He flung his arms out. It was like watching a JCB with two buckets.
‘Or you could, of course, buy yourself a mole to see for you. The problem with moles is that they tend to stay underground, so they’re easy to lose. That’s how I lost mine. No idea what happened to him. And I understand that you’ve been looking for him as well, yes?’
The young man shrugged.
‘Let me guess. Kefas talked you into coming here by promising you the mole, yes?’
The older man cleared his throat. ‘Sonny is here of his own volition because he wants to make peace. He thinks he has avenged his father. And that the parties should now go their separate ways. In order to show that he’s serious, he’s prepared to give back the money and the drugs he took. In return, the hunt for him will be called off. Could we have the briefcases, please?’
The big man nodded to the blond man who put the two briefcases on the table. The older man reached for one of the briefcases, but the blond man pushed his hand away.
‘As you wish,’ said the older man, holding up his palms. ‘I just wanted to show you that Mr Lofthus has brought you a third of the drugs and a third of the money for now. You’ll get the rest when he has your promise of a truce and gets to walk out of here alive.’
Kari switched off the ignition in the car. Looked up at the neon sign of the former shipyard where red letters spelled out A-k-e-r B-r-y-g-g-e. People were flowing out from the ferry which had just arrived.
‘Is it really safe for the Commissioner to meet with criminals without backup?’
‘Like a friend of mine used to say,’ Pontius Parr replied, checking his pistol before he put it back in the shoulder holster, ‘
no risk, no reward.
’
‘That sounds like Simon,’ Kari said and looked at the clock at the top of the town hall tower. 7.10.
‘Correct,’ Parr said. ‘And do you know something, Adel? I have a feeling today will earn us many plaudits. I want you to accompany me to the press conference afterwards. The Commissioner and the young female officer.’ He smacked his lips as if he was tasting something. ‘Yes, I think that will go down well.’ He opened the passenger door and got out.
Kari almost had to run along the promenade to keep up with him.
‘Well?’ the older man said. ‘Do we have a deal? You get back what was taken from you and Lofthus gets safe passage so he can leave the country.’
‘And you get a small commission for brokering the deal, yes?’ The big man smiled.
‘Exactly.’
‘Mm.’ The big man looked at Simon as if searching for something he couldn’t find. ‘Bo, open the briefcases.’
Bo stepped forward and tried to open the first one. ‘It’s locked, boss.’
‘1,’ the young man said in a soft, almost whispering voice, ‘9-9-9.’
Bo rotated the metal cylinders. Flipped up the lid. Swivelled the briefcase around to his boss.
‘There we are,’ the big man said, holding up one of the white bags. ‘A third. And where is the rest?’
‘In a secret location,’ the older man said.
‘Of course it is. And the code to the briefcase with the money?’
‘The same,’ the young man said.
‘1999. The year your father passed away, yes?’
The young man said nothing.
‘OK?’ said the older man, forcing a smile and clapping his hands. ‘Can we go now?’
‘I thought we would eat together,’ the big man said. ‘You like lobster, don’t you?’
No reactions.
He sighed. ‘Frankly, I don’t like lobster, either. But do you know something? I still eat it. Why? Because it’s expected of a man in my position.’ The suit jacket pulled back from his mighty chest as he threw his arms out. ‘Lobster, caviar, champagne. Ferraris with missing spare parts, ex-models demanding divorce settlements. The loneliness on the yacht, the heat of the Seychelles. We do a lot of things we don’t really want to, yes? But it’s necessary to keep up the motivation. Not mine, but the motivation of the people who work for me. They need to see these symbols of success – of what I have achieved, of what they can achieve, if they do their job, yes?’
The big man stuck a cigarette in between his fleshy lips. The cigarette looked strangely small against his big head. ‘But, of course, these status symbols are also there to remind potential rivals and opponents of my power. It’s the same with violence and brutality. I don’t like it. But sometimes it’s necessary to maintain motivation. Incentivise people to pay me what they owe me. Induce them not to work against me . . .’ He lit the cigarette with a pistol lighter. ‘For example, there was a man who used to modify weapons for me. He retired. I accept that a man would rather fix motorbikes than make guns. What I can’t accept is that he then gives an Uzi to someone he knows has already killed several of my men.’
The big man tapped the aquarium glass.
The young and the older man’s gaze followed his finger. The young man jumped in his chair. The older man just stared.
The white stone with the undulating grass growing from it. It wasn’t a stone. And the reflection didn’t come from a crystal. But from a gold tooth.
‘Now some people might think decapitating a man is excessive, but if you want to instil loyalty in your staff, sometimes you have to go the extra mile. I’m sure you’ll agree with me, Chief Inspector.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ the older man said.
The big man tilted his head and studied him. ‘Trouble hearing, Chief Inspector?’
The older man shifted his gaze from the aquarium back to the big man. ‘Old age, I’m afraid. So if you could speak up, that would be helpful.’
The Twin laughed in surprise. ‘Speak up?’ He took a drag of his cigarette and looked across to the blond man.
‘Did you check them for wires?’
‘Yes, boss. We also checked the restaurant.’
‘Then you’re going deaf, Kefas. What’s going to happen to you and your wife when . . . what’s the saying? The blind will be leading the deaf?’
He looked around with his eyebrows raised and the four men immediately burst out laughing.
‘They laugh because they’re scared of me,’ the big man said, addressing the young man. ‘Are you scared, boy?’
The young man said nothing.
The older man glanced at his watch.
Kari glanced at her watch. 7.14. Parr had stressed that they had to be on time.
‘This is it,’ Parr said, pointing to the name at the front. He went up to the door of the restaurant and held it open for Kari.
It was dark and quiet in the cloakroom, but she could hear a voice coming from a room further down the corridor.
Parr took his pistol out of the shoulder holster and signalled to Kari to do the same. She knew stories were going around the station about her performance with the shotgun at Enerhaugen, so she had explained to the Commissioner that she, despite the evidence, was a novice in armed raids. But he had responded that Simon had insisted that she – and only she – should accompany him and added that in nine out of ten cases it was enough to show your warrant card. And in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases enough to show it along with a weapon. Even so, Kari’s heart was pounding wildly as they moved swiftly down the corridor.
The voice fell quiet as they entered the dining room.
‘Police!’ Parr said, aiming the pistol at the people sitting at the only occupied table. Kari had taken two steps to the side and had the bigger of the two men in her sights. For one moment it was completely quiet except for Johnny Cash’s voice and ‘Give My Love to Rose’ pouring out of a small speaker on the wall between the buffet and the stuffed head of a long-horned ox. A steak restaurant serving breakfast. The two men at the table, both wearing pale grey suits, looked at them in surprise. Kari realised that they weren’t the only customers in the bright room after all; at a table by the window overlooking the seafront, an elderly couple looked like they were having a simultaneous heart attack. We must be in the wrong place, Kari thought. This couldn’t possibly be the restaurant Simon wanted them to go to. Then the smaller of the two men dabbed his mouth with his napkin and spoke.
‘Thank you for coming here in person, Commissioner. I can assure you that neither of us is armed or has evil intentions.’
‘Who are you?’ Parr thundered.
‘My name is Jan Øhre, I’m a lawyer and I represent this gentleman, Iver Iversen Senior.’ He extended his hand towards the taller man and Kari immediately recognised the likeness to Iversen Junior.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘The same as you, I presume.’
‘Really? I was told there were criminals on the menu.’
‘And that’s a promise we intend to keep, Parr.’
‘Well,’ the big man said, ‘you
should
be scared.’
He nodded to the blond man who pulled a slim, long-bladed knife from his belt, took a step forward, put his arm around the young man’s forehead and pressed the knife against his throat.
‘Do you really think I care about you stealing a bit of loose change from me, Lofthus? Forget the money and the drugs. I’ve promised Bo that he gets to cut you into little pieces, and I regard the lost drugs and the money as a good investment. A good investment in motivation, yes? There are several ways we can do this, of course, but you’ll suffer a less painful death if you tell us what you did with Sylvester so that we can give him a Christian burial. So, what’s it to be?’
The young man gulped, but said nothing.
The big man banged the table with his fist so the glasses jumped. ‘Are you deaf as well?’
‘Perhaps he is,’ said the blond man whose face was right by the young man’s ear sticking up under the arm he had wrapped around him. ‘Buddha here is wearing earplugs.’
The others laughed.
The big man shook his head in despair while he scrolled his way to the code on the other briefcase.
‘He’s yours, Bo, cut him up.’ There was a ping when the big man opened the briefcase, but the men were too focused on Bo’s knife to notice the small metal pin falling from the inside of the briefcase and bouncing across the stone floor.
‘Your tiny, clever mother is right about a lot of things, but wrong as far as you’re concerned,’ Simon said. ‘She never should have let the devil’s child suck her tits.’
‘What the h—’ the big man began. His men turned round. In the briefcase, next to a pistol and an Uzi, lay an olive-green object that looked like a handlebar grip of a bicycle.
The big man looked up again, just in time to see the older man flip down the sunglasses from his forehead.
‘It’s correct that I agreed with Chief Inspector Simon Kefas to meet you here with my client,’ Jan Øhre said, having shown Pontius Parr ID to prove that he was indeed a lawyer. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’
‘No,’ Pontius Parr said. Kari could see the confusion and anger in Parr’s face. Øhre exchanged glances with his client. ‘Am I to take it that you don’t know about our deal, either?’
‘What deal?’
‘Our plea bargain for a reduced sentence.’
Parr shook his head. ‘All Simon Kefas told me was that I would have a couple of criminals handed to me on a plate. So what’s this about?’
Øhre was about to reply when Iver Iversen leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Øhre nodded and Iversen sat back in his chair again and closed his eyes. Kari studied him. He looked broken, she thought. Beaten, resigned.
Øhre cleared his throat. ‘Chief Inspector Kefas believes he has some . . . eh, evidence against my client and his late wife. It concerns a number of property transactions with a party by the name of Levi Thou. Perhaps better known by his nickname, the Twin.’
Thou, Kari thought. Not a common name, and yet she had heard it recently. Someone she had said hello to. Someone at the police station.
‘Kefas also claims to have evidence of an alleged hit which he believes Agnete Iversen ordered. Kefas said that out of consideration for Iversen’s son, he would refrain from presenting proof of the latter, and as far as the property transactions are concerned my client will be given a reduced sentence in return for a guilty plea and for giving evidence against Thou in a subsequent trial.’
Pontius Parr took off his rectangular glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. Kari was surprised at how childishly blue his eyes were.
‘It sounds like an deal we can honour.’
‘Good,’ Øhre said, opened the briefcase that was lying on the chair next to him, took out an envelope and pushed it across the table to Parr.
‘Here is a printout of all property transactions undertaken to launder money for Levi Thou. Iversen is also prepared to testify against Fredrik Ansgar, formerly of the Serious Fraud Office, who made sure that no one ever investigated the transactions.’
Parr took the envelope. Squeezed it.
‘There’s something else inside,’ he said.
‘A memory stick. It contains a sound file which Kefas sent to my client from a mobile, and which he requested should also be handed over to you.’
‘Do you know what’s on it?’
Øhre and Iversen exchanged looks again. Iversen cleared his throat.
‘It’s a recording of someone. Chief Inspector Kefas said that you would know who it was.’
‘I brought along a computer in case you wanted to listen to it straight away,’ Øhre added.
The open briefcase. The weapons. The olive-green grenade.
Chief Inspector Simon Kefas had time to press his eyes shut and cover his ears. There was a flash of light that felt like fire breathing on his face and a bang like a punch to the stomach.
Then he opened his eyes, lunged forward, grabbed the pistol from the briefcase and turned round. The blond man was frozen, as if he had just stared straight into the eyes of Medusa. He still had his arm around Sonny’s head and the knife in his hand. And Simon saw it now, Sonny had been right: the guy really did have a cross on his forehead. A cross-hairs sight. Simon pulled the trigger and saw the hole the bullet made below the blond fringe. As the man fell, Sonny grabbed the Uzi.
Simon had explained to him that they would have a maximum of two seconds before the temporary paralysis would lift. They had sat in the hotel room at the Bismarck and practised this very moment, seizing the weapons and discharging them. They hadn’t been able to predict the sequence of events in detail, obviously, and right up until the point where the Twin opened the briefcase, triggering the stun grenade, Simon had been sure that it would all go to hell. But when he saw Sonny pull the trigger and pirouette on one foot, he knew that the Twin wouldn’t go home happy after this day at work. The bullets spat from the stuttering weapon that never made it past the first syllable. Two of the Twin’s men were already down, and the third had managed to stick his hand inside his jacket when the spray of bullets drew a dotted line across his chest. He remained standing for a moment before his knees received the message that he was dead, and by then Simon had already turned to the Twin. And stared in astonishment at the empty chair. How could such a big man move so—