Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

'Swear by the Son of God that you will keep your part of the bargain.'

Harry hesitated. Then he bowed his head.

'I swear…' she began.

'I swear…'

'In the name of the Son, my Redeemer…'

'In the name of the Son, my Redeemer…'

'To do whatever is in my power to save the one they call mali spasitelj.'

Harry repeated.

She sat erect. 'This is where I met the client's go-between,' she said. 'This is where he set up the job. However, let's go. This is not the place to negotiate human destinies.'

Fred drove them to the large, open King Tomislav Park and waited in the car while Harry and Maria found a bench. Brown, withering blades of grass tried to stand but were flattened by the cold, wet wind. A tram bell rang on the other side of the old Exhibition Pavilion.

'I didn't see him,' she said. 'But he sounded young.'

'Sounded?'

'He phoned Hotel International in October the first time. If there are any calls about refugees they go through to Fred. He passed it on to me. The man told me he was ringing on behalf of an anonymous person who wanted a job done in Oslo. I remember there was a lot of traffic in the background.'

'Public telephone.'

'I assume so. I told him I never do business over the phone and never with anonymous individuals and rang off. Two days later he called again and asked me to go to St Stephen's in three days' time. I was given a precise time for when I was to appear and in which confessional.'

A crow landed on a branch in front of the bench, cocked its head and looked down on them gloomily.

'There were lots of tourists in the church that day. I entered the confessional at the appointed time. There was a sealed envelope on the chair. I opened it. Inside were detailed instructions about where and when Jon Karlsen was to be dispatched, an advance in dollars, way beyond our usual fee, and a suggested final figure. I was also informed that the go-between I had already spoken to on the phone would contact me to hear my answer and agree details of the financial arrangement if I accepted. The go-between would be our sole point of contact, but for security reasons he had not been initiated into the details of the task. Hence I was not allowed to divulge anything under any circumstances. I took the envelope, walked out of the confessional, the church and went back to the hotel. Half an hour later the go-between rang.'

'The same person who had called you from Oslo?'

'He didn't introduce himself, but as an ex-teacher I tend to notice how people speak English. And this person had a very idiosyncratic accent.'

'And what did you talk about?'

'I told him we were refusing the job for three reasons. First of all, because we make it our principle to know why a client wants a job done. Secondly, for security reasons we never let others determine the time or place. And, thirdly, because we don't work with anonymous clients.'

'What did he say?'

'He said he was responsible for making the payment, so I would have to put up with having only his identity. And he asked how much the price would have to increase for me to ignore the other objections. I answered that it was more than he could pay. So he told me how much he could pay. And I…'

Harry watched her as she searched for the right English words.

'… was not prepared for a sum of that size.'

'What did he say?'

'Two hundred thousand dollars. That's fifteen times our standard fee.'

Harry nodded slowly. 'So the motive wasn't that important any more?'

'You don't have to understand this, Hole, but we have had a plan the whole time. When we had enough money we would stop and move back to Vukovar. Start a new life. I knew this offer was our ticket out. This would be the last job.'

'So the principle of an ethical murder business had to give way?' Harry asked, rummaging for his cigarettes.

'Do you run ethical murder investigations, Hole?'

'Yes and no. You have to live.'

She flashed a smile. 'So there's not much difference between you and me, is there?'

'I doubt it.'

'Aha. If I'm not much mistaken you hope, as I do, that you only deal with those who deserve your attentions. Isn't that correct?'

'That goes without saying.'

'But it's not quite like that, is it? You've discovered that guilt is not as black and white as you thought when you decided to become a policeman and redeem humankind from evil. As a rule there's little evil but a lot of human frailty. Many sad stories you can recognise in yourself. However, as you say, one has to live. So we start lying. To those around us and to ourselves.'

Harry couldn't find his lighter. If he didn't get the cigarette lit soon, he would explode. He didn't want to think about Birger Holmen. Not now. There was a dry crunch as he bit through the filter: 'What did you say his name was – the go between's, that is?'

'You ask as though you already know,' she said.

'Robert Karlsen,' Harry said, rubbing his face hard with his palms. 'And he gave you the envelope with the instructions on 12 October.'

She raised one of her elegantly plucked eyebrows.

'We found his plane ticket.' Harry was frozen. The wind was blowing through him as though he were a mere apparition. 'And on his return he unwittingly took the place of the person he had helped to sentence to death. You could kill yourself laughing, couldn't you.'

She did not answer.

'What I don't understand,' Harry said, 'is why your son didn't abort the mission when he saw on the TV or read in the paper that he had in fact killed the person who was to hand over the cash.'

'He is never told who the client is, nor what the victim's crime is,' she said. 'It's best like that.'

'So he can't reveal anything if he's caught?'

'So he doesn't have to think. So he can just do the job and rely on me having made the correct judgement.'

'Moral as well as financial?'

She shrugged. 'In this case, of course, it would have been an advantage if he had known names. The problem is that my son hasn't contacted us since the killing. I don't know why.'

'He doesn't dare,' Harry said.

She closed her eyes, and Harry saw the muscles in her narrow face moving.

'You wanted me to withdraw the operative as my part of the deal,' she said. 'Now you know it isn't possible. However, I have told you the name of the person who gave us the contract. Will you still keep your part of the deal, Harry? Will you save my boy?'

Harry did not answer. The crow took off from the branch and drops of water rained down onto the gravel in front of them.

'Do you think your boy would have stopped if he had known the odds were stacked against him?' Harry asked.

She gave a wry smile. Then shook her head gloomily.

'Why not?'

'Because he is fearless and stubborn. He takes after his father.'

Harry studied the lean woman with the erect posture and concluded he wasn't so sure about the latter. 'Say goodbye to Fred. I'll take a taxi to the airport.'

She examined her hands. 'Do you believe in God, Harry?'

'No.'

'Yet you swore in His sight that you would save my son.'

'Yes,' Harry said, standing up.

She remained seated and looked up at him. 'Are you the kind of man who keeps his promises?'

'Not always.'

'You don't believe in God,' she said. 'Nor in your own word. What's left then?'

He pulled his jacket around him more tightly.

'Tell me what you believe in, Harry.'

'I believe in the next promise,' he said, turning to squint down the broad avenue of weekend Sunday traffic. 'People can keep a promise even though they broke the last one. I believe in new starts. I may not have said this…' He waved down a car cruising with a blue sign. 'But that's why I'm in this business.'

In the taxi Harry realised that he had no cash on him. He was told that there were ATMs that took Visa cards at Pleso Airport. Harry sat fingering the twenty-kroner coin the whole way. Thoughts of the spinning coin on the floor of the bar and the first drink on board wrestled for supremacy.