The Redeemer

Hagen went to Halvorsen's desk and picked up a pencil sharpener, which he studied in minute detail.

'I made a number of mistakes in my first days here as boss. For all I know one of them may have been an indirect cause of Halvorsen's death. What I'm trying to say…' He put down the sharpener and breathed in. 'Is that I wish I could do as Yoshito Yasuda did and enthuse all of you. But I don't know how.'

Harry was nonplussed, so he kept his mouth shut.

'So let me just put it like this, Harry. I want you to find the person or persons behind these murders. That's all.'

The two men avoided each other's eyes. Hagen clapped his hands together to break the silence. 'But you would be doing me a favour if you would carry a weapon, Harry. You know, in front of the others.. . at least until the New Year. Then I'll rescind the instruction.'

'Fine.'

'Thank you. I'll write you a new requisition order.'

Harry nodded, and Hagen moved towards the door.

'How did it turn out?' Harry asked. 'The Japanese counter-attack?'

'Oh, that.' Hagen turned with a lopsided grin. 'It was crushed.'

Kjell Atle Oro had been working in Stores at the bottom of Police HQ for nineteen years, and this morning he was sitting with the pools coupon before him wondering whether he had the nerve to go for an away win for Fulham against Southampton on Boxing Day. He wanted to give the coupon to Oshaug when he went for lunch, so he was in a hurry. That was why he cursed when he heard someone strike the metal bell.

He came to his feet with a groan. In his time Oro had played firstdivision football for Skeid and had had a long and injury-free career; he was therefore eternally bitter that what had seemed an innocent strain in a game for the police team had resulted in him still dragging his right leg ten years later.

A man with a blond crew cut was standing in front of the counter.

Oro took the requisition order he was passed and squinted at the letters he reckoned were getting smaller and smaller. Last week when he had told his wife he would like a bigger TV for Christmas, she had suggested he book an appointment with the optician.

'Harry Hole, Smith amp; Wesson. 38, yes,' Oro groaned, limping back to the armoury where he found a service revolver that looked like the previous owner had been gentle. It struck him that they would soon be receiving the weapon belonging to the officer who had been stabbed to death in Goteborggata. He reached down the holster and the standard three boxes of ammunition and went back to the counter.

'Sign here,' he said, pointing to the order sheet. 'Can I see some ID?'

The man who had already put his ID card on the counter took the pen Oro passed him and signed as instructed. Oro peered at Harry Hole's ID card and the scribbles. He wondered if Southampton could stop Louis Saha.

'And remember to shoot at the bad boys,' Oro said, but received no response.

Hobbling back to the pools coupon, he reflected that the policeman's sulkiness was perhaps not so surprising. The ID card said he was in Crime Squad. Wasn't that where the dead officer had been working?

Harry parked the car by the Henie-Onstad Art Centre in Hovikodden and walked from the beautiful low brick building down the slight slope to the fjord.

On the ice stretching to Snaroya he could see a lone black figure.

He tested a sheet of ice adjacent to the shore with one foot. It broke with a loud crack. Harry shouted David Eckhoff 's name, but the figure on the ice did not stir.

Then he swore, and, realising that the commander could not weigh much less than his own ninety-five kilos, balanced on the stranded ice sheets and gingerly placed his feet on the treacherous snow-camouflaged ice field. It took his weight. He made his way across the ice with short, quick steps. It was further than it had seemed from land, and when at last Harry was so near that he could say with certainty that the figure wearing the wolf pelt, sitting on a folding chair and bent over a hole in the ice with a jig in his mittens, was indeed the Salvation Army commander, he could see why he hadn't heard him.

'Are you sure this ice is safe, Eckhoff?'

David Eckhoff turned and looked down at Harry's boots first.

'Ice on Oslo fjord in December is never safe,' he said with frozen breath issuing from his mouth. 'That's why you fish alone. But I always use these.' He motioned towards the skis he was wearing. 'They spread the weight.'

Harry nodded slowly. He seemed to hear the ice cracking beneath his feet. 'They told me at headquarters I would find you here.'

'Only place you can hear yourself think.' Eckhoff grabbed the jig.

He had put a box of bait and a knife on some newspaper beside the opening in the ice. The front page announced mild weather from Christmas Day onwards. Nothing about Halvorsen's death. It must have gone to print too early.

'A lot to think about?' Harry asked.

'Hm. My wife and I have to host the Prime Minister during the concert this evening. And then there's Gilstrup's contract that has to be signed this week. Yes, there are a few things.'

'I wanted to ask just one question,' Harry said, concentrating on spreading his weight equally between both feet.

'Uh-huh?'

'I asked Skarre, one of my men, to check if there were any sums of money passing between your account and Robert Karlsen's. There weren't. But he found another Karlsen who transferred regular sums of money. Josef Karlsen.'

David Eckhoff stared into the circle of dark water without batting an eyelid.

'My question,' Harry said, focusing on Eckhoff, 'is why you've received eight thousand kroner from Robert and Jon's father every quarter for the last twelve years.'

Eckhoff jerked as though he had a big fish on the hook.

'Well?' Harry said.

'Is this of any importance?'

'I think so, Eckhoff.'

'In that case it will have to remain between the two of us.'

'I can't promise that.'

'Then I can't tell you.'

'Then I'll have to take you to the station and ask you to make a statement there.'

The commander looked up with one eye closed and scrutinised Harry to gauge the strength of his potential adversary. 'And you think Gunnar Hagen will approve of that? Dragging me down there?'

'Let's find out.'

Eckhoff was about to say something, but paused as though scenting Harry's determination. Harry was reflecting that a man does not become the leader of a flock through brute strength but through his ability to read situations correctly.

'Fine,' said the commander. 'But it's a long story.'

'I have time,' Harry lied, feeling the cold from the ice through his soles.

'Josef Karlsen, father of Jon and Robert, was my best friend.' Eckhoff fixed his gaze on a point on Snaroya. 'We studied together, we worked together and were both ambitious and promising, as they say. But most important of all we shared a vision of a strong Salvation Army that would do God's work on earth. That would prevail. Do you understand?'

Harry nodded.

'We also came up through the ranks together,' Eckhoff continued. 'And, yes, after a while Josef and I were seen as rivals for the job I have now. I didn't think the position was that important, it was the vision that was driving us. But when I was chosen something happened to Josef. He seemed to crumble. And who knows, we don't know ourselves inside out, I might have reacted in the same way. Anyway, Josef was given the trusted post of chief administrator and even though our families kept in touch as before there was not the same…' Eckhoff groped for words: '… confidentiality. Something was oppressing Josef, something unpleasant. It was the autumn of 1991 when I and our chief accountant, Frank Nilsen, Rikard and Thea's father, discovered what. Josef had been misappropriating funds.'