Jo Nesbo - Phantom

‘Bad,’ the policeman said, allowing the old man to light his cigarette for him.

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Speaking of bad, you should be dead, Harry. I know you were in the tunnel when I opened the sluices.’

‘I was.’

‘The sluices opened at the same time and the water towers were full. You should have been washed into the middle.’

‘I was.’

‘Then I don’t understand. Most suffer from shock and drown in the middle.’

The policeman exhaled the smoke from a corner of his mouth. ‘Like the Resistance fighters who went after the Gestapo boss?’

‘I don’t know if they ever tested his trap in a real retreat.’

‘But you did. With the undercover officer.’

‘He was just like you, Harry. Men who think they have a calling are dangerous. Both to themselves and their environment. You should have drowned like him.’

‘But as you see, I’m still here.’

‘I still don’t understand how that’s possible. Are you claiming that having been battered by the water you still had enough air in your lungs to swim eighty metres in ice-cold water through a narrow tunnel, fully clothed?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ The old man smiled. He seemed genuinely curious.

‘No, I had too little air in my lungs. But I had enough for forty metres.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I was saved.’

‘Saved? By whom?’

‘By the man you said was good, deep down.’ Harry held up the empty whiskey bottle. ‘Jim Beam.’

‘You were saved by whiskey?’

‘A bottle of whiskey.’

‘An empty bottle of whiskey?’

‘On the contrary, a full bottle.’

Harry put the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, unscrewed the cap, held the bottle over his head.

‘Full of air.’

The old man gave a look of disbelief. ‘You…?’

‘The biggest problem after emptying my lungs of air in the water was to put my mouth to the bottle, tilt it so the neck was pointing upwards, and I could inhale. It’s like diving for the first time. Your body protests. Because your body has a limited knowledge of physics and thinks it will suck in water and drown. Did you know that the lungs can take four litres of air? Well, a whole bottle of air and a bit of determination were enough to swim another forty metres.’ The policeman put down the bottle, removed his cigarette and looked at it sceptically. ‘The Germans should have made a slightly longer tunnel.’

Harry watched the old man. Saw the furrowed old face split. Heard him laugh. It sounded like the chug-chug of a boat.

‘I knew you were different, Harry. They told me you would come back to Oslo when you heard about Oleg. So I made enquiries. And I know now the rumours did not exaggerate.’

‘Well,’ Harry said, keeping an eye on the priest’s folded hands. Sat on the edge of the bed with both feet on the floor, ready as it were, with so much weight on his toes that he could feel the thin nylon cord beneath his shoe. ‘What about you, Rudolf? Do the rumours exaggerate in your case?’

‘Which ones?’

‘Well, for example, the ones saying you ran a heroin network in Gothenburg and killed a policeman there.’

‘Sounds like it’s me who has to confess and not you, eh?’

‘Thought it would be good to unburden your sins onto Jesus before you die.’

More chug-chug laughter. ‘Good one, Harry! Good one! Yes, we had to eliminate him. He was our burner, and I had a feeling he was not reliable. And I couldn’t go back to prison. There’s a stale dampness that eats away at your soul, the way mould eats walls. Every day takes another chunk. Your human side is consumed, Harry. It’s something I would only wish on my worst enemy.’ He looked at Harry. ‘An enemy I hate above all else.’

‘You know why I came back to Oslo. What was your reason? I thought Sweden was as good a market as Norway.’

‘Same as you, Harry.’

‘Same?’

Rudolf Asayev took a drag of the black cigarette before answering. ‘Forget it. The police were on my heels after the murder. And it’s strange how far away you are from Sweden in Norway, despite the proximity.’

‘And when you came back you became the mysterious Dubai. The man no one had seen. But who was thought to haunt the town at night. The ghost of Kvadraturen.’

‘I had to stay under cover. Not only because of the businesses, but because the name Rudolf Asayev would bring back bad memories for the police.’

‘In the seventies and eighties,’ Harry said, ‘heroin addicts died like flies. But perhaps you included them in your prayers, Pastor?’

The old man shrugged. ‘One doesn’t judge people who make sports cars, base-jumping parachutes, handguns or other goods people buy for fun and yet send them to their deaths. I deliver something people want, of quality and at a price that makes me competitive. What customers do with the goods is up to them. You are aware, are you, that there are fully functioning citizens who take opiates?’

‘Yes, I was one of them. The difference between you and a sports car manufacturer is that what you do is forbidden by law.’

‘One should be careful mixing law and morality, Harry.’

‘So you think your god will exonerate you, do you?’

The old man rested his chin on his hand. Harry could sense his exhaustion, but he knew it could be faked, and watched his movements carefully.

‘I heard you were a zealous policeman and a moralist, Harry. Oleg spoke about you to Gusto. Did you know that? Oleg loved you like a father would wish a son to love him. Zealous moralists and love-hungry fathers like us have enormous dynamism. Our weakness is that we are predictable. It was just a question of time before you came. We have a connection at Gardermoen who sees the passenger lists. We knew you were on your way even before you sat down on the plane in Hong Kong.’

‘Mm. Was that the burner, Truls Berntsen?’

The old man smiled by way of answer.

‘And what about Isabelle Skoyen on the City Council? Did you work with her too?’

The old man heaved a heavy sigh. ‘You know I’ll take the answers with me to the grave. I’m happy to die like a dog, but not like an informer.’

‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘what happened next?’

‘Andrey followed you from the airport to Hotel Leon. I stay at a variety of similar hotels when I’m in circulation as Cato, and Leon is a place I’ve stayed at a lot. So I checked in the day after you.’

‘Why?’

‘To follow what you were doing. I wanted to see if you were getting close to us.’

‘As you did when Beret Man stayed here?’

The old man nodded. ‘I knew you could be dangerous, Harry. But I liked you. So I tried to give you some friendly warnings.’ He sighed. ‘But you didn’t listen. Of course you didn’t. People like you and me don’t, Harry. That’s why we succeed. And that’s also in the end why we always fail.’

‘Mm. What were you afraid I would do? Persuade Oleg to grass?’

‘That too. Oleg had never seen me, but I couldn’t know what Gusto had told him. Gusto was, sad to say, untrustworthy, especially after he began to take violin himself.’ There was something in the old man’s eyes that Harry realised with a jolt was not the result of tiredness. It was pain. Sheer unadulterated pain.

‘So when you thought Oleg would talk to me you tried to have him killed. And when that didn’t work you offered to help me. So that I would lead you to Oleg.’

The old man nodded slowly. ‘It’s not personal, Harry. Those are the rules in this industry. Grasses are eliminated. But you knew that, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I knew. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill you for following your rules.’

‘So why haven’t you done it already? Don’t you dare? Afraid you’ll burn in hell, Harry?’