Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

Harry looked at the time. ‘You’re suggesting state-regulated abortion?’

‘Not a pleasant job, obviously. So anyone doing it would naturally have to regard it as … well, as a calling.’

‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’

Steffens held Harry’s gaze for a few seconds. Then he smiled again. ‘Of course. I believe firmly in the inviolability of the individual.’

Harry got to his feet. ‘I’m assuming I’ll be informed of when you’re going to wake her. Presumably it would be good for her to see a familiar face when she comes round?’

‘That’s one consideration, Harry. And tell Oleg to look in if there’s anything he wants to know.’

Harry made his way to the main entrance of the hospital. Shivering outside in the cold, he took two drags on his cigarette, realised that it didn’t taste of anything, stubbed it out and hurried back inside.

‘How’s it going, Antonsen?’ he asked the police guard outside room 301.

‘Fine, thanks,’ Antonsen said, looking up at him. ‘There’s a picture of you in VG .’

‘Really?’

‘Want to see?’ Antonsen took out his smartphone.

‘Not unless I look particularly good.’

Antonsen chuckled. ‘Maybe you don’t want to see it, then. I have to say, it looks like you’re starting to lose it at Crime Squad. Pointing pistols at ninety-year-olds and using bartenders as spies.’

Harry stopped abruptly with his hand on the door handle. ‘What was that last bit again?’

Antonsen held his phone out in front of him and squinted, evidently long-sighted. He managed to read ‘Barten—’ before Harry snatched the phone from him.

Harry stared at the screen. ‘Fuck, fuck. Have you got a car, Antonsen?’

‘No, I cycle. Oslo’s so small, and you get a bit of exercise, so—’

Harry tossed the phone in Antonsen’s lap and yanked open the door of room 301. Oleg looked up just long enough to see it was Harry before looking down at his book again.

‘Oleg, you’ve got a car – you’ve got to drive me to Grünerløkka. Now.’

Oleg snorted without raising his eyes. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘That wasn’t a request, it was an order. Come on.’

‘An order?’ His face contorted in fury. ‘You’re not even my father. Thanks for that.’

‘You were right. You said grade trumps everything. Me, detective inspector, you, trainee police officer. So wipe your tears and shift your arse.’

Oleg gawped at him, speechless.

Harry turned and hurried off along the corridor.

Mehmet Kalak had abandoned Coldplay and U2 and was trying out Ian Hunter on his clientele.

‘All the Young Dudes’ rang out from the speakers.

‘Well?’ Mehmet said.

‘Not bad, but David Bowie did it better,’ the clientele said. Or, more accurately, Øystein Eikeland, who had taken up position on the other side of the bar since his job had come to an end. And seeing as they had the place to themselves, Mehmet turned the volume up.

‘Doesn’t make any difference how loud you crank Hunter up!’ Øystein cried, and raised his daiquiri. It was his fifth. He claimed that because he had mixed them himself, they must therefore be counted as trial samples in conjunction with his apprenticeship as a bartender, and were an investment and thus tax-deductible. And because he was entitled to a staff discount, but intended to claim them back on his tax at full price, he was actually making a profit from his drinking.

‘I wish I could stop now, but I should probably mix myself one more if I’m going to have enough to pay the rent,’ he sniffled.

‘You make a better customer than a bartender,’ Mehmet said. ‘That’s not to say that you’re a useless bartender, just that you’re the best customer I’ve had—’

‘Thank you, dear Mehmet, I—’

‘—and now you’re going home.’

‘I am?’

‘You are.’ To show that he meant it, Mehmet turned the music off.

Øystein opened his mouth, as if there was something he really wanted to say, something he assumed would form itself into words if he just opened his mouth, but that didn’t happen. He tried again, then closed his mouth and merely nodded. He did up his taxi driver’s jacket, slid off the bar stool, and walked rather unsteadily towards the door.

‘No tip?’ Mehmet called with a smile.

‘Tips aren’t tax-dec … deluct … are no good.’

Mehmet picked up Øystein’s glass, squirted some washing-up liquid in it and rinsed it under the tap. There hadn’t been enough customers that evening to use the dishwasher. His phone lit up on the inside of the counter. It was Harry. And as he dried his hands to answer it, it struck him that there was something about the time. The time that had passed between Øystein opening the door and it closing again. It had taken slightly longer than usual. Someone had held the door open for a few seconds. He looked up.

‘Quiet night?’ the man standing at the bar asked.

Mehmet tried to breathe so he could answer. But couldn’t.

‘Quiet is good,’ Valentin Gjertsen said. Because it was him. The man from the steam room.

Mehmet silently reached his hand out towards his phone.

‘Please, don’t answer that, and I’ll do you a favour.’

Mehmet wouldn’t have taken the offer if it hadn’t been for the large revolver that was pointing right at him.

‘Thanks, you’d only have regretted it.’ The man looked around. ‘A shame you don’t have any customers. For you, I mean. It suits me fine, it means I’ve got your full attention. Well, I suppose I’d have had that anyway, because you’re naturally curious about what I want. If I’ve come for a drink, or to kill you. Am I right?’

Mehmet nodded slowly.

‘Yes, that’s a reasonable concern seeing as you’re the only person currently alive who can identify me. That’s a fact, by the way? Even the plastic surgeon who … well, enough of that. Anyway, I’m going to do you a favour, seeing as you didn’t take that call, and that business of shopping me to the police is no more than could be expected of a socially responsible person. Don’t you think?’

Mehmet nodded again. And tried to fend off the unavoidable thought. That he was going to die. His brain tried desperately to find other possibilities, but just kept coming back to: you’re going to die. But, as if in answer to his thoughts, there was a knock on the window over by the door. Mehmet looked past Valentin. A pair of hands and a familiar face were pressed against the glass, trying to peer inside. Come in, for God’s sake, come in.

‘Don’t move,’ Valentin said calmly without turning round. His body was hiding the revolver, so the person at the window couldn’t see it.

Why the hell didn’t he just come in?

The answer came a moment later, with a loud banging on the door.

Valentin had locked the door when he came in.

The face was back at the window, and the man was waving his hands to get his attention, so he had evidently seen them inside.

‘Don’t move, just signal that you’re closed,’ Valentin said. There was no trace of stress in his voice.

Mehmet stood still with his hands by his sides.

‘Now, or I’ll kill you.’

‘You’re going to do that anyway.’

‘You can’t know that with one hundred per cent certainty. But if you don’t do as I say, I promise I’ll kill you. And then the person outside. Look at me. I promise.’

Mehmet looked at Valentin. Swallowed. Leaned slightly to one side, into the light, so that the man outside the window could see him more clearly, and shook his head.

The face was there for a couple of seconds. A wave, not all that easy to see. Then Geir Sølle was gone.

Valentin watched in the mirror.