‘Wow, cool T-shirt,’ I said. ‘Where did you get it?’
You gave me a strange look. ‘Amsterdam.’
‘Did you see Judas Priest in Amsterdam?’
‘Why not?’
I knew nothing about Judas Priest, but at least I had done some swotting and found out it was a band, not a guy, and that the lead singer’s name was Rob something or other.
‘Great. Priest rules.’
You stiffened for a second and looked at me. Concentrated, like an animal that had caught a scent. A danger, or prey, a sparring partner. Or – in your case – a possible soulmate. For you carried your loneliness like a wet, heavy raincoat, Oleg, you walked with a bent back and shuffled your feet. I had picked you out precisely because of your loneliness. I said I’d buy you a Coke if you told me about the Amsterdam gig.
So you talked about Judas Priest, the concert at Heineken Music Hall two years ago, about the two friends of eighteen and nineteen who shot themselves after listening to a Priest record with a hidden message that said ‘Do it’. Except that one of them survived. Priest were heavy metal, had been into speed metal. And twenty minutes later you had spoken so much about goths and death that it was time to introduce meth into the conversation.
‘Let’s hit the high spots, Oleg. Celebrate this meeting of like minds. What do you say?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I know some fun people who are going to do a bit of smoking in the park.’
‘Really?’ Sceptical.
‘No heavy stuff, just ice.’
‘I don’t do that, sorry.’
‘Hell, I don’t do it either. We can smoke a bit of pipe. You and me. Real ice, not the powder shit. Like Rob.’
Oleg stopped in mid-gulp. ‘Rob?’
‘Yes.’
‘Rob Halford?’
‘Sure. His roadie bought from the same guy I’m going to buy from now. Got any money?’
I said it in such a casual way, such a casual and matter-of-fact way that there was not a shadow of suspicion in the serious eyes he fixed on me. ‘Rob Halford smokes ice?’
He forked up the five hundred kroner I asked him for. I told him to wait, got up and left. Down the road to Vaterland Bridge. So, when I was out of range, to the right, I was over the road and down the three hundred metres to Oslo Central Station in minutes. Thinking that would be the last I saw of Oleg fricking Fauke.
It was only when I was sitting in the tunnel under the platforms with a pipe in my mouth that I realised he and I were not finished with each other yet. Nowhere near. He stood above me without saying a word. He leaned against the wall and slid down beside me. Stuck out his hand. I gave him the pipe. He inhaled. Coughed. And stuck out his other hand. ‘The change.’
With that, the team of Gusto and Oleg became a fact. Every day, after he had finished at Clas Ohlson, where he had a summer job in the warehouse, we went down to the city centre, the parks, bathed in the filthy water in Middelalder Park, and watched them building a new part of town around the Opera House.
We told each other about all the things we were going to do and become, about the places we would go, smoking and sniffing everything we could buy with his summer job money.
I told him about my foster-father, how he had thrown me out because my foster-mother had made advances on me. And you, Oleg, talked about a guy your mother had been with, a cop called Harry you claimed was ‘top notch’. Someone you could trust. But something had gone sour. First of all, between him and your mother. And then you had been dragged into a murder case he was working on. And that was when you and your mother had moved to Amsterdam. I said the guy probably was ‘top notch’, but it was a pretty corny expression. And you said ‘fricking’ was even cornier. Had anyone told me the word was ‘frigging’? Even that was childish. And why did I speak such exaggerated cockney Norwegian? I wasn’t even from the East End of Oslo. I said exaggerating was a principle I had, it emphasised a point and ‘fricking’ was so wrong it was right. And the sun shone, and I thought that was the best thing anyone had said about me.
We begged for money on Karl Johans gate for fun. I nicked a skateboard from Rådhusplassen and swapped it for speed on Jernbanetorget half an hour later. We took the boat to Hovedøya, swam and bummed beers. Some girls wanted me to join them in Daddy’s yacht and you dived from the mast, only just clearing the deck. We caught the tram to Ekeberg to see the sunset and there was the Norway Cup, and a sad football coach from Trøndelag was looking at me, and I said I would give him a blow job for a thousand kroner. He stumped up and I waited until his trousers were round his ankles before I scarpered. And you told me afterwards he had looked ‘totally lost’ and turned to you, as if asking you to take over the job. Jeez, how we laughed!
That summer never ended. Then it did after all. We spent your last pay packet on spliffs, which we blew into the pale, empty night sky. You said you were going to return to school, get top grades and study law, like your mother. And that afterwards you would do fricking Police College! We laughed so much we had tears in our eyes.
But when school began I saw less of you. Then even less. You lived up on Holmenkollen Ridge with your mother while I crashed on a mattress in the rehearsal room of a band who said I was fine there so long as I kept an eye on their gear and stayed away when they were practising. So I gave up on you, thinking you were comfortable back in your conventional little life. And that was about the time I started dealing.
It happened quite by chance. I had milked a woman I was staying with, then I went to Oslo Central and asked Tutu if he had any ice. Tutu had a bit of a stammer and was slave to Odin, the boss of Los Lobos in Alnabru. He had got his name from the time Odin, needing to launder a suitcase of drugs money, had sent Tutu to a state bookies’ in Italy to put a bet on a match that Odin knew was fixed. The home team was supposed to win 2–0. Odin had instructed Tutu how to say ‘two-nil’, but then came the turning point. Tutu was so nervous and stammered so much as he tried to place the bet that the bookie only heard tu-tu and wrote it on the coupon. Ten minutes before the end the home side was of course leading 2–0, and everything was peace and light. Except for Tutu, who had just seen on the betting slip that he had put the money on tu-tu: 2–2. He knew that Odin would kneecap him. He has a thing about kneecapping people. But then came turning-point number two. On the away bench was a new forward from Poland whose Italian was as bad as Tutu’s English, so he hadn’t picked up that the game was a fix. When the manager sent him onto the field, he played as well as he thought they had paid him to do: he scored. Twice. Tutu was saved. But when Tutu landed in Oslo that night and went straight to Odin to tell him about his stroke of good fortune, his luck evened out. He started by giving the news that he had blundered and put the cash on the wrong result. And he was so worked up and stammered so much that Odin lost patience, grabbed a revolver from a drawer and – turning-point number three – shot Tutu in the knee long before he came to the bit about the Pole.
Anyway, that day at Oslo Central Tutu told me there was no more ice to be h-h-had, I would have to make do with p-p-powder. It was cheaper and both parts are methamphetamine, but I can’t stand it. Ice is lovely white bits of crystal that blow your head off whereas the stinking yellow shit you get in Oslo is mixed with baking powder, refined sugar, aspirin, vitamin B12 and the devil and his mother. Or, for connoisseurs, chopped-up painkillers that taste of speed. But I bought what he had with a tiny bulk discount and had enough money left for some A. And since amphetamines are an unadulterated health food compared with meth, just a bit slower to work, I sniffed some speed, diluted the meth with more baking powder and sold it at Plata with a fantastic mark-up.
The next day I went back to Tutu and repeated the biz, plus a bit more. Sniffed some, diluted it and sold the rest. Ditto the day after. I said I could take more if he put it on the tab, but he laughed. When I returned on the fourth day Tutu said his boss thought we should do this on a more est-st-stablished basis. They had seen me selling, and liked what t
hey saw. If I sold two batches a day that meant five thousand straight, no questions asked. And so I became a street pusher for Odin and Los Lobos. I got the goods from Tutu in the morning and delivered the day’s takings with any leftovers to him by five. Day shift. There were never any leftovers.
All went well for about three weeks. One Wednesday on Vippetangen quay, I had sold two batches, my pockets were full of cash, my nose was full of speed, when I suddenly saw no reason to meet Tutu at the station. Instead I texted him to say I was going on holiday and jumped on the ferry to Denmark. That’s the type of blackout you have to reckon with when you take bumblebees for too long and too often.
On my return I heard a rumour that Odin was on the lookout for me. And it freaked me out a bit, especially as I knew how Tutu got his nickname. So I kept my head down, hung out round Grünerløkka. And waited for Judgement Day. But Odin had bigger things on his mind than a pusher who owed him a few thousand. Competition had come to town. ‘The Man from Dubai’. Not in the bumblebee market, but in heroin, which was more important than anything else for Los Lobos. Some said they were White Russians, some said they were Lithuanians, and others a Norwegian Pakistani. All agreed, however, it was a professional organisation, they feared no one and it was better to know too much rather than too little. It was a crap autumn.
I had gone broke long ago, I no longer had a job and was forced to keep a low profile. I had found a buyer for the band’s equipment in Bispegata, he had been to see it, I’d convinced him it was mine, after all I did live there! It was just a question of agreeing a time to collect it. Then – like a rescuing angel – Irene appeared. Nice, freckled Irene. It was an October morning, and I was busy with some guys in Sofienberg Park when there she was, almost in tears with happiness. I asked if she had any money, and she waved a Visa card. Her father’s, Rolf’s. We went to the nearest cashpoint and emptied his account. At first, Irene didn’t want to, but when I explained my life depended on it, she knew it had to be done. We went to Olympen and ate and drank, bought a few grams of speed and returned home to Bispegata. She said she’d had a row with her mum. She stayed the night. The next day I took her with me to the station. Tutu was sitting on his motorbike wearing a leather jacket with a wolf’s head on the back. Tutu with a goatee, pirate’s scarf round his head and tattoos protruding from his collar, but still looking like a fricking lackey. He was about to jump off and run after me when he realised I was heading towards him. I gave him the twenty thousand I owed plus five in interest. Thank you for lending me the holiday money. Hope we can turn over a new leaf. Tutu rang Odin while looking at Irene. I could see what he wanted. And looked at Irene again. Poor, beautiful, pale Irene.
‘Odin says he wants f-f-five more,’ Tutu said. ‘If not I’ve got orders to give you a b-b-b-bea-bea-bea …’ He took a deep breath.
‘Beating,’ I said.
‘Right now,’ Tutu said.
‘Fine, I’ll sell two batches for you today.’
‘You’ll have to p-p-pay for them.’
‘Come on, I can sell them in two hours.’
Tutu eyed me. Nodded to Irene, who was standing at the bottom of Jernbanetorget steps, waiting. ‘What about h-h-her?’
‘She’ll help me.’
‘Girls are good at s-s-selling. Is she on drugs?’
‘Not yet,’ I said.
‘Th-thief,’ Tutu said, grinning his toothless grin.
I counted my money. My last. It was always my last. My blood’s flowing out of me.
A week later, by Elm Street Rock Cafe, a boy stopped in front of Irene and me.
‘Say hello to Oleg,’ I said and jumped down from the wall. ‘Say hello to my sister, Oleg.’
Then I hugged him. I could feel he hadn’t lowered his head; he was looking over my shoulder. At Irene. And through his denim jacket I could feel his heart accelerating.
Officer Berntsen sat with his feet on the desk and the telephone receiver to his ear. He had rung the police station in Lillestrøm, Romerike Police District, and introduced himself as Thomas Lunder, a laboratory assistant for Kripos. The officer he was speaking to had just confirmed they had received the bag of what they assumed was heroin from Gardermoen. The standard procedure was that all confiscated drugs in the country were sent for testing to the Kripos laboratory in Bryn, Oslo. Once a week a Kripos vehicle went round collecting from all the police districts in Østland. Other districts sent the material via their own couriers.
‘Good,’ Berntsen said, fidgeting with the false ID card displaying a photo and the signature of Thomas Lunder, Kripos, underneath. ‘I’ll be in Lillestrøm anyway, so I’ll pick up the bag for Bryn. We’d like such a large seizure to be tested at once. OK, see you early tomorrow.’
He rang off and looked out of the window. Looked at the new area around Bjørvika rising towards the sky. Thought of all the small details: the sizes of screws, the thread on nuts, the quality of mortar, the flexibility of glass, everything that had to be right for the whole to function. And felt a profound satisfaction. Because it did. This town did function.
9
THE LONG, SLIM FEMININE LEGS of the pine trees rose into the skirt of green that cast hazy afternoon shadows across the gravel in front of the house. Harry stood at the top of the drive, drying his sweat after mounting the steep hills from Holmendammen and observing the dark house. The black-stained, heavy timber expressed solidity, security, a bulwark against trolls and nature. It hadn’t been enough. The neighbouring houses were large, inelegant detached houses undergoing continuous improvement and extension. Øystein, called Ø in his phone contacts list, had said that cog-jointed timbers were a statement of the bourgeoisie’s longing for nature, simplicity and health. What Harry saw was sick, perverted, a family under siege from a serial killer. Nonetheless, she had chosen to keep the house.
Harry walked to the door and pressed the bell.
Heavy footsteps sounded from inside. And Harry realised that he should have phoned first.
The door opened.
The man standing before him had a blond fringe, the type of fringe that had been full in its prime and had undoubtedly brought him advantages, and which therefore one took into later life hoping that the somewhat more straggly version would still work. The man was wearing an ironed light blue shirt of the kind Harry guessed he had also worn in his youth.
‘Yes?’ the man said. Open, friendly features. Eyes looking as if they had not met anything other than friendliness. A small polo player sewn into the breast pocket.
Harry felt his throat go dry. He cast a glance at the nameplate under the doorbell.
Rakel Fauke.
Yet the man with the attractive, weak face was standing there and holding the door open as though it were his. Harry knew he had several options for a great opening gambit, but the one he chose was: ‘Who are you?’
The man in front of him produced the facial expression Harry had never been able to achieve. He frowned and smiled at the same time. The superior person’s condescending amusement at the inferior person’s impudence.
‘Since you are on the outside and I am on the inside it would seem more natural that you should say who you are. And what you want.’
‘As you wish,’ Harry said with a loud yawn. Of course, he could blame that on jet lag. ‘I’m here to speak to the lady whose name is by the doorbell.’
‘And you are from?’
‘The Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ Harry said, checking his watch.
The man automatically shifted his eyes from Harry to look for the obligatory second man in the team.
‘My name’s Harry and I come from Hong Kong. Where is she?’
The man arched an eyebrow. ‘The Harry?’
‘Since it has been one of Norway’s least trendy names for the last fifty years, we can probably assume it is.’
The man studied Harry now, with a nod and a half-smile on his lips as though his brain was playing back the information it had received about the character in front of him. But with no
suggestion that he was going to move from the doorway or answer any of Harry’s questions.
‘Well?’ Harry said, shifting weight from one leg.
‘I’ll tell her you were here.’
Harry’s foot was swift. Out of instinct he flipped the sole upward so that the door hit it instead of the shoe upper. That was the kind of trick his new occupation had taught him. The man looked down at Harry’s foot and then at him. The condescending amusement was gone. He was about to say something. A withering remark that would re-establish order. But Harry knew he would change his mind. When he saw the look on Harry’s face that made people change their minds.
‘You’d better—’ the man said. Stopped. Blinked once. Harry waited. For the confusion. The hesitation. The retreat. Blink number two. The man coughed. ‘She’s out.’
Harry stood stock-still. Let the silence ring out. Two seconds. Three seconds.
‘I … er, don’t know when she’ll be back.’
Not a muscle stirred in Harry’s countenance while the man’s face leapt from one expression to another as if searching for one to hide behind. And ended up where it had started: with the friendly one.
‘My name’s Hans Christian. I … apologise for having to be so negative. But a lot of bizarre enquiries regarding the case have come in, and it’s essential that Rakel has some peace now. I’m her solicitor.’
‘Hers?’
‘Theirs. Hers and Oleg’s. Would you like to come in?’
Harry nodded.
On the living-room table there were piles of papers. Harry went over to them. Case documents. Reports. The height of the pile suggested they had not stinted on their searches.
‘Dare I ask what has brought you here?’ Hans Christian asked.
Harry flicked through the papers. DNA tests. Witness statements. ‘Well, do you?’
‘Do I what?’
‘Why are you here? Haven’t you got an office where you can prepare the defence?’
‘Rakel wants to be involved. She is a lawyer herself. Listen, Hole. I know very well who you are and I know you’ve been close to Rakel and Oleg, but—’