Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

‘No, you haven’t,’ I said, and heard how like some half-remembered quote from the history of pop music it sounded when I said: ‘Poul is dead.’

Willumsen’s octopus eyes opened wide. Now he saw the pistol. And clearly recognised it.

‘I had to go back down into Huken again,’ I said. ‘The Jaguar is lying on top of the Cadillac, both of them roof-down. Both squashed flat, looks like a fucking veteran-car sandwich. And what’s left of the Dane is oozing out of the seat belt, like a fucking pork sausage.’

Willumsen swallowed.

I waved the gun. ‘I found it trapped between the gearstick and the roof, had to kick it loose.’

‘What do you want, Roy?’

‘I want you not to kill anyone in my family, including in-laws.’

‘Deal.’

‘And I want us to cancel Carl’s debt to you. Plus, you agree to make us a new loan of the same amount.’

‘I can’t do that, Roy.’

‘I’ve seen Carl’s copy of the loan contract that the two of you signed. We tear up yours and his here and now and sign the agreement for a new loan.’

‘It won’t work, Roy, the contract is at my lawyer’s office. And as I’m sure Carl told you, it was signed there in the presence of witnesses, so it won’t disappear just like that.’

‘When I say “tear up” I’m speaking figuratively. Here’s a loan contract that replaces the previous one.’

I lit the bedside lamp with my free hand, pulled out two sheets of A4 paper from my inside pocket and laid them on the duvet in front of Willumsen. ‘It says here that the loan is to be written down from thirty million to a much lower sum. In fact, two kroner. It also says that the background to the writing down of the loan is that you personally advised Carl to cut out the insurance costs for the hotel, and that you therefore consider yourself equally to blame for the situation in which Carl finds himself. In short, his misfortune is your misfortune. In addition you’re making him a new loan of thirty million.’

Willumsen shook his head vigorously. ‘You don’t understand. I don’t have that much money. I borrowed to be able to make the loan to Carl. It’ll break me if I don’t get it back.’ He sounded almost tearful as he went on. ‘Everyone thinks I’m raking it in now that the villagers are spending so much money. But they all go to Kongsberg and Notodden and buy new cars, Roy. They don’t want to be seen in a used car bought from me.’

The double chins on the collar of the striped pyjama jacket quivered lightly.

‘But all the same, you’re going to sign,’ I said, handing him the pen I’d brought with me.

I saw his gaze drift down the page. Then he looked enquiringly up at me.

‘We’ll take care of witnesses and dates after you’ve signed,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Willumsen.

‘No… to?’

‘I’m not signing. I’m not afraid to die.’

‘Maybe not. But you are afraid of going bankrupt?’

Willumsen nodded mutely. He gave a brief laugh. ‘Remember the last time we were in this situation, Roy? And I said the cancer had come back? I lied. But now it is back. I have a limited amount of time left. That’s why I can’t write off such a large debt, and why I certainly can’t lend any more. I want to leave a healthy business to my wife and my other heirs. That’s all that matters now.’

I nodded slowly, and for a long time, so that he would realise that I had thought this all the way through. ‘That’s a shame,’ I said. ‘A real shame.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Willumsen, handing the papers back to me, along with the addenda Carl had written during the night.

‘Yes indeed,’ I said, without taking the papers. Instead I took out my phone. ‘Because in that case we’re going to have to do something much worse.’

‘Considering the treatment I’ve been through I’m afraid torture isn’t going to have much effect on me, Roy.’

I didn’t reply, tapped in ‘Shannon’ and opened FaceTime.

‘Kill me?’ Willumsen asked, his voice pointing out the obvious idiocy in killing a person you’re trying to squeeze money out of.

‘Not you,’ I said, and looked at the display on the phone.

Shannon appeared on the screen. It was dark where she was, but light from the camera was reflected by the snow on frozen Lake Budal. She spoke, not to me but to someone behind the camera.

‘OK if I take a video, Rita?’

‘Of course,’ I heard Rita say.

Shannon turned the phone and Rita appeared in the sharp light from the camera. She was wearing a fur coat and hat with a white bathing cap sticking out beneath it. Her breath clouded in front of her face as she jumped up and down on the spot in front of a square hole in the ice, just wide enough for someone to get into. There was an ice-saw next to the hole, and the section of ice they had cut away.

‘Kill your wife,’ I said, and held the screen up to Willumsen. ‘I got the idea from Poul.’

I didn’t doubt that Willumsen had cancer. And I saw the pain in his eyes when it dawned on him that he could lose something he thought he could never lose, that he loved perhaps even more than himself, and that his only comfort was that she would survive him, and live on for him. I felt for Willumsen right then, I really did.

‘Drowning,’ I said. ‘An accident, of course. Your wife jumps in. Plop. And when she returns to the surface she finds the hole is no longer there. She’ll feel that the ice above her is loose and realise it’s the section they cut away and try to push it up. But all Shannon has to do is keep her foot on it, like a lid, because your wife has nothing to brace her feet against, just water. Cold water.’

Willumsen gave a low sob. Did it bring me pleasure? I hope not, because that would mean I’m a psychopath, and of course that’s not something you want to be.

‘We’ll start with Rita,’ I said. ‘Then, if you don’t sign, we go on to your other heirs. Shannon – who does not exclude the possibility that your wife was complicit in her death sentence – is highly motivated for the task.’

On the screen Rita Willumsen had undressed. She was obviously freezing cold, and no wonder. Her pale skin was burled and bluish in the sharp light. I noticed she was wearing the same bathing suit as when we rowed out on the lake that summer. She didn’t look older, but younger. As though time wasn’t even circular but moving backwards.

I heard the scratching of pen on paper.

‘There,’ said Willumsen, tossing the papers and the pen onto the duvet in front of me. ‘Now stop her!’

I saw Rita Willumsen move to the edge of the hole. Same pose as in the boat, as though she were about to dive.

‘Not until you’ve signed both copies,’ I said without taking my eyes from the screen. Heard Willumsen grab the papers again and write.

I checked the signatures. They looked right.

Willumsen yelled, and I looked at the screen. I hadn’t heard anything like a splash. Rita was good. The loose section of ice filled the screen and we saw a small pale hand take hold of it and lift it.

‘You can stop, Shannon. He’s signed.’

For an instant it looked as though Shannon was going to drop the lid over the hole anyway. But then she put it down beside her, and a moment later Rita appeared in the dark water, like a seal, hair smooth and glistening around the laughing face, her breath puffing white smoke signals into the camera.

I ended the connection.

‘Well then,’ I said.

‘Well then,’ said Willumsen.

It was cold in the room, and I had gradually slipped down under the duvet. Not with my whole body, but enough of it that it wouldn’t be completely wrong to say the two of us were sharing a bed.

‘You’re leaving now, presumably.’