Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Jo Nesbo
Dedication
Title Page
Map
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part Two
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Three
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part Four
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Read on for an extract from The Thirst
Copyright
The police urgently need Harry Hole.
A killer is stalking Oslo’s streets. Police officers are being slain at the scenes of crimes they once investigated, but failed to solve. The murders are brutal, the media reaction hysterical.
But this time, Harry can’t help anyone.
For years, detective Harry Hole has been at the centre of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His dedication to his job and his brilliant insights have saved the lives of countless people. But now, with those he loves most facing terrible danger, Harry can’t protect anyone.
Least of all himself.
Jo Nesbo is a musician, songwriter, economist and internationally acclaimed author. The Leopard – the eighth Harry Hole thriller – was a number 1 bestseller in hardback, with Phantom – the ninth book in the series – topping the paperback charts. The Snowman has been optioned by Working Title films and will be directed by Martin Scorsese, whilst the film adaptation of Jo’s standalone thriller, Headhunters was nominated for a BAFTA.
Check out www.jonesbo.co.uk.
THE JEALOUSY BAR was almost empty, but even so it was hard to breathe.
Mehmet Kalak looked at the man and woman standing at the bar as he poured wine into their glasses. Four customers. The third was a guy sitting on his own at a table, taking tiny little sips of beer, and the fourth was just a pair of cowboy boots sticking out from one of the booths, where the darkness occasionally gave way to the glow from the screen of a phone. Four customers at half past eleven on a September evening in the best bar district in Grünerløkka. Terrible, and it couldn’t go on like this. Sometimes he asked himself why he’d left his job as bar manager at the hippest hotel in the city to go it alone and take over this rundown bar with its pissed-up clientele. Possibly because he thought that by jacking up the prices he could replace the old customers with the ones everyone wanted: the neighbourhood’s affluent, trouble-free young adults. Possibly because he needed somewhere to work himself to death after breaking up with his girlfriend. Possibly because the offer from loan shark Danial Banks had looked favourable after the bank rejected his application. Or possibly just because at the Jealousy Bar he was the one who picked the music, not some damn hotel manager who only knew one tune: the ringing of the cash register. Getting rid of the old clientele had been easy – they had long since settled in at a cheap bar three blocks away. But it turned out to be a whole lot harder to attract new customers. Maybe he would have to reconsider the whole concept. Maybe one big television screen on which he showed Turkish football wasn’t enough to merit the description ‘sports bar’. And maybe he’d have to change the music and go for reliable classics like U2 and Springsteen for the guys, Coldplay for the girls.
‘Well, I haven’t been on that many Tinder dates,’ Geir said, putting his glass of white wine back down on the bar. ‘But I’ve worked out that there’s a lot of strange people out there.’
‘Have you?’ the woman said, stifling a yawn. She had short fair hair. Slim. Mid-thirties, Mehmet thought. Quick, slightly stressed movements. Tired eyes. Works too hard and goes to the gym in the hope that it will give her the advantage she’s never had. Mehmet watched Geir raise his glass with three fingers round the stem, the same way as the woman. On his countless Tinder hook-ups he had always ordered the same thing as his dates, regardless of whether it was whiskey or green tea. Keen to signal that they were a match on that point too.
Geir coughed. Six minutes had passed since she had walked into the bar, and Mehmet knew that this was when he would make his move.
‘You’re more beautiful than your profile picture, Elise,’ Geir said.
‘So you said, but thanks again.’
Mehmet polished a glass and pretended not to listen.
‘So tell me, Elise, what do you want from life?’
She gave a rather resigned little smile. ‘A man who doesn’t just judge by appearances.’
‘I couldn’t agree more, Elise, it’s what’s inside that counts.’
‘That was a joke. I look better in my profile picture, and, to be honest, so do you, Geir.’
‘Ha ha,’ Geir said, and stared down into his wine glass, slightly deflated. ‘I suppose most people pick a flattering picture. So you’re looking for a man. What sort of man?’
‘One who’d like to stay at home with three kids.’ She glanced at the time.
‘Ha ha.’ Sweat hadn’t just broken out on Geir’s forehead, but all over his large, close-shaven head. And soon rings of sweat would appear under the arms of his black slim-fit shirt, an odd choice given that Geir was neither slim nor fit. He toyed with his glass. ‘That’s exactly my kind of humour, Elise. A dog is family enough for me for the time being. Do you like animals?’
Tanrim, Mehmet thought. Why doesn’t he just give up?
‘If I meet the right person, I can feel it, here … and here.’ He grinned, lowered his voice and pointed towards his crotch. ‘But obviously you have to find out if that’s right. What do you say, Elise?’
Mehmet shuddered. Geir had gone all-in, and his self-esteem was about to take another beating.
The woman pushed her wine glass aside, leaned forward slightly, and Mehmet had to strain to hear. ‘Can you promise me something, Geir?’
‘Of course.’ His voice and the look in his eyes were as eager as a dog’s.
‘That when I walk out of here in a moment, you’ll never try to contact me again?’
Mehmet had to admire Geir for managing to summon up a smile. ‘Of course.’
The woman leaned back again. ‘It’s not that you seem like a stalker, Geir, but I’ve had a couple of bad experiences. One guy started following me. He threatened the people I was with as well. I hope you can understand my being a bit cautious.’
‘I understand.’ Geir raised his glass and emptied it. ‘Like I said, there’s a lot of strange people out there. But don’t worry, you’re pretty safe. Statistically speaking, the chances of getting murdered are four times greater for a man than a woman.’
‘Thanks for the wine, Geir.’
‘If one of the three of us –’
Mehmet hurried to look away when Geir pointed to him.
‘– was going to get murdered tonight, the likelihood of it being you is one in eight. No, hang on, you have to divide that by …’
She stood up. ‘I hope you figure it out. Have a good life.’
Geir stared at her wine glass for a while after she left, nodded in time to ‘Fix You’, as if to convince Mehmet and anyone else watching that he had already shaken the experience off, she had been nothing more than a three-minute-long pop song, and just as forgettable. Then he stood up and left. Mehmet looked round. The cowboy boots and the guy who had been dragging out his beer were both gone too. He was alone. And the oxygen was back. He used his mobile phone to change the playlist. To his playlist. Bad Company. Given that the group contained members of Free, Mott the Hoople and King Crimson, there was no way it was ever going to be bad. And with Paul Rodgers on vocals, there was no way it could fail. Mehmet turned the volume up until the glasses behind the bar started to rattle against each other.
Elise walked down Thorvald Meyers gate, past plain four-storey buildings that had once housed the working classes in a poor part of a poor city, but where one square metre now cost as much as in London or Stockholm. September in Oslo. The darkness was back at last, and the drawn-out, annoyingly light summer nights were long gone, with all the hysterical, cheerful, stupid self-expression of summer. In September Oslo reverted to its true self: melancholic, reserved, efficient. A solid facade, but not without its dark corners and secrets. Much like her, apparently. She quickened her pace; there was rain in the air, mist, the spray when God sneezed, as one of her dates had put it in an attempt to be poetic. She was going to give up Tinder. Tomorrow. Enough was enough. Enough randy men whose way of looking at her made her feel like a whore when she met them in bars. Enough crazy psychopaths and stalkers who stuck like mud, sucking time, energy and security from her. Enough pathetic losers who made her feel like she was one of them.
They said Internet dating was the cool way to meet new people, that it was nothing to be ashamed of any more, that everyone was doing it. But that wasn’t true. People met each other at work, in classrooms, through friends, at the gym, in cafes, on planes, buses, trains. They met each other the way they were supposed to meet each other, when they were relaxed, no pressure, and afterwards they could cling to the romantic illusion of innocence, purity and quirks of fate. She wanted that illusion. She was going to delete her profile. She’d told herself that before, but this time it was definitely going to happen, that very night.
She crossed Sofienberggata and fished out the key to unlock the gate next to the greengrocer’s. She pushed the gate open and stepped into the darkness of the archway. And stopped dead.
There were two of them.
It took a moment or two for her eyes to get used to the darkness, and for her to see what they were holding in their hands. Both men had undone their trousers and had their cocks out.
She jerked back. Didn’t look round, just prayed that there was no one standing behind her.
‘Fucksorry.’ The combination of oath and apology was uttered by a young voice. Nineteen, twenty, Elise guessed. Not sober.
‘Duh,’ the other one said, ‘you’re pissing all over my shoes!’
‘I was startled!’
Elise pulled her coat more tightly around her and walked past the young men, who had turned back to face the wall again. ‘This isn’t a public toilet,’ she said.
‘Sorry, we were desperate. It won’t happen again.’
Geir hurried over Schleppegrells gate. Thinking hard. It was wrong that two men and one woman gave the woman a one in eight chance of being murdered, the calculation was much more complicated than that. Everything was always much more complicated.
He had just passed Romsdalsgata when something made him turn round. There was a man walking fifty metres behind him. He wasn’t sure, but wasn’t it the same guy who had been standing on the other side of the street looking at a window display when Geir emerged from the Jealousy Bar? Geir sped up, heading east, towards Dælenenga and the chocolate factory; there was no one out on the streets here, just a bus which was evidently running ahead of schedule and was waiting at a bus stop. Geir glanced back. The man was still there, still the same distance. Geir was frightened of dark-skinned people, always had been, but he couldn’t see this guy properly. They were on their way out of the white, gentrified neighbourhood, heading towards an area with far more social housing and immigrants. Geir could see the door of his own apartment block one hundred metres away. But when he looked back he saw that the guy had started running, and the thought that he had a Somali, thoroughly traumatised from Mogadishu, on his heels made him break into a run. Geir hadn’t run for years, and each time his heels hit the tarmac a jolt ran through his brain and jogged his sight. He reached the door, got the key in the lock at the first attempt, threw himself inside and slammed the heavy wooden door behind him. He leaned against the damp wood and stared out through the glass in the top part of the door. He couldn’t see anyone out in the street. Perhaps it wasn’t a Somali. Geir couldn’t help laughing. It was ridiculous how jumpy you got just because you’d been talking about murder. And what had Elise said about that stalker?
Geir was still out of breath when he unlocked the door to his flat. He got a beer from the fridge, noticed that the kitchen window facing the street was open, and closed it. Then he went into the study and switched the lamp on.
He pressed one of the keys of the PC in front of him, and the twenty-inch screen lit up.
He typed in ‘Pornhub’, then ‘french’ in the search box. He looked through the thumbnails until he found a woman who at least had the same hairstyle and colouring as Elise. The walls of the flat were thin, so he plugged his headphones into the PC before double-clicking the picture, undoing his trousers and pushing them down his thighs. The woman actually resembled Elise so little that Geir shut his eyes instead and concentrated on her groaning while he tried to conjure up the image of Elise’s small, tight little mouth, the scornful look in her eyes, her sober but still sexy blouse. There was no way he could ever have had her. Never. Except this way.
Geir stopped. Opened his eyes. Let go of his cock as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up in the cold breeze from behind. From the door he knew he had closed properly. He raised his hand to pull off the headphones, but knew it was already too late.
Elise put the security chain on the door, kicked her shoes off in the hallway and, as always, ran her hand over the photograph of herself and her niece Ingvild that was stuck to one side of the mirror. It was a ritual she didn’t quite understand, except that it clearly fulfilled some deep-rooted human need, the same way as stories about what happens to us after death. She went into the living room and lay down on the sofa in her small but cosy two-room flat; at least she owned it. She checked her phone. One text from work – tomorrow morning’s meeting had been cancelled. She hadn’t told the guy she had met this evening that she worked as a lawyer, specialising in rape cases. And that his statistics about men being more likely to be murdered only told half the story. In sexually motivated murders, the victim was four times more likely to be a woman. That was one of the reasons why the first thing she did when she bought the flat was change the locks and have a security chain fitted, a rare concept in Norway, and one she still fumbled with every time she used it. She went onto Tinder. She had matched with three of the men she had right-swiped earlier that evening. Oh, this was what was so nice about it. Not meeting them, but knowing that they were out there, and that they wanted her. Should she allow herself one last flirtation by message, one last virtual threesome with her last two strangers before deleting her account and the app for good?
No. Delete it at once.
She went into the menu, clicked the relevant option and was asked if she was really sure she wanted to delete her account?
Elise looked at her index finger. It was trembling. God, had she become addicted? Addicted to being told that someone – someone who had no real idea of who she was or what she was like, but still someone – wanted her, just the way she was? Well, the way she was in her profile picture, anyway. Completely addicted, or only a bit? Presumably she’d find out if she just deleted her account and promised to go a month without Tinder. One month, and if she couldn’t manage that, then there was something seriously wrong with her. The trembling finger moved closer to the delete button. But, if she was addicted, was that such a bad thing? We all need to feel that we’ve got someone, that someone’s got us. She had read that babies could die if they didn’t get a minimum of skin-to-skin contact. She doubted that was true, but, on the other hand, what was the point of living if it was just her, doing a job that was eating her up and with friends she socialised with mostly out of a sense of duty, if she was honest, because her fear of loneliness worried her more than their tedious moaning about their children and husbands, or the absence of one or other of these? And perhaps the right man for her was on Tinder right now? So, OK, one last go. The first picture popped up and she swiped left. Onto the scrapheap, to I-don’t-want-you. Same thing with the second one. And the third.
Her mind started to wander. She had attended a lecture where a psychologist who had been in close contact with some of the worst criminals in the country had said that men killed for sex, money and power, and women as a result of jealousy and fear.
She stopped swiping left. There was something vaguely familiar about the thin face in the picture, even though it was dark and slightly out of focus. That had happened before, seeing as Tinder matched people who were geographically close to each other. And, according to Tinder, this man was less than a kilometre away, so for all she knew he could be in the same block. The fact that the picture was out of focus meant that he hadn’t studied the online advice about Tinder tactics, and that in itself was a plus. The message was a very basic ‘hi’. No attempt to stand out. It may not have been particularly imaginative, but it did at least display a certain confidence. Yes, she would definitely have been pleased if a man came up to her at a party and just said ‘hi’ with a calm, steady gaze that said ‘shall we take this any further?’ She swiped right. To I’m-curious-about-you.
And heard the happy bleep from her iPhone that told her she had another match.
Geir was breathing hard through his nose.
He pulled his trousers up and slowly spun his chair round.
The light from the computer screen was the only one in the room, and illuminated just the torso and hands of the person who was standing behind him. He couldn’t see a face, just the white hands holding something out towards him. A black leather strap. With a loop at one end.
The figure took a step closer and Geir pulled back automatically.
‘Do you know what the only thing I find more disgusting than you is?’ the voice whispered in the darkness as the hands pulled at the leather strap.
Geir swallowed.
‘The dog,’ the voice said. ‘That bloody dog, which you promised you’d do everything to look after. Which shits on the kitchen floor because no one can be bothered to take it outside.’
Geir coughed. ‘Kari, please …’
‘Take it out. And don’t touch me when you come to bed.’
Geir took the dog leash, and the door slammed behind her.
He was left sitting in the darkness, blinking.
Nine, he thought. Two men and one woman, one murder. The chances of the woman being the murder victim is one in nine, not one in eight.
Mehmet drove the old BMW out of the streets of the city centre, up towards Kjelsås, towards the villas, fjord views and fresher air. He turned into his silent, sleeping street. Discovered that there was a black Audi R8 parked in front of the garage by the house. Mehmet slowed down. Briefly considered accelerating and just driving on. He knew that would only be putting it off. On the other hand, that was exactly what he needed. A delay. But Banks would find him again, and perhaps now was the right time. It was dark and quiet, no witnesses. Mehmet pulled up by the pavement. Opened the glove compartment. Looked at what he had been keeping in there for the past few days, specifically in case this situation arose. Mehmet put it in his jacket pocket and took a deep breath. Then he got out of the car and started to walk towards the house.
The door of the Audi opened and Danial Banks got out. When Mehmet had met him at the Pearl of India restaurant, he knew that the Pakistani first name and English surname were probably just as fake as the signature on the dubious contract they had signed. But the cash in the case he had pushed across the table had been real enough.
The gravel in front of the garage crunched beneath Mehmet’s shoes.
‘Nice house,’ Danial Banks said, leaning against the R8 with his arms folded. ‘Wasn’t your bank prepared to take it as collateral?’
‘I’m only renting,’ Mehmet said. ‘The basement.’
‘That’s bad news for me,’ Banks said. He was much shorter than Mehmet, but it didn’t feel like it as he stood there squeezing the biceps inside his smart jacket. ‘Because burning it down won’t help either of us if you don’t get anything from the insurance to repay your debt, will it?’
‘No, I don’t suppose it would.’
‘Bad news for you, too, because that means I’m going to have to use the more painful methods instead. Do you want to know what they are?’
‘Don’t you want to know if I can pay first?’
Banks shook his head and pulled something from his pocket. ‘The instalment was due three days ago, and I told you punctuality was crucial. And so that all my clients, not just you, know that that sort of thing isn’t tolerated, I can’t make any exceptions.’ He held the object up in the light of the lamp on the garage. Mehmet gasped for breath.
‘I know it isn’t very original,’ Banks said, tilting his head and looking at the pliers. ‘But it works.’
‘But—’
‘You can choose which finger. Most people prefer the left little finger.’
Mehmet felt it coming. The anger. And he felt his chest expand as he filled his lungs with air. ‘I’ve got a better solution, Banks.’
‘Oh?’
‘I know it isn’t very original,’ Mehmet said, sticking his right hand in his jacket pocket. Pulled it out. Held it out towards Banks, clutching it with both hands. ‘But it works.’
Banks stared at him in surprise. Nodded slowly.
‘You’re right there,’ Banks said, taking the bundle of notes Mehmet was holding out to him and pulling the elastic band off.
‘That covers the repayment and the interest, down to the last krone,’ Mehmet said. ‘But feel free to count it.’
Ping.
A match on Tinder.
The triumphant sound your phone makes when someone you’ve already swiped right on swipes your picture right as well.
Elise’s head was spinning, her heart was racing.
She knew it was the familiar response to the sound of Tinder’s matchmaking: increased heart rate as a consequence of excitement. That it released a whole load of happy chemicals that you could become addicted to. But that wasn’t why her heart was galloping. It was because the ping hadn’t come from her phone.
But the ping had rung out at the very moment she’d swiped right on a picture. The picture of a person who, according to Tinder, was less than a kilometre away from her.
She stared at the closed bedroom door. Swallowed.
The sound must have come from one of the neighbouring apartments. There were lots of single people living in the block, lots of potential Tinder users. And everything was quiet now, even on the floor below where the girls had been having a party when she went out earlier that evening. But there was only one way to get rid of imaginary monsters. By checking.
Elise got up from the sofa and walked the four steps over to the bedroom door. Hesitated. A couple of assault cases from work swirled through her head.
Then she pulled herself together and opened the door.
She found herself standing in the doorway gasping for air. Because there wasn’t any. None that she could breathe.
The light above the bed was switched on, and the first thing she saw was the soles of a pair of cowboy boots sticking off the end of the bed. Jeans and a pair of long legs, crossed. The man lying there was like the photograph, half in darkness, half out of focus. But he had unbuttoned his shirt to reveal his bare chest. And on his chest was a drawing or a tattoo of a face. That was what caught her eye now. The silently screaming face. As if it were held tight and was trying to pull free. Elise couldn’t bring herself to scream either.
As the person on the bed sat up, the light from his mobile phone fell across his face.
‘So we meet again, Elise,’ he whispered.
And the voice made her realise why the profile picture had seemed familiar to her. His hair was a different colour. And his face must have been operated on – she could see the scars left by stitches.
He raised his hand and shoved something into his mouth.
Elise stared at him as she backed away. Then she spun round, got some air into her lungs, and knew she had to use it to run, not scream. The front door was only five steps away, six at most. She heard the bed creak, but he had further to run. If she could just get out into the stairwell she’d be able to scream and get some help. She made it to the hallway and reached the door, tugged the handle down and pushed, but the door wouldn’t open properly.
The security chain. She tried to pull the door closed, to grab the chain, but it was all taking too long, like a bad dream, and she knew it was too late. Something was pressed over her mouth and she was dragged backwards. In desperation she stuck her hand through the opening above the security chain, grabbed hold of the door frame outside, tried to scream, but the huge nicotine-stinking hand was clamped tightly over her mouth. Then she was yanked free and the door slammed shut in front of her. The voice whispered in her ear: ‘Didn’t you like me? You don’t look as good as your profile picture either, baby. We just need to get to know each other better, we didn’t have a chance for that last t-time.’
The voice. And that last, solitary stammer. She’d heard it once before. She tried to kick and tear herself free, but he had her in a vice-like grip. He dragged her over to the hall mirror. Rested his head on her shoulder.
‘It wasn’t your fault I was found guilty, Elise, the evidence was overwhelming. That’s not why I’m here. Would you believe me if I said it is a coincidence?’ Then he grinned. Elise stared into his mouth. His teeth looked like they were made of iron, black and rusty, with sharp spikes in both upper and lower jaw, like a bear trap.
It creaked gently when he opened his mouth – was it spring-loaded?
She remembered the details of the case now. The photographs from the scene. And knew she would soon be dead.
Then he bit.
Elise Hermansen tried to scream into his hand as she saw the blood spraying from her own throat.
He raised his head again. Looked into the mirror. Her blood was running from his eyebrows, from his hair and down over his chin.
‘I’d call that a m-match, baby,’ he whispered. Then he bit again.
She felt dizzy. He wasn’t holding her so tightly now, he didn’t need to, because a paralysing chill, an alien darkness was moving slowly over her, into her. She pulled one hand free and reached towards the photograph on the side of the mirror. Tried to touch it, but her fingertips couldn’t reach.
To Knut Nesbø,
football player, guitarist, pal, brother.
It was asleep in there, behind the door.
The inside of the corner cupboard smelt of old wood, powder residue and gun oil. When the sun shone through the window into the room, a strip of light shaped like an hourglass travelled from the keyhole into the cupboard and, if the sun was at precisely the right angle, there would be a matt gleam to the gun lying on the middle of the shelf.
It was a Russian Odessa, a copy of the better-known Stechkin.
The ugly automatic pistol had had a peripatetic existence, travelling with the Cossacks in Lithuania to Siberia, moving between the various Urka headquarters in southern Siberia, becoming the property of an ataman, a Cossack leader, who had been killed, Odessa in hand, by the police, before ending up in the Nizhny Tagil home of an arms-collecting prison director. Finally, the weapon was brought to Norway by Rudolf Asayev, alias Dubai, who, before he disappeared, had monopolised the narcotics market in Oslo with the heroin-like opioid violin. Oslo, the very town where the gun now found itself, in Holmenkollveien, to be precise, in Rakel Fauke’s house. The Odessa had a magazine that could hold twenty rounds of Makarov, 9x18mm calibre, and could fire single shots and salvos. There were twelve bullets left in the magazine.
Three of them had been fired at Kosovo Albanians, rival dope pushers. Only one of the bullets had bitten into flesh.
The next two had killed Gusto Hanssen, a young thief and drug dealer who had pocketed Asayev’s money and dope.
The gun still smelt of the last three shots, which had hit the head and chest of the ex-police officer Harry Hole during his investigation into the above-mentioned murder of Gusto Hanssen. And the crime scene had been the same: Hausmanns gate 92.
The police still hadn’t solved the Hanssen case, and the eighteen-year-old boy who had initially been arrested had been released. Mostly because they hadn’t been able to find, or link him to, any murder weapon. The boy’s name was Oleg Fauke and he woke every night staring into the darkness and hearing the shots. Not those that had killed Gusto, but the others. The ones he had fired at the policeman who had been a father to him when he was growing up. Who he had once dreamt would marry his mother, Rakel. Harry Hole. Oleg’s eyes burned into the night, and he thought of the gun in the distant corner cupboard, hoping that he would never see it again. That no one would see it again. That it would sleep until eternity.
He was asleep in there, behind the door.
The guarded hospital room smelt of medicine and paint. The monitor beside him registered his heartbeats.
Isabelle Skøyen, the Councillor for Social Affairs at Oslo City Hall, and Mikael Bellman, the newly appointed Chief of Police, hoped they would never see him again.
That no one would see him again.
That he would sleep until eternity.
The Bat
Cockroaches
The Redbreast
Nemesis
The Devil’s Star
The Redeemer
The Snowman
The Leopard
Phantom
IT HAD BEEN a long, warm September day. The light transformed Oslo Fjord into molten silver and made the low mountain ridges, which already bore the first tinges of autumn, glow. It was one of those days that make Oslo natives swear they will never, ever move. The sun was sinking behind Ullern Ridge and the last rays swept across the countryside, across the squat, sober blocks of flats, a testimony to Oslo’s modest origins, across lavish penthouses with terraces that spoke of the oil adventure that had made the country one of the richest in the world, across the junkies at the top of Stensparken and into the well-organised little town where there were more overdoses than in European cities eight times larger. Across gardens where trampolines were surrounded by netting and no more than three children jumped at a time, as recommended by national guidelines. And across the ridges and the forest circling half of what is known as the Oslo Cauldron. The sun did not want to relinquish the town; it stretched out its fingers, like a prolonged farewell through a train window.
The day had begun with cold, clear air and sharp beams of light, like lamps in an operating theatre. Later the temperature had risen, the sky had gone a deeper blue and the air possessed that pleasant physical feel which made September the most wonderful month in the year. And as dusk came, tentative and gentle, the air in the residential quarter on the hills towards Lake Maridal smelt of apples and warm spruce trees.
Erlend Vennesla was approaching the top of the final hill. He could feel the lactic acid now but concentrated on getting the correct vertical thrust on the click-in pedals, with his knees pointing slightly inwards. Because it was important to have the right technique. Especially when you were tired and your brain was telling you to change position so that the onus was on less tired, though less effective, muscles. He could feel how the rigid cycle frame absorbed and used every watt he pedalled into it, how he accelerated when he switched down a gear and stood up, trying to keep the same rhythm, about ninety revolutions a minute. He checked his heart rate monitor. One hundred and sixty-eight. He pointed his headlamp at the satnav he had attached to the handlebars. It had a detailed map of Oslo and its surrounds. The bike and the accessories had cost him more than, strictly speaking, a recently retired detective should spend. But it was important to stay in shape now that life offered different challenges.
Fewer challenges, if he was honest.
The lactic acid was burning in his thighs and calves now. Painful but also a wonderful promise of what was to come. An endorphin fest. Tender muscles. Good conscience. A beer with his wife on their balcony if the temperature didn’t plummet after sunset.
And suddenly he was up. The road levelled out, and Lake Maridal was in front of him. He slowed down. He was out of the town. It was absurd, in fact, that after fifteen minutes’ hard cycling from the centre of a European capital city you were surrounded by farms, fields and dense forest with paths disappearing into the dusk. The sweat was making his scalp itch beneath the charcoal-grey Bell helmet – which alone had cost the same as the bike he had bought as a sixth-birthday present for his granddaughter, Line Marie. But he kept the helmet on. Most deaths among cyclists were caused by head injuries.
He looked at his monitor. A hundred and seventy-five. A hundred and seventy-two. A welcome little gust of wind carried the sound of distant cheering up from the town. It must have been from Ullevål Stadium – there was an important international match this evening. Slovakia or Slovenia. Erlend Vennesla imagined for a few seconds that they had been applauding for him. It was a while since anyone had done that. The last time would have been the farewell ceremony at Kripos up at Bryn. Layer cake, speech by the boss, Mikael Bellman, who since then had continued his steady rise to take the top police job. And Erlend had received the applause, met their eyes, thanked them and even felt his throat constrict as he was about to deliver his simple, brief speech. Simple, sticking to the facts, as was now the tradition at Kripos. He’d had his ups and downs as a detective, but he had avoided major blunders. At least as far as he knew. Of course you were never a hundred per cent sure you had the right answer. With the rapid advances made in DNA technology and a signal from the upper echelons that they would use it to examine isolated cold cases, there was a risk of precisely that. Answers. New answers. Conclusions. As long as they concentrated on unsolved cases, that was fine, but Erlend didn’t understand why they would waste resources on investigations which had long been filed away.
The darkness had deepened and even in the light from the street lamps he almost cycled past the wooden sign pointing into the forest. But there it was. Exactly as he remembered. He turned off and rode on to the soft forest floor. He slowly followed the path without losing his balance. The cone of light from his headlamp shone ahead, and was halted by the thick wall of spruce trees on either side when he turned his head. Shadows flitted in front of him, startled and hurried, changed shape and dived under cover. It was how he had imagined it when he had put himself in her shoes. Running, fleeing with a torch in her hand, after being locked up and raped over three days.
And when Erlend Vennesla saw a light suddenly come on in front of him, for a moment he thought it was her torch, and that she was running again, and he was on the motorbike that had gone after her and caught her up. The light ahead of Erlend flickered before it was flashed straight at him. He stopped and dismounted. Shone his headlamp on his heart rate monitor. Already below a hundred. Not bad.
He loosened the chin strap, took off his helmet and scratched his scalp. God, that was good. He switched off his headlamp, hung the helmet from the handlebars and pushed the bike towards the light. Felt the helmet banging against the frame.
He stopped by the torchlight. The powerful beam hurt his eyes. And, dazzled, he thought he could hear himself still breathing heavily. It was strange his pulse was so low. He detected a movement, something being lifted behind the large, quivering circle of light, heard a hushed whistle through the air and at that moment a thought struck him. He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have removed his helmet. Most deaths among cyclists . . .
It was as if the thought stammered, like a displacement in time, like an image being disconnected for a moment.
Erlend Vennesla stared ahead in astonishment and felt a hot bead of sweat run down his forehead. He spoke, but the words were incoherent, as though there were a fault in the connection between brain and mouth. Again he heard a soft whistle. Then sound went. All sound, he couldn’t even hear his own breathing. And he discovered that he was on his knees and his bike was slowly tipping over into a ditch. Before him danced a yellow light, but it disappeared when the bead of sweat reached the ridge of his nose, ran into his eyes and blinded him.
The third blow felt like an icicle being driven into his head, neck and body. Everything froze.
I don’t want to die, he thought, trying to raise a defensive arm above his head, but, unable to move a single limb, he knew he had been paralysed.
He didn’t register the fourth blow, although from the aroma of wet earth he concluded he was now lying on the ground. He blinked several times and sight returned to one eye. By his face he saw a pair of large, dirty boots in the mud. The heels were raised and then the boots took off from the ground. They landed. The same was repeated: the heels were raised and the boots took off. As if the assailant were jumping. Jumping to get even more power behind the blows. And the last thought to go through his brain was that he had to remember what her name was, he mustn’t forget her name.
OFFICER ANTON MITTET took the half-full plastic cup from the small, red Nespresso D290 machine, bent down and placed it on the floor. There was no furniture to put it on. Then he took out another coffee capsule, automatically checked that the aluminium foil lid wasn’t perforated, that it was in fact unused, before inserting it in the coffee machine. Set an empty plastic cup under the spout and pressed one of the illuminated buttons.
He checked his watch while the machine began to sputter and groan. Soon be midnight. Shift change. She was waiting for him at home, but he thought he should teach the new girl the ropes first; after all she was only a police trainee. Silje, was that her name? Anton Mittet stared at the spout. Would he have offered to get coffee if it had been a male colleague? He wasn’t sure, and it made no difference anyway, he had given up answering that kind of question. It was suddenly so quiet he could hear the final, almost transparent, drops dripping into the cup. There was no more colour or taste to be had from the capsule, but it was vital to catch every last droplet; it was going to be a long night shift for the young woman. Without any company, without any action, without anything to do, other than to stare at the inside of the Rikshospital’s unpainted, bare concrete walls. Then he decided he would have a coffee with her before leaving. He took both cups with him and returned. His footsteps resounded against the walls. He passed closed, locked doors. Knowing there was nothing or no one behind them, only more bare walls. For once Norway had built for the future with the Rikshospital, realising that Norwegians were becoming more numerous, aged, infirm and needy. They had taken a long-term approach, the way the Germans had with their autobahns and the Swedes with their airports. But had it felt like that for them, the few motorists crossing the German countryside in isolated majesty on the concrete leviathans in the thirties or the Swedish passengers hurrying through the oversized lounges in Arlanda during the sixties? Had they sensed that there were ghosts? That despite it being brand new and unspoilt, and despite no one having died in a car accident or a plane crash yet, there were ghosts. That at any moment car headlamps could pick out a family standing on the kerb, staring blankly into the light, bleeding, ashen, the father impaled, the mother’s head the wrong way round, a child with limbs on one side only. That charred bodies could come through the plastic curtain on the baggage carousel in the arrivals hall at Arlanda, still glowing, burning the rubber, silent screams issuing from their open mouths, smoke coiling upwards. None of the doctors had been able to tell him what this wing would be used for eventually; all that was certain was that people would die behind these doors. It was already in the air; invisible bodies with restless souls had already been admitted.
Anton rounded a corner, and another corridor extended before him, sparsely lit, equally bare and so symmetrical that it created a curious trompe d’oeil: the uniformed woman sitting on the chair at the far end of the corridor looked like a little picture on a flat wall in front of him.
‘I’ve got a cup of coffee for you,’ he said, standing by her. Twenty? Bit more. Maybe twenty-two.
‘Thanks, but I brought some with me,’ she said, lifting a Thermos from the little rucksack she had placed beside her chair. There was a barely perceptible lilt to her intonation, the residue of a northern dialect perhaps.
‘This is better,’ he said, with his hand still outstretched.
She hesitated. Then took it.
‘And it’s free,’ Anton said, discreetly putting his hand behind his back and rubbing the burnt fingertips on the cold material of his jacket. ‘We’ve got a whole machine all to ourselves in fact. It’s in the corridor down by—’
‘I saw it when I came,’ she said. ‘But the regulations are that we mustn’t at any time move away from the patient’s door, so I brought some coffee from home.’
Anton Mittet took a sip from his cup. ‘Good thinking, but there’s only one corridor leading to this room. We’re on the third floor and all the other doors are locked between here and the coffee machine. It’s impossible to get past us even if we’re helping ourselves to coffee.’
‘That sounds reassuring, but I think I’ll stick to the rules.’ She sent him a fleeting smile. And then, perhaps as a counterbalance to the implicit reproof, she took a sip from the cup.
Anton felt a stab of irritation and was about to say something about the independent thinking that would come with experience, but he hadn’t managed to formulate it before his attention was caught by something further down the corridor. A white figure appeared to be floating towards them. He heard Silje get up. The figure took on firmer features. And became a plump blonde nurse in a loose hospital uniform. He knew she was on the night shift. And that tomorrow night she was free.
‘Evening,’ the nurse said with a mischievous smile, holding up two syringes in one hand, walking towards the door and placing the other on the handle.
‘Just a moment,’ Silje said, stepping up. ‘I’m afraid I have to examine your ID. Also, have you got today’s password?’
The nurse sent Anton a surprised look.
‘Unless my colleague here can vouch for you,’ Silje said.
Anton nodded. ‘Just go in, Mona.’
The nurse opened the door and Anton watched her enter. In the darkened room he could make out the machinery around the bed and toes sticking out from under the duvet. The patient was so tall they’d had to requisition a longer bed. The door closed.
‘Good,’ Anton said with a smile to Silje, and could see she didn’t like it. Could see she regarded him as a male chauvinist who had just assessed and graded a younger female colleague. But she was a student for Christ’s sake, she was supposed to learn from experienced officers during her training year. He stood rocking back on his heels, unsure how to tackle the situation. She spoke up first.
‘As I said, I’ve read the rules and regulations. And I suppose you have a family waiting for you.’
He lifted his coffee to his mouth. What did she know about his civil status? Was she insinuating something, about him and Mona, for example? That he had driven her home a couple of times after her shift and it hadn’t stopped there?
‘The teddy bear sticker on your bag,’ she smiled.
He took a long swig from his cup. And cleared his throat. ‘I’ve got time. As it’s your first shift perhaps you ought to use the opportunity to ask any questions you may have. Not everything’s in the rules and regulations, you know.’ He shifted feet. Hoping she could hear and understand the subtext.
‘As you wish,’ she said with the irritating self-confidence you have to be under twenty-five to be so presumptuous as to possess. ‘The patient in there, who is he?’
‘I don’t know. That’s also in the rules. He’s anonymous and has to stay that way.’
‘But you know something.’
‘Do I?’
‘Mona. You can’t be on first-name terms with people without having chatted first. What did she tell you?’
Anton Mittet weighed her up. She was attractive, that was true enough, but there was no warmth or charm about her. Bit too slim for his taste. Untidy hair and a top lip that looked as if it was held in place by an over-taut tendon, causing two uneven front teeth to appear. But youth was on her side. Firm and fit underneath the black uniform, he would bet on it. So if he told her what he knew, would it be because he was subconsciously calculating that his obliging attitude would increase his chances of bedding her by 0.01 per cent? Or because girls like Silje would be inspectors or detectives within five years? They would be his bosses, while he would remain on the beat, an officer on the bottom rung of the ladder, because the Drammen case would always be there, a wall, a stain that could not be removed.
‘Case of attempted murder,’ Anton said. ‘Lost a lot of blood. They reckon he barely had a pulse when he came here. Been in a coma the whole time.’
‘Why the guard?’
Anton shrugged. ‘Potential witness. If he survives.’
‘What does he know?’
‘Drugs stuff. High level. If he wakes up he probably has the goods to bring down some important heroin dealers in Oslo. Plus he can tell us who was trying to kill him.’
‘So they think the murderer will return and finish off the job?’
‘If they find out he’s alive and where he is, yes. That’s why we’re here.’
She nodded. ‘And is he going to survive?’
Anton shook his head. ‘They reckon they can keep him alive for a few more months, but the odds of him pulling out of the coma are slim. Nevertheless . . .’ Anton shifted feet again; her probing stare was becoming uncomfortable. ‘Until then we have to keep an eye on him.’
Anton Mittet left her, feeling crushed, went down the stairs from reception and stepped into the autumn night. It was only when he was sitting in his parked car that he noticed his mobile was ringing.
The call came from the Ops Room.
‘Maridalen, murder,’ 01 said. ‘I know you’ve finished for the day, but they need help to secure the crime scene. And as you’re already in uniform . . .’
‘How long for?’
‘You’ll be relieved after three hours, max.’
Anton was astonished. These days they did whatever they could to prevent people from working overtime. The combination of rigid rules and budgets didn’t even allow deviations for reasons of practicality. He had an intuition there was something special about this murder. He hoped it wasn’t a child.
‘OK,’ Anton Mittet said.
‘I’ll send you the coordinates.’ This was new: satnav, a detailed map of Oslo and district and an active transmitter for Ops to track you down. That must have been why they rang him. He was closest.
‘OK,’ Anton Mittet said. ‘Three hours.’
Laura would be in bed, but she liked knowing when he would be home from work, so he texted her before putting the car into gear and heading for Lake Maridal.
Anton didn’t need to look at the satnav. At the entrance to Ullevålseterveien there were four patrol cars, and a bit further away orange-and-white tape showed the way.
Anton took the torch from the glove compartment and walked over to the officer outside the cordon. Through the trees he saw lights flashing, but also the forensics team’s lamps, which always reminded him of film sets. Not so daft actually; nowadays they didn’t just take stills, they used HD video cameras as well, which not only captured the victims but the whole crime scene so that at a later date they could go back, freeze and zoom in on details they hadn’t appreciated were relevant at first.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked the officer with crossed arms, who was shivering by the tape.
‘Murder.’ The officer’s voice was thick, his eyes red-rimmed in an unnaturally pale face.
‘So I heard. Who’s the boss here?’
‘Forensics. Lønn.’
Anton heard the buzz of voices from inside the trees. There were lots of them. ‘No one from Kripos or Crime Squad yet?’
‘There’ll be even more officers here soon. The body has just been found. Are you taking over from me?’