The Redeemer

Part Two
THE REDEEMER
9

Tuesday, 16 December. The Snow.

The snow falling on Egertorget was stained yellow by the floodlights of the Crime Scene Unit.

Harry and Halvorsen stood outside the bar 3 Brodre watching the spectators and the media pushing against the police barriers. Harry took the cigarette out of his mouth and gave a cough, throaty and moist. 'Lots of press,' he said.

'They were here in no time,' Halvorsen said. 'Only a stone's throw from their offices, of course.'

'Juicy number. Murder in the midst of the Christmas scramble in Norway's most famous street. A victim everyone has seen; the guy standing by the Salvation Army pot. While a well-known band is performing. What more can they ask for?'

'An interview with celebrity investigator Harry Hole?'

'We'll stay here for the moment,' Harry said. 'Have you got the time of the murder?'

'A bit after seven.'

Harry looked at his watch. 'That's almost an hour ago. Why didn't anyone ring me before?'

'Dunno. I got a call from the POB a little before half seven. I thought you would be here when I arrived…'

'So you rang me on your own initiative?'

'Well, you're, like, the inspector after all.'

'Like,' Harry mumbled, flicking the cigarette to the ground. It melted its way through the light covering of snow and vanished.

'All the evidence will soon be under half a metre of snow,' Halvorsen said. 'Typical.'

'There won't be any evidence,' Harry said.

Beate was walking towards them with snow in her blonde hair. Holding a small plastic bag between her fingers with an empty casing inside.

'Wrong,' Halvorsen said to Harry with a triumphant smile.

'Nine millimetre,' Beate said, grimacing. 'Most common ammo around. And that's all we've got.'

'Forget what you have or haven't got,' Harry said. 'What was your first impression? Don't think, speak.'

Beate smiled. She knew Harry now. First, intuition, then the facts. Because intuition provides facts too; it's all the information the crime scene gives you, but which the brain cannot articulate straight off.

'Not a great deal. Egertorget is the busiest square in Oslo. Hence we had an extremely contaminated scene even though we arrived twenty minutes after the man was killed. But it seems professional. The doctor is looking at the victim now – it looks like he was hit by one bullet. Right in the forehead. Pro. Yes, that's my instinct.'

'Working by instinct, are we, Inspector?'

All three turned round to the voice behind them. It was Gunnar Hagen. He was wearing a green military jacket and a black woollen cap. The smile was visible only at the corners of his mouth.

'We try anything that works, boss,' Harry said. 'What brings you here?'

'Isn't this where it happens?'

'In a way.'

'Bjarne Moller preferred the office, I gather. For myself, I am of the persuasion that a leader should be in the field. Was more than one shot fired? Halvorsen?'

Halvorsen flinched. 'Not according to the witnesses we've spoken to.'

Hagen stretched the fingers of his gloves. 'Description?'

'A man.' Halvorsen's eyes flitted between the POB and Harry. 'That's all we know so far. People were watching the band and the whole thing happened very quickly.'

Hagen sniffed. 'In a crowd like this someone must have got a good look at the gunman.'

'You would think so,' Halvorsen said. 'But we don't know for certain where the man was standing.'

'I see.' Again the tiny smile.

'He was standing in front of the victim,' Harry said. 'Distance of two metres, maximum.'

'Oh?' Hagen and the other two turned to Harry.

'Our gunman knew that if you want to kill someone with a smallcalibre weapon, you shoot him in the head,' Harry said. 'Since he fired only one shot, he was sure of the result. Ergo, he must have been standing so close that he could see the hole in the forehead so he knew he couldn't have failed. If you examine his clothes, you should be able to find a fine gunshot residue which will prove what I am saying. Maximum two metres.'

'One and a half,' Beate said. 'Most guns eject the shell casing to the right, but not very far. This was found trampled into the snow one metre and forty-six centimetres from the body. And the dead man had singed woollen threads on his coat sleeve.'

Harry studied Beate. It was not primarily her innate ability to distinguish faces he appreciated, but her intelligence, zeal and the idiotic notion they shared: that the job they did was important.

Hagen stamped his feet in the snow. 'Well done, Lonn. But who on earth would shoot a Salvation Army officer?'

'He wasn't an officer,' Halvorsen said. 'Just a normal soldier. Officers are permanent; soldiers are volunteers or work on contracts.' He flipped open his notepad. 'Robert Karlsen. Twenty-nine years old. Single, no children.'

'Not without enemies, it seems,' Hagen said. 'Or what do you say, Lonn?'

Beate didn't look at Hagen, but at Harry, as she answered: 'It might not have been directed at the individual.'

'Oh?' Hagen smiled. 'Who else could it have been directed at?'

'The Salvation Army perhaps.'

'What makes you think that?'

Beate shrugged.

'Controversial views,' Halvorsen said. 'Homosexuality. Women priests. Abortion. Perhaps some fanatic or other…'

'The theory has been noted,' Hagen said. 'Show me the body.'

Both Beate and Halvorsen sent Harry a quizzical look. Harry nodded towards Beate.

'Jeez,' Halvorsen said when Hagen and Beate had gone. 'Is the POB intending to take over the investigation?'

Harry, his eye on the cordon where the media photographers were lighting up the winter darkness with their flashes, rubbed his chin, deep in thought. 'Pro,' he said.

'What?'

'Beate said the perp was a pro. So let's start there. What's the first thing a pro does after a killing?'

'Makes his escape?'

'Not necessarily. But at any rate he gets rid of anything that can link him to the shooting.'

'The weapon.'

'Right. I want all repositories, containers, bins and backyards in a five-block radius of Egertorget checked. Now. Request uniformed backup, if necessary.'

'OK.'

'And get all the video cassettes from surveillance cameras in shops in the area from the time before 19.00 to well after.'

'I'll get Skarre to do that.'

'And one more thing. Dagbladet also has a hand in organising the street concerts, and they write articles about them. Check whether their photographer has taken any pictures of the spectators.'

'Of course. I hadn't thought of that.'

'Send the photos to Beate for her to have a look. And I want all the detectives assembled in the meeting room in the red zone at ten tomorrow. Will you contact them?'

'Yes.'

'Where are Li and Li?'

'They're questioning witnesses at the station. A couple of girls were standing next to him when he fired.'

'OK. Ask Ola to make a list of family and friends of the victim. That's where we'll start to see if there are any obvious motives.'

'I thought you said this was the work of a pro?'

'We have to keep several balls in the air at once, Halvorsen. And start looking wherever it seems promising. Family and friends are easy to find as a rule. Eight out of ten murders are committed-'

'-by someone who knows the victim,' Halvorsen sighed.

They were interrupted by someone calling Harry Hole. They turned in time to see the press bearing down on them through the snow.

'Show time,' Harry said. 'Point them to Hagen. I'm off down to the station.'

The suitcase had been checked in with the airline and he was walking towards the security channel. He was in high spirits. The final job was done. He was in such a good mood that he decided to run the gauntlet. The woman at security shook her head when he took the blue envelope from his inside pocket to show his ticket.

'Mobile telephone?' she asked.

'No.' He put the envelope on the table between the X-ray machine and the metal detector while taking off his camel-hair coat, discovered he was still wearing his neckerchief, removed it and put it in the pocket, placed the coat in the tray the official gave him and walked through the detector watched by two further pairs of alert eyes. Including the man screening his coat, and the one at the end of the conveyor belt, he counted five security people whose sole job it was to make sure he didn't take anything with him that could be used as a weapon on board the plane. On the other side of the detector, he put on his coat and went back to collect his ticket on the table. No one stopped him, and he walked past the officials. That is how easy it would have been to smuggle a knife blade through in the envelope. He emerged into the large departure hall. The first thing that struck him was the view from the enormous panoramic window. There wasn't one. The snow had drawn a white curtain in front of the scene outside.

Martine sat bent over the steering wheel as the windscreen wipers swished the snow away.

'The minister was positive,' David Eckhoff said with satisfaction. 'Very positive.'

'You already knew that,' Martine said. 'People like that don't come for soup and invite the press if they're going to say no. They want to be re-elected.'

'Yes,' Eckhoff said with a sigh. 'They have to be re-elected.' He looked out of the window. 'Good-looking boy, Rikard, isn't he?'

'You're repeating yourself, Daddy.'

'He just needs a bit of guidance to be a really good man for us.'

Martine drove down to the garage under HQ, pressed the remote control and the steel doors jolted open. They rumbled in and the studded tyres crunched over the concrete floor of the empty car park.

Beneath one of the roof lights, beside the commander's blue Volvo, stood Rikard, wearing overalls and gloves. But it wasn't him she was looking at. It was the tall, blond man standing next to him, and she recognised him instantly.

She parked alongside the Volvo, but sat in the car searching for something in her bag while her father got out. He left the door open and she heard the policeman say:

'Eckhoff?' The sound echoed off the walls.

'That's right. Anything I can help you with, young man?'

The daughter recognised the voice her father had assumed. The friendly but authoritative commander's voice.

'My name is Inspector Harry Hole, Oslo district. It's about one of your employees. Robert…'

Martine could feel the policeman's eyes on her as she got out of the car.

'… Karlsen,' Hole went on, turning back to the commander.

'A brother,' David Eckhoff said.

'I beg your pardon?'

'We like to think of our colleagues as members of a family.'

'I see. In that case, I am afraid I have to announce a death in the family, herr Eckhoff.'

Martine felt her chest constrict. The policeman waited to let it sink in before continuing: 'Robert Karlsen was shot dead in Egertorget at seven o'clock this evening.'

'Good God,' her father exclaimed. 'How?'

'All we know is that an unidentified person in the crowd shot him and fled the scene.'

Her father shook his head in disbelief. 'But… but at seven o'clock, you say? Why… why haven't I been told until now?'

'Because there are routine procedures in cases like these and we inform relatives first. I regret to say we have not been able to get hold of them.'

Martine realised from the detective's factual, patient response that he was accustomed to people reacting to news of bereavement with that kind of irrelevant question.

'I understand,' Eckhoff said, blowing out his cheeks and then releasing the air through his mouth. 'Robert's parents don't live in Norway any more, but you must have contacted his brother, Jon, haven't you?'

'He's not at home, and he isn't answering his mobile phone. I was told he might be here at HQ, working late. However, the only person I've met is this young man.' He nodded towards Rikard, who was standing there with glazed eyes like a dejected gorilla, arms limp, hanging down by his sides and capped off with enormous specialist gloves, sweat gleaming from his blue-black top lip.

'Any idea where I can find the brother?' the policeman asked.

Martine and her father looked at each other and shook their heads.

'Any idea who would want to take Robert Karlsen's life?'

Again, they shook their heads.

'Well, now you know. I need to get going, but we would like to come back to you with more questions tomorrow.'

'Of course, Inspector,' the commander said, straightening up. 'But before you go, might I ask you for more details about what has happened?'

'Try teletext. I have to be off.'

Martine watched her father's face change colour. Then she turned towards the policeman and met his gaze.

'I apologise,' he said. 'Time is an important factor in this phase of the investigation.'

'You… you could try my sister's place. Thea Nilsen.' All three of them turned to Rikard. He gulped. 'She lives in the Army block in Goteborggata.'

The policeman nodded. He was about to go when he turned back to Eckhoff.

'Why don't the parents live in Norway?'

'It's a long story. They lapsed.'

'Lapsed?'

'They abandoned their faith. People brought up in Army ways often find it difficult when they choose a different path.'

Martine observed her father. But not even she – his daughter – could detect the lie in his granite features. The policeman moved off, and she felt the first tears flow. After the sound of his footsteps had faded away, Rikard cleared his throat. 'I put the summer tyres in the boot.'

By the time the announcement finally came over Gardemoen Airport's tannoy system, he had already guessed:

'Due to weather conditions, the airport has been temporarily closed.'

Matter-of-fact, he said to himself. Like an hour before, when the first announcement was made about the delay due to snow.

They had waited while the snow laid thick blankets over the aircraft outside. He had kept an unconscious eye on uniformed personnel. They would be uniformed at an airport, he imagined. And when the woman in blue behind the counter by Gate 42 lifted the microphone, he could see it written over her face. The flight to Zagreb was cancelled. She was apologetic. Said it would depart at 10.40 the following morning. There was a collective but muted groan from the passengers. She twittered on that the airline would cover the cost of the train back to Oslo and a hotel room at the SAS hotel for transit passengers and those travelling on a return ticket.

Matter-of-fact, he thought once more, as the train flew through the blackened night landscape. It stopped just once before Oslo, at an assortment of houses on white terrain. A dog sat shivering under one of the benches on the platform as the snow drifted in cones of light. It looked like Tinto, the playful stray that had run around the neighbourhood in Vukovar when he was small. Giorgi and a couple of the other older boys had given him a leather collar inscribed with: Name: Tinto; Owner: Svi. Everyone. No one wished Tinto any harm. No one. Sometimes that wasn't enough.

Jon had moved to the end of the room that was not visible from Thea's front door while she went to open it. It was Emma, the neighbour: 'I'm so sorry, Thea, but this man needs to get hold of Jon Karlsen as a matter of urgency.'

'Jon?'

A man's voice: 'Yes. I've been informed that I might be able to find him at this address with a Thea Nilsen. There were no names downstairs by the bells, but this lady has been very helpful.'

'Jon here? I don't know how-'

'I'm from the police. My name is Harry Hole. It's about Jon's brother.'

'Robert?'

Jon stepped towards the door. A man of his height with bright blue eyes looked at him from the doorway. 'Has Robert done something wrong?' he asked, trying to ignore the neighbour standing on tiptoes to see over the policeman's shoulder.

'We don't know,' the man said. 'May I come in?'

'Please do,' Thea said.

The detective stepped inside and closed the door in the neighbour's disappointed face. 'I'm afraid it's bad news. Perhaps you ought to sit down.'

The three of them sat around a coffee table. It was like a punch to the stomach, and Jon's head shot forward in automatic response to what the policeman told him.

'Dead?' he heard Thea whisper. 'Robert?'

The policeman cleared his throat and continued talking. The words seemed like dark, cryptic, barely comprehensible sounds to Jon. All the time he was listening to the detective explaining the circumstances, he was focusing on one point. On Thea's half-open mouth and sparkling lips, moist, red. Her breathing came in short, rapid pants. Jon didn't notice that the policeman had stopped speaking until he heard Thea's voice:

'Jon? He asked you a question.'

'Sorry. I… what did you say?'

'I know this is a difficult time, but I was wondering whether you know of anyone who might have wished to kill your brother.'

'Robert?' Everything around Jon seemed to be happening in slow motion, even the shake of his head.

'Right,' the policeman said, without making a note on the pad he had just produced. 'Is there anything in his job or private life that might have made him enemies?'

Jon heard his own inappropriate laughter. 'Robert's in the Salvation Army,' he said. 'Our enemy is poverty. Material and spiritual. It's rare for any of us to be killed.'

'Mm. That's the job. What about private life?'

'What I said applied to both job and private life.'

The policeman waited.

'Robert was kind,' Jon said and heard his voice starting to disintegrate. 'Loyal. Everyone liked Robert. He…' His voice thickened and stopped.

The policeman looked around the room. He didn't seem comfortable with the situation, but he waited. And waited.

Jon kept swallowing. 'He could be a little wild now and again. A bit… impulsive. Some may have considered him a bit cynical. But that was the way he was. Deep down, Robert was a harmless boy.'

The policeman turned to Thea and looked down at his notes. 'You're Thea Nilsen, sister of Rikard Nilsen, I gather. Does this tally with your impression of Robert Karlsen?'

Thea shrugged. 'I didn't know Robert so well. He…' She had crossed her arms and avoided Jon's gaze. 'He never hurt anyone as far as I am aware.'

'Did Robert ever say anything that might suggest he was in conflict with anyone?'

Jon shook his head hard, as though there were something inside he was trying to get rid of. Robert was dead. Dead.

'Did Robert owe any money?'

'No. Yes. Me. A little.'

'Sure he didn't owe anyone else money?'

'What do you mean?'

'Did Robert take drugs?'

Jon stared at the policeman in horror, then replied: 'No, he did not.'

'How can you know for sure? It's not always-'

'We work with drug addicts. We know the symptoms. And Robert didn't take drugs. OK?'

The policeman nodded and took notes. 'Sorry, but we have to ask these things. Naturally, we cannot exclude the possibility that the man who fired the gun was insane and Robert was an arbitrary victim. Or – since the Salvation Army soldier standing by the Christmas pot is a symbol – that the killing was directed against your organisation. Are you aware of anything that would support the latter theory?'

As though synchronised, the two young people shook their heads.

'Thank you for your help.' The policeman stuffed the notepad in his coat pocket and stood up. 'We haven't been able to find a telephone number or address for your parents…'

'I'll take care of that,' Jon said, staring into empty space. 'Are you quite sure?'

'Sure about what?'

'That it is Robert?'

'Yes, I'm afraid so.'

'But that's all you're sure about,' Thea burst out. 'Otherwise you know nothing.'

The policeman paused in front of the door and considered her comment.

'I think that's a fairly accurate summary of the situation,' he said.

At two o'clock in the morning the snow stopped. The clouds that had been hanging over the town like a heavy, black stage curtain were drawn to one side and a large, yellow moon made its appearance. The temperature beneath the naked sky began to fall again, making house walls creak and groan.