The Redeemer(24)

The restaurant was several hundred metres down the pedestrian zone, on the left-hand side. He registered at once that there was no cloakroom attendant. Good, that made things easier. He entered the dining area. Half full. Good sight lines; he could see all the tables from where he stood. A waiter came over and he reserved a window table for six o'clock the following day.

Before leaving, he checked the toilet. There were no windows. So the only other exit was through the kitchen. OK, nowhere was perfect, and it was very improbable that he would need an alternative way out.

He left the restaurant, looked at his watch and started to walk towards the station. People avoided eye contact. A small town, but it still had the cool aloofness of a capital city. Good.

He checked his watch again as he stood on the platform for the express train to the airport. Six minutes from the restaurant. Trains left every ten minutes and took nineteen. In other words, he could be on the train at 19.20 and in the airport by 19.40. The direct flight to Zagreb left at 21.10 and the ticket was in his pocket. Bought on special offer from SAS.

Satisfied, he walked out of the new rail terminal, down a staircase, under a glass roof which had obviously been the old departure hall, but where there were now shops, and out into the open square. Jernbanetorget, as it was called on the map. In the middle there was a tiger twice the size of life, frozen in mid-stride, between tram rails, cars and people. But he couldn't see a phone booth anywhere, as the receptionist had said. At the end of the square, by a shelter, there was a throng of people. He went closer. Several of them had stuck their hoody-clad heads together and were talking. Perhaps they came from the same place, or they were neighbours waiting for the same bus. It reminded him of something else, though. He spotted things changing hands, skinny men hurrying away with their backs bent into the freezing wind. And he knew what the things were. He had seen heroin deals taking place in Zagreb and other European towns, but nowhere as openly as here. Then he remembered what it reminded him of. The gatherings of people he himself had been part of after the Serbians had withdrawn. Refugees.

Then a bus did come. It was white and stopped just short of the shelter. The doors opened, but no one got on. Instead a girl came out, wearing a uniform he recognised at once. The Salvation Army. He slowed down.

The girl went over to one of the women and helped her onto the bus. Two men followed.

He stopped and looked up. A coincidence, he thought. That was all. He turned round. And there, on the wall of a small clock tower, he saw three telephones.

Five minutes later he had called Zagreb and told her everything was looking good.

'The final job,' he had repeated.

And Fred had told him that his blue lions, Dinamo Zagreb, were leading 1–0 against Rijeka at Maksimar stadium at half-time.

The conversation had cost him five kroner. The clocks on the tower showed 19.25. The countdown had started.


The group met in the hall belonging to Vestre Aker church.

The snowdrifts were high on both sides of the gravel path leading to the small brick building on the slope beside the cemetery. Fourteen people were seated in a bare meeting hall with plastic chairs piled up against the walls and a long table in the middle. If you had stumbled into the room, you might have guessed it was a general assembly of some cooperative, but nothing about the faces, age, sex or clothes revealed what kind of community this was. The harsh light was reflected in the windowpanes and the lino floor. There was a low mumbling and fidgeting with paper cups. A bottle of Farris mineral water hissed as it was opened.

At seven o'clock on the dot the chattering stopped as a hand at the end of the table was raised and a little bell rang. Eyes turned to a woman in her mid-thirties. She met them with a direct, fearless gaze. She had narrow, severe lips softened with lipstick, long, thick, blonde hair held in place with a clip and large hands that, at this moment, were resting on the table, exuding calm and confidence. She was elegant, meaning she had attractive features but not the grace that would qualify her for what Norwegians termed sweet. Her body language betokened control and strength, which was underlined by the firm voice that filled the chilly room the next minute.

'Hi, my name is Astrid and I'm an alcoholic.'

'Hi, Astrid!' the gathering answered in unison.

Astrid bent the spine of the book in front of her and began to read.

'The sole requirement for AA membership is the desire to stop drinking alcohol.'

She went on, and round the table the lips of those who knew the Twelve Traditions moved by rote. In the breaks, when she paused for breath, you could hear the church choir practising on the floor above.

'Today the theme is the First Step,' Astrid said, 'which runs thus: We admit we are powerless over alcohol, and that our lives have become unmanageable. I can begin, and I will be brief since I consider myself finished with the First Step.'