The Redeemer

Then the alarm stopped and Harry could hear the buzz of the projector which showed a quivering still of a bride and bridegroom in close-up on their way down the aisle. The faces, the white smile and the white dress were spattered with blood which had dried on the canvas in a grille pattern.

Stuffed under an empty bottle of cognac lay the suicide note. It was brief.

Forgive me, Father. Mads.

31

Monday, 22 December. The Resurrection.

He regarded himself in the mirror. When one day, maybe next year, they walked out of the little house in Vukovar in the morning, might this face be one the neighbours would greet with a smile and a zdravo? The way you greet familiar, safe faces. And good faces.

'Perfect,' said the woman behind him.

He assumed she meant the dinner suit he was parading in the mirror of the combined suit hire and dry cleaner's.

'How much?' he asked.

He paid her and promised the suit would be returned before twelve o'clock the next day.

Then he walked out into the grey gloom. He had found a cafe where he could have a coffee and the food wasn't too expensive. Now it was just a question of waiting. He looked at his watch.

The longest night had begun. Dusk was turning houses and fields grey as Harry drove from Holmenkollen, but well before he reached Gronland the gloom had invaded the parks.

He had rung the uniformed police from Mads Gilstrup's house and told them to send a patrol car. Then he had left without touching anything.

He parked in the K3 garage at Police HQ and went up to his office. From there he phoned Torkildsen.

'Halvorsen's mobile has gone walkabout and I want to know whether Mads Gilstrup left a message on it.'

'And if he did, what then?'

'I want to hear the message.'

'That's phone-tapping and I daren't do it,' Torkildsen sighed. 'Ring our Police Answering Service.'

'I need a court ruling for that, and I haven't got time. Any suggestions?'

Torkildsen pondered. 'Has Halvorsen got a computer?'

'I'm sitting next to it.'

'No, no, forget it.'

'Why's that?'

'You can access all the messages on a mobile via the web page for Telenor Mobil, but of course you'll need his password to do that.'

'Is it a password we choose?'

'Yes, but if you don't have it you'll need a lucky break to-'

'Let's have a go,' Harry said. 'What's the address of the web page?'

'You'll need a big break,' Torkildsen said, with the tone of someone who was not used to having had many of them.

'I have a feeling I know it,' Harry said.

With the page up on his screen Harry typed in the password: Lev Yashin. And was informed that the password was incorrect. So he shortened it to 'Yashin'. And there they were. Eight messages. Six of them from Beate. One from a number in Trondelag. And one from the mobile number on the business card Harry was holding in his hand. From Mads Gilstrup.

Harry clicked on the PLAY button and the voice of the person he had seen less than hour ago lying dead in his house spoke to him with a metallic twang through the computer's plastic speakers.

When the message was over Harry had the last piece of the jigsaw.

***

'Does anyone know where Jon Karlsen is?' Harry said on his phone to Skarre as he was walking down the stairs of Police HQ. 'Have you tried Robert's flat?'

Harry went through the Stores door and smacked the bell on the counter in front of him.

'I rang there, too,' Skarre said. 'No answer.'

'Go and take a look. If no one opens up go in, OK.'

'The keys are at Krimteknisk and it's past four now. Beate usually stays until late afternoon, but today what with Halvorsen and-'

'Forget the keys,' Harry said. 'Take a crowbar with you.'

Harry heard the shuffle of feet and a man in a blue overall, a mass of wrinkles and a pair of glasses on the tip of his nose hobbled in. Without gracing Harry with a glance he picked up the requisition order Harry placed on the counter.

'Court order?' Skarre questioned.

'Not necessary. The one we've got is still valid,' Harry lied.

'Is it?'

'If anyone asks, this was a direct order from me, alright?'

'Alright.'

The man in blue grunted. Then he shook his head and passed the requisition slip back to Harry.

'I'll call you later, Skarre. Looks like there's a problem here. ..'

Harry put the mobile in his pocket and stared at the blue overall in amazement.

'You can't collect the same gun twice, Hole,' the man said.

Harry didn't understand what Kjell Atle Oro meant, but he had a hot prickling sensation at the back of his neck. It was not the first time he had felt it. And he knew it meant the nightmare was not over yet. In fact, it had just begun.

Gunnar Hagen's wife straightened her dress and came out of the bathroom. In front of the hall mirror her husband was trying to do up the black bow tie to go with his dinner suit. She stood and waited because she knew that soon he would snort with irritation and ask her to help.

This morning when they called from Police HQ to say that Jack Halvorsen had died, Gunnar had neither felt like going nor thought he would be able to go to the concert. She knew it was going to be a week of brooding. Sometimes she wondered whether anyone apart from her knew how hard such incidents hit Gunnar. In any case, later in the day the Chief Superintendent had asked Gunnar to make an appearance at the concert as the Salvation Army had decided they were going to mark Jack Halvorsen's death with a minute's silence, and it went without saying that the police should be represented by Halvorsen's superior officer. But she could see he was not looking forward to going; the solemnity of it enveloped his brow like a tight-fitting helmet.

He snorted and ripped off the bow tie. 'Lise!'

'I'm here,' she said calmly, walked over, stood behind him and stretched out her hand. 'Give it to me.'

The phone on the table under the mirror rang. He leaned over to pick it up. 'Hagen.'

She heard a distant voice at the other end.

'Good evening, Harry,' Gunnar said. 'No, I'm at home. My wife and I are going to the performance at the concert hall tonight, so I came home early. Anything new?'

Lise Hagen watched the metaphorical, imaginary helmet tightening further as he listened in total silence.

'Yes,' he said at length. 'I'll call the station and put everyone on full alert. We'll have every officer available involved in the search. I'm going to the concert soon and will be there for a couple of hours, but my mobile will be on vibrate mode the whole time, so all you have to do is call.'

He hung up.

'What's up?' Lise asked.

'One of my inspectors, Harry Hole, has just come from Stores where he was supposed to be picking up a gun with the requisition order I signed for him today. He needed a replacement for one that went missing after someone broke into his flat. It seems that earlier today someone else picked up the gun and ammunition with the first order slip.'

'Well, if that isn't the limit…' Lise said.

'Afraid it isn't,' Gunnar Hagen sighed. 'Unfortunately there's worse. Harry had a suspicion who it might have been. So he rang Forensics and had his suspicion confirmed.'

To her horror, Lise saw her husband's face go ashen. As though the repercussions of what Harry had said were only sinking in as he heard himself telling his wife: 'The blood sample of the man we shot at the container terminal shows he is not the man who threw up beside Halvorsen. Or spread blood over his coat. Or left a hair on the pillow at the Hostel. In a nutshell, the man we shot is not Christo Stankic. If Harry's right that means Christo Stankic is still out there. And he's armed.'