Chapter 31
Zaheerullah Hassan Mintroza leans forwards on the squeaky chair in his glass cage. He is counting money. Cash. It’s only ever cash in the car wash. He does have a till and it is plugged in, but he never uses it.
Nothing beats cash in hand.
He is very pleased with today’s takings so far. 12 passenger cars? 150 kroner each = 1,800 kroner. Plus 2 polishes @ 800 kroner. And 36 mini cabs? 100 kroner each. 7,000 in total. Not bad. And it’s two hours till closing time.
Offering cabbies a discount was a good move.
He is about to go and greet a new customer, when two other cars pull up behind the filthy Mercedes parked outside. Two police cars.
Damn, Hassan thinks. The officers, three in total, get out. Hassan goes to meet them. He has seen one of them before.
‘Are you the owner of this car wash?’ asks Detective Inspector Brogeland. He raises his voice to drown out the sound of the high pressure hosing-down in progress inside the car wash. Hassan nods.
‘Do you employ a man called Yasser Shah?’
Damn, Hassan thinks again.
‘Yes.’
‘Where is he? We would like to talk to him.’
‘Why?’ Hassan asks.
‘Is he here?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
Hassan shakes his head.
‘Isn’t he supposed to be at work today?’
‘No.’
‘Do you mind if we take a look inside the car wash?’
Hassan shrugs and remains outside while the officers enter the car wash. The filthy Mercedes drives off.
Hassan thinks about Yasser. Bloody amateur. Didn’t he tell him ‘no mistakes’?
Work inside stops. An Avensis minicab is nearly ready. The officers talk to the men, but Hassan can’t hear what they are saying. He sees Mohammed shake his head. Omar too.
The officers search every room, look around the glass cage, check in front of and behind the car wash. Brogeland says something to the other officers, before he comes over to Hassan again.
‘We need to talk to Yasser Shah urgently. If you do see him, you must tell him to contact me or the police as soon as possible.’
Brogeland hands him a card. Hassan accepts reluctantly, but he doesn’t look at it. In your dreams, pig.
‘We know what you’re doing here, Hassan.’
Hassan tries not to show unease, but he can feel it in his cheeks. He waits for the threat which never comes and realises that is because it has already been made.
Brogeland says nothing else. Hassan understands that the police will keep the car wash under surveillance from now on to get hold of Yasser Shah and to monitor his other activities.
He glares at Brogeland and the other officers as they get in their cars. Perhaps I ought to offer the police a discount, Hassan thinks, and watches them drive off. Free car wash in return for their bodies at the bottom of Oslo Fjord.
He goes back in and gestures for the others to come over. They assemble inside the glass cage. Hassan doesn’t sit down. He looks at each of them in turn.
‘They know Yasser did it,’ he says.
‘How can they?’ Mohammed asks.
‘Are you thick? Yasser told us there was a man there. He must have seen Yasser and identified him to the police. He can ruin everything for us.’
‘Who? Yasser?’
Hassan sighs and shakes his head.
‘The witness, you moron.’
Mohammed shrinks.
‘I don’t care how you do it, but I want you to find him.’
Hassan looked at them, one by one.
‘Find out everything you can from the papers, speak to people you know, in case one of them can name the witness. Yasser said the man’s face was scarred. Burn scars. That should make your job easier. If the police don’t find any evidence that Yasser was in the flat, that witness is the only person who can ruin it for him and for us. When you find the guy, then you let me know.’
‘Why, what are you going to do?’ one of the men asks. Hassan breathes deeply.
‘What am I going to do? What the hell do you think?’
*
Henning finishes typing out the interview with Tariq and emails it to the news desk. He writes — in capital letters — that his name and photo must under no circumstances be displayed when the article is published. He has no intention of going underground, but nor does he want to advertise his whereabouts.
He looks at the clock. Damn. The off-licence is closed. And he isn’t going to his mother’s without St Hallvard. He decides to go for a walk instead. There might be a match practice that I can watch, he thinks, and unwind a little.
The sun over the Old Sail Loft hits his back as he gets outside. A table and two chairs have been put outside Mr Tang’s Restaurant. A dog under the table closes its eyes. He thinks it is an Irish setter.
He loved dogs when he was little. And dogs loved him. His grandparents had a dog called Bianca. Bianca worshipped him. Even more so after he became allergic to her.
A yellow Opel Corsa zooms down Markvei, just as Henning is about to cross. Yellow cars always remind him of Jonas. Once, when he picked up his son from nursery, Jonas pointed out every single yellow car he saw on his way home. The game was to be the first person to spot them. They played it again the next day. And the day after. The whole summer, in fact. Not a day goes by without Henning looking for yellow cars. And every time, he hears his own voice cry out: Yellow car! And Jonas protests: I saw it first. It wasn’t proper yellow. Anyway, it doesn’t count, we hadn’t started yet.
Kids. They can turn anything into a game.
There is hardly an empty spot in the stand. Football players, parents, balls, buggies. He sits in his usual place, among the bitter nightshade. He watches them practise and he watches them play; he recognises most of the children on the pitch. Boys huddle together. One of them holds a bag of crisps in his hands. A blond boy wearing goalkeeper gloves tries to do a headstand. The coach’s voice sounds stern, he tells the boys to get ready, the game is about to begin.
The boys are wearing purple oversized Gruner football shirts. Jonas always looked good in those big shirts. White shorts and white socks. Henning closes his eyes and tries to imagine Jonas, two years older. Perhaps his hair would have been longer. He used to like it long. It might be possible to make out the features of an older boy, the beginnings of a young man. Perhaps he would have started looking at girls, but denied it vehemently.
Perhaps.
What if.
He opens his eyes. The crisps have all been eaten. Sated, the boy tosses aside the packet and gulps down a mouthful of Coke.
Chapter 32
