The Redeemer(5)

Harry entered the jeweller's shop.

'Can you fix this?' he said to the young man behind the counter, passing him his grandfather's watch. Harry had been given it when he was a boy in Åndalsnes the day they had buried his mother. He had almost been frightened, but his grandad had reassured him that watches were the sort of thing you gave away, and Harry should remember to pass it on. 'Before it's too late.'

Harry had forgotten all about the watch until Oleg visited him in his flat in Sofies gate and had seen the silver watch in a drawer while he was looking for Harry's Game boy. Oleg, who was ten years old, but had long had the measure of Harry at their shared passion – the rather outdated computer game Tetris – was oblivious to the duel he had been looking forward to, and instead sat fiddling with the watch trying to make it go.

'It's broken,' Harry said.

'Ooof,' Oleg answered. 'Everything can be repaired.'

Harry hoped in his heart of hearts that this contention was true, but he had days when he had severe doubts. Nonetheless, he had wondered in a vague way whether he should introduce Oleg to Jokke & Valentinerne and their album entitled Everything Can be Repaired. However, on reflection Harry had concluded that Oleg's mother, Rakel, was unlikely to appreciate the connection: her ex-alcoholic lover passing on songs about being an alcoholic, written and sung by a dead junkie.

'Can you repair it?' he asked the young man behind the counter. By way of an answer, nimble, expert hands opened the watch.

'Not worth it.'

'Not worth it?'

'If you go to an antiques shop, they have better working watches and they cost less than it would to have this fixed.'

'Do it anyway,' Harry said.

'OK,' said the young man who had already started examining the internal mechanisms and, in fact, seemed pretty pleased with Harry's decision. 'Come back next Tuesday.'

On leaving the shop Harry heard the frail sound of a single guitar string through an amplifier. It rose when the guitarist, a boy with scraggly facial hair and fingerless gloves, turned one of the tuning keys. It was time for one of the traditional pre-Christmas concerts when well known artistes performed on behalf of the Salvation Army in Egertorget. People had already begun to gather in front of the band as it took up a position behind the Salvation Army's black Christmas kettle, a cooking pot which hung from three poles in the middle of the square.

'Is that you?'

Harry turned. It was the woman with the junkie eyes.

'It's you, isn't it? Have you come instead of Snoopy? I need a fix right away. I've—'

'Sorry,' Harry interrupted. 'It's not me you want.'

She stared at him. Leaning her head to one side, she narrowed her eyes, as though appraising whether he was lying to her. 'Yep, I've seen you somewhere before.'

'I'm a policeman.'

She paused. Harry breathed in. There was a delayed reaction, as if the message had to follow detours around scorched neurons and smashed synapses. Then the dull glow of hatred that Harry had been waiting for lit up in her eyes.

'The cops?'

'Thought we had a deal. You were supposed to stay in the square, in Plata,' Harry said, looking past her at the vocalist.

'Huh,' said the woman standing straight in front of Harry. 'You're not in Narco. You're the guy on telly who killed—'

'Crime Squad.' Harry took her by the arm. 'Listen, you can get what you want in Plata. Don't force me to drag you in to the station.'

'Can not.' She tore her arm away.

Harry repented at once and held up both hands. 'Tell me you're not going to do any deals here and I can go. OK?'

She cocked her head. The thin, anaemic lips tightened a fraction. She seemed to see something amusing in the situation. 'Shall I tell you why I can't go to the square?'

Harry waited.

'Because my boy's down there.'

He felt his stomach churn.

'I don't want him to see me like this. Do you understand, cop?'

Harry looked into her defiant face as he tried to formulate a sentence.

'Happy Christmas,' he said, turning his back on her.

Harry dropped his cigarette into the packed, brown snow and walked off. He wanted this job off his back. He didn't see the people coming towards him, and, staring down at the blue ice as if they had a bad conscience, they didn't see him either, as if they, citizens of the world's most generous social democracy, were nonetheless ashamed. 'Because my boy's down there.'

In Fredensborgveien, beside Oslo Public Library, Harry stopped outside the number scrawled on the envelope he was carrying. He leaned back and looked up. The facade was grey and black and had recently been repainted. A tagger's wet dream. Christmas decorations were already hanging from some of the windows like silhouettes against the gentle, yellow light in what seemed like warm, secure homes. And perhaps they are indeed that, Harry forced himself to think. 'Forced' because you can't be in the police for twelve years without being infected by the contempt for humanity that comes with the territory. But he did fight against it; you had to give him that.