Phantom

43

Truls had fled to be alone on the terrace.

He had stood on the periphery of a couple of conversations, sipping champagne, eating from toothpicks and trying to look as if he belonged there. A few of these well-brought-up individuals had attempted to include him. Said hello, asked him who he was and what he did. Truls had given brief replies, and it had not occurred to him to return the favour. As though he wasn’t in a position to do that. Or was frightened he ought to know who they were and what kind of bloody important jobs they had.

Ulla had been busy serving and smiling and chatting to these people, as if they were old acquaintances, and Truls had achieved eye contact with her only on a couple of occasions. And then, with a smile, she had mimed something he guessed was supposed to mean she would have liked to talk to him but a hostess’s duties called. It transpired that none of the other boys who had worked on the house had been able to come, and the Chief of Police hadn’t recognised Truls and neither had the unit heads. He almost felt like telling them he was the officer who had punched the lights out of the boy.

But the terrace was wonderful. Oslo lay glittering like a jewel beneath him.

The autumn chill had come with the high pressure. Night temperatures down to zero had been forecast on higher ground. He heard distant sirens. An ambulance. And at least one police vehicle. From somewhere in the centre. Truls would have most liked to sneak away, switch on the police radio. Hear what was going on. Feel the pulse of his town. Feel that he belonged.

The terrace door opened, and Truls automatically took two steps back, into the shadows, to avoid being drawn into a conversation where he would have to shrink still further.

It was Mikael. And the politician woman. Isabelle Skoyen.

She was clearly stewed; at any rate Mikael was supporting her. Big woman, she towered above him. They stood by the railing with their backs to Truls, in front of the windowless bay, so that they were hidden from the guests in the lounge.

Mikael stood behind her, and Truls half expected to see someone produce a Zippo and light a cigarette, but that didn’t happen. And when he heard the rustle of a dress and Isabelle Skoyen’s low, protesting laugh it was already too late to make his presence known. He saw the flash of a white thigh before the hem was pulled down firmly. Instead she turned to him, and their heads merged into one silhouette against the town below. Truls could hear wet tongue noises. He turned towards the lounge. Saw Ulla smiling and running between people with a tray of new provisions. Truls couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t bloody understand it. Not that he was shocked, it wasn’t the first time Mikael had been involved with another woman, but he couldn’t understand how Mikael had the stomach for it. The heart for it. When you have a woman like Ulla, when you have such incredible good luck, when you’ve hit the jackpot, how could you want to risk everything for a shag on the side? Is it because God, or whoever the hell it is, has given you the things women want in men — good looks, ambition, a smooth tongue that knows what to say — that you feel obliged to exercise your potential, as it were? Like people measuring two metres twenty think they have to play basketball. He didn’t know. All he knew was that Ulla deserved better. Someone to love her. Who loved her the way he had always loved her. And always would. The business with Martine had been a frivolous adventure, nothing serious, and it would never be repeated anyway. Every so often he had thought that in some way or other he ought to let Ulla know that if she were ever to lose Mikael, he, Truls, would be there for her. But he had never found the right words to tell her. Truls pricked up his ears. They were talking.

‘I just know he’s gone,’ Mikael said, and Truls could hear from the slightly slurred speech that he was not totally sober, either. ‘But they found the other two.’

‘His Cossacks?’

‘I still believe that all the stuff about them being Cossacks is bollocks. Anyway, Gunnar Hagen from Crime Squad contacted me and wondered if I could help. Tear gas and automatic weapons were used, so they have a theory it might have been the settling of an old score. He wondered if Orgkrim had any candidates. They were tapping in the dark, he said.’

‘And you answered?’

‘I answered that I had no idea who it could be, which is the truth. If it’s a gang they’ve managed to sail under the radar.’

‘Do you think the old boy could have escaped?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘I think his body’s rotting somewhere down there.’ Truls saw a hand point into the starry sky. ‘Maybe we’ll find it very soon, maybe we’ll never find it.’

‘Bodies always turn up, don’t they?’

No, Truls thought. He stood with his weight distributed evenly across both feet, felt them press against the cement of the terrace, and vice versa. They don’t.

‘Nevertheless,’ Mikael said, ‘someone has done it, and he’s new. We’ll soon see who is Oslo’s new king of the dope heap.’

‘And what do you think that will mean for us?’

‘Nothing, my love.’ Truls could see Mikael Bellman place his hand behind Isabelle Skoyen’s neck. In silhouette, it looked as if he was about to strangle her. She lurched to the side. ‘We’ve got where we wanted to be. We jump off here. In fact, it couldn’t have had a better end than this. We didn’t need the old boy any more, and considering what he had on you and me in the course of… our cooperation, it’s…’

‘It’s?’

‘It’s…’

‘Remove your hand, Mikael.’

Alcoholic laughter, as smooth as velvet. ‘If this new king hadn’t done the job for us I might have had to do it myself.’

‘Let Beavis do it, you mean?’

Truls started at the sound of the hated nickname. Mikael had been the first person to use it. And it had stuck. People had caught on to the underbite and the grunted laugh. Mikael had even consoled him by saying he had been thinking more about the ‘anarchistic perception of reality’ and the ‘nonconformist morality’ of the cartoon character on MTV. Had made it sound as if he had awarded Truls an honorary bloody title.

‘No, I would never have let Truls know about my role in this.’

‘I still think it’s strange you don’t trust him. Aren’t you old friends? Didn’t he make this terrace for you?’

‘He did. In the middle of the night on his ownsome. See what I mean? We’re talking about a man who’s not a hundred per cent predictable. He’s prone to all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas.’

‘Yet you advised the old boy to recruit Beavis as a burner?’

‘That’s because I’ve known Truls since childhood, and I know he’s corrupt through and through and easily bought.’

Isabelle Skoyen screeched with laughter, and Mikael shushed her.

Truls had stopped breathing. His throat tightened, and it was as if he had an animal in his stomach. A small roving animal searching for a way out. It tickled and quivered. It tried an upward route. It pressed against his chest.

‘By the way, you’ve never told me why you chose me as your business partner,’ Mikael said.

‘Because you’ve got such a great cock, of course.’

‘No, be serious. If I hadn’t agreed to work with you and the old boy, I would’ve had to arrest you.’

‘Arrest?’ She snorted. ‘Everything I’ve done has been for the good of the town. Legalising marijuana, distributing methadone, financing a room for fixes. Or clearing the way for a drug that results in fewer ODs. What’s the difference? Drug policies are pragmatism, Mikael.’

‘Relax, I agree, goes without saying. We’ve made Oslo a better place. Skal to that.’

She ignored his raised glass. ‘You would never have arrested me anyway. Because, if you had, I would’ve told anyone who wanted to listen that I was fucking you behind your sweet little wife’s back.’ She giggled. ‘ Right behind her back. Do you remember the first time we met at that premiere and I said you could fuck me? Your wife was standing right behind you, barely out of earshot, but you didn’t even blink. Just asked me for fifteen minutes to send her home.’

‘Shh, you’re drunk,’ Mikael said, placing a hand on her spine.

‘That was when I knew you were a man after my own heart. So when the old boy said I should find myself an ally with the same ambitions as me, I knew exactly who to approach. Skal, Mikael.’

‘Speaking of which, we need a top-up. Perhaps we should go back and-’

‘Delete what I said about after my own heart. There are no men after my heart, they’re after my…’ Deep rumble of laughter. Hers.

‘Come on, let’s go.’

‘Harry Hole!’

‘Shh.’

‘There’s a man after my own heart. Bit stupid, of course, but… hm. Where do you think he is?’

‘Having trawled the town for him for so long without success, I assume he’s left the country. He got Oleg acquitted, he won’t be back.’

Isabelle swayed, but Mikael caught her.

‘You’re a bastard, Mikael, and we bastards deserve each other.’

‘Maybe, but we should go back in,’ Mikael said, glancing at his watch.

‘Don’t look so stressed, big boy. I can handle a drink. See?’

‘I see, but you go in first, then it won’t look so…’

‘Mucky?’

‘Something like that.’

Truls heard her hard laughter and watched her even harder heels hitting the cement.

She was gone and Mikael was left, leaning against the railing.

Truls waited for a few seconds. Then he stepped forward.

‘Hi, Mikael.’

His childhood pal turned. His eyes were glazed; his face was a little bloated. Truls presumed from the time it took him to react with a cheery smile that this was due to the booze.

‘There you are, Truls. I didn’t hear you come out here. Is there life inside?’

‘Shit, yes.’

They looked at each other. And Truls asked himself exactly when and where they had forgotten how to talk to each other, what had happened to those carefree chats, the daydreaming they had done together, the days when it was OK to say anything and talk about everything. The days when the two of them had been as one. Like early in their careers when they had smacked around the guy who had tried it on with Ulla. Or the bloody poof who had worked in Kripos and made a move on Mikael, and whom they had taken to the boiler room in Bryn a few days later. The guy had blubbed and apologised, saying he had misinterpreted Mikael. They had avoided his face so that it wouldn’t be so obvious, but the bloody crybaby had made Truls so angry he had wielded the truncheon with more force than he had intended, and Mikael had only just been able to stop him. They weren’t what you might call good memories, but still, they were experiences that bound two people together.

‘Well, I’m standing here and admiring the terrace,’ Mikael said.

‘Thanks.’

‘There was something that occurred to me, though. The night you poured the cement…’

‘Yes?’

‘You said, I think, that you were restless and couldn’t sleep. But it struck me that was the night we arrested Odin and raided Alnabru afterwards. And he disappeared — what was his name?’

‘Tutu.’

‘Tutu, yes. You were supposed to have been with us that night, but you were ill, you told me. And then you mixed concrete instead?’

Truls smirked. Looked at Mikael. At last he managed to catch his eye, and to keep it.

‘Do you want to hear the truth?’

Mikael seemed to hesitate before answering. ‘Love to.’

‘I was skiving.’

The terrace went quiet for a couple of seconds; all that could be heard was the distant rumble from the town.

‘Skiving?’ Mikael laughed. Sceptical, but good-natured laughter. Truls liked his laugh. Everyone did, men and women alike. It was a laugh that said you’re funny and nice and probably clever and well worth a friendly chuckle.

‘ You skived? You who never skives and loves making an arrest?’

‘Yes,’ Truls said. ‘I couldn’t be bothered. I’d pulled.’

Silence again.

Then Mikael roared with laughter. He leaned back and laughed so much he was gasping for breath. Zero cavities. Bent forward again and smacked Truls on the shoulder. It was such happy, liberating laughter that for some seconds Truls simply couldn’t help himself. He joined in.

‘Screwing and building a terrace,’ Mikael Bellman gasped. ‘You’re quite a man, you are, Truls. Quite a man.’

Truls could feel the praise making him grow back to his normal size. And for one moment it was almost like the old days. No, not almost, it was like the old days.

‘You know,’ he grunted, ‘now and then you have to do things all on your own. That’s the only way you get a decent job done.’

‘True,’ Mikael said, wrapping an arm round Truls’s shoulders and stamping both feet on the terrace. ‘But this, Truls, is a lot of cement for one man.’

Yes, Truls thought, feeling exultant laughter bubble up in his chest. It is a lot of cement for one man.

‘I should have kept the Game Boy when you brought it,’ Oleg said.

‘You should,’ Harry said, leaning against the door frame. ‘Then you could have brushed up on your Tetris technique.’

‘And you should have taken the magazine out of this gun before you left it here.’

‘Maybe.’ Harry tried not to look at the Odessa pointing half at the floor, half at him.

Oleg smiled wanly. ‘I suppose we’ve made a number of mistakes, both of us. No?’

Harry nodded.

Oleg had got to his feet and was standing beside the stove. ‘But I didn’t only make mistakes, did I?’

‘Not at all. You did a lot right as well.’

‘Like what?’

Harry shrugged. ‘Like claiming you threw yourself at the gun of this fictional killer. Saying he wore a balaclava and didn’t say a word. He only used gestures. You left it to me to draw the obvious conclusions: that it explained the gunshot residue on your skin, and that the killer didn’t speak because he was afraid you would recognise his voice, so he had some connection with the drug trade or the police. My guess is you used the balaclava because you noticed the policeman with you at Alnabru had one. In your story you located him in the neighbouring office because it was stripped bare, and it was open so everyone could come and go from there to the river. You gave me the hints so that I could build my own convincing explanation of why you hadn’t killed Gusto. An explanation you knew my brain would manage. For our brains are always willing to let emotions make decisions. Always ready to find the consoling answers our hearts need.’

Oleg nodded slowly. ‘But now you have all the other answers. The correct ones.’

‘Apart from one,’ Harry said. ‘Why?’

Oleg didn’t reply. Harry held up his right hand while slowly putting his left in his trouser pocket and pulling out a crumpled pack and lighter.

‘Why, Oleg?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I thought for a while it was all about Irene. Jealousy. Or you knew he had sold her to someone. But if he was the only person who knew where she was, you couldn’t kill him until he had told you. So it must have been about something else. Something as strong as love for a woman. Because you’re no killer, are you.’

‘You tell me.’

‘You’re a man with a classic motive that has driven men, good men, to perform terrible deeds, myself included. The investigation has gone round in circles. Getting nowhere. I’m back where we started. With a love affair. The worst kind.’

‘What do you know about that?’

‘Because I’ve been in love with the same woman. Or her sister. She’s drop-dead gorgeous at night, and as ugly as sin when you wake next morning.’ Harry lit the black cigarette with the gold filter and the Russian imperial eagle. ‘But when night comes you’ve forgotten and you’re in love again. And nothing can compete with this love, not even Irene. Am I wrong?’

Harry took a drag and watched Oleg.

‘What do you want me to say? You know everything anyway.’

‘I want to hear you say it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want you to hear yourself say it. So that you can hear how sick and meaningless it is.’

‘What? That it’s sick to shoot someone because they try to nick your dope? The dope you’ve slogged your guts out to scrape together?’

‘Can’t you hear how banal that sounds?’

‘Says you!’

‘Yes, says me. I lost the best woman in the world because I couldn’t resist. And you’ve killed your best friend, Oleg. Say his name.’

‘Why?’

‘Say his name.’

‘I’ve got the gun.’

‘Say his name.’

Oleg grinned. ‘Gusto. What’s-’

‘Once more.’

Oleg tilted his head and looked at Harry. ‘Gusto.’

‘Once more!’ Harry yelled.

‘Gusto!’ Oleg yelled back.

‘Once m-’

‘Gusto!’ Oleg took a deep breath. ‘Gusto! Gusto…’ His voice had begun to tremble. ‘Gusto!’ It burst at the seams. ‘Gusto. Gus…’ A sob intervened. ‘… to.’ Tears fell as he squeezed his eyes and whispered: ‘Gusto. Gusto Hanssen…’

Harry took a step forward, but Oleg raised the gun.

‘You’re young, Oleg. You can still change.’

‘And what about you, Harry? Can’t you change?’

‘I wish I could, Oleg. I wish I had, then I would’ve taken better care of both of you. But it’s too late for me. I am the person I am.’

‘Which is? Alkie? Traitor?’

‘Policeman.’

Oleg laughed. ‘Is that it? Policeman? Not a person or anything?’

‘Mostly a policeman.’

‘Mostly a policeman,’ Oleg repeated with a nod. ‘Isn’t that banal?’

‘Banal and dull,’ Harry said, taking the half-smoked cigarette and regarding it with disapproval, as if it wasn’t working as it should. ‘Because that means I have no choice, Oleg.’

‘Choice?’

‘I have to make sure you take your punishment.’

‘You don’t work for the police any more, Harry. You’re unarmed. And no one else knows that you know or that you’re here. Think of Mum. Think about me! For once, think about us, all three of us.’ His eyes were full of tears, and there was a shrill, metallic tone of desperation in his voice. ‘Why can’t you just go away now, and then we’ll forget everything, then we’ll say this hasn’t happened?’

‘I wish I could,’ Harry said. ‘But you’ve got me cornered. I know what happened, and I have to stop you.’

‘So why did you let me take the gun?’

Harry shrugged. ‘I can’t arrest you. You have to give yourself up. It’s your race.’

‘Give myself up? Why should I? I’ve just been released!’

‘If I arrest you I’ll lose both your mother and you. And without you I am nothing. I can’t live without you. Do you understand, Oleg? I’m a rat that’s been locked out and there’s only one way in. And it goes through you.’

‘So let me go! Let’s forget the whole business and start afresh!’

Harry shook his head. ‘Premeditated murder, Oleg. I can’t. You’re the one with the gun, you have the key now. You have to think about all three of us. If we go to Hans Christian he can sort things out and the punishment will be substantially reduced.’

‘But it’ll be long enough for me to lose Irene. No one would wait that long.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you’ve lost her already.’

‘You’re lying! You always lie!’ Harry watched Oleg blinking the tears from his eyes. ‘What will you do if I refuse to give myself up?’

‘Then I’ll have to arrest you now.’

A groan escaped Oleg’s lips, a sound halfway between a gasp and disbelieving laughter.

‘You’re mad, Harry.’

‘It’s the way I’m made, Oleg. I do what I have to do. As you have to do what you have to do.’

‘ Have to? You make it sound like a bloody curse.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Bullshit!’

‘Break the curse then, Oleg. Because you don’t really want to kill again, do you.’

‘Get out!’ Oleg screamed. The gun shook in his hand. ‘Go on! You’re not in the police any more!’

‘Correct,’ Harry said. ‘But I am, as I said…’ He clenched his lips around the black cigarette and inhaled deeply. Closed his eyes, and for two seconds he stood there looking as if he was relishing it. Then he let air and smoke wheeze out from his lungs. ‘… a policeman.’ He dropped the cigarette on the floor in front of him. Trod on it as he moved towards Oleg. Lifted his head. Oleg was almost as tall as he was. Harry met the boy’s eyes behind the sights of the raised gun. Saw him cock the gun. Already knew the outcome. He was in the way, the boy had no choice either; they were two unknowns in an equation without a solution, two heavenly bodies on course for an inevitable collision, a game of Tetris only one of them could win. Only one of them wanted to win. He hoped Oleg would have the gumption to get rid of the gun afterwards, that he would catch the plane to Bangkok, that he would never breathe a word to Rakel, that he wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night screaming with the room full of ghosts from the past and that he would succeed in making himself a life worth living. For his own was not. Not any longer. He steeled himself and kept walking, felt the weight of his body, saw the black eye of the muzzle grow. One autumn day, Oleg, ten years old, his hair ruffled by the wind, Rakel, Harry, orange foliage, staring into the pocket camera, waiting for the click of the self-timer. Pictorial proof that they had made it, been there, reached the peak of happiness. Oleg’s index finger, white at the knuckle as it curled tighter round the trigger. There was no way back. There had never been time to catch the plane. There had never been any plane, no Hong Kong, just a notion of a life none of them had been in a position to live. Harry felt no fear. Only sorrow. The brief salvo sounded like a single shot and made the windows vibrate. He felt the physical pressure from the bullets hitting him in the middle of the chest. The recoil made the barrel jump and the third bullet hit him in the head. He fell. Beneath him, darkness. And he plunged into it. Until it swallowed him up and swept him into a cooling, painless nothing. At last, he thought. And that was Harry Hole’s final thought. That at long, long last he was free.

The mother rat listened. The screams of her young were even clearer now that the church bells had chimed ten and fallen silent and the police siren that had been approaching had faded into the distance again. Only the faint heartbeats were left. Somewhere in rat memory was stored the smell of gunpowder and another, younger human body lying here and bleeding on the same kitchen floor. But that had been in the summer, long before the young had been born. And the body had not blocked the way to the nest.

She had discovered that the man’s stomach was harder to get through than she thought and she had to find another option. So she returned to where she had started.

Bit once into the leather shoe.

Licked the metal again, the salty metal that protruded between two of the fingers on the right hand.

Scrabbled up the suit jacket that smelt of sweat, blood and food, so many types of food that the linen material must have been in a rubbish tip.

And there it was again, molecules of the unusually strong smell of smoke that had not been completely washed out. And even the few molecules stung her eyes, caused them to water and made it hard to breathe.

She ran up the arm, across the shoulder, found a bloodstained bandage around the neck, which distracted her for a moment. Then she heard the squeals of her young again and scuttled up the chest. There was still a strong smell coming from the two round holes in the suit jacket. Sulphur, gunpowder. One was right by the heart; at any rate the rat could sense the barely perceptible vibrations as it beat. It was still beating. She continued up to the forehead, licked the blood running in a single thin stream from the blond hair. Went down to the lips, nostrils, eyelids. There was a scar along the cheek. The rat brain worked as rat brains do in maze experiments, with astonishing rationality and efficiency. The cheek. The inside of the mouth. The neck directly below the head. Then it would be at the back. A rat’s life was hard and simple. You do what you have to do.