Nemesis

39

Glock

Stein Thommesen had been working for two years as a uniformed policeman. His greatest wish was to become a detective and his dream to become a police expert with fixed hours, his own office and a better salary than an inspector. To be able to go home to Trine and tell her about an interesting problem at work he and a specialist from the Serious Crime Unit were discussing, which she would find immensely, unimaginably complicated. In the meantime he was doing shifts for a pittance, he woke up dog-tired even after sleeping for ten hours, and when Trine said she wasn't going to live like that for the rest of her life, he would try to explain what it does to you spending your working hours driving teenagers with an overdose to A amp;E, telling kids that he has to arrest their father because he's been beating up their mother, and taking all the shit from people who hate the uniform you're wearing. And Trine would roll her eyes. Heard it all before.

When Inspector Tom Waaler from Crime Squad came into the duty room and asked Stein Thommesen if he would go with him to bring in a wanted man, Thommesen's first thought was perhaps Waaler would give him a few tips on how to go about becoming a detective.

He mentioned it to Waaler in the car on their way down Nylandsveien towards the traffic machine and Waaler smiled. Slap a few words down on a piece of paper, that's all there was to it, he said. He, Waaler, might be able to put in a good word for him.

'That would be…great.' Thommesen wondered if he should say 'Thank you', or if it would sound ingratiating. After all, there wasn't a lot to thank him for as yet. He would certainly tell Trine that he had put out feelers, though. Yes, that was exactly the word he would use: 'feelers'. Then nothing, maintain the mystique, until perhaps he heard something.

'What sort of guy are we pulling in?' he asked.

'I was out patrolling and heard on the radio they had recovered a quantity of heroin in Thor Olsens gate. Alf Gunnerud.'

'Yes, I heard that. Almost half a kilo.'

'Then a guy tipped me off he'd seen Gunnerud down at the container terminal.'

'Informers must be on their toes this evening. It was an anonymous tip-off that led to the heroin seizure as well. Might be a coincidence, but it's odd that two anonymous-'

'Could be the same informer,' Waaler interrupted. 'Maybe someone's got it in for Gunnerud, been screwed or something?'

'Perhaps…'

'So you want to be a detective,' Waaler said and Thommesen thought he noted a touch of irritation in his voice. They turned off the traffic machine towards the docks area. 'Yes, I can see that. It's a change, isn't it? Thought about which section?'

'Crime Squad,' Thommesen said. 'Or Robberies Unit. Not Sexual Offences, I don't think.'

'No, of course not. Here we are.'

They crossed a dark, open square with containers piled up on top of each other and a large, pink building at the end.

'Guy standing under the streetlamp fits the description,' Waaler said.

'Where?' Thommesen said, peering into the dark.

'By the building over there.'

'Holy shit! You've got good eyes.'

'Are you armed?' Waaler asked, slowing down.

Thommesen looked at Waaler in surprise. 'You didn't say anything about-'

'That's fine, I am. Stay in the car so you can call for support if he gives us any trouble, OK?'

'OK. Are you sure we shouldn't call-?'

'No time.' Waaler switched his lights on full beam and came to a halt. Thommesen estimated the distance to the silhouette under the light to be fifty metres, but later measurements would show the exact distance was thirty-four.

Waaler loaded his Glock 20-he had applied for and received a special permit to carry it-and, grabbing a large black torch from between the front seats, got out of the car. He shouted as he started to move towards the man. There would turn out to be a large discrepancy on exactly this point in the two policemen's incident reports. In Waaler's report, he had shouted: 'Police! Let's see them!' meaning: 'Put your hands above your head.' The Public Prosecutor agreed it was reasonable to assume that an ex-con with several arrests behind him would be familiar with that kind of jargon. And Inspector Waaler had clearly stated he was from the police. In Thommesen's original report, Waaler shouted: 'Hi, this is your police friend. Let's see it.' After some consultation between Waaler and Thommesen, however, Thommesen said that Waaler's version was probably closer to the truth.

There was no disagreement about what happened next. The man under the light reacted by putting his hand inside his jacket and taking out a gun which, it would transpire, was a Glock 23 with the serial number filed off and therefore impossible to trace. Waaler, who was, according to SEFO, the independent police authority, one of the best marksmen in the police force, screamed and fired three shots in quick succession. Two hit Alf Gunnerud. One in the left shoulder, the other in the hip. Neither of them was fatal, but they knocked Gunnerud backwards and he stayed on the ground. Waaler ran towards Gunnerud with his gun raised and shouting: 'Police! Don't touch the gun or I'll shoot! Don't touch the gun, I said!'

From this point on Stein Thommesen's report had little of any substance to add since he was thirty-four metres away, it was dark and, in addition, Waaler was in his line of vision. On the other hand, there was nothing in Thommesen's report-or in the evidence at the scene-which contradicted the next events as described in Waaler's report: Gunnerud grabbed the gun, pointed it at him despite the warnings and Waaler got his shot in first. The distance between the two was between three and five metres.

I'm going to die. And there's no sense in it. I'm staring down a smoking barrel. This wasn't the plan, not mine at any rate. I might have been heading this way all the time, though. But it wasn't my plan. My plan was better. My plan made sense. The cabin pressure is falling and an invisible force is pressing against my eardrums from inside. Someone leans over and asks me if I'm ready. We're landing now.

I whisper I've been a thief, liar, pusher and fornicator. But I've never killed anyone. The woman in Grensen I hurt, that was just one of those things. The stars beneath are shining through the fuselage.

'It's a sin…' I whisper. 'Against the woman I loved. Can it be forgiven, too?' But the stewardess has already moved away and the landing lights are ablaze on all sides.

It was the evening Anna said 'No' for the first time and I said 'Yes' and shoved the door open. It was the purest junk I had ever got my hands on and we weren't going to spoil the fun by smoking it. She protested but I said it was on the house and prepared the syringe. She had never injected heroin and I gave her the shot. It was harder to do it to others. After a couple of failures she looked at me and murmured: 'I've been drug-free for three months. I was cured.' 'Welcome back,' I said. She laughed and said: 'I'm going to kill you.' I found the vein the third time. Her pupils opened, slowly like black roses. Drops of blood from her forearm landed on the carpet with weary sighs. Then her head tipped backwards. The day after she rang me and wanted more. The wheels are screaming on the tarmac.

We could have made something good out of our lives, you and I. That was the plan, it made sense. I have no idea what the sense of this is.

According to the post-mortem the 10-millimetre bullet hit and smashed Alf Gunnerud's nasal bone. Fragments of the bone followed the projectile through the thin tissue in front of the brain, and the lead and bone destroyed the thalamus, the limbic system and the cerebellum before the bullet penetrated the rear cranium. Finally, it bored a hole in the tarmac which was still porous after the road-maintenance people had repaired the car park two days before.