The Redeemer (15 page)

By the time the announcement finally came over Gardemoen Airport's tannoy system, he had already guessed:

'Due to weather conditions, the airport has been temporarily closed.'

Matter-of-fact, he said to himself. Like an hour before, when the first announcement was made about the delay due to snow.

They had waited while the snow laid thick blankets over the aircraft outside. He had kept an unconscious eye on uniformed personnel. They would be uniformed at an airport, he imagined. And when the woman in blue behind the counter by Gate 42 lifted the microphone, he could see it written over her face. The flight to Zagreb was cancelled. She was apologetic. Said it would depart at 10.40 the following morning. There was a collective but muted groan from the passengers. She twittered on that the airline would cover the cost of the train back to Oslo and a hotel room at the SAS hotel for transit passengers and those travelling on a return ticket.

Matter-of-fact, he thought once more, as the train flew through the blackened night landscape. It stopped just once before Oslo, at an assortment of houses on white terrain. A dog sat shivering under one of the benches on the platform as the snow drifted in cones of light. It looked like Tinto, the playful stray that had run around the neighbourhood in Vukovar when he was small. Giorgi and a couple of the other older boys had given him a leather collar inscribed with:
Name: Tinto; Owner:
Svi.
Everyone. No one wished Tinto any harm. No one. Sometimes that wasn't enough.

Jon had moved to the end of the room that was not visible from Thea's front door while she went to open it. It was Emma, the neighbour: 'I'm so sorry, Thea, but this man needs to get hold of Jon Karlsen as a matter of urgency.'

'Jon?'

A man's voice: 'Yes. I've been informed that I might be able to find him at this address with a Thea Nilsen. There were no names downstairs by the bells, but this lady has been very helpful.'

'Jon here? I don't know how—'

'I'm from the police. My name is Harry Hole. It's about Jon's brother.'

'Robert?'

Jon stepped towards the door. A man of his height with bright blue eyes looked at him from the doorway. 'Has Robert done something wrong?' he asked, trying to ignore the neighbour standing on tiptoes to see over the policeman's shoulder.

'We don't know,' the man said. 'May I come in?'

'Please do,' Thea said.

The detective stepped inside and closed the door in the neighbour's disappointed face. 'I'm afraid it's bad news. Perhaps you ought to sit down.'

The three of them sat around a coffee table. It was like a punch to the stomach, and Jon's head shot forward in automatic response to what the policeman told him.

'Dead?' he heard Thea whisper. 'Robert?'

The policeman cleared his throat and continued talking. The words seemed like dark, cryptic, barely comprehensible sounds to Jon. All the time he was listening to the detective explaining the circumstances, he was focusing on one point. On Thea's half-open mouth and sparkling lips, moist, red. Her breathing came in short, rapid pants. Jon didn't notice that the policeman had stopped speaking until he heard Thea's voice:

'Jon? He asked you a question.'

'Sorry. I . . . what did you say?'

'I know this is a difficult time, but I was wondering whether you know of anyone who might have wished to kill your brother.'

'Robert?' Everything around Jon seemed to be happening in slow motion, even the shake of his head.

'Right,' the policeman said, without making a note on the pad he had just produced. 'Is there anything in his job or private life that might have made him enemies?'

Jon heard his own inappropriate laughter. 'Robert's in the Salvation Army,' he said. 'Our enemy is poverty. Material and spiritual. It's rare for any of us to be killed.'

'Mm. That's the job. What about private life?'

'What I said applied to both job and private life.'

The policeman waited.

'Robert was kind,' Jon said and heard his voice starting to disintegrate. 'Loyal. Everyone liked Robert. He . . .' His voice thickened and stopped.

The policeman looked around the room. He didn't seem comfortable with the situation, but he waited. And waited.

Jon kept swallowing. 'He could be a little wild now and again. A bit . . . impulsive. Some may have considered him a bit cynical. But that was the way he was. Deep down, Robert was a harmless boy.'

The policeman turned to Thea and looked down at his notes. 'You're Thea Nilsen, sister of Rikard Nilsen, I gather. Does this tally with your impression of Robert Karlsen?'

Thea shrugged. 'I didn't know Robert so well. He . . .' She had crossed her arms and avoided Jon's gaze. 'He never hurt anyone as far as I am aware.'

'Did Robert ever say anything that might suggest he was in conflict with anyone?'

Jon shook his head hard, as though there were something inside he was trying to get rid of. Robert was dead. Dead.

'Did Robert owe any money?'

'No. Yes. Me. A little.'

'Sure he didn't owe anyone else money?'

'What do you mean?'

'Did Robert take drugs?'

Jon stared at the policeman in horror, then replied: 'No, he did not.'

'How can you know for sure? It's not always—'

'We work with drug addicts. We know the symptoms. And Robert didn't take drugs. OK?'

The policeman nodded and took notes. 'Sorry, but we have to ask these things. Naturally, we cannot exclude the possibility that the man who fired the gun was insane and Robert was an arbitrary victim. Or – since the Salvation Army soldier standing by the Christmas pot is a symbol – that the killing was directed against your organisation. Are you aware of anything that would support the latter theory?'

As though synchronised, the two young people shook their heads.

'Thank you for your help.' The policeman stuffed the notepad in his coat pocket and stood up. 'We haven't been able to find a telephone number or address for your parents . . .'

'I'll take care of that,' Jon said, staring into empty space. 'Are you quite sure?'

'Sure about what?'

'That it is Robert?'

'Yes, I'm afraid so.'

'But that's all you're sure about,' Thea burst out. 'Otherwise you know nothing.'

The policeman paused in front of the door and considered her comment.

'I think that's a fairly accurate summary of the situation,' he said.

At two o'clock in the morning the snow stopped. The clouds that had been hanging over the town like a heavy, black stage curtain were drawn to one side and a large, yellow moon made its appearance. The temperature beneath the naked sky began to fall again, making house walls creak and groan.

10
Wednesday, 17 December. The Doubter.

T
HE SEVENTH DAY BEFORE
C
HRISTMAS
E
VE BROKE WITH
such freezing temperatures that people on the streets of Oslo felt they were being squeezed by a steel glove as they hurried in silence, focused on one thing: to arrive and escape its icy grip.

Harry was sitting in the meeting room in the red zone at Police HQ listening to Beate Lønn's demoralising report while trying to ignore the newspapers in front of him on the table. They all had the murder on the front page; they all had a grainy photo of a winter-dark Egertorget, with references to two or three pages of articles inside the paper.
Verdens
Gang
and
Dagbladet
had managed to cobble something together which, with a little goodwill, might be termed portraits of Robert Karlsen, based on random, hasty conversations with friends and acquaintances. 'A nice guy.' 'Always willing to lend a hand.' 'Tragic.' Harry had read through them with a fine-tooth comb without being able to find anything of value. No one had contacted the parents and
Aftenposten
was the only newspaper to run a quotation from Jon: 'Incomprehensible' was the brief caption under a picture of a man with a bewildered expression and tousled hair in front of the Army flats in Gøteborggata. The article was written by an old friend, Roger Gjendem.

Harry scratched his thigh through a tear in his jeans thinking he ought to have put on some long johns. On arriving for work at half past seven he had gone to Hagen to ask him who was leading the investigation. Hagen had looked at him and replied that he, together with the Chief Superintendent, had decided that Harry would lead it. Until further notice. Harry had not asked for an elaboration of what 'until further notice' meant; he nodded and left.

From ten o'clock onwards twelve detectives from Crime Squad plus Beate Lønn and Gunnar Hagen, who had wanted to 'come for the ride', had sat in discussion.

And Thea Nilsen's summary from the previous evening was as accurate as before.

First of all, they had no witnesses. None of those who had been in Egertorget had seen anything of value. The CCTV footage was still being checked, but so far nothing had been found. None of the employees they had spoken to in the shops and restaurants in Karl Johans gate had noticed anything unusual, and no other witnesses had come forward. Beate, who had been sent pictures of the spectators by
Dagbladet
the night before, had reported back that they were either close-ups of smiling girls or panning shots which were too indistinct to get a decent look at facial characteristics. She had magnified sections of the latter, highlighting the audience in front of Robert Karlsen, but she hadn't spotted a weapon or anything else that would identify the person they were searching for.

Secondly, they had no forensic evidence, except that the ballistics expert at Krimteknisk had established that the projectile that had penetrated Robert Karlsen's head in fact matched the empty casing they had found.

And, thirdly, they didn't have a motive.

Beate Lønn finished and Harry handed over to Magnus Skarre.

'This morning I spoke to the boss of the Fretex shop in Kirkeveien where Robert Karlsen worked,' said Skarre, whose surname, with fate's usual impish sense of humour, meant to roll your 'r's, and indeed he did. 'She was devastated and said Robert was a person everyone liked, full of charm and good cheer. She conceded he could be a bit unpredictable, not turning up for work on the odd occasion, but she could not imagine he would have any enemies.'

'Same comments from those I've interviewed,' said Halvorsen.

During the discussion Gunnar Hagen had sat with his hands folded behind his head watching Harry with a tiny expectant smile, as though he were at a magic show waiting for Harry to pull a rabbit out of a hat. But there was nothing. Apart from the usual suspects. The theories.

'Guesses?' Harry said. 'Come on. You're allowed to make asses of yourselves. After this meeting is over, permission is withdrawn.'

'Shot down in full view of everyone, in one of Oslo's busiest areas,' Skarre said. 'There's only one line of business that does this kind of thing. This is a professional hit job to deter others who don't pay their drug debts.'

'Well,' said Harry, 'none of the undercover guys in the Narco Unit has seen or heard of Robert Karlsen. He's clean. No previous, nothing. Has anyone here heard of drug addicts who have never been arrested?'

'Forensics didn't find any illegal substances in the blood samples,' Beate said. 'Nor was there any mention of needle marks or other indications.'

Hagen cleared his throat and the others turned round. 'A Salvation Army soldier would not be involved in that sort of thing. Go on.'

Harry noticed red patches developing on Magnus Skarre's forehead. Skarre was short and stocky, an ex-gymnast, with smooth brown hair and a side parting. He was one of the youngest detectives, an arrogant and ambitious arriviste who in many ways was reminiscent of a young Tom Waaler. But without Waaler's very special intelligence and talent for police work. In the last year, however, Skarre's self-confidence had evaporated somewhat, and Harry had begun to think it was not impossible that they would make a decent policeman out of him after all.

'On the other hand, Robert Karlsen had an experimental bent,' Harry said. 'And we know that addicts can serve their sentences in Fretex shops. Curiosity and accessibility are a bad combination.'

'Exactly,' Skarre said. 'And when I asked the lady in Fretex whether Robert was single, she said she thought so. Even though there had been a foreign girl in a couple of times asking after him, but she seemed too young. She guessed the girl came from somewhere in ex-Yugoslavia. Bet you she's Kosovar-Albanian.'

'Why's that?' Hagen asked.

'Kosovar-Albanian. Drugs.'

'Whoa there,' clucked Hagen, rocking back on his chair. 'That sounds like gross prejudice, young man.'

'Right,' Harry said. 'And our prejudices solve cases. Because they are not based on lack of knowledge, but on actual facts and experience. In this room we reserve the right to discriminate against everyone, regardless of race, religion or gender. Our defence is that it is not exclusively the weakest members of society who are discriminated against.'

Halvorsen grinned. He had heard this rule before.

'Homosexuals, active believers and women are, from a statistical point of view, more law-abiding than heterosexual men between eighteen and sixty. But if you are female, lesbian and a Kosovar-Albanian with religious convictions, the chances that you are drug-dealing are nevertheless a lot higher than for a fat, Norwegian-speaking, male chauvinist pig with tattoos all over his forehead. So if we have to choose – and we do – we bring in the Albanian woman for questioning first. Unfair to law-abiding Kosovar-Albanians? Of course. But since we work with probabilities and limited resources, we cannot afford to ignore knowledge wherever we find it. If experience had taught us that an unexpectedly high percentage of those we arrested at customs in Gardemoen Airport were wheelchair users smuggling drugs in their orifices, we would put on rubber gloves, drag them out of their chairs, and finger-fuck every single one of them. We just keep our mouths shut about that sort of thing when we talk to the press.'