games now everything looked to be going so well? But his second reaction was that this was the voice they used. Police officers in critical situations. No colouring, no drama, just a neutral, cold clarity with the least possible chance of a misunderstanding. And the greatest possible chance of survival.
So Truls Berntsen — almost without thinking — took a step to the side.
At that moment the top part of the door panel was blown into the room.
As Berntsen whirled round his instinctive conclusion was that the barrel must have been sawn off to have such wide coverage at such short range. He already had a hand inside his jacket. With the shoulder holster in its conventional position and without a jacket he would have drawn faster as the handle would have been sticking out.
Truls Berntsen fell backwards onto the bed with the gun freed and at the end of an outstretched arm as the remains of the door opened with a bang. He heard the glass shatter behind him before everything was drowned by a new explosion.
The noise filled his ears, and there was a snowstorm in the room.
In the doorway the silhouettes of two men stood in the snowdrift. The taller one raised his gun. His head almost touched the door frame, he must have been well over two metres. Truls fired. And fired again. Felt the wonderful recoil and even more wonderful certainty that this was for real, to hell with the consequences. The tall one jerked, seemed to flick his fringe before stepping back and disappearing from view. Truls shifted his pistol and his gaze. The second man stood there without moving. White feathers fluttered around him. Truls had him in his sights. But he didn’t fire. He saw him more clearly now. Face like a wolf. The kind of face Truls had always associated with the Sami, Finns and Russians.
Now the guy calmly raised his gun. Finger wrapped around the trigger.
‘Easy, Berntsen,’ he said in English.
Truls Berntsen gave a long, drawn-out roar.
Harry fell.
He had lowered his head, crouched up and moved back as the first blast of the shotgun sprayed over his head. Back to where he knew the window was. Felt the pane almost bend before it remembered it was glass and gave way.
Then he was in free fall.
Time had jammed on the brakes, as though he was falling through water. Hands and arms working like slow paddles in a reflex attempt to stop the body rotating into the beginnings of a backward somersault. Semi- transmitted thoughts bounced between the brain’s synapses:
He was going to land on his head and break his neck.
It was lucky he didn’t have curtains.
The naked woman in the window opposite was upside down.
Then he was received by softness everywhere. Empty cardboard boxes, old newspapers, used nappies, milk cartons and day-old bread from the hotel’s kitchen, wet coffee filters.
He lay on his back in the open skip amid a shower of glass. Flashes of light appeared from the window above him, like camera flashbulbs. Muzzles of flames. But it was eerily quiet, as though the flashes came from a TV with the volume turned down. He could feel the gaffer tape around his neck had torn. Blood was streaming out. And for one wild moment he considered staying where he was. Closing his eyes, going to sleep, drifting off. He seemed to be watching himself sit up, jump over the edge of the skip and race towards the gate at the end of the yard. Open it as he heard a protracted, furious roar from the window reach the street. Slip on a drain cover but manage to stay on his feet. See a black woman in tight jeans, on the game, who smiled instinctively and pouted at him, then reviewed the situation and averted her gaze.
Harry set off.
And decided that this time he would just run.
Until there was nowhere left to run.
Until it was over, until they had him.
He hoped it wouldn’t be too long.
In the meantime he would do what hunted prey are programmed to do: flee, try to escape, try to survive for a few more hours, a few more minutes, a few more seconds.
His heart pounded in protest, and he began to laugh as he crossed the street in front of a night bus and continued down towards Oslo Central.
34
Harry was locked in. He had just woken and noticed. On the wall immediately above him hung a poster of a skinned human body. Beside it, a neatly carved wooden figure depicting a man on a cross bleeding to death. And beside that, medicine cabinet after medicine cabinet.
He twisted round on the couch. Tried to continue where he had left off yesterday. Tried to see the picture. There were lots of dots, but he hadn’t managed to connect them. And even the dots were for the time being mere assumptions.
Assumption one. Truls Berntsen was the burner. As an employee in Orgkrim he was probably in a perfect position to serve Dubai.
Assumption two. It was Berntsen Beate had found a match for on the DNA register. That was why she wouldn’t say anything until she was one hundred per cent certain; the test on the blood under Gusto’s nails suggested it was one of their own. And if that was correct Gusto had clawed Truls Berntsen the same day he was killed.
But then came the tricky part. If Berntsen was indeed working for Dubai and had been given the job of expediting Harry, why did the Blues Brothers appear and try to blow off both their heads? And if they were Dubai henchmen how come they and the burner were at each other’s throats like that? Weren’t they on the same side, or had it been no more than a badly coordinated operation? Perhaps it wasn’t coordinated because Truls Berntsen had acted on his own to prevent Harry from delivering the evidence from Gusto’s grave and exposing him?
There was a rattle of keys and the door opened.
‘Morning,’ Martine twittered. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Better,’ Harry lied, looking at his watch. Six o’clock in the morning. He threw off the blanket and swung his legs onto the floor.
‘Our infirmary is not intended for overnight stays,’ Martine said. ‘Lie down so that I can put a fresh bandage around your neck.’
‘Thanks for taking me in last night,’ Harry said. ‘But, as I said before, giving me a place to hide is not without its dangers, so I think I should go.’
‘Lie down!’
Harry looked at her. Sighed and obeyed. Shut his eyes and listened to Martine opening and closing drawers, the clatter of scissors on glass, the sound of the first people arriving for breakfast at the Watchtower cafe on the floor below.
While Martine undid the bandage she had applied the previous day Harry used his other hand to ring Beate and reach a minimalist message telling him to be brief, beep.
‘I know the blood is from an ex-Kripos detective,’ Harry said. ‘Even if this is confirmed at the Pathology Unit today you should wait before telling anyone. On its own it’s not enough to justify an arrest warrant, and if we shake his cage now we risk him burning the whole case and taking flight. So we should have him arrested for something else so that we can work in peace. Breaking into the bikers’ place in Alnabru. Unless I’m much mistaken this is Oleg’s accomplice. And Oleg will testify. So I’d like you to fax a photo of Truls Berntsen, now working at Orgkrim, to Hans Christian Simonsen’s office and ask him to show it to Oleg for identification.’
Harry rang off, took a deep breath, felt it coming, suddenly and with such power that he gasped. He turned away, felt the contents of his stomach assessing a trip up north.
‘Does it hurt?’ Martine asked as she ran the alcohol-dipped cotton wool along his neck and chin.
Harry shook his head and nodded towards the open bottle of alcohol.
