Phantom (29 page)

She gave a short laugh. “Gusto was young and good-looking. That kind of stallion is great to look at, but it has dubious genes. Biological father’s a criminal and mother’s a drug addict, according to the foster father. Not a horse you breed, but one that’s fun to ride if you …” She took a deep breath. “He came here and we had sex. Now and then I gave him money. He met other people as well—it was nothing special.”

“Did that make you jealous?”

“Jealous?” Isabelle shook her head. “Sex has never made me jealous. I met other people, too. And after a while someone special. Then I dropped Gusto. Or maybe he had already dropped me. He no longer seemed to need the pocket money anyway. But then he contacted me again. He became a nuisance. I think he had financial problems. And also a drug problem.”

“What was he like?”

“He was selfish, unreliable, charming. A self-confident bastard.”

“And what did he want?”

“Do I look like a psychologist, Harry?”

“No.”

“No. People don’t interest me that much.”

“Really?”

Isabelle Skøyen shook her head. Looked into the distance. Her eyes glistened.

“Gusto was lonely,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“I know what loneliness is, OK? And he was full of self-loathing.”

“Self-confidence and self-loathing?”

“It’s not a contradiction. You know what you can achieve, but that doesn’t mean you see yourself as someone others can love.”

“And what’s that due to?”

“I told you—I’m not a psychologist.”

“No, that’s right.”

Harry waited.

She cleared her throat.

“His parents had given him away. What do you think that does to a boy? Behind all the gestures and the hard face he was someone who didn’t think he was worth much. Just as little as those who had given up on him. Isn’t it simple logic, Herr Quasi Policeman?”

Harry looked at her. Nodded. Noticed his gaze made her uncomfortable. But he refrained from asking her the questions she obviously knew were on his lips: What was her story? How lonely, how self-loathing was she behind the façade?

“How about Oleg? Did you meet him?”

“The one who was arrested for the murder? Never. But Gusto mentioned an Oleg a couple of times, said he was his best friend. I think he was his only friend.”

“What about Irene?”

“He mentioned her, too. She was like a sister.”

“She
was
a sister.”

“Not by blood, Harry. It’s never the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

“People are naïve and believe they are capable of selfless love. But it’s all about passing on genes that are as close as possible to your own. I see this in horse breeding every day, believe me. And, yes, people are like horses—we’re herd animals. A father will protect his biological son, a brother his biological sister. In any conflict we instinctively take the side of those who look most like us. Imagine you’re in the jungle and walk around a corner and suddenly see another white man, dressed like you, grappling with a semi-naked black man in warpaint.
They’ve both got knives and are fighting to the death. You’ve got a gun. What’s your first instinct? To shoot the white man to save the black man? It’s not, is it.”

“Mm. And what’s your proof?”

“The proof is that our loyalty is biologically determined. Circles that spread out from the center, which is ourselves and our genes.”

“So you’d shoot one of them to protect your genes?”

“Without a second thought.”

“What about killing both to be on the safe side?”

She looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“What were you doing the night Gusto was killed?”

“What?” She scrunched up one eye in the sun and beamed at him. “Do you suspect me of killing Gusto, Harry? And that I was after this … Oleg?”

“Just answer me.”

“I remember where I was because it was in my mind when I was reading about the murder in the paper. I was sitting in a meeting with representatives of the police Narcotics Unit. They should be reliable witnesses. Do you want names?”

Harry shook his head.

“Anything else?”

“Well, this Dubai. What do you know about him?”

“Dubai, hm. As little as everyone else. There’s talk, but the police aren’t making any headway. It’s typical; the professionals behind the scams always get away.” Harry looked for a change in the size of pupils, the color of her cheeks. If Isabelle Skøyen was lying, she was good.

“I ask because you’ve cleared the streets of all the dope dealers apart from Dubai and a couple of minor gangs.”

“Not me, Harry. I’m just a council secretary following the orders of the Social Services Committee and the council’s policies. And what you call clearing the streets, strictly speaking, is a police job.”

“Mm. Norway is a little fairy-tale land. But I’ve spent the last few years in the real world, Skøyen. And the real world is driven by two types of people. Those who want power and those who want money. The first want a statue, the second enjoyment. And the currency they use when negotiating with each other to get what they want is called corruption.”

“I’ve got things to do, Hole. Where do you want this to go?”

“Where others have obviously lacked the courage or the imagination to go. If you live in a town for a long time you usually see the situation
as a mosaic of details you know well. But someone who returns to the town and doesn’t know the details only sees the picture. And the picture is that the situation in Oslo is favorable for two groups: the dealers who have the market to themselves and the politicians who are credited with having cleaned up.”

“Are you saying I’m corrupt?”

“Are you?”

He saw the fury flash into her eyes. Genuine, without a doubt. He wondered only whether it was the anger of the just or that of the ensnared. Then, out of the blue, she laughed. A trilled, surprisingly girlish laugh.

“I like you, Harry.” She got up. “I know men, and they’re wimps when it comes to the crunch. But I think you might be an exception.”

“Well,” Harry said, “at least you know where you are with me.”

“Reality calls, my dear.”

Harry turned to see the roll of Isabelle Skøyen’s voluminous rear end as she headed for the horses.

He followed. Got his feet in the stirrups. Mounted Balder. Looked up and met Isabelle’s eyes. There was a small, provocative smile in the middle of that hard, handsomely chiseled face. She pouted a kiss. Made an obscene sucking sound and dug her heels into Medusa’s sides. And her back swayed as the great beast leaped forward.

Balder reacted without warning, but Harry managed to hold on tight.

Isabelle led again, and wet clods of earth from Medusa’s hooves rained down. Then the mare upped her pace, and Harry saw Isabelle’s ponytail standing upright as she disappeared around a bend. He gripped the reins farther up, the way his grandfather had taught him, without tightening them. The path was so narrow that branches whipped at him, but he crouched down in the saddle and squeezed his knees hard against the horse. He knew he would not be able to stop, so he concentrated on keeping his feet in the stirrups and his head low. At the margins of his vision, trees flashed past in yellow and red stripes. Automatically he rose in the saddle and put his weight on his knees and the stirrups. Beneath him muscles rippled and undulated. He had the feeling he was sitting on a boa constrictor. And now they had slipped into a kind of rhythm, accompanied by the thunderous drumming of the hooves on the ground. A sense of horror competed with a sense of obsession. The path straightened, and fifty yards in front of them Harry saw Medusa and Isabelle. For a moment it was as if the image
were freeze-framed, as if they had stopped, as if horse and rider were floating above the ground. Then Medusa resumed her gallop. Another second passed before Harry realized.

And it had been a valuable second.

At police college he had read scientific reports showing that in catastrophes the human brain tries to process enormous quantities of data in seconds. For some officers this can lead to a paralysis, for others to a feeling that time is going slower, that life passes before them, and they manage to make an astonishing number of observations about and evaluations of the situation. Such as that at a speed of roughly forty miles an hour they had covered two-thirds of a mile and there was only one mile and some ninety seconds left to the chasm that Medusa had just crossed.

That it was impossible to see how wide it was.

That Medusa was a trained, fully grown dressage horse with an experienced dressage rider while Balder was younger and smaller and had a nearly two-hundred-pound novice on his back.

That Balder was a herd animal, and of course Isabelle Skøyen knew that.

That it was too late to stop.

Harry relaxed his hands on the reins and dug his heels into Balder’s sides. Felt a last surge of pace. Then all went still. The drumming stopped. They were floating. Far beneath them he saw a treetop and a stream. Then he was thrust forward and banged his head against the horse’s neck. They fell.

Were you a thief, too, Dad? Because I’d always known I was going to be a millionaire. My motto was to steal only when it was worthwhile, so I’d been patient and waited. And waited. Waited so long that when the opportunity finally offered itself I thought I fucking deserved it
.

The plan was as simple as it was brilliant. While Odin’s biker gang was meeting the old man at McDonald’s, Oleg and I would steal part of their heroin store in Alnabru. First off, there would be no one in the clubhouse because Odin would take the muscle they had with them. Second, Odin would never find out that he’d been robbed because he was going to get arrested at McDonald’s. When he was sitting on the witness stand he would in fact thank Oleg and me for reducing the number of kilos the heavies had found in the raid. The only problem would be the cops and the old man. If the cops realized that someone had been a step ahead of them and nabbed the stash, and this made it to the old man’s ears, we would be fucked. The problem solved itself the way the old man had taught me: castling, a strategic alliance. I went straight to the apartment building in Manglerud, and this time Truls Berntsen was at home
.

He stared at me skeptically as I explained, but I didn’t care. Because I had seen it in his eyes. The greed. Another one of these people desperate for payback, who believed that money could buy them medicine for despair, loneliness and bitterness. That there’s not only something called justice, but that it’s a consumer product, sort of. I explained we needed his expertise to cover any clues we left for the police, and to burn anything they found. Maybe even direct suspicion on others, if necessary. I saw the glint in his eye when I said we would take five of the twenty kilos in the stash. Two for me and him, one for Oleg. I watched him doing the math, one point two mil times two, two point four for him
.

“And this Oleg is the only other person you’ve spoken to?” he asked
.

“Cross my heart.”

“Do you have any weapons?”

“An Odessa between us.”

“Eh?”

“The H-and-M version of a Stechkin.”

“OK. It’s unlikely the detectives will give the number of kilos a thought if there are no signs of a break-in, but I guess you’re scared Odin will come after you.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t give a shit about Odin. It’s my boss who scares me. I have no idea how, but I just know he knows to the gram how much heroin they have stored there.”

“I want half,” he said. “You and Boris can share the rest.”

“Oleg.”

“Be happy I’ve got a bad memory. And it works both ways. It’ll take me half a day to find you and nothing to destroy you.” He lovingly rolled the
r
in
destroy.

It was Oleg who figured out how we should camouflage the robbery. It was so simple and obvious I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it myself
.

“We swap what we steal with potato flour. The police will report how many kilos they confiscate, not the purity of its content, right?”

The plan was, as I said, as brilliant as it was simple
.

The same night that Odin and the old man were having a birthday party at McDonald’s and discussing the price of violin in Drammen and Lillestr
ø
m, Berntsen, Oleg and I were standing outside the fence around the bikers’ clubhouse in Alnabru. Berntsen was in charge, and we were wearing nylon stockings, black jackets and gloves. In our knapsacks we had guns, a drill, a screwdriver, a crowbar and six kilos’ worth of potato flour packed into plastic bags. Oleg and I had explained where Los Lobos had their surveillance cameras, and by climbing over the fence and running to the wall on the left we stayed in the blind spot the whole time. We knew we could make as much noise as we wanted because the heavy traffic on the E6 below would drown out everything, so Berntsen drilled through the wall while Oleg kept lookout and I hummed “Been Caught Stealing,” which was on the soundtrack of Stein’s Grand Theft Auto game, and he said it was by a band called Jane’s Addiction, and I remembered because it was a cool name, cooler than the songs, actually. Oleg and I were in familiar territory, and the layout of the clubhouse was simple: It was just one large lounge area. But because all the windows were covered with wooden shutters, the plan was to drill a peephole, then we would be sure there was no one in the clubhouse. Berntsen had insisted on this; he had refused to believe that Odin would leave twenty kilos of heroin, with a street value of twenty-five million, unguarded. We knew Odin better, but gave in. Safety first
.