Oleg stared at the Game Boy. Blinked and blinked as though he had something in his eye.
‘What made you suspect me?’ he whispered.
‘The hatred,’ Harry said. ‘The old man, Rudolf Asayev, said I should follow the hatred.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘He’s the man you called Dubai. It took me a while to realise he was referring to his own hatred. Hatred for you. Hatred for the fact that you killed his son.’
‘Son?’ Oleg raised his head and looked blankly at Harry.
‘Yes. Gusto was his son.’
Oleg dropped his gaze, squatted and stared at the floor. ‘If…’ He shook his head. Started afresh. ‘If it’s true Dubai was Gusto’s father and if he hated me so much why didn’t he make sure I was killed in prison straight away?’
‘Because you were exactly where he wanted you. Because for him prison was worse than death. Prison eats your soul, death only liberates it. Prison was what he wished for those he hated most. You, Oleg. And he had total control over what you did there. It was only when you began to talk to me that you represented a danger, and he had to be content with killing you. But he didn’t manage that.’
Oleg closed his eyes. Sat like that, still on his haunches. As though he had an important race in front of him, and now they just had to be quiet and concentrate.
The town was playing its music outside: the cars, a distant foghorn, a half-hearted siren, noise as the sum of human activity, like the anthill’s perpetual, relentless rustle, monotonous, soporific, secure like a warm duvet.
Oleg slowly leaned over without taking his eyes off Harry.
Harry shook his head.
But Oleg grabbed the gun. Carefully, as though afraid it would explode in his hands.
43
Truls had fled to be alone on the terrace.
He had stood on the periphery of a couple of conversations, sipping champagne, eating from toothpicks and trying to look as if he belonged there. A few of these well-brought-up individuals had attempted to include him. Said hello, asked him who he was and what he did. Truls had given brief replies, and it had not occurred to him to return the favour. As though he wasn’t in a position to do that. Or was frightened he ought to know who they were and what kind of bloody important jobs they had.
Ulla had been busy serving and smiling and chatting to these people, as if they were old acquaintances, and Truls had achieved eye contact with her only on a couple of occasions. And then, with a smile, she had mimed something he guessed was supposed to mean she would have liked to talk to him but a hostess’s duties called. It transpired that none of the other boys who had worked on the house had been able to come, and the Chief of Police hadn’t recognised Truls and neither had the unit heads. He almost felt like telling them he was the officer who had punched the lights out of the boy.
But the terrace was wonderful. Oslo lay glittering like a jewel beneath him.
The autumn chill had come with the high pressure. Night temperatures down to zero had been forecast on higher ground. He heard distant sirens. An ambulance. And at least one police vehicle. From somewhere in the centre. Truls would have most liked to sneak away, switch on the police radio. Hear what was going on. Feel the pulse of his town. Feel that he belonged.
The terrace door opened, and Truls automatically took two steps back, into the shadows, to avoid being drawn into a conversation where he would have to shrink still further.
It was Mikael. And the politician woman. Isabelle Skoyen.
She was clearly stewed; at any rate Mikael was supporting her. Big woman, she towered above him. They stood by the railing with their backs to Truls, in front of the windowless bay, so that they were hidden from the guests in the lounge.
Mikael stood behind her, and Truls half expected to see someone produce a Zippo and light a cigarette, but that didn’t happen. And when he heard the rustle of a dress and Isabelle Skoyen’s low, protesting laugh it was already too late to make his presence known. He saw the flash of a white thigh before the hem was pulled down firmly. Instead she turned to him, and their heads merged into one silhouette against the town below. Truls could hear wet tongue noises. He turned towards the lounge. Saw Ulla smiling and running between people with a tray of new provisions. Truls couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t bloody understand it. Not that he was shocked, it wasn’t the first time Mikael had been involved with another woman, but he couldn’t understand how Mikael had the stomach for it. The heart for it. When you have a woman like Ulla, when you have such incredible good luck, when you’ve hit the jackpot, how could you want to risk everything for a shag on the side? Is it because God, or whoever the hell it is, has given you the things women want in men — good looks, ambition, a smooth tongue that knows what to say — that you feel obliged to exercise your potential, as it were? Like people measuring two metres twenty think they have to play basketball. He didn’t know. All he knew was that Ulla deserved better. Someone to love her. Who loved her the way he had always loved her. And always would. The business with Martine had been a frivolous adventure, nothing serious, and it would never be repeated anyway. Every so often he had thought that in some way or other he ought to let Ulla know that if she were ever to lose Mikael, he, Truls, would be there for her. But he had never found the right words to tell her. Truls pricked up his ears. They were talking.
‘I just know he’s gone,’ Mikael said, and Truls could hear from the slightly slurred speech that he was not totally sober, either. ‘But they found the other two.’
‘His Cossacks?’
‘I still believe that all the stuff about them being Cossacks is bollocks. Anyway, Gunnar Hagen from Crime Squad contacted me and wondered if I could help. Tear gas and automatic weapons were used, so they have a theory it might have been the settling of an old score. He wondered if Orgkrim had any candidates. They were tapping in the dark, he said.’
‘And you answered?’
‘I answered that I had no idea who it could be, which is the truth. If it’s a gang they’ve managed to sail under the radar.’
‘Do you think the old boy could have escaped?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I think his body’s rotting somewhere down there.’ Truls saw a hand point into the starry sky. ‘Maybe we’ll find it very soon, maybe we’ll never find it.’
‘Bodies always turn up, don’t they?’
No, Truls thought. He stood with his weight distributed evenly across both feet, felt them press against the cement of the terrace, and vice versa. They don’t.
‘Nevertheless,’ Mikael said, ‘someone has done it, and he’s new. We’ll soon see who is Oslo’s new king of the dope heap.’
‘And what do you think that will mean for us?’
‘Nothing, my love.’ Truls could see Mikael Bellman place his hand behind Isabelle Skoyen’s neck. In silhouette, it looked as if he was about to strangle her. She lurched to the side. ‘We’ve got where we wanted to be. We jump off here. In fact, it couldn’t have had a better end than this. We didn’t need the old boy any more, and considering what he had on you and me in the course of… our cooperation, it’s…’
‘It’s?’
‘It’s…’
‘Remove your hand, Mikael.’
Alcoholic laughter, as smooth as velvet. ‘If this new king hadn’t done the job for us I might have had to do it myself.’
‘Let Beavis do it, you mean?’
Truls started at the sound of the hated nickname. Mikael had been the first person to use it. And it had stuck. People had caught on to the underbite and the grunted laugh. Mikael had even consoled him by saying he had been
