The Redeemer

18

Thursday, 18 December. The Chute.

'My God,' Jon groaned, groping for a chair. 'What's happened here? That's an… that's an…'

'Yes,' Harry said, crouching beside the vacuum cleaner and concentrating on maintaining even breathing. 'It's an eye.'

The eyeball looked like a blood-streaked, stranded jellyfish. Dust was stuck to the white surface. On the blood-soaked reverse Harry could make out the base of muscles and the thicker, wormlike peg that was the optical nerve. 'What I'm wondering is how it got through the filter unscathed and into the bag. If it was sucked in that is.'

'I took out the filter,' Jon said in a tremulous voice. 'It sucks better.'

Harry produced a pen from his jacket pocket and used it to turn the eye with great care. The consistency felt soft, but there was a hard centre. He shifted position so that the light from the lamp in the ceiling fell on the pupil, which was large, black, with blurred edges now that the eye muscles no longer kept it round. The light, almost turquoise iris encircling the pupil shone like the centre of a matt marble. Harry heard Jon's quick breaths behind him.

'Unusually light blue iris,' Harry said. 'Anyone you know?'

'No, I… I don't know.'

'Listen, Jon,' Harry said, without turning round. 'I don't know how much practice you've had at lying, but you're not very good at it. I can't force you to tell me spicy details about your brother, but with this…' Harry pointed to the bloodstained eyeball. '… I can force you to tell me who it is.'

He swung round. Jon was sitting on one of the two kitchen chairs with his head bowed.

'I… she…' His voice was thick with emotion.

'A she then,' Harry helped.

Jon gave a firm nod of his bowed head. 'Her name's Ragnhild Gilstrup. No one else has eyes like her.'

'And how did her eye end up here?'

'I have no idea. She… we… used to meet here. She had a key. What have I done, Harry? Why has this happened?'

'I don't know, Jon. But I have a job to do here, and we have to find you a place to go first.'

'I can go back to Gorbitz gate.'

'No!' Harry shouted. 'Have you got keys to Thea's flat?'

Jon nodded.

'OK, go there. Keep the door locked and don't open up for anyone except me.'

Jon walked towards the front door, then paused. 'Harry?'

'Yes?'

'Does it have to come out, about Ragnhild and me? I stopped meeting her when Thea and I got together.'

'Then it's not a problem.'

'You don't understand,' Jon said. 'Ragnhild Gilstrup was married.'

Harry inclined his head in acknowledgement. 'The eighth commandment?'

'The tenth,' Jon said.

'I can't keep that under wraps, Jon.'

Jon regarded Harry with surprise in his eyes. Then he slowly shook his head from side to side.

'What is it?'

'I can't believe I just said that,' Jon said. 'Ragnhild's dead and all I can think about is saving my own skin.'

There were tears in Jon's eyes. And for one vulnerable moment Harry felt nothing but sympathy. Not the sympathy he could feel for the victim or for the next of kin, but for the person who for one heart-rending moment sees his own pathetic humanity.

There were times when Sverre Hasvold regretted giving up his life as a merchant seaman to be a caretaker in the brand-new block of flats at Goteborggata 4. Especially on freezing cold days like this one when they rang to complain that the refuse chute was blocked again. On average it happened once a month and the reason was obvious: the openings on every floor were the same circumference as the shaft itself. The old blocks of flats were better. Even in the thirties, when the first refuse chutes appeared, the architects had had enough sense to make the diameter of the openings narrower so that people would not force in things which would get stuck further down the shaft. Nowadays all they had on their minds was style and lighting.

Hasvold opened the chute door on the second floor, put his head in and switched on his torch. The light reflected off the white plastic bags and he established that, as usual, the problem lay between the ground floor and the first floor, where the shaft narrowed.

He unlocked the refuse room in the basement and switched on the light. The cold was so raw that his glasses misted up. He shivered and grabbed the almost three-metre-long iron rod he kept along the wall for exactly this purpose. There was even a plastic ball on the end so that he wouldn't puncture the bags when he prodded it up the chute. Drops were falling from the opening with a drip, drip, on to the plastic bags in the refuse container. The house rules made it very clear that the chute was to be used for dry matter inside sealed bags, but no one – not even the so-called Christians living in the building – took any notice of that kind of thing.

The eggshells and milk cartons crunched under his feet in the container as he moved towards the round opening in the ceiling. He peered up the hole but all he could see was blackness. He poked the rod up. Waited until he hit the usual soft bulk of bags, but instead the rod met something solid. He poked harder. It wouldn't budge; something was wedged good and proper.

He took the torch hanging from his belt and shone the light up the shaft. A drop fell on his glasses. Blinded and cursing, he tore off his glasses and wiped the lenses on his blue coat while holding the torch under his arm. He shifted to the side and took a short-sighted squint up. He was alarmed. Pointed the torch upwards, his imagination beginning to work overtime. His heart was slowing as he stared. In disbelief, he put his glasses back on. Then his heart stopped beating.

The iron rod slid and scraped down the wall until it hit the floor with a clang. Sverre Hasvold found himself sitting in the refuse container. The torch must have slipped down between the bags somewhere. Another drop dripped onto the plastic bag between his thighs. He jerked backwards as though it were caustic acid. Then he got to his feet and sprinted out.

He had to have fresh air. He had seen things at sea, but nothing like this. This was… not normal. It had to be sick. He pushed open the front door and staggered out onto the pavement without noticing the two tall men standing there or the cold air that met him. Dizzy and breathless, he leaned against the wall and took out his mobile phone. Stared at it, helpless. They had changed the emergency numbers some years ago, made them easier to remember, but the old ones were the ones that occurred to him, of course. He caught sight of the two men. One of them was talking on his mobile; the other he recognised as one of the residents.

'Sorry, but do you know how to ring the police?' Hasvold asked and could hear that he had become hoarse as though from a long bout of screaming.

The resident glanced at the man beside him, who studied the caretaker for a moment before saying: 'Hang on, we may not need Ivan and the tracker dogs after all.' The man lowered his mobile and turned to Sverre Hasvold. 'I'm Inspector Hole, Oslo Police. Let me guess.. .'

In a flat by Vestkanttorget Tore Bjorgen was looking down through the bedroom window onto the yard. It was as quiet outside as inside; no children running around screaming or playing in the snow. It must have been too cold and dark. And it was several years since he had seen children playing outside in the winter anyway. From the living room he could hear the TV newsreader warning about record low temperatures. The Social Services Secretary was going to implement special measures to take the homeless off the streets and to encourage the elderly living on their own to turn up the heating in their flats. The police were looking for a Croatian national by the name of Christo Stankic. There was a reward for any tip-offs leading to his arrest. The presenter didn't mention an amount, but Bjorgen assumed it would be more than enough for a return plane ticket to Cape Town and three weeks' food and accommodation.

Bjorgen dried his nostrils and rubbed the rest of the cocaine into his gums. It took away the last of the pizza taste.

He had told the manager of Biscuit that he had a headache and had gone home early. Christo – or Mike as he had said his name was – was waiting for him on a bench in Vestkanttorget as they had arranged. Christo had obviously enjoyed his ready-made Grandiosa pizza and had wolfed it down without noticing the fifteen milligrams of Stesolid in chopped-up pill form.

Bjorgen surveyed the sleeping Christo, who was lying naked and face down on his bed. Despite the ball gag, Christo's breathing was regular and deep. He hadn't shown any signs of waking while Tore was making his little arrangement. Tore had bought the sedatives off a frenetic junkie in the street right outside Biscuit for fifteen kroner a pill. The rest had not cost much, either. The handcuffs, ankle cuffs, the ball gag with head harness and the string of shiny anal beads had followed in a so-called beginners' pack that he had bought off a website for only 599 kroner.

The duvet was on the floor and Christo's skin glowed in the light from the flickering flames of the candles Tore had placed around the room. His body formed a Y shape against the white sheet; his hands were tied to the head of Tore's solid brass bed while his feet were attached to opposing rails at the end. Tore had managed to squeeze a cushion under Christo's stomach to raise his backside.

Tore removed the lid of the Vaseline tin, scooped a lump with his index finger and separated Christo's buttocks with the other hand. And the thought went through his mind again. This was rape. It would be difficult to call it anything else. And the thought, just the word 'rape', made him feel horny.

In fact, he was not sure whether Christo would have had any objection to being played with. The signals had been mixed. Nevertheless, it was dangerous to play with a murderer. Wonderfully dangerous. But not brainless. After all, the man beneath him would be locked up for the rest of his life.

He looked down at his erection. Then he took the anal beads from the box and pulled both ends of the thin but sturdy nylon string running through the beads like through a pearl necklace: the first beads were small but increased in volume, the largest the size of a golf ball. According to the instructions, the beads were to be inserted in the anal passage and then pulled out at leisure to achieve maximum stimulation of the nerves in and around the sensitive entrance to the anus. There was a variety of colours and if you didn't know what anal beads were you could be excused for imagining they were something else. Tore smiled at his distorted reflection in the largest of the beads. Dad might be a bit taken aback when he opened Tore's Yuletide present with a greeting from Cape Town and his fervent hope that it would look nice on the Christmas tree. However, no one in the family from Vegardshei would have the slightest idea what kind of beads were glinting in front of them as they jigged round the tree singing and dutifully holding hands. Or where they had been.

Harry led Beate and her two assistants down the stairs to the basement where the caretaker unlocked the door to the refuse room. One of the assistants was new, a girl whose name Harry retained for no more than three seconds.

'Up there,' Harry said. The other three, wearing something that looked like a white beekeeper's outfit, stepped forward with care to stand beneath the chute opening, and the beams from their head lamps disappeared up into the dark. Harry studied the new assistant, waited for the reaction on her face. When it came it reminded Harry of the coral life that instantly retracts when touched by divers' fingers. Beate gave an imperceptible nod of the head, like a plumber's dispassionate assessment of moderate to severe frost damage.

'Enucleation,' she said. Her voice resounded in the chute. 'Have you got that, Margaret?'

The female assistant was breathing hard as she groped for a pen and notebook inside the beekeeper costume.

'I beg your pardon,' Harry said.

'The left eyeball has been removed. Margaret?'

'Got it,' the assistant said, taking notes.

'The woman's hanging down head first. Stuck in the chute, I suppose. There's a little blood dripping from the eye socket and inside I can see some areas of white which must be the inner cranium showing through the tissue. Dark red blood, so it's a while since it coagulated. The pathologist will check temperature and rigidity when he comes. Too quick?'

'No, that's fine,' Margaret said.

'We've found traces of blood by the chute door on the third floor, the same floor where the eye was found, so I assume the body was pushed in there. It's a tight opening and from here it looks as if the right shoulder has been dislocated. That may have happened when she was forced in or when her fall was broken. It's hard to know from this angle, but I think I can see bruising on the neck, which would suggest that she was strangled. The pathologist will check the shoulder and determine the cause of death. Otherwise there's not a lot we can do here. It's all yours, Gilberg.'

Beate stepped aside and the male assistant took several flash shots of the chute.

'What's the yellowish-white stuff in the eye socket?' he asked.

'Fat,' Beate said. 'Clear the container and look for things that may be from the victim or the killer. Afterwards you'll get some help from the officers outside to pull her down. Margaret, you come with me.'

They went into the corridor and Margaret went to the lift door and pressed the button.

'We're taking the stairs,' Beate said in a light tone. Margaret regarded her with surprise and then followed her two older colleagues.

'Three more of my people will be here soon,' Beate said in answer to Harry's unspoken question. Although Harry with his long legs was taking two steps at a time, the small woman kept up with ease. 'Witnesses?'

'None so far,' Harry said. 'But we're doing the rounds. Three officers are ringing all the flats in the block. And after that the neighbouring blocks.'

'Have they got a photo of Stankic?'

Harry sent her a glance to see whether she was being ironic. It was difficult to say.

'What was your first impression?' Harry asked.

'A man,' Beate said.

'Because whoever it was must have been strong to push her through the chute opening?'

'Maybe.'

'Anything else?'

'Harry, are we in any doubt as to who this was?' she sighed.

'Yes, Beate, we are. As a matter of principle we profess doubt until we know.'

Harry turned to Margaret, who was already out of breath from following them. 'And your first impression?'

'What?'

They turned into the corridor on the third floor. A corpulent man in a tweed suit under an open tweed coat was standing in front of the door to Jon Karlsen's flat. He had obviously been waiting for them.

'I was wondering what you felt when you entered the building,' Harry said. 'And looked up into the chute.'

'Felt?' Margaret asked with a puzzled smile.

'Yes, felt!' Stale Aune bellowed, proffering a hand which Harry shook without hesitation. 'Come along and learn, folks, for this is the famous gospel according to Hole. Before entering a crime scene empty your mind of all thoughts, become a newly born child, without language, open yourself to the sacred first impression, the vital first seconds which are your great, and only, chance to behold what happened without an ounce of a fact. It almost sounds like exorcism, doesn't it? Smart suit, Beate. And who is your charming colleague?'

'This is Margaret Svendsen.'

'Stale Aune,' the man said, seizing Margaret's begloved hand and kissing it. 'Goodness me, you taste of rubber, my dear.'

'Aune is a psychologist,' Beate said. 'He often helps us.'

'He often tries to help you,' Aune said. 'Psychology is, I'm afraid to say, a science that is still in its rompers and should not be accorded too much value for another fifty to a hundred years. And what is your response to Detective Inspector Hole's question, my dear?'

Margaret looked to Beate for help.

'I… don't know,' she said. 'The eye was a bit off-putting, of course.'

Harry unlocked the door.

'You know I can't stand the sight of blood,' Aune warned.

'Think of it as a glass eye,' Harry said, opening the door and stepping to the side. 'Walk on the plastic and don't touch anything.'

Aune trod with care on the path of black plastic traversing the floor. He crouched down beside the eye, which still lay in the pile of dust next to the vacuum cleaner but which now had a grey film over it.

'Apparently it's called enucleation,' Harry said.

Aune raised one eyebrow. 'Performed with a vacuum cleaner to the eye?'

'You can't suck an eye out of the head with just a vacuum cleaner,' Harry said. 'The perp must have sucked it out far enough for him to get a couple of fingers inside. Muscles and optic nerves are solid matter.'

'What you don't know, Harry.'

'I once arrested a woman who had drowned her child in the bath. While she was in custody she tore out one of her eyes. The doctor acquainted me with the technique.'

They heard a sharp intake of breath from Margaret behind them.

'Removing an eye does not have to be fatal,' Harry said. 'Beate thinks the woman may have been strangled. What's your first thought?'

'It goes without saying that this act has been committed by a person in a state of emotional or rational disequilibrium,' Aune said. 'The mutilation suggests uncontrolled anger. There may of course be practical reasons for the perpetrator to choose to dispatch the body down the chute…'

'Unlikely,' Harry said. 'If the intention was that the body should not be found for a while, it would have been smarter to leave it in the empty flat.'

'In that case to some extent this kind of thing tends to be a conscious symbolic act.'

'Hm. Remove an eye and treat the rest as rubbish?'

'Yes.'

Harry looked at Beate. 'It doesn't sound like the work of a professional killer.'

Aune shrugged. 'It could well be an angry professional killer.'

'In general pros have a method they rely on. Christo Stankic's method so far has been to shoot his victims.'

'He may have a wider repertoire,' Beate said. 'Or perhaps the victim surprised him while he was in the flat.'

'Perhaps he didn't want to shoot because it would have alerted the neighbours,' Margaret said.

The other three faced her.

She flashed an intimidated smile. 'I mean… perhaps he needed time and peace and quiet. Perhaps he was searching for something.'

Harry noticed that all of a sudden Beate had begun to breathe hard through her nose and was even paler than usual.

'How does that sound?' he asked, addressing Aune.

'Like psychology,' Aune said. 'A mass of questions. And hypotheses by way of a response.'

Outside again, Harry asked Beate if something was the matter.

'Just a bit of nausea,' she said.

'Oh? You're refused permission to be sick right now. Understood?'

She answered him with a cryptic smile.

He woke up, opened his eyes and saw lights roaming across the white ceiling above him. His body and head ached, and he was frozen. There was something in his mouth. And when he tried to move he could feel that his hands and feet had been shackled. He raised his head. In the mirror at the end of the bed, in the light from the burning candles, he could see he was naked. And there was something on his head, something black like a horse's harness. One of the straps went across his face, over his mouth, which was obstructed by a black ball. His hands were held by metal handcuffs, his feet by something black like bondage restraints. He stared into the mirror. On the sheet between his legs lay the end of a string that disappeared up between his buttocks. And there was something white on his stomach. It looked like semen. He sank back on the pillow and shut his eyes. He wanted to scream, but knew that the ball would effectively prevent any attempt.

He heard a voice from the living room.

'Hello? Politi?'

Politi? Polizei? Police?

He thrashed around on the bed, jerking his arms down and moaning with pain as the handcuffs cut into the back of his thumb, taking off the skin. He twisted his hands so that his fingers could get hold of the chain between the cuffs. Handcuffs. Steel bars. His father had taught him that building materials were almost always made to withstand pressure in one direction and that the art of bending steel was about knowing where and which way it would offer the least resistance. The chain between the handcuffs was made to prevent them being pulled apart.

He heard the man speaking briefly on the living-room telephone, then all went quiet.

He pressed the point where the final link in the chain met one cuff against the bar of the bed head, but instead of pulling he twisted. After a quarter-turn the link locked against the bar. He tried to twist further, but it wouldn't budge. He tried again, but his hands slipped.

'Hello?' came the voice from the living room.

He took a deep breath. Closed his eyes and saw his father with enormous forearms in a short-sleeved shirt before the line of steel rods on the building site. He whispered to the boy: 'Banish all doubt. There's only room for willpower. The steel has no willpower and that's why it always loses.'

Tore Bjorgen drummed his fingers with impatience on the rococo mirror with the pearl-grey clam adornments. The owner of the antiques shop had told him that 'rococo' was often used in a derogatory sense, to mean the style was over the top, almost grotesque. Tore had realised afterwards that that was what had tipped the balance, when he had made up his mind to take out a loan to be able to lay out the twelve thousand kroner which the mirror had cost.

The switchboard at Police HQ had tried to put him through to Crime Squad, but no one had picked up and now they were trying the uniformed police.

He heard sounds from the bedroom. The rattle of chains against the bed. Perhaps Stesolid had not been the most effective sedative after all.

'Duty officer.' The deep, calm voice startled Tore.

'Um, this is… it's about the reward. For… erm, that guy who shot the guy from the Salvation Army.'

'Who's speaking? And where are you ringing from?'

'Tore. From Oslo.'

'Could you be a bit more precise, please?'

Tore gulped. He had – for several good reasons – exercised his right not to disclose his telephone number when phoning and he knew that now 'unknown number'would be flashing on whatever display the duty officer had.

'I can help you.' Tore's voice had gone up a register.

'First of all I need to know-'

'I've got him here. Chained to the bed.'

'You've chained someone up, you say?'

'He's a killer, isn't he? He's dangerous. I saw him with a gun at the restaurant. His name's Christo Stankic. I saw the name in the paper.'

The other end went quiet for a moment. Then the voice was back, but a little less unruffled. 'Calm down now. Tell me who you are and where you are, then we'll come at once.'

'And what about the reward?'

'If this leads to the arrest of the correct person I will confirm that you helped us.'

'And I'll be given the reward straight away?'

'Yes.'

Tore thought. About Cape Town. About Father Christmas in the baking sun. The telephone creaked. He breathed in ready to answer and looked into the twelve thousand kroner rococo mirror. At that moment Tore realised three things. The creaking sound had not come from the telephone. You don't get top-quality mail-order handcuffs in a beginners' pack for 599 kroner. And in all probability he had celebrated his last Christmas.

'Hello?' said the voice on the telephone.

Tore Bjorgen would have liked to answer, but a thin nylon string of shiny beads, looking every inch like a Christmas decoration, was blocking the airway essential for the production of sound from vocal cords.