Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

She heaved a great sigh. 'I don't know where he is. I told you.'

Harry grabbed her shoulders and in a hoarse whisper said: 'You'll be done for aiding and abetting. Do you want to give him the pleasure?'

'Pleasure?' She put on a weary smile. 'He won't have any pleasure where he's going.'

'And the song you sang? "Who always shows compassion and is the sinner's true friend." Does that mean nothing? Are they just words?'

She did not answer.

'I know this is more difficult,' Harry said, 'than the cheap forgiveness you in your self-glorification hand out at the Lighthouse. A helpless junkie who steals from anonymous persons to satisfy their needs, what is that? What is that compared to forgiving someone who does need your forgiveness? A real sinner on the path to hell?'

'Stop it,' she sobbed, weakly trying to push him away.

'You can still save Jon, Martine. Then he'll have another chance. Then you'll have another chance.'

'Is he bothering you, Martine?' It was Rikard.

Without turning, Harry clenched his right fist and prepared himself while looking into Martine's tear-wet eyes.

'No, Rikard,' she said. 'It's fine.'

Harry listened to Rikard's footsteps dying away as he watched her. Someone began to strum a guitar on the stage. Then a piano came in. Harry recognised the song. The night in Egertorget. And the radio in Ostgard. 'Morning Song.' It seemed like an eternity ago.

'They'll both die if you don't help me to stop this,' Harry said.

'Why do you say that?'

'Because Jon has a borderline personality disorder and is controlled by his anger. And Stankic is not afraid of anything.'

'Are you trying to tell me you're so keen to save them because it's your job?'

'Yes,' Harry said. 'And because I promised Stankic's mother.'

'Mother? Have you spoken to his mother?'

'I swore I would try to save her son. If I don't stop Stankic now he'll be shot. Same as at the container terminal. Believe me.'

Harry looked at Martine, then turned his back on her and walked away. He had reached the steps when he heard her voice behind him:

'He's here.'

Harry froze mid-stride. 'What?'

'I gave Stankic your ticket.'

At that moment the remaining stage lights came up.

The silhouettes of those in front of him stood out against the shimmering white cascade of light. He sank deeper into his chair, raised his hand slowly, placed the short barrel on the seat in front so that he had a clear line of fire at the dinner-suited back of the person to the left of Thea. He would shoot twice. Then stand up and fire a third if necessary. Although he already knew it wouldn't be.

The trigger felt lighter than before, but he knew that was the effect of adrenalin. Nevertheless he was no longer afraid. Tighter and tighter he squeezed, and now he had reached the point where there was no more resistance, the. 5 of a millimetre in the trigger's noman's-land, where you relaxed and squeezed because there was no way back, you were subject to the inexorable laws and vagaries of the gun's mechanism.

The head on top of the back soon to receive a bullet turned to Thea and said something.

In that instant his brain formed two observations. It was odd that Jon Karlsen was wearing a dinner suit and not the Salvation Army uniform. And the physical distance between Thea and Jon did not make sense. In a concert hall, with loud music playing, two lovers would be nestling up to each other.

In desperation his brain tried to reverse the train of events he had already set in motion, the finger curled around the trigger.

There was a loud bang.

So loud Harry's ears were ringing from where he was standing.

'What?' he shouted at Martine over the sound of the drummer's sudden attack on the crash cymbal, making Harry temporarily deaf.

'He's sitting in row 19, three rows back from Jon and the Prime Minister. Seat 25. In the middle.' She tried to smile, but her lips were trembling too much. 'I got you the best seat in the hall, Harry.'

Harry looked at her. Then he began to run.

Jon Karlsen was trying to make his legs move like the beat of drumsticks on the platform of Oslo Central, but he had never been much of a sprinter. The automatic doors let out protracted sighs, closed again and the shimmering silver airport express set off as Jon arrived. He groaned, put down his suitcase, relinquished the small rucksack and slumped down on one of the designer benches on the platform. He kept the black bag on his lap. Ten minutes to the next train. No problem, he was in plenty of time. Oceans of time he had. So much he almost wished he had a bit less. He peered down the tunnel where the next train would emerge. When Sofia had left Robert's flat and he had finally fallen asleep towards the morning he had had a dream. A bad dream in which Ragnhild's eye had transfixed him.

He checked his watch.

Now the concert would have started. And poor Thea would be sitting there without him and she didn't know a thing. Nor did the others for that matter. Jon blew on his hands, but the cold temperatures cooled down the moist air so fast that his hands became colder. It had to be done like this, there was no other way. Everything had spiralled out of control; he couldn't risk staying any longer.

It was all his own fault. He had lost control with Sofia last night and he should have foreseen that. All his tensions came spilling out. What made him so mad was the way Sofia had taken everything without a word, without a sound. Just watched him with the same closed, introverted gaze. Like a dumb sacrificial lamb. Then he had hit her in the face. With a clenched fist. He had grazed the skin on his knuckles and had punched her again. Stupid. So that he wouldn't see her he had turned her face to the wall, and had only calmed down after he had ejaculated. But it was too late. Looking at her before she left, he realised that this time she would not be able to get away with excuses like walking into a door or slipping on ice.

The second reason for his having to escape was the silent phone call he had received yesterday. He had checked. It came from a hotel in Zagreb. Hotel International. He had no idea how they had got hold of his mobile number; it wasn't registered anywhere. But he did have a premonition about what it meant: even though Robert was dead they still had unfinished business. That was not the plan, and he couldn't understand it. Perhaps they would send another man to Oslo. He would have to get away whatever happened.

The plane ticket he had bought in a desperate hurry was for Bangkok via Amsterdam. And in the name of Robert Karlsen. Like the one he had bought in October. Now, as then, he had his brother's ten-year-old passport in his inside pocket. No one could refute the similarity between him and the person in the photo. All passport officials were aware that things happened to a young person's appearance over ten years.

After buying the ticket he had gone to Goteborggata to pack a suitcase and a rucksack. There were still ten hours before the plane was scheduled to take off and he needed to go into hiding. So he had headed for one of the Army's 'partly furnished' flats in Haugerud for which he had a key. The flat had been empty for two years and, besides damp problems, had a sofa, an armchair with the stuffing coming out of the back and a bed with a stained mattress. This was where Sofia had been ordered to appear every Thursday at 6 p. m. Some of the stains were hers. Others he had made when he was alone. And at those times he had always thought about Martine. It had been like a hunger which had only been satisfied once and it was that satisfaction he had been searching for ever since. And now he had found it, with the fifteenyear- old Croatian girl.

Then one autumn day an angry Robert had visited him and said Sofia had taken him into her confidence. Jon had been so furious he had almost lost control of himself.