Nemesis (33 page)

Muhammed shook his head, tugged at the twenty-dollar bill Harry had put under the coffee cup and passed it back. ‘I don’t take big notes,’ he said.

Harry shrugged. ‘We’ll be back, anyway, Muhammed.’

At the little hotel called Vitória, as it was the down season they each got a large room. Harry was given key number 69, even though the hotel only had two floors and twenty-odd rooms. On pulling out the drawer of the bedside table beside the red heart-shaped bed and finding two condoms with the hotel’s compliments, he assumed he had the bridal suite. The whole of the bathroom door was covered with a mirror you could see yourself in from the bed. In a disproportionately large, deep wardrobe, the only furniture in the room except for the bed, hung two somewhat worn thigh-length bathrobes with oriental symbols on the back.

The receptionist smiled and shook her head when she was shown the photographs of Lev Grette. The same happened in the adjacent restaurant and at the Internet café further up the strangely quiet main street. It led, in the traditional manner, from church to cemetery, but had been given a new name: Broadway. In the tiny grocer’s shop, where they sold water and Christmas tree decorations, with
SUPERMARKET
written above the door, they eventually found a woman behind the till. She answered ‘yes’ to everything they asked about, and watched them through vacant eyes until they gave up and left. On the way back they saw one solitary person, a young policeman leaning against a jeep, arms crossed and a bulging holster slung low on his hips, following their movements with a yawn.

In Muhammed’s
ahwa
the thin boy behind the counter explained that the boss had suddenly decided to take the day off and go for a walk. Beate asked when he would be back, but the boy, at a loss, shook his head, pointed to the sun and said, ‘Trancoso.’

The female receptionist at the hotel said the thirteen-kilometre walk along the unbroken stretch of white sand to Trancoso was d’Ajuda’s greatest landmark. Apart from the Catholic church in the square, it was also the only one.

‘Mm. Why are there so few people around,
senhora
?’ Harry asked.

She smiled and pointed to the sea.

That was where they were. On the scorching hot sand stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see in the heat haze. There were sunbathers lying in state, beach pedlars trudging through the loose sand, bowed beneath the weight of cooler bags and sacks of fruit, bartenders grinning from makeshift bars where loudspeakers blasted out samba music under straw roofs, and surfers in the yellow national strip, their lips painted white with zinc oxide. And two people walking south with their shoes in their hands. One in shorts, a skimpy top and a straw hat which she had changed into at the hotel, the other still bare-headed in his creased linen suit.

‘Did she say thirteen kilometres?’ Harry said, blowing away the bead of sweat hanging off the tip of his nose.

‘It’ll be dark before we get back,’ Beate said, pointing. ‘Look, everyone else is coming back.’

There was a black stripe along the beach, an apparently endless caravan of people on their way home with the afternoon sun at their backs.

‘Just what we ordered,’ Harry said, straightening his sunglasses. ‘A line-up of the whole of d’Ajuda. We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled. If we don’t see Muhammed, perhaps we’ll be lucky and bump into Lev in person.’

Beate smiled. ‘Bet you a hundred we don’t.’

Faces flickered by in the heat. Black, white, young, old, beautiful, ugly, stoned, abstemious, smiling, scowling faces. The bars and the surfboard hire stalls were gone. All they could see was sand and sea to the left, and dense jungle vegetation to the right. Here and there, people were sitting in groups with the unmistakable smell of joints wafting over.

‘I’ve been thinking more about that intimate-space stuff and our insider theory,’ Harry said. ‘Do you think Lev and Stine Grette could have known each other as more than brother- and sister-in-law?’

‘You mean she was involved in the planning, and then he shot her to cover his tracks?’ Beate peered at the sun. ‘Well, why not?’

Even though it was past four o’clock, the heat had not noticeably
relented. They removed their shoes to cross some rocks, and on the other side Harry found a thick, dry branch the sea had washed up. He stuck the branch in the sand and took the wallet and passport out of his jacket before hanging it on the makeshift hatstand.

They could see Trancoso in the distance now and Beate said they had just passed a man she had seen in a video. At first Harry thought she meant some semi-famous actor until she said he was called Roger Person, and that in addition to various narcotics charges, he had done time for robbing the post office in Gamlebyen and Veitvet. He was suspected of robbing the post office in Ullevål.

Fred had knocked back three
caipirinhas
at the beach restaurant in Trancoso, but still thought it had been a senseless idea to walk thirteen kilometres just – as Roger had put it – to ‘air their skin before it started to go mouldy, too’.

‘Your problem is you can’t sit still because of those new pills,’ Fred whined to his friend, who was lolloping ahead on tiptoes with his knees raised.

‘So what? You need to burn off a few calories before going back to the smorgasbord in the North Sea. Tell me what Muhammed said on the phone about the two police officers.’

Roger sighed and reluctantly searched his short-term memory. ‘He talked about a small woman who was so pale she was almost transparent. And a big German with a boozer’s nose.’

‘German?’

‘Muhammed was guessing. Could have been Russian. Or an Inca Indian or . . .’

‘Very funny. Was he sure they were cops?’

‘What do you mean?’ Roger stopped and Fred almost walked into him.

‘I’m just saying I don’t like it,’ Roger said. ‘As far as I know Lev didn’t do bank jobs outside Norway. And Norwegian police don’t
come to Brazil to nab one stinking bank robber. Probably Russian. Fuck. We know who sent them. And it isn’t Lev they’re after.’

Fred groaned. ‘Don’t start all that gypsy shit again, please.’

‘You think it’s paranoia, but he’s Satan himself. He doesn’t think twice before plugging people who cheated him out of a krone. I never thought he would find out. I just took a couple of thousand for pocket money from one of the bags, didn’t I. But it’s the principle, you know. If you’re the leader of the pack, you’ve got to have respect unless—’

‘Roger! If I wanted to hear all this mafia crap, I could hire a video.’

Roger didn’t answer.

‘Hello? Roger?’

‘Shut up,’ Roger whispered. ‘Don’t turn round and keep going.’

‘Hey?’

‘If you weren’t so pissed, you would have seen we just passed one transparent job and one boozer’s conk.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Fred craned his head. ‘Roger . . .’

‘Yes?

‘I think you’re right.’ They turned round.

Roger continued to walk without looking back. ‘Fuckfuckfuck!’

‘What do we do?’

When he didn’t get an answer, Fred looked back and discovered Roger had gone. He examined the sand in amazement – the deep footprint Roger had left – and followed the prints leading abruptly to the left. Up ahead, he saw Roger’s flailing heels. Then Fred began to run towards the dense, green vegetation, too.

Harry gave up almost at once.

‘There’s no point,’ he shouted after Beate, who faltered, then stopped.

They were only a few metres from the beach, yet it was as if they were in another world. A steamy, stagnant heat hung between the tree trunks in the pitch black beneath the leafy ceiling. What might
have been the sounds of the two fleeing men were drowned by the bird screams and the roar of the sea behind them.

‘The one at the back didn’t exactly look like a sprinter,’ Beate said.

‘They know the paths better than we do,’ Harry said. ‘We haven’t got any weapons, but maybe they have.’

‘If Lev hasn’t already been warned, he will be now. So what do we do?’

Harry rubbed the soaked neck bandage. The mosquitoes had already managed to sneak in a few bites. ‘We switch to plan B.’

‘Oh? And that is?’

Harry looked at Beate and wondered how it could be that there wasn’t a drop of sweat to be seen on her forehead while he was leaking like rotten guttering.

‘We’re going fishing.’

The sunset was brief but it was a pageant of all the spectrum’s shades of red. Plus a few, Muhammed reckoned, pointing to the sun, which had just melted into the horizon like a knob of butter on a hot frying pan.

The German in front of the counter was not interested in the sunset, however. He had just said he would give a thousand dollars to anyone who could help him to find Lev Grette or Roger Person. Would Muhammed mind passing on the offer? Interested informants could apply to room 69 at Vitória Hotel, said the German before leaving the
ahwa
with the pale woman.

The swallows ran amok when the insects came out for their brief evening dance. The sun had melted into a runny red mush on the surface of the sea and ten minutes later it was dark.

When Roger turned up an hour later, cursing, he was pale under his tan.

‘Gyppo greaser,’ he mumbled to Muhammed, and said he had already heard about the fat reward at Fredo’s bar and had left instantly. On his way he had stuck his head into the supermarket,
where Petra had told him the German and the blonde woman had been twice. The last time they had bought a fishing line; they hadn’t asked any questions.

‘What do they want that for?’ he asked, casting cursory glances around him while Muhammed poured the coffee. ‘Fishing perhaps?’

‘There you are,’ Muhammed said, motioning towards the cup. ‘Good for paranoia.’

‘Paranoia?’ Roger shouted. ‘This is good common sense. A thousand fucking dollars! People round here would happily sell their mothers for a tenth of that.’

‘What are you going to do then?’

‘What I have to do. Pre-empt the German.’

‘Really? How?’

Roger tasted the coffee while pulling out a black pistol with a short red-brown butt from his waistband. ‘Say hello to Taurus PT92C from São Paulo.’

‘No, thank you,’ Muhammed hissed. ‘Take that away this minute. You’re insane. Do you think you can take the German on alone?’

Roger shrugged and put the pistol back in his waistband.

‘Fred is at home shaking. He said he’ll never sober up again.’

‘This man is a pro, Roger.’

Roger sniffed. ‘And me? I’ve robbed a few banks, I have. And do you know what the most important thing is, Muhammed? The element of surprise. It means everything.’ Roger drained his cup of coffee. ‘And I doubt he’s much of a fucking pro if he goes around telling every Tom, Dick and Harry which room he’s in.’

Muhammed rolled his eyes and crossed himself.

‘Allah can see you, Muhammed,’ Roger muttered drily and got up.

Roger saw the blonde woman as soon as he entered the reception area. She was sitting with a group of men watching a football match on the TV above the counter. That was right, it was
flaflu
tonight, the traditional local derby between Flamengo and Fluminese in Rio. That was why Fredo’s had been so full.

He quickly walked past them, hoping he hadn’t been seen. Ran up
the carpeted stairs and continued along the corridor. He knew all too well which room it was. When Petra’s husband was due to be out of town on business, Roger reserved room 69.

Roger placed his ear against the door, but heard nothing. He peered through the keyhole, but it was dark inside. Either the German had gone out or he was asleep. Roger swallowed. His heart was pounding, but the broken half of the upper he had taken kept him calm. He checked the pistol was loaded and the catch was off before gently pressing down the handle. The door was open! Roger slipped into the room and quietly closed the door behind him. He stood in the dark holding his breath. Neither sight nor sound of anyone. No movements, no breathing. Just the gentle revolutions of the ceiling fan. Fortunately Roger knew the room intimately. He pointed the pistol where he knew the heart-shaped bed to be, as his eyes became used to the dark. A narrow strip of moonlight cast a pale sheen on the bed where the duvet had been thrown aside. Empty. He thought quickly. Could the German have gone out and forgotten to lock up? If so, Roger could just settle down and wait until the German returned to be a target in the doorway. It all seemed too good to be true, like a bank which had forgotten to activate the time lock. It just doesn’t happen. The ceiling fan.