'No,' Jon said. 'I was on my way out.'
Jon put on his outdoor clothing in the threefold silence. After closing the door behind him he stood for a few seconds listening to the voices inside. They were whispering. Why were they whispering? Rikard sounded angry.
He caught the tram to town and took the Holmenkollen line from there. At the weekend with snow on the fields the train would usually have been full of cross-country skiers, but it must have been too cold for most today. He got off at the last station and observed Oslo nestling a long way below.
Mads and Ragnhild's home was situated on a hill. Jon had never been there before. The gate was quite narrow and so was the drive curving round a clump of trees which hid most of the house from the road. The house itself was low and built in such a way that you didn't notice how big it was until you were inside and walking around. At least that was what Ragnhild had said.
Jon rang and after a few seconds he heard a voice from a speaker he could not see. 'Well, I never. Jon Karlsen.'
Jon looked at the camera over the door.
'I'm in the living room.' Mads Gilstrup's voice sounded slurred and he was chuckling. 'I assume you know the way.'
The door opened automatically and Jon Karlsen stepped into a hall the size of his flat.
'Hello?'
He received a short, harsh echo by way of an answer.
He began to walk down a corridor he assumed would culminate in a living room. Unframed canvases covered in vivid oil colours hung on the walls. And there was a particular smell that got stronger the further he advanced. He passed a kitchen with a cooking island and a dining table surrounded by a dozen chairs. The sink was full of plates, glasses and empty bottles of booze. There was a sickly smell of stale food and beer. Jon continued. Clothes lay strewn along the corridor. He peered through the door to a bathroom. There was a stench of vomit.
He rounded a corner and was presented with the kind of panorama of Oslo and the fjord that he had seen when he and his father had gone for walks in Nordmarka.
A screen had been set up in the middle of the room and images from what was evidently an amateur video of a wedding rolled silently across the white canvas. The father led the bride up the aisle as she nodded and smiled to guests on both sides. The gentle hum of the projector fan was all that could be heard. In front of the screen he saw the rear of a black, high-backed armchair and two empty – and one half empty – bottles on the floor beside it.
Jon announced himself with a loud cough and went closer.
The chair swivelled round slowly.
And Jon came to an abrupt halt.
A man he half recognised as Mads Gilstrup was sitting in the chair. He was wearing a clean, white shirt and black trousers, but he was unshaven and his face was bloated, his eyes blanched with a chalky grey film over them. In his lap was a double-barrelled rifle with intricate carvings of animals on the burgundy gunstock. The way he sat it was pointing at Jon.
'Do you hunt, Karlsen?' Gilstrup asked gently in a hoarse, alcoholdrenched voice.
Jon shook his head, unable to take his eyes off the rifle. 'In our family we hunt everything,' Gilstrup said. 'No game too small, none too big. I think you could say that is our family motto. My father has shot everything on four legs. Every winter he travels to a country where there are animals he has not yet shot. Last year it was Paraguay where there was said to be a rare forest puma. I am no great shakes myself. Not according to Father. He says I don't have the necessary cold-bloodedness. He used to say that the only animal I was capable of catching was her.' Gilstrup flicked his head towards the screen. 'Although I suspect he thought she was the one who caught me.'
Gilstrup placed the rifle on the coffee table beside him and opened his palm. 'Take a seat. We're due to sign a contract with your boss David Eckhoff this week. Transferring the properties in Jacob Aalls gate, first of all. Father will thank you for recommending the sale.'
'Nothing to thank me for, I'm afraid,' Jon said, taking a seat on the black sofa. The leather was soft and ice- cold. 'A wholly professional assessment.'
'Oh yes? Do tell me.'
Jon swallowed. 'The benefits of having money tied up in property versus the ways it could benefit the other work we do.'
'However, other sellers might have floated the properties on the open market?'
'We would have liked to do that, too. But you drove a hard bargain and made it pretty clear that if you were making an offer for the whole property package you would not permit an auction.'
'Nevertheless, it was your recommendation that swung the balance.'
'I considered it a good offer.'
Mads Gilstrup smiled. 'Did you hell. You could have got double.'
Jon shrugged. 'We might have got a bit more if we'd split up the package, but this way we save ourselves the long, arduous process of selling the properties. And the board of management has stressed that it trusts you with regard to rent. After all, there are a number of residents we have to consider. We wouldn't like to know what more unscrupulous purchasers would have done with them.'
'The clause freezing rents and allowing present tenants to stay runs for eighteen months.'
'Trust is more important than clauses.'
Gilstrup leaned forward in his chair. 'That's fucking right, Karlsen. Do you know I knew about you and Ragnhild all the time? You see, she always had these rosy cheeks after she'd been screwed, Ragnhild did. And she had them whenever your name was mentioned in the office. Did you read the Bible to her while you were shagging? Because you know what? I think she would have liked that…' Mads Gilstrup slumped back in his chair with a brief snort of laughter and ran a hand over the rifle on the table. 'I've got two cartridges in this gun, Karlsen. Have you ever seen what cartridges like these can do? You don't even need to aim very well, just pull the trigger and – bang – you'd be blasted up against that wall. Fascinating, isn't it?'
'I've come here to tell you I don't want you as my enemy.'
'Enemy?' Mads Gilstrup laughed. 'You lot will always be my enemies. Do you remember the summer you bought Ostgard and I was invited by the commander himself, Eckhoff? You were sorry for me. I was the poor boy you'd deprived of childhood memories. You're sensitive about things like that. My God, how I hated you all!' Gilstrup laughed. 'I stood watching you playing and enjoying yourselves as though the place belonged to you. Especially your brother, Robert. He had a way with the girls, he did. Tickled them and took them into the barn and…' Gilstrup shifted his foot and hit the bottle, which toppled over with a clunk. Brown alcohol gurgled out onto the parquet floor. 'You didn't see me. None of you saw me. It was as though I didn't exist. You were absorbed in each other. So I thought, well, OK, then I must be invisible. I'll show you what invisible people can do.'
'Is that why you did it?'
'Me?' Mads laughed. 'But I'm innocent, Jon Karlsen, aren't I? We, the privileged, always are. Surely you must know that. We always have a clear conscience because we can afford to buy it from others. From those who are employed to serve us, to do the dirty work. That's the law of nature.'
Jon nodded. 'Why did you ring the policeman and confess?'
Gilstrup shrugged. 'I thought of ringing the other one, Harry Hole, in fact. But the duffer didn't have a business card, so I rang the one whose number I did have. Halvorsen something or other. I don't remember because I was drunk.'
'Have you told anyone else?' Jon asked.
Gilstrup shook his head, picked up the bottle off the floor and took a swig.
'My father.'
'Father?' Jon said. 'Ah, yes, of course.'
'Of course?' Mads chortled. 'Do you love your father, Jon Karlsen?'
'Yes. Very much.'
'And do you not agree that love for a father is a curse?' Jon did not answer and Mads went on. 'Father was here right after I phoned the policeman, and when I told him, do you know what he did? He fetched his ski pole and hit me. And he can still hit hard, the bastard. Hatred gives you strength, you know. He said that if I mentioned a word of this to anyone, if I dragged the family's name into the dirt, he would kill me. Those were his exact words. And do you know what?' Mads's eyes filled with tears and a sob caught his voice. 'I still love him. And I think that's
