Midnight Sun Read Online Free PDF Page B

silence that followed I took another sip. I assumed from Knut’s gawping expression that he hadn’t figured out that was the end of the joke.
    â€˜How did he win?’ he asked.
    â€˜How do you think? The Norwegian fell out of the window.’
    â€˜So the Norwegian bet on himself?’
    â€˜Obviously.’
    â€˜
Not
obviously. You should have said that from the start.’
    â€˜Okay, but you get the point,’ I sighed. ‘So what do you think?’
    He put one finger under his freckled chin and stared thoughtfully into space. Then came two loud bursts of laughter. Then more thoughtful staring.
    â€˜A bit short,’ he said. ‘But that’s probably what makes it funny. Bang – it’s all over. Well, it made me laugh.’ He laughed a bit more.
    â€˜Speaking of things being over . . .’
    â€˜Of course,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’
    â€˜Really? Why?’
    â€˜Midge oil.’
    â€˜Midge oil?’
    He took my hand and put it to my forehead. It was like bubble wrap, bump upon bump.
    â€˜Okay,’ I said. ‘Bring midge oil. And beer.’
    â€˜Beer? Then you’ll—’
    â€˜Burn in hell?’
    â€˜Have to go to Alta.’
    I thought about the smell in his father’s workroom. ‘Hooch.’
    â€˜Huh?’
    â€˜Home brew. Moonshine. Whatever your father drinks. Where does he get it from?’
    Knut shifted his weight a couple of times. ‘Mattis.’
    â€˜Hmm. Bow-legged little fellow in a torn anorak?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    I took a note out of my pocket. ‘See how much you can get with this, and get yourself an ice cream. Unless that’s a sin, of course.’
    He shook his head and took the note. ‘Goodbye, Ulf. And keep the door closed.’
    â€˜Oh, there probably isn’t room for any more midges in here.’
    â€˜Not midges. Wolves.’
    Was he kidding?
    When he had gone I picked up the rifle and rested it on one of the sills. I looked through the sights as I swept the horizon. I found Knut as he skipped away down the path. I carried on towards the little patch of woodland. I found the buck. At that moment it raised its head, as if it could sense me. As far as I knew, reindeer were herd animals, so this one must have been expelled. Like me.
    I went and sat down outside the cabin and drank the rest of the coffee. The heat and the smoke from the stove had given me a thumping headache.
    I looked at the time. Almost one hundred hours had passed now. Since I should have died. One hundred bonus hours.
    When I looked out again the buck had come closer.

CHAPTER 3
    ONE HUNDRED HOURS ago.
    But it had started long before that. Like I said, I don’t know how. Let’s say it started a year earlier, the day Brynhildsen came over to me in Slottsparken. I was stressed out: I’d only just discovered she was ill.
    Brynhildsen had a hook nose and a pencil moustache, and had lost his hair early. He had worked for Hoffmann before the Fisherman inherited him, along with the rest of Hoffmann’s estate – in other words, his share of the heroin market, his woman, and a big apartment on Bygdøy allé. Brynhildsen said the Fisherman wanted to talk to me, and that I should report to the fish shop. Then he walked away.
    Grandfather was very fond of the Spanish proverbs he had picked up when he lived in Barcelona, drawing his version of La Sagrada Família. One of the ones I heard most often was: ‘There weren’t many of us in the house, and then Grandma got pregnant.’ It meant something along of the lines of: ‘As if we didn’t already have enough problems.’
    All the same, I turned up at the Fisherman’s shop on Youngstorget the next day. Not because I wanted to, but because the alternative – not turning up – was out of the question. The Fisherman was too powerful. Too dangerous. Everyone knew the story of how he