1222

4

I was definitely getting rusty.

When Adrian gave me the list he had made, I was impressed. The only problem was that I couldn’t work out what I wanted it for. Perhaps I had hoped it would be complete when I asked him to do it. I took the fact that I could even think such a thing as an indication that I was further away from the Oslo police district than I had felt in many years. And not just literally.

The document would have been useful if it had contained a complete overview of all the passengers and what they had brought with them from the train. The compilation of such a list presupposed that someone had been given the task before people started arriving at the hotel. A thorough registration process, like in a prison. The papers the boy handed me with an embarrassed gesture barely supplied more than the obvious. Their artistic appearance was impressive, and they told me something new about Adrian.

‘Thank you,’ I said, and meant it.

‘OK.’

I looked up at him when I had finished going through the list, folded the sheets and tucked them in a pocket on the wheelchair. He just stood there looking awkward with his hands dangling by his sides, his eyes downcast.

‘You did have someone,’ I said. ‘In spite of everything. So did I. For me it was wooden houses.’

‘What?’

‘For me it was cottages built of wood. I had a neighbour when I was a child. He was a carpenter. A caretaker. To be honest, he was the only person who was really there for me. The other adults around me didn’t waste much energy on my existence. But I’m bloody good at building wooden houses.’

Adrian looked sceptically at my chair.

‘Was.’ I corrected myself with a nod. ‘I was good at building wooden cottages. Bloody good.’

‘What’s the list for?’

‘It could be useful. Who did you have? Who taught you this? This fantastic, elegant handwriting?’

‘Has something happened?’

He was scraping at the worn, uneven floorboards with his shoe.

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

I was saved from coming up with an answer. Geir Rugholmen rushed in, grabbed hold of my chair without a word and pushed me towards the kitchen. Adrian followed a few steps behind, but stopped dead when Geir snapped at him.

‘I don’t like being pushed,’ I said as the door closed behind us.

I could see that the corpse had disappeared. Since they couldn’t have taken it through reception without my seeing them, I assumed they had used the walk-in freezer. On the other hand, I wasn’t really sure whether there might be another way out of the kitchen.

The thought of the freezer reminded me how hungry I was, and I placed a hand on my stomach.

‘Now listen,’ said Geir, placing himself directly in front of me. ‘Listen to me.’ His voice was higher than usual. ‘I did what you said.’

He coughed and crouched down so that his head was lower than mine, but I didn’t really know if it was a great deal better than looking up at him.

‘I went up to the top floor. There are actually three apartments, numbers seventeen, eighteen and nineteen. They’re all on the same corridor. And there’s a guard up there.’

As if he wasn’t sure whether I was listening properly, he waited for a reaction before he was prepared to carry on.

‘I see,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders. ‘A guard. With all this secrecy, that shouldn’t really surprise you. Of course there’s a guard.’

‘An armed guard.’

There are a few individuals who have really known me. Not many, of course, and until I was twenty it was only the carpenter who lived next door who sometimes made an honest attempt to see who I was. Since then, many have tried. Far too many, an exhausting number in fact, but I have been strong enough to prevent most of them from succeeding. When I started to run out of strength, I stopped letting anyone try.

But there are a few. They’ve all said the same thing, complaining and accusing me. Hanne shuts down. In any discussion, from a noisy quarrel to the simplest conversation, sooner or later I reach a point where I no longer have anything to contribute. Usually sooner, so they say. Always too soon, they’ve all said.

But I always think best alone.

‘Hello!’

Geir placed a hand on my arm and shook me.

‘Did you hear what I said? There’s an armed guard in the corridor outside the three apartments on the top floor!’

‘What sort of weapon is he carrying?’ I said into thin air, mostly in order to have something to say.

‘How the hell should I know! A rifle. Or an automatic rifle. Or an automatic pistol maybe; it looked like something in between.’

‘Haven’t you done military service?’

‘Community service. I pushed old people around in their wheelchairs in a care home.’

‘Don’t you hunt?’

‘No I bloody don’t! I know nothing about guns, but even my five-year-old son would have realized he was carrying a gun.’

‘Was he a Norwegian?’

‘What?’

‘Was this armed man a Norwegian?’

‘Of course he was a Norwegian! It’s hardly likely that some foreign squadron has been scrambled out here at Finse, is it!’

‘They have squadrons in the air force and the navy,’ I said. ‘Not in the army. And anyway, we’re not really talking about the military here, are we. How do you know he was a Norwegian?’

Geir stood up and sighed demonstratively.

‘He spoke Norwegian. He looked really Norwegian. In other words, he was totally Norwegian.’

‘What did you talk about?’

This was actually beginning to resemble a conversation, and Geir calmed down slightly. He looked around for somewhere to sit.

‘I said hello,’ he said, and hitched himself up on the work surface that until quite recently had been the resting place for the remains of Cato Hammer. ‘And then I introduced myself. I didn’t get any further.’

He waited in vain for my response.

‘He just told me to go away,’ he continued impatiently.

‘Did he aim the gun at you?’

‘Did he… No. He told me very firmly to go away. I had only just got through the door, and I half-closed it before I tried to say anything else. He interrupted me and repeated the order. Go away. That’s what he said. Several times.’

This was the final, irrevocable proof that the royal family were not in Finse on this stormy February night. They would neither need nor demand such protection. The question now was who did.

The answer that immediately struck me was terrifying.

An enormous crash made me jerk back in the chair so suddenly that I almost tipped it over.

The cold rushed in through the broken window, and it took only a few seconds before the floor was covered with snow several metres inside the room. The air turned dirty white with whirling snow and howling wind, and I found it difficult to breathe. Berit Tverre came racing in. Glass and paper swirled around the room, and I bent forward in my chair with my hands linked behind my head, as if I were in a plane that was about to crash and could do nothing more than hope for the best. I had noticed that there were a dozen or so scoops and ladles hanging from a pole beneath the fan. Now they were flying around the room, and one of them almost hit me on the head.

In the old days I had a good sense of time.

I could pinpoint a given period of time with great precision, without using my watch. It was useful. That ability, or perhaps it was more a question of intuition, has disappeared. I get mixed up. I fumble and I have no idea how long it was before silence fell once more. The storm was still roaring, of course, but at least it was on the right side of the wall. Compared with the raging bedlam when the window caved in, this was total silence.

I unlocked my hands from the back of my neck and slowly raised my head.

Berit and Geir were sitting under the smallest window in the food preparation area, completely out of breath. They had secured the window with a solid wooden panel. It was still freezing cold in the room, but the snow on the floor was already melting.

‘Thank you,’ I managed.

They both started to laugh. They gasped for breath and laughed. They each waved a hammer in the air as if they had just won a life and death struggle. Which they had, in a way.

‘Wow,’ came a voice. ‘Bloody hell. Could that happen to these windows in here?’

Adrian had come into the kitchen without our hearing him. He took a few steps from the washing-up area, screened off by a partition, and came into the main kitchen.

‘Is there anybody else out there?’ I asked.

‘No. They’re all asleep. Could the big windows go as well?’

Berit stood up and held out her hand to Geir to help him up.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘This window has needed fixing for a long time. I should have secured it when the storm started.’

Adrian grinned as if he were choosing how much of Berit’s assurances to believe, and was looking forward to the chaos to come.

I brushed the snow off my sweater and my chair. If nothing else, the storm’s sudden attack on the hotel had put a stop to a conversation I wanted to avoid.

‘Come on,’ I said to Adrian, heading for reception. ‘Let’s leave these people to clear up.’

The metal on my wheels was so cold that it made my palms smart as the door closed behind me. I was seriously concerned, but unfortunately my anxiety had nothing to do with the weather.

‘What’s actually going on?’

Adrian had sat down on the window ledge with his back to the glass and his feet on the table. His arms were folded demonstratively across his chest. I chose to ignore him. He sat up straight.

There was no chance of keeping the murder of Cato Hammer a secret. I had realized that as soon as I saw the body. The priest had been one of the most conspicuous people on the train, and he hadn’t exactly made himself invisible the previous evening. Even if many of the passengers had expressed their scepticism and displeasure, there were clearly a number who liked the man. As far as I understood it, there had actually been some kind of service down in the hobby room. Quite successful, I had heard from an elderly married couple who thought I was asleep, and quite well attended. Hammer might well have had plans for the morning too. Besides which, he was a member of a larger party.

Sooner or later somebody would start asking questions about the football priest’s disappearance. The question was whether I should lie to Adrian in the meantime.

‘Are you deaf, or something? What’s going on? What do you all keep doing in the kitchen?’

I looked at the boy.

Strictly speaking, there were 193 suspects in the case, since I could only say with absolute certainty that the pink baby and I were innocent. Bearing in mind the force of the raging storm, if it was at all physically possible to move from place to place in the village of Finse, then the circle of potential perpetrators would have to be extended. Apart from the passengers who had been provided with accommodation outside the hotel complex, I had heard that there were others out there too – the odd cottage owner and four Polish joiners who were busy restoring one of the apartments in Elektroboligen.

An uncertain but limited number of possible murderers.

Adrian was one of them.

‘What the fuck’s the matter with you? Hanne! Hello!’

It was the first time he had used my name. I don’t know how he knew it. He must have eavesdropped on the conversation between Dr Streng and me when he was dressing my wound.

Adrian had been pretty aggressive the previous day. But I was convinced that his outburst against the priest had been an expression of general contempt for adults. And for authority. And in particular for any football team other than Vålerenga.

‘Look at me,’ I said eventually.

‘What?’

He pulled his cap further down.

I leaned forward and pushed it back.

‘Look at me,’ I said again. ‘What have you got against Cato Hammer?’

‘Cato Hammer? That idiot who supports Brann?’

I couldn’t see the slightest hint of shame or fear. On the contrary, his eyes narrowed in contempt and when he looked away and glanced around the room, it was as if he were hoping the priest might pop up again for a fresh mauling.

‘You don’t make jokes about football,’ he snapped. ‘Brann suck. And that wanker doesn’t even speak with a Bergen accent! He’s never even lived there! He isn’t -’

‘Not many Vålerenga fans were born and brought up in eastern Oslo,’ I broke in. ‘Were you?’

Stupid question. No doubt Adrian had grown up all over the place. And nowhere. He didn’t bother to reply.

‘Cato Hammer is dead.’

He looked completely floored for a few seconds before screwing his eyes up again, this time in disbelief. When he eventually opened his mouth to say something, I thought I could see a hint of fear in his eyes. At the same moment we heard a racket on the stairs. I turned around in a reflex action. A family of four were making their way noisily down with the Portuguese water dog pulling on the lead. It barked when it spotted me.

‘It’s seven o’clock,’ the father trilled enthusiastically. ‘A new day, new opportunities!’

‘What were you going to say?’ I asked Adrian quietly, trying to catch his eye again. ‘You looked as if you were going to say something?’

It was too late. He shrugged his shoulders and tugged at that bloody cap.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Sorry to hear that, maybe. Or oh, how dreadful. Is that what you mean? Whatever.’

‘I find it odd that you haven’t asked how he died.’

Adrian sighed.

‘How did he die?’ he asked.

‘He was murdered.’

‘What?’

‘He was shot.’

‘When?’

The question surprised me. I concentrated more on trying to interpret his facial expressions than really listening to what he was saying.

‘Last night,’ I said briefly.

‘Where is he now?’

‘You’re asking some very odd questions.’

‘Just like you,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the coffee machine. ‘Do you want a drink?’

Adrian was a child in many ways, and even if I have allowed myself to be fooled by adults for some reason, I have yet to meet a young person who can carry off that particular role.

‘Don’t say anything to anybody else,’ I said. ‘For the time being.’

He stared at me for a second before shaking his head. ‘Keeping something like that a secret,’ he muttered. ‘That’s bound to go well. Do you want a drink or not?’

Adrian was himself again. The annoying thing was that I couldn’t be completely certain what I had seen in his face when the noisy family with the dog disturbed me.

But it could certainly be compared to fear, and I couldn’t work out why this made me so uneasy.

I had no way of knowing if it was Adrian who had given the game away. Probably not, given that when the boy did communicate with anyone other than me, it was through sullen words of one syllable. Apart from with Veronica, I assumed, although I had only seen them together in mutual silence. In any case, the girl hadn’t come down to breakfast yet. On the other hand, everybody else had. Kari Thue was complaining loudly about how well she had slept.

‘It’s a disgrace,’ her thin voice sliced right across the room to me. ‘It’s absolutely indefensible, allowing people to sleep so heavily and so late under these circumstances. Many of us could have suffered concussion in the accident without realizing it. And if that happens, the person is supposed to be woken up at regular intervals!’

The lobby had been transformed into a transit hall, and rumours were buzzing as people came and went. Everyone seemed to be en route to somewhere. They stayed just long enough for the gossip to start up again, exactly as it had on the train before the accident. I sat there utterly fascinated, listening to one improbable tale after another. The rich flow of stories had only one truth in common: Cato Hammer had disappeared.

The dining room was in the wing that stuck out towards Finsevann, with an entrance leading from St Paal’s Bar. As far as I knew, the staff also used a conference room further in, on the other side of the wall from Blåstuen. My food had been served on a tray by a woman who for some reason was smiling the whole time. I had noticed her the previous evening. She was obviously employed at the hotel, and treated me with a friendly air of collusion that I was unable to understand. Even if I had taken part in the unpleasant events of last night, and was also in a unique position because of my inability to leave the reception area, there was no reason to treat me like a member of some kind of Finse club. I immediately assumed that she knew what had happened to Cato Hammer. It would be difficult to deal with both the corpse and the practical problems linked to the murder without informing the staff. At the moment she was wandering around like some kind of mountain Pollyanna, dispensing smiles and laughter in all directions. Which was remarkable in itself, really. The atmosphere among all those coming and going from the dining room, some carrying plates and coffee cups, was becoming more and more intractable as the questions came thick and fast and nobody seemed capable of providing any answers.

‘Everybody will be told what’s happened.’ She smiled in a doomed attempt to calm the masses. ‘There will be an information meeting in here at nine thirty! Everybody will be told then.’

I didn’t like her, but the food was good.

‘Is it true?’

One of the girls from the handball team was staring at me. She was slender, flat-chested and lanky. Her tracksuit was red, and she was wearing new trainers from which the laces had been removed, for some reason. I frowned.

‘Is it true?’ she repeated with a smile.

Her teeth were enclosed in a sturdy metal framework. I smiled back.

‘Is what true?’

‘That he’s dead, that bloke. That priest.’

‘Why are you asking me?’

‘Well, at least you’re sitting still,’ she said, looking around before perching on the table and swinging her legs. ‘All the other adults are just wandering about all over the place.’

The teenagers, who had been playing poker all evening and had shamelessly sneered at the dead priest, were determined to believe that Cato Hammer had tried to get to Haugastøl on a stolen snowmobile. Since several people thought they had heard the sound of an engine during the night, and Kari Thue was pretty sure the weather had improved slightly at about three o’clock, the story of Cato Hammer’s wild mountain adventure took off. Somebody insisted they had heard shouting and screaming at about that time, and by the way, where were the Red Cross people? Had there been a fight? A very shaken woman, who later turned out to be the cause of all the fuss, maintained over and over again that she was supposed to have had a meeting with Hammer at eight o’clock, which was now over an hour ago, and that he was not the kind of person to miss a meeting. She knew him very well, she explained, fighting back the tears. It was out of the question that Cato Hammer would leave them all in the lurch in this godforsaken place. As he wasn’t in his room, and nobody, absolutely nobody, had seen him since eleven thirty the previous evening, he was definitely dead or seriously injured. Perhaps he was lying helpless in the snow, and couldn’t somebody go out and look for him, for God’s sake?

‘I don’t think it is exactly godforsaken here,’ said the girl with a grin, her brace glinting in the light. ‘It’s quite a nice hotel, actually. Don’t you think so?’

A man in jeans and a blue blazer was standing motionless in the middle of the room just a few metres away from me. He looked bewildered, a marker post for all those rushing to and fro. I had noticed him the previous day. He was part of the large church delegation. When Cato Hammer was trying to gather people together for a service, the man in the blazer had seemed troubled, almost embarrassingly agitated. A couple of times he had tried to tug at Hammer’s sleeve, as if to calm the over-energetic priest. Now he was just standing there looking lost, running a hand nervously over his thin hair.

‘Is it true?’ the girl from the handball team persisted. ‘Is he dead, or has he done a runner? But then why would he do that? Is it possible to run away in this weather? Do you know what’s happened?’

‘Hi,’ I said, nodding to the man who had taken a couple of steps towards me and the girl in her red outfit. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’

He gave a thin smile, took the last few steps and held out his hand. ‘Roar Hanson,’ he said, not quite sure whether to acknowledge the girl as well.

‘Hanne Wilhelmsen,’ I nodded. ‘You looked as if you were wondering about something?’

‘We all are, aren’t we?’ said the man, pulling up a chair. ‘I must say I am a little anxious.’

‘Do you know Cato Hammer?’ I asked. ‘Or…’ I gave a little laugh. ‘How well do you know him? I saw you talking to each other several times yesterday, and -’

‘We’re friends,’ said Roar Hanson seriously, then hesitated. ‘Yes. We are friends. Not very close friends, it’s fair to say, but we were at college together and… I don’t understand…’

He stopped.

I tried to follow his gaze. The noisy family with the water dog were trying to find somewhere to sit. Adrian wasn’t all that keen on moving for their sake. Instead he made room for Veronica, who was wearing just as much make-up as the previous day. On her feet she was wearing a pair of red woollen socks that I had seen Adrian wearing with his trainers only last night. I thought this business of swapping clothes was more common among kids younger than these two. Perhaps it was romantic. What do I know about that kind of thing.

The dog was barking and his good-natured master threw some scrambled egg on the floor before holding a strip of bacon up in the air and making the dog jump. The children clapped. Roar Hanson wrinkled his nose.

‘They’re pretty liberal when it comes to dogs in this hotel,’ he said, seeming more depressed than annoyed.

‘So you’re a priest as well,’ I said.

‘Yes. Well, I’m an ordained priest, but at the moment I don’t have a parish, I’m working as a secretary within the national church commission. We’re on our way to… We were supposed to…’

For some reason he was unable to tear his gaze away from the family with the dog. The animal was now working its way through a large helping of cornflakes with jam. It was splashing milk everywhere. Adrian was amusing himself by tossing bits of salami into the sweet mixture. Veronica remained expressionless, as ever.

‘You were going to Bergen,’ I said. ‘We all were. How did you

‘Is he dead?’ Roar Hanson whispered. His mouth was trembling.

I was beginning to wonder if I had police officer stamped all over me. The only thing that distinguishes me from everybody else is the fact that I’m in a wheelchair. And that I might be slightly more dismissive than most people. Both these elements tend to lead to the same result: people keep away from me. Right now, you would think I was suffused with some kind of empathetic magnetism. People kept coming up to me, asking questions, poking about. It was as if my stationary sojourn in a room where everyone else was simply coming and going made me so different that I had been accorded the status of oracle; an omniscient authority, a position to which I had never asked to be elevated.

‘Why are you asking me that question?’ I wondered as he kept his eyes fixed on mine.

‘Is Cato dead?’ he repeated. ‘Is he… Has someone killed Cato?’

We had both forgotten the girl from the handball team. She leaned towards us, her mouth half-open. She smelled of peppermint, and carried on chewing loudly without bothering to hide her excited smile.

‘Is it true?’ she whispered. ‘A real murder?’

‘Yes,’ said Roar, rubbing his eyes. ‘I think it is true. But I can’t believe it.’

I didn’t know what to say. There was quarter of an hour left before the information meeting. I still had no idea what was going to be said. As a general principle I tend towards the view that honesty is always worthwhile. As I let my gaze wander from the girl’s expectant expression to the priest’s anxious, tear-filled eyes, I was no longer so sure.

The best thing would probably be to come up with a first-class lie.

I escaped.

I was saved by a terrible noise that at first made me think another window had succumbed to the storm. Fortunately, I was wrong. The racket was coming from the stairs, where two lads came rampaging through with ski boots on their feet. They were yelling and screaming, and at first it was impossible to make out what they were saying.

The atmosphere at Finsel222 had not survived the night.

After the traumatic experience on the train, the feeling of security offered by coming indoors and being supplied with hot food and plenty to drink, by the sense of community, a bed to sleep in and a few games of cards had bound us together. Since none of the passengers knew the train driver, his dramatic death had not put a damper on the air of joyful gratitude. On the contrary. Poor Einar Holter’s tragic demise gave an extra pinch of spice to the experience, a reminder of how lucky the rest of us had been.

The morning had brought with it a growing, sour impatience. True, the family with the black dog was still relentlessly bloody cheerful, but as the hotel’s communal lounge began to fill up at around eight thirty, I soon noticed the change in atmosphere.

For one thing, the storm was beginning to get on our nerves. It was getting worse and worse, and none of us could understand how this was possible. The storm had been raging earlier, with constant hurricane-force gusts, and the wind gauge on the pillar dividing the reception desk in two was indicating that it could hardly go any higher. Berit Tverre kept going over to check. From time to time she glanced briefly at the large windows, and a furrow I had not noticed earlier had appeared at the top of her nose.

Cato Hammer’s disappearance made things even worse. At first I didn’t think people would be particularly concerned. I mean, obviously they would react if they got to know the brutal truth about how he died. But so far no one knew, apart from the staff, Dr Streng, Geir Rugholmen, Adrian and me. The general unease over the fact that one person hadn’t turned up for breakfast was therefore striking. After all, Finse 1222 is a real old haunted house of a building, with lots of hidden nooks and crannies and narrow, forgotten corridors. Bearing in mind Cato Hammer’s theological flexibility, something he had constantly stressed in public, he could just as well still be lying in a warm, comfortable bed, which according to the Bible he shouldn’t be doing.

But then there was this woman. She was hysterical, to put it mildly. It was driving us all mad. Most people were already in a somewhat unstable frame of mind by the time the two lads hurtled down the stairs and into the lobby, both bawling at the same time.

‘He’s shooting! They’re shooting up there! On the top floor! They’ve got guns!’

Six or seven people were standing at the foot of the stairs; two of them were girls from the handball team. They started shrieking as if a boy had surprised them in the shower. From my position diagonally across the room with the long table between me and the stairs, I saw an elderly man give such a violent start that he threw a full cup of coffee up in the air. It rotated slowly on its way down to the floor. In his confusion the old man lost his balance. The bouncy dog got red hot coffee on its nose, and barked, howled and whimpered in turn as it zigzagged among all the people, searching for its owner. When the old man fell to the floor, the girls put their hands to their faces and took a deep breath before letting out an ear-splitting, atonal scream. Someone shouted for a doctor. The dog owner yelled imaginative curses at the lot of us before he finally managed to grab the dog; he clutched it to his chest and rushed into the men’s toilets. Roar Hanson, who for some reason was standing right in the corner behind the counter in the Millibar, where strictly speaking nobody was allowed except the staff, threw himself on the floor and disappeared from my view. I noticed that Veronica, Adrian’s black-clad friend, was standing on the same side of the bar. She started to laugh, a surprisingly hoarse, deep laugh that in no way matched the rest of her spindly figure. The Kurd also hurled himself down, but unlike the priest he was thinking of others, not himself. He lay down on top of his wife, covering her with his body. The movement was so quick that it must have been something he had been trained to do. A woman who had been sitting on her own knitting throughout the previous evening started sobbing loudly. The pink baby, whom I hadn’t seen since the accident, woke up and started yelling in her mother’s arms. The noise level in reception threatened to drown out the storm. Shouts about guns and shooting were still coming from the stairs. One of the businessmen – I thought I might have seen his photo in Dagens Næringlsiv but I couldn’t think of his name – quickly closed his laptop, wriggled out of the window seat and started to run towards St Paal’s Bar with the computer under his arm.

‘They’re going to shoot us!’ somebody bawled. ‘They’re on their way!’

The man increased his speed. Several people followed him. A four- or five-year-old boy with his mouth full of food and a roll in each hand was knocked over by a tall woman as she ran. I tried to move so that I could help the child, but I barely had time to release the brakes before Geir Rugholmen came racing out of the kitchen. He picked up the child and placed him on my knee in one smooth movement before climbing up onto the table, raising his arms in the air and bellowing:

‘Stop! Stop! Shut up, the lot of you!’

It was like flicking the switch on a circuit breaker.

Not only did everyone stop talking, but all the people who were running, pushing and waving their arms around froze like the players in a game of statues when the music stops.

Afterwards, I thought of that moment as a turning point. The atmosphere had shifted long ago. And yet it was only now that I really began to feel afraid. Not of the storm. Not of the murderer at liberty in our midst.

‘Right, listen to me!’

Geir was no longer bellowing. There was no need.

‘He’s dying!’ a feeble voice shouted from the stairs, at the far side of the lobby. ‘Elias is dying! Somebody help me!’

Geir gazed out across the room, at all the faces turned towards him. Before he found what he was looking for, Dr Streng and the female gynaecologist were hurrying across the floor in a slalom race between the motionless figures. The female doctor was the first to reach the man on the floor. She bent down, and I could no longer see her or her vertically challenged colleague.

The boy on my knee was weeping quietly.

‘Stay exactly where you are,’ hissed Geir Rugholmen. ‘Nobody is shooting. Do you hear me? Not one single shot has been fired, and not one single shot is going to be fired. Is everything OK over there?’

Nobody answered him. I could hear rhythmic counting from the other end of the reception area, and assumed that Elias’s tired heart had been unable to cope with so many exhausting experiences in less than twenty-four hours.

I heard cautious steps behind me, and half-turned around. It was the woman who had knocked over the little boy without stopping. She stood on the short staircase between St Paal’s Bar and reception, next to the businessman who had also come back, crestfallen and red-cheeked. Some of the others who had tried to flee from the imagined shooting drama were slowly moving closer. The woman was staring at me with eyes that reminded me of why I had begun to feel so afraid.

A sense of unease was spreading through the room. The counting stopped. I looked up at Geir, who could presumably see what was going on from his elevated position. He rubbed a hand over his eyes.

‘I’m very sorry,’ said the female doctor, far away.

The only sounds that could now be heard above the storm were the sobs of the little boy I was holding, and the weeping of the woman who had just become a widow.

The Finse disaster had just claimed its third victim.

The woman behind me came up to my chair, held out a thin, uncertain hand and said, ‘I’m sorry. You must forgive me!’

I didn’t look at her. Instead I met Geir Rugholmen’s gaze. He was still standing on the table, his legs wide apart; he was strong, but there was an air of resignation about him. We were both thinking the same thing.

The people who were snowed in at Finse 1222 had begun to let go of their dignity. And only eighteen hours had passed since the accident.

After Elias Grav’s ill-timed heart attack, people did at least seem to be trying to pull themselves together. The two young men who had started the whole thing by yelling about guns being fired seemed quite upset. Geir had not given up until they had loudly and clearly admitted that maybe there hadn’t been any shooting. But they had definitely seen guns! There was a man, or maybe even two, standing in the corridor outside the top floor apartments with an automatic weapon in his hands. They stuck to that, the boys, even if that business about the shooting might possibly have been cracking and banging caused by the storm. They might have misheard. They really didn’t mean to scare anyone, they said in their defence, but when the rumours started about the guards on the top floor, they felt they had the right to investigate the matter. Geir repeated his clear instruction: everyone was to respect the cordon he had set up in front of the door leading to the narrow corridor; Berit Tverre then took over and informed the assembled company that unfortunately Cato Hammer had passed away during the night. He had been carrying out a small errand down in the lobby at about three o’clock, and had fallen over. The cause of death was presumed to be a massive brain haemorrhage. Magnus Streng confirmed this, weighed down with seriousness, his hands joined together as if to show respect for the dead man’s profession.

‘And it’s almost true, after all,’ I said. ‘It certainly was a real bleed in the brain.’

Nobody cracked a smile.

We were in the kitchen: Berit Tverre, Geir, Dr Streng and I. We couldn’t hear a sound from the lobby, and not only because of the noise from outside. The old man’s heart attack had been a shocking thing to witness. The widow’s lack of self-control hadn’t exactly improved the situation. People moved away in silent embarrassment, and when the sad explanation for Cato Hammer’s disappearance was delivered, most of those present had had more than enough. Some went back to their rooms. Others chose to stay in the communal areas without really knowing what to do. The continuation of the previous day’s bridge tournament had been postponed for the time being. Evidently playing cards was regarded as inappropriate under the present circumstances. It didn’t stop the gang of poker-playing teenagers, but at least they’d had the decency to withdraw down to Blåstuen. On the whole, people seemed to have swallowed Berit’s lie hook, line and sinker. However, I was still somewhat concerned about how the murderer might have reacted to the story. I had tried to look for any changes in facial expression as Berit was giving her little speech, but it was pointless to try to read anything from the small number of people I could see from the position I was in. If the perpetrator had actually been in the lobby when Cato Hammer’s death was announced, we could only hope that he or she accepted the incorrect cause of death as a temporary declaration of peace from the hotel management.

People must be kept calm at all costs.

Including the perpetrator.

‘Who’s actually up there on the top floor?’ I asked, looking from Geir Rugholmen to Berit Tverre. ‘I really do think I ought to be told at this point.’

They were spared the need to answer the question.

‘It’s rather difficult to prepare food for almost two hundred people when my kitchen has been converted into some kind of conference room,’ the chef interrupted us crossly.

He was surprisingly young, with a thin beard and short, spiky hair. Despite the cold draught coming from the broken window, he was wearing only a vest over his full-length apron. Both items of clothing were dazzling white and freshly ironed. He was chewing on a toothpick. Behind him stood two assistants, a woman and a man.

‘Could you at least move a bit further in? Over there?’

‘It’ll be a bit cramped,’ said Berit, shrugging her shoulders apologetically. ‘But I suppose we can…’

She pulled two bar stools that had turned up during the morning towards a door I had never opened. I followed slowly, with Geir and Magnus Streng right behind me.

We were standing in a storeroom with three substantial doors on the right-hand side. Freezer, fridge, and another cool room.

‘This is where we have our deliveries,’ said Berit, banging a metal door with her hand. ‘As you can tell, the insulation in here isn’t much good. But we’ll just have to put up with it. We do have an office behind reception, with no steps,’ she nodded in my direction, ‘but I’ve got three men in there trying to keep in touch with the outside world. This is the only place on this floor where we can be left in peace, to a certain extent. Don’t worry about the kitchen staff. They’re concentrating on what they’re meant to be doing.’

‘I’m perfectly comfortable sitting here,’ I said.

Nobody thought that was funny either. Magnus Streng hopped up onto the high bar stool with surprising agility. Berit took the other. Geir Rugholmen leaned against the wall and folded his arms.

‘So,’ I said.

‘We don’t really know much,’ said Geir, scratching at his beard.

I waited in vain for him to continue. Berit and Geir looked enquiringly at each other, as if they hadn’t really decided who was going to speak.

‘When the train crashed,’ Berit began hesitantly, stopping to take a deep breath before going on. ‘When the train came off the rails and crashed, we heard it. In spite of the fact that by that stage the weather was already unpleasant, to say the least. The Red Cross people rushed over.’

I remembered somebody mentioned the Red Cross depot, a building attached to the wing of the hotel on the opposite side.

‘But the strange thing is,’ Berit said, taking her time. ‘The strange thing is that there was a phone call. It can’t have been more than two or three minutes after we heard the crash, and the telephone rang. At first I was intending to ignore it, I was convinced something serious had happened to the train and I really wanted to get the rescue operation under way. But somebody…’

She shook her head, as if she were trying to come up with an explanation for her own behaviour.

‘I answered the phone.’

From the kitchen I could hear the clatter of pans and a whining noise that I took to be an electric meat saw. By now the draught from the door leading to the delivery area was so strong it felt like a breeze. I shivered.

‘Who was it?’ I asked, when nobody seemed keen to continue.

‘I don’t really know.’

‘Right. What did this person want?’

‘He… It was a man. He mentioned a name, but I didn’t hear it properly. What I did grasp, however, was that he was from the police security service, PST. His voice was… insistent, I’d say. Authoritative. As if he was totally used to giving orders. And everything happened really quickly.’

‘But what did he say?’ Magnus Streng asked impatiently. ‘What did the man whose name you can’t remember want, and what did you do?’

‘He said the last carriage had to be emptied first. They had their own snowmobile with them, he said, but they would need more than that. One more.’

‘Their own snowmobile? A snowmobile? On the train?’

Magnus Streng reminded me of a clown again, just when I had forgotten how funny he was.

‘Yes. It turned out to be true. Not one of the biggest, but big enough for a driver and one passenger to get here long before the others. Perhaps twenty minutes or so. But the strangest thing of all was that he knew where they were to go.’

‘Who?’ I said. ‘The man on the phone, or the one on the snowmobile?’

‘Both, actually. But I meant the man on the phone. “Put them in Trygve Norman’s apartment,” he said.’

Streng’s mouth fell open. I don’t suppose I looked all that much more composed. We looked at each other and closed our mouths simultaneously.

‘Yes.’

Berit raised her hands in a gesture that was half resigned, half eager.

‘That’s what he said! That’s exactly what he said. And Trygve’s apartment is indeed the one right at the top, furthest to the west. It’s the best apartment here at 1222, if we ignore the director’s residential quarters which are of course…’

She shook her head and broke off.

‘It’s no secret that Trygve owns that apartment, on the contrary, he’s one of the driving forces when it comes to keeping this place going and…’

Once again she stopped. Cleared her throat and went on:

‘But the whole situation left me so confused that I didn’t say a thing. And then… then he gave me a mobile number. But that was only after he…’

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. I could see the muscles in her cheeks twitching as she gritted her teeth. She was breathing deeply through her nose.

‘Everything’s fine,’ said Dr Streng, placing his chubby hand over hers.

She merely nodded. Then she swallowed once more.

‘We are not in a dangerous situation.’

‘The man on the phone,’ I reminded her. ‘First of all he did or said something. Then he gave you a telephone number.’

‘Yes. First of all he said it was extremely important that I did what he said. That the people in the last carriage must get here before everybody else. He did actually use the word “extremely”. Then he added that it was’ – she searched for the right words – ‘“a matter of national security”. Isn’t that what they say?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s what they say. If that was what he meant. And the number?’

‘I just had time to scribble it down. He said I could call that number if I didn’t believe him. But that I would have to hurry, if that were the case.’

Suddenly she started rummaging in her trouser pockets. She couldn’t find what she was looking for on the right-hand side, but she pulled a folded scrap of paper out of the left-hand pocket.

‘I chose to believe him. I didn’t think I had any choice. So I never called the number. Instead I made sure they went straight up to the apartment as soon as they arrived. The first two, I mean. One of them spoke Norwegian. He was polite, but stressed. Or… very snappy, somehow. The other one didn’t say anything. He was wearing so many clothes that I’m not even sure about the sex. But I think it was a man. He was… big. Powerful, I think. But of course that could just be the clothes. Hat, hood, anorak, ski goggles…’

I held my hand out for the piece of paper. She passed it over.

‘Did the number of the man who rang come up on the display?’ I asked her, looking at the eight numbers on the paper.

There was no area code.

‘No. It said number withheld. But he did give me that number.’

‘Do any of you have a phone like that?’ I asked without looking up from the piece of paper. ‘With a hidden number, I mean, so that you can’t see who’s calling?’

‘Here,’ said Magnus Streng, passing me his. ‘I’ve got two mobiles – one for work, and this one for family and other important people. It has a hidden number. Sometimes it’s nice not to be at everybody’s beck and call.’

He grinned broadly and said:

‘I expect it’s the same for all of us.’

Without replying I keyed in the number. It rang twice before someone answered. A man gave his name.

I was no longer aware of the storm or the penetrating racket from the three chefs in the kitchen. I could no longer feel the troublesome draught. On the contrary, a wave of warmth flooded through my body, I felt light-headed.

Empty of thoughts.

Afterwards I would regret hanging up. I didn’t say a word, I simply broke the connection when the man had twice asked who was calling, without getting an answer. When I tried to call again later in the day, I was informed by a mechanical voice that the subscriber has changed to a new number. This subscription has been terminated at the subscriber’s request. No redirection details available.

I should have said something when I had the chance. Because it was not difficult to recognize the man on the other end of the phone. He had answered, introduced himself with his full name, without any intermediary, without some secretary or adviser or please wait while we try to put you through to the Foreign Secretary.

The number Berit Tverre had been given by a stranger just a few minutes after the train crash went straight through to the private telephone of the Norwegian Foreign Secretary.

Or one hell of an impressionist.

Whichever it might be, I didn’t understand a thing.

‘Who was it?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Nobody? But I heard somebody answer!’

‘It was nobody,’ I repeated, clicking my way through to Magnus Streng’s numbers called.

With a couple of clicks the number I had just called was deleted from the phone’s memory. I passed the elegant, steel-grey phone back to Dr Streng. He took it and looked at it enquiringly, as if he expected it to start chatting away by itself.

I pushed the piece of paper into my trouser pocket.

‘That was of no relevance to our situation,’ I said. ‘Let’s move on.’

‘Move on?’

‘Geir,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘You have an irritating tendency to repeat what I say.’

‘And you have an irritating tendency to avoid answering my questions.’

‘Think,’ I said. ‘Think.’

Geir opened his mouth and I could see from his face that he was about to repeat what I had said yet again, with a big question mark after ‘think’. He managed to stop himself.

‘I think we ought to let the mad woman in the attic run her own race,’ I said with a smile. ‘Or the man, for that matter. Given the current situation we ought to concentrate on our own problems. Let’s leave the people upstairs in peace. They have nothing to do with the murder of Cato Hammer. And even less to do with the storm. Besides…’

It was obvious that Geir had to exercise considerable self-control to stop himself coming out with a fresh torrent of questions. I smiled at Berit and nodded towards reception.

‘I was impressed with that lie you came up with out there. Very wise. It actually looked as if people believed you. Perhaps it was the old man’s heart attack that did it. Reminded us all of our vulnerability, I mean. How quickly something can happen. How fragile life is. Under normal circumstances I’m not really in favour of lying, but in this case…’

‘You’re in favour of keeping quiet,’ said Geir.

‘Well, yes,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders. ‘In this case it was at least sensible to come up with a story. Probably. Given the hysteria that broke out when those boys came rushing in, who knows what would have happened if people had found out about a veritable execution. By the way, how could you be so sure they hadn’t actually heard a shot? As far as I could see, you came out of the kitchen, not down the stairs.’

‘Pure guesswork,’ said Geir. ‘I just assumed they were wrong. It’s very clear that we’re dealing with professionals up there. It’s not particularly professional to fire at civilians when you could probably frighten them off by shouting boo. Nor is it particularly professional to shoot at unarmed lads. Besides which…’

He scratched the back of his neck and pulled a face I couldn’t quite interpret.

‘If they had heard shots, I had to try to get them to believe they were mistaken. As it is people are already feeling sufficiently…’

We knew exactly what he meant.

‘I’d better get back in there,’ said Magnus Streng after a pause that left us all feeling somewhat troubled. ‘To my patients. There are dressings to be changed. Broken bones to be attended to. I’ll be much more useful in there than in here. If I may be so presumptuous. Adieu, ladies and gentlemen!’

I laughed and waved a hand in his direction. He was a man at whom you waved. By and large, Magnus was a person it was impossible to dislike, in spite of my efforts to do so. I decided to give up as I watched the small figure walking towards the kitchen door. Time had long since moved on from Dr Streng’s kindness and archaic language. At the same time he had the aura of an old-fashioned gentleman, a little bit too pushy and sometimes slightly ridiculous, but even so. Magnus was a nice man. I seldom meet men like that. I seldom allow myself to meet men like that. I don’t want to.

‘Hello!’

I gave a start as Geir waved a hand in front of my eyes.

‘Where’s Berit?’ I mumbled.

‘Sometimes you look as if you’re in a trance,’ said Geir; it was difficult to tell if he was irritated or worried. ‘She left. Didn’t you see her go?’

I didn’t reply. Instead I stared at him as if I had never seen him before. His eyes were an indeterminate grey-brown colour. His face was dark for the time of year. Beneath the black stubble I could see a pale grey area of dry skin. He must be younger than me, the deep lines around his eyes and on his forehead had been caused by sun, wind and cold. Not age. I guessed that he was around forty. I had noticed that he took snuff all the time, but now he suddenly got out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to me. I surprised both of us by accepting, placing the cigarette in my mouth and leaning forward for a light. We both turned our backs on the clattering coming from the kitchen.

That first drag.

You never forget how good it is.

All cigarettes should be put out after the very first drag.

‘Has it been a long time?’

Geir smiled and lit one for himself.

‘Many years. I’ve got a kid.’

‘Me too. Three of them. I still smoke. In secret, mostly.’

He laughed out loud, that delighted, girlish laugh.

He still smelled good. A scent of something I didn’t want to think about, but it was so strong right here and right now that I couldn’t help it.

Once upon a time I had someone called Billy T. He was my best friend, and that was why he had to go. I barely have room for Nefis in my life. The fact that it is possible for us to share a life that is sometimes both good and secure is down to the fact that she’s the only person in the world who has mastered the art of being close and completely absent at the same time.

And then I have Ida. She has ice-blue eyes that look at me with a love I didn’t believe existed. Ida still thinks I am a good person. But she’s still only three years old.

We also have a kind of housekeeper, our little family, an old sparrow with a broken wing who sort of moved in without anyone actually asking her. But I’m not fond of Mary. She is simply there, like a human piece of furniture, and I have learned to live under the same roof as her.

That’s enough for me: Nefis, Ida, and a tired, dried-up whore who cooks our meals.

I never think about Billy T any more.

Perhaps it was because of the smell of Geir Rugholmen. Perhaps it was because of the endless noise of the storm and the wind raging around Finse 1222, lumping us together into more than just 196 separate individuals, or rather 194: Hammer and Elias Grav had already been removed from the register. And perhaps that was what it was. Two dramatic deaths in less than twenty-four hours had proved too much even for me.

Once upon a time I was knee-deep in corpses. Literally, on a couple of occasions.

I really was out of practice. In police work as well as everything else.

It had cost me too much, letting people into my life. So I stopped trying. Only now, after many years of self-imposed isolation, was I beginning to see what hard work it was, keeping people at a distance. And I thought about Billy T for the first time since I don’t know when.

‘You’re doing it again,’ said Geir, stubbing out his cigarette on the floor with his heel.

‘Doing what?’

‘Disappearing.’

‘I don’t think you should leave the butt there,’ I said. ‘We are in a kitchen, after all.’

He held out his hand for my cigarette, dropped it on the floor and stood on it before picking up both butts.

‘What do you think about the people upstairs?’ I asked slowly.

He frowned.

‘A little while ago you said we ought to forget about them!’

‘Yes. But now it’s just the two of us. What do you think?’

‘Everything and nothing. I really have no idea who they might be.’

‘In that case, you haven’t looked closely at the facts we already know.’

‘Which are?’

The chef suddenly appeared in the wide opening leading into the kitchen. His hands were on his hips, and he looked furious.

‘Is someone smoking in here? Well?’

‘No,’ said Geir and I in unison.

Geir slipped the butts unobtrusively into his pocket. I caught myself hoping they were still burning slightly.

‘It stinks in here,’ said the chef, wrinkling his nose. ‘One more time, and that’s it – no more using this for your meetings. Got it?’

We both mumbled heartfelt assurances of cooperation.

He went back to the food. I could have released the brakes on my wheelchair and said thank you for the cigarette. I could have gone back to reception and started to look forward to lunch. I had so many opportunities to upset Geir all over again.

‘They’re Norwegians,’ I stated instead. ‘They have something that requires a particularly high level of protection. An object or a person.’

‘A person,’ said Geir firmly. He was perched on the bar stool Berit had left. ‘They didn’t bring any luggage from the train. It would be somewhat over-dramatic to have all those guards up there if they’re supposed to be guarding something that’s been left behind in an empty train wreck.’

‘The object could be small. They could have had it on them.’

‘They could have looked after a small object down here. There’s no need to barricade yourself in an apartment because of a small object.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But you said… I thought…’

‘I’m only going through the possibilities. I totally agree with you. There’s a person up there who requires protection. Who requires that?’

‘What?’

‘Who requires high-level protection?’

‘Politicians, the royal family, superstars…’

‘We’re in Norway,’ I interrupted him. ‘None of our politicians or royals need that kind of protection. And we’re not exactly falling over superstars. In any case, even Madonna or Robbie Williams wouldn’t want this kind of fuss. They’d rather have -’

‘A prisoner,’ he suddenly broke in.

‘Exactly. A prisoner. Since the Norwegian National Railways would hardly have cooperated with anyone other than the national authorities when it came to something as irregular as adding an extra carriage to the train, we must assume that this is about transporting a prisoner.’

The draught from the door to the delivery area was starting to get me down. My muscles were aching, and I regretted leaving my padded jacket in the lobby.

‘A prisoner who needs to be moved,’ I summarized. ‘How are prisoners moved?’

‘How are prisoners moved?’

I smiled. Before I had time to point out that he had already fallen back into his old, sinful ways, he went on:

‘By plane. By car. But by… train?’

‘Completely impractical,’ I nodded. ‘In fact, I’ve never heard of such a thing. The train is bound by the track. It is driven by others. It starts and stops according to a timetable. Horror of horrors. Of course the same thing is more or less true of a plane, but at least it’s fast.’

‘Perhaps the prisoner is afraid of flying?’

‘In that case they could use a car, easy as pie. Even if the journey across the mountains in winter isn’t exactly a pleasure, travelling by car would be considerably easier than attaching an extra carriage to a train full of civilian passengers. To be perfectly honest…’

I was looking, presumably longingly, at the cigarette packet in his breast pocket. He took it out and offered it to me.

‘No. I don’t want the chef after me.’

‘You said you were going to be honest.’

‘Yes. We’ve already established that it must be a prisoner. With all the fuss we can safely assume that it’s a high-risk prisoner.’ The cold really was painful. I clasped my hands together and held them up to my mouth. Blew. The warm air made me shudder. ‘And in that case, nobody,’ I said emphatically, ‘not one single guardian of the law on this earth would voluntarily transport a high-risk prisoner on a passenger train. Least of all on the Bergen line in the middle of winter. They were obviously aware of the risks imposed by storms and snow, since they brought their own snowmobile with them. Impressive. And that one detail tells us more than a lot of other things. This is a journey they have dreaded. A journey they have been planning for a long time. A journey that has scared the shit out of them.’

‘So why did they do it, then? And who are they, anyway? Police? The military? The prison service? Why couldn’t they just…’

He stopped dead as he saw me smiling broadly for the first time. Perhaps the sight frightened him.

‘They had no choice,’ I said, wheeling my chair towards the door.

‘They always have a choice, surely…’

‘Not in this case.’

I made a quarter turn.

‘We’re not just talking about a dangerous prisoner here. We’re talking about a dangerous prisoner whose position is such that he can make demands. There is no other explanation for choosing to take the train; the prisoner himself must have insisted on it. For whatever reason.’

The last comment was a straight lie. The reason why a prisoner would prefer to take the passenger train to Bergen rather than travel by plane or car was terrifyingly obvious. But there were limits to how much I was prepared to share with Geir Rugholmen. For the time being, at least.

‘And there aren’t many things more dangerous than a prisoner who can get the police to do something as idiotic as this,’ I went on. ‘So I’m sticking to my recommendation: leave the people on the top floor alone. I’m absolutely certain they have nothing to do with the murder of Cato Hammer. The problem of having a murderer in our midst is, to put it mildly, considerably greater than having a gang of nervous guards upstairs.’

I moved away from him and out through the door. The beginnings of a headache reminded me how tired I was. In spite of the fact that the conversation with Geir Rugholmen had been interesting, at least for him, I had not stopped brooding for one minute about the telephone number Berit Tverre had been given by someone working within the police security service minutes after the accident.

The kitchen was filled with the aroma of chicken soup, and the chef was no longer in a bad mood. On the contrary, he gave me a small portion to taste in a coffee cup.

‘An hors d’oeuvre,’ he said. ‘To stimulate the appetite.’

He called it mulligatawny. I didn’t correct him, even though there were neither pieces of apple nor rice in the greasy, rich soup, with the oil forming little beads on top of golden brown deliciousness.

It was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

Soup for the soul, that’s what the Americans call that kind of thing.

And we certainly needed it.