Nemesis(139)

'I have to talk to Simon right now.'





Her calm, brown eyes took him in.





'He's not in Třyen,' Harry said. 'Everyone has left.'





The woman shrugged her shoulders, bewildered.





'Say it's Harry.'





She shook her head and waved him away.





Harry leaned over to the glass separating them. 'Say it's the spiuni gjerman.'





* * *





Simon drove down Enebakkveien instead of taking the long Ekeberg tunnel.





'I don't like tunnels, you know,' he explained as they crept up the side of the mountain at snail's pace in the afternoon rush hour.





'So the two brothers who had run away to Norway and grown up together in a caravan fell out because they were in love with the same girl?' Harry said.





'Maria came from a very respectable Lovarra family. They lived in Sweden where her daddy was the bulibas. She married Stefan and moved to Oslo when she was just thirteen and he was eighteen. Stefan was so in love with her he would have died for her. At that time Raskol was in hiding in Russia, you know. Not from the police, but from some Kosovo-Albanians in Germany who thought he had cheated them in some business.'





'Business?'





'They found an empty trailer by the autobahn near Hamburg.' Simon smiled.





'But Raskol returned?'





'One sunny May day he returned to Třyen. That was when Maria and he saw each other for the first time.' Simon laughed. 'My God, how they stared at each other. I had to inspect the heavens to see if thunder was on its way, the air was so tense.'





'So they fell for each other?'





'In seconds. While everyone was watching. Some of the women were embarrassed.'





'But if it was so obvious, the relatives must have reacted, didn't they?'





'They didn't think it was so dangerous. You mustn't forget we marry earlier than you do, you know. We cannot stop the young ones. They fall in love. Thirteen, you can imagine…'





'I can.' Harry rubbed the back of his neck.





'But this was a serious business, you see. She was married to Stefan and loved Raskol from the first day she saw him. And even though she and Stefan lived in their own caravan, she met Raskol, who was there the whole time. So things took the course they had to take. When Anna was born, only Stefan and Raskol were not aware Raskol was the father.'





'Poor girl.'





'And poor Raskol. The only person who was happy was Stefan. He walked three metres tall, you know. He said Anna was as good-looking as her daddy.' Stefan smiled with sad eyes. 'Perhaps it could have gone on like that. If Stefan and Raskol hadn't decided to rob a bank.'





'And it went wrong?'





The queue of cars moved towards Ryen crossroads.





'There were three of them. Stefan was the oldest, so he was the first in and the last out. While the other two ran out with the money to fetch the getaway car, Stefan stayed inside the bank with his pistol raised so they would not set off the alarm. They were amateurs, they didn't even know that the bank had a silent alarm. When they drove up to collect Stefan, he was stretched out over the bonnet of a police car. One officer had put handcuffs on him. Raskol was driving. He was only seventeen and didn't even have a licence. He rolled down the window. With three thousand on the back seat, he slowly drove up to the police car where his brother was struggling on the bonnet. Then Raskol and the officer had eye contact. My God, the air was as thick as when he and Maria met. Their mutual staring went on for ever. I was frightened Raskol would yell, but he didn't say a word. He just drove on. That was the first time they saw each other.'





'Raskol and Jřrgen Lřnn?'





Simon nodded. They came off the roundabout and went into the bend in Ryen. Simon signalled then braked by a petrol station. They pulled up in front of a twelve-storey building. The DnB logo flashed from a blue neon sign over the entrance nearby.





'Stefan got four years because he had fired his gun in the air,' Simon said. 'But after the trial, you know, something odd happens. Raskol visits Stefan in Botsen and the day after one of the guards says he thinks the new prisoner has changed appearance. His superior says it's normal for first-time prisoners. He tells him about wives who haven't recognised their own husbands on their first visit. The guard is reassured, but a few days later a woman phones the prison. She says they have the wrong prisoner. Stefan Baxhet's little brother has taken his place and they have to let the prisoner go.'





'Is that really true?' Harry asks, pulling out his lighter and putting it to the end of his cigarette. 'Yes, it is,' Simon says. 'It's quite normal among gypsies in southern Europe for the younger sibling, or the son, to serve the convicted person's sentence, if he has a family to feed. As Stefan did. For us, it is a matter of honour, you know.'