The Son

7

‘I knew your father,’ Johannes Halden said.

It was raining outside. It had been a warm, sunny day; the clouds had built up on the horizon and the light summer drizzle fell across the city. Johannes remembered what it felt like before he was banged up. How the little drops of rain warmed up the moment they hit your sun-kissed skin. How it made the smell of dust rise from the tarmac. The scent of flowers, grass and leaves would make him wild, dizzy and frisky. Ah, to be young again.

‘I was his confidential informant,’ Johannes said.

Sonny sat in darkness close to the wall and it was impossible to see his face. Johannes didn’t have very much time; the cells would soon be locked up for the night. He took a deep breath. Here it came. The sentence he needed to say, but dreaded the consequences. Uttering the words that had sat in his chest for so long he was afraid that they had taken root.

‘It’s not true that he shot himself, Sonny.’

There. He had finally told him.

Silence.

‘You’re not asleep, are you, Sonny?’

Johannes could see the body shift in the shadow.

‘I know what it must have been like for you and your mother. Finding your father dead. Reading the note where he claimed he was the mole in the police who had helped drug dealers and traffickers. That he had told them about raids, evidence, suspects. .’

He saw the white in a pair of blinking eyes.

‘But it was the other way round, Sonny. Your father suspected who the mole was. I overheard Nestor talk on the phone to his boss about how they had to get rid of a policeman called Lofthus before he ruined everything for them. I told your father about that conversation, that he was in danger, that the police had to move quickly. But your father said that he couldn’t involve other people, that he had to go it alone because he knew there were other police officers in hock to Nestor. So he got me to swear to keep my mouth shut and never breathe a word of it to a living soul. And I’ve kept that promise right up until now.’

Had Sonny understood? Possibly not, but the most important thing wasn’t that Sonny had listened or the consequences, but that Johannes had got it off his chest. Finally told him. Delivered the message to its rightful owner.

‘Your father was alone that weekend; you and your mother were at a wrestling competition out of town. He knew they were coming for him so he barricaded himself inside that yellow house of yours up in Berg.’

Johannes thought he could feel something in the darkness. A change in pulse and breathing.

‘Even so, Nestor and his people still managed to get in. They didn’t want the fallout that would come from shooting a police officer so they forced your father to write that suicide note.’ Johannes swallowed. ‘In return for a promise to spare you and your mother. Afterwards they shot him point-blank with his own gun.’

Johannes closed his eyes. It was very quiet and yet it felt as if someone was shouting into his ear. And there was a tightness in his chest and throat that he hadn’t felt for many, many years. Dear God, when did he last cry? When his daughter was born? But he couldn’t stop now; he had to finish what he had started.

‘I guess you’re wondering how Nestor got into the house?’

Johannes held his breath. It sounded as if the boy had also stopped breathing; all he could hear was the roar of blood in his ears.

‘Someone had seen me talk to your father, and Nestor thought the police had been a little too lucky with the trucks they had stopped recently. I denied that it was me, said that I knew your father a bit and that he was trying to get information from me. So Nestor said that if your father believed I might become his confidential informant, I would be able to walk up to the front door and make him open it. That way I could prove where my loyalties lay, he said. .’

Johannes could hear that the other had started breathing again. Quickly. Hard.

‘Your father opened the door. Because you trust your informant, don’t you?’

He sensed movement, but he didn’t hear or see anything before the punch hit him. And while he lay on the floor tasting the metallic blood, feeling the tooth glide down his throat, hearing the boy scream and scream, the cell door opening, the officers’ shouting and then the boy being restrained and handcuffed, he thought about the astonishing physical speed, accuracy and force in the blow from this junkie. And about forgiveness. The forgiveness which he hadn’t got. And about time. About the passing seconds. About the approaching night.