Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast

'Fucking hell,' Dale said. He shook his head and stamped his feet.

Edvard didn't say a word. Gudbrand reckoned he was waiting for him.

'Why haven't the corpse-bearers collected him?' Gudbrand asked finally.

'They did collect him,' Edvard said. 'They were here yesterday afternoon.'

'So why did they bring him back?' Gudbrand noticed that Edvard was eyeing him.

'No one on the general staff knows of any orders to bring him back.'

'A misunderstanding?' Gudbrand said.

'Maybe.' Edvard flicked a thin, half-smoked cigarette out of a packet, turned away from the wind and lit it with a cupped match. He passed it on after a couple of drags.

'The men who took him maintain he was put in one of the mass graves in the Northern Sector.'

'If that's true, shouldn't he be buried?'

Edvard shook his head.

'They aren't buried until they've been burned. And they only burn during the day so that the Russians can't take advantage of the light. And at night the new mass graves are open and unguarded. Someone must have taken Daniel from there.'

'Fucking hell,' Dale said again, taking the cigarette and inhaling greedily.

'So it's really true that they burn the bodies,' Gudbrand said. "What for? In this cold?'

I know that,' Dale said. 'It's because the ground is frozen. When the temperature rises in springtime, the earth pushes bodies upwards.' He reluctantly passed on the cigarette. 'Last winter we buried Vorpenes a long way behind our lines. In the spring we stumbled across him again. Well, what the foxes had left of him at any rate.'

'The question is,' Edvard said. 'How did Daniel end up here?'

Gudbrand shrugged.

'You had the last watch, Gudbrand.' Edvard had screwed up one eye and turned the cyclops eye on him. Gudbrand took his time with the cigarette. Dale coughed.

'I walked past here four times,' Gudbrand said, sending on the cigarette. 'He wasn't here then.'

'You could have gone up to the Northern Sector during your watch. And there are sledge tracks over here in the snow.'

'Could have been left by the corpse-bearers,' Gudbrand said.

'The tracks are over the last boot prints. And you say you walked past here four times.'

'Hell, Edvard, I can see it's Daniel over there too!' Gudbrand exploded. 'Of course someone put him there, and probably using a sledge. But if you're listening to what I'm saying you must be able to see that someone brought him here after I passed for the last time.'

Edvard didn't answer; instead, visibly annoyed, he ripped the final couple of centimetres of the cigarette out of Dale's pursed mouth and stared disapprovingly at the wet marks on the cigarette paper. Dale picked the shreds of tobacco off his tongue and scowled.

'Why in God's name would I bother with something like this?' Gudbrand asked. 'And how could I possibly drag a body from the Northern Sector over here without being stopped by patrols?'

'You could have gone through no man's land.'

Gudbrand shook his head in disbelief. 'Do you think I've gone mad, Edvard? What would I want with Daniel's body?'

Edvard took the last two drags of the cigarette, dropped the end in the snow and trod it in with his boot. He always did that, he didn't know why, but he couldn't stand the sight of smoking cigarette ends. The snow gave with a groan as he twisted his heel.

'No, I don't think you dragged Daniel here,' Edvard said. 'Because I don't think it's Daniel.'

Dale and Gudbrand recoiled.

'Of course it's Daniel,' Gudbrand said.

'Or someone with the same build,' Edvard said. 'And the same unit insignia on the uniform.'

'The sacking…'

'So you can see a difference in the sacking, can you?' Edvard jeered, but it was Gudbrand he was watching.

'It's Daniel,' Gudbrand said with a swallow. 'I recognise the boots.'

'So you think we should just call the corpse-bearers and ask them to take him away again, do you?' Edvard asked. 'Without taking a closer look. That was what you were counting on, wasn't it?'

'Go to hell, Edvard!'

'I'm not so sure it's my turn this time, Gudbrand. Take off the sacking, Dale.'

Dale gaped at the other two, who were glowering at each other like two rampant bulls.

'Do you hear me?' Edvard shouted. 'Cut away the sacking!'

'I'd prefer not to -'

'It's an order. This minute!'

Dale continued to hesitate. He looked from one to the other and at the rigid corpse on the ammunition chests. Then he shrugged his shoulders, unbuttoned his jacket and put his hand inside.

'Wait!' Edvard shouted. Ask if you can borrow Gudbrand's bayonet.'

Now Dale really was at sea. He looked quizzically at Gudbrand, who was shaking his head.

'What do you mean?' Edvard asked, still face to face with Gudbrand. 'Your standing orders are that you must always carry a bayonet, and you don't have one on you?'

Gudbrand didn't answer.

'You, the ultimate killing machine with a bayonet, Gudbrand. You haven't simply lost it, have you?' Gudbrand still didn't answer.

'In that case, yes, you'll have to use your own, Dale.'

Gudbrand felt an irrepressible urge to tear the large staring eye out of the section leader's head. Rottenfuhrer, that's what he was! Or rather a 'Rat-fuhrer'. A rat with a rat's eyes and a rat's brain. Didn't he understand anything?

They heard a ripping noise behind them as the bayonet cut through the sacking, then a gasp from Dale. Both men whirled round. There, in the red light of the dawning day, a white face with a hideous grin stared up at them with a third black gaping eye in the forehead. It was Daniel alright, no question about it.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 4 November 1999.

Bernt Brandhaug looked at his watch and frowned. Eighty-two seconds, seven more than usual. Then he strode over the threshold to the meeting room, sang out his hearty 'Good morning' and smiled his famous white smile to the four faces turned towards him.

Kurt Meirik, POT, sat on one side of the table with Rakel (complete with unbecoming hairslide, power suit and severe expression). It struck him that the suit seemed a little too expensive for a secretary. He still held to his intuition that she was divorced, but perhaps she had married well. Or did she have wealthy parents? The fact that she was here again, at a meeting that Brandhaug had signalled should take place in total privacy, suggested she was higher up in POT than he had at first assumed. He determined to find out more about her.

Anne Storksen sat on the other side of the table with the tall, thin Crime Squad boss, what was his name? First of all it took him more than eighty seconds to get to the meeting room, and now he couldn't remember a name-was he getting old?

He hadn't even thought this through to the end when the previous night's events came back into his mind. He had invited Lise, the young Foreign Office probationer, out to what he called a Little working lunch. Afterwards he offered her a drink at the Continental Hotel where, under the auspices of the Foreign Office, he had a permanent room at his disposal for meetings which required a little more discretion. Lise had not been difficult to ask out, she was an ambitious girl. But it had gone badly. A one-off, a drink too many perhaps, but surely he wasn't getting too old. Brandhaug shoved the idea to the back of his mind and sat down.

'Thank you for being able to come at such short notice,' he began. 'The confidential nature of this meeting does not need to be emphasised, of course, but I will do so anyway since not everyone has had so much experience of the business in hand.'

He cast a swift glance at everyone except Rakel, making it clear that the message was intended for her. Then he turned towards Anne Storksen.

'By the way, how is your man?'