Free The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø Page B

said.
    ‘Or someone with the same build,’ Edvard said. ‘And the same unit insignia on the uniform.’
    ‘The sacking . . .’
    ‘So you can see a difference in the sacking, can you?’ Edvard jeered, but it was Gudbrand he was watching.
    ‘It’s Daniel,’ Gudbrand said with a swallow. ‘I recognise the boots.’
    ‘So you think we should just call the corpse-bearers and ask them to take him away again, do you?’ Edvard asked. ‘Without taking a closer look. That was what you were counting on, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Go to hell, Edvard!’
    ‘I’m not so sure it’s my turn this time, Gudbrand. Take off the sacking, Dale.’
    Dale gaped at the other two, who were glowering at each other like two rampant bulls.
    ‘Do you hear me?’ Edvard shouted. ‘Cut away the sacking!’
    ‘I’d prefer not to —’
    ‘It’s an order. This minute!’
    Dale continued to hesitate. He looked from one to the other and at the rigid corpse on the ammunition chests. Then he shrugged his shoulders, unbuttoned his jacket and put his hand inside.
    ‘Wait!’ Edvard shouted. ‘Ask if you can borrow Gudbrand’s bayonet.’ Now Dale really was at sea. He looked quizzically at Gudbrand, who was shaking his head.
    ‘What do you mean?’ Edvard asked, still face to face with Gudbrand. ‘Your standing orders are that you must always carry a bayonet, and you don’t have one on you?’
    Gudbrand didn’t answer.
    ‘You, the ultimate killing machine with a bayonet, Gudbrand. You haven’t simply lost it, have you?’
    Gudbrand still didn’t answer. ‘In that case, yes, you’ll have to use your own, Dale.’
    Gudbrand felt an irrepressible urge to tear the large staring eye out of the section leader’s head. Rottenführer , that’s what he was! Or rather a ‘Rat-führer’. A rat with a rat’s eyes and a rat’s brain. Didn’t he understand anything?
    They heard a ripping noise behind them as the bayonet cut through the sacking, then a gasp from Dale. Both men whirled round. There, in the red light of the dawning day, a white face with a hideous grin stared up at them with a third black gaping eye in the forehead. It was Daniel alright, no question about it.

14
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 4 November 1999.
    B ERNT B RANDHAUG LOOKED AT HIS WATCH AND FROWNED . Eighty-two seconds, seven more than usual. Then he strode over the threshold to the meeting room, sang out his hearty ‘Good morning’ and smiled his famous white smile to the four faces turned towards him.
    Kurt Meirik, POT, sat on one side of the table with Rakel (complete with unbecoming hairslide, power suit and severe expression). It struck him that the suit seemed a little too expensive for a secretary. He still held to his intuition that she was divorced, but perhaps she had married well. Or did she have wealthy parents? The fact that she was here again, at a meeting that Brandhaug had signalled should take place in total privacy, suggested she was higher up in POT than he had at first assumed. He determined to find out more about her.
    Anne Størksen sat on the other side of the table with the tall, thin Crime Squad boss, what was his name? First of all it took him more than eighty seconds to get to the meeting room, and now he couldn’t remember a name – was he getting old?
    He hadn’t even thought this through to the end when the previous night’s events came back into his mind. He had invited Lise, the young Foreign Office probationer, out to what he called a little working lunch. Afterwards he offered her a drink at the Continental Hotel where, under the auspices of the Foreign Office, he had a permanent room at his disposal for meetings which required a little more discretion. Lise had not been difficult to ask out, she was an ambitious girl. But it had gone badly. A one-off, a drink too many perhaps, but surely he wasn’t getting too old. Brandhaug shoved the idea to the back of his mind and sat down.
    ‘Thank you for being able to come at such short