Page 24 of Nemesis

  The pressure around his neck eased. Harry's position on earth moved slowly away from the sun and it was pitch dark when he heard someone say: 'Are you alive? Can you hear me?'

  Then a steel click close to his ear. Gun parts. Cocking the trigger.

  'Fu . . .' He heard a deep groan and the splat of vomit as it hit the tarmac. More steel clicks. Safety catch being removed . . . In a few seconds it would all be over. That was how it felt. Not despair - not fear - not even regret. Only relief. There wasn't much to leave behind. Albu was taking his time. Time for Harry to realise there was something after all. Something he was leaving behind. He filled his lungs with air. The network of arteries absorbed the oxygen and pumped it up to the brain.

  'Right, now . . .' the voice began, but it stopped abruptly as Harry's fist struck the larynx.

  Harry got to his knees. He didn't have much strength left. He tried to retain consciousness while waiting for the final onslaught. A second passed. Two seconds. Three. The smell of vomit burned in his nose. The streetlights above him came into focus. The street was empty. Deserted. Apart from a man lying beside him in a blue quilted jacket and what looked like a pyjama top sticking out from the neck, gurgling. The light shone on metal. It wasn't a gun; it was a lighter. Only now did Harry see that the man was not Arne Albu. It was Trond Grette.

  With a scalding hot cup of tea in his hand, Harry sat at the kitchen table opposite Trond, whose breath was still laboured and wheezy, and whose panic-stricken goitre eyes bulged out of his skull. As for himself, he was dizzy and nauseous, and the pains in his neck throbbed like burns.

  'Drink,' Harry said. 'There's loads of lemon in it. It numbs the muscles and relaxes them so you can breathe more easily.'

  Trond obeyed. To Harry's great surprise, the drink seemed to work. After a few sips and a couple of coughing fits a hint of colour returned to Trond's pale cheeks.

  'Ulkterbl,' he wheezed.

  'Sorry?' Harry sank back in the other kitchen chair.

  'You look terrible.'

  Harry smiled and felt the towel he had tied around his neck. It was already soaked in blood. 'Was that why you threw up?'

  'Can't stand the sight of blood,' Trond said. 'I go all . . .' He rolled his eyes.

  'Well, it could have been worse. You saved my bacon.'

  Trond shook his head. 'I was a fair distance away when I saw you. I just shouted. I'm not sure that was what made him call off the dog. Sorry I didn't get the registration number, but I did see it was a Jeep Cherokee they made off in.'

  Harry dismissed this with a wave of his hand. 'I know who he is.'

  'Oh?'

  'He's under investigation. But perhaps you'd better tell me what you were doing around here, Grette.'

  Trond fidgeted with his teacup. 'You should definitely go to casualty with that wound.'

  'I'll consider it. Have you had a little think since we last talked?' Trond nodded slowly.

  'And what conclusion did you come to?'

  'I can't help him any longer.' It was difficult for Harry to determine whether it was only the sore larynx which made Trond whisper the last sentence.

  'So where's your brother?'

  'I want you to tell him it was me who told you. He'll understand.'

  'Alright.'

  'Porto Seguro.'

  'Uhuh.'

  'It's a town in Brazil.'

  Harry wrinkled his nose. 'Fine. How will we find him there?'

  'He's just told me he has a house there. He refused to give me an address, only a telephone number.'

  'Why? He's not a wanted man.'

  'I'm not sure that is correct.' Trond took another sip. 'At any rate, he said it would be better if I didn't have his address.'

  'Mm. Is it a large town?'

  'About a million, according to Lev.'

  'Right. You haven't got anything else? Other people who knew him and might have his address?'

  Trond hesitated before shaking his head.

  'Out with it,' Harry said.

  'Lev and I went for a coffee last time we met in Oslo. He said it tasted even worse than usual. Said he'd taken to drinking cafezinho at a local ahwa.'

  'Ahwa? Isn't that an Arab coffee house?'

  'Correct. Cafezinho is a kind of strong Brazilian variant of espresso. Lev says he goes there every day. Drinks coffee, smokes a hookah and plays dominoes with the Syrian owner who has become a kind of pal. I can remember his name - Muhammed Ali. Like the boxer.'

  'And fifty million other Arabs. Did your brother say which coffee bar it was?'

  'Probably, but I don't remember. There can't be so many ahwas in a Brazilian town, can there?'

  'Maybe not.' Harry thought. Definitely something concrete to work on. He was about to put a hand to his forehead, but as soon as he tried to raise his hand his neck hurt.

  'One last question, Grette. What made you decide to tell me this?'

  Trond's teacup did a few circuits. 'I knew he was here in Oslo.'

  The towel felt like a heavy rope around Harry's neck. 'How?'

  Trond scratched under his chin for a long time before answering. 'We hadn't spoken for over two years. Out of the blue he rang me and said he was in town. We met at a cafe and had a long chat. Hence, the coffee.'

  'When was this?'

  'Three days before the bank raid.'

  'What did you talk about?'

  'Everything. And nothing. When you've known one another for as long as we have, the big things have often grown so big it's the small things you talk about. About . . . the old man's roses, etc.'

  'What sort of big things?'

  'Things done that were best undone. And things said best unsaid.'

  'So you talk about roses instead?'

  'I tended the roses when Stine and I were left in the house. It was where Lev and I had grown up. It was where I wanted our children to grow up.' He bit his lower lip. His gaze was fixed on the brown-andwhite wax cloth; the cloth was the only thing Harry had taken when his mother died.

  'He didn't say anything about the robbery?'

  Trond shook his head.

  'You're aware the robbery must have been planned at that point. That your wife's bank was going to be hit?'

  Trond let out a deep sigh. 'Had that been the case, I might have known and could have prevented it. Lev relished telling me about his bank robberies, you see. He got hold of copies of the videos, which he kept in the loft in Disengrenda, and every so often insisted we watch them together. To see what a clever big brother he was. When I married Stine and started working, I made it clear I wouldn't listen to any more of his plans. It would put me in a delicate position.'

  'Mm. So he didn't know Stine worked in the bank?'

  'I had told him she worked for Nordea, but not which branch, I don't think.'

  'But they knew each other?'

  'They had met a few times, yes. A couple of family gatherings. Lev was never a big fan of that sort of thing.'

  'How did they get on?'

  'Well, Lev can be a charmer when he wants to be.' Trond smiled wryly. 'As I said, we shared one set of genes. I was happy he could be bothered to show his good side to her. And since I had told her how he could behave towards people he didn't appreciate, she was flattered. The first time she came to our house he took her around our neighbourhood and showed her all the places he and I had played when we were small.'

  'Not the footbridge though?'

  'No, not that.' Trond lifted his hands pensively and looked at them. 'But you mustn't believe that was for his own sake. Lev was more than happy to talk about all the bad things he had done. It was because he knew I didn't want her to know I had a brother like that.'

  'Mm. Are you sure you're not painting a nobler picture of your brother than he deserves?'

  Trond shook his head. 'Lev has a dark and a light side. Like all of us. He would die for those he likes.'

  'But not in prison?'

  Trond opened his mouth, but no answer came out. His skin twitched under one eye.
Harry sighed and, with difficulty, stood up. 'I have to get a taxi to A&E.'

  'I've got a car,' Trond said.

  * The engine hummed quietly. Harry stared at the streetlights gliding by in the dark night sky, the dashboard and the diamond ring glinting on Trond's little finger as he held the steering wheel.

  'You lied about the ring you're wearing,' Harry whispered. 'The diamond is too small to cost thirty thousand. I reckon it cost about five and you bought it for Stine at a jeweller's here in Oslo. Am I right?'

  Trond nodded.

  'You met Lev in Sao Paulo, didn't you. The money was for him.' Trond nodded again.

  'Enough money to keep him going,' Harry said. 'Enough for a

  plane ticket when he decided to return to Oslo to do another job.' Trond didn't answer.

  'Lev's still in Olso,' Harry whispered. 'I want his mobile number.' 'Do you know what?' Trond carefully turned right by Alexander

  Kiellands plass. 'Last night I dreamed that Stine came into the bedroom and talked to me. She was dressed as an angel. Not like a real angel, but the kind of outfit you wear at carnivals. She said she didn't belong up there. And when I awoke, I thought of Lev. I thought of him sitting on the edge of the school roof with his legs dangling down as we went into the next lesson. He was a small dot, but I remember what I was thinking. He belonged up there.'

  25

  Baksheesh

  Three people were sitting in Ivarsson's office: Ivarsson, behind the tidy desk, and Beate and Harry each in their - slightly lower - chairs. The trick with the low chairs is such a wellknown dominance technique that one could be excused for thinking it was no longer used, but Ivarsson knew better. His experience was that basic techniques never went out of fashion.

  Harry had tipped his chair back so that he could see out of the window. The view took in the Hotel Plaza. Rounded clouds swept over the glass tower and the town without releasing any rain. Harry hadn't slept, even though he had taken painkillers after the tetanus injection he had received at the hospital. The explanation he had given to his colleagues of a stray feral dog had been original enough to be credible and close enough to the truth for him to be able to carry it off with some conviction. His neck was swollen and the tight bandage chafed against his skin. Harry knew exactly how much it would hurt if he twisted his head towards Ivarsson, who was talking. He also knew he wouldn't have turned his head, even if it hadn't hurt.

  'So you want air tickets to Brazil to search there?' Ivarsson said, brushing the tabletop clean and pretending to stifle a smile. 'While the Expeditor is demonstrably busy robbing banks here in Oslo?'

  'We don't know where in Oslo he is,' Beate said. 'Or whether he is in Oslo. But we hope we can trace the house his brother says he has in Porto Seguro. If we find it, we'll also find his fingerprints. And if they match the prints we have on the Coca-Cola bottle, we have damning evidence. That ought to make the trip worthwhile.'

  'Really? And which prints are these that no one else has?'

  Beate struggled in vain to catch Harry's eye. She swallowed. 'Since the principle is that we are meant to be independent of each other, we decided to keep it to ourselves. Until further notice.'

  'Dear Beate,' Ivarsson began, winking his right eye. 'You say "we" but I only hear Harry Hole. I appreciate Hole's keenness to adhere to my method, but we mustn't let principles stand in the way of results we can achieve together. So I repeat: which prints?'

  Beate sent Harry a desperate look.

  to the Brazilian police and ask them to help you to get hold of prints.'

  'Hole?' Ivarsson said.

  'This is how we're running it,' Harry said. 'Until further notice.' 'As you like,' Ivarsson said. 'But forget the trip. You'll have to talk

  Beate cleared her throat. 'I've checked. We have to send written applications via the Chief Constable in Bahia province and have a Brazilian district attorney go through the case, which will eventually result in a search warrant. The person I spoke to said that from experience this would take, without contacts in the Brazilian administration, somewhere between two months and two years.'

  'We've got seats on the plane leaving tomorrow evening,' Harry said, studying a fingernail. 'What's the decision?'

  Ivarsson laughed. 'What do you think? You come to ask me for money for plane tickets to the other side of the globe without even bothering to state the reasons for such a trip. You plan to search a house without a warrant, so that even if you found forensic evidence, the court would probably be obliged to reject it because you used illegal means to acquire it.'

  'The old brick trick,' Harry said softly.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'An unknown person heaves a brick through a window. The police happen to chance by and do not need a warrant to enter. They think there is a smell of marijuana in the sitting room. A subjective perception, but a justified reason for an immediate search. You secure forensic evidence, such as fingerprints, from the place. Very legal.'

  'In short - we've thought about what you're saying,' Beate hastened to add. 'If we find the house, we'll collect the prints by legal means.'

  'Oh, yes?'

  'Hopefully without the brick.'

  Ivarsson shook his head. 'Not good enough. The answer is a loud, resounding no.' He looked at his watch to signal the meeting was over and added with a thin reptilian smile: 'Until further notice.'

  'Couldn't you have given him a bone?' Beate said on leaving Ivarsson's office and heading down the corridor.

  'Such as what?' Harry said, carefully turning his neck. 'He'd made up his mind beforehand.'

  'You didn't even give him a chance to give us tickets.'

  'I gave him a chance not to be overruled.'

  'What do you mean?' They stopped in front of the lift.

  'What I told you. On this case we've been given certain freedoms.'

  Beate turned towards him and stared. 'I think I see,' she said slowly. 'So what happens now?'

  'He'll be overruled. Don't forget suncream.' The lift doors opened.

  Later that day Bjarne Moller told Harry that Ivarsson had taken the Chief Constable's decision to let Harry and Beate go to Brazil and charge the travel and accommodation costs to the Robberies Unit very badly.

  'Pleased with yourself now?' Beate said to Harry before he went home.

  However, as Harry passed the Plaza and the heavens finally opened, strangely enough, he felt no satisfaction at all. Just embarrassment, and exhaustion from pain and lack of sleep.

  *

  'Baksheesh?' Harry screamed down the phone. 'What the hell is baksheesh?'

  'Slush fund,' Oystein said. 'No one lifts a finger in this damned country without slush.'

  'Fuck!' Harry kicked the table in front of the mirror. The telephone slid off the table and the receiver was tugged out of his hand.

  'Hello? Are you there, Harry?' the phone on the floor crackled. Harry felt like leaving it where it was. Going away. Or putting on a Metallica record at full blast. One of the old ones.

  'Don't go to pieces now, Harry!' the voice squeaked.

  Harry bent down with a straight neck and picked up the receiver. 'Sorry, Oystein. How much did you say they wanted?'

  'Twenty thousand Egyptian. Forty thousand Norwegian. Then I'll get the client served on a silver platter, they said.'

  'They're screwing us, Oystein.'

  'Of course they are. Do we want the client or not?'

  'Money's on its way. Make sure you get a receipt, OK?'

  Harry lay in bed staring at the ceiling as he waited for the triple dose of painkillers to kick in. The last thing he saw before tumbling into the darkness was a boy sitting up above, dangling his legs and looking down at him. PART IV

  26

  D'Ajuda

  Fred Baugestad had a hangover. He was thirty-one years old, divorced and worked on Statfjord B oil rig as a roughneck. It was hard work and there was not a sniff of beer while he was on the job, but the money was great, there was a TV in your room, gourmet food and
best of all: three weeks on, four weeks off. Some travelled home to their wives and gawped at the walls, some drove taxis or built houses so as not to go mad with boredom and some did what Fred did: went to a hot country and tried to drink themselves to death. Now and again, he wrote a postcard to Karmoy, his daughter, or 'the baby' as he still called her even though she was ten. Or was it eleven? Anyway, that was the only contact he still had with the Continental mainland, and that was enough. The last time he had spoken with his father, he had complained about Fred's mother being arrested for pinching biscuits from Rimi supermarket again. 'I pray for her,' his father had said and wondered if Fred had a Norwegian Bible with him where he was. 'The Book is as indispensable as breakfast, Dad,' Fred had answered. Which was true, as Fred never ate before lunch when he was in d'Ajuda. Unless you consider

  caipirinhas food. Which was a question of definition since he poured at least four spoonfuls of sugar in every cocktail. Fred Baugestad drank caipirinhas because they were genuinely bad. In Europe the drink had an undeservedly good reputation as it was made with rum or vodka instead of cachaca - the raw bitter Brazilian aguardente distilled from sugar cane, which made the drinking of caipirinhas the penitent act Fred claimed it was meant to be. Both Fred's grandfathers had been alcoholics, and with that kind of genetic make-up he thought it was best to err on the safe side and drink something which was so bad he could never become dependent on it.

  Today he had dragged himself to Muhammed's at twelve and taken an espresso and brandy before slowly walking back in the quivering heat along the narrow pitted gravel track between the small, low, relatively white houses. The house he and Roger rented was one of the less white houses. The plaster was chipped, and inside, the grey untreated walls were so permeated by the damp wind blowing in off the Atlantic that you could taste the pungent wall smell by sticking out your tongue. But then, why would you do that, Fred mused. The house was good enough. Three bedrooms, two mattresses, one refrigerator and one stove. Plus a sofa and a tabletop on two Leca blocks in the room they defined as the sitting room since it had an almost square hole in the wall which they called a window. True enough, they should have cleaned up a bit more often - the kitchen was infested with yellow fire ants capable of a terrifying bite - but Fred didn't often go there after the refrigerator was moved to the sitting room. He was lying on the sofa planning his next move of the day when Roger came in.