1222

6

For some reason I was thinking of Cato Hammer.

The murder of the controversial priest was actually the least of our problems. I was sitting in my chair by the kitchen door, where I had more or less helplessly witnessed rather too much in the course of just about half an hour. Kari Thue’s attempt at mutiny had been quite threatening. Nor was it easy to digest the idea that two apparently typical representatives of our new underclass had behaved like highly trained agents. However, the violent event that had taken place somewhere near the western wall was the worst thing. As I tried to suppress my fear by sorting out all the thoughts I had had about the murder of Cato Hammer during the past few hours, I had serious doubts that the western wall was still standing. The temperature in the hotel was dropping at an alarming rate. During the past twenty-four hours we had lived in an atmosphere of coffee, food, sweat, and dog. Now all the smells were gone. Only a dry, menacing cold seared my nostrils. Outside it was still almost minus thirty, a fact I couldn’t quite manage to assimilate. I had put on my padded jacket and wrapped a blanket around my crippled legs. That was when I discovered that the wound in my thigh had opened up. A red flower was growing on the chalk-white bandage, and had already spread to the ragged edges where my trouser leg had been cut open. I looked around for another blanket.

And I was still thinking about Cato Hammer.

The remarkable thing was that so many people had known him. I don’t mean they’d heard of him, most of us had. As I struggled with my anxiety over what could have caused the temperature to drop so sharply, it struck me that almost everyone I had encountered after the accident had willingly admitted to some kind of link to Hammer. He had been Magnus’s patient. Geir knew him from the board at Brann football club. I’m absolutely certain Berit Tverre blushed when she mentioned the priest’s earlier visits to the mountains. There was nothing odd about the fact that Roar Hanson knew Hammer, of course; they had known each other at college, and worked together.

Adrian had just been furious.

Furious and foul-mouthed. He had behaved quite differently towards Cato Hammer than to anyone else from the train.

‘The carriage!’

Geir was standing in front of me. I recognized him only when I saw the yellow ski goggles. They covered virtually his entire face before he pulled them off and leaned on my chair, panting.

‘The carriage has fallen down!’

The carriage.

I had of course noticed it when we were in the station, unaware that just a few minutes later we would be sitting in a derailed wreck. The hotel and the wing containing the apartments, both of which were so close to the railway that they looked like part of the station complex, were joined together by an old railway carriage. It was suspended some three or four metres above the ground, and made it possible to move between the buildings without going outside. It looked like a big toy train, a rusty red reminder that Finse was the country’s only genuine station community; you could get here only by train. The carriage didn’t even fight with the architecture. The whole complex was just one big piece of patchwork in any case, and the suspended carriage was an amusing salute from the residents of Finse to Norwegian State Railways. From all the conversations I had listened to over the past twenty-four hours, I had gathered that the carriage was filling up with snow. The fixings were old, and gaps had appeared by the wall of the wing. Not large gaps, but more than enough to make some people anxious early this morning. Quite rightly, as it turned out.

‘There are huge amounts of snow packed tight between the buildings,’ said Geir, gasping for breath. ‘So the carriage didn’t fall all that far. It’s lying at an angle on the snow. The other end is still attached to the wall, and it looks as if the only damage is that the door leading into the carriage is still on the wall. On our side a whole chunk of the wall has been torn away, taking the door with it. Thank goodness nobody was inside the carriage when it fell.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We certainly have been incredibly lucky on this trip.’

He looked at me.

‘Everything all right with you?’

I nodded and said: ‘I just need Dr Streng to have a look at my leg. It’s started bleeding again. I’m sure it’s nothing serious. How are you?’

He was a little surprised; he frowned and straightened his back. He took his time inserting a sizeable plug of snuff, and smiled.

‘This stuff is good for you!’

‘What are you going to do about the hole?’ I asked.

‘Johan’s fetching the Poles. We’ve got enough material in the cellar. I should think we’ll get -’

‘Fetching the Poles? The joiners? In this weather? From up in…’

Geir started tucking the blanket more tightly around me. His breath turned into a light mist, hitting my face in warm puffs and making me feel even colder. As far as I knew, the four joiners were in one of the buildings several hundred metres away.

‘Johan can drive a snowmobile at the South Pole in June,’ said Geir with a smile. ‘It’s winter down there when it’s -’

‘I know,’ I interrupted him. ‘When it’s summer here. But I had the distinct impression that nobody could get away from here. That nobody could be outside at all.’

‘Well, Johan can. He wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been essential. But he can. When he has to.’

I pushed him away when he started lifting my feet so that he could tuck the blanket around them.

‘Tell me about this Johan.’

‘He was born up here. One of the few. According to the local mythology he was born outdoors in a winter storm and grew up in a snow cave at Klemsbu, but of course that’s just nonsense. His father was the stationmaster, and they lived very well. But it’s true that he could ride before he was five years old. His older brother fixed up a snowmobile for him so that it was physically possible for such a little scrap to reach the accelerator and the brakes on the handlebars. Nowadays Johan lives at Ustaoset and owns a wilderness centre. He attracts filthy rich Americans and scares them to death out in the wilds. There’s money in that kind of thing. But he’s often here. Fortunately he was here when the crash happened. There are some fairly rigid restrictions when it comes to driving snowmobiles, so he’s a member of the Red Cross, which allows him to drive often enough. Anyway, you’ve met him. Don’t you remember? He was the one who brought you here.’

‘But… in this weather!’

‘As I said: Johan is probably the only person in Norway, in the whole world for all I know, who can cope with any kind of weather. If the snowmobile can do it, then Johan can do it. He’s as bowlegged as a cowboy. It’s just that his horse is called Yamaha.’

There was snow in the air.

The door with slender panels of glass that had separated the stairs from the grotesque hole in the wall had been torn open and smashed by the wind.

Although I was still sitting over by the kitchen door, separated from the hole in the wall by the entire lobby, a flight of stairs and half a floor, I could clearly feel and see the snowflakes dancing in the moving air. So far they were melting as soon as they hit the floor.

‘Perhaps he ought to get a move on,’ I said, thinking about Cato Hammer once again. ‘I have a feeling time is short.’

Geir clapped his gloved hands together. Then he leaned towards me once again with one hand on each wheel. Fortunately, the brakes were on.

‘It might not look like it, but we have actually got this under control. I can promise you one thing: as long as people stay indoors’ – the feeling of being indoors wasn’t actually all that palpable at the moment – ‘then nobody will freeze to death at Finse 1222. You have my word on that.’

I almost dared to believe the man.

And I had good reason to do so, as it turned out.

It was four thirty. It was still unpleasantly cold, but at least it had stopped snowing in the lobby. As I quickly calculated that we would soon be on our second day at Finse, I almost couldn’t believe it. For many years I have lived according to a slow routine that suits me. Nothing happens and nothing is going to happen. Everything is predictable and can take its own time. I have more than enough time, and I am happy to fritter it away. However, the past twenty-five hours had been so eventful that for long periods of time I had forgotten how tired I was.

‘Are you asleep?’ asked Geir in surprise.

He had undone the top part of his snowmobile suit. It was dangling down and flapping around his hips. He reminded me of Ida when she comes rushing in after she’s been picked up from nursery, and hasn’t time to take her outdoor things off before she climbs up on my knee for a hug and a ride around the apartment.

I must remember to call home.

‘No, of course not,’ I said in confusion, blinking furiously.

I really must remember to call.

‘We’ve secured the hole,’ he said, raising his fist in a victory gesture. ‘With planks and sheets of metal and whatever else we could find. Then we packed the whole thing with blankets and nailed them to whatever we could. It’s as cold as hell up there, and the draught made it almost impossible to get close to the damaged part of the wall. Plus the entire corridor is full of snow. But…’ He knotted his sleeves around his waist. ‘We’re still here. It’s starting to warm up again. In an hour or two it will at least be habitable in here.’

It was about time. My lips had gone numb, and my jaws were aching from pressing my teeth together to avoid biting my tongue.

‘What about the other side?’ I asked. ‘Have they managed to seal up that opening too?’

‘Yes. Two of the lads from the Red Cross and one of the joiners got a couple of men from the train to help them. It was easier from that side. They were finished before us.’

He patted his breast pocket.

‘Good old Telenor. The mobile coverage has been brilliant. We were in touch all the time.’

I took a deep breath and tried to lower my shoulders. But the cold sank its claws into me once again, and every muscle in my body tensed. I looked around for Magnus Streng. The wound at the top of my thigh was still bleeding. I hadn’t dared to look at the other side.

The doctor was nowhere to be seen.

‘Come with me,’ said Geir, beckoning me after him as he set off.

‘What do you want?’

‘Come with me.’

It was obvious that I was more troubled by the cold than others were. I was bleeding, and had been sitting still for a long time. I had probably fallen asleep as well. Following Geir might not be such a bad idea. He headed for the main entrance and opened the door to a narrow passageway before helping me into the outside porch. The kiosk, which was on the left at the bottom of a small flight of stairs, and which couldn’t be more than twenty-five square metres in area, was packed with people who didn’t really know what they wanted. The scenario struck me as a confused symbol of western culture: we had all looked death in the eye, and immediately sought consolation in the quest for something to buy. Pollyanna was sitting at the till, smiling broadly. She was, as far as I could see, the only person who had a reason to be in a good mood. In general the atmosphere was subdued, anxious and oppressive, just as it was among those who had settled down in the lobby when it became clear that the damage to the wall could be repaired.

Adrian and Veronica were looking at sunglasses on a stand. It was obvious the boy had been crying, and when he raised his head and caught sight of me, he instantly grabbed a pair of dark glasses and put them on. Roar Hanson was standing right next to him. He was feeling at a pair of orange Ulvang socks, and didn’t even look up when I tried to say hello.

‘Beyond here,’ said Geir, banging the outside door with his fist, ‘we’re just going to let the snow block the door. Even Johan says it’s not worth wasting energy trying to keep it clear. It would just be too much. Since strictly speaking he’s the only one who can stay outside for any length of time, we’re not going to bother.’

‘Fire,’ I said.

‘Fire?’

‘What do we do if there’s a fire?’

‘Jump out of one of the upstairs windows. Tear down the insulation we’ve put up where the carriage was. Something like that. But there isn’t going to be a fire. There has to be a limit to what we’re expected to suffer…’

He smiled faintly.

‘Have you worked out,’ I said when he had helped me get my chair over the threshold into the lobby without being asked, ‘how many of us there are in here now?’

‘Fewer and fewer all the time,’ said Geir with forced cheerfulness as he pushed me further into the room. ‘When the carriage fell there were seventy-nine people in the wing. We were 196 in total in the entire complex…’

‘194,’ I corrected him. ‘You have to take out Elias Grav and Cato Hammer.’

‘Exactly. And you have to add four joiners. One of them is over in the wing. The other three are here. So that makes…’

‘118,’ I said. ‘There are 118 people left in the hotel.’

Kari Thue had gathered a little court around her at one end of the table. The conversation stopped abruptly as Geir and I got closer. At that precise moment I wished she had got her way. I wished she had taken her subjects to the wing and stayed there.

Twenty-four hours ago, there were 269 people on board a train. Then we became 196. When two men died, we were 194. Now there were only 118 of us left.

I thought about Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.

I immediately tried to dismiss the thought.

And Then There Were None is a story that doesn’t exactly have a happy ending.

‘I expect it’s the shock,’ said Magnus contentedly, shovelling down a large piece of salmon, ‘that’s made you start bleeding again. Perhaps you’ve bumped into something. At any rate…’ he raised his knife like an exclamation mark above his plate, ‘there’s nothing to worry about! You’ll be absolutely fine!’

It was eight thirty in the evening and I felt anything but fine. I was so tired I was finding it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the food. My own body odour had begun to bother me. The only consolation was that everybody else smelled just as bad. Which was more reprehensible on their part; they had access to showers and hot water. On the other hand, we had all had other things on our minds apart from personal hygiene.

‘I must say,’ said Magnus Streng, mopping up sauce with a piece of coarse bread, ‘that the kitchen here really does maintain an excellent standard. I mean, this fish must have been frozen, but even so. Delicious! Do you realize that while all these terrible things were going on, all this business with the carriage and so on, our friend the chef and his faithful companions were in the kitchen baking bread. Baking bread! That’s what I call a dedicated professional!’

He laughed delightedly and popped the last piece of bread in his mouth before emptying his glass of red wine in one draught.

The temperature had returned to a reasonable level. It was probably no more than fifteen degrees, but compared with the level during the hours after the carriage fell, this felt positively tropical. For the first time I had capitulated when it came to the stairs leading down to the dining room. Geir had insisted. Johan had helped him to negotiate my chair down the three steps before I managed to gather my strength for a real protest. Perhaps I was too tired. Perhaps I really wanted to do it. To sit at a table. To eat in a normal way, along with other people. To eat good food in the company of other people.

And I had actually called home.

I didn’t say much, but I did call.

Nefis was pleased.

Her friends can’t understand how she puts up with me.

I meet them from time to time, of course. Nefis gives parties. She invites people to dinner. She goes so far over the top when it comes to celebrating Christmas that you can easily forget she’s a Muslim. Last Christmas Eve there were so many of us around the extravagantly laid table that it looked like a scene from Fanny and Alexander. And I can live with that. I hardly ever say anything, and Nefis’s friends stopped talking to me long ago, apart from a few absolutely necessary and as a rule completely meaningless phrases. But I am there. I sit there at the far end of the table, eating and listening and looking at Nefis, at how happy she is. I always go to bed early. As I fall asleep to the murmur of voices from the dining room, I know they can’t understand what she sees in me.

I think I know; I never have any doubts.

From the moment I met her at a pavement café in Verona, when I was trying to escape from a sorrow that I thought would cost me my life, I have been sure about Nefis and me. When I was shot in the back a few years later and lost my mobility, and no longer had the strength to do anything other than to push away those friends I still had, I held on to Nefis. She was the one I wanted there, by my sick bed. She was the only one who was allowed to come when I tried in vain to regain some movement in Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital, and she was the one I wanted to come home to.

In late winter four years ago she woke me in the middle of the night. I had been allowed home from hospital for the first time, two months after the accident. We had had such a lovely evening. Now she was weeping quietly, overcome with guilt. She was pregnant. I had said no to children, over and over again, ever since the question had come up on the very first night we were together, and I explained that I didn’t want to burden any child with a mother like me. Nobody should have a mother like me, and since then there had never been an ounce of doubt: we were not going to have children.

But now we were.

I smiled in the darkness that night. I think I said thank you. It was impossible to sleep. I have never been so happy.

I never have any doubts about Nefis and Ida and me. In times like these, perhaps that’s enough.

I was missing them both.

This feeling of longing is something I have never known. Except when I was a child, and I yearned for so much that I never really knew what it was. This longing was something quite different, a warm, lovely pull in my stomach that almost made me smile.

‘You look as if you’re about to fall asleep with food in your mouth,’ said Berit.

‘That’s all right,’ I said.

‘Coffee,’ said Geir, placing a cup in front of me. I hadn’t even noticed that he’d left the table. ‘Drink. It’s red hot.’

I curled my hands around the cup. The heat alone made me feel good. I blew gently and drank.

Roar Hanson had been glancing surreptitiously in my direction all through the meal. He was sitting with his colleagues from the church commission a couple of tables away from us, in the main dining room. Every time I looked over, he glanced down. In my mind I cursed Magnus Streng who had been so determined to bring up my police background when he treated me that first time. If he hadn’t done that I would have been spared it all. The intrusiveness. The worry. And the annoying curiosity about what it was that Roar Hanson actually wanted to tell me. I had no doubt that he was pondering whether to confide in me about something.

Veronica and Adrian had become inseparable. They had tried in vain to get a table to themselves, but every chair was needed, which meant they had to share with others, so they had taken their food up to reception and disappeared. I hadn’t exchanged two words with the boy since the carriage fell. He was obviously embarrassed, and I had been too tired to try to distract him.

Many people had tried to get a seat at Kari Thue’s table. Despite the fact that it had filled up as soon as she sat down, several others had pulled their chairs over and were sitting with their plates on their knees. I could only guess what they were talking about. They were speaking quietly, consciously avoiding looking in our direction. Berit shrugged her shoulders and put down her knife and fork.

‘She’s hardly likely to try again.’

‘Don’t count on it,’ I said. ‘Even if it’s no longer possible for her to seek refuge in one of the apartments, she could still demand that some of us are locked in.’

‘An intelligent person, that Kari Thue. Very intelligent.’ Magnus Streng refilled his glass, almost to the brim. ‘But not very sensible,’ he added, raising his glass in a toast. ‘A very dangerous combination, in my considered opinion. I’ve seen her film, Deliver Us From Evil. Fascinating. What about you, Hanne? Have you seen it?’

‘No.’

‘It’s good, unfortunately. Extremely politically correct, apparently. Not exactly Michael Moore, if I can put it that way.’ He beamed as dessert was placed in front of him. ‘The problem is that the film is basically unethical, in terms of both methodology and content.’

I wasn’t up to this.

‘Of course you’re not up to this,’ said Magnus Streng, waving over one of the waitresses. ‘I don’t suppose it would be possible to have a little more of this fantastic strawberry sauce?’

He patted his stomach and picked up his spoon again.

‘You know… People like me don’t frighten other people. Not really. As long as I can remember I have been met with… mainly curiosity. Silence also, of course; as a child I sometimes found it quite difficult to deal with the silence that always came down over me like a cheese-dish cover whenever I moved outside my own little circle. Sometimes I felt like a piece of Port Salut. Not that I smelled like a…’ He smiled wryly and went on: ‘Silent curiosity! That’s what people usually feel when they catch sight of someone like me.’

The serviette he had tucked inside his shirt collar was slipping. He tucked it back in and shook his head as he looked at me.

‘And disgust. Sometimes disgust.’

I probably ought to have protested.

‘But not fear,’ he added quickly. ‘Not hostility, and never fear. Other than the obvious fear of having children like us. And do you know why?’

Nobody felt the urge to guess.

‘There aren’t enough of us to make anyone nervous,’ he said slowly, stressing every single word. ‘Persons of restricted growth simply do not constitute a threat. Insofar as we still exist. I mean, there are methods of eliminating us before the political majority in this country regards us as being capable of sustaining life…’

One of us should definitely have said something.

‘So I expect we will soon be a phenomenon for the history books. Not a threat. Our friends over there, on the other hand…’

He nodded towards the woman in the headscarf and her travelling companion. They were the only ones who had managed to keep a table for four all to themselves. They ate their food as it was placed in front of them, without a word to each other or to the waitress.

‘A really lovely couple,’ said Magnus Streng with a smile. ‘They look normal in every way. A little extra skin pigment, different headgear and a different name for God are the only things that distinguish them from us. When it comes down to it. But it’s enough. And why?’

Nobody answered this time either.

‘Because there are a lot of them. Because there are more and more of them around us all the time. Fear, ladies and gentlemen, is often a question of quantity. Just as none of us is afraid of one buzzing bee, but we all panic when the swarm arrives.’

‘Well, a swarm is obviously more dangerous than just one bee,’ mumbled Geir.

‘Not necessarily!’

Magnus Streng leaned forward.

‘Ask a beekeeper! Go to the expert! Ask a beekeeper!’

I had some difficulty in seeing the similarity between a bee and a Muslim, and topped up my glass of water.

‘What is worse,’ Magnus Streng continued eagerly, ‘is that once we have been frightened by the swarm, we regard every bee that comes along with suspicion. And once we are afraid of bees, it’s only a small step until we are afraid of every buzzing, flying creature among our fauna. That, my friends, is what is known as collectivism. Dangerous stuff. Kari Thue over there, now I should think she’s a woman who’s been stung a few times. Kari Thue is a frightened woman.’

He looked at her with something approaching sympathy.

‘I have to talk to you!’

I almost jumped. The businessman whose name I couldn’t remember was leaning over Johan. The man was still clutching his laptop; I was beginning to wonder if he took it to bed with him. His medium-length hair was blond and thick with expensive streaks, something that would probably have looked quite good if he hadn’t been too old for such vanity, and overweight into the bargain. The combination of smooth skin, a noticeable double chin and a youthful haircut made him appear soft, almost feminine. And if his intention was that other people shouldn’t hear what he was saying, then he failed badly. He was whispering so loudly that he could be heard from several tables away.

‘Talk away,’ said Johan without looking up from his meal.

‘Not here. I really do have to talk to you.’

‘In that case you’ll have to wait. I’m eating.’

‘It’s important. Come with me.’

He was no longer whispering. Instead there was an ambiguously threatening note in his voice. He straightened his back and assumed an expression that I imagine could be effective in some board meeting. Here it just looked comical.

‘I’d like to make you an offer,’ he said. ‘A particularly lucrative offer.’

Johan grinned and put down his spoon.

‘I see. And what is this offer?’

‘Not here. Let’s go to -’

‘As you can see, I’m sitting here having my dinner.’

‘You’ve finished. Come with me.’

‘No. I’m going to have another cup of coffee. Besides which, I’ve just decided. I don’t want to talk to you. Not now and not later. I’m actually quite happy sitting here. Go away.’

‘A million,’ said the man. ‘You could earn a million kroner.’

Johan started to laugh. He wiped his mouth and looked up at the businessman.

‘Now that’s what I call an offer,’ he said, getting slowly to his feet. ‘An offer worth considering. Thank you for dinner. And for the company.’

He nodded briefly to each of us before holding his hand out to Magnus Streng. The doctor looked surprised as he extended his own large, chubby hand.

‘I’ll speak to you later,’ said Johan, before turning on his heel and following the man with the laptop.

‘Steinar Aass,’ said Magnus Streng, pulling a face when the pair had just about reached the lobby. ‘Not exactly a man to do business with.’

The pieces fell into place as soon as he mentioned the name. Steinar Aass was what the newspapers liked to call a financial acrobat. The man had been sued a dozen times for overstepping every mark you can think of when it came to financial regulations, but the cases never got as far as court. This could of course be due to the fact that he was a persecuted, but entirely law-abiding citizen. Another explanation could be the notorious undermanning and lack of resources in the economic crimes unit. Dagens Næringsliv, on the other hand, had almost, but not quite, managed to nail Steinar Aass in a seven-page article last summer. They had followed a trail of money from a criminal gang in Norway to enormous investments in land in Brazil. Along the beautiful Atlantic coast this money completed a rotation or two with the help of Steinar Aass and three of his friends from Akers Brygge, before it was miraculously removed from the washing machine as legitimate capital.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Geir, stretching his neck. ‘You’re right! It is him!’

The waitress moved around the table pouring coffee. I felt the caffeine hit home. My eyelids were no longer so heavy. The pains in my back that had plagued me for several hours were easing. Magnus Streng looked as if he were thinking about something before he placed a hand on the waitress’s arm.

‘I don’t suppose I could have a little drop of cognac, miss? Last night I had a really good Otard, which would definitely do the trick.’

She smiled and nodded.

Now that we had got used to his eccentricity, we were all smiling at Magnus Streng. Even Mikkel’s gang had given up on the uncertain sneering grins with which they had previously received the little man. Only Kari Thue had maintained her forbidding expression whoever she was looking at. With the exception of Mikkel, of course. I suddenly discovered that she was no longer making a point of ignoring us. On the contrary, she had actually started glancing over at our table. I couldn’t really work out which of us she was most interested in. But she definitely wasn’t smiling.

‘My colleagues over there,’ said Magnus, interrupting my train of thought. He nodded over towards the table where all the other doctors were sitting. ‘They have been unusually pleasant, I have to say.’

I didn’t think there was enough evidence to support the idea that the other seven doctors were pleasant. Whenever they had left their rooms, they had more or less stuck together, or sat alone buried in a book. Two of them had laptops, and had used their time on the mountain to make preparations for a conference that had started long ago, as far as I knew. Once they had taken care of all the cuts and injuries that first evening, they had more or less removed themselves from our little community at Finse 1222. And I had hardly seen them exchange two words with Magnus Streng.

‘They’ve left the entire arena to me,’ he said gently. ‘Something for which I will be eternally grateful. Oh look, here comes our friend. Already!’

‘Three million,’ said Johan with a broad grin, sitting down again.

‘That was quick,’ said Geir. ‘You got three million?’

‘No. Obviously I don’t want to do business with his sort. I was just curious.’

He looked at the glass of cognac that was just being placed in front of Dr Streng. The waitress looked at him enquiringly and he nodded.

‘I wanted to know which of my services could possibly be worth so much money. When he told me what he wanted, I managed to get him to treble the price before I started laughing.’

‘And what was it he wanted?’ asked Magnus Streng, his nose buried in the brandy balloon. ‘Transport, I assume?’

Johan stared at him.

‘Yes. If I drove him to the nearest town with a road link to Oslo, I would get three million kroner. He has to be in Brazil before Saturday, he reckons, because his youngest daughter is seriously ill. Apparently. When I refused, all of his kids were suddenly desperately ill. That didn’t help much either. I assume we’re talking about sick money rather than sick kids here…’

Although I was following the conversation, I was also trying to keep an eye on the couple that I was no longer sure were a couple. They had started talking to each other. They were leaning forward, looking agitated and seemingly disagreeing about something.

‘Three million,’ said Berit, savouring the words. ‘Would it have been legal? I mean, could you have accepted that amount of money?’

Everybody except me looked at Magnus Streng. He was gradually acquiring the status of an omniscient being, a reference work who knew something about most things. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to the fact that Geir Rugholmen was a lawyer.

‘Well,’ said Magnus, smacking his lips. ‘We do have freedom of agreement in this country. If the man paid entirely of his own free will, then that would probably be absolutely fine. However, if you had to demand the money, then I think the question is whether that would offend against common decency. Like in a poker game, or some other wager. But you said no?’

‘Of course.’

‘But could you have done it? Would it have been possible for you to get to Haugastøl in this weather?’

Johan shrugged his shoulders.

‘I could probably do it if the snowmobile held. And there’s no guarantee that it would. I’ve never gone on a long journey in such extreme cold. It’s a completely unnecessary risk. I never take unnecessary risks. Besides which…’

Everyone around the table was following the conversation between Johan and Magnus with interest. I was trying to listen to what was going on between the two foreigners at the same time. The odd word reached my ears, but I didn’t recognize the language. I know enough Turkish to be able to identify it at least. Nor was it Arabic. Nefis has already started teaching Ida this third language so that later in life she will be able to relate to the Koran without troublesome interference, as she occasionally says with an ironic smile.

‘Besides which Steinar Aass wouldn’t have lasted five minutes,’ Johan went on. T would have arrived in Haugastøl with a dead man.’

The thought seemed to amuse him. He took the glass of cognac and sipped at the contents. He was still smiling broadly, as if he had just taken somebody in completely.

‘Excuse me…’

The Kurd, or perhaps I should say the man I had thought was a Kurd up to now, had got to his feet. He approached our table hesitantly, looking from Berit to Geir and back again. Then he smiled stiffly at Magnus Streng and Johan. He avoided looking at me altogether. This made me wonder if I was wrong to assume that he didn’t know I had seen him draw his gun.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said. ‘But I wondered if my wife and I might put forward a request?’

He spoke such good Norwegian that at first I didn’t understand what he was saying. He had almost no accent; if it hadn’t been for his appearance and old-fashioned clothes, I would immediately have taken him for a Norwegian. It was of course slightly embarrassing that I had failed to notice this earlier, after more than twenty-four hours in the same hotel.

‘Of course,’ said Berit. ‘How can I help?’

‘We would really like…’

He stroked his beard and looked over at the woman. She was still sitting at the table. From time to time she glanced up, but only briefly, before casting her eyes down once more in a way that now seemed demonstratively servile, given what I had seen earlier.

‘We would really like to be moved to the apartment wing,’ he said quietly.

‘I see,’ said Berit with a frown. ‘I can…’

Everybody except me looked at Kari Thue.

‘I can understand that,’ Berit said in a friendly tone of voice. ‘But I’m afraid it’s impossible. We’ve allowed all the entrances to become blocked with snow. Besides which I have to say…’ she hesitated and looked at Johan. He shook his head almost imperceptibly, ‘…that it would be indefensible in any case to let anyone go outside in the present circumstances. Yesterday we did open up a passageway between the two entrances, but it’s been blocked by snow again for a long time. So…’

She raised her shoulders apologetically.

‘It’s not possible.’

‘It’s extremely important to us,’ said the man.

‘As I said, I can understand that. But it’s just not possible to – ’

‘But if we make our way across at our own risk? If we could just have a little help to clear the snow around the entrance, then -’

‘I would stop you,’ Johan said calmly. ‘And if it became necessary, I would lock you in. There is nothing to discuss. Nobody is going outside. Nobody. OK?’

The man swallowed. He ran his hand over the thick beard once again. A few seconds passed before he nodded.

‘I understand. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’

‘I can see why they don’t want to be here,’ Berit mumbled once the man had gone back to his table. ‘Hardly any of us can cope with Kari Thue. It must be worst of all for them.’

Everyone around the table murmured in agreement.

But I thought I knew better.

I didn’t think the armed man was afraid of Kari Thue.

I didn’t even think he found it unpleasant to be in the same room as her. On the contrary, Kari Thue’s aggression the previous evening had reinforced the role he wanted to play. There were completely different reasons for the fact that he and the woman in the headscarf wanted to move across to the apartment wing. They wanted to be in the same building as the passengers from the mystery carriage.

I didn’t quite know why, but of course I was beginning to have my suspicions.

Roar Hanson was becoming more and more of a puzzle.

The meal was over, as Magnus Streng had cheerfully declared after a warm and slightly too long thank-you-for-dinner speech. Geir and Berit had once again tried to persuade me to accept a proper bed. Since we were fewer in number than yesterday, I could have a room of my own. I refused.

As soon as dinner was over I allowed myself to be hauled up the three steps into the lobby. I feel like a child in a pram whenever other people take control of my chair. The very last thing I want is to feel like a child. It was bad enough being one. In other words, the idea of someone carrying me up to another floor was unbearable. In the end Berit gave in and suggested they should swap one of the short sofas in the Millibar for a longer one from Blåstuen. That would give me the opportunity to lie down, at least.

I agreed, but had to wait until the lobby was empty before I lay down. Falling asleep in the chair with other people around was one thing. Lying down in full view was something else altogether. As I sat there trying to suppress one yawn after another, I felt like the hostess of an all too successful party that no one wanted to leave. It was very noticeable that the atmosphere had lifted once again. Presumably this had something to do with the fact that the bar had been open. With all this day had brought, I suspected that even the most abstemious of us might have gazed too deeply into the glass. And I certainly didn’t begrudge them that.

‘Could I…’

My eyes snapped open.

There he was again – Roar Hanson.

‘Sit down,’ I said, not quite as pleasantly as earlier.

‘Why did you lie?’ he asked brusquely.

‘I didn’t lie.’

‘You did. You denied that Cato Hammer had been murdered.’

‘No, I didn’t, in fact. When you… aired your suspicions I asked you why you thought he had been murdered. I denied nothing.’

He sat down hesitantly. It seemed as if he were trying to reconstruct the conversation we had had before the fourteen-year-old in red started screaming about her macabre discovery in the delivery bay. He must have had a good memory, because he seemed noticeably less reproachful when he sighed, leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees, and started again:

‘I know who murdered Cato,’ he said so quietly that I only just heard him. ‘And keeping that knowledge to myself is a great trial.’

I was a police officer for more than twenty years. I haven’t worked it out, but since I was involved with murder investigations for the majority of those years, I am unlikely to be exaggerating if I say that I have dealt with something like two hundred such cases. In almost every one, someone like Roar Hanson pops up. Someone who claims that he knows. Not infrequently it’s the perpetrator himself, trying to make himself immune from suspicion, a tactic so stupid that there ought to be a warning notice about it on anything that could possibly be used as a murder weapon. I have yet to meet an investigator who doesn’t immediately turn his or her attention to the person who maintains that he knows. People should also remember the ninth commandment. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Roar Hanson didn’t look as if he were bearing false witness.

On the contrary, he was showing all the signs of spiritual torment. His skin was damp and sickly grey, and his hair was so greasy that it was plastered to his scalp in lank strands. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery, although I couldn’t decide whether he was actually crying. He let his head droop between his shoulders. Anyone else would no doubt have laid a consoling hand on his back. Instead I moved away a fraction.

‘I should have done something back then,’ he said.

He paused.

‘What?’ I said as indifferently as I could manage.

‘I should have…’

Suddenly he straightened up. He rubbed the back of his hand across his lips. It didn’t help a great deal. He still had a thick white deposit at both corners of his mouth.

‘It was when the two of us were working in the Public Information Service. I mean, Cato was…’ He took a deep breath and held it as if he needed to brace himself. ‘I really can’t understand why I didn’t raise an objection at the time. Why I didn’t do anything. And Margrete… I can’t bear it. Of course I couldn’t have known, but it seemed so… unthinkable that he would… You are a police officer, aren’t you? Is it true what they’re saying?’

The Public Information Service?

For meat and poultry? Fruit and vegetables?

I had no idea what he was talking about. In my eyes he looked as if he were about to tip over into some kind of paranoid psychosis; he had started looking around as if he thought somebody was about to attack him the whole time. Since the closest people were sitting several metres away from us and were involved in a noisy game of Trivial Pursuit, it was quite comical. Sometimes he struck himself hard on his injured shoulder, as if pain could be driven out by pain. Since it was impossible to make any sense of his disjointed narrative, I decided it was appropriate to lie.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What people are saying is true. I am with the police. You can talk to me.’

‘Do you believe in vengeance?’

‘What?’

Roar Hanson leaned even closer. I could feel small, sour puffs of his breath on my face. I didn’t blink, but tried to lock his eyes with mine.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked slowly.

‘Do you think it’s ethically defensible to avenge a great injustice?’

As I searched for the answer he wanted, I saw Adrian coming towards us. His cap was pulled so far down that I couldn’t see his eyes at all. Since I had realized long ago that he and Roar Hanson weren’t exactly fond of each other, I raised a warning hand to make him stay away.

It didn’t work.

‘Why the fuck are you sitting here?’

Adrian thumped the priest on the shoulder. I didn’t even have time to protest before the boy hissed:

‘Stop bothering Hanne, OK!’

‘Adrian,’ I said sharply. ‘He’s not bothering me! Go away!’

It was too late. Roar Hanson got up slowly, like an old man. He blinked a couple of times and a controlled, composed expression came over his face. The smile he managed to force was so strained that his lips disappeared between his teeth.

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘You can’t…’

He didn’t hear me. I didn’t take my eyes off him until he set off up the stairs, and disappeared.

‘Why did you do that?’ I said to Adrian, trying not to sound as livid as I felt. ‘That’s the second time you’ve disturbed… destroyed a conversation I was having with that man!’

‘But I… I thought

It was only a few hours since Adrian had been a weeping little boy. When he came strolling across the floor to face up to the priest, he had regained something of the truculent, aggressive persona he wore as a disguise. Now he seemed completely helpless once again, utterly incapable of grasping my lack of gratitude.

‘Yes, but…’ he stammered. ‘But… I th… I thought…’

‘Thought? Yes, what do you actually think? That I’m completely helpless? And what exactly have you got against that man? Has he done something to you? Have you done something to him?’

There were too many questions for Adrian.

He went off without saying a word.

When I think back, I can see that lives could probably have been saved if the boy hadn’t come along and interrupted Roar Hanson’s incoherent story.

But of course I didn’t know that at the time.

Fortunately for Adrian, I have to add. I was already so furious with the boy that I didn’t even realize where he’d gone.