Read Online Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbø - Free Book Online Page A

Moe.’
    â€˜Okay, Johnny. You could have waited until nine o’clock, then you’d have found me in the back room at the shop. Dressed and everything.’
    â€˜I’m here about Gustavo King . . .’
    Fuck.
    â€˜Can I come in?’
    As I considered his request I looked at the bulge in the left-hand side of his tweed jacket. A large pistol. Maybe that was why he was wearing such a big jacket.
    â€˜Just to clear things up,’ he said. ‘The Fisherman insists.’
    Refusing to let him in would have looked suspicious. And pointless.
    â€˜Of course,’ I said, opening the door. ‘Coffee?’
    â€˜I only drink tea.’
    â€˜I’m afraid I haven’t got any tea.’
    He pushed his fringe to one side. The nail on his forefinger was long. ‘I didn’t say I wanted any, Mr Hansen, just that that is what I drink. Is this the living room? Please, after you.’
    I went in, shoved some copies of
Mad
and a few Mingus and Monica Zetterlund albums off one of the chairs and sat down. He sank down on the wrecked springs of the sofa next to the guitar. Sank so low that he had to move the empty vodka bottle on the table to see me properly. And get a clear line of fire.
    â€˜Mr Gustavo King’s body was found yesterday,’ he said. ‘But not in Bunnefjorden, where you told the Fisherman you’d dumped it. The only thing that matched was that he had a bullet in his head.’
    â€˜Shit, has the body been moved? Where . . .?’
    â€˜Salvador, in Brazil.’
    I nodded slowly.
    â€˜Who . . .?’
    â€˜Me,’ he said, sticking his right hand inside his jacket. ‘With this.’ It wasn’t a pistol, it was a revolver. Big, black, and nasty. And the Valium had worn off. ‘The day before yesterday. He was definitely alive up to then.’
    I carried on nodding slowly. ‘How did you find him?’
    â€˜When you sit in a bar in Salvador every night boasting about how you managed to make a fool out of the drugs king of Norway, the drugs king of Norway is going to find out about it sooner or later.’
    â€˜Silly of him.’
    â€˜But having said that, we’d have found him anyway.’
    â€˜Even if you believed he was dead?’
    â€˜The Fisherman never stops looking for his debtors until he sees the corpse. Never.’ Johnny’s thin lips curled into a hint of a smile. ‘And the Fisherman always finds what he’s looking for. You and I may not know how, but he knows. Always. That’s why he’s called the Fisherman.’
    â€˜Did Gustavo say anything before you—?’
    â€˜Mr King confessed everything. That’s why I shot him in the head.’
    â€˜What?’
    Johnny Moe made a gesture as if to shrug his shoulders, but it was barely visible in his outsized suit. ‘I gave him the option of quick or drawn out. If he didn’t lay his cards on the table, it would be drawn out. I’m assuming that you, as a fixer, are aware of the effects of a well-placed shot to the gut. Stomach acid in the spleen and liver . . .’
    I nodded. Even if I had no idea what he was talking about, I did have a certain amount of imagination.
    â€˜The Fisherman wanted me to give you the same choice.’
    â€˜If I c-c-confess?’ My teeth were chattering.
    â€˜If you give us back the money and drugs that Mr King stole from the Fisherman, which you received half of.’
    I nodded. The disadvantage of the Valium wearing off was that I was terrified, and it’s seriously fucking painful being terrified. The advantage was that I was actually capable of a degree of thought. And it occurred to me that this was a direct copy of the attack-at-dawn scenario with me and Gustavo. So how about me copying Gustavo?
    â€˜We can split it,’ I said.
    â€˜Like you and Gustavo did?’ Johnny said. ‘So you end up like him, and me like you? No, thanks.’ He brushed his fringe aside. His