Phantom (21 page)

Two minutes later we’d agreed on a time and place for this meeting
.

“The press writes enough about politicians’ private lives as it is,” the old man said. “Let’s talk about a business proposal instead, Fru Skøyen. A good proposal may, unlike blackmail, afford advantages to both parties. Agreed?”

She frowned. The old man beamed. “By business proposal I don’t mean of course that money is involved—even though this farm probably doesn’t run itself. That would be corruption. What I’m offering you is a purely political transaction. Covert, I’ll grant you that, but this is something practiced every day at City Hall. And it is in the people’s best interests, isn’t it?”

Skøyen nodded again, on her guard
.

“This deal will have to stay between you and us, Fru Skøyen. It will primarily benefit the town, although if you have political ambition, I can see a possible advantage for you personally. Given that is the case, it will of course make the path to a leading chair at City Hall much shorter. Never mind a role in national politics.”

Her coffee cup had stopped halfway to her mouth
.

“I haven’t even considered asking you to do something unethical, Fru Skøyen. I just want to illustrate where we have common interests and then leave it to you to do what I think is right.”

“I do what
you
think is right?”

“The City Council is in a tough spot. Even before last month’s unfortunate developments, the steering committee’s aim was to get Oslo off the list of Europe’s worst drug towns. You were to reduce the drug trade, addiction among young people and, not least, the number of overdoses. Right now nothing seems more unlikely. Isn’t that right, Fru Skøyen?”

She didn’t answer
.

“What’s needed is a hero, or a heroine, to clean up the mess from the bottom upward.”

She nodded slowly
.

“What she has to do is to clear up the gangs and the cartels.”

Isabelle snorted. “Thanks, but that’s been tried in every city in Europe. New gangs spring up again like weeds. Where there’s demand there will always be new suppliers.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Just like weeds. I see you have a field of strawberries, Fru Skøyen. Do you use a mulch?”

“Yes, strawberry clover.”

“I can offer you a mulch,” the old man said. “Strawberry clover wearing Arsenal shirts.”

She looked at him. I could see her greedy brain working at maximum speed. The old man looked pleased
.

“Mulch, my dear Gusto,” he said, taking a swig of coffee, “is a weed you plant and allow to grow unhindered to prevent other weeds from appearing. Because strawberry clover is a lesser evil than the alternatives. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” I said. “Where weeds will grow anyhow it’s a good idea to plant a weed that doesn’t destroy the strawberries.”

“Exactly. And in this little analogy the City Council’s vision of a cleaner Oslo is the strawberries, and all the gangs selling dangerous heroin and creating anarchy on the streets are the weeds. While we and violin are the mulch.”

“And so?”

“And so you first have to do the weeding. And then you can leave the strawberry clover in peace.”

“And what is it that is actually so much better for the strawberries?” she asked
.

“We don’t shoot anyone. We operate discreetly. We sell a drug that does not end in overdoses. With a monopoly in the strawberry field we can raise the prices so high that there are fewer and fewer young people recruited—without our total profit going down, I admit. Fewer users and fewer sellers. Junkies will no longer fill the parks and our downtown
streets. In brief, Oslo will be a delight to behold for tourists, politicians and voters.”

“I’m not on the Social Services Committee.”

“Not yet, Fru Skøyen. But then weeding is not for committees. For that they have a secretary. To make all the small, daily decisions that in their entirety constitute the real action taken. Naturally you follow the council’s adopted policies, but you are the person who has daily contact with the police, who discusses their activities and ventures in Kvadraturen, for example. You will of course have to define your role a little more, but you seem to have a certain talent for that. A little interview about drug policies in Oslo here, a statement about drug overdoses there. So that when success is a fact the press and your party colleagues will know who the brain is behind”—he put on his Komodo dragon grin—“the market’s proud winner of this year’s biggest strawberries.”

We all sat very still. The fly had stopped trying to escape when it discovered the sugar bowl
.

“This conversation has never taken place,” Isabelle said
.

“Of course not.”

“We’ve never even met.”

“Sad but true, Fru Skøyen.”

“And how do you imagine … the weeding should be conducted?”

“We can offer a helping hand. There’s a long tradition of snitching to eliminate rivals in this industry, and we’ll supply you with the necessary information. You will naturally provide the Social Services Committee with suggestions for the Police Commission, but you will need a confidant in the police. Perhaps someone who can benefit from being part of this success story. A person—”

“An ambitious person who can be pragmatic so long as it’s in the town’s best interests?” Isabelle Skøyen raised her cup to a
skål.
“Shall we go and sit in the lounge?”

S
ERGEY WAS LYING
supine on the bench as the tattooist studied the drawings in silence.

When he had arrived punctually at the little shop the tattooist had been busy designing a big dragon on the back of a boy who was lying there with his teeth clenched while a woman, who was clearly the mother, was comforting him and asking if the tattoo needed to be so big. She paid when it was finished and on the way out asked the boy if he was happy now that he had an even cooler tattoo than Preben and Kristoffer.

“This one will fit on your back better,” the tattooist said, pointing to one of the drawings.

“
Tupoy
,” Sergey muttered. Idiot.

“Eh?”

“Everything has to be exactly the same as the drawing. Do I have to tell you every time?”

“Yeah, well, I can’t do it all today.”

“Yes, you can—do it all. Double pay.”

“Urgent, is it?”

Sergey responded with a brief nod. Andrey had called him every day, kept him up to date. But when he had called today, Sergey had not been prepared for what Andrey had to say.

The necessary
had become necessary.

And Sergey had known there was no way out.

He had immediately brought himself up short: no way
out
? Who wanted out?

Perhaps he’d thought of escape because Andrey had warned him. Told him that the policeman had managed to disarm an inmate they had paid to kill Oleg Fauke. Fair enough, the inmate was only a Norwegian and hadn’t killed anyone with a knife before, but it meant that this wasn’t going to be as easy as the last time. Shooting their dope seller, the boy, had been a simple execution. This time he would have to sneak up on the policeman, wait till he had him where he wanted and take him when he least expected it.

“I don’t want to be a killjoy but the tattoos you’ve already got are not exactly quality workmanship. The lines are unclear, and the ink’s poor. Shouldn’t we freshen them up a little?”

Sergey didn’t answer. What did the guy know about quality workmanship? The lines were unclear because the tattooist in prison had to use a sharpened guitar string attached to an electric shaver as a needle, and the ink was made from a melted shoe sole mixed with urine.

“Drawing,” Sergey said, pointing. “Now!”

“And you’re sure you want a pistol? It’s your choice, but my experience is that people are shocked by violent symbols. Just so you’re warned.”

The guy clearly knew nothing about Russian criminals’ tattoos. Didn’t know that the cat meant he had been convicted for stealing, the church with two cupolas meant he had two convictions. Didn’t know that the burn marks on his chest were from a magnesium powder dressing he had held directly on his skin to remove a tattoo. The tattoo had been of female genitals and had been given to him while he
had been doing a second stint in prison by members of the Georgian Black Seed gang who thought he owed them money after a card game.

Nor did the tattooist know that the pistol in the drawing, a Makarov, the Russian police’s service weapon, denoted that he, Sergey Ivanov, had killed a policeman.

He knew nothing, and that was fine; it was best for everyone if he stuck to tattooing butterflies, Chinese symbols and colorful dragons on well-fed Norwegian youths who thought their catalog tattoos were a statement about something.

“Ready to begin?” the tattooist asked.

Sergey hesitated. The tattooist had been right—this was urgent. But why was it so urgent, why couldn’t he wait until the policeman was dead? Because if he was caught after the murder and sent to a Norwegian prison, where, unlike in Russia, there were no tattooists, he wouldn’t be able to get the fucking tattoo he needed.

But there was another answer to the question as well.

Was he getting the tattoo before the murder because, deep down, he was afraid? So afraid he was not sure he would be able to go through with it? That was why he had to have the tattoo now, to burn all the bridges behind him, remove all possibilities of a retreat so that he
had
to carry out the murder? No Siberian
urka
can live with a lie carved into his skin—that goes without saying. And he had been happy, he
knew
that he had been happy, so what were these thoughts, where did they come from?

He knew where they came from.

The dope seller. The boy with the Arsenal shirt.

He had started to appear in his dreams.

“Yes, let’s begin,” Sergey said.

“The doctor figures Oleg will be on his feet again within a few days,” Rakel said. She was leaning against the fridge holding a cup of tea.

“Then he’ll have to be moved somewhere that absolutely no one can get their hands on him,” Harry said.

He was standing by her kitchen window and looking down on the town, where the cars of the afternoon rush hour were crawling like glowworms along the main roads.

“The police must have such places for witness protection,” she said.

Rakel had not become hysterical. She had taken the news of the knife attack on Oleg with a kind of resigned composure. As though it were something she had been half-expecting. At the same time Harry could see the indignation on her face. Her fight face.

“He has to be in a prison, but I’ll talk to the prosecutor about a move,” Hans Christian Simonsen said. He had come as soon as Rakel had called, and he sat at the kitchen table with circles of sweat under the arms of his shirt.

“See if you can circumvent official channels,” Harry said.

“What do you mean?” the lawyer asked.

“The doors were unlocked, so at least one of the prison guards must have been in on this. As long as we’re in the dark about who was involved, we have to assume that everyone could have been.”

“Aren’t you being a little paranoid now?”

“Paranoia saves lives,” Harry said. “Can you fix that, Simonsen?”

“I’ll see what I can do. What about where he is now?”

“He’s in Ullevål Hospital, and I’ve made sure there are two officers I trust looking after him. One more thing: Oleg’s attacker is in the hospital, but he will end up with restricted rights afterward.”

“No mail or visitors?” Simonsen asked.

“Yep. Can you make sure we find out what he says in his statement to the police or his lawyer?”

“That’s trickier.” Simonsen scratched his head.

“They probably won’t get a word out of him, but try anyway,” Harry said, buttoning his coat.

“Where are you going?” Rakel asked, holding his arm.

“To the source,” Harry said.

It was eight o’clock in the evening, and the traffic in the capital of the country with the world’s shortest workday had eased long ago. The boy standing on the steps at the bottom of Tollbugata was wearing shirt number 23, Arshavin. He had his hoodie drawn over his head and wore a pair of oversize white Air Jordan sneakers. The Girbaud jeans were ironed and so stiff they could almost stand up by themselves. Full gangsta gear, everything copied down to the last detail from the latest Rick Ross video, and Harry assumed that when the trousers slipped down the right boxer shorts would be revealed, no scars from knives or bullets, but at least one violence-glorifying tattoo.

Harry walked over to him.

“Violin, a quarter.”

The boy looked down at Harry without taking his hands from the pockets of his zipped-up hoodie and nodded.

“Well?” Harry said.

“You’ll have to wait,
boraz
.” The boy spoke with a Pakistani accent that Harry presumed he dropped when he was eating his mother’s meatballs in their one hundred percent Norwegian home.