Death In Oslo

XVIII

Helen Lardahl Bentley woke up from a heavy sleep. She had no idea how long she had been out cold, but she remembered she had been sitting on the flimsy chair by the wall when the attack started. When she tried to sit up, she noticed that her right arm and shoulder had been hurt. A large bump on her temple made it difficult to open her eye.

The fall should have woken her. Maybe she had lost consciousness when she hit the floor. She must have been out of it for a long time. She couldn’t get up. Her body wouldn’t listen to her. She had to remember to breathe.

Her mind was spinning. It was impossible to focus on anything. She caught a glimpse of her daughter as a child, a little fair-haired three-year-old, the most beautiful one of all – and then she vanished. Billie was sucked into the light on the wall, which was like a deep red hole, and Helen Bentley remembered her grandma’s funeral, and the rose she had laid on the coffin; it was red, and dead, and the light was so bright that it hurt her eyes.

Breathe. Out. In.

The room was far too silent. Abnormally still. She tried to scream. All she managed was a whimper, and it was muffled, as if there was a huge pillow in the room. There was no echo from the walls.

She had to breathe. She had to breathe properly.

Time went into a vortex. She thought she could see numbers and clock faces all over the room, and she closed her eyes against the shower of arrows.

‘I want to get up,’ she shouted in a hoarse voice, and finally managed to haul herself up into a sitting position.

The leg of the chair dug into her back.

‘I do solemnly swear,’ she said and crossed her right leg over the left, ‘that I will faithfully execute…’

She twisted round. It felt as if her thigh muscles were about to explode when she finally managed to get up on to her knees. She leant her head against the wall for support, and vaguely registered that it was soft. She leaned her shoulder into the wall too, and with great effort got to her feet.

‘… the office of the President of the United States.’

She had to take a quick step to the side to avoid falling. The plastic strips had cut even deeper into her wrists. She suddenly felt light-headed, as if her skull had been emptied of everything other than the echo of her heartbeat. As she was only a few centimetres from the wall, she stayed upright.

There was only one door in the room. On the opposite wall. She had to cross the floor.

Warren had betrayed her.

She had to find out why, but her head was empty; it was impossible to think, and she had to cross the floor. The door was locked. She remembered that now. She had tried it earlier. The padded walls swallowed what little sound she managed to make, and it was impossible to open the door. But still, it was the only hope she had, because behind the door was the possibility of something else, someone else, and she had to get out of the soundless box that was about to be the death of her.

With extreme care, she put one foot in front of the other and started to cross the dark, heaving floor.