Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

The snow creaked.

‘Nice winter break, Harry?’

‘We survived, fru Syvertsen. I see you haven’t had enough skiing, though.’

‘Skiing weather is skiing weather,’ she said, jutting her hip out. Her ski suit looked like it had been painted on her. She was holding her cross-country skis, no doubt as light as helium, in one hand as if they were chopsticks.

‘You don’t fancy coming for a quick circuit, Harry? We could sprint to Tryvann while everyone’s asleep.’ She smiled, the light from the lamp above them reflecting off her lips, some sort of cream to fend off the cold. ‘Nice and … slippery.’

‘I haven’t got any skis,’ Harry smiled back.

She laughed. ‘You’re kidding? You’re Norwegian and you haven’t got a pair of skis?’

‘Treason, I know.’ Harry glanced down at the paper. Looked at the date. 4 March.

‘I seem to remember that you didn’t have a Christmas tree either.’

‘Shocking, isn’t it? Someone should report us.’

‘You know what, Harry? Sometimes I envy you.’

Harry looked up.

‘You don’t care, you just break all the rules. I sometimes wish I could be that frivolous.’

Harry laughed. ‘With that kind of smooth talk I don’t doubt that you get both a bit of friction and a nice slippery ride, fru Syvertsen.’

‘What?’

‘Have a good ski!’ Harry saluted her with the folded newspaper and walked back to the house.

He looked at the picture of the one-eyed Mikael Bellman. Maybe that was why his gaze looked so unflinching. It was the look of a man who appeared certain that he knew the truth. The look of a priest. A look that could convert people.

The truth is that we will never know for certain.

We all get fooled in the end, Harry .

Did it show? Did his doubt show?

Rakel was sitting at the kitchen table pouring coffee for both of them.

‘Up already?’ he said, kissing her on the head. Her hair smelt faintly of vanilla and sleep-Rakel, his favourite smell.

‘Steffens just called,’ she said, squeezing his hand.

‘What did he want so early?’

‘He was just wondering how things were going. He’s called Oleg in for a follow-up after that blood sample he took before Christmas. He says there’s nothing to worry about, but he wants to see if there could be a genetic link that might explain “it”.’

It . She, he and Oleg had hugged each other more after Rakel came home from hospital. Talked more. Planned less. Had just been together. Then, as if someone had thrown a stone in the water, the surface went back to the way it had been before. Ice. But even so, it felt like something was moving down there in the abyss beneath him.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ Harry repeated, as much to himself as her. ‘But it worried you anyway?’

She shrugged. ‘Have you thought any more about the bar?’

Harry sat and took a sip of his instant coffee. ‘When I was there yesterday I thought I’m obviously going to have to sell it. I don’t know anything about running a bar, and it doesn’t feel like much of a calling, serving youngsters with potentially unlucky genes.’

‘But …’

Harry pulled on his fleece jacket. ‘Øystein loves working there. And he’s staying off the stock, I know that. Easy, unlimited access seems to make some people pull themselves together. And it is actually paying its way.’

‘Hardly surprising, when it can boast two vampirist murders, one near shootout and Harry Hole behind the bar.’

‘Hm. No, I think it’s just that Oleg’s idea of musical themes is working. Tonight, for instance, it’s nothing but the most stylish ladies over fifty. Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde …’

‘Before my time, darling.’

‘Tomorrow it’s jazz from the sixties, and the funny thing is that the same people who come to the punk evenings will show up for that too. We do one Paul Rodgers night a week in Mehmet’s honour. Øystein says we ought to have a music quiz. And—’

‘Harry?’

‘Yes?’

‘It sounds like you’re planning to hold on to the Jealousy.’

‘Does it?’ Harry scratched his head. ‘Damn. I haven’t got time for that. A couple of daft sods like me and Øystein.’

Rakel laughed.

‘Unless …’ Harry said.

‘Unless?’

Harry didn’t answer, just smiled.

‘No, no, forget it!’ Rakel said. ‘I’ve got enough on my hands unless I—’

‘Just one day a week. You don’t work on Fridays. A bit of accounting and some other paperwork. You could have some shares, be chairman of the board.’

‘Chairwoman.’

‘Deal.’

She batted his outstretched hand away. ‘No.’

‘Think about it.’

‘OK, I’ll think about it before I say no. Shall we go back up to bed?’

‘Tired?’

‘… No.’ She looked at him over her coffee cup with half-closed eyes. ‘I could imagine helping myself to some of what I see fru Syvertsen can’t have.’

‘Hm. So you’ve been spying. Well, after you, chairwoman.’

Harry glanced at the front of the paper again. 4 March. The day of his release. He followed her to the stairs. Passed the mirror without looking in it.

Svein Finne, ‘the Fiancé’, walked into Vår Frelsers Cemetery. It was daybreak, and there was no one about. Only an hour earlier he had walked out through the gate of Ila Prison a free man, and this was his first errand. Against the white snow the small, black, rounded headstones looked like dots on a sheet of paper. He walked along the icy path, taking cautious steps. He was an old man now, and he hadn’t walked on ice for many years. He stopped in front of a particularly small headstone, just neutral initials – VG – beneath the cross.

Valentin Gjertsen.

No words of remembrance. Of course. No one wanted to remember. And no flowers.

Svein Finne took out the feather he had in his coat pocket, knelt down and stuck it in the snow in front of the headstone. In the Cherokee tribe they used to place an eagle’s feather in the coffins of their dead. He had avoided contact with Valentin when they had both been in Ila. Not for the same reason as the other inmates, whom Valentin scared the life out of. But because Svein Finne didn’t want the young man to recognise him. Because he would, sooner or later. It had taken Svein one single glance on the day Valentin arrived in Ila. He had his mother’s narrow shoulders and high-pitched voice, just as he remembered her from their engagement. She was one of the ones who had tried to get an abortion while Svein was busy elsewhere, so he had forced his way in and lived there to watch over his offspring. She had lain beside him, trembling and sobbing every night until she gave birth to the boy in a magnificent bloodbath there in the room, and he had cut the umbilical cord with his own knife. His thirteenth child, his seventh son. But it wasn’t when Svein learned the name of the new inmate that he was one hundred per cent certain. It was when he was told the details of what this Valentin had been convicted of.

Svein Finne got to his feet again.

The dead were dead.

And the living would soon be dead.

He took a deep breath. The man had contacted him. And had woken the thirst inside him, the thirst he’d thought the years had cured him of.

Svein Finne looked at the sky. The sun would soon be up. And the city would wake, rub its eyes, shake off the nightmare of the murderer who had rampaged last autumn. Smile and see that the sun was shining on them, blissfully unaware of what was coming. Something that would make the autumn look like a tame prelude. Like father, like son. Like son, like father.

The policeman. Harry Hole. He was out there somewhere.