Ю Несбё - Blood on Snow

“Don’t you like the smell of skate, lad?” He nodded towards the fish that had been partially filleted on the counter behind us. “Shipping dope in the same truck as a load of skate works perfectly, you know. The sniffer dogs don’t stand a chance. Not many people do it, but I like making fish balls from skate. Try one.” He nodded towards a bowl on the tiled wooden table between us. Pale grey fish balls floated in a cloudy liquid.

“So how are things going with that side of the business?” I asked, acting as if I hadn’t heard his invitation.

“There’s nothing wrong with demand, but the Russians are starting to get greedy. They’ll be easier to deal with when they can no longer play me and Hoffmann off against each other.”

“Hoffmann knows that you and I have been talking.”

“He’s not stupid.”

“No. Which is why he’s well guarded these days. We can’t just go and take him out. We’ll need to have a bit of imagination.”

“Your problem,” the Fisherman said.

“We need to get on the inside.”

“Still your problem.”

“The death was announced in the paper today. Hoffmann junior is being buried the day after tomorrow.”

“And?”

“That’s where we can take Hoffmann.”

“The funeral. Nice.” The Fisherman shook his head. “Too risky.”

“Not the funeral. The evening before. In the crypt.”

“Explain.”

I explained. He shook his head. I went on. He shook his head even more. I held one hand up and carried on talking. He was still shaking his head, but now he was grinning. “Well! How on earth did you come up with that?”

“Someone I know was buried at the same church. And that’s how it worked then.”

“You know I should say no.”

“But you’re going to say yes.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll need money for three coffins,” I said. “Kimen Funeral Directors have them ready-made. But you probably know that...”

The Fisherman looked at me warily. Wiped his fingers on his apron. Tugged at his moustache. Wiped his fingers on his apron.

“Have a fish ball, and I’ll see what I’ve got in the till.”

I sat there and looked at the fish balls swimming in what I would have guessed was semen if I didn’t know better. Actually, when I came to think about it, I didn’t know better.

I walked past Maria’s supermarket on the way home. It occurred to me that I might as well buy food for dinner there. I went in and grabbed a basket. She was serving a customer with her back to me. I walked along the aisles and picked out fish fingers, potatoes and carrots. Four beers. They had an offer on King Haakon chocolates, ready-wrapped in Christmas paper. I put a box in the basket.

I walked towards Maria’s checkout. There was no one else in the shop. I saw she had seen me. She was blushing. Damn. I suppose it wasn’t so strange, the business about dinner that time was probably still a bit raw, she probably didn’t invite many men back to hers like that.

I went up to her and said a quick hello. Then looked down at my basket as I concentrated on putting the food — the fish fingers, potatoes, carrots and beer — on the conveyor belt. I held the box of chocolates in my hand for a moment. Hesitating. The ring on Corina’s finger. The one he, the son, had given her. Just like that. And here I was, thinking of turning up with a box of fucking chocolates as a Christmas present, wrapped up like it was Cleopatra’s crown jewels.

“Was. That. It.”

I looked at Maria in surprise. She had spoken. Who the hell knew she could do that? It sounded strange, obviously. But it was words. Words, as good as any others. She brushed her hair from her face. Freckles. Gentle eyes. A bit tired.

“Yes,” I said, overemphasising the word. Stretching my mouth.

She smiled slightly.

“That... is... it,” I said slowly, and rather too loudly.

She gestured questioningly towards the box of chocolates.

“For... you.” I held it out. “Happy... Christmas.”

She put a hand over her mouth. And behind the hand her face ran through a whole range of expressions. More than six. Surprise, confusion, joy, embarrassment, followed by raised brows ( why? ), lowered eyelids and a grateful smile. That’s what happens when you can’t talk — you end up with a very expressive face, and learn to perform a sort of pantomime that looks a bit exaggerated to anyone who’s not used to it.

I handed her the box. Saw her freckled hand approach mine. What did she want? Was she thinking of taking my hand? I pulled it back. Gave her a quick nod and headed for the door. I could feel her eyes on my back. Damn. All I’d done was give her a box of chocolates, so what exactly did the woman want?

The flat was dark when I let myself in. On the bed I could make out Corina’s shape.

So quiet and motionless that I almost found it odd. I walked slowly over to the bed and stood above her. She looked so peaceful. And so pale. A clock began to tick inside my head, ticking as if it were working something out. I leaned closer to her, until my face was right above her mouth. Something was missing. And the clock was ticking louder and louder.

“Corina,” I whispered.

No reaction.

“Corina,” I repeated, a bit louder, and heard something I had never heard before in my own voice, a faint note of helplessness.

She opened her eyes.

“Come here, teddy bear,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me down onto the bed.

“Harder,” she whispered. “I won’t break, you know.”

No, I thought, you won’t break. We, this, won’t break. Because this is what I’ve been waiting for; this is what I’ve been practising for. Nothing but death can ruin this.

“Oh, Olav,” she whispered. “Oh, Olav.”

Her face was glowing, she was laughing, but her eyes were shiny with tears. Her breasts shone white beneath me, so white. And even if at that moment she was as close as you can ever be to another person, it was as if I was looking at her the way I had first seen her, from a distance, behind a window on the other side of the street. And I thought that you can’t see a person more nakedly than that, when they don’t know they’re being watched, studied. She had never seen me like that. Maybe she never would. Then it struck me. I still had those sheets of paper, the letter, the one I had never quite finished. And if Corina found it, she might misunderstand. All the same, it was odd that my heart started to beat faster because of a little thing like that. The sheets of paper were under the cutlery tray in the kitchen drawer, and there was no reason for anyone to move that. But I made up my mind to get rid of them at the earliest opportunity.

“That’s it, Olav, like that.”

Something loosened inside me when I came, something that had been lying there shut away. I don’t know what it was, but the pressure from my ejaculation shook it out and revealed it. I lay back, gasping for breath. I was a changed man, I just didn’t know in what way.

She leaned over me and tickled my forehead.

“How do you feel, my king?”

I answered, but my throat was full of saliva.

“What?” she laughed.

I cleared my throat and repeated: “Starving.”

She laughed even louder.

“And happy,” I said.

Corina couldn’t stand fish. She was allergic to it, always had been, something in her family.

The supermarkets were all shut now, but I said I could order a CP Special from Chinese Pizza.

“Chinese Pizza?”

“Chinese food and pizzas. Separately, I mean. I have dinner there almost every day.”

I got dressed again and went down to the phone box on the corner. I had never had a telephone installed in the flat, didn’t want one. I didn’t want people to have a way to hear me, find me, talk to me.