Blood on Snow

Chapter 5

It was snowing gently.

When the guy arrived at three o’clock he had brought something for her. Something in a little box. I couldn’t see what it was, only that she lit up for a moment. She lit up the night darkness outside the large living-room window. She looked surprised. I was surprised myself. But I promised myself that the smile she had shown him, she’d let me have that. I just had to do this properly.

When he left, just after four — he stayed a bit longer than usual — I was standing ready in the shadows on the other side of the street.

I watched him disappear into the darkness and looked up. She was standing in front of the living-room window, like she was onstage, and held up her hand and studied something in it, I couldn’t see what. Then she suddenly raised her eyes and stared at the shadows where I was standing. I knew she couldn’t possibly have seen me, but still... That penetrating, searching look. Suddenly there was something scared, desperate, almost pleading in her face. “An awareness that fate can’t be forced,” as the book said, God knows which one. I squeezed the pistol in my coat pocket.

I waited until she had pulled back from the window, then stepped out of the shadows. I quickly crossed the street. On the pavement I could see his boot-prints in the fine dusting of fresh snow. I hurried after him.

I caught sight of his back as I went round the next corner.

Obviously I had thought through a number of possibilities.

He might have a car parked somewhere. In which case it would probably be somewhere in one of the back streets in Frogner. Deserted, poorly lit. Perfect. Or he might be going somewhere — a bar, a restaurant. In that case I could wait. I had all the time in the world. I liked waiting. I liked the time between making the decision and carrying it out. They were the only minutes, hours, days of my admittedly short life when I was someone. I was someone’s destiny.

He might be going to take a bus or taxi. The advantage of that would be that we would end up a bit further away from Corina.

He was heading towards the underground station by the National Theatre.

There was hardly anyone about, so I moved closer.

He went down onto one of the westbound platforms. So he was from the west side of the city. Not somewhere I’d spent much time. Too much money, too little use for it, as my dad used to say. I’ve no idea what he meant by that.

It wasn’t the line that Maria usually took, although they shared the track for the first few stations.

I sat in the seat behind him. We were in the tunnel, but there was no longer any difference between that and the night outside. I knew that we would soon reach the place. There would be a rattling of metal and the train would do that little lurch.

I toyed with the idea of putting the mouth of the pistol against the back of the seat and pulling the trigger as we passed that point.

And as we did that — passed it — I realised for the first time what it reminded me of. Metal against metal. A feeling of order, of things falling into place. Of destiny. It was the sound of my work, of the movable parts of a weapon — pin and hammer, bolt and recoil.

We were the only passengers who got off at Vinderen. I followed him. The snow crunched. I took care to match my steps to his, so he couldn’t hear me. Detached villas on either side of us, but we were still so alone that we might as well have been on the moon.

I walked right up to him, and, as he half-turned, perhaps to see if it was one of his neighbours, I shot him in the base of the spine. He collapsed beside a fence and I turned him over with my foot. He stared at me with glassy eyes and for a moment I thought he was already dead. But then he moved his lips.

I could have shot him through the heart, in the neck or head. Why had I shot him in the back first? Was there something I wanted to ask him? Maybe, but I’d forgotten what now. Or it didn’t feel important. He didn’t look anything special close up. I shot him in the face. A hyena with a bloodstained snout.

I noticed a boy’s head sticking up over the fence. He had lumps of snow on his mittens and hat. Maybe he’d been trying to make a snowman. It’s not easy when the snow’s so powdery. Everything keeps falling apart, crumbling between your fingers.

“Is he dead?” the boy asked, looking down at the corpse. Maybe it seems odd to call someone a corpse just a few seconds after the person in question has died, but that’s the way I’ve always looked at it.

“Was he your dad?” I asked.

The boy shook his head.

I don’t know why I thought that. Why I got the idea that just because the boy seemed so calm it must have been his father lying there dead. Well, I do know, actually. That’s how I would have reacted.

“He lives there,” the boy said, pointing with one mitten as he sucked at the snow on the other, not taking his eyes off the dead body.

“I won’t come back and get you,” I said. “But forget what I look like. Okay?”

“Okay.” His cheeks were tensing and relaxing around the snow-covered mitten, like a baby sucking a nipple.

I turned and walked back the same way I had come. I wiped the handle of the pistol and dropped it in one of the drains on which the thin snow hadn’t managed to settle. It would be found, but by the police rather than some careless kids. I never travelled by underground, bus or taxi after I’d fixed someone, that was forbidden. Normal, brisk walking, and if you saw a police car heading your way, you turned round and walked towards the scene of the crime. I had almost got as far as Majorstua before I heard any sirens.