Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

Jon announced himself with a loud cough and went closer.

The chair swivelled round slowly.

And Jon came to an abrupt halt.

A man he half recognised as Mads Gilstrup was sitting in the chair. He was wearing a clean, white shirt and black trousers, but he was unshaven and his face was bloated, his eyes blanched with a chalky grey film over them. In his lap was a double-barrelled rifle with intricate carvings of animals on the burgundy gunstock. The way he sat it was pointing at Jon.

'Do you hunt, Karlsen?' Gilstrup asked gently in a hoarse, alcoholdrenched voice.

Jon shook his head, unable to take his eyes off the rifle. 'In our family we hunt everything,' Gilstrup said. 'No game too small, none too big. I think you could say that is our family motto. My father has shot everything on four legs. Every winter he travels to a country where there are animals he has not yet shot. Last year it was Paraguay where there was said to be a rare forest puma. I am no great shakes myself. Not according to Father. He says I don't have the necessary cold-bloodedness. He used to say that the only animal I was capable of catching was her.' Gilstrup flicked his head towards the screen. 'Although I suspect he thought she was the one who caught me.'

Gilstrup placed the rifle on the coffee table beside him and opened his palm. 'Take a seat. We're due to sign a contract with your boss David Eckhoff this week. Transferring the properties in Jacob Aalls gate, first of all. Father will thank you for recommending the sale.'

'Nothing to thank me for, I'm afraid,' Jon said, taking a seat on the black sofa. The leather was soft and ice-cold. 'A wholly professional assessment.'

'Oh yes? Do tell me.'

Jon swallowed. 'The benefits of having money tied up in property versus the ways it could benefit the other work we do.'

'However, other sellers might have floated the properties on the open market?'

'We would have liked to do that, too. But you drove a hard bargain and made it pretty clear that if you were making an offer for the whole property package you would not permit an auction.'

'Nevertheless, it was your recommendation that swung the balance.'

'I considered it a good offer.'

Mads Gilstrup smiled. 'Did you hell. You could have got double.'

Jon shrugged. 'We might have got a bit more if we'd split up the package, but this way we save ourselves the long, arduous process of selling the properties. And the board of management has stressed that it trusts you with regard to rent. After all, there are a number of residents we have to consider. We wouldn't like to know what more unscrupulous purchasers would have done with them.'

'The clause freezing rents and allowing present tenants to stay runs for eighteen months.'

'Trust is more important than clauses.'

Gilstrup leaned forward in his chair. 'That's fucking right, Karlsen. Do you know I knew about you and Ragnhild all the time? You see, she always had these rosy cheeks after she'd been screwed, Ragnhild did. And she had them whenever your name was mentioned in the office. Did you read the Bible to her while you were shagging? Because you know what? I think she would have liked that…' Mads Gilstrup slumped back in his chair with a brief snort of laughter and ran a hand over the rifle on the table. 'I've got two cartridges in this gun, Karlsen. Have you ever seen what cartridges like these can do? You don't even need to aim very well, just pull the trigger and – bang – you'd be blasted up against that wall. Fascinating, isn't it?'

'I've come here to tell you I don't want you as my enemy.'

'Enemy?' Mads Gilstrup laughed. 'You lot will always be my enemies. Do you remember the summer you bought Ostgard and I was invited by the commander himself, Eckhoff? You were sorry for me. I was the poor boy you'd deprived of childhood memories. You're sensitive about things like that. My God, how I hated you all!' Gilstrup laughed. 'I stood watching you playing and enjoying yourselves as though the place belonged to you. Especially your brother, Robert. He had a way with the girls, he did. Tickled them and took them into the barn and…' Gilstrup shifted his foot and hit the bottle, which toppled over with a clunk. Brown alcohol gurgled out onto the parquet floor. 'You didn't see me. None of you saw me. It was as though I didn't exist. You were absorbed in each other. So I thought, well, OK, then I must be invisible. I'll show you what invisible people can do.'

'Is that why you did it?'

'Me?' Mads laughed. 'But I'm innocent, Jon Karlsen, aren't I? We, the privileged, always are. Surely you must know that. We always have a clear conscience because we can afford to buy it from others. From those who are employed to serve us, to do the dirty work. That's the law of nature.'

Jon nodded. 'Why did you ring the policeman and confess?'

Gilstrup shrugged. 'I thought of ringing the other one, Harry Hole, in fact. But the duffer didn't have a business card, so I rang the one whose number I did have. Halvorsen something or other. I don't remember because I was drunk.'

'Have you told anyone else?' Jon asked.

Gilstrup shook his head, picked up the bottle off the floor and took a swig.

'My father.'

'Father?' Jon said. 'Ah, yes, of course.'

'Of course?' Mads chortled. 'Do you love your father, Jon Karlsen?'

'Yes. Very much.'

'And do you not agree that love for a father is a curse?' Jon did not answer and Mads went on. 'Father was here right after I phoned the policeman, and when I told him, do you know what he did? He fetched his ski pole and hit me. And he can still hit hard, the bastard. Hatred gives you strength, you know. He said that if I mentioned a word of this to anyone, if I dragged the family's name into the dirt, he would kill me. Those were his exact words. And do you know what?' Mads's eyes filled with tears and a sob caught his voice. 'I still love him. And I think that's what makes him hate me with such passion. The fact that I, his only son, am so weak that I can't even return his hatred.'

The room echoed as he banged the bottle down hard on the floor.

Jon folded his hands. 'Listen to me. The policeman who heard your confession is in a coma. If you promise me you will never come after me or mine, I promise I will never reveal what I know about you.'

Mads Gilstrup did not appear to be listening to Jon. Instead his gaze had turned to the screen where the happy couple were standing with their backs to them. 'Look, now she's saying yes. I play that precise bit again and again because I can't understand it. She swore, didn't she? She…' He shook his head. 'I thought it might make her love me again. If I managed to carry out this… crime, then she would see me as I am. A criminal must be brave. Strong. A man, isn't that right? Not…' he snorted through his nose and spat out the words: 'the son of one.'

Jon rose to his feet. 'I have to go.'

Gilstrup nodded. 'I have something that belongs to you. Let's call it…' He bit his top lip as he reflected. 'A farewell present from Ragnhild.'

On the Holmenkollen train Jon sat staring at the black bag he had been given by Mads Gilstrup.

It was so raw that those who had ventured out for a ramble were walking with hunched shoulders and bowed heads, swathed in hats and scarves. Standing in Jacob Aalls gate and pressing the Miholjec family doorbell, however, Beate Lonn did not feel the cold. She had not felt a thing since the latest message they had received from the hospital.

'It's not his heart that's the biggest problem now,' the doctor had said. 'The other organs have problems too. Above all his kidneys.'

Fru Miholjec was waiting in the doorway above the stairs and showed Beate into the kitchen where her daughter Sofia was sitting fidgeting with her hair. Then she filled the kettle and put out three cups.