Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘Well, I haven’t been on that many Tinder dates,’ Geir said, putting his glass of white wine back down on the bar. ‘But I’ve worked out that there’s a lot of strange people out there.’

‘Have you?’ the woman said, stifling a yawn. She had short fair hair. Slim. Mid-thirties, Mehmet thought. Quick, slightly stressed movements. Tired eyes. Works too hard and goes to the gym in the hope that it will give her the advantage she’s never had. Mehmet watched Geir raise his glass with three fingers round the stem, the same way as the woman. On his countless Tinder hook-ups he had always ordered the same thing as his dates, regardless of whether it was whiskey or green tea. Keen to signal that they were a match on that point too.

Geir coughed. Six minutes had passed since she had walked into the bar, and Mehmet knew that this was when he would make his move.

‘You’re more beautiful than your profile picture, Elise,’ Geir said.

‘So you said, but thanks again.’

Mehmet polished a glass and pretended not to listen.

‘So tell me, Elise, what do you want from life?’

She gave a rather resigned little smile. ‘A man who doesn’t just judge by appearances.’

‘I couldn’t agree more, Elise, it’s what’s inside that counts.’

‘That was a joke. I look better in my profile picture, and, to be honest, so do you, Geir.’

‘Ha ha,’ Geir said, and stared down into his wine glass, slightly deflated. ‘I suppose most people pick a flattering picture. So you’re looking for a man. What sort of man?’

‘One who’d like to stay at home with three kids.’ She glanced at the time.

‘Ha ha.’ Sweat hadn’t just broken out on Geir’s forehead, but all over his large, close-shaven head. And soon rings of sweat would appear under the arms of his black slim-fit shirt, an odd choice given that Geir was neither slim nor fit. He toyed with his glass. ‘That’s exactly my kind of humour, Elise. A dog is family enough for me for the time being. Do you like animals?’

Tanrim , Mehmet thought. Why doesn’t he just give up?

‘If I meet the right person, I can feel it, here … and here.’ He grinned, lowered his voice and pointed towards his crotch. ‘But obviously you have to find out if that’s right. What do you say, Elise?’

Mehmet shuddered. Geir had gone all-in, and his self-esteem was about to take another beating.

The woman pushed her wine glass aside, leaned forward slightly, and Mehmet had to strain to hear. ‘Can you promise me something, Geir?’

‘Of course.’ His voice and the look in his eyes were as eager as a dog’s.

‘That when I walk out of here in a moment, you’ll never try to contact me again?’

Mehmet had to admire Geir for managing to summon up a smile. ‘Of course.’

The woman leaned back again. ‘It’s not that you seem like a stalker, Geir, but I’ve had a couple of bad experiences. One guy started following me. He threatened the people I was with as well. I hope you can understand my being a bit cautious.’

‘I understand.’ Geir raised his glass and emptied it. ‘Like I said, there’s a lot of strange people out there. But don’t worry, you’re pretty safe. Statistically speaking, the chances of getting murdered are four times greater for a man than a woman.’

‘Thanks for the wine, Geir.’

‘If one of the three of us –’

Mehmet hurried to look away when Geir pointed to him.

‘– was going to get murdered tonight, the likelihood of it being you is one in eight. No, hang on, you have to divide that by …’

She stood up. ‘I hope you figure it out. Have a good life.’

Geir stared at her wine glass for a while after she left, nodded in time to ‘Fix You’, as if to convince Mehmet and anyone else watching that he had already shaken the experience off, she had been nothing more than a three-minute-long pop song, and just as forgettable. Then he stood up and left. Mehmet looked round. The cowboy boots and the guy who had been dragging out his beer were both gone too. He was alone. And the oxygen was back. He used his mobile phone to change the playlist. To his playlist. Bad Company. Given that the group contained members of Free, Mott the Hoople and King Crimson, there was no way it was ever going to be bad. And with Paul Rodgers on vocals, there was no way it could fail. Mehmet turned the volume up until the glasses behind the bar started to rattle against each other.

Elise walked down Thorvald Meyers gate, past plain four-storey buildings that had once housed the working classes in a poor part of a poor city, but where one square metre now cost as much as in London or Stockholm. September in Oslo. The darkness was back at last, and the drawn-out, annoyingly light summer nights were long gone, with all the hysterical, cheerful, stupid self-expression of summer. In September Oslo reverted to its true self: melancholic, reserved, efficient. A solid facade, but not without its dark corners and secrets. Much like her, apparently. She quickened her pace; there was rain in the air, mist, the spray when God sneezed, as one of her dates had put it in an attempt to be poetic. She was going to give up Tinder. Tomorrow. Enough was enough. Enough randy men whose way of looking at her made her feel like a whore when she met them in bars. Enough crazy psychopaths and stalkers who stuck like mud, sucking time, energy and security from her. Enough pathetic losers who made her feel like she was one of them.

They said Internet dating was the cool way to meet new people, that it was nothing to be ashamed of any more, that everyone was doing it. But that wasn’t true. People met each other at work, in classrooms, through friends, at the gym, in cafes, on planes, buses, trains. They met each other the way they were supposed to meet each other, when they were relaxed, no pressure, and afterwards they could cling to the romantic illusion of innocence, purity and quirks of fate. She wanted that illusion. She was going to delete her profile. She’d told herself that before, but this time it was definitely going to happen, that very night.

She crossed Sofienberggata and fished out the key to unlock the gate next to the greengrocer’s. She pushed the gate open and stepped into the darkness of the archway. And stopped dead.

There were two of them.

It took a moment or two for her eyes to get used to the darkness, and for her to see what they were holding in their hands. Both men had undone their trousers and had their cocks out.

She jerked back. Didn’t look round, just prayed that there was no one standing behind her.

‘Fucksorry.’ The combination of oath and apology was uttered by a young voice. Nineteen, twenty, Elise guessed. Not sober.

‘Duh,’ the other one said, ‘you’re pissing all over my shoes!’

‘I was startled!’

Elise pulled her coat more tightly around her and walked past the young men, who had turned back to face the wall again. ‘This isn’t a public toilet,’ she said.

‘Sorry, we were desperate. It won’t happen again.’

Geir hurried over Schleppegrells gate. Thinking hard. It was wrong that two men and one woman gave the woman a one in eight chance of being murdered, the calculation was much more complicated than that. Everything was always much more complicated.

He had just passed Romsdalsgata when something made him turn round. There was a man walking fifty metres behind him. He wasn’t sure, but wasn’t it the same guy who had been standing on the other side of the street looking at a window display when Geir emerged from the Jealousy Bar? Geir sped up, heading east, towards Dælenenga and the chocolate factory; there was no one out on the streets here, just a bus which was evidently running ahead of schedule and was waiting at a bus stop. Geir glanced back. The man was still there, still the same distance. Geir was frightened of dark-skinned people, always had been, but he couldn’t see this guy properly. They were on their way out of the white, gentrified neighbourhood, heading towards an area with far more social housing and immigrants. Geir could see the door of his own apartment block one hundred metres away. But when he looked back he saw that the guy had started running, and the thought that he had a Somali, thoroughly traumatised from Mogadishu, on his heels made him break into a run. Geir hadn’t run for years, and each time his heels hit the tarmac a jolt ran through his brain and jogged his sight. He reached the door, got the key in the lock at the first attempt, threw himself inside and slammed the heavy wooden door behind him. He leaned against the damp wood and stared out through the glass in the top part of the door. He couldn’t see anyone out in the street. Perhaps it wasn’t a Somali. Geir couldn’t help laughing. It was ridiculous how jumpy you got just because you’d been talking about murder. And what had Elise said about that stalker?