Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

'So Jon must have been to Croatia at some point. That's not illegal, I suppose?'

'Not at all. Yet he told me he had never been abroad in his life, except to Denmark and Sweden. I checked with the passport office and no passport has ever been issued in Jon Karlsen's name. However, a passport had been issued to Robert Karlsen almost ten years ago.'

'Perhaps Jon got the coin from Robert?'

'You're right,' Harry said. 'The coin proves nothing. But it makes sluggish brains like mine think a little. What if Robert never went to Zagreb? What if it had been Jon who went? Jon had keys to all the Salvation Army's rental flats, including Robert's. What if he had borrowed Robert's passport, travelled to Zagreb in his name and pretended to be Robert Karlsen when he organised the hit on Jon Karlsen? And the plan had always been to kill Robert?'

Martine chewed a nail, deep in thought. 'But if Jon wanted to kill Robert, why take out a contract on yourself?'

'To give yourself the perfect alibi. Even if Stankic was arrested and confessed, Jon would never be suspected. He was the intended victim, wasn't he. Jon and Robert swapping shifts on that day of all days would be seen as the hand of fate. Stankic was merely following instructions. And when Stankic, and Zagreb, discovered later that they had killed their own customer there would be no reason for them to fulfil the contract by killing Jon. After all, there was no one to pay the bill. In fact that was part of the genius of the plan. Jon could promise Zagreb as much money as they wanted after the event as there would be no billing address. And the one person who could have refuted that Robert was in Zagreb that day or who might have had an alibi for the date the contract was agreed – Robert Karlsen – was dead. The plan was like a circle of logic that worked, the illusion of a snake eating itself, a self-destructing creation that would guarantee nothing would be left afterwards, no loose threads.'

'A man of ordered habits,' Martine said.

Two of the male students had started singing a drinking song: a twovoice experiment, accompanied by the loud snoring of one of the recruits.

'But why?' Martine asked. 'Why would he kill Robert?'

'Because Robert represented a threat. According to Sergeant Major Rue, Robert supposedly threatened Jon that he would 'destroy' him if he ever approached a certain woman again. The first thing that came to my mind was that they were talking about Thea. But you were right when you said that Robert did not entertain any special feelings for her. Jon claimed Robert had a sick obsession with Thea so that it would seem as though Robert had a motive for wishing to kill Jon. The threat that Robert made, however, concerned Sofia Miholjec. A Croatian girl of fifteen who has just told me everything. How Jon forced her to have sex with him on regular occasions, saying he would evict her family from the Salvation Army flat and have them thrown out of the country if she put up any resistance or told anyone. When she became pregnant, however, she went to Robert, who helped her and promised to stop Jon. Unfortunately Robert did not go straight to the police or those in command in the Salvation Army. He must have considered it a family affair and wanted to solve the problem within the organisation. I gather there's a bit of a tradition of that in the Salvation Army.'

Martine was staring out at the snow-covered, night-faded fields rolling by like the swell of the sea.

'So that was the plan,' she said. 'What went wrong?'

'What always goes wrong,' Harry said. 'The weather.'

'The weather?'

'If the flight to Zagreb had not been cancelled because of snow that night, Stankic would have travelled home, found out that they had killed their go-between by mistake and the story would have finished there. Instead Stankic had to spend a night in Oslo and he discovers he has killed the wrong person. But he doesn't know that Robert Karlsen is also the name of the go-between, so he continues his hunt.'

The tannoy announced: 'Gardemoen Airport, Gardemoen. Passengers please alight on the right-hand side.'

'And now you're going to catch Stankic.'

'That's my job.'

'Will you kill him?'

Harry looked at her.

'He killed your colleague,' Martine said.

'Did he say that to you?'

'I said I didn't want to know anything, so he didn't say a word.'

'I'm a policeman, Martine. We arrest people and the court sentences them.'

'Is that so? Then why haven't you sounded a full alarm? Why haven't you called the airport police? Why isn't the Special Forces Unit on its way with all its sirens blaring? Why are you on your own?'

Harry didn't answer.

'No one else even knows what you've just told me, do they?'

Harry saw the designer-smooth, grey cement platform of Gardemoen Airport approach through the train window.

'Our stop,' he said.

Monday, 22 December. The Crucifixion.

There was one person between him and the check-in counter when he smelt it. A sweet soap smell that vaguely reminded him of something. Something that had happened not too long ago. He closed his eyes and tried to pinpoint what.

'Next please!'

Jon shuffled forwards, put the suitcase and rucksack on the conveyor belt and placed his ticket and passport on the counter in front of a suntanned man wearing the airline's white short-sleeved shirt.

'Robert Karlsen,' the man said, eyeing Jon, who confirmed with a nod. 'Two bags. And that's hand luggage, is it?' He gestured towards the black bag.

'Yes.'

The man flipped through the pages, typed and a hissing printer spat out tags marked Bangkok for the luggage. That was when Jon remembered the smell. For one second in the doorway of his flat, the last second he had felt safe. The man standing outside who said in English he had a message, then raised a black pistol. He forced himself not to look.

'Have a good trip, herr Karlsen,' the man said with an ultra-swift smile, handing over his boarding pass and the passport.

Jon walked without delay to the queues by the X-ray machines. Putting the ticket in his inside pocket, he snatched a glimpse over his shoulder.

He looked straight at him. For one desperate instant he wondered whether Jon Karlsen had recognised him, but then Jon's gaze moved on. What worried him, however, was that Karlsen appeared frightened.

He had been a little too slow to catch Karlsen at the check-in desk. And now he was in a hurry because Karlsen was already queueing for security where everything and everyone was screened and a revolver was impossible to conceal. It had to happen on this side.

He breathed in and tightened and slackened his grip on the gunstock inside his coat.

His instinct was to shoot the target on the spot, his usual practice. But even though he could soon disappear into the crowd, they would close the airport, check everyone's identities and he would not only miss his flight to Copenhagen in forty-five minutes but his freedom for the next twenty years.

He moved towards Jon Karlsen's back. It had to happen with speed and decisiveness. He would go up to him, thrust the gun in his ribs and give him the ultimatum in plain, concise terms. Thereafter lead him calmly through the jam-packed departures hall into the multistorey car park, behind a car, a shot to the head, body under the car, lose the gun before the security controls, gate 32, plane to Copenhagen.

He already had the gun out halfway and was two steps away when Karlsen stepped out of the queue and with long strides made for the other end of the departure hall. Do vraga! He turned to follow, forcing himself not to run. He hasn't seen you, he kept repeating to himself.

Jon told himself not to run, that it would make it obvious he knew he had been seen. He had not recognised the face, but he didn't need to. The man was wearing the red neckerchief. On the stairs down to the arrivals hall Jon felt the sweat coming. At the bottom he turned back on himself and when he was out of sight from those on the staircase, he placed the bag under his arm and began to run. The faces in front of him flashed past, with Ragnhild's empty eye sockets and unstoppable screams. He ran down another staircase and now there was no one around him any more, just cold, damp air and the echo of his own footsteps and breathing in a broad corridor sloping downwards. He realised he was in the corridor leading to the car park and hesitated for a moment to stare into the black eye of a surveillance camera, as if that could give him the answer. Further ahead he saw a neon sign over a door like a living image of himself: a man standing erect and helpless. The men's toilet. A hiding place. Out of sight. He could lock himself in. Wait until the plane was about to leave before coming out.