Ю Несбё - Blood on Snow

“Looks like you’re sweating, Olav. Warm clothes or stress?”

“Answer.”

“And what do I get for t-t-telling you, then?”

“Ten million kroner, tax-free. Or a light for your cigarette. Your choice.”

Pine laughed. Coughed. “Only the Russian. But he’s good, I think. Career soldier, something like that. Don’t know, poor sod doesn’t talk much.”

“Armed?”

“Christ, yes.”

“What with? An automatic?”

“How are you getting on with that match?”

“Afterwards, Pine.”

“Show a dying man some mercy, Olav.” He coughed up some blood onto my white shirt. “You’ll sleep better, you know.”

“Like you slept better after you forced that deaf-mute girl to go on the streets to pay back her guy’s debts?”

Pine blinked at me. The look in his eyes was weirdly clear, as if something had eased.

“Ah, her,” he said quietly.

“Yes, her,” I said.

“You must have m-m-misunderstood that one, Olav.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She was the one who came to me. She wanted to repay his debts.”

“She did?”

Pine nodded. It almost looked like he was feeling better. “I actually said no. I mean, she wasn’t that pretty, and who wants to pay for a girl who can’t hear what you want her to do? I only said yes because she insisted. Then, once she’d taken on the debt, it was hers, wasn’t it?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have an answer. Someone had rewritten the story. My version was better.

“Oy, Dane!” I shouted over to the entrance. “Have you got a light?”

He moved his pistol to his left hand without taking his eyes off the steps as he fished out a lighter with his right hand. We’re such weird creatures of habit. He tossed it to me. I caught it in the air. The rough scraping sound. I held the yellow flame to the cigarette. I waited for it to be sucked into the tobacco, but it carried on burning straight up. I held it there for a moment, then lifted my thumb. The lighter went out, the flame was gone.

I looked around. Blood and groaning. Everyone concentrating on their own business. All except Klein, who was concentrating on mine. I met his gaze.

“You go first,” I said.

“Huh?”

“You go first up the steps.”

“Why?”

“What do you want me to say? Because you’ve got a shotgun?”

“You can have the shotgun.”

“That isn’t why. Because I say you should go first. I don’t want you behind me.”

“What the fuck? Don’t you trust me, then, or what?”

“I trust you enough to let you go first.” I couldn’t even be bothered to pretend that I wasn’t pointing at him with the pistol. “Dane! Shift yourself. Klein’s leaving.”

Klein stared at me steadily. “I’ll get you back for this, Johansen.”

He kicked off his shoes, walked quickly over to the bottom of the stone steps and crept up them into the gloom, crouching as he went.

We peered after him. We saw him stop, then straighten up to take a quick look above the top step, then crouch down again at once. Evidently he hadn’t seen anyone, because he stood up and carried on going, holding the shotgun in both hands at chest height, like it was a fucking Salvation Army guitar. He stopped at the top of the steps and turned back towards us, waving us up.

I held the Dane back as he made to follow him.

“Wait a moment,” I whispered. Then started to count to ten.

The salvo of shots came before I got to two.

It hit Klein and threw him back over the edge of the stairs.

He landed halfway down and slid towards us, already so dead that his muscles weren’t even spasming, as gravity pulled him from step to step like a freshly slaughtered carcass.

“Fucking hell,” the Dane whispered, staring at the corpse as it stopped at our feet.

“Hello!” I called in English. The greeting bounced between the walls as if it were being answered. “Your boss is dead! Job is over! Go back to Russia! No one is going to pay for any more work here today!”

I waited. Whispered to the Dane to look for Pine’s car keys. He brought them over and I threw them up the stairs.

“We are not coming out until we hear the car leaving!” I called.

Waited.

Then finally an answer in broken English: “I don’t know boss is dead. Maybe prisoner. Give me boss, I will leave and you will live.”

“He is very dead! Come down and see!”

He laughed, then said: “I want my boss come with me.”

I looked at the Dane. “What do we do now?” he whispered, as if he were some sort of fucking chorus.

“We cut his head off,” I said.

“What?”

“Go back in and cut Hoffmann’s head off. Pine’s got a serrated knife.”

“Er... which Hoffmann?”

Was he a bit thick? “Daniel. His head is our ticket out of here, get it?”

I could tell he didn’t get it. But at least he did as I asked.

I stood in the doorway keeping an eye on the stairs. I could hear quiet voices behind me. It seemed like everyone had calmed down so I took the opportunity to assess what I was thinking. As usual in stressful situations, it was a random mixture of odd things. Like the fact that the jacket of Klein’s suit had twisted on the way down, so I could see from the label inside that it was hired, but it was now so full of bullet holes that they were unlikely to want it back. That it was very practical that Hoffmann’s, Pine’s, and Klein’s corpses were already in a church and that there were spare coffins for each of them. That I’d booked seats on the plane just in front of the wings, with a window seat for Corina, so she’d be able to see Paris when we were coming in to land. Then a couple more useful thoughts. What was our van driver doing now? Was he still waiting for us on the road below the church? If he’d heard the shots, he would have heard that the last ones were from an automatic, which wasn’t part of our arsenal. It’s always bad news when the last shot you hear is the enemy’s. His orders were clear, but could he keep a cool head? Had anyone else in the neighbourhood heard the shots? How did the gravedigger fit into all this? The job had taken much longer than planned. How much time did we have before we had to be out of there?

The Dane came back to the doorway. His face was pale. But not as pale as the face of the head dangling from his hand. I checked that it was the right Hoffmann, then indicated that he should throw it up the stairs.

The Dane twisted the hair on the head a couple of times, took a short run-up, swung his arm by his side as though he was in a bowling alley, and let go. The head sailed upwards, hair flailing, but the angle was too tight and it hit the ceiling, fell onto the steps and bounced back down with little cracking sounds like when you tap a hard-boiled egg with a spoon.

“Just need to get my eye in,” the Dane muttered as he grabbed the head again, shifted his feet, closed his eyes in concentration and took a few deep breaths. I realised I was on the edge mentally now, because I was about to burst out laughing. Then he opened his eyes, took two steps forward and swung his arm. Let go. Four and a half kilos of human head described a fine arc up to the top of the steps and hit the floor. We heard it bounce and roll down the passageway.

The Dane nudged me with a look of triumph, but managed not to say anything.

We waited. And waited.

Then we heard a car start. Revving. The gears crunched badly. Reversing. More revving. Far too much for first gear. It screamed off, driven by someone who wasn’t used to driving it.

I looked at the Dane. He puffed his cheeks and let out the air, shaking his right hand as if he’d been holding something hot.

I listened. Listened hard. It was like I could feel them before I heard them. Police sirens. The sound carried a long way in the cold air. It could still be a good while before they got here.