Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘There, there, I’m not going to hurt you, darling,’ he said. And could feel that he meant it. He really didn’t want to hurt her. Not any more. And perhaps she knew that, perhaps she understood that he loved her. Perhaps she was trembling because she was only dressed in underwear and his Japanese girlfriend’s negligee.

They headed into the trees, and it was like walking into a building. A different sort of silence settled, while at the same time new noises could be heard. Smaller but clearer, unidentifiable noises. A snapping sound, a sigh, a cry. The ground in the forest was soft, the carpet of pine needles gave a pleasant bounce as they moved forward with soundless steps, like a bridal couple in a church in a dream.

When he had counted to a hundred he stopped. Raised the torch and shone it around them. And the beam of light soon found what he was looking for. A tall, charred tree that had been split in two by lightning. He dragged her towards the tree. She didn’t resist as he undid the handcuffs, pulled her arms around the tree and fastened the cuffs again. A lamb, he thought as he looked at her sitting there on her knees, hugging the tree. A sacrificial lamb. Because he wasn’t the bridegroom: he was the father giving his child away at the altar.

He stroked her cheek one last time and turned to walk away when a voice rang out from among the trees.

‘She’s alive, Valentin.’

He stopped, and instinctively pointed the torch in the direction of the sound.

‘Put that away,’ said the voice in the darkness.

Valentin did as the voice said. ‘She wanted to live.’

‘But the bartender didn’t?’

‘He could identify me. I couldn’t take the risk.’

Valentin listened, but all he could hear was a low whistle from Marte’s nostrils as she breathed.

‘I’ll clean up after you this one time,’ the voice said. ‘Have you got the revolver you were given?’

‘Yes,’ Valentin said. Wasn’t there something familiar about the voice?

‘Put it down next to her and go. You’ll get it back soon enough.’

A thought struck Valentin. Draw the revolver, use the torch to find the other man, kill him. Kill the voice of reason, wipe out any trail that led to him, let the demon reign once more. The counter-argument was that Valentin might need him later.

‘Where and when?’ Valentin called. ‘We can’t use the locker at the bathhouse any more.’

‘Tomorrow. You’ll be informed. Now that you’ve heard my voice anyway, I’ll call.’

Valentin pulled the revolver from its holster and put it down in front of the girl. Took one last look at her. Then he walked away.

When he got back in the car he hit his head twice against the wheel, hard. Then he started the car, indicated to pull out even though there were no other cars in sight, and calmly drove away.

‘Stop over there,’ Harry told the taxi driver, pointing.

‘It’s three o’clock in the morning, and that bar looks very closed.’

‘It belongs to me.’

Harry paid and got out. Where there had been febrile activity just a few hours ago, there was now no one in sight at all. The crime-scene investigators were finished, but there was white tape across the door. The tape was embossed with the Norwegian lion and the words POLICE. SEALED. DO NOT BREAK SEAL. TRANSGRESSION PUNISHABLE BY PENAL CODE 343. Harry inserted the key in the lock and turned it. The tape crackled as he pulled the door open and went inside.

They had left the lights beneath the mirror shelves on. Harry closed one eye and aimed his index finger at the bottles from where he stood by the door. Nine metres. What if he’d fired? What would things look like now? Impossible to know. It was what it was. Nothing to be done about it. Except forget about it, of course. His finger found the bottle of Jim Beam. It had been promoted and now had its own optic. The brothel lighting made the contents shimmer like gold. Harry walked across the room and went behind the bar, grabbed a glass and held it under the bottle. He filled it to the brim. Why fool himself?

He felt his muscles tense, all through his body, and wondered for a moment if he was going to throw up before the first mouthful. But he managed to hold on to both the contents of his stomach and the drink, until the third glass. Then he lurched for the sink, and before the yellow-green vomit hit the metal, he saw that the bottom was still red with congealed blood.

WEDNESDAY MORNING

IT WAS FIVE to eight, and in the boiler room the coffee machine had finished rattling for the second time that morning.

‘What’s happened to Harry?’ Wyller wondered, looking at his watch again.

‘Don’t know,’ Bjørn Holm said. ‘We’ll have to start without him.’

Smith and Wyller nodded.

‘OK,’ Bjørn said. ‘Right now Aurora is sitting with her father in Nokas’s head office looking at those recordings, along with someone from Nokas and a specialist in security cameras from the Street Crime Unit. If it goes according to plan, they should get through the four days’ footage in eight hours at most. If the receipt we found really is from a withdrawal Valentin himself made, with a bit of luck we could have his new identity within four hours or so. But certainly before eight o’clock this evening.’

‘That’s brilliant!’ Smith exclaimed. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but let’s not count any chickens,’ Bjørn said. ‘Have you talked to Katrine, Anders?’

‘Yes, and we’ve got authorisation to use Delta. They’re ready to go.’

‘Delta, they’re the ones with semi-automatics and gas masks and … er, that sort of thing?’

‘You’re starting to get the hang of it, Smith,’ Bjørn chuckled, and saw Wyller looking at his watch again. ‘Worried, Anders?’

‘Maybe we should call Harry?’

‘Go ahead.’

Nine o’clock. Katrine had just dismissed the investigative team from the conference room. She was gathering her papers when she noticed the man standing in the doorway.

‘Well, Smith?’ she said. ‘Exciting day, eh? What are you lot up to down there?’

‘Trying to get hold of Harry.’

‘Hasn’t he shown up?’

‘He’s not answering his phone.’

‘He’s probably sitting in the hospital, they’re not allowed to have their phones on there. They say it can interfere with the machines and equipment, but that’s supposed to be just as misleading as saying they can disrupt navigation systems on planes.’

She realised that Smith wasn’t listening and was looking past her.

She turned and saw that the picture from her laptop was still being projected onto the screen. A picture from the Jealousy Bar.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s not pretty.’

Smith shook his head like a sleepwalker, without taking his eyes off the screen.

‘Are you OK, Smith?’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m not OK. I can’t stand the sight of blood, I can’t stand violence, and I don’t know if can stand to see any more suffering. This individual … Valentin Gjertsen … I’m a psychologist, and I’m trying to relate to him as a professional case, but I think I might actually hate him.’

‘None of us is that professional, Smith. I wouldn’t let a little hatred worry me. Doesn’t it feel good to have someone to hate, as Harry says?’

‘Harry says that?’

‘Yes. Or Raga Rockers. Or … Was there something else?’

‘I’ve spoken to Mona Daa at VG .’

‘ There’s someone else we can hate. What did she want?’

‘I was the one who called her.’

Katrine stopped sorting her papers.

‘I told her my conditions for agreeing to be interviewed about Valentin Gjertsen,’ Smith said. ‘That I’ll talk about Valentin Gjertsen in general terms, and that I won’t say a thing about the investigation. It’s a so-called podcast, a sort of radio programme that—’