Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

The sound waves rolled across the fjord.

A gun.

It sounded like it had come from one of the neighbouring properties. Hagen’s, or Reinertsen’s. The two businessmen had spent years arguing about whether the boundary between them ran to the left or the right of an oak tree that was hundreds of years old. In an interview with the local paper, Reinertsen had said that even if the dispute might appear comical because it concerned just a few square metres on the edge of what were otherwise very large plots of land, it wasn’t a petty matter, but about the principle of ownership itself. And he was certain that Nesøya’s homeowners would agree that this was a principle which was every citizen’s duty to fight for. Because there could be no doubt that the tree belonged to his, Reinertsen’s, land, you only had to look at the coat of arms of the family he had bought the estate from. It featured a large oak, and anyone could see that it was a copy of the one at the heart of the dispute. Reinertsen went on to declare that sitting and looking at the mighty tree warmed the very depths of his soul (here the journalist noted that Reinertsen would have had to sit on the roof of his house in order to see it), knowing that it was his . The day after the interview was printed, Hagen had chopped the tree down and used it to fuel his stove, and told the newspaper that it had warmed not only his soul but his toes as well. And that Reinertsen from now on would have to enjoy the sight of the smoke from his chimney, because whenever he lit his stove over the course of the next few years, it would be with nothing but the wood from the oak. Provocative, of course, but even if the bang had undoubtedly come from a gun, Clas Hafslund found it hard to believe that Reinertsen had just shot Hagen because of a damn tree.

Hafslund saw movement down by the old boathouse that lay approximately 150 metres away from both his and Hagen’s and Reinertsen’s properties. It was a man. In a suit. He was wading out onto the ice, pulling an aluminium boat behind him. Clas blinked. The man stumbled and sank to his knees in the icy water. Then the kneeling man turned towards Clas Hafslund’s house as if he could feel that he was being watched. The man’s face was black. A refugee? Had they reached Nesøya now? Affronted, he reached for the binoculars on the shelf behind him and trained them on the man. No. He wasn’t black. The man’s face was covered with blood. Now he put both hands on the side of the boat and pulled himself to his feet again. And stumbled on. Taking the rope again, he dragged the boat behind him. And Clas Hafslund, who was by no means a religious man, thought that he was seeing Jesus. Jesus, walking on water. Jesus dragging his cross to Calvary. Jesus who had risen from the dead in order to pay a visit to Clas Hafslund and the whole of Nesøya. Jesus with a big revolver in his hand.

Sivert Falkeid was sitting at the front of the inflatable boat with the wind in his face and Nesøya in sight. He looked at his watch one last time. It was precisely thirteen minutes since he and Delta had received the message and immediately linked it to the hostage situation.

‘A call reporting shots being fired on Nesøya.’

Their response time was acceptable. They would be there before the emergency vehicles that had also been sent to Nesøya. But either way, it went without saying that a bullet travelled faster.

He could see the aluminium boat and the outline of the water’s edge where the ice started.

‘Now,’ he said, and moved back in the boat to the others, so that the bow of the boat lifted and they could use their speed to slide across the ice on the meltwater.

The officer steering the boat pulled the propeller out of the water.

The boat lurched as it hit the edge of the ice, and Falkeid heard it scrape the bottom of the boat, but they had enough speed to carry them far enough onto the ice for them to be able to walk on it.

Hopefully.

Sivert Falkeid climbed over the side and tentatively put one foot down on the ice. The melt-water reached just above his ankle.

‘Give me twenty metres before you follow,’ he said. ‘Ten metres apart.’

Falkeid started to splash towards the aluminium boat. He estimated the distance to be three hundred metres. It looked abandoned, but the report had said that the man they assumed had fired the shot had dragged it out of the boatshed belonging to Hallstein Smith.

‘The ice is holding,’ he whispered into his radio.

Everyone in Delta had been equipped with ice picks on a cord attached to the chest of their uniform, so that they could pull themselves out if they went through the ice. And that cord had just tangled itself around the barrel of Falkeid’s semi-automatic, and he had to look down to free his weapon.

And he therefore heard the shot without having any chance of seeing anything that might indicate where it had come from. He instinctively threw himself down in the water.

There was another shot. And now he saw a little puff of smoke rise from the aluminium boat.

‘Shots from the boat,’ he heard in his earpiece. ‘We’ve all got it in our sights. Awaiting orders to blast it to hell.’

They had been informed that Smith was armed with a revolver. Naturally the risk of him managing to hit Falkeid from more than two hundred metres away was fairly slim, but that was still the situation. Sivert Falkeid lay there breathing as the numbingly cold melt-water soaked through his clothes and covered his skin. It wasn’t his job to work out what it would cost the state to spare the life of this serial killer. Cost in the form of trials, prison guards, the daily rate at a five-star prison. His job was to work out how great a threat this individual posed to the lives of his men and others, and adapt his response accordingly. Not to think about nursery places, hospital beds and the renovation of rundown schools.

‘Fire at will,’ Sivert Falkeid said.

No response. Just the wind and the sound of a helicopter in the distance.

‘Fire,’ he repeated.

Still no acknowledgement. The helicopter was approaching.

‘Can you hear me?’ a voice said in his earpiece. ‘Are you wounded?’

Falkeid was about to repeat his order when he realised that what had happened when they were training in Haakonsværn had happened again. The salt water had ruined the microphone and only the receiver was working. He turned towards their boat and shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the helicopter, which was now hovering motionless in the air right above them. So he gave the hand signal to open fire, two rapid downward movements of his right arm with his fist clenched. Still no response. What the hell? Falkeid began to snake his way back to the inflatable when he saw two of his men walking towards him on the ice without even crouching in order to present a smaller target.

‘Get down!’ he yelled, but they kept walking calmly towards him.

‘We’ve got comms with the helicopter!’ one of them shouted over the noise. ‘They can see him, he’s lying in the boat!’

He was lying in the bottom of the boat, with his eyes closed against the sun that was shining down on him. He couldn’t hear anything, but he imagined the water lapping and splashing against the metal beneath him. That it was summer. That the whole family was sitting in the boat. A family outing. Children’s laughter. If he could just keep his eyes closed, maybe he could stay there. He didn’t know for certain if the boat was floating or if his weight meant it was caught on the ice. It didn’t really matter. He wasn’t going anywhere. Time was standing still. Perhaps it always had been, unless perhaps it had only just stopped? Stopped for him, and for the man who was still sitting in the Amazon. Was it summer for him too? Was he also in a better place now?