Free Headhunters by Jo Nesbø Page B

nothing about it.’
    ‘Hidden camera in the wardrobe?’
    ‘Wardrobe? My house has total surveillance, man.’
    Nothing Ove Kjikerud told me about himself could surprise me any longer. He had told me that when he wasn’t working, he mostly watched TV in his little place high up in Tonsenhagen, on the edge of a forest. And he liked to shoot at the screen if there was something he really didn’t care for. He had boasted about his Austrian Glock pistols, or ‘dames’ as he called them, because they didn’t have a hammer that stood up before ejaculation. Ove used blank cartridges to shoot at the TV, but once he had forgotten he had loaded a round of live ammunition and had shot a brand-new Pioneer plasma screen costing thirty thousand to smithereens. When he wasn’t shooting at the TV he took potshots through the window at an owl’s nesting box he himself had rigged up on a tree trunk behind the house. And one evening, sitting in front of the TV, he had heard something crashing through the trees, so he opened the window, took aim with a Remington rifle and fired. The bullet had hit the animal in the middle of the forehead, and Ove had had to empty the freezer, which was stuffed with Grandiosa pizzas. For the next six months it had been elk steaks, elk burgers, elk stew, elk meatballs and elk chops until he could stand it no longer and had emptied the freezer again and restocked it with Grandiosa. I found all these stories totally credible. But this one …
    ‘Total surveillance?’
    ‘There are certain fringe benefits to working at Tripolis, aren’t there?’
    ‘And you can activate the cameras without her noticing?’
    ‘Yep. I fetch her, we go into the flat, and if I don’t enter the password within fifteen seconds the cameras begin to work at Tripolis.’
    ‘And the alarm begins to howl in your flat?’
    ‘Nope. Silent alarm.’
    Of course I was aware of the concept. The alarm just went off at Tripolis. The idea was not to frighten off the burglars while Tripolis rang the police, who were on the spot within fifteen minutes. The aim was to catch the thieves red-handed before they disappeared with the loot or, if this didn’t work, they could identify them on the video recordings.
    ‘I’ve told the boys on duty not to turn up, right. They can just sit back and enjoy the sight on the monitors.’
    ‘Do you mean to say the boys will be watching you and the Russ— Natasha?’
    ‘Have to share the delights, don’t I? But I have made sure the camera doesn’t show the bed, that’s a private area . But I’ll get her to undress at the foot of the bed, in the chair beside the TV, right. She’ll follow my stage directions, that’s the beauty of it. Get her to sit there touching herself. Perfect camera angle. I’ve done a bit of work on the lights. So that I can wank off-camera, right.’
    Far too much information. I coughed. ‘Then you come and get the Munch tonight. And the Rubens the night after tomorrow, OK?’
    ‘OK. Everything alright with you, Roger? You sound stressed.’
    ‘Everything’s fine,’ I said, running the back of my hand across my forehead. ‘Everything’s absolutely fine.’
    I put down the phone and went on my way. The sky was clouding over, but I hardly noticed. Because everything was OK, wasn’t it? I was going to be a multi-millionaire. To buy my freedom, freedom from everything. The world and everything in it – including Diana – would be mine. The rumbles in the distance sounded like hearty laughter. Then the first raindrops fell, and the soles of my shoes clattered cheerfully over the cobblestones as I ran.

PREGNANT
     
    IT WAS SIX o’clock, it had stopped raining and in the west gold streamed into the Oslo fjord. I put the Volvo in the garage, switched off the ignition and waited. After the door had closed behind me, I put on the internal light, opened the black portfolio and took out the day’s catch. The Brooch . Eva Mudocci .
    I ran my eyes over her face. Munch must