The Redbreast(114)

had received. The gutter directly above the sitting-

room window was still dripping. He laughed. The

threats sounded like one of Roy Kvinset’s

numbers. Hopefully there wouldn’t be so many

spelling mistakes this time.

He glanced at his watch. This afternoon the tables

at Herbert’s would be buzzing. He was flat broke,

but he had repaired the old Wilfa vacuum cleaner

this week, so perhaps Mum wouldn’t mind lending

him a hundred. Fuck the Prince! It was now two

weeks since he last promised that Sverre would

get his money ‘in a couple of days’. In the

meantime, a couple of the guys he owed money to

were beginning to use an unpleasantly menacing

tone. And worst of all, his table at Herbert’s Pizza

had been commandeered by someone else. It

would soon be a long time since the raid on Dennis

Kebab.

The last time he was at Herbert’s he had felt an

irresistible desire to stand up and yell that he was

the one who had killed the police bitch in

Grünerløkka. Blood had spurted out like a geyser

following his final lunge. She had died screaming.

He wouldn’t have considered it neces- sary to add

that he hadn’t known she was a policewoman. Or

that the sight of the blood had almost made him

throw up.

Fuck the Prince! He had known the whole time

she was a cop.

Sverre had earned the money. No one could tell

him any different, but what could he do? After

what had happened, the Prince had forbidden him

to phone. As a precaution, until the worst of the

furore had quietened down.

The gate hinges outside screeched. Sverre got to

his feet, switched off the radio and hurried into the

hall. On the way up the stairs he heard his mother’s

footsteps on the gravel. Then he was in his own

room and he heard her keys jangling in the lock. As

she rummaged around downstairs, he stood in the

middle of his room and studied himself in the

mirror. He ran a hand across his scalp and felt the

millimetre high prickles rub against his fingers like

a brush. He had made up his mind. Even with the

forty grand he would get himself a job. He was

pissed off with staying at home and, to tell the

truth, he was pissed off with ‘the comrades’ at

Herbert’s too. Sick of tagging along with people

who were going nowhere. He had taken the Heavy

Current course at technical college and he was

good at repairing electrical things. Lots of

electricians needed apprentices and assistants. In a

few weeks his hair would have grown over the

Sieg Heil tattoo at the back of his head.

His hair, yes. He suddenly remembered the

telephone call he had received during the night, the

policeman with the Trondheim accent who had

asked him about red hair! When Sverre woke up in

the morning he had imagined it was a dream, until

his mother had asked him over breakfast what kind

of person would ring at four in the morning.

Sverre shifted his focus of attention from the

mirror to the walls. The picture of the Führer, the

posters of Burzum gigs, the flag with the swastika

on, the Iron Cross and the Blood & Honour poster

which was a copy of Joseph Goebbels’ old

propaganda poster. For the first time it struck him

that his room was like a boy’s room. If you

replaced the Swedish White Aryan Resistance

banner with a Manchester United scarf and the

picture of Heinrich Himmler with one of David

Beckham you would have thought it was a

teenager’s room.

‘Sverre!’ It was Mum.

He closed his eyes.

‘Sverre!’

It wouldn’t go away. It would never go away.

‘Yes!’ he screamed out so loud that the scream

filled his head.

‘There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.’

Here? To him? Sverre opened his eyes again and

stared irresolutely at himself in the mirror. No one

came here. As far as he knew, no one even knew

he lived here. His heart began to beat faster. Could

it be that policeman with the Trondheim accent

again?

He was walking towards his bedroom door when

it slid open.

‘Hello, Olsen.’

Because the spring sun was low and shone right

in through the window on the landing he could only

see a silhouette filling the doorway. But he knew

perfectly well whose voice it was.

‘Aren’t you happy to see me?’ the Prince said,

closing the door behind him.

He scanned the walls inquisitively. ‘Quite a place

you have here.’

‘Why did she let you . . . ?’

‘I showed your mother this.’ The Prince waved

around a card with a Norwegian coat of arms in

gold on a light blue background. It said POLITI on

the other side.

‘Oh fuck,’ Sverre said with a gulp. ‘Is that

genuine?’