The Redeemer

Then came the inevitable crash.

Jon felt the air pressure against his face and for a moment believed it was from a gunshot. He opened his eyes with caution. Where the lock had been were now splinters of wood, and the door was hanging at an angle.

The man before him had opened his coat. Underneath he was wearing a dinner suit and a shirt that was the same dazzling white as the walls behind him. Around his neck was a red neckerchief.

Dressed for a party, thought Jon.

He inhaled the smell of urine and freedom as he looked down at the skulking figure before him. An ungainly young man scared out of his wits, sitting and shaking as he waited for death. Under any other circumstances he would have wondered what this man with the turbid blue eyes might have done. But for once he knew. And for the first time since the Christmas dinner in Dalj this would give him personal satisfaction. And he was no longer frightened.

Without lowering the revolver he glanced at his watch. Thirty-five minutes before the departure of the plane. He had seen the camera outside. Which meant there were probably surveillance cameras in the car park, too. It would have to be done here. Pull him out and into the next cubicle, shoot him, lock the cubicle from the inside and climb out. They wouldn't find Jon Karlsen before the airport was closed for the night.

'Come out!' he said.

Karlsen seemed to be in a trance and did not move. He cocked the gun and took aim. Karlsen inched out of the cubicle. Stopped. Opened his mouth.

'Police. Drop the gun.'

Harry held the revolver with both hands and pointed it at the man with the red silk neckerchief as the door closed with a metallic click behind him.

Instead of putting down the gun, the man held it to Jon Karlsen's head and said in accented English that Harry recognised: 'Hello, Harry. Have you got a good line of fire?'

'Perfect,' Harry said. 'Right through the back of your head. Drop the gun, I said.'

'How can I know if you're holding a gun, Harry? I've got yours, haven't I.'

'I've got one that belonged to a colleague.' Harry saw his finger squeezing the trigger. 'Jack Halvorsen's. The one you stabbed in Goteborggata.'

Harry saw the man stiffen.

'Jack Halvorsen,' Stankic repeated. 'What makes you think it was me?'

'Your DNA in the vomit. Your blood on his coat. And the witness standing in front of you.'

Stankic nodded slowly. 'I see. I killed your colleague. But if you believe that why haven't you already shot me?'

'Because there's a difference between you and me,' Harry said. 'I'm not a murderer but a policeman. So if you put that revolver down I'll only take half of your remaining life. About twenty years. Your choice, Stankic.' Harry's arm muscles were already beginning to ache.

'Tell him!'

Harry realised Stankic had shouted this to Jon when he saw Jon start.

'Tell him!'

Jon's Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a float. Then he shook his head.

'Jon?' Harry said.

'I can't…'

'He'll shoot you, Jon. Talk.'

'I don't know what you want me to-'

'Listen, Jon,' Harry said without taking his eyes off Stankic. 'None of what you say with a pistol to your head can be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand? Right now you have nothing to lose.'

The hard, smooth surfaces of the room created an unnaturally clear and loud sound reproduction of metal in motion and the tensing of springs as the man in the dinner suit cocked the revolver.

'Stop!' Jon held up his arms in front of him. 'I'll tell you everything.'

Jon met the policeman's eyes over Stankic's shoulder. And saw that he already knew. Perhaps he had known for a long time. The policeman was right: he had nothing to lose. None of what he said could be used against him. And the strange thing was that he wanted to talk. In fact, there was nothing he would rather do.

'We were standing by the car waiting for Thea,' Jon said. 'The policeman was listening to a message left on his mobile phone. I could hear it was from Mads. And then I knew when the policeman said it was a confession and he was going to ring you. I knew my number would be up. I had Robert's jackknife on me and I reacted out of instinct.'

In his mind's eye he could see himself struggling to hold the policeman's arms in a lock behind his back, but the policeman had managed to get one hand free and place it between the knife blade and his throat. Jon had slashed and slashed at the hand without getting near the carotid artery. Furious, he had swung the policeman to the left and the right like a rag doll as he kept stabbing, and in the end the knife had sunk into his chest, and a sigh had seemed to run through the policeman's body and his arms went limp. He had picked up the mobile phone from the ground and stuffed it into his pocket. All that remained was to give him the coup de grace.

'But Stankic got in the way, did he?' Harry asked.

Jon had raised the knife to cut the throat of the unconscious policeman when he heard someone shouting in a foreign language, looked up and saw a man in a blue jacket running towards him.

'He had a pistol so I had to get away,' Jon said, feeling the purging effect of his confession, the lifting of a burden. And he saw Harry nod, saw that the tall blond man understood. And forgave him. And he was so moved that he felt his throat constrict with emotion as he continued. 'He fired a shot at me as I ran inside. Almost hit me as well. He was going to kill me, Harry. He's a crazy murderer. You have to shoot him, Harry. We have to take him out, you and I… we.. .'

He watched Harry lower his revolver and put it in his trouser waistband.

'What… what are you doing, Harry?'

The tall policeman buttoned up his coat. 'I'm taking my Christmas leave, Jon. Thank you for the confession.'

'Harry? Wait…' The certainty of his imminent fate had absorbed all the moisture in his throat and mouth, and the words had to be forced out by dry mucous membranes. 'We can share the money, Harry. Listen, all three of us can share it. No one will need to know.'

But Harry had already turned to address Stankic in English. 'I think you'll find there's enough money in the bag for several of you at Hotel International to build a house in Vukovar. And your mother may want to donate some to the apostle in St Stephen's Cathedral, too.'

'Harry!' Jon's scream was hoarse, like a death rattle. 'Everyone deserves another chance, Harry!'

With his hand on the door handle, the policeman paused.

'Look into the depths of your heart, Harry. You must find some forgiveness there!'

'The problem is…' Harry rubbed his chin. 'I'm not in the forgiveness business.'

'What!' exclaimed Jon, in astonishment.

'Redemption, Jon. Redemption. That's what I go in for. Me, too.'

After hearing the door close behind Harry with a metallic click and seeing the dinner-suited man raise the gun, Jon stared into the black eye of the muzzle and the fear had become a physical pain, and he no longer knew whose the screams were: Ragnhild's, his own or those of others. But before the bullet smashed through his forehead Jon Karlsen had time to arrive at one realisation that had hatched after years of doubt, shame and desperate prayer: that no one would hear either his screams or his prayers.

Part Five EPILOGUE 35 Guilt

Harry emerged from the underground in Egertorget. It was the day before Christmas Eve and people were hurrying past him in search of the last presents. Nevertheless, Yuletide serenity seemed to have settled over the town already. You could see it in people's faces, the smiles of contentment because Christmas preparations were over or the smiles of weary resignation. A man in matching Puffa jacket and trousers waddled past like an astronaut, grinning and blowing frosted breath from round, pink cheeks. Harry saw one desperate face, though. A pale woman dressed in a thin, black leather jacket with holes in the elbows standing by the jeweller's and hopping from one foot to the other.