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and into the square looked like the best of them.
    â€˜So, as you can appreciate, you’ve left me with something of a problem,’ he said.
    Obviously they’d come after me and catch me, but maybe I could avoid ending up in the fish-ball mixture if they had to take me down out in the street.
    â€˜I’m thinking, who do I know who’s got what it takes to do what has to be done? Who can kill? I only know two. One is efficient, but enjoys killing a bit too much, and that sort of pleasure strikes me as –’ he picked at his front teeth – ‘perverse.’ He studied his fingertip. ‘Besides, he doesn’t cut his fingernails properly. And I don’t need a girlie pervert, I need someone who can talk to people. Talk first, then, if that doesn’t work, fix them. So how much do you want, Jon?’
    â€˜Sorry?’
    â€˜I want to know what you’d be happy with. Eight thousand a month?’
    I blinked.
    â€˜No? Shall we say ten? Plus a bonus of thirty for anyone you fix.’
    â€˜Are you asking me if—?’
    â€˜Twelve. Damn, you’re a tough cookie, Jon. But that’s fine, I respect that as well.’
    I breathed hard through my nose. He was asking me to take Toralf’s place as his collector and fixer.
    I swallowed. And thought.
    I didn’t want the job.
    I didn’t want the money.
    But I needed it.
    She
needed it.
    â€˜Twelve . . .’ I said. ‘That sounds fine.’
    It was a simple job.
    All I had to do was turn up and say I was the Fisherman’s collector, and the money appeared. And I wasn’t exactly overworked; I mostly sat in the back room of the shop playing cards with Brynhildsen, who always cheated, and Styrker, who never stopped talking about his damn Rottweilers and how efficient they were. I was bored, I was worried, but the money kept coming, and I had calculated that if I worked for him for at least a few months, I could pay for a year’s treatment. Hopefully that would be enough. And you get used to most things, even the smell of fish.
    One day the Fisherman came in and said he had a slightly bigger job that required both discretion and a firm hand.
    â€˜He’s been buying speed from me for years,’ the Fisherman said. ‘Seeing as he’s not a friend, a relative or an employee, I’ve let him have credit. It’s never been a problem, but now he’s fallen behind with the payments.’
    It was Kosmos, an older guy who sold speed from a table in the Goldfish, the grubby café down by the docks. The windows were grey from the heavy traffic that ran right past, and there were rarely more than three or four people inside.
    The way Kosmos did business was as follows: the customer wanting speed came in and sat down at the next table, which was always empty because Kosmos had draped his coat over one chair and left a copy of
Hjemmet
on the table. He would be sitting at his own table doing a crossword in one of the papers.
Aftenposten
or
V
G
’s mini crossword or Helge Seip’s big one in
Dagbladet
. And
Hjemmet
, of course. Apparently he’d twice been crowned national crossword champion in
Hjemmet
. You slipped an envelope containing money inside the magazine and went to the toilet, and when you came back the envelope contained speed instead of cash.
    It was early in the morning and, as usual, there were only three or four other customers when I arrived. I sat down two tables away from the old man, ordered a coffee and turned to the crossword. I scratched my head with my pencil. Leaned over.
    â€˜Excuse me?’
    I had to repeat it twice before Kosmos looked up from his own crossword. He was wearing glasses with orange lenses.
    â€˜Sorry, but I need a four-letter word for “outstanding”. First letter “d”.’
    â€˜Debt,’ he said, and looked down again.
    â€˜Of course. Thanks.’ I filled in the letters.
    I waited a while, took a sip of the