The Son

PART FIVE
42

At 6.35 A.M., beatrice Jonasen, receptionist at Tomte amp; Ohre Solicitors, strangled a yawn while she tried to remember what film the woman in the trench coat in front of her reminded her of. Something with Audrey Hepburn. Breakfast at Tiffany’s? The woman also wore a silk scarf and sunglasses that gave her a sixties look. She placed a bag on the counter, said it was for Jan Ohre as arranged, and left.

Half an hour later the sun bounced off the windows of Oslo town hall’s red-brick facade, the first ferries docked at Aker Brygge and commuters from Nesoddtangen, Son and Drobak poured ashore on their way to work. It was going to be another cloudless day, but there was a crispness in the air, a hint that not even this summer would last forever. Two men walked side by side along the promenade between the piers, passing restaurants with chairs still upside down on tables, clothes shops that wouldn’t open for another couple of hours and street vendors unpacking and preparing for the last onslaught on the capital’s tourists. The younger of the two men was wearing an elegant, but crumpled and stained, grey suit. The older wore a checked jacket bought in a sale at Dressmann and trousers that matched it only in terms of price. They wore identical sunglasses bought at a petrol station twenty minutes earlier, and were carrying identical briefcases.

The two men turned into a deserted alleyway. Fifty metres into it they walked down a narrow iron staircase to the modest door of a restaurant which, judging by the discreet sign, appeared to serve fish and seafood. The older man tried the door, but found it was locked. He knocked. A face, distorted as if in a funfair mirror, appeared on the other side of the porthole in the door. The lips moved and the words sounded as if they came from underwater: ‘Hold up your hands where I can see them.’

They did as he said and the door was opened.

The man was blond and stocky. The pair looked down at the pistol he was pointing at them.

‘Nice to see you again,’ said the older man in the checked jacket and pushed his sunglasses up on his forehead.

‘Come in,’ the blond man said.

They entered and two men in black suits immediately started patting them down while the blond man leaned casually against the cloakroom counter, but without ever lowering his pistol.

A pistol was taken from the older man’s shoulder holster and handed to the blond man.

‘This one’s clean,’ said the other man in the black suit, nodding towards the young man. ‘But he has some bandage thing round his waist.’

The blond man stared at the young man. ‘So you’re, like, the Buddha with the Sword, yeah? The Angel from Hell, eh?’ The young man said nothing. The blond man spat on the floor in front of his shiny, black Vass shoes. ‘Good nickname — looks like someone stitched a fucking crucifix on your forehead.’

‘And on yours.’

The blond man frowned. ‘What the fuck do you mean, Buddha?’

‘Can’t you feel it?’

The blond man took a step forward and raised himself up on his toes so that their noses almost touched.

‘Now now,’ the older man said.

‘Shut up, grandad,’ the blond man said, pulling aside the young man’s jacket and shirt. His fingers slowly probed the bandage around his waist.

‘Here?’ he asked when his hand had reached the young man’s side.

Two beads of sweat appeared on the young man’s forehead above his sunglasses. The blond man prodded the bandage. The young man opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

The blond man snarled. ‘Yep, here it is.’ He dug his fingers in, squeezed the flesh and pulled.

A hoarse rattling came from the young man.

‘Bo, he’s waiting,’ one of the others reminded him.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ the blond man said softly without taking his eyes off the young man who was gasping for air. The blond man pressed harder. A single tear rolled down the pale cheek under the young man’s sunglasses.

‘Greetings from Sylvester and Evgeni,’ the blond man whispered. Then he released his grip and turned to the others.

‘Take their briefcases and bring them in.’

The new arrivals handed over their briefcases and entered the dining room.

The older man instinctively slowed down.

The silhouette of a man, a big man, was outlined against the green light from the aquarium where colourful fish darted back and forth and a crystal sparkled on a large white stone with long grasses that waved in the current from the bubbles. Lobsters with wired claws lay on the bottom.

‘Like I promised you. .’ the older man whispered. ‘Here he is.’

‘But where’s the mole?’ the young man said.

‘Trust me, he’ll be here.’

‘Chief Inspector Simon Kefas,’ the big man thundered. ‘And Sonny Lofthus. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Sit down.’

The young man moved more stiffly than the older as they stepped forward and took their seats opposite the big man.

Another man slipped in silently through the swing door to the kitchen. Broad-shouldered and with a bull neck like the other three. ‘They came alone,’ he said and positioned himself with the rest of the welcoming committee so that they formed a semicircle behind the two newcomers.

‘Too bright for you in here, is it?’ said the big man, addressing the young man who was still wearing his sunglasses.

‘I can see everything I want to see, thank you,’ the young man replied in a deadpan voice.

‘Good answer — I wish I had your young, fresh eyes.’ The big man pointed to his own eyes. ‘Did you know that the eyes’ sensitivity to light is reduced by thirty per cent before you’ve even turned fifty? Viewed like that life is a journey towards the darkness, not the light, yes? No pun intended as far as your wife is concerned, Chief Inspector Kefas. That’s why we have to learn to navigate life without being able to see as soon as we can. We must acquire the mole’s ability to use our other senses to see what obstacles and threats lie ahead of us, yes?’

He flung his arms out. It was like watching a JCB with two buckets.

‘Or you could, of course, buy yourself a mole to see for you. The problem with moles is that they tend to stay underground, so they’re easy to lose. That’s how I lost mine. No idea what happened to him. And I understand that you’ve been looking for him as well, yes?’

The young man shrugged.

‘Let me guess. Kefas talked you into coming here by promising you the mole, yes?’

The older man cleared his throat. ‘Sonny is here of his own volition because he wants to make peace. He thinks he has avenged his father. And that the parties should now go their separate ways. In order to show that he’s serious, he’s prepared to give back the money and the drugs he took. In return, the hunt for him will be called off. Could we have the briefcases, please?’

The big man nodded to the blond man who put the two briefcases on the table. The older man reached for one of the briefcases, but the blond man pushed his hand away.

‘As you wish,’ said the older man, holding up his palms. ‘I just wanted to show you that Mr Lofthus has brought you a third of the drugs and a third of the money for now. You’ll get the rest when he has your promise of a truce and gets to walk out of here alive.’

Kari switched off the ignition in the car. Looked up at the neon sign of the former shipyard where red letters spelled out A-k-e-r B-r-y-g-g-e. People were flowing out from the ferry which had just arrived.

‘Is it really safe for the Commissioner to meet with criminals without backup?’

‘Like a friend of mine used to say,’ Pontius Parr replied, checking his pistol before he put it back in the shoulder holster, ‘no risk, no reward.’

‘That sounds like Simon,’ Kari said and looked at the clock at the top of the town hall tower. 7.10.

‘Correct,’ Parr said. ‘And do you know something, Adel? I have a feeling today will earn us many plaudits. I want you to accompany me to the press conference afterwards. The Commissioner and the young female officer.’ He smacked his lips as if he was tasting something. ‘Yes, I think that will go down well.’ He opened the passenger door and got out.

Kari almost had to run along the promenade to keep up with him.

‘Well?’ the older man said. ‘Do we have a deal? You get back what was taken from you and Lofthus gets safe passage so he can leave the country.’

‘And you get a small commission for brokering the deal, yes?’ The big man smiled.

‘Exactly.’

‘Mm.’ The big man looked at Simon as if searching for something he couldn’t find. ‘Bo, open the briefcases.’

Bo stepped forward and tried to open the first one. ‘It’s locked, boss.’

‘1,’ the young man said in a soft, almost whispering voice, ‘9-9-9.’

Bo rotated the metal cylinders. Flipped up the lid. Swivelled the briefcase around to his boss.

‘There we are,’ the big man said, holding up one of the white bags. ‘A third. And where is the rest?’

‘In a secret location,’ the older man said.

‘Of course it is. And the code to the briefcase with the money?’

‘The same,’ the young man said.

‘1999. The year your father passed away, yes?’

The young man said nothing.

‘OK?’ said the older man, forcing a smile and clapping his hands. ‘Can we go now?’

‘I thought we would eat together,’ the big man said. ‘You like lobster, don’t you?’

No reactions.

He sighed. ‘Frankly, I don’t like lobster, either. But do you know something? I still eat it. Why? Because it’s expected of a man in my position.’ The suit jacket pulled back from his mighty chest as he threw his arms out. ‘Lobster, caviar, champagne. Ferraris with missing spare parts, ex-models demanding divorce settlements. The loneliness on the yacht, the heat of the Seychelles. We do a lot of things we don’t really want to, yes? But it’s necessary to keep up the motivation. Not mine, but the motivation of the people who work for me. They need to see these symbols of success — of what I have achieved, of what they can achieve, if they do their job, yes?’

The big man stuck a cigarette in between his fleshy lips. The cigarette looked strangely small against his big head. ‘But, of course, these status symbols are also there to remind potential rivals and opponents of my power. It’s the same with violence and brutality. I don’t like it. But sometimes it’s necessary to maintain motivation. Incentivise people to pay me what they owe me. Induce them not to work against me. .’ He lit the cigarette with a pistol lighter. ‘For example, there was a man who used to modify weapons for me. He retired. I accept that a man would rather fix motorbikes than make guns. What I can’t accept is that he then gives an Uzi to someone he knows has already killed several of my men.’

The big man tapped the aquarium glass.

The young and the older man’s gaze followed his finger. The young man jumped in his chair. The older man just stared.

The white stone with the undulating grass growing from it. It wasn’t a stone. And the reflection didn’t come from a crystal. But from a gold tooth.

‘Now some people might think decapitating a man is excessive, but if you want to instil loyalty in your staff, sometimes you have to go the extra mile. I’m sure you’ll agree with me, Chief Inspector.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ the older man said.

The big man tilted his head and studied him. ‘Trouble hearing, Chief Inspector?’

The older man shifted his gaze from the aquarium back to the big man. ‘Old age, I’m afraid. So if you could speak up, that would be helpful.’

The Twin laughed in surprise. ‘Speak up?’ He took a drag of his cigarette and looked across to the blond man.

‘Did you check them for wires?’

‘Yes, boss. We also checked the restaurant.’

‘Then you’re going deaf, Kefas. What’s going to happen to you and your wife when. . what’s the saying? The blind will be leading the deaf?’

He looked around with his eyebrows raised and the four men immediately burst out laughing.

‘They laugh because they’re scared of me,’ the big man said, addressing the young man. ‘Are you scared, boy?’

The young man said nothing.

The older man glanced at his watch.

Kari glanced at her watch. 7.14. Parr had stressed that they had to be on time.

‘This is it,’ Parr said, pointing to the name at the front. He went up to the door of the restaurant and held it open for Kari.

It was dark and quiet in the cloakroom, but she could hear a voice coming from a room further down the corridor.

Parr took his pistol out of the shoulder holster and signalled to Kari to do the same. She knew stories were going around the station about her performance with the shotgun at Enerhaugen, so she had explained to the Commissioner that she, despite the evidence, was a novice in armed raids. But he had responded that Simon had insisted that she — and only she — should accompany him and added that in nine out of ten cases it was enough to show your warrant card. And in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases enough to show it along with a weapon. Even so, Kari’s heart was pounding wildly as they moved swiftly down the corridor.

The voice fell quiet as they entered the dining room.

‘Police!’ Parr said, aiming the pistol at the people sitting at the only occupied table. Kari had taken two steps to the side and had the bigger of the two men in her sights. For one moment it was completely quiet except for Johnny Cash’s voice and ‘Give My Love to Rose’ pouring out of a small speaker on the wall between the buffet and the stuffed head of a long-horned ox. A steak restaurant serving breakfast. The two men at the table, both wearing pale grey suits, looked at them in surprise. Kari realised that they weren’t the only customers in the bright room after all; at a table by the window overlooking the seafront, an elderly couple looked like they were having a simultaneous heart attack. We must be in the wrong place, Kari thought. This couldn’t possibly be the restaurant Simon wanted them to go to. Then the smaller of the two men dabbed his mouth with his napkin and spoke.

‘Thank you for coming here in person, Commissioner. I can assure you that neither of us is armed or has evil intentions.’

‘Who are you?’ Parr thundered.

‘My name is Jan Ohre, I’m a lawyer and I represent this gentleman, Iver Iversen Senior.’ He extended his hand towards the taller man and Kari immediately recognised the likeness to Iversen Junior.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘The same as you, I presume.’

‘Really? I was told there were criminals on the menu.’

‘And that’s a promise we intend to keep, Parr.’

‘Well,’ the big man said, ‘you should be scared.’

He nodded to the blond man who pulled a slim, long-bladed knife from his belt, took a step forward, put his arm around the young man’s forehead and pressed the knife against his throat.

‘Do you really think I care about you stealing a bit of loose change from me, Lofthus? Forget the money and the drugs. I’ve promised Bo that he gets to cut you into little pieces, and I regard the lost drugs and the money as a good investment. A good investment in motivation, yes? There are several ways we can do this, of course, but you’ll suffer a less painful death if you tell us what you did with Sylvester so that we can give him a Christian burial. So, what’s it to be?’

The young man gulped, but said nothing.

The big man banged the table with his fist so the glasses jumped. ‘Are you deaf as well?’

‘Perhaps he is,’ said the blond man whose face was right by the young man’s ear sticking up under the arm he had wrapped around him. ‘Buddha here is wearing earplugs.’

The others laughed.

The big man shook his head in despair while he scrolled his way to the code on the other briefcase.

‘He’s yours, Bo, cut him up.’ There was a ping when the big man opened the briefcase, but the men were too focused on Bo’s knife to notice the small metal pin falling from the inside of the briefcase and bouncing across the stone floor.

‘Your tiny, clever mother is right about a lot of things, but wrong as far as you’re concerned,’ Simon said. ‘She never should have let the devil’s child suck her tits.’

‘What the h-’ the big man began. His men turned round. In the briefcase, next to a pistol and an Uzi, lay an olive-green object that looked like a handlebar grip of a bicycle.

The big man looked up again, just in time to see the older man flip down the sunglasses from his forehead.

‘It’s correct that I agreed with Chief Inspector Simon Kefas to meet you here with my client,’ Jan Ohre said, having shown Pontius Parr ID to prove that he was indeed a lawyer. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

‘No,’ Pontius Parr said. Kari could see the confusion and anger in Parr’s face. Ohre exchanged glances with his client. ‘Am I to take it that you don’t know about our deal, either?’

‘What deal?’

‘Our plea bargain for a reduced sentence.’

Parr shook his head. ‘All Simon Kefas told me was that I would have a couple of criminals handed to me on a plate. So what’s this about?’

Ohre was about to reply when Iver Iversen leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Ohre nodded and Iversen sat back in his chair again and closed his eyes. Kari studied him. He looked broken, she thought. Beaten, resigned.

Ohre cleared his throat. ‘Chief Inspector Kefas believes he has some. . eh, evidence against my client and his late wife. It concerns a number of property transactions with a party by the name of Levi Thou. Perhaps better known by his nickname, the Twin.’

Thou, Kari thought. Not a common name, and yet she had heard it recently. Someone she had said hello to. Someone at the police station.

‘Kefas also claims to have evidence of an alleged hit which he believes Agnete Iversen ordered. Kefas said that out of consideration for Iversen’s son, he would refrain from presenting proof of the latter, and as far as the property transactions are concerned my client will be given a reduced sentence in return for a guilty plea and for giving evidence against Thou in a subsequent trial.’

Pontius Parr took off his rectangular glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. Kari was surprised at how childishly blue his eyes were.

‘It sounds like an deal we can honour.’

‘Good,’ Ohre said, opened the briefcase that was lying on the chair next to him, took out an envelope and pushed it across the table to Parr.

‘Here is a printout of all property transactions undertaken to launder money for Levi Thou. Iversen is also prepared to testify against Fredrik Ansgar, formerly of the Serious Fraud Office, who made sure that no one ever investigated the transactions.’

Parr took the envelope. Squeezed it.

‘There’s something else inside,’ he said.

‘A memory stick. It contains a sound file which Kefas sent to my client from a mobile, and which he requested should also be handed over to you.’

‘Do you know what’s on it?’

Ohre and Iversen exchanged looks again. Iversen cleared his throat.

‘It’s a recording of someone. Chief Inspector Kefas said that you would know who it was.’

‘I brought along a computer in case you wanted to listen to it straight away,’ Ohre added.

The open briefcase. The weapons. The olive-green grenade.

Chief Inspector Simon Kefas had time to press his eyes shut and cover his ears. There was a flash of light that felt like fire breathing on his face and a bang like a punch to the stomach.

Then he opened his eyes, lunged forward, grabbed the pistol from the briefcase and turned round. The blond man was frozen, as if he had just stared straight into the eyes of Medusa. He still had his arm around Sonny’s head and the knife in his hand. And Simon saw it now, Sonny had been right: the guy really did have a cross on his forehead. A cross-hairs sight. Simon pulled the trigger and saw the hole the bullet made below the blond fringe. As the man fell, Sonny grabbed the Uzi.

Simon had explained to him that they would have a maximum of two seconds before the temporary paralysis would lift. They had sat in the hotel room at the Bismarck and practised this very moment, seizing the weapons and discharging them. They hadn’t been able to predict the sequence of events in detail, obviously, and right up until the point where the Twin opened the briefcase, triggering the stun grenade, Simon had been sure that it would all go to hell. But when he saw Sonny pull the trigger and pirouette on one foot, he knew that the Twin wouldn’t go home happy after this day at work. The bullets spat from the stuttering weapon that never made it past the first syllable. Two of the Twin’s men were already down, and the third had managed to stick his hand inside his jacket when the spray of bullets drew a dotted line across his chest. He remained standing for a moment before his knees received the message that he was dead, and by then Simon had already turned to the Twin. And stared in astonishment at the empty chair. How could such a big man move so-

He spotted him at the end of the aquarium, right by the swing door to the kitchen.

He took aim and pressed the trigger three times in quick succession. He saw the Twin’s jacket twitch and then the glass in the aquarium cracked. For a moment it looked as if the water might retain its rectangular shape, held together by habit or unseen forces, before it came crashing towards them like a green wall. Simon tried to leap aside, but he was too slow. He crunched a lobster underfoot as he took a step, felt his knee buckle and fell his full length in the deluge. When he looked up again, he couldn’t see the Twin, only the flapping kitchen door.

‘Are you OK?’ Sonny asked as he offered to help Simon back on his feet.

‘Never been better,’ Simon groaned and knocked aside Sonny’s hand. ‘But if the Twin gets away now, he’ll be gone for good.’

Simon ran to the kitchen door, kicked it open and entered holding the pistol in front of him. The harsh smell of a commercial kitchen. His gaze quickly scanned the brushed metal worktops and cookers, rows of pots, ladles and palette knives hanging from the low ceiling and obstructing his view. Simon squatted down to look for shadows or movement.

‘The floor,’ Sonny said.

Simon looked down. Red stains on the blue-grey tiles. His eyes hadn’t deceived him, one of his bullets had found its target.

He heard the distant sound of a door slamming.

‘Come on.’

The blood trail led them out of the kitchen, along a dark corridor where Simon tore off his sunglasses, up a staircase and down another corridor, which ended in a metal door. A door that would have made the very noise they had just heard. Even so, Simon checked all the side doors on their way down the corridor and looked inside. Nine out of ten men fleeing from two men and an Uzi would always take the shortest and most obvious way out, but the Twin was the tenth man. Always cold, always rational and calculating. The type who survives a shipwreck. He might simply have slammed the door in order to misdirect them.

‘We’re losing him,’ Sonny said.

‘Calm down,’ Simon said and opened the last side door. Nothing.

And the bloodstains were now unequivocal. The Twin was behind the metal door.

‘Ready?’ Simon asked.

Sonny nodded and positioned himself with the Uzi aimed right at the door.

Simon pressed his back against the wall beside the door, lowered the handle and pushed open the metal door.

He saw Sonny get hit. By the sunlight.

Simon stepped outside. He felt the wind on his face. ‘Damn. .’

They were looking out at an empty street that lay bathed in morning sunshine. The street was Ruselokkveien which intersected Munkedamsveien and disappeared upwards in the direction of the Palace Gardens. No cars, no people.

And no Twin.