Текст книги "Phantom"

Автор книги: Jo Nesbo

Соавторы: Jo Nesbo,Jo Nesbo
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

32

I don’t know if it’s possible to say exactly how the throne changed hands. Exactly when violin came to power and began to rule over us rather than vice versa. Everything had gone down the pan; the deal I had tried to make with Ibsen, the coup at Alnabru. And Oleg went around with that depressed Russian mug on him, complaining life without Irene was meaningless. After three weeks we shot up more than we earned, we were high when working and we knew it was all about to go tits up. As even then it meant less than the next fix. It sounds like a cliche, it is a cliche, and that’s precisely how it is. So bloody simple and so absolutely impossible. I think I can safely say that I have never loved any human, I mean, really loved. But I was hopelessly in love with violin. For while Oleg was using violin as medicine to dull the pain of his broken heart, I was using violin as it is supposed to be used. To be happy. And I mean just that: fricking happy. It was better than food, sex, sleep, yes, it was even better than breathing.

And that was why it did not come as a shock when, one evening after the showdown, Andrey took me aside and said the old boy was concerned.

‘I’m fine,’ I said.

He explained that if I didn’t sharpen up and go to work with a clear head every bloody day from now on the old boy said I would be forcibly packed off to rehab.

I laughed. Said I didn’t realise this job had fringe benefits like health schemes and stuff. Did Oleg and I get dental treatment and pensions as well?

‘Oleg doesn’t.’

I saw in his eyes more or less what that meant.

I had no intention of kicking the habit yet. And neither did Oleg. So we didn’t give a toss, and the following evening we were as high as the Post Office building, sold half of our stock, took the rest, stole a car and drove to Kristiansand. Played fricking Sinatra at full blast, ‘I Got Plenty of Nothing’, which was true, we didn’t even have a bloody licence. In the end Oleg was singing too, but only to drown out Sinatra and moi, he claimed. We laughed and drank lukewarm beer, it was like the old days. We stayed at Hotel Ernst, which wasn’t as dull as it sounds, but when we asked at reception where the dope dealers hung out, we got only a blank look in return. Oleg had told me about the town’s festival, which had been wrecked by some idiot who was so desperate to be a guru he booked bands that were so cool they couldn’t afford them. Nevertheless, the Christian folk in the town maintained that half of the population between eighteen and twenty-five had bought drugs because of the festival. But we didn’t find any customers; we zoomed around on a dark evening in the pedestrian area where there was one – one! – drunken man and also fourteen members of a Ten Sing choir, who enquired whether we wanted to meet Jesus.

‘If he wants some violin, yes,’ I said.

But apparently Jesus didn’t, so we went back to our hotel room and had a goodnight shot. I have no idea why, but we hung around in the back of beyond. Did nothing, just got high and sang Sinatra. One night I woke up with Oleg standing over me. He was holding a fricking dog in his arms. Said he’d been woken up by the squeal of brakes outside the window and that, when he looked out, this dog was lying in the street. I had a peep. It didn’t look good. Oleg and I were agreed, its back was broken. Mangy with lots of sores as well. The poor creature had been beaten up, whether by an owner or other dogs who knows. But it was fine, it was. Calm, brown eyes looked at me as if it believed I could fix what was wrong. So I tried. Gave it food and water, patted its head and talked to the animal. Oleg said we should take it to a vet, but I knew what they would do, so we kept the dog in the hotel room, hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door and let it lie in the bed. We took turns to stay awake and check it was breathing. It lay there getting hotter and hotter and with its pulse getting weaker. The third day I gave it a name. Rufus. Why not? Nice to have a name if you’re going to peg it.

‘It’s suffering,’ Oleg said. ‘The vet’ll put it to sleep with an injection. Won’t hurt at all.’

‘No one’s going to inject Rufus with cheap dope,’ I said, flicking the syringe.

‘Are you mad?’ Oleg said. ‘That violin is worth two thousand kroner.’

Perhaps it was. At any rate Rufus left this fricking world business class.

I seem to remember the journey home was cloudy. Anyway there was no Sinatra, no one sang.

Back in Oslo, Oleg was terrified about what would happen. As for myself I was quite cool, strangely enough. It was as if I knew the old boy wouldn’t touch us. We were two harmless junkies on our way down. Broke, unemployed and after a while out of violin. Oleg had found out that the expression ‘junkie’ was more than a hundred years old, from the time when the first heroin addicts stole junk metal from the harbour in Philadelphia and sold it to finance their consumption. And that was precisely what Oleg and I did. We began to sneak into building sites down by the harbour in Bjorvika and stole whatever we came across. Copper and tools were gold. We sold the copper to a scrap merchant in Kalbakken, the tools to a couple of Lithuanian tradesmen.

But as more people latched onto the scam, the fences grew in height, more nightwatchmen were employed, the cops showed up and the buyers went AWOL. So there we sat, our cravings lashing us like rabid slave drivers round the clock. And I knew I would have to come up with a decent idea, an Endlosung. So I did.

Of course I said nothing to Oleg.

I prepared the speech for a whole day. Then I rang her.

Irene had just returned home from training. She sounded almost happy to hear my voice. I talked without stopping for an hour. She was crying by the time I’d finished.

The following evening I went down to Oslo Central Station and was standing on the platform when the Trondheim train trundled in.

Her tears were flowing as she hugged me.

So young. So caring. So precious.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve never really loved anyone. But I must have been close to it, because I was almost crying myself.

33

Through the narrow opening of the window in room 301 Harry heard a church bell strike eleven somewhere in the darkness. His aching chin and throat had one advantage: they kept him awake. He got out of bed and sat in the chair, tilted it back against the wall beside the window so that he was facing the door with the rifle in his lap.

He had stopped at reception and asked for a strong light bulb to replace the one that had gone in his room and a hammer to knock in a couple of nails sticking up from the door sill. Said he would fix them himself. Afterwards he had changed the weak bulb in the corridor outside and used the hammer to loosen and remove the door sill.

From where he was sitting he would be able to see the shadow in the gap beneath the door when they came.

Harry lit another cigarette. Checked the rifle. Finished the rest of the pack. Outside in the darkness the church bell chimed twelve times.

The phone rang. It was Beate. She said she had been given copies of four of the five lists from patrol cars trawling the Blindern district.

‘The last patrol car had already delivered its list to Orgkrim,’ she said.

‘Thanks,’ Harry said. ‘Did you get the bags from Rita at Schroder’s?’

‘Yes, I did. I’ve told Pathology to make it a priority. They’re analysing the blood now.’

Pause.

‘And?’ Harry asked.

‘And what?’

‘I know that intonation, Beate. There’s something else.’

‘DNA tests take more than a few hours, Harry. It-’

‘-can take days before we have a final result.’

‘Yes, so for the time being it’s incomplete.’

‘How incomplete?’ Harry heard footsteps in the corridor.

‘Well, there’s at least a five per cent chance there’s no match.’

‘You’ve been given an interim DNA profile and have a match on the DNA register, haven’t you?’

‘We use incomplete tests only to say who we can eliminate.’

‘Who’s the match for?’

‘I don’t want to say anything until-’

‘Come on.’

‘No. But I can say it’s not Gusto’s own blood.’

‘And?’

‘And it’s not Oleg’s. Alright?’

‘Very alright,’ Harry said, suddenly aware that he had been holding his breath.

A shadow under the door.

‘Harry?’

Harry rang off. Pointed the rifle at the door. Waited. Three short knocks. Waited. Listened. The shadow didn’t move. He tiptoed along the wall towards the door, out of any possible firing line. Put his eye to the peephole in the middle of the door.

He saw a man’s back.

The jacket hung straight and was so short he could see the trouser waistband. A black piece of cloth hung from his back pocket, a cap perhaps. But he wasn’t wearing a belt. His arms hung close to his sides. If the man was carrying a weapon it had to be in a holster, either on his chest or on the inside of his calf. Neither very common.

The man turned to the door and knocked twice, harder this time. Harry held his breath while studying the distorted image of a face. Distorted, and yet there was something unmistakable about it. A pronounced underbite. And he was scratching himself under the chin with a card he had hanging from his neck. The way police officers sometimes carried ID cards when they were going to make an arrest. Shit! The police had been quicker than Dubai.

Harry hesitated. If the guy had orders to arrest him he would also have a blue chit with a search warrant he had already shown the receptionist and he would have been given a master key. Harry’s brain calculated. He tiptoed back, pushed the rifle in behind the wardrobe. Went back and opened the door. Said: ‘What do you want and who are you?’ while glancing up and down the corridor.

The man stared at him. ‘What a state you’re in, Hole. Can I come in?’ He held up his ID card.

‘Truls Berntsen. You used to work for Bellman, didn’t you?’

‘Still do. He sends his regards.’

Harry stepped aside and let Berntsen go first.

‘Cosy,’ Berntsen said, looking around.

‘Take a seat,’ Harry said, indicating the bed and sitting on the chair by the window.

‘Chewing gum?’ Berntsen said, offering a packet.

‘Gives me cavities. What do you want?’

‘As friendly as ever?’ Berntsen grinned, rolled up the chewing gum, placed it in his drawer-like prognathous jaw and sat down.

Harry’s brain was registering intonation, body language, eye movement, smell. The man was relaxed, yet threatening. Open palms, no sudden movements, but his eyes were collecting data, reading the situation, preparing for something. Harry already regretted stowing his rifle. Failure to hold a licence was the least of his problems.

‘Thing is, we found blood on Gusto’s shirt in connection with a grave desecration at Vestre Cemetery last night. And the DNA test shows it to be your blood.’

Harry watched as Berntsen neatly folded the silver paper that had been wrapped round the chewing gum. Harry remembered him better now. They had called him Beavis. Bellman’s errand boy. Stupid and smart. And dangerous. Forrest Gump gone bad.

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Harry said.

‘No, I can imagine,’ Berntsen said with a sigh. ‘Mistake on the register perhaps? I’ll have to drive you down to Police HQ to take another blood sample.’

‘I’m searching for a girl,’ Harry said. ‘Irene Hanssen.’

‘She’s in Vestre Cemetery?’

‘She’s been missing since this summer at any rate. She’s the foster-sister of Gusto Hanssen.’

‘News to me. Nevertheless you’ll have to come with me down to-’

‘It’s the girl in the middle,’ Harry said. He had taken the Hanssen family photograph from his jacket pocket and passed it to Berntsen. ‘I need a bit of time. Not much. Afterwards you’ll understand why I’ve had to do things like this. I promise to report within forty-eight hours.’

‘ 48 Hours,’ Berntsen said, studying the picture. ‘Good film. Nolte and that negro. McMurphy?’

‘Murphy.’

‘Right. Stopped being funny, he did. Isn’t that strange? You have something, and then suddenly you’ve lost it. How do you think that feels, Hole?’

Harry looked at Truls Berntsen. He wasn’t so sure about this Forrest Gump thing any more. Berntsen held the photograph up to the light. Squinted with concentration.

‘Do you recognise her?’

‘No,’ said Berntsen, passing the picture back as he twisted round. Obviously it wasn’t comfortable sitting on the item of clothing he had in his back pocket because he quickly moved it to his jacket pocket. ‘We’re going for a ride to Police HQ, where we will review your forty-eight hours.’

His tone was light. Too light. And Harry had already done his thinking. Beate had prioritised her DNA tests at the Pathology Unit and still did not have a final result. So how come Berntsen had a blood test result off Gusto’s shroud? And there was another thing. Berntsen hadn’t moved the item quickly enough. It wasn’t a cap, it was a balaclava. The type used when Gusto was executed.

And the next thought followed hard on its heels. The burner.

Were the police perhaps not the first on the scene? Was it not Dubai’s lackey?

Harry considered the rifle behind the wardrobe. But it was too late to escape now. In the corridor he heard footsteps approaching. Two people. One of them so big the floorboards creaked. The footsteps stopped outside the door. The shadows of two pairs of legs, standing akimbo, fell across the floor under the crack. He could of course have hoped they were police colleagues of Berntsen, that this was a real arrest. But he had heard the floor’s lament. A big man, he guessed the size of the figure running after him through Frogner Park.

‘Come on,’ Berntsen said, getting up and standing in front of Harry. Scratched his chest inside his lapel in an apparently casual way. ‘A little ride, just you and me.’

‘We’re not alone, it seems,’ Harry said. ‘I see you have backup.’

He nodded to the shadow under the door. Another shadow appeared. A straight, oblong shadow. Truls followed his gaze. And Harry saw it. The genuine astonishment on his face. The kind of astonishment types like Truls Berntsen cannot simulate. They weren’t Berntsen’s people.

‘Move away from the door,’ Harry whispered.

Truls stopped masticating the chewing gum and looked down at him.

Truls Berntsen liked to have his Steyr pistol in a shoulder holster, positioned in such a way that the gun lay flat against his chest. It made it harder to see when you stood face to face with someone. And as he knew that Harry Hole was an experienced detective, trained by the FBI in Chicago and so on, he also knew that Hole would automatically notice anything bulky in the usual places. Not that Truls reckoned he would need to use the pistol, but he had taken precautions. If Harry resisted he would escort him outside with the Steyr discreetly pointing at his back, having put on the balaclava so that any potential witnesses couldn’t say whom they had seen with Hole before he disappeared off the face of the earth. The Saab was parked in a backstreet; he had even smashed the only street lamp so that no one would see the number plate. Fifty thousand euros. He had to be patient, build stone by stone. Get a house a bit higher up in Hoyenhall with a view, looking down on them. Down on her.

Harry Hole had seemed smaller than the giant he remembered. And uglier. Pale, ugly, dirty and exhausted. Resigned, unfocused. This was going to be an easier job than he had anticipated. So when Hole whispered he should move away from the door Truls Berntsen’s first reaction was irritation. Was the guy attempting to play games now everything looked to be going so well? But his second reaction was that this was the voice they used. Police officers in critical situations. No colouring, no drama, just a neutral, cold clarity with the least possible chance of a misunderstanding. And the greatest possible chance of survival.

So Truls Berntsen – almost without thinking – took a step to the side.

At that moment the top part of the door panel was blown into the room.

As Berntsen whirled round his instinctive conclusion was that the barrel must have been sawn off to have such wide coverage at such short range. He already had a hand inside his jacket. With the shoulder holster in its conventional position and without a jacket he would have drawn faster as the handle would have been sticking out.

Truls Berntsen fell backwards onto the bed with the gun freed and at the end of an outstretched arm as the remains of the door opened with a bang. He heard the glass shatter behind him before everything was drowned by a new explosion.

The noise filled his ears, and there was a snowstorm in the room.

In the doorway the silhouettes of two men stood in the snowdrift. The taller one raised his gun. His head almost touched the door frame, he must have been well over two metres. Truls fired. And fired again. Felt the wonderful recoil and even more wonderful certainty that this was for real, to hell with the consequences. The tall one jerked, seemed to flick his fringe before stepping back and disappearing from view. Truls shifted his pistol and his gaze. The second man stood there without moving. White feathers fluttered around him. Truls had him in his sights. But he didn’t fire. He saw him more clearly now. Face like a wolf. The kind of face Truls had always associated with the Sami, Finns and Russians.

Now the guy calmly raised his gun. Finger wrapped around the trigger.

‘Easy, Berntsen,’ he said in English.

Truls Berntsen gave a long, drawn-out roar.

Harry fell.

He had lowered his head, crouched up and moved back as the first blast of the shotgun sprayed over his head. Back to where he knew the window was. Felt the pane almost bend before it remembered it was glass and gave way.

Then he was in free fall.

Time had jammed on the brakes, as though he was falling through water. Hands and arms working like slow paddles in a reflex attempt to stop the body rotating into the beginnings of a backward somersault. Semi-transmitted thoughts bounced between the brain’s synapses:

He was going to land on his head and break his neck.

It was lucky he didn’t have curtains.

The naked woman in the window opposite was upside down.

Then he was received by softness everywhere. Empty cardboard boxes, old newspapers, used nappies, milk cartons and day-old bread from the hotel’s kitchen, wet coffee filters.

He lay on his back in the open skip amid a shower of glass. Flashes of light appeared from the window above him, like camera flashbulbs. Muzzles of flames. But it was eerily quiet, as though the flashes came from a TV with the volume turned down. He could feel the gaffer tape around his neck had torn. Blood was streaming out. And for one wild moment he considered staying where he was. Closing his eyes, going to sleep, drifting off. He seemed to be watching himself sit up, jump over the edge of the skip and race towards the gate at the end of the yard. Open it as he heard a protracted, furious roar from the window reach the street. Slip on a drain cover but manage to stay on his feet. See a black woman in tight jeans, on the game, who smiled instinctively and pouted at him, then reviewed the situation and averted her gaze.

Harry set off.

And decided that this time he would just run.

Until there was nowhere left to run.

Until it was over, until they had him.

He hoped it wouldn’t be too long.

In the meantime he would do what hunted prey are programmed to do: flee, try to escape, try to survive for a few more hours, a few more minutes, a few more seconds.

His heart pounded in protest, and he began to laugh as he crossed the street in front of a night bus and continued down towards Oslo Central.

34

Harry was locked in. He had just woken and noticed. On the wall immediately above him hung a poster of a skinned human body. Beside it, a neatly carved wooden figure depicting a man on a cross bleeding to death. And beside that, medicine cabinet after medicine cabinet.

He twisted round on the couch. Tried to continue where he had left off yesterday. Tried to see the picture. There were lots of dots, but he hadn’t managed to connect them. And even the dots were for the time being mere assumptions.

Assumption one. Truls Berntsen was the burner. As an employee in Orgkrim he was probably in a perfect position to serve Dubai.

Assumption two. It was Berntsen Beate had found a match for on the DNA register. That was why she wouldn’t say anything until she was one hundred per cent certain; the test on the blood under Gusto’s nails suggested it was one of their own. And if that was correct Gusto had clawed Truls Berntsen the same day he was killed.

But then came the tricky part. If Berntsen was indeed working for Dubai and had been given the job of expediting Harry, why did the Blues Brothers appear and try to blow off both their heads? And if they were Dubai henchmen how come they and the burner were at each other’s throats like that? Weren’t they on the same side, or had it been no more than a badly coordinated operation? Perhaps it wasn’t coordinated because Truls Berntsen had acted on his own to prevent Harry from delivering the evidence from Gusto’s grave and exposing him?

There was a rattle of keys and the door opened.

‘Morning,’ Martine twittered. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Better,’ Harry lied, looking at his watch. Six o’clock in the morning. He threw off the blanket and swung his legs onto the floor.

‘Our infirmary is not intended for overnight stays,’ Martine said. ‘Lie down so that I can put a fresh bandage around your neck.’

‘Thanks for taking me in last night,’ Harry said. ‘But, as I said before, giving me a place to hide is not without its dangers, so I think I should go.’

‘Lie down!’

Harry looked at her. Sighed and obeyed. Shut his eyes and listened to Martine opening and closing drawers, the clatter of scissors on glass, the sound of the first people arriving for breakfast at the Watchtower cafe on the floor below.

While Martine undid the bandage she had applied the previous day Harry used his other hand to ring Beate and reach a minimalist message telling him to be brief, beep.

‘I know the blood is from an ex-Kripos detective,’ Harry said. ‘Even if this is confirmed at the Pathology Unit today you should wait before telling anyone. On its own it’s not enough to justify an arrest warrant, and if we shake his cage now we risk him burning the whole case and taking flight. So we should have him arrested for something else so that we can work in peace. Breaking into the bikers’ place in Alnabru. Unless I’m much mistaken this is Oleg’s accomplice. And Oleg will testify. So I’d like you to fax a photo of Truls Berntsen, now working at Orgkrim, to Hans Christian Simonsen’s office and ask him to show it to Oleg for identification.’

Harry rang off, took a deep breath, felt it coming, suddenly and with such power that he gasped. He turned away, felt the contents of his stomach assessing a trip up north.

‘Does it hurt?’ Martine asked as she ran the alcohol-dipped cotton wool along his neck and chin.

Harry shook his head and nodded towards the open bottle of alcohol.

‘Right,’ Martine said, tightening the cap. ‘Will it never get better?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘What?’ Harry said hoarsely.

She didn’t answer.

Harry’s eyes jumped around the infirmary to find himself a distraction, something to refocus his mind, anything at all. They found the gold ring she had removed and placed on the couch before tending to his wounds. She and Rikard had been married for a few years now; the ring had chips and scratches, it wasn’t shiny and new like Torkildsen’s at Telenor. Harry experienced a sudden chill and his scalp began to itch. Of course it could have been just sweat.

‘Genuine gold?’ he asked.

Martine began to wind round the fresh bandage. ‘It’s a wedding ring, Harry.’

‘So?’

‘So of course it’s gold. However poor or mean you are, you don’t buy a wedding ring that’s not gold.’

Harry nodded. His scalp itched and itched; he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. ‘I did,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘In which case you’re the only person in the whole world who did, Harry.’

Harry stared at the ring. That was what she had said. ‘Like hell I’m the only…’ he said slowly. The hairs on his neck were never wrong.

‘Hey, wait, I haven’t finished!’

‘It’s fine,’ said Harry, who had already sat up.

‘At least you should have some clean clothes. You stink of rubbish, sweat and blood.’

‘The Mongolians used to rub animal excrement all over themselves before big battles,’ Harry said, buttoning up his shirt. ‘If you want to give me something, a cup of coffee wouldn’t go…’

She sent him a resigned look. And went through the door and down the stairs shaking her head.

Harry hurriedly took out his mobile.

‘Yes?’ Klaus Torkildsen sounded like a zombie. Kids screaming in the background were probably the explanation.

‘This is Harry H. If you do this for me I’ll never pester you again, Torkildsen. I’d like you to check some base stations. I have to know all the places Truls Berntsen – address somewhere in Manglerud – was on the night of 12 July.’

‘We can’t pinpoint that down to the square metre or chart-’

‘-movements minute by minute. I know all that stuff. Just do the best you can.’

Pause.

‘Is that all?’

‘No, there’s another name.’ Harry closed his eyes and racked his brain. Visualised the letters of the nameplate on the door at the Radium Hospital. Mumbled to himself. Then he said the name into the phone, loud and clear.

‘Noted. And never again means?’

‘Never again.’

‘I see,’ Torkildsen said. ‘One more thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘The police asked for your number yesterday. You don’t have one.’

‘I have an unregistered Chinese number.’

‘They seemed to be interested in tracing it. What’s going on?’

‘Sure you want to know, Torkildsen?’

‘No,’ Torkildsen said after another pause. ‘I’ll ring you when I’ve got something.’

Harry ended the call and pondered. He was wanted by the police. Even if they didn’t find his name against the number, they could put two and two together if they checked Rakel’s calls and saw a Chinese number appear. The phone gave away his location, and he would have to get rid of it.

When Martine returned with a cup of steaming hot coffee, Harry allowed himself two swigs and then asked straight out if he could borrow her phone for a couple of days.

She studied him with that pure, direct look of hers and said yes, if he’d thought the matter through.

Harry nodded, took the little red phone, kissed her on the cheek and carried his coffee down to the cafe. Five of the tables were already occupied, and more early-morning scarecrows were on their way. Harry sat at a free table and jotted down the numbers from his Chinese phone. Sent the important ones a short text message about his new temporary number.

Drug addicts are as inscrutable as other people, but in one area they are reasonably predictable, so when Harry left his Chinese mobile in the middle of the table and went to the toilet he was quite sure of the result. On his return the phone had vanished. It had gone on a journey the police would be able to follow around town via base stations.

Harry, for his part, walked out and down Toyengata to Gronland.

A police car rolled up the hill towards him. He immediately lowered his head, took out Martine’s phone and pretended he was in conversation as a pretext to shield most of his face.

The car passed. The next few hours would be about staying under cover.

More important, though, he knew something. He knew where to begin.

Truls Berntsen lay frozen under two layers of spruce twigs.

He had been playing the same film all night, over and over. Wolf-face, who had backed away carefully, repeating ‘easy’ like a prayer for a truce while they pointed their guns at each other. Wolf-face. The limousine driver outside Gamlebyen Cemetery. Dubai’s man. When he had stooped to grab the big guy whom Truls had shot, he had to lower his pistol and Truls had realised the man was willing to risk his life to save his pal. Wolf-face must have been an ex-soldier, an ex-policeman, there was some kind of honour crap going on, at any rate. A groan came from the big guy at that moment. He was alive. Truls felt both relief and disappointment. But he had let Wolf-face do it, let him haul the man to his feet and had heard the squelch of blood in his shoes as they staggered down the corridor to the rear door. Once they were outside he had pulled on his balaclava and run out, through reception, to the Saab, driven straight up here, not daring to go home. For this was the safe place, the secret place. The place where no one could see him, the place only he knew and where he went when he wanted to see her.

The place was in Manglerud, in a popular hiking area, but the hikers kept to the paths and never came up to his rock, which in any case was surrounded by a dense scrub forest.

Mikael and Ulla Bellman’s house stood on the ridge opposite the rock, and he had a perfect view of the living-room window where he had seen her sitting on so many evenings. Just sitting on the sofa, her beautiful face, her graceful body that had barely changed over the years, she was still Ulla – the most attractive girl in Manglerud. Sometimes Mikael was there too. He had seen them kissing and caressing each other, but they had always gone into the bedroom before anything else happened. He didn’t know that he wanted to see any more anyway. For he liked to see her sitting there alone best of all. On the sofa with a book and her feet drawn underneath her. Now and then she would cast a glance at the window as though she could feel she was being observed. And on those occasions he felt himself getting excited by the notion that she might know. Know he was out there somewhere.

But now the living-room window was black. They had moved. She had moved. And there were no safe viewing points near the new house. He had checked. And the way things were it wasn’t certain he was going to need one. Was going to need anything. He was a marked man.

They had tricked him into visiting Hole at Hotel Leon at midnight and then attacked.

They had tried to get rid of him. Tried to burn the burner. But why? Because he knew too much? But he was a burner, wasn’t he. Burners do know too much, that goes without saying. He couldn’t understand. Hell! It didn’t matter why, he had to make sure he stayed alive.