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 bluff is so obvious that some of them will see through it immediately. But they can never be completely certain. And they definitely can’t be certain that the others will see through it too. So the maths goes like this: why should I keep quiet and take the chance of this being a bluff when someone else is bound to snitch anyway?
After four interrogations two had identified Brad. After six we knew it had happened with a golf club in the bedroom. I went to one of the two offices where Brad was sitting and confronted him with what we had found out.
He leaned back in the leather chair, hands behind his back in the plastic cable ties, and yawned. ‘Well then, I guess you’d better shoot me.’
I swallowed and waited. And waited. Then came the tears. Not mine, his. They dripped down on the aged grey teak of the desk. I saw them soak into the wood.
‘I didn’t mean it, Mr Adams,’ he snuffled. ‘I loved Amy. Always have done. But she...’ He took a deep, quivering breath. ‘She despised me, she didn’t think I was good enough for her.’ He gave a quick laugh. ‘Me, son and heir of the second-richest man in the city. What do you think of that?’
I said nothing. He raised his gaze and looked at me.
‘She said she hated me, Mr Adams. And you know what, that’s one feeling we do share. I hated me too.’
‘Is this your idea of a confession, Brad?’
He looked at me. Nodded. I looked at Larsen who nodded briefly to indicate that he’d seen it the same way as me. We stood up and went outside to where Downing was waiting.
‘Confession,’ I said.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Larsen.
I took a deep breath. ‘Put him in jail.’
‘Jail?’ snorted Downing. ‘He’s gotta hang!’
‘Have you thought this through, Will?’ asked Larsen. ‘You know as well as I do that if you hand him over to the police he’ll be out on the street again by tomorrow morning.’
‘Yes, but I’m going to imprison him in his own jail.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Lock him up in the same place where he locked up Amy. He can sit there in custody until I’ve prepared the case and had him convicted.’
‘You’re going to... put Colin Lowe’s son in front of a judge and jury?’
‘Of course. Everyone’s equal in the eyes of the law. That’s the foundation our nation is built on.’
‘There I am afraid to say you are mistaken, Adams,’ said Downing.
‘Oh?’
‘Our nation is built on the principle that might is right. That’s the way it is now, and that’s the way it always has been. The rest is just playing to the gallery.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘Maybe it’s possible for might to be really in the right for once.’
Just then we heard shouting. It was coming from behind the house.
We ran outside in time to see that we were too late.
‘The Black guy confessed,’ said Fatman. He was holding a flaming torch in his hand and the light made the sweat on his forehead glisten. Like us he was staring in the direction of the tall oak tree. The rest of the men stood around us, all of them silent now.
A boy was dangling from the lowest of the branches. There was a noose around his neck. He was tall, thin, maybe sixteen years old and he wearing a T-shirt with ‘Chaos’ written on it.
‘Herbert,’ a hoarse voice shouted from a window in the house. I turned but saw no one.
‘We’ve got a confession,’ I said. ‘You’ve hanged the wrong person.’
‘Not that confession,’ said Fatman. ‘He confessed to starting that fire. And it wasn’t me that hung that guy, it was him.’
He pointed to a man standing directly beneath the hanged boy. Simon, the cook. His hands were pressed together as he looked up at the corpse and he was muttering something. A prayer, maybe. For his family. For the dead. For himself. For all of us.
As a group we had never discussed what we were going to do with the members of Chaos. All our attention had been focused on freeing Amy, and it was pretty obvious that the gang members couldn’t expect any mercy if they tried to resist. They would get hurt or be killed. For most of us that would probably be revenge enough. But we hadn’t talked about what to do if they surrendered, as they had done now.
Essentially there were only three options. Execute them. Maim them. Or let them go.
Fatman was the only one to vote for execution.
A few thought that some kind of amputation, such as severing the right hand, was in order, but there were no volunteers to perform the amputations. I suspect that the thought of nine mutilated but still fully functional young men wandering about the city with revenge on their minds was not particularly attractive.
Downing’s suggestion that they be lashed with a rope seemed to have the most support. It would probably be seen as some kind of let-off and not a motivation for revenge at a later date.
I argued that we shouldn’t hand out any punishment at all unless we could give the ‘accused’ a fair trial. That, I said, was what distinguished us from them. In rejecting revenge we would not only be true to the principles of justice our forefathers had built this land on, we would also be providing a good example for these young people, showing them that it was possible to behave in a civilised fashion in the midst of these chaotic times, that there was a way back to decency. I promised I would personally make sure that, as far as possible, Brad Lowe would be treated in accordance with our most fundamental principles of justice.
I don’t know whether it was my words that convinced them. Whether it was the fact that Larsen — the only one of us besides me with a close relative murdered — offered a few short words in support of me. Or whether it was the wind that had made the young Black man in the tree swing back and forth, and the branches to give off a moaning sound that constantly turned our attention in his direction.
Without further discussion we released all of them except Brad.
‘We’re gonna regret this,’ said Fatman as we watched the rear lights of the motorbikes disappear into the deepening darkness of the city night.
VIII
Amy was buried after a ceremony in a church in Downtown. It was sparsely furnished and austerely equipped, yet everything seemed strangely untouched, as though God’s house was still holy even to the looters. We didn’t advertise the service or invite anyone, and besides Heidi, Sam and me the only others present were Downing, Larsen and Chung.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to persuade Heidi to move to Colin’s hillside villa along with Chung, Larsen and Downing’s families. I reminded her how easy it had been for Chaos to enter our house, that the same thing not only could but would happen again. And that there was safety in numbers. Heidi said we couldn’t, it was someone else’s house, someone else’s property, even if it was standing empty at the moment. I said that while I had the greatest respect for property rights, at the moment those rights were taking a short break. And we needed somewhere to hold Brad in private custody until the court case against him started.
The following day we moved the few things we needed up the hill and started work on turning the place into a fortress.
The attorney general’s large white office building in Downtown had just the right balance of the architectonic pathos that encourages respect, and the dull pedantry that does not provoke when the taxpayer is the one funding it.
Adele Matheson, the attorney general, had the kind of office that’s used for working in, not for giving off signals about authority and status to visitors and colleagues. A simple writing desk piled high with documents, a slightly out-of-date computer with cables in all directions, shelves of legal literature and a window that offered light but not a distracting view. And absolutely no family photos that might remind her of things more important in life than work and urge her to stop working and get on home.