The Redeemer

21

Friday, 19 December. Zagreb.

He sat shaking with cold on a bit of cardboard on the pavement by Sofienberg Park. It was rush hour and people were racing by. Some still had time to drop a few kroner in the paper cup in front of him. It would soon be Christmas. His lungs ached because he had been on his back breathing in smoke all night. He raised his eyes and looked up Goteborggata.

That was all he could do now.

He thought about the Danube flowing past Vukovar. Patient, unstoppable. As he would have to be. Patient, waiting for the tank to come, for the dragon to stick its head out of the cave. For Jon Karlsen to come home. He looked at a pair of knees that had stopped right in front of him.

He peered up at a man with a red beard and a paper cup in his hand. The beard said something. Loud and angry.

'Excuse me?'

The man answered in English. Something about turf.

He could feel the gun in his pocket. One bullet. Instead he took out the large, sharp chunk of glass he kept in his other pocket. The beggar glowered at him but slunk off.

He dismissed the idea that Karlsen might not come. He had to come. And in the meantime he would be the Danube. Patient and unstoppable.

'Come in,' ordered the happy, buxom woman in the Salvation Army flat in Jacob Aalls gate. She pronounced the 'n'with the tip of her tongue against her teeth, as is often the case when adults learn Norwegian later in life.

'Hope we're not disturbing,' Harry said as he and Beate Lonn entered the hall. The floor was covered with shoes, big and small.

The woman shook her head while they started to take off their footwear.

'Cold,' she said. 'Hungry?'

'I've just had breakfast, thank you,' Beate said.

Harry shook his head with a friendly smile.

She led them into the sitting room. Around the table sat what Harry assumed was the Miholjec family: two men, a boy of Oleg's age, a small girl and a teenage girl Harry guessed would have to be Sofia. She hid her eyes behind a curtain of black hair and held a baby on her lap.

'Zdravo,' the older man said. He was lean with thick, greying hair and black eyes that Harry recognised, the angry, frightened eyes of an outcast.

'This is my husband,' the woman said. 'He understands Norwegian, but doesn't speak much. This is Uncle Josip. He's visiting us for Christmas. My children.'

'All four of them?' Beate asked.

'Yes,' she laughed. 'The last was a gift from God.'

'A real sweetie,' Beate said, pulling a face at the baby who gurgled back with delight. And, as Harry had already suspected, she couldn't resist the temptation to tweak the chubby, red cheeks. He gave Beate and Halvorsen one, maximum two years, before they produced one like it.

The man said something and the wife replied. Then she turned to Harry. 'He wants me to say that you only like Norwegians working in Norway. He's tried to find work, but can't get any.'

Harry met the man's eyes and sent him a nod, which went unanswered.

'Here,' the wife said, pointing to two vacant chairs.

They sat down. Harry saw that Beate had taken out her notepad before he started speaking.

'We've come here to ask about-'

'Robert Karlsen,' the wife said, looking at her husband, who was nodding assent.

'That's right. What can you tell us about him?'

'Not much. In fact, we've only just met him.'

'Just met him.' The wife's glance happened to catch Sofia, who was sitting with her nose buried in the baby's rumpled hair. 'Jon asked Robert to help us when we moved from the little flat in A Block this summer. Jon is a good person. He saw to it that we got a bigger flat when we had him there, you know.' She laughed at the baby. 'But Robert stood around chatting to Sofia most. And… well, she's fifteen.'

Harry noticed the young girl's face change colour. 'Mm. We'd also like to talk to Sofia.'

'Talk away,' the mother said.

'Alone,' Harry said.

The mother's and father's eyes met. The duel lasted two seconds, but Harry managed to read quite a bit into it. Perhaps once he had been the one who took the decisions, but in the new reality, in the new country, where she had turned out to be more adaptable, she was the decision-maker. She nodded to Harry.

'Sit in the kitchen. We won't disturb you.'

'Thank you,' Beate said.

'No need for thanks,' the wife said gravely. 'We want you to catch the man who did it. Do you know anything about him?'

'We believe he is a hired killer and lives in Zagreb,' Harry said. 'At least he phoned a hotel there from Oslo.'

'Which one?'

Startled, Harry looked at the father who had spoken in Norwegian.

'Hotel International,' he said, and watched the father exchange glances with the uncle. 'Do you know anything?'

The father shook his head.

'If so, I would be very grateful,' Harry said. 'The man is after Jon now. He peppered Jon's flat with bullets the day before yesterday.'

Harry watched the father's expression change to incredulity. But he held his tongue.

The mother led the way into the kitchen with Sofia dragging her feet behind her. As most teenagers would have done, Harry assumed. As Oleg might well do in a few years' time.

Once the mother was gone, Harry took out his notepad and Beate positioned herself on a chair opposite Sofia.

'Hi, Sofia. My name's Beate. Was Robert your boyfriend?'

Sofia looked down and shook her head.

'Were you in love with him?'

Another shake of the head.

'Did he hurt you?'

For the first time since their arrival Sofia opened the curtain of black hair and looked straight into Beate's eyes. Harry guessed that behind the heavy make-up there was a pretty girl. Now he could see only the father, angry and frightened. And a bruise on her forehead that the make-up could not quite conceal.

'No,' she said.

'Did your father tell you not to say anything, Sofia? That's what I can see.'

'What can you see?'

'Someone has hurt you.'

'You're lying.'

'How did you get the mark on your forehead?'

'I walked into a door.'

'Now you are lying.'

Sofia snorted. 'You sound clever and all that, but you know nothing.

You're just an old policewoman who would prefer to be at home with children. I saw you in there.' The anger was still there, but the voice had already started to thicken. Harry gave her one, two sentences at most.

Beate sighed. 'You have to trust us, Sofia. And you have to help us. We're trying to stop a murderer.'

'That's not my fault, is it?' Her voice cracked and Harry could see that she had managed only the one sentence. Then the tears came. A cloudburst of tears. Sofia hunched over and the curtain closed again.

Beate put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.

'Go away!' she shouted.

'Did you know that Robert went to Zagreb this autumn?' Harry asked.

Her head shot up and she looked at Harry with an expression of disbelief, coated in wet make-up.

'So he didn't tell you?' Harry went on. 'Then he may not have told you that he was in love with a girl called Thea Nilsen, either?'

'No,' she whispered tearfully. 'And so what if he was?'

Harry tried to read her reaction to the information, but it was difficult with all the black cosmetics running.

'You were in Fretex asking about Robert. What did you want?'

'A ciggy!' Sofia snapped. 'Go away!'

Harry and Beate looked at each other. Then they stood up.

'Have a little think,' Beate said. 'Then ring me at this number.' She left her card on the table.

The mother was waiting for them in the hall.

'Sorry,' Beate said. 'I'm afraid she got a bit upset. Perhaps you might have a word with her.'

They stepped out into the December morning in Jacob Aalls gate and headed for Suhms gate where Beate had found a lone parking spot.

'Oprostite!'

They turned. The voice came from the shadows of the arched entrance where they saw the glow of two cigarettes. Then the glows dropped to the ground and two men came out to meet them. It was Sofia's father and Uncle Josip. They stopped in front of them.

'Hotel International, eh?' said the father.

Harry nodded.

The father glanced at Beate from the corner of his eye.

'I'll go and get the car,' Beate said quickly. Harry never ceased to be amazed by how a girl who had spent most of her short life alone with videos and forensic evidence could have developed a social intelligence that was so superior to his own.

'I worked first year by… you know… removal company. But back kaput. In Vukovar electro engineer, see? Before the war. Here I have bugger all.'

Harry nodded. And waited.

Uncle Josip said something.

'Da, da,' the father mumbled, then turned to Harry. 'When Yugoslav army take Vukovar in 1991, yes? There was boy who exploded twelve tanks with… landmines, yes? We called him mali spasitelj.'

'Mali spasitelj,' the uncle repeated with reverence.

'The little redeemer,' the father said. 'That was his… name they said on walkie-talkie.'

'Code name?'

'Yes. After Vukovar capitulation Serbs tried to find him. But couldn't. Some said he was dead. And some didn't believe. They said he had never been… existed. Yes?'

'What has this got to do with Hotel International?'

'After the war people in Vukovar had no house. Everything rubble. So some came here. But most to Zagreb. President Tudjman-'

'Tudjman,' the uncle repeated, rolling his eyes.

'-and his people gave them room in big old hotel where they could see them. Surveillance. Yes? They ate soup and had no job. Tudjman does not like people from Slavonia. Too much Serb blood. Then Serbs who been in Vukovar dead. And there were rumours. That mali spasitelj was back.'

'Mali spasitelj,' Uncle Josip laughed.

'They said that Croats could get help. In Hotel International.'

'How?'

The father shrugged. 'Don't know. Rumours.'

'Mm. Does anyone else know about this… helper and Hotel International?'

'Others?'

'Anyone in the Salvation Army for example?'

'Yes. David Eckhoff knows everything. And the others now. He said words… after meal at party in Ostgard this summer.'

'A speech?'

'Yes. He told about mali spasitelj and that some people always in war. War never finishes. For them, too.'

'Did the commander really say that?' Beate said as she drove into the illuminated Ibsen tunnel, slowed down and queued behind the stationary line of traffic.

'According to Miholjec, he did,' Harry pointed out. 'And I suppose everyone was there. Robert, too.'

'You think he could have given Robert the idea of using a hit man?' Beate drummed with impatience on the steering wheel.

'Well, at least we can establish that Robert has been to Zagreb. And as he knew Jon was seeing Thea he also had a motive.' Harry rubbed his chin. 'Listen, can you see to it that Sofia is taken to a doctor for a thorough check-up? If I'm not much mistaken there's more than that one bruise. I'll try and catch the morning flight to Zagreb.'

Beate sent him a swift, sharp glare. 'If you travel abroad it ought to be to assist the national police. Or as a holiday. Our instructions clearly state-'

'The latter,' Harry said. 'A short Christmas break.'

Beate sighed in desperation. 'I hope you give Halvorsen a little Christmas break, too. We were planning to visit his parents in Steinkjer. Where are you planning to celebrate Christmas this year?'

At that moment Harry's mobile phone went off and as he searched his coat pocket he answered: 'Last year I was with my dad and Sis. The year before with Rakel and Oleg. But this year I haven't had much time to think.'

He was thinking about Rakel when he saw he must have pressed the OK button in his pocket. And now he could hear her laughter in his ear.

'You can join me here,' she said. 'We have an open house on Christmas Eve and we always need volunteer helpers. At the Lighthouse.'

It took Harry two seconds to realise it wasn't Rakel.

'I was ringing to say I'm sorry about yesterday,' Martine said. 'I didn't mean to run away like that. I was caught a bit on the hop. Did you get the answers you wanted?'

'Ah, it's you, is it?' Harry said in what he considered a neutral voice, but he still noticed Beate's lightning reaction. And superior social intelligence. 'Can I call you back?'

'Of course.'

'Thanks.'

'Not at all.' Her tone was serious but Harry could hear the suppressed laughter. 'One tiny thing.'

'OK?'

'What are you doing on Monday? The twenty-second.'

'Don't know,' Harry said.

'We've got a spare ticket for the Christmas concert at the concert hall.'

'I see.'

'Doesn't sound like you're swooning with excitement.'

'Sorry. It's hectic here and I'm not much good at things you have to dress up for.'

'And the artistes are too bourgeois and boring.'

'I didn't say that.'

'No, I said it. And when I said we had a spare ticket I actually meant I had one.'

'I see.'

'It's a chance to see me in a dress. And I look good in it. All I'm missing is a tall, older guy. Think about it.'

Harry laughed. 'Thanks, I promise I will.'

'Not at all.'

Beate didn't say a word after he rang off, didn't comment on his grin that refused to go away, just mentioned that the snowploughs were going to be busy, according to the weather forecasts. Now and then Harry wondered if Halvorsen appreciated the coup he had pulled off in getting together with Beate.

Jon Karlsen had not made an appearance yet. Stiff, he got up from the pavement by Sofienberg Park. The cold felt as though it came from the inside of the earth and had spread around his body. The blood in his legs began to circulate as he walked and he welcomed the pain. He hadn't counted the hours he had been sitting cross-legged with the paper cup in front of him while following the comings and goings in the building in Goteborggata, but daylight was fading. He put his hand in his pocket.

His takings for the day would be enough for a coffee, a bite to eat and, he hoped, a packet of cigarettes.

He hurried towards the crossroads and the cafe where he had got the paper cup. He had seen a telephone on the wall, but dismissed the idea. In front of the cafe he paused, pulled back the blue hood and saw his reflection in the glass. No wonder people took him for a poor destitute soul. His beard was growing fast and there were sooty stripes over his face from the fire in the container.

In the reflection he saw the lights change to red and a car stopped beside him. He glanced inside as he held the door to the cafe. And froze. The dragon. The Serbian tank. Jon Karlsen. In the passenger seat. Two metres away from him.

He entered the cafe, hurried to the window and watched the car. He thought he had seen the driver before, but couldn't remember where. At the Hostel. Yes, he was one of the policemen who had been with Harry Hole. A woman was sitting at the back.

The lights changed. He charged out and saw the white smoke from the exhaust pipe as the car accelerated along the road by the park. Then he began to run. Further ahead he saw the car turn into Goteborggata.

He fumbled in his pockets. Felt the piece of glass from the hut window with almost numb fingers. His legs wouldn't obey him, they were dead prostheses, one false step and they would break like icicles, he feared.

The park with the trees and the nursery and the headstones flickered in front of his eyes like a moving screen. His hand found the gun. He must have cut himself on the glass because the handle felt sticky.

Halvorsen parked outside Goteborggata 4, and he and Jon got out of the car to stretch their legs while Thea went in to pick up her insulin.

Halvorsen checked the deserted street from top to bottom. Jon seemed uneasy too as he walked around in the cold. Through the car window Halvorsen could see the centre console with the holster containing his service revolver – he had taken it off because it was digging into his ribs while he was driving. If anything happened he would be able to grab it within two seconds. He switched on his mobile and saw he had received a message on the journey. He tapped and a familiar voice repeated that he had a message. Then came the peep and an unfamiliar voice began to speak. Halvorsen listened with increasing amazement. He saw that Jon had become aware of the voice on the phone and had come closer. Halvorsen's amazement passed into incredulity.

As he rang off Jon looked at him with a question on his lips, but Halvorsen said nothing, just quickly punched in a number.

'What was that?' Jon asked.

'It was a confession,' Halvorsen snapped.

'And what are you doing now?'

'I'm reporting to Harry.'

Halvorsen looked up and saw Jon's distorted face: his eyes had grown big and black and seemed to be staring through him, past him.

'Is something the matter?' he asked.

Harry walked through customs and into Pleso's modest terminal building; he put his Visa card in a cash machine, which gave him a thousand kroner's worth of kune without a word of protest. He put half in a brown envelope before walking outside and climbing into a Mercedes with a blue taxi sign.

'Hotel International.'

The taxi driver put the car in gear and drove off without a word.

Rain fell from low cloud cover above brown fields with patches of grey snow along the motorway that cut north-west through the rolling landscape towards Zagreb.

After a quarter of an hour he could see Zagreb taking shape: concrete blocks and church towers outlined against the horizon. They passed a quiet, dark river that Harry reckoned had to be the Sava. Their entrance into the town was along a broad avenue that seemed out of all proportion to the low level of traffic; they passed the train station and a vast, open, deserted park with a large glass pavilion. Bare trees spread out their winter-black fingers.

'Hotel International,' the taxi driver said, pulling up in front of an impressive grey-brick colossus of the type communist countries used to build for their itinerant leader caste.

Harry paid. One of the hotel doormen, dressed as an admiral, had already opened the car door and stood ready with an umbrella and a broad smile. 'Welcome, sir. This way, sir.'

Harry stepped onto the pavement at the same moment as two hotel guests came through the swing doors and got into a Mercedes that had just driven up. A crystal chandelier sparkled behind the swing doors. Harry didn't move. 'Refugees?'

'Sorry, sir?'

'Refugees,' Harry repeated. 'Vukovar.'

Harry felt raindrops on his head as the umbrella and the broad smile were snatched away and the admiral's begloved index finger pointed to a door some way down the hotel's facade.

The first thing that struck Harry as he entered a large, bare lobby with a vaulted ceiling was that it smelt like a hospital. And that the forty to fifty people sitting or standing by the two long tables placed in the middle, or standing in the soup queue by the reception desk, reminded him of patients. It may have been something about their clothes; shapeless tracksuits, threadbare sweaters and tattered slippers suggested some indifference to appearance. Or it may have been the heads bowed over soup bowls and the sleep-deprived, dejected looks that did not take in his existence.

Harry's eyes swept across the room and stopped at the bar. It looked more like a hot-dog stand and for the moment was not serving customers; there was only a barman who was doing three things at once: cleaning a glass, making loud comments to the men at the nearest table about the football match on the TV suspended from the ceiling and watching Harry's every move.

Harry had a feeling he was in the right place and went over to the counter. The barman ran a hand through his greasy, swept-back hair.

'Da?'

Harry tried to ignore the bottles on the shelf at the back of the hotdog stand. But he had already spotted his old friend and foe Jim Beam. The barman followed Harry's gaze and with raised eyebrows pointed to the four-sided bottle with the brown contents.

Harry shook his head. And breathed in. There was no reason to make this complicated.

'Mali spasitelj.' He said it low enough for the barman to hear amid the racket from the TV. 'I'm looking for the little redeemer.'

The barman studied Harry before answering in English with a hard German accent. 'I don't know any redeemers.'

'I've been told by a friend from Vukovar that mali spasitelj can help me.' Harry produced the brown envelope from his jacket pocket and placed it on the counter.

The barman looked down at the envelope without touching it. 'You're a policeman,' he said.

Harry shook his head.

'You're lying,' the barman said. 'I saw it the minute you walked in.'

'What you saw was someone who was with the police for twelve years, but is not any more. I stopped two years ago.' Harry met the barman's scrutiny. And wondered to himself what the man had been inside for. The size of his muscles and tattoos suggested he had been given a long sentence.

'No one calling themselves a redeemer lives here. And I know everyone.'

The barman was about to turn away when Harry leaned over the counter and grabbed his upper arm. The barman looked down at Harry's hand, and Harry could feel the man's biceps swelling. Harry let go. 'My son was shot by a dealer standing outside his school selling shit. Because he told him he would report him to the head teacher if he continued.'

The barman didn't answer.

'He was eleven when he died,' Harry said.

'I have no idea why you're telling me this, mister.'

'So that you understand why I'm going to sit here and wait until someone comes to help me.'

The barman nodded slowly. The question came lightning fast. 'What was your boy's name?'

'Oleg,' Harry said.

They stood facing each other. The barman screwed up one eye. Harry could feel his mobile phone vibrating in his pocket, but let it ring.

The barman rested his hand on the envelope and pushed it back to Harry. 'This is not necessary. What's your name and where are you staying?'

'I've come straight from the airport.'

'Write your name on this serviette and go to Balkan Hotel by the train station. Over the bridge and straight ahead. Wait in your room. Someone will contact you.'

Harry was about to say something, but the barman had turned back to the TV and resumed his commentary.

When he went outside, Harry saw he had a missed call from Halvorsen.

'Do vraga!' he groaned. Shit!

The snow in Goteborggata looked like red sorbet.

He was confused. Everything had happened so fast. The last bullet which he had fired at the fleeing Jon Karlsen had hit the outside of the flat with a soft thud. Jon Karlsen had fled through the door and was gone. He crouched down and heard the bloodstained glass tear the material of his jacket pocket. The policeman was lying face down in the snow, which was drinking in the blood flowing from the slashes to his neck.

The gun, he thought, and grabbed the man's shoulder and turned him over. He needed a weapon to shoot with. A gust of wind blew the hair away from the unnaturally pale face. In haste, he searched through the coat pockets. The blood flowed and flowed, thick and red. He barely had time to sense the acidic taste of bile before his mouth was full. He turned, and the yellow contents of his stomach splashed over the blue ice. He wiped around his mouth. The trouser pockets. Found a wallet. Trouser waistband. For Christ's sake, cop, you must have a gun if you have to protect someone!

A car swung round the corner and came towards them. He took the wallet, stood up, crossed the road and began to walk. The car stopped. Mustn't run. He began to run.

He slipped on the pavement by the corner shop and landed on his hip, but was up in a second without feeling any pain. Headed for the park, the same way he went last time. This was a nightmare with an unending succession of meaningless events. Had he gone mad or were these things really happening? Cold air and bile stung his throat. He had reached Markveien when he heard the first police sirens. And he knew. He was frightened.