The Redeemer

'Why don't the parents live in Norway?'

'It's a long story. They lapsed.'

'Lapsed?'

'They abandoned their faith. People brought up in Army ways often find it difficult when they choose a different path.'

Martine observed her father. But not even she – his daughter – could detect the lie in his granite features. The policeman moved off, and she felt the first tears flow. After the sound of his footsteps had faded away, Rikard cleared his throat. 'I put the summer tyres in the boot.'

By the time the announcement finally came over Gardemoen Airport's tannoy system, he had already guessed:

'Due to weather conditions, the airport has been temporarily closed.'

Matter-of-fact, he said to himself. Like an hour before, when the first announcement was made about the delay due to snow.

They had waited while the snow laid thick blankets over the aircraft outside. He had kept an unconscious eye on uniformed personnel. They would be uniformed at an airport, he imagined. And when the woman in blue behind the counter by Gate 42 lifted the microphone, he could see it written over her face. The flight to Zagreb was cancelled. She was apologetic. Said it would depart at 10.40 the following morning. There was a collective but muted groan from the passengers. She twittered on that the airline would cover the cost of the train back to Oslo and a hotel room at the SAS hotel for transit passengers and those travelling on a return ticket.

Matter-of-fact, he thought once more, as the train flew through the blackened night landscape. It stopped just once before Oslo, at an assortment of houses on white terrain. A dog sat shivering under one of the benches on the platform as the snow drifted in cones of light. It looked like Tinto, the playful stray that had run around the neighbourhood in Vukovar when he was small. Giorgi and a couple of the other older boys had given him a leather collar inscribed with: Name: Tinto; Owner: Svi. Everyone. No one wished Tinto any harm. No one. Sometimes that wasn't enough.

Jon had moved to the end of the room that was not visible from Thea's front door while she went to open it. It was Emma, the neighbour: 'I'm so sorry, Thea, but this man needs to get hold of Jon Karlsen as a matter of urgency.'

'Jon?'

A man's voice: 'Yes. I've been informed that I might be able to find him at this address with a Thea Nilsen. There were no names downstairs by the bells, but this lady has been very helpful.'

'Jon here? I don't know how-'

'I'm from the police. My name is Harry Hole. It's about Jon's brother.'

'Robert?'

Jon stepped towards the door. A man of his height with bright blue eyes looked at him from the doorway. 'Has Robert done something wrong?' he asked, trying to ignore the neighbour standing on tiptoes to see over the policeman's shoulder.

'We don't know,' the man said. 'May I come in?'

'Please do,' Thea said.

The detective stepped inside and closed the door in the neighbour's disappointed face. 'I'm afraid it's bad news. Perhaps you ought to sit down.'

The three of them sat around a coffee table. It was like a punch to the stomach, and Jon's head shot forward in automatic response to what the policeman told him.

'Dead?' he heard Thea whisper. 'Robert?'

The policeman cleared his throat and continued talking. The words seemed like dark, cryptic, barely comprehensible sounds to Jon. All the time he was listening to the detective explaining the circumstances, he was focusing on one point. On Thea's half-open mouth and sparkling lips, moist, red. Her breathing came in short, rapid pants. Jon didn't notice that the policeman had stopped speaking until he heard Thea's voice:

'Jon? He asked you a question.'

'Sorry. I… what did you say?'

'I know this is a difficult time, but I was wondering whether you know of anyone who might have wished to kill your brother.'

'Robert?' Everything around Jon seemed to be happening in slow motion, even the shake of his head.

'Right,' the policeman said, without making a note on the pad he had just produced. 'Is there anything in his job or private life that might have made him enemies?'

Jon heard his own inappropriate laughter. 'Robert's in the Salvation Army,' he said. 'Our enemy is poverty. Material and spiritual. It's rare for any of us to be killed.'

'Mm. That's the job. What about private life?'

'What I said applied to both job and private life.'

The policeman waited.

'Robert was kind,' Jon said and heard his voice starting to disintegrate. 'Loyal. Everyone liked Robert. He…' His voice thickened and stopped.

The policeman looked around the room. He didn't seem comfortable with the situation, but he waited. And waited.

Jon kept swallowing. 'He could be a little wild now and again. A bit… impulsive. Some may have considered him a bit cynical. But that was the way he was. Deep down, Robert was a harmless boy.'

The policeman turned to Thea and looked down at his notes. 'You're Thea Nilsen, sister of Rikard Nilsen, I gather. Does this tally with your impression of Robert Karlsen?'

Thea shrugged. 'I didn't know Robert so well. He…' She had crossed her arms and avoided Jon's gaze. 'He never hurt anyone as far as I am aware.'

'Did Robert ever say anything that might suggest he was in conflict with anyone?'

Jon shook his head hard, as though there were something inside he was trying to get rid of. Robert was dead. Dead.

'Did Robert owe any money?'

'No. Yes. Me. A little.'

'Sure he didn't owe anyone else money?'

'What do you mean?'

'Did Robert take drugs?'

Jon stared at the policeman in horror, then replied: 'No, he did not.'

'How can you know for sure? It's not always-'

'We work with drug addicts. We know the symptoms. And Robert didn't take drugs. OK?'

The policeman nodded and took notes. 'Sorry, but we have to ask these things. Naturally, we cannot exclude the possibility that the man who fired the gun was insane and Robert was an arbitrary victim. Or – since the Salvation Army soldier standing by the Christmas pot is a symbol – that the killing was directed against your organisation. Are you aware of anything that would support the latter theory?'

As though synchronised, the two young people shook their heads.

'Thank you for your help.' The policeman stuffed the notepad in his coat pocket and stood up. 'We haven't been able to find a telephone number or address for your parents…'

'I'll take care of that,' Jon said, staring into empty space. 'Are you quite sure?'

'Sure about what?'

'That it is Robert?'

'Yes, I'm afraid so.'

'But that's all you're sure about,' Thea burst out. 'Otherwise you know nothing.'

The policeman paused in front of the door and considered her comment.

'I think that's a fairly accurate summary of the situation,' he said.

At two o'clock in the morning the snow stopped. The clouds that had been hanging over the town like a heavy, black stage curtain were drawn to one side and a large, yellow moon made its appearance. The temperature beneath the naked sky began to fall again, making house walls creak and groan.

10

Wednesday, 17 December. The Doubter.

The seventh day beforeChristmas Eve broke with such freezing temperatures that people on the streets of Oslo felt they were being squeezed by a steel glove as they hurried in silence, focused on one thing: to arrive and escape its icy grip.

Harry was sitting in the meeting room in the red zone at Police HQ listening to Beate Lonn's demoralising report while trying to ignore the newspapers in front of him on the table. They all had the murder on the front page; they all had a grainy photo of a winter-dark Egertorget, with references to two or three pages of articles inside the paper. Verdens Gang and Dagbladet had managed to cobble something together which, with a little goodwill, might be termed portraits of Robert Karlsen, based on random, hasty conversations with friends and acquaintances. 'A nice guy.' 'Always willing to lend a hand.' 'Tragic.' Harry had read through them with a fine-tooth comb without being able to find anything of value. No one had contacted the parents and Aftenposten was the only newspaper to run a quotation from Jon: 'Incomprehensible' was the brief caption under a picture of a man with a bewildered expression and tousled hair in front of the Army flats in Goteborggata. The article was written by an old friend, Roger Gjendem.