The Son (22 page)

Pelle watched as his customer or, more accurately, potential customer rummaged around his pocket. Pelle had been in his cab for thirteen hours straight, but it would be a few more hours before he would drive home to his flat in Schweigaards gate, park the cab, stagger up the stairs on the folding crutches he kept under the seat, collapse on his bed and fall asleep. Hopefully without dreaming. Though that depended on the dream. It could be heaven or hell, you never knew. The customer handed him a fifty-krone note and a handful of change.

‘This is just over a hundred, it’s not enough.’

‘A hundred isn’t enough?’ said the now not so potential customer apparently with genuine surprise.

‘Long time since you last took a cab?’

‘You could say that. It’s all I’ve got, but perhaps you could drive as far as that gets me?’

‘Sure,’ Pelle said, put the money in the glove compartment since the guy didn’t look like he would want a receipt, and hit the accelerator.

Martha was alone in room 323.

She had sat in reception and watched first Stig then Johnny go out. Stig had been wearing the black shoes she had given him.

The centre’s regulations allowed them to search a resident’s room without warning or permission if they suspected them of keeping weapons. But the rules also stated that searches should normally be carried out by two staff members. Normally. How do you define normal? Martha looked at the chest of drawers. And then at the wardrobe.

She started with the chest of drawers.

It contained clothes. Just Johnny’s clothes; she knew what clothes Stig owned.

She opened the door to the wardrobe.

The underwear she had given Stig lay neatly folded on one shelf. His coat was on a hanger. On the top shelf was the red sports bag she had seen him arrive with. She was reaching up to lift it down when she spotted the blue trainers at the bottom of the wardrobe. She let go of the bag, bent down and picked up the shoes. Took a deep breath. Held it. She was looking for coagulated blood. Then she turned them over.

She breathed a sigh of relief and felt her heart skip a beat.

The soles were completely clean. The pattern wasn’t even stained.

‘What are you doing?’

Martha spun round as her heart began beating wildly. She pressed her hand to her chest. ‘Anders!’ She bent double and laughed. ‘You scared me half to death.’

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he pouted and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. ‘It’s almost nine thirty.’

‘I’m sorry, I lost track of time. Someone said one of the residents might be keeping weapons in his room and it’s our duty to check.’ Martha was so flustered that the lie came effortlessly.

‘Duty?’ Anders snorted. ‘Perhaps it’s time you started thinking about what duty really means. Most people think of their family and home when they talk about duty, not working in a place like this.’

Martha sighed. ‘Anders, please don’t start . . .’

But she already knew that he wasn’t going to give in, as usual it had taken him only seconds to get wound up. ‘There’s a job for you at my mother’s gallery whenever you want it. And I agree with her. It would be much better for your personal development to mix with more stimulating people there than the losers in this place.’

‘Anders!’ Martha raised her voice, but knew that she was too tired, she didn’t have the energy. So she walked up to him and put her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t call them losers. And I’ve told you before, your mother and her customers don’t
need
me.’

Anders snatched back his arm. ‘What people in this place
need
isn’t you, but for the state to stop bailing them out. Those bloody junkies are Norway’s pet project.’

‘I’m not prepared to have this discussion again. Why don’t you drive on without me and I’ll take a taxi when I’m done?’

But Anders folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the door frame. ‘So which discussion are you prepared to have, Martha? I’ve been trying to get you to set a date—’

‘Not now.’

‘Yes, now! My mother wants to plan her summer and—’

‘Not now, I said.’ She tried to push him aside, but he refused to budge. He stuck out his arm to block her path.

‘What kind of answer is that? If they’re paying for—’

Martha ducked under his arm, out into the corridor and started walking away.

‘Hey!’ She heard the door of the room slam shut and Anders’s footsteps behind her. He grabbed her arm, spun her round and pulled her close. She recognised the expensive aftershave his mother had given him for Christmas, but which Martha couldn’t stand. Her heart almost stopped when she saw the black emptiness in his eyes.

‘Don’t you dare walk away from me,’ he snarled.

She had automatically raised a hand to shield her face and now she saw the shock in his face.

‘What’s this?’ he whispered with steel in his voice. ‘You think I’m going to hit you?’

‘I . . .’

‘Twice,’ he hissed and she felt his hot breath on her face. ‘Twice in nine years, Martha. And you treat me as if I was some bloody . . . some bloody wife-beater.’

‘Anders, let go, you’re—’

She heard a cough behind her. Anders released his hold on her arm, stared furiously over her shoulder and spat out the words:

‘So, junkie, you want to get past or not?’

She turned round. It was him. Stig. He just stood there, waiting. He moved his calm gaze from Anders to her. It asked a question. Which she answered with a nod; everything was fine.

He nodded and stepped past them. The two men glowered at each other as he passed. They were the same height, but Anders was broader, more muscular.

Martha watched Stig as he continued down the corridor.

Then her gaze returned to Anders. He had tilted his head and was glaring at her with this hostile expression which he exhibited more and more often, but which she had decided was caused by the frustration he experienced at not getting the recognition he felt he deserved at work.

‘What the fuck was that?’ he said.

He didn’t used to swear, either.

‘What?’

‘It was like the two of you . . . communicated. Who is that guy?’

She exhaled. Relieved, almost. At least this was familiar territory. Jealousy. It hadn’t changed since they were teenage sweethearts and she knew how to handle it. She put her hand on his shoulder.

‘Anders, don’t be so silly. Now come with me, we’ll go and get my jacket and then we’re going home. And we’re not going to argue tonight, we’re going to cook dinner.’

‘Martha, I—’

‘Shh,’ she said, but knew she already had the upper hand. ‘You cook dinner, while I take a shower. OK? And we’re going to talk about the wedding tomorrow. Is that all right?’

She could see that he wanted to protest, but she placed her finger on his lips. The full lips which she had fallen for. She traced her finger downwards, stroking the dark, carefully trimmed stubble. Or was it his jealousy that first attracted her? She could no longer remember.

By the time they got into his car, he had calmed down. It was a BMW. He had bought the car against her will, thinking she would grow to like it once she had experienced how comfortable it was, especially for long drives. And how reliable it was. When he started the car, she caught a glimpse of Stig again. He came out of the entrance, quickly crossed the street and headed eastwards. The red sports bag was slung over his shoulder.

20

SIMON DROVE PAST
the playing fields and turned into the street where they lived. He could see that his neighbour was barbecuing again. The loud, sun-baked and beer-soaked outbursts of laughter emphasised the summer silence in the neighbourhood. Most houses were empty and only a single car was parked along the road.

‘And we’re home,’ Simon said and pulled up in front of their garage.

He didn’t know why he said it. Else could surely see where they were.

‘Thank you for taking me to the movies,’ Else said and put her hand on his on top of the gearstick, as if he had walked her to her front door and was about to say goodnight and leave here there. I could never do that, Simon thought and smiled at her. He wondered how much of the film she had been able to see. Going to the cinema had been her idea. He had glanced furtively at her several times during the movie and seen that at least she had laughed in all the right places. But then again, Woody Allen’s humour lay more in the dialogue than in slapstick. Never mind, they had had a lovely evening. Another lovely evening.

‘But I bet you missed Mia Farrow,’ she teased him.

He laughed. It was a private joke. The first film he had taken her to see had been
Rosemary’s Baby
, Roman Polanski’s disgustingly brilliant movie with Mia Farrow who gives birth to a child who turns out to be the devil’s son. Else had been horrified and for a long time she had believed that it was Simon’s way of letting her know that he didn’t want children – especially when he insisted that they see it again. Not until later – after a fourth Woody Allen film with Mia Farrow – did she click that it was Farrow and not the spawn of the devil who so fascinated him.

As they walked from the car towards their front door, Simon saw a brief flash of light from the street. Like a revolving lighthouse beam. It was coming from the parked car.

‘What was that?’ Else asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Simon said and unlocked the front door. ‘Would you mind putting on some coffee? I’ll be with you in a moment.’

Simon left her and crossed the street. He knew the car didn’t belong to any of their neighbours. Or anyone living nearby. In Oslo limousines were associated mainly with embassies, the royal family or government ministers. He knew only one other person who drove around with tinted windows, plenty of leg room and his own driver. A driver who had just got out and was holding open the door to the back for Simon.

Simon bent down, but remained outside. The small man sitting inside had a pointy nose in his round, ruddy face of the type people described as ‘jovial’. The blue blazer with the gold buttons – a favourite with 1980s Norwegian bankers, shipowners and crooners – had always made Simon wonder if it disguised a deeply anchored fantasy among Norwegian men to be the captain of a ship.

‘Good evening, Chief Inspector Kefas,’ said the small man in a bright, cheerful voice.

‘What are you doing in my street, Nestor? Nobody here wants to buy your crap.’

‘Now now. Always the dogged crime fighter, eh?’

‘Give me a reason to arrest you and I will.’

‘Unless it’s against the law to help people in trouble, I don’t think that will be necessary. Why don’t you get in so we can talk without being disturbed, Kefas?’

‘I fail to see why I’d want to do that.’

‘So your eyesight is bad as well?’

Simon stared at Nestor. Short arms and a small, thick upper body. And yet the sleeves on his blazer were still so short that the golden cufflinks in the shape of the initials ‘HN’ peeked out. Hugo Nestor claimed to be Ukrainian, but according to the file they had on him, he was born and bred in Florø, came from a fishing family and his surname had originally been Hansen before he changed it. He had never spent time abroad apart from a brief and unfinished economics course in Lund, Sweden. God only knew where he had picked up that strange accent, but it certainly wasn’t the Ukraine.

‘I wonder if your young wife could see which actors were playing in the movie, Kefas. But then I guess she’d heard that Allen wasn’t in it himself. That Jew has such a disgusting, chattering voice. Not that I have anything against Jews as individuals, I just think that Hitler was right about them as a race. The Slavs are the same. Even though I’m an East European, I have to admit that he had a point when he said that the Slavs can’t lead themselves. On a racial level, I mean. And this Allen, isn’t he a paedophile as well?’

The file also said that Hugo Nestor was Oslo’s most important drugs and human trafficking operator. Never convicted, never charged, always suspected. He was too smart and too careful, the slippery eel.

‘I don’t know, Nestor. What I do know is that there’s a rumour that your guys expedited the prison chaplain. Did he owe you money?’

Nestor smiled overbearingly. ‘Isn’t it beneath your dignity to listen to rumours, Kefas? You usually have a bit of class, in contrast to your colleagues. If you’d had more than rumours – such as a reliable witness willing to come to court and point the finger, for example – you’d already have made an arrest. Isn’t that right?’

A slippery eel.

‘Anyway, I want to offer you and your wife money. Enough money, say, for a very expensive eye operation.’

Simon gulped; he heard his voice croak when he replied: ‘Did Fredrik tell you?’

‘Your former colleague at the Serious Fraud Office? Let me put it this way, I’ve heard about your predicament. I presume that you went to him with your request in the hope it would reach ears such as mine. Isn’t that right, Kefas?’ He smiled. ‘Anyway, I have a solution which I think would suit us both. So why don’t you get in?’

Simon took hold of the door handle and saw Nestor automatically shuffle across the seat to make room for him. He concentrated on breathing calmly so that rage wouldn’t make his voice quiver. ‘Carry on talking, Nestor. Give me an excuse for arresting you, please.’

Nestor raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘What excuse would that be, Chief Inspector Kefas?’

‘Attempted bribery of a public servant.’

‘Bribery?’ Nestor laughed a brief, squealing laughter. ‘Let’s call it a business proposal, Kefas. You’ll see that we can . . .’

Simon never heard the rest of the sentence as the limousine was clearly soundproof. He walked away without looking back, wishing he had slammed the car door even harder. He heard the car start and the tyres crunch against the gravel on the tarmac.

‘You seem upset, darling,’ Else said when he had sat down at the kitchen table next to his coffee cup. ‘Who was it?’

‘Someone who was lost,’ Simon said. ‘I told him where to go.’

Else shuffled over to him with the coffee pot. Simon stared out of the window. The street was deserted now. Suddenly a burning pain spread across the top of his thighs.