There they were again. Truls turned up the volume.
‘Zero one. Delta two zero. All quiet.’
Delta, the elite force. An armed operation.
Truls picked up his binoculars. Focused on the living-room window. It was harder to see her in the new house; the terrace in front of the living room was in the way. With the old house, he had been able to stand in the trees and see straight into the room. See her sitting on the sofa with her feet tucked up underneath her. Barefoot. Stroking the blonde curls away from her face. As though she knew she was being watched. So beautiful he could cry.
The sky above Oslo Fjord changed from orange to red and then violet.
It had been all black the night he had parked by the mosque in Åkebergveien. He had walked down to Police HQ, clipped on his ID card in case the duty officers saw him, unlocked the door to the atrium and sauntered downstairs to the Evidence Room. Unlocked the door with the copy he’d had for three years now. Put on his night-vision goggles. He’d started doing that after the time he’d switched on the lights and aroused the suspicions of a security guard during one of Asayev’s burner jobs. He had been quick, found the box by date, opened the bag containing the 9mm bullet taken from Kalsnes’s head and replaced it with the one he had in his jacket pocket.
The only oddity had been that he hadn’t felt alone.
He watched Ulla. Did she feel that too? Was that why she kept looking up from her book towards the window? As though there was something outside. Something waiting for her.
They were talking on the radio again.
He knew what they were talking about.
Understood what they were planning.
25
D-day was drawing to an end.
The walkie-talkie crackled quietly.
Katrine Bratt twisted on the thin ground sheet. Raised her binoculars again and focused on the house in Bergslia. Dark and silent. As it had been for almost twenty-four hours.
Something had to happen soon. In three hours it would be another date. The wrong date.
She shivered. But it could have been worse. About nine degrees during the day and no rain. But after the sun went down the temperature had plummeted and she had begun to feel cold, even with the full complement of winter underwear and the padded jacket which, according to the salesman, was ‘eight hundred on the American scale, not the European one, that is’. It had something to do with insulation. Or was it feathers? Right now she wished she had something warmer than eight hundred. Like a man she could snuggle up to. .
There was no one posted in the house itself; they hadn’t wanted to risk being seen going in or out. Even for the recce they had parked a long way away, then sneaked around at some distance from the house, never more than two people at once and always out of uniform.
The spot she had been allocated was a little hill in Berg Forest, set back from where the Delta troops were deployed. She knew their positions, but even when she scanned them with the binoculars she couldn’t see anything. She knew there were four marksmen, though, covering every side of the house, as well as eleven men ready to storm the place in under eight seconds.
She looked at her watch again. Two hours and fifty-eight minutes to go.
To the best of their knowledge the original murder had taken place at the end of the day, but it was hard to determine the moment death occurred when the body was cut into bits of no more than two kilos. Anyway, the timings of the copycat murders had so far matched the originals, so the fact that nothing had happened as yet was in a sense expected.
Clouds were moving in from the west. Dry weather had been forecast, but it would get darker and visibility would worsen. On the other hand, perhaps it might become milder. She should have brought a sleeping bag with her. Katrine’s mobile vibrated. She answered it.
‘What’s happening?’ It was Beate.
‘Nothing to report here,’ Katrine said, scratching her neck. ‘Except that global warming is a fact. There are midges here. In March.’
‘Don’t you mean mosquitoes?’
‘No, midges. They. . well, we have a lot of them in Bergen. Any interesting phone calls?’
‘No. Just Cheez Doodles, Pepsi Max and Gabriel Byrne. Tell me, is he hot or just a tad too old?’
‘Hot. Are you watching In Treatment?’
‘First season. Disc three.’
‘Didn’t know you’d succumbed to calories and DVDs. Trackie bottoms?’
‘With very loose elastic. Have to go for some hedonism when the little one’s not here.’
‘Shall we swap?’
‘Nope. I’d better call off in case the prince rings. Keep me posted.’
Katrine put the phone next to the walkie-talkie. Lifted the binoculars and studied the road in front of the house. In principle he could come from any direction. It was unlikely he would cross the fences on either side of the tracks where the metro had just clattered past, of course, but if he came from Damplassen he could come through the forest on any one of the many paths. He could walk through the neighbouring gardens alongside Bergslia, especially now that it was clouding over and getting darker. But if he felt confident there was no reason why he wouldn’t come on the road. Someone on an old bike was pedalling uphill, staggering from side to side, perhaps he wasn’t quite sober.
Wonder what Harry’s doing tonight.
No one ever quite knew what Harry was doing, even when you were sitting opposite him. Secret Harry. Not like anyone else. Not like Bjørn Holm, who wore his heart on his sleeve. Who had told her yesterday he would play several Merle Haggard records while waiting by the phone. Eat home-made elk burgers from Skreia. And when she had screwed up her nose he had said, heck, when this was over he would invite her to eat his mother’s elk burgers with fries and initiate her into the secrets of the Bakersfield sound. Which was probably all the music he had. No wonder the guy was single. He’d looked as if he regretted making the offer when she politely refused.
Truls Berntsen drove through Kvadraturen. The way he did almost every night now. Slowly cruising up and down, here, there and everywhere. Dronningens gate, Kirkegata, Skippergata. Nedre Slottsgate, Tollbugata. This had been his town. And it would become his town again.
They were prattling away on the radio. Codes which were meant for him, Truls Berntsen, it was him they wanted to keep on the outside. And the idiots probably thought they were succeeding and that he didn’t understand. But they didn’t fool him. Truls Berntsen straightened the mirror, glanced at the service pistol lying on his jacket on the front seat. It was, as usual, the other way round. It was him who would fool them.
The women on the street ignored him; they recognised the car, knew he wasn’t going to buy their services. A boy wearing make-up and trousers that were far too tight swung round the pole of a No Parking sign like a pole dancer, jutting out a hip and pouting at Truls, who responded by giving him the finger.
The darkness felt as if it had become a touch denser. Truls leaned into the windscreen and looked up. Clouds were on their way in from the west. He stopped at the lights. Glanced back down at the seat. He had fooled them time after time and was about to fool them again. This was his town, no one could come here and take it away from him.
He shifted the gun into the glove compartment. The murder weapon. It was so long ago, but he could still see his face. René Kalsnes. The weak lady-boy features. Truls smacked the wheel with his fist. Turn green, for Christ’s sake!
He had hit him first with the baton.
Then he had taken his gun.
Even with his face bleeding, smashed to pieces, Truls had seen the pleading look, heard the begging wheeze, like a punctured cycle tyre. Wordless. Useless.