Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

‘Yeah?’

I crossed into the other lane. Saw the tractor was much too close to the corner but did it anyway. Put my foot down and slipped in front of the tractor at the start of the corner, just in time to see the driver shaking his head in the rear-view mirror.

‘It wasn’t rocks falling, it was his phone. He had it in one of those holders that just clips onto the belt. And when he was dragged up the rock face it was pulled off and fell down, but of course in the dark I couldn’t see that.’

‘How can you be so sure about that?’

‘Because when we were at the workshop dismembering the body, I pulled off his belt and cut off his clothes. Went through his pockets to remove anything metal before leaving the rest to Fritz. There were coins, the belt buckle and a lighter. But no mobile phone. It didn’t even fucking occur to me, and I knew he had that stupid leather holder.’

Silence for a few moments at Carl’s end. ‘So what do we do?’ he asked.

‘We’ve got to go down into Huken again,’ I said. ‘Before Kurt does.’

‘And when is that?’

‘Kurt’s safety suit arrived yesterday. Erik’s meeting him to try it on at ten o’clock and then they’re going straight to Huken.’

Carl’s breathing crackled through the phone. ‘Oh shit,’ he said.

IT WAS AS THOUGH THE repeat, this second descent, was slower but at the same time quicker. Quicker, because we had solved the practical problems and actually remembered our solutions. Slower, because it had to happen fast because we didn’t know when Kurt and his climbing crew would be here, and that gave me the same feeling as you get in those nightmares where someone’s after you and you’re trying to run fast but it’s like you’re running in water. Shannon was posted at the outer edge of Geitesvingen, from where she could see cars turning up off the highway.

Carl and I used the same rope as previously, meaning that Carl knew exactly how close to the edge he had to reverse the Volvo before I was down.

When at last I touched ground, my face to the rock face, I freed myself from the rope before turning round slowly. Seventeen years. But it was as though time had stood still down here. On account of the lower but partly overhanging wall on the south side the rain didn’t fall straight down here, it came trickling down the higher, vertical wall from Geitesvingen and drained away through the rocks. That was probably why there was so remarkably little rust on the wrecked car and the tyres were still intact, though the rubber looked slightly rotten. Nor had any animal made its home in Dad’s Cadillac and the seat coverings and panelling all seemed intact.

I looked at my watch. Ten thirty. Shit. Closed my eyes and tried to recall where I had heard that sound of something hitting the ground back then. No, it was too long ago. But, exposed only to the force of gravity, the phone should have fallen in a vertical line from the body. The plumb line. The simple law of physics that says anything that doesn’t have a horizontal speed will fall straight down. I had consciously dismissed the thought back then, and I might just as well do the same thing now. I had a torch with me and started to search among the boulders close to the rock face where the rope was dangling. Since we had done everything in exact repetition, reversing the car along the same narrow track up there, I knew the phone must have fallen somewhere there. But there were hundreds of different places between the rocks where it could have slipped down and hidden itself. And naturally it might also have ricocheted off the rocks and landed somewhere else entirely. One good thing was that, being in a leather case, bits of it were unlikely to be scattered all over the place. If, that is, I found the fucking thing.

I knew I had to be more systematic, not let myself get carried away by hunches about where it might have landed and start running round like those chickens Mum couldn’t bear to keep hold of once Dad had chopped their heads off. I defined a square within which it was reasonable to assume the phone had to be and started in the upper left corner. On my knees I began the search, lifting the stones that weren’t too heavy, and shining my torch into the spaces between those that were. In the spaces where I could neither see nor feel with my hand I used Carl’s smartphone and selfie stick. Put the camera on video and turned on the flash.

After fifteen minutes I was in the middle of my square and had just poked the stick between two rocks the size of fridges when I heard Carl’s voice from above.

‘Roy…’

I knew of course what it was.

‘Shannon’s seen them coming!’

‘Where?’ I called back.

‘They’re starting up the mountain now.’

At the most we had three minutes. I withdrew the stick and played back the video. Jumped when I saw a pair of eyes in the dark. A fucking mouse. It turned away from the light and with a flick of the tail it was gone. And that was when I saw it. There were holes chewed in the black leather holder, but there was no doubting it, I had found Sheriff Olsen’s phone.

I lay on my stomach and reached my arm in under the rocks but it wasn’t long enough, my fingers scraped against granite or thin air. Shit! If I found it, they could find it. I had to move that fucking rock out of the way. I pressed my back against it, bent my knees, wedged my feet against the rock face and heaved. It didn’t move.

‘They’re just taking the bend at Japansvingen,’ called Carl.

I tried again. Felt the sweat break out on my forehead, my muscles and sinews straining to breaking point. Was that a slight movement in the rock? I heaved again and felt it, yes, there was movement. In my back. I yelled in pain. Jeeezus! Slumped down. Was I still able to move? Yes, dammit, it just hurt like fuck.

‘Roy, they’re—’

‘When I say drive put your foot down and drive forward two metres!’

I jerked on the rope. I didn’t have enough slack to twine it more than once around the rock, fastening it with what Dad called a bowline knot. I stood behind the rock, ready to push if the Volvo managed to lift the rock slightly.

‘Drive!’

I heard the engine revving, and suddenly a hail of small stones was falling over me. One struck me right on top of the head. But I could feel the rock moving and I pushed up against it like an American linebacker. The rock stood poised and swaying as gravel from the spinning tyres of the Volvo up there rained down. And then it toppled over, and a whiff of something like rotting bad breath rose up from the ground. I had a glimpse of insects scurrying away from the sudden light as I sank to my knees and took hold of the phone. At that same instant there was a loud noise. I looked up, just in time to see the frayed end of the rope shooting up the rock face as the rock began toppling back towards me. I leapt back and landed on my arse, shaking and out of breath, glaring at the rock that had returned to its place, like a jaw I had just escaped from.

Up there the Volvo had stopped, probably realising that the resistance had stopped. Instead now I heard another engine, the tractor-like rumble of a Land Rover climbing a steep incline. The sound carried well, they could still be a couple of turns away, but the end of the rope was now seven or eight metres away up the rock face.

‘Back up!’ I called as I loosened what was left of the rope around the rock, coiled it and squeezed it into my jacket pocket on top of Olsen’s old phone.

The hanging end of the rope was closer now, but it was still almost three metres up, and I realised Carl had reversed all the way to the edge. With my good left hand I found a hold to climb up, and felt the whole rock move. I was the one who’d lied about all the loose rocks I said we heard falling here – but it was true, they were loose! Still I had no choice. I put my right hand on a ledge, and fortunately the pain in my back was so great I didn’t even notice the throbbing middle finger. I managed to get my feet on top of the rock, my hand found a hold above it, and I moved my legs upward, my arse sticking out like a caterpillar until I straightened up and got hold of the rope with my right hand. And then what? I had to use the other hand to hold on with, and I couldn’t be tying any knot with just one hand.