the floor, ready as it were, with so much weight on his toes that he could feel the thin nylon cord beneath his shoe. ‘What about you, Rudolf? Do the rumours exaggerate in your case?’
‘Which ones?’
‘Well, for example, the ones saying you ran a heroin network in Gothenburg and killed a policeman there.’
‘Sounds like it’s me who has to confess and not you, eh?’
‘Thought it would be good to unburden your sins onto Jesus before you die.’
More chug-chug laughter. ‘Good one, Harry! Good one! Yes, we had to eliminate him. He was our burner, and I had a feeling he was not reliable. And I couldn’t go back to prison. There’s a stale dampness that eats away at your soul, the way mould eats walls. Every day takes another chunk. Your human side is consumed, Harry. It’s something I would only wish on my worst enemy.’ He looked at Harry. ‘An enemy I hate above all else.’
‘You know why I came back to Oslo. What was your reason? I thought Sweden was as good a market as Norway.’
‘Same as you, Harry.’
‘Same?’
Rudolf Asayev took a drag of the black cigarette before answering. ‘Forget it. The police were on my heels after the murder. And it’s strange how far away you are from Sweden in Norway, despite the proximity.’
‘And when you came back you became the mysterious Dubai. The man no one had seen. But who was thought to haunt the town at night. The ghost of Kvadraturen.’
‘I had to stay under cover. Not only because of the businesses, but because the name Rudolf Asayev would bring back bad memories for the police.’
‘In the seventies and eighties,’ Harry said, ‘heroin addicts died like flies. But perhaps you included them in your prayers, Pastor?’
The old man shrugged. ‘One doesn’t judge people who make sports cars, base-jumping parachutes, handguns or other goods people buy for fun and yet send them to their deaths. I deliver something people want, of quality and at a price that makes me competitive. What customers do with the goods is up to them. You are aware, are you, that there are fully functioning citizens who take opiates?’
‘Yes, I was one of them. The difference between you and a sports car manufacturer is that what you do is forbidden by law.’
‘One should be careful mixing law and morality, Harry.’
‘So you think your god will exonerate you, do you?’
The old man rested his chin on his hand. Harry could sense his exhaustion, but he knew it could be faked, and watched his movements carefully.
‘I heard you were a zealous policeman and a moralist, Harry. Oleg spoke about you to Gusto. Did you know that? Oleg loved you like a father would wish a son to love him. Zealous moralists and love-hungry fathers like us have enormous dynamism. Our weakness is that we are predictable. It was just a question of time before you came. We have a connection at Gardermoen who sees the passenger lists. We knew you were on your way even before you sat down on the plane in Hong Kong.’
‘Mm. Was that the burner, Truls Berntsen?’
The old man smiled by way of answer.
‘And what about Isabelle Skoyen on the City Council? Did you work with her too?’
The old man heaved a heavy sigh. ‘You know I’ll take the answers with me to the grave. I’m happy to die like a dog, but not like an informer.’
‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘what happened next?’
‘Andrey followed you from the airport to Hotel Leon. I stay at a variety of similar hotels when I’m in circulation as Cato, and Leon is a place I’ve stayed at a lot. So I checked in the day after you.’
‘Why?’
‘To follow what you were doing. I wanted to see if you were getting close to us.’
‘As you did when Beret Man stayed here?’
The old man nodded. ‘I knew you could be dangerous, Harry. But I liked you. So I tried to give you some friendly warnings.’ He sighed. ‘But you didn’t listen. Of course you didn’t. People like you and me don’t, Harry. That’s why we succeed. And that’s also in the end why we always fail.’
‘Mm. What were you afraid I would do? Persuade Oleg to grass?’
‘That too. Oleg had never seen me, but I couldn’t know what Gusto had told him. Gusto was, sad to say, untrustworthy, especially after he began to take violin himself.’ There was something in the old man’s eyes that Harry realised with a jolt was not the result of tiredness. It was pain. Sheer unadulterated pain.
‘So when you thought Oleg would talk to me you tried to have him killed. And when that didn’t work you offered to help me. So that I would lead you to Oleg.’
The old man nodded slowly. ‘It’s not personal, Harry. Those are the rules in this industry. Grasses are eliminated. But you knew that, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I knew. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill you for following your rules.’
‘So why haven’t you done it already? Don’t you dare? Afraid you’ll burn in hell, Harry?’
Harry stubbed out his cigarette on the table. ‘Because I want to know a couple of things first. Why did you kill Gusto? Were you afraid he would inform on you?’
The old man stroked back his white hair, round his Dumbo ears. ‘Gusto had bad blood flowing through his veins, just like me. He was an informer by nature. He would have informed on me earlier, all that was missing was something to gain. But then he became desperate. It was the craving for violin. It’s pure chemistry. The flesh is stronger than the spirit. We all weaken when the craving’s there.’
‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘We all weaken then.’
‘I…’ The old man coughed. ‘I had to let him go.’
‘Go?’
‘Yes. Go. Sink. Disappear. I couldn’t let him take over the businesses, I realised that. He was smart enough, he had inherited that from his father. It was spine he lacked. He inherited that deficiency from his mother. I tried to give him responsibility, but he failed the test.’ The old man kept stroking his hair back, harder and harder, as if it were steeped in something he was trying to clean. ‘Didn’t pass the test. Bad blood. So I decided it would have to be someone else. At first I thought of Andrey and Peter. Siberian Cossacks from Omsk. Cossack means “free man”. Did you know that? Andrey and Peter were my regiment, my stanitsa. They’re loyal to their ataman, faithful to the death. But Andrey and Peter were not businessmen, you know.’ Harry noticed the old man’s gesticulations, as if immersed in his own brooding thoughts. ‘I couldn’t leave the shop to them. So I decided it would have to be Sergey. He was young, had his future in front of him, could be moulded…’
‘You told me you might have had a son yourself once.’
‘Sergey may not have had Gusto’s head for figures, but he was disciplined. Ambitious. Willing to do what was required to be an ataman. So I gave him the knife. There was only one remaining test. For a Cossack to become an ataman in the old days you had to go into the Taiga and come back with a living wolf, tied and bound. Sergey was willing, but I had to see that he could also accomplish chto nuzhno.’
‘Pardon?’
‘The necessary.’
‘Was that son Gusto?’
The old man stroked his hair back so hard his eyes narrowed to two slits.
‘Gusto was six months old when I was sent to prison. His mother sought solace where she could. At least for a short while. She was in no position to take care of him.’
‘Heroin?’
‘The social services took Gusto from her and provided foster-parents. They were in agreement that I, the prisoner, did not exist. She OD’d the following winter. She should have done it before.’
‘You said you came back to Oslo for the same reason as me. Your son.’
‘I’d been told he had moved away from his foster-family, he had strayed off the straight and narrow. I had been thinking of leaving Sweden anyway, and the competition in Oslo wasn’t up to much. I found where Gusto hung out. Studied him from a distance at first. He was so good-looking. So damned good-looking. Like his mother, of course. I could just sit looking at him. Looking and looking, and thinking he’s my son, my own…’ The old man’s voice
