Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

Harry felt the ash fall from his cigarette onto his chest. He left it where it was.

'I met Rakel and… well, Oleg. They attached themselves to me. It opened my eyes to the fact that there could be other people in my life. People who were friends and who cared about me. And that I needed them.' Harry blew on his cigarette making it glow. 'And, even worse, that they might need me.'

'So you weren't free any longer?'

'No. No, I wasn't free any longer.'

They lay staring into the dark.

Martine nestled her nose into his neck. 'You really like them, don't you?'

'Yes.' Harry pulled her close. 'Yes, I do.'

After she had fallen asleep, Harry slipped out of the bed and tucked the duvet in around her. He checked the time. Two o'clock on the dot. He walked into the hall, put on his boots and opened the door to the starry night. Heading for the outside toilet, he studied the footprints while trying to remember whether it had snowed since Saturday morning.

The toilet was not lit, so he struck a match and orientated himself. As it was about to go out he spotted two letters carved into the wall under a fading picture of Princess Grace of Monaco. In the dark Harry mused that someone had been sitting here, as he was, diligently forming the simple declaration: R+M.

Coming out of the toilet, he caught a quick movement by the corner of the barn. He stopped. There was a set of footprints going that way.

Harry hesitated. There it was again. The feeling that something was about to happen, right now, something fated which he could not prevent. He put a hand inside the toilet door and found the spade he had seen standing there. Then he began to follow the prints to the barn.

At the corner he paused and took a firm grip of the spade. His breathing thundered in his ears. He stopped breathing. Now. It was going to happen now. Harry plunged round the corner with the spade at the ready.

Ahead of him, in the middle of the field shining so bewitchingly and so white in the moonlight that he was dazzled, he saw a fox running towards the woods.

He slumped back against the barn door and inhaled trembling lungfuls of air.

There was a knock at the door and he backed away out of instinct.

Had he been seen? The person on the other side of the door must not come inside.

He cursed his carelessness. Bobo would have scolded him for breaking cover in such an amateur way.

The door was locked, but he still cast around for an object he could use in case whoever it was should manage to make their way in.

A knife. Martine's bread knife that he had just been using. It was in the kitchen.

There was another knock.

And then there was his gun. Empty, it was true, but enough to scare off a sensible man. The problem was that he doubted if this one was.

The person had arrived in a car and parked outside Martine's flat in Sorgenfrigata. He hadn't seen him until he chanced by the window and scanned the cars parked by the pavement. That was when he had seen the motionless silhouette inside one of them. On seeing it move, lean forwards to see better, he knew it was too late. He had been seen. He had come away from the window, waited for half an hour, then lowered the blinds and switched off all the lights in Martine's flat. She had said he could leave them on. The radiators all had thermostats and since 90 per cent of the energy of a light bulb is heat, the electricity you save by turning them off would be counterbalanced by the radiators compensating for the heat loss.

'Simple physics,' she had explained. If only she had explained to him what this was instead. A demented suitor? A jealous ex-lover. It wasn't the police anyway because he had started up again: a desperate, pained howl that made his blood run cold.

'Mar-tine! Mar-tine! Then a few tremulous words in Norwegian. And then almost a sob: 'Martine…'

He had no idea how the guy had got in through the front door, but now he could hear one of the other doors opening and a voice. Among the snatches of foreign words there was one he recognised now: politi.

Then the neighbour's door was slammed shut. He heard the person outside groaning in despair and fingers scratching at the door. Then footsteps finally dying away. He heaved a sigh of relief.

It had been a long day. Martine had driven him down to the station in the morning and he had caught the local train to town. The first thing he had done was go to the travel agent at Oslo Central where he had bought a ticket for the last flight to Copenhagen the following evening. They hadn't reacted to the Norwegian-sounding surname he had given them. Halvorsen. He had paid with the cash in Halvorsen's wallet, thanked them and left. From Copenhagen he would call Zagreb and have Fred fly there with a new passport. If he was lucky, he would be back for Christmas Eve.

He had been to three hairdressers, who had all shaken their heads and said they had no appointments left before the festivities. The fourth had nodded to a gum-chewing teenage girl sitting in a corner and looking lost – he guessed she was an apprentice. After several attempts at explaining what he wanted he had at length shown her the photograph. She had stopped chewing, looked up at him with eyes thick with mascara and asked in MTV English: 'You sure, man?'

Afterwards he had taken a taxi to the address in Sorgenfrigata, unlocked the doors with the keys he had been given by Martine and begun the wait. The telephone had rung several times, but otherwise it had been peaceful. Until, that is, he had been stupid enough to go to the window of an illuminated room.

He walked back to the living room.

At that moment there was a bang. The air quivered, the ceiling lamp shook.

'Mar-tine!'

He heard the person take another run-up, sprint and charge the door, which seemed to bulge into the room.

Her name was called out twice, followed by two bangs. Then he heard feet running down the stairs.

He went to the living-room window and watched the person race out. As the guy paused to unlock the car and the street light fell on him, he recognised him.

It was the young man who had helped him at the Hostel. Niclas, Rikard… something like that. The car started up with a roar and accelerated away into the winter night.

An hour later he was asleep, dreaming about landscapes he had once known, and only woke up when he heard the patter of feet and the sound of newspapers landing on doorsteps in the stairwell.

Harry woke up at eight. He opened his eyes and smelt the woollen blanket half covering his face. The smell reminded him of something. Then he threw it off. His sleep had been profound, without dreams, and he was in a curious mood. Exhilarated. Happy, no other word for it.

He went into the kitchen, put on the coffee, washed his face in the sink and hummed Jim Stark's 'Morning Song'. Over the low ridge to the east the sky was reddening like a young maiden; the last star blanching and fading. A new, mysterious, unsullied world lay outside the kitchen window and, white and optimistic, it was surging towards the horizon.

He sliced some bread, found some cheese, poured water into a glass and steaming coffee into a clean cup, put it all on a tray and carried it into the bedroom.

Her black, untidy hair spilt over the duvet and she made no sound. He placed the tray on the bedside table, sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

The aroma of coffee slowly wafted through the room.

Her breathing became irregular. She blinked. Caught sight of him, rubbed her face and stretched with exaggerated, embarrassed movements. It was like someone operating a dimmer switch, and the light shining out of her eyes grew stronger and stronger until the smile reached her lips.

'Good morning,' he said.

'Good morning.'

'Breakfast?'

'Mmm.' Her smile grew broader. 'Don't you want any?'