Jo Nesbo - Midnight Sun

‘But the idea of burning in hell was only read into the Bible in the Middle Ages, so that’s a fairly modern invention too. Shouldn’t you reject that as well?’

She sighed. ‘Reason lives in the head, and faith in the heart. They’re not always good neighbours.’

‘But dancing lives in the heart too. When you were swaying in time to the music on the jukebox, did that mean you were on the verge of sinning?’

‘Maybe,’ she smiled. ‘But there are probably worse things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well. Such as socialising with Pentecostalists, for instance.’

‘Is that worse ?’

‘I’ve got a cousin in Tromsø who sneaked out to go to a meeting of the local Pentecostalist group. When her father realised that she’d been out, she lied and said she’d been to a disco.’

We both laughed.

It had got slightly darker. It was time to drive back. Even so, we remained seated.

‘What do they feel when they’re walking through Stockholm?’ she asked.

‘Everything,’ I replied, lighting a cigarette. ‘They’re in love. That’s why they see, hear, smell everything.’

‘Is that what people do when they’re in love?’

‘You’ve never experienced it?’

‘I’ve never been in love,’ she said.

‘Really? Why not?’

‘I don’t know. Obsessed, yes. But if being in love is like they say it is, then never.’

‘So you used to be an ice princess, then? The girl all the boys wanted, but never dared talk to.’

‘Me?’ She laughed. ‘I hardly think so.’

She put her hand in front of her mouth, but removed it just as quickly. It’s possible that it was unconscious, because I had trouble believing that such a beautiful woman could have a complex about a tiny scar on her top lip.

‘What about you, Ulf?’ She used my false name without a trace of irony.

‘Loads of times.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

‘Why not?’

I shrugged. ‘It takes its toll. But I’ve got very good at handling rejection.’

‘Rubbish,’ she said.

I grinned and inhaled. ‘I would have been one of those boys, you know.’

‘Which boys?’

I knew there was no need for me to answer: her blushes revealed that she knew what I meant. I was actually a bit surprised: she didn’t seem the blushing type.

I was just about to reply anyway when I was interrupted by a sharp voice:

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

I turned round. They were standing behind the bench, ten metres away. Three of them. They each had a bottle in their hands. Mattis’s bottles. It wasn’t easy to know which of us the question was aimed at, but even in the murky light I could see and hear who had asked it: Ove. The brother-in-law with inheritance rights.

‘With that... that... southerner.’

The slurring in his voice made clear that he had sampled the contents of the bottle, but I suspected that wasn’t wholly responsible for his failure to find a more cutting insult.

Lea sprang up and hurried towards him, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Ove, don’t—’

‘Hey, you! Southerner! Look at me! You thought you were going to get to fuck her now, did you? Now that my brother’s in his grave and she’s a widow. But they’re not allowed to, did you know that? They’re not allowed to fuck, not even then! Not until they’re married again! Ha ha!’ He brushed her aside before raising the bottle in a wide arc and setting it to his lips.

‘Mind you, it might work with this one...’ Alcohol and saliva sprayed from his mouth. ‘Because this one’s a whore!’ He stared at me, wild-eyed. ‘A whore!’ he repeated when I didn’t react. Not that I didn’t know that calling a woman a whore is an internationally recognised signal to stand up and plant a fist in the speaker’s face. But I remained seated.

‘What is it, southerner? Are you a coward, as well as a cunt-thief?’ He laughed, evidently pleased with himself for finally finding the right words.

‘Ove...’ Lea tried, but he shoved her away with his drinking hand. It might not have been intentional, but the bottle caught her on the forehead. Might not. I stood up.

He grinned. Held the bottle out to the friends standing in the semi-darkness under a tree, came towards me with his fists raised in front of him. Legs apart, with quick, nimble steps, until he got himself into position, head slightly tilted behind his fists, with a look in his eyes that was suddenly clear and focused. As for me, I hadn’t done much fighting since I left primary school. Correction. I hadn’t done any fighting since primary school.

The first punch hit me on the nose, and I was blinded by the tears that instantly filled my eyes. The second one hit my jaw. I felt something come loose, and then the metallic taste of blood. I spat out a tooth and threw a wild punch at the air. His third blow hit me on the nose again. I don’t know what it sounded like to them, but to me the crunch sounded like a car being crushed.

I punched another hole in the summer night. His next blow hit me in the chest as I tumbled forward and wrapped my arms round him. I tried to pin his arms down so they couldn’t do any more damage, but he got his left hand free and hit me repeatedly on the ear and temple. There was a banging, squeaking sound, and it felt as if something cracked. I gnashed my teeth like a dog, got hold of something, an ear, and bit as hard as I could.

‘Fuck!’ he yelled, and yanked both arms free and locked my head under his right arm. I was struck by a pungent smell of sweat and adrenalin. I’d smelled it before. On men who had suddenly been confronted with the fact that they owed the Fisherman money, and didn’t know what was going to happen.

‘If you touch her—’ I whispered into the remnants of his ear, hearing the words gurgle with my own blood — ‘I’ll kill you.’

He laughed. ‘And what about you, southerner? What if I knock out the rest of your lovely white teeth?’

‘Go ahead,’ I panted. ‘But if you touch her...’

‘With this?’

The only positive thing I can say about the knife he was holding in his free hand is that it was smaller than Knut’s.

‘You haven’t got the nerve,’ I groaned.

He put the point of the knife to my cheek. ‘No?’

‘Come on them, you fucking—’ I couldn’t work out where my sudden lisp had come from until I felt the cold steel against my tongue and realised that he’d stuck the knife right through my cheek — ‘inbreed,’ I managed to say, with some effort, seeing as it’s a word that requires a certain amount of tongue gymnastics.

‘What did you say, dickhead?’

I felt the knife being twisted.

‘Your brother’s your father,’ I lisped. ‘That’s why you’re so thick and ugly.’

The knife was suddenly pulled out.

I knew what was coming. I knew it was going to end here. And that I’d pretty much demanded it, as good as begged for it. A man with the violent genes he had inherited didn’t have any choice but to stick the knife into me.

So why did I do it? Fucked if I know. Fucked if I know what calculations go on inside our heads, the way we add and subtract in the hope of getting a positive result. I just know that fragments of that sort of calculation must have fluttered through my sleep-deprived, sun- and alcohol-addled brain, where the positive result was that a man has to spend a hell of a long time in prison for first-degree murder, and in that time a woman like Lea could get a long way away, or at least could if she had the sense to keep hold of some of the money she knew where to find. Another plus: by the time Ove was released, Knut Haguroyama would have grown up enough to protect them both. On the negative side was my own life. Which, considering the probable extent and quality of the time remaining to me, wasn’t worth much. Yep, even I could do the maths.