The Redeemer (37 page)

'It's not convenient,' Harry said.

She scrunched up her eyes and studied his face. Then she peered over his shoulder. 'Got a lady there, have you? Is that why you skipped the meeting today?'

'We can talk another time, Astrid. You're drunk.'

'We discussed Step Three at the meeting today.
We took the decision
to put our lives in God's care.
But I can't see any God, I can't, Harry.' She took a half-hearted swipe at him with her bag.

'There is no third step, Astrid. Everyone has to look after themselves.'

She stiffened and looked at him as the tears welled in her eyes. 'Let me in, Harry,' she whispered.

'It won't help, Astrid.' He put a hand on her shoulder. 'I'll ring for a taxi to take you home.'

His hand was knocked away with surprising force. 'Home?' she screeched. 'I'm not fucking going home, you bloody impotent lecher.'

She swivelled round and started to stagger down the stairs.

'Astrid . . .'

'Get out of my sight! Screw your other tart.'

Harry watched her until she was gone, heard her fighting with the door, her curses, the creaking door hinges and then the silence.

When he turned Martine was right behind him in the hall slowly doing up her coat.

'I . . .' he began.

'It's late.' She flashed a fleeting smile. 'I was a bit tired anyway.'

It was three o'clock in the morning and Harry was still sitting in the wing chair. Tom Waits was singing in a low voice about Alice as the brushes swished on the snare drum.

'
It's dreamy weather we're on. You wave your crooked wand along an
icy pond.'

His mind ran unchecked. All the bars were closed now. He hadn't refilled his hip flask after emptying it down the dog's gullet in the container terminal. But he could phone Øystein. He drove a taxi almost every night and always kept a bottle of gin under the seat.

'It won't help.'

Unless you believed in ghosts, of course. Believed in those encircling his chair and staring down at him with dark, hollow eye sockets. In Birgitta who had come up from the sea with the anchor still around her neck; in Ellen who was laughing with the baseball bat protruding from her head; in William who hung like a galleon figurehead from the rotary dryer and Tom who had come to get his watch back waving a bloody stump of an arm.

The booze couldn't free him; it could only give temporary relief. And right now he was willing to pay a lot for that.

He lifted the telephone and tapped in a number. It was answered on the second ring.

'How is it, Halvorsen?'

'Cold. Jon and Thea are asleep. I'm sitting in the room with a view of the road. I'll have to have a nap tomorrow.'

'Mm.'

'We have to drive back to Thea's flat tomorrow to get more insulin. She's a diabetic.'

'OK, but take Jon with you. I don't want him left on his own.'

'I could get someone to come here.'

'No!' Harry said sharply. 'I don't want anyone else involved for the time being.'

'Right.'

Harry sighed. 'Listen, I know babysitting isn't in the job description. You'll have to say if there's anything I can do in return.'

'Well . . .'

'Come on.'

'I promised to take Beate out one evening before Christmas to let her try
lutefisk
. She's never tasted it before, poor thing.'

'That's a promise.'

'Thanks.'

'And, Halvorsen?'

'Yes?'

'You're . . .' Harry took a deep breath. '. . . OK.'

'Thanks, boss.'

Harry rang off. Waits was singing that the skates on the icy pond spelt Alice.

21
Friday, 19 December. Zagreb.

H
E SAT SHAKING WITH COLD ON A BIT OF CARDBOARD ON
the pavement by Sofienberg Park. It was rush hour and people were racing by. Some still had time to drop a few kroner in the paper cup in front of him. It would soon be Christmas. His lungs ached because he had been on his back breathing in smoke all night. He raised his eyes and looked up Gøteborggata.

That was all he could do now.

He thought about the Danube flowing past Vukovar. Patient, unstoppable. As he would have to be. Patient, waiting for the tank to come, for the dragon to stick its head out of the cave. For Jon Karlsen to come home. He looked at a pair of knees that had stopped right in front of him.

He peered up at a man with a red beard and a paper cup in his hand. The beard said something. Loud and angry.

'Excuse me?'

The man answered in English. Something about turf.

He could feel the gun in his pocket. One bullet. Instead he took out the large, sharp chunk of glass he kept in his other pocket. The beggar glowered at him but slunk off.

He dismissed the idea that Karlsen might not come. He had to come. And in the meantime he would be the Danube. Patient and unstoppable.

'Come in,' ordered the happy, buxom woman in the Salvation Army flat in Jacob Aalls gate. She pronounced the 'n'with the tip of her tongue against her teeth, as is often the case when adults learn Norwegian later in life.

'Hope we're not disturbing,' Harry said as he and Beate Lønn entered the hall. The floor was covered with shoes, big and small.

The woman shook her head while they started to take off their footwear.

'Cold,' she said. 'Hungry?'

'I've just had breakfast, thank you,' Beate said.

Harry shook his head with a friendly smile.

She led them into the sitting room. Around the table sat what Harry assumed was the Miholjec family: two men, a boy of Oleg's age, a small girl and a teenage girl Harry guessed would have to be Sofia. She hid her eyes behind a curtain of black hair and held a baby on her lap.

'
Zdravo
,' the older man said. He was lean with thick, greying hair and black eyes that Harry recognised, the angry, frightened eyes of an outcast.

'This is my husband,' the woman said. 'He understands Norwegian, but doesn't speak much. This is Uncle Josip. He's visiting us for Christmas. My children.'

'All four of them?' Beate asked.

'Yes,' she laughed. 'The last was a gift from God.'

'A real sweetie,' Beate said, pulling a face at the baby who gurgled back with delight. And, as Harry had already suspected, she couldn't resist the temptation to tweak the chubby, red cheeks. He gave Beate and Halvorsen one, maximum two years, before they produced one like it.

The man said something and the wife replied. Then she turned to Harry. 'He wants me to say that you only like Norwegians working in Norway. He's tried to find work, but can't get any.'

Harry met the man's eyes and sent him a nod, which went unanswered.

'Here,' the wife said, pointing to two vacant chairs.

They sat down. Harry saw that Beate had taken out her notepad before he started speaking.

'We've come here to ask about—'

'Robert Karlsen,' the wife said, looking at her husband, who was nodding assent.

'That's right. What can you tell us about him?'

'Not much. In fact, we've only just met him.'

'Just met him.' The wife's glance happened to catch Sofia, who was sitting with her nose buried in the baby's rumpled hair. 'Jon asked Robert to help us when we moved from the little flat in A Block this summer. Jon is a good person. He saw to it that we got a bigger flat when we had him there, you know.' She laughed at the baby. 'But Robert stood around chatting to Sofia most. And . . . well, she's fifteen.'

Harry noticed the young girl's face change colour. 'Mm. We'd also like to talk to Sofia.'

'Talk away,' the mother said.

'Alone,' Harry said.

The mother's and father's eyes met. The duel lasted two seconds, but Harry managed to read quite a bit into it. Perhaps once he had been the one who took the decisions, but in the new reality, in the new country, where she had turned out to be more adaptable, she was the decision-maker. She nodded to Harry.

'Sit in the kitchen. We won't disturb you.'

'Thank you,' Beate said.

'No need for thanks,' the wife said gravely. 'We want you to catch the man who did it. Do you know anything about him?'

'We believe he is a hired killer and lives in Zagreb,' Harry said. 'At least he phoned a hotel there from Oslo.'

'Which one?'

Startled, Harry looked at the father who had spoken in Norwegian.

'Hotel International,' he said, and watched the father exchange glances with the uncle. 'Do you know anything?'

The father shook his head.

'If so, I would be very grateful,' Harry said. 'The man is after Jon now. He peppered Jon's flat with bullets the day before yesterday.'

Harry watched the father's expression change to incredulity. But he held his tongue.

The mother led the way into the kitchen with Sofia dragging her feet behind her. As most teenagers would have done, Harry assumed. As Oleg might well do in a few years' time.

Once the mother was gone, Harry took out his notepad and Beate positioned herself on a chair opposite Sofia.

'Hi, Sofia. My name's Beate. Was Robert your boyfriend?'

Sofia looked down and shook her head.

'Were you in love with him?'

Another shake of the head.

'Did he hurt you?'

For the first time since their arrival Sofia opened the curtain of black hair and looked straight into Beate's eyes. Harry guessed that behind the heavy make-up there was a pretty girl. Now he could see only the father, angry and frightened. And a bruise on her forehead that the make-up could not quite conceal.

'No,' she said.

'Did your father tell you not to say anything, Sofia? That's what I can see.'

'What can you see?'

'Someone has hurt you.'

'You're lying.'

'How did you get the mark on your forehead?'

'I walked into a door.'

'Now you are lying.'

Sofia snorted. 'You sound clever and all that, but you know nothing.

You're just an old policewoman who would prefer to be at home with children. I saw you in there.' The anger was still there, but the voice had already started to thicken. Harry gave her one, two sentences at most.

Beate sighed. 'You have to trust us, Sofia. And you have to help us. We're trying to stop a murderer.'

'That's not my fault, is it?' Her voice cracked and Harry could see that she had managed only the one sentence. Then the tears came. A cloudburst of tears. Sofia hunched over and the curtain closed again.

Beate put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.

'Go away!' she shouted.

'Did you know that Robert went to Zagreb this autumn?' Harry asked.

Her head shot up and she looked at Harry with an expression of disbelief, coated in wet make-up.

'So he didn't tell you?' Harry went on. 'Then he may not have told you that he was in love with a girl called Thea Nilsen, either?'

'No,' she whispered tearfully. 'And so what if he was?'

Harry tried to read her reaction to the information, but it was difficult with all the black cosmetics running.

'You were in Fretex asking about Robert. What did you want?'

'A ciggy!' Sofia snapped. 'Go away!'

Harry and Beate looked at each other. Then they stood up.

'Have a little think,' Beate said. 'Then ring me at this number.' She left her card on the table.

The mother was waiting for them in the hall.

'Sorry,' Beate said. 'I'm afraid she got a bit upset. Perhaps you might have a word with her.'

They stepped out into the December morning in Jacob Aalls gate and headed for Suhms gate where Beate had found a lone parking spot.

'Oprostite!'

They turned. The voice came from the shadows of the arched entrance where they saw the glow of two cigarettes. Then the glows dropped to the ground and two men came out to meet them. It was Sofia's father and Uncle Josip. They stopped in front of them.

'Hotel International, eh?' said the father.

Harry nodded.

The father glanced at Beate from the corner of his eye.

'I'll go and get the car,' Beate said quickly. Harry never ceased to be amazed by how a girl who had spent most of her short life alone with videos and forensic evidence could have developed a social intelligence that was so superior to his own.

'I worked first year by . . . you know . . . removal company. But back kaput. In Vukovar electro engineer, see? Before the war. Here I have bugger all.'

Harry nodded. And waited.

Uncle Josip said something.

'
Da, da
,' the father mumbled, then turned to Harry. 'When Yugoslav army take Vukovar in 1991, yes? There was boy who exploded twelve tanks with . . . landmines, yes? We called him
mali spasitelj
.'

'
Mali spasitelj
,' the uncle repeated with reverence.

'The little redeemer,' the father said. 'That was his . . . name they said on walkie-talkie.'

'Code name?'

'Yes. After Vukovar capitulation Serbs tried to find him. But couldn't. Some said he was dead. And some didn't believe. They said he had never been . . . existed. Yes?'

'What has this got to do with Hotel International?'

'After the war people in Vukovar had no house. Everything rubble. So some came here. But most to Zagreb. President Tudjman—'

'
Tudjman
,' the uncle repeated, rolling his eyes.

'—and his people gave them room in big old hotel where they could see them. Surveillance. Yes? They ate soup and had no job. Tudjman does not like people from Slavonia. Too much Serb blood. Then Serbs who been in Vukovar dead. And there were rumours. That
mali spasitelj
was back.'

'
Mali spasitelj
,' Uncle Josip laughed.

'They said that Croats could get help. In Hotel International.'

'How?'

The father shrugged. 'Don't know. Rumours.'

'Mm. Does anyone else know about this . . . helper and Hotel International?'

'Others?'

'Anyone in the Salvation Army for example?'

'Yes. David Eckhoff knows everything. And the others now. He said words . . . after meal at party in Østgård this summer.'