The Son

40

Betty entered the crowded pharmacy, tore off a numbered ticket where it said ‘Prescriptions’, and found a vacant chair along the wall among customers who were staring into space or, despite the sign prohibiting their use, pressing keys on their mobiles. She had convinced her doctor to write a prescription for stronger sleeping pills.

‘These are hard-core benzodiazepines and only for short-term use,’ he had said and repeated what she already knew; that their use created a vicious cycle which could lead to dependency and which didn’t get to the root of the problem. Betty had replied that the root of the problem was that she couldn’t sleep. Especially not after she had realised that she had been alone in a room with the country’s most wanted killer. A man who had shot a woman in her own home in Holmenkollasen. And today the newspaper said that he was also suspected of the murder of a shipowner’s wife, that he had entered a house apparently chosen at random outside Drammen and nearly sawn off the top of her head. In the last few days Betty had wandered around like a zombie, half awake, half asleep, hallucinating. She saw his face everywhere, not just in the newspapers and on the TV, but on advertisements, on the tram, in reflections in shop windows. He was the postman, her neighbour, the waiter.

And now she saw him in here, too.

He was standing by the counter wearing a white turban or perhaps it was just a bandage around his head. He had put down a pile of disposable syringes and hypodermic needles on the counter and paid cash. The grainy pictures in the newspapers weren’t terribly helpful, but Betty noticed that the woman on the chair next to her whispered something to her companion while she pointed at the man, so perhaps she had also recognised him. But when the man with the turban turned round and walked towards the exit, his body twisting to one side, Betty realised that she was seeing things again.

The ashen, withdrawn and stony face looked nothing like the face she had seen in Suite 4.

Kari leaned forward to read the numbers while she drove slowly past the large houses. She had made up her mind after a sleepless night. Sam — whom she had also kept awake — had said that Kari shouldn’t take a job she didn’t intend to stay in so seriously. It was true, of course, but ultimately Kari liked order. And this could affect her future, it could close doors to her. So she had reached the decision to make a direct approach.

She stopped the car. This was the right number.

She wondered if she should drive through the open gate and up to the house, but decided to park in the street. She walked up the steep tarmac drive. A sprinkler was whistling in the garden; apart from that it was completely quiet.

She climbed the steps and rang the bell. Heard fierce barking coming from the other side. She waited. No one came. She turned round and was about to walk down the steps, and there he was. The sun reflected in his rectangular spectacles. He must have come from behind the house and the garage; he must have moved quickly and quietly.

‘Yes?’

He had his hands behind his back.

‘I’m Officer Kari Adel. I’d like to talk to you about something.’

‘And what might that be?’ He stuck his hands behind the belt at the back as if to hoist up the beige chinos or pull out his shirt, after all it was a very hot summer’s day. Or to stick a gun behind his belt and pull his shirt over it so it wouldn’t show.

‘Simon Kefas.’

‘I see. And why have you come directly to me?’

Kari rolled her head from side to side. ‘Simon led me to believe that I risked leaks if I took the traditional route. He still believes there’s a mole in our ranks.’

‘Does he now?’

‘And that’s why I thought it was best to come straight to the top. To you, Commissioner.’

‘Well, well,’ Pontius Parr said, rubbing his narrow chin. ‘Then we’d better go inside, Officer Adel.’

A happy Airedale terrier jumped up at Kari in the hall.

‘Willoch! We’ve talked about this. .’

The dog dropped down on all fours and limited itself to licking Kari’s hand while its tail went like a propeller. As they walked into the living room, Kari explained that she had been told that the Commissioner was working from home today.

‘I’m skiving,’ Parr smiled and extended his hand towards a large, inviting sofa covered with scatter cushions. ‘I was meant to start my summer holiday this week, but with this killer on the loose. .’ He sighed and dropped down on one of the matching armchairs. ‘So what’s this about Simon?’

Kari cleared her throat. She had planned what she had to say with all sorts of reservations and assurances that she hadn’t come to tell tales, only ensure the quality of their work. But now, as she sat here with Parr who seemed so relaxed and welcoming, who had even admitted that he was skiving, it felt more natural to get straight to the point.

‘Simon is on a mission of his own,’ she said.

The Commissioner raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on.’

‘We’re investigating the case in parallel with Kripos, we’re not working with them, and now he’s stopped working with me as well. That’s fine, but the problem is that he appears to have some sort of agenda. And I don’t want to go down with him if he’s doing something illegal. He’s asked me to stay out of certain situations and stated quite plainly that he doesn’t intend to play by the rules.’

‘I see. And when was this?’

Kari gave him a brief summary of the meeting with Iver Iversen.

‘Hmmmm,’ Parr said, hanging on the ‘m’ forever. ‘That’s not good. I know Simon, and I wish I could say that this doesn’t sound anything like him. But it does, unfortunately. What do you think his agenda is?’

‘He wants to catch Sonny Lofthus single-handedly.’

Parr rested his chin between his thumb and forefinger. ‘I see. Who else knows about this?’

‘No one. I came straight here.’

‘Good. Promise me that you won’t mention it to anyone else. This is a delicate matter, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. Everyone’s eyes are on the police right now and we can’t afford to have individual officers behaving unprofessionally.’

‘Of course, I understand.’

‘Leave it with me. We’ll never mention your involvement. This meeting never happened. It may sound dramatic, but in this way, you won’t risk being labelled a snitch by your colleagues. Such names tend to stick.’

Tend to stick. She hadn’t thought about that. Kari swallowed and nodded quickly. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘Not at all. Thank you, Adel. You’ve done the right thing. Now go back to work and carry on as if nothing’s happened, as they say.’ The Commissioner stood up. ‘I have to get back to doing nothing, I’m supposed to be working from home.’

Kari got up, happy and relieved that this had proved to be far more pain-free than she’d hoped.

Parr stopped in the doorway. ‘Where is Simon now?’

‘I don’t know, he just walked away from the crime scene where we found the car and the body last night, and no one has seen him since.’

‘Hm. So you’ve no idea?’

‘The last thing I did was give him a list of hotels where Lofthus might be staying.’

‘Based on what?’

‘That he pays cash. Hardly anyone does these days.’

‘Clever. Good luck.’

‘Thank you.’

Kari walked down the steps and was level with the sprinkler when she heard footsteps behind her. It was Parr.

‘Just one more thing,’ he said. ‘Based on what I’m hearing, I understand there’s a possibility that it might be you yourself who’ll finally track down Lofthus for us.’

‘Yes,’ Kari said and knew it sounded as conceited as she had intended.

‘If that were to happen, then remember that he’s armed and dangerous. That you’ll be treated sympathetically if you or several of your colleagues are forced to defend yourselves.’

Kari brushed aside the usual stray hairs. ‘Just what exactly does that mean?’

‘Just that the threshold for an armed response to stop this killer is low. Remember, he’s already tortured one public servant.’

Kari could feel the wind blow a fine spray of water. ‘Very well,’ she said.

‘I’ll have a word with the head of Kripos,’ Parr said. ‘It might be an idea for you and Asmund Bjornstad to work together as a team on this investigation. I do believe you have the same understanding of the situation.’

Simon stared into the mirror. The years were passing. The hours were passing. He wasn’t the man he had been fifteen years ago. He wasn’t even the man he was seventy-two hours ago. Once he had believed he was invincible. Once he had believed he was scum. He had come to the conclusion that he was neither, that he was a human being of flesh and blood, with the potential to do the right thing. Or let himself be ruled by his basest instincts.

But did that mean that he, or anyone, had free will? Wouldn’t we all, given the same mathematical equation, the same odds, the same probability of what paid off, make the same choices over and over? People claimed that you could change your values, a woman might come into your life, you might grow wiser and reach a new appreciation of what really mattered. Yes, but only because those other things had become important, all that had happened was that the numbers in the equation had changed, you still solved it in the same way. You would then have made those new choices over and over. Determined by the composition of chemical substances in your brain, available information, survival instinct, sexual urges, mortal fear, learned morality and herd instinct. We don’t punish people because they are evil, but because they make bad choices, choices that are bad for the herd. Morality isn’t heaven-sent or eternal, just a set of rules that benefit the herd. And those who are incapable of following the rules, the accepted pattern of behaviour, will never be able to conform because they have no free will; it’s an illusion. Like the rest of us, lawbreakers just do what they do. That is why they must be eliminated to ensure they don’t procreate and so infect the herd with their negative behaviour genes.

Simon Kefas thought that what he was looking at in the mirror was a robot. Complex and complicated and filled with possibilities. But a robot all the same.

So what did the boy want to avenge? What did he hope to achieve? Save a world that didn’t want to be saved? Exterminate all the things we won’t admit we need? Because who can bear to live in a world without crime, without the idiotic rebellion of the stupid, without the irrational ones who bring about movement, change? Without the hope of a better — or a worse — world. This hellish restlessness, the shark’s need for constant movement to get oxygen.

‘This moment is fine. Let us stay as we are. Just like this.’ Only it never happened.

Simon heard footsteps. He checked that his pistol’s safety catch was off.

The key was turned in the lock.

The footsteps sounded quick. Someone was in a hurry. He counted the seconds without taking his eyes off his face in the mirror over the sink in the bathroom. The boy, having seen that everything was exactly as when he left the room, would relax and drop his guard. He might come in here, but by then he would have put down any weapons. Simon kept counting.

On twenty he opened the door and stepped out, holding his pistol.

The boy was sitting on the bed.

He had a bandage around his head. In front of him on the floor lay the briefcase from the wardrobe. It was opened and filled with bags of white powder which Simon recognised instantly. The boy had cut a hole in one of them. In his left hand he held a teaspoon with white powder, in the other a lit lighter. On the bed lay a pile of disposable syringes and a sheet of hypodermic needles.

‘Who shoots first?’ the boy asked.