Jo Nesbo - Nemesis

She even managed to love Arne Albu. And there was me thinking he was just a tosser she was milking to pay for junk at market prices, and to get away from me for a while.

But then one May evening I rang her. I'd just done three months for petty offences, and Anna and I hadn't spoken for a long time. I said we should celebrate. I had taken delivery of the purest stuff in the world from the factory in Chang Rai. I could immediately tell from her voice that something wasn't right. She said it was over. I asked whether she was referring to H or me, and she replied both. You see, she had started on this work of art which she would be remembered for, she said, and it needed a clear mind. As you know, Anna was an obstinate devil when she set her mind on something, so I would bet you never found any junk in her blood. Right?

Then she told me about this guy, Arne Albu. They had been seeing each other and planned to move in together. First, he had to sort things out with his wife. Heard that one before, Harry? Well, me, too.

Isn't it strange how your mind can focus when the world is crashing around you? I knew what was required before I put down the phone. Revenge. Primitive? Not at all. Revenge is the thinking man's reflex, a complex blend of action and consistency no other animal species has so far succeeded in evolving. Evolutionally speaking, the practice of taking revenge has shown itself to be so effective that only the most vengeful of us have survived. Vengeance or death. It sounds like the title of a western, right, but remember it was the logic of retaliation that created the constitutional state. The enshrined promise of an eye for an eye, the sinner burning in hell or at least dangling from the gallows. Revenge is basically the foundation of civilisation, Harry.

So I sat down that same evening and worked out a plan.

I made it simple.

I ordered a key for Anna's flat from Trioving. I won't tell you how. After you left her flat, I went in. Anna had already gone to bed. She, a Beretta M92 and I had a long, enlightening chat. I asked her to find something she had been given by Arne Albu-a card, a letter, a business card, anything. The plan was to leave it on her body to help you connect the murder with him, but all she had was a photograph of his family at their chalet, which she had taken from his album. I guessed that might be a touch too cryptic and you might need a little more help. So I had an idea. Signor Beretta persuaded her to tell me how to get into Albu's chalet. The key was in the outside lamp.

After shooting her-I won't go into detail as it was a disappointing anticlimax (no sign of fear or regret)-I put the picture in her shoe and immediately left for Larkollen. I planted-as I am sure you have realised by now-Anna's spare key in the chalet. I thought about glueing it to the inside of the cistern in the toilet, that's my favourite place, where Michael hid the gun in The Godfather. But you probably wouldn't have had the imagination to search there and there was no point anyway. So I put it in the bedside-table drawer. Easy, wasn't it?

The stage was thus set, and you and the other marionettes could make your entrances. Hope, by the way, you weren't offended by the little nudges I gave you on the way. The intellectual level of you policemen is not exactly unnerving. Unnervingly high, that is.

I take my leave here. Thank you for the company and the help. It has been a pleasure working with you, Harry.

Pluvianus Aegyptius

A police car was parked by the door to Harry's apartment building and another blocked the Dovregata entrance to Sofies gate.

Tom Waaler had given instructions not to use sirens or blue lights.

Over the walkie-talkie, he checked everyone was in position and received quick-fire, crackly confirmation by return. The word from Ivarsson was that the blue sheet-the arrest document and search warrant-from the police solicitor had arrived exactly forty minutes ago. Waaler had said quite clearly he didn't want the Delta group, he would lead the party himself and already had the people he needed on standby. Ivarsson had not made any fuss.

Tom Waaler rubbed his hands. Partly because of the icy-cold wind sweeping down the street from Bislett stadium, but mostly out of glee. Making arrests was the best part of the job. He had already realised that when he was small, and he and Joakim had lain in wait in their parents' orchard on autumn evenings for the riff-raff from the housing co-op on an apple-scrumping raid. And they came. Usually eight to ten of them in the gang. It made no difference how many there were, however, because it was total mayhem when he and Joakim shone their torches and yelled through their home-made megaphones. They followed the same principles as wolves hunting reindeer: they picked out the smallest and weakest. But it was the arrest-the cornering of the prey-which fascinated Tom, the punishment which appealed to Joakim, whose creativity in this area had advanced so far that Tom occasionally had to stop him. Not because Tom felt any sympathy for the thieves, but because, unlike Joakim, he could keep a clear head and assess the consequences. Tom often thought it was not chance that brought him and Joakim together as it had. He was now a deputy judge on the Oslo Law Court circuit with a glittering career beckoning.

When Tom applied to join the police force, what had attracted him was the thought of arrests. Tom's father had wanted him to study medicine, or theology as he had done. Tom achieved the best grades in his school, so why a policeman? It was important for your self-esteem to have a decent education, his father had said, and told him about his elder brother who worked in an ironmonger's selling screws and hating everyone because he felt he wasn't as good as they were.

Tom had listened to the admonitions with the wry smile he knew his father loathed. What his father worried about wasn't Tom's self-esteem, it was what the neighbours and relatives thought about his only son becoming a 'mere' policeman. His father had never understood that you could hate people even though you were better than they were. Because you were better.

He checked his watch. Thirteen minutes past six. He pressed one of the bells on the ground floor.

'Hello,' said a woman's voice.

'It's the police,' Waaler said. 'Could you open up for us?'

'How do I know you're the police?'

A Paki, Waaler thought, and asked her to take a peep out of the window at the police cars. The lock buzzed.

'And stay indoors,' he said to the intercom.

Waaler placed one man at the back of the house by the fire escape. After looking at the drawings of the apartment block on the Intranet, he had memorised where Harry's flat was and discovered there was no back staircase to worry about.

Each armed with an MP5 across their shoulders, Waaler and two men crept up the worn, wooden stairs. On the second floor, Waaler stopped and pointed to the door that didn't have-and had hardly ever needed-a nameplate. He eyed the two others. Their chests heaved under their uniforms. And not because of the stairs.

They put on balaclavas. The keywords were speed, efficiency and resolve. The latter actually meant the resolve to be brutal, and if necessary, to kill. That was seldom necessary. On the whole, even hardened criminals were totally paralysed when masked, armed men entered without warning. In short, they used the same tactics as bank robbers.

Waaler steadied himself and nodded to one of the others, who gently touched the door with two knuckles. That was in order to be able to write in the report that they had knocked first. Waaler smashed the glass panel with the barrel of his machine gun, reached a hand through and opened the door in one movement. He yelled as they stormed the apartment. A vowel or the first letter of a word, he wasn't sure. He just knew it was the same thing he used to yell when he and Joakim switched on their torches. That was the best bit.