The Redeemer

JO NESB
Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

V I N TAGE CR I M E/ BL ACK LI Z A R D

Vintage Books
A Division of Random House LLC
New York

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F I RST V I N TAGE CR I M E / BL ACK LI Z A R D EDI T ION, SEP TE M BER 2014

Translation copyright 2013 by Don Bartlett

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books,
a division of Random House, LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House
Company. Originally published in Norway as Frelseren by H. Aschehoug & Co.
(W. Nygaard), Oslo, in 2005. Copyright 2005 by Jo Nesb. This translation
originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Harvill Secker, an imprint
of the Random House Group Ltd., London, in 2009 and in the United States
by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, in 2013.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
and colophon are trademarks of Random House LLC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Jalma Music for permission
to reprint an excerpt from Alice written by Tom Waits and Kathleen
Brennan, copyright 2002 by Jalma Music (ASCAP). Reprinted
by permission of Jalma Music. All rights reserved.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Nesb, Jo, date-author.
[Frelseren. English]
The Redeemer / Jo Nesb ; translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett.
First American Edition.
pages cm
1. Hole, Harry (Fictitious character)Fiction.
2.PoliceNorwayOsloFiction.
3. Murder for hireNorwayOsloFiction. 4. Oslo (Norway)Fiction.
5. Mystery fiction. I. Bartlett, Don, translator. II. Title.
PT8951.24.E83F7413 2013
839.82'38dc23 2012047015
Vintage Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-307-74298-8
eBook: 978-0-307-59673-4
Book design by Cassandra Pappas
www.weeklylizard.com
Printed in the United States of America
10987654321

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pa r t on e

Advent

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au g u s t 19 91

The Stars
She was fourteen years old and sure that if she shut her eyes
tight and concentrated she could see the stars through the
roof.
All around her, women were breathing. Regular, heavy,
nighttime breathing. One was snoring, and that was Auntie Sara, who had been given a mattress beneath the open
window.
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe like the others. It was difficult to sleep, especially because everything
around her was so new and different. The sounds of the
night and the forest beyond the window in stgrd were
different. The people she knew from the meetings in the
citadel and the summer camps were somehow not the same.
She was not the same, either. The face and body she saw in
the mirror this summer were new. And her emotions, these
strange hot and cold currents that flowed through her when
the boys looked at her. Or when one of them in particular
looked at her. Robert. He was different this year, too.
She opened her eyes again and stared. She knew God
had the power to do great things, even allow her to see the
stars through the roof. If it was His wish.
It had been a long and eventful day. The dry summer
wind had whispered through the corn, and the leaves on the

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trees danced as if in a fever, causing the light to filter through

to the visitors on the field. They had been listening to one of
the Salvation Army cadets from the officer-t raining school
talking about his work as a preacher on the Faeroe Islands.
He was good-looking and spoke with great sensitivity and
passion. But she was preoccupied with shooing away a bumblebee that kept buzzing around her head, and by the time
it moved off, the heat had made her drowsy. When the cadet
finished, all faces were turned to the territorial commander,
David Eckhoff, who had been observing them with his smiling, young eyes, which were actually over fifty years old. He
saluted in the Salvation Army manner, with his right hand
raised above his shoulder and pointing to the kingdom of
heaven, amid a resounding shout of Hallelujah! Then he
prayed for the cadets work with the poor and the pariahs to
be blessed, and reminded them of the Gospel of Matthew,
where it said that Jesus the Redeemer was among them, a
stranger on the street, maybe a criminal, without food and
without clothing. And that on Judgment Day the righteous,
those who had helped the weakest, would have eternal life.
It had all the makings of a long speech, but then someone
whispered something and he said, with a smile, that Youth
Hour was next on the program and today it was Rikard
Nilsens turn.
She had heard Rikard make his voice deeper than it was
to thank the commander. As usual, he had prepared what he
was going to say in writing and memorized it. He stood up
and recited how he was going to devote his life to the fight,
to Jesuss fight for the kingdom of God. His voice was nervous, yet monotonous and soporific. His introverted glower
rested on her. Her eyes were heavy. His sweaty top lip was
moving to form the familiar, secure, tedious phrases. So she
didnt react when the hand touched her back. Not until it
became fingertips and they wandered down to the small of
her back, and lower, and made her freeze beneath her thin
summer dress.

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She turned and looked into Roberts smiling brown eyes.

And she wished her skin were as dark as his so that he would
not be able to see her blush.
Shh, Jon had said.
Robert and Jon were brothers. Although Jon was one
year older, many people had taken them for twins when
they were younger. But Robert was seventeen now and
while they had retained some facial similarities, the differences were clearer. Robert was happy and carefree, liked to
tease and was good at playing the guitar, but was not always
punctual for services in the citadel, and sometimes the teasing had a tendency to go too far, especially if he noticed
others were laughing. Then Jon would often step in. Jon
was an honest, conscientious boy who most thought would
go to officer-training school and wouldthough this was
never formulated out loudfind himself a girl in the Army.
The latter could not be taken for granted in Roberts case.
Jon was three-quarters of an inch taller than Robert, but
in some strange way Robert seemed taller. From the age of
twelve Jon had begun to stoop, as though he were carrying
the woes of the world on his back. Both were d
ark-skinned,
good-looking, with regular features, but Robert had something Jon did not have. There was something in his eyes,
something black and playful, which she wanted and yet did
not want to investigate further.
While Rikard was talking, her eyes were wandering
across the sea of assembled familiar faces. One day she
would marry a boy from the Salvation Army and perhaps
they would both be posted to another town or another part
of the country. But they would always return to stgrd,
which the Army had just bought and was to be their summer site from now on.
On the margins of the crowd, sitting on the steps leading
to the house, was a boy with blond hair stroking a cat that
had settled in his lap. She could tell that he had been watching her, but he had looked away just as she noticed. He was

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the one person here she didnt know, but she did know that
his name was Mads Gilstrup, that he was the grandchild of
the people who had owned stgrd before, that he was a
couple of years older than her and that the Gilstrup family
was wealthy. He was attractive, in fact, but there was something solitary about him. And what was he doing here, anyway? He had been there the previous night, walking around
with an angry frown on his face, not talking to anyone. She
had felt his eyes on her a few times. Everyone looked at her
this year. That was new, too.
She was jerked out of these thoughts by Robert taking
her hand, putting something in it and saying: Come to
the barn when the general-in-waiting has finished. Ive got
something to show you.
Then he stood up and walked off, and she looked down
into her hand and almost screamed. With one hand over her
mouth, she dropped the object into the grass. It was a bumblebee. It could still move, despite not having legs or wings.
At last Rikard finished, and she sat watching her parents and Robert and Jons parents moving toward the tables
where the coffee was. They were both what Army people
in their respective Oslo congregations called strong families, and she knew watchful eyes were on her.
She walked toward the outhouse. Once she was around
the corner, where no one could see her, she scurried in the
direction of the barn.
Do you know what this is? said Robert with the smile
in his eyes and the deep voice he had not had the summer
before.
He was lying on his back in the hay whittling a tree root
with the penknife he always carried in his belt.
Then he held it up and she saw what it was. She had seen
drawings. She hoped it was too dark for him to see her blush
again.
No, she lied, sitting beside him in the hay.
And he gave her that teasing look of his, as if he knew

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something about her she

didnt even know herself. She
returned his gaze and fell back on her elbows.
This is where it goes, he said, and in an instant his
hand was up her dress. She could feel the hard tree root
against the inside of her thigh and, before she could close
her legs, it was touching her underpants. His breath was hot
on her neck.
No, Robert, she whispered.
But I made it for you, he wheezed in return.
Stop. I dont want to.
Are you saying no? To me?
She caught her breath and was unable either to answer
or to scream because at that moment they heard Jons voice
from the barn door: Robert! No, Robert!
She felt him relax and let go, and the tree root was left
between her clenched thighs as he withdrew his hand.
Come here! Jon said, as though talking to a disobedient dog.
With a chuckle Robert got up, winked at her and ran out
into the sun to his brother.
She sat up and brushed the hay off her, feeling both
relieved and ashamed at the same time. Relieved because
Jon had spoiled their crazy game. Ashamed because he
seemed to think it was more than that: a game.
Later, during grace before their evening meal, she had
looked up straight into Roberts brown eyes and seen his
lips form one word. She didnt know what it was, but she
had started to giggle. He was crazy! And she was...well,
what was she? Crazy, too. Crazy. And in love? Yes, in love,
precisely that. And not in the way she had been when she
was twelve or thirteen. Now she was fourteen and this was
bigger. More important. And more exciting.
She could feel the laughter bubbling up inside her now,
as she lay there trying to stare through the roof.
Auntie Sara grunted and stopped snoring beneath the
window. Something screeched. An owl?

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She needed to pee.

She didnt feel like going out, but she had to. Had to
walk through the dewy grass past the barn, which was dark
and quite a different proposition in the middle of the night.
She closed her eyes, but it didnt help. She crept out of her
sleeping bag, slipped on some sandals and tiptoed over to
the door.
A few stars had appeared in the sky, but they would disappear when day broke in the east in an hours time. The
cool air caressed her skin as she scampered along, listening to the unidentifiable sounds of the night. Insects that
stayed quiet during the day. Animals hunting. Rikard said
he had seen foxes in the distant copse. Or perhaps the animals were the same ones that were out during the day, but
just made different sounds. They changed. Shed their skins,
so to speak.
The outhouse stood alone on a small mound behind the
barn. She watched it grow in size as she came closer. The
strange, crooked hut had been made with untreated wooden
boards that had warped, split and turned gray. No windows,
a heart on the door. The worst thing about it was that you
never knew if anyone was already in there.
And she had an instinct that someone was already in
there.
She coughed so that whoever was there might signal his
presence. A magpie took off from a branch on the edge of
the wood. Otherwise all was still.
She stepped up onto the flagstone. Grabbed the lump
of wood that passed for a door handle. Pulled it. The black
room gaped open.
She breathed out. There was a flashlight beside the toilet seat, but she didnt need to switch it on. She raised the
seat lid before closing the door and fastening the door hook.
Then she pulled up her nightgown, pulled down her underwear and sat down. In the ensuing silence she thought she
heard something. Something that was neither animal nor

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magpie nor insects shedding skin. Something that moved

fast through the tall grass behind the toilet. Then the
trickle started and the noise was obscured. But her heart
had already started pounding.
When she had finished, she quickly pulled up her underpants and sat in the dark listening. But all she could hear was
a faint ripple in the tops of the trees and her blood throbbing in her ears. She waited for her pulse to slow down, then
she unhooked the catch and opened the door. The dark figure filled almost the entire doorway. He must have been
standing and waiting silently outside on the stone step. The
next minute she was splayed over the toilet seat and he stood
above her. He closed the door behind him.
You? she said.
Me, he said in an alien, tremulous, husky voice.
Then he was on top of her. His eyes glittered in the dark
as he bit her lower lip until he drew blood and one hand
found the way under her nightgown and tore off her underwear. She lay there crippled with fear beneath the knife
blade that stung the skin on her neck while he kept thrusting his groin into her before he had even got his trousers
off, like some crazed, copulating dog.
One word from you and Ill cut you into pieces, he
whispered. And not one word issued from her mouth.
Because she was fourteen years old and sure that if she shut
her eyes tightly and concentrated she would be able to see
the stars through the roof. God had the power to do things
like that. If it was His wish.

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2
s u n d a y, d e c e m b e r 1 4 , 2 0 0 3

The Visit
He studied his reflected features in the train window. Tried
to see what it was, where the secret lay. But he saw nothing
in particular, apart from the red neckerchief, just an expressionless face and eyes and hair that, approaching the walls of
the tunnels between Courcelles and Ternes, was as black as
the eternal night of the mtro. Le Monde lay in his lap, forecasting snow, but above him the streets of Paris were still
cold and deserted beneath impenetrable, low-lying cloud
cover. His nostrils flared and drew in the faint but distinct
smell of damp cement, human perspiration, hot metal, eau
de cologne, tobacco, wet wool and bile, a smell they never
managed to wash out of the train seats, or to ventilate.
The pressure created by an oncoming train made the
windows vibrate, and the darkness was temporarily banished by the pale squares of light that flashed past. He
pulled up the sleeve of his coat and checked his watch, a
Seiko SQ50 that he had received as partial payment from a
client. There were already scratches on the glass, so he was
not sure it was a genuine item. A quarter past seven. It was
Sunday evening and the car was no more than half full. He
looked around him. People slept on the mtro; they always
did. On weekdays, in particular. Switched off, closed their
eyes and let the daily journey become a dreamless interval

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11

of nothing between the red or the blue lines on the mtro

map, a mute connecting line between work and freedom.
He had read about a man who had sat like this for a whole
day, eyes closed, to and fro, and it was only when they came
to clean the car at the end of the day that they discovered he
was dead. Perhaps he had descended into the catacombs for
this very purpose, to draw a blue connecting line between
life and the beyond in this pale yellow coffin, knowing he
would be undisturbed.
As for himself, he was forming a connecting line in the
other direction. Back to life. There was this job tonight and
then the one in Oslo. The last job. Then he would be out of
the catacombs for good.
A dissonant signal screamed before the doors closed in
Ternes. They picked up speed again.
He closed his eyes, trying to imagine the other smell.
The smell of urinal blocks and hot, fresh urine. The smell
of freedom. But perhaps it was true what his mother, the
teacher, had said. That the human brain can reproduce
detailed images of everything you have seen or heard, but
not even the most basic smell.
Smell. The images began to flash past on the inside of
his eyelids. He had been fifteen years old, sitting in the corridor of the hospital in Vukovar, listening to his mother
repeat the mumbled prayer to Thomas the Apostle, the
patron saint of construction workers, to let God spare her
husband. He had heard the rumble of the Serbian artillery
firing from the river and the screams of those being operated on in the infants ward, where there were no longer any
infants because the women of the town had stopped producing after the siege started. He had worked as an errand
boy in the hospital and learned to shut out the noises, the
screams and the artillery. But not the smells. And one smell
above all others. Surgeons performing an amputation first
had to cut through the flesh to the bone, and then, so that
patients did not bleed to death, to use something that looked

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jo n esb

like a soldering iron to cauterize the blood vessels so that

they were closed off. The smell of burned flesh and blood
was like nothing else.
A doctor came into the corridor and waved him and his
mother in. Approaching the bed, he had not dared to look at
his father; he had just concentrated on the big brown hand
clutching the mattress and trying, as it seemed, to tear it in
two. It could have succeeded, for these were the strongest
hands in the town. His father was a steel-benderhe was
the person who went on building sites when the bricklayers
were finished, put his large hands around the ends of the
protruding steel used to reinforce the concrete, and with
one quick, practiced movement, bent the ends of the steel
poles and wove them into each other. He had seen his father
working; it looked like he was wringing a cloth. No one had
invented a machine that did the job better.
He squeezed his eyes shut as he heard his father scream
out in pain and anguish: Take the boy out!
But he asked
Out!
The doctors voice: The bleeding has stopped. Lets
get cracking now! Someone grabbed him under the arms
and lifted him. He tried to struggle, but he was so small, so
light. And that was when he noticed the smell. Burned flesh
and blood.
The last thing he heard was the doctors voice:
Saw, please.
The door slammed behind him and he sank down onto
his knees and continued to pray where his mother had left
off. Save him. Maim him, but save him. God had the power
to do things like that. If it was His wish.
He felt someone watching him, opened his eyes and was
back in the mtro. On the seat opposite was a woman with
taut jaw muscles and a weary, distant gaze that moved away
when it met his. The second hand on his wristwatch jerked
forward as he repeated the address to himself. He felt his

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13

pulse. Normal. His head was light, but not too light. He
was neither hot nor cold, felt neither fear nor pleasure, neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. The train was slowing
down. Charles de Gaulletoile. He sent the woman a final
glance. She had been studying him, but if she should ever
meet him again, maybe even tonight, she still would not
recognize him.
He got to his feet and waited by the doors. The brakes
gave a low lament. Urinal blocks and urine. And freedom.
As impossible to imagine as a smell. The doors slid open.
Harry stepped onto the platform and stood inhaling the
warm underground air as he read the address on the slip of
paper. He heard the doors close and felt the draft of air on
his back as the train set off again. Then he walked toward
the exit. An advertisement over the escalator told him
there were ways of avoiding colds. Like hell there are, he
coughed, stuffing a hand down the deep pocket of his wool
coat and finding the pack of cigarettes under the hip flask
and the tin of throat lozenges.
The cigarette bobbed up and down in his mouth as he
walked through the glass exit door, leaving the raw, unnatural heat of Oslos underground behind him, and ran up the
steps to Oslos ultra-natural December darkness and freezing temperatures. Harry instinctively shrank. Egertorget.
This small, open square was an intersection between pedestrian streets in the heart of Oslo, if the city could be said to
have a heart at this time of the year. Shops were open this
Sunday since it was the penultimate weekend before Christmas, and the square was teeming with people hurrying to
and fro in the yellow light that fell from the windows of the
surrounding modest t hree-story shops. Harry saw the bags
of wrapped presents and made a mental note to buy something for Bjarne Mller, whose last day at Police HQ was
tomorrow. Harrys boss and chief protector in the police

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force for all these years was at long last realizing his plans
to reduce his hours, and from next week onward would take
over as a s o-called senior special investigator at the Bergen
police station, which meant in reality that Bjarne Mller
could do as he liked until he retired. Cushy setupbut Bergen? Rain and dank mountains. Mller didnt

even come
from Bergen. Harry had always
liked
but not always
appreciatedBjarne Mller.
A man dressed head to toe in a down jacket and trousers
slowly waddled past like an astronaut, grinning and blowing frosted breath from round, pink cheeks. Stooped shoulders and closed winter faces. Harry spotted a p
allid-faced
woman wearing a thin, black leather jacket with holes in the
elbows standing by the jewelers, hopping from one foot to
the other as her eyes searched, hoping to find her supplier
soon. A beggar, long-haired and unshaven, but well covered
in warm, fashionable, youthful clothing, sat in a yoga position, leaning against a lamppost, his head bent forward as
if in meditation, with a brown paper cup from a cappuccino
bar in front of him. Harry had seen more and more beggars
over the last year, and it had struck him that they all looked
the same. Even the paper cups were identical, as though it
were a secret code. Perhaps they were creatures from outer
space quietly taking over his town, his streets. No problem.
Feel free.
Harry entered the jewelers shop.
Can you fix this? he said to the young man behind
the counter, passing him his grandfathers watch. Harry had
been given it when he was a boy in ndalsnes, the day they
had buried his mother. He had almost been frightened, but
his granddad had reassured him that watches were the sort
of thing you gave away, and Harry should remember to pass
it on. Before its too late.
Harry had forgotten all about the watch until Oleg visited him in his flat on Sofies Gate and had seen the silver
watch in a drawer while he was looking for Harrys Game

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15

Boy. Oleg, who was ten years old, but had long had the measure of Harry at their shared passiont he rather outdated
computer game Tetriswas suddenly oblivious to the duel
he had been looking forward to, and instead sat fiddling
with the watch, trying to make it go.
Its broken, Harry said.
Ooof, Oleg answered. Everything can be repaired.
Harry hoped in his heart of hearts that this contention
was true, but he had days when he had severe doubts. Nonetheless, he had wondered in a vague way whether he should
introduce Oleg to Jokke & Valentinerne and their album
Everything Can Be Repaired. However, on reflection, Harry
had concluded that Olegs mother, Rakel, was unlikely to
appreciate the connection: her ex-alcoholic lover passing on
songs about being an alcoholic, written and sung by a now-
dead junkie.
Can you repair it? he asked the young man behind the
counter. By way of an answer, nimble, expert hands opened
the watch.
Not worth it.
Not worth it?
If you go to an antique shop, they have b
etter-working
watches and they cost less than it would to have this fixed.
Do it anyway, Harry said.
OK, said the young man, who had already started
examining the internal mechanisms and, in fact, seemed
pretty pleased with Harrys decision. Come back on Tuesday.
On leaving the shop Harry heard the frail sound of a single guitar string through an amplifier. It rose when the guitarist, a boy with scraggly facial hair and fingerless gloves,
turned one of the tuning keys. It was time for one of the
traditional pre-Christmas concerts, when w
ell-k nown artists performed on behalf of the Salvation Army in Egertorget. People had already begun to gather in front of the band
as it took up a position behind the Salvation A rmys black

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Christmas kettle, a cooking pot that hung from three poles

in the middle of the square.
Is that you?
Harry turned. It was the woman with the junkie eyes.
Its you, isnt it? Have you come instead of Snoopy? I
need a fix right away. Ive
Sorry, Harry interrupted. Its not me you want.
She stared at him. Leaning her head to one side, she narrowed her eyes, as though appraising whether he was lying
to her. Yep, Ive seen you somewhere before.
Im a policeman.
She paused. Harry breathed in. There was a delayed
reaction, as if the message had to follow detours around
scorched neurons and smashed synapses. Then the dull
glow of hatred that Harry had been waiting for lit up in her
eyes.
The cops?
Thought we had a deal. You were supposed to stay in
the square, in Plata, Harry said, looking past her at the
vocalist.
Huh, said the woman, standing straight in front of
Harry. Youre not in Narcotics. Youre the guy on the TV
who k illed
Crime Squad. Harry took her by the arm. Listen, you
can get what you want in Plata. Dont force me to drag you
into the station.
Cannot. She tore her arm away.
Harry held up both hands. Tell me youre not going to
do any deals here and I can go. OK?
She cocked her head. The thin, anemic lips tightened a
fraction. She seemed to see something amusing in the situation. Should I tell you why I cant go to the square?
Harry waited.
Because my boys down there.
He felt his stomach churn.

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17

I dont want him to see me like this. Do you understand, cop?

Harry looked into her defiant face as he tried to formulate a sentence. Merry Christmas, he said, turning his
back on her.
Harry dropped his cigarette into the packed brown snow
and walked off. He wanted this job off his back. He didnt
see the people coming toward him, and, staring down at the
blue ice as if they had a bad conscience, they didnt

see him,
either, as if they, citizens of the worlds most generous social
democracy, were nonetheless ashamed. Because my boys down
there.
On Fredensborgveien, beside O
slos Deichmanske Public Library, Harry stopped outside the street number that
was scrawled on the envelope he was carrying. He leaned
back and looked up. The faade was gray and black and
had recently been repainted. A graffiti artists wet dream.
Christmas decorations were already hanging from some of
the windows like silhouettes against the gentle yellow light
in what seemed like warm, secure homes. And perhaps they
are indeed that, Harry forced himself to think. Forced,
because you cant be in the police for twelve years without
being infected by the contempt for humanity that comes
with the territory. But he did fight against it; you had to give
him that.
He found the name by the bell, closed his eyes and tried
to find the right words. It didnt help. Her voice was still in
the way.
I dont want him to see me like this...
Harry gave up. Is there a right way to formulate the
impossible?
He pressed his thumb against the cold metal button, and
somewhere inside the building it rang.

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5/9/14 10:59 AM

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