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 looked out over the sea again. The silent sea that witnessed fates such as ours being played out each second of each day. And twinkled and sparkled just the same.
‘Yes, I hear you,’ I said. ‘You swear on your life.’
Another rat scampered across the wet, sloping rock, the sun catching on its long tail.
Then — without a word or a gesture of farewell — I walked down to the jetty and the boat that waited for me.
That night I drove through the city streets again, looking for Amy or someone who could tell me something. The following day I was back at the police station in Downtown asking for news, asking them to investigate, trying to persuade them that Brad Lowe was behind it. And again all I met was closed doors and deaf ears, and I was finally asked to leave the station.
As I walked across the large car park outside the shopping mall I saw someone leaned up against my car. It was Chief Inspector Gardell.
‘How’s the search going?’ she asked.
I shook my head.
‘Want a tip you didn’t get from me?’
I looked at her. Nodded.
She took a sheet of paper out of a folder and handed it to me.
I studied it. An address, with a name I recognised.
‘This was one of Lowe’s partners,’ I said. ‘You think Amy might be there?’
Gardell shrugged. ‘We’ve had complaints from the neighbours. Drugs, gunshots and partying late into the night. Seems like Brad Lowe and his gang have moved in there.’
‘But you haven’t done anything?’
‘Complaints about noise aren’t a top priority for us right now.’
‘But gunfire and illegal occupation, aren’t those pretty serious?’
‘We’ve had no complaints from the owner. And for all we know the people living in his house have a firearms licence.
I nodded. ‘I’ll get up there and check it.’
‘Not sure I would do that,’ said Gardell.
‘No?’
‘With so many weapons around it’s not advisable just to turn up and ring on the doorbell. At least not alone.’
I looked at her. ‘But you won’t help me.’
Gardell took off her sunglasses and squinted with one eye in the sunlight.
‘You’re not the only one saying that these past few months.’
‘I’m not?’
‘No.’ She handed me the folder. I opened it and flipped through the documents. They were reports. Armed robbery. Causing bodily harm. Grievous bodily harm. Rape. Twenty, maybe thirty of them.
‘And what is the connection?’
‘Brad Lowe and his gang,’ said Gardell. ‘This is just a selection, but I think it might interest you.’
I looked at her again. ‘I think I know what you’re risking by doing this, Chief Inspector. So why are you doing it?’
She sighed. Put the sunglasses on again. ‘Why do we do anything at all in this fucked-up world?’
Then she left.
In the course of that afternoon I spoke to most of those who had signed the complaints in the folder.
The ones I contacted first were those who had been raped. On the assumption that they, or their fathers or brothers, would be most highly motivated and easiest to persuade. But presently I realised that what Gardell had given me was already some kind of shortlist of names of people who not only had good reasons to want revenge but were physically and mentally capable of getting it. At least if they weren’t acting alone.
‘You mean vigilantes?’ said one of those I spoke to.
I savoured the word. It represented everything I was against. At least, in a society in which there was an already functioning judicial system it did. But in the absence of such a thing then it wasn’t vigilante activity as such but the best alternative means of getting justice. That was the way to look at it: not as breaking the law but as a kind of emergency supplement to the law.
I tried to explain this to the person involved, but the legal terms I used might have made it difficult to follow my reasoning.
‘Sounds like vigilantes to me,’ he said. ‘I’m in.’
By that evening I was able to tell Heidi that I had the backing of fifteen grown men. And that one of them had undertaken to provide us with weapons.
I had expected her to be pleased — or at least to snap out of that darkly apathetic mood she’d sunk into since the attack — but instead she just stared at me as though I were a stranger.
‘Find Amy,’ was all she said, and closed the door to our bedroom.
I slept in the living room and heard an animal howling and howling out there in the night, and the dull thuds of exploding grenades that might have been a block away or ten blocks away, it was impossible to tell. I don’t know what kind of animal it was, but it sounded big. I’d heard about the fire in the zoological gardens the previous night and how they had had to release the animals to save them. Good idea, I thought. But if that particular animal was edible... I didn’t have time to complete the thought before I heard a shot and the howling came to an abrupt halt.
‘What you see here represents my most fundamental rights,’ said the bald-headed man as he gestured with his hand towards something that reminded me more than anything else of a collection of insects mounted on pins, only magnified and more grotesque. The wall was covered with handguns. Pistols, rifles, automatic weapons, machine pistols, even a large machine gun mounted on a tripod that looked like someone kneeling.
‘The freedom to defend myself.’
The bald-headed man gave us a pleased smile. He wanted to remain anonymous and had asked us just to call him Fatman. Of the fifteen who had signed up two days earlier three had pulled out. It wasn’t surprising. Initial enthusiasm at the chance for revenge had given way to more rational considerations: other than a short-lived emotional satisfaction, how would it benefit me personally? And what was I risking? When the courts punish criminals the overwhelming power they have access to means they risk little; but what about us? What happens when revenge is taken for revenge?
‘They knew we had weapons, that was why they came,’ said Fatman. ‘But they didn’t find this secret room, so all they got were the Kalashnikovs and the hand grenades. Help yourselves, gentlemen.’
‘What did they do to you and yours?’ asked Larsen — an African American music teacher wearing a freshly pressed blue shirt — as Fatman showed him how to load, prime and change the magazine on the weapon he had chosen.
‘I just told you,’ said Fatman.
‘They... er, stole some rifles?’
‘And my hand grenades.’
‘Grenades. And that was enough to leave you wanting revenge?’
‘Who said anything about revenge? I just want to shoot some bad guys, and now I’ve got a bloody good reason, right?’
‘Nice one,’ said Larsen quietly.
Fatman flushed. ‘How about you?’ he snorted. ‘They take your Volvo?’
I cursed inwardly and closed my eyes. I needed these men to work together, not this. I’d read the reports carefully and knew what was coming.
‘They killed my wife,’ said Larsen.
It went very quiet in this damp basement room. When I opened my eyes again I saw everyone had their gaze fixed on the man in the blue shirt and suit trousers. In the report, Larsen had written that he and his wife were standing on the pavement outside a secret food depot with the food they’d bought. They’d gone there with eight adult relatives; it was the usual thing to move around in packs, it was reckoned to be safer. A motorcycle gang had come at them and the men pulled out the few weapons they had — knives and an old rifle. But the bikes had passed them without slowing down. They thought the danger was over until the last rider tossed out a chain with a hook on it that embedded itself in Larsen’s wife’s thigh and dragged her off down the street, and while the men rushed to her assistance the gang stopped and picked up their bags of food.