Marklin, the enormous assassination rifle from a case years ago which the officer in charge of confiscated arms probably still thought was at Police HQ. Truls had known that sooner or later he would have to go out for food, but waited until it was dark and there were not many people about. At a little before eleven o’clock, closing time at Rimi supermarket, he had taken his Steyr, sneaked out and jogged over there. Walked along the aisles with one eye on the food and the other on the customers. Bought a week’s worth of Fjordland rissoles. Small, transparent bags of peeled potatoes, rissoles, creamed peas and gravy. Chuck them in a pan of boiling water for a few minutes, cut open the bags and squelch it onto the plate, and if you closed your eyes, damned if it didn’t remind you of real food.
Truls Berntsen was at the entrance to the apartment block, inserting the key in the lock, when he heard hurried steps behind him in the darkness. He whirled round, frantic, and his hand was already on the pistol butt inside his jacket as he stared into the terrified face of Vigdis A.
‘D-did I frighten you?’ she stammered.
‘No,’ Truls said curtly and went in without holding the door open for her, but heard her manage to squeeze her fat through anyway before it closed.
He pressed the lift button. Frightened? Course he was bloody frightened. He had Siberian Cossacks on his tail. Was there anything about that which was not frightening?
Vigdis A panted behind him. She was as overweight as most of them had become. Not that he would have said no, but why didn’t anyone come straight out with it? Norwegian women had got so fat they were not only going to snuff it from one of a whole sodding range of illnesses, but they would also stop the race from reproducing; they were going to depopulate the country. Because in the end no man could be arsed to wade through so much fat. Apart from their own, of course.
The lift came, they went in and the wires screamed in pain.
He had read that men were putting on at least as much weight, but that it wasn’t visible in the same way. They had smaller bums, and just looked bigger and stronger. As he did. He looked a bloody sight better than ten kilos ago. But women got this rippling, quivering flab that made him want to kick them, see his foot disappear in all the podge. Everyone knew that fat had become the new cancer, yet they bellyached about the slimming hysteria and applauded the ‘real’ woman’s body. As though doing no exercise and being overfed was some kind of sensible model. Be happy with the body you’ve got, sort of thing. Much better for hundreds to die of heart disease than one person should die of an eating disorder. And now even Martine looked the same. Right, she was pregnant, he knew that, but he couldn’t get it out of his head that she had become one of them.
‘You look cold,’ Vigdis A smiled.
Truls didn’t know what the A stood for, but that was what was written by her doorbell, Vigdis A. He felt like punching her, a right hook, with all his strength, he didn’t need to worry about his knuckles with those bloody hamster cheeks. Or fucking her. Or both.
Truls knew why he was so angry. It was the mobile phone.
When they had finally got Telenor to track down Hole’s phone they had seen it was located in the city centre, around Oslo station, to be precise. There is probably nowhere in Oslo so jam-packed with people day and night. Then a dozen police officers had trawled the crowds searching for Hole. They had kept at it for hours. Nada. In the end a fresh-faced cop had come up with the banal idea of synchronising their watches, spreading around the area and then one of them would ring his number every quarter of an hour. And if anyone heard a phone ring at that moment, or saw anyone taking out a phone, they had to pounce, it had to be here somewhere. No sooner said than done. And they had found the phone. In the pocket of a junkie sitting half asleep on the steps at Jernbanetorget. He said he had been ‘given’ the phone by a guy at the Watchtower.
The lift stopped. ‘Goodnight,’ Truls mumbled and got out.
He heard the door close behind him and the lift start again.
Rissoles and a DVD now. The first Fast amp; Furious, maybe. Shit film, of course, but it had one or two scenes. Or Transformers, Megan Fox and a good, long wank.
He heard her breathing. She had got out of the lift with him. Some pussy. Truls Berntsen was going to get laid tonight. He smiled and turned his head. It met something. Something hard. And cold. Truls Berntsen strained his eyeballs. A gun barrel.
‘Thank you very much,’ said a familiar voice. ‘I’d love to come in.’
Truls Berntsen sat in the armchair staring down the muzzle of his own pistol.
He had found him. And vice versa.
‘We can’t keep meeting like this,’ Harry Hole said. He had positioned the cigarette in the corner of his mouth so that he would not get smoke in his eyes.
Truls didn’t reply.
‘Do you know why I’d rather use your gun?’ he said, patting the hunting rifle he had placed in his lap.
Truls continued to keep his mouth shut.
‘Because I’d prefer the bullets they find in you to be traced back to your weapon.’
Truls shrugged.
Harry Hole leaned forward. And Truls could smell it now: the alcoholic breath. Hell, the guy was drunk. He had heard stories about what the man did in a sober state, and now he’d been boozing.
‘You’re a burner, Truls Berntsen. And here’s the proof.’
He held up the ID card from the wallet he had taken from him along with the gun. ‘Thomas Lunder? Isn’t that the man who collected the dope from Gardermoen?’
‘What is it you want?’ Truls said, closing his eyes and settling back in the chair. Rissoles and a DVD.
‘I want to know what the link is between you, Dubai, Isabelle Skoyen and Mikael Bellman.’
Truls recoiled in the chair. Mikael? What the fuck did Mikael have to do with this? And Isabelle Skoyen? Wasn’t she the politician?
‘I have no idea…’
He watched Harry cock the pistol.
‘Careful, Hole! The trigger’s more sensitive than you think. It’s-’
The hammer of the gun rose further.
‘Wait! Wait, for Christ’s sake!’ Truls Berntsen’s tongue circled his mouth in search of lubricating saliva. ‘I know nothing about Bellman or Skoyen, but Dubai-’
‘Yes?’
‘I can tell you about him…’
‘What can you tell me?’
Truls Berntsen took a deep breath, held it. Then let it out with a groan. ‘Everything.’
39
Threeeyes stared back at Truls Berntsen. Two with light blue, booze-rinsed irises. And a round, black one, which was the muzzle of his own Steyr. The man holding the gun was lying rather than sitting in the armchair, and his long legs stretched out on the carpet. He said in a hoarse voice: ‘Tell me, Berntsen. Tell me about Dubai.’
Truls coughed twice. Bloody dry throat.
‘There was a ring at the door one night. I lifted the intercom handset, and a voice said he wanted to have a few words with me. I didn’t want to let him in at first, but then he mentioned a name and… well…’
Truls Berntsen held his jaw between thumb and middle finger.
The other man waited.
‘There was an unfortunate business I thought no one else knew about.’
‘Which was?’
‘A detainee. He needed to be taught some manners. I didn’t think anyone knew I was the one who had… taught him.’
‘Any damage?’
‘Parents wanted to sue, but the boy couldn’t point me out in the line-up. I must have damaged his optic nerve. Blessing in disguise, eh?’ Truls laughed his nervous grunted laughter, then shut up quickly. ‘And now this
