Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

'You can't collect the same gun twice, Hole,' the man said.

Harry didn't understand what Kjell Atle Oro meant, but he had a hot prickling sensation at the back of his neck. It was not the first time he had felt it. And he knew it meant the nightmare was not over yet. In fact, it had just begun.

Gunnar Hagen's wife straightened her dress and came out of the bathroom. In front of the hall mirror her husband was trying to do up the black bow tie to go with his dinner suit. She stood and waited because she knew that soon he would snort with irritation and ask her to help.

This morning when they called from Police HQ to say that Jack Halvorsen had died, Gunnar had neither felt like going nor thought he would be able to go to the concert. She knew it was going to be a week of brooding. Sometimes she wondered whether anyone apart from her knew how hard such incidents hit Gunnar. In any case, later in the day the Chief Superintendent had asked Gunnar to make an appearance at the concert as the Salvation Army had decided they were going to mark Jack Halvorsen's death with a minute's silence, and it went without saying that the police should be represented by Halvorsen's superior officer. But she could see he was not looking forward to going; the solemnity of it enveloped his brow like a tight-fitting helmet.

He snorted and ripped off the bow tie. 'Lise!'

'I'm here,' she said calmly, walked over, stood behind him and stretched out her hand. 'Give it to me.'

The phone on the table under the mirror rang. He leaned over to pick it up. 'Hagen.'

She heard a distant voice at the other end.

'Good evening, Harry,' Gunnar said. 'No, I'm at home. My wife and I are going to the performance at the concert hall tonight, so I came home early. Anything new?'

Lise Hagen watched the metaphorical, imaginary helmet tightening further as he listened in total silence.

'Yes,' he said at length. 'I'll call the station and put everyone on full alert. We'll have every officer available involved in the search. I'm going to the concert soon and will be there for a couple of hours, but my mobile will be on vibrate mode the whole time, so all you have to do is call.'

He hung up.

'What's up?' Lise asked.

'One of my inspectors, Harry Hole, has just come from Stores where he was supposed to be picking up a gun with the requisition order I signed for him today. He needed a replacement for one that went missing after someone broke into his flat. It seems that earlier today someone else picked up the gun and ammunition with the first order slip.'

'Well, if that isn't the limit…' Lise said.

'Afraid it isn't,' Gunnar Hagen sighed. 'Unfortunately there's worse. Harry had a suspicion who it might have been. So he rang Forensics and had his suspicion confirmed.'

To her horror, Lise saw her husband's face go ashen. As though the repercussions of what Harry had said were only sinking in as he heard himself telling his wife: 'The blood sample of the man we shot at the container terminal shows he is not the man who threw up beside Halvorsen. Or spread blood over his coat. Or left a hair on the pillow at the Hostel. In a nutshell, the man we shot is not Christo Stankic. If Harry's right that means Christo Stankic is still out there. And he's armed.'

'But then… he might still be after that poor man, what was his name again?'

'Jon Karlsen. Yes. And that's why I have to call the station now and mobilise every officer available to search for both Jon Karlsen and Christo Stankic.' He pressed the backs of his hands against his eyes as though that was the source of the pain. 'And Harry received a call from an officer who broke into Robert Karlsen's flat to find Jon.'

'Yes?'

'Seems there had been a tussle there. The bedlinen… was soaked in blood, Lise. And no sign of Jon Karlsen, just a jackknife under the bed with dried black blood on the blade.'

He took his hands away from his face and she could see in the mirror that his eyes were red.

'This is bad news, Lise.'

'I know, Gunnar, my love. But… but who was the person you shot down by the harbour then?'

Gunnar Hagen swallowed hard before answering. 'We don't know, Lise. All we know is that he was living in a container and had heroin in his blood.'

'My God, Gunnar…'

She squeezed his shoulder and tried to catch his eye in the mirror.

'He was resurrected on the third day,' Hagen whispered.

'What?'

'The Redeemer. We killed him on Friday night. Today is Monday. It's the third day.'

Martine Eckhoff was so beautiful that she took Harry's breath away.

'Hello, is that you?' she said in that deep alto voice Harry remembered from the first time he had seen her at the Lighthouse. At that time she had been wearing a uniform. Now she stood in front of him in a plain, elegant, sleeveless black dress which glistened like her hair. Her eyes seemed larger and darker than usual. Her skin was white in a delicate, almost transparent, way.

'I'm dolling myself up,' she laughed. 'Look.' She raised her hand in what Harry considered an unimaginably supple movement, like part of a dance, an extension of another equally graceful sequence. In her hand she was holding a white, tear-shaped pearl which reflected the frugal light in the landing by her flat. The other pearl hung from her ear.

'Come in,' she said, retreating a step and letting go of the door.

Harry crossed the threshold into her arms. 'So good that you came,' she said, pulling his face down to hers, breathing hot air into his ear as she whispered: 'I've been thinking about you all the time.'

Harry closed his eyes, held her tight and felt the warmth emanating from the small, feline body. It was the second time in less than a day that he had stood like this with his arms around her. And he didn't want to let go. Because he knew it would be the last time.

The pearl drop lay against his cheek under one eye, like a frozen tear.

He freed himself.

'Is something the matter?' she asked.

'Let's sit down,' Harry said. 'We have to talk.'

They went into the living room and she sat down on the sofa. Harry stood by the window looking down onto the street below.

'Someone is sitting in a car looking up here,' he said.

Martine sighed. 'It's Rikard. He's waiting for me. He's driving me to the concert hall.'

'Mm. Do you know where Jon is, Martine?' Harry concentrated on the reflection of her face in the windowpane.

'No,' she said, meeting his eyes. 'Are you trying to say there is a specific reason why I should know? Since you ask in that way, I mean?' The sweetness was gone from her voice.

'We've just broken into Robert's flat, which we think Jon has been using,' Harry said, 'and found a bed covered in blood.'

'I didn't know,' Martine said in a tone of surprise that sounded genuine.

'I know you didn't know,' Harry said. 'The forensics department is checking the blood type now. That is to say, it has already been identified. And I'm pretty sure I know their conclusion.'

'Jon's?' she said in breathless suspense.

'No,' said Harry. 'But perhaps that's what you had been hoping?'

'Why do you say that?'

'Since it was Jon who raped you.'

The room went quiet. Harry held his breath in order to hear her gasp for air and then, long before it had entered her lungs, exhale it again with a wheeze.

'Why do you think that?' she asked with the tiniest tremor in her voice.

'Because you said it happened in Ostgard and there are not so many men who rape. But Jon Karlsen does. The blood in Robert's bed is from a girl called Sofia Miholjec. She went to Robert's flat last night because Jon Karlsen had ordered her to. As agreed, she let herself in with a key she had been given earlier by Robert, her best friend. After raping her, Jon beat her up. She said he often did that.'