The Redeemer(13)

'Mathias Lund-Helgesen,' the man enlarged, taking stock of Harry.

'I realise you think I should know who you are,' Harry said.

'We've met before. Last summer. At a garden party at Rakel's place.'

Harry went rigid at the sound of her name on someone else's lips.

'Is that right?'

'That was me,' Mathias Lund-Helgesen gabbled in a low voice.

'Mm.' Harry gave a slow nod. 'I'm bleeding.'

'I understand.' Lund-Helgesen's face wrapped itself in grave, sympathetic folds.

Harry rolled up his trouser leg. 'Here.'

'Aha.' Lund-Helgesen assumed a somewhat bemused smile. 'What is it?'

'A dog bite. Can you fix it?'

'Not a lot to fix. The bleeding will stop. I'll clean the wounds and put something on it.' He bent down. 'Three wounds, I can see, judging by the teeth marks. And you'd better have a tetanus jab.'

'It bit right through to the bone.'

'Yes, it often feels like that.'

'No, I mean, its teeth did go . . .'

Harry paused and exhaled through his nose. He had just realised that Mathias Lund-Helgesen thought he was drunk. And why shouldn't he? A policeman with a torn coat, a dog bite, a bad reputation and alcohol on his breath. Was that what he would say when he told Rakel that her ex had turned to drink again?

'. . . right through,' Harry finished.





4

Monday, 15 December. The Departure.



'TRKA!'

He sat up in bed with a start hearing the echo of his voice between the bare white hotel walls. The telephone on his bedside table rang. He snatched at the receiver.

'This is your wake-up call . . .'

'Hvala,' he thanked, although he knew it was only a recorded voice.

He was in Zagreb. He was going to Oslo today. To the most important job. The final one.

He closed his eyes. He had been dreaming again. Not about Paris, not about any of the other jobs; he never dreamt about them. It was always about Vukovar, always about the autumn, about the siege.

Last night he had dreamt about running. As usual he had been running in the rain and as usual it had been the same evening they sawed off his father's arm in the infants ward. Four hours later his father had died, even though the doctors had pronounced the operation a success. They said his heart had just stopped beating. And then he had run away from his mother, into the dark and the rain, down to the river with his father's gun in his hand, to the Serbian positions, and they had sent up flares and shot at him and he hadn't cared and he'd heard the smack of the bullets into the ground, which had disappeared beneath his feet and he had fallen into the huge bomb crater. The water had swallowed him up, swallowed all sound, and it was quiet and he had kept running under the water, but he got nowhere. As he'd felt his limbs stiffening and sleep numbing him, he had seen something red moving in all the blackness, like a bird beating its wings in slow motion. When he had come to he was wrapped in a woollen blanket and a naked light bulb was swinging to and fro as Serbian artillery pounded them, and small lumps of earth and plaster had fallen into his eyes and mouth. He spat, and someone had stooped down and told him that Bobo, the captain himself, had saved his life in the water-filled crater. And pointed to a bald man standing by the steps of the bunker. He had been wearing a uniform with a red cloth tied around his neck.

He opened his eyes again and looked at the thermometer he had put on the bedside table. The temperature in the room had not risen above sixteen degrees since November even though in reception they maintained that the heating was on full. He got up. He had to hurry; the airport bus would be outside the hotel in half an hour.

He stared into the mirror over the basin and tried to visualise Bobo's face. But it was like the northern lights; little by little it faded as he stared. The telephone rang again.

'Da, majka.'

After shaving, he dried himself and dressed in haste. He took out one of the two metal boxes he kept in the safe and opened it. A Llama Minimax Sub Compact which could hold seven bullets – six in the magazine plus one in the chamber. He disassembled the weapon, and divided the parts into the four small, purpose-designed hideaways under the reinforced corners of the suitcase. If customs officers stopped him and checked his suitcase, the reinforced metal pieces would hide the gun parts. Before leaving, he checked he had his passport and the envelope with the ticket which she had given him, the photograph of the target and the information he needed for when and where. It was due to happen tomorrow night at seven in a public place. She had told him this job was riskier than the previous one. Nevertheless, he was not afraid. Now and then he wondered whether the ability to be afraid had been lost along with his father's amputated arm that night. Bobo had said you cannot survive for long if you are not frightened.

Outside, Zagreb had just woken up, snow-free, grey with mist, its face drawn and haggard. He stood in front of the hotel entrance thinking that in a few days' time they would be going to the Adriatic, a little place with a little hotel, off-peak prices and a bit of sun. And talking about the new house.