The Redeemer

8

Tuesday, 16 December. The Mealtime.

It was eight o'clock in the morning, and the day that would go down as the coldest 16 December in Oslo for twenty-four years was still as dark as night. Harry left the police station after signing out the key to Tom Waaler's flat with Gerd. He walked with upturned coat collar, and when he coughed the sound seemed to disappear into cotton wool, as though the cold had made the air heavy and dense.

People in the early-morning rush hurried along the pavements. They couldn't get indoors quickly enough whereas Harry took long, slow steps, bracing his knees in case the rubber soles of his Doc Martens didn't grip the packed ice.

When he let himself into Tom Waaler's centrally positioned bachelor flat the sky behind Ekeberg Ridge was growing lighter. The flat had been sealed off in the weeks following Waaler's death, but the inquiry had not thrown up any leads pointing to other potential arms smugglers. At least that was what the Chief Superintendent had said when he informed them that the case would be given a lower priority because of 'other pressing investigative tasks'.

Harry switched on the light in the living room and once again noticed that dead people's homes had a silence all of their own. On the wall in front of the gleaming, black leather furniture hung an enormous plasma TV with metre-high speakers on each side, part of the surround-sound system in the flat. There were a lot of pictures on the walls with blue cube-like patterns. Rakel called it ruler-and-compass art.

He went into the bedroom. Grey light filtered through the window. The room was tidy. On the desk there was a computer screen, but he couldn't see a tower anywhere. They must have taken it away to check it for evidence. However, he hadn't seen it among the evidence at HQ. Although, of course, he had been denied access to the case. The official explanation was that he was under investigation by SEFO, the independent police investigation authority, for the murder of Waaler. Yet he could not get the idea out of his head that someone was not happy about every stone being turned over.

Harry was about to leave the bedroom when he heard it.

The deceased's flat was no longer quiet.

A sound, a distant ticking made his skin tingle and the hairs stand up on his arm. It came from the wardrobe. He hesitated. Then he opened the wardrobe door. On the floor inside was an open cardboard box and he at once recognised the jacket Waaler had been wearing that night in Kampen. At the top, in the jacket, a wristwatch was ticking. The way it did after Tom Waaler had punched his arm through the window in the lift door, into the lift where they were, and the lift had started moving and had cut off his arm. Afterwards they had sat in the lift with his arm between them, wax-like and lifeless, a severed limb off a mannequin, with the bizarre difference that this one was wearing a watch. A watch that ticked, that refused to stop, but was alive, as in the story Harry's father had told him when he was small, the one where the sound of the dead man's beating heart would not stop and in the end drove the killer insane.

It was a distinct ticking sound, energetic, intense. The kind of sound you remember. It was a Rolex watch. Heavy and in all probability exorbitant.

Harry slammed the wardrobe door. Stamped his way to the front door, creating an echo against the walls. Rattled the keys loudly when he locked up and hummed in frenzied fashion until he was in the street and the blissful traffic noise drowned everything else.

At three o'clock shadows were already falling on Kommandor T. I. Ogrims plass no. 4, and lights had started to come on in the windows of the Salvation Army Headquarters. By five o'clock it was dark, and the mercury had dropped to minus fifteen. A few stray snowflakes fell on the roof of the funny little car Martine Eckhoff sat waiting in.

'Come on, Daddy,' she mumbled as she glanced anxiously at the battery gauge. She was not sure how the electric car – which the Army had been presented with by the royal family – would perform in the cold. She had remembered everything before locking the office: had entered information about upcoming and cancelled meetings of the various corps on the home page, revised the duty rosters for the soup bus and the boiling pot in Egertorget, and checked the letter to the Office of the Prime Minister about the annual Christmas performance at Oslo Concert Hall.

The car door opened, and in came the cold and a man with thick white hair beneath his uniform cap and the brightest blue eyes Martine had seen. At any rate, on anyone over sixty. With some difficulty he arranged his legs in the cramped footwell between seat and dashboard.

'Let's go then,' he said, brushing snow off the flash that told everyone he was the highest-ranking Salvation Army officer in Norway. He spoke with the cheeriness and effortless authority that is natural to people who are used to their commands being obeyed.

'You're late,' she said.

'And you're an angel.' He stroked her cheek with the outside of his hand and his blue eyes were bright with energy and amusement. 'Let's hurry now.'

'Daddy…'

'One moment.' He rolled down the car window. 'Rikard!'

A young man was standing in front of the entrance to the Citadel, which was beside, and under the same roof as, Headquarters. He was startled and rushed over to them at once, knock-kneed with his arms pressed into his sides. He slipped, almost fell, but flapped his arms and regained balance. On reaching the car, he was already out of breath.

'Yes, Commander.'

'Call me David, like everyone else, Rikard.'

'Alright, David.'

'But not every sentence, please.'

Rikard's eyes jumped from Commander David Eckhoff to his daughter Martine and back again. He ran two fingers across his perspiring top lip. Martine had often wondered how it was that someone could sweat so much in one particular area regardless of weather and wind conditions, but especially when he sat next to her during a church service, or anywhere else, and whispered something that was supposed to be funny and might have been just that, had it not been for the poorly disguised nervousness, the rather too intense nearness – and, well, the sweaty top lip. Now and then, when Rikard was sitting close to her and all was quiet, she heard a rasping sound as he ran his fingers across his mouth. Because, in addition to producing sweat, Rikard Nilsen also produced stubble, an unusual abundance of stubble. He could arrive at Headquarters in the morning with a face like a baby's bottom, but by lunch his white skin would have taken on a blue shimmer, and she had often noticed that when he came to meetings in the evening he had shaved again.

'I'm teasing you, Rikard,' David Eckhoff smiled.

Martine knew there was no bad intention behind them, these games of her father's, but sometimes he seemed unable to see that he was bullying people.

'Oh, right,' Rikard said, forcing a laugh. He stooped. 'Hello, Martine.'

'Hello, Rikard,' Martine said, pretending to be concentrating on the battery gauge.

'I wonder whether you could do me a favour,' the commander said. 'There is so much ice on the roads now and the tyres on my car don't have studs. I should have changed them, but I have to go to the Lighthouse-'

'I know,' Rikard said with zeal. 'You have a lunch meeting with the Minister for Social Affairs. We're hoping for lots of press coverage. I was talking to the head of PR.'

David Eckhoff sent him a patronising smile. 'Good to hear you keep up, Rikard. The point is that my car is here in the garage and I would have liked to see studded tyres mounted by the time I return. You know-'

'Are the tyres in the boot?'

'Yes. But only if you have nothing more pressing on. I was on the point of ringing Jon. He said he could-'

'No, no,' Rikard said, shaking his head with vigour. 'I'll fix them right away. Trust me, er… David.'

'Are you sure?'

Rikard looked at the commander, bewildered. 'That you can trust me?'

'That you haven't got anything more pressing on?'

'Of course, this is a nice job. I like working on cars and… and…'

'Changing tyres?'

Rikard swallowed and nodded as the commander beamed.

As he wound up the window and they turned out of the square, Martine said that she thought it was wrong of him to exploit Rikard's obliging nature.

'Subservience, I suppose you mean,' her father answered. 'Relax, my dear, it's a test, nothing more.'

'A test? Of selflessness or fear of authority?'

'The latter,' the commander said with a chortle. 'I was talking to Rikard's sister, Thea, and she happened to tell me that Rikard is struggling to finish the budget for tomorrow's deadline. If so, he should prioritise that and leave this to Jon.'

'And then? Perhaps Rikard is being kind?'

'Yes, he is kind, and clever. Hard-working and serious. I want to be sure he has the backbone and the courage that an important post in management requires.'

'Everyone says Jon will get the post.'

David Eckhoff looked down at his hands with an imperceptible smile. 'Do they? By the way, I appreciate your standing up for Rikard.'

Martine did not take her eyes off the road, but felt her father's eyes on her as he continued: 'Our families have been friends for many years, you know. They're good people. With a solid foundation in the Army.'

Martine took a deep breath to suppress her irritation.

The job required one bullet.

Nevertheless, he pushed all the cartridges into the magazine. First of all, because the weapon was only in perfect balance when the magazine was full. And because it minimised the chances of a malfunction. Six in the magazine plus one in the chamber.

Then he put on the shoulder holster. He had bought it second-hand, and the leather was soft and smelt salty, acrid, from skin, oil and sweat. The gun lay flat, as it should. He stood in front of the mirror and put on his jacket. It could not be seen. Bigger guns were more accurate, but this was not a case of precision shooting. He put on his raincoat. Then the coat. Shoved the cap in his pocket and groped for the red neckerchief in his inside pocket.

He looked at his watch.

'Backbone,' said Gunnar Hagen. 'And courage. These are the qualities I seek above all else in my inspectors.'

Harry didn't answer. He didn't consider it a question. Instead, he looked around the office where he had sat so often, like now. But apart from the familiar scenario of POB-tells-inspector-what's-what, everything had changed. Gone were Bjarne Moller's piles of paper, the Donald Duck amp; Co. comics squeezed between legal documents and police regulations on the shelf, the big photograph of the family and the even bigger one of a golden retriever the children had been given and long forgotten about, as it had been dead for nine years, but which Bjarne was still grieving over.

What remained was a cleared desk with a monitor and a keyboard, a small silver pedestal with a tiny white bone and Gunnar Hagen's elbows, on which he was leaning at this very moment while eyeballing Harry from under his great thatched eyebrows.

'But there is a third quality I prize even higher, Hole. Can you guess what it is?'

'No,' Harry said in an even monotone.

'Discipline. Di-sci-pline.'

The POB's division of the word into syllables suggested to Harry that he was in for a lecture on its etymology. However, Hagen stood up and began to strut to and fro with his hands behind his back, a sort of marking out of territory which Harry had always found vaguely risible.

'I'm having this face-to-face conversation with everyone in the section to make it clear what my expectations are.'

'Unit.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'We've never been called a section. Even though your rank used to be known as "Section Head", PAS. Just for your information.'

'Thank you for drawing that to my attention, Inspector. Where was I?'

'Di-sci-pline.'

Hagen bored his eyes into Harry, who didn't turn a hair. So the POB resumed his strutting.

'For the last ten years I have been lecturing at the military academy. My area of speciality was the war in Burma. I suppose it may surprise you to hear that it has great relevance for my job here, Hole.'

'Well.' Harry scratched his leg. 'You can read me like an open book, boss.'

Hagen ran his forefinger over the window frame and studied the result with displeasure. 'In 1942, a mere hundred thousand Japanese soldiers conquered Burma. Burma was twice the size of Japan and at that time occupied by British troops who were superior in numbers and firepower.' Hagen raised the grubby forefinger. 'But there was one area where the Japanese were superior and this made it possible for them to beat the British and the Indian mercenaries. Discipline. When the Japanese marched on Rangoon, they walked for forty-five minutes and slept for fifteen. Slept on the road wearing their rucksacks and their feet pointing towards their destination. So that they didn't walk into the ditch or in the wrong direction when they woke up. Direction is important, Hole. Do you understand, Hole?'

Harry had an inkling of what was to come. 'I understand that they made it to Rangoon, boss.'

'They did. All of them. Because they did what they were told. I have just been told that you signed out the keys to Tom Waaler's flat. Is that correct, Hole?'

'I had a peep, boss. For therapeutic reasons.'

'I hope so. That case is buried. Snooping round Waaler's flat is not only wasted time, it also contravenes the orders you were given by the Chief and now by me. I don't think I need to spell out the consequences of refusing to obey orders. I might mention, however, that Japanese officers shot soldiers who drank water outside drinking times. Not out of sadism, but because discipline is about excising the tumours at the outset. Am I making myself clear, Hole?'

'As clear as… well, something which is very clear, boss.'

'That's all for now, Hole.' Hagen sat down on his chair, took a piece of paper from the drawer and started to read with a passion, as though Harry had already left the office. And looked up in surprise when he saw Harry was still sitting in front of him.

'Anything else, Hole?'

'Mm, I was wondering. Didn't the Japanese lose the war?'

Gunnar Hagen sat staring vacantly at the document long after Harry had gone.

The restaurant was half full. As it had been the day before. He was met at the door by a young, good-looking waiter with blue eyes and blond curls. So like Giorgi was he that for a moment he stood there entranced. And, on seeing the smile on the waiter's lips broaden, realised that he had given himself away. He took off his coat and raincoat in the cloakroom and felt the waiter's eyes on him.

'Your name?' the waiter asked. He mumbled his answer.

The waiter ran a long, thin finger down the page of the reservations book. It stopped.

'I've got my finger on you now,' the waiter said, and the blue eyes held his gaze until he felt himself blushing.

It didn't seem to be an exclusive restaurant, but unless his ability to do mental arithmetic had abandoned him, the prices on the menu were beyond belief. He ordered pasta and a glass of water. He was hungry. And his heartbeat was calm and regular. The other people in the restaurant were talking, smiling and laughing as though nothing could happen to them. It had always surprised him that it was not visible, that he did not have a black aura or that a chill – perhaps a stench of decay – did not radiate off him.

Or, to be precise, that no one else noticed.

Outside, the town hall clock chimed its three notes six times.

'Nice place,' Thea said, looking around. The restaurant had uncluttered views and their table gave on to the pedestrian zone outside. From hidden speakers there was the barely audible murmur of meditative New Age music.

'I wanted it to be special,' Jon said, studying the menu. 'What would you like to eat?'

Thea ran a quick eye down the single page. 'First I need something to drink.'

Thea drank a lot of water. Jon knew it was connected with diabetes and her kidneys.

'It's not so easy to choose,' she said. 'Everything looks good, doesn't it?'

'But we can't have everything on the menu.'

'No…'

Jon swallowed. The words had just come out. He peeked up. Thea obviously hadn't noticed.

All of a sudden she raised her head. 'What did you mean by that?'

'By what?' he asked in a casual manner.

'Everything on the menu. You were trying to say something. I know you, Jon. What's up?'

He shrugged. 'We agreed that before we get engaged, we should tell each other everything, didn't we?'

'Yes?'

'Are you sure you've told me everything?'

She sighed, resigned. 'I am sure, Jon. I have not been with anyone. Not… in that way.'

But he could see something in her eyes, something in her expression he had not seen before. A muscle twitching beside her mouth, a darkening of her eyes, like a diaphragm aperture closing. And he could not stop himself. 'Not even with Robert?'

'What?'

'Robert. I can remember you two flirting the first summer in Ostgard.'

'I was fourteen years old, Jon!'

'So?'

At first she stared at him in disbelief. Then she seemed to churn inside, she closed up and cut him off. Jon grabbed her hand in both of his, leaned forward and whispered, 'Sorry, sorry, Thea. I don't know what came over me. I… can we forget I asked?'

'Have you made up your minds?'

Both of them looked up at the waiter.

'Fresh asparagus as a starter,' Thea said, passing him the menu. 'Chateaubriand with cep mushrooms for the main course.'

'Good choice. May I recommend a hearty, well-priced red wine we have just got in?'

'You may, but water is fine,' she said with a radiant smile. 'Lots of water.'

Jon looked at her. Admired her ability to hide her emotions.

When the waiter had gone, Thea directed her gaze at Jon. 'If you've finished interrogating me, what about yourself?'

Jon gave a thin smile and shook his head.

'You never did have a girlfriend, did you?' she said. 'Not even at Ostgard.'

'And do you know why?' Jon said, placing his hand on hers.

She shook her head.

'Because I fell in love with one girl that summer,' Jon said and regained her full attention. 'She was fourteen years old. And I have been in love with her ever since.'

He smiled and she smiled, and he could see she had re-emerged from her hiding place, come over to where he was.

'Nice soup,' said the Minister for Social Affairs, turning to Commander David Eckhoff. But loud enough for the assembled press corps to hear.

'Our own recipe,' the commander said. 'We published a cookery book a couple of years ago we thought might be of…'

At a signal from her father, Martine approached the table and placed the book beside the minister's tureen.

'… some use if the minister desired a good, nutritious meal at home.'

The few journalists and photographers to turn up at the Lighthouse cafe chuckled. Otherwise attendance was sparse, a couple of elderly men from the Hostel, a tear-stained lady in a cape, and an injured junkie, who was bleeding from the forehead and trembling like an aspen leaf in dread of going up to the Field Hospital, the treatment room on the first floor. It was not very surprising there were so few people; the Lighthouse was not usually open at this time. However, a morning visit had not fitted into the minister's diary, so he did not see how full it was on most days. The commander explained all of this. And how efficiently it was run and how much it cost. The minister nodded at intervals as, duty-bound, he put a spoonful of soup into his mouth.

Martine checked her watch. A quarter to seven. The minister's secretary had said 19.00. They had to go.

'That was delicious,' the minister said. 'Have we got time to chat to anyone here?'

The secretary nodded.

Playing to the gallery, Martine thought. Of course they have time for a chat, that's why they are here. Not to apportion funds – they could have done that over the phone – but to invite the press and show a Minister for Social Affairs moving among the needy, eating soup, shaking hands with junkies and listening with empathy and commitment.

The press spokesperson signalled to the photographers that they could take photos. Or, to be more precise, that she wanted them to take photos.

The minister got to his feet and buttoned up his jacket as he scanned the room. Martine wondered how he would view his three options: the two elderly men looked like typical occupants of an old folks' home and would not serve the purpose: Minister Meets Drug Addicts, or Prostitutes, or something like that. There was something deranged about the injured junkie, and you can have too much of a good thing. But the woman… she seemed like a normal citizen, someone everyone could identify with and would like to help, especially if they had heard her heart-rending story first.

'Do you appreciate being able to come here?' the minister asked, reaching out with his hand.

The woman looked up at him. The minister said his name.

'Pernille-' the woman began, but was interrupted by the minister.

'Christian name's fine, Pernille. The press is here, you know. They would like a picture. Is that OK with you?'

'Holmen,' the woman said, sniffling into her handkerchief. 'Pernille Holmen.' She pointed to the table where a candle burned in front of one of the photographs. 'I'm here to commemorate my son. Would you mind please leaving me in peace?'

Martine stood at the woman's table while the minister plus retinue swiftly withdrew. She noted that they went for the two old men after all.

'I'm sorry about what happened to Per,' Martine said in a low voice.

The woman peered up with a face swollen from crying. And from pills, Martine guessed.

'Did you know Per?' she whispered.

Martine preferred the truth. Even when it hurt. Not because of her upbringing, but because she had discovered it made life easier in the long run. In the strangled voice, however, she could hear a prayer. A prayer for someone to say that her son was not only a drug-addicted robot, one less burden for society now, but a person someone could say they had known, been friends with, maybe even liked.

'Fru Holmen,' Martine said with a gulp, 'I knew him and he was a fine boy.'

Pernille Holmen blinked twice and said nothing. She was trying to smile, but her attempts turned into grimaces. She just managed to say 'thank you' before the tears began to flow down her cheeks.

Martine saw the commander waving to her from the table. Nevertheless, she sat down.

'They… they took my husband, too,' Pernille Holmen sobbed.

'What?'

'The police. They say he did it.'

As Martine left Pernille Holmen, she was thinking about the tall, blond policeman. He had seemed so decent when he said he cared. She could feel her anger mounting. Also her confusion. Because she could not understand why she should be so angry at someone she didn't know. She looked at her watch. Five minutes to seven.

Harry had made fish soup. A Findus bag mixed with milk and supplemented with bits of fish pudding. And French stick. All bought at Niazi, the little grocer's that his neighbour from the floor below, Ali, ran with his brother. Beside the soup plate on the sitting-room table was a large glass of water.

Harry put a CD into the machine and turned up the volume. Emptied his head and concentrated on the music and the soup. Sound and taste. That was all.

Halfway into the soup and the third track the telephone rang. He had decided to let it ring. But at the eighth ring he got up and turned down the music.

'Harry.'

It was Astrid. 'What are you doing?' She spoke in a low voice, but there was still an echo. He guessed she had locked herself into the bathroom at home.

'Eating and listening to music.'

'I have to go out. Not far from you. Plans for the rest of the evening?'

'Yes.'

'And they are?'

'Listening to more music.'

'Hm. You make it sound like you don't want company.'

'Maybe.'

Pause. She sighed. 'Let me know if you change your mind.'

'Astrid?'

'Yes?'

'It's not you. OK? It's me.'

'You don't need to apologise, Harry. If you're labouring under the illusion that this is vital for either of us, I mean. I just thought it could be nice.'

'Another time perhaps.'

'Like when?'

'Like another time.'

'Another time, another life?'

'Something like that.'

'OK. But I'm fond of you, Harry. Don't forget that.'

When he had put down the phone, Harry stood without moving, unable to take in the sudden silence. Because he was so astonished. He had visualised a face when Astrid rang. The astonishment was not because he had seen a face, but the fact that it was not Rakel's. Or Astrid's. He sank into the chair and decided not to spend any more time reflecting. If this meant that the medicine of time had begun to work and that Rakel was on her way out of his system, it was good news. So good that he didn't want to complicate the process.

He turned up the volume on his stereo and emptied his head.

He had paid the bill. He dropped the toothpick in the ashtray and looked at his watch. Three minutes to seven. The shoulder holster rubbed against his pectoral muscle. He took the photograph from his inside pocket and gave it a final glance. It was time.

None of the other customers in the restaurant – not even the couple at the neighbouring table – took any notice of him as he got up and went to the toilet. He locked himself in one of the cubicles, waited for a minute without succumbing to the temptation of checking the gun was loaded. He had learned that from Bobo. If you got used to the luxury of double-checking everything, you would lose your sharpness.

The minute had passed. He went to the cloakroom, put on his raincoat, tied the red neckerchief and pulled the cap down over his ears. Opened the door onto Karl Johans gate.

He strode up to the highest point in the street. Not because he was in a hurry, but because he had noticed that was how people walked here, the tempo that ensured you didn't stand out. He passed the litter bin on the lamp post where he had decided the day before that the gun would be dropped on the way back. In the middle of the busy pedestrian street. The police would find it, but it didn't matter. The point was that they didn't find it on him.

He could hear the music long before he was there.

A few hundred people had gathered in a semicircle in front of the musicians who were finishing a song as he arrived. A bell pealed during the applause and he knew he was on time. Inside the semicircle, on one side and in front of the band, a black cooking pot hung from three wooden sticks, and beside it the man in the photograph. In fact, street lamps and two torches were all the light they had, but there was no doubt. Especially as he was wearing the Salvation Army uniform coat and cap.

The vocalist shouted something into the microphone and people cheered and clapped. A flash went off as they started up again. Their playing was loud. The drummer raised his right hand high in the air every time he hit the snare drum.

He manoeuvred his way through the crowd until he was standing three metres from the Salvation Army man and checked his back was clear. In front of him stood two teenage girls exhaling white chewing-gum-breath into the freezing air. They were smaller than he was. He had no particular thoughts in his head, he didn't hurry, he did what he had come to do, without any ceremony: take out the gun and hold it with a straight arm. It reduced the distance to two metres. He took aim. The man by the cooking pot blurred into two. He relaxed and the two figures merged back into one.

'Skal,' Jon said.

The music oozed out of the speakers like viscous cake mixture.

'Skal,' said Thea, obediently lifting her glass to his.

After drinking, they gazed into each other's eyes and he mouthed the words: I love you.

She lowered her eyes with a blush, but smiled.

'I've got a little present for you,' he said.

'Oh?' The tone was playful, coquettish.

He put his hand in his jacket pocket. Beneath the mobile phone he could feel the hard plastic of the jeweller's box against his fingertips. His heart beat faster. Lord above, how he had looked forward to, yet dreaded, this evening, this moment.

The phone began to vibrate.

'Anything the matter?' Thea asked.

'No, I… sorry. I'll be back in a sec.'

In the toilet he took out the phone and read the display. He sighed and pressed the green button.

'Hi, sweetie. How's it going?'

The voice was jokey, as though she had just heard something funny which had made her think of him and then rung, on an impulse. But his log showed six unanswered calls.

'Hi, Ragnhild.'

'Weird sound. Are you-?'

'I'm in a toilet. At a restaurant. Thea and I are here for a meal. We'll have to talk another time.'

'When?'

'A… another time.'

Pause.

'Aha.'

'I should have called you, Ragnhild. There's something I have to tell you. I'm sure you know what.' He breathed in. 'You and I, we can't-'

'Jon, it's almost impossible to hear what you're saying.'

Jon doubted that was true.

'Can I see you tomorrow night at your place?' Ragnhild said. 'Then you can tell me?'

'I'm not free tomorrow night. Or any other-'

'Meet me at the Grand for lunch then. I can text you the room number.'

'Ragnhild, not-'

'I can't hear you. Call me tomorrow, Jon. Oh, no, I'm in meetings all day. I'll call you. Don't switch your mobile off. And have fun, sweetie.'

'Ragnhild?'

Jon read the display. She had rung off. He could go outside and ring back. Get it over with. Now that he had started. That would be the proper thing to do. The wise thing to do. Give it the coup de grace, kill it off.

They were standing opposite each other now, but the man in the Salvation Army didn't appear to see him. His breathing was calm, his finger on the trigger, then he slowly increased the pressure. And it flashed through his mind that the soldier showed no surprise, no shock, no terror. On the contrary, the light of understanding seemed to cross his face, as though the sight of the pistol gave him the answer to something he had been wondering about. Then there was a bang.

If the shot had coincided with the bang on the snare drum, the music might have drowned it, but, as it was, the explosion made many turn round and look at the man in the raincoat. At his gun. And they saw the Salvation Army soldier, who now had a hole in the peak right under the A of his cap, fall backwards as his arms swung forwards like a puppet's.

Harry jerked in his chair. He had fallen asleep. The room was still. What had woken him? He listened, but all he could hear was the low, reassuringly even rumble. No, there was another sound there, too. He strained to hear. There it was. The sound was almost inaudible, but now that he had identified it, it rose in magnitude and became clearer. It was a low ticking sound.

Harry remained in his chair with closed eyes.

Then a sudden fury surged through him, and without thinking, he had marched into the bedroom, opened the bedside-table drawer, snatched Moller's wristwatch, opened the window and hurled it into the dark with as much force as he could muster. He heard the watch hit first the wall of the adjacent block and then the icy tarmac in the street. He slammed the window shut, fastened the catches, went back to the sitting room and turned up the volume. So loud that the speaker membranes vibrated in front of his eyes, the treble was wonderfully bright in his ears and the bass filled his mouth.

The crowd had turned away from the band and looked at the man lying in the snow. His cap had rolled away and come to a halt in front of the singer's mike stand while the musicians, who still had not realised what had happened, continued to play.

The two girls standing closest to the man in the snow retreated. One of them started to scream.

The vocalist, who had been singing with her eyes shut, opened them and discovered she no longer had the audience's attention. She turned and caught sight of the man in the snow. Her eyes sought a guard, an organiser, a gig manager, anyone who could deal with the situation, but this was just an ordinary street concert. Everyone was waiting for everyone else and the musicians kept playing.

Then there was a movement in the crowd and people cleared a path for the woman elbowing her way through.

'Robert!'

The voice was rough and hoarse. She was pale and wore a thin, black leather jacket with holes in the sleeves. She staggered through to the lifeless body and fell on her knees beside him.

'Robert?'

She placed a skinny hand against his throat. Then she turned to the musicians.

'Stop playing, for Christ's sake.'

One after another, the members of the band stopped playing.

'The man's dying. Get hold of a doctor. Quick!'

She put her hand back on his neck. Still no pulse. She had experienced this many times before. Sometimes it was fine. As a rule it wasn't. She was confused. This couldn't be an overdose; a Salvation Army soldier wouldn't be on the needle, would he? It had started to snow and the snowflakes were melting on his cheeks, the closed eyes and the half-open mouth. He was a good-looking young man. And she thought now – with his face relaxed – he looked like her own boy when he was asleep. Then she discovered the single red stripe going down from the tiny black hole in his head, across the forehead and temple and into his ear.

A pair of arms grabbed her and lifted her away while someone else bent over the young man. She caught a last glimpse of his face, then the hole, and it occurred to her with a sudden painful certainty that this fate was awaiting her boy, too.

He walked at a fast pace. Not too fast; he wasn't fleeing. Looked at the backs in front of him, spotted someone hurrying and followed in his wake. No one had tried to stop him. Of course they hadn't. The report of a gun makes people stand back. The sight of it makes them run away. And in this case most had not even absorbed what was going on.

The final job.

He could hear the band was still playing.

It had started to snow. Great. That would make people look down to protect their eyes.

A few hundred metres down the street he saw the yellow station building. He experienced a feeling that he had from time to time, that everything was floating, that nothing could happen to him, that a Serbian T-55 tank was no more than a slow-moving iron monster, blind and deaf, and that his town would be standing when he returned home.

Someone was standing where he was going to drop the gun.

The clothes looked new and fashionable, apart from the blue trainers. But the face was lacerated and scorched, like a blacksmith's. And the man, or the boy, or whatever he was, looked as if he was there to stay. He had stuffed the whole of his right arm in the opening of the green litter bin.

Without slowing down, he checked his watch. Two minutes since he had fired the shot and eleven minutes to the departure of the train. And he still had the weapon on him. He walked past the bin and continued towards the restaurant.

A man came towards him, staring. But didn't turn after they had passed each other.

He headed for the restaurant door and pushed it open.

In the cloakroom area a mother was bent over a boy, fiddling with a zip on a jacket. Neither of them looked at him. The brown camelhair coat was hanging where it should. The suitcase underneath. He took both into the men's toilet, locked himself in one of the two cubicles, took off his raincoat, put the hat in the pocket and put on the camel-hair coat. Even though there were no windows, he could hear the sirens outside. Many sirens. He cast around him. Must get rid of the gun. There wasn't a great deal of choice. He stood on the toilet seat, stretched up to the white ventilation gap in the wall and tried to push the gun in there, but there was a grid inside.

He stepped back down. He was breathing hard now, and getting hot inside his shirt. Eight minutes to the train. He could take a later one, of course; that wasn't critical. What was critical was that five minutes had passed and he still hadn't got rid of the weapon, and she always said that anything over four minutes was an unacceptable risk.

Naturally, he could leave the gun on the floor, but they always worked to the principle that the gun should not be found before he was safe.

He left the cubicle and went to the sink. Washed his hands while his eyes scrutinised the deserted room. Upomoc! And stopped at the soap container over the sink.

Jon and Thea left the restaurant in Torggata with arms entwined.

Thea let out a scream as she slipped on the ice under the treacherous new snow in the pedestrian zone. She almost dragged Jon down with her, but he saved them at the last minute. Her bright laughter pealed in his ears.

'You said yes!' he shouted to the sky and felt the snowflakes melting on his face. 'You said yes!'

A siren rang out in the night. Several sirens. The sounds came from the direction of Karl Johans gate.

'Shall we go and see what the fuss is?' Jon asked, taking her hand.

'No, Jon,' said Thea, with a frown.

'Yes, come on, let's!'

Thea dug her feet into the ground, but the slippery soles couldn't find any purchase. 'No, Jon.'

But Jon just laughed and pulled her after him like a sledge.

'No, I said!'

The sound of her voice was enough to make Jon let go at once. He looked at her in surprise.

She sighed. 'I don't want to see a fire right now. I want to go to bed. With you.'

Jon studied her face. 'I am so happy, Thea. You have made me so happy.'

He couldn't hear what she replied. Her face was buried in his jacket.