Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

‘You’re not the one who’s going to die, Opgard. At least not in the first instance.’

I already knew what was coming next, but I doubted if Carl did.

‘It’s your wife, Opgard.’

‘Sh…’ Carl swallowed the ‘a’. ‘…nnon?’

‘Nice name.’

‘But that’s… murder.’

‘The reaction reflects the amount owing.’

‘But two days. How do you and Willumsen suppose I’m going to get hold of that kind of money in such a short time?’

‘I can imagine you’ll have to do something pretty drastic, maybe even something desperate. Beyond that I have no opinion, herr Opgard.’

‘And if I don’t manage it…?’

‘Then you’re a widower, and you’ll have a further two days.’

‘But Jesus, I mean…’

I was on my feet already, trying not to make a sound as I pulled on my trousers and pullover. I didn’t hear in detail what would happen after four days, but I didn’t need to either.

I sneaked down the stairs. I might possibly – possibly – have managed to handle the Dane with the element of surprise on my side. But I doubted it. I recalled the speed of his movements outside the service station, and from the acoustics I had realised he was sitting facing the door and would see me the moment I came in.

I slipped into my shoes and out the door. The cold was like a pressure forcing against the temples. I could have taken a detour, run in an arc towards the barn out of sight of the kitchen, but I figured I only had a few seconds so I banked on being right and that the Dane was sitting with his back to the window. The dry snow squeaked under my running steps. The enforcer’s primary task is to frighten, so I reckoned the Dane would be elaborating on his threat. On the other hand, there were probably limits to how much there was to say.

I raced into the barn, turned on the taps and placed two zinc buckets below them. They were full in less than ten seconds. I grabbed the handles, ran out and down towards Geitesvingen. The water sploshed about and my trousers got wet. On the bend I put one of the buckets down on the ice and emptied the other in an arc in front of me. The water ran over the hard ice, over the sand strewn across it that looked like black peppercorns where it had bored its way into the ice. The water evened out irregularities and small holes and ran off towards the edge of the precipice. I did the same with the other bucket. It was too cold, of course, for the water to melt the ice, so it lay in a thin layer on top of it and started to penetrate down into the layer below. I was still standing there observing the ice when I heard the Jaguar start. And – almost as though they were synchronised – I heard the distant, crisp sound of church bells starting up from down in the village. I looked up towards the house and saw the enforcer’s white car come driving along. Carefully, slowly. Maybe he’d been surprised at how easily he’d managed to climb the icy hills on his summer tyres. But most Danes don’t really know much about ice, they don’t know that the surface becomes like sandpaper if it gets cold enough.

But that when heated, for example, to around minus seven degrees, it turns into an ice-hockey rink.

I didn’t move, stood there with the buckets dangling at my sides. The Dane stared at me from behind the front windscreen, the small slits of his eyes that I remembered from that time by the pumps now covered by a pair of sunglasses. The car approached and passed, and our heads revolved like a planet around its own axis. Maybe he had some vague memory of my face, maybe not. And maybe he’d come up with some plausible explanation for why this guy was standing there with two buckets, maybe not. And perhaps he understood when he suddenly lost his grip on the road, and he instinctively pushed down harder on the brake pedal, perhaps not. And now the car too was a planet as it slowly spun round on the ice to the music of the church bells, like a figure skater. I saw him desperately spinning the steering wheel, saw the front wheels with their broad summer tyres twist back and forth as though trying to escape what held them, but the Jaguar was trapped and out of control. And when the car had spun 180 degrees and was sailing backwards towards the edge of the curve, I saw him again, I was looking straight into his face, a red planet with tiny, active volcanoes. The sunglasses had slipped down his face as with flailing elbows he fought the steering wheel. Then he caught sight of me and stopped his flapping. Because he knew now. Knew what the buckets had been for, knew that if he had understood immediately he might possibly have had a chance to jump out of the car straight away. Knew now that it was too late.

I’m guessing he was acting on instinct when he pulled his gun. The automatic response of an enforcer, a soldier, to attack. And I was probably acting in response to another instinct when I raised one hand, with a bucket, in a farewell gesture. I just about heard the crack inside the car as he fired, then a whipping sound as the bullet passed through the zinc bucket right next to my ear. I just had time to see the bullet hole, like a frost-rose in the windscreen, and then the Jaguar disappeared down into Huken.

I held my breath.

The zinc bucket in my raised hand still swayed from the hit.

The church bells rang faster and faster.

And then at last it came, a muted thud.

I stood there, still not moving. It must be a funeral. The church bells continued for a while longer, but with the silence between each peal ever longer. I looked out across the village, the mountains and Lake Budal as the sun finally broke free of the peak of Ausdaltinden.

Then the church bells stopped completely, and I thought, Jesus Christ, how lovely it is round here.

I guess that’s the kind of thing you think when you’re in love.

‘YOU POURED WATER OVER THE ice?’ Carl asked in disbelief.

‘It raises the temperature,’ I said.

‘It turns it into a skating rink,’ said Shannon, bringing the coffee pot over from the stove. She poured coffees for us.

Saw Carl was looking up at her.

‘Toronto Maple Leafs!’ she cried, as though there was an accusation in his look. ‘Did you never notice how they watered the rink during the breaks?’

Carl turned back to me. ‘So there’s another body in Huken.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ I said, blowing across my coffee.

‘What do we do? Report it to Kurt Olsen?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘No? And if they find him?’

‘Then it’s got nothing to do with us. We never saw the car drive off the road and we never heard it either, that’s why we never reported anything.’

Carl looked at me. ‘My brother,’ he said. The white teeth shone in his face. ‘I knew you’d come up with a plan.’

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘If no one knows or suspects that the enforcer was up here, then we don’t have a problem and we keep our mouths shut. It might be a hundred years before anyone discovers the wreck in Huken. But if anyone finds out he was up here or discovers the Jaguar, then this is our story…’

Carl and Shannon came closer, as though I was going to whisper in our own kitchen.

‘It’s generally best to stick as close to the truth as possible, so we tell it like it was, that the enforcer was here to press us for the money Carl owes Willumsen. We say that none of us watched the enforcer as he drove off, but that it was pretty fucking slippery on Geitesvingen. So when the police get down into Huken and see the summer tyres on the Jaguar, they’ll work the rest out for themselves.’

‘The church bells,’ said Carl. ‘We can say we never heard the crash because of the church bells.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No church bells. There were no church bells the day he was up here.’