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.
From here we had a view of pretty much everything. The main road, the cars, Massouri centre, people like tiny black ants down there. Along the bare hillside below us I could see climbers approaching along the track.
‘You might not believe this,’ said Victoria, ‘but when the wind’s like this the ropes can blow right up and end high up in the mountain and snag up there.’
‘If you say so then I’ll believe it.’
‘Believe it,’ she said. ‘What’s this about, Mr Balli?’
‘Oh, that can wait until your climber is down.’
‘It’s an easy passage, go ahead, talk.’
‘I seem to remember hearing there’s a rule that you should concentrate on your climber when you’re securing the rope.’
‘Thanks for the advice,’ she said with a crooked smile. ‘But why not just leave that to me?’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘But can I point out that your climber just clipped the wrong way round onto that last carabiner?’
Victoria Hässel looked sharply at me. Looked up at the carabiner I was talking about. Realised I was right and that the rope was running in the wrong direction. If he fell and he was unlucky the rope could slip out of the carabiner and he would keep on falling.
‘I saw that,’ she lied. ‘Any moment now he’ll hook the rope into the next carabiner and then he’ll be secure.’
I coughed. ‘Looks like the crux is coming up now, and if you ask me it looks as if it might give him trouble. If he falls there and the carabiner doesn’t take the fall, then the next one’s so low it won’t stop him before he hits the ground. Agree?’
‘Alex!’ she shouted.
‘Yes?’
‘You’ve threaded the rope the wrong way round on the previous carabiner. Don’t go any higher. Try to climb down and clip it on right!’
‘I think I better carry on up to the next bolt and clip on the right way there.’
‘No, Alex, don’t...’
But Alex had already moved away from the good fingertip holds and was on his way up to a large downward sloping hold which probably looked good to him but which, to the trained eye, appeared to have too much resin over it from where climbers before him had tried and failed to get a hold. And from where he was dangling there were no possibilities of retreat. His trouser legs flapped. Not because of the wind but as a result of the stress reaction climbers call ‘the sewing machine’ which, sooner or later, affects everybody. I watched as Victoria took up as much of the rope as she could to make it as short as possible, but it was too little, Alex would hit our shelf.
‘Alex, you have a foothold up on the right!’ shouted Victoria, who had also realised what was about to happen. But it was too late, Alex was about to get chicken wings, the elbows rose up, a sure sign that his strength had given out.
‘He’s falling, you’ve got to jump,’ I said quietly.
‘Alex!’ she called, paying no attention to me. ‘Get your foot up, then you’ll make it!’
I grabbed hold of her harness with both hands.
‘What the fuck are you—’ she snarled, half turning towards me.
My gaze was fixed on Alex. He screamed. And fell. I dragged Victoria backwards, spun her round me like a hammer thrower and tossed her off the shelf. Her short sharp shriek drowned out Alex’s longer howl. The logic was simple: I had to get her somewhere lower as quickly as possible so that her body weight could arrest his fall before he hit the ground.
Both the part of the rope on its way up and the part travelling down tensed, and then suddenly all was silence. The screams, the shouts exchanged between the other climbers, the very wind itself seemed to be holding its breath.
I looked up.
Alex was hanging in the rope some way up the face. The reverse-mounted hook had held him after all. OK, so today I didn’t save anybody’s life. I stepped to the edge of the ledge and looked down at Victoria Hässel. She was dangling on her harness on the rope below the locking mechanism two metres below me and staring up, her eyes dark with shock.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Thanks,’ I said to Victoria as she poured coffee from a Thermos into two plastic cups and handed one to me.
She had sent Alex to join a team higher up the mountain while she and I remained sitting on the ledge.
‘I’m the one who should say thanks.’
‘For what? The hook held the rope, so it would have worked out all right anyway. And you banged your knee.’
‘But you did the right thing.’
I shrugged. ‘We’ll let that be our consolation, right?’
She gave a crooked smile and blew on her coffee. ‘So you’re a climber?’
‘Was,’ I said. ‘Haven’t touched stone in almost forty years.’
‘Forty years is a long time. What happened?’
‘Yeah, what happened? What happened here, by the way? I read there was a fatal accident.’
As unpleasant as the subject was, Victoria Hässel grabbed the chance to talk about something she knew wasn’t what I had come to talk to her about.
‘It was a classic mistake. They forgot to check the length of the route against the length of the rope, and not even put a knot in the end of the rope. On the way down the safety man didn’t notice there was no more rope left until it was too late. With no knot in the end of the rope it ran out through the belay device, leaving the climber in free fall. Eight metres, you might think you would survive that. But he landed head first on the stone and in that case even two metres can be enough.’
‘Human error,’ I said.
‘Isn’t it always? When was the last time you heard it was the rope that broke or the bolts that came loose from the rock?’
‘True enough.’
‘It’s just too fucking awful.’ She shook her head. ‘But all the same. I read somewhere that in places where there’s been a climbing fatality, you often see a marked increase in the number of climbers there.’
‘Really?’
‘Not many people say it out loud. But if there wasn’t a certain amount of risk involved, you wouldn’t get many people climbing.’
‘Adrenaline junkies?’
‘Yes and no. I don’t think it’s fear we become addicted to but control. The feeling of mastering danger, mastering our own fate. Of exerting a control we don’t have over the rest of our lives. We are slightly heroic because we don’t make mistakes in critical situations.’
‘Right up until the day we lose control and make that mistake,’ I said and took a sip of coffee. It was good. ‘If, that is, it is a mistake.’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly.
‘Franz rang you eight times that night after he and Julian had quarrelled. The next day Julian was missing. What did he want?’
‘I don’t know. Arrange a climb maybe. Maybe he didn’t have a partner after the quarrel.’
‘According to his call log you never rang back. But you rang Julian’s phone. Why?’
She pulled on a fleece jumper and warmed her hands around the coffee cup. She nodded slowly. ‘They are similar, Franz and Julian. And yet different. Julian is easier to talk to. But I called just to make sure people hadn’t forgotten the most obvious possibility, that Julian might be somewhere and have his phone with him.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Sure, they’re similar and yet different. They obviously have different tastes in music. Led Zeppelin and...’ I had already forgotten that crooner’s name. ‘But they like the same girl.’
‘Guess they do.’
I looked at her. My jealousy radar wasn’t picking up anything. So this wasn’t about romance, she wasn’t in love with Julian, or having a relationship with him. Franz had not been trying to get in touch with Victoria to ask for help in trying to spoil things for Julian and Helena. So what was it then?