Killing Moon

52 Friday

Sirens

Prim heard the sound of the sirens rise and fall out in the darkening night. Soon the whole of the moon would be eaten up and the sky lit only by the yellow lights of the city below. They weren’t police sirens, and neither were they the sirens of the fire engines he had heard earlier in the evening. It was an ambulance. Of course, it could be an ambulance on its way to the Rikshospital but something told him it was Harry Hole announcing his arrival. Prim had opened the bag with the police scanner and had it switched on. It was possible Harry could inform his colleagues without word of it being communicated through the ether, Prim wasn’t the first criminal with access to police frequencies. But something about the peaceful and relaxed atmosphere of the radio traffic told Prim that there were at least not many police in the city who knew what was happening. The most dramatic incident of the evening appeared to be the charred human remains in a burning villa in Gaustad.

Prim had placed his chair right behind Alexandra’s, so they both faced the metal door where the policeman and his companion would make their entrance. He had considered allowing only Harry to come, but he couldn’t rule out needing someone else there to remove her by force if necessary. Now and again the smell of smoke was carried on a puff of wind down from Gaustad, situated only a half-kilometre or so away. Prim didn’t want to breathe it in. Didn’t want any more of Markus Røed inside him. He was done with hate. Now love remained. All right, Her first reaction had been to reject him. No wonder. The way he had blurted everything out had naturally come as a shock to her, and the automatic reaction to shock is flight. She had believed they were just friends! Maybe she had really believed that he was gay. Maybe she had mistaken it for a flirtation of sorts, an excuse for her to invite him out on the town and to parties without any ulterior motive. He had partly played along, thought maybe she needed that excuse, even admitted to having had sex with one man without mentioning his stepfather’s abuse. He and Alexandra had had such a good time! The idea of him loving her needed time to mature, clearly, the business with the diamond ring had been too soon. Yes, love remained. But in order for their love to have a chance to grow, what was keeping it in the shade had to go.

Prim felt the syringe in his inside pocket. After speaking with Harry, Prim had held it up in front of Alexandra and explained. She might not have had enough insight into microbiology to be the ideal audience, but with her background in medicine she was more qualified than the average listener. Qualified enough to understand what a parasitological breakthrough it had been to create parasites that work ten times faster than the older, slower ones. But he couldn’t say he had reaped the anticipated oohs and aahs when he had related how his gondii parasites had penetrated Terry Våge’s brain in under an hour. No doubt she was too frightened to concentrate. She probably believed her life was in danger. And, yes, it might well have been if Harry Hole hadn’t been so predictable. But Hole was going to do exactly as he, Prim, commanded, he belonged to the old school — women and children first. And he was going to get here in time. Prim was finally feeling the joy, the joy that had been so absent when he was boiling his stepfather’s head. Sure, the battle was lost. Alexandra had refused the ring, and Harry Hole had found him out. But the war remained, and that he would win. The first thing to do was to eliminate his rival for good. That was how it worked in the animal kingdom, and we humans are — at the end of the day — animals. Then he would of course have to go to prison. But from there he would teach Her to love him. And she would, because with Harry defeated, she would understand that it was he and not the policeman who was her male. It was that simple. Not banal but simple. Uncomplicated. It was only a question of time.

He looked at the moon.

Only a sliver remained until it was completely covered. But the sirens were approaching, they were close now.

‘Can you hear him on his way to save you?’ Prim ran a finger down the back of Alexandra’s jacket. ‘Does it make you happy? That someone loves you so much they’re willing to die for you? But you must know that I love you more. I’d actually been planning to die, but I decided to live for your sake, and I’d say that’s a greater sacrifice.’

The siren stopped abruptly.

Prim stood up and took the two steps over to the edge of the roof. Yellow cones of light swept across the deserted car park below.

It was an ambulance.

Two people alighted from the vehicle. He recognised Hole by the black suit. The other person was wearing something light blue, resembling hospital attire. Had Hole brought along a nurse or a patient? The detective turned round so his back faced the roof, and although Prim couldn’t make out the handcuffs, he saw the glint of metal from the light of the street lamps. The two people below walked slowly side by side towards the entrance, which was right below Prim.

Prim dropped Alexandra’s Camel packet, watched it fall along the facade and land with a soft smack in front of the two. They gave a start but didn’t look up. The man in the hospital clothes picked up the cigarette pack and opened it. Took out Prim’s ID card and the note where he had written the security code, which floor they were to take the lift to and that the door to the roof was up the stairs to the right.

Prim walked back and sat down on the chair behind Alexandra’s, both of them facing the door ten metres away.

Prim pondered. Was he fearful of what was about to happen? No. He had already killed three women and three men.

But he was nervous. Because it would be his first time physically attacking someone not already reduced to a programmed, predictable robot controlled by the parasites he had infected them with. They had all been tricked into infecting themselves, so to speak. Helene Røed and Terry Våge had drunk it down with alcohol, Susanne and Bertine had snorted it at the party. And the cocaine dealer at Jernbanetorget had also snorted it from Bertine’s snuff bullet. It was on the day they brought in the seizure of green cocaine that he had got the idea. That is to say, he had long since heard the rumours about Markus Røed’s penchant for cocaine and wondered if it could provide a way to introduce the parasite into his body. But it was only when the seizure arrived, coupled with Alexandra telling him a few days previously about the roof party at Røed’s, that he realised what an opportunity this was. The paradox was of course that three other people ingested the cocaine and had to pay for it with their lives before he was finally able to infect his stepfather with his Toxoplasma gondii variant. And then by mixing it with one of the healthiest, most natural and most life-sustaining essentials a person needs. Water. He had to smile when he thought about it. He was the one who had called Krohn to say Markus Røed needed to come to the Forensic Medical Institute to identify the body of his wife. And he had a glass of water waiting for Røed. He could even recall verbatim what he had said to get Røed to drink it before he entered the autopsy room:

‘Experience suggests it can be a good idea to have fluid in the body when we’re dealing with a case such as this.’

The moon was almost consumed, and it had grown even darker when Prim heard slow — very slow — footsteps on the stairs.

He checked again that the syringe in his inside pocket was ready to be used.

The hinges on the metal door shrieked. It opened a crack. A hoarse voice sounded from inside.

‘It’s us.’

Harry Hole’s voice.

A strangled sob escaped Alexandra. Prim felt his anger rise and he leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

‘Don’t move and stay completely still, my love. I want you to live, but if you don’t do as I say, you’ll force me to kill you.’

Prim rose from the chair. Cleared his throat. ‘Do you remember the instructions?’ He heard with satisfaction that his own voice sounded loud and clear.

‘Yeah.’

‘Then come out. Slowly.’

The door opened.

As the figure in the suit stepped backwards over the raised threshold, Prim realised that the eclipse was total. He instinctively glanced up at the moon, vertically above the rooftop entrance. The face of the moon wasn’t black but had taken on a magical red colour. It looked like a pale jellyfish, desaturated, with only enough light for itself and nothing for the people down here.

The figure in the doorway took the first of the agreed eight steps backwards towards Alexandra and Prim, shuffling slowly as though wearing shackles. Like a condemned man to the scaffold, Prim thought. Trying to prolong his pitiful life by a few seconds. He could see the resignation and defeat in the now hunched form. That night Prim had spied on Harry Hole and Alexandra when they had been out and eaten dinner and had seen them walking closely together — like a couple — through the Palace Park, Hole had looked big and strong. The same as the night he had spied on them in the Jealousy Bar. But now it was as though Hole had shrunk to his actual size within his suit. He was sure Alexandra saw the same as him, that the suit tailor-made for the man she believed Harry Hole to be, no longer fitted.

Four paces in front of Hole the other figure backed out with his hands folded behind his head. Did the last of the moonlight glint faintly on something? Had the man in hospital clothes a weapon in his hand? No, it was nothing, a ring on a finger, perhaps.

Hole stopped. It looked like his handcuffed hands behind his back were giving him problems getting to his knees without toppling forward. The man was already behaving like a corpse. Prim waited until the man in hospital clothes also kneeled.

Then he approached Hole and raised his right hand, holding the syringe. Aimed at the pale, almost white, sagging skin on the back of the neck above his shirt collar.

In a second it would be over.

‘No!’ Alexandra screamed behind him.

Prim swung his hand. Harry Hole had no time to react before the tip of the syringe hit his neck and the needle sank in. He jerked but did not turn round. Prim pressed his thumb on the plunger, knew that the job was done, that the parasites were already on their way, that he had given them the shortest route to the brain, that this could go even quicker than with Våge. He saw the other man, the one in the hospital clothes, turn in the gloom. Again, something glimmered faintly in his hand, and Prim saw it now. It wasn’t a ring. It was the finger itself. It was metal.

The man had turned all the way round now. And risen to his feet. Because of the angle it had been difficult to see when they got out of the vehicle that this man was tall, taller than the man in the suit, and when they had backed onto the roof, both of them had been walking hunched over. But Prim realised now that it was him. It was the man in the hospital clothes who was Harry Hole. And now he could see his face too, those bright eyes over a grinning mouth.

Prim reacted as quickly as he could. He had been prepared for them to try and trick him somehow or other. They had wanted to since he was a little boy. That was how it had begun, and it was how it would end. But he wanted to take something with him. Something the policeman wouldn’t get. Her.

Prim had already taken the knife out as he turned to Alexandra. She had got to her feet. He raised the knife to strike. Tried to catch her eye. Tell her she was about to die. His rage rose. Because her gaze was directed over his shoulder, towards that fucking policeman. It was like with Susanne Andersen at the rooftop party, they were always looking for someone better. Well, then Hole could watch her die, the fucking whore.

Harry’s eyes fixed on Alexandra’s. She could see and knew, as both of them knew, that he was too far away to be able to save her. All he had time to do was move his forefinger in a quick circle in front of his throat and hope she remembered. Saw her move her shoulder back.

There shouldn’t have been enough time. Hadn’t been enough time, he would recall afterwards. If the parasites hadn’t also reduced their primary host’s ability to react. Helge’s body obscured his view of the blow, so Harry was unable to see if she had formed her hand into a chisel when she struck.

But she must have.

And she must have connected.

And Helge Forfang’s instincts must have taken over. They didn’t want her, or revenge, just air. Helge dropped the knife and the syringe and fell to his knees.

‘Run!’ Harry yelled. ‘Get away!’

Without a word Alexandra dashed past him, pulled open the metal door and was gone.

Harry walked over, stood beside the kneeling man in the suit, and looked down at Helge Forfang, who was holding both hands to his throat. He was making hissing sounds, like a punctured tyre. But then he suddenly rolled over on the concrete, lay on his back staring up at Harry, once again holding the syringe with the tip pointing towards himself. He opened his mouth, plainly trying to say something but only emitted more wheezes.

Without taking his eyes from Helge, Harry placed a hand on the shoulder of the man in the suit, sitting with his head hanging down.

‘How you feeling, Ståle?’

‘I don’t know,’ Aune said, in a barely audible whisper. ‘Is the girl all right?’

‘The girl’s all right.’

‘Then I’m good.’

Harry could see it in Helge’s eyes as he lay there. Recognised it. He had seen the same look in Bjørn’s eyes that last night when Harry left him, when everyone had left him, and he was found the next morning in his car, where he had blown his brains out. Harry had seen it in the mirror a few too many times in the period that followed, when the thought of Rakel and of Bjørn had made him weigh up the pros and cons of such an act himself.

The syringe Helge was holding was no longer pointed at Harry but at himself. Harry watched the needle moving closer to Helge’s face. Watched it cover one eye while the other stared fixedly at Harry. The outermost edge of the moon had begun to shine again, and Helge lowered the syringe just enough for Harry to see the tip of the needle press against the eyeball, the shortcut to the brain behind. He watched the eye begin to yield like a soft-boiled egg before the tip perforated the surface and the eye assumed its original form. Watched Prim guide the tip inwards. His face was expressionless. Harry didn’t know how many nerves there were in the eye or behind, it probably wasn’t as painful as it looked. Wasn’t that difficult to do. Easy, in fact. Easy for the man who called himself Prim, easy for the victims’ families, easy for Alexandra, easy for the public prosecutors and easy for the public who were always thirsty for revenge. They would all get what they wanted, and without the bad feeling even people in countries with the death penalty are left with after executions.

Yes, it would be easy.

Too easy.

Harry stepped forward swiftly as he saw Helge’s thumb arch over the plunger, dropped to his knees and drove his fist into the palm of the other man’s hand. Helge squeezed, but Harry’s fist prevented him from sinking the plunger, his thumb hitting a rigid metal finger of grey titanium instead.

‘Let me,’ Prim moaned.

‘No,’ Harry said. ‘You’re staying here with us.’

‘But I don’t want to be here!’ Prim whined.

‘I know,’ Harry said. ‘That’s why.’

He held on tightly. Somewhere in the distance, familiar music could be heard. Police sirens.