Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

Harry shook his head. 'My dearest Geir,' the letter began. No flowers.

'Is there anything I can help you with?' she asked.

It struck Harry that she may not have had any other voices in her repertoire, just this deep, warm tone.

'Per Holmen…' Harry started, not knowing quite how to finish.

'Poor Per, yes. We'll have a remembrance day for him in January.

Harry nodded. 'First Wednesday.'

'That's it. And you're very welcome to come, brother.'

This 'brother' was enunciated with such unforced ease, like an underplayed and hence almost unarticulated appendix to the sentence. For a moment Harry almost believed her.

'I'm a detective,' Harry said.

The difference in height between them was so great that she had to crane her neck to see him clearly.

'I've seen you before, I think, but it must be years ago.'

Harry nodded. 'Maybe. I've been here once or twice, but I haven't seen you.'

'I'm part-time here. Otherwise I'm at the Salvation Army headquarters. And you work in the drugs division?'

Harry shook his head. 'Murder investigations.'

'Murder. But Per wasn't murdered…?'

'Can we sit down for a moment?'

She hesitated and looked round.

'Busy?' Harry asked.

'Not at all, it's unusually quiet. On a normal day we serve 1,800 slices of bread. But today's dole day.'

She called one of the boys behind the counter, who agreed to take over. Harry caught her name at the same time. Martine. The head of the man with the empty cigarette paper had been ratcheted down a few more notches.

'There are a couple of things that don't check out,' Harry said after sitting down. 'What sort of person was he?'

'Hard to say,' she said. Harry's quizzical expression produced a sigh. 'When you've been on drugs for so many years, like Per, the brain is so destroyed that it's hard to see a personality. The urge to get high is all-pervasive.'

'I know that, but I mean… to people who knew him well…'

'Can't help, I'm afraid. You can ask Per's father how much of his son's personality was left. He came down here a couple of times to collect him. In the end, he gave up. He said Per had started to threaten them at home, because they locked away all their valuables when he was around. He asked me to keep an eye on the boy. I said we would do our best, but we couldn't promise miracles. And we didn't of course…'

Harry observed her. Her face expressed nothing more than the usual social worker's resignation.

'It must be hell,' Harry said, scratching his leg.

'Yes, you have to be an addict yourself to understand it.'

'To be a parent, I was thinking.'

Martine didn't answer. A man in a torn quilted jacket had come to the neighbouring table. He opened a transparent plastic bag and emptied out a pile of dry tobacco that must have come from hundreds of fag ends. It covered the cigarette paper and the black fingers of the man sitting there.

'Happy Christmas,' the man mumbled and departed with the junkie's old-man gait.

'What doesn't check out?' Martine asked.

'The blood specimen shows almost no toxins,' Harry said.

'So?'

Harry looked at the man next to him. He was desperately trying to roll a cigarette, but his fingers would not obey. A tear ran down his brown cheek.

'I know a couple of things about getting high,' Harry said. 'Do you know if he owed money to anyone?'

'No.' Her answer was curt. So much so that Harry already knew the answer to his next question.

'But you could maybe-'

'No,' she interrupted, 'I cannot make enquiries. Listen, these are people no one cares about, and I am here to help them, not to persecute them.'

Harry gave her a searching look. 'You're right. I apologise for asking and it won't happen again.'

'Thank you.'

'Just one last question?'

'Come on.'

'Would you…' Harry hesitated, wondering if he was about to commit a blunder. 'Would you believe me if I said I did care?'

She angled her head and studied Harry. 'Should I?'

'Well, I'm investigating a case everyone thinks is the cut-and-dried suicide of a person no one cared about.'

She didn't answer.

'It's good coffee.' Harry got up.

'You're welcome,' she said. 'And may God bless you.'

'Thank you,' Harry said, feeling, to his surprise, the lobes of his ears flush.

On his way out he stopped in front of the guard and turned, but she had gone. The man in the hoody offered Harry the green plastic bag with the packed lunch, but he turned it down, pulled his coat tighter around him and went out into the streets where he could already see the sun making its blushing retreat into Oslo fjord. He walked towards the Akerselva. In the area known as Eika a man was standing erect in a snowdrift with the sleeve of a quilted jacket rolled up and a needle hanging from his forearm. He smiled as he looked straight through Harry and the frosty mist over Gronland.

Monday, 15 December. Halvorsen.

Pernille Holmen seemed even smaller sitting in her armchair in Fredensborgveien with large, red-rimmed eyes staring at Harry. In her lap she held a glass-framed photograph of her son Per.

'He was nine here,' she said.

Harry had to swallow. Partly because no smiling nine-year-old in a life jacket looks as if they imagined they would end up in a container with a bullet through their head. And partly because the photo reminded him of Oleg, who could forget himself and call Harry 'Pappa'. Harry wondered how long it would take him to call Mathias Lund-Helgesen 'Pappa'.

'Birger, my husband, used to go out in search of Per if he had been missing for a few days,' she said. 'Even though I asked him to stop. I couldn't stand having Per here any longer.'

Harry repressed his thought, Why not?

Birger Holmen was at the undertaker's, she had explained, when Harry called by unannounced.

She sniffled. 'Have you ever shared a house with someone who has an addiction?'

Harry didn't answer.

'He stole everything that came to hand. We accepted it. That is, Birger, accepted it. He's the loving one of us two.' She pulled her face into a grimace, which Harry interpreted as a smile.

'He defended Per in everything. Right up to this autumn. Until Per threatened me.'

'Threatened you?'

'Yes, threatened to kill me.' She looked down at the photo and rubbed the glass as though it had become unclear. 'Per rang the bell one morning and I refused to let him in. I was on my own. He wept and begged, but we had played that game before, so I was hard. I went back into the kitchen and sat down. I don't know how he got in, but all of a sudden there he was – standing in front of me with a gun.'

'The same gun he…'

'Yes. Yes, I think so.'

'Go on.'

'He forced me to unlock the cupboard where I kept my jewellery. That is, the little I had left. He had already taken most of it. Then he was off.'

'And you?'

'Me? I had a breakdown. Birger came and took me to hospital.' She sniffled. 'Where they wouldn't even give me any more pills. They said I'd had enough.'

'What kind of pills were they?'

'What do you think? Tranquillisers. Enough! When you have a son who keeps you awake at night because you're frightened he'll return. ..' She paused and pressed a clenched fist against her mouth. Tears were in her eyes. Then she whispered in such a low voice that Harry struggled to catch the words: 'Sometimes you don't want to live any longer…'

Harry cast his eyes down to his notepad. It was blank.

'Thank you,' he said.

'One night, sir. Is that correct?' asked the female receptionist in Scandia Hotel by Oslo Central Station, without looking up from the reservation on the computer screen.

'Yes,' the man before her answered.

She had made a mental note that he was wearing a light brown coat. Camel hair. Or imitation.