Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

Harry opened the envelope. 'You'll get the photos back later.'

He stood by the window of the Radisson SAS hotel in Holbergs plass looking out over the white, frozen town at the break of day. The buildings were low and modest; it was strange to think this was the capital of one of the richest countries in the world. The Royal Palace was an anonymous yellow construction, a compromise between a pietistic democracy and a penniless monarchy. Through the branches of the naked trees he glimpsed a large balcony. The King must have addressed his subjects from there. He raised an imaginary rifle to his shoulder, closed one eye and took aim. The balcony blurred into two.

He had dreamt about Giorgi.

The first time he had met Giorgi he had been crouching by a whimpering dog. The dog was Tinto, but who was this boy with blue eyes and blond, curly hair? Working together they had managed to get Tinto into a wooden box and carry him to the town vet who lived in a grey tworoom brick house in an overgrown apple orchard down by the river. The vet had diagnosed dental problems and said he was no dentist. Besides, who would pay for an ageing stray which would soon lose the rest of its teeth? It would be better to put it to sleep now to avoid the pain and a slow death by starvation. But then Giorgi had started crying. High-pitched, heart-rending, almost melodic crying. And when the vet had asked why he was crying, Giorgi had said perhaps the dog was Jesus, because his father had told him that Jesus walked among us, was one of the humblest of us, well, maybe even a poor, pathetic dog that no one would give either shelter or food. With a shake of his head, the vet had rung the dentist. After school he and Giorgi had gone back to see a tail-wagging Tinto, and the vet had shown them the fine, black fillings in his mouth.

Although Giorgi was in the class above him, they had played together a few times after that. But it lasted just a few weeks because the summer holidays had begun. And when school started up again in the autumn, Giorgi seemed to have forgotten him. At any rate, he ignored him as though wanting nothing to do with him.

He had forgotten about Tinto, but he never forgot Giorgi. Several years later, though, during the siege, he had come across an emaciated dog in the ruins at the southern end of the town. It had trotted over to him and licked his face. It had lost its leather collar, and it was only when he saw the black fillings that he had realised it was Tinto.

He checked his watch. The bus to take them to the airport would arrive in ten minutes. He grabbed his suitcase, threw a last glance around the room to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Paper rustled as he pushed open the door. He looked down the corridor and saw the same newspaper lying outside several of the rooms. The picture of the crime scene on the front page met his eyes. He bent down and picked up the thick newspaper bearing a name in illegible Gothic script.

While he was waiting for the lift, he tried to read, but although some of the words somehow reminded him of German he understood next to nothing. Instead, he flicked through to the pages referred to on the front. At that moment the lift doors opened and he decided to put the large, unwieldy newspaper in the litter bin between the two lifts. But the lift was empty, so he kept it, pressed zero and concentrated on the pictures. His eye was caught by the text beneath one of the pictures. At first he didn't believe what he was reading. But as the lift jolted into action he experienced a sudden realisation with such horrible certainty that he went dizzy for a second and had to support himself on the wall. The newspaper almost fell out of his hand and he didn't see the lift doors opening in front of him.

When, at last, he did look up he was staring into the darkness and he knew he was in the basement and not in reception, which for some strange reason was floor 1 in this country.

He stepped out of the lift and the doors closed behind him. In the dark he sat down and tried to think clearly. Because this upset all his plans. The airport bus left in eight minutes. That was all the time he had to make a decision.

'I'm trying to look at some pictures here,' Harry said in desperation.

Halvorsen peered up from his desk opposite Harry's. 'Be my guest.'

'Stop snapping your fingers then. Why do you do that?'

'This?' Halvorsen looked at his fingers, snapped them and, a little abashed, laughed. 'It's just an old habit.'

'Oh yes?'

'My dad was a fan of Lev Yashin, the Russian goalkeeper in the sixties.'

Harry waited for him to go on.

'My dad wanted me to be the keeper at the Steinkjer club. So when I was small he used to snap his fingers between my eyes. Like this. To harden me, so that I wouldn't be afraid of shots at goal. Apparently, Yashin's father had done the same. If I didn't blink, I got a sugar cube.'

The words were followed by a moment of total silence in the office.

'You're kidding,' Harry said.

'No. Nice brown sugar.'

'I meant the snapping. Is it true?'

'Absolutely. He did it all the time. During mealtimes, when we were watching TV, even when my pals were there. In the end I started doing it to myself. I wrote Yashin on all my school bags and carved his name into my desk. Even now I always use Yashin as my password on computer programs or anything that needs one. Despite knowing that I am being manipulated. Do you understand?'

'No. Did the snapping help?'

'Yes, I'm not afraid of shots coming at me.'

'So you…'

'No. Turned out I had no ball sense.'

Harry pinched his top lip between two fingers.

'Can you see anything in the pictures?' Halvorsen asked.

'Not when you're sitting there snapping your fingers. And talking.'

Halvorsen gave a slow shake of the head. 'Shouldn't we be on our way to the Salvation Army Headquarters?'

'When I've finished. Halvorsen!'

'Yes?'

'Do you have to breathe so… weirdly?'

Halvorsen clamped his mouth shut and held his breath. Harry's eyes shot up, and back down again. Halvorsen thought he caught a hint of a smile. But he wouldn't have put money on it. Now the smile was gone, replaced by a deep furrow in the inspector's brow.

'Come and have a look at this, Halvorsen.'

Halvorsen walked round the desks. There were two photographs in front of Harry, both of the crowds in Egertorget.

'Can you see the man with the woollen hat and neckerchief at the side?' Harry pointed to a grainy face. 'He's right in line with Robert Karlsen on the very edge of the band, isn't he?'

'Yes…'

'But look at this picture. There. The same hat and the same neckerchief, but now he's in the middle, right in front of the band.'

'Is that so strange? He must have moved to the middle to hear and see better.'

'But what if he did that in reverse order?' Halvorsen didn't answer, so Harry went on. 'You don't change a place at the front for somewhere by the speaker where you can't see the band. Unless you have a good reason.'

'To shoot someone?'

'Cut the flippancy.'

'OK, but you don't know which photo was taken first. I bet he moved to the middle.'

'How much?'

'Two hundred.'

'Done. Look at the light under the lamp post. It's in both photos.' Harry passed Halvorsen a magnifying glass. 'Can you see any difference?'

Halvorsen nodded slowly.

'Snow,' Harry said. 'On the photo with him at the side it's snowing. When it started in the evening, yesterday, it didn't stop until well into the night. So that photo was taken later. We'll have to call that Wedlog guy from Dagbladet. If he was using a digital camera with an internal clock, he may have the precise time the photo was taken.'

Hans Wedlog, from Dagbladet, was one of those who swore by singlelens reflex cameras and rolls of film. Hence, as far as the timing of individual photos was concerned, he had to disappoint the inspector.