The Son

26

‘This is the perfect Sunday morning,’ Else announced as she looked out of the car window.

‘Agreed,’ Simon said, changing down through the gears and glancing at her. He wondered how much she took in, if she could see that Palace Gardens were especially green after yesterday’s violent downpour. If she could even see that they were driving past Palace Gardens.

It was Else herself who had suggested that they visit the Chagall exhibition at Hovikodden and Simon had said that it was an excellent idea, only he just had to swing by an old colleague who lived in Skillebekk which was on the way to the art gallery.

There were plenty of parking spaces along Gamle Drammensveien. The old patrician houses and apartment blocks looked decidedly empty during the holidays. The occasional embassy flag stirred in the breeze.

‘I won’t be long,’ Simon said. He got out and walked up to the door of the address he had found on the Net. The name he was looking for was listed at the top of a row of doorbells.

After ringing the bell twice, Simon was about to give up when he heard a woman’s voice.

‘Yes?’

‘Is Fredrik there?’

‘Eh. . Who wants to know?’

‘Simon Kefas.’

There was silence for a few seconds, but Simon could hear crackling as a hand was placed over the microphone on the intercom. Then she was back. ‘He’ll be down in moment.’

‘OK.’

Simon waited. It was too early for normal people to be up and about, so the only ones he saw in the street were a couple his own age. They looked as if they were out on a Sunday walk. A walk whose starting point was also its destination. The man was wearing a tweed cap and nondescript khaki trousers. This was how you dressed when you grew old. Simon looked at his reflection in the glass pane in the carved oak front door. Tweed flat cap and sunglasses. Khaki trousers. Sunday uniform.

It was taking a while; he guessed he must have woken Fredrik up. Or his wife. Or whoever she was. Simon looked across to the car and saw that Else was looking straight at him. He waved. No reaction. The front door opened.

Fredrik appeared in jeans and a T-shirt. He had taken the time to shower — his wet, thick hair was combed back from his face.

‘This is unexpected,’ he said. ‘What-’

‘Why don’t we go for a little walk?’

Fredrik looked at his heavy wristwatch. ‘Listen, I’m-’

‘Nestor and his drug-dealing underlings paid me a visit,’ Simon said loud enough for the couple nearby to hear. ‘But I’m happy to carry this on upstairs in the flat where your. . wife is?’

Fredrik looked at Simon. Then he closed the door behind him.

They walked along the pavement. Fredrik’s flip-flops slapped against the tarmac and cast an echo between the walls.

‘He came to offer me that loan I had discussed with you, Fredrik. Only discussed with you.’

‘I haven’t spoken to anyone called Nestor.’

‘You don’t have to refer to him as “anyone called Nestor”, we’re both well aware that you know the name. You’re free to lie about any other knowledge you have of him.’

Fredrik stopped. ‘Come on, Simon. Getting you that loan from any of my clients was impossible. So I discussed your problem with a third party. That was what you expected me to do, wasn’t it? Be honest?’

Simon made no reply.

Fredrik sighed. ‘Listen, I was only trying to help. The worst that could happen was surely that you got an offer you couldn’t refuse.’

‘The worst that could happen is that now some scumbags think they’ve found a way to get to me. Finally, they’re thinking. Because they never had anything on me before, Fredrik. On you, yes, but me, never.’

Fredrik leaned against the railings. ‘Maybe that’s your real problem, Simon. The reason you never had the career you should have had.’

‘Because I wasn’t for sale?’

Fredrik smiled. ‘Your temper. Your lack of diplomacy. You even insult people who are trying to help you.’

Simon looked down at the old abandoned railway line below. From the days when Vestbanen was still in use. He didn’t know why, but it made him both melancholic and excited to see that the cutting in the ground was still there. ‘Have you read about the triple homicide in Gamlebyen?’

‘Of course,’ Fredrik said. ‘The papers write about little else. Every member of Kripos has been drafted in, or so it would seem. Do you still get to play with them?’

‘They prefer to keep the best toys to themselves as usual. Kalle Farrisen was one of the men killed. Do you recognise the name?’

‘I can’t say that I do. But if Homicide isn’t allowed a look-in, why are you-’

‘Because Farrisen was once suspected of having killed this girl.’ Simon produced the picture he had printed out from the file and gave it to Fredrik. He watched him study the pale face with the Asian features. You didn’t need to see the rest of her body to realise that she was dead.

‘She was found in a backyard; it was made to look as if she had accidentally OD’d. Fifteen years old. Sixteen, perhaps. She had no papers, so we never found out who she was or where she was from. Or how she got into Norway. Possibly in a container on a ship from Vietnam. The only thing they did discover was that she was pregnant.’

‘Yes, wait, I remember that case. I thought someone had confessed?’

‘Yes. Late in the day and much to everyone’s surprise. What I want to ask you is: was there any connection between Kalle Farrisen and your favourite client, Iversen?’

Fredrik shrugged and looked across the fjord. He shook his head. Simon followed his gaze towards the forest of masts on the yachts moored in the marina where the term ‘yacht’ these days meant something slightly smaller than a frigate.

‘Did you know that the man who confessed to and was convicted of the murder of that girl has escaped from prison?’

Fredrik shook his head again.

‘Enjoy your breakfast,’ Simon said.

Simon was leaning against the curved cloakroom counter at the art gallery in Hovikodden. Everything was curved. Everything was neo-expressionist. Even the glass walls separating the rooms were curved and possibly neo-expressionist as well. He looked at Else. Else looked at Chagall. She seemed so small as she stood there. Smaller than Chagall’s figures. Perhaps it was the curves, perhaps they created an Ames Room illusion.

‘So you went to see this Fredrik just to ask him that one question?’ asked Kari, who was standing next to him. She had come over twenty minutes after he had called her. ‘And what you’re saying is. .’

‘That I knew he would deny it,’ Simon said. ‘But I had to look at him to know if he was lying.’

‘You are aware, despite certain TV series that claim the opposite, that it’s extremely difficult to tell for certain if someone is lying?’

‘Fredrik isn’t just “someone”. I’ve experience of listening to him lying, I recognise his “tell”.’

‘So Fredrik Ansgar is a notorious liar?’

‘No. He lies out of necessity, not from predisposition or inclination.’

‘Right. And how do you know that?’

‘I didn’t before we started working together on a big property investigation at the Serious Fraud Office.’ He could see that Else was looking a little lost and he coughed loudly so that she could hear where he was. ‘It was tricky to prove that Fredrik was lying,’ Simon continued. ‘He was the investigation’s only expert accountant and it was difficult for us to verify everything he said. To begin with it was minor discrepancies and odd coincidences, but the sum total seemed a little too big just to be a coincidence. He failed to inform us of certain things or directly misinformed us. I was the only one who got suspicious. And in time I learned to tell when he was lying.’

‘How?’

‘It was very simple. His voice.’

‘His voice?’

‘Lying triggers emotions. Fredrik was good at lying with his choice of words, logic and body language. But his voice was the one emotional barometer he couldn’t control. He couldn’t strike quite the right natural tone, he had a lying inflection, which he himself could hear and he knew that it might give him away. When he was asked a direct question and had to give a straight answer, he couldn’t trust his voice. So he started nodding or shaking his head by way of response.’

‘And when you asked him if he knew of any connection between Kalle Farrisen and Iversen?’

‘He just shrugged as if he didn’t know.’

‘So he was lying?’

‘Yes. And he shook his head when I asked him if he knew that Sonny Lofthus had escaped from prison.’

‘Isn’t that a little simplistic?’

‘Yes, but Fredrik is a simple man who just happens to know his times tables better than most people. Listen, this is what I want you to do. I want you to go through all of Sonny Lofthus’s convictions. See if you can find out if there were any other suspects in each case.’

Kari Adel nodded. ‘Great, I didn’t have any plans for this weekend anyway.’

Simon smiled.

‘That Serious Fraud Office case,’ Kari said. ‘What was it about?’

‘Fraud,’ Simon said. ‘Tax avoidance, serious money, important names. As the case stood, it could bring down high-profile business people as well as politicians and it looked as if it could take us to Mr Big.’

‘Who was?’

‘The Twin.’

Kari shivered. ‘That’s a strange nickname, I must say.’

‘Not as strange as the story behind it.’

‘Do you know the Twin’s real name?’

Simon shook his head. ‘He goes by several names. So many that he’s totally anonymous. When I started in the Serious Fraud Office, I was naive enough to think that the biggest fish would be the most noticeable. The truth is, of course, that someone’s importance is inversely proportional to their visibility. The Twin eluded me yet again. Because of Fredrik’s lies.’

‘Do you think that Fredrik Ansgar could have been the mole?’

Simon shook his head vigorously. ‘Fredrik wasn’t even working for the police back when the mole started operating. I believe he was a minor player at that stage, but it’s clear that he could have done a lot of damage if he had been allowed to rise up the ranks. So I stopped him.’

Kari’s eyes widened. ‘You shopped Fredrik Ansgar to the Commissioner?’

‘No. I made him an offer. He could either go quietly or I would take what little I had on him to the top. It probably wasn’t enough to warrant an investigation or a dismissal, but it would have clipped his wings, put his career on hold for a while. He agreed to leave.’

A vein bulged on Kari’s forehead. ‘You. . you just let him go?’

‘We got rid of a rotten apple without dragging the police force through the mud. Yes, I let him go.’

‘You can’t just let people like that walk away.’

He heard the outrage in her voice. Quite right.

‘Fredrik is a small fish and, like I said, he would have got away with it. He couldn’t even be bothered to pretend that it wasn’t a good offer. In fact, he feels that he owes me a favour.’

Simon turned to her. He had intended to provoke her. And it had worked. But it seemed as if her outrage had already passed. Now she just looked like she had found yet another reason to quit the force at the earliest opportunity.

‘What’s the story behind the Twin’s nickname?’

Simon shrugged. ‘I believe he had an identical twin brother. When he was eleven years old, he dreamt two nights in a row that he killed this brother. He concluded that since they were identical twins, it was logical to assume that his brother had had the same dream. From then on it was simply a question of beating the other one to it.’

Kari looked at Simon. ‘Beating the other one to it,’ she repeated.

‘Excuse me,’ Simon said and rushed after Else who was about to walk into a glass wall.

Fidel Lae saw the car before he heard it. This was the thing about new cars, they hardly made any noise. If the wind was coming from the road, across the moor and towards the farm, he might hear the crunching of tyres against the gravel, gear-changing or high-revving as the car drove up the hills, but otherwise Fidel had to rely on his eyes for warning. Of cars, yes. People or animals were another matter — then he had the best alarm system in the world. Nine Dobermann pinschers in a cage. Seven bitches that had a litter every year, which sold for twelve grand — per puppy. They constituted his kennel’s official business where dogs were delivered microchipped to buyers, insured against latent defects and their pedigree registered with the Norwegian Kennel Club.

The unofficial part of the kennel lay deeper into the woods.

Two bitches and one male. Not registered anywhere. Argentine mastiffs. The Dobermann pinschers were scared witless of them. Fifty-five kilos of aggression and loyalty covered in an albino-white short coat which explained why Fidel’s dogs all had names with the word ‘ghost’ in them: the bitches were Ghost Machine and Holy Ghost, the male Ghostbuster. The buyers could call the puppies what the hell they like as long as they paid up. 120, 000 kroner. The price reflected the rarity of the dog, its effective killer instinct and the fact that the breed was banned in Norway and in several other countries. As his customers weren’t especially price-sensitive or concerned about Norwegian legislation, there was little to suggest that the price would go down. On the contrary. For that reason Fidel had moved the Argentine mastiff enclosure even further into the forest this year, so that their barking couldn’t be heard on the farm.

The car was heading for the farm, the track led nowhere else, so Fidel walked quietly down to the gate which was always shut. Not to prevent the Dobermanns from getting out, but to stop trespassers from getting in. And since everyone except his customers were trespassers, Fidel had a refurbished Mauser M98 to hand in a small shed backing onto the kennel near the gate. He kept fancier weapons in the main building, but he could always argue that he used the Mauser for elk hunting as elks did sometimes walk across the moor. Whenever the wind didn’t blow from the direction of the enclosure with the Argentine ghosts, that is.

Fidel arrived at the gate at the same time as the car with a rental company’s logo on the exterior. Fidel could tell from the crunching gears that the driver had little experience with this particular make of car; he also took his time switching off the headlights, the windscreen wipers and, finally, the engine.

‘All right?’ Fidel said, studying the guy who appeared from the car. Hoodie and brown shoes. A townie. Every now and then some of them did make their way here on their own and without having made an appointment. But it was rare. Fidel didn’t advertise with directions on the Net like the other kennels. The guy came up to the gate which Fidel showed no sign of wanting to open.

‘I’m looking for a dog.’

Fidel pushed the peak of his cap up on his forehead. ‘Sorry, but you’ve made a wasted trip. I don’t talk to potential owners of any of my dogs without getting references first. That’s just how it is. A Dobermann pinscher isn’t a cuddly family dog, it needs an owner who knows what he’s taking on. Call me on Monday.’

‘I’m not looking for a Dobermann,’ the guy said and looked past Fidel. Past the farm and the cages for his nine legal bitches. To the forest behind. ‘And my reference is Gustav Rover.’ He held up a business card. Fidel peered at it. Rover’s Motorcycle Workshop. Rover. Fidel had a good memory for names and people because he didn’t see many of either. The motorcycle guy with the gold tooth. He had been here with Nestor to buy an Argentine mastiff.

‘He said your dogs will keep an eye on the Belarus cleaners and make sure they don’t do a runner.’

Fidel spend some time scratching a wart on his wrist. Then he opened the gate. This guy couldn’t be police, they weren’t allowed to entrap people by provoking crimes such as selling illegal dogs, it would sabotage their entire case. At least that was what his lawyer told him.

‘Have you got. .?’

The guy nodded, stuck his hand in the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a large wad of notes. Thousand-kroner notes.

Fidel opened the gun cabinet and took out the Mauser.

‘I never go and see them without this,’ he explained. ‘If one of them were to get out. .’

It took them ten minutes to walk to the enclosure.

During the last five they could hear furious and increasingly loud barking.

‘They think they’re about to be fed,’ said Fidel, but didn’t add: with you.

The manic dogs hurled themselves at the wire fence when the men came into view. Fidel felt the ground shake when they fell back. He knew exactly how deep the fence posts had been sunk, he only hoped it was deep enough. The imported German cages had metal floors, so that dogs like terriers, dachshunds and bloodhounds couldn’t dig themselves out, and corrugated-iron roofs that kept them dry and prevented even the fittest ones from leaping over the fence.

‘They’re most dangerous when they’re in a pack,’ Fidel said. ‘Then they follow the top dog, Ghostbuster. He’s the biggest.’

The customer just nodded. He looked at the dogs. Fidel knew he must be scared. The open jaws with rows of glistening, gleaming teeth arranged on pale pink gums. Fuck, he was even scared himself. Only when he was with a single dog, preferably one of the bitches, could he be sure that he was the boss.

‘With a puppy you must establish yourself as the top dog quickly and make sure it stays that way. Remember that kindness in the form of indulgence and forgiveness will be viewed as weakness. Undesirable behaviour must be punished, and that’s your job. Do you understand?’

The customer turned to Fidel. There was something strangely remote in his smiling eyes when he repeated: ‘Punishing undesirable behaviour is my job.’

‘Good.’

‘Why is that cage empty?’ The customer pointed to an enclosure near the dogs.

‘I used to have two males. If I had put them in the same cage, one of them would have ended up dead.’

Fidel took out a bunch of keys. ‘Come and have a look at the puppies, they have their own cage over there-’

‘Before you do that, tell me something. .’

‘Yes?’

‘Is it desirable behaviour to let a dog bite a young girl in the face?’

Fidel stopped in his tracks. ‘Eh?’

‘Is it desirable behaviour to use dogs to bite off a girl’s face when she tries to escape slavery, or should it be punished?’

‘Listen, the dog is just acting on instinct and you can’t blame it just because-’

‘I’m not talking about the dog. The owners. Should they be punished, in your opinion?’

Fidel looked closely at his customer. Could he be a cop after all? ‘Well, if such an accident did happen, then-’

‘I doubt it was an accident. Afterwards, the owner cut the girl’s throat and dumped her body in the forest.’

Fidel gripped the Mauser harder. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘But I do. The owner’s name was Hugo Nestor.’

‘Listen, do you want a dog or not?’ Fidel raised the barrel of his rifle — which up until now had been pointing at the ground — a few inches.

‘He bought the dog from you. He has bought several dogs from you. Because you sell dogs that can be used for such purposes.’

‘What would you know about that?’

‘A lot. For twelve years I sat in a cage listening to people tell me stories. Ever wondered what it’s like to sit in a cage?’

‘Listen-’

‘You can try it now.’

Fidel didn’t have time to get the rifle in place before the other man had locked him in a hold from behind and was pressing his arms so tightly against his body that the air left Fidel with a hiss. The kennel owner barely registered the frantic barking as he was picked up. The other man leaned back as he lifted Fidel and threw him in a large arc over his head. But when Fidel hit the ground neck and shoulders first, the guy threw himself so that he landed on top of Fidel. Fidel gasped for air as he struggled to free himself. But he stopped abruptly when he stared into the muzzle of a gun.

Four minutes later Fidel was staring at the retreating back of the man who looked as if he was walking on water as he crossed the moor in the fog. Fidel’s fingers were gripping the meshed fence next to the big padlock. He was locked in the empty cage. In the next cage, Ghostbuster had lain down and was watching him lazily. The man had filled the bowl in Fidel’s cage with water and left him four boxes of Raw dog food. And he had taken his mobile, his keys and his wallet. Fidel started to scream. And the white devils responded with howling and barking. From an enclosure built so deep into the forest that no one could hear or see them.

Fuck!

The man had gone. A strange silence descended. A bird screeched. Then Fidel heard the first drops of rain hit the corrugated-iron roof.