‘Come on, Oleg. You don’t keep dope where other junkies have access. Where’s your other stash, your reserves?’

‘I’ve only got one.’

‘I’m not going to steal anything from you.’

‘I haven’t got another stash, I’m telling you!’

Harry could hear he was lying. But that was not so important; it only meant presumably he didn’t have any violin there.

‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ Harry said, getting up, knocking on the door and waiting. But no one came. In the end he wrenched the handle. The door opened. Definitely not a high-security prison.

Harry walked back the way he had come. There was no one in the corridor, nor in the common room where Harry noticed the food was still out, but the bread knife had been tidied away. He continued to the door leading out of the unit and into the gallery and discovered to his surprise that it was open, too.

Only at reception did he find locked doors. He mentioned the fact to the prison officer behind the glass, and she raised an eyebrow and glanced at the monitors above her. ‘No one will get any further than here anyway.’

‘Apart from me, I hope.’

‘Eh?’

‘Nothing.’

Harry had walked almost a hundred metres through the park down towards Gronlandsleiret when it struck him. The empty rooms, the open doors, the bread knife. He froze. His heart accelerated so fast he felt nauseous. He heard a bird singing. The smell of grass. Then he turned and sprinted back to the prison. Felt his mouth go dry with fear and his heart pound adrenalin around his body.

14

Violin hi tOslo like a fricking asteroid. Oleg had explained to me the difference between a meteorite and a meteoroid and all the other junk that could hit us on the head at any moment, and this was an asteroid, a huge ugly brute that could flatten the earth with… Shit, you know what I mean, Dad, don’t laugh. We stood selling eighths, quarters, whole grams and five grams all at once from morning to night. The city centre was turned upside down. And then we raised the price again. And the queues stretched even further. And then we put up the price again. And the queues were just as long. And then we put up the price again. And that was when all hell broke loose.

A gang of Kosovar Albanians robbed our team behind the Stock Exchange. There were two Estonian brothers operating without a scout, and the Kosovar Albanians used baseball bats and knuckledusters. Took the money and the dope and smashed their hips. Two nights later a Vietnamese gang struck in Prinsens gate, ten minutes before Andrey and Peter were due to collect the day’s takings. They attacked the dope man in the backyard without the money man or the scout noticing. It was a bit like: ‘What next?’

The question was answered two days later.

Oslo folk who were up early and on their way to work caught sight of a slit-eye dangling upside down from Sanner Bridge before the cops came. He was dressed as a lunatic, with a straitjacket and a gag in his mouth. The rope round his ankles was just long enough for him not to be able to hold his head above the water. At least after his stomach muscles failed him.

That same evening Oleg and I were given a shooter by Andrey. It was Russian, Andrey trusted only Russian things. He smoked black Russian cigarettes, used a Russian mobile phone (I’m not kidding, Dad. Gresso, expensive luxury number made from African blackwood, but apparently waterproof and didn’t send out signals when it was switched on, so the cops couldn’t trace it) and swore by Russian pistols. Andrey explained that the brand name of the shooter was Odessa, which was a cheap version of a Stechkin, as if we knew anything about either of them. Nonetheless, the Odessa’s speciality was that it could fire fricking salvos. It had a magazine capable of holding twenty rounds of Makarov, nine by eighteen millimetre calibre, the same as Andrey and Peter and some of the others used. We were given a box of bullets, and he showed us how to load, put on the safety catch and fire the strange, clumpy gun. He said we had to hold it tight and aim a bit lower than we thought in order to hit. And that we shouldn’t aim at the head, which was what we thought, but anywhere on the upper torso. If we twisted the little lever on the side to C it would fire salvos, and a little pressure on the trigger was enough to loose off three to four shots. But he assured us that nine times out of ten you just had to show the gun. After he had left, Oleg said it looked like the shooter on the cover of some Foo Fighters record, and he was buggered if he was going to shoot anyone, we should chuck it in the bin. So I said I would have it.

The newspapers ran riot. They screamed about gang warfare, blood in the streets, fricking LA, and so on. The opposition politicians went on about a failed crime policy, failed drug policy, failed chairman of the City Council, failed City Council. One Centre Party loony said Oslo was a failed town and should be wiped off the map, it was a disgrace to the country. The person who got the most stick was the Chief of Police, but as we know shit sinks, and after a Somali had shot dead two relatives in the tribe at point-blank range down by Plata, in broad daylight, and no one was arrested, the head of Orgkrim handed in his resignation. The Councillor for Social Services — who was also head of the Police Commission — said that crime, drugs and the police were primarily the state’s responsibility, but she saw it as her duty to ensure that Oslo’s citizens could walk through the streets in safety. That was kind of her. And behind her stood her secretary. It was my old friend. MILF without the M. She looked serious and businesslike. Though all I saw was a hot bitch with riding breeches round her knees.

One night Andrey came early, said we were finished for the day and I should go with him to Blindern.

When he drove straight past the old boy’s place I began to think very nasty thoughts. But then, fortunately, Andrey turned into the neighbour’s plot, which of course he also owned. Andrey escorted me in. The house was not as empty as it looked from the outside. Behind the peeling walls and cracked windowpanes it was furnished and heated. The old boy was sitting in a room with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and some of that classical-type music was belting out of large speakers on the floor. I sat on the only other chair in the room, and Andrey closed the door as he left.

‘I’ve decided to ask you to do something for me, Gusto,’ said the old boy, placing a hand on my knee.

I glanced at the closed door.

‘We’re at war,’ he said, getting up. He went to the shelves and pulled out a thick book with a brown, stained cover. ‘This text is from six hundred years before Christ was born. I can’t read Chinese, so I have only this French translation, which was made more than two hundred years ago by a Jesuit named Jean Joseph Marie Amiot. I went to an auction and had my bid of one hundred and ninety thousand accepted. The book’s about how to fool the enemy in war and it’s the most quoted work on the subject. Stalin, Hitler and Bruce Lee had it as their bible. And do you know what?’ He replaced the book and pulled out another. ‘I prefer this one.’ He threw the book over to me.

It was a thin volume with a shiny, blue cover, evidently quite new. I read the title: Chess For Beginners.

‘Sixty kroner at a sale,’ the old boy said. ‘We’re going to perform a move called castling.’

‘Castling?’

‘A sideways switch of king and castle to provide a defence. We’re going to form an alliance.’

‘With a castle?’

‘Think City Hall castle.’

I thought.

‘City Council,’ said the old boy. ‘The Councillor for Social Services has a secretary called Isabelle Skoyen, who in effect runs the town’s drug policy. I’ve checked a source and she’s perfect. Intelligent, efficient and extremely ambitious. The reason she has not climbed higher, according to my source, is her lifestyle, which is bound to attract headlines. Just a question of time. She parties, speaks her mind and has lovers in Oslo East and Oslo West.’