The Son

PART FOUR
33

Simon and Kari walked through the sunshine across the slightly too big, slightly too exposed, and slightly too summer-quiet Radhusplassen.

‘Fidel Lae’s description helped us find the rental car,’ Kari said. ‘It had been returned, but fortunately it hadn’t been cleaned yet. Forensics found mud stains that match the mud on the track leading to the dog kennel. And here was I thinking mud was just mud.’

‘Every type has its own unique blend of minerals,’ Simon said. ‘Rented under what name?’

‘Sylvester Trondsen.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘A thirty-three-year-old man on unemployment benefit. Couldn’t find him at his registered address. He has two convictions for assault. Our officers linked him to Nestor.’

‘OK.’ Simon stopped in front of an entrance between two boutiques. The door was tall and wide and signalled solidity and gravity. He pressed one of the buttons for the third floor. ‘Anything else?’

‘One of the residents at the Ila Centre told officers that it looked as if the new guy in room 323 and the deputy manager were getting along well.’

‘Martha Lian?’

‘They were seen leaving the centre in a car the other day.’

‘Iversen Property,’ said a voice through the holes in the brass plate over the doorbells.

‘I want you to wait in reception while I talk to Iversen,’ Simon said as they rode up in the lift.

‘Why?’

‘Because I might break a few rules and I would prefer not to drag you into it.’

‘But-’

‘I’m sorry, but that was actually an order, just so you know.’

Kari rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

‘Iver,’ the young man introduced himself as he came to meet them in reception. He shook hands firmly first with Simon, then with Kari. ‘You’re here to see my father.’

Something about the boy told Simon that he would normally be smiling and easy-going, that he didn’t have experience of the pain and grief which Simon could read in the eyes under the floppy fringe. He guessed that was why the boy seemed so lost and confused.

‘This way.’ His father must have told him they were police officers and presumed, as did the father, that their visit related to the investigation into his mother’s murder.

The office had views of Vestbanen and Oslo Fjord. Next to the door was a glass display cabinet with a detailed model of a skyscraper shaped like a Coca-Cola bottle.

The father looked like an older replica of the son. Same heavy fringe, smooth, healthy skin, a sunny but subdued gaze in his eyes. Tall, with good posture, firm chin, a man who looked you straight in the eye, friendly, but with a boyish, playful challenge. There was something assured, West Oslo-solid about these types, Simon thought, as if they had all been cast in the same mould; resistance fighters, polar explorers, the crew of the Kon-Tiki, police commissioners.

Iver Senior asked Simon to take a seat and sat down himself behind a desk below an old black-and-white photo of an apartment block, which was definitely Oslo at the turn of the nineteenth century, but which Simon couldn’t momentarily place.

Simon waited until Iver Junior had left the office and then he came straight to the point.

‘Twelve years ago a girl was found dead in a backyard in Kvadraturen in Oslo. This is what she looked like when she was found.’

Simon put the photo on Iversen’s desk and watched the property investor’s face carefully when he saw the picture. Not much of a reaction.

‘A boy by the name of Sonny Lofthus confessed to the killing,’ Simon said.

‘I see.’ Still no reaction.

‘The girl was pregnant when she was found.’

Now there was a reaction. Flared nostrils, expanding pupils.

Simon waited a couple of seconds before launching the second stage of the attack.

‘DNA evidence from toothbrushes in your home proves that someone in your household was the father of the unborn baby.’

A thickening of the artery in his neck, a change in facial colour, uncontrolled blinking.

‘The red toothbrush is yours, Iversen, isn’t it?’

‘How. . how did you. .?’

Simon smiled quickly and looked down at his hands. ‘I, too, have a junior, she’s waiting in reception. Only her brain is a bit quicker than mine. She was the first to draw the simple, logical conclusion that when the DNA on only two of three toothbrushes in the Iversen family shows a family relationship to the foetus, then the son in the house can’t be the father. Then all three members of the family would be related to the foetus. So it had to be the only other male. You.’

Iver Iversen’s healthy skin colour paled before disappearing altogether.

‘You’ll probably find the same thing happening to you when you get to be as old as me,’ Simon said to comfort him. ‘Their minds are so much quicker than ours, these youngsters.’

‘But. .’

‘That’s the thing about DNA. It doesn’t leave much room for buts. .’

Iversen opened his mouth while at the same time routinely forcing it into a half-smile. It was at this point in an awkward conversation that he would obviously normally provide what was known as comic relief, a disarming remark. Yes, that was it, something that made it feel less dangerous. But nothing came. There was nothing there.

‘Now this old slowcoach. .’ in front of him Simon tapped his forehead with his finger, ‘. . takes a little longer, but gets a little further. And the first thing he thought is that a married man like you has the most obvious motive in the world for getting rid of a pregnant and potentially troublesome woman. Wouldn’t you agree?’

Iversen made no reply, but felt his Adam’s apple reply on his behalf.

‘The police released a photo of the woman to the newspapers asking if anyone knew her identity. And when her lover and the father of her child stayed as silent as the grave, didn’t even provide the police with an anonymous tip-off, that makes it extra suspicious. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I didn’t know. .’ he began, but stopped. Already regretting it. And then regretted having made it so plain that he regretted it.

‘You didn’t know that she was pregnant?’ the police officer asked.

‘No!’ Iversen said, folding his arms across his chest. ‘I mean, I knew. . I know nothing about this. I’d like to call my lawyer now.’

‘You clearly know something. But actually I believe you when you say you don’t know everything. I think your wife, Agnete, was the one who knew everything. What do you think?’

Kefas. Chief Inspector, wasn’t that how he had introduced himself? Iver Iversen reached for the telephone.

‘What I think is that you have no proof and that this meeting is over, Mr Kefas.’

‘You’re right about the former, but wrong about the latter. This meeting isn’t over because you ought to know what bridges you’ll be burning by picking up that phone, Iversen. The police have no evidence against your wife, but the man who shot her clearly does.’

‘And how is that possible?’

‘Because he has been a scapegoat and father confessor for criminals in this town for twelve years. He knows everything.’ Kefas leaned forward in his chair and jabbed the desk with his finger with every word. ‘He knows that Kalle Farrisen killed the girl and that Agnete Iversen paid him to do it. He knows this because he went to prison for the murder. The fact that he hasn’t come after you yet is the only reason I believe you might be innocent. Go ahead, pick up the phone and we’ll play this by the book. That is to say, arrest you as an accessory to murder, tell the media everything we know about you and the girl, explain to your business associates that you’ll be away for a while, tell your son that. . well, what do you want us to tell your son?’

What to tell his son. Simon waited. Let it sink in. It was important for what was coming next. Let it take root. Give Iversen time to understand the magnitude, the consequences. Open himself up to alternatives which just two minutes ago would have been completely out of the question. Like Simon himself had had to do. And it had driven him here, to this.

Simon saw Iversen’s hand flop and heard a wobbly, croaky voice: ‘What do you want?’

Simon straightened up in the chair. ‘You tell me everything now. If I believe you, then it’s possible that not very much needs to happen. After all, Agnete has already been punished.’

‘Punished?!’ The widower’s eyes blazed, but the fire was extinguished when it met Simon’s icy stare.

‘Fine. Agnete and I, we. . didn’t have much of a marriage. Not in that way. An associate had some girls. Asian. That’s how I met Mai. She. . had something, something I needed. Not youth or innocence and all that, but a. . loneliness in which I recognised myself.’

‘She was a prisoner, Iversen. She had been abducted from her home and her family.’

The property investor shrugged. ‘I know, but I paid for her freedom. I gave her a flat where we met. It was just her and me. Then one day she told me she hadn’t had her period for months. That she might be pregnant. I said she had to get rid of it, but she refused. I didn’t know what to do. So I asked Agnete. .’

‘You asked your wife?’

Iversen held up a dismissive hand. ‘Yes, of course. Agnete was a grown-up. She didn’t mind others taking over duties she would rather not undertake herself. To be frank, I think she preferred women to men.’

‘But she gave you a son?’

‘They take their duties very seriously in her family and she was a good mother.’

‘A family that is also the biggest private property owner in Oslo, with a perfect image and a family name so untarnished that an Asian bastard would quite simply be unthinkable.’

‘Yes, Agnete was old-fashioned. And I went to her because ultimately she was in charge.’

‘Because this company is built on her money,’ Simon said. ‘So Agnete decided to get rid of the problem. All of the problem.’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ Iversen said.

‘No, because you didn’t ask. You left it to her to contact people who could do the job for you. And they in turn had to buy themselves a scapegoat when a witness told the police that they had seen someone inject the girl in that backyard. The tracks had to be covered and you paid.’

Iversen shrugged again. ‘I haven’t killed anyone, I’m just keeping my end of our deal by telling you what happened. The question is, are you going to keep yours?’

‘The question,’ Simon said, ‘is how a woman like your wife found a piece of lowlife like Kalle Farrisen.’

‘I’ve never heard of Kalle Farrisen.’

‘No,’ Simon said, folding his hands in front of him. ‘But you know who the Twin is.’

A moment of perfect silence descended on the room. It was as if even the traffic outside held its breath.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Iversen said at last.

‘I worked for the Serious Fraud Office for many years,’ Simon said. ‘Iversen Property did business with the Twin. You helped him launder money from his drugs and trafficking activities and in return he provided you with fictitious, tax-saving losses to the tune of hundreds of millions of kroner.’

Iver Iversen shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I know nothing about any Twin.’

‘Apart from you being afraid, that’s a lie,’ Simon said. ‘I have evidence that the two of you worked together.’

‘Do you now?’ Iversen said and pressed his fingertips together. ‘Then why didn’t the Serious Fraud Office ever bring a case against me?’

‘Because when I worked for the Serious Fraud Office I was leaned on from the inside,’ Simon said. ‘But I know that the Twin used his blood money to buy commercial property from you and sell it back to you later at a much higher price. Or at least that’s what the paperwork said. He would appear to have made a profit which allowed him to deposit his drugs money in the bank without the tax authorities asking questions about how he came by it. And it provided you with an apparent loss which you could offset against future profits and thus avoid contributing to society. A win-win situation.’

‘An interesting theory,’ Iversen said, shrugging. ‘I’ve told you everything I know. Is there anything else?’

‘Yes. I want to meet the Twin.’

Iversen heaved a sigh. ‘I’ve just told you I don’t know any Twin.’

Simon seemed to nod quietly to himself. ‘Do you know something? We heard that so often at the Serious Fraud Squad that people started doubting if the Twin even existed, they thought he was just a myth.’

‘It sounds to me as if he might just be that, Kefas.’

Simon rose. ‘It’s all good with me. But myths don’t control the drugs and sex trafficking market in an entire city, year in, year out, Iversen. Myths don’t liquidate pregnant women at the request of their business partners.’ He leaned forward, planted both palms on the desk and exhaled so that Iversen got a taste of his old man’s breath. ‘Men don’t get so terrified that they’re willing to dive off a cliff because of a myth. I know he exists.’

Simon pushed himself up to standing and headed for the door while he waved his mobile phone. ‘I’m calling a press conference the moment I get into the lift, so perhaps now is a good time for that father-son chat.’

‘Wait!’

Simon stopped in front of the door without turning round.

‘I’ll. . I’ll see what I can do.’

Simon took out his card and put it on top of the glass display cabinet with the Coca-Cola skyscraper.

‘You and he have until six o’clock.’

‘Inside Staten?’ Simon repeated as they went down in the lift. ‘Lofthus attacked Franck in his own office?’

Kari nodded. ‘That’s all I know for now. What did Iversen say?’

Simon shrugged. ‘Nothing. Not surprisingly, he insisted on speaking to his lawyer first. We’ll have to talk to him tomorrow.’

Arild Franck sat on the edge of the bed waiting to be taken into surgery. He was dressed in one of the hospital’s pale blue gowns and had an ID bracelet around his wrist. He had felt no pain for the first hour, but it was starting to hurt now and that measly little injection the anaesthetist had given him was doing no good at all. He had been promised a proper injection which they claimed would numb his entire arm right before the operation. A surgeon specialising in hands had stopped by and told him in detail what microsurgery was capable of these days, that the severed finger had arrived at the hospital, that the cut was nice and clean, and that once the finger was reunited with its rightful owner, the nerves would surely reattach so he would be able to use his finger for both ‘this and that’ in a few months. His attempt at humour was probably well intended, but Franck wasn’t in a joking mood. So he had interrupted the surgeon and asked how long he would need to reattach the finger and when he could return to work. And when the surgeon had said that the operation itself would take several hours, Franck had — to the surgeon’s amazement — looked at the clock and sworn softly, but audibly.

The door opened and Franck lifted his head. He hoped it was the anaesthetist because it wasn’t just his finger that was throbbing furiously now, it was his head and all of his body.

But it wasn’t anyone in white or green, it was a tall, slim man in a grey suit.

‘Pontius?’ Franck said.

‘Hello, Arild. I just wanted to see how you were doing.’

Franck narrowed one eye. As if it made it easier for him to work out the real reason for the Commissioner’s visit. Parr sat down on the bed beside him. Nodded towards his bandaged hand.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘It’ll be fine. Tell me you’re looking for him?’

The Commissioner shrugged. ‘Lofthus has vanished into thin air. But we’ll find him. Have you any idea what he wanted?’

‘Wanted?’ Franck snorted. ‘Who knows what he wants? He’s clearly on some sort of deranged crusade here.’

‘Quite,’ Parr said. ‘So the real question is when and where he will strike next. Did he give you any indication?’

‘Indication?’ Franck groaned and bent his elbow gently. ‘Like what?’

‘You must have talked about something.’

‘He talked. I was gagged. He wanted to know who the mole was.’

‘Yes, I saw.’

‘You saw?’

‘From the papers in your office. Or at least those that weren’t covered in blood.’

‘You were in my office?’

‘This is a top-priority case, Arild. The man is a serial killer. It’s bad enough that the press is after us, but now the politicians are starting to interfere as well. From now on I’m going to be hands-on.’

Franck shrugged his shoulders. ‘OK.’

‘I have a question-’

‘I’m about to go into surgery and it hurts like hell, Pontius. Can’t it wait?’

‘No. Sonny Lofthus was interviewed in connection with the murder of Kjersti Morsand, but denied any involvement. Did anyone tell him that her husband was our prime suspect before we found Lofthus’s hair at the crime scene? Or that we had evidence to suggest Yngve Morsand killed her?’

‘How would I know? What do you mean?’

‘Oh, I was just wondering.’ Parr put his hand on Franck’s shoulder and Franck felt the pain shoot down to his hand. ‘You just concentrate on your surgery.’

‘Thank you, but there isn’t really a lot to think about.’

‘No,’ Parr said, taking off his rectangular glasses. ‘I don’t suppose there is.’ He started polishing them with an absent-minded expression. ‘All you do is lie there while someone else does all the work.’

‘Yes,’ Franck said.

‘While someone else puts you back together. Makes you whole again.’

Franck gulped.

‘So,’ Parr said, putting his glasses back on. ‘Did you tell him who the mole was?’

‘You mean, did I tell him it was his own father? Ab Lofthus, he confessed. If I had written that down on a piece of paper, that boy would have cut off my head.’

‘What did you tell him, Arild?’

‘Nothing! What could I have told him?’

‘That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering. I’ve been wondering what made the boy so sure that you had information that he was willing to break into your prison to get hold of it.’

‘The boy’s insane, Pontius. Sooner or later every drug addict turns psychotic, you know that. The mole? Dear God, that story disappeared along with Ab Lofthus.’

‘So what did you tell him?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He only severed one of your fingers. Everyone else was killed. You were spared, you must have given him something. Don’t forget I know you, Arild.’

The door opened and two smiling hospital workers dressed in green entered. ‘Ready to roll?’ one of them smiled.

Parr straightened his glasses. ‘You haven’t got the guts, Arild.’

Simon walked down the street, bowing his head against the sea air that was sweeping in from the fjord, passing over Aker Brygge and Munkedamsveien before it was narrowed by the buildings and then accelerated up Ruselokkveien. He stopped outside the church which had been squeezed in between two apartment blocks. St Paul’s Church was more modest than its namesakes in other capitals. A Catholic Church in a Protestant country. It was facing the wrong way, westerly, and had just a hint of a church tower at the front. Only three steps led to the entrance. But it was always open. He knew that because he had been here before, late one evening in the middle of a crisis, and had hesitated before walking up those three steps. It had been right after he had lost everything, before he had found his salvation in Else.

Simon climbed the steps, pushed down the copper handle, opened the heavy door and entered. He wanted to close the door quickly behind him, but the stiff springs resisted. Had they been just as stiff that time? He didn’t remember, he had been too drunk. He let go of the door which shut behind him, one centimetre at a time. But he remembered the smell. Foreign. Exotic. An atmosphere of spirituality. Magic and mysticism, fortune-teller and travelling circus. Else liked Catholicism, not so much the ethics as the aesthetics, and had explained to him how everything in the church building, even the most basic elements such as bricks, mortar and stained-glass windows, was endowed with a religious symbolism that bordered on the comical. And yet this simple symbolism possessed a gravitas, a subtext, a historical context and the faith of so many thinking people that it was impossible to dismiss. The narrow, whitewashed and plainly decorated room containing rows of pews that led up to a single altar with Jesus hanging on the cross. A symbol of victory in defeat. Up against the wall on the left-hand side, halfway towards the altar, was the confessional box. It had two compartments, one had a black curtain in front of the opening, like a photo booth. When he came here that night, he hadn’t known which of the two cubicles was intended for the confessing sinner before his alcohol-clouded brain had deduced that if the priest shouldn’t be able to see the sinners, the priest must be in the photo booth. So he had staggered inside the curtainless cubicle and started talking to the perforated wooden board separating them. Confessed his sins. In an unnecessarily loud voice. Simultaneously hoping and dreading that there was someone on the other side, or that someone, anyone, would hear him and do the necessary. Offer him forgiveness. Or condemn him. Anything but this suffocating vacuum where he was alone with himself and his mistakes. Nothing had happened. And the next morning he had woken up without the usual headache — which was strange — and realised that life would continue as if nothing had happened, that ultimately no one cared. It was the last time he had set foot inside a church.

Martha Lian was standing near the altar with a brusquely gesticulating woman in an elegant suit and the type of short hairstyle which some older women think makes them look younger. The woman was pointing and explaining, and Simon caught words such as ‘flowers’, ‘ceremony’, ‘Anders’ and ‘guests’. He had almost reached them when Martha Lian turned to face him. The first thing that struck him was how different she looked since the last time. How empty. Alone. And how miserable.

‘Hi,’ she said in a dull voice.

The other woman stopped talking.

‘I’m sorry for intruding,’ Simon said. ‘At the Ila Centre, they said I would find you here. I hope I’m not interrupting something important.’

‘Oh no, it’s-’

‘Yes, we’re actually planning my son and Martha’s wedding right now. So if it could wait, Mr. .?’

‘Kefas,’ Simon said. ‘And, no, it can’t wait. I’m a police officer.’

The woman looked at Martha with raised eyebrows. ‘That’s exactly what I mean when I say that you’re living in a world that’s all too real, darling.’

‘Which you’ll be spared from having to take part in, Mrs. .?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Miss Lian and I will discuss this in private. Duty of confidentiality, and all that.’

The woman marched off on hard heels, and Simon and Martha sat down on the front pew.

‘You were seen driving off in a car with Sonny Lofthus,’ Simon said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘He wanted to learn to drive,’ Martha said. ‘I took him to a car park where we could practise.’

‘He’s wanted all over Norway now.’

‘I saw it on TV.’

‘Did he say or did you see him do anything that could suggest where he might be now? And I want you to think about this very carefully before you reply.’

Martha looked as if she thought very carefully indeed before she shook her head.

‘No? Anything about his plans for the future?’

‘He wanted to learn to drive.’

Simon sighed and smoothed his hair. ‘You understand that you risk being charged as an accessory if you help him or hide information from us?’

‘Why would I do that?’

Simon looked at her without saying anything. She was getting married shortly. So why did she look so unhappy?

‘OK, OK,’ he said and got up.

She stayed where she was and looked down at her lap.

‘Just one thing,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think he’s the crazed killer everyone says he is?’

Simon shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘No,’ he said.

‘No?’

‘He’s not crazy. He’s punishing people. He’s on a kind of vendetta.’

‘What is he trying to avenge?’

‘I think it’s about his father who was a police officer; after he died, people said he was corrupt.’

‘You say he punishes people. .’ She lowered her voice. ‘Does he punish justly?’

Simon shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But he makes allowances.’

‘Allowances?’

‘He confronted the assistant prison governor in his office. That was audacious and it would have been much easier for him and a lot less risky if he had sought Franck out at his home.’

‘But?’

‘But it would have brought Franck’s wife and child into the firing line.’

‘Innocent bystanders. He doesn’t want the innocent to get hurt.’

Simon nodded slowly. He saw something happen in her eyes. A spark. A hope. Was it really that simple? Was she in love? Simon straightened his back. Looked up at the altarpiece which showed the Saviour on the cross. Closed his eyes. Opened them again. To hell with it. To hell with it all.

‘Do you know what his father, Ab, used to say?’ he said, hoisting up his trousers. ‘He said that the age of mercy is over and that the day of judgement has arrived. But as the Messiah is running late, we have to do his job for him. He alone can punish them, Martha. Oslo Police is corrupt, they’re protecting the crooks. I think Sonny is doing this because he feels he owes it to his father, that this is what his father died for. Justice. The kind of justice which is above the law.’

He watched the older woman by the confessional box where she was discussing something with a priest in a low voice.

‘And what about you?’ Martha said.

‘Me? I am the law. So I have to catch Sonny. That’s just the way it is.’

‘And that woman, Agnete Iversen, what crime did she commit?’

‘I can’t tell you anything about her.’

‘I read that her jewellery was stolen.’

‘Did you?’

‘Did that include a pair of pearl earrings?’

‘I don’t know. Is it important?’

She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It isn’t. I was trying to think of anything that might help you.’

‘Thank you,’ Simon said and buttoned his jacket. The hard heels were approaching. ‘You have other things on your mind, I can see.’

Martha quickly glanced up at him.

‘I’ll talk to you later, Martha.’

As Simon left the church, his mobile rang. He looked at the display. The area code told him the call was coming from Drammen.

‘Kefas.’

‘It’s Henrik Westad.’

The police officer who was investigating the murder of the shipping owner’s wife.

‘I’m at the Cardiology Unit at Buskerud Central Hospital.’

Simon could guess what was coming next.

‘Leif Krogn?ss, our witness with heart trouble. They thought he was out of danger, but. .’

‘He died suddenly,’ Simon said, sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. ‘He was alone in the ward when it happened. The post-mortem won’t find any abnormalities. And you’re calling me because you don’t want to be the only one who can’t sleep tonight.’

Westad didn’t reply.

Simon put the mobile in his pocket. The wind was rising and he looked up at the sky above the roofs. He couldn’t see it yet, but he could tell from his headache. A low pressure system was heading his way.

The motorbike in front of Rover was about to rise from the dead. It was a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail, the 1989 model, with a huge front wheel, Rover’s favourite. When he got it, it had been a dilapidated 1340cc wreck whose owner had treated it without the love, patience and understanding which an HD — in contrast to its more pliable Japanese cousins — demanded. Rover had replaced the crank bearing, the big-end bearing, the piston rings and reseated the valves, and very little of the original was left as the bike was transformed into a 1700cc with 119 b.h.p. to the rear wheel, which used to have only 43. Rover was wiping oil off the forearm with a tattoo of a cathedral when he noticed a change in the light. His first thought was that it was clouding over like the weather forecast had promised. But when he looked up, he noticed a shadow and a silhouette in the doorway to his workshop.

‘Yes?’ Rover called out and continued to rub oil off his arm.

The man started walking towards him. Silently. Like a predator. Rover knew that the nearest weapon was too far away for him to be able to reach it in time. And that was how it should be. He was done with that way of life. It was bullshit when people said it was hard not to fall back into your bad old ways once you were out of prison; it was just a question of willpower. It was that simple. If you wanted to, you could do it. But if your intention was merely an illusion, wishful thinking, just something to dress yourself up in, then you would be back in the gutter on day two.

The man was now so close that Rover could make out his facial features. But surely that was. .

‘Hello, Rover.’

It was him.

He held up a yellowing business card saying ‘Rover’s Motorcycle Workshop’.

‘The address was right. You said you could get me an Uzi.’

Rover was now wiping his hands while he stared at him. He had read the newspapers. Seen the picture on TV. But what he was staring at now wasn’t the boy from the cell at Staten, it was his own future. The future as he had imagined it.

‘You took out Nestor,’ Rover said, pulling the rag between his fingers.

The boy made no reply.

Rover shook his head. ‘That means it’s not just the police who are looking for you, but the Twin as well.’

‘I know I’m trouble,’ the boy said. ‘I’ll leave immediately if that’s what you want.’

Forgiveness. Hope. A clean break. A second chance. Most people blew it, they continued making the same stupid mistakes their whole lives, they could always find an excuse to screw things up. They didn’t know it themselves, or they pretended not to, but they had lost before they had even started. Because they didn’t really want to succeed. But Rover wanted to. It wasn’t that that was going to bring him down. He was stronger now. Wiser. But that said: if you’re going to walk with your head held high, there’s always a chance of falling flat on your face.

‘Why don’t we close the garage door?’ Rover said. ‘It looks like rain.’