Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast

Halvorsen ran towards the Palace entrance while Harry remained in the open square, walking round in circles like a drunk. It would take a few minutes to clear the royal balcony. Important men would have to make decisions first which they would have to answer for. You didn't cancel 17 May simply because a policeman from the sticks had been chatting to a dubious colleague. His gaze swept the crowd, up and down, without quite knowing what he was looking for.

It would come from the sky.

He looked up. The green trees. So devoid of death. They were so tall and the foliage was so dense that even with good rifle sights it would be impossible to shoot from neighbouring houses.

Harry closed his eyes. His lips moved. Help me now, Ellen.

I have cleared the way.

Why had they been so surprised, the two Palace gardeners, when lie was walking by yesterday? The tree. It didn't have any leaves. He opened his eyes again, looked across the treetops and there it was: the dead brown oak. Harry felt his heart begin to thump. He turned, almost knocked over a drum major and ran up towards the Palace. When he reached the direct line between the balcony and the tree, he stopped. His eyes followed the line to the tree. Behind the naked branches towered a frozen blue giant made of glass. The SAS Hotel. Of course. So easy. One bullet. No one would notice a single gunshot on 17 May. Then he strolls calmly into a busy reception area and out into the crowded streets where he will vanish. And then? What happens after that?

Couldn't think about that now; had to act. Had to act. But he was so tired. Instead of excitement Harry felt a sudden urge to get away, to go home, to lie down and sleep and wake up to a new day in which all of this was a dream. He was roused by the sirens from a passing ambulance in Drammensveien. The sound cut right through the blanket of brass-band music.

'Fuck. Fuck!'

He broke into a run.

Radisson SAS. 17 May 2000.

The old man was leaning against the window with his legs drawn up beneath him, holding the gun with both hands and listening to the ambulance siren slowly fading away into the distance. It's too late, he thought. Everyone dies.

He had been sick again. Mostly blood. The pain had almost deprived him of consciousness and afterwards he lay bent double on the floor, waiting for the pills to take effect. Four of them. The pain had subsided, with one last stab to remind him that it would soon come back, and the bathroom had assumed normal proportions again. One of the two bathrooms. With a Jacuzzi. Or was it a sauna? There was a TV anyway, and he had turned it on. There were patriotic songs, the national anthem, festively dressed journalists reporting on the children's parade on all the channels.

Now he was sitting in the living room, and the sun hung in the sky like a huge flare, lighting up everything. He knew he shouldn't look straight at the flare, because you would become night-blind and you wouldn't be able to see the Russian snipers wriggling through the snow in no man's land.

I can see him, Daniel whispered. One o'clock, on the balcony right behind the dead tree.

Trees? There were no trees here in the crater landscape. The Crown Prince has walked out on to the balcony, but he doesn't say anything.

'He'll get away!' a voice sounding like Gudbrand's shouted. No, he won't, Daniel said. No bloody Bolshevik gets away. 'He knows we've seen him, he's crawling into the hollow.' No, he isn't.

The old man rested the gun against the edge of the window. He had used a screwdriver to open it further than the permitted crack. What was it that the girl in reception had told him that time? It was to prevent guests from 'getting silly ideas'. He looked through the rifle sights. People were so small down there. He set the range. Four-hundred metres. Shooting from above and down, you have to take into account the fact that gravity affects the bullet differently; it is a different trajectory from shooting on the level. But Daniel knew that, Daniel knew everything.

The old man looked at his watch: 10.45. Time to let it happen. He rested his cheek against the cold, heavy rifle butt, placed his left hand on the barrel slightly further down. Contorted his left eye. The railing on the balcony filled the sights. Then black coats and top hats. He found the face he was searching for. There was certainly a strong resemblance. It was the same young face as in 1945.

Daniel had gone even quieter and took aim. There was almost no frost smoke coming out of his mouth any more.

In front of the balcony, out of focus, the dead oak pointed its black witches' fingers to the sky. A bird sat on one of the branches. Right in the firing line. The old man shifted nervously. It hadn't been there before. It would soon fly away again. He put down the gun and drew fresh air into his aching lungs.

Click-click.

Harry slapped the steering wheel and twisted the ignition key one more time. Click-click.

'Start, you bastard! Or else it's off to the scrap heap tomorrow.'

The Escort started with a roar and the car shot off, spitting grass and earth. He took a sharp right by the lake. The young people stretched out on the blanket raised their bottles of beer and cheered Harry on as he lurched towards the SAS Hotel. With the engine screaming in first gear and his hand on the horn he effectively cleared a way down through the crowded gravel path, but by the kindergarten at the bottom a pram suddenly appeared from behind a tree, and he flung the car to the left, wrenched the wheel to the right, went into a skid and only just avoided the fence in front of the greenhouses. The car slid sideways into Wergelandsveien, in front of a taxi with Norwegian flags and a birch twig festooning the radiator grille. The taxi driver jumped on his brakes, but Harry accelerated and threaded his way through oncoming traffic and into Holbergs gate.

He braked in front of the hotel's swing doors and leaped out. When he sprinted into the packed reception area there was an immediate moment of silence, with everyone wondering if they were going to witness a unique experience. But it was just a very drunken man on 17 May. They had seen that before and the volume was turned up again. Harry raced across to one of the absurd 'islands'.

'Good morning,' a voice said. A pair of raised eyebrows under curly blonde hair resembling a wig sized him up from top to toe. Harry spotted her name badge.

'Betty Andresen, what I'm going to tell you now is not a joke in poor taste, so listen carefully. I'm a policeman and you have an assassin in the hotel'

Betty Andresen contemplated the tall, half-dressed man with the bloodshot eyes whom she had, quite understandably, judged to be either drunk or crazy, or both. She studied the ID card he held up for her. She scrutinised him again. At length.

'Name,' she said.

'His name's Sindre Fauke.'

Her fingers danced across the keyboard.

'Sorry, there's no one here by that name.'

'Fuck! Try Gudbrand Johansen.'

'No Gudbrand Johansen either, Inspector Hole. Wrong hotel perhaps?'

'No! He's here, he's in his room right now.'

'So you've spoken to him, have you?'

'No. No, I… it'll take too long to explain.'

Harry ran his hand across his face.

'Let's see. I have to think. He must be high up. How many floors are there here?’

‘Twenty one.'

'And how many of them have not handed in room keys yet?’

‘Quite a few, I'm afraid.'

Harry threw both hands into the air and stared at her. 'Of course,' he whispered. 'This is a Daniel job.' I beg your pardon?’

‘Please check for Daniel Gudeson.'

What would happen afterwards? The old man didn't know. There was nothing afterwards. At least, there hadn't been so far. He had put four bullets on the window-sill. The yellowish-brown matt metal of the housing reflected the rays of the sun.