‘Well,’ the old boy said. ‘So you supply this product which I have heard so much about.’

‘Yes,’ the man said, putting on his glasses and squinting round the room.

‘Where does it come from?’

‘I’m here to sell it, not to provide information about it.’

The old boy stroked his chin with thumb and finger. ‘In that case I’m not interested. Taking others’ stolen property always leads to dead bodies in this game. And dead bodies are trouble and bad for business.’

‘This is not stolen property.’

‘I venture to suggest I have a fairly good overview of supply channels, and this is not a product anyone has seen before. So I repeat: I will not buy anything until I have the assurance that this will not rebound on us.’

‘I’ve allowed myself to be brought here blindfolded because I understand the need for discretion. I hope you can show me the same sensitivity.’

The heat had made his glasses mist up, but he kept them on. Andrey and Peter had searched him in the car while I had searched his eyes, body language, voice, hands. All I found was loneliness. There was no fat, ugly girlfriend, only this man and his fantastic dope.

‘For all I know, you could be a policeman,’ the old boy said.

‘With this?’ the man said, pointing to his foot.

‘If you import goods, how come I haven’t heard of you before?’

‘Because I’m new. I don’t have a record and no one knows me, neither in the police nor in this business. I have a so-called respectable profession and have so far lived a normal life.’ He made a cautious grimace which I realised was supposed to be a smile. ‘An abnormally normal life, some might claim.’

‘Hm.’ The old boy stroked his chin repeatedly. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me to his chair so that I was standing beside him and looking at the man.

‘Do you know what I think, Gusto? I think he makes this product himself. What do you think?’

I deliberated. ‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘You know, Gusto, you don’t exactly need to be an Einstein in chemistry. There are detailed recipes on the Net for how to turn opium into morphine and then to heroin. Let’s say you get hold of ten kilos of raw opium. Then you find yourself some boiling equipment, a fridge, a bit of methanol and a fan, and hey presto, you’ve got eight and a half kilos of heroin crystals. Dilute it and you have one point two kilos of street heroin.’

The man in the all-weather jacket coughed. ‘It requires a bit more than that.’

‘The question’, the old boy said, ‘is how you get hold of the opium.’

The man shook his head.

‘Aha,’ the old boy said, stroking the inside of my arm. ‘Not opiate. Opioid.’

The man didn’t answer.

‘Did you hear what he said, Gusto?’ The old boy pointed a finger at the club foot. ‘He makes totally synthetic dope. He doesn’t need any help from nature or Afghanistan, he applies simple chemistry and makes everything on the kitchen table. Total control and no risky smuggling. And it’s at least as powerful as heroin. We’ve got a clever guy among us, Gusto. That sort of enterprise commands respect.’

‘Respect,’ I mumbled.

‘How much can you produce?’

‘Two kilos a week maybe. It depends.’

‘I’ll take the lot,’ the old boy said.

‘The lot?’ The man’s voice was flat and contained no real surprise.

‘Yes, everything you produce. May I make you a business proposition, herr…?’

‘Ibsen.’

‘Ibsen?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all. He was also a great artist. I would like to propose a partnership, herr Ibsen. Vertical integration. We corner the market and set the price. Better margin for both of us. What do you say?’

Ibsen shook his head.

The old boy tilted his head with a smile on the lipless mouth. ‘Why not, herr Ibsen?’

I watched the little man straighten up; he seemed to grow in the baggy, all-year-round, world’s-most-boring-person jacket.

‘If I give you the monopoly, herr…’

The old boy pressed his fingertips together. ‘You can call me whatever you like, herr Ibsen.’

‘I don’t want to be dependent on a single buyer, herr Dubai. It’s too risky. And it means you can force prices down. On the other hand, I don’t want too many buyers, because then the risk that the police will trace me is greater. I came to you because you’re known to be invisible, but I want one more buyer. I have already been in contact with Los Lobos. I hope you can understand.’

The old boy laughed his chug-chug laugh. ‘Listen and learn, Gusto. Not only is he a pharmacist, he’s also a businessman. Good, herr Ibsen, let’s say that then.’

‘The price…’

‘I’ll pay what you asked. You’ll find this is a business in which you don’t waste time haggling, herr Ibsen. Life’s too short and death too close at hand. Shall we say the first delivery next Tuesday?’

On the way out the old boy acted as if he needed to support himself on me. His nails scratched the skin on my arm.

‘Have you thought about exporting, herr Ibsen? The checks on exporting drugs from Norway are non-existent, you know.’

Ibsen didn’t answer. But I saw it now. What he wanted. Saw it as he stood over his club foot with a pivoted hip. Saw it in the reflection from his sweaty, shiny forehead below the thinning hair. The condensation had gone from his glasses, and his eyes had the same gleam I had seen in Skippergata. Payback, Dad. He wanted some payback. Payback for all the things he hadn’t received: respect, love, admiration, acceptance, everything it is claimed you can’t buy. Although you can, of course. Isn’t that right, Dad? Life owes you stuff, but sometimes you have to be your own sodding debt collector. And if we have to burn in hell for it, heaven’s going to be sparsely populated. Isn’t that right, Dad?

Harry sat by the road looking out. Watched the planes taxiing in and taxiing out to the runway.

He would be in Shanghai within eighteen hours.

He liked Shanghai. Liked the food, liked walking down the Bund along the River Huangpu to Peace Hotel, liked going into the Old Jazz Bar and listening to the ancient jazz musicians creaking their way through standards, liked the thought that they had been sitting there and playing without an audible break since the revolution in ’49. Liked her. Liked what they had, and what they didn’t have, but ignored.

The ability to ignore. It was a wonderful quality, not something he was naturally blessed with, but which he had practised over the last three years. Not banging your head against the wall if you didn’t have to.

How unshakeable is your faith in your gospel actually? Aren’t you also a doubter?

He would be in Shanghai in eighteen hours.

Could be in Shanghai within eighteen hours.

Shit.

She answered on second ring.

‘What do you want?’

‘Don’t ring off again, OK?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Listen, how strong a hold have you got on that Nils Christian?’

‘Hans Christian.’

‘Is he besotted enough for you to persuade him to help me with a very dubious stunt?’

13

It had rained all night, and from where Harry was standing, in front of Oslo District Prison, he could see a fresh layer of leaves lying like a wet yellow tarpaulin over the park. He had not slept much after he had gone straight from the airport to Rakel’s. Hans Christian had come, not protested too much and gone again. Afterwards Rakel and Harry drank tea and talked about Oleg. About how it had been before. About how it had been, but not about how it could have been. In the early hours Rakel had said Harry could sleep in Oleg’s room. Before Harry went to bed he had used Oleg’s computer to search for, and find, old articles about the police officer found dead beneath Alvsborg Bridge in Gothenburg. It confirmed what Cato had told him, and Harry also found a piece in the ever-sensationalist Goteborgstidningen leaking rumours about the dead man being a burner, which it defined as a person criminals used to destroy evidence against them. It was only two hours since Rakel had woken him with a steaming cup of coffee and a whisper. She had always done that, started the day with whispers, to him and Oleg, as if to soften the transition from dreams to reality.