Nemesis

PART III
20

The Landing

When someone stares down a barrel, what goes through their mind? Sometimes I wonder if they think at all. Like the woman I met today. 'Don't shoot me,' she said. Did she really believe that a plea of that kind would make the slightest difference one way or the other? Her name badge said DEN NORSKE BANK and CATHERINE SCHШYEN, and when I asked why there were so many 'c's and 'h's in her name, she just looked at me with a stupid cow face and repeated the words: 'Don't shoot me.' I almost lost control, mooed at her and shot her between the horns.

The traffic in front of me isn't moving. I can feel the seat against my back, clammy and sweaty. The radio is on NRK 24-Hour News, not a peep yet. I look at my watch. Normally I would have been safely in the chalet within half an hour. The car in front has a catalytic converter, and I switch off the fan. The afternoon rush hour has started, but this is much slower than normal. Has there been an accident up ahead? Or have the police set up roadblocks? Impossible. The bag containing the money is under a jacket on the back seat. Next to the loaded AG3. The car in front revs up, slips the clutch and moves two metres. Then we are at a standstill again. I am considering whether I should be bored, nervous or irritated when I see them. Two officers walking along the white line between the lines of cars. One is a woman in uniform and the other a tall man in a grey coat. They cast a vigilant eye over the cars to the left and right. One of them stops and exchanges a few words and a smile with a driver who obviously hasn't fastened his seat belt. Perhaps just a routine check. They are getting closer. A nasal voice on NRK 24-Hour News says in English that the ground temperature is over forty degrees and precautions should be taken against sunstroke. Automatically I start sweating even though I know that outside it is dull and cold. They are standing in front of my car. It is the policeman, Harry Hole. The woman looks like Stine. She looks down at me as they pass. I breathe out in relief. I'm on the point of laughing out loud when there is a tap on the window. Slowly I crane my neck around. Incredibly slowly. She smiles and I discover the window is already rolled down. Strange. She says something which is drowned out by the revving engine in front.

'What?' I ask, opening my eyes again.

'Could you please put the back of your seat into an upright position?'

'The back of my seat?' I ask, perplexed.

'We'll be landing shortly, sir.' She smiles again and disappears.

I rub the sleep out of my eyes and everything comes back to me. The hold-up. The escape. The suitcase with the plane ticket ready at the chalet. The text message from the Prince that the coast was clear. But still the little prickles of nervousness as I showed my passport while checking in at Gardemoen. Take-off. Everything had gone according to plan.

I look out of the window. I am obviously still not quite out of dreamland. For a brief moment I seem to be flying above the stars. Then I realise it is the lights from the town and start thinking about the hire car I have booked. Should I sleep in a hotel in the huge, steaming, stinking town and drive south tomorrow? No, tomorrow I will be just as tired, from jet lag. Best to get there as soon as possible. The place I'm going is better than its reputation. There are even a couple of Norwegians there to talk to. Waking up to sun, sea and a better life. That's the plan. My plan anyway.

I hold onto the drink I managed to save before the stewardess folded my table. So why don't I trust the plan?

The drone of the engine rises and falls. I can feel I'm on the way down now. I close my eyes and instinctively breathe in, knowing what is to come. Her. She is wearing the same dress as when I first saw her. My God, I already long for her. The fact that the longing could not have been satisfied, even if she had lived, changes nothing. Everything about her was impossible. Virtue and passion. Hair which seemed to absorb all light, but instead shone like gold. The defiant laughter as tears rolled down her cheeks. The hate-filled eyes when I entered her. Her false declarations of love and her genuine pleasure when I went to her with threadbare excuses after broken agreements. Which were repeated as I lay beside her in bed with my head in the imprint of another. That's a long time ago now. Millions of years. I squeeze my eyes shut so as not to see the continuation. The shot I fired into her. Her pupils which widened slowly like a black rose; the blood trickling out, falling and landing with a weary sigh; the breaking of her neck and her head tipping back. And now the woman I love is dead. As simple as that. But it still doesn't make sense. That's what is so beautiful. So simple and beautiful you can hardly live with it. The pressure in the cabin falls and tensions increase. From the inside. An invisible force pressing on my eardrums and the soft brain. Something tells me this is how it will happen. No one will find me, no one will wrest my secret from me, but the plan will explode anyway. From inside.