The Redeemer

  'Is she still with that other guy then? The doctor.'

  'As far as I know.'

  'Haven't you asked?' He could hear that a wounded anger had crept into her voice.

  'That's nothing to do with me. I'm told he's going to celebrate Christmas with his parents. That's all. And you're going to be here?'

  She nodded in silence, and went on folding.

  'I came to say goodbye,' he said.

  She nodded, but didn't turn.

  'Goodbye,' he said.

  She stopped folding. He could see her shoulders heaving.

  'You will understand,' he said. 'You might not think so now, but in time you'll understand that it couldn't have been . . . any different.'

  She turned. Her eyes brimmed with tears. 'I know, Harry. But I wanted it anyway. For a while. Would that have been asking so much?'

  'No.' Harry gave a wry smile. 'A while would have been great. But it's better to say goodbye now than to wait until it hurts.'

  'It already hurts, though, Harry.' The first tear rolled.

  Had Harry not known what he did about Martine Eckhoff he would have considered it impossible for such a young girl to know what it was to hurt. Instead he reflected on what his mother had once said when she was in hospital. There was only one thing emptier than having lived without love, and that was having lived without pain.

  'I'm going now, Martine.'

  And so he did. He walked to the car parked by the pavement and banged on the side window. It slid down.

  'She's a big girl now,' he said. 'So I'm not sure she needs such close attention any more. I know you'll continue whatever, but I wanted to say that. And wish you a happy Christmas and good luck.'

  Rikard seemed to be on the point of saying something, but made do with a nod.

  Harry started walking towards the Akerselva. He could already feel that the weather was becoming milder.

  Halvorsen was buried on 27 December. It was raining; melted snow ran in fast-flowing streams down the streets and the snow in the cemetery was grey and heavy.

  Harry was a coffin-bearer. In front of him was Jack's younger brother. Harry recognised the gait.

  Afterwards they gathered in Valkyrien, a popular taproom better known as Valka.

  'Come here,' Beate said, taking Harry away from the others and over to a table in the corner. 'Everyone was there,' she said.

  Harry nodded. Refraining from saying what was on his mind. Bjarne Møller wasn't there. No one had even heard from him.

  'There are a couple of things I have to know, Harry. Since this case has not been solved.'

  He looked at her. Her face was pale and lined with grief. He knew she wasn't a teetotaller, but she had Farris mineral water in her glass. Why? he wondered. If he could have stood it, he would have anaesthetised himself with anything he could have got his hands on today.

  'The case isn't closed, Beate.'

  'Harry, don't you think I've got eyes in my head? The case has been passed over to one dipstick and an incompetent Kripos officer who shift piles of papers and scratch heads they haven't got.'

  Harry shrugged.

  'But you solved the case, didn't you, Harry? You know what happened; you just don't want to tell anyone.'

  Harry sipped his coffee.

  'Why, Harry? Why is it so important no one knows?'

  'I had decided to tell you,' he said. 'When a bit of time had passed. It wasn't Robert who took out the contract in Zagreb. It was Jon.'

  'Jon?' Beate gaped at him in amazement.

  Harry told her about the coin and Espen Kaspersen.

  'But I had to know for sure,' he said. 'So I did a deal with the only person who could identify Jon as the person who had been in Zagreb. I gave Stankic's mother Jon's mobile phone number. She rang him the evening he raped Sofia. She said that Jon spoke Norwegian at first, but when she didn't answer he spoke English and said 'Is that you?' obviously thinking it was the little redeemer. She rang me afterwards and confirmed it was the same voice that she had heard in Zagreb.'

  'Was she absolutely certain?'

  Harry nodded. 'The expression she used was "quite sure". Jon had an unmistakable accent, she said.'

  'And what was your part of the deal?'

  'To make sure her son was not shot dead by our guys.'

  Beate took a large swig of Farris as though the information needed to be washed down.

  'Did you promise that?'

  'I did,' Harry said. 'And here's the bit I was going to tell you. It wasn't Stankic who killed Halvorsen. It was Jon Karlsen.'

  She stared at him open-mouthed. Then tears filled her eyes and she whispered with bitterness in her voice: 'Is that true, Harry? Or are you saying that to make me feel better? Because you believe I couldn't have lived with the knowledge that the perpetrator had got away?'

  'Well, we have the jackknife that was found under the bed in Robert's flat the day after Jon raped Sofia there. If you ask someone on the q. t. to examine the blood to see if it matches Halvorsen's DNA, I think you'll have peace of mind.'

  Beate gazed into her glass. 'I know it says in the report that you were in the toilet and that you didn't see anyone there. Do you know what I think? I think you did see Stankic, but you didn't make a move to stop him.'

  Harry didn't answer.

  'I think the reason you didn't tell anyone you knew that Jon was guilty was because you didn't want anyone to intervene before Stankic had carried out his mission. To kill Jon Karlsen.' Beate's voice quivered with anger. 'But if you think I'm going to thank you for that, you're wrong.'

  She slammed the glass down on the table, and a couple of the others peered over in their direction. Harry kept his mouth shut and waited.

  'We're police officers, Harry. We maintain law and order, we don't judge. And you're not my personal bloody redeemer, have you got that?'

  Her breathing was laboured and she ran the back of her hand across her cheeks where tears were beginning to flow.

  'Have you finished?' asked Harry.

  'Yes,' she said with a stubborn glare.

  'I don't know all the reasons for why I did what I did,' Harry said. 'The brain is a singular piece of machinery. You may be right. I may have set everything up to happen as it did. But, if that was the case, I want you to know that I didn't do it for your redemption, Beate.' Harry drained his coffee in one swig and stood up. 'I did it for mine.'

  In the time between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve the streets were washed clean by the rain, the snow disappeared entirely and when the New Year came with a few degrees below zero and feathery snow, the winter seemed to have been given a new and better start. Oleg had received slalom skis for Christmas and Harry took him up to the Wyller downhill slope and started with plough turns. On the way home in the car after the third day on the slope Oleg asked Harry if they couldn't do the gates soon.

  Harry saw Lund-Helgesen's car parked in front of the garage so he dropped Oleg at the bottom of the drive, headed home, lay on the sofa staring at the ceiling and listened to records. Old ones.

  In the second week of January Beate announced that she was pregnant. She would be giving birth to her and Halvorsen's baby in the summer. Harry thought back and wondered how blind you could be.

  Harry had a lot of time to think in January as the part of humanity that lives in Oslo had decided to take a break from killing each other. So he considered whether to let Skarre move in with him in 605, the Clearing House. He considered what he should do with the rest of his life. And he considered whether you ever found out if you had made the right decisions while you were still alive.

  It was the end of February before Harry bought a plane ticket to Bergen.

  In the town of the seven mountains it was still autumn and snowfree, and on Fløien mountain Harry had the impression that the cloud enveloping them was the same as on the previous visit. He found him at a table in Fløien Folkerestaurant.

  'I was told this is where you sit at the moment,' Harry said.

  'I've be
en waiting,' said Bjarne Møller, drinking up. 'You took your time.'

  They went outside and stood by the railing at the lookout point. Møller seemed even paler and thinner than last time. His eyes were clear, but his face was bloated and his hands trembled. Harry guessed it was because of pills rather than alcohol.

  'I didn't understand what you meant by straight away,' Harry said. 'When you said I should follow the money.'

  'Wasn't I right?'

  'Yes,' Harry said. 'You were right. But I thought you were talking about my case. Not about you.'

  'I was talking about all cases, Harry.' The wind blew long strands of hair in and out of Møller's face. 'By the way, you didn't tell me if Gunnar Hagen was pleased with the outcome of your case. Or, to be more precise, the lack of outcome.'

  Harry shrugged. 'David Eckhoff and the Salvation Army were spared an embarrassing scandal that could have damaged their reputation and their work. Albert Gilstrup lost his only son, a daughter-in-law and had a contract cancelled that might have saved the family fortune. Sofia Miholjec and her family are going back to Vukovar. They have received support from a newly established local benefactor to build a house down there. Martine Eckhoff is going out with a man called Rikard Nilsen. In short, life goes on.'

  'What about you? Are you seeing Rakel?'

  'Now and then I do.'

  'What about the doctor guy?'

  'I don't ask. They have their own problems to deal with.'

  'Does she want you back, is that it?'

  'I think she wishes I was the kind of person who could live the sort of life he does.' Harry turned up his collar and peered down at what it was claimed was the town beneath. 'And for that matter I wish that, too, sometimes.'

  They fell silent.

  'I took Tom Waaler's watch to a jeweller's and had it checked over by a young man who understands that kind of thing. Do you remember I once told you I was having nightmares about the Rolex watch that kept ticking on Waaler's severed arm?'

  Møller nodded.

  'Now I have the explanation,' Harry said. 'The world's most expensive watches have a Tourbillon system with a frequency of twenty-eight thousand vibrations an hour. This has the effect of making the second hand look as if it's flying around in one movement. And with a mechanical escapement the ticking sound is more intense than in other watches.'

  'Wonderful watches, Rolex.'

  'The Rolex brand was added by a watchmaker to disguise what kind of watch it really is. It's a Lange 1 Tourbillon. One of a hundred and fifty specimens. In the same series as the one I got from you. The last time a Lange 1 Tourbillon was sold at an auction the price was a little under three million kroner.'

  Møller nodded with a tiny smile playing on his lips.

  'Was that how you paid yourselves?' Harry asked. 'With watches costing three million?'

  Møller buttoned up his coat and turned up the collar. 'Their value is more stable and they're less conspicuous than cars. Less flamboyant than expensive art, easier to smuggle than cash and they don't need to be laundered.'

  'And watches are something you give as a present.'

  'That's it.'

  'What happened?'

  'It's a long story, Harry. And like many tragedies it started with the best intentions. We were a small group of people who wanted to play our part. Put things right that a society governed by law was not able to do unaided.'

  Møller put on a pair of black gloves.

  'Some say the reason so many criminals go free is that the legal system is a net with a large mesh. But that gives a completely false picture. It's a thin, fine-meshed net which catches the small fry, but tears when the big fish crash into it. We wanted to be the net behind the net, the one that could bring the sharks up short. There weren't only people from the police in the group, but also lawyers, politicians and bureaucrats who could see that the structure of our society, legislation and the legal system were not ready for the international organised crime that invaded our country when the borders went down. The police did not have the authority to play by the same rules as the lawbreakers. Until legislation had caught up. Therefore, we had to operate in a covert fashion.'

  Møller, staring into the mist, shook his head.

  'But in those places that are closed and secret and cannot be ventilated the rot sets in. A culture of microorganisms grew in the police, who first declared we would have to smuggle in weapons to match those our adversaries had at their disposal. Then we would have to sell them so as to finance our work. It was a bizarre paradox, but those who opposed this soon found out that the microorganisms had taken over. And then came the gifts. Trivialities to start with. Encouragement to spur you on, as they said. Thereby signalling that not accepting a gift would be seen as not showing solidarity. But in fact it was just the next stage in the rotting process, in the corruption that assimilated you almost without your noticing until you were sitting in crap up to your neck. And there was no way out. They had too much on you. The worst thing was that you didn't know who "they" were. We had organised ourselves into small cells which communicated with each other via a contact person who was pledged to secrecy. I didn't know that Tom Waaler was one of us, that he was the one organising the arms smuggling or that a person with the code name Prince even existed. Not until you and Ellen Gjelten discovered it. And then I also knew that we had lost sight of our real goal. That it was a long time since we had had any other goal except lining our own pockets. That I was corrupt. And that I was an accessory in . . .' Møller took a deep breath: '. . . the murder of police officers like Ellen Gjelten.'

  Wisps and wafers of cloud whirled up past them as though Fløien were flying.

  'One day I couldn't take it any more. I tried to get out. They gave me alternatives. Which were simple. But I'm not afraid for myself. The only thing I'm afraid of is that they will hurt my family.'

  'Is that why you fled?'

  Bjarne Møller nodded.

  Harry sighed. 'And so you gave me this watch to put an end to it.'

  'It had to be you, Harry. It couldn't be anyone else.'

  Harry nodded. He felt a lump growing in his throat. He was reminded of something Møller had said the previous time they had stood here at the top of the mountain. It was funny to think that six minutes on the cable car from the centre of the second biggest town in Norway there were people who got lost and died. And to imagine you are at the heart of what you think is justice and then suddenly lose all sense of direction and become the very thing you oppose. He thought of all the mental calculations he had gone through, all the major and minor decisions that had led to the last minutes in Gardemoen Airport.

  'And what about if I am not so different from you, boss? What about if I said I could be standing where you are now?'

  Møller shrugged. 'It's chance and nuances that separate the hero from the villain. That's how it's always been. Righteousness is the virtue of the lazy and the visionless. Without lawbreakers and disobedience we would still have been living in a feudal society. I lost, Harry; it's as simple as that. I believed in something, but I was blinded, and by the time I regained my sight I had been corrupted. It happens all the time.'

  Harry shivered in the wind and searched for words. When he finally found some his voice sounded alien and tormented. 'Sorry, boss. I can't arrest you.'