The Redeemer by Jo Nesbø Page A

you'll just have to get used to the idea. This is the type of moral paradox that will fill your days.'
    Halvorsen pulled at the unlocked car door, but it was frozen fast. In a sudden bout of fury he heaved and it came away from the rubber with a ripping noise.
    They got in, and Harry watched as Halvorsen twisted the ignition key and pinched his forehead hard with the other hand. The engine roared into life.
    'Halvorsen . . .' Harry started.
    'Anyway, the case is solved and the POB is bound to be happy,' Halvorsen shouted, pulling out in front of a lorry with its horn blaring. He held up an outstretched finger to the mirror. 'So let's smile and celebrate a bit, shall we?' He lowered his hand and continued to pinch at his forehead.
    'Halvorsen . . .'
    'What's up?' he barked.
    'Park the car.'
    'What?'
    'Now.'
    Halvorsen pulled into the kerb, let go of the steering wheel and focused ahead through vacant eyes. In the time they had been with Holmen, the ice flowers had crept up the windscreen like a sudden attack of fungus. Halvorsen wheezed as his chest rose and fell.
    'Some days this is a shit job,' Harry said. 'Don't let it get to you.'
    'No,' Halvorsen said, breathing even harder.
    'You are you, and they are them.'
    'Yes.'
    Harry placed a hand on Halvorsen's back and waited. After a while he felt his colleague's breathing calm down.
    'Tough guy,' Harry said.
    Neither of them spoke as the car crawled its way through the afternoon traffic towards Grønland.

7
Monday, 15 December. Anonymity.
    H E STOOD AT THE HIGHEST POINT OF O SLO'S BUSIEST pedestrian street, named after the Swedish-Norwegian king, Karl Johan. He had memorised the map he had been given at the hotel and knew the building he saw in silhouette to the west was the Royal Palace and that Oslo Central Station was at the eastern end.
    He shivered.
    High up a house wall the sub-zero temperature shone out in red neon, and even the slightest current of air felt like an ice age penetrating his camel-hair coat which, until then, he had been very happy with; he had bought it in London for a song.
    The clock beside the temperature gauge showed 19.00. He started walking east. The omens were good. It was dark, there were lots of people about and the only surveillance cameras he saw were outside banks and directed at their respective cash machines. He had already excluded the underground for his getaway because of the combination of too many cameras and too few people. Oslo was smaller than he had imagined.
    He went into a clothes shop where he found a blue woollen hat for 49 kroner and a woollen jacket for 200, but changed his mind when he saw a thin raincoat for 120. While he was trying on the raincoat in a changing cubicle he discovered that the urinal blocks from Paris were still in his suit jacket pocket, crushed and ground into the material.
    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