Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

Then her arms were around his neck and he could feel her accelerated pulse.

'How did you find me?' she whispered in his ear.

'Modern technology.'

The heat from her body, the gleam in her eyes, the whole ecstatic welcome gave Harry an unreal sense of happiness, a pleasant dream he, for his part, had no desire to wake from in the immediate future. But he had to.

'Is anyone here?' he asked.

'Er, no…'

'I thought I heard voices.'

'Oh that,' she said, letting him go. 'That was just the radio. I switched it off when I heard the knocking. I got a bit frightened. And then it was you…' She patted him on the arm. 'It was Harry Hole.'

'No one knows where you are, Martine.'

'Wonderful.'

'Some of them are worried.'

'Oh?'

'Especially Rikard.'

'Oh, forget Rikard.' Martine took Harry's hand and led him into the kitchen. She reached down a blue coffee cup from the cupboard. Harry noticed there were two plates and two cups in the sink.

'You don't look that ill to me,' he said.

'I just needed a day off after all that's happened.' She poured and passed him the cup. 'Black, wasn't it?'

Harry nodded. She had the heating on high and he took off his jacket and sweater before sitting at the table.

'But tomorrow it's the Christmas concert and I have to go back,' she sighed. 'Are you coming?'

'Well, I was promised a ticket…'

'Say you're coming!' Then Martine bit her lower lip. 'Oh dear, in fact I had tickets for us in the VIP box. Three rows behind the Prime Minister. But I had to give yours to someone else.'

'That doesn't matter.'

'You would have been left on your own anyway. I have to work back stage.'

'So it really doesn't matter.'

'No!' She laughed. 'I want you to be there.'

She took his hand. Harry looked at her small hand which was squeezing and stroking his large paw. It was so quiet he could hear his blood rushing like a waterfall in his ears.

'I saw a shooting star on the way here,' Harry said. 'Isn't that strange? Seeing the demise of a planet is supposed to bring good luck.'

Martine gave a silent nod. Then she stood up without letting go of Harry's hand, walked round the table and sat astride his lap facing him. Put her hand around his neck.

'Martine…' he began.

'Shh.' She ran her index finger over his lips.

And without taking her finger away she leaned forward and placed her lips gently against his.

Harry closed his eyes and waited, feeling his heart pound, heavy, pleasurable, though he was sitting quite still. It occurred to him he was waiting for her heart to beat in tune with his, but knew for certain only this: he would have to wait. Then he felt her lips part and automatically he opened his mouth and his tongue lay flat in his mouth, against his teeth, ready to receive hers. Her finger had an exciting, bitter taste of soap and coffee that burned the tip of his tongue. Her hand squeezed his neck tighter. Then he felt her tongue. It pressed against his finger so that he had contact on both sides and it made him think it was split, like a snake's tongue. That they were giving each other two half-kisses.

She let go.

'Keep your eyes closed,' she whispered by his ear.

Harry leaned back and resisted the temptation to put his hands on her hips. The seconds passed. Then he felt the soft cotton material on the back of his hand as her blouse slipped to the floor.

'Now you can open them,' she whispered.

Harry did as instructed. And sat watching her. Her face expressed a mixture of anxiety and anticipation.

'You're so beautiful,' he said in a voice which had become constricted and odd. Also bewildered.

He noticed her swallow. Then a triumphant smile spread across her face.

'Raise your arms,' she commanded. She grabbed hold of his T-shirt at the bottom and pulled it over his head.

'And you're ugly,' she said. 'Wonderful and ugly.'

Harry felt an intoxicating stab of pain as she bit into his nipple. One of her hands had moved behind her back and between his legs. Her breathing against his neck began to race and her other hand grabbed his belt. He held his arm against her lithe back. That was when he felt it. An involuntary quiver of her muscles, a tension she had managed to hide. She was frightened.

'Wait, Martine,' Harry whispered. Her hand froze.

Harry lowered his mouth to her ear. 'Do you want this? Do you know what you're getting yourself into here?'

He could feel her breathing, quickened and moist against his skin as she gasped: 'No, do you?'

'No. Then perhaps we shouldn't…'

She sat up. Looking at him with wounded, desperate eyes. 'But I. .. I can feel that you…'

'Yes,' Harry said, caressing her hair. 'I want you. I have wanted you from the first moment I saw you.'

'Is that the truth?' she said, taking his hand and laying it against a hot, flushed cheek.

Harry smiled. 'The second anyway.'

'The second time?'

'OK, the third then. All good music takes a little time.'

'And I'm good music?'

'I'm lying. It was the first time. But that doesn't mean I'm a pushover, OK?'

Martine smiled. Then she started laughing. Harry, too. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his chest. Sobbed with laughter and banged against his shoulder, and it was only then that Harry felt her tears running down his stomach and realised she was crying.

Jon was woken by the cold. He thought. Robert's flat was dark and there could be no other explanation. But then his brain rewound and he knew that what he assumed were the final fragments of a dream were not. He had heard a key in the lock. And the door opening. Now someone was in the room, breathing.

With a sense of deja vu, that everything in this nightmare was repeating itself, he whirled round.

A figure stood over the bed.

Jon gasped for air as the fear of death attacked, its teeth sinking into his flesh and striking the nerves beneath. For he had total certainty, was quite sure that this person wished him dead.

'Stigla sam,' the figure said.

Jon didn't know many Croatian words, but the ones he had picked up from the tenants from Vukovar were enough for him to be able to work out what the voice had said. 'I have come.'

'Have you always been lonely, Harry?'

'I think so.'

'Why?'

Harry shrugged. 'I've never been the sociable type.'

'Is that all?'

Harry blew a ring of smoke up to the ceiling and could feel Martine sniffing at his sweater and his neck. They were in the bedroom, him on top of the duvet, her beneath.

'Bjarne Moller, my former boss, says people like me always choose the line of most resistance. It's in what he calls our "accursed nature". That's why we always end up on our own. I don't know. I like being alone. Perhaps I have grown to like my self-image of being a loner, too. What about you?'

'I want you to talk.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. I like listening to you. How can anyone like the selfimage of a loner?'

Harry took a deep breath. Held the smoke in his lungs thinking how good it would be if you could blow smoke patterns to explain everything. Then he released the smoke in one long exhalation.

'I think you have to find something about yourself that you like in order to survive. Some people say being alone is unsociable and selfish. But you're independent and you don't drag others down with you, if that's the way you're heading. Many people are afraid of being alone. But it made me feel free, strong and invulnerable.'

'Strong from being alone?'

'Yep. As Dr Stockman said: "The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone."'

'First Suskind and now Ibsen?'

Harry grinned. 'That was a line my father used to quote.' He sighed and then added, 'Before my mother died.'

'You said it made you invulnerable. Is that no longer the case?'