Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbø Page A

didn’t you know?’
    â€˜Yeah, I’ve heard the rumours,’ I said, and looked round for a suitable escape route.
    â€˜You don’t believe me,’ she said. ‘Look at me.
Look
at me, I said!’
    I looked at her.
    She smiled. ‘Oh, yes, Anita saw right. You’ve got death in your eyes. Don’t turn away! Anita can see you’re going to shoot the reflection. Yes, shoot the reflection.’
    A small alarm had gone off inside my head. ‘What fucking southerners are you talking about?’
    â€˜You, of course.’
    â€˜Which
other
southerners?’
    â€˜He didn’t say what his name was.’ She took my hand. ‘But now I’ve read you, now you can—’
    I pulled free. ‘What did he look like?’
    â€˜Wow, you really
are
scared.’
    â€˜What did he look like?’
    â€˜Why’s it so important?’
    â€˜Please, Anita.’
    â€˜Okay, okay, take it easy. Thin man. Nazi fringe. Handsome. Had a long nail on his index finger.’
    Shit.
The Fisherman always finds what he’s looking for. You and I may not know how, but he knows. Always.
    I swallowed. ‘When did you see him?’
    â€˜Just before you arrived. He went up into the village, said he was going to talk to someone.’
    â€˜What did he want?’
    â€˜He was looking for some southerner called Jon. Is that you?’
    I shook my head. ‘My name’s Ulf. What else did he say?’
    â€˜Nothing. He gave me his phone number in case I heard anything, but it was an Oslo number. Why are you going on about it?’
    â€˜I’m just waiting for someone to show up with my shotgun, but it probably isn’t him.’
    So Johnny Moe was here. And I had left the pistol in the cabin. I’d gone somewhere I wasn’t safe, and I hadn’t taken the only thing that might make me a bit safer. Because I thought it might be tricky if I met a woman and had to get undressed. And now I had met a woman, and evidently didn’t want to get undressed after all. Is there a level
below
idiot? The funny thing was that I was more annoyed than frightened. I should have been more scared. He had come to shoot me. I was hiding here because I wanted to survive, wasn’t I? So I’d better get my fucking act together and do a bit of surviving!
    â€˜You live behind the church, you said?’
    She brightened up. ‘Yes, it’s not far.’
    I looked up at the gravel track. He could come back any time. ‘Can we take a detour through the churchyard, so that no one sees us?’
    â€˜Why don’t you want anyone to see us?’
    â€˜Just thinking about . . . er, your reputation.’
    â€˜My reputation?’ She snorted. ‘Everyone knows that Anita likes men.’
    â€˜Okay, mine, then.’
    She shrugged. ‘Okay, if you’re so bloody precious.’
    The house had curtains.
    And a pair of man’s shoes in the passage.
    â€˜Whose . . .?’
    â€˜My father’s,’ Anita said. ‘And you don’t have to whisper, he’s asleep.’
    â€˜Isn’t that when people normally whisper?’
    â€˜Still scared?’
    I looked at the shoes. They were smaller than mine. ‘No.’
    â€˜Good. Come on.’
    We went into her bedroom. It was cramped, and the bed was only meant for one person. One thin person. She pulled her dress over her head, unbuttoned my trousers, then pulled them and my underpants down with one tug. Then she unhooked her bra and slipped her pants off. Her skin was pale, almost white, with red marks and scratches here and there. But no needle tracks. She was nice. It wasn’t that.
    She sat down on the bed and looked up at me. ‘You might as well take your jacket off.’
    While I was taking off my jacket, and hanging it and my shirt on the only chair in there, I heard snoring from the next room. Harsh, grating breaths in, spluttering breaths out, like a broken