The Redeemer

11

Wednesday, 17 December. The Croat.

Halvorsen sat patiently behind the steering wheel waiting for a car with a Bergen number plate in front of him. Its wheels spun round on the ice as the driver pressed the accelerator to the floor. Harry was talking to Beate on his mobile phone.

'What do you mean?' Harry shouted to drown the noise of the racing engine.

'It doesn't look like it's the same person in these two pictures,' Beate repeated.

'It's the same woolly hat, same raincoat and same neckerchief. It must be the same person, mustn't it?'

She didn't answer.

'Beate?'

'The faces are unclear. There's something strange. I'm not quite sure what. Maybe something to do with the light.'

'Mm. Do you think we're on a wild goose chase?'

'I don't know. His position in front of Karlsen tallies with the technical evidence. What's all that noise?'

'Bambi on ice. See you.'

'Hang on!'

Harry hung on.

'There's one more thing,' Beate said. 'I looked at the other pictures, from the day before.'

'Yeah?'

'I can't see any faces that match, but there is one small detail. There's a man wearing a yellowish coat, maybe a camel-hair coat. He's got a scarf…'

'Mm. A neckerchief, you mean?'

'No, it looks like an ordinary woollen scarf, but it's tied in the same way as he – or they – ties the neckerchief. The right-hand side sticks up from the knot. Have you seen it?'

'No.'

'I've never seen anyone tie a scarf in that way before,' Beate said.

'Email me the pictures and I'll have a look.'

The first thing Harry did on getting back to the office was to print out Beate's pictures.

When he went to the print room to collect them Gunnar Hagen was already there.

Harry nodded, and the two men stood in silence watching the grey machine spitting out sheet after sheet.

'Anything new?' Hagen asked at length.

'Yes and no,' Harry replied.

'The press are on my back. Would be good if we had something to give them.'

'Ah, yes, I almost forgot to say, boss. I tipped them off that we were looking for this man.' Harry took one of the printouts from the pile and pointed to the man with the neckerchief.

'You did what?' Hagen said.

'I tipped off the press. To be exact, Dagbladet.'

'Without going through me?'

'Routine number, boss. We call them constructive leaks. We say the information is from an anonymous source in the police so that the newspaper can pretend they have been doing serious investigative journalism. They like that, so they give it more column space than if we had asked them to publish pictures. Now we can get some help from the general public to identify the man. And everyone is happy.'

'I'm not, Hole.'

'I'm genuinely sorry to hear that then, boss,' Harry said, and underlined the genuineness with a concerned expression.

Hagen glared at him with his upper and lower jaw moving sideways in opposite directions, in a kneading motion that reminded Harry of a ruminant.

'And what is so special about this man?' Hagen said, snatching the printout from Harry.

'We're not quite sure. Maybe there are many of them. Beate Lonn thinks they… well, tie the neckerchief in a particular way.'

'That's a cravat knot.' Hagen took another look. 'What about it?'

'What did you say it was, boss?'

'A cravat knot.'

'Do you mean a tie knot?'

'A Croat knot, man.'

'What?'

'Isn't this basic history?'

'I'd be grateful if you would enlighten me, boss.'

Hagen placed his hands behind his back. 'What do you know about the Thirty Years War?'

'Not enough, I suppose.'

'During the Thirty Years War, before he marched into Germany, Gustav Adolf, the Swedish King, supplemented his disciplined but small army with what were reckoned to be the best soldiers in Europe. They were the best because they were considered totally fearless. He hired Croat mercenaries. Did you know that the Norwegian word krabat comes from Swedish and its original meaning was Croat, in other words a fearless maniac?'

Harry shook his head.

'Although the Croats were fighting in a foreign country and had to wear King Gustav Adolf 's uniform, they were allowed to retain a marker to distinguish them from the others: the cavalry neckerchief. It was a neckerchief the Croats tied in a special way. The item of clothing was adopted and developed further by the French, but they kept the name, which became cravate.'

'Cravate. Cravat.'

'Exactly.'

'Thank you, boss.' Harry took the last printout of the pictures off the paper tray and studied the man with the scarf Beate had ringed. 'You may just have given us a clue.'

'We don't need to thank each other for doing our jobs, Hole.' Hagen took the rest of the printouts and marched out.

Halvorsen peered up as Harry raced into the office.

'Got a lead,' Harry said. Halvorsen sighed. This phrase tended to mean loads of work and nothing to show for it.

'I'm going to ring Alex in Europol,' Harry said.

Halvorsen knew Europol was Interpol's little sister in The Hague, set up by the EU after the terrorist actions in Madrid in 1998 to focus specifically on international terror and organised crime. What he didn't know was why this Alex was often willing to help Harry when Norway was not in the EU.

'Alex? Harry, from Oslo. Could you check something out for me, please?'

Halvorsen listened to Harry asking Alex in his jerky but effective English to search the database for offences committed by suspected international criminals in Europe over the last ten years. Search words: 'contract killing' and 'Croat'.

'I'll wait,' Harry said, and waited. Then, in surprise, 'That many?' He scratched his chin, then asked Alex to add 'gun' and 'nine millimetre' to the search.

'Twenty-three hits, Alex? Twenty-three murders with a Croat as the suspect? Jesus! Well, I know that wars create professional hit men, but nevertheless. Try "Scandinavia". Nothing? OK, have you got any names, Alex? None? Hang on a sec.'

Harry looked at Halvorsen as though hoping for a few timely words, but Halvorsen just shrugged.

'OK, Alex,' Harry said. 'One last attempt.'

He asked him to add 'red neckerchief ' or 'scarf ' to the search.

Halvorsen could hear Alex laughing on the line.

'Thanks, Alex. Talk to you soon.'

Harry put down the receiver.

'Well?' said Halvorsen. 'Lead gone up in smoke?'

Harry nodded. He had slumped a few notches lower in his chair, but then straightened up with a start. 'We have to think along new lines. What have we got? Nothing? Great, I love blank sheets of paper.'

Halvorsen remembered Harry had once said that what separates a good detective from a mediocre one is the ability to forget. A good detective forgets all the times his gut instinct lets him down, forgets all the leads he has believed in that led nowhere. And pitches in, naive and forgetful again, with undiminished enthusiasm.

The telephone rang. Harry snatched at the receiver. 'Harr-' But the voice at the other end was already in full flow.

Harry got up from behind the desk and Halvorsen could see the knuckles on his hand around the receiver going white.

'Wait, Alex. I'll ask Halvorsen to take notes.'

Harry held his hand over the receiver and called to Halvorsen: 'He tried one last time for fun. Dropped Croat, nine millimetre and the other things, and searched under red scarf. Found Zagreb in 2000 and 2001. Munich in 2002 and Paris in 2003.'

Harry went back to the phone. 'This is our man, Alex. No, I'm not sure, but my gut feeling is. And my head says that two murders in Croatia are not a coincidence. Have you any further details Halvorsen can jot down?'

Halvorsen watched Harry gape in astonishment.

'What do you mean no description? If they remember the scarf, they must have noticed other things. What? Normal height? Is that all?'

Harry shook his head as he listened.

'What's he saying?' Halvorsen whispered.

'Wide discrepancies between statements,' Harry whispered back.

Halvorsen noted down 'discrepancies'.

'Yes, great, email me the details. Well, thanks for now, Alex. If you find anything else, such as a suspected haunt or something like that, give me a buzz, OK? What? Ha ha. Right, I'll send you a copy of me and my wife.'

Harry rang off and noticed Halvorsen's quizzical stare.

'Old joke,' Harry said. 'Alex thinks all Scandinavian couples make private porno films.'

Harry dialled another number, discovered while he was waiting for an answer that Halvorsen was still looking at him and sighed. 'I've never even been married, Halvorsen.'

Magnus Skarre had to shout to be heard over the coffee machine, which appeared to be suffering from a serious lung condition. 'Perhaps there are a number of hit men from a hitherto unknown gang who wear red scarves as a kind of uniform.'

'Rubbish,' drawled Toril Li, taking her place in the coffee queue behind Skarre. She was holding an empty mug with the slogan 'The World's Best Mum'.

Ola Li gave a little chuckle. He took a seat by the table inside the kitchenette which functioned as a canteen for the Crime and Vice Squads.

'Rubbish?' said Skarre. 'It could be terrorism, couldn't it? Holy war against the Christians? Muslims. Then all hell would be let loose. Or perhaps it's los dagos. They wear red scarves, don't they?'

'They prefer to be called Spaniards,' said Toril Li.

'Basques,' said Halvorsen, sitting at the table across from Ola Li.

'Eh?'

'Bull running. San Fermin in Pamplona. The Basque country.'

'ETA!' shouted Skarre. 'Shit, why didn't we think of them before?!'

'You should write film scripts, you should,' Toril Li said. Ola Li was laughing out loud now, but said nothing, as usual.

'And you two should stick to bank robbers on Rohypnol,' Skarre mumbled, referring to the fact that Toril Li and Ola Li, who were neither married nor related, had come from the Robberies Unit.

'There's just the little detail that terrorists tend to claim responsibility,' Halvorsen said. 'The four cases we received from Europol were hits, and then it all went quiet afterwards. And the victims have generally been involved in something or other. Both the victims in Zagreb were Serbs who had been acquitted of war crimes, and the one in Munich had been threatening the hegemony of a local baron involved in people smuggling. And the guy in Paris was a paedophile with two previous convictions.'

Harry Hole wandered in with a mug in his hand. Skarre, Li and Li filled their cups and instead of sitting down, ambled off. Halvorsen had noticed that Harry had that effect on colleagues. The inspector sat down, and Halvorsen saw the troubled furrow in his brow.

'Soon be twenty-four hours,' Halvorsen said.

'Yes,' said Harry, staring into his still empty mug.

'Is anything the matter?'

Harry paused. 'I don't know. I called Bjarne Moller in Bergen. To get some constructive ideas.'

'What did he say?'

'Not a great deal. He sounded…' Harry searched for the word. 'Lonely.'

'Isn't his family with him?'

'They were supposed to follow.'

'Trouble?'

'Don't know. I don't know anything.'

'What's bothering you then?'

'He was drunk.'

Halvorsen knocked his mug of coffee and spilt it. 'Moller? Drunk at work? You're kidding?'

Harry didn't answer.

'Perhaps he wasn't well or something like that?' Halvorsen added.

'I know what a drunken man sounds like, Halvorsen. I have to go to Bergen.'

'Now? You're leading a murder investigation, Harry.'

'I'll be there and back in a day. You hold the fort in the meantime.'

Halvorsen smiled. 'Are you getting old, Harry?'

'Old? What do you mean?'

'Old and human. That's the first time I've heard you prioritise the living over the dead.'

The instant Halvorsen saw Harry's face he was filled with regret. 'I didn't mean…'

'That's fine,' Harry said, standing up. 'I want you to get hold of the passenger lists of all flights to and from Croatia over the last few days. Ask the police at Gardemoen Airport whether you need a police lawyer to make an application. Should you need a court ruling, nip over to the court and get it on the spot. When you have the lists, ring Alex in Europol and ask him to check the names for us. Say it's for me.'

'And you're sure he can help?'

Harry nodded. 'In the meantime Beate and I will go and have a chat with Jon Karlsen.'

'Oh?'

'So far, all we've heard about Robert Karlsen is pure Disney. I think there's more.'

'Why aren't you taking me along?'

'Because Beate, unlike you, knows when people are lying.'

He breathed in before tackling the steps up to the restaurant called Biscuit.

The difference from the previous evening was that there were almost no people around. But the same waiter was leaning against the door to the dining room. The one with the Giorgi curls and the blue eyes.

'Hello there,' said the waiter. 'I didn't recognise you.'

He blinked twice, caught on the hop by the fact that it meant he had been recognised.

'But I recognised the coat,' the waiter said. 'Very tasteful. Is it camel hair?'

'I hope so,' he stammered with a smile.

The waiter laughed and placed a hand on his arm. He didn't see a trace of fear in the man's eyes and concluded the waiter was without suspicions. And hoped that meant the police had not been here and therefore had not found the gun.

'I don't want to eat,' he said. 'I just want to use the toilet.'

'The toilet?' repeated the waiter, and he saw the blue eyes scanning his. 'You came here to use the toilet? Really?'

'A quick visit,' he said, swallowing. The waiter's presence made him uneasy.

'A quick visit,' repeated the waiter. 'I see.'

The Gents was empty and smelt of soap. But not freedom.

The smell of soap was even stronger when he flipped up the lid of the soap container over the basin. He rolled up his sleeve and thrust his hand down in the cold green mush. For an instant a thought shot through his mind: that they had changed soap dispensers. But then he felt it. Slowly, he fished it out and the soap dripped long, green fingers on the white porcelain basin. After a wash and a bit of oil the gun would be fine. And he still had six bullets in the magazine. He hurriedly rinsed the gun and was about to put it in his coat pocket when the door opened.

'Hello again,' the waiter whispered with a big smile. But the smile went rigid when he caught sight of the gun.

He slipped it into his pocket, mumbled a goodbye and forced his way past the waiter in the narrow doorway. He felt rapid breathing against his face and the other man's erection on his thigh.

It was only when he was out in the cold again that he became aware of his heart. It was pounding. As though he had been frightened. The blood streamed through his body, making him feel warm and light.

Jon Karlsen was on his way out as Harry arrived in Goteborggata.

'Is it that late?' Jon asked with a glance at his watch, confused.

'I'm a bit early,' Harry said. 'My colleague will be along in a moment.'

'Have I got time to buy some milk?' He was wearing a thin jacket and his hair was combed.

'By all means.'

The corner shop was on the other side of the street and while Jon was rummaging for the change to buy a litre of semi-skimmed milk Harry studied the lavish selection of Christmas decorations between the toilet paper and the cornflakes packets. Neither of them commented on the newspaper stand by the cash desk on which the Egertorget murder screamed out at them in bold capitals. The front page of Dagbladet carried a blurred, grainy crop of Wedlog's picture of the crowd with a red circle around the head of the person with the scarf and the headline: POLICE SEEK THIS MAN.

They went out and Jon stopped in front of a beggar with red hair and a seventies goatee. He searched long and hard in his pocket until he found something he could drop in the brown paper cup.

'I haven't got much to offer you,' Jon said to Harry. 'And, to tell the truth, the coffee has been standing in the percolator for a while. Probably tastes of tar.'

'Great, that's just how I like it.'

'You too?' Jon Karlsen gave a pale smile. 'Ow!' Jon held his head and turned to the beggar. 'Are you throwing money at me?' he asked in astonishment.

The beggar snorted into his whiskers in annoyance and shouted in a clear voice: 'Legal tender only, thank you!'

Jon Karlsen's flat was identical to Thea Nilsen's. It was clean and tidy, but the interior still bore the unmistakable signs of bachelorhood. Harry drew three quick assumptions: that the old but well-lookedafter furniture came from the same place as his, namely Elevator, the second-hand shop in Ullevalsveien; that Jon had not been to the art exhibition the solitary poster on the sitting-room wall was advertising; and that more meals were taken bent over the low table in front of the TV than in the place provided in the kitchenette. On the almost empty bookshelf there was a photograph of a man in a Salvation Army uniform looking out into space with an authoritative air.

'Your father?' Harry asked.

'Yes,' Jon answered, taking two mugs from the kitchen cupboard and pouring from a brown, stained coffee jug.

'You look very similar.'

'Thank you,' said Jon. 'I hope that's true.' He brought the mugs in and deposited them on the coffee table next to the fresh carton of milk, among the collection of rings in the varnish, showing where he usually ate his meals. Harry was going to ask how his parents had taken the news of Robert's death, but changed tack.

'Let's begin with the hypothesis,' Harry said, 'that your brother was killed because he had done something to someone. Tricked them, borrowed money off them, insulted them, threatened them, hurt them or whatever. Your brother was a good guy; everyone says that. And that's what we tend to hear in murder cases. People like to emphasise the good sides. Most of us have dark sides though. Don't we?'

Jon nodded, although Harry was unable to decide whether this was a sign of agreement or not.

'What we need is some light shed on Robert's dark sides.'

Jon stared, uncomprehending.

Harry cleared his throat. 'Let's start with money. Did Robert have any financial problems?'

Jon shrugged. 'No. And yes. He didn't exactly live in style so I can't imagine he had incurred huge debts, if that's what you mean. By and large he borrowed from me, if he needed money, I think. By borrowing I mean…' Jon's smile was wistful.

'What sort of sums are we talking about?'

'Not big ones. Apart from this autumn.'

'How much?'

'Er… thirty thousand.'

'For what purpose?'

Jon scratched his head. 'He had a project, but wouldn't expand on it. Just said he would need to travel abroad. I would find out, he said. Yes, I thought it was quite a lot of money, but I live cheaply and I don't have a car. And for once he seemed so enthusiastic. I was curious about what it was, but then… well, then this happened.'

Harry took notes. 'Mm. What about Robert's darker sides, as a person?'

He waited. Studied the coffee table and let Jon sit and think while the vacuum of silence took effect, the vacuum that sooner or later always elicited something: a lie, a despairing digression or, in the best-case scenario, the truth.

'When Robert was young he was…' Jon ventured, then stopped.

Harry, motionless, said nothing.

'He lacked… inhibition.'

Harry nodded, without looking up. Gave encouragement, without disturbing the vacuum.

'I used to dread what he might get up to. He was so violent. There seemed to be two people inside him. One was the cold, controlled investigative type who was curious about… what shall I say? Reactions. Feelings. Suffering, too, perhaps. That sort of thing.'

'Can you give me any examples?' Harry asked.

Jon swallowed. 'Once when I came home he said he had something to show me in the laundry room in the cellar. He had put our cat in a small empty aquarium, where Dad had kept guppies, and stuffed the hosepipe in under a wooden lid on the top. Then he turned the tap on full. Things moved so fast that the aquarium was almost full before I managed to remove the lid and rescue the cat. Robert said he wanted to see how the cat would react, but now and then I have wondered whether it was in fact me he was observing.'

'Mm. If he was like that it's strange no one mentioned it.'

'Not many people knew that side of Robert. I suppose it was partly my own fault. From the time we were small I had to promise Dad I would keep an eye on Robert so that he didn't get into any real trouble. I did what I could. Robert's behaviour was, as I said, not out of control. He could be hot and cold at the same time, if you understand. So only those closest to him had a sense of Robert's… other sides. Well, and the odd frog.' Jon smiled. 'He launched them into the air in helium balloons. When Dad caught him, Robert said it was so sad to be a frog and never be able to get a bird's-eye view. And I…' Jon stared into space and Harry could see his eyes becoming moist. 'I started to laugh. Dad was furious, but I couldn't help myself. Robert could make me laugh like that.'

'Mm. Did he grow out of this?'

Jon shrugged. 'To be honest, I don't know everything Robert has been doing in recent years. Since Mum and Dad moved to Thailand Robert and I have not been so close.'

'Why's that?'

'That sort of thing often happens between brothers. There doesn't have to be any reason.'

Harry didn't answer, just waited. A door slammed in the hallway.

'There were a few incidents with girls,' Jon said.

The distant sound of ambulance sirens. A lift with a metallic hum. Jon breathed out with a sigh. 'Young girls.'

'How young?'

'I don't know. Unless Robert was lying, they must have been very young.'

'Why would he lie?'

'As I said, I think he liked to see how I would react.'

Harry stood up and went over to the window. A man was ambling across Sofienberg Park along a track that looked like an uneven brown line drawn by a child on a white piece of paper. To the north of the church was a small enclosed cemetery for the Mosaic community. Stale Aune, the psychologist, had once told him that hundreds of years ago the whole of the park had been a cemetery.

'Was he violent to any of these girls?' Harry asked.

'No!' Jon's exclamation echoed between the bare walls. Harry said nothing. The man had left the park and was crossing Helgesens gate towards their building.

'Not as far as I know,' Jon said. 'And if he had told me he had been, I wouldn't have believed him.'

'Do you know any of the girls he met?'

'No. He never stayed with them for long. As a matter of fact there was just one girl I know he was serious about.'

'Oh?'

'Thea Nilsen. He was obsessed with her when we were young boys.'

'Your girlfriend?'

Jon gazed thoughtfully into his coffee cup. 'You would think I could keep away from the one girl my brother had made his mind up he would have, wouldn't you? And God knows I have wondered why.'

'And?'

'All I know is that Thea is the most fantastic person I've ever met.'

The hum of the lift came to a sudden stop.

'Did your brother know about you and Thea?'

'He found out that we had met a couple of times. He had his suspicions, but Thea and I have been trying to keep it a secret.'

There was a knock at the door.

'That'll be Beate, my colleague,' Harry said. 'I'll get it.'

He turned over his notepad, placed his pen parallel to it and walked the few steps to the front door. He struggled for a few seconds until he realised it opened inwards. The face he met was as surprised as his own, and for a moment they stood looking at each other. Harry noticed a sweet, perfumed smell, as if the other person used a strong aromatic deodorant.

'Jon?' the man asked tentatively.

'Of course,' Harry said. 'Sorry, we were expecting someone else. One moment.'

Harry went back to the sofa. 'It's for you.'

The instant he flopped down into the soft cushion, it struck Harry that something had happened, right now in the last few seconds. He checked his pen was still parallel with the pad. Untouched. But there was something, his brain had detected something he couldn't place.

'Good evening?' he heard Jon say behind him. Polite, reserved form of address. Rising intonation. The way you greet someone you don't know. Or when you don't know what they want. There it was again. Something happened, something grated. There was something about him. He had used Jon's first name when he asked after him, but it was obvious Jon didn't know him.

'What message?' Jon said.

Then it clicked into place. The neck. The man was wearing something around his neck. A neckerchief. The cravat knot. Harry put both hands on the coffee table to lever himself up, and the cups went flying as he screamed: 'Shut the door!'

But Jon stood staring through the doorway, as if hypnotised. He stooped to listen.

Harry stepped back one pace, jumped over the sofa and sprinted for the door.

'Don't-' Jon said.

Harry aimed and launched himself. Then everything seemed to stop. Harry had experienced it before, when the adrenalin kicks in and changes your perception of time. It was like moving in water. And he knew it was too late. His right shoulder hit the door, his left Jon's hip and his eardrum received the sound waves of the exploding gunpowder and a bullet leaving a gun.

Then came the bang. The bullet. The door slamming into the frame and locking. Jon hitting the cupboard and the kitchen unit. Harry swivelled onto his side and looked up. The door handle was being pressed down.

'Fuck,' Harry whispered, getting to his knees.

The door was shaken hard, twice.

Harry grabbed Jon's belt and dragged him, lifeless, over the parquet floor to the bedroom.

There was a scratching sound outside the door. Then another bang. Splinters flew from the middle of the door, one of the cushions on the sofa jerked, a column of greyish-black down rose to the ceiling and the carton of semi-skimmed milk began to gurgle. A jet of milk described a weak, white arc onto the table.

The damage a nine-millimetre projectile can do is underrated, thought Harry, turning Jon onto his back. One drop of blood ran from a hole in his forehead.

Another bang. The tinkle of glass.

Harry flipped his mobile out of his pocket and punched in Beate's number.

'OK, OK, don't hassle me, I'm coming,' Beate answered after the first ring. 'I'm outsi-'

'Listen,' Harry interrupted. 'Radio all patrol cars to get here now. With their sirens blaring. Someone is outside the flat peppering us with lead. And you keep away. Received?'

'Received. Stay on the line.'

Harry put the mobile on the floor in front of him. Scraping sound against the wall. Could he hear them? Harry sat motionless. The scraping came nearer. What kind of walls were they? A bullet that could go through an insulated front door would have no problems with a stud wall of plasterboard and fibreglass. Even nearer. It stopped. Harry held his breath. And that was when he heard. Jon was breathing.

Then a sound rose from the general rumble of city noise and it was music to Harry's ears. A police siren. Two police sirens.

Harry listened for scraping. Nothing. Make a run for it, he prayed. Beat it. And was heard. The sound of footsteps down the corridor and the stairs.

Harry lay back on the cold parquet floor and stared at the ceiling. There was a draught coming from under the door. He closed his eyes. Nineteen years. Christ. Nineteen years until he could go into retirement.