1222

10

Logic, I thought.

How I was going to be able to think logically and systematically in the chaos of impressions we had all had to deal with, I didn’t know. I only knew that I had to start somewhere.

Geir had wheeled me back to the office. The flip chart was still there, and Magnus’s red sketch of Roar Hanson’s body was still hanging from the pale brown wooden blinds. The big hole in his stomach looked like a gaping mouth. A small Cupid’s bow cut into the top of the oval, where the marker pen had caught and come off the paper.

Despite the fact that I had no basis on which to draw one single conclusion, I had decided we were dealing with just one perpetrator. I felt it was out of the question that two murderers entirely independent of one another should strike in the situation in which we found ourselves, with such a limited number of people and over a period of two days. And yet the difference in method was worrying. I was still not completely convinced that Magnus’s theory about a frozen spike was correct, but it would probably serve as a starting point for the time being. However, it was difficult to understand why someone would use an icicle when he or she obviously had access to a gun. Earlier I had guessed that Cato Hammer had been killed with a revolver, but of course it could just as easily have been a heavy-calibre pistol.

The Kurds had guns. I hadn’t seen his, but the movement of his hand towards the shoulder holster had been unmistakable. She definitely had a revolver. Therefore, I ought to suspect both of them. For some reason I couldn’t keep them in focus; their faces slid away every time I tried to add them to the overview of possible perpetrators I had set up in my mind’s eye.

I used to call it intuition in the old days.

It could no longer be trusted, of course.

I wheeled my chair over to the flip chart. The pen was lying on the metal lip below the paper, and I slowly took off the cap. Cato Hammer, I wrote at the top of the page.

The name told me everything and nothing. Red letters against cheap greyish paper. I tried to see past my own slanting handwriting. A name is an icon. A brief expression of the person who bears it.

I used to be able to do this. Once upon a time I was good.

I wrote Roar Hanson under the name of the other priest. Four letters in each forename. Roar and Cato. Six letters in each surname. Hanson and Hammer.

Coincidences. I wasn’t looking for coincidences. I was looking for connections.

Both were priests. They had been at college together. They were the same age. They had worked together in the past, and they were working together now. Or rather: their involvement in the church commission wasn’t actually a job, I supposed. More of a project, presumably. Cato Hammer was an outgoing person, known all over the country. Fat, jovial and a football fan. Roar Hanson was anonymous and grey, about as exciting as a grand master in chess.

I tore off the sheet of paper. Wrote the names again, this time with Roar Hanson at the top.

I had to start with the person I knew best.

I hadn’t exchanged a word with Cato Hammer. All I knew about the man was what I had read or seen on TV. Most public figures turn into paper dolls on the way from reality to representation in the tabloids. Knowing this should of course have stopped me disliking Hammer. But as I’ve said: I’m not particularly bothered about becoming a better person. Although I have to say that I knew Roar Hanson slightly better. If it hadn’t been for Adrian’s constant interruptions, I would have known even more. I felt a surge of adrenalin at the thought; I could have shaken him like a rag.

Forget Adrian, I tried to tell myself.

Roar Hanson had definitely found something out. Or rather, he thought he had found something out. The man had been walking around like a living ghost, stooping and almost transparent with despair. Of course I had no way of knowing if he was right in his assumptions about who had shot Cato Hammer. It would have been considerably easier if we had been allowed to complete our conversations; he had been on the point of sharing his suspicions with me on two occasions.

I refused to think about Adrian.

The boy was lost anyway. He wasn’t my problem.

Someone knocked on the door.

I didn’t want any visitors. Didn’t need them.

‘Come in,’ I said.

‘Is this where you’re sitting?’ Magnus asked rhetorically, settling himself down on the office chair behind the cluttered desk without asking if it was OK.

‘Yes, I’m sitting here – it’s all I can do.’

He looked curiously at the flip chart.

‘Can I join in?’ he asked.

‘With what?’

‘With this… thought game. Because that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Thinking?’

I sighed. A little too loudly. A little too demonstratively.

‘Hanne Wilhelmsen, my good friend.’

His voice had changed character. It had greater depth without sounding contrived, as if there were another man hidden inside that short body. I didn’t understand him. He called me his good friend, even though he didn’t know me. The constant switching between joker and omniscient sage, doctor and clown, wag and sharp observer was beginning to erode the sympathy I definitely felt for the man.

‘Hanne Wilhelmsen,’ he repeated, clasping his chubby hands at the back of his neck.

The odour of sweat hit my nostrils. It was more difficult to handle now I was clean. He smiled, as if he understood without letting it bother him. At any rate, he didn’t lower his arms.

‘You can’t quite make up your mind,’ he said, not taking his eyes off me. ‘On the one hand, you find it difficult to dislike me. My whole… appearance stops you from feeling sorry for me. People, by which I mean people in general, are sympathetic towards those of us who suffer the brutal and unpredictable caprices of nature. To dislike me would be to lose the illusion of being a good person, more than anything. Believe me, I have understood this ever since I was a little boy. To be honest, I have exploited it. A great deal.’

He beamed. An entire finger could have fitted between his front teeth.

‘You and I are basically very similar,’ he went on. ‘We are both different from other people, albeit in different ways. What separates us…’

Finally he unclasped his hands and leaned forward.

‘Do you know what my father used to do when I was growing up?’

I had no idea what old Streng used to do when Magnus was growing up. The need to know didn’t feel all that compelling.

‘Every evening after I’d had my bath and before bedtime, he used to take me into his office. Every single evening. I would be wearing my pyjamas. Striped flannel pyjamas with sleeves and legs that my mother had shortened. Turned up, I think they say. Always flannel pyjamas. With blue and white stripes. He was a man of the old school, my father. A giant of a man. A real outdoor type. I would curl up on his knee while he leafed through his books. He would show me animals. Ants busily building their anthills. Elephants in Thailand with enormous logs perfectly balanced above their jaws. Hunting lions and grotesque hyenas, cleaning up the savannah and disposing of infectious corpses. Hummingbirds hovering over the most fantastic flowers.’

He closed his eyes. His smile changed, as if he were looking back and into himself.

I really didn’t understand Magnus Streng.

‘We would sit there for quarter of an hour,’ he said, still smiling and without opening his eyes. ‘Never more, never less. Then he would close the book and put me to bed. And that is the difference between you and me.’

He was right, actually. Nobody showed me books with pictures of animals before bedtime, despite the fact that my father was a professor of zoology. Nor could I recall any flannel pyjamas. However, I had no idea what point Magnus Streng was trying to make. Other than to highlight the fact that he had a kind daddy. I agreed; the difference between us was immense.

‘My father didn’t say much,’ he said. ‘But it wasn’t really necessary for him to say anything. The message was clear enough: we are all needed. We are necessary here on earth. Small and large, fat and thin, ugly and beautiful. I was good enough. I am good enough.’

‘You don’t know me,’ I said sharply.

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve read about you, but I suppose I don’t know you. That’s true.’

‘Do you know what the Public Information Office is?’

His smile died away. He seemed confused. Disappointed, perhaps, but only for a moment. Then he leaned back in the chair again.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘There’s a Public Information Office for meat. For fruit and vegetables too, I imagine. And as far as I know there’s a Public Information Office for eggs and poultry. And no doubt one for fish. And for… Why in the world…’

‘Could Cato Hammer ever have been involved in something like that? Some project? An – an advertising job? Something like that?’

‘Cato Hammer? No, no, no. You mean the Public Information Service! The Public Information Service Foundation. That’s something completely different.’

I tried to think back to the last conversation I had had with Roar Hanson before Adrian turned up. Magnus could be right. Perhaps he had said Public Information Service. Not Office. Not that the difference meant anything to me.

‘Cato Hammer worked there for many years,’ said Magnus contentedly. ‘He was a man of many talents, you know. He had a degree in economics as well as being a priest. Such educational combinations are no longer so uncommon. I have a brother who is a qualified engineer as well as a doctor, and you have no idea what an advantage that is in today’s -’

‘What do they do?’ I interrupted him.

‘Who?’

‘The Public Information Service Foundation!’

‘They administer funds. Billions of kroner. Literally, I think. At any rate, it’s not a question of doing a great deal.’

‘Who owns… Who do they administer this money for?’

‘For the church, of course. For the Norwegian church. Some of the problems involved in separating state and church are linked to property. Wealth. The church is rich. The church is a real Croesus. As it has acquired most of its fortune as a state church, allocating all of this causes a serious schism. Possessions. Funds. Property. Houses and church buildings. Does all this belong to the state, to you and me in other words? Or does it belong to the church, so that the faithful can take it with them in exchange for the privileges they have, which are protected by law if we dismantle the entire edifice of state belief?’

It had never occurred to me that the church was rich. On the contrary, I remembered all the fuss surrounding the renovation of the cathedral in Oslo before the wedding of the Crown Prince. If we were to believe the newspapers, the building was on the point of falling down thanks to many years of neglect and a lack of money.

‘He was financial director there,’ said Magnus, his bushy monobrow knitted into a frown. ‘Or was he an accountant? No, I don’t remember. It wasn’t until he moved to the church at Ris as priest that he became seriously… visible to the masses, so to speak.’

He whinnied like a horse.

‘Do you know if Roar Hanson ever worked there?’

‘No-o…’

He drew the word out slightly, scratching behind his ear with his index finger.

‘To be honest, I’d never heard of Roar Hanson until today. An anonymous sort of chap, Hanson. Unfortunately he had none of his colleague’s charm and warmth.’

There was another knock on the door.

‘Who is it?’ I said crossly; I had told Geir I wanted to be left alone, and he had promised to keep the others away.

‘Sorry,’ said Berit, hesitating before she came into the room and closed the door behind her. ‘But something’s happened. Something that

She tugged at her ponytail.

‘Don’t tell me anybody else has been killed,’ I mumbled.

‘No, it’s -’

‘And don’t tell me anybody else has decided to set off on their own.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘In fact, you could say the opposite is true.’

‘The opposite,’ pondered Magnus, making a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘You mean somebody’s trying to get in?’

Then he laughed, loudly and uproariously, quite a different sound from the laughter I had heard before. Magnus Streng had a repertoire of laughter that an impressionist would envy him.

‘Yes.’

I looked from Berit to Magnus and back again.

‘What?’

She was fighting back the tears. Swallowing and breathing rapidly with her mouth open. Then she rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes, forced a smile and said:

‘Somebody is digging their way down to the main entrance. From outside. They want to get in.’

Then she snivelled and added:

‘At least, that’s the way it seems.’

Berit, Geir and Johan had persuaded the guests to move down into Blåstuen and Jøkulsalen. Every single hotel room had been checked to make sure that everyone, with the exception of the staff, Geir, the Red Cross personnel and I were located in the lower part of the wing. Magnus Streng had taken his role as chief of security very seriously, and had immediately chosen Mikkel as his deputy. The young gang leader muttered a sullen ‘OK’ as he tried to hide his surprise and something that resembled pride on his sulky countenance for a change. None of the guests was told the truth about why people had to be moved. Geir came up with the explanation that the gap where the carriage had been needed some reinforcement. There were also problems with the structure of the staircase itself since the fall, he lied, and everybody needed to stay away until this had been investigated. Magnus was enjoying his role. I could already hear his exhortations: people must keep calm, there was no need to worry.

This was a big fat lie, and everybody knew it.

Since the accident there had been every reason to worry.

Oddly enough, people had accepted their temporary internment. Even Kari Thue had allowed herself to be sent down to Blåstuen without making a fuss.

Of course it was difficult to know what she was thinking, and she immediately made sure she was as far away from the two Muslims as possible. Over the course of just two days she had managed to acquire her own little court. They followed her into the far corner by the window looking out over the veranda to the south, where she settled down on a yellow sofa with multicoloured stripes, looking for all the world as if she were surrounded by friends. I sat by the stairs leading down to St Paal’s Bar, and watched. Everything was going worryingly smoothly.

‘It won’t be long before they’re done,’ whispered Berit, with one hand on my shoulder. ‘It sounds as if they’re getting close to the door.’

I followed her towards the main entrance. Whoever was shovelling snow out there was doing a thorough job. After Johan had decided that it was pointless, dangerous and unnecessary to keep the entrance open, the small windows in the outside door had gradually darkened as a wall of snow built up outside. Now it was getting light again. Since the entrance was protected by a solid porch with benches on each side, it was necessary to dig down on the outside in order to get in under the roof and reach the door.

It was after one o’clock.

The chef had been furious when he was told that lunch would have to be postponed.

I hoped there would be a reason to eat lunch, even after this.

‘It’s somebody from the wing,’ Johan mumbled. ‘They’re the closest. It has to be them. And they must have a bloody good reason to come over here. It’s minus twenty-four out there, and the last time I checked the wind speed was just below thirty metres a second. And it’s still snowing heavily. But they’re almost here.’

I did my best to convince myself that the situation wasn’t threatening. Not for us, at least. Something could have happened in the wing. A revolt, perhaps. Something along the lines of the mutiny Kari Thue had tried to get under way on our side just before the railway carriage came down.

Berit had said there was enough food in the wing where the apartments were, but that it was mostly tins and vacuum packs left behind by the owners of the apartments after each visit. At any rate, it was unlikely that people were starving to death after less than twenty-four hours of not particularly tasty food. At least I thought it unlikely they would set out on the highly dangerous journey between the buildings just to get a better meal.

‘My money’s on those people from the top floor,’ said Johan with a yawn. ‘They’re tough, those guys. Strong.’

The scraping noise grew louder, almost drowning out the roar of the storm. I could now see movements behind the narrow windows in the door. Something dark against the white light from above. A person busy shovelling snow from the lowest part of the door.

‘Hello!’

The shout was clearly audible. It was a man. Several shadows were moving behind him; it was impossible to see how many there were.

‘I’m going to try to open the door. Is that OK?’

The voice almost disappeared among the scraping and bumping. Berit walked over to the door. She shouted back:

‘Who are you?’

‘Let us in! We’re…’

The answer faded away. Perhaps because of the wind, or perhaps because the speaker wanted it that way.

The man tugged at the door. Berit considered for a moment, then looked at Johan who nodded. He put his shoulder against it and pushed. The wind immediately found its way in, and the snow whirled in the draught. As soon as the gap was wide enough, the first man squeezed through and closed the door behind him. He stood in front of the door as if he wanted to prevent those outside from following him. Or perhaps he wanted to stop us from going out. At any rate his behaviour was striking as he stood there with his legs apart, arms akimbo like a bad-tempered bouncer outside a popular night club.

He was very tall and was dressed in windproof trousers, heavy boots and a mountain anorak. A woollen jumper was just visible under the anorak. Little balls of snow were stuck very close together around the neck. He gasped for breath and took off his hat before unwinding his scarf and pushing his ski goggles up onto his head.

He looked around without saying anything. The frost had nipped at his cheeks in spite of the scarf, hat and goggles. His face was narrow but with strong, almost handsome features beneath the dark greying hair that clung damply to his forehead. He had a rucksack on his back. It must have been heavier than the size suggested, since the straps were cutting surprisingly deeply into his shoulders.

I tried to understand. My brain tried to get this to make sense, searching for a logical connection in a chain of thought that was far too long.

When the man caught sight of me he stiffened before the shadow of a smile passed across his face, and he eventually took a step forward.

‘Hanne,’ he said, letting out a long breath. ‘I’ve never been so pleased to see you.’

When I recognized Severin Heger, I thought about the day I got shot.

Perhaps that wasn’t so strange. The last time I spoke to Severin, between Christmas 2002 and the New Year, he was the officer in charge with the police in Bergen. I had known him for a long time. He was a school friend of Billy T‘s, and used to work in what was known as the police supervision unit, on the top floors at Grønlandsleiret 44. Even though we weren’t friends, we had bumped into one another from time to time for almost twenty years. I needed help, and he gave me what I needed to unmask the head of the crime unit in the Oslo police force as a corrupt murderer. During the arrest I was shot. One bullet destroyed me for life. The prosecutor in the ensuing trial made a dramatic point of the cold-blooded attack on a female police officer. Personally, I thought the fact that the corrupt police chief had murdered four innocent people to make sure he didn’t lose his position and his reputation was considerably worse.

He was found guilty on all charges.

So it’s his fault that I am no longer able to walk.

As I see it, I have only myself to blame.

I was careless. Billy T tried to warn me. He ran after me when I rushed into a cottage in Nordmarka where we knew the suspect to be. There was no stopping me. I was tired. Broken down, in many ways. It was amateurish, rushing in like that. I had already heard the approaching helicopters in the distance; reinforcements were on the way.

The psychologist I was forced to see once I had eventually recovered sufficiently actually to speak to someone maintained that I was driven by a subconscious desire to die. She called it a death wish, I think. Which is absolute crap. I have no desire whatsoever to die. Life hasn’t exactly turned out the way I hoped, but in spite of everything death is definitely a less appealing alternative.

I was burnt out, irresponsible, and should have left my job as a police officer before it all went wrong. In fact, I remember that was the last thing I thought before I stormed the cottage: I have to give up this job. I can’t do this any more.

I learned my lesson.

Then I got Ida. I’m always with her. I always have time for my daughter. There is a kind of purpose in most things.

The fact that Severin Heger should suddenly turn up during an apocalyptic storm at Finse was considerably more difficult to grasp. Only when I had absorbed what had just happened did the pieces fall into place. My assumptions with regard to who had been hiding in the secret carriage and later in the apartment on the top floor could well be right. They had to be right. I glanced over at the door and felt my skin break out in goosebumps at the thought of the kind of person that was on the other side. Then I looked over at the tall man in his winter clothes.

‘Hello, Severin.’

I just couldn’t think of anything else to say.

He didn’t even try to give me a hug. His smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

‘Who’s in charge here?’ he asked, still out of breath.

‘I am,’ said Berit.

He held out his hand and introduced himself.

‘Why -’

‘I need an isolated part of the hotel,’ Severin Heger interrupted her. ‘Without any through traffic’

Berit’s expression was part surprise, part displeasure.

‘This hotel is not in a position to offer the highest level of service at the moment,’ she said. ‘So we are in fact a long way from being able to accommodate that kind of special request or requirement.’

For almost forty-eight hours I had seen Berit Tverre in most moods. Up to now she had never been sarcastic. It didn’t particularly suit her brisk style.

Severin opened his mouth to say something, but I got there first.

‘Why have you come here? What’s happened in the wing? I’m assuming it’s you and your friends who…’

I glanced over at the door, where shadows were moving outside the small windows. I couldn’t understand why the others had stayed outside. Even if they were sheltered from the wind in the deep hollow in front of the hotel, it must be bitterly cold.

‘… who were in the extra carriage,’ I went on. ‘And who have been staying in the apartment on the top floor. What’s happened?’

Severin looked around. I knew exactly what he was thinking. Before he replied, he spent a couple of seconds weighing up how much he had to say in order to achieve what he wanted.

‘A small… revolution,’ he said quietly and hesitantly, as if he wanted to buy himself more time.

Nobody said anything, nobody asked anything. Everybody was looking at Severin Heger.

‘A child died,’ he said. ‘A baby.’

‘You shot a child!’

Geir took a step towards Severin. It looked as if he were intending to avenge the baby’s death right there and then.

‘No! No! The baby died last night. Quietly and peacefully. It was sleeping next to its mother, but when she woke up the baby had died. No sign of external violence, no sign of anything at all apart from… sudden infant death syndrome?’

He shrugged his shoulders; the gesture was one of resignation rather than indifference.

‘Was the baby pink?’ I asked.

‘Pink?’

‘Was she dressed in pink from top to toe?’

‘Well. Yes. When they came up to us, a whole gang of them, wanting to… I went downstairs to stop them from… I went down to talk to them.’

He swallowed hard before adding:

‘Yes. It was a girl. The mother collapsed completely. Acute psychosis, I think. It was like throwing a lighted match into a can of petrol. Panic was threatening to take over completely. Two lads – I think they’re from the Red Cross – were doing their best to get the situation under control, but we thought it was best to make a move.’

Once again he swallowed hard before repeating:

‘It was a girl.’

I didn’t even know that Sara and her mother were in the wing. To tell the truth I had hardly thought about them, at least not since the hotel lost contact with the apartments.

I remembered the faint smell of sour milk from the baby’s clothes. I could see that little face in front of me, yelling and yelling into my jumper straight after the accident, as the temperature dropped and I was afraid we were all going to die.

‘She received a hard blow to the head. When the train derailed and crashed.’

Nobody seemed to grasp what I was saying. Perhaps I had only thought it.

‘But you’re armed,’ said Geir. ‘Couldn’t you keep them away?’

‘We are armed,’ Severin nodded. ‘But so were they. Axes, hammers, kitchen knives. A drawbar for a sledge! God knows what they’d kitted themselves out with.’

‘You had guns,’ Geir insisted.

‘Yes. But we are actually very keen not to shoot anyone. The balance of terror, you know. The deterrent effect. Our guns are primarily there to maintain peace. But these people were totally desperate. They thought we had a doctor, better food, they thought we had…’

He ran one finger across his brow and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

‘They would have smashed their way through the door, I think. They kept saying we had some member of the royal family with us.’

From outside we could hear loud banging on the door.

Severin straightened up. Berit was looking increasingly sceptical. Geir glanced at the policeman with something approaching hostility. Johan was the only one who still seemed impressed that Severin had made his way from the wing to the hotel, and had got here in one piece.

‘The situation was quite simply such that I had to bring…’ He pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch. Then he started again. ‘I need a part of the hotel where we can be alone.’

He turned to me this time.

As if there were suddenly only two people there, it was me he looked at. When I realized why, for the first time since I was shot I felt a small stab of longing for the job I had done for so long. I was reminded of an affinity between colleagues that even I had felt and once been part of, despite the fact that I had done my best to avoid it for many years.

Severin Heger trusted me. I didn’t know if he was still part of the Bergen police in what had been renamed the PST, or if he was a consultant in the growing market for private security. Since I thought I knew what kind of people he was guarding, I assumed that Severin had left Bergen and ordinary police work in favour of the more secret elements of the force. But right now we were both police officers, and he was relying on the fact that I would help him, just as he had helped me on the day I almost died.

‘He needs an isolated part of the hotel,’ I said. ‘And I think you should help him.’

‘But who is he?’

Berit looked from me to Severin.

‘Who are you? Why should I -’

‘Berit. Give him what he’s asking for.’

I was trying to remain calm.

‘Trust me. Please.’

The shadows outside were obviously tired of waiting. Someone banged on the door again, and Severin had to take a step backwards to stop them from coming in. The look he gave me was easy to interpret.

‘The top floor looking out towards Finsevann,’ I suggested quickly. ‘From room 207 onwards. Would that be OK?’

‘No,’ said Berit. ‘That’s too much. Too many rooms.’

She turned to Severin and tugged at her ponytail again. The gesture was evidently a sign that she was thinking.

‘You can have the dog room.’

‘The dog room?’ Severin repeated enquiringly.

‘Yes. How many of you are there?’

‘Four.’

‘OK. We have a room that’s been used to keep a dog in up to now. It was thoroughly cleaned this morning. It still smells of shit and maybe slightly of blood, but it is clean. It’s usually the staff dining room. You can have that room.’

‘How many entrances are there?’

‘One. One door. The window is blocked by snow.’

‘That’s no good. We need -’

‘Take it or leave it. Both you and those with you out there are welcome into this hotel on the same conditions as everyone else here. I would never have agreed to give you special treatment if Hanne hadn’t asked. I can’t offer you anything but the dog room.’

I looked at Severin and nodded imperceptibly.

‘You can lock the door,’ Berit went on. ‘It can be locked from the inside. There are several keys, but I will keep those. That means I can come in at any time. I will make sure you are provided with food and water. That’s what I can offer you.’

‘That’s probably the best solution,’ I interjected.

‘I assume you don’t want anyone to see you,’ said Berit. ‘Just as before. Therefore it would be best if you take the opportunity right away. We have gathered all the guests in a different part of the hotel. You can go down into the cellar without being seen.’

Severin realized he wasn’t going to get any further. He nodded and opened the door. Three men came in. They were wearing layer upon layer of clothing, and their faces were completely covered by goggles, scarves and hats. None of them seemed to want to take anything off. They were all carrying rucksacks, apparently just as heavy as Severin’s. If one of them had turned up carrying nothing, that would have given away the difference between him and the others. If one rucksack had been noticeably lighter than the rest, there would be reason to assume that it at least didn’t contain weapons. Given the way the four men were dressed and equipped, it was impossible to say who was doing the guarding and who was being guarded.

Severin looked enquiringly at Berit, who moved quickly towards the stairs, waving the new arrivals to follow her.

Halfway across the room he stopped dead and turned around.

‘Hanne,’ he said.

I moved over to him and allowed him to lean over me. When he began to speak his mouth was so close that the words tickled my earlobe.

‘Are there two people here who look Arabic?’ he asked. ‘A man and a woman? They can’t possibly have been in the wing. She’s wearing a black headscarf, he’s in a greyish brown jacket and -’

I nodded and he straightened up. His hesitation could be because he was intending to tell me something. It was difficult to tell whether my confirmation of the Arabs’ presence was good or bad news.

He decided not to say anything.

But he still gave me a sign. His eyes bored into mine. He held my gaze for several seconds, and it was impossible to look away. Then he blinked three times, and ran down into the cellar after the others.

I thought I understood what he meant.

Just a few hours later I would be forced to trust that I had interpreted him correctly. I had to take an enormous risk based on one look, but of course I knew nothing of this as I sat there listening to the footsteps of five people disappearing down the stairs.

I was thinking only of Sara, the little pink baby who was no longer alive.

Despite the fact that I have never heard an avalanche in reality, I have a definite idea of what it sounds like. If you spend enough time watching the Discovery Channel at night, as is my habit since my back was destroyed, frequently forcing me to get up at the most ungodly hours, you learn quite a lot about disasters. Including avalanches.

When Kari Thue’s voice sliced through the room, it reminded me of the first warning that an avalanche is on the way. It is often impossible to see anything but a slender and apparently innocent crack in the snow, but the sound is already there, it comes from deep beneath the snow where the mass is already on the move.

‘Where is Roar Hanson? Has anyone seen Steinar Aass? Where has Roar Hanson gone?’

Perhaps it had been a mistake to gather all the guests right at the bottom of the building. Up to then nobody had noticed that the ill-fated priest was missing. People had been preoccupied with themselves and their own affairs all morning. His absence was considerably less striking than that of Cato Hammer. As far as I was aware, Steinar Aass had not struck up a single acquaintance during the trip, and I had quietly assumed that nobody would give the man a thought.

By gathering all the guests in one place, we had made sure they were safe from whatever came in through the snow-blocked main entrance. However, this had made it easier for someone to notice that neither Roar Hanson nor Steinar Aass was there.

Kari Thue was the one who had made the discovery. This emaciated, irritating woman was not only wide awake and full of life, she was also smart and constantly on the lookout for ways to erode Berit, Geir and Johan’s otherwise undisputed leadership.

‘I demand an answer! We all demand to be told! Where are Roar Hanson and Steinar Aass?’

Kari Thue was the almost invisible crack in the snow, just below the top of the mountain. I was still sitting by the door, unable to stop thinking about the baby who came flying through the air and landed on my knee in the crash. Her death had had a greater impact on me than anything else that had happened since Wednesday afternoon. Sara hadn’t even reached her first birthday when she died. I reproached myself for not having told the doctors that she might be injured, despite the fact that she seemed to have suffered no ill effects from the hard collision with the wall in front of me on the train. I had no doubt assumed that her mother would ensure that a thorough examination was carried out, but I knew perfectly well that you should never take anything for granted. In my mind’s eye I suddenly saw her mother, shouting at me on the train. Her despair at having dropped the child was so great that she barely knew what she was saying. I should have…

At the same time, I didn’t know what I could have done, and that depressed me even more.

Kari Thue’s outburst had triggered the avalanche. The noise level was rising. More and more people were talking and asking questions down in Blåstuen, even though there was really nobody to whom these concerns could be addressed. Berit still hadn’t come back up from the cellar, and I didn’t know where Geir and Johan had gone. I pushed my chair slowly towards the accelerating spectacle. I would have much preferred to take cover in the office behind reception, and lock the door.

But I thought about Magnus, who had been tasked with keeping everyone calm down there. It sounded as if he had serious problems.

When he caught sight of me by the stairs leading down to St Paai’s Bar, he got up with some difficulty from a maroon chair and ran across the room. Despite my depression at Sara’s death and the certain knowledge that Kari Thue was going to make things even worse for us all, I had to suppress a smile as he hurried agitatedly towards the stairs. He wasn’t built for running, Magnus Streng. Nor for walking upstairs. It was as if his knees didn’t work properly. They were too loose to work normally when he was walking in a straight line. Instead he turned his legs in rapid semi-circles from the hips. It looked as if he were parodying a speed walker.

‘Here we go again!’

His chest was whistling. He grabbed his throat, coughed and waved his free hand apologetically in the air.

‘Asthma,’ he gasped. ‘Unfortunately I haven’t brought my medication with me. I don’t usually suffer at this time of year.’

‘Sit down,’ I said, pointing to a chair by the table.

‘Yes,’ he said, catching his breath. ‘This is actually… rather unpleasant.’

He tried to moisten his lips before picking up a glass of water someone had left on the table. He emptied it in one draught.

‘She sees everything,’ he groaned. ‘She remembers everything. I’m bloody certain she’d have won the world championship in Memory.’

The noise from downstairs was so obtrusive that I didn’t answer.

While the gang surrounding Mikkel had never been anything more than irritating and cocky, the group that gathered around Kari Thue was much more threatening. It now consisted of something like forty people. Kari Thue herself had climbed up on a table, where she had begun to address her followers like the charismatic leader of some sect.

‘Things are being kept from us,’ she shouted, tucking her thumbs into the straps of the little rucksack; I was beginning to wonder if she kept it on in bed. ‘And I’m asking myself who exactly is making the decisions in this situation, and with what right and authority. We were told that everyone, absolutely everyone, must assemble down here. The insulation packed into the hole in the wall was to be reinforced, they said, and the structure of the staircase checked. But where are Roar Hanson and Steinar Aass? Do they have privileges not extended to the rest of us? Is there some difference between us and them?’

‘What shall we do?’ I whispered to Magnus.

‘I… don’t… really… know.’

He was gasping for breath after every word. I was seriously concerned; his skin was grey and damp, and one hand was clutching the edge of the table so tightly that the knuckles were white.

Berit came running in.

Some people crumble under protracted pressure. Some cling to others and become like children again, needing consolation and reassuring lies. Some become paralysed. Life has taught me that it is more or less impossible to predict how people will react under great stress.

Choosing soldiers is an art, and Berit Tverre was a woman you would want by your side in a war. She stopped dead on the top step of the staircase leading to St Paal’s Bar. During the course of just a few seconds, she had grasped the situation. First of all she crouched down beside Magnus. Without asking him any questions, she took an inhaler out of her pocket and pushed it into his hand.

‘Bricanyl,’ she murmured. ‘I have asthma too. Deep, calm breaths.’

I will never forget Magnus Streng’s face as he greedily swallowed air containing the healing micro-particles. He cupped his hands around the rocket-shaped inhaler. His eyes were gratefully fixed on Berit’s face. Big, heavy tears slowly trickled from his eyelashes and ran down towards the corners of his mouth. He gave the dosage dispenser one more turn and inhaled deeply.

Once Berit could see that Magnus had the situation under control, she raised both hands and shouted down to the agitated crowd.

‘Roar Hanson is dead,’ she almost bellowed. ‘And so is Steinar Aass. Sit down. Sit down!’

There was complete silence. It seemed as if the weather gods themselves had had a shock; the monotonous roar from outside seemed more distant and subdued. Berit walked quickly down the short staircase and cut across St Paal’s Bar. She stopped by the wide opening leading into Blåstuen, where the doors were folded right back so that both rooms formed one big space. Kari Thue was still standing on the table. Most of the others were looking embarrassed, searching for somewhere to sit. The dog owners had settled in one corner, where the three surviving dogs seemed to be getting on well. I couldn’t see Muffe’s owner anywhere, but a number of people were hidden from me behind the walls between the two rooms. Some were also sitting in Jøkulsalen. The double doors leading into this area were open, so that everyone could hear what was said. Adrian and Veronica must be in there, because I couldn’t see them.

‘Get down from there,’ Berit hissed at Kari Thue. ‘I will not have you treating my furniture like this. Down! Down!’

She could have been talking to a disobedient dog.

‘What’s happened to Roar and Steinar?’ said Kari Thue, without showing any sign of obeying.

‘As I said, they’re both dead. Steinar Aass got the idiotic idea that he could make his way down from the mountain by himself. He froze to death. Roar Hanson… He’s dead too. There isn’t much you can do about that.’

‘How did he die?’

I had to strain to hear what they were saying. For the first time since the accident I regretted not asking for a ramp from the lobby down to the communal areas.

‘Will you come down from there!’

Berit was trying to grab hold of Kari Thue’s arm. Mikkel, who was sitting at the other end of the room, got to his feet hesitantly. It looked as if he hadn’t quite decided what he was going to do. He eased his way slowly between tables and chairs before suddenly speeding up. When he reached Kari Thue, he stopped and put his hands on his hips.

‘Do as the lady says. Get down.’

‘First I want to know what’s happened.’

‘You’ve already been told what you need to know,’ said Berit.

‘No. You lied to us before. I want to know the truth about Roar Hanson, and I want to know right now.’

‘You look absolutely ridiculous,’ said Mikkel. ‘Stop making such a fuss. Get down. This lady here is in charge, OK!’

Kari Thue looked at him as if he were something she had dug out of the bathroom plughole.

‘I seem to remember that you agreed with me.’

Mikkel had his back to me, but I could make a guess at his facial expression from his posture. His head tilted slowly backwards at an angle, and he made his shoulders look broader by raising them.

‘Bitch,’ he hissed all of a sudden, waving his hand in the air as if to ward off some annoying insect.

He turned around and sauntered indifferently away, mumbling something I couldn’t hear. When a couple of his friends stood up to follow him, he snapped at them to stay where they were. I expected him to walk past Magnus and me without a word. To my surprise he sat down on the stairs in front of me, on the bottom step.

‘Bitch,’ he said, without looking at us.

Kari Thue clearly believed that she was leading the battle. In a way she was. With renewed self-confidence she gazed out over the assembled crowd before turning to Berit once more.

‘It can hardly be a coincidence if two members of the church commission die within the course of just a few hours. You have already confirmed that Cato Hammer was murdered, although of course you did try to pull the wool over our eyes with regard to his death as well. Which, incidentally, is a fundamental infringement of my rights, and the rights of everyone here. We are snowed in on the mountain under extreme circumstances. Each and every one of us has the right to make decisions in order to save our own lives.’

She was speaking on each inhalation and exhalation. This made the brief pause even more dramatic.

‘Within the boundaries of the law, of course. I must remind you that we are not on board a ship. You are not the captain. None of the maritime rules of hierarchy apply here.’

She stabbed her index finger at Berit’s shoulder and took a step back.

‘I am not aware of any laws that give you the right to make decisions on behalf of all of us,’ Kari Thue went on. ‘Quite the reverse. In the absence of either the police or some other authority, it is up to us to find the best solutions to help us survive. And therefore I demand to be given the information necessary to enable me to take care of myself. I would say that…’

‘Mikkel,’ I whispered.

He half turned and ran a casual hand over the handkerchief tied around his head.

‘What?’ he mumbled.

‘Help me down. Down the stairs.’

‘I would say,’ said Kari Thue more loudly, ‘that with the current mortality rate in this place, information about what people are actually dying of is to be considered absolutely vital.’

Instead of easing the chair down the three steps, Mikkel simply picked up the chair with me in it, and carried me down before gently placing me on the floor, with no sign of exertion whatsoever. The boy really was as strong as he looked.

‘Thanks,’ I whispered.

He didn’t answer.

‘What did Roar Hanson die of?’ Kari Thue shouted accusingly at Berit.

‘You’re right,’ I shouted back as I moved closer to the crowd.

Kari Thue jumped, quite literally. She reminded me of a squirrel, a nervous, quick, alert creature who nevertheless hadn’t had the sense to take in enough food. Berit looked at me, slightly confused. I would have liked to have told her what I was thinking.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ I repeated instead. ‘You all have the right to know what people are dying of up here.’

I stopped my chair three or four metres from the doorway leading into Blåstuen. I put the brakes on and placed my hands on my lap.

‘Steinar Aass froze to death,’ I said loudly. ‘As Berit has just told you. As far as Roar Hanson is concerned, all the indications are that he was murdered last night.’

The woman with the knitting, who I had eventually realized was one of the lay members of the church commission, burst into tears. She raised the half-finished knitting to her face and sobbed. A man leaned over to console her. The sound of murmuring grew louder, and after just a few seconds everybody was talking over the top of one another. Kari Thue looked as if she didn’t really know what to do. It was as if the confirmation that she was right was so unexpected that she had lost her balance, rhetorically at least.

‘I was right,’ she said, talking to the air; no one was listening.

‘And what are you going to do about it?’ I asked her.

‘What did he die… How was he murdered?’

Neither of us was talking particularly loudly any more. This was a conversation between the two of us, as I had hoped. But people were starting to shush one another. They wanted to hear.

‘We don’t really know,’ I replied. ‘But he was stabbed with some kind of object.’

‘A knife?’

I noticed she was blinking more rapidly now. Whether this was a sign of insecurity or of something quite different and even more desirable, I couldn’t say.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not with a knife. So what are you going to do? Now you’ve got the information you thought you had a right to?’

She looked around. Presumably it didn’t feel quite so good to be standing on a table having a reasonable conversation with me as when she was hell-bent on deposing Berit. At the same time, it would be a defeat to climb down from her makeshift speaker’s podium, as both Berit and Mikkel had tried to get her to do. She chose to start with a compromise, and sat down. It was obviously uncomfortable sitting in that position, like a child with her legs tucked up, because she slowly shuffled towards the edge. Eventually she was standing on the floor. But she didn’t say anything.

‘I’m waiting,’ I said with a smile.

‘Yes, what are we going to do, Kari? What do we do now?’

It was one of her courtiers, a lady in her fifties with a tan that owed much to a sunbed, who was asking. She had been among the first to attach herself to Kari Thue, that very first evening after the intermezzo with the two Kurds.

Still no answer. Kari Thue swallowed, and the room was so silent that I could hear the wet sound of her larynx moving.

‘Look, everybody – look!’

One of Mikkel’s gang had got to his feet. He was standing right by the window overlooking the terrace. He waved his hand and went on:

‘The weather! Look!’

The terrace had been covered in deep snow for a long time. The door was completely blocked. You could only see out of the top half of the window, although not many people had noticed this as the view had disappeared thanks to the constantly falling snow.

The cloud cover had broken up. It was still snowing heavily, but the light slicing through the whirling flakes was white and intense. It was as if the sun itself wanted to remind us that it was still up there. That it hadn’t forgotten us, and that it would soon knock aside this monstrous storm that had already been allowed to torment us for far too long.

Kari Thue was forgotten. Everything but the weather was forgotten. A number of people got up and went over to the window, as if they couldn’t really believe what they were seeing. Others clapped their hands and laughed, some tentatively, others light-heartedly. The woman with the knitting dried her tears over Roar Hanson and screamed with joy.

The whole thing lasted a minute or so.

The sky closed up once more. The grey darkness pressed against the windows. The snow reverted to its dirty grey colour, and became a wall of miserable weather once again.

A huge collective sigh rose up to the ceiling.

‘The temperature is rising,’ Geir said cheerfully. I had been so focused on the weather that I hadn’t heard him come in. ‘At the moment it’s minus twenty-one, and the wind is already down to twenty-four metres a second. That’s only a strong gale! Nothing compared to what it has been.’

Like most of the others, I looked from Geir to the windows and back again. It was as if that glimpse of better times was an illusion. There was nothing in the monotonous, limited view to suggest that the weather was likely to improve in the foreseeable future.

‘Very good,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘Does that mean they’ll be coming for us soon?’

‘Well,’ he gave a broad grin, ‘everybody will be staying at Finse for one more night. But if it continues to improve, I should think the first of us could probably be heading for town as early as tomorrow.’

‘Perhaps,’ Berit added sceptically. ‘We have no experience of this amount of snow. We don’t even know what it looks like out there. The railway lines will have to be cleared, and -’

‘Let’s be optimistic,’ said Geir. ‘I should imagine they’ll allocate a helicopter to us after all we’ve been through. One more night, and then we’ll all be off home.’

He was obviously ignoring the fact that the police would want to have their say about the chances of our leaving Finse as soon as it became physically possible. But given the current situation, I didn’t think there was any point in reminding him of that.

Despite the fact that the upbeat atmosphere plummeted noticeably when it turned out that the break in the cloud cover above Finsevann was extremely temporary, Geir’s optimism seemed to be infectious. Nobody was talking about Roar Hanson’s death any longer, nor about the safety of the guests. They were talking about the wind and the weather, and a few had already begun to bet on when the first helicopters would arrive at Finse. People spread themselves out around the seating areas, and many went up to the Millibar for coffee while they waited for the tables to be set for a delayed lunch. Some of the teenagers started singing.

It was hard to understand that this shower had just been told that yet another person had been murdered. On the other hand, a comparatively long time in the police had taught me that people have a phenomenal ability to let themselves be distracted by good news. None of them had any kind of close relationship with either Roar Hanson or Steinar Aass, with the possible exception of the knitter. I wasn’t even all that convinced of her honesty when she broke down at the thought of her colleague’s death. She was sitting there now with a blissful smile on her face, slurping coffee with lots of cream and glancing constantly at the windows in the hope that God would once again show His grace.

Kari Thue had sat down. She was flicking through a book with an interested expression on her face; I didn’t believe for one moment that she was reading it.

The Kurds must have been there the whole time, but I hadn’t seen them until now. They came hurrying out of Blåstuen, heading for reception. I followed them with my eyes all the way, but they didn’t turn around or give any other indication that they wanted to talk to me or anyone else. The woman kept her head down, while the-man-who-might-have-been-her-husband held her forearm in an authoritative grip.

Magnus Streng was obviously feeling better. I could see him up in the lobby. He was talking quietly to Berit, who suddenly leaned over and gave him a warm hug.

Things were starting to return to something resembling normality. And nobody had asked a question about the really big lie: the need to improve the insulation in the hole left by the railway carriage, and to check the staircase. Not one of the guests at Finse 1222 had any idea that four strange men from the secret carriage were sitting behind a locked door in the cellar. Nobody had even asked why it had been necessary to gather everyone down in Blåstuen.

The whole thing was like magic. You wave one hand dramatically so that no one notices what you are doing with the other hand. In this case it was Kari Thue who had performed a magic trick. Little did she suspect that her performance had made it possible for us to take in the men from the wing and hide them without anyone noticing a thing.

The world really is happy to be deceived.

‘You look a bit down,’ said Geir, patting me on the shoulder. ‘Come on, I’ll help you back up to reception.’

I didn’t know if I wanted him to do that. To be honest, I didn’t know what I wanted.

‘Cheer up, Hanne! The weather is improving. One more night, and then we can all head for home.’

That was exactly what was getting me down.

‘I don’t know if we can get through one more night,’ I said quietly, so that the others wouldn’t hear. ‘It’s the nights in this place that scare me. So far we haven’t had one single night without a murder.’

Geir blinked and swallowed. It looked as if he were about to say something. A word of consolation, perhaps. He couldn’t come up with anything. Just as well – I was frighteningly right. Instead he followed me as I slowly wheeled my chair across the room towards the stairs leading up to the lobby, and my fixed spot by the Millibar.

‘I need coffee,’ I said. ‘Lots and lots of coffee. I have no intention of going to sleep again until we’ve been rescued. The next time I lie down, it will be in my own bed.’