'Yes, he's in,' she said in mellifluous French.
She was good-looking. High cheekbones and large, almond-shaped eyes. Narrow, bloodless lips. And well dressed. At any rate, the bit of her he could see through the crack in the door was well dressed.
Instinctively, he adjusted his red neckerchief.
The security lock between them was made of solid brass and attached to a heavy oak door without a nameplate. While standing outside the block in avenue Carnot waiting for the concierge to open the door, he had noticed that everything seemed new and expensive, the door furniture, the bells, the cylinder locks. And the fact that the pale yellow facade and the white shutters were covered in an unsightly, dirty layer of black pollution served to emphasise the established and solid nature of this district of Paris even more. Original oil paintings hung in the hallway.
'What do you want?'
The eyes and the intonation were neither friendly nor unfriendly, but contained perhaps a smidgeon of scepticism because of his terrible French pronunciation.
'A message, madame.'
She hesitated. But acted as expected in the end.
'Alright. Could you wait here please, and I'll get him?'
She shut the door and the lock fell into position with a well-oiled click. He stamped his feet. He ought to learn to speak better French. His mother had force-fed him English in the evenings, but she had never sorted out his French. He stared at the door. French knickers. French letter. Good-looking.
He thought about Giorgi. Giorgi of the white smile was one year older than he was, so twenty-eight now. Was he still as good-looking? Blond and small and pretty like a girl? He had been in love with Giorgi, in the unprejudiced, unconditional way that only children can fall in love.
He heard steps coming from inside. A man's steps. Someone fiddling with the lock. A blue connecting line between work and freedom, from here to soap and urine. The snow would come soon. He prepared himself.
The man's face appeared in the doorway.
'What the fuck do you want?'
Jon lifted the plastic bags and ventured a smile. 'Fresh bread. Smells good, doesn't it.'
Fredriksen laid a large brown hand on the woman's shoulder and pushed her away. 'All I can smell is Christian blood…' It was said with clear, sober diction, but the washed-out irises in the bearded face told a different story. The eyes tried to focus on the bags of shopping. He looked like a large, powerful man who had shrunk inside. His skeleton and even his cranium had become smaller inside the skin that drooped, three sizes too big, from the malevolent face. Fredriksen ran a grubby finger over the fresh cuts along the bridge of his nose.
'You're not going to preach now, are you.'
'No, actually I wanted-'
'Oh, come on, soldier. You want something back for this, don't you. My soul, for example.'
Jon shivered in his uniform. 'It's not me who deals with souls, Fredriksen. But I can arrange for food, so-'
'Oh, you can manage a little sermon first.'
'As I said-'
'A sermon!'
Jon stood looking at Fredriksen.
'Give us a sermon with that wet little cunt-hole of yours!' Fredriksen yelled. 'A sermon so that we can eat with a good conscience, you condescending Christian bastard. Come on, get it over with. What's God's message today?'
Jon opened his mouth and closed it again. Swallowed. Tried again and this time his vocal cords responded. 'The message is that He gave His only son, who died… for our sins.'
'You're lying!'
'No, I'm afraid I'm not, 'Harry said, observing the terrified face of the man in the doorway in front of him. There was a smell of lunch and a rattle of cutlery in the background. A family man. A father. Until now. The man scratched his forearm and gazed at a spot above Harry's head as if someone were there. The scratching made an unpleasant rasping noise.
The rattle of cutlery had stopped. The shuffle of feet came to a halt behind the man and a small hand was placed on his shoulder. A woman's face with large red eyes peeped out.
'What is it, Birger?'
'This policeman has something to tell us,' Birger said in a monotone.
'What?' the woman said looking at Harry. 'Is it about our son? Is it about Per?'
'Yes, fru Holmen,' Harry said and saw the fear steal into her eyes. He searched for the impossible words. 'We found him two hours ago. Your son is dead.'
He had to look away.
'But he… he… where…?' Her eyes jumped from Harry to the man who kept scratching his arm.
Won't be long before he draws blood, Harry thought, and cleared his throat. 'In a container by the harbour. What we feared. He's been dead for a good while.'
Birger Holmen seemed to lose his balance, staggered backwards into the lit hallway and grabbed a hatstand. The woman stepped forward and Harry saw the man fall to his knees behind her.
Harry breathed in and shoved his hand inside his coat. The metal hip flask was ice-cold against his fingertips. He found what he was looking for and pulled out an envelope. He hadn't written the letter, but knew the contents all too well. The brief official notification of death, stripped of all the verbiage. The bureaucratic act of pronouncing death.
'I'm sorry, but it's my job to give you this.'
'Your job to do what?' said the small, middle-aged man with the exaggerated mondaine French pronunciation uncharacteristic of the upper classes but of those who strive to belong. The visitor studied him. Everything matched the photograph in the envelope, even the mean-spirited tie-knot and the loose red smoking jacket.
He didn't know what this man had done wrong. He doubted it had been physical because despite the irritation in his expression his body language was defensive, almost anxious, even in the door to his own home. Had he been stealing money, embezzling? He could be the type to work with figures. But not the big sums. His attractive wife notwithstanding, he looked more like the kind who helped himself to small change here and there. He might have been unfaithful, might have slept with the wife of the wrong man. No. As a rule, short men with above average assets and wives much more attractive than themselves are more concerned with her infidelity. The man annoyed him. He slipped his hand into his pocket.
'This,' he said, resting the barrel of a Llama Minimax, which he had bought for just three hundred dollars, on the taut brass door chain, 'is my job.'
He pointed the silencer. It was a plain metal tube, made by a gunsmith in Zagreb, and screwed to the barrel. The black gaffer tape lashed round where the two parts met was to make it airtight. Of course, he could have bought a so-called quality silencer for over a hundred euros, but why? No one could silence the sound of a bullet breaking the sound barrier, of the hot gas meeting the cold air and the mechanical metal parts striking each other. Pistols with silencers that sounded like popcorn under a lid were pure Hollywood.
The explosion was like the crack of a whip. He pressed his face against the narrow opening.
The man in the photo was gone; he had fallen backwards without a sound. The hall was dark, but in the wall mirror he saw the sliver of light from the door and his magnified eye framed in gold. The dead man lay on a thick burgundy carpet. Persian? Perhaps he had had money after all?
Now he had a little hole in his forehead.
He looked up and met the eyes of the wife. If it was his wife. She was standing in the doorway of another room. Behind her, a large, yellow oriental lamp. She had her hand in front of her mouth and was staring at him. He gave a brief nod. Then he carefully closed the door, put the gun back in his shoulder holster and began to walk down the stairs. He never used the lift when he was making his getaway. Or rented cars or motorbikes or anything else that could malfunction. And he didn't run. He didn't talk or shout; the voice could be identified.