‘But the profit-’

‘Don’t concern yourself with that,’ he retorted sharply. Then he smiled and his voice was soft again. ‘Our goods come straight from the source, Gusto. It’s six times purer than the so-called heroin that’s diluted first in Istanbul, next in Belgrade and then in Amsterdam. Yet we pay less per gram. Understand?’

I nodded. ‘You can dilute it seven or eight times more than the others.’

‘We dilute it, but less than the others. We sell something that can be called heroin. You already know that, and it was why you were so quick to say yes to a lower percentage.’ The light from the flames glistened on his white teeth. ‘Because you know you’re going to sell the best product in town, you’re going to turn over three to four times as much as you do of Odin’s flour. You know that because you see it every day: buyers walking straight past the line of heroin pushers to find the one wearing…’

‘… the Arsenal shirt.’

‘The customers will know your goods are the best on day one, Gusto.’

Then he accompanied me out.

As he had been sitting with a woollen blanket over his knees, I had assumed he was a cripple or something, but he was surprisingly light on his feet. He stopped in the doorway, clearly not wishing to show his face outside. Placed a hand on my arm, above the elbow. Gently squeezed my triceps.

‘See you soon, Gusto.’

I nodded. I knew there was something else he wanted. I’ve seen you in action. From the inside of a limousine with smoked windows, studying me as if I was a fricking Rembrandt. That was how I knew I would get what I wanted.

‘The scout has to be my foster-sister. And the dope man a guy called Oleg.’

‘Sounds alright. Anything else?’

‘I want number 23 on my shirt.’

‘Arshavin,’ the tall choirboy mumbled with contentment. ‘Russian.’ Obviously he had never heard of Michael Jordan.

‘We’ll see,’ chuckled the old boy. He looked up at the sky. ‘Now Andrey will show you something and you can get started.’ His hand kept patting my arm and his smile was like a permanent bloody fixture. I was scared. And excited. Scared and excited like a Komodo dragon hunter.

The choirboys drove down to the deserted marina in Frognerkilen. They had keys to a gate, and we drove between the small boats laid up for the winter. At the tip of one wharf we came to a halt and got out. I stood staring down into the calm, black water while Andrey opened the boot.

‘Come here, Arshavin.’

I went over and peered into the boot.

He was still wearing the studded dog collar and his Arsenal shirt. Bisken had always been ugly, but the sight of him almost made me throw up. There were large black holes of congealed blood across his pimply face, one ear was torn in half and one eye socket no longer had an eye but something resembling rice pudding. After finally managing to tear myself away from the mush I saw there was also a little hole in the shirt above the ‘m’ of Emirates. As in bullet hole.

‘What happened?’ I stuttered.

‘He talked to the cop in the beret.’

I knew who he meant. There was an undercover cop — or so he thought at any rate — skulking round Kvadraturen.

Andrey waited, let me have a good look, before asking: ‘Got the message?’

I nodded. I couldn’t stop staring at the wasted eye. What the fuck had they done to him?

‘Peter,’ Andrey said. Together, they lifted him out of the boot, removed the Arsenal shirt and chucked him off the edge of the jetty. The black water swallowed him without a sound and closed its jaws. Gone.

Andrey slung the shirt over to me. ‘This is yours now.’

I poked my finger through the bullet hole. Turned the shirt and looked at the back.

52. Bendtner.

It was 6.30 A.M., a quarter of an hour before sunrise according to the back page of Aftenposten. Tord Schultz folded the newspaper and left it on the seat beside him. Glanced across the deserted atrium towards the exit again.

‘He’s usually here early,’ said the Securitas guard behind the reception desk.

Tord Schultz had caught a dawn train into Oslo and watched the town awaken as he walked from Central Station eastwards along Gronlandsleiret. He had passed a dustcart. The men treated the rubbish bins with a roughness that Tord thought said more about attitude than efficiency. F-16 pilots. A Pakistani greengrocer had carried boxes of vegetables to the front of his shop, stopped, wiped his hands on his apron and smiled a good morning to him. Hercules pilot. After Gronland Church he had turned left. An enormous glass facade, built and designed in the 1970s, towered up above him. Police HQ.

At 6.37 the door opened. The guard coughed, and Tord raised his head. He received a confirmatory nod and got to his feet. The man coming towards him was smaller than he was.

He walked with a fast springy step and had longer hair than Tord would have expected of a man responsible for the largest narcotics unit in Norway. As he came closer Tord noticed the pink and white stripes in the almost girlishly attractive, suntanned face. He remembered a stewardess who had had a pigment defect, a white patch spreading down from her solarium-scorched neck, between her breasts to her shaved sex. It had made the rest of her skin look like a tight-fitting nylon stocking.

‘Mikael Bellman?’

‘Yes, how can I help you?’ The man smiled without slowing down.

‘A private chat.’

‘I’m afraid I have to prepare for a morning meeting, but if you ring-’

‘I have to talk to you now,’ Tord said, surprised at the insistent tone in his voice.

‘Is that so?’ The head of Orgkrim had already swiped his ID card at the gate, but stopped to scrutinise him.

Tord Schultz approached. Lowered his voice although the Securitas guard was still the only other person in the atrium. ‘My name’s Tord Schultz, I’m a pilot for Scandinavia’s biggest airline, and I have information about drug smuggling into Norway via Gardermoen.

‘I see. How much are we talking about?’

‘Eight kilos a week.’

Tord could feel the man’s eyes examining him physically. Knew that the man’s brain was gathering and processing all available data: body language, clothes, posture, facial expression, the wedding ring he for some reason was still wearing on his finger, the ring he didn’t have in his ear, the polished shoes, the vocabulary, the firmness of gaze.

‘Perhaps we’d better get you registered,’ Bellman said, nodding to the guard.

Tord Schultz slowly shook his head. ‘I’d rather this meeting remained confidential.’

‘Rules state that everyone should be registered, but I can reassure you that the information stays here at Police HQ.’ Bellman signalled to the Securitas guard.

In the lift on the way up, Schultz stroked his finger over the name on the sticker the guard had printed and told him to wear on his lapel.

‘Anything wrong?’ Bellman asked.

‘Not at all,’ Tord said. But he continued rubbing, hoping he could erase his name.

Bellman’s office was surprisingly small.

‘Size doesn’t matter,’ Bellman said in a tone suggesting he was used to the reaction. ‘Great things have been accomplished from here.’ He pointed to a picture on the wall. ‘Lars Axelsen, head of what was the Robberies Unit. Smashed the Tveita gang in the nineties.’

He motioned Tord to sit down. Took out a notebook, met Tord’s glare and put it away again.

‘Well?’ he said.

Tord inhaled. And talked. He started with the divorce. He needed that. Needed to start with the why. Then he moved on to the when and where. Then to who and how. And in the end he talked about the burner.

Throughout the narration Bellman sat leaning forward, following carefully. Only when Tord talked about the burner did his face lose its concentrated, though professional, expression. After the initial surprise a red hue suffused the white pigment stains. It was a strange sight, as though a flame had been lit on the inside. He lost eye contact with Bellman, who was staring bitterly at the wall behind him, perhaps at the picture of Lars Axelsen.