Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

Harry held his cigarette in one hand, grabbed her arm with the other and pulled her down hard into the snow.

'This one's dead, Sofia. You're alive. Do you hear me? You're alive. And if you intend to continue living we'd better catch him now. If not, he'll carry on. You weren't the first and you won't be the last. Look at me. Look at me, I'm telling you!'

His sudden shout startled Sofia and she obeyed.

'I know you're scared, Sofia. But I promise you I'll get him. Whatever happens. I swear.'

Harry saw something stir in her eyes. And if he was right, it was hope. He waited. And then she breathed something inaudible.

'What did you say?' Harry asked, leaning forwards.

'Who will believe me?' she whispered. 'Who will believe me now.. . that Robert is dead?'

Harry placed a careful hand on her shoulders. 'Try. Then we'll see.'

The orange clouds had begun to turn red.

'He threatened to destroy everything for us if I didn't do as he ordered,' she said. 'He would make sure we were thrown out of the flat and would have to go back. But we have nothing to go back to. And if I had told them, who would have believed me? Who…?'

She paused.

'Except for Robert,' Harry said. Waiting.

Harry found the address on Mads Gilstrup's business card. He wanted to pay him a call. And, first of all, ask him why he had rung Halvorsen. From the address he saw he would have to drive past Rakel and Oleg who also lived on the Holmenkollen ridge.

As he passed he didn't slow down, but he did glance up the drive. The last time he drove past he had seen a Jeep Cherokee outside the garage and had assumed it was the doctor's. Now there was only Rakel's car. The window in Oleg's room was lit.

Harry drove up through the hairpin bends between the most expensive houses in Oslo until the road straightened and climbed further to a brow and past the capital's white obelisk, Holmenkollen ski jump. Beneath him lay the town and the fjord with a thin layer of icy mist floating between snow-covered islands. The short day that really consisted of just a sunrise and a sunset blinked, and down there lights were already being switched on, like Advent candles in the countdown to Christmas.

He had almost all the pieces of the jigsaw now.

After ringing Gilstrup's door bell four times without any success Harry gave up. On his way back to the car a man jogged over from a neighbouring house and asked Harry if he was a friend of Gilstrup's. Well, he didn't want to intrude into their private lives, but they had heard a loud bang inside the house this morning and Mads Gilstrup had lost his wife, hadn't he? Perhaps they ought to ring the police? Harry went back to the house, smashed the window beside the front door and an alarm went off.

While the alarm howled its two hoarse tones again and again Harry made his way to the lounge. For the benefit of the report he checked his watch and subtracted the two minutes Moller had wound it forward.

15.37.

Mads Gilstrup was naked and the back of his head was missing.

He lay on his side on the parquet floor in front of a lit screen and the rifle with the burgundy stock seemed to be growing out of his mouth. It had a long barrel and from what Harry could see Mads Gilstrup must have used his big toe to press the trigger. That not only required certain motor coordination skills but also a strong will to die.

Then the alarm stopped and Harry could hear the buzz of the projector which showed a quivering still of a bride and bridegroom in close-up on their way down the aisle. The faces, the white smile and the white dress were spattered with blood which had dried on the canvas in a grille pattern.

Stuffed under an empty bottle of cognac lay the suicide note. It was brief.

Forgive me, Father. Mads.

Monday, 22 December. The Resurrection.

He regarded himself in the mirror. When one day, maybe next year, they walked out of the little house in Vukovar in the morning, might this face be one the neighbours would greet with a smile and a zdravo? The way you greet familiar, safe faces. And good faces.

'Perfect,' said the woman behind him.

He assumed she meant the dinner suit he was parading in the mirror of the combined suit hire and dry cleaner's.

'How much?' he asked.

He paid her and promised the suit would be returned before twelve o'clock the next day.

Then he walked out into the grey gloom. He had found a cafe where he could have a coffee and the food wasn't too expensive. Now it was just a question of waiting. He looked at his watch.

The longest night had begun. Dusk was turning houses and fields grey as Harry drove from Holmenkollen, but well before he reached Gronland the gloom had invaded the parks.

He had rung the uniformed police from Mads Gilstrup's house and told them to send a patrol car. Then he had left without touching anything.

He parked in the K3 garage at Police HQ and went up to his office. From there he phoned Torkildsen.

'Halvorsen's mobile has gone walkabout and I want to know whether Mads Gilstrup left a message on it.'

'And if he did, what then?'

'I want to hear the message.'

'That's phone-tapping and I daren't do it,' Torkildsen sighed. 'Ring our Police Answering Service.'

'I need a court ruling for that, and I haven't got time. Any suggestions?'

Torkildsen pondered. 'Has Halvorsen got a computer?'

'I'm sitting next to it.'

'No, no, forget it.'

'Why's that?'

'You can access all the messages on a mobile via the web page for Telenor Mobil, but of course you'll need his password to do that.'

'Is it a password we choose?'

'Yes, but if you don't have it you'll need a lucky break to-'

'Let's have a go,' Harry said. 'What's the address of the web page?'

'You'll need a big break,' Torkildsen said, with the tone of someone who was not used to having had many of them.

'I have a feeling I know it,' Harry said.

With the page up on his screen Harry typed in the password: Lev Yashin. And was informed that the password was incorrect. So he shortened it to 'Yashin'. And there they were. Eight messages. Six of them from Beate. One from a number in Trondelag. And one from the mobile number on the business card Harry was holding in his hand. From Mads Gilstrup.

Harry clicked on the PLAY button and the voice of the person he had seen less than hour ago lying dead in his house spoke to him with a metallic twang through the computer's plastic speakers.

When the message was over Harry had the last piece of the jigsaw.

'Does anyone know where Jon Karlsen is?' Harry said on his phone to Skarre as he was walking down the stairs of Police HQ. 'Have you tried Robert's flat?'

Harry went through the Stores door and smacked the bell on the counter in front of him.

'I rang there, too,' Skarre said. 'No answer.'

'Go and take a look. If no one opens up go in, OK.'

'The keys are at Krimteknisk and it's past four now. Beate usually stays until late afternoon, but today what with Halvorsen and-'

'Forget the keys,' Harry said. 'Take a crowbar with you.'

Harry heard the shuffle of feet and a man in a blue overall, a mass of wrinkles and a pair of glasses on the tip of his nose hobbled in. Without gracing Harry with a glance he picked up the requisition order Harry placed on the counter.

'Court order?' Skarre questioned.

'Not necessary. The one we've got is still valid,' Harry lied.

'Is it?'

'If anyone asks, this was a direct order from me, alright?'

'Alright.'

The man in blue grunted. Then he shook his head and passed the requisition slip back to Harry.

'I'll call you later, Skarre. Looks like there's a problem here. ..'

Harry put the mobile in his pocket and stared at the blue overall in amazement.