Ю Несбё - Blood on Snow

“What the fuck’s this?”

“My wife made it,” he said. “For the play. About St. Olav.”

I ran my fingers over the loops of metal, all hooked together. How many thousands of them could there be? Twenty? Forty?

“She won’t let me go out without it,” he said.

Chain mail, made for a play about the murder of a holy king.

I put the pistol against his forehead and fired. The third one. It should have been easier.

His wallet contained fifty kroner, a photograph of his wife and kids, and an ID card with his name and address.

Those fixes were two of the three reasons why I wanted to stay out of the Fisherman’s way.

I went to his shop early the next day.

Eilertsen & Son Fishmonger’s was located on Youngstorget, just a stone’s throw from the central police station at 19 Møllergata. Word is that when the Fisherman still sold smuggled vodka, the police were among his best customers.

Huddled against the piercing, icy wind, I crossed the sea of cobbles.

The shop had only just opened when I stepped inside, but there were already plenty of customers.

Sometimes the Fisherman himself served in the shop, but not that day. The women behind the counter went on serving their customers, but a young man — I could tell from the look he gave me that he had other duties apart from just cutting, weighing and packing fish — vanished through a swing door.

Shortly afterwards the boss came in. The Fisherman. Dressed in white from top to toe. With an apron and cap. He even had white wood-soled sandals. Like some fucking lifeguard. He walked round the counter and came up to me. He wiped his fingers on the apron, which bulged over his stomach. Then nodded towards the door that was still swinging back and forth on its hinges. Each time there was a gap I could see a skinny, familiar figure. The one they called Klein. I don’t know if it was the German sense of the word, small. Or the Norwegian, sick. Unless it really was his name. Maybe all three. Every time the door swung open, my eyes met his, dead, pitch black. I also got a glimpse of the sawn-off shotgun hanging down by his foot.

“Keep your hands out of your pockets,” the Fisherman said quietly with his broad Santa Claus grin. “Then you might make it out of here alive.”

I nodded.

“We’re busy selling fish for Christmas, lad, so say what you came to say, then get the hell out of here.”

“I can help you get rid of the competition.”

“You?”

“Yes. Me.”

“I didn’t think you were the treacherous type, lad.”

The fact that he called me lad instead of my name may have been because he didn’t know it, or didn’t want to show me any respect by using it, or else saw no reason to let me know how much — if anything — he knew about me. I guessed the last of the three.

“Can we talk in the back room?” I asked.

“Here will do fine, no one will overhear us.”

“I shot Hoffmann’s son.”

The Fisherman screwed up one eye while the other stared at me. For a long time. Customers called out “Happy Christmas!” and let gusts of cold air into the warm, steamy shop as they headed out through the door.

“Let’s go into the back,” the Fisherman said.

Three men fixed. You have to be a bloody cold businessman not to bear a grudge against someone who has fixed three of your people. I just had to hope that my offer was good enough, and that the Fisherman was as cold as I thought he was. Like hell he didn’t know my name.

I sat down at a worn wooden table. On the floor were sturdy polystyrene boxes full of ice, frozen fish and — if Hoffmann was right about the logistics — heroin. The room couldn’t have been much more than five or six degrees. Klein didn’t sit down, and while I was talking it was like he wasn’t consciously thinking about the vicious shotgun he was holding, but the whole time its barrel was aimed at nothing but me. I ran through recent events without lying, but also without going into unnecessary detail.

When I was done the Fisherman went on staring with that fucking Cyclops eye of his.

“So you shot his son instead of his wife?”

“I didn’t know it was his son.”

“What do you think, Klein?”

Klein shrugged his shoulders. “It said in the papers that a guy had been shot in Vinderen yesterday.”

“So I saw. Maybe Hoffmann and his fixer here have used what it said in the papers to cook up a story they were sure we’d believe.”

“Call the police and ask what his name was,” I said.

“We will,” the Fisherman said. “Once you’ve explained why you spared Hoffmann’s wife and are now keeping her hidden.”

“That’s my business,” I said.

“If you’re planning on getting out of here alive, you’d better start talking. Fast.”

“Hoffmann used to hit her,” I said.

“Which one?”

“Both of them,” I lied.

“So? The fact that someone gets hit by someone stronger doesn’t mean they don’t deserve it.”

“Specially not a whore like that,” Klein said.

The Fisherman laughed. “Look at those eyes, Klein. The lad would like to kill you! I think he might just be in love.”

“No problem,” Klein said. “I’d like to kill him too. He was the one who took out Mao.”

I had no idea which one of the three of the Fisherman’s men was Mao. But it had said “Mauritz” on the driving licence of the guy in Sankt Hanshaugen, so maybe it was him.

“The Christmas fish is waiting,” I said. “So what’s it to be?”

The Fisherman tugged the end of his walrus moustache. I wondered if he ever managed to wash out the smell of fish. Then he stood up.

“ ‘What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?’ Do you know what that means, lad?”

I shook my head.

“No. That’s what the guy from Bergen said when he came over to us. That you were too simple for Hoffmann to use as a dealer. He said you couldn’t put two and two together.”

Klein laughed. I didn’t respond.

“That’s T. S. Eliot, boys,” the Fisherman sighed. “The loneliness of a suspicious man. Believe me, all leaders end up suffering that loneliness sooner or later. And plenty of husbands will feel it at least once in their lives. But most fathers manage to escape it. Hoffmann has had a taste of all three versions. His fixer, his wife and his son. Almost enough to make you feel sorry for him.” He went over to the swing door. Looked through the round window into the shop. “So what do you need?”

“Two of your best men.”

“You make it sound like we’ve got an army at our disposal here, lad.”

“Hoffmann’s going to be expecting it.”

“Really? Doesn’t he think he’s the one hunting you now?”

“He knows me.”

The Fisherman looked like he was trying to pull his moustache off. “You can have Klein and the Dane.”

“How about the Dane and—”

“Klein and the Dane.”

I nodded.

The Fisherman led me out into the shop. I walked over to the door and wiped the condensation from the inside of the glass.

There was a figure standing over by Opera-passasjen. He hadn’t been there when I arrived. There could be hundreds of reasons why a man would be waiting out there in the snow.

“Have you got a telephone number where—?”

“No,” I said. “I’ll let you know when I need them. Is there a back door?”

On my way home through the back streets I reflected that it hadn’t been a bad exchange. I had two men, I was still alive, and I’d learned something new. That T. S. Eliot had written that line about loneliness. I always thought it was that woman, whatever her name was? George Eliot? “Hurt? He’ll never be hurt — he’s made to hurt other people.” Not that I believe poets. No more than I believe in ghosts, anyway.