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.
The waves were breaking in the same brutal way as they did against the rocks outside my hotel. The sound was more long-drawn-out, that was the difference. The waves rolled. Franz Schmid was on a beach.
‘So I condemned him,’ he said. ‘But I’m a Californian, so I didn’t condemn him to death, but to life imprisonment. Isn’t that a suitable punishment for ruining a life? Isn’t that the punishment you would have handed out yourself, Balli? Yes? No? Or aren’t you an opponent of the death penalty?’
I didn’t reply. Noticed George was looking at me.
‘I’m letting Julian rot in his own little love-prison,’ said Franz. ‘And I’ve thrown the key away. Although life sentence... The kind of life he has now, that won’t last long.’
‘Where is he?’
‘What you said about me not being able to get away...’
‘Where is he, Franz?’
‘...that isn’t quite accurate. I’m about to fly out of here on flight nine nineteen, so farewell, Nikos Balli.’
‘Franz, tell us where — Franz? Franz!’
‘Did he hang up?’ asked George, who was on his feet.
I shook my head. Listened. Nothing but wind and waves now.
‘The airport is still closed?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Have you heard of flight nine nineteen?’
George Kostopoulos shook his head.
‘He’s alone on a beach,’ I said.
‘Kalymnos is full of beaches. And at night when it’s stormy you won’t find a single person on any of them.’
‘A long, shallow beach. It sounds as though the waves are breaking far out and rolling in for some distance.’
‘I’ll call Christine and ask her, she’s a surfer.’
The car that had been rented in Franz Schmid’s name was found next morning.
It was parked in a turning circle by a sandy beach midway between Pothia and Massouri. A trail of footprints, still visible despite the wind, led from the driver’s side directly into the sea. George and I stood in the gusting wind and watched the divers struggling against the breakers. At the southern end of the beach the waves washed up against sloping, slippery rocks which, further inland, reared up in a vertical wall, a yellow-brown limestone wall that reached all the way to the top where the airport was. Further along the beach, Christine with her golden retriever was trying to pick up a trail. The dog had been born with only one working eye, she had told me during a coffee break at the station, that’s why she named him Odin. And when I asked her why she had chosen Odin instead of something one-eyed from our own mythology, such as Polyphemus, she looked at me and said: ‘Odin is shorter.’
According to George, Odin was a good tracker. Christine had taken him into Franz and Julian’s room so he would know which scent to follow, and when we reached the beach he ran straight over to the car and stood there barking until George managed to get the door open. Inside the car we found Franz Schmid’s clothes: shoes, trousers, underwear, the rainbow-patterned St Pauli cap and a jacket with his phone and wallet.
‘So he was right,’ said George. ‘He did manage to get away.’
‘Yes,’ I said as my gaze glided over the foaming breakers. George had got hold of two divers from the local club. One of them was signalling with his hand to the other and trying to say something, but the sound of the waves drowned him out.
‘You think this is where he dumped Julian’s body?’ asked George.
‘Maybe. If he killed him.’
‘You’re thinking about what he said about imprisoning his brother for life instead?’
‘Maybe he did. Or maybe not. Maybe he exposed Julian to a situation in which he knew that Julian would not just die but suffer first.’
‘For example?’
‘I don’t know. The rage of jealousy is like love. It’s a madness that can make people do things they would normally never dream of doing.’
My gaze switched to the rocks, sloping and polished smooth by the waves. Franz could have waded over there, come ashore again someplace that left no footprints and got away. On flight nine nineteen? What did that mean? To get up to the airport he would have had to either return to the road or climb straight up.
Without a rope.
Free solo.
I couldn’t help it; I closed my eyes and saw Trevor fall.
Opened them again quickly so as not to see him hit the ground.
Concentrated.
Franz Schmid had perhaps stood here too, seen and thought the same as me. That the airport is closed. That every exit route is blocked. Apart from this one. The last one. But it’s difficult to just swim out to sea and drown yourself. It takes time, it takes willpower not to submit to the survival instinct and turn.
‘We found this in the shallows.’
George and I turned. It was one of the divers. He was holding up a gun.
George took it, turned it over a couple of times. ‘Looks old,’ he said, prodding at the underside where the magazine was.
‘Luger, Second World War,’ I said and took the gun from him. There was no rust on it, and the way the water pearled on it showed that it was still well oiled, so it couldn’t have been lying long in the sea. I pressed the release catch on the side of the trigger guard, removed the magazine and handed it to George. ‘Eight if it’s full.’
George squeezed out the bullets. ‘Seven,’ he said.
I nodded. Felt an infinite sadness come over me. The wind was forecast to ease by tomorrow evening, and the sun to go on shining, but inside me it had clouded over. I could usually tell whether it was just passing, or a new period of darkness was on its way. But right at that moment I didn’t know.
‘Flight nine nineteen,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘That’s the calibre of those bullets you’re holding in your hand.’
When I rang my chief in the Homicide Department with my report, he told me that the press in Athens were on the case, a number of journalists and photographers were in Kos and just waiting for the weather to fair up enough for a boat to take them over.
I headed back to my hotel in Massouri and ordered a bottle of ouzo for my room. I drink any brand apart from the now unfortunately commercialised and watered-down Ouzo 12, but I was pleased when I saw they actually had my favourite Pitsiladi.
As I drank I reflected over how strange it had all been. A murder case with two dead, but no bodies. No invasive press, no harassed chief and no stressed investigating groups. No vague lab technicians and pathologists, no hysterical next of kin. Only a storm and silence. I hoped that storm could last forever.
After I’d drunk almost half the bottle I went down to the bar so as not to drink the rest. I saw Victoria Hässel sitting at a table with some people from the other climbing group I had seen the previous day. I sat at the bar and ordered a beer.
‘Excuse me?’
British accent. I half turned. A man, smiling, check shirt, white hair but in good shape for his age, around sixty. I’d seen several like him here, English climbers of the old school. They grew up climbing trad, meaning routes without bolts permanently fixed to the mountain, where they had to provide for their own safety in cracks and holes. On gritstone in the Lake District, where the routes were graded not only by how hard they were to climb but also how great the danger to life was. Where it rained, or was too cold, or was so hot that the eggs of a particularly bloodthirsty type of mosquito hatched and ate you alive. Englishmen loved it.
‘Do you remember me?’ said the man. ‘We were in the same rope team near Sheffield. Must have been in ’85 or ’86.’
I shook my head.