Jo Nesbo - Midnight Sun

Almost ecstatic at my decision, I rushed back to the cabin.

The rifle was leaning against the wall.

It was a good decision, a decision with no consequences for the rest of the world. No one would cry for me, miss me, suffer any hardship. It was actually hard to think of anyone who was more dispensable than me. In short, it was a decision that would benefit everyone. So now all I had to do was put it into practice before I became too cowardly, before my sneaky, unreliable brain managed to come up with some desperate argument in favour of continuing this wretched existence.

I rested the butt of the rifle on the floor and put my mouth over the barrel. The steel tasted bitter and salty from the powder. To reach the trigger I had to stick the barrel so far into my throat that I almost hurt myself. I could just reach the trigger with my index finger. Come on, then. Suicide. The first time is always worst.

I twisted my shoulder and pulled the trigger.

There was a dry click.

Fuck.

I’d forgotten that the bullets were in the reindeer.

But I had more. Somewhere.

I searched through the cupboards and shelves. There weren’t many places I could have put the box of cartridges. In the end I got down on my knees and looked under the bed, and there it was. I inserted the cartridges into the magazine. Yes, I know one bullet in your brain is enough, but it felt somehow safer knowing there was more ammunition in case anything went wrong. And yes, my fingers were trembling, so it took a while. But eventually I clicked the magazine into the rifle and loaded it the way Lea had taught me.

I put my mouth over the barrel again. It was wet with saliva and drool. I reached for the trigger. But the rifle seemed to have got longer. Or me shorter. Was I backing out?

No, I finally managed to put my finger on the trigger. And now I knew it was going to happen, that my brain wasn’t going to stop me. That not even my brain could come up with good enough counter-arguments, it too was longing for a rest, didn’t want to fall, wanted a darkness that wasn’t this darkness.

I took a deep breath and started to squeeze the trigger. The rushing sound in my ears took on a tinny note. Hang on, that wasn’t coming from inside my head, it was outside. Bells ringing. The wind must have changed. And I couldn’t deny that the sound of church bells felt fitting. I squeezed the trigger a little more, but it was still a millimetre or so off firing. I bent my knees, had to swallow more of the barrel, my thighs aching.

Church bells.

Now?

I’d noticed that weddings and funerals took place at one o’clock. Christenings and services on Sundays. And there were no religious holidays in August, as far as I was aware.

The barrel slid deeper into my throat. There. Now.

The Germans.

Lea had told me that they rang the church bells so the members of the resistance would know when the Germans were coming for them.

I closed my eyes. Opened them again. Pulled the rifle out of my mouth. Stood up. I put it by the door and went over to the window facing the village. I couldn’t see anyone. I picked up the binoculars. Nothing.

To be on the safe side I checked the other direction as well, towards the woods. Nothing. I raised the binoculars to check the ridge beyond the trees. And there they were.

There were four of them. Still so far away that it was impossible to see who they might be. Apart from one. And it wasn’t too hard to guess who the other three were.

Mattis’s body was rocking from side to side. Evidently the money I had given him wasn’t enough, so he had laid claim to the other offer as well. Presumably he had charged them extra to show them the back way, so they could creep up on me with the best chance of not being seen.

They were too late. I was going to do the job for them. I had no desire to be tortured before I died. Not just because it hurt so much, but also because it wouldn’t take long before I was yelling that I’d hidden the money in the wall of the cabin, and the dope under the floorboards in an empty flat. It was empty because people seemed to have reservations about moving into flats in which people had killed themselves. From that perspective, Toralf had made a financial miscalculation by shooting himself in his own flat. He should have picked somewhere where his heirs wouldn’t suffer from the fall in value. A hunting cabin in the back of beyond, for instance.

I looked at the rifle leaning up against the wall. But I didn’t touch it. I had plenty of time, they had to get through the trees and wouldn’t be here for at least ten minutes, fifteen maybe. But that wasn’t why.

The church bells. They were ringing. They were ringing for me. And she was the one pulling the ropes. My beloved was ignoring church customs, didn’t care what the priest and the villagers would say, didn’t care about her own life, because of course Mattis would have worked out what she was doing. She only had one thing in her mind: to warn the guy she didn’t want to see again that Johnny was on his way to the cabin.

And that changed things.

Quite a lot of things.

They were approaching the trees now, and through the binoculars I could see the outlines of the other three. There was something birdlike about one of them, a thin neck sticking out of a jacket that was too big for him. Johnny. I could see something sticking up from the shoulders of the other two. Rifles. Automatic rifles, probably. The Fisherman had a container full of them down in his warehouse at the harbour.

I evaluated my chances. I could take them one at a time if they tried to storm the cabin. But they wouldn’t do that. Mattis would help them to exploit the terrain, they’d creep down the stream to get close enough to the cabin to shoot it to pieces. I looked round. The only things I had to hide behind were made of wood, so I might as well stand in front of the cabin, waving. My only chance, in other words, was to shoot them before they shot me. And they’d have to come closer for me to do that. I’d have to look them in the face.

Three of them disappeared in amongst the trees. The fourth, one of the suits with a rifle, stayed behind and shouted something, I didn’t hear what.

They wouldn’t be able to see me from inside the forest for the next few minutes. This was my chance to escape. I could run to the village, take the Volkswagen. If I was going to do that, I had to do it now. Grab the money belt and...

Two dots.

They looked as though they were flying across the heather, down towards the trees.

Now I realised what the guy had shouted. And that they had thought of everything. Dogs. Two of them. Silent. It struck me that dogs that didn’t bark when they were out running must be bloody well trained. I wouldn’t stand a chance, no matter how fast I ran.

This was starting to look bad. Maybe not quite as bad as three minutes ago, when I was standing there with a rifle barrel in my mouth, but the situation was completely different now. The distant, thin sound of church bells not only told me that some shady characters were on their way, but also that I now had something to lose. It was like getting stabbed with two knives at the same time, one hot, one cold, one happiness, one fear of dying. Hope is a real bastard.

I looked round.

My gaze fell on Knut’s knife.

Happiness and fear of dying. Hope.

I waited until I saw the fourth man and the dogs disappear into the woods, then I grabbed the money belt from the wall, opened the door and ran outside.

The swarm of flies rose up from the buck as I knelt down beside it. I saw that the ants were at it as well now, it was as if the pelt of the bloated cadaver was alive. I glanced over my shoulder. The cabin was between me and the trees, so I’d be hidden until they reached it. But I didn’t have long.