Assassin

67

The road map of Oslo's northern suburbs looks like a maze in a children's puzzle book. The roads twist and switchback as they snake across the hills. Some side roads link back into the system, while others run blindly away to dead ends. Had she not had Thor navigating for her in the passenger seat, Maddy would have become hopelessly lost. Instead he gave her instructions in a voice as irritatingly calm and emotionless as a sat-nav, while she channelled her anger and desperation into the business of getting to Carver as fast as humanly possible.

Larsson owned a Volvo XC90 4? 4 whose engine growled like an angry bear as Maddy flung it round corners, slicing across the oncoming traffic, seeking out the racing line. She braked like a racing driver, too: one decisive deceleration, then straight back on the power and a slingshot round the bend, trusting the Volvo's four-wheel drive to keep it on the blacktop. She broke every rule in the book, overtaking on blind corners, aiming for tiny gaps between vehicles, playing chicken with trucks and buses. Her face was a tight mask of concentration, the only outward signs of her tension coming from the occasional flicker of her cheek, just below the left eye, and the clenching of her jaw as she worked the wheel and the brakes.

The ground was flattening out and the individual detached chalets that lined the streets on the edge of the city, each with their patch of garden, were giving way to more tightly packed housing when Larsson spotted a run of shops a hundred metres or so ahead.

'Pull in there,' he said.

'Are you outta your freakin' mind?' Maddy shouted, her temper pumped up by the adrenalin flooding her system.

'Just do it,' Larsson insisted. 'If you want Carver to live.'

Fuming, she pulled into a small line of parking spots.

'I won't be long,' Larsson said, jumping out of the car and running over to one of the shops. Maddy couldn't work out what the sign on the front meant, but, from the gear displayed in the window, it looked like a tool-hire store.

Larsson emerged from it barely a minute later carrying what looked like a gigantic, super-vicious pair of orange kitchen scissors, with a chainsaw where the top blade would be.

'Alligator loppers,' he said, by way of explanation.

'Yeah, I know what they are,' she said dismissively. She'd already started the engine as he was walking towards the car and was now pulling back out into the traffic.

Within a few minutes they were on the ring road that ran around the north of the city, still going fast, but travelling more smoothly. Larsson didn't have to give directions any more. He tried making conversation.

'Where did you learn to drive like that?'

'Back home, when I was a girl. I come from the boonies, didn't Carver tell you? Oh, no, I guess he didn't have time. Look, just don't talk to me, all right? Don't tell me how it's all a terrible mistake. Don't try to justify yourself. Just shut up unless you're giving me directions.'

Larsson lowered his head for a moment, cradling it in his right hand. Then he took a deep breath, pulled himself back together and sat back in his seat.

'Yeah, I get it,' he said. 'So, where are we?' He glanced out of the window. 'OK, turn left at the next exit. Take the E6. Follow the signs to Lorenskog and Lillestrom. Got that?'

'Uh-huh.'

'Fine then, I'll shut up.'