Ю Несбё - Blood on Snow

I glanced behind me. Saw the young girl in her grandmother’s lap. It was impossible to say if she was breathing, but judging by the colour of her face she was drained of blood. I took in the whole room before I left. The family, death, blood. It reminded me of a picture. Three hyenas and a zebra with its stomach torn open.

It’s not true that I don’t remember what I said to her on the train. I don’t remember if I’ve said that I can’t remember, but I certainly thought of saying it. But I do remember. I told her I loved her. Just to see how it felt to say it to someone. Like shooting at targets in the shape of human torsos; it’s obviously not the same, but it still feels different from shooting at plain round targets. Obviously I didn’t mean it, just as little as I meant to kill the torso-people on the targets. It was practice. Familiarisation. One day maybe I’d meet a woman I loved and who loved me, and then it would be good if the words didn’t catch in my throat. Okay, so I hadn’t actually told Corina that I loved her yet. Not out loud, like that, honestly, with no possibility of retreat, just going for it, letting the echo fill the vacuum, inflating the silence so much that it made the walls bulge. I had only said it to Maria at the exact point where the tracks met. Or divided. But the thought that I would soon be saying it to Corina made my heart feel like it was going to explode. Was I going to say it that evening? On the plane to Paris? At the hotel in Paris? Over dinner, perhaps? Yes, that would be perfect!

That was what I was thinking as the Dane and I walked out of the church and I breathed in the raw, cold winter air that still tastes of sea salt even when ice has settled on the fjord. The police sirens could be heard clearly now, but they came and went like a badly tuned radio, still so far off that it was impossible to tell which direction they were coming from.

I could see the headlights of the black van on the road below the church.

I was walking across the frozen path with short, quick steps, my knees slightly bent. That’s something you learn as a child in Norway. Maybe not as early in Denmark — they don’t have so much snow and ice — and I sensed that the Dane was falling behind. But that might not be true. Maybe the Dane had walked on more ice than I had. We know so little about each other. We see a nice round face and open smile, and hear cheerful Danish words that we don’t always understand, but they soothe the ear, calm the nerves, and tell us a story of Danish sausages, Danish beer, Danish sunshine and the gentle, sedate life on the flat farmland way down south. And it’s all so nice that it makes us lower our guard. But what did I know? Maybe the Dane had fixed more people than I ever would. And why did that thought pop up just then? Maybe because it suddenly felt like time was waiting for something again, another squeezed second, a spring coiled tight.

I was about to turn round, but never made it.

I couldn’t blame him. After all — like I said — I’m usually willing to go to any lengths to be in a position to shoot an armed man in the back.

The shot echoed across the churchyard.

I felt the first bullet as pressure on my back, and the next like a jaw clamping hard round my thigh. He had aimed low, just as I had done with Benjamin. I fell forward. Hit my chin on the ice. I rolled over and stared up into the barrel of his pistol.

“Sorry, Olav,” the Dane said, and I could tell he meant it. “It’s nothing personal.” He’d aimed low so he could tell me that.

“Smart move by the Fisherman,” I whispered. “He knew I’d be keeping an eye on Klein, so he gave you the job.”

“That’s pretty much it, Olav.”

“But why fix me?”

The Dane shrugged. The wailing police sirens were getting closer.

“The usual, I suppose,” I said. “The boss doesn’t want someone out there who’s got something on him. That’s worth bearing in mind. You have to know when to quit.”

“That’s not why, Olav.”

“I know. The Fisherman’s a boss, and bosses are scared of people who are prepared to fix their own bosses. They think they’re next in line.”

“That’s not why, Olav.”

“For fuck’s sake, can’t you see I’m bleeding to death here? How about we skip the guessing game?”

The Dane cleared his throat. “The Fisherman said you have to be a bloody cold businessman not to bear a grudge against someone who has fixed three of your men.”

He took aim at me, his finger tightening round the trigger.

“Sure you haven’t got a bullet jammed in the magazine?” I whispered.

He nodded.

“One last Christmas wish. Not in the face. Please, grant me that.”

I saw the Dane hesitate. Then he nodded again. Lowered the pistol slightly. I closed my eyes. Heard the shots. Felt the projectiles smash into me. Two lead bullets. Aimed at where normal people have their heart.

“My wife made it,” he had said. “For the play.”

Loops of metal, all hooked together. How many thousands of them could there be? Like I said, I thought I’d got something out of the exchange with the widow. A coat of chain mail. It’s hardly surprising Pine had thought I looked sweaty. I was dressed up like a fucking medieval king under my suit and shirt.

The metal top had dealt fine with the shots to my back and chest. My thigh wasn’t so fortunate.

I could feel the blood pumping out as I lay there motionless and watched the tail lights of the black van flare off into the night and disappear. Then I tried to stand up. I almost passed out, but managed to get to my feet, and staggered towards the Volvo that was parked in front of the church door. The chorus of sirens was getting closer with each passing second. There was at least one ambulance in the choir. The gravedigger must have worked out what was going on when he called them. Maybe they’d be able to save the girl. Maybe not. Maybe I’d be able to save myself, I thought as I yanked open the door of the Volvo. Maybe not.

But the brother-in-law had been telling the truth to his wife: he had left the key in the ignition.

I squeezed myself in behind the wheel and turned the key. The starter motor whined in complaint before giving up. Fuck, fuck. I let the key click back, then tried again. More whining. Start, for fuck’s sake! If there’s any point in making cars up here in this snowy shithole, surely it has to be that they start even if it’s a few lousy degrees below freezing. I thumped the steering wheel with one hand. I could see the blue lights flare like the aurora borealis in the winter sky.

There! I put my foot down. I let go of the clutch and the wheel spun through the ice until the studded tyres got a grip and sent me swerving towards the churchyard gate.

I drove a couple of hundred metres down among the villas before turning the car round and heading back towards the church at a snail’s pace. I’d hardly set off again before I saw the blue lights in the rear-view mirror. I obediently signalled to pull over and turned into the driveway of one of the villas.

Two police cars and an ambulance went past. I could hear at least one more police car on its way, and waited. And realised that I had been here before. Bloody hell. It was right in front of this house that I had fixed Benjamin Hoffmann.

There were Christmas decorations and plastic tubes that were supposed to look like candles in the living-room window. A sliver of cosy family life shone out onto the snowman in the garden. So the boy had managed it. Maybe he’d had some help from his father; maybe he used a bit of water. The snowman was properly done. Adorned with a hat, a blank stone grin, and stick arms that seemed to want to embrace the whole of this rotten world and all the crazy shit that happened in it.