He hung his coat on the stand and walked towards Harry with his hand outstretched. Stopped suddenly. Fluttered his hand in front of him. A deep furrow in his brow. Stood listening. And now Harry knew why. The thread he had felt on his face when he entered, which he had taken to be a spider’s web, must have been something else. Some invisible fibre Nybakk had wound across the hall to indicate whether he had had any unwelcome visitors.

Nybakk moved with surprising speed and agility towards a cupboard. Stuck his hand in. Pulled at something and the matt metal gleamed. A shotgun.

Shit, shit, shit. Harry hated shotguns.

Nybakk took out a box of cartridges, which was already open. Removed two large, red cartridges, held them between first and middle finger.

Harry’s brain whirred and whirred, but failed to come up with any good ideas, so he chose the bad one. Took his phone and began to press.

H-o-o-t a-n-d w-a-j-p

Shit! Wrong!

He heard the metallic click as Nybakk broke the gun.

Delete. Where are you? Out with ‘j’ and ‘p’ and in with ‘i’ and ‘t’.

Heard him loading the cartridges. w-a-i-t t-i-l-l h-e i-s

Tiny bloody keys! Come on!

Heard the barrel click into place. i-n t-h-e w-i-n-c

Wrong! Harry heard Nybakk’s shuffling gait come closer. Not enough time. Would have to hope Hans Christian could use his imagination. l-i-g-h-t-s!

He pressed ‘send’.

Harry could see Nybakk had raised the shotgun to his shoulder. And it struck him that the pharmacist had noticed the cellar door was ajar.

At that moment a car horn hooted. Loud and insistent. Nybakk flinched. Looked to the sitting room, which faced the road. Hesitated. Then went into the room.

The horn hooted again, and this time it didn’t stop.

Harry opened the cellar door and then followed Nybakk, didn’t need to tiptoe, knew the hooting would drown his footsteps. From the door he watched Nybakk as he drew the curtains aside. The room was filled with blinding light from the powerful xenon headlamps on Hans Christian’s estate car.

Harry took four long strides, and Stig Nybakk neither saw nor heard him approach. He was holding one hand in front of his face to shield it from the light as Harry reached both arms round Stig Nybakk’s shoulders, grabbed the gun, pulled the barrel into his fleshy neck. Dug his knees into the back of Nybakk’s legs, forcing both of them down as Nybakk desperately fought for air.

Hans Christian must have realised the hooting had done its job, because it stopped, but Harry continued to apply pressure. Until Nybakk’s movements slowed, lost energy and he seemed to wilt.

Harry knew Nybakk was losing consciousness. After a few seconds without oxygen the brain would be damaged and after a few more Stig Nybakk, the kidnapper and brain behind violin, would be dead.

Harry took stock. Counted to three and allowed one hand to let go of the gun. Nybakk slid to the floor without a noise.

Harry sat on a chair panting. Gradually, as the adrenalin level in his blood sank, the pain from his chin and neck returned. It had been getting worse by the hour. He tried to ignore it, and pressed ‘O’ and ‘K’ to Hans Christian.

Nybakk began to groan softly and hunched up into the foetal position.

Harry searched him. Laid everything he found in his pockets on the coffee table. Wallet, mobile phone and bottle of prescription pills. Zestril. Harry remembered his grandfather had taken them to prevent a heart attack. Harry stuffed the pills into his jacket pocket, put the muzzle of the shotgun to Nybakk’s pale brow and ordered him to get up.

Nybakk looked at Harry. Was about to say something, but changed his mind. Struggled to his feet and swayed.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked as Harry nudged him forward into the hall.

‘Downstairs,’ Harry said.

Stig Nybakk was still unsteady, and Harry supported him with one hand on his shoulder and the gun in his back as they clambered down to the cellar. They stopped by the door where he had found Irene.

‘How did you know it was me?’

‘The ring,’ Harry said. ‘Open up.’

Nybakk took a key from his pocket and twisted it in the padlock.

Inside, he switched on a light.

Irene had moved. She was cowering in the corner furthest from them, trembling, one shoulder raised, as though afraid someone might hit her. Around her ankle was a shackle attached to a chain that led up to the ceiling, where it was nailed to a beam.

Harry noticed that the chain was long enough for her to move around. Long enough for her to switch on the light.

She had preferred darkness.

‘Release her,’ Harry said. ‘And put the shackle on.’

Nybakk coughed. Held up his palms. ‘Listen, Harry-’

Harry hit him. Completely lost his head and hit him. Heard the lifeless thud of metal on flesh and saw the red weal the gun barrel had made across Nybakk’s nose.

‘Say my name one more time,’ Harry whispered and felt himself forcing out the words, ‘and I’ll plaster your head against the wall with the wrong end of the gun.’

With quaking hands Nybakk unlocked the shackle on her foot while Irene stared into the distance, stiff and apathetic, as though none of this concerned her.

‘Irene,’ Harry said. ‘Irene!’

She seemed to wake up, and looked at him.

‘Get out of here,’ he said.

She pinched her eyes as if it cost her every ounce of concentration to interpret the sounds he had made, to convert the words into meaning. And actions. She walked past him and into the cellar passage with a slow, fixed somnambulist gait.

Nybakk had sat down on the mattress and pulled up his trouser leg. He was trying to attach the narrow shackle over his fat white calf.

‘I…’

‘Round your wrist,’ Harry said.

Nybakk obeyed, and Harry jerked the chain to check it was tight enough.

‘Take off the ring and give to me.’

‘Why? It’s just cheap tat-’

‘Because it’s not yours.’

Nybakk coaxed the ring off and passed it to Harry.

‘I know nothing,’ he said.

‘About what?’ Harry asked.

‘About what I know you’re going to ask. About Dubai. I’ve met him twice, but both times I was led there blindfolded, so I don’t know where I was. His two Russians came here and collected goods twice a week, but I never heard any names mentioned. Listen, if it’s money you want I’ve-’

‘Was that it?’

‘Was that what?’

‘Everything. Was it for money?’

Nybakk blinked a couple of times. Shrugged. Harry waited. And then a kind of weary smile flitted across Nybakk’s face. ‘What do you think, Harry?’

He motioned towards his foot.

Harry didn’t answer. Didn’t know if he wanted to hear. He might understand. That for two guys growing up in Oppsal, under the same conditions by and large, an apparent bagatelle of a congenital defect can make life dramatically different for one of them. A few bones out of line, turning the foot inwards. Pes equinovarus. Horse foot. Because the way someone with a club foot walks is redolent of a horse tiptoeing. A defect which gives you a slightly worse start in life, for which you find ways to compensate, or you don’t. Which means you have to compensate a bit more to become Mr Popular, the one they want: the boy who leads out the class team, the cool dude who has cool pals and the girl in the row by the window, the one whose smile makes your heart explode, even though the smile isn’t for you. Stig Nybakk had limped through life, unnoticed. So unnoticed Harry couldn’t remember him. And it had gone reasonably well. He’d got himself an education, worked hard, been made head of a department, had even begun to lead the class team himself. But the essential ingredient was missing. The girl from the row by the window. She was still smiling at the others.

Rich. He had to become rich.

Because money is like cosmetics, it conceals everything, it gets you everything, including those things which it is said are not for sale: respect, admiration, love. You just had to look around; beauty marries money every time. So now it was his turn, Stig Nybakk’s, Club Foot’s.