Jo Nesbo - Phantom

‘Because you’ve got such a great cock, of course.’

‘No, be serious. If I hadn’t agreed to work with you and the old boy, I would’ve had to arrest you.’

‘Arrest?’ She snorted. ‘Everything I’ve done has been for the good of the town. Legalising marijuana, distributing methadone, financing a room for fixes. Or clearing the way for a drug that results in fewer ODs. What’s the difference? Drug policies are pragmatism, Mikael.’

‘Relax, I agree, goes without saying. We’ve made Oslo a better place. Skal to that.’

She ignored his raised glass. ‘You would never have arrested me anyway. Because, if you had, I would’ve told anyone who wanted to listen that I was fucking you behind your sweet little wife’s back.’ She giggled. ‘ Right behind her back. Do you remember the first time we met at that premiere and I said you could fuck me? Your wife was standing right behind you, barely out of earshot, but you didn’t even blink. Just asked me for fifteen minutes to send her home.’

‘Shh, you’re drunk,’ Mikael said, placing a hand on her spine.

‘That was when I knew you were a man after my own heart. So when the old boy said I should find myself an ally with the same ambitions as me, I knew exactly who to approach. Skal, Mikael.’

‘Speaking of which, we need a top-up. Perhaps we should go back and-’

‘Delete what I said about after my own heart. There are no men after my heart, they’re after my…’ Deep rumble of laughter. Hers.

‘Come on, let’s go.’

‘Harry Hole!’

‘Shh.’

‘There’s a man after my own heart. Bit stupid, of course, but… hm. Where do you think he is?’

‘Having trawled the town for him for so long without success, I assume he’s left the country. He got Oleg acquitted, he won’t be back.’

Isabelle swayed, but Mikael caught her.

‘You’re a bastard, Mikael, and we bastards deserve each other.’

‘Maybe, but we should go back in,’ Mikael said, glancing at his watch.

‘Don’t look so stressed, big boy. I can handle a drink. See?’

‘I see, but you go in first, then it won’t look so…’

‘Mucky?’

‘Something like that.’

Truls heard her hard laughter and watched her even harder heels hitting the cement.

She was gone and Mikael was left, leaning against the railing.

Truls waited for a few seconds. Then he stepped forward.

‘Hi, Mikael.’

His childhood pal turned. His eyes were glazed; his face was a little bloated. Truls presumed from the time it took him to react with a cheery smile that this was due to the booze.

‘There you are, Truls. I didn’t hear you come out here. Is there life inside?’

‘Shit, yes.’

They looked at each other. And Truls asked himself exactly when and where they had forgotten how to talk to each other, what had happened to those carefree chats, the daydreaming they had done together, the days when it was OK to say anything and talk about everything. The days when the two of them had been as one. Like early in their careers when they had smacked around the guy who had tried it on with Ulla. Or the bloody poof who had worked in Kripos and made a move on Mikael, and whom they had taken to the boiler room in Bryn a few days later. The guy had blubbed and apologised, saying he had misinterpreted Mikael. They had avoided his face so that it wouldn’t be so obvious, but the bloody crybaby had made Truls so angry he had wielded the truncheon with more force than he had intended, and Mikael had only just been able to stop him. They weren’t what you might call good memories, but still, they were experiences that bound two people together.

‘Well, I’m standing here and admiring the terrace,’ Mikael said.

‘Thanks.’

‘There was something that occurred to me, though. The night you poured the cement…’

‘Yes?’

‘You said, I think, that you were restless and couldn’t sleep. But it struck me that was the night we arrested Odin and raided Alnabru afterwards. And he disappeared — what was his name?’

‘Tutu.’

‘Tutu, yes. You were supposed to have been with us that night, but you were ill, you told me. And then you mixed concrete instead?’

Truls smirked. Looked at Mikael. At last he managed to catch his eye, and to keep it.

‘Do you want to hear the truth?’

Mikael seemed to hesitate before answering. ‘Love to.’

‘I was skiving.’

The terrace went quiet for a couple of seconds; all that could be heard was the distant rumble from the town.

‘Skiving?’ Mikael laughed. Sceptical, but good-natured laughter. Truls liked his laugh. Everyone did, men and women alike. It was a laugh that said you’re funny and nice and probably clever and well worth a friendly chuckle.

‘ You skived? You who never skives and loves making an arrest?’

‘Yes,’ Truls said. ‘I couldn’t be bothered. I’d pulled.’

Silence again.

Then Mikael roared with laughter. He leaned back and laughed so much he was gasping for breath. Zero cavities. Bent forward again and smacked Truls on the shoulder. It was such happy, liberating laughter that for some seconds Truls simply couldn’t help himself. He joined in.

‘Screwing and building a terrace,’ Mikael Bellman gasped. ‘You’re quite a man, you are, Truls. Quite a man.’

Truls could feel the praise making him grow back to his normal size. And for one moment it was almost like the old days. No, not almost, it was like the old days.

‘You know,’ he grunted, ‘now and then you have to do things all on your own. That’s the only way you get a decent job done.’

‘True,’ Mikael said, wrapping an arm round Truls’s shoulders and stamping both feet on the terrace. ‘But this, Truls, is a lot of cement for one man.’

Yes, Truls thought, feeling exultant laughter bubble up in his chest. It is a lot of cement for one man.

‘I should have kept the Game Boy when you brought it,’ Oleg said.

‘You should,’ Harry said, leaning against the door frame. ‘Then you could have brushed up on your Tetris technique.’

‘And you should have taken the magazine out of this gun before you left it here.’

‘Maybe.’ Harry tried not to look at the Odessa pointing half at the floor, half at him.

Oleg smiled wanly. ‘I suppose we’ve made a number of mistakes, both of us. No?’

Harry nodded.

Oleg had got to his feet and was standing beside the stove. ‘But I didn’t only make mistakes, did I?’

‘Not at all. You did a lot right as well.’

‘Like what?’

Harry shrugged. ‘Like claiming you threw yourself at the gun of this fictional killer. Saying he wore a balaclava and didn’t say a word. He only used gestures. You left it to me to draw the obvious conclusions: that it explained the gunshot residue on your skin, and that the killer didn’t speak because he was afraid you would recognise his voice, so he had some connection with the drug trade or the police. My guess is you used the balaclava because you noticed the policeman with you at Alnabru had one. In your story you located him in the neighbouring office because it was stripped bare, and it was open so everyone could come and go from there to the river. You gave me the hints so that I could build my own convincing explanation of why you hadn’t killed Gusto. An explanation you knew my brain would manage. For our brains are always willing to let emotions make decisions. Always ready to find the consoling answers our hearts need.’

Oleg nodded slowly. ‘But now you have all the other answers. The correct ones.’

‘Apart from one,’ Harry said. ‘Why?’

Oleg didn’t reply. Harry held up his right hand while slowly putting his left in his trouser pocket and pulling out a crumpled pack and lighter.