‘Looks like you’re wrong,’ she said.
Arnold Folkestad frowned. ‘Give me the phone.’
Rakel picked it up and passed it to him. He pressed the gun against Oleg’s neck while grabbing the phone. Read the message quickly. Sent Rakel a sharp glare.
‘“Don’t let Oleg see the present.”’ What’s that supposed to mean?’
Rakel shrugged. ‘It means he’s alive anyway.’
‘Impossible. They said on the radio my bomb had gone off.’
‘Can’t you just get out right now, Arnold? Before it’s too late.’
Folkestad blinked pensively while staring at her. Or through her.
‘I see. Someone beat Harry to it. Went into the flat. Ka-boom. Of course.’ He chuckled. ‘Harry’s on his way here now, isn’t he? He doesn’t suspect a thing. I can shoot you first and then wait for him to come through that door.’
He seemed to run through his reasoning one more time and nodded as if he had come to the same conclusion. And pointed the gun at Rakel.
Oleg began to wriggle on the chair, tried to jump, and groaned desperately through the gag. Rakel stared into the muzzle of the gun. Felt her heart stop beating. As though her brain had accepted the inevitable and was starting to close down. She was no longer afraid. She wanted to die. To die for Oleg. Perhaps Harry would get here before. . perhaps he would save Oleg. For she knew something now. She closed her eyes. Waited for something she didn’t know. A blow, a stab, pain. Darkness. She had no gods she wanted to pray to.
A lock on the front door rattled.
She opened her eyes.
Arnold had lowered his gun and was staring at the door.
A small pause. Then it began to rattle again.
Arnold stepped back, seized the blanket from the armchair and slung it over Oleg so that it covered both him and the chair.
‘Act as if nothing’s happened,’ he whispered. ‘If you say one word I’ll put a bullet through the back of your son’s head.’
There was a third rattle. Rakel saw Arnold position himself behind Oleg and the chair so that the gun couldn’t be seen from the front door.
Then the door opened.
And there he was. A towering figure, beaming smile, open jacket and ravaged face.
‘Arnold!’ he exclaimed with delight. ‘What a pleasure!’
Arnold laughed back. ‘You’re quite a sight, Harry! What happened?’
‘Cop killer. A bomb.’
‘Really?’
‘Nothing of any consequence. What brings you here?’
‘I was passing. And remembered I had to discuss a couple of things about the timetable. Would you mind coming over here for a second?’
‘Not until I’ve given her a good hug,’ he said and opened his arms to Rakel, who flew into his embrace. ‘How was the trip, darling?’
Arnold cleared his throat. ‘You can let him go now, Rakel. I’ve got a few things to do tonight.’
‘Now you’re being a bit stern, Arnold,’ Harry laughed and let go of Rakel, pushing her away and taking off his coat.
‘Come over here then,’ Arnold said.
‘There’s better light here, Arnold.’
‘My knee hurts. Come over here.’
Harry bent down and pulled at his shoelaces. ‘I’ve been in one helluva an explosion today, so you’ll have to excuse me if I remove my shoes first. You’ll have to use your knee on the way out anyway, so bring the timetable over here if you’re in such a hurry.’
Harry stared down at his shoes. The distance from Arnold and the chair covered with the blanket was six or seven metres. Too far for someone who had admitted that his vision and the shakes meant he couldn’t hit a target more than half a metre away. And now, the target had suddenly crouched down and made itself much smaller by lowering its head and leaning forward so that it was protected by its shoulders.
He pulled at the laces, pretending they were knotted.
Tempting Arnold. He had to tempt him over.
For there was only one way. And perhaps that was what had made him so calm and relaxed. All or nothing. The bet was already made. The rest was in the lap of the gods.
And perhaps it was this calmness that Arnold sensed.
‘As you wish, Harry.’
Harry heard Arnold walking across the floor. Still concentrating on his laces. Knew Arnold had passed Oleg on the chair, Oleg who was perfectly still, as though he knew what was going on.
Then Arnold passed Rakel.
The moment had arrived.
Harry looked up. Stared into the gun muzzle, the black eye staring at him from twenty, thirty centimetres.
He had known from the moment he entered the house that the slightest sudden move would set Arnold off. Shooting the closest person first. Oleg. Had Arnold known that Harry was armed? Had he known that he would take a gun with him to the meeting with Truls Berntsen?
Maybe. Maybe not.
It didn’t make any difference. Harry would never have time to draw a weapon now, however accessible it was.
‘Arnold, why-?’
‘Farewell, my friend.’
Harry watched Arnold Folkestad’s finger tighten around the trigger.
And he knew it wouldn’t be coming, the clarification, the one we think we will glimpse at our journey’s end. Neither the big revelation, why we are born and die, and what the point is of both, plus the bit in between. Nor the small one, what makes a person like Folkestad willing to sacrifice his life to destroy the lives of others. Instead, there would be this syncope, this swift cessation of life, this trivial but logically placed pause in the middle of a word. The where for.
The powder burned with — literally — explosive speed, and the pressure created dispatched the bullet from the brass cartridge at a speed of approximately three hundred and sixty metres per second. The soft lead was shaped by the grooves in the barrel making the bullet rotate so that it would be more stable through the air. But in this case that wasn’t necessary. Because after only a few centimetres of air the chunk of lead penetrated the skin and was slowed in its encounter with the skull. And when the bullet reached the brain its speed was down to three hundred kilometres an hour. The projectile passed through and destroyed first the motor cortex, paralysing all movement, then it pierced the parietal lobe, smashed the functions in the right and front lobes, sliced the optical nerve and hit the inside of the cranium on the opposite side. The angle and reduced speed meant that the bullet, instead of continuing and exiting, ricocheted, hit other parts of the skull at slower and slower rates and finally came to a halt. By then it had already done so much damage the heart had stopped beating.
51
Katrine shivered and snuggled up under Bjørn’s arm. It was cold in the large church. Cold inside, cold outside, and she should have put on more clothes.
They were waiting. Everyone in Oppsal Church was waiting. Coughing. Why was it that people started coughing as soon as they entered a church? Was it the room itself that provoked tight throats and pharynxes? Even in a modern church made of glass and concrete like this? Was it their anxiety not to make a sound which they knew would be amplified by the acoustics that created this compulsive action? Or was it just a human way of releasing pent-up emotion, coughing it out instead of bursting into tears or laughter?
Katrine craned her head. There was a small turnout, only those closest. Few enough people to have only an initial in Harry’s contacts list. She saw Ståle Aune. Wearing a tie for once. His wife. Gunnar Hagen, also with wife.
She sighed. She should have worn more. Even if Bjørn didn’t seem to be cold. Dark suit. She hadn’t known he would look so good in a dark suit. She brushed his lapel. Not that there was anything on it, it was just what you did. An intimate act of love. Monkeys picking lice from the coat of another monkey.
The case was solved.
For a while they had been afraid they’d lost him, that Arnold Folkestad — now also known as the Cop Killer — had managed to escape abroad or find a hidey-hole in Norway. It would have had to be a deep, dark hole, for during the twenty-four hours after the initial alert, his description and personal information had been broadcast on every media outlet in such detail that every person of sound mind in the country had grasped who Arnold Folkestad was and what he looked like. And Katrine had at that point come to her own conclusions about how close they had been earlier in the case when Harry had asked her to check the connections between René Kalsnes and other police officers. If she had only widened her search to include former officers they would have found Arnold Folkestad’s ties to the young man.