Jo Nesbo - Phantom

She had discovered that the man’s stomach was harder to get through than she thought and she had to find another option. So she returned to where she had started.

Bit once into the leather shoe.

Licked the metal again, the salty metal that protruded between two of the fingers on the right hand.

Scrabbled up the suit jacket that smelt of sweat, blood and food, so many types of food that the linen material must have been in a rubbish tip.

And there it was again, molecules of the unusually strong smell of smoke that had not been completely washed out. And even the few molecules stung her eyes, caused them to water and made it hard to breathe.

She ran up the arm, across the shoulder, found a bloodstained bandage around the neck, which distracted her for a moment. Then she heard the squeals of her young again and scuttled up the chest. There was still a strong smell coming from the two round holes in the suit jacket. Sulphur, gunpowder. One was right by the heart; at any rate the rat could sense the barely perceptible vibrations as it beat. It was still beating. She continued up to the forehead, licked the blood running in a single thin stream from the blond hair. Went down to the lips, nostrils, eyelids. There was a scar along the cheek. The rat brain worked as rat brains do in maze experiments, with astonishing rationality and efficiency. The cheek. The inside of the mouth. The neck directly below the head. Then it would be at the back. A rat’s life was hard and simple. You do what you have to do.

The moonlight glistened on the River Akerselva, making the filthy little stream run through the town like a gold chain. There were not many women who chose to walk along the deserted paths by the water, but Martine did. It had been a long day at the Watchtower, and she was tired. But in a good way. It had been a good, long day. A boy approached her from the shadows, saw her face in the torch beam, mumbled a low ‘hi’ and retreated.

Rikard had asked, a couple of times, if she shouldn’t, now that she was pregnant as well, take a different way home, but she had responded it was the shortest way to Grunerlokka. And she refused to let anyone take her town from her. Besides, she knew so many of the people who lived under the bridges that she felt safer there than in some hip bar in Oslo West. She had walked past A amp;E, Schous plass and was heading for Bla when she heard the tarmac resound with the short, hard smack of shoes. A tall young man came running towards her. Glided through the darkness, shining a light along the path. She caught a glimpse of his face before he passed, and heard his panting breath fade into the distance behind her. It was a familiar face, one she had seen at the Watchtower. But there were so many, and sometimes she thought she had seen people whom colleagues told her the next day had been dead for months, years even. But for some reason the face made her think of Harry again. She never spoke about him with anyone, least of all Rikard, of course, but he had created a tiny little space inside her, a small room where she could occasionally go and visit him. Could that have been Oleg? Was that what had reminded her of Harry now? She turned. Saw the back of the boy who was running. As though he had the devil on his tail, as though he were trying to run away from something. But she couldn’t see anyone chasing him. He was getting smaller. And soon he was lost in the darkness.

Irene looked at her watch. Five past eleven. She leaned back in her seat and stared at the monitor above the desk. In a few minutes they would be allowing passengers to board the plane. Dad had texted that he would meet them at Frankfurt Airport. She was sweating and her body ached. It was not going to be easy. But it would be alright.

Stein squeezed her hand.

‘How’s it going, pumpkin?’

Irene smiled. Squeezed back.

It would be alright.

‘Do we know her?’ Irene whispered.

‘Who?’

‘The dark-haired one sitting over there on her own.’

She had been sitting there when they arrived as well, on a seat by the gate opposite them. She was reading a Lonely Planet book about Thailand. She was good-looking, the type of good looks that age never fades. And she radiated something, a kind of quiet happiness, as though she was laughing inside even if she was on her own.

‘I don’t. Who is she?’

‘I don’t know. She reminds me of someone.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

Stein laughed. That secure, calm older-brother laugh. Squeezed her hand again.

There was a drawn-out pling, and a metallic voice announced that the flight to Frankfurt was ready for boarding. People got up and swarmed towards the desk. Irene held on to Stein, who also wanted to get up.

‘What is it, pumpkin?’

‘Let’s wait until the queue dies down.’

‘But it-’

‘I don’t feel like standing in the tunnel so close… to people.’

‘OK. Stupid of me. How’s it going?’

‘Still good.’

‘Good.’

‘She looks lonely.’

‘Lonely?’ Stein looked over at the woman. ‘I disagree. She looks happy.’

‘Yes, but lonely.’

‘Happy and lonely?’

Irene laughed. ‘No, I’m mistaken. Perhaps it’s the boy she resembles who is lonely.’

‘Irene?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you remember what we agreed? Happy thoughts, OK?’

‘Right. The two of us aren’t lonely.’

‘No, we’re here for each other. For ever, right?’

‘For ever.’

Irene hooked her hand under her brother’s arm and rested her head on his shoulder. Thought about the policeman who had found her. Harry, he had said his name was. At first she had thought of the Harry Oleg had always gone on about. He was a policeman as well. But the way Oleg had talked she had always imagined him as taller, younger, perhaps better-looking than the somewhat ugly man who had freed her. But he had visited Stein too, and now she knew it was him. Harry Hole. And she knew she would remember him for the rest of her life. His scarred face, the wound across his chin and the big bandage around his neck. And the voice. Oleg hadn’t told her he’d had such a soothing voice. And all of a sudden she was sure, there was a certainty, where from, she had no idea, it was just there:

It was going to be alright.

Once she had left Oslo, she would be able to put everything behind her. She wasn’t to touch anything, neither alcohol nor dope, that was what Dad and the doctor she had consulted had explained to her. Violin would be there, it always would, but she would keep it at a distance. Just as the ghost of Gusto would always haunt her. The ghost of Ibsen. And all the poor souls she had sold death by powder. They would have to come when they came. And in a few years perhaps they would pale. And she would return to Oslo. The important thing was that she was going to be alright. She would manage to create a life that was worth living.

She watched the woman reading. And the woman looked up, as though she had noticed. She flashed her a brief but sparkly smile, then her nose was back in the travel guide.

‘We’re off,’ Stein said.

‘We’re off,’ Irene repeated.

Truls Berntsen drove through Kvadraturen. Trundled down towards Tollbugata. Up Prinsens gate. Down Radhusgata. He had left the party early, got into his car and driven wherever the whim took him. It was cold and clear and Kvadraturen was alive tonight. Prostitutes called after him — they must have scented the testosterone. Dope pushers were undercutting one another. The bass in a parked Corvette thudded, boom, boom, boom. A couple stood kissing by a tram stop. A man ran down the street laughing with glee, his suit jacket wide open and flapping; another man in an identical suit was running after him. On the corner of Dronningens gate one solitary Arsenal shirt. No one Truls had seen before, he must have been new. His police radio crackled. And Truls could feel a strange sense of well-being: the blood was streaming through his veins, the bass, the rhythm of everything that was happening, sitting here and watching, seeing all the small cogs that knew nothing of one another, yet made the others rotate. He was the only one to see, to see the totality. And that was precisely how it should be. For this was his town now.