The Jealousy Man and Other Stories
- Автор: Несбё Ю
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Alfred A. Knopf
- ISBN: 978-0-593-32100-3
- Переводчик: Robert Ferguson
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Jealousy Man and Other Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
A detective with a nose for jealousy is on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a bereaved father must decide whether vengeance has a place in the new world order after a pandemic brings about the collapse of society; a garbage man fresh off a bender tries to piece together what happened the night before; a hired assassin matches wits against his greatest adversary in a dangerous game for survival; and an instantly electric connection between passengers on a flight to London may spell romance, or something more sinister.
With Nesbø’s characteristic gift for outstanding atmosphere and gut-wrenching revelations, The Jealousy Man confirms that he is at the peak of his abilities.
‘I love it,’ she laughed. ‘But why? Why has he come back?’
‘To change something that happened in the universe he’s arrived from.’
‘And that is?’
‘That he didn’t get you. I think you’re the penalty kick he missed.’
‘This is so good! You should make a film about it,’ she said, apparently not noticing that she’d lain a hand on my chest.
‘Maybe,’ I said, and closed my eyes again. It was OK. OK to leave it there. Outside, it had started raining again. Miriam sighed heavily. Without opening my eyes I noticed the light from her phone.
‘I need to tell Mamma I’m spending the night here,’ she said. ‘It’s OK, all she knows is that I’ve rented a room here. She doesn’t know you’re here.’
I mumbled something in response. On the interior of my eyelids I saw once again that naked corpse. The mark on the temple. The white, unblemished skin. No tattoo. Peter. Who had just fallen in love for the first time in his life. Who had not yet had time to make his first mistake, the one that would ensure he never got her. He just looked like a happy boy sleeping.
I was mistaken.
I did manage to sleep.
When the alarm on my phone woke me it was still dark outside.
I looked at her, lying with her back turned to me in the bed. The black hair spread out across the pillow.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said.
She didn’t move. ‘Will you tell Peter that we met?’
‘No, I promised, remember.’
‘Sure you promised, but you’re best friends. I know how it is. Anyway, we’ve established now that all three of us are liars.’ She turned in the bed and smiled at me — at least I saw teeth in the darkness.
‘I don’t know if the guy in Pamplona is any friend of mine,’ I said. ‘But I do know that I love you.’
‘That’s what I call respecting the girl in the morning,’ she muttered, and turned her back on me again.
Once outside I discovered I hadn’t enough cash for a taxi, but at least, as I ran to the bus station, my body built up enough warmth to dry off my clothes, which had been damp and ice-cold when I put them on in the dark.
There was a strange atmosphere on the bus to Pamplona. The passengers fell into three categories. In the first were those who were gearing themselves and their pals up for the bull run, shouting to each other from their seats, laughing loudly to hide their nervousness, punching one another on the shoulder and already on the sangria and the brandy. Then there were those who slept or else tried to. The third group was me, the guy on his own who sat looking out across the landscape, thinking. Who tried to understand and make sense of it all, and each time had to give up and start again. Finally the thinking was interrupted by a phone call from Peter, which I couldn’t take, otherwise he would have known I was sitting on a bus. There was still over an hour until we arrived, and that wouldn’t fit in with the story about it being a local bus.
I didn’t call back until we reached the outskirts of Pamplona.
‘And here was me thinking you’d overslept,’ he said.
‘No way. Meet at Jake’s in fifteen?’
‘I’m there already. See you.’
I pushed the phone down into my pocket. Had there been something in his voice? Something not quite right, some sign that he knew? I had no idea. Had it been Peter I would have known. But the man I had just spoken to was a stranger. I felt as though my brain were about to explode.
Jake’s was so crowded I literally had to force a way between all the men — and the few women — wearing red and white. Peter — or the man calling himself Peter — was seated at the bar. He must have started early. He was wearing a cap and a large pair of sunglasses I hadn’t seen before.
‘Enjoy,’ he said, pointing at a full glass of brandy.
I hesitated. Then I picked up the glass and drank it in one.
‘Scared?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
He nodded at the newspaper on the counter. ‘The bulls today are from the Galavanez farm. People say the bulls from there are real killers.’
‘They do?’
‘What they probably don’t know is that they’re the ones who are going to get killed. This afternoon.’
‘I guess it’s better not to know,’ I said.
‘Yes.’ He looked at me. I looked at him. It was easy to see now. When he’d emerged from the bathroom in San Sebastián and said he’d thrown up, I’d thought the reason he’d lost his tan and looked older was that he was ill. Where had he come from? Which time? Which place?
‘The hour is late,’ he said without looking at his watch. ‘Let’s go.’
We stood in the same place as we had done the day before. That was the plan, that as far as possible the second time should be a replica of the first. Sticking to as many of the variables as possible, as Peter had described it. So that we could focus on the experience itself, not just spend the time processing everything that was new and unknown. Experiencing the same thing, but in a different way. Was that what this Peter had done over the last two days? In the universe he came from, had he and I — or the self I was in that other universe — stood in this same place waiting for the bulls? Of course, things had started to change from the moment he entered this universe, the sequence of events had stopped running in parallel. But how much had he changed? And how much did he want to change? It was unbearable.
Next to us a boy began sobbing convulsively. I recognised him as one of the noisy Americans from the bus. No, it was unbearable and I turned to Peter intending to tell him that I knew who he was — or more accurately, who he wasn’t — when a sound told us that the bulls had been released.
My mouth went dry. I hunched over in a sort of starting position. I don’t know why the runners didn’t spread themselves out more evenly along the route, because actually one place seemed as good as any other. Instead we were gathered in groups. Maybe the idea is that there’s safety in numbers.
‘I’ll run directly behind you,’ said Peter. ‘Between you and the bulls.’
The noise and the shouting got closer, and I seemed to smell panic and blood in the air, the same way the rain on the street the day before had pushed the air in front of it, causing the trees to sway and rustle out a forewarning. A couple of the tourists broke from our crowd and started to run, like those drips falling from the guttering outside the room during the night.
And then there they were. Rounding the corner. One of the bulls slipped on the cobblestones, fell onto his side but rose to his feet again. A body lay in the road where the bull had landed. A shaven-headed man in white ran directly in front of the lead bull, seeming to be steering it with the rolled-up newspaper he held in his hand, using it now to strike the bull on the forehead and now to keep his balance. The swarm around us began to move and I wanted to run, but somebody held me back by my jacket.
‘Wait,’ said Peter calmly behind me.
My mouth was so dry I couldn’t respond.
‘Now,’ he said.
I ran. A little to the left of the middle of the street, as on the previous day. Concentrating on what was in front of me. Not falling. Everything else was beyond my control. Just feeling my way forward. But there was nothing there, white fear blanked out everything else. And then the legs went from under me. A clear and obvious trip. That was all I had time to think before I hit the cobblestones.