Jo Nesbo - Phantom

Until it came to a stop.

Harry stuck his hand, which had already been bitten once, through the cavity. Felt the inside of the wall. Insulation batts to left and right. He felt above the cavity. Nothing. The insulation had been dug away. Harry secured the end of the fabric under one foot of the stove, went to the bathroom, unhooked the mirror, which was stained with saliva and phlegm, smashed it against the side of the basin and chose a suitably large fragment. Went into a bedroom, yanked a reading lamp from the wall and returned to the kitchen. He laid the chunk of mirror inside the cavity. Then he plugged the lamp in the socket beside the stove and shone it on the mirror. Pointed the lamp at the wall until the angle was right, and he saw it.

The stash.

It was a cloth bag, hanging from a hook half a metre above the floor.

The opening was too narrow to insert your hand and twist your arm up to reach the bag. Harry racked his brains. What tool had the owner used to reach his stash? He had been through several drawers and cupboards in the flat, so rewound through his database.

The wire.

He went back into the sitting room. That was where he had seen it the first time he and Beate were here. Protruding from under the mattress and bent at an angle of ninety degrees. Only the owner of the stiff wire would have known its purpose. Harry poked it through the cavity and used the bent end to unhook the bag.

It was heavy. As heavy as he had hoped. He would have to squeeze it out.

The bag had been hung up high so that the rats could barely reach it, yet still they had managed to nibble a hole in the bottom. Harry shook the bag and a few grains fell out. That explained the powder on the rat’s coat. Then he opened the bag. Took out three small bags of violin, probably quarters. There wasn’t a full junkie kit inside, only a spoon with a curved handle and a used syringe.

It lay at the bottom of the bag.

Harry used a dishcloth so as not to leave fingerprints on it as he lifted it out.

It was unmistakable. Lumpen, odd, almost comical. Foo Fighters. It was an Odessa. Harry sniffed the weapon. The smell of gunpowder can hang around for months after a pistol has been fired if it isn’t cleaned and oiled in the meantime. This one had been fired not so long ago. He checked the magazine. Eighteen. Two missing. Harry was in no doubt.

This was the murder weapon.

When Harry entered the toy shop on Storgata there were still twelve hours to take-off.

The shop had two different sets of fingerprint equipment to choose from. Harry chose the more expensive one, with a magnifying glass, an LED light, a soft brush, dusting powder in three colours, sticky tape for lifting prints and an album for storing the family’s fingerprints.

‘For my son,’ he explained as he paid.

The girl behind the cash desk put on her routine smile.

He walked back to Hausmanns gate and got down to work using the ridiculously small LED light to search for prints and sprinkling powder from one of the miniature cans. The brush was so small that he felt like a giant from Gulliver’s Travels.

There were prints on the gun handle.

And there was one clear one, probably a thumbprint, on one side of the syringe plunger, where there were also black dots that could have been anything at all, but Harry guessed it was gunpowder residue.

As soon as he had all the fingerprints on the cling film he compared them. The same person had held the gun and the syringe. Harry had checked the walls and the floor by the mattress and had found quite a few prints, but none of them matched those on the pistol.

He opened the canvas suitcase and the pocket inside, took out the contents and placed them on the kitchen table. Switched on the LED light.

Looked at his watch. Eleven hours to go. Oceans of time.

It was two o’clock and Hans Christian Simonsen looked strangely out of place as he entered Schroder’s.

Harry was sitting in the corner by the window, his favourite table.

Hans Christian sat down.

‘Good?’ he asked, nodding to the pot of coffee by Harry.

Harry shook his head.

‘Thanks for coming.’

‘Not at all. Saturday’s a free day. A free day and nothing to do. What’s up?’

‘Oleg can come home.’

The solicitor brightened up. ‘Does that mean…?’

‘Those who might be a danger to Oleg have gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Yes. Is he far away?’

‘No, twenty minutes outside town. Nittedal. What do you mean they’ve gone?’

Harry raised his coffee cup. ‘Sure you want to know, Hans Christian?’

The solicitor eyed Harry. ‘Does that mean you’ve solved the case as well?’

Harry didn’t answer.

Hans Christian leaned forward. ‘You know who killed Gusto, don’t you.’

‘Mm.’

‘How?’

‘A few matching fingerprints.’

‘And who-?’

‘Not important. But I’m leaving today, so it would be nice to say goodbye to Oleg.’

Hans Christian smiled. Pained, but a smile nonetheless. ‘Before you and Rakel leave, you mean?’

Harry twirled his coffee cup. ‘So she’s told you?’

‘We had lunch. I agreed to look after Oleg for a few days. I gather that some men will come from Hong Kong and collect him, some of your people. But I must have misunderstood something. You see, I thought you were in Bangkok.’

‘I was delayed. There’s something I want to ask you-’

‘She said more. She said you had proposed.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, in your way, of course.’

‘Well-’

‘And she said she’d thought about it.’

Harry held up a hand. He didn’t want to hear the rest.

‘The conclusion of her thoughts was no, Harry.’

Harry breathed out. ‘Good.’

‘So she’d stopped thinking about it, she said. And started feeling instead.’

‘Hans Christian-’

‘Her answer’s yes, Harry.’

‘Listen to me, Hans Christian-’

‘Didn’t you hear? She wants to marry you, Harry. Lucky bastard.’ Hans Christian’s face beamed as if with happiness, but Harry knew it was the glow of despair. ‘She said she wanted to be with you until the end of your days.’ His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and his voice alternated between falsetto and husky. ‘She said she would have a terrible and nothing short of catastrophic time with you. She would have a fair-to-middling time with you. And she would have a fantastic time with you.’

Harry knew he was quoting her verbatim. And he knew why he was doing it. Because every word was seared into his heart.

‘How much do you love her?’ Harry asked.

‘I…’

‘Do you love her enough to take care of her and Oleg for the rest of her life?’

‘What?’

‘Answer me.’

‘Yes, of course, but-’

‘Swear.’

‘Harry.’

‘Swear, I said.’

‘I… I swear. But that doesn’t change anything.’

Harry smiled wryly. ‘You’re right. Nothing changes. Nothing can change. It can’t ever change. The river flows along the same damned course.’

‘This makes no sense. I don’t understand.’

‘You will,’ Harry said. ‘And she will, too.’

‘But… you love each other. She said that straight out. You’re the love of her life, Harry.’

‘And she mine. Always has been. Always will be.’

Hans Christian regarded Harry with a mixture of bewilderment and something that resembled sympathy. ‘And yet you don’t want her?’

‘There is nothing I would rather have than her. But it’s not certain I’ll be here for much longer. And if I’m not, you’ve made me a promise.’

Hans Christian snorted. ‘Aren’t you being a trifle melodramatic, Harry? I don’t even know if she’ll have me.’

‘Convince her.’ The pains in his neck seemed to be making it more difficult for him to breathe. ‘Do you promise?’