Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘You certainly come up with the goods, Harry.’

‘So do you, Anders. But I still think you’re too young and inexperienced for that job.’

‘So why did you suggest me, then? I’m not even an inspector yet.’

‘So that you’d have to think it through, realise what areas you need to improve in, and then turn it down.’

Anders shook his head and laughed. ‘OK. That was exactly what I did.’

‘Good. Aren’t you going to have your Jim Beam?’

Anders Wyller looked down into the glass. Took a deep breath. Shook his head. ‘I don’t really like whiskey. To be honest, I probably only order it to copy you.’

‘And?’

‘And it’s time I found a drink of my own. Get rid of it, please.’

Harry emptied the glass in the sink behind him. Wondered if he ought to suggest a drink from the bottle that Ståle Aune had brought as a belated housewarming gift to the bar, a type of orange bitters called Stumbras 999 Raudonos Devynerios. He explained that it was because they’d had a bottle of it in the student bar, and that was where the bar manager had taken the number for the code on the safe, which in turn had lured Hallstein Smith into the monkey trap. Harry turned to tell Anders this when he caught sight of someone who had just come into the Jealousy Bar. Their eyes met.

‘Excuse me,’ Harry said. ‘We’re having a state visit.’

He watched her as she made her way through the crowded room, but she may as well have been the only person in it. She was walking exactly the same way as the first time he ever saw her walking towards him across a driveway. Like a ballerina.

Rakel reached the bar and smiled at him.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘You have my agreement, I’ll do it.’

Harry smiled broadly and put his hand on top of hers on the counter. ‘I love you, woman.’

‘Good to know. Because we’re setting up a limited company where I’m chair of the board, get thirty per cent of the shares, a twenty-five per cent job and we play at least one PJ Harvey track every evening.’

‘Agreed. Hear that, Øystein?’

‘If she works here, get her behind this bar now!’ Øystein snapped.

Rakel went over to Øystein, and Anders walked out of the door.

Harry picked up his phone and made a call.

‘Hagen,’ a voice said.

‘Hello, boss, it’s Harry.’

‘I see. So I’m boss again now?’

‘Offer Wyller that job again. Insist that he takes it.’

‘Why?’

‘I was wrong, he’s ready.’

‘But—’

‘As assistant lead detective, there’s a limit to how much he can fuck things up, and he’ll learn a hell of a lot.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And now’s the perfect time, the calm after the storm.’

‘You know it’s called—’

‘Yes.’

Harry hung up. Tried to push the thought away. What Smith had said in the car about what was to come. He had mentioned it to Katrine, and they had checked Smith’s correspondence but hadn’t found anything to indicate that any new vampirists had been recruited. So there wasn’t much they could do, and it had probably only been the wishful thinking of a madman. Harry turned the Jayhawks up another two notches. Yes, that was better.

Svein Finne, ‘the Fiancé’, stepped out of the shower and stood naked in front of the mirror in the empty changing room at Gain Gym. He liked the place, liked the view of the park, the feeling of space and freedom. No, it didn’t scare him the way he had been warned that it would. He let the water run off him, let his skin evaporate the moisture. It had been a long session. He had grown accustomed to that in prison, hour after hour of breathing, sweating, giving all he had. His body could handle it. Had to handle it, he had a long job ahead of him. He didn’t know who the person who had contacted him was, and he hadn’t heard from him in a while. But the offer had been impossible to turn down. A flat. A new identity. And women.

He stroked the tattoo on his chest.

Then he turned and went over to the locker with a padlock with a splash of pink paint on it. He turned it until it read 0999, the number he had been sent. God knows if the number meant anything, but it opened the lock. There was a padded envelope inside. He opened it and turned it upside down. A white plastic key fell into his hand. He pulled out a sheet of paper. There was an address on it. In Holmenkollen.

And there was something else in the envelope, something that was stuck.

He ripped the envelope apart. Looked at the object. Black. And beautiful in its brutal simplicity. He put it in his mouth, clenched his jaws. Felt the taste of salt and bitter iron. Felt the fire. Felt the thirst.

Epub ISBN: 9781473547094

Version 1.0

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Harvill Secker

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

London SW1V 2SA

Harvill Secker is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

Copyright © Jo Nesbo 2017

Published by agreement with Salomonsson Agency

English translation copyright © Neil Smith 2017

Jo Nesbo has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published by Harvill Secker in 2017

First published with the title TØRST in Norway by H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard), Oslo in 2017

penguin.co.uk/vintage

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Table of Contents

Contents

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Jo Nesbo

Map

Title Page

Prologue

Part One

Chapter 1: Wednesday Evening

Chapter 2: Thursday Morning

Chapter 3: Thursday Afternoon

Chapter 4: Thursday, Late Afternoon

Chapter 5: Thursday Evening and Night

Chapter 6: Friday Morning

Chapter 7: Friday Morning

Chapter 8: Friday Afternoon

Chapter 9: Friday Afternoon

Chapter 10: Saturday Morning

Chapter 11: Saturday Evening

Chapter 12: Saturday Night

Chapter 13: Saturday Night

Chapter 14: Sunday Morning

Chapter 15: Sunday Evening

Chapter 16: Sunday Night

Chapter 17: Monday Morning

Chapter 18: Monday Afternoon

Chapter 19: Monday Evening

Chapter 20: Monday Night, Tuesday Morning

Part Two

Chapter 21: Tuesday Morning

Chapter 22: Tuesday Afternoon

Chapter 23: Tuesday, Late Afternoon

Chapter 24: Tuesday Evening

Chapter 25: Tuesday Night

Chapter 26: Tuesday Night

Chapter 27: Wednesday Morning

Chapter 28: Wednesday Afternoon

Chapter 29: Wednesday Evening

Chapter 30: Wednesday Night

Chapter 31: Wednesday Night

Chapter 32: Wednesday Night

Chapter 33: Thursday Morning

Part Three

Chapter 34: Saturday Daytime

Chapter 35: Sunday Morning

Chapter 36: Sunday Evening

Chapter 37: Wednesday Afternoon

Chapter 38: Thursday Morning

Chapter 39: Thursday Night

Chapter 40: Friday Morning