The taxi driver put the car in gear and drove off without a word.
Rain fell from low cloud cover above brown fields with patches of grey snow along the motorway that cut north-west through the rolling landscape towards Zagreb.
After a quarter of an hour he could see Zagreb taking shape: concrete blocks and church towers outlined against the horizon. They passed a quiet, dark river that Harry reckoned had to be the Sava. Their entrance into the town was along a broad avenue that seemed out of all proportion to the low level of traffic; they passed the train station and a vast, open, deserted park with a large glass pavilion. Bare trees spread out their winter-black fingers.
'Hotel International,' the taxi driver said, pulling up in front of an impressive grey-brick colossus of the type communist countries used to build for their itinerant leader caste.
Harry paid. One of the hotel doormen, dressed as an admiral, had already opened the car door and stood ready with an umbrella and a broad smile. 'Welcome, sir. This way, sir.'
Harry stepped onto the pavement at the same moment as two hotel guests came through the swing doors and got into a Mercedes that had just driven up. A crystal chandelier sparkled behind the swing doors. Harry didn't move. 'Refugees?'
'Sorry, sir?'
'Refugees,' Harry repeated. 'Vukovar.'
Harry felt raindrops on his head as the umbrella and the broad smile were snatched away and the admiral's begloved index finger pointed to a door some way down the hotel's facade.
The first thing that struck Harry as he entered a large, bare lobby with a vaulted ceiling was that it smelt like a hospital. And that the forty to fifty people sitting or standing by the two long tables placed in the middle, or standing in the soup queue by the reception desk, reminded him of patients. It may have been something about their clothes; shapeless tracksuits, threadbare sweaters and tattered slippers suggested some indifference to appearance. Or it may have been the heads bowed over soup bowls and the sleep-deprived, dejected looks that did not take in his existence.
Harry's eyes swept across the room and stopped at the bar. It looked more like a hot-dog stand and for the moment was not serving customers; there was only a barman who was doing three things at once: cleaning a glass, making loud comments to the men at the nearest table about the football match on the TV suspended from the ceiling and watching Harry's every move.
Harry had a feeling he was in the right place and went over to the counter. The barman ran a hand through his greasy, swept-back hair.
'Da?'
Harry tried to ignore the bottles on the shelf at the back of the hotdog stand. But he had already spotted his old friend and foe Jim Beam. The barman followed Harry's gaze and with raised eyebrows pointed to the four-sided bottle with the brown contents.
Harry shook his head. And breathed in. There was no reason to make this complicated.
'Mali spasitelj.' He said it low enough for the barman to hear amid the racket from the TV. 'I'm looking for the little redeemer.'
The barman studied Harry before answering in English with a hard German accent. 'I don't know any redeemers.'
'I've been told by a friend from Vukovar that mali spasitelj can help me.' Harry produced the brown envelope from his jacket pocket and placed it on the counter.
The barman looked down at the envelope without touching it. 'You're a policeman,' he said.
Harry shook his head.
'You're lying,' the barman said. 'I saw it the minute you walked in.'
'What you saw was someone who was with the police for twelve years, but is not any more. I stopped two years ago.' Harry met the barman's scrutiny. And wondered to himself what the man had been inside for. The size of his muscles and tattoos suggested he had been given a long sentence.
'No one calling themselves a redeemer lives here. And I know everyone.'
The barman was about to turn away when Harry leaned over the counter and grabbed his upper arm. The barman looked down at Harry's hand, and Harry could feel the man's biceps swelling. Harry let go. 'My son was shot by a dealer standing outside his school selling shit. Because he told him he would report him to the head teacher if he continued.'
The barman didn't answer.
'He was eleven when he died,' Harry said.
'I have no idea why you're telling me this, mister.'
'So that you understand why I'm going to sit here and wait until someone comes to help me.'
The barman nodded slowly. The question came lightning fast. 'What was your boy's name?'
'Oleg,' Harry said.
They stood facing each other. The barman screwed up one eye. Harry could feel his mobile phone vibrating in his pocket, but let it ring.
The barman rested his hand on the envelope and pushed it back to Harry. 'This is not necessary. What's your name and where are you staying?'
'I've come straight from the airport.'
'Write your name on this serviette and go to Balkan Hotel by the train station. Over the bridge and straight ahead. Wait in your room. Someone will contact you.'
Harry was about to say something, but the barman had turned back to the TV and resumed his commentary.
When he went outside, Harry saw he had a missed call from Halvorsen.
'Do vraga!' he groaned. Shit!
The snow in Goteborggata looked like red sorbet.
He was confused. Everything had happened so fast. The last bullet which he had fired at the fleeing Jon Karlsen had hit the outside of the flat with a soft thud. Jon Karlsen had fled through the door and was gone. He crouched down and heard the bloodstained glass tear the material of his jacket pocket. The policeman was lying face down in the snow, which was drinking in the blood flowing from the slashes to his neck.
The gun, he thought, and grabbed the man's shoulder and turned him over. He needed a weapon to shoot with. A gust of wind blew the hair away from the unnaturally pale face. In haste, he searched through the coat pockets. The blood flowed and flowed, thick and red. He barely had time to sense the acidic taste of bile before his mouth was full. He turned, and the yellow contents of his stomach splashed over the blue ice. He wiped around his mouth. The trouser pockets. Found a wallet. Trouser waistband. For Christ's sake, cop, you must have a gun if you have to protect someone!
A car swung round the corner and came towards them. He took the wallet, stood up, crossed the road and began to walk. The car stopped. Mustn't run. He began to run.
He slipped on the pavement by the corner shop and landed on his hip, but was up in a second without feeling any pain. Headed for the park, the same way he went last time. This was a nightmare with an unending succession of meaningless events. Had he gone mad or were these things really happening? Cold air and bile stung his throat. He had reached Markveien when he heard the first police sirens. And he knew. He was frightened.
22
Friday, 19 December. The Miniatures.
The police station was lit up like a Christmas tree in the afternoon gloom. Inside, in Interview Room 2, Jon Karlsen sat with his head in his hands. On the other side of the small round table in the cramped room sat Officer Toril Li. Between them two microphones and the copy of the prime witness's statement. Through the window Jon could see Thea waiting for her turn in the adjacent room.
'So he attacked you, did he?' the policewoman said while reading the statement.
'The man with the blue jacket came running towards us with a gun.'
