“Argh, shitting bastard cocksucker! Christ, it fucking hurts, Olav!”
“Doesn’t look like it’s likely to hurt much longer, Pine.”
“No? Shit. Can you pass me my cig?”
I pulled the cigarette from behind his ear and stuck it between his trembling lips. It bobbed up and down, but he managed to keep hold of it.
“L-l-light?” he stammered.
“Sorry, I’ve given up.”
“Sensible man. You’ll live longer.”
“No guarantee.”
“No, course not. You m-might get hit by a b-b-bus tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Who’s waiting outside?”
“Looks like you’re sweating, Olav. Warm clothes or stress?”
“Answer.”
“And what do I get for t-t-telling you, then?”
“Ten million kroner, tax-free. Or a light for your cigarette. Your choice.”
Pine laughed. Coughed. “Only the Russian. But he’s good, I think. Career soldier, something like that. Don’t know, poor sod doesn’t talk much.”
“Armed?”
“Christ, yes.”
“What with? An automatic?”
“How are you getting on with that match?”
“Afterwards, Pine.”
“Show a dying man some mercy, Olav.” He coughed up some blood onto my white shirt. “You’ll sleep better, you know.”
“Like you slept better after you forced that deaf-mute girl to go on the streets to pay back her guy’s debts?”
Pine blinked at me. The look in his eyes was weirdly clear, as if something had eased.
“Ah, her,” he said quietly.
“Yes, her,” I said.
“You must have m-m-misunderstood that one, Olav.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She was the one who came to me. She wanted to repay his debts.”
“She did?”
Pine nodded. It almost looked like he was feeling better. “I actually said no. I mean, she wasn’t that pretty, and who wants to pay for a girl who can’t hear what you want her to do? I only said yes because she insisted. Then, once she’d taken on the debt, it was hers, wasn’t it?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have an answer. Someone had rewritten the story. My version was better.
“Oy, Dane!” I shouted over to the entrance. “Have you got a light?”
He moved his pistol to his left hand without taking his eyes off the steps as he fished out a lighter with his right hand. We’re such weird creatures of habit. He tossed it to me. I caught it in the air. The rough scraping sound. I held the yellow flame to the cigarette. I waited for it to be sucked into the tobacco, but it carried on burning straight up. I held it there for a moment, then lifted my thumb. The lighter went out, the flame was gone.
I looked around. Blood and groaning. Everyone concentrating on their own business. All except Klein, who was concentrating on mine. I met his gaze.
“You go first,” I said.
“Huh?”
“You go first up the steps.”
“Why?”
“What do you want me to say? Because you’ve got a shotgun?”
“You can have the shotgun.”
“That isn’t why. Because I say you should go first. I don’t want you behind me.”
“What the fuck? Don’t you trust me, then, or what?”
“I trust you enough to let you go first.” I couldn’t even be bothered to pretend that I wasn’t pointing at him with the pistol. “Dane! Shift yourself. Klein’s leaving.”
Klein stared at me steadily. “I’ll get you back for this, Johansen.”
He kicked off his shoes, walked quickly over to the bottom of the stone steps and crept up them into the gloom, crouching as he went.
We peered after him. We saw him stop, then straighten up to take a quick look above the top step, then crouch down again at once. Evidently he hadn’t seen anyone, because he stood up and carried on going, holding the shotgun in both hands at chest height, like it was a fucking Salvation Army guitar. He stopped at the top of the steps and turned back towards us, waving us up.
I held the Dane back as he made to follow him.
“Wait a moment,” I whispered. Then started to count to ten.
The salvo of shots came before I got to two.
It hit Klein and threw him back over the edge of the stairs.
He landed halfway down and slid towards us, already so dead that his muscles weren’t even spasming, as gravity pulled him from step to step like a freshly slaughtered carcass.
“Fucking hell,” the Dane whispered, staring at the corpse as it stopped at our feet.
“Hello!” I called in English. The greeting bounced between the walls as if it were being answered. “Your boss is dead! Job is over! Go back to Russia! No one is going to pay for any more work here today!”
I waited. Whispered to the Dane to look for Pine’s car keys. He brought them over and I threw them up the stairs.
“We are not coming out until we hear the car leaving!” I called.
Waited.
Then finally an answer in broken English: “I don’t know boss is dead. Maybe prisoner. Give me boss, I will leave and you will live.”
“He is very dead! Come down and see!”
He laughed, then said: “I want my boss come with me.”
I looked at the Dane. “What do we do now?” he whispered, as if he were some sort of fucking chorus.
“We cut his head off,” I said.
“What?”
“Go back in and cut Hoffmann’s head off. Pine’s got a serrated knife.”
“Er…which Hoffmann?”
Was he a bit thick? “Daniel. His head is our ticket out of here, get it?”
I could tell he didn’t get it. But at least he did as I asked.
I stood in the doorway keeping an eye on the stairs. I could hear quiet voices behind me. It seemed like everyone had calmed down so I took the opportunity to assess what I was thinking. As usual in stressful situations, it was a random mixture of odd things. Like the fact that the jacket of Klein’s suit had twisted on the way down, so I could see from the label inside that it was hired, but it was now so full of bullet holes that they were unlikely to want it back. That it was very practical that Hoffmann’s, Pine’s, and Klein’s corpses were already in a church and that there were spare coffins for each of them. That I’d booked seats on the plane just in front of the wings, with a window seat for Corina, so she’d be able to see Paris when we were coming in to land. Then a couple more useful thoughts. What was our van driver doing now? Was he still waiting for us on the road below the church? If he’d heard the shots, he would have heard that the last ones were from an automatic, which wasn’t part of our arsenal. It’s always bad news when the last shot you hear is the enemy’s. His orders were clear, but could he keep a cool head? Had anyone else in the neighbourhood heard the shots? How did the gravedigger fit into all this? The job had taken much longer than planned. How much time did we have before we had to be out of there?
The Dane came back to the doorway. His face was pale. But not as pale as the face of the head dangling from his hand. I checked that it was the right Hoffmann, then indicated that he should throw it up the stairs.
The Dane twisted the hair on the head a couple of times, took a short run-up, swung his arm by his side as though he was in a bowling alley, and let go. The head sailed upwards, hair flailing, but the angle was too tight and it hit the ceiling, fell onto the steps and bounced back down with little cracking sounds like when you tap a hard-boiled egg with a spoon.
“Just need to get my eye in,” the Dane muttered as he grabbed the head again, shifted his feet, closed his eyes in concentration and took a few deep breaths. I realised I was on the edge mentally now, because I was about to burst out laughing. Then he opened his eyes, took two steps forward and swung his arm. Let go. Four and a half kilos of human head described a fine arc up to the top of the steps and hit the floor. We
heard it bounce and roll down the passageway.
The Dane nudged me with a look of triumph, but managed not to say anything.
We waited. And waited.
Then we heard a car start. Revving. The gears crunched badly. Reversing. More revving. Far too much for first gear. It screamed off, driven by someone who wasn’t used to driving it.
I looked at the Dane. He puffed his cheeks and let out the air, shaking his right hand as if he’d been holding something hot.
I listened. Listened hard. It was like I could feel them before I heard them. Police sirens. The sound carried a long way in the cold air. It could still be a good while before they got here.
I glanced behind me. Saw the young girl in her grandmother’s lap. It was impossible to say if she was breathing, but judging by the colour of her face she was drained of blood. I took in the whole room before I left. The family, death, blood. It reminded me of a picture. Three hyenas and a zebra with its stomach torn open.
CHAPTER 19
It’s not true that I don’t remember what I said to her on the train. I don’t remember if I’ve said that I can’t remember, but I certainly thought of saying it. But I do remember. I told her I loved her. Just to see how it felt to say it to someone. Like shooting at targets in the shape of human torsos; it’s obviously not the same, but it still feels different from shooting at plain round targets. Obviously I didn’t mean it, just as little as I meant to kill the torso-people on the targets. It was practice. Familiarisation. One day maybe I’d meet a woman I loved and who loved me, and then it would be good if the words didn’t catch in my throat. Okay, so I hadn’t actually told Corina that I loved her yet. Not out loud, like that, honestly, with no possibility of retreat, just going for it, letting the echo fill the vacuum, inflating the silence so much that it made the walls bulge. I had only said it to Maria at the exact point where the tracks met. Or divided. But the thought that I would soon be saying it to Corina made my heart feel like it was going to explode. Was I going to say it that evening? On the plane to Paris? At the hotel in Paris? Over dinner, perhaps? Yes, that would be perfect!
—
That was what I was thinking as the Dane and I walked out of the church and I breathed in the raw, cold winter air that still tastes of sea salt even when ice has settled on the fjord. The police sirens could be heard clearly now, but they came and went like a badly tuned radio, still so far off that it was impossible to tell which direction they were coming from.
I could see the headlights of the black van on the road below the church.
I was walking across the frozen path with short, quick steps, my knees slightly bent. That’s something you learn as a child in Norway. Maybe not as early in Denmark—they don’t have so much snow and ice—and I sensed that the Dane was falling behind. But that might not be true. Maybe the Dane had walked on more ice than I had. We know so little about each other. We see a nice round face and open smile, and hear cheerful Danish words that we don’t always understand, but they soothe the ear, calm the nerves, and tell us a story of Danish sausages, Danish beer, Danish sunshine and the gentle, sedate life on the flat farmland way down south. And it’s all so nice that it makes us lower our guard. But what did I know? Maybe the Dane had fixed more people than I ever would. And why did that thought pop up just then? Maybe because it suddenly felt like time was waiting for something again, another squeezed second, a spring coiled tight.
I was about to turn round, but never made it.
I couldn’t blame him. After all—like I said—I’m usually willing to go to any lengths to be in a position to shoot an armed man in the back.
The shot echoed across the churchyard.
I felt the first bullet as pressure on my back, and the next like a jaw clamping hard round my thigh. He had aimed low, just as I had done with Benjamin. I fell forward. Hit my chin on the ice. I rolled over and stared up into the barrel of his pistol.
“Sorry, Olav,” the Dane said, and I could tell he meant it. “It’s nothing personal.” He’d aimed low so he could tell me that.
“Smart move by the Fisherman,” I whispered. “He knew I’d be keeping an eye on Klein, so he gave you the job.”
“That’s pretty much it, Olav.”
“But why fix me?”
The Dane shrugged. The wailing police sirens were getting closer.
“The usual, I suppose,” I said. “The boss doesn’t want someone out there who’s got something on him. That’s worth bearing in mind. You have to know when to quit.”
“That’s not why, Olav.”
“I know. The Fisherman’s a boss, and bosses are scared of people who are prepared to fix their own bosses. They think they’re next in line.”
“That’s not why, Olav.”
“For fuck’s sake, can’t you see I’m bleeding to death here? How about we skip the guessing game?”
The Dane cleared his throat. “The Fisherman said you have to be a bloody cold businessman not to bear a grudge against someone who has fixed three of your men.”
He took aim at me, his finger tightening round the trigger.
“Sure you haven’t got a bullet jammed in the magazine?” I whispered.
He nodded.
“One last Christmas wish. Not in the face. Please, grant me that.”
I saw the Dane hesitate. Then he nodded again. Lowered the pistol slightly. I closed my eyes. Heard the shots. Felt the projectiles smash into me. Two lead bullets. Aimed at where normal people have their heart.
CHAPTER 20
“My wife made it,” he had said. “For the play.”
Loops of metal, all hooked together. How many thousands of them could there be? Like I said, I thought I’d got something out of the exchange with the widow. A coat of chain mail. It’s hardly surprising Pine had thought I looked sweaty. I was dressed up like a fucking medieval king under my suit and shirt.
The metal top had dealt fine with the shots to my back and chest. My thigh wasn’t so fortunate.
I could feel the blood pumping out as I lay there motionless and watched the tail lights of the black van flare off into the night and disappear. Then I tried to stand up. I almost passed out, but managed to get to my feet, and staggered towards the Volvo that was parked in front of the church door. The chorus of sirens was getting closer with each passing second. There was at least one ambulance in the choir. The gravedigger must have worked out what was going on when he called them. Maybe they’d be able to save the girl. Maybe not. Maybe I’d be able to save myself, I thought as I yanked open the door of the Volvo. Maybe not.
But the brother-in-law had been telling the truth to his wife: he had left the key in the ignition.
I squeezed myself in behind the wheel and turned the key. The starter motor whined in complaint before giving up. Fuck, fuck. I let the key click back, then tried again. More whining. Start, for fuck’s sake! If there’s any point in making cars up here in this snowy shithole, surely it has to be that they start even if it’s a few lousy degrees below freezing. I thumped the steering wheel with one hand. I could see the blue lights flare like the aurora borealis in the winter sky.
There! I put my foot down. I let go of the clutch and the wheel spun through the ice until the studded tyres got a grip and sent me swerving towards the churchyard gate.
I drove a couple of hundred metres down among the villas before turning the car round and heading back towards the church at a snail’s pace. I’d hardly set off again before I saw the blue lights in the rear-view mirror. I obediently signalled to pull over and turned into the driveway of one of the villas.
Two police cars and an ambulance went past. I could hear at least one more police car on its way, and waited. And realised that I had been here before. Bloody hell. It was right in front of this house that I had fixed Benjamin Hoffmann.
There were Christmas decorations and plastic tubes that were supposed to look like candles in the living-room window. A sliver of cosy family life shone out onto the snowman in the garde
n. So the boy had managed it. Maybe he’d had some help from his father; maybe he used a bit of water. The snowman was properly done. Adorned with a hat, a blank stone grin, and stick arms that seemed to want to embrace the whole of this rotten world and all the crazy shit that happened in it.
The police car passed and I reversed out onto the road again and drove away.
—
Luckily there were no more police cars. No one to see the Volvo desperately trying to drive normally, but which still—without it quite being possible to put your finger on why—was being driven differently from all the other cars on the streets of Oslo on the day before Christmas Eve.
I parked right next to the phone box and turned off the engine. My trouser leg and the seat cover were soaked in blood, and it felt like I had some sort of evil heart in my thigh, pumping out black animal blood, sacrificial blood, satanic blood.
Corina widened her big blue eyes in horror when I opened the door of the flat and stood there swaying.
“Olav! Dear God, what happened?”
“It’s done.” I pushed the door shut behind me.
“He…he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
The room was slowly starting to spin. How much blood had I actually lost? Two litres? No, I’d read that we have five to six litres of blood, and pass out if we lose much more than twenty per cent. And that would be roughly…fuck. Less than two, at any rate.
I saw her case on the floor of the living room. She was packed and ready for Paris, the same things she had brought with her from her husband’s flat. Former husband. I’d probably packed far too much. I’d never been farther than Sweden before. With my mum, that summer when I was fourteen. In the neighbour’s car. In Gothenburg, just before we went into Liseberg amusement park, he had asked me if it was all right for him to hit on my mum. Mum and I took the train home the following day. Mum had patted me on the cheek and told me I was her knight, the only knight left in the whole world. The fact that I thought there was a false note in her voice was probably because I was so confused at the whole of this sick adult world. But, like I said, I’m completely tone-deaf; I’ve never been able to tell the difference between pure and false notes.