Phantom (33 page)

The rat scrabbled around the floor impatiently. The human heart was beating, but it was getting fainter and fainter. She stopped by the shoe again. Bit into the leather. Soft but thick, solid leather. She ran over the body again. The clothes smelled of more than shoes—they smelled of sweat, food and blood. The body was lying in the same position, not stirring, still blocking the entrance. She scratched at the man’s stomach.

It’s not that you have to stop living, Dad. But you have to die to put an end to the shit. There should be a better way, don’t you think? A pain-free exodus into the light instead of this damned cold darkness that closes in on you. Someone should definitely have put some opiate into the Makarov bullets, should have done what I did for Rufus, the mangy dog, should have bought me a one-way ticket to Euphoria, for Christ’s sake! But everything good in this shit world is either by prescription, sold out or so expensive you have to sell your soul to taste it. Life is a restaurant you can’t afford. Death the bill for the food you didn’t even have a chance to eat. So you order the most expensive thing on the menu—you’re in for it anyway, right?—and if you’re lucky you get a mouthful
.

OK, I’ll stop whining, Dad, so don’t go—you haven’t heard the rest. The rest is good. Where were we? Yes, just a couple of days after the burglary in Alnabru Peter and Andrey came for Oleg and me. They blindfolded Oleg and drove us to the old man’s house and took us down to the basement. I’d never been there before. We got led into a long, narrow, low corridor where we had to duck our heads. Our shoulders scraped against the sides. I gradually figured out that it wasn’t a basement but a subterranean tunnel. An escape passage, maybe. Which hadn’t helped Beret Man. He looked like a drowned rat. Well, he
was
a drowned rat
.

Then they took Oleg back to the car while I got taken to the old man. He sat in a chair across from me, no table in between
.

“Were you two there?” he asked
.

I looked him straight in the eye. “If you’re asking if we were in Alnabru the answer’s no.”

He studied me in silence
.

“You’re like me,” he said at length. “It’s impossible to see when you’re lying.”

I wouldn’t swear to it, but I thought I detected a smile
.

“Well, Gusto, did you understand what that was, downstairs?”

“It was the undercover cop. Beret Man.”

“Correct. And why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Take a guess.”

The guy must have been a crappy teacher in a former life. But, whatever, I answered: “He stole something.”

The old man shook his head. “He found out I lived here. He knew he had no basis for a search warrant. After the arrest of Los Lobos and the recent seizure of Alnabru he saw the writing on the wall—he would never get a search warrant, however good his case was …” The old man grinned. “We’d given him a warning we thought would stop him.”

“Yeah?”

“Cops like him rely on their false identity. They think it’s impossible to discover who they are. Who their family is. But you can find everything in police archives, provided you have the right passwords. Which you do if, for example, you hold a trusted position in Orgkrim. And how did we warn him?”

I answered without a second’s thought. “Bumped off his kids?”

The old man’s face darkened. “We’re not monsters, Gusto.”

“Sorry.”

“Besides, he didn’t have any children.”
Chug-chug
laugh. “But he had a sister. Or perhaps it was just a foster sister.”

I nodded. It was impossible to see if he was lying
.

“We said she would be raped, then put out of her misery. But I misjudged him. Instead of thinking he had other relatives to keep an eye on, he went on the attack. A very lonely, but desperate attack. He managed to break in here last night. We were not prepared for that. He probably loved this sister a lot. He was armed. I went down to the cellar, and he followed. And then he died.” He tilted his head. “Of what?”

“Water was coming out of his mouth. Drowning?”

“Correct. But drowned where?”

“Was he brought here from a lake or something?”

“No. He broke in, and he drowned. So?”

“Then I don’t know—”

“Think!” The word cracked like a whip. “If you want to survive you have to be able to think, draw conclusions from what you can see. That’s real life.”

“Fine, fine.” I tried to think. “The basement’s not a basement but a tunnel.”

The old man crossed his arms. “And?”

“It’s longer than this property. It could come out in a field.”

“But?”

“But you told me you own the property next door, so it probably goes there.”

The old man smiled with satisfaction. “Guess how old the tunnel is.”

“Old. The walls were covered in moss.”

“Algae. After the Resistance movement had made four failed attacks on this house the Gestapo boss had a tunnel built. They succeeded in keeping it secret. When Reinhard came home in the afternoon he walked in through the front door here so that everyone could see. He switched on the light and then went through the tunnel to his real home next door and sent the German lieutenant everyone thought lived over there, over here. And this lieutenant strutted around, often close to windows, wearing the same kind of uniform as his Gestapo boss.”

“He was a decoy.”

“Correct.”

“Why should I care?”

“Because I want you to know what real life is like, Gusto. Most people in this country don’t know anything about it, don’t know how much it costs to survive. But I’m telling you all this because I want you to remember that I trusted you.”

He looked at me like what he was saying was very important. I pretended to understand; I wanted to go home. Maybe he could see that
.

“Nice to see you, Gusto. Andrey will drive you both back.”

When the car passed the university there must have been some student gig taking place on campus. We could hear the thrashing guitars of a rock band playing on an outdoor stage. Young people streamed toward us down Blindernveien. Happy, expectant faces, as if they had been promised something, a future or something
.

“What’s that?” asked Oleg, who was still blindfolded
.

“That,” I said, “is unreal life.”

• • •

“A
ND YOU
’
VE NO
idea how he drowned?” Harry asked.

“No,” Oleg said. The foot-pumping had increased; his whole body was vibrating.

“OK, so you were blindfolded, but tell me everything you can remember about the journey to and from this place. All the noises. When you got out of the car, for example, did you hear a train or a tram?”

“No. But it was raining when we arrived, so basically that is what I heard.”

“Heavy rain, light rain?”

“Light. I hardly felt it as we left the car. But that was when I heard it.”

“OK, if light rain doesn’t usually make much noise it might when it falls on leaves?”

“Possibly.”

“What was under your feet going toward the front door? Pavement? Flagstones? Grass?”

“Gravel. I think. Yes, there was a crunch. That’s how I knew where Peter was. He’s the heaviest, so he crunched most.”

“Good. Steps by the door?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

Oleg groaned.

“OK,” Harry said. “Was it still raining by the door?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I mean, was it in your hair?”

“Yes.”

“So no porch-type structure, then.”

“Are you planning to search for places in Oslo without a porch?”

“Well, different parts of Oslo were built in different periods, and they have a number of common features.”

“And what’s the period for timber houses, gravel paths and steps to a door without an overhang or nearby tramlines?”

“You sound like a police chief.” Harry did not reap the smile or laughter he had hoped he would. “When you left did you notice any sounds close by?”

“Such as?”

“Such as the beeping of a crosswalk signal.”

“No, nothing like that. But there was music.”

“Recorded or live?”

“Live, I think. The cymbals were clear. You could hear the guitars, sort of floating and fading on the wind.”

“Sounds live. Good memory.”

“I only remember because they were playing one of your songs.”

“
My
songs?”

“From one of your records. I remember because Gusto said this was unreal life, and I thought that must have been an unconscious train of thought. He must have heard the line they had just sung.”

“Which line?”

“Something about a dream. I’ve forgotten, but you used to play that song all the time.”

“Come on, Oleg—this is important.”

Oleg looked at Harry. His feet stopped tapping. He closed his eyes and tried humming a tune.
“It’s just a dreamy Gonzales …”
He opened his eyes and his face was red. “Something like that.”

Harry hummed it to himself. And shook his head.

“Sorry,” Oleg said. “I’m not sure, and it lasted only a few seconds.”

“That’s fine,” Harry said, patting the boy’s shoulder. “Tell me what happened at Alnabru, then.”

Oleg’s foot started up again. He took two breaths, two deep mouthfuls of air, as he had learned to do on the starting line before he crouched down. Then he spoke.

Afterward Harry sat for a long time rubbing the back of his neck. “So you drilled a man to death?”

“We didn’t. A policeman did.”

“Whose name you don’t know. Or where he worked.”

“No, both Gusto and he were careful about that. Gusto said it was best if I didn’t know.”

“And you’ve no idea what happened to the body?”

“No. Are you going to report me?”

“No.” Harry took his pack of cigarettes and flipped out a cigarette.

“Do I get one?” Oleg asked.

“Sorry, son. Bad for your health.”

“But—”

“On one condition. That you let Hans Christian hide you and leave it to me to find Irene.”

Oleg stared at the apartment buildings on the hill behind the stadium. Flower boxes still hung from the balconies. Harry studied his profile. The Adam’s apple going up and down the slim neck.

“Deal,” he said.

“Good.” Harry passed him a cigarette and lit up for both of them.

“Now I understand the metal finger,” Oleg said. “It’s so that you can smoke.”

“Yep,” Harry said, holding the cigarette between the titanium prosthesis and his index finger while selecting Rakel’s number. He didn’t need to ask for Hans Christian’s number, since he was there with her. The lawyer said he would come at once.

Oleg bent double as if it had suddenly become colder. “Where’s he going to hide me?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, either.”

“Why not?”

“I have such sensitive testicles. I spill the beans at the very mention of the words
car battery
.”

Oleg laughed. It was short, but it was laughter. “I don’t believe that. You’d let them take your life before you said a word.”

Harry eyed the boy. He would crack weak jokes all day if only to see those glimpses of a smile.

“You’ve always had such high expectations of me, Oleg. Too high. And I’ve always wanted you to see me as better than I am.”

Oleg looked down at his hands. “Don’t all boys see their fathers as heroes?”

“Maybe. And I didn’t want you to expose me as a deserter, someone who disappears. But things happened as they did anyway. What I wanted to say was that even if I wasn’t there for you, that doesn’t mean you weren’t important to me. We can’t live the lives we would like to. We’re prisoners of … things. Of who we are.”

Oleg lifted his chin. “Of junk and shit.”

“That, too.”

They inhaled in unison. Watching the smoke drift in gusts toward the vast, open, blue sky. Harry knew that nicotine couldn’t appease the cravings in the boy, but at least it was a distraction. And that was all it was about, for the next few minutes.