Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

Halvorsen groaned. 'This is just sick.'

'A kind of fetishism,' Harry said. 'And actually no sicker than you enjoying the sight of women in miniskirts and suspenders or whatever gets you going.'

'Uniforms,' Halvorsen said. 'All kinds. Nurses, parking wardens. ..'

'Thank you,' Harry said.

'What do you think?' Halvorsen asked. 'Suicide pills?'

'Better ask him,' Harry said, picking up the glass of water and emptying the contents over the face below. Halvorsen stared at the inspector open-mouthed.

'If you hadn't been so full of prejudice you would have heard him breathing,' Harry said. 'This is Stesolid. Not much worse than Valium.'

The man on the bed was gasping for air. Then the face contracted and was seized with a fit of coughing.

Harry sat on the edge and waited for a pair of terrified, though still tiny, pupils to succeed in focusing on him.

'We're policemen, Bjorgen. Apologies for bursting in like this, but we were led to believe you had something we wanted. Which you no longer have, it seems.'

The eyes in front of him blinked twice. 'What are you talking about?' a thick voice said. 'How did you get in?'

'Door,' Harry said. 'You had another visitor earlier this evening.'

The man shook his head.

'That's what you told the police,' Harry said.

'No one has been here. And I have not rung the police. My number is ex-directory. You can't trace it.'

'Yes, we can. And I didn't say anything about you ringing. You said on the phone you had chained someone to the bed and I can see bits of metal from the bed rails here on the sheet. Looks like the mirror out there has had a pasting, too. Did he get away, Bjorgen?'

The man gawked from Harry to Halvorsen and back.

'Did he threaten you?' Harry spoke in the same low monotone. 'Did he say he would be back if you said a word to us? Is that it? You're frightened?'

The man's mouth opened. Perhaps it was the leather mask that made Harry think of a pilot who had strayed off course. Robert Smith adrift.

'That's what they usually say,' Harry said. 'But do you know what? If he'd meant it, you'd be dead already.'

The man stared at Harry.

'Do you know where he went, Bjorgen? Did he take anything with him? Money? Clothes?'

Silence.

'Come on. This is important. He's hunting a person here in Oslo he wants to kill.'

'I have no idea what you're talking about,' whispered Tore Bjorgen without taking his eyes off Harry. 'Would you please go now?'

'Of course. But I ought to point out that you risk being charged for giving refuge to a murderer on the run. Which the court may, in a worst-case scenario, regard as being an accessory to murder.'

'Based on what evidence? Alright, maybe I did ring. I was kidding. Wanted a bit of a laugh. So what?'

Harry got up from the bed. 'As you like. We're going now. Pack a few clothes. I'll send a couple of guys to pick you up, Bjorgen.'

'Pick me up?'

'As in arrest.' Harry motioned to Halvorsen that they were going.

'Arrest me?' Bjorgen's voice was thick no longer. 'Why? You haven't got a bloody thing on me.'

Harry showed what he was holding between his thumb and first finger. 'Stesolid is a prescription drug like amphetamine and cocaine, Bjorgen. So unless you produce a prescription I'm afraid we'll have to arrest you for possession. Two years' custodial sentence.'

'You're joking.' Bjorgen hauled himself up in bed and made a grab for the duvet on the floor. Only now did he seem to be aware of the outfit he was wearing.

Harry walked to the door. 'I quite agree with you, Bjorgen. In my personal opinion, Norwegian legislation is much too harsh on soft drugs. For that reason, under different circumstances, I might have turned a blind eye. Goodnight.'

'Wait!'

Harry stopped. And waited.

'His b-b-brothers…' Bjorgen stammered.

'Brothers?'

'He said he would send his brothers after me if anything happened to him in Oslo. If he was arrested or killed, however it happened, they would come for me. He said his brothers like to use acid.'

'Hasn't got any brothers,' Harry said.

Bjorgen raised his head, looked up at the policeman and asked with genuine surprise in his voice: 'Hasn't he?'

Harry shook his head.

Bjorgen wrung his hands. 'I… I took those pills because I was so upset. That's what they're for. Isn't it?'

'Where did he go?'

'He didn't say.'

'Did he take any money?'

'Some change I had on me. Then he cleared off. And I… I just sat here and was so frightened…' A sudden sob interrupted the flow and he huddled under the duvet. 'I am so frightened.'

Harry eyed the weeping man. 'If you like, you can sleep down at Police HQ tonight.'

'I'll stay here,' Bjorgen sniffled.

'OK. One of us will be round early tomorrow to have a further chat.'

'Alright. Hang on! If you catch him…'

'Yes?'

'That reward's still on, isn't it?'

He had the fire going well now. The flames glinted in a triangular piece of glass he had used from the broken window in the hut. He had collected more wood and felt his body beginning to thaw. It would be worse in the night but he was alive. He had cut strips off his shirt with the piece of glass and wound them round his bleeding fingers. The animal's jaws had closed around his hand holding the gun. And the gun.

The shadow of a black Metzner hanging between roof and floor flickered on the container wall. The jaws were open and the body stretched out and frozen in one last silent attack. The rear legs were tied with wire which was threaded through a gap in one of the iron grooves in the roof. The blood trickling out of the mouth and the opening behind the ear where the bullet had exited dripped onto the floor with clock-like regularity. He would never know whether it was his forearm muscles or the dog's bite that squeezed the finger on the trigger, but he had the impression he could still feel the walls vibrating after the shot. The sixth since he had arrived in this accursed city. And now he had one bullet left in the gun.

One was enough, but how would he find Jon Karlsen now? He needed someone to lead him in the right direction. The policeman came to mind. Harry Hole. It didn't sound like a common name. Perhaps he wouldn't be so difficult to find.

Thursday, 18 December. The Citadel.

The neon sign outside Vika Atrium showed minus eighteen and the clock inside 9 p. m. as Harry and Halvorsen stood in the glass lift watching the tropical plants becoming smaller and smaller beneath them.

Halvorsen pursed his lips, then changed his mind. Pursed them again.

'Glass lifts are fine,' Harry interrupted. 'No problem with heights.'

'Uh-huh.'

'I want you to do the introductions and ask the questions. I'll join in after a while. OK?'

Halvorsen nodded.

They had just sat down in the car after the visit to Tore Bjorgen when Gunnar Hagen had called and asked them to go down to Vika Atrium where Albert and Mads Gilstrup, father and son, were waiting for them in order to make a statement. Harry had pointed out that it was not normal practice to ring the police to make a statement and he had asked that Skarre deal with the matter.

'Albert is an old acquaintance of the Chief 's,' Hagen had explained. 'He phoned to say they had decided they didn't want to make a statement to anyone except the officer leading the inquiry. On the positive side, there won't be a solicitor present.'

'Well-'

'Great. I appreciate that.'

So, no command this time.

A little man in a blue blazer was waiting for them outside the lift.

'Albert Gilstrup,' he said with minimal movement from a lipless mouth as he proffered a fleeting but firm handshake. Gilstrup had white hair and a furrowed, weather-beaten face but young, alert eyes, which studied Harry as he led him towards a door with a sign declaring that this was where Gilstrup Invest was housed.