YU Nesbe - Blood on Snow

The snow was dancing like cotton wool in the light of the street lamps. Aimlessly, unable to decide whether it wanted to fall up or down, just letting itself be driven by the hellish, ice-cold wind that was sweeping in from the great darkness covering the Oslo fjord. Together they swirled, wind and snow, round and round in the darkness between the warehouses on the quayside that were all shut for the night. Until the wind got fed up and dumped its dance partner beside the wall. And there the dry, windswept snow was settling around the shoes of the man I had just shot in the chest and neck.

Blood was dripping down onto the snow from the bottom of his shirt. I dont actually know a lot about snow or much else, for that matter but Ive read that snow crystals formed when its really cold are completely different from wet snow, heavy flakes, or the crunchy stuff. That its the shape of the crystals and the dryness of the snow that make the haemoglobin in the blood retain that deep red colour. Either way, the snow under him made me think of a kings robe, all purple and lined with ermine, like the drawings in the book of Norwegian folk tales my mother used to read to me. She liked fairy tales and kings. Thats probably why she named me after a king.

The Evening Post had said that if the cold carried on like this until New Year, 1977 would be the coldest year since the war, and that wed remember it as the start of the new ice age scientists had been predicting for a while. But what did I know? All I knew was that the man standing in front of me would soon be dead. There was no mistaking the way his body was shaking. He was one of the Fishermans men. It was nothing personal. I told him as much before he collapsed, leaving a smear of blood down the wall. If I ever get shot, Id rather it was personal. I didnt say it to stop his ghost coming after me I dont believe in ghosts. I just couldnt think of anything else to say. Obviously I could have just kept my mouth shut. Thats what I usually do, after all. So there must have been something that made me so talkative all of a sudden. Maybe it was because there were only a few days to go before Christmas. Ive heard that people are supposed to feel closer to each other around Christmas. But what do I know?

I thought the blood would freeze on top of the snow and end up just lying there. But instead the snow sucked the blood up as it fell, drawing it in under the surface, hiding it, as if it had some sort of use for it. As I walked home I imagined a snowman rising up from the snowdrift, one with clearly visible veins of blood under its deathly pale skin of ice.

On the way back to my flat I called Daniel Hoffmann from a phone box to tell him the job was done.

Hoffmann said that was good. As usual, he didnt ask any questions. Either hed learned to trust me in the course of the four years Id been working as a fixer for him, or else he didnt actually want to know. The job was done, so why would a man like him trouble himself with that sort of thing when what he was paying for was to have fewer problems? Hoffmann asked me to go down to the office the next day he said he had a new job for me.

A new job? I asked, feeling my heart skip a beat.

Yes, Hoffmann said. As in a new commission.

Oh, okay.

I hung up, relieved. I dont really do much more than commissions. I cant actually be used for much more than that.

Here are four things I cant be used for. Driving a getaway car. I can drive fast, thats fine. But I cant drive inconspicuously, and anyone driving a getaway car has to be able to do both. They have to be able to drive so they look just like any other car on the road. I landed myself and two other men in prison because I cant drive inconspicuously enough. I drove like a demon, switching between forest tracks and main roads, and Id long since lost our pursuers, and was just a few kilometres from the Swedish border. I slowed down and drove in a steady, law-abiding way like a grandad on a Sunday outing. And we still got stopped by a police patrol. They said afterwards that they had no idea it was the car used in the robbery, and that I hadnt been driving too fast or breaking any of the rules of the road. They said it was the way I was driving. Ive no idea what they meant, but they said it was suspicious.

I cant be used in robberies. Ive read that more than half of all bank employees who experience a robbery end up with psychological problems afterwards, some of them for the rest of their lives. I dont know why, but the old man who was behind the counter of the post office when we went in was in a big hurry to develop psychological problems. He fell to pieces just because the barrel of my shotgun was pointed in his general direction, apparently. I saw in the paper the next day that he was suffering from psychological problems. Not much of a diagnosis, but either way, if theres one thing you dont want, its psychological problems. So I went to visit him in hospital. Obviously he didnt recognise me Id been wearing a Santa Claus mask in the post office. (It was the perfect disguise. No one gave a second glance to three lads in Santa Claus outfits carrying sacks as they ran out of a post office in the middle of the Christmas shopping crowds.) I stopped in the doorway to the ward and looked at the old man. He was reading Class Struggle, the Communist newspaper. Not that Ive got anything against Communists as individuals. Okay, maybe I have. But I dont want to have anything against them as individuals, I just think theyre wrong. So I felt a bit guilty when I realised that I felt a lot better because the guy was reading Class Struggle. But obviously theres a big difference between feeling a bit guilty and a lot guilty. And like I said, I felt a lot better. But I stopped doing robberies. After all, there was no guarantee the next one would be a Communist.

And I cant work with drugs, thats number three. I just cant do it. Its not that I cant get money out of people who are in debt to my employers. Junkies only have themselves to blame, and in my opinion people should pay for their mistakes, plain and simple. The problems more that I have a weak, sensitive nature, as my mum once put it. I suppose she saw herself in me. Either way, I have to stay well away from drugs. Like her, Im the sort of person whos just looking for someone to submit to. Religion, a big-brother figure, a boss. Drink and drugs. Besides, I cant do math either, I can hardly count to ten without losing my concentration. Which is kind of stupid if youre going to sell drugs or collect debts that ought to be pretty obvious.

Okay. Last one. Prostitution. Same sort of thing there. I dont have a problem with women earning money whatever way they like, and the idea that a guy me, for instance should get a third of the money for sorting things out so the women can concentrate on the actual work. A good pimp is worth every krone they pay him, Ive always thought that. The problem is that I fall in love so quickly, and then I stop seeing it in terms of business. And I cant handle shaking, hitting or threatening the women, whether or not Im in love with them. Something to do with my mother, maybe, what do I know? Thats probably why I cant stand seeing other people beating up women either. Something just snaps. Take Maria, for instance. Deaf and dumb, with a limp. I dont know what those two things have got to do with each other nothing probably but its a bit like once you start getting bad cards, they just keep coming. Which is probably why Maria ended up with an idiot junkie boyfriend as well. He had a fancy French name, Myriel, but owed Hoffmann thirteen thousand for drugs. The first time I saw her was when Pine, Hoffmanns head pimp, pointed out a girl in a home-made coat and with her hair up in a bun, looking like shed just left church. She was sitting on the steps in front of Ridderhallen, crying, and Pine told me she was going to have to pay back her boyfriends drug debt in kind. I thought it best to give her a gentle start, just hand-jobs. But she jumped out of the first car she got into after barely ten seconds. She stood there in floods of tears while Pine yelled at her. Maybe he thought shed hear him if he shouted loud enough. Maybe that was what did it. The yelling. And my mum. Either way, something snapped, and even if I could see what Pine was trying to get into her head by the use of very loud sound waves, I ended up decking him, my own boss. Then I took Maria to a flat I knew was empty, then went to tell Hoffmann that I was no use as a pimp either.