Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

Harry leaned across Halvorsen. 'Halvorsen and I'll go up. One of you stay here in contact with the station, and one of you come with us to the backyard and keep an eye on the kitchen stairs. Have you got a gun in the boot I can borrow?'

'Yep,' the woman said.

Her male colleague bent forward. 'You're Harry Hole, aren't you?'

'That's right, Officer.'

'Someone at the station said you don't have a gun licence.'

'Didn't have, Officer.'

'Oh?'

Harry smiled. 'Overslept the first shooting test in the autumn. But you will be pleased to know that in the second I was the third best in the whole force. OK?'

The two officers exchanged glances.

'OK,' the man mumbled.

Harry jerked open the car door and the frozen rubber seal groaned. 'OK, let's check if there's anything in this tip-off.'

For the second time in two days Harry had an MP5 in his hands as he buzzed the intercom of someone called Sejerstedt and explained to a nervous lady's voice that they were from the police. She could go to the window and see the police car before she opened up. She did as he suggested. The female officer went into the backyard and took up position while Halvorsen and Harry went up the staircase.

The name Tore Bjorgen was written in black on a brass plate above a doorbell. Harry thought of Bjarne Moller, who the first time they had gone into action together had taught Harry the simplest and still the most effective method of finding out whether someone was at home. He pressed his ear against the glass in the door. There wasn't a sound from inside.

'Loaded and safety catch off?' Harry whispered.

Halvorsen had taken out his service revolver and was standing against the wall on the left of the door.

Harry rang.

Holding his breath, he listened.

Then he rang a second time.

'To break in or not to break in,' Harry whispered, 'that is the question.'

'In that case we should have phoned the public prosecutor first for a search-'

Halvorsen was interrupted by the tinkle of glass as Harry's MP5 struck the door. Harry thrust his hand in and opened up.

They slipped into the hall and Harry pointed to the doors Halvorsen should check. He went into the living room. Empty. But he noticed at once that the mirror over the telephone table had been hit by something hard. A round piece of glass in the middle had fallen out and, as though from a black sun, black lines radiated out to the gilt ornamental frame. Harry concentrated on the door at the end of the room that stood ajar.

'No one in the kitchen or bathroom,' Halvorsen whispered behind him.

'OK. Brace yourself.'

Harry moved towards the door. He could sense it now. If there was anything here they would find it inside. A defective exhaust silencer went off outside. The brakes of a tram squealed in the distance. Harry noticed that he had hunched up as if by instinct. To make himself the smallest target possible.

He pushed open the door with the muzzle of the machine gun and neatly stepped in and to the side so as not to be silhouetted. Hugged the wall keeping his finger on the trigger and waited for his eyes to get used to the dark.

In the light that came through the doorway he saw a large bed with brass rails. A pair of naked legs protruded from under the duvet. He strode forward, took the duvet by the end and whipped it off.

'Wow!' Halvorsen exclaimed. He was standing in the doorway and slowly lowered his revolver as he stared at the bed in amazement.

He took stock of the fence. Then he began his run-up and launched himself, using the worm-like movements on his way up that Bobo had taught him. The gun in his pocket hit him in the stomach as he swung himself over. In the light of the street lamp, on the ice-covered tarmac on the other side, he saw that there was a big tear in his blue jacket. White material billowed out.

A sound made him move away from the light, into the shadow of the containers that were lined up on top of each other in the huge port area. He listened and watched. The wind whistled through the broken windows of a dark, derelict wooden hut.

He didn't know why, but he felt he was being observed. No, not observed, he had been discovered, caught. Someone knew he was there, but they may not have seen him. His eyes searched the illuminated fence for possible alarms. Nothing.

He walked along two lines of containers before finding one that was open. Entered the impenetrable darkness and instantly knew this was no good; he would freeze to death if he slept here. Closing the door behind him, he felt the air move, as though he was standing in a block of something that was being transported.

There was a rustling sound as he stepped onto sheets of newspaper. He had to get warm.

Outside, he again had the feeling he was being observed. He went over to the hut, grabbed hold of one of the boards and pulled. It came away with a bang. He thought he glimpsed something move and whirled round. But all he could see was the glimmer of lights from inviting-looking hotels around Oslo Central Station and the darkness in the doorway of his lodging for the night. After wrestling off two further boards, he walked back to the container. There were prints where the snow had drifted. Of paws. Big paws. A guard dog. Had they been there before? He broke chunks off the boards which he placed against the steel wall inside the entrance to the container. He left the door ajar in the hope that some of the smoke would filter out. The box of matches from the room in the Hostel was in the same pocket as his gun. He lit the newspaper, put it under the wood and held his hands over the heat. Small flames licked up the rustred wall.

He thought about the waiter's terror-stricken eyes looking down the barrel of the gun as he had ransacked his pockets for change. That was all he had, he had explained. It had been enough for a burger and an underground ticket. Not enough for a place to hide, keep warm or sleep. Then the waiter had been stupid enough to say the police had been alerted and were on their way. And he had done what he had to do.

The flames lit up the snow outside. He noticed more paw-prints outside the door. Odd that he hadn't seen them when he first went to the container. He listened to his own breathing and its echo in the iron box where he was sitting, as though there were two of them inside, while following the prints with his eyes. He stiffened. His prints crossed the animal's. And in the middle of his shoe print he saw a paw mark.

He yanked the door to and the flames went out in the muffled thud. Only the edges of the newspaper glowed in the pitch dark. His breathing was heavy now. There was something out there, hunting him, it could smell him and recognise his smell. He held his breath. And that was when he knew: that the something hunting him was not outside. That it was not an echo of his breathing he could hear. It was inside. As he made a lunge for his gun in his pocket he caught himself thinking it was strange it hadn't growled, hadn't made a sound. Until now. And even that was no more than the soft scraping of claws on an iron floor as it launched itself. He just managed to raise his arm before the jaws snapped around his hand and the pain caused his mind to explode in a shower of fragments.

Harry scrutinised the bed and what he assumed was Tore Bjorgen.

Halvorsen came over and stood beside him: 'Sweet Jesus,' he whispered. 'What is going on here?'

Without answering him, Harry unzipped the black face mask the man in front of him was wearing and pulled the flap to one side. The painted red lips and make-up around the eyes reminded him of Robert Smith, the singer with The Cure.

'Is this the waiter you talked to in Biscuit?' Harry asked, looking round the room.

'I think so. What on earth is this get-up?'

'Latex,' Harry said, running the tips of his fingers over some metal shavings on the sheet. Then he picked up something beside a half-full glass of water on the bedside table. It was a pill. He studied it.