Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

Katrine stopped in the doorway to the auditorium.

The room was empty apart from the two women who were sitting in the front row with their arms round each other.

She looked at them. An odd couple. Rakel and Ulla. The wives of sworn enemies. Was it the case that women found it easier to seek comfort in one another than men? Katrine didn’t know. So-called sisterhood had never interested her.

She went over to them. Ulla Bellman’s shoulders were shaking, but her sobbing was soundless.

Rakel looked up at Katrine with a questioning look.

‘We haven’t heard anything,’ Katrine said.

‘OK,’ Rakel said. ‘But he’ll be OK.’

It occurred to Katrine that that was her line, not Rakel’s. Rakel Fauke. Dark-haired, strong, with soft brown eyes. Katrine had always felt jealous. Not because she wanted the other woman’s life or to be Harry’s woman. Harry might be able to make a woman giddy and happy for a while, but in the long term he created sorrow, despair, destruction. For the long term you ought to have a Bjørn Holm. Yet even so she envied Rakel Fauke. She envied her for being the one Harry Hole wanted.

‘Sorry.’ Ståle Aune had come in. ‘I’ve got hold of a room where we can have a talk.’

Ulla Bellman nodded, still sniffing, then stood up and left the room with Aune.

‘Emergency psychiatry?’ Katrine asked.

‘Yes,’ Rakel said. ‘And the weird thing is that it works.’

‘Does it?’

‘I’ve been there. How are you holding up?’

‘ Me? ’

‘Yes. All this responsibility. Pregnant. And you’re close to Harry as well.’

Katrine stroked her stomach. And was struck by a strange thought, or at least one she had never had before. How close they were, birth and death. It was as if one foretold the other, as if life’s never-ending game of musical chairs demanded a death before granting new life.

‘Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?’

Katrine shook her head.

‘Names?’

‘Bjørn’s suggested Hank,’ Katrine said. ‘After Hank Williams.’

‘Of course. So he thinks it’s going to be a boy?’

‘Regardless of sex.’

They laughed. And it didn’t feel absurd. They were laughing and talking about a life that was about to start, instead of impending death. Because life was magical and death trivial.

‘I’ve got to go, but I’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything,’ Katrine said.

Rakel nodded. ‘I’ll stay here, but just say if there’s anything I can do to help.’

Katrine hesitated, then made her mind up. Stroked her stomach again. ‘I sometimes worry that I’m going to lose it.’

‘That’s natural.’

‘And then I wonder what would be left of me afterwards. If I’d be able to go on.’

‘You would,’ Rakel said firmly.

‘You have to promise that you’d do the same,’ Katrine said. ‘You say that Harry will be OK, and hope is important, but I also think it’s right that I tell you that I’ve spoken to the Delta group, and their evaluation is that the hostage taker – Hallstein Smith – probably won’t … well, the most common …’

‘Thanks,’ Rakel said, taking Katrine’s hand. ‘I love Harry, but if I lose him now, I promise to carry on.’

‘And Oleg, how would he …?’

Katrine saw the pain in Rakel’s eyes and instantly regretted saying it. Saw Rakel try to say something, but she failed and ended up shrugging her shoulders instead.

When she went outside again she heard a chopping sound and looked up. The sunlight shimmered off the body of the helicopter up in the sky.

John D. Steffens pushed open the door of A&E and breathed in the cold air. Then he went over to the older paramedic who was leaning against the wall, letting the sunlight warm his face as he smoked, slowly, visibly enjoying it with his eyes closed.

‘Well, Hansen?’ Steffens said, leaning against the wall alongside him.

‘Good winter,’ the paramedic said, without opening his eyes.

‘Could I …?’

The paramedic took out his packet of cigarettes and held it out.

Steffens took a cigarette and the lighter.

‘Is he going to make it?’

‘We’ll see,’ Steffens said. ‘We managed to get some blood back into him, but the bullet’s still in his body.’

‘How many lives do you think you have to save, Steffens?’

‘What?’

‘You worked the night shift, and you’re still here. As usual. So how many have you seen ahead of you, how many do you have to save in order to do good?’

‘I don’t quite know what you’re talking about now, Hansen.’

‘Your wife. The one you didn’t save.’

Steffens didn’t answer, just inhaled.

‘I checked up on you.’

‘What for?’

‘Because I’m worried about you. And because I know what it’s like. I lost my wife too. But all the overtime, all the lives saved, won’t bring her back. But you know that, don’t you? And one day you’ll make a mistake, because you’re tired, and you’ll have another life on your conscience.’

‘Will I?’ Steffens said, and yawned. ‘Do you know a haematologist who’s better than me in A&E?’

Steffens heard the paramedic’s footsteps move away.

Closed his eyes.

Sleep.

He wished he could.

It had been 2,154 days. Not since Ina, his wife and Anders’s mother, died – that was 2,912 days ago. But since he last saw Anders. During the initial period after Ina’s death there had at least been sporadic phone calls, even if Anders was furious and blamed him. On good grounds. Anders moved, fled, put as much distance between them as he could. By giving up his plans to study medicine, for instance, and studying to become a police officer instead. During one of their irregular, ill-tempered phone conversations Anders had said he’d rather be like one of his lecturers, a former murder detective, Harry Hole, whom Anders evidently worshipped the way he used to worship his own father. He had tried to see Anders at his various addresses, at Police College, but had been rejected. He had more or less ended up stalking his own son. In an attempt to make him realise that they each lost her a little less if they didn’t lose each other. That together they could keep a part of her alive. But Anders hadn’t been willing to listen.

So when Rakel Fauke had come for an examination and Steffens realised she was Harry Hole’s wife, he had naturally been very curious. What did this Harry Hole have that made him so able to influence Anders? Could he teach him something he could use to approach Anders again? And then he had discovered that the stepson, Oleg, reacted just like Anders had when he realised that Harry Hole couldn’t save his mother. It was the same, endless paternal betrayal.

Sleep.

It had been a shock, seeing Anders today. His first crazy thought was that they had been tricked, that Oleg and Harry had arranged some sort of reconciliation meeting.

Sleep now.

It was getting darker, and a chill fell across his face. A cloud passing in front of the sun? John D. Steffens opened his eyes. There was a figure standing in front of him, surrounded by a halo from the sun shining immediately behind.

John D. Steffens blinked. The halo was stinging his eyes. He had to clear his throat before he could get any sound out. ‘Anders?’

‘Berntsen’s going to make it.’ Pause. ‘They’re saying it’s thanks to you.’

Clas Hafslund was sitting in his winter garden, looking out across the fjord, where the ice had this peculiar layer of perfectly still water on top of it, making it look like a vast mirror. He had put down his newspaper, which once again was printing page after page about that vampirist case. Surely they had to get tired of it soon? Out here on Nesøya they didn’t have monsters like that, thank goodness. Everything was nice and peaceful, all year round. Even if right at the moment he could hear the irritating sound of a helicopter somewhere, probably an accident on the E18. Clas Hafslund jumped when he heard a sudden bang.