Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘We maintain the balance of terror,’ Harry said. ‘But with matching disarmament.’

‘You’re trying to drag things out, but the countdown has started. Four, three …’

‘We both turn our guns at the same time and hold them by the barrel in our right hand, with the trigger and hilt visible.’

‘Two …’

‘You head for the door along that wall there, while I head towards the bar past the booths on the other side of the room.’

‘One …’

‘The distance between us will stay the same as it is now, and neither of us would be able to shoot the other before he had time to react.’

The bar was silent. The sirens were closer. And if Oleg had done as he had been told – correction, ordered – he was still sitting in the car two blocks away and hadn’t moved.

The light suddenly vanished, and Harry realised Valentin had turned the dimmer switch behind the bar. And when he turned towards Harry for the first time, it was too dark for Harry to see his face beneath the cap.

‘We turn our guns on the count of three,’ Valentin said and raised his hand. ‘One, two … three.’

Harry grasped the handle with his left hand, then the barrel with his right. He held his pistol in the air. Saw Valentin do the same. It looked like he was holding a flag in the children’s procession on Constitution Day, with the characteristic red grip of a Ruger Redhawk sticking away from the long barrel of the revolver.

‘There, you see,’ Valentin said. ‘Who but two men who truly understand each other could have done that? I like you, Harry. I really like you. So, now we start to move …’

Valentin walked towards the wall, while Harry moved towards the booths. It was so quiet that Harry could hear the creak of Valentin’s boots as they each crept round the other in a semicircle, watching one another like two gladiators who knew that the first skirmish would mean death for at least one of them. Harry realised he’d reached the bar when he heard the low rumble of the fridge, the steady drip in the sink and the insect-like buzz from the stereo’s amplifier. He felt around in the darkness without taking his eyes off the silhouette that stood out against the light from the window. Then he was behind the bar, heard the sounds from the street as the door opened, then footsteps running until they disappeared.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, put it to his ear.

‘Did you hear?’

‘I heard everything,’ Oleg replied. ‘I’ll inform the patrol cars. Description?’

‘Short black jacket, dark trousers, peaked cap with no logo, but he’s bound to have got rid of that already. I didn’t see his face. He ran left, towards Thorvald Meyers gate, so—’

‘—he’s heading for somewhere with a lot of people and traffic. I’ll tell them.’

Harry dropped his phone in his pocket and put his hand on Mehmet’s shoulder. No reaction.

‘Mehmet …’

He could no longer hear the fridge and amplifier. Only the steady dripping. He turned the dimmer switch up. He took hold of Mehmet’s hair and gently lifted his head out of the sink. His face was pale. Too pale.

There was something sticking out of his neck.

It looked like a drinking straw made of metal.

Red drops were still dripping from the end, down into the sink, which was clogged with all the blood.

TUESDAY NIGHT

KATRINE BRATT JUMPED out of the car and walked towards the cordon outside the Jealousy Bar. She spotted a man leaning against one of the police cars, smoking. The rotating blue light alternately lit up his ugly-handsome face and cast it into darkness. She shivered and walked over to him.

‘It’s cold,’ she said.

‘Winter’s coming,’ Harry said, blowing his cigarette smoke up so it was caught by the blue light.

‘Emilia’s coming.’

‘Mm, I’d forgotten that.’

‘They say the storm’s going to hit Oslo tomorrow.’

‘Mm.’

Katrine looked at him. She thought she had seen all the possible versions of Harry. But not this one. Not one so empty, crushed, resigned. She felt like stroking his cheek and giving him a hug. But she couldn’t. There were so many reasons why she couldn’t.

‘What happened in there?’

‘Valentin had a Ruger Redhawk, and made me believe I was negotiating for someone’s life. But Mehmet was already dead by the time I got there. A metal tube inserted into his carotid artery. He’d been drained of blood like some damn fish. Just because he … because I …’ Harry started to blink rapidly and stopped talking, and pretended to pick a strand of tobacco from his tongue.

Katrine didn’t know what to say. So she said nothing. Instead she looked at the familiar black Volvo Amazon with the racing stripe that was parked on the other side of the street. Bjørn got out of it and Katrine felt her heart skip a beat when something-or-other Lien got out of the passenger side. What was Bjørn’s boss doing here, out in the field? Had Bjørn offered her a romantic viewing of the many attractions of a murder scene? Damn. Bjørn had spotted them, and Katrine saw them adjust their course and head in their direction.

‘I’m going in, we’ll talk more later,’ she said, snuck under the cordon and hurried towards the door beneath the sign of a broken plastic heart.

‘There you are,’ Bjørn said. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’

‘I’ve been …’ Harry took a deep drag on his cigarette. ‘… a bit busy.’

‘This is Berna Lien, the new head of Krimteknisk. Berna, Harry Hole.’

‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ the woman smiled.

‘And I’ve heard nothing about you,’ Harry said. ‘Are you any good?’

She looked at Bjørn, uncertain. ‘Any good?’

‘Valentin Gjertsen’s good,’ Harry said. ‘I’m not good enough, so I’m just hoping there are other people here who are better, or else this bloodbath is just going to continue.’

‘I might have something,’ Bjørn said.

‘Oh?’

‘That’s why I was trying to get hold of you. Valentin’s jacket. When I cut it open I did actually find a couple of things in the lining. A ten-øre coin and two scraps of paper. Because the jacket’s been washed all the ink was gone from the outside, but when I unfolded one of them there was some left inside. It’s not much, but enough to see that it’s a receipt from a cashpoint in Oslo City. Which fits the theory that he consistently avoids debit cards and pays cash. Sadly we can’t see the card number, registration number or when the withdrawal was made, but parts of the date are visible.’

‘How much?’

‘Enough to see that it’s this year, August, and we’ve got enough of the last digit of the date to see that it could only be a 1.’

‘So, 1, 11, 21 and 31.’

‘Four possible days … I’ve been in touch with a woman at Nokas, which looks after DNB’s cashpoint machines. She says they’re allowed to store images from their security cameras for up to three months, so they’ll have this withdrawal on film. It was made at one of the machines at Oslo Central Station, which is one of the busiest in Norway. The official explanation is that it’s because of all the shopping centres in the vicinity.’

‘But?’

‘Everyone accepts cards these days. Except?’

‘Mm. The drug dealers around the station and along the river.’

‘There are over two hundred transactions a day from the busiest machines,’ Bjørn said.

‘Four days, so just under a thousand,’ Berna Lien said eagerly. Harry trod on the smouldering cigarette.

‘We’ll have the recordings first thing tomorrow, and with the efficient use of fast-forward and pause, we can check at least two faces per minute. In other words, seven or eight hours, probably less. Once we’ve identified Valentin, we just have to match the time of the recording to the time of the withdrawal in the cash machine’s register.’