The Redeemer

34

Monday, 22 December. The Crucifixion.

There was one person between him and the check-in counter when he smelt it. A sweet soap smell that vaguely reminded him of something. Something that had happened not too long ago. He closed his eyes and tried to pinpoint what.

'Next please!'

Jon shuffled forwards, put the suitcase and rucksack on the conveyor belt and placed his ticket and passport on the counter in front of a suntanned man wearing the airline's white short-sleeved shirt.

'Robert Karlsen,' the man said, eyeing Jon, who confirmed with a nod. 'Two bags. And that's hand luggage, is it?' He gestured towards the black bag.

'Yes.'

The man flipped through the pages, typed and a hissing printer spat out tags marked Bangkok for the luggage. That was when Jon remembered the smell. For one second in the doorway of his flat, the last second he had felt safe. The man standing outside who said in English he had a message, then raised a black pistol. He forced himself not to look.

'Have a good trip, herr Karlsen,' the man said with an ultra-swift smile, handing over his boarding pass and the passport.

Jon walked without delay to the queues by the X-ray machines. Putting the ticket in his inside pocket, he snatched a glimpse over his shoulder.

He looked straight at him. For one desperate instant he wondered whether Jon Karlsen had recognised him, but then Jon's gaze moved on. What worried him, however, was that Karlsen appeared frightened.

He had been a little too slow to catch Karlsen at the check-in desk. And now he was in a hurry because Karlsen was already queueing for security where everything and everyone was screened and a revolver was impossible to conceal. It had to happen on this side.

He breathed in and tightened and slackened his grip on the gunstock inside his coat.

His instinct was to shoot the target on the spot, his usual practice. But even though he could soon disappear into the crowd, they would close the airport, check everyone's identities and he would not only miss his flight to Copenhagen in forty-five minutes but his freedom for the next twenty years.

He moved towards Jon Karlsen's back. It had to happen with speed and decisiveness. He would go up to him, thrust the gun in his ribs and give him the ultimatum in plain, concise terms. Thereafter lead him calmly through the jam-packed departures hall into the multistorey car park, behind a car, a shot to the head, body under the car, lose the gun before the security controls, gate 32, plane to Copenhagen.

He already had the gun out halfway and was two steps away when Karlsen stepped out of the queue and with long strides made for the other end of the departure hall. Do vraga! He turned to follow, forcing himself not to run. He hasn't seen you, he kept repeating to himself.

Jon told himself not to run, that it would make it obvious he knew he had been seen. He had not recognised the face, but he didn't need to. The man was wearing the red neckerchief. On the stairs down to the arrivals hall Jon felt the sweat coming. At the bottom he turned back on himself and when he was out of sight from those on the staircase, he placed the bag under his arm and began to run. The faces in front of him flashed past, with Ragnhild's empty eye sockets and unstoppable screams. He ran down another staircase and now there was no one around him any more, just cold, damp air and the echo of his own footsteps and breathing in a broad corridor sloping downwards. He realised he was in the corridor leading to the car park and hesitated for a moment to stare into the black eye of a surveillance camera, as if that could give him the answer. Further ahead he saw a neon sign over a door like a living image of himself: a man standing erect and helpless. The men's toilet. A hiding place. Out of sight. He could lock himself in. Wait until the plane was about to leave before coming out.

He heard an echo of rapid footsteps coming closer. He ran to the toilet, opened the door and stepped inside. The white light that was reflected towards him was how he imagined heaven would reveal itself to a dying man. Bearing in mind the isolated location of the toilet he thought it absurdly spacious. Rows of unoccupied white bowls stood in line, waiting along one wall, while cubicles of the same white hue lined the other. He heard the door glide to behind him and close with a metallic click.

The air in the cramped monitoring room at Gardemoen Airport was unpleasantly warm and dry.

'There,' Martine said, pointing.

Harry and the two security guards in the chairs faced her first, then the wall of screens she was pointing at.

'Which one?' Harry asked.

'There,' she said, walking over to the monitor showing an empty corridor. 'I saw him pass by. I'm positive it was him.'

'That's the surveillance camera in the corridor to the car park,' one of the guards said.

'Thanks,' Harry said. 'I'll handle this from here.'

'Hang on,' the guard said. 'This is an international airport and you may have police ID but you need authorisation to-'

He stopped in his tracks. Harry had drawn a revolver from his waistband and was weighing it in his hand. 'Can we say this authority is valid until further notice?'

Harry didn't wait for an answer.

Jon had heard someone enter the toilet. But all he could hear now was the flush of water in the white tear-shaped bowls outside the cubicle in which he had locked himself.

Jon was sitting on the toilet lid. The cubicles were open at the top, but the doors went right down to the floor so he didn't have to pull up his legs.

Then the flush stopped and he heard a splash.

Someone was peeing.

Jon's first thought was that it couldn't have been Stankic. No one could be so cold-blooded that they would think about urinating before committing murder. His second was that Sofia's father may have been right about the little redeemer you could hire for peanuts at Hotel International in Zagreb: he was fearless.

Jon clearly heard the swish of trouser flies being zipped up, and then the white porcelain orchestra's water music started up again.

It stopped as if at the command of a baton, and he heard running water from a tap. A man was washing his hands. With scrupulous care. The tap was turned off. Then more steps. The door creaked. The metallic click.

Jon slumped in a heap on the toilet lid with the bag in his lap.

There was a knock at the cubicle door.

Three light taps, but with the sound of something hard. Like steel.

The blood seemed to refuse to enter his brain. He didn't stir, just closed his eyes and held his breath. But his heart was pounding. He had read somewhere that some predators have ears that can pick up the sound of a victim's frightened heart, in fact that was how they found them. Apart from his heartbeat, the silence was total. He shut his eyes tight and thought that if he concentrated he would be able to see through the roof and catch sight of the cold, clear starry sky, see the planet's invisible but comforting plan and logic, see the meaning of everything.

Then came the inevitable crash.

Jon felt the air pressure against his face and for a moment believed it was from a gunshot. He opened his eyes with caution. Where the lock had been were now splinters of wood, and the door was hanging at an angle.

The man before him had opened his coat. Underneath he was wearing a dinner suit and a shirt that was the same dazzling white as the walls behind him. Around his neck was a red neckerchief.

Dressed for a party, thought Jon.

He inhaled the smell of urine and freedom as he looked down at the skulking figure before him. An ungainly young man scared out of his wits, sitting and shaking as he waited for death. Under any other circumstances he would have wondered what this man with the turbid blue eyes might have done. But for once he knew. And for the first time since the Christmas dinner in Dalj this would give him personal satisfaction. And he was no longer frightened.

Without lowering the revolver he glanced at his watch. Thirty-five minutes before the departure of the plane. He had seen the camera outside. Which meant there were probably surveillance cameras in the car park, too. It would have to be done here. Pull him out and into the next cubicle, shoot him, lock the cubicle from the inside and climb out. They wouldn't find Jon Karlsen before the airport was closed for the night.

'Come out!' he said.

Karlsen seemed to be in a trance and did not move. He cocked the gun and took aim. Karlsen inched out of the cubicle. Stopped. Opened his mouth.

'Police. Drop the gun.'

Harry held the revolver with both hands and pointed it at the man with the red silk neckerchief as the door closed with a metallic click behind him.

Instead of putting down the gun, the man held it to Jon Karlsen's head and said in accented English that Harry recognised: 'Hello, Harry. Have you got a good line of fire?'

'Perfect,' Harry said. 'Right through the back of your head. Drop the gun, I said.'

'How can I know if you're holding a gun, Harry? I've got yours, haven't I.'

'I've got one that belonged to a colleague.' Harry saw his finger squeezing the trigger. 'Jack Halvorsen's. The one you stabbed in Goteborggata.'

Harry saw the man stiffen.

'Jack Halvorsen,' Stankic repeated. 'What makes you think it was me?'

'Your DNA in the vomit. Your blood on his coat. And the witness standing in front of you.'

Stankic nodded slowly. 'I see. I killed your colleague. But if you believe that why haven't you already shot me?'

'Because there's a difference between you and me,' Harry said. 'I'm not a murderer but a policeman. So if you put that revolver down I'll only take half of your remaining life. About twenty years. Your choice, Stankic.' Harry's arm muscles were already beginning to ache.

'Tell him!'

Harry realised Stankic had shouted this to Jon when he saw Jon start.

'Tell him!'

Jon's Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a float. Then he shook his head.

'Jon?' Harry said.

'I can't…'

'He'll shoot you, Jon. Talk.'

'I don't know what you want me to-'

'Listen, Jon,' Harry said without taking his eyes off Stankic. 'None of what you say with a pistol to your head can be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand? Right now you have nothing to lose.'

The hard, smooth surfaces of the room created an unnaturally clear and loud sound reproduction of metal in motion and the tensing of springs as the man in the dinner suit cocked the revolver.

'Stop!' Jon held up his arms in front of him. 'I'll tell you everything.'

Jon met the policeman's eyes over Stankic's shoulder. And saw that he already knew. Perhaps he had known for a long time. The policeman was right: he had nothing to lose. None of what he said could be used against him. And the strange thing was that he wanted to talk. In fact, there was nothing he would rather do.

'We were standing by the car waiting for Thea,' Jon said. 'The policeman was listening to a message left on his mobile phone. I could hear it was from Mads. And then I knew when the policeman said it was a confession and he was going to ring you. I knew my number would be up. I had Robert's jackknife on me and I reacted out of instinct.'

In his mind's eye he could see himself struggling to hold the policeman's arms in a lock behind his back, but the policeman had managed to get one hand free and place it between the knife blade and his throat. Jon had slashed and slashed at the hand without getting near the carotid artery. Furious, he had swung the policeman to the left and the right like a rag doll as he kept stabbing, and in the end the knife had sunk into his chest, and a sigh had seemed to run through the policeman's body and his arms went limp. He had picked up the mobile phone from the ground and stuffed it into his pocket. All that remained was to give him the coup de grace.

'But Stankic got in the way, did he?' Harry asked.

Jon had raised the knife to cut the throat of the unconscious policeman when he heard someone shouting in a foreign language, looked up and saw a man in a blue jacket running towards him.

'He had a pistol so I had to get away,' Jon said, feeling the purging effect of his confession, the lifting of a burden. And he saw Harry nod, saw that the tall blond man understood. And forgave him. And he was so moved that he felt his throat constrict with emotion as he continued. 'He fired a shot at me as I ran inside. Almost hit me as well. He was going to kill me, Harry. He's a crazy murderer. You have to shoot him, Harry. We have to take him out, you and I… we.. .'

He watched Harry lower his revolver and put it in his trouser waistband.

'What… what are you doing, Harry?'

The tall policeman buttoned up his coat. 'I'm taking my Christmas leave, Jon. Thank you for the confession.'

'Harry? Wait…' The certainty of his imminent fate had absorbed all the moisture in his throat and mouth, and the words had to be forced out by dry mucous membranes. 'We can share the money, Harry. Listen, all three of us can share it. No one will need to know.'

But Harry had already turned to address Stankic in English. 'I think you'll find there's enough money in the bag for several of you at Hotel International to build a house in Vukovar. And your mother may want to donate some to the apostle in St Stephen's Cathedral, too.'

'Harry!' Jon's scream was hoarse, like a death rattle. 'Everyone deserves another chance, Harry!'

With his hand on the door handle, the policeman paused.

'Look into the depths of your heart, Harry. You must find some forgiveness there!'

'The problem is…' Harry rubbed his chin. 'I'm not in the forgiveness business.'

'What!' exclaimed Jon, in astonishment.

'Redemption, Jon. Redemption. That's what I go in for. Me, too.'

After hearing the door close behind Harry with a metallic click and seeing the dinner-suited man raise the gun, Jon stared into the black eye of the muzzle and the fear had become a physical pain, and he no longer knew whose the screams were: Ragnhild's, his own or those of others. But before the bullet smashed through his forehead Jon Karlsen had time to arrive at one realisation that had hatched after years of doubt, shame and desperate prayer: that no one would hear either his screams or his prayers.