choked.
Harry stared at his feet, at the nylon cord he had been given instead of a new curtain pole, pressed it into the floor with the sole of his shoe.
‘And then you took him into your business. And tested him to see if he could take over.’
The old man nodded. Whispered: ‘But I never said anything. When he died he didn’t know I was his father.’
‘Why the sudden haste?’
‘Haste?’
‘Why did you need to have someone take over so quickly? First Gusto, then Sergey.’
The old man mustered a weary smile. Leaned forward in his chair, into the light from the reading lamp above the bed.
‘I’m ill.’
‘Mm. Thought it was something like that. Cancer?’
‘The doctors gave me a year. Six months ago. The sacred knife Sergey used had been lying under my mattress. Do you feel any pain in your wound? That’s my suffering the knife has transmitted to you, Harry.’
Harry nodded slowly. It fitted. And it didn’t fit.
‘If you have only months left to live why are you so afraid of being grassed up that you want to kill your own son? His long life for your short one?’
The old man gave a muffled cough. ‘Urkas and Cossacks are the regiment’s simple men, Harry. We swear allegiance to a code, and we stick to it. Not blindly, but with open eyes. We’re trained to discipline our feelings. That makes us masters of our own lives. Abraham said yes to sacrificing his son because-’
‘-it was God’s command. I have no idea what kind of code you’re talking about, but does it say it’s alright to let an eighteen-year-old go to prison for your crimes?’
‘Harry, Harry, have you not understood? I didn’t kill Gusto.’
Harry stared at the old man. ‘Didn’t you just say it was your code? To kill your own son if you had to?’
‘Yes, I did, but I also said I was born of bad people. I love my son. I could never have taken Gusto’s life. Quite the opposite. I say screw Abraham and his god.’ The old man’s laughter morphed into coughing. He laid his hands on his chest, bent over his knees and coughed and coughed.
Harry blinked. ‘Who killed him then?’
The old man straightened up. In his right hand he was holding a revolver. It was a large, ugly object and looked even older than its owner.
‘You should know better than to come to me without a weapon, Harry.’
Harry didn’t answer. The MP5 was at the bottom of a water-filled cellar, the rifle was at Truls Berntsen’s flat.
‘Who killed Gusto?’ Harry repeated.
‘It could have been anyone.’
Harry seemed to hear a creak as the old man’s finger curled around the trigger.
‘It’s not very difficult to kill, Harry. Don’t you agree?’
‘I do,’ Harry said, lifting his foot. There was a whistle under the sole of his foot as the thin nylon cord shot up towards the curtain pole holder.
Harry saw the question marks in the old man’s eyes, saw his brain working lightning-fast with the half- digested bits of information.
The light that didn’t work.
The chair that was in the middle of the room.
Harry who hadn’t searched him.
Harry who hadn’t moved a centimetre from where he was sitting.
And perhaps now he could see the nylon cord in the semi-gloom as it ran from under Harry’s shoe via the curtain pole holder to the ceiling lamp fitting right above his head. Where there was no longer a lamp but the only thing Harry had taken from Blindernveien apart from the priest’s collar. Which was all he had in his mind as he lay on Rudolf Asayev’s four-poster bed, soaking wet, gasping for breath as black dots jumped in and out of his vision and he was sure he was going to pass out any second, but fought to stay conscious, to stay on this side of the darkness. Then he had got up, and taken the zjuk, which was beside the Bible.
Rudolf Asayev hurled himself to the left, thus the steel nails embedded in the brick did not pierce his head but the skin between the collarbone and the shoulder muscle, which continued down to a juncture of nerve fibres, the cervico-brachial plexus, with the result that when, two hundredths of a second later, he pulled the trigger, the muscle in his upper arm was paralysed, causing his revolver to drop seven centimetres. The powder hissed and burned for the thousandth of a second the bullet needed to leave the barrel of the old Nagant. Three thousandths of a second later the bullet bored into the bed frame between Harry’s calves.
Harry got up. Flicked the security catch to the side and pressed the release button. The shaft quivered as the blade sprang out. Harry swung his hand, low, past the hip, with a straight arm, and the long, thin knife blade entered midway between the coat lapels, down the priest’s shirt. He felt the material and skin give, then the blade slid in up to the hilt without any resistance. Harry let go of the knife knowing that Rudolf Asayev was a dying man as the chair tipped back and the Russian hit the floor with a groan. He kicked the chair away, but stayed where he was, curled up like an injured but still dangerous wasp. Harry stood astride him, bent down and pulled the knife out of his body. Looked at the abnormally deep red colour of the blood. From the liver, maybe. The old man’s left hand scrabbled across the floor, round the paralysed right arm, searching for the pistol. And for one wild moment Harry wished the hand would find it, give him the pretext he needed to…
Harry kicked the pistol away, heard it thud against the wall.
‘The iron,’ whispered the old man. ‘Bless me with my iron, my boy. It’s burning. For both of our sakes, bring this to an end.’
Harry closed his eyes for a brief instant. Could feel he had lost it. It was gone. The hatred. The wonderful, white hatred which had been the fuel that had kept him going. He had run out of it.
‘No, thank you,’ Harry said. Stepped over and away from the old man. Buttoned up the wet coat. ‘I’m going now, Rudolf Asayev. I’ll ask the boy in reception to ring for an ambulance. Then I’ll call my ex-boss and tell him where they can find you.’
The old man chuckled and red bubbles formed at the corner of his mouth. ‘The knife, Harry. It’s not murder, I’m already dead. You won’t end up in hell, I promise you. I’ll tell them at the gate not to drag you in.’
‘It’s not hell that frightens me.’ Harry put the wet Camel pack in his coat pocket. ‘I’m a policeman. Our job is to bring alleged lawbreakers to justice.’
The bubbles burst when the old man coughed. ‘Come on, Harry, your sheriff’s badge is made of plastic. I’m ill. The only thing a judge can do is give me custody, kisses, hugs and morphine. And I committed so many murders. Rivals I hanged from bridges. Employees, like that pilot we used the brick on. The police, too. Beret Man. I sent Andrey and Peter to your room to shoot you. You and Truls Berntsen. And do you know why? To make it look like you two had shot each other. We had left the weapon as proof. Come on now, Harry.’
Harry wiped the knife blade on the bed sheet. ‘Why did you want to kill Berntsen? After all, he worked for you.’
Asayev turned onto his side and he seemed to be able to breathe better. He lay like that for a couple of seconds before answering. ‘He stole a stockpile of heroin from Alnabru behind my back. It wasn’t my heroin, but when you discover your burner is so greedy you can’t trust him and at the same time he knows enough about you to bring you down, you know the sum of the risks has become too great. And then businessmen like me eliminate the risk, Harry. We saw a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. You and Berntsen.’ He chuckled. ‘Like I tried to murder your boy in Botsen. Feel the hatred now, Harry? I almost murdered your boy.’
Harry stopped by the door. ‘Who killed Gusto?’
‘Humanity lives by the gospel of hatred. Follow the hatred, Harry.’
‘Who are your contacts in the police and on the City Council?’
‘If I tell you, will you help me to bring this to an end?’
Harry looked at him. Nodded quickly. Hoped the lie wasn’t transparent.
‘Come closer,’ whispered the old man.
Harry bent down. And suddenly the old man’s hand, like a stiff claw, had grabbed his lapels and pulled him
