We all sat very still. The fly had given up its attempt to escape when it discovered the sugar bowl.

‘This conversation has never taken place,’ Isabelle said.

‘Of course not.’

‘We’ve never even met.’

‘Sad but true, fru Skoyen.’

‘And how do you imagine… the weeding should be conducted?’

‘We can offer a helping hand. There’s a long tradition of snitching to eliminate rivals in this industry, and we’ll supply you with the necessary information. You will naturally provide the Social Services Committee with suggestions for the Police Commission, but you will need a confidant in the police. Perhaps someone who can benefit from being part of this success story. A person…’

‘An ambitious person who can be pragmatic so long as it’s in the town’s best interests?’ Isabelle Skoyen raised her cup to a skal. ‘Shall we go and sit in the lounge?’

Sergey was lying supine on the bench as the tattooist studied the drawings in silence.

When he had arrived punctually at the little shop the tattooist had been busy designing a big dragon on the back of a boy who was lying there with his teeth clenched while a woman, who was clearly the mother, was comforting him and asking if the tattoo needed to be so big. She paid when it was finished and on the way out asked the boy if he was happy now he had an even cooler tattoo than Preben and Kristoffer.

‘This one will fit on your back better,’ the tattooist said, pointing to one of the drawings.

‘ Tupoy,’ Sergey muttered. Idiot.

‘Eh?’

‘Everything has to be exactly the same as the drawing. Do I have to tell you every time?’

‘Yeah, well, I can’t do it all today.’

‘Yes, you can, do it all. Double pay.’

‘Urgent, is it?’

Sergey responded with a brief nod. Andrey had rung him every day, kept him up to date. So when he had called today, Sergey had not been prepared. Prepared for what Andrey had to say.

The necessary had become necessary.

And Sergey had known there was no way out.

He had immediately brought himself up short: no way out? Who wanted out?

Perhaps he’d thought of escape because Andrey had warned him. Told him that the policeman had managed to disarm an inmate they had paid to kill Oleg Fauke. Fair enough, the inmate was only a Norwegian and hadn’t killed anyone with a knife before, but it meant that this wasn’t going to be as easy as the last time. Shooting their dope seller, the boy, had been a simple execution. This time he would have to sneak up on the policeman, wait till he had him where he wanted and take him when he least expected it.

‘I don’t want to be a killjoy but the tattoos you’ve already got are not exactly quality workmanship. The lines are unclear, and the ink’s poor. Shouldn’t we freshen them up a little?’

Sergey didn’t answer. What did the guy know about quality workmanship? The lines were unclear because the tattooist in prison had to use a sharpened guitar string attached to an electric shaver as a needle, and the ink was made from melted shoe sole mixed with urine.

‘Drawing,’ Sergey said, pointing. ‘Now!’

‘And you’re sure you want a pistol? It’s your choice, but my experience is that people are shocked by violent symbols. Just so you’re warned.’

The guy clearly knew nothing about Russian criminals’ tattoos. Didn’t know that the cat meant he had been convicted for stealing, the church with two cupolas meant he had two convictions. Didn’t know that the burn marks on his chest were from a magnesium powder dressing he had held directly on his skin to remove a tattoo. The tattoo had been of female genitals and had been given to him while he had been doing a second stint in prison by members of the Georgian Black Corn gang who thought he owed them money after a card game.

Nor did the tattooist know that the pistol in the drawing, a Makarov, the Russian police’s service weapon, denoted that he, Sergey Ivanov, had killed a policeman.

He knew nothing, and that was fine, it was best for everyone if he stuck to tattooing butterflies, Chinese symbols and colourful dragons on well-fed Norwegian youths who thought their catalogue tattoos were a statement about something.

‘Shall we begin then?’ the tattooist asked.

Sergey hesitated. The tattooist had been right, this was urgent. But why was it so urgent, why couldn’t he wait until the policeman was dead? Because if he was caught after the murder and sent to a Norwegian prison, where unlike in Russia there were no tattooists, he wouldn’t be able to get the bloody tattoo he needed.

But there was another answer to the question as well.

Was he getting the tattoo before the murder because, deep down, he was afraid? So afraid he was not sure he would be able to go through with it? That was why he had to have the tattoo now, to burn all the bridges behind him, remove all possibilities of a retreat so that he had to carry out the murder? No Siberian urka can live with a lie carved into his skin, that goes without saying. And he had been happy, he knew that he had been happy, so what were these thoughts, where did they come from?

He knew where they came from.

The dope seller. The boy with the Arsenal shirt.

He had started to appear in his dreams.

‘Yes, let’s begin,’ Sergey said.

17

‘The doctor reckons Oleg will be on his feet again within a few days,’ Rakel said. She was leaning against the fridge holding a cup of tea.

‘Then he’ll have to be moved to somewhere absolutely no one can get their hands on him,’ Harry said.

He was standing by her kitchen window and looking down on the town, where the cars of the afternoon rush hour were crawling like glow-worms along the main roads.

‘The police must have such places for witness protection,’ she said.

Rakel had not become hysterical. She had taken the news of the knife attack on Oleg with a kind of resigned composure. As though it was something she had been half expecting. At the same time Harry could see the indignation on her face. Her fight face.

‘He has to be in a prison, but I’ll talk to the public prosecutor about a move,’ Hans Christian Simonsen said. He had come as soon as Rakel had rung, and he sat at the kitchen table with circles of sweat under the arms of his shirt.

‘See if you can circumvent official channels,’ Harry said.

‘What do you mean?’ the solicitor asked.

‘The doors were unlocked, so at least one of the prison guards must have been in on this. As long as we’re in the dark about who was involved, we have to assume that everyone could have been.’

‘Aren’t you being a touch paranoid now?’

‘Paranoia saves lives,’ Harry said. ‘Can you fix that, Simonsen?’

‘I’ll see what I can do. What about where he is now?’

‘He’s in Ulleval Hospital, and I’ve made sure there are two officers I trust looking after him. One more thing: Oleg’s attacker is in hospital, but he will end up with restricted rights afterwards.’

‘No post or visitors?’ Simonsen asked.

‘Yep. Can you make sure we find out what he says in his statement to the police or his solicitor?’

‘That’s trickier.’ Simonsen scratched his head.

‘They probably won’t get a word out of him, but try anyway,’ Harry said, buttoning his coat.

‘Where are you going?’ Rakel asked, holding his arm.

‘To the source,’ Harry said.

It was eight o’clock in the evening, and the traffic in the capital of the country with the world’s shortest working day had eased long ago. The boy standing on the steps at the bottom of Tollbugata was wearing shirt number 23. Arshavin. He had his hoodie drawn over his head and wore a pair of oversized white Air Jordan trainers. The Girbaud jeans were ironed and so stiff they could almost stand up by themselves. Full gangsta gear, everything was copied down to the last detail from the latest Rick Ross video, and Harry assumed that when the trousers slipped down the right boxer shorts would be revealed, no scars from knives or bullets, but at least one violence-glorifying tattoo.