The Son

37

It was two o’clock in the morning and the summer night was at its darkest.

From the deserted viewpoint in the forest clearing above Oslo, Simon could see the fjord shimmer dully beneath the large yellow moon.

‘Well?’

Simon pulled his coat more tightly around him as if he was cold. ‘I used to bring the first girl I was in love with to this very spot. Just to look at the view. To make out. You know. .’

He saw Kari shift her weight.

‘We had nowhere else to go. And many years later when Else and I got together, I would bring her here, too. Even though we had a flat and a double bed. It felt so. . romantic and innocent. It was like being just as much in love as the first time.’

‘Simon. .’

Simon turned round and viewed the scene again. The police cars with the flashing blue lights, the cordons and the blue Honda Civic with the broken windscreen and a dead man lying at an unnatural angle, to put it mildly, in the passenger seat. There were many police officers here. Too many. Panic many.

For once the medical examiner had beaten him to a crime scene and he surmised that the victim had broken both legs in a vehicle collision, been flung over the hood and into the car where he had broken his neck when he collided with the seat. However, the medical examiner had thought it was odd that the victim had sustained no facial injuries after his encounter with the windscreen, until Simon had picked a shot out of the seat upholstery. Simon had also requested an analysis of the blood found on the driver’s seat, as the pattern didn’t match the cuts to the victim’s legs.

‘So he specifically asked us to attend?’ Simon said, nodding towards Asmund Bjornstad, who was standing near a CSO and waving his hands as he spoke.

‘Yes,’ Kari said. ‘Because the car is registered to Kjersti Morsand, who is one of Lofthus’s victims, he wanted to-’

‘Suspected.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Lofthus is merely suspected of killing Kjersti Morsand. Has anyone talked to Yngve Morsand?’

‘He says he doesn’t know anything; he’s staying at a hotel in Oslo tonight, and the last time he saw the car it was in his garage. Police in Drammen say it looks as if there’s been a shooting at his house. Unfortunately the nearest neighbour is a long way away, so there are no witnesses.’

Asmund Bjornstad walked up to them. ‘We now know who the guy in the passenger seat is. Evgeni Zubov. A known offender. And police in Drammen say there are nine x 19mm Luger bullets in the floorboards of the house, spread in a fan formation.’

‘An Uzi?’ Simon said, raising an eyebrow.

‘What do you think I should say to the press?’ Asmund said, gesticulating with a thumb over his shoulder. The first reporters were already hanging around the police tape by the road.

‘The usual,’ Simon said. ‘Tell them something, but don’t give them anything.’

Bjornstad heaved a sigh. ‘They won’t leave us alone. When are we meant to get time to work? I hate them.’

‘They have a job to do as well,’ Simon said.

‘The papers are turning him into a celebrity, did you know that?’ Kari said as they watched the young inspector walk towards a sea of flashlights.

‘Well, he’s a talented investigator,’ Simon said.

‘Not Bjornstad. Sonny Lofthus.’

Simon turned to her in surprise. ‘Are they?’

‘They call him a modern-day terrorist. They say he has declared war on organised crime and capitalism. That he’s ridding society of parasites.’

‘But he’s a criminal himself.’

‘It only makes the story even more juicy. Don’t you ever read the papers?’

‘No.’

‘And you don’t answer your phone, either. I’ve tried calling you.’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Busy? Oslo has been turned upside down by these murders, and you’re not in the office and you’re not in the field. You’re supposed to be my boss, Simon.’

‘Message received and understood. What was it?’

Kari took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been thinking: Lofthus is one of very few adults in this country who doesn’t have a bank account, a credit card or a registered address. But we know that he has enough cash from the Kalle Farrisen murder to stay in a hotel.’

‘He paid cash at the Plaza.’

‘Precisely. So I checked the hotels. Out of the 20,000 guests who stay in hotels in Oslo every night, on average only six hundred pay cash.’

Simon stared at her. ‘Can you find out how many of those six hundred are staying in Kvadraturen?’

‘Er, yes. Here’s the list of the hotels.’ She took a printout from her jacket pocket. ‘Why?’

Simon took the printout with one hand while putting on his reading glasses with the other, unfolded the sheets and skimmed them. Looked at the addresses. One hotel. Two. Three. Six. And several of them with guests who had paid cash, especially the cheap ones. There were still too many names. And he guessed that some of the cheapest ones weren’t even listed. Simon suddenly stopped reading.

Cheap.

The woman who had tapped on his window. A lovers’ meeting in the car, at Akershus Fortress or. . at the Bismarck. The hotel of choice for Oslo’s prostitutes. Right in the middle of Kvadraturen.

‘I asked you why.’

‘Keep following up that lead, I have to go.’ Simon started walking towards the car.

‘Wait!’ Kari called out and blocked his path. ‘Don’t you dare run off now. What’s going on?’

‘Going on?’

‘You’re on some sort of mission here. It’s not on.’ Kari brushed some strands of hair away from her face.

Simon could see it now; she was exhausted as well.

‘I don’t know what this is about,’ she said. ‘If you want to save the day, be a hero in the twilight of your career, prove Bjornstad and Kripos wrong. But it’s unacceptable, Simon. This case is too big to be a pissing contest for a bunch of overgrown boys.’

Simon looked at her for a long time. And, finally, he nodded slowly. ‘You might be right. But my motives are not what you think.’

‘Then tell me what they are.’

‘I can’t, Kari. You’ll just have to trust me.’

‘When we went to see Iversen, you said I had to wait outside because you were thinking of breaking the rules. I don’t want to break the rules, Simon. I just want to do my job. So if you don’t tell me what this is about. .’ Her voice was quivering. Definitely tired, Simon thought. ‘. . then I’ll have to go to someone higher up and tell them what’s going on.’

Simon shook his head. ‘Don’t do it, Kari.’

‘And why not?’

‘Because,’ Simon said, found her gaze and fixed it. ‘The mole is still there. Give me twenty-four hours. Please.’

Simon didn’t wait for her reply. It wouldn’t make any difference. He walked past her and towards his car. He felt her eyes on his back.

On his way down the hills from Holmenkollasen Simon played the soundtrack from the short phone conversation with Sonny. The rhythmic pounding. The exaggerated moaning. The thin walls in the Bismarck Hotel. How could he have failed to recognise that sound?

Simon looked down at the boy behind the reception counter who was studying his warrant card. So many years had passed and yet nothing had changed at the Bismarck. Apart from the boy; he hadn’t sat there back then. And that was all right with him.

‘Yes, I can see you’re a police officer, but I don’t really have a guestbook I can show you.’

‘He looks like this,’ Simon said, putting the photograph on the counter.

The boy studied it. He hesitated.

‘The alternative is that we raid the building and shut the whole place down,’ Simon said. ‘What do you think your father would say if you got his brothel closed down?’

The family resemblance hadn’t deceived him, he had been right.

‘He’s on the second floor. Room 216. You walk-’

‘I’ll find it. Give me a key.’

Again, the boy looked reluctant. Then he opened the drawer, removed a key from a big bundle and handed it to Simon. ‘But we don’t want any trouble.’

Simon walked past the lift and took the steps two at a time. He listened out as he walked down the corridor. It was quiet now. Outside room 216 he took out his Glock. Placed his finger on the two-part double-action trigger. Inserted the key as noiselessly as he could into the lock and turned it. Positioned himself at the side of the door with the pistol in his right hand and opened it with his left hand. Counted to four and stuck his head out and back in one quick movement. He exhaled.

It was dark inside, the curtains were closed, but it was light enough for Simon to have caught a glimpse of the bed.

It was made up and empty.

He went inside to check the bathroom. A toothbrush and some toothpaste.

He went back to the bedroom, didn’t turn on the light, but sat down in the redundant chair near the wall. Took out his phone and pressed some buttons. A beeping began somewhere in the room. Simon opened the wardrobe. On top of a briefcase a mobile was glowing at him with his own number shown in the display.

Simon pressed end call and sank back in the chair.

The boy had deliberately left his phone behind so that he couldn’t be traced. But he probably hadn’t expected anyone to find it in a densely populated area such as this. Simon listened out into the darkness. Listened to a clock counting down.

Markus was still awake when he saw the Son coming down the road.

Markus had had the yellow house under surveillance ever since that other person had arrived some hours ago; he hadn’t even changed into his pyjamas, he didn’t want to miss a thing.

He recognised the Son from the way he moved as he walked in the middle of the quiet, night-time street and the street lights swept over him as he passed underneath them. He seemed tired, perhaps he had walked far, because he was staggering. Markus found him in his binoculars. He was wearing a suit, clutching his side and had a red handkerchief tied around his forehead. Was that blood on his face? Never mind, he must warn him. Markus opened his bedroom door carefully, tiptoed down the stairs, put on his shoes and ran down to the gate across the patchy, worn grass.

The Son noticed him and stopped right in front of the gate to his own house.

‘Hello, Markus. Shouldn’t you be in bed?’

His voice was calm and soft. He looked like he had been in the wars, but he spoke as if he was telling him a bedtime story. Markus decided he too would speak with a voice like that when he grew up and had stopped being scared.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘Someone bumped into me when I was driving,’ the Son smiled. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘There’s someone in your house.’

‘Oh?’ the Son said, turning to the shiny black windows. ‘Good guys or bad guys?’

Markus gulped. He had seen the photo on TV. But he had also heard his mother say that there was nothing to be scared of, that he only hurt bad people. And on Twitter several people were praising him, tweeting that the police should just let baddies kill baddies, that it was like using predators for pest control.

‘Neither, I think.’

‘Oh?’

Martha woke up when someone entered the room.

She had been dreaming. Dreaming about the woman in the attic. About the baby. That she saw the baby, that it was alive, that it had been there the whole time, trapped in the basement where it had been crying and crying while it waited to be let out. And now it was out. It was here.

‘Martha?’

His voice, his lovely, calm voice sounded incredulous.

She turned over in the bed and looked at him.

‘You said I could come,’ she said. ‘There was no one to let me in, but I knew where the key was, so. .’

‘You came.’

She nodded. ‘I took this room, I hope it’s OK.’

He just nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘The mattress was on the floor,’ she said and stretched. ‘By the way, a book fell through the slats as I was putting the mattress back on the bed. I put it on the table over there.’

‘OK?’

‘What was the mattress doing-’

‘I was hiding under it,’ he said without taking his eyes off her. ‘When I crawled out, I just eased it down on the floor and left it. What have you got there?’

He raised the hand with which he had been clutching his side and touched one of her ears. She didn’t reply. She let him feel the earring. A gust of wind moved the curtains she had put up after finding them in the blanket box. A beam of moonlight crept in, caught his hand and face. She froze.

‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ he said.

‘No, not the cut to your forehead. But you’re bleeding somewhere else. Where?’

He pulled his jacket to one side and showed her. The right side of his shirt was soaked with blood.

‘What was it?’

‘A bullet. It just nipped me and went straight through. Completely harmless, it’s just a little blood, it’ll soon-’

‘Shh,’ she said and kicked off the duvet, took his hand and led him to the bathroom. Ignoring the fact that he could see her in her underwear while she searched through the medicine cabinet. Found some twelve-year-old disinfectant, two rolls of bandages, some cotton wool and a pair of small scissors. She made him strip from the waist up.

‘As you can see it’s just a dent in my spare tyre,’ he smiled.

She had seen worse. She had seen better. She cleaned his injuries and taped cotton wool over the holes where the projectile had entered and exited. Then she wrapped a bandage around his waist. When she untied the handkerchief around his forehead, fresh blood started trickling from underneath the scab immediately.

‘Did your mother have a sewing kit anywhere?’

‘I don’t need-’

‘I said shh.’

It took four minutes and four stitches to sew the broken skin together.

‘I saw the briefcase in the passage,’ he said while she rolled several layers of gauze around his head.

‘That’s not my money. And the council has allocated us enough funds for the renovation work, so thanks but no thanks.’ She taped the edges in place and stroked his cheek. ‘There, that ought to-’

He kissed her. Right on the lips. Then he let go of her.

‘I love you.’

Then he kissed her again.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

‘You don’t believe I love you?’

‘I don’t believe you’ve kissed other girls. You’re a lousy kisser.’

The laughter made his eyes sparkle. ‘It’s been a long time. Remind me, please?’

‘Don’t worry about getting it right. Just let it happen. Kiss me lazily.’

‘Lazily?’

‘Like a soft, sleepy snake. Like this.’

She cradled his head gently between her hands and raised her lips to his. And it struck her how strangely natural it felt, as if they were two children playing an exciting but innocent game. And he trusted her. Like she trusted him.

‘Do you see?’ she whispered. ‘More lips, less tongue.’

‘More clutch, less gas?’

She giggled. ‘Exactly. Let’s go to bed.’

‘What will happen there?’

‘We’ll just have to see. How’s your side? Will it be all right?’

‘All right for what?’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me.’

He kissed her again. ‘Are you sure?’ he whispered.

‘No. So if we wait too long. .’

‘Let’s go to bed.’

Rover got up and straightened his back with a groan. In his excitement he had failed to notice that his back had seized up; it was like when he made love to Janne, who stopped by from time to time to ‘see what he was up to’. He had tried explaining that tinkering with the motorbike and tinkering with her had many similarities. That you could keep going in the same fixed position without being aware of aching muscles or time passing. But when you were done, then it was payback time. She had enjoyed the comparison. That was so like her.

Rover wiped his hands. The job was complete. The last thing he had done was attach a new exhaust pipe to the Harley-Davidson. It was like crossing the ‘t’ and dotting the ‘i’. Like when the piano tuner plays a piano he has just tuned. Just for the sheer fun of it. You could produce an extra 20 b.h.p. simply from modifying the exhaust pipe and the air filter, but everyone knew that the exhaust pipe was mainly about the sound. Getting it to produce that lovely, burring, juicy bass which didn’t sound like anything else Rover had ever heard. Of course he could turn the key right away in order to listen to the music of the engine to confirm everything he already knew. Or he could save it for tomorrow morning, like a present to himself. Janne always said that you should never postpone your pleasures, that there was no guarantee that you would live another day. He guessed that was Janne being Janne.

Rover wiped the oil off his fingers with the rag and went to the back room to wash his hands. Looked at himself in the mirror. The oil smears on his face that looked like warpaint and the gold tooth. As usual he noticed how other needs announced themselves now that he was done; food, drink, rest. It was a great feeling. But there was also the strange emptiness that followed such an achievement. A ‘Now what?’ A ‘What’s the point of it all?’ He chased the thoughts away. Looked at the warm water pouring from the tap. Then he stopped. Turned off the water. A sound had come from outside the garage. Janne? Now?

‘I love you too,’ Martha said.

At one point he had stopped — both of them panting, sweating, flushed — dried the sweat between her breasts with the sheet which she had pulled off the mattress, and said that they might find them here, that it was dangerous. And she had replied that she didn’t scare easily once she had made up her mind. And that incidentally — if they really had to talk — she loved him.

‘I love you.’

Then they carried on.

‘It’s one thing for you to stop supplying me with weapons,’ the man said as he peeled the thin glove off his hand. It was the biggest hand Rover had ever seen. ‘It’s another when you start supplying my enemy, yes?’

Rover didn’t struggle. He was being held by two men; a third was standing next to the big man, aiming a pistol at Rover’s forehead. A pistol Rover knew only too well because he had modified it himself.

‘Giving that boy an Uzi is like telling me to go to hell. Was that what you wanted? To send me to hell?’

Rover could have replied. Said that given what he already knew about the Twin, he guessed that was where he had come from in the first place.

But he didn’t. He wanted to live. Just for a few more seconds.

He looked at the motorbike behind the big man.

Janne had been right. He should have started it. Closed his eyes and listened. He should have stopped to smell the flowers. It’s such an obvious truth, it’s so hackneyed and yet so impossible to comprehend until you stand at the threshold and you realise how banal it really is: that the only guarantee you have in life is that you’re going to die.

The man put his gloves down on the worktop. They looked like used condoms. ‘Now let me see. .’ he said, glancing around at the tools mounted on the walls. He pointed a finger at them as he chanted in a low voice: ‘Eeny, meeny, miney. .’