‘You told me you might have had a son yourself once.’
‘Sergey may not have had Gusto’s head for figures, but he was disciplined. Ambitious. Willing to do what was required to be an ataman. So I gave him the knife. There was only one remaining test. For a Cossack to become an ataman in the old days you had to go into the Taiga and come back with a living wolf, tied and bound. Sergey was willing, but I had to see that he could also accomplish chto nuzhno.’
‘Pardon?’
‘The necessary.’
‘Was that son Gusto?’
The old man stroked his hair back so hard his eyes narrowed to two slits.
‘Gusto was six months old when I was sent to prison. His mother sought solace where she could. At least for a short while. She was in no position to take care of him.’
‘Heroin?’
‘The social services took Gusto from her and provided foster-parents. They were in agreement that I, the prisoner, did not exist. She OD’d the following winter. She should have done it before.’
‘You said you came back to Oslo for the same reason as me. Your son.’
‘I’d been told he had moved away from his foster-family, he had strayed off the straight and narrow. I had been thinking of leaving Sweden anyway, and the competition in Oslo wasn’t up to much. I found where Gusto hung out. Studied him from a distance at first. He was so good-looking. So damned good-looking. Like his mother, of course. I could just sit looking at him. Looking and looking, and thinking he’s my son, my own …’ The old man’s voice choked.
Harry stared at his feet, at the nylon cord he had been given instead of a new curtain pole, pressed it into the floor with the sole of his shoe.
‘And then you took him into your business. And tested him to see if he could take over.’
The old man nodded. Whispered: ‘But I never said anything. When he died he didn’t know I was his father.’
‘Why the sudden haste?’
‘Haste?’
‘Why did you need to have someone take over so quickly? First Gusto, then Sergey.’
The old man mustered a weary smile. Leaned forward in his chair, into the light from the reading lamp above the bed.
‘I’m ill.’
‘Mm. Thought it was something like that. Cancer?’
‘The doctors gave me a year. Six months ago. The sacred knife Sergey used had been lying under my mattress. Do you feel any pain in your wound? That’s my suffering the knife has transmitted to you, Harry.’
Harry nodded slowly. It fitted. And it didn’t fit.
‘If you have only months left to live why are you so afraid of being grassed up that you want to kill your own son? His long life for your short one?’
The old man gave a muffled cough. ‘Urkas and Cossacks are the regiment’s simple men, Harry. We swear allegiance to a code, and we stick to it. Not blindly, but with open eyes. We’re trained to discipline our feelings. That makes us masters of our own lives. Abraham said yes to sacrificing his son because—’
‘—it was God’s command. I have no idea what kind of code you’re talking about, but does it say it’s alright to let an eighteen-year-old go to prison for your crimes?’
‘Harry, Harry, have you not understood? I didn’t kill Gusto.’
Harry stared at the old man. ‘Didn’t you just say it was your code? To kill your own son if you had to?’
‘Yes, I did, but I also said I was born of bad people. I love my son. I could never have taken Gusto’s life. Quite the opposite. I say screw Abraham and his god.’ The old man’s laughter morphed into coughing. He laid his hands on his chest, bent over his knees and coughed and coughed.
Harry blinked. ‘Who killed him then?’
The old man straightened up. In his right hand he was holding a revolver. It was a large, ugly object and looked even older than its owner.
‘You should know better than to come to me without a weapon, Harry.’
Harry didn’t answer. The MP5 was at the bottom of a water-filled cellar, the rifle was at Truls Berntsen’s flat.
‘Who killed Gusto?’ Harry repeated.
‘It could have been anyone.’
Harry seemed to hear a creak as the old man’s finger curled around the trigger.
‘It’s not very difficult to kill, Harry. Don’t you agree?’
‘I do,’ Harry said, lifting his foot. There was a whistle under the sole of his foot as the thin nylon cord shot up towards the curtain pole holder.
Harry saw the question marks in the old man’s eyes, saw his brain working lightning-fast with the half-digested bits of information.
The light that didn’t work.
The chair that was in the middle of the room.