Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

'I'll wait. I'll make do with one of these if that's alright.' He produced a packet of cigarettes.

'You smoke too much,' she said.

'I always do after I've been boozing. Nicotine curbs the craving.'

She tasted the coffee. 'Isn't that a paradox?'

'What?'

'You who were so frightened of losing your freedom becoming an alcoholic.'

'True.' He opened the window, lit a cigarette and lay down beside her on the bed.

'Is that what frightens you about me?' she asked, snuggling up to him. 'That I will deprive you of your freedom? Is that why… you don't want… to make love to me?'

'No, Martine.' Harry took a drag of the cigarette, grimaced and eyed it with disapproval. 'It's because you are frightened.'

He felt her stiffen.

'Am I frightened?' she asked with surprise in her voice.

'Yes. And I would have been, too, if I were you. I've never been able to understand how women have the courage to share roof and bed with those who are, physically, their complete masters.' He stubbed out his cigarette in the plate on the bedside table. 'Men would never dare.'

'What makes you think I'm frightened?'

'I can sense it. You take the intiative and want to be in charge. But mostly because you're frightened what might happen if you let me take charge. And that's fine, but I don't want you to do it if you're frightened.'

'But it's not up to you to decide whether I want it or not!' she burst out. 'Even if I am frightened.'

Harry looked at her. Without warning she flung her arms around him and hid her face in his neck.

'You must think I'm quite strange,' she said.

'Not at all,' said Harry.

She held him tight. Squeezed him.

'What if I was always frightened?' she whispered. 'What if I never

…' She paused.

Harry waited.

'Something happened,' she said. 'I don't know what.'

And waited.

'Yes, I know what,' she said. 'I was raped. Here on this farm many years ago. And I kind of went to pieces.'

The cold scream of a crow in the woods rent the silence.

'Do you want…?'

'No, I don't want to talk about it. There's not very much to talk about, anyway. It's a long time ago and I'm in one piece now. I'm just

…' she snuggled up to him again, '… a tiny bit frightened.'

'Did you report it?'

'No. I wasn't up to it.'

'I know it's tough, but you should have done.'

She smiled. 'Yes, I've heard you should. Because another girl's next, isn't that right?'

'This is no joke, Martine.'

'Sorry, Daddy.'

Harry shrugged. 'I don't know if crime pays, but I do know it repeats itself.'

'Because it's in your genes, right?'

'That I don't know.'

'Have you read the research into adoption? It shows that children with criminal parents who grow up in a normal family with other children, unaware that they're adopted, have a much greater chance of turning out to be criminals than the other children in the family. So there has to be a criminal gene.'

'Yes, I've read that,' Harry said. 'Behavioural patterns may be hereditary. But I prefer to believe that in our own way each of us is infamous.'

'You think we're programmed creatures of habit?' She curled a finger and tickled Harry under the chin.

'I think we throw everything into one great calculation, lust and fear and excitement and greed and all that kind of thing. And the brain is brilliant. It computes away and almost never makes a mistake; that's why it produces the same answers every time.'

Martine propped herself up on one elbow and gazed down at Harry. 'And morality and free choice?'

'They're in the great calculation, too.'

'So you think a criminal will always-'

'No, otherwise I couldn't do my job.'

She ran a finger across his forehead. 'So people can still change?'

'That's what I hope anyway. That people learn.'

She rested her forehead on his. 'And what can you learn?'

'You can learn…' he began and was interrupted by her lips touching his, '… not to be lonely. You can learn…' the tip of her tongue caressed the bottom of his lower lip. '… not to be frightened. And you can…'

'Learn to kiss?'

'Yes. But not if the girl has just woken up and has a disgusting white coating on her tongue which…'

Her hand hit his cheek with a smack and her laughter tinkled like ice cubes in a glass. Then her hot tongue found his and she covered him with the duvet; she pulled up his sweater and T-shirt and the skin on her stomach glowed bed-warm and soft against his.

Harry's hand wandered under her top and up her back, felt the shoulder blades that moved under the skin and the muscles that tensed and relaxed as she wriggled towards him.

He unbuttoned her top and held her gaze as he moved his hand over her stomach, over her ribs until the soft skin of his thumb and forefinger was holding her stiff nipple. She panted hot air over him as her open mouth closed on him and they kissed. As she forced her hand down between their hips, he knew that this time he would not be able to stop. Nor did he want to.

'It's ringing,' she said.

'What?'

'The phone in your trousers, it's vibrating.' She began to laugh. 'Feel…'

'Sorry.' Harry dragged the silent phone up from his pocket, leaned over her and put it on the bedside table. But it was on its side and the throbbing display faced him. He tried to ignore it, but it was too late. He had seen that it was Beate.

'Shit,' he breathed. 'Just a moment.'

He sat up and studied Martine's face, which studied his as he listened to Beate. And her face was like a mirror; they seemed to be playing a mime game. Apart from seeing himself, Harry could see his fear, his pain and in the end his resignation reflected in her face.

'What's up?' she asked after he rang off.

'He's dead.'

'Who?'

'Halvorsen. He died in the night. Nine minutes past two. While I was out by the barn.'

Monday, 22 December. The Commanding Officer.

It was the shortest day of the year, but for inspector Harry Hole the day seemed impossibly long before it had even started.

After hearing the news of Halvorsen's death he had first gone for a walk outdoors. Trudged through the deep snow to the woods and sat there watching day break. He had hoped the cold would freeze, alleviate or, at least, numb his feelings.

Then he had walked back. Martine had watched him with questions in her eyes, but said nothing. He had drunk a cup of coffee, kissed her on the cheek and got into the car. In the mirror, Martine had seemed even smaller standing on the step with her arms crossed.

Harry drove home, had a shower, changed clothes and flicked through the papers on the coffee table three times before giving up, bewildered. For the umpteenth time since the day before yesterday he would check his watch only to see his bare wrist. He fetched Moller's watch from the drawer in the bedside table. It was still working and would have to do for the time being. He drove to Police HQ and parked in the garage beside Hagen's Audi.

Walking up the stairs to the sixth floor he could hear voices, footsteps and laughter resounding in the atrium. But when the Crime Squad department door closed behind him it was as though the volume had been switched off. In the corridor he met an officer who observed him, shook his head in silence and walked on.

'Hi, Harry.'

He turned. It was Toril Li. He could not recall her using his first name before.

'How are you doing?' she asked.

Harry was about to answer, opened his mouth, but realised all of a sudden that he had no voice.

'We thought we might assemble after the briefing to pay our respects,' Toril Li said with brisk delicacy, as though to cover for him.

Harry nodded in silent gratitude.