Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

'First of all I need to know-'

'I've got him here. Chained to the bed.'

'You've chained someone up, you say?'

'He's a killer, isn't he? He's dangerous. I saw him with a gun at the restaurant. His name's Christo Stankic. I saw the name in the paper.'

The other end went quiet for a moment. Then the voice was back, but a little less unruffled. 'Calm down now. Tell me who you are and where you are, then we'll come at once.'

'And what about the reward?'

'If this leads to the arrest of the correct person I will confirm that you helped us.'

'And I'll be given the reward straight away?'

'Yes.'

Tore thought. About Cape Town. About Father Christmas in the baking sun. The telephone creaked. He breathed in ready to answer and looked into the twelve thousand kroner rococo mirror. At that moment Tore realised three things. The creaking sound had not come from the telephone. You don't get top-quality mail-order handcuffs in a beginners' pack for 599 kroner. And in all probability he had celebrated his last Christmas.

'Hello?' said the voice on the telephone.

Tore Bjorgen would have liked to answer, but a thin nylon string of shiny beads, looking every inch like a Christmas decoration, was blocking the airway essential for the production of sound from vocal cords.

Thursday, 18 December. The Container.

Four people were in the car driving through the darkness and the snow between the high drifts.

'Ostgard is up here to the left,' Jon said from the back seat where he had his arm around Thea's cowed figure.

Halvorsen turned off the main road. Harry observed the scattered farmhouses, lit up and flashing like lighthouses at the tops of hills or among clumps of trees.

As Harry had said that Robert's flat was no longer a safe hideout, Jon had himself suggested Ostgard. And insisted on Thea joining him.

Halvorsen swung onto the drive between a white farmhouse and a red barn.

'We'll have to ring the neighbour and ask him to clear away some snow with his tractor,' Jon said as they waded through the fresh snow towards the farmhouse.

'Nothing doing,' Harry said. 'No one must know you're here. Not even the police.'

Jon walked over to the house wall beside the steps, counted five boards and plunged his hand in the snow and under the boarding.

'Here,' he said, holding up a key.

It felt even colder indoors than outside, and the painted wooden walls seemed to have frozen into ice blocks, rendering their voices harsh. They stamped the snow off their footwear and entered a large kitchen with a solid table, kitchen cabinet, storage bench and Jotul woodburning stove in the corner.

'I'll get the fire going.' Jon's breath was icy and he rubbed his hands for warmth. 'There's probably some firewood inside the bench, but we'll need more from the woodshed.'

'I can get it,' Halvorsen said.

'You'll have to dig a pathway. There are two spades in the porch.'

'I'll join you,' Thea mumbled.

It had stopped snowing and the weather was clearing. Harry stood by the window smoking and watching Halvorsen and Thea shovelling the light, fresh snow in the white moonlight. The stove was crackling and Jon was on his haunches staring into the flames.

'How did your girlfriend take the Ragnhild Gilstrup business?' Harry asked.

'She's forgiven me,' he said. 'As I said, it was before her time.'

Harry watched his cigarette glow. 'Still no ideas about what she might have been doing in your flat?'

Jon shook his head.

'I don't know whether you noticed,' Harry said, 'but it looked as though the bottom drawer of your desk had been broken into. What did you keep there?'

Jon shrugged. 'Personal things. Letters for the most part.'

'Love letters? From Ragnhild, for example?'

Jon blushed. 'I… don't remember. I threw away most of them, but I may have kept the odd couple. I kept the drawer locked.'

'So that Thea wouldn't find them if she was alone in the flat?'

Jon gave a slow nod.

Harry went out to the steps overlooking the farmyard, took a few final drags on his cigarette, threw it into the snow and took out his mobile phone. Gunnar Hagen answered on the third ring.

'I've moved Jon Karlsen,' Harry said.

'Be specific.'

'Not necessary.'

'Pardon?'

'He's safer now than he was. Halvorsen will stay here tonight.'

'Where, Hole?'

'Here.'

Listening to the silence on the phone, Harry had an inkling of what was coming. Then Hagen's voice came through loud and clear.

'Hole, your commanding officer has just asked you a specific question. Refusing to answer is regarded as insubordination. Am I making myself clear?'

Harry often wished he had been wired in a different way and that he possessed a bit more of the social survival instinct most people have. But he didn't, and he never had done.

'Why is it important for you to know, Hagen?'

Hagen's voice shook with fury. 'I'll tell you when you can ask me questions, Hole. Have you got that?'

Harry waited. And waited. And then, hearing Hagen take a deep breath he said: 'Skansen Farm.'

'What did you say?'

'It's east of Strommen. The police training ground in Loren Forest.'

'I see,' Hagen said at length.

Harry rang off and punched in another number while watching Thea, who, illuminated by the moon, was standing and staring in the direction of the outside toilet. She had stopped shovelling snow and her body was frozen in a strange pose.

'Skarre here.'

'Harry. Anything new?'

'No.'

'No tip-offs?'

'Nothing serious.'

'But people are ringing in?'

'Christ, yes, they've twigged there's a reward on offer. Bad idea, if you ask me. Loads of extra work for us.'

'What do they say?'

'What don't they say! They describe faces they've seen that are similar. The funniest one was a guy who rang the duty officer claiming he had chained Stankic to his bed at home and asked if he was entitled to the reward.'

Harry waited until Skarre's peal of laughter died away. 'How did they establish that he hadn't?'

'They didn't need to. He put down the phone. Obviously confused. He claimed he had seen Stankic before. With a gun in the restaurant. What are you up to?'

'We- What did you say?'

'I asked if-'

'No, the bit about seeing Stankic with a gun.'

'Ha ha, people have got fertile imaginations, haven't they.'

'Put me through to the duty officer you spoke to.'

'Well-'

'Now, Skarre.'

Harry was put through, spoke to the officer in charge and after three sentences asked him to stay on the line.

'Halvorsen!' Harry's shout rang around the farmyard.

'Yes?' Halvorsen appeared in the moonlight in front of the barn.

'What's the name of that waiter who saw a guy in the toilet with a gun covered in soap?'

'How am I supposed to remember that?'

'I don't care how, just do it.'

In the night stillness the echoes rang out between the walls of the house and the barn.

'Tore something or other. Maybe.'

'Bullseye! Tore's the name he gave on the phone. Good man. And now the surname, please.'

'Er… Bjorg? No. Bjorang? No…'

'Come on, Lev Yashin!'

'Bjorgen. That was it. Bjorgen.'

'Drop the spade. You have permission to drive like a maniac.'

A police car stood waiting for them as twenty-eight minutes later Halvorsen and Harry drove past Vestkanttorget and turned into Schives gate to Tore Bjorgen's address, which the duty officer had been given by the head waiter at Biscuit.

Halvorsen came to a halt next to the police car and rolled down the window.

'Second floor,' the policewoman in the driver's seat said, pointing up to an illuminated window in the grey-brick facade.