Assassin

36

Damon Tyzack's eyes had never left Carver. He wanted to wallow in every second of his misery and confusion. Carver had been kippered and he knew it. He'd been framed good and proper, caught red-handed, still holding on to the phone like an absolute idiot. Back at the hotel, Tyzack had made sure that Carver had seen his smile, just to rub it in, let him know who'd set the trap he'd so kindly walked right into. And then he'd stuck the knife in Carver's back and said his piece, though the words, like the blade, just scratched the surface of what Tyzack had in mind.

Watching him spot Larsson, though, that had been good. Tyzack had read Carver like a book, as even his mediocre mind grasped that he couldn't go back to his American tart and his hippy chum. Tyzack smiled to himself. There was plenty about those two that he knew and Carver didn't; lots more nasty surprises still to come; surprises that would knock that smug, superior expression off his face for good and all.

Tyzack pressed a speed-dial number on his phone. 'He's on the move,' he said. 'Track him. Let me know where he's going. Don't let him out of your sight.'

Next he punched in 22-66-90-50, the number of the Oslo Police District. When his call was answered he said, 'I have important information about the bombing at the King Haakon Hotel. Please alert the detective in charge of the case that the identity of the bomber is now in your possession. A picture of him standing by the telephone used to detonate the bomb was posted to your standard email contact address, along with details of the perpetrator's known associates. You will not hear from me again.'

He hung up without bothering to ask whether the call-centre operative to whom he had spoken had understood what he was saying. He simply assumed that she spoke English. Everyone in Norway spoke English.

When he had finished, he took the SIM and memory cards out of his phone, wiped the handset, made sure that no one was watching him and skidded it along the ground, into a pile of rubble from the explosion.

As he left the scene of the crime, Tyzack had already pulled another phone from his jacket and was talking into it: 'Right, where is he? What's he doing? Come on, I haven't got all night…'

He was walking up a side street called Akersgata. A black Mercedes E-Class saloon was parked there, a driver sitting patiently behind the wheel. Tyzack got in. As he sat down, his phone rang. He listened for a few seconds, grunted an acknowledgement of what had been said, then turned to the driver and said, 'Right, let's get going. This should be amusing.'