back at Truls Berntsen. Two with light blue, booze-rinsed irises. And a round, black one, which was the muzzle of his own Steyr. The man holding the gun was lying rather than sitting in the armchair, and his long legs stretched out on the carpet. He said in a hoarse voice: ‘Tell me, Berntsen. Tell me about Dubai.’

Truls coughed twice. Bloody dry throat.

‘There was a ring at the door one night. I lifted the intercom handset, and a voice said he wanted to have a few words with me. I didn’t want to let him in at first, but then he mentioned a name and… well…’

Truls Berntsen held his jaw between thumb and middle finger.

The other man waited.

‘There was an unfortunate business I thought no one else knew about.’

‘Which was?’

‘A detainee. He needed to be taught some manners. I didn’t think anyone knew I was the one who had… taught him.’

‘Any damage?’

‘Parents wanted to sue, but the boy couldn’t point me out in the line-up. I must have damaged his optic nerve. Blessing in disguise, eh?’ Truls laughed his nervous grunted laughter, then shut up quickly. ‘And now this man was standing outside my door and he knew. Said I had a certain talent for sailing under the radar, and he was willing to pay a lot for a man like me. He spoke Norwegian, but with a bit of an accent. Sounded pretty decent. I let him in.’

‘You met Dubai?’

‘I did. He was alone. An old man in an elegant but old-fashioned suit. Waistcoat. Hat and gloves. He told me what he wanted me to do. And what he would pay. He was a careful guy. Said we wouldn’t meet face to face again, no phone calls, no emails, nothing that could be traced. And that was fine by me.’

‘So how did you organise the work?’

‘The jobs were written on a gravestone. He explained to me where it was.’

‘Where?’

‘Gamlebyen Cemetery. That was where I got the money as well.’

‘Tell me about Dubai. Who is he?’

Truls Berntsen stared into the distance. Tried to get a sense of the equation’s pluses and minuses. Of the consequences.

‘What are you waiting for, Berntsen? You said you could tell me everything about Dubai.’

‘Are you aware what I’m risking by tell-’

‘Last time I saw you, two of Dubai’s guys were trying to fill you with lead. So even without this gun pointing at you you’re already in the doghouse, Berntsen. Spit it out. Who is he?’

Harry Hole’s eyes bored into him. Saw straight through him, Truls thought. And now the hammer on the gun was moving and his equation was becoming simpler.

‘Alright, alright,’ Berntsen said, holding up his palms. ‘His name’s not Dubai. They call him that because his pushers wear football shirts advertising an airline that flies to the countries round there. Arabia.’

‘You’ve got ten seconds to tell me something I haven’t worked out for myself.’

‘Hang on, hang on, it’s coming! His name’s Rudolf Asayev. He’s Russian, his parents were intellectual dissidents and political refugees — at least that’s what he said at the trial. He’s lived in lots of countries and speaks something like seven languages. Came to Norway in the seventies and was one of the hash-trafficking pioneers, you could say. He kept a low profile, but was grassed up by one of his own people in 1980. That was when selling and importing drugs carried the same sentence as treason. So he did a long stint. After being released he moved to Sweden and switched to heroin.’

‘About the same sentence as hash but a lot better mark-up.’

‘Sure. He built up a network in Gothenburg, but after an undercover policeman was killed, he had to go underground. He came back to Oslo about two years ago.’

‘And he told you all this?’

‘No, no, I found this out on my own.’

‘Oh, yes? How? I thought the man was a phantom no one knew anything about.’

Truls Berntsen looked down at his hands. Looked up again at Harry Hole. Had to smile, almost. For this was something he had often wanted to tell someone. How he had tricked Dubai himself. But there had been no one to tell. Truls licked his lips. ‘He was sitting in the chair where you are now, with his arms on the rests.’