Nemesis (29 page)

Beate shifted position in her chair.

‘Lev was fully concentrated, as if he was doing something which required great precision and care. He seemed to be trying to prise out the eyeball. Roger was weeping blood; it ran from the eye, down his ear and dripped from the lobe onto the tarmac. It was so quiet you could hear the blood hitting the ground. Drip, drip, drip.’

‘What did you do?’ Beate asked.

‘I threw up. I’ve never been able to stand the sight of blood; it makes me dizzy and feel unwell.’ Trond shook his head. ‘Lev let Roger go and came back home with me. Roger had his eye repaired, but we never saw the Gausten brothers on our patch again. I’ll never forget the sight of Lev with the stick, though. It was at moments like
that when I thought my big brother could occasionally become someone else, someone I didn’t know, who dropped by on the odd unexpected visit. Unfortunately the visits became more and more frequent after that.’

‘You said something about him trying to kill a man.’

‘It was a Sunday morning. Lev had a screwdriver and a pencil with him, and cycled down to one of the footbridges over Ringveien. You know these bridges, don’t you? They’re a bit scary because you have to walk on square metal grids and look down on the tarmac seven metres below. As I said, it was Sunday morning, and there weren’t many people about. He loosened the screws of one of the grids and left two screws on one side and the pencil in the corner under the grid. Then he waited. First of all, a lady came along, looking ‘freshly fucked’ as he put it. Well dressed, tousled hair, cursing and hobbling on a broken stiletto heel.’ Trond laughed quietly. ‘For a fifteen-year-old, Lev had a lot about him.’ He lifted the cup to his mouth and looked out of the kitchen window in surprise; a dustbin lorry was parked in front of the rubbish bins behind the rotary driers. ‘Is it Monday today?’

‘No,’ said Harry, who hadn’t touched his cup. ‘What happened to the girl?

‘There are two lines of metal grids. She took the one to the left. Bad luck, Lev said. He said he would have preferred her rather than the guy. Then the man came. He walked on the right-hand side. Because of the pencil in the corner the loose grid was a bit higher than the others. Lev thought the man had seen the danger as he walked slower and slower, the nearer he came. Just as he was going to take the last step he seemed to freeze in the air.’

Trond slowly shook his head as he watched the lorry groaning and chewing up all the neighbours’ refuse.

‘As he put his foot down, the grid opened like a trapdoor. You know, like the ones they used in hangings. The man broke both legs as he hit the tarmac. Had it not been a Sunday morning he would have been run over straightaway. Bad luck, Lev called it.’

‘Did he say that to the police, too?’ Harry asked.

‘The police, yes,’ Trond said, gazing into his cup. ‘They came two days later. I opened the door. They asked if the bike outside belonged to anyone in the house. I said yes. Turned out a witness had seen Lev cycling away from the footbridge and had given a description of the bike and a boy in a red jacket. So I showed them the quilted jacket Lev had been wearing.’

‘You?’ Harry said. ‘You gave your own brother away?’

Trond sighed. ‘I said it was my bike. And my jacket. Lev and I look very similar.’

‘Why on earth did you do that?’

‘I was just fourteen and too young for them to do anything. Lev would have ended up in the detention centre where Roger Gausten was.’

‘But what did your mother and father say?’

‘What could they say? Everyone who knew us knew that Lev had done it. He was the nutcase who pinched sweets and threw stones, while I was the good, kind little boy who did his homework and helped old ladies across the road. It was never talked about afterwards.’

Beate cleared her throat: ‘Whose idea was it that you should take the blame?’

‘Mine. I loved Lev more than anything on earth. But as the case has been dropped, I can say that now. And the fact is . . .’ Trond put on his absent smile. ‘Sometimes I wished it had been me who had dared to do it.’

Harry and Beate fidgeted with their cups in silence. Harry wondered which of them would ask. If he had had Ellen with him, they would have known intuitively.

‘Where . . . ?’ they began in unison. Trond blinked at them. Harry gave Beate the nod.

‘Where does your brother live now?’ she asked.

‘Where . . . Lev is?’ Trond looked at them in bewilderment.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We know he’s been away for a while.’

Grette turned to Harry. ‘You didn’t say this was about Lev.’ The intonation was accusatory.

‘We said we wanted to talk about this and that,’ Harry said. ‘We’ve finished with this, now we’re on to that.’

Trond bolted up from his chair, grabbed the cups, went over to the sink and threw out the cocoa. ‘But Lev . . . after all he’s my . . . what on earth has he got to do with . . . ?’

‘Perhaps nothing,’ Harry said. ‘If he has, we would like your help to eliminate him from our inquiries.’

‘He doesn’t even live in this country,’ Trond groaned, turning round to face them.

Beate and Harry looked at each other.

‘So where does he live?’ Harry asked.

Trond hesitated exactly a tenth of a second too long before answering: ‘I don’t know.’

Harry watched the yellow dustbin lorry pass outside. ‘You’re not very good at lying, are you.’

Trond answered him with a rigid stare.

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘Perhaps we can’t expect you to help us find your brother. On the other hand, it was your wife who was killed. And we have a witness who fingered your brother as the murderer.’ He raised his eyes towards Trond as he said the last word and saw his Adam’s apple give a jump under the pale skin. In the ensuing silence they could hear a radio playing in the next-door flat.

Harry coughed. ‘So if there’s anything you can tell us, we would greatly appreciate it.’

Trond shook his head.

They sat for a few moments, then Harry got up. ‘Fine. You know where to find us if you think of anything.’

Outside on the step, Trond didn’t seem as tired as when they arrived. Red-eyed, Harry peered up into the low sun protruding between the clouds.

‘I understand this isn’t easy for you, but maybe it’s time you took off the red jacket.’

Grette didn’t answer, and the last they saw as they turned out of the car park was Grette standing on the doorstep and playing with the diamond ring on his little finger, and a glimpse of a wrinkly, tanned face behind the neighbour’s window.

In the evening the clouds disappeared. Harry stopped at the top of Dovregata on his way home from Schrøder’s and stared upwards. The stars twinkled in the moonless sky. One of the lights was a plane flying north towards Gardemoen airport. Orion’s Horsehead Nebula. Horsehead Nebula. Orion. Who had told him about it? Had it been Anna, he wondered.

On returning to his flat, he switched on the TV to see the NRK news. Heroic tales about American firefighters. He switched it off. A man’s voice screamed a woman’s name down in the street; he sounded drunk. Harry rummaged around in his pockets to find the note he had made of Rakel’s new number and discovered he still had the key engraved with AA. He put the key at the back of the drawer in the telephone table before ringing the number. No answer. When the telephone rang, he wasn’t sure if it would be her; instead he had Øystein on a crackly line.

‘Shit, the way they drive here!’

‘You don’t need to shout, Øystein.’

‘They’re fucking trying to kill me on the roads here! I took a taxi from Sharm el-Sheikh. Great trip, I thought – right through the desert, not much traffic, straight road. Boy, was I wrong. It’s a miracle I’m alive, I can tell you. And so hot! And have you heard the grasshoppers here – the desert crickets? They make the world’s highest-pitched grasshopper noises. Goes right through the cerebral cortex, absolutely terrible. The water here is just amazing. Amazing! Completely clear with a dash of green. Body temperature, so you don’t even feel it. Yesterday I got out of the sea and wasn’t even sure if I’d been in . . .’

‘Forget the sea temperatures, Øystein. Have you found the server?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘What does that mean?’

Harry didn’t get an answer. They had clearly been interrupted by a discussion at the other end. Harry caught fragments, like ‘the boss’ and ‘the money’.

‘Harry? Sorry, the guy here got a bit paranoid. And I am too. Bloody hot, it is! But I think I’ve found the right server. There’s always a chance they’re trying to screw me, but tomorrow I’ll see the works and meet the boss in person. Three minutes on the keyboard and I’ll know if it’s the right one. And the rest is just a question of money. I hope. Ring you tomorrow. You should see the knives these Bedouins have here . . .’

Øystein’s laugh sounded hollow.

The last thing Harry did before switching off the light was to consult the encyclopedia. Horsehead Nebula was a dark cloud. Not a lot was known about it, nor about Orion either, except that it was considered one of the most beautiful of all the constellations. Orion was a Greek mythical figure, a Titan and a great hunter. He was seduced by Eos, for which Artemis killed him in his fury. Harry went to sleep with the sensation that somebody was thinking about him.

On opening his eyes the following morning he could feel his thoughts were scattered far and wide, torn fragments and glimpses of half-forgotten scenes. It was as though someone had ransacked his brain, and the contents, which had been carefully tidied away in drawers and cupboards, lay strewn around. He must have been dreaming. The telephone in the hall rang and rang. Harry forced himself out of bed. It was Øystein again: he was in an office in El Tor.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ he said.

R
ASKOL’S MOUTH AND LIPS FORMED A GENTLE SMILE.
I
T WAS
therefore impossible to say whether it was really a gentle smile or not. Harry guessed the latter.

‘You have a friend in Egypt searching for a telephone number then,’ Raskol said. Harry was unable to decipher whether the intonation was sarcastic or matter-of-fact.

‘El Tor,’ Harry said, rubbing his palm against the arm of his chair. He felt an intense discomfort. Not because he was sitting in the sterile visitors’ room again, but on account of his errand. He had considered all the options. Taking a personal loan. Confiding in Bjarne Møller. Selling the Ford Escort to the garage where it was always being repaired. But this was the only realistic chance, the only logical way to go. It was madness.

‘The telephone number is not simply a number,’ Harry said. ‘It will lead us to the client who sent me the e-mail. The e-mail which proves he knows details about Anna’s death he would not have known, had he not been present just before she died.’

‘And your friend says the owners of the ISP have asked for 60,000 Egyptian pounds. And that is?’

‘Approximately 120,000 kroner.’

‘Which you think I should give you?’

‘I don’t think anything. I’m just telling you what the situation is. They want money and I haven’t got it.’

Raskol ran a finger along his top lip. ‘Why should that be my problem, Harry? We made an agreement and I kept my part.’

‘I’ll keep my part, but it will take longer without money.’

Raskol shook his head, threw out his arms and mumbled something in what Harry supposed was Romany. Øystein had been desperate on the telephone. There was no doubt they had found the correct server, he had said. But he had imagined a rusty antique in a shed, wheezing but functional, and a horse trader with a turban who wanted three camels and a pack of American cigarettes. Instead he went to an air-conditioned office where the young besuited Egyptian behind a desk had gazed at him through silver-framed glasses and told him the price was ‘non-negotiable’, payment was to be in untraceable notes and the offer would stand for three days.

‘I assume you’ve considered the consequences if it leaks out that you’ve been receiving money from someone like me while on duty?’

‘I’m not on duty,’ Harry said.

Raskol stroked his ears with the palms of his hands. ‘Sun Tzu says if you do not control events, they will control you. You don’t have any control over events,
Spiuni
. It means you’ve blundered. I don’t like people who make blunders. Hence, I have a suggestion. We’ll make this simple for both parties. You give me the name of this man and I’ll sort out the rest.’

‘No!’ Harry slammed his hand down hard on the table. ‘I don’t want him roughed up by one of your gorillas. I want him behind lock and key.’

‘You surprise me,
Spiuni.
If I’ve understood you correctly, you’re already in a sensitive position. Why not let justice be meted out to the hilt as painlessly as possible?’

‘No vendetta. That was our agreement.’

Raskol smiled. ‘You’re a tough nut, Hole. I like that. And I respect
agreements. But now you’re beginning to screw up. How can I be sure this is the right man?’

‘You were given the opportunity to check the key I found at the chalet was identical with Anna’s.’

‘And now you come to me for help again. So you’ll have to give me a bit more.’

Harry swallowed. ‘When I found Anna, she had a photo in her shoe.’

‘Go on.’

‘My thinking is she managed to put it there before the murderer shot her. It’s a picture of the murderer’s family.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

Raskol shook his head, looked at Harry and then shook his head again.

‘I don’t know who’s the most stupid here. You, for letting your friend pull the wool over your eyes. Your friend, who thinks he can hide after stealing money from me.’ He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Or me, for giving you money.’

Harry thought he would feel happiness or at least relief. Instead he only felt the knot in his stomach tightening. ‘So what do you need to know?’

‘Just the name of your friend and the bank in Egypt where he wants to pick up the money.’

‘You’ll have them in an hour.’ Harry got to his feet.

Raskol rubbed his wrists as if he had taken off handcuffs. ‘I hope you don’t think you understand me,
Spiuni.
’ He said it in a low voice without looking up.