Phantom (36 page)

He had let down his uncle.

He would never see his beloved Siberia again.

He was going to be buried with a tattoo that lied.

On the third beat of his heart he fell. And by the time the song finished, Sergey Ivanov was dead.

H
ARRY GOT UP
from the stool. In the mirror he saw the cut running across his chin. But that wasn’t the worst; there were deep cuts to his throat from which blood was trickling and it had already discolored his entire collar.

The three other customers in the bar had gone. He looked down at the man lying on the floor. Blood was still flowing from the gash in his neck, but it wasn’t pumping. Which meant that his heart had stopped beating and there was no point trying to revive him. And even if there had been life left in him, Harry knew this person would never have revealed who had sent him. Because he saw the tattoos protruding above the shirt. He didn’t know any of the symbols, but he knew they were Russian. Black Seed, maybe. They were different from the typically Western tattoo belonging to the barman, who was pressed up against the mirrored shelf and staring with pupils so black with shock they seemed to cover the whites of his eyes. Nirvana had faded out and there was total silence. Harry looked at the whiskey glass lying on its side.

“Sorry about the mess,” he said.

Then he picked up the cloth from the counter, wiped first where his hands had been, then the glass, then the handle of the corkscrew, which he put back. He checked that none of his own blood had ended up on the counter or the floor. Then he bent over the dead man and wiped his bloody hand, the long ivory knife handle and the thin blade. The weapon—for it was a weapon and useless for anything else—was heavier than any knife he had ever held. The edge was as sharp as a Japanese sushi knife. Harry hesitated. Then he folded the blade into the shaft, heard a soft click as it locked, flicked the safety catch and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

“OK to pay with dollars?” Harry asked, using the cloth to pick a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet. “Legal tender in the United States, it says.”

Small whining noises came from the barman as if he wanted to say something, but had lost the power of speech.

Harry was about to go, then stopped. Turned to look at the bottle on the mirrored shelf. Wetted his lips again. Stood unmoving for a second. Then his body seemed to twitch and he left.

H
ARRY CROSSED THE
street in pouring rain. They knew where he was staying. They could have tailed him, of course, but it could also have been the boy in reception. Or the burner, who could have got hold of his name via the routine registering of hotel guests. If he went in through the backyard he would be able to reach his room unnoticed.

The gate to the street was locked. Harry cursed.

The reception desk was unmanned as he entered.

On the stairs and in the corridor he left a trail of red dots, like Morse code, on the light-blue linoleum.

Inside his room, he took the sewing kit from the bedside table to the bathroom, undressed and leaned over the washbasin, which was soon red from blood. He soaked a hand towel and washed his chin and neck, but the cuts to his neck soon filled up with more blood. In the cold, white light he managed to thread the cotton through the eye of the needle and put the needle through the white flaps of skin on his neck, first underneath and then above the wound. Sewed his way along, stopped to wipe away blood and carried on. The thread broke as he was almost finished. He swore, pulled the ends out and started again with the thread doubled. Afterward he sewed the wound on his chin, which was easier. He washed the blood from his upper torso and took a clean shirt from his suitcase. Then he sat down on the bed. He was dizzy. But he was in a hurry—he doubted they would be far away, and he had to act now before they found out he was alive. He called Hans Christian Simonsen’s number and after the fourth ring he heard a sleepy: “Hans Christian.”

“Harry. Where’s Gusto buried?”

“Vestre Cemetery.”

“Do you have the gear?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll do it tonight. Meet me on the pathway on the eastern side in an hour.”

“Now?”

“Yes. And bring some bandages.”

“Bandages?”

“A clumsy barber—that’s all. Sixty minutes from now, OK?” A slight pause.

A sigh. And then: “OK.”

As Harry was about to hang up he thought he heard a sleepy voice, someone else’s voice. But by the time he was dressed he had already convinced himself that he had misheard.

Harry was standing beneath a lone street lamp. He had been waiting for twenty minutes when Hans Christian, wearing a black warmup suit, came barreling up the footpath.

“I parked on Monolittveien,” he said, out of breath. “Is a linen suit standard garb for desecrating a grave?”

Harry raised his head, and Hans Christian’s eyes widened. “Good God, what do you look like? That barber—”

“Isn’t recommended,” Harry said. “Come on—let’s get out of the light.”

Once they were in the darkness, Harry stopped. “Bandages?”

“Here.”

Hans Christian studied the unlit houses on the hill behind them while Harry carefully placed bandages over the stitches on his neck and chin.

“Relax—no one can see us,” Harry said, grabbing one of the spades and setting off. Hans Christian hurried after him, pulled out a flashlight and clicked it on.

“Now they can see us,” Harry said.

Hans Christian clicked it off.

They strode through the war memorial grove, past the British sailors’ graves and continued along the gravel paths. Harry established that death was not a great leveler; the headstones in this west Oslo cemetery were bigger and brighter than those on the east side of town. The gravel crunched whenever their feet hit it, and they were walking faster and faster, so in the end it sounded like one continuous noise.

They stopped at the Gypsy’s grave.

“It’s the second one on the left,” Hans Christian whispered and tried to angle the map he had printed into the sparse moonlight.

Harry stared into the darkness behind them.

“Something up?” Hans Christian whispered.

“Just thought I heard footsteps. They stopped when we stopped.”

Harry raised his head, as if scenting the air.

“Echo,” he said. “Come on.”

Two minutes later they were standing by a modest black stone. Harry held the flashlight close to the stone before switching it on. The letters had been engraved and painted in gold.

“Bingo,” Harry whispered without ceremony.

“How are we …” Hans Christian began, but was interrupted by the sigh of Harry’s spade entering the soft earth. He grabbed his own and began.

It was half past three and the moon had gone behind a cloud when Harry’s spade hit something hard.

Fifteen minutes later the white coffin was revealed.

They each grabbed a screwdriver, knelt down on the coffin and began to loosen the six screws in the lid.

“We won’t get the lid off with both of us on top,” Harry said. “One of us has to go up so the other can open the coffin. Volunteers?”

Hans Christian had already half crawled out.

Harry put one foot down beside the coffin and the other against the earth wall and squeezed his fingers under the lid. Then he exerted pressure and from force of habit began to breathe through his mouth. Before he even looked down he could feel the heat rising from the coffin. He knew the process of decomposition produced energy, but what made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck was the sound.

The rustle of fly maggots in flesh. He kneed the coffin lid to the side of the grave.

“Shine here,” he said.

White slithering maggots glistened in and around the corpse’s mouth and nose. The eyelids had sunk, since the eyeballs were the first parts to be consumed.

Harry shut out the sounds of Hans Christian being sick and switched on his analytical faculties: face discolored, dark, impossible to determine whether the owner was Gusto Hanssen, but the hair color and shape of the face suggested it was.

But there was something that caught Harry’s attention and caused him to stop breathing.

Gusto was bleeding.

Red roses were growing on the white shroud, roses of blood that were spreading.

Two seconds passed before Harry realized that the blood was coming from him. He clutched his neck. His fingers felt thick blood. The stitches had come undone.

“Your T-shirt,” Harry said.

“What?”

“I need some patching-up here.”

Harry heard the brief song of a zip, and a few seconds later a T-shirt floated down into the light. He grabbed it, saw the logo.
FREE LEGAL AID
. Christ, an idealist. Harry wound the T-shirt around his neck with no clear idea of how this would help, but it was all he could do for now. Then he bent over Gusto, grabbed the shroud with both hands and tore it open. The body was dark and slightly bloated and maggots were crawling out from the bullet holes in the chest.

Harry could see that the wounds matched what was in the report.

“Give me the scissors.”

“The scissors.”

“The nail scissors.”

“Damn.” Hans Christian coughed. “I forgot them. Maybe I’ve got something in the car. Should I—”

“No need,” Harry said, taking the long switchblade from his jacket pocket. Undid the safety catch and pressed the release button. The blade shot out with a brutal power, so fierce it made the handle vibrate. He could feel the perfect balance of the weapon.

“I can hear something,” Hans Christian said.

“It’s a Slipknot song,” Harry said. “ ‘Pulse of the Maggots.’ ” He was humming softly.

“No, damn it. Someone’s coming!”

“Angle the flashlight so that I can see, and run for it,” Harry said, lifting up Gusto’s hands and studying the nails on the right hand.

“But you—”

“Run for it,” Harry said. “Now.”

Harry heard Hans Christian’s steps fade into the distance. The nail on Gusto’s middle finger was cut shorter. He examined the first finger and the third. Said calmly: “I’m from the funeral home. We’re doing some overtime.”

Then he turned his face up to the very young uniform-clad guard standing by the edge of the grave looking down at him.

“The family wasn’t very happy with the manicure.”

“Get out of there!” the guard ordered with only a slight tremble in his voice.

“Why?” Harry said, taking a little plastic bag from his jacket
pocket and holding it under the third finger while sedulously cutting. The blade sliced through the nail as if it were butter. Indeed a fantastic instrument. “Unfortunately for you, your instructions state that you cannot tackle intruders head-on.”

Harry used the tip of the blade to remove the dry remains of blood from under the short nail.

“If you do, you’ll get fired and the police college will reject you, and you won’t be allowed to carry a big gun and shoot someone in self-defense.”

Harry turned his attention to the first finger.

“Do what your instructions tell you—call an adult in the police. If you’re lucky they’ll be here in half an hour. But if we’re realistic we’ll probably have to wait for office hours tomorrow. There we are!”

Harry closed the bags, put them in his jacket pocket, replaced the coffin lid and clambered out of the grave. He brushed the soil off his suit and bent down to pick up the spade and flashlight.

Saw the headlights of a car turning in to the chapel area.

“In fact they said they would come right away,” said the young guard, retreating to a safe distance. “I told them it was the grave of the guy who was shot, you see. Who are you?”

Harry switched off the flashlight and it was pitch black.

“I’m the one you should be rooting for.”

Then Harry set off at a run. He headed east, away from the chapel, back along the route they had come.

He got his bearings from a bright light he assumed was a lamppost in Frogner Park. If he could make it to the park, he knew that, in his current form, he could outrun most of them. He only hoped they didn’t have any dogs. He hated dogs. Best to keep to the gravel paths so as not to stumble over headstones and bunches of flowers, but the crunching made it more difficult to hear any potential pursuers. By the war memorial Harry moved onto the grass. He couldn’t hear anyone behind him. But then he saw it. A quivering beam of light on the treetops above. Someone was chasing him with a flashlight.

Harry emerged onto the path and headed for the park. Tried to shut out the pain around his neck and run in a relaxed, efficient way, concentrating on technique and breathing. Told himself he was pulling away. He ran toward the Monolith, knowing they would see him under the lamps on the pathway that continued over the hill and it would look as if he were making for the park’s main gate on the eastern side.

Harry waited until he had topped the crest and was out of sight
before heading southwest toward Madserud Allé. Adrenaline had kept him going, but now he could feel his muscles stiffening. For a second, things went black and he thought he had lost consciousness. But then he was back, and a sudden feeling of nausea engulfed him, followed by overwhelming giddiness. He looked down. Blood was oozing from under his jacket sleeve and dripping between his fingers, like strawberry jam off a slice of bread at his grandfather’s house. He wasn’t going to last the distance.