The Redeemer(16)

Harry saw Beate blush. She didn't like the attention, least of all concerning this exceptional gift that meant she was still being used to identify grainy images of ex-cons on bank-raid videos.

'I hope,' Møller said, 'that you won't forget this face even though you won't see it for a while. And if you have cause to doubt, you can use this.'

Halvorsen nudged Beate in the back. When Møller gave her a hug as well as the magnifying glass and the audience applauded, even her forehead went a fiery red.

'The next heirloom is my office chair,' Bjarne said. 'You see, I found out that my successor Gunnar Hagen has put in for a new one in black leather with a high back and other features.'

Møller sent a smile to Hagen, who did not return it, but gave a brief nod.

'The chair goes to an officer from Steinkjer who ever since he came here has been banished to an office with the biggest troublemaker in the building. And forced to sit on a defective chair. Junior, I think it's time.'

'Yippee,' Halvorsen said.

Everyone turned and laughed, and Halvorsen laughed in return.

'And, to conclude, a technical aid for someone who is very special to me. He has been my best investigator and my worst nightmare. To the man who always follows his nose, his own agenda and – unhappily for those of us who try to get you to turn up on time for morning meetings – his own watch.' Møller took a wristwatch from his jacket pocket. 'I hope this will make you work in the same time frame as the others do. Anyway, I have more or less set it to Crime Squad clocks. And, well, there was a lot between the lines there, Harry.'

Scattered applause as Harry went forward to receive the watch with a plain black leather strap. The brand was unfamiliar to him.

'Thanks,' Harry said.

The two tall men embraced.

'I put it two minutes fast so that you're in time for what you thought you would miss,' Møller whispered. 'No more warnings. Do what you have to.'

'Thanks,' Harry repeated, thinking Møller was holding him for a bit too long. He reminded himself he had to leave the present he had brought with him from home. Fortunately he had never got round to ripping off the plastic cover of All About Eve.





5

Monday, 15 December. The Lighthouse.



JON FOUND ROBERT IN THE BACKYARD OF FRETEX, THE Salvation Army shop in Kirkeveien.

He was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed watching the guys carrying the bin bags from the lorry into the storeroom in the shop. They were blowing white speech bubbles which they filled with swear words in a variety of dialects and languages.

'Good catch?' Jon asked.

Robert shrugged. 'People happily give away their whole summer wardrobe so that they can buy new clothes next year. But it's winter clothes we need now.'

'Your boys use colourful language. Paragraph twelve types – doing social work instead of prison?'

'I counted up yesterday. We've now got twice as many volunteers doing a stretch as we have people who have turned to Jesus.'

Jon smiled. 'Untilled fields for missionaries. Just a question of getting started.'

Robert called one of the boys, who threw him a pack of cigarettes. Robert put a coffin nail between his lips, no filter.

'Take it out,' Jon said. 'Soldier's vows. You could be dismissed.'

'I wasn't thinking of lighting it, bruv. What do you want?'

Jon shrugged. 'A chat.'

'What about?'

Jon chuckled. 'It's quite normal for brothers to have a chat now and then.'

Robert nodded and picked flakes of tobacco off his tongue. 'When you say chat, you usually mean you're going to tell me how to lead my life.'

'Come on.'

'What is it then?'

'Nothing! I was wondering how you were.'

Robert took out the cigarette and spat in the snow. Then he peered up into the high, white cloud cover.

'I'm bloody sick of this job. I'm bloody sick of the flat. I'm bloody sick of the shrivelled-up, hypocritical sergeant major running the show here. If she weren't so ugly I would . . .' Robert grinned, '. . . fuck the old prune face stupid.'

'I'm freezing,' Jon said. 'Can we go in?'

Robert walked ahead into the tiny office and sat on a chair squeezed between a cluttered desk, a narrow window with a view of the backyard and a red-and-yellow flag with the Salvation Army's motto and emblem 'Fire and Blood'. Jon lifted a heap of papers, some yellowing with age, off a wooden chair he knew Robert had pinched from the Majorstuen Corps' room next door.

'She says you're a malingerer,' Jon said.

'Who?'

'Sergeant Major Rue.' Jon grimaced. 'Prune face.'

'So she rang you. Is that how it is?' Robert poked around in the desk with his pocket knife, then burst out: 'Oh, yes, I forgot. You're the new admin boss, the boss of the whole shebang.'

'No decision has been made yet. It might well be Rikard.'

'Whatever.' Robert carved two semicircles in the desk to form a heart. 'You've said what you came to say. Before you bugger off, can I have the five hundred for your shift tomorrow?'