See You Tomorrow

67. SHELLEY WAS RIGHT (Sandra)

She wakes up in the dark. Neither tired nor teary-eyed. Her body feels ready, as does her mind. She reaches towards the night stand and takes hold of her iPhone. The light from the display illuminates the room. 05:57. She sits up.

I’ll do it, she thinks, and plants her feet firmly on the floor. Taking care to avoid the floorboards that creak, she goes to the wardrobe by the window and takes out a clean pair of knickers. She grabs the clothes she wore yesterday off the chair, slips quickly into them, tights, jeans, bra, and top and creeps out on to the landing. She opens the door to the toilet, pees, throws some water on her face and, unconcerned about how she looks, goes downstairs, leaving all the lights off, letting Mum and Dad sleep.

She picks up a shiny red apple from the glass bowl on the kitchen bench.

She pours herself a yoghurt drink and downs it in the light from the fridge.

I’ll just do it, she whispers as she opens the front door. It’s cold, but night is about to give way to morning. It’ll soon be light but it’s still too dark to make out the fjord. Some small birds perch in the trees, only just having begun singing the day in. Otherwise the streets are quiet. No lights on in the neighbouring houses. No one to be seen.

She hastens down Kong Haralds Gate, passing Madlamarkveien and continuing to the bottom of the hill. She crosses Madlavollveien, hurrying between the low-rises, the time getting on for half past six. The tower blocks rise up in front of her, dead and desolate, as if nobody lived there any more, as if those poor, stupid people who once did because they couldn’t afford anything better were, fortunately, all now dead.

The night has done her good and now she intends to cause another girl harm. She slept for no more than four hours, but is as rested as though she slept twice that. You can be as deaf as you like, you handicapped ginger bitch, she thinks as she walks by Coop Prix supermarket. You think you’re sweet and innocent just because you can’t hear. You think you can cut yourself up and then everyone will feel sorry for you.

That’s not how it works.

You’ve taken my man from me.

You’re going to pay for that.

Sandra leaves the shop behind and walks calmly towards the tower blocks. Her body is of steel; she’s never felt so cold. You must never, her mother has said, make any room for envy and jealousy. Well, Mum, here I am, I’ve let it take root.

A man passes by, wearing a bicycle helmet and tight training gear. She makes her way up the last hill, towards the last block in Jernalderveien, the one facing the Iron Age Farm. She approaches the buzzers. She slides her fingers down over all the buttons, without pressing them, like she did as a little girl, together with Shelley in 4A. Shelley was from Norwich, had lived a few years in Stavanger while her father worked for Mobil, had a big mole on her top lip and had never managed to learn Norwegian. One time they had rung all the doorbells, ran their hands down over the buttons and felt the hairs on the back of their necks stand up at the thought of the buzzers going off in all the flats in the block, and while Shelley thought it was wicked, it had given Sandra a pain in her stomach. She had let her mother down and let Jesus down by doing such a mean thing, by playing ring and run. But now she knows that Mum is a nervous wreck and that Shelley was right and Jesus isn’t a coward, Jesus is the master of vengeance: He spins the cylinder of the revolver and turns the other cheek to hate.

Her finger stops.

There’s a dull thud from inside like someone unloading a pallet off a truck. The lift reaching the ground floor. A figure behind the glass. It’s coming towards her. Shit. She makes to move, but doesn’t have time to run and ends up crouching down to tie her shoelace. Who is it? Sandra is on one knee, the door opens and a woman in a red jacket and tight jeans comes out, a woman in her late thirties.

It’s Veronika’s mother. Daniel’s stepmother. She mustn’t recognise her. Sandra keeps her eyes fixed on her shoes, her breathing rapid. The woman glances at her, but is in a world of her own and doesn’t take in what’s in front of her.

The door slams shut behind the woman, who walks quickly away along Jernalderveien.

Sandra straightens up. It’s getting bright. Day is dawning. She brings her finger back to the panel of doorbells. She moves it, purposefully, across to the occupants of the twelfth floor.

‘Inger and Veronika Ulland. Daniel William Moi.’

This is what hate is. It’s good to know it’s alive and kicking.

68. MUMMY’S JUST TALKING RUBBISH (Cecilie)

Just like little fish. Small, glittery fish darting through the water, stopping, beating their tails a little, then turning around, bodies twitching before swimming to another part of the ocean she carries within.

That’s what they say. She’s read it in magazines. Fish. Or bubbles. As though little bubbles are bursting inside her. After sixteen weeks, they say. Then you can feel life. When is that? Sixteen weeks? How far along is she? She doesn’t know, maybe five weeks, maybe six. She has to go to the doctor soon, needs to get that cleared up.

Cecilie lies quite still with her eyes closed, like her own mother must once have lain, with a little girl inside her. She can sense the day approaching, a thin strip of light slipping into the room. It’s going to be warm again today. What time is it? Seven? Waking up early these days. Must be the baby, I suppose.

In a few months there’s going to be an infant lying beside her. In its own cradle perhaps, alongside the bed. Maybe it will look like her, might come into the world with crooked lips and ash-grey skin. Maybe it’ll have a rattle in its hand and a mobile hanging over its little baby head. Maybe it’ll lie there whimpering. The way she herself must have lain, beside her own mother.

Cecilie opens her eyes. She raises herself on to her elbows, feels the nausea spread. She looks over at Rudi. His long form, stretched out beside her, half covered by the duvet, his huge cock like an eel dozing on his pale stomach. Lots of scars and blemishes to be seen on that body. Marks, all over the skin, covered in moles, nicks, pocks and craters from old spots. Handsome, he most certainly is not.

The baby might not survive, may well die inside. Wouldn’t surprise me, she thinks, if it croaked in my sea of ash — not as if anything could grow there. And if it is Rudi’s kid then there’s no telling what kind of creature it will be. Might be just as well it dies before the world gets to see it. Maybe it’ll be an alien pops out of her in seven or eight months’ time. Maybe an alien head is going to be sticking out from between her legs. Euuuugh! Sister! What an ugly fucking kid! Jesus, what a pigugly smurf!

Nobody wants to look at kids like you.

Nobody wants to be with kids like you.

Cecilie sighs and rubs two sleepy, clammy hands from her hairline down to her chin.

‘Sorry,’ she whispers. ‘Mummy’s just talking rubbish. Mummy’s always a little like this in the morning. Mummy doesn’t mean anything by it. We’re going to get up now, you and me, get some coffee. Your granddad, the one who lives in America, he needs his coffee first thing in the morning too. Says he goes nuts otherwise. Once he gets his coffee he’s a funfair for the rest of the day. Did you know he runs his own company, your granddad? That’s right, baby, he does. Southern Oil. He’s the president, yessir, Thor, president of Southern Oil. Yeah, yeah, but don’t spare him a thought, he’s a spineless shit. Now, we’re going to have our coffee, baby, take a quick shower and then get out of this house of horrors, because we have to go pick up the man who may be your father.

Rudi turns, half-asleep.

‘Mmmmm, Chessi…’ he mumbles, ‘who are you talking to … lying there yakking away … Southern Oil … Granddad?’

Breathe in. And breathe out.

Cecilie leans over to Rudi. She places her hand on his forehead. Then brings it slowly down over his eyes, his already quivering eyelids, straining to open at the approaching day. She kisses him, even though he stinks.

‘Rudi,’ she says, in a low voice.

‘Oh yeah,’ he murmurs, ‘just talk away to it, then I’ll impale you, just say the word and I’ll be ready…’

‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ she says softly, ‘you just sleep. I’m getting up to go get Tong. Sleep some more, Rudi needs it. You’re so tall, you know, you need a lot of sleep.’

‘It’s my cock takes up all the blood…’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Cecilie whispers, ‘go to sleep now. It’s early, even Jani isn’t up yet. Go back to sleep now.’

Rudi focuses his gaze on her, his eyes are gleaming. ‘Like being in a nursing home, this is,’ he says, in a raspy, morning voice. ‘Care. A care home. That’s what you should’ve been, Chessi, a nurse. You’re one awesome lady, you know that?’

Rudi raises his head. Keeps his eyes fixed on her.

It’s hard to hate a man who loves you much.

But not impossible, she thinks, sending him a kiss with pouted lips before picking up her jeans and bra and making towards the bathroom.

‘Just watch out,’ she hears from behind. ‘After that job tonight there’s going to be cock in your house. He’s going to be hunting through your halls tonight! Jesus! There’s a mad dog here! Holy shit, he’s got the biggest cock in the world! Heh heh. You’re one awesome lady. We should get a place of our own soon, eh, Chessi? Tonight, Lady Gaga! Tonight!’

‘Go to sleep now,’ she says. ‘If you want some pussy after work then you need your sleep.’

‘Ooops! Surethingboss.’

Cecilie shuffles along the carpet in the hall. It’s hard and dirty. It needs to be changed. She yawns, the nausea is heavy and constant. She doesn’t need to throw up, but it feels as if everything would be better if she did. So, when she’s moving around, is the baby staying still, is that how it is? Or has it already begun to move around itself? It soon will. If it’s not already dead. Dead baby. Soon start moving. Tiny fish. Soon stretch out its tiny fingers and tiny toes, its little head will turn around, its little eyes will try to figure out what’s going on. But the baby’s asleep right now. It’s following Mummy’s movements. Just as though it’s holding its breath. What is Mummy up to? Where are we off to?

Was it like that for Mum as well? Back when she was a little mite inside her own mother? Did she wonder if the baby was already dead?

Cecilie opens the bathroom door. She gives a start when she catches sight of Jan Inge. He’s sitting fully clothed on the toilet seat, his feet dangling a little above the floor. He has dark, blue rings beneath his eyes, one finger stuck into his mouth. He’s chewing on a nail and doesn’t look up at her. He blinks, his eyes going from side to side. He’s been crying. He looks about twelve years old. He looks like he did when he was twelve. Back when he was in here biting his nails, crying and shouting to her outside in her nightdress: ‘Cecilie! Don’t come in! I need to think! I need to think!’

69. MORNING IN THE HOME OF A FATHER OF TWO TEENAGERS (Pål)

‘Tiril? Malene? Breakfast!’

He has his foot placed in a jaunty fashion on the bottom step, his chin tilted towards the first floor. Zitha stands beside him, her tail wagging, the end of her snout also raised, as though imitating him. Pål lifts his eyebrows, elevates his cheeks, arranges his features into a pleasant expression, as if this were a summer day and he were a father from a film on children’s TV. In his hands he holds a milk carton and a plate of sliced cucumber, tomatoes and pepper.

‘Come on, girls! Breakfast!’

That’s the way. He keeps his back muscles tensed as he returns to the kitchen. Setting down the milk and the plate on the already set table, he takes the matches from the mantelpiece and strikes one off the box. He lights the candles and glances at the coffee maker gurgling by the window. Sides of meat, cheese, pâté, sliced fruit and veg, lettuce even, as well as milk, juice and coffee.

This looks good. This’ll do the trick.

‘Zitha! Good girl. Lie down now.’

This day exists. And it doesn’t.

He hears Tiril’s footsteps, firm and lively, coming down the stairs, ostensibly saying everything about his youngest daughter, the trampoline kid, as Christine once called her. She could be like that now and again, original in her choice of words, as if she ought to have been a writer as opposed to a businesswoman. Behind Tiril he hears Malene’s footfall, steady and mature. The difference in their footsteps is like hearing his wife and himself. Back before the break-up, back when she jumped out of bed in the mornings, after a good night’s sleep, already at work long before she had actually stepped out the front door and got into the car. He takes a little longer to wake up — usually about twenty minutes before Pål is ready for the day. Christine was awake before she awoke. As soon as she opened her eyes her energy level was running at maximum. He smiles to himself at the memory, which was annoying back when it was reality and not reminiscence. The recollection of Christine drinking coffee while she dressed, putting on make-up, preparing the kids’ lunches, reading the paper and hey presto — suddenly she was in front of him, radiant and ready, car keys in hand, giving him a routine peck on the cheek before telling him he had to ‘have a nice day’ and then disappearing out the door.

A mutual tempo of sorts was something they never shared. Pål would make an effort now and again to get up to her speed. He convinced himself that somewhere within him lay a kind of variant of her that he could be. He planned the day in accordance with her pace, attempted to imitate her. If she took it upon herself to start vacuuming on a Saturday morning, he would let breakfast wait while he got stuck into the dishes from the day before. But it just drove Christine round the bend. Jesus, Pål, please, this here is just weird — do you have to shadow me?

Tiril’s body is electric, she has headphones on and she’s sharply defined in black-and-red attire.

‘Hi, honey,’ he says, in as friendly a tone as he can, stopping her with his arms outstretched, but she ignores his invitation to hug. He drops his arms without making a fuss about it. Tiril forces a smile, he can hear the music from her iPod, stripped of bass; she has no time for Dad now, she needs to concentrate.

‘Christ,’ she says, pointing at the breakfast table, ‘somebody die?’

He laughs, even though he doesn’t find it funny. ‘Just wanted to make you a nice breakfast, with you having such a big day and all,’ he says, feeling a swelling in his chest as though what he was saying was pure and true. ‘Sit down there and I’ll get you some coffee. Can you take off those headphones, just while we’re eating?’

Tiril raises her darkly pencilled eyebrows, but leaves the headphones on. She takes her mobile from her pocket, flips the cover up and begins texting.

‘I need an iPhone 5, Dad,’ she says, without looking up, ‘but I don’t suppose we can afford that?’

The door of the hall toilet can be heard opening and moments later Malene appears. She looks tired and unwell. Pål grows anxious and forgets Tiril’s complaint, but he thinks how he mustn’t allow the feeling to take root, probably just a morning thing, soon blow over — talking about your troubles only makes them materialise.

‘Hi, Dad.’

Malene bends down to greet Zitha, giving her a rub before coming over to Pål. She looks towards the kitchen table.

‘Wow, what an amazing-looking breakfast.’

He strokes her hair. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Not really,’ Malene says. ‘Do we have any bread?’

‘Yeah, of cour—’ Pål stops himself. ‘Hold on, of course we’ve got bread…’

He scurries over to the breadbin, feeling the girls’ eyes on his back as he lifts the lid up. A little bag with a stale heel. He places his palms on the worktop. Turns to the girls. Malene has dark rings under her eyes, it won’t soon blow over. Tiril’s thumb works away at the screen of her phone, the treble from her iPod hissing about her head like a swarm of wasps.

‘Ryvita?’ Pål asks, hearing how poorly his voice is carrying.

Malene shrugs. Tiril scrolls on her mobile and moves her lips, but no sound escapes her.

Pål breathes in, fastens a smile on his mouth, brings his palms together with a clap and says: ‘Ah, it’s going to be a lovely day. Thursday. I’ve taken the day off work, thought I might get us something really nice for dinner, tidy the house and live it up, the three of us, and then, yes, then it’s — eh, Tiril?’

He walks over to her. So much make-up, where’s the girl under there?

‘Eh?’

He stands in front of her.

‘Eh? Your big day, isn’t it, eh?’

She removes the headphones, puts down the mobile: ‘You coming to watch?’

He keeps his smile fixed and brings his hands to her face, one on each cheek: ‘Of course I am, honey. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Tiril’s phone vibrates, reverberating on the tabletop. She frees herself from his hands but he can see the joy in her eyes, the effect his assurance has had. She picks up the phone, taps the screen. Her features contort and she rises from the seat, her head shaking. Then it vibrates again and she reads once more.

‘Jesus,’ she says, not looking at them, ‘asshole.’ Tiril breathes through her nostrils and looks up from the display. ‘This here, this is seriously screwed up. Sorry, I gotta go. Kenny has kicked the shit out of Shaun and Sandra is flipping out. Malene, you need to come along, let’s go. See you tonight, Dad.’

70. THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT (Veronika)

Night arrived with creeping darkness. It covered Madla, covered Stavanger, the west of the country, Norway, Europe, the world and the universe in the same ever-increasing circles she’s pictured since she was a little girl, back when she could hear. She was six years old when she lost her hearing and her memories of sounds are as clear as glass, but she doesn’t like them; her mother’s voice, the sound of a toilet flushing, a car starting. It’s nicer to think of the noises she’s never heard.

Mum seemed knackered when she said goodnight. She stood in front of Veronika with her head to one side and placed two fingers on her cuts, tracing her fingertips along them, just as Daniel had done in the kitchen minutes previously.

‘Don’t stay up too late, okay?’

‘I won’t.’

It was as though his very hand had sowed desire in her groin. The firm grasp he had taken of her was hard and insistent, painful almost, but the craving in his palm, the hungry pressure he put against her pubis, made her body ignite, and when he took his hand away all she could think was do it again. She felt a flailing warmth spread throughout her, also in the form of increasing circles, beginning in her crotch, describing a ring round her loins, a ring round her stomach and thighs, around her breasts and calves, a ring around her entire body.

The bathroom door opened. The sound of her mother’s feet going in the direction of the bedroom and out of sight.

‘Night, Mum.’

‘Good night, Inger.’

Daniel was sitting at one end of the sofa, feet up on the table, neck resting on the back of the cushion, one arm over the end of the sofa, the other resting on his stomach. Veronika sat up for a moment, pretended to fix her clothes, then sat down again, closer.

He got to his feet without looking at her, his lips moved, but she wasn’t sure if he said something or merely sighed, snapped for air, like a guppy. He went over to the window, closed it and remained standing looking out at the darkness with searching eyes.

He did say something, but she couldn’t make it out. ‘What?’

He turned his mouth away again. Too much shit here now? Was that what he said?

Veronika got up and went over to him. ‘What are you saying?’

He avoided her gaze. ‘Dunno. School. Can’t face school tomorrow. Need to think.’

She drew as close to him as she dared. There was a long pause. Veronika’s breath had less and less space to draw in air from.

‘And what is it you need to think about?’ she asked.

He turned to her. His face glistened, his teeth shone like polished ivory, his eyes had yellow spears in them and his tongue was long and cruel.

‘You fuck me up,’ he said.

‘You fuck me up,’ she said.

Daniel put his hand back where it belonged, he pressed harder and she felt how that was the way it was supposed to be. Her hand went to his jeans, rubbed him across the flies and she saw his mouth open, saw his chest heave and his jaw clench.

‘You really fuck me up,’ he said, gritting his teeth as his torso rose and fell.

‘I know,’ she said, as she took her fingers away, saw him take sharp intakes of breath, took hold of his belt, undid the buckle and saw him gulp and blink, ‘and that’s the whole point.’

‘Shit, we have to be quiet,’ he said, placing a hand on each of her breasts.

‘We have to be very quiet,’ she said, feeling a throbbing dick in her hands for the first time.

Veronika wakes up. Her cheeks are warm and it is Thursday morning. She opens her eyes and closes them right after, as though what she’s going to see is an enemy of that which has occurred.

She has no choice but to go far today, too far perhaps.

71. MOON AND SUN, WIND AND CLOUDS, SISTER AND BROTHER, DEATH ENSHROUDS(Jan Inge)

‘Oh … Jan Inge … I didn’t know you were in here.’

Jan Inge swallows. He looks up at Cecilie. She has those threadbare jeans of hers in her hands, as well as an old bra. She’s only wearing the large Europe T-shirt. It looks like a tent.

She crouches down.

‘Hey? You okay?’

Jan Inge nods ever so slightly. He meets her eyes for the briefest moment, then looks away again. It’s not a good idea to look deeply into Cecilie’s eyes, too much to see in them.

‘Oh God, Jani, bruv, are you crying?’

It’s not so easy after all. Always having breakfast ready. Never falling apart. Forever being in good humour. Being in control at all times. He saw it. In that programme on TV, the one about leadership. A Microsoft executive. Show emotion, he said. Demonstrate that you’re a person and not a machine. It makes for a good leader. And why? asked the Microsoft guy. I’ll tell you why, because you work alongside people. They need to see that you’re like them.

Jan Inge reaches out and tears off a few sheets of toilet paper. He blows his nose. Swallows.

‘What’s wrong? Why are you sitting here crying?’

Jan Inge raises his bulk from the toilet seat. He takes a few steps towards the bathroom mirror. He sniffs, clears his throat, spits in the sink and rinses his mouth. In the reflection of the mirror he can see Cecilie pulling down her knickers, flipping up the lid of the toilet, sitting down and peeing. She actually looks quite nice when she’s sitting like that. Those eyes, set far apart, open up her face kind of like a book; she looks like she did when she was small, when they roamed about the house wondering what to do, when Mum had died and Dad had gone to Houston.

Those compassionate eyes. More gut-wrenching looking into them than meeting those tetchy eyes she glares at you with most of the time.

Jan Inge finds a spot in the air and fixes his gaze upon it. He straightens up: ‘Cecilie. I’m sitting here in the toilet. It’s an important day. I’m here enjoying a few moments of peace early in the morning. I’m meditating. I’m like the Chinese. Do you see the bowl of rice between my hands? Do you see the wind playing in the hazel trees?’

Cecilie gets up from the toilet, flushes it and tries to make eye contact, but he avoids it.

‘Jani,’ she says, sitting down on the edge of the bath, ‘you know I’m not always able to follow what you’re saying when you talk like that. What do you mean?’

‘I just mean that I’m thinking.’

‘Yeah?’

He looks her in the eye. He’s able to now. ‘About my life,’ he says. ‘About our lives. About Tong getting out today. About Dad in Houston. About Mum in Hell, barbecuing rats with the Devil. I’m picturing the grease dripping from the side of her mouth. Is she riding the Devil, Cecilie? It wouldn’t surprise me. I’m thinking about the job we have on tonight. I’m sitting here in the toilet — the last bastion of privacy. And yes. Perhaps I shed a tear. Yes. Perhaps life overwhelms us all at times.’

He turns to the sink, puts both taps on, waiting for the water to become lukewarm before placing his hands under the jet. Warms them up.

‘Yeah, of course it does,’ says Cecilie.

‘Do you not think I harbour dreams?’

‘Sure, of course I think you do.’

Jan Inge turns off the water and takes hold of the towel hanging beside the sink. ‘Do you think it’s fun for me to have become so fat and got a bald patch to boot? Do you not think I’ll do anything to keep this gang together?’

‘But Jan Inge—’

He sits down on the edge of the bath, beside her.

‘I’ll tell you something, Cecilie,’ he says. ‘When Dad went away … one night after I’d put you to bed, I went down to the basement. Dad had left behind some tools in case we had to fix something in the house. We did become independent, you and I, by the fact of him leaving. I’ll give him that. I found the toolbox and took out the hammer, Cecilie. I took it in my hand and carried it with me up the stairs, carried it through the hall here, held it while I opened the door to your room, clasped it as I made my way over to your bed. And once there, I raised my hand over my head and saw the shadow of the hammer on the wall behind you.’

Jan Inge pauses.

He is aware of the heightened atmosphere in the bathroom.

Cecilie sits camly beside him. She listens as though what he’s saying is on celluloid. An intense film about a brother who’s going to take his sister’s life. Because their mother has kicked the bucket and their father has moved to Houston.

But it isn’t a film.

It’s this shitty life.

But that’s just how it always is.

It’s never a shitty film.

It’s always life.

Cecilie nods, as if remembering what he’s telling her.

‘I don’t know,’ Jan Inge says, turning to look at her. ‘I can’t explain what I was thinking. Maybe I thought things would be easier if you were dead. Maybe I was afraid of having to look after you for the rest of my life.’

‘But that’s what you hav—’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘You’ve really looked after me, Jani.’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Good thing you didn’t crack my skull open with the hammer anyway.’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘But listen, I need to take a shower and be on my way to pick up Tong.’

Cecilie puts her skinny arms around his big body. It feels good. She radiates warmth even though she’s ever so small. Jan Inge remembers the song he made up that time he was standing over her bed with the hammer in his hand. Moon and sun, wind and clouds, sister and brother, death enshrouds. He stood there with the hammer raised and sang. He can still hear the choirboy pitch of his own voice. How nice it sounded. While he looked at the shadow of the hammer thinking that now Cecilie had to die. Moon and sun, wind and clouds, sister and brother, death enshrouds.

Cecilie loosens her hold around him, her body gives a jerk and she lets go of him. She swallows and gulps, then makes an abrupt dive for the toilet where she leans over the bowl and throws up.

Jan Inge blinks. Repeatedly. ‘Yeah,’ he hears her wheeze, her head down the toilet bowl, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you, Jani, I know what you’re thinking.’

Blimey.

Jan Inge picks up his inhaler from the washstand. Breathes in.

Hah.

Sometimes life is fascinating.

It’s right in front of you, day in, day out, but no danger of you catching sight of it.

Jan Inge nods to himself. This is fantastic news. He can feel a swelling inside. He’s aware of tears in his eyes. A child. My God. Now there’s going to be some life in the house. Now things are going to happen. Revenge. That’s what he feels, a sense of revenge, like an axe cleaving a skull, because now the Haraldsen name will be carried on, yes, it’s almost as if it’s his own child coming into the world. There’ll be life in the house, the genes will be shuffled and who knows what the child will be like. Will it inherit Cecilie’s capricious nature? Jan Inge’s characteristic astuteness? Its father’s levity?

‘Uncle Jani?’ he asks. ‘Me? Uncle Jani?’

Cecilie, her back to him, nods. She reaches into the shower and turns on the water.

‘Wow. Chessi, I—’

Cecilie turns her head and fixes her brother with a fiery look. ‘Yeah,’ she says, while holding her hand under the jet of water. ‘But you’re not to tell a bloody soul.’

‘No no, I—’

‘Because I don’t know who the fucking father is.’

‘Wha?’

‘Don’t be so dramatic.’

‘But—’

‘Listen,’ Cecilie lowers her voice, which doesn’t serve to reduce the intensity. ‘I don’t know if it’s Tong or Rudi—’

‘Ton—’

‘You’re not to say a single word. Not one word, you hear me.’

‘No, but to … to … I mean he’s in—’

Jan Inge stops himself.

‘Åna,’ he says in a quiet tone.

‘Not another word now,’ Cecilie hisses. ‘Not to me or to anyone else.’

Jan Inge nods. She’s right, he thinks. Sometimes you’ve really just got to shut up. Keep your lips sealed and gulp down.

‘You go out and think about what you’ve heard,’ continues Cecilie. ‘Go out and let me shower and be alone with my own thoughts and my own life and you get your own ass in gear. You don’t need to go round feeling sorry for yourself, Jani, because you’re not the one with problems — I’m the one with problems. And put on some coffee will you — aw! Bloody shower! Either too cold or roasting! Why can’t things in this house just work like they do in normal peoples’ houses!’

‘Right, I’ll—’

Cecilie pulls off the Europe T-shirt. Takes off her knickers. Gets into the bathtub. Pulls the shower curtain across. Jan Inge sees her silhouette, hears the running water, the sound of her voice: ‘And don’t start crying, all right? No crying, okay? We’ve done enough crying, you and me, yeah?’

72. THEY’RE SO PERFECT, THOSE TITS OF YOURS (Daniel William)

Veronika is standing in front of him as he comes into the hall. She’s leaning against the wall as if waiting for someone to take a photo of her. Jesus, she looks good. Her hair tousled, sticking up in all directions, her mouth haughty and red. He makes to go past her towards the kitchen, force her to cede this edge she has over him, but she takes a step forward, blocking his path.

She grins.

‘Manage to sleep?’

He shakes his head with a fatuous smile. He doesn’t like to appear so exposed, feels like a bit of a wuss, but there’s nothing he can do about it.

‘Me neither,’ Veronika says, leaving her lips slightly parted when she’s finishes the sentence.

He returns her smile, but again his is puerile and foolish, while the smile blossoming in the lattice of fresh cuts on her face speaks of self-assurance, and rather than divesting her of authority — it bestows it.

Ah.

This business of being in love with two girls at the same time is a right pain. One of them is going to lose and one of them is going to win. It’s the flesh that decides. The fuckplan, what happened to that? If the whole point of living was to fuck and get rich, find a woman willing to put out once a day, then how’s the plan looking now?

Which of them will win?

Daniel tries to swallow his smile like it was a morsel in his mouth. He needs to ward off his weakness with something so he lets his gaze wander over her body, the body he possessed a few hours previously. The feet he held in his hands, the long legs he ran his fingers over, the thighs he parted, the loins he kissed, the tits he tongued and cupped in his hands, the ears he panted into, the red hair he clutched and the mouth he couldn’t take his eyes from as they had sex.

Veronika closes her mouth as he looks her over. She puts her head to the side, her eyes are pert and alive, anything flushed or childish about her disappears.

Daniel takes hold of her hand, she backs against the wall.

‘Listen,’ he says.

‘Yeah?’

Fuck, she’s gorgeous.

‘I’ve been doing a bit of thinking,’ Daniel says, aware of how right it feels when he utters the words, even though it’s a lie. Thinking? He hasn’t thought at all, he’s been fucking. To put it bluntly. Veronika was a whole lot different from Sandra. Sandra made him small and uncomplicated. Veronika made him big and uncomplicated.

‘Me too,’ she says.

‘Okay,’ Daniel says, surprised, ‘you first, so.’

‘No, you,’ Veronika says.

‘All right … well, you know. Sandra.’

Veronika nods.

Good. She could have gone for him.

‘Yeah,’ Daniel continues, ‘she’s going to lose it when she hears about this. So, we’re going to have to, well, deal with that. Some way or another.’

Veronika nods.

‘And then there’s your mother. How do you think she’s going to react? And then there’s that business with the father of those two girls, Tiril and Malene…’

Veronika stops him. ‘Don’t speak so fast,’ she says. ‘What did you say?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just stressed out. Tiril. And Malene.’

‘What about them?’

Daniel walks towards the kitchen and she follows after. He turns on the tap, places his mouth under it and drinks. His mind is reeling. There’s too much going on. Why should he care about that Pål guy? The people in the woods, the loser in the Metallica T-shirt, the sisters — how come he’s not able to sweep it aside?

‘What is it, Daniel? I don’t understand?’

That hollow, deaf voice of hers; is he going to have to put up with that for the rest of his life? Christ, his throat is dry. He puts his mouth back under the water still running from the tap and drinks; it’s like he’s dehydrated, and now his vision is beginning to flash, no, not this, not now, he sees blood, sees hands being raised in front of a face, hears screams and his body is so dry, his body is so dry it feels as if it’ll crack like parched earth and tiny brown animals will emerge: ‘Shut up!’

He turns to Veronika. He moves swiftly towards her, one hand clenched into a fist while he uses the other to take hold of her hair, pulling her head closer to his, roughly: ‘Can you just shut the fuck up?’

Veronika smiles.

‘Are you going to hit me, Daniel?’

He pulls her head back forcefully, making her yield to his will. Or does he? Is it he who’s won now or is it her?

‘Daniel? Are you going to hit me now?’

He can’t make out what’s what, but Veronika continues smiling at him and he hears her say: ‘Daniel, I’m going to look after you. Listen to me. Breathe in, breathe out. Let go of me. That’s right, yeah. Sit down, listen to me. Daniel, Daniel. Tell me what happened to you.’

Fuck.

Is he going to start crying in front of a girl?

He puts his head against her chest, feels her breasts against his cheek.

It’s part of the fuckplan, Daniel thinks. It’s bigger than you think, that plan. More dangerous than you believe. It’s carrying a whole world of shit along with it and in the end you’ll stand there watching the blood flow.

Daniel sniffles. ‘Jesus,’ he whispers, ‘they’re so perfect, those tits of yours. I’m not really into big tits, but fuck, I like yours.’

Veronika nods.

‘I’m in love with two girls,’ he sighs.

‘I know,’ Veronika says. ‘But it won’t last long.’

He looks up at her, gulping back mucus, his teeth clacking together. His mouth foaming. He says: ‘Come on, we’ll hop on the Suzuki and just leave, okay? We’ll go as far from here as we can and never look back.’

73. TOUGH JESUS (Sandra)

Maybe you were right, maybe DW is a coward. Outside his block of flats now, have no clue what’s going to happen. If I die, I die for love.

Xx S.

Yet another brisk September day. The sun has come up, white and reigning supreme in a sky where not a cloud is to be seen. People have begun going about their morning business, a few early risers have already exited the tower block, mostly adults on their way to work. It’s still too early for any schoolkids to put in an appearance. Fortunately. Sandra doesn’t want anyone to recognise her standing here.

She puts the phone back into her pocket.

If he comes out with that skank of his it makes no difference. If he has that slashed-up slut with him, then the blood will gush from those faulty ears of hers and if he comes out alone, then he better have an answer for her. She doesn’t want to hear any more bullshit, what she wants is a simple yes or no, and the question she’s going to ask is: Am I the one, the only one you want, for all time?

She’s going to be tough. Both she and Jesus are going to be tough.

Sandra brings her finger to the panel with the doorbells. She buzzes. A few seconds pass before a click sounds on the intercom and his voice, metallic and uncertain, can be heard: ‘Yes?’

Sandra doesn’t reply. She takes two steps backwards. Stands there looking at the name below the buzzer.

‘Yes, hello?’

She’s not going to answer. You’re going to have to come down, Daniel, and show who you are.

The line goes dead. She approaches the panel again. Lifts her hand. Rings once more. Longer this time, keeping her finger pressed hard against the button.

The response comes quickly: ‘Yes, hello?’

Not nice, that voice. It has been so warm and deep at times, spoken right to her and she’s trusted it. But this voice, she’s not about to reply to that.

‘Hello? Anyone there?’

Once again, Sandra takes two demonstrative steps back from the panel of buzzers.

‘Listen, enough of the dinging already, yeah?’

The intercom goes silent again. A woman passes behind Sandra, walking a drever on a lead; it makes for her legs but the woman gives the leash a yank and they continue on. Sandra steps up to the buttons for a third time, breath rising in her throat, sweat beading on her hairline. She presses the buzzer.

A couple of seconds. Intercom crackle. A girl’s voice. The skank: ‘Give it a fucking rest, all right?’

The fact that she even dares open her mouth. It sounds so retarded. She talks like a mongoloid. Sandra puts her lips to the intercom, bunches her tongue against her uvula and imitates Veronika: ‘Give it a fucking rest, all right?’

It goes quiet on the other end. That gave them something to think about. Sandra smiles, puts her mouth to the speaker again, makes her tongue thicker, her voice quaver, trying harder to mimic the deaf tone: ‘Huuunnh? Are you able to speak? But you’re not able to hear what I’m saying. Huuunnh? Maybe you’ve got someone there to translate for you, have you?’

The line goes dead again. That should do the trick, thinks Sandra. Now they’ll come down. She hurries round the corner of the tower block, puts her back against the cold brick and her feet on the grass, banking on them not catching sight of her. Now she’ll be able to see how they behave. Before she snares them, she wants to see what happens.

A minute crawls by; she counts the seconds like she’s counted the seconds while waiting for Daniel in the last few weeks, waiting in smitten bliss. That naïve girl seems far away now, as though they had never been the same person. Then she hears the door open. The sound of footsteps emerging. One person. Two people. The footsteps stop.

‘No one here.’ His voice

‘Little shits.’ His voice

‘Fucking cheek of them.’ His voice

‘If I get hold of them I’ll beat their faces to a pulp.’ His voice.

Sandra feels a swelling in her throat and she tries to swallow. Daniel is sticking up for the deaf girl. His voice is clear, deep and warm. The words sound just as real as they were when he spoke to her, in the woods and at the shop. Sandra gulps once more, the tears come; she gasps and presses her tongue against her crooked front tooth. She hears footfall. The sound of a jacket being unzipped. Is he opening her jacket, putting his hands inside, comforting her? Sandra goes as close as possible to the corner of the block: is it her opening his jacket? Putting her arms around him? Are they kissing?

‘Is there anyone who’s got it in for you?’ His voice.

‘Veronika. Answer me. Has this happened before?’ His voice.

‘No.’ Her voice.

‘We won’t give a shit. Okay?’ His voice.

‘Yeah.’ Her voice.

‘Let’s just leave, all right?’ His voice.

‘All right.’ Her voice.

Leave?

‘You and me.’ His voice.

‘Yes, Daniel.’ Her voice.

Leave?

‘Daniel is going to look after you, you know that, right?’ His voice.

‘Yeah.’ Her voice.

Sandra’s knees are giving way; she just about manages to remain standing and has to support herself against the wall. Leave. You and me. She hears the trust implicit in Veronika’s reply; she hears how steady his voice sounds. Sandra feels pulverised; there is no tough Jesus here, just this caustic pain.

‘Right, come on.’

Footsteps. They’re moving. Quickly.

Sandra takes a few small steps towards the corner, puts her head around and sees them. Daniel William and Veronika, jogging along in front of the tower blocks, hand-in-hand, him slightly in front of her.

Why am I not strong? Why don’t I shout out to them? Why don’t I lift my hands to the sky and scream? Why am I just standing here?

Sandra sniffs, then draws as much air as possible into her lungs and begins to run. She keeps close to the wall of the buildings so as not to be seen, running as fast as she can, her knees touching and hips swinging. What’s important now is not to think, just act, just be a seething jealous heart. When she gets to the end of the third block she sees them. Daniel has his helmet on and he’s mounting the moped, Veronika standing beside him. After he’s straddled it she climbs on behind. They haven’t spotted her. They’re too preoccupied with one another. Veronika puts her arms around his waist. She leans into him. Her chest presses against his back.

He starts the engine, reverses with his feet a couple of metres, then rides out of the car park, her red hair lifting up on the air like a pennant.

Just where Daniel and Veronika come out on to Folkeviseveien, there’s a bend in the road by a bus shelter before it continues on towards the big roundabout on Ullandhaugveien. Sandra has no choice. She can’t let the one she loves ride off with the one she hates. So she runs. She runs right across the green area backing on to the bus shelter and emerges on Folkeviseveien at the same time as the moped rounds the bend. Sandra runs on to the road, halts suddenly, and the rider of the moped can’t manage to stop. He is unable to manoeuvre round the girl who has dashed right out into the road and he runs her over.

It doesn’t hurt, Sandra thinks at the moment of impact, not me anyway. She takes a heavy blow to the head as her body is thrown to the ground. She tries to keep her eyes open because she wants to see what’s going on, but it’s difficult when it feels like something is cracking inside your head. What she thinks she sees is this: A boy, he’s called Daniel William Moi and she loves him, a boy running towards her with a moped helmet in his hand, a terrified-looking boy, a boy who shouts: ‘Fuck! Sandra! What the fuck?’ Behind him a girl standing beside a moped, a red-haired girl with a cut-up face, waving her hand about, shouting: ‘Leave her there! She did it on purpose! Leave her there!’ The boy she loves brings his hand down over his face, shakes his head and runs to the moped. Starts it up. Rides away. With his girl on the back.

You were tough now, Jesus, she thinks, and loses consciousness.

74. KEIN PROBLEM, MEIN SOHN (Rudi)

We may well be criminals, Jan Inge always says. We may well live outside the law. But that doesn’t mean we live without laws. We are prinicipled criminals, says Jan Inge, we have some ground rules. Which we live by. We won’t have any divergence between theory and practice, got it? They’ll be as one, you hear me?

Jefe Haraldsen.

One prize idiot after the other has come and gone. If the gap between theory and practice has been too wide then Jan Inge has asked them to sling their hook. Hansi, Tødden, Donald, Kjabbe, Sorry and Poster. Every one of them was kicked out over something that violated the fundamental priniciples. With the exception of Tong. He’s the only one who’s been let be even though there’s been a pretty big gap betwe—

Rudi shakes the urine off his cock. No, he thinks, there hasn’t been a big gap between theory and practice with Tong. He puts his cock back into his briefs, reflects on how cute and snug it looks all limp and curled up, and he washes his hands. The fact of the matter is that Jani has accepted Tong. Sort of like how it is with Lemmy. He can knock back as much Jack Daniels and do as much speed as he likes, but that doesn’t mean that other people can do it. Even Lemmy himself has been clear about that.

Rudi leans towards the mirror, opens his mouth wide, bares his teeth and picks out some food wedged between them.

Whilst the others have abided by Jani’s management priniciples, Tong has been allowed to step outside. Porn, dope and what have you. It’s a bit annoying and Rudi does feel slightly jealous. But what can you do. Solo-playing virtuosos have to be allowed to live outside the law.

And one of the management principles, Rudi thinks as he dries his hands and opens the door to the hall, is going into play today. We’re not junkies, but when we’re on a job we rack up a few lines. It’s a great fucking principle. Not so much as a gram in normal, everyday life. Just at work. An ever so little line of speed. Rudi loves amphetamine. Who doesn’t? Show me the man who can stand up and say, in all honesty, that speed isn’t a gift to mankind.

‘If everyone was as principled as us,’ Jan Inge says, ‘there’d be precious few problems in the world.’

Rudi enters the kitchen and is surprised not to be met by the sight of a table laid for breakfast. The wheelchair sits there, forsaken. Breadcrumbs on the worktop. An opened tin of pâté. A carton of apple juice with the cap off. The menstrual odour of a coffee machine that’s been on for hours. The time? Soon be half eight. Looks like people have been up a while. Chessi is probably just about arriving at Åna. Rudi rubs the back of his neck, opens the fridge and takes out the milk. He feels his faith being restored. Christ, she was great this morning, Chessi. No way she wants to screw that Pål guy.

Rudi makes himself a big glass of chocolate milk.

Where has Jan Inge got to?

He downs it in three gulps while looking out the window.

Another cracking day. Global warming, you’re more than welcome. Tong. Speed. A time-honoured classic. Ride Chessi.

‘Hey, caballero?’ He plods into the living room. ‘Jefe? Mein Führer, wo bist du? Dein Schweinhund ruft dick an!’

He looks in the direction of the hi-fi. There’s a bag on top of it, half-hidden under the shelf above. Rudi takes a few quick steps, gets hold of the bag, takes out the CD, opens the cover, presses eject, waits for the drawer to slide out then places the CD in. He does it all quickly so he won’t have an opportunity to stop himself. About time. He scans the back of the CD cover. Number seven. He skips forward. Turns the volume up. Waits two seconds.

Jesus. That is so good. Du-du-du du-du-du du-du-du, du-du-du…

‘Hey!’

Du-du-du du-du-du du-du-du, du-du-du du-du-du du…

‘Hey!’

The sound of Jani’s high-pitched voice cuts through the music. Rudi blushes and grins. ‘What the hell? What are you doing jumping round singing along to … what is that? The Bee Gees?’

The state of Jani. Dark, heavy rings under his eyes. Eyes flitting this way and that.

‘No, I — okay, brother. Mea culpa. You’re going to hate me for this, but — sorry. I must be getting old! I’ve hit the mid-life MOR crisis. I’ll soon be sitting here with a monocle and a bowl of lentil soup listening to Radio 4. It’s Coldplay. And yes, Rudi loves it. Kill me. Do away with me. That’s just how it is.’

Jan Inge shrugs. ‘Whatever,’ he says.

Huh? Rudi screws up his eyes.

‘We need—’ Jan Inge clears his throat and looks out the window, ‘we need to make a start on the day. Look at that garden. We’ll have to clear it out soon. But anyway. We’ve got a busy Thursday ahead. We have to drop round to Stegas—’

‘Hell yeah! Stegas!’

‘Yeah,’ continues Jan Inge, still somewhat awkwardly, ‘and we have to welcome Tong back—’

‘Fuck yeah! Tong.’

‘Can you calm down a little? Welcome Tong back — and then we have a moving job.’

‘Have we?’

‘A grand piano. Over in Våland. Furras Gate.’

Ah, for Christ’s sake.

‘A grand piano. I fucking hate humping pianos around. Seriously, Jani, how much longer do we have to—’

‘Rudi! I’m not getting into this right now. We need to make clean cash, you need to get that through your head! How many times do we have to talk about this? We run a moving company, that’s what it says on your tax returns, on my tax returns — it’s the reason no one can nab us, don’t you get that? You know, sometimes I wonder if you’re retarded. We’re respectable people, we have jobs, and as you’re well aware, there’s nothing better than having a moving job on the same day as we have … well … other jobs!’

Rudi takes a step back. What’s up with the guy? Jan Inge has sweat rings under his arms, all worked up and giving out like a headmaster or something.

‘Hey, brother,’ Rudi says cautiously. ‘Take it easy, yeah? What’s gotten into you? You need to use the wheelchair. Every day. You just tire yourself out spending so much time on your feet.’

Jan Inge takes a deep breath. He nods. ‘Yeah. You’re probably right,’ he mumbles. ‘Sorry. It’s nothing. Didn’t get enough sleep is all. You know yourself. Too little sleep will stress anyone out. You remember Tone-Tone? The one who hanged herself, remember her?’

‘Mhm.’

‘Yeah, hanged herself in the kitchen, and people said it was because Donald was having it off with Kjabben’s girlfriend and she walked in just as he was rimming her, but that wasn’t it. It was because she slept too little. She lost it. Put the noose round her neck one morning when she couldn’t take it any more.’

Rudi nods. ‘Tone-Tone, yeah. You remember her sister? What was she called again? Li … no, Lu … no—’

‘Lene-Lene.’

‘The very one. Whatever happened to her?’

‘Something in IT, I think.’

‘Like most of them. End up working with computers. You liked her, eh? Lene-Lene. Fuck, Jani. Maybe that’s what the matter. You should find yourself a woman. You know what Gran said, a man without a woman is half a person.’

Jan Inge nods. ‘Yeah, maybe. But I’ve got enough on my plate. Will we get a move on here?’

Rudi straightens up. ‘Aber klar, mein Führer!’ He performs a Nazi salute and laughs.

‘Tong will be here,’ Jan Inge continues, ‘that’ll be good. We’ll score some speed. We’ll move a piano. We’ll work a nightshift. Kein Problem, mein Sohn. But enough of the Bee Gees. This is a house of horror. A house of metal and country music. That Coldplay stuff isn’t even funny. It just makes for a bad atmosphere.’

‘No, no,’ Rudi says sullenly, turning off the CD. ‘Did you see Chessi this morning?’

Jan Inge turns around and starts walking towards the kitchen.

‘Mhm. Why?’

Rudi squints. ‘Dunno,’ he says. ‘She was in such a great mood.’

‘Yeah, she’s in good humour all right.’

Jan Inge disappears into the kitchen.

Rudi ejects the CD, puts it back in its case. No, he thinks. Becoming more and more obvious that this house is beginning to get a bit cramped for all three of us. More and more obvious that Chessi and me need to find a place of our own.

‘Did she not have a massive pair of jugs?’ Rudi calls out in the direction of the kitchen.

‘Who?’

‘Lene-Lene!’

‘No, that was Tone-Tone.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah. I notice that kind of thing.’

‘Yeah, you like that.’

‘Huh?’

‘Big jugs!’

‘Wouldn’t say I dislike them.’

‘Frank and forthright.’

‘Wha?’

‘Frank and forthright, I said!’

‘That?’

‘Wha?’

‘Wank what?’

‘Frank and forthright, I said! That you like big jugs! I think they can be a bit much. Speaking of which, do you think Cecilie’s tits have grown bigger lately?’

‘What?’

‘Your sister! Her tits! Gotten bigger!’

‘No, no!’

‘Fuck. Probably just in my own sick head.’

Jan Inge walks back in. ‘Enough about tits now,’ he says, looking serious. ‘We’ve also got this thing with Tommy to take care of.’

‘Shit,’ Rudi exclaims, slapping his palm to his forehead. ‘Shitshitshit.’

‘You’d forgotten about that, I take it.’

‘Shitshitshit.’

‘We’re just going to have to deal with it. Simply go about our day as though he could show up here at any given moment. And the sooner he does the better.’

‘Okay, what about Cecilie — have you told her he’s coming?’

‘No, I have not, the fewer people that know about it the better,’ Jan Inge says, heading back towards the kitchen.

Rudi takes a breath and lets it out; he feels the urge to spit and spin right round. Difficult to deal with when the atmosphere in a room changes. When the boat rocks. That’s the reason he’s never believed in all that stuff about revolution — it makes people so insecure.

‘You should at least listen to the lyrics,’ Rudi says in a lower tone, to himself really. ‘Seeing as how you plan to become a writer and all that,’ he adds, as he stows the Coldplay CD on the shelf behind some old magazines. ‘It’s about a king who’s no longer a king.’

75. I SPIT-ROAST MY OWN SQUIRRELS HERE (Tiril)

‘Seriously, Mally, this is insane, Kenny has beaten up Shaun!’

Malene hurries after Tiril as they rush along Ernst Askildsens Gate, up towards the green area overlooking the neighbourhood of Tjensvolltorget.

She can’t take much more of this. Malene wants to return to the world where she goes to school, does her homework, eats her dinner and then heads to gymnastics practice and hears Sigrid’s voice resound through the hall: ‘Malene, now! The double!’ Train until it’s late, sail through the air and enjoy the sensation of it. Focus her mind and body, shut everything else out and feel herself growing stronger. She doesn’t want to be in the midst of this muddle of unpredictable interpersonal relations that’s been stirred up over the last couple of days, with Dad acting so strangely and Tiril going off her head. Malene herself feels as though she’s being opened and closed every other minute, to the point where she hardly recognises herself.

‘And Sandra — holy shit — here, check out this text.’

Tiril comes to an abrupt halt and hands her the mobile: Maybe you were right, maybe DW is a coward. Outside his block of flats now, have no clue what’s going to happen. If I die, I die for love. Xx S.

‘What’ll we do?’ Tiril continues. ‘Eh?’

Malene lifts her hands in a gesture of resignation: ‘I’ve no idea…’

‘And what about Dad, breakfast banquet for no good reason? He really needs to get a girlfriend. Or a new car. Something.’

Tiril stops when she sees a football lying on the tarmac. She looks at it as though it’s a person who’s done her wrong, knitting her brow before giving it a boot with her right foot.

‘Where’s Shaun?’ asks Malene, watching the ball go in the direction of the tennis courts. ‘What did he write?’

‘That was all,’ says Tiril, while they watch the ball disappear out of sight. ‘He didn’t write any more. Kenny beat the shit out of me.’

‘Where is he?’

The sisters walk up the hill towards the green belt of land around the pumping station, known locally as Vanassen. There’s a park of sorts up there. It’s laid out as if the local authority had intended it to afford outstanding views over the area: lying high up, on a grand scale, with the water of Hafrsfjord in the west and the peaks of Ryfylkeheiene to the east. But it’s almost as though the people in the council lost interest midway, they couldn’t stay the course and what remains seems half-hearted and hopeless. A miserable gravel path, a dry-stone wall, four garish benches with two matching tables and the land around always overgrown, any surfaces invariably graffitied. It’s windswept up there, even when there’s not the slightest hint of a breeze anywhere else.

The girls slow down when they catch sight of him. Tiril keeps a cool head, a moan escapes Malene’s lips. Crouched in the corner, behind the tables and the benches, is Shaun. He’s wearing the grey top with the hood up. The laces on his trainers are untied, the tongues hanging loose and languid on the insteps. His ripped, baggy jeans are stained with muck and blood. In his hand he holds a grimy rag and a tube of glue. He lifts his head as if in slow motion. Big, black rings under his red eyes, a colourful shiner, a cut on his cheek.

‘Ok-aay,’ he says, grinning, ‘Shaun reporting for duty. Heh heh.’

Tiril plants her feet on the flagstones in front of him and crosses her arms. Malene looks away. It’s not far to the gymnastics hall. It’s right down the hill. Maybe her foot is okay now? Maybe that’s the best thing for it? Just take off, run?

‘Come on, Tiril,’ Malene says sternly, ‘we don’t need this. Enough’s enough. Come on. Let’s go.’

Tiril brushes her aside. She squats down in front of her boyfriend.

‘Jesus, Shaun. What did he do to you?’

‘Tiril.’ Malene feels her irritation mount. ‘Let’s go.’

But Tiril pays her no attention, merely leans closer to Shaun, who sits sniffing: ‘Hey, get rid of that.’ She takes the glue and the rag from him and tosses them over the stone wall. ‘What’s up?’

I could just run, Malene thinks. I don’t need to be a part of this pathetic scene.

‘Heh heh.’ The boy simpers again. ‘I’m like just … heh heh. Shaun reporting for duty, baby.’

‘Come on.’ Tiril takes hold of him, but his body is too limp and she can’t lift him alone. She turns to Malene: ‘Well, you going to stand there all pissed off and thinking of yourself or are you going to give me a hand here?’

Malene shakes her head heavily. A stinging pain in her ankle. She can’t run. She takes a step forward, even though she doesn’t want to, and helps Tiril get Shaun on to his feet.

He sways once he’s standing up. Malene can see that he’s really been given a working over — the cut looks nasty, the bruising even more so, like a lava landscape on his face. What is it with that family?

Shaun leans his back against the table. For the first time he opens his eyes properly, for the first time something akin to clarity appears in them. He looks at Tiril.

‘Have you got a cig?’

Tiril nods and puts her hand in her pocket, produces a packet and her lighter and offers him one. Lights it for him. Lights one for herself.

‘Kenny,’ says Shaun, smoke seeping out from between his lips. ‘Kenny doesn’t stand for snitching, you know.’ Shaun raises his unsteady hands, holding them up in front of his face like a boxer. ‘And he was like: Hey, Shauny! Fuck did you say to that bint of yours! Eh?’

Shaun launches an inept punch at the air, connecting with nothing except his own memory.

‘Hey, Shauny.’ Tiril takes him by the hands and holds them tight.

‘Yeah?’ He looks at her, eyes clearer now.

‘You’re not your brother. All right? You’re just you. Okay?’

Shaun nods slowly.

‘Can you manage to pull yourself together?’

He shrugs. ‘Dunno. Never been too good at that.’

Tiril tugs at the cuff of her sweater, draws it over her hand and spits on it, then she wipes his face. Removes each mark and blotch while he looks at her.

Jesus, Malene thinks. These two are so far removed from me. She tilts her foot to the side and puts a little weight on her ankle. The stinging pain is still there, like a needle beneath the skin.

‘We’ve got to go,’ Tiril says. ‘If the text Sandra sent is anything to go by, there’s something very screwed up going on but I don’t know what. She’s down by the tower blocks. We need to get all this sorted out and then I can’t deal with any more distractions after that, because I’m going to sing tonight and I need to focus, okay?’

Shaun sniffles.

‘Jesus, Shaun,’ she says, ‘you’re such a loser, you know that?’

He nods. ‘But I have cut back on the porno rap.’

‘That’s good, smurf boy,’ she says and takes a long deep drag of her cigarette. ‘You’ve got me, after all.’

Loneliness is the land I live in, thinks Malene. Where I spit-roast my own squirrels. Where I put my feet in the tall grass. Where Dad lies on his back in the warm sand. But I’m the only one who sees it, all of it. Double backflip tucked.

76. SAME OLD SAME OLD (Cecilie)

The waves wash over the ancient beaches with a steady rhythm, the sun, a ball of light high up in a sky that itself seems proud: look at me. Look what I can do, how vast I can be.

Cecilie pulls into the lay-by, not far from the turn-off towards Nærbø. She puts the car in neutral, listens to a few bars of ‘Jump’ by Van Halen before killing the engine. She rolls down the window, feels the briny wind from off the North Sea against her cheek, stretches her hand to the rear-view mirror and tilts it to look at her face.

You could have met a farmer’s son, got married and lived out here. Farmers have whole barns full of money. You could have gone into a byre to milk the cows and been taken from behind right there near the pens by your wealthy farmer, him smelling of manure with soil under his fingernails. Or you could have met a guy in the oil business and lived in a big house in Stokka. Roughnecks, they have money. Just ask Mr Thor. Then you would have avoided your man for two weeks at a time, screwed him every day when he was back onshore, and probably spent your time wondering if he was cheating on you with a woman in the kiosk out there on the rig.

Cecilie looks in the mirror and applies her lipstick.

But you didn’t, she thinks. No farmer, no roughneck.

You got Rudi. And he got you.

Yellow teeth and crooked lips. Not much to cheer about. Looking at it objectively, her hips are probably the only cracking thing about her. Or her ass maybe, that does it for the guys that like them large. That’s the card she can play. Some girls have the legs. Some have the lips. Some have the tits. Well. I’ve got the ass. And there’s no point in listening to what Rudi has to say; according to him she’s a deck of cards where every one is an ace, but she knows that’s just bollocks. She just has to make the best of a bad lot, and lipstick can help draw attention away from what doesn’t shine.

Cecilie cups her hands, brings them to the back of her head and tries to inject a little volume in her hair. She tousles it. Applies some blusher, puts on some eye shadow.

A little bit sexy.

That’s what she’s aiming for today. Slightly sexy. Because she knows. Sexy isn’t about being pretty. Every girl can be sexy. Dirty. Hungry. She realised that long ago, over twenty years ago. She might not have understood it in so many words but she understood it with her eyes. Because the boys came back. She was far from the prettiest girl in the neighbourhood, but they wanted to sleep with her. They needed to have her. Why? Because she was lying there on her back, obviously, but also because she was something the really pretty girls weren’t. Sexy. And if there’s one thing Tong likes, it’s to see her looking sexy. A pair of high heels. A bit of cleavage, even though she might not have that much to put on show. Just the thought of it. That she’s done it. That she wants to look like that. He likes that.

Cecilie lights up a cigarette and starts the engine.

What is it she wants?

Does she want Tong?

She doesn’t know. She just wants to be sexy. She just wants to hear Van Halen. Those synthesisers. Those drums. David Lee Roth. Chessi just wants to drive a car and be the kind of woman people turn to look at.

‘Isn’t that right, baby,’ she whispers as she comes out on to the flat expanse of Opstadsletta. ‘Isn’t that right? You don’t give a shit, do you, who your father is?’ Cecilie presses her foot down on the pedal and feels the old Volvo accelerate. ‘We’ll take the strongest of them, won’t we? Deary me, you don’t like Mummy smoking, do you, hm? Sorry, promise I’ll cut down, baby. But Van Halen, you like them, hm?’

A few minutes later, Cecilie slows down and takes the turn up the avenue to Åna. She’s a couple of minutes late and is well aware Tong doesn’t like that. It pisses him off when people aren’t punctual. She remembers him nearly choking Donald to death that time he showed up twenty minutes late. A jewellers. Out in Sola. One of their best heists ever. Drove the van right through the window, smash-and-grab. Serious money. If Donald had arrived five minutes later they would have been busted. Tong took such a hold round his neck he puked in the car. She was the one who had to clean it up of course. Jittery fucker, Donald. Couldn’t control his habit, impossible to trust.

Someone said he’d died.

That they found him in the back of a bus to Randaberg.

Kind of strange to think about. Donald was only thirteen when she had him. Pretty sweet actually. He had one of those cleft chins. One of the first she had. Really shy. Tripping up as he took his trousers off. Yeah, yeah, sighs Cecilie. I’ve probably screwed just about everyone who’s died from heroin in this city. I was the one who had them first. And heroin had them last.

If Rudi didn’t kill Donald, that is. He never could handle the fact that he had to work with someone who’d banged her so many times. He might well have done. Not inconceivable that Rudi sent Donald to meet his maker and said it was a heroin overdose on the back of the bus to Randaberg.

Cecilie stops by the intercom, identifies herself, drives up and parks. She gets out of the car and makes her way towards the main building. She feels a light breeze on her face. Always like that out here. No matter how little wind there is, it’s blowing out in Åna.

There he is. Outside the main entrance.

He doesn’t look like a person.

He looks like an iron man. A sculpture. Cecilie suddenly feels slightly afraid. The figure standing over there doesn’t appear human at all. Everything seems a little scary — what has she got herself into? Cecilie draws closer. Tong isn’t wearing prison-issue clothes and it’s unpleasant to see him like this, in his old jeans, with his shiny leather jacket, the blue veins bulging out of his neck.

His features are impassive. Is this the guy she’s been wondering if she’s in love with; is this the guy she’s put on lipstick for?

‘Deary me,’ she whispers, her lips barely moving, ‘looks like Mummy’s a little nervy.’

She halts in front of Tong. He doesn’t move.

‘Hi, Tong.’

They begin to make their way towards the car. Cecilie has no clue what to say. Is this playing house? She feels she should relate some news, tell him something, say anything, but she has no idea what. She needs a cinnamon bun; she needs a fag. Cecilie gives Tong a brief glance, but looks away again quickly. His eyes are like scorched stone. How’s it possible to be so intense and so withdrawn. Is there a person in there?

She opens the driver’s side. Lets out an exaggerated breath. Peeks up at the sky as if to say: Look, lovely out. She opens the passenger’s side. Tong throws his bag in the back seat, gets in.

‘Maybe you want to drive?’

Her voice is thin and feeble.

Tong shakes his head.

‘Right, just thought you might like to, seeing as it’s been a while since you’ve driven a car. Anyway.’

She should stop talking. Tong has never liked small talk and he seems to like it even less now.

Cecilie starts the car. Drives down the avenue.

‘Nice day, though.’

Why did she say that?

‘But,’ she tries to laugh it off, ‘doesn’t really matter. If it’s nice or not. The weather, I mean. Makes no difference, I suppose. Now. I’ll just get them to raise the barrier here. Hello, yeah. Cecilie Haraldsen, going out.’

He just sits there. To look at him you’d never know it was his first day of freedom in years.

‘So, good to be out?’ she says, after they’ve driven a while.

No reaction. Black, charred eyes.

‘Yeah,’ she hastens to add. ‘Of course it’s good.’

‘Can you just shut up?’

She gives a start, swallows and nods.

Tong takes a hold of Cecilie’s hand. Tightens his grip around it, the blood vessels above his knuckles appearing in front of her eyes, her hand feeling like it’s about to be crushed. He brings her hand to his crotch, slides down further in the seat, spreads his legs and rubs it against the bulge in his trousers.

Okay, she thinks. Of course. Same old same old.

77. YOUR OWN FIRE (Veronika)

She leans into him. Her arms around his waist. Presses her cheek against his back. She doesn’t want to be anywhere else but here, leaving everything behind, just the two of them. She couldn’t help it, but the sight of Sandra doing a somersault in front of the moped, the sight of the girl hitting the tarmac, filled her with a burning happiness. That’s justice: It all came too easy to you — you don’t deserve him. You would never have understood him, you’ve met your match, bitch, and it’s me.

The moped heads towards Madlakrossen, taking off to the left at the roundabout, out towards the golf course, following the road as it begins to climb towards Revheims Church. The land around them begins to open into fields, two horses run alongside a stone wall, a tractor disappearing in the distance.

Sandra could be seriously injured; if the worst comes to the worst she might lose her life. But Veronika feels only that pull, helping her see things clearly, giving her that feeling of elation; she’s not afraid. She clings even closer to his back, wrapping her arms more tightly around his body. His heart is pounding under her hands. She loves his fear, loves his despair. She knows he needs her, because she has longer eyelashes than him, she’s softer and slyer than him.

The landscape stretches out further as they ride uphill towards Sunde, the vast Stavanger sky parading above their heads. Daniel slows down, turns his face half towards her and she sees how wildly agitated his eyes look behind the visor, but it doesn’t frighten her, because she knows it’s her he needs to turn to now.

Daniel veers off to the left, down a steep incline into a small estate of seventies-looking houses facing the sea. He steers the moped towards a colossal grey, grafittied concrete building. An old bomb shelter. He brakes, brings the moped to a halt and they dismount. His breathing is fast; he looks about nervously as he searches through his pockets. After a little while he finds the key ring. He sets it between his teeth as he quickly pushes the moped over to the large entrance door. He mumbles something or other, but she can’t see what it is.

‘What did you say?’

He doesn’t reply. Removes the key from his mouth, opens the door and, pulling it wide, wheels the moped into a windowless concrete corridor.

Of course. The rehearsal room. Is he mumbling again? She hurries after him, he leans the moped against the wall and she closes the door behind her while he chooses another key from the bunch and walks in total darkness towards the next door. He fumbles with the lock, tries to locate the keyhole.

Veronika walks over the hard floor, feeling her way to Daniel, places her hands over his and notices he’s trembling. She clasps them until they steady. She says: ‘It wasn’t your fault. She ran into the middle of the road. She wanted it to happen.’

It’s dark. She has no idea if he’s talking to her, but it feels as though he’s saying something. She reaches out towards his face, touches his full lips, feels his warm breath against the palm of her hand. The door into the practice room opens and a faint light flows in their direction. Her eyes adjust quickly to the surroundings. She sees quite a large room, threadbare carpets on the floor, egg cartons and posters for gigs on the walls — obscure or forgotten local bands that have played at Grevlingen, at Metropolis, on Music Day or at Folken: The Substitutes, Lillemor, Rag Doll, Arlie Mucks, Røde knær, Luftskipet Noreg, Hekkan, 60-Sone Satan. Guitar amps, a drum kit, bass amps, a microphone stand and mics, a mixing desk, a Wurlitzer, an old analogue Yamaha synthesiser, loudspeakers. Along one wall there’s a sofa covered in a coarse-looking brown-and-green material, a tarnished, scratched teak coffee table littered with ashtrays, cola bottles, chocolate wrappers, guitar strings, plectrums, magazines, FHM, Us Men and comics.

Veronika takes up position in his field of vision. She meets his eyes, holds his gaze and repeats: ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

His chest rises, not sinking again before he plonks down on the end of the sofa. He takes hold of a couple of drumsticks lying on the armrest, twiddles with them before looking at her and saying: ‘What would you know?’

Veronika sits down in a worn-out leather armchair. She takes his hands, stopping the sticks that want to strike at the empty air. His hands are cold from the ride, she rubs them between her own the way her mother has always done with hers. He twists free of her grip, gets to his feet, walks resolutely over to the drum kit and sits on the stool behind it.

Daniel looks at her. ‘So, what are we going to do? Hm? What do you suggest?’

‘Daniel, I—’

He interrupts angrily: ‘You’ve got my head completely fucked up, you know that? Run a girl over — run Sandra fucking over — and just leave her there? How do you think that’s going to sound to her parents? Or the police? What the fuck is with you?’

‘Daniel, listen—’

‘No! No, I’m not going to listen to you any more!’

He gets up, turns to the wall and slams the base of his fists against it.

Veronika, remaining as composed as she can, walks over to him. She puts her arms around him, presses her breasts against him. With all the assertiveness she can muster, she turns him around, forcing him to meet her gaze.

‘What if she dies,’ he says.

‘She won’t.’

‘You can’t know that. They’ll figure it out. People will talk. They’ll find us.’

‘I was there, Daniel,’ she says. ‘I saw the whole thing. She flung herself into the road. I’ll speak up for you.’

Daniel looks at her. His eyes are as shiny as wet glass. His mouth narrows and his top lip begins to quiver. He sucks his cheeks in, his mouth is dry.

‘I like your red hair,’ he says.

Veronika kisses him.

‘I don’t stand a chance,’ Daniel says.

78. DAD ALWAYS SAYS IT WHEN HE SMACKS US AROUND (Tiril)

They walk towards the tower blocks. A small guy wearing baggy trousers and his hood up. A girl with a determined gait and a look in her eyes to match, another with a troubled step, looking just as troubled around the eyes. Tiril can feel the strength within, can picture the evening ahead: She’s going to stand there, the song is going to come from her heart, Thea will play and the roof is going to lift free of the beams and be blown sky-high.

‘So, she was just going to stand by the tower blocks, was she?’

‘Yeah,’ Tiril answers, irritated by the tone of scepticism in Malene’s voice. ‘That’s right, she was just going to stand by the tower blocks.’

Shaun jogs along between the girls, small as a pixie, thinks Tiril, daft and from a psycho family but he’s so cool, and he’s mine.

They pass the bus stop on Norvald Frafjords Gate. It’s morning all around, people are off to work, or heading to school and buses and cars move along the road. We’ll just behave normally, Tiril thinks, then nobody will see anything other than three kids on their way to school.

Then they catch sight of her. A girl. She’s huddled by some large rocks not far from the road. She has her head in her hands and her clothes are in disarray.

Malene squints. ‘Is that Sandra?’

Tiril runs, the others close on her heels.

‘Sandra, what is it?’ Tiril halts in front of her. Her cheek and forehead are bruised, her trousers have a large tear and her jacket is ripped.

‘Oh my God,’ Malene brings her hands to her face.

‘Wow,’ says Shaun.

Tiril bends down to Sandra and takes her by the arm, makes to help her to her feet but Sandra cries out in pain.

‘What the fuck happened?’

‘It was Daniel,’ she says chokingly. ‘And Veronika. They ran me over.’

‘They ran you over?!’

Sandra nods and brings her hand across her chest to hold her other arm, which looks completely stiff. ‘I went to the tower blocks, then they came out and I followed them and then … I jumped out on to the road, and they knocked me down.’

‘You jumped out on to the road?’

Sandra nods once more.

‘Have you been run over?’ Shaun raises his eyebrows.

‘Fuckssake, Shaun, didn’t you hear what she said?’

‘Yeah, but Jesus—’

Tiril gathers her thoughts, she needs to react quickly. ‘Can you move?’

‘I don’t know—’

‘Stand up.’

‘I don’t know if I—’

‘Sandra. Get up.’

Sandra raises herself slowly using her hands. She looks in real pain. Tiril brushes grass and earth off her clothes, takes her face in her hands, turning it left then right, examining it. Then she looks at Malene, who’s speechless, and Shaun, who can’t seem to decide where to look.

‘Does this look like she fell off her bike on the way to school?’

‘Wha?’ Malene shakes her head. ‘She just told us, she got run—’

‘I’m asking if it could look like a bicycle accident.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘Then it is a bicycle accident.’

‘Eh?’ Sandra hobbles a bit and Malene helps to hold her up.

Tiril is aglow. She senses that anything can be what you want it to be if you know how to bring the world to its knees.

‘Tiril,’ says Malene, ‘you need to get a grip. This is insane. Sandra has been run over by Daniel and Veronika, and they just — I don’t know — rode off?’

Sandra nods.

‘They just rode off,’ continues Malene, ‘and you want us to — what? What is it you want? — for us to go to school and make out that she had an accident on her bike? She might have broken something, she may have concussion, we need to call—’

Tiril stares at her sister. Fixes her with her eyes until she stops talking. A girl from 9C, Rebekka, goes by, stopping for a few moments and looking at them strangely. Tiril raises her hand, gives her a friendly smile and the girl continues on her way to school.

‘Shut up,’ she says calmly. ‘Shauny. Have you been sniffing glue?’

‘Weell, y’know, I just…’

‘Have you been sniffing glue?’

‘Yeaah, like, I did…’

‘Shauny.’ Tiril places a hand on each of his shoulders. ‘Have you been sniffing glue?’

‘Eh … no?’

‘No, you have not. Shauny. Did Kenny beat you up?’

‘Yeah, he did…’

‘Shauny. Did Kenny beat the shit out you?’

‘Eh … no?’

‘No.’ Tiril nods. ‘He did not. And you, Sandra. Have you been waiting for your boyfriend outside his block of flats? Have you hurled yourself into the road for him? Have you been knocked down?’

The girls look at one another. Shaun grins, making his brown teeth gleam like dirty diamonds.

‘No,’ Sandra whispers. ‘I haven’t.’

‘Heh heh.’ Shaun gazes at Tiril, admiration in his moist eyes. ‘It’s called leverage in America. Dad always says it when he smacks us around. Leverage, he says.’

‘Your dad is a dick and he should be in Åna,’ Tiril says, ‘but now we’ll gain the upper hand. Over all of them. Over Kenny. Over Bunny. Veronika. And Daniel, the liar. And we’ll psych them the hell out. They’re going to be sitting there thinking they’ve won. And then they’ll start sweating. And then they’ll get nervous and start looking over their shoulders. And that’s when we take our revenge. Understand?’

They nod. Even Malene nods.

‘We don’t need any doctors, we don’t need any teachers, we don’t need the police or parents interfering here. A bicycle accident. The two of you collided on the way to school.’

‘The two of us?’

‘Yeah. You and Shaun.’

‘Awesome.’

‘We found you. Malene and I. We’ll get a plaster for that cut.’

‘But what if I have concussion?’ Sandra says in a meek voice. She performs a few tentative movements with her jaw then massages her temples carefully with her fingers. ‘What if I’ve broken something?’

Tiril shakes her head. ‘You haven’t. Come on, let’s go put in an appearance at school.’

The four teenagers move off and head down along the low-rises. Two young women with buggies stand smoking outside Coop Prix supermarket. They pass by them, then by Jan Petersens Gate, and on by Anton Brøggers Gate. The sun is warm on their faces, Tiril can see that Sandra is limping, that Shaun is beginning to come down.

She slips her arm around his waist.

‘Hey, you got any chewing gum?’

He delves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and nods.

‘I learnt that from Mum,’ Tiril says.

Malene looks at her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Domination,’ says Tiril. ‘That bitch didn’t give a shit when people were in pain. And that just made it more painful.’

‘You’re not like that,’ says Malene.

‘Oh yes, I am,’ replies Tiril.

The sun is high above the fjord, above the roof of the school, over the church spire and they turn off, in the direction of the schoolyard.

79. BUNNY (Jan Inge)

That hurt. A king who’s no longer a king.

Loneliness. A lot of horror movies centre around loneliness.

Is that to be my life?

Jan Inge glances across at Rudi, sitting beside him in the Hiace.

Tommy Pogo hasn’t shown up yet. Jan Inge had expected to see him relatively early. The police love to turn up in the morning. Disrupt the atmosphere. But he still hasn’t come. Maybe that’s his whole plan, to delay his visit in order to keep them sweating as long as possible?

Loneliness. Rudi and Chessi moving out. Getting themselves a garden. Making a life for themselves.

Jan Inge in a little flat. In a block of flats. Sitting in the wheelchair. Day in. Day out. Listening to the postman come. The echo out in the hall. An old woman in the neighbouring flat.

It’s slipping through my fingers, thinks Jan Inge, and I’m not able to do anything about it. Nothing other than be myself.

He lifts his head slightly and takes in his surroundings, as if to assure himself that he’s on his guard. Strømsbrua Bridge. A normal Thursday in September. Cars moving to and fro between the different parts of the city. A view of the neighbourhoods of Paradis to the east and Våland to the west. The sun strong in the sky. A black man pushes a punctured bicycle along the pavement. His dark skin in sharp contrast to the pale blue sky. That’s probably what poets call poetry. In the distance: a siren. In the distance: the mountains. In the distance: Asia, Africa, Australia. In the distance: a god, watching over us all. In the distance: our dead, monstrous mother. In the distance: our living, cackling mysterious father. In the distance: one’s own demise?

TO BE MYSELF.

That’s the solution.

BUT WHO AM I?

‘Rudi,’ says Jan Inge, as amiably as he’s able, ‘listen, I was a bit sour this morn—’

‘Fuck! Sour as an old snatch!’

‘Yeah. Well, you know. This thing with Tommy. And. Well. I shou—’

Rudi gives him a soft thump on the shoulder with his fist. ‘Jesus, Jani.’ He shakes his head. ‘You think Rudi harbours ill will all day?’ He raises his eyebrows and gesticulates: ‘Christ, you’re talking to the man who’s going out with Chessi here! I know everything about bad humour. It drags you down into the shit, but it blows over. All you need to do is look the other way. You need a bed to piss in? Be my guest! Pogo? Let him come. But yeah, you were in a lousy mood, I’ll give you that. Speed! Just the thought of pepper makes me feel like we’ve already done a line. Do you know if Stegas is home by the way?’

Jan Inge laughs. ‘Stegas is always home.’

‘Heh heh. Mr Kush! Isn’t his name actually Steffen? Fredriksen?’

Jan Inge shrugs. ‘No one knows what his name is.’

‘If there’s one person you can count on in this oil village,’ says Rudi, taking a deep breath, as though drawing ganja into his lungs, ‘it’s Stegas. This is where it’s at, Jani. Scoring speed. You and me.’

Jan Inge feels his pulse rate begin to even out. The lines on his forehead fade away. That’s all you need to do. Face unpleasantness with heartiness. Make those around you realise what they’ve got. Appreciate that it’s precious and irreplaceable.

THE IRREPLACEABLE

A Study of Horror Films

By Jan Inge Haraldsen

He should keep the surname. Now that he thinks about it. There’s something conceited about changing your name. You are who you are.

‘And just think, brother,’ he hears from the seat beside him, ‘just think that Stegas still lives in the same place. Eh? Der Meister of Weeds. Been selling his spices there for twenty years now. Right next door to the school. You’ve got to respect that.’

‘Don’t want you becoming a junkie now,’ Jan Inge says, feeling obliged to offer a gentle reprimand. ‘Remember, our fundamental principles. We’re against drugs. It’s the main reason we make out as well as we do. Tommy Pogo is also aware of that. And he knows that’s why they’re never going to nail us, because we don’t let drugs get the better of us.’

‘Aber klar!’ says Rudi. ‘If I see another dude selling Asfalt I’ll break his kneecaps and grind them into sand. I only meant to point out how cunning Stegas is. What a shrewd businessman he is.’

They park a few blocks away from the dealer’s house. Jan Inge slips the car keys into the roomy pocket of his jogging bottoms and feels them tickle his thigh. They slow their pace as they reach Nedstrandsgata. Keep a lookout for parked cars that don’t look like they belong there. Surveillance vehicles. Hold a careful watch for people who don’t look like they should be walking there. Plain-clothes policemen. They cross the street, smile as they see the children in the schoolyard next to the house, as though they were old pals, walk up to the front door and ring the bell. After a few moments the door opens a crack and Stegas’ flaky scalp and head, or half of it rather, appears.

‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘The Dalton Brothers.’

Stegas looks just like he always has. Bumming around in a white string vest, an old pair of 501s and some worn-out felt slippers, which he got from his mother when he left home and is never going to get rid of. His prominent Adam’s apple is just as pointy as it was in puberty and his characteristic concave temples are just as evident. Nobody is quite sure how old Stegas is, seeing as he looks the same as he always has, is involved in the same thing as he’s always been, speaks the same way he’s always spoken and lives in the same place he’s always lived; people have lost count. Stegas is a natural phenomenon of sorts.

He invites Rudi and Jan Inge in with a waggish smile. They are old acquaintances and even though Stegas could not be classified as a friend, it pleases Jan Inge to see him receive them as though they were family. It’s those kinds of things Jan Inge needs to be alive to. They need to take care of the few people they do collaborate with. And their relationship with Stegas is a shining example. He supplies them with what little they require of speed, tells them things they need to know and they protect Stegas whenever there’s call for it. They’ve roughed up a few people for him, individuals who were slow to settle their debts and so on. No money has ever changed hands between them. Merely information and services.

Jan Inge and Rudi are guided into Stegas’ living room, which like the man himself, looks the same as always. The big, deep leather sofas. The TV in the corner. The IKEA shelves holding cookbooks and a sizeable collection of DVDs. A lot of musicals, in fact. A complete collection of The Eurovision Song Contest. Cosy. It always has been. Something Rudi isn’t slow to comment upon.

‘I’m always inspired, Stegas, when we visit you — you keep your place so clean, bright and homely.

Stegas nods. ‘Just can’t stand being surrounded by crap. Probably something I inherited from my mother.’

‘Oh yeah, Jesus!’ Rudi almost jumps up off the sofa. ‘Sorry for your loss, fuck, we heard about that. Cancer?’

Stegas brings his hand across his face, nodding slowly. ‘Embedded itself in her liver,’ he sighs. ‘Began eating her up. Three years it took.’

‘Sorry, man,’ Jan Inge says, while at the same time being aware of how unimaginable it is to be in Stegas’ shoes, to actually miss his mother. Difficult, even for a person with as much empathy as Jan Inge.

‘We’re all headed that way,’ Stegas says, his eyes moist. ‘But she lives in my heart.’

‘Intense,’ says Rudi.

‘Anyway,’ Jan Inge says, hearing the gush of a cistern somewhere in the house. ‘How’s the foot?’

‘Ah,’ Stegas says, giving it a slap of his hand. ‘Same old. Not really able to use it. Getting disability benefits for it. Never griped. Could’ve had whiplash, you know.’

‘Intense,’ says Rudi.

‘Benefits,’ repeats Stegas, ‘they keep me afloat. Fuckin’ good thing we live in Norway and not Romania. Things wouldn’t be looking too bright for Stegas.’

‘Words of truth.’

A chubby guy in jogging bottoms and a hoodie comes padding into the living room. He’s wearing a headset, the thin microphone arm bobbing up and down in front of his mouth, making him look like some kind of pilot. He nods to Jan Inge and Rudi, walks past, sits down in front of the TV and resumes Battlefield 3.

‘Bunny,’ says Stegas. ‘He’s crashing here at the moment. Doing a few odd jobs for me. That right, Bunny?’

‘Sure,’ says the chubby guy.

‘That right, you’re doing a few odd jobs for me?’

‘Sure, that’s right,’ says the pilot guy. ‘Freeze, fucker! Freeze!’

‘Good bloke, Bunny,’ Stegas says. ‘Aren’t you, Bunny?’

‘Sure,’ comes the voice from the TV corner. ‘Boom! Hell awaits, my friends.’

‘So,’ says Stegas, reaching for a teacup he has on the coffee table, ‘you want a few lines? Got a job on?’

Rudi slaps his knees and gets a warm look in his eyes. ‘A time-honoured classic,’ he says. ‘We’re going to give a guy who’s in need of cash a beating. Insurance.’

‘Mmm,’ Stegas drinks from the cup, nodding appreciatively, ‘very fucking nice to do something by the book now and then. Too little of that in the times we live in.’

‘Fuck, if that’s not the truth then I don’t know what is,’ exclaims Rudi. ‘Way too much computer crime for my taste nowadays, often feel like I can’t put myself to use. So safe to say we need a few lines. Jani, Tong, Chessi and me.’

‘Two hours,’ says Stegas. ‘Drop: Stokkavann, the large lake. By the boulder.’

‘You’ve changed it around? Thought you always used the old cannon emplacement up on Hinnaberget.’

Stegas nods. ‘Alternating arrangement.’

‘Jesus,’ Rudi says, ‘you’ve such a good system.’

‘A system is the key to success,’ Jan Inge says.

‘Good spot all right, eh, Bunny?’ says Stegas.

‘Die, Mofo!’ says the podgy guy with the headset. ‘Here comes Bunny! Die! What?’

Rudi and Jan Inge get to their feet. Stegas follows them into the hall. Jan Inge gives their old friend a hug. ‘And you make sure to get in touch,’ he says. ‘You know we’ll be there for you, pronto.’

‘Appreciate it,’ Stegas says. ‘Say hello to Tong, that Paki bastard. Tell him welcome home.’

‘Pronto,’ Rudi repeats. ‘Anyone needs doing over, we’re there. Any supplies you need, TV, washing machine, whatever, give us a call — let your fingers do the walking. Stokkavannet. The boulder. Only a good thing for us to be seen out and about today taking a walk round Stokkavannet — that is supersupersupersmooth, Stegas, that is … You know what? Coming here today, it makes me feel two things, and both of those emotions are pretty tightly linked. One is of entering a church. Of walking into a church, finding your place amongst the row of benches and sensing the light of Jesus warming up your bones. And the other, brotherofdope, the other, it’s — and this is very personal — it’s the feeling of coming home to Gran. Walking through her door. Noticing that good old smell. Coffee and Swiss roll. Going up the steps. Seeing her sitting in her chair listening to, fuck, Franz Liszt or something.’

Stegas nods slowly during Rudi’s emotional outburst. Jan Inge watches the dealer. He can see something’s going on behind those eyes.

‘Strong words, fucking intense,’ says Stegas. ‘You know, Rudi, my mother used to listen to Franz Liszt too. Sweet Jesus. The old masters. He was the Elton John of his day, that guy. The two of you need to get the hell out of here before old Stegas starts blubbering. I’ll stick in an extra four grams and I won’t hear any more about it. Franz Listz. I’ll never forget that. I’m going to bring Bunny along this afternoon and pay Mum’s grave a visit. That’s what I’m going to do.’

Jan Inge and Rudi walk out into the harsh light.

This is what we have, Jan Inge thinks as they amble along towards the car. This is what we have built up. Good relations. And everything is just going to be torn down?

RIPPED INTO PIECES, TRAMPLED AND STOMPED ON.

Rudi looks at him. ‘Shit, man, are you crying?’

‘It’s just the light,’ Jan Inge says, and clears his throat before turning to Rudi: ‘Think about it. Tea. Musicals. The Eurovision Song Contest. Frank List.’

‘Eh?’

They stop in front of the car and Jan Inge takes the keys out. ‘You don’t see it?’

‘No, wha?’

‘I always knew there was something about him,’ says Jan Inge and sighs. ‘Slightly prissy. And it’s been there, right under our noses, all these years. A homo. A little fairy. A proctologist. A rear-gunner. Elton John. Bunny. Frank List. Hm, Rudi? How many surprises is this life going to have in store?’

RIPPED INTO TINY PIECES.

Rudi shakes his head slowly. ‘Jesus,’ he says, ‘that’s tough to take, Ironside. You remember Gaupa’s mother? She was never the same after she found out her son was gay. Trine, Gaupa’s sister, said their mother sat chewing tree bark throughout her entire menopause. That’s how I feel now. Betrayed by one of my best friends. Society is on the road to hell; we’ll soon be surrounded by ass bandits and Muslims playing computer games, and you and me, brother, we’ll be out in the cold, searching for a place to breathe freely.

Jan Inge opens the car door. He gets in.

TRAMPLED AND STOMPED ON.

80. GREEN LIGHT (Tong)

She has a talent for that there. A delicate touch, rhythmic, not too rough, not too hard but firm and sensitive. Dynamic.

Tong comes as the Volvo passes the IKEA in Forus.

When you’re inside it’s not a good idea to think too much about women. But after Tong started having it off with Cecilie in the visiting room it grew impossible to shut out that part of his life. If you have no access to women, you manage to pacify the need after a time. In the beginning it’s hell, you can’t imagine how you’re going to manage a week without a woman. But after a while it calms down. Something happens to your body. At least that’s how Tong’s experienced it. The opposite to how it is when women are plentiful — then your body wants more. And everybody knows how much space women can occupy. At worst they can fill you right up. They can make it impossible to think straight. And the thing is you just get hornier and hornier the more women you get. She doesn’t need to be pretty, doesn’t have to be smart, doesn’t have to be kind. Say what you like about Cecilie, but screw, that she can.

Tong lights up a cigarette. He rolls down the window and looks across at Cecilie, who’s steering with her left hand. He takes a dirty T-shirt from his bag and holds it out to her.

‘Thanks,’ she says and wipes her right hand.

He turns and looks out the window. The mountains in the distance. She did it on purpose. Got all dolled up before she picked him up. She knew well he’d turn into a hyena once he saw her. She knew well he’d be wound up when he walked out of the prison gates. People think sitting inside is stress, but it’s not. It’s monotonous, but it’s a simple life. You soon get used to it. Being outside, on the other hand, that’s stress. The first days of freedom are hard ones. Where are you going to stay, who are you going to talk to — paranoid is what you are, you think everyone’s going around talking about you.

‘Laurel and Hardy,’ says Tong. ‘They home?’

Cecilie tosses the T-shirt on the floor. She indicates a turnoff on the motorway after the Ullandhaug tunnel. Down towards Hillevåg. ‘They’re at Stegas’ place, I think, scoring speed.’

Tong nods. He’ll give speed a wide berth.

‘Cool that you’re going to come,’ Cecilie says, smiling. ‘Along on the job, I mean. The old gang, together again, and all that.’

He continues looking out the window. The mere thought of seeing Jan Inge and Rudi again makes his insides churn. He’s been weak. He had promised himself a new life when he got out. He was to ditch this gang of idiots from Hillevåg. He was going to work with better people. HA maybe. Now he’s sitting here. In this fucking car. With this slut. On his way to those losers.

‘Do you remember anything from your childhood, as a matter of interest?’

Cecilie gives him a quick glance. They’re driving through Åsen down towards Kilden Shopping Centre.

‘I mean,’ she goes on, ‘weren’t you four when you came to Norway? No, you’d be doing well if you remembered that.’

The Volvo trundles down to the junction by the shopping centre and Rema 1000 supermarket. Cecilie stops and puts on the indicator.

‘I just mean, it must be like, strange to think about. That you had a life there. In Korea, like. Parents and, yeah, maybe brothers and sisters and that. But no. You probably don’t remember anything. I mean, I only remember tiny bits myself and after all, I had a mother, a father too, until I was…’

The indicator ticks loudly. The sun hits the windscreen.

‘You haven’t started giving any thought to finding yourself a woman, then?’ asks Cecilie and smiles archly. ‘A woman, a house, even,’ she laughs, ‘a kid, maybe?’

Tong reaches out his left hand and seizes Cecilie’s throat with his fingers. He squeezes as hard as he can. He sees her head bow under the pressure of his hold, sees her grip tighten on the steering wheel.

‘Shut your cunthole,’ he says. ‘Sit up. You’ve got a green light. Drive.’

‘I bruise easily, Tong,’ Cecilie says meekly, as she changes gear and puts her foot on the accelerator.

81. IT FEELS AS THOUGH HIS FEET ARE LEAVING THE GROUND (Pål)

One of the hardest things, people often say, is to be the father of teenage girls. Bjørn Ingvar Totland goes on about it constantly. How he’s going to get his rifle out the day his girl turns thirteen, how he’s going to be prepared for the ring of the doorbell and a boy outside asking after his daughter. That’s sure to scare the little prick out of his wits. What do you say, Pål? We know all too well what we were like when we were sixteen, eh? Get the rifle out, Pål, eh?

Pål likes practically every person he meets, something Christine always found annoying, but he doesn’t like Bjørn Ingvar Totland. He doesn’t like his car salesman’s grin, doesn’t like the way he winks, and he doesn’t like the way he slaps people on the back. Pål really wants to tell him to quit comparing them. They’re not at all alike. Because it’s never been that way for Pål. Neither when he was sixteen nor now. The fire within Pål has always smouldered rather than raged, burned slow and long. Now that Tiril has a boyfriend all of a sudden, he feels no sense of alarm, on the contrary, he feels relieved, as if the fact a boy has come on the scene will serve to protect her. Is that cowardice? Maybe it is. Now the job passes on to someone else, the job of looking after my daughter.

Shaun, his name is. Tiril’s boyfriend.

American? Irish? Only just happened apparently.

He’s expecting visitors in a few hours. The Hillevåg Gang are going to come through the door. They’re going to beat him. Tie him up? Where exactly? He looks around. Maybe they’ll tie him to one of the kitchen chairs. Will they blindfold him? How far are they going to take it?

What was it he said? That he was going to tidy the house. Get something nice for dinner. That this was such a big day for Tiril that he wanted to make it a little bit special. And then the girls dashed out the door, something about some friend and her boyfriend.

Pål sits languidly in the armchair, the one beneath the living-room window. He has Zitha’s dozing snout under the sole of his foot. He brought her out for a quick walk after the girls left; since then he hasn’t done anything at all. The cheese on the table is soft and warm and the cold cuts of ham are glistening. His jaw is sore.

He’s been grinding his teeth for several hours without being aware of it. He leans over towards the little table beside the armchair and Zitha trots off across the carpet. The remote controls for the TV, the one they’ll probably steal tonight, lie on the table, along with his mobile phone. He scrolls down to a name, rings.

‘Yes, Christine speaking?’

‘Hi, it’s Pål.’

‘Yes, I can see that — listen, I’m in the middle of something here. Was it important?’

This is just a completely normal phone call.

‘No, just that I forgot to let you know that Tiril is performing at school tonight. Kind of a big deal for her, this here, she isn’t expecting you to come or anything and she hasn’t asked me to call you, it’s—’

‘Pål?’

‘Yeah?’

‘This is a bit strange.’

‘Is it?’

It’s just like we’re still married.

‘Yes, Pål. It is.’

We speak to one another the same way we did as when we were married.

‘Well, that might be so.’

‘Well, it is. What are you trying to say? That you’ve just remembered that Tiril is going to perform and that I should be there? And then you call me at — what time is it, half eleven in the morning — and expect me to rush out to Flesland Airport, jump on a plane and make it to her school in, what is it, six hours it begins?

The tone of her voice. Just like it’s always been.

‘Yeah. No. I don’t know. I’m just…’

Then the line goes quiet. It takes him by surprise, to the extent of making him nervous, as though something unpleasant is going to happen. It only remains quiet for a short time, Pål feels his heart pounding in his chest, and then he hears her say: ‘Is anything wrong, Pål?’

‘No, good gracious, wrong? With the kids? No, no, God.’

‘No, Pål. With you,’ she says. ‘With you, Pål.’

He lived with her so long, knew her so well. She lived with him so long and knew him so vexingly well. Pål’s eyes fall on the spruce tree in the garden.

‘You remember that spruce tree?’

‘Huh?’

‘I’m standing looking at the old spruce tree in the garden. The one the girls hung milk cartons from, you know, with food for the birds.’

‘Pål, sorry, have you been drinking?’

He smiles. Holds the phone out, as though it were a torch, before he brings it back to his face and says: ‘No, listen, sorry about this, stupid of me to call. A whim, really.’

She laughs, exactly the same old laughter. ‘Are you becoming impulsive, Pål?’

He laughs in response. ‘Yeah, that’d be a turn up for the books, wouldn’t it?’

‘So, have you everything you need? The girls I mean, everything they need?’

‘Yes,’ he answers, quick as a flash, and thinks: what if I just say it? Tell her everything. How little money I’ve got. What I’ve done. Household and contents. Personal injury. What’s going to happen.

‘Good,’ Christine says. ‘So when is it Tiril’s on stage again?’

‘Oh, I’m not sure, I think it’s seven it starts, isn’t it?’ he replies, realising he doesn’t actually know when it begins. He walks over to the board in the kitchen, sees the note pinned there, reads: 7 p.m. ‘Yeah, seven.’

Oh Jesus, he thinks, as he hears her breathe into the receiver.

‘Well,’ he hears her say.

Oh no.

‘Why not?’

No no.

‘I mean, I would actually manage to make it.’

‘Wow,’ he says, closing his eyes. He should have anticipated it. That she would consider doing it. Actually come.

‘Okay, listen, Pål, I’ll check it out, all right? I have a meeting now, but I’ll get Ragnfrid to look at the flight times, and then I’ll let you know, okay? Keep it to yourself, in case I don’t make it. What’s she’s singing, by the way? Will you have time to pick me up at Sola airport?’

‘Eh?’

‘Will you have time to pi — no, forget it. The kids will notice. I’ll get a taxi. What’s she going to sing?’

‘Evanescence,’ Pål says, in a meek voice.

‘Oh Christ, that’s awful. Does she still like that?’

‘She loves it. “My Immortal”.’

‘For fuck’s sake. What about Malene, is she okay?’

‘Malene, yeah she—’

‘Okay, I’ll be in touch.’

Click.

Zitha’s snout brushes the back of his hand. Pål stands with the telephone in his hand staring vacantly ahead without looking at anything at all. Is she going to come? Here? Today? It feels as though his feet are leaving the ground and there’s nothing he can do about it.

82. FINE YOUNG PEOPLE (Malene)

Frida Riska’s meticulously applied red-varnished toenails gleam like a row of pearls protruding from under the vamp of her shoe. Her navy skirt sits tightly on her hips and narrow waistline, around which hangs a thin, coquettish belt, which lends her an air of youthful ease. The same air she has exuded in the classrooms and corridors of Gosen School since she began there thirty years ago, and had the reputation of being the prettiest teacher at the entire school, maybe even in the whole area, if not in all of Stavanger.

Dad laughs every time Malene mentions Frida Riska, he can’t help it: is she still there? Everyone was head over heels in love with her, we weren’t able to follow what she was saying in class she was so pretty, but she was edgy too, heh heh, is she still there? You know, one day she came in, those high cheekbones of hers almost glowing from the moment she stepped into the classroom, and she was wearing these really sexy tights and she stood in front of the blackboard and said, without any preamble: ‘You know what, I woke up this morning and I thought, Jesus, I’m going to have to face those hopeless pupils again, and I just about managed to drag myself to school — well, now you know, so you can get down to proving me wrong.’ Is she still like that?

Yes, Malene thinks, as they enter the schoolyard and see Frida Riska hurrying across it with two ring binders pressed to her chest; she’s still like that. The prettiest and most unconventional, but also the best teacher they have, she’s always on the fringes of what is acceptable; like she has no respect at all for the Norwegian school system. Malene said to Dad once: I think she really wants to run everything herself and doesn’t care a jot about what she’s been tasked to teach us. Yeah, he said, laughing, you can be sure she does. She might look very middle class, Frida, but in reality she’s an anarchist.’

‘An anarchist, what’s that?’

Dad laughed. ‘Ask Tiril,’ he said. ‘Or better yet, just look at Tiril and Frida, then you’ll know.’

Frida stops up as she catches sight of the quartet walking past the bike racks. Typically, she remains unruffled, merely tilts her head slightly to the side and drums her fingers on the ring binders she’s clutching to her chest, before approaching them with that characteristic sway of her hips on her high heels. Malene casts a quick glance at Sandra, who is attempting to stand unaided, but being supported by Tiril. Shaun looks somewhat better than previously, but his pupils are still swimming like tiny fish in his glassy eyes.

Frida’s hips come to a halt. She stands in front of them, her back straight. Her eyes move in measured fashion from one of them to the other, her gaze resting just long enough on each of them to let them know they’ve been seen, singled out and exposed.

‘Yes?’ she says.

None of them manage to respond. Malene expects Tiril to pipe up, but for once — perhaps because of Frida — she doesn’t seize the chance.

The middle finger of Frida’s left hand taps a steady rhythm on the ring binders. ‘Yes,’ she repeats, ‘what do I have before me?’ She raises her right arm gracefully and checks the slim silver watch on her wrist. ‘A quarter to twelve. It’s a long time since I’ve worked as a babysitter, but it goes without saying that when four such distinguished students — distinguished and talented each in their own way — when four such students arrive in school so late in the day, it is not atypical for it to warrant surprise, or what do you think yourselves? Particularly when two of you look like you’ve been involved in a fracas. Shaun? Sandra? And perhaps even more so when one of these two — you, Sandra — is the last person I could imagine being in a fight. You, Shaun, on the other hand, I can easily envisage being embroiled in all manner of conflicts. What do you have to say for yourselves?’

Tiril comes to life and takes a step forward. ‘Sandra took a tumble on her bike. She crashed into Shaun on the way to school. Me and Malene saw it—’

‘Malene and I,’ Frida interrupts, ‘go on…’

‘Malene and I — yeah, it happened by the tower blocks, not far from where we live, and we saw them, on the way to school, they crashed. Really badly.’

Frida Riska checks her watch again. ‘A quarter to twelve. Almost ten to twelve. And so you’ve used several hours then, to reflect upon this bicycle accident?’

Sandra shifts her weight on to her other foot and wheezes audibly. Malene sees they’ve now aroused other people’s interest, the faces of more and more pupils are appearing in the windows of the classrooms. Sandra looks pale. Frida — Dad once termed her a hawk — takes a step towards Sandra.

‘Are you feeling all right, Sandra?’

Sandra smiles. Her eyes look blurry.

‘She bore the brunt of it,’ says Tiril, placing an arm around her friend. ‘That’s why it took such a long time. We sat down. Took it easy. Went back home to get water and that.’

Sandra smiles again and nods. ‘Yeah, fine,’ she says, ‘my head’s a bit sore, that’s all, feel a little tired. I’m okay though.’

Frida looks at them. Once again letting her gaze wander from one to the next, fixing each of them momentarily with her eyes, and once again they feel both examined and exposed.

‘Listen to me,’ she says. ‘I don’t believe what you’re telling me, not for one second. You all know that. Judging by the body language on display, coming to expression through your beautiful, young physiques, and judging by what I’m seeing in your eyes, those beautiful, young pairs of eyes, there was no bicycle accident. But that’s just how it is. The lot of you are up to something. It may well be something completely innocuous, which a grown-up ought to disregard. It may not. Perhaps it’s something none of you realise the gravity of, perhaps something you should entrust to somebody who’s lived longer than you. But here’s what do I know. You are the ones responsible for making that decision. I’m going to take my leave of you in a moment and then you’ll either end up making a good decision or a bad one. One of you, most likely you, Tiril, will take control of the situation, and the rest of you, Shaun and Malene, will follow the course Tiril marks out for you. And well, what can I say? I wish you luck, you fine young people.’

83. THE BOTNEVASS GANG (Jan Inge)

Autumn 1996. Brother and sister were sitting at home in the living room, well wrapped up in old blankets and well stocked with crisps and cola. The light of the TV tinted the room, screams filled the air, and Jan Inge and Cecilie watched horror film after horror film while they listened to the stormy weather pummel the house in Hillevåg. Rudi was working a few hours east in Kvinesdal, he had been subcontracted out to the Botnevass Gang. Exactly what he was doing wasn’t clear, but the money was good and Rudi’s skill set was required. After he had been up there a couple of weeks the telephone back in Hillevåg rang late one night. Cecilie was having a bath while Jan Inge was sitting in the living room listening to his father’s old country records. He picked up the receiver. It was Rudi. His voice screeched like a circular saw. ‘No way I’m staying here a minute fucking longer, Jani.’ He said. ‘That whole Botnevass family are completely out of their tree. They’re hanging out in a bus parked in a field, they have the interior all decked out like a movie set and they’re filming one sick porn film after another, and their mother, she won’t have anything to do with them any more, while the rumour is that Grandpa Botnevass, that Solomon guy, the priest, is going to come down from the mountains and tear strips off the lot of them.’

‘Take it easy, calm down,’ Jan Inge said, and after a while he managed to talk Rudi around and to persuade him to stick it out for a couple more weeks. They needed the money.

He rang again a fortnight later, and this time not from Kvinesdal, but from a public telephone in Ben’s Kafé, after narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with another car in Gyadalen Valley and now there was no going back. Torleif Botnevass had shot his brother, Gordon Botnevass, over — according to their sister, Mary Botnevass — a quarrel about how to rob the Chinese in Flekkefjord. Or — if their cousin Anton Botnevass was to be believed — due to an argument over which Maiden album was the best, or as Hilde from the shop said: because of a spat over my snatch. ‘Christ,’ said Rudi, over the telephone from Ben’s, ‘this has gone way too far, Jani. I was standing just four metres from the little brother Torleif when he pumped bullets into the side of his big brother Gordon’s head. I don’t fucking like murder, Jani.’

‘Not good, that sounds awful, come on home.’

One hour later he walked in the door of the house in Hillevåg. ‘Christ,’ Rudi sighed, when he saw them, ‘it’s good to be around normal people again,’ and then he lifted Cecilie up in the air, held her close and told her there wasn’t a sexier woman on the planet.

A half-hour later, as they were sitting in the kitchen eating a supper of cured salmon and scrambled egg, Rudi pointed out the window at a van standing parked beneath the street light. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘Someone visiting?’

‘That,’ said Jan Inge, smiling to Rudi and Cecilie, ‘is our new company transport.’

‘Company transport? Ours? That sweet ride?’

‘That’s right,’ replied Jan Inge and pointed down the hall. ‘You see that door there?’

Rudi let his weary eyes wander in the direction Jan Inge indicated. There was a sign on the door of the spare room. He squinted. ‘Office,’ it read.

‘That is our office, Rudi.’

‘Eh? Have the two of you lost your minds while I was dicing with death?’

Cecilie smiled and put her arm around her brother. ‘You know,’ she said in a soft voice, the way she could sometimes speak, as though filled with deep affection, ‘you can’t expect to be gone for three weeks and come home without this man here devising something of genius.’

Jan Inge got to his feet — he was fifteen kilos lighter back then — and said: ‘Rudi, that was the last time you’re going to be hired out to some unknown nutcases. We’re putting things in order here at home. There’s a telephone in there. A separate line with it’s own number. You’ll find it in the phone book under Mariero Moving. Inside that office you’ll also find paperclips, folders, a pencil sharpener attached to the end of the desk, a ruler and a fax machine, everything an office worker could dream of. And our company car is parked out there on the street. A car which never — you hear me, never — will be used for anything other than this.’

‘And what is this?’

‘It’s our moving company, brother. The moving company I run, with Cecilie responsible for cleaning and you as primary driver.’

Cecilie laughed, she really was in fine fettle around that time, and said: ‘Now you see what happens when you’re away for a couple of weeks, Rudi! Congratufuckinglations, you’ve got a new job.’

Rudi was a little piqued at first. He sure as hell wasn’t up for some ordinary job. He was fucked if he was going to go round breaking his back lifting big boxes full of books just because old women were on the move to sheltered housing in Lassa, no bloody way was he about to start paying tax, and he was sure as fuck not going to drive around wearing a stupid hat with Mariero Moving on it for the whole city to see — and so on. But he was quick to reconsider, he began to change his mind pretty much at the same time as he was speaking: He didn’t want to have this job in removals as a way to conceal his actual identity as a crook — even though it was undeniably a clever idea. Yes, only Jan Inge could come up with something so smart, give him his dues; open an office, set up another phone line, sort out a company car, company clobber, a logo, convert the garage, fuck, now that was what Rudi called genius. He had only been away a couple of weeks in Krazy Kvinesdal, where at this very moment Grandpa Solomon was probably pointing a shotgun at his progeny, who were no doubt lying around in the bus drinking hooch after yet another day of porn, picking them off one after the other while spewing Bible quotes from his mouth like spit, while old lady Rose Marie Botnevass was in all likelihood standing outside counting the gunshots and gobbing on the ground for every fallen son and daughter and niece and nephew — only a couple of weeks, and then to come home to…

Rudi threw his arms around Jan Inge: ‘Fuck, brother. I thank the Lord and Gran that you exist. When’s the first moving job? By the hour or fixed price?’

Jan Inge is proud of how he handled things in those tough few weeks back in 1996. If he hadn’t hit upon the idea of establishing a company and presenting them as law-abiding citizens they’d all be wearing Åna-issue clothing and answering to a number by now. The scheme had occurred to him while he and Cecilie were sitting in the living room gorging on horror film after horror film and the rain hammered on the roof and transformed the garden into a pool. Watch out, Jan Inge. Do something before it’s too late. So don’t come here saying horror harms the mind; horror is a wellspring of creativity, horror yields unity, horror makes you see what’s important here in this world and helps you choose the right path. And he’s going to write about that in his book; how pain brings about good.

Ever since those rainy days in autumn 1996 there’s been a steady stream of calls on The Other Telephone. Marketing? All you need is a number in the phone book, a listing under Removal Services and it takes care of itself.

‘Yes, Mariero Moving?’

‘Yes, hello, me and my wife need help moving from Hundvåg. Do you provide a cleaning service as well?’

‘Specialist cleaning? Kein Problem! We have a highly trained cleaning consultant, she can take care of everything while you sun yourselves on the veranda.’

Last Thursday: The Other Telephone rang again. Jan Inge walked to the office with a wobbling gait, sat down in the old leather chair and picked up the receiver: ‘Mariero Moving, Haraldsen speaking, how can I help?’

A grand piano. On Furras Gate. In Våland. Stavanger. Not exactly their favourite kind of job. Good thing Tong is going to be here; Jan Inge’s abilty to lift and hump things around has become somewhat limited since the weight piled on.

Jan Inge and Rudi trudge to the garage and open the large door. They still haven’t seen any sign of Tommy Pogo, and Jan Inge can feel it beginning to prey on his mind. Knowing he’s going to come is worse than him turning up unannounced.

Rudi sighs as his eyes fall on the white van. ‘Shit,’ he says, ‘my heart aches every time I see the Hiace. We have ein tolles auto right here and we only ever use it for moving.’

‘Rudi,’ says Jan Inge, ‘no one is touching the moving van. This is half the reason we can live like we do. You remember autumn 1996?’

‘Course I remember autumn 1996,’ says Rudi, a dark look coming over his eyes: ‘Did you hear what happened to the Botnevass Gang, by the way?’

‘No,’ says Jan Inge and switches on the ceiling light in the garage, producing a nice sheen on the roof of the vehicle. ‘Presumed they were still doing their thing.’

‘In hospital, all nine of them. Brothers, sisters, cousins and I don’t what else. Torleif, Mary, Anton, Jo-Lene, Salve, Odd Harald, Ånen, Steven, and ehm … what’s her name … the one in those films … ehm … yeah, Nancy Rose. Crushed both legs, she did. So that’s the movie career finished.’

‘Hah.’ Jan Inge opens the van door and peeks inside. ‘Nancy Rose. She could be doing with my wheelchair.’

The van is spick and span, ready to go to work in.

‘Went how you thought it would, then?’

‘Not quite,’ says Rudi, peering over Jani’s shoulder. ‘They hit a rock face beside the road on the way home from Sweden Rock. They skidded after Ånen, swerved trying to avoid hitting a fox waltzing along the road. So they say, anyway. The bus broke through the crash barrier not far from Liknes, slammed straight into a rock face. Hilde from the shop says that stuff about the fox is bollocks, she says Grandpa Botnevass fiddled with the brakes because he thought they were bringing shame on the family name. But apparently old Father Solomon told her that if she opens her mouth one more time, he’s going to come down from the mountain and make sure she never sees the light of day again. They say Grandma Rose Marie couldn’t care less, never liked her kids anyway, apart from the one she lost when he was a baby, Kjell Ivar. They say she regrets ever marrying that mad priest, was so beautiful she could have had her pick of anything in trousers up there, whether they were called Botnevass, Øyvass, Kissvass, Vedvass, Sandvass, Skjerlevass, Storevass, Vestvass, Krokevass, Svodvass, Grunnevass or Movass. And she had to choose the biggest headcase of them all. Solomon Botnevass.

‘Not good,’ Jan Inge says, turning around, ‘not much luck in that family.’

‘Well, you know, brother, better to be good than lucky.’

‘Words of truth.’

‘It’s how it is; some families are haunted by demons and evil spirits. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were back on their feet in a year’s time. Wait and see, back on track with bus porn for the handicapped. They still haven’t hit the Chinese in Flekkefjord. Torleif is sure the owner is sitting on a few hundred thousand in cash. Probably only a question of time.’

‘Everything, Rudi, can be transformed into a question of time,’ says Jan Inge. ‘It’s the essence of every good horror movie.’

‘Philosophy again,’ says Rudi, nodding. ‘It’s so you, while the rest of us are discussing nuts and bolts and baseballs and batons, you’re hovering above in the clouds.’

‘You don’t find it odd that Tommy hasn’t shown up yet?’

They look at one another.

Rudi nods.

‘Yeah,’ he whispers. ‘Now that you mention it.’

Jan Inge nods. ‘Kind of stressing me out, I have to say.’ He points towards the back garden. ‘Speaking of stress,’ he says. ‘There’s still that there.’

An overgrown garden that hasn’t served as a garden for decades, old mattresses, two rusty wheelbarrows, hubcaps and tyres, rotten planks, a broken lawnmower, Cecilie’s old Raleigh bicycle, Mum’s washing machine, the couch from the basement, which was once red, now the colour of sun-bleached vomit, snapped spades and rakes, a broken TV, a video recorder, the three panel radiators Dad bought right before he left, a total of eight pallets, an enormous amount of smaller pieces of scrap, half a pair of shears, screws and washers, a door handle and in the south corner a rusted rotary clothes line, the one Jan Inge always thought looked like an umbrella when he was small, the one he always thought he was going to lift up in his little hand, hold up in the rain.

‘Looks like a bloody tip. How long has that fridge been there?’

‘1987.’

‘Big clear-out so.’

‘Sunday.’

Rudi spits on the ground and accepts the inevitable.

Jan Inge hears the familiar sound of the Volvo behind him, the splutter of its engine coming down the street. He straightens up and looks at Rudi. A smile spreads across both their faces and they consign Tommy Pogo to the back of their minds for the time being. They walk out into the white sunshine.

The Volvo comes to a halt by the bins and the car doors open. Cecilie gets out from the driver’s side. Jan Inge is struck by an uneasy feeling as he watches her walk with an unsteady step and a wavering look in her eyes. Tong gets out from the other side. He looks like a walking chunk of iron, and Jan Inge realises that he’s in no way happy that Tong is home, that he is in no way happy that Tong may well be the father of the child Cecilie is carrying.

‘Hey! Fuck yeah! Holy shit!’

Rudi vaults the porch wall, opens his arms and pulls the Korean close while slapping him repeatedly on the back: ‘There you are, you sick bastard! Shit, we have missed you! So bloody good to see you! Hell, wilkommen zu Hause! Toooooooooooooooooooogong-ong-ong-ong-ong-ong-ong-ong-ong-ong!’

84. THEY CAME FROM THE FOREST (Sandra)

Her eyelids keep slipping down. Her chest rises and falls, and Sandra wants so badly to sleep. Put her arms on the desk, form them into the shape of a heart, lay her head on them and slip into the heavy sea. Sea? Yes, Lord, you are mine. Her cheeks are warm, like she’s been watching TV for a long time, and her fingers are heavy, like her arms have been hanging by her sides for a long time, and her head is woozy; is it Thursday? She forces her eyes open, smiles listlessly at Malene who’s just turned around in her seat further up the classroom. Are you there? Her jaw muscles, it’s as if they’re missing. Is it Thursday today? Or is it Wednesday? Is it maths, is it English? Yeah, English with Frida Riska. Hi, Frida. To talk too much. Everyone understand? The difference? Or is that proving too much of a challenge for you all? Sandra feels queasy now, there’s discomfort in her stomach and chest and she’s so unbelievably tired. Must be Wednesday. Fingers are so heavy, eyes are so slanted, cheeks are so warm: once. Today’s paper. Has something happened? She can’t remember any more. Wait. Wasn’t she in an accident? Yeah. With Daniel? No. Once. No, he loves me and I love him: youandme. Was she? My bright boy, I will serve you the rest of my days, because that’s how love is: yes. Once they came. A peal of thunder across the sky, you could feel the rumble beneath your feet. They came from the forest. They were sons of Lucifer, because they were naked, and in their arms they bore the severed limbs and small hearts they had gathered from the sons and daughters of man. A little distance behind them, the daughters of Lucifer came, also naked, also promising fire and torment. Yes. Blood ran down their thighs, from between their legs. These fingers are so heavy. Thursday? Meandyou, Daniel. My bright boy, your bright mouth. Sandra thinks she needs to throw up, throw up and fall asleep at the same time, as if that was something that went together, she ponders sluggishly, throw up and fall asleep. Once they came from the forest. Daniel. My Daniel. For what could be right here in this world if love was not right? What would speak the language of truth if love did not? Warm up our church, light this candle. I have to sleep now. I really have to sleep.

‘Sandra?’

‘Hello, Sandra?’

‘Sandra!’

‘Oh my God!’

‘Frida! She’s not breathing!’

‘Get help!’

‘Sandra?’

‘Malene! You need to tell me the truth now! Malene! What happened earlier? Malene!’

85. WHENEVER WE VISIT GRANNY ON FURRAS GATE SHE ALWAYS GIVES US ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL AND IT’S THE BEST IN THE WORLD (Rudi)

The white van pulls out on to Hillevågsveien. It has a red logo on the side with the motto, Mariero Moving — Your problem is kein Problem. Four people are sitting inside, all dressed in the company’s light blue overalls, the motto of the firm written diagonally across the backs of each.

Rudi, Tong and Jan Inge sit in the spacious front seat, in that order, and Cecilie sits behind smoking.

Rudi turns the large steering wheel, but he doesn’t feel at ease. The oxygen inside the vehicle is too thin. It’s not like before. Tommy Pogo stresses him out. He still hasn’t shown up. And the atmosphere in the van, that’s also stressing him out. Is something funny going on? It’s about time Tong started loosening up a little. Understandable if he has got some issues, maybe it was rough being inside this time, even for a rock-hard fucker like Mr Korea, but isn’t he going to say one single thing?

Get released from prison, come home to your best mates — your Norwegian family — and don’t utter a bloody word. Here we are throwing our arms around him, hugging him, putting beer on the table, breaking out chocolate chip cookies and doing one thing after the fecking other, but the guy is behaving as though we don’t exist. It’s not natural.

‘Ah well, Tongi!’

Rudi makes an expansive gesture as they go around the roundabout by Strømsbrua Bridge.

‘I’d say you must be overwhelmed to see the old stamping ground again, eh? The city of Stavanger, best place on earth! Yessir! Everything’s the same as it was, apart from even more internet, and the financial crisis giving the globe a good seeing to from behind, not that it affected us, people have more than enough money for all the break-ins we could ever imagine—’

Rudi speaks extra loudly and in the back seat Cecilie giggles, albeit slightly nervously. Jan Inge smiles too, but Tong just stares straight ahead. A sheen coming off his jet-black hair. No movement from him at all, as though he isn’t even breathing.

‘Well,’ Rudi tries again, ‘anyway, it’s good to have you back again, because heh heh, I don’t think we’d manage this piano without you!’

No reaction at all from the great warrior. Is he a zombie? Is it just Rudi who thinks this is weird? Cecilie? Jani? Hello-o? This can’t be put down to morning tiredness; this isn’t Cecilie when she wakes up snapping like a hammerhead shark. Is he just going to sit there like a fighting fish?

Rudi gives Tong a nudge as they crawl up Tors Gate in Våland. ‘Hey, Tongo man. Time you came out of the freezer now. Come on, bushman. Hey, yellow peril! It’s us! Your people! Did somebody die? Did you get a letter from Korea, someone calling you son, all of a sudden? Come on. Out with it, caballero!’

Silence. The Hiace turns on to Furras Gate.

It’s pointless. Rudi nods to himself. Fine. No one can say he hasn’t tried to be the life and soul of the party, as Gran used to refer to him. Or the clown, as she also used to call him.

‘Here we are,’ Jan Inge says, pointing to a white wooden house on the left hand side. ‘Thirty-nine.’

Rudi slows down and pulls in slowly to the kerb. They open the doors and a bent, old woman appears by the gate.

‘Everyone behave themselves, now,’ Jan Inge says, ‘and we leave with our flawless reputation intact. As usual.’

He takes a step towards the elderly woman. She’s wearing a blue dress, has wavy, white hair, glowing cheeks and strong blue eyes.

‘Ludvigsen?’

She’s a small woman, must be over seventy years old, and even though she doesn’t look like she was ever as tall as a tree, she must have shrunk a little as well.

‘Yes, that’s me,’ she says smiling. ‘Splendid you could come, yes, let’s see now, the piano is in there. I don’t know how you intend to do it, but anyway it’s to go to my daughter’s. I don’t have the space for it any more, or rather I do, but I don’t feel I can really have it here any longer, so I thought—’

‘You know what,’ Rudi says, dazzled by the beautiful old woman who in every way reminds him of Gran, ‘you know,’ he repeats, bending down to her, ‘this will be no problem.’

‘That’s our motto, all right,’ says Jan Inge, taking charge, ‘your problem is kein Problem.’

‘Such lovely young people,’ says the elderly woman and shows them to the living room. She offers Tong a rather wary glance, but Cecilie notices and gives her an extra large smile.

‘Oh, there’s not a pick on you,’ the old woman says, ‘you need to eat, girl.’

Cecilie laughs. ‘I eat plenty, so I do, just have a fast metabolism.’

‘Ah,’ the old woman says, ‘I’ve always wanted a fast metabolism, but it wasn’t my lot in life.’ Then she lowers her voice and leans towards Cecilie: ‘Constipation. Takes three days.’

Rudi makes a brief attempt to follow the indistinct conversation before heading for the living room, Jan Inge and Tong following behind him. The grand piano, which he quickly estimates to be close to seven feet in length, is standing in the centre of the room. There are high ceilings in the old house, but lots of tricky little corners.

‘Ludvigsen?’ he hears Jan Inge say. ‘You don’t have any other exits on this floor, do you? A veranda or something?’

‘Oh, yes,’ replies the little woman. ‘There’s one back here…’

‘Detachable feet,’ Rudi mumbles, bending down to the piano. ‘Heavy as hell. Still. We’ll manage it.’ He turns to the old woman and speaking slightly louder in a friendly tone asks: ‘Is it old?’

Tong stands stiff and straight by the door.

‘Oh heavens, yes,’ the woman says, ‘it’s so old now. I inherited it from my grandfather — it’s a Steinway, as you can see…’

‘A Steinway,’ nods Jan Inge. ‘No, they’re not exactly giving them away.’

The woman laughs, her face lighting up.

‘Apparently I could get half a million for it if I sold it.’

Over by the door, Tong shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Cecilie gulps. Jan Inge clears his throat. Rudi doesn’t know where to look.

‘But I’d never sell it, not for all the money in the world, no, what would I do with that kind of money? I can hardly spend what I have as it is.’

Tong shifts his weight again. Cecilie sweeps her tongue over her front teeth and Jan Inge fumbles for his inhaler, which he locates in the trouser pocket of his overalls. Rudi’s gaze flits around the room.

‘Asthma,’ says Jan Inge.

‘No, I’m going to give it to my daughter,’ says the woman, then lowers her voice a notch, ‘I’ve discovered I can pass it on to her as an advance on inheritance, and that’s probably just as well,’ before lowering her voice even more, drawing closer to them, almost gathering them in a ring, ‘it’s my grandchildren, you see,’ she says.

‘What about them?’ Rudi asks, when the woman doesn’t appear to intend finishing her sentence and lapses into thoughtful silence. She moves even closer.

‘They’re drug addicts,’ she says. ‘Apparently they steal from everyone. That’s what happens with drug addicts,’ she adds. ‘They lose the run of themselves, stop being the people they once were, and so it could well come to pass, my daughter tells me, that they end up trying to rob their own grandmother.’

Rudi can see Tong’s arms twitching. His veins are visible, as are his muscles.

‘Imagine,’ the old woman says. ‘Their own grandmother. Jørgen and Svein Anders. I just don’t understand it.’

Rudi can hear Tong breathing now.

‘Well,’ Rudi says loudly, ‘we need to go out to the van to fetch some equipment, the Haraldsen siblings here will remove the legs and go through the practical details with you, and hey presto, this expensive Steinway piano will be on its way to your daughter’s house and out of the clutches of those monsters you have as grandchildren!’

Rudi seizes Tong by the arm and hisses: ‘Come on!’

He halts on the steps outside and throws Tong up against the wall: ‘What the fuck is wrong with you? Were you planning on flattening the old biddy and taking her piano? Hm? What the fuck is your problem! Here we are, after picking you up — or Cecilie did — and laying on chocolate chip cookies and beer and good humour, and what do you bring? Have you ever heard of manners, for Chrisssake?’

Cecilie and Jan Inge emerge from the house behind them, both looking anxious, shutting the front door quickly behind them.

‘What’s going on,’ Jan Inge whispers. ‘What the hell are you two up to?’

Rudi feels the pulse in his throat throb and releases Tong.

‘I’ve had enough of this bloody Korean simpleton. He was all ready to bash in grandma’s brains there. And has he said anything all day? Hm? This has gone too far!’

Jan Inge studies Tong, who’s standing completely still. Cecilie looks at him too.

‘You need to say something, Tong,’ says Jan Inge. ‘Rudi has overstepped the mark, I know, but he does have … well, a point.’

Tong makes some movements with his lower jaw, opens his mouth and spits in the direction of an elderberry bush beside the driveway.

‘What’s the deal?’

‘Ehh … I don’t quite follow you now,’ Jan Inge says.

‘Tonight. What’s the deal.’

‘With Pål, you mean. Simple enough job. Smash up the house, give the guy a few bruises. Take what we find.’

‘Alibi?’

‘God, what is with everyone today?’ Jan Inge shakes his head. ‘Of course. I have an address in Sandal. We drive the van there. We’re at work from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. We’re moving the contents of one terraced house to another. Witnesses all arranged. Watertight.’

‘And the deal?’

‘I told you, Tong. Smash up the house. Alter the guy. Take what we find. What are you getting at?’

Tong closes his eyes. ‘That’s the deal?’

Rudi is livid. ‘Yeah, that’s the deal, but first Tampon is going to pay us a visit!’

Jan Inge looks at him resignedly. Cecilie’s eyes grow larger. Rudi throws his arms up. He just couldn’t contain himself.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘We ran into him yesterday. He said he was going to drop by.’

Tong shakes his head slowly.

‘This is unbelievable. You’ve got Tampon on your back? And you’re still going ahead with it? And the insurance money? That is so incredibly lame. You haven’t demanded a cut of the money. You waltz straight into a house with a piano worth half a million inside while Tommy Pogo is hiding behind the bushes watching us. This is my last day with you lot. I can’t stand you, Rudi, or you, Jan Inge. You’re just … you’re nothing to me. Understand? I’ll go along tonight, but only if you agree to us taking half of the insurance sum. After I’ve taken my cut we’ll never see each other again.’

Tong turns to Cecilie.

‘And you?’

He shakes his head.

‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘You are the fucking ugliest woman I’ve ever seen.’

Rudi’s fists begin to clench, his teeth begin to tap, but as he’s about to head-butt Tong the front door opens. The old lady’s head appears.

‘Ah,’ she says, ‘I was almost beginning to think you’d left. It was so quiet. Look, I’ve defrosted a little apple pie.’

She holds out a tray with some slices on it.

‘Yes,’ she says, ‘and elderflower cordial. You must try some. All that hard work you do. My grandchildren used to like it so much, Granny’s elderflower cordial.’

86. HE DEALS WITH IT (Daniel William)

Veronika strokes him across the wrist. His veins are swollen, as though lying ashamed beneath his skin. Daniel withdraws from her caress. He puts a cigarette between his lips and lights it up. He leans towards the teak coffee table and takes hold of his helmet. He fiddles with the strap. She reaches for his hands, grips them tightly and kisses him. She tastes of seaweed, of icing sugar and iron and he can’t stand it.

Daniel tears himself free and gets to his feet.

‘What is it?’ asks Veronika.

He can’t bring himself to answer. His shoulders rise as he takes a deep breath. He doesn’t want to talk any more. He just wants to strike out. He opens the door to the concrete corridor and the light from the rehearsal room floods out to where the moped is standing. The Suzuki gleams. Daniel walks over to it, runs his fingers along it.

Why must it be this way?

Why must everything go down?

Why must everything go under?

‘Daniel?’

He’s a matter of seconds from whirling around and going for her, seconds from sinking his teeth into her throat and biting down until she loses her deaf life. But he doesn’t. He remains standing looking at the Suzuki.

He can tell by her footsteps that she’s coming closer. She really shouldn’t, he thinks.

Veronika pokes him on the shoulder.

He doesn’t look around, but she continues jabbing him.

Eventually he turns. She looks shattered, and he says: ‘Don’t poke me.’

He takes a step towards the Suzuki, takes it by the handlebars, kicks the stand up and points to the entrance. ‘Will you get the door?’

‘Daniel, you have to remember to think straight. I understand that you’re angry, I understand that you’re afrai—’

He merely continues to point and Veronika doesn’t say any more. She does as he signals. Walks to the door, opens it and lets the September light in.

‘You’re not easy to understand,’ she says. He can see she’s trying to make eye contact, but no fucking way is he going to let her.

‘I haven’t asked anybody to understand me.’

She reaches her hand out, but he ignores it. ‘Only a little while ago you said we should stuff everything. We should just leave. Together. But now — what is it you want to do now?’

He doesn’t reply.

‘Daniel, things change so quickly with you.’

‘Right,’ he says, feeling power in his own self-contradiction.

He sees her let out a heavy breath. He can see she actually wants to crack. But he can also see she’s restraining herself. She nods. Smiles.

‘Where are we going?’ she asks. Her smile is feigned, but he likes the fact that she makes an effort.

‘Are you one of those people who need to know everything?’

He sees her eyes mist over.

That brought her right back down.

Are you going to cry, deaf girl?

‘Didn’t you understand what I said? Did you not manage to read my lips, thought you were a world champion at it? A-r-e-y-o-u-o-n-e-o-f-t-h-o-s-e-p-e-o-p-l-e-w-h-o-n-e-e-d-t-o-k-n-o-w-e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g?’

She continues to look at him. But she doesn’t begin to cry. She folds her arms.

‘Answer me,’ he says. ‘If you’re the kind of person who goes on and on asking questions and needs to know everything and can’t trust a guy, then you can just forget about me, got it?’

‘Daniel, I—’

‘I asked you a simple fucking question. Can you not answer?’

Veronika brings her hand to his face, letting it rest there until his breathing regulates.

‘Yes, I can,’ she says. ‘I’m not the type who needs to know everything. Take me with you, wolfman.’

‘What the hell is with the wolf stuff?’

‘That’s what I like to call you,’ she says and lets out a laugh, intended to lighten the atmosphere, like her mother always does when she and Veronika argue. ‘Where are we going?’

‘A place.’

‘Okay. But you know that right now we ought to stay put? That there’s probably lots of people looking for you and me at the moment—’

He doesn’t listen. He wheels the Suzuki out into the light, wishing it were deadly. He wished the light would bring a violent end to Daniel William Moi, wished the rays of the sun were like scalpels, making an incision in his skin, folding it aside and opening into a snapping, chomping, howling mouth, and he wished it caused unparalleled pain.

Daniel tosses her the keys and climbs on to the moped. She locks the door, then gets on behind, putting her arms around him.

‘Daniel?’

He turns his head.

‘Are you going to see her? I’m up for anything, but I won’t go along with that.’

He puts the key in the ignition.

Veronika narrows her eyes. ‘Do you love her?’

Daniel feels his fists tighten on the handlebars. ‘There’s someone I need to talk to before it’s too late,’ he says.

It’s just a normal day all around us, thinks Daniel, trying to relax his grip on the handlebars. He tries thinking about how he doesn’t need to hit her. He sucks on his tongue, as though it were a damp cloth or a snowball.

‘Veronika,’ he says. ‘I’m never going to tell you or anybody else what happened to me. If I do, it’ll happen again.’

They ride up the hill from the bomb shelter and he swallows back saliva while he lets his gaze sweep over the housing estate they’re leaving behind, the little houses that grow smaller and smaller the further away they get. There are people inside them. Some of them are off school sick. Some of them are asleep, because they’ve worked a nightshift or couldn’t sleep the night before. And maybe somewhere, in one of those terraced houses, there are people in bed together, in the middle of the day, in the bright light, and maybe somewhere there’s a person daring to raise a gun against all that light that’s just too strong.

Daniel deals with it. He doesn’t hit her.

87. SCRAT (Tiril)

The ambulance travels at speed as it drives up to the front of the school, and Tiril feels a bolt of guilt slide back in her head as the sound of sirens fills the air. It’s as though a closed fist is pounding at her from within. The very thing she denied and dreaded has come to pass.

Sandra.

When someone like her is brought down, things are bad.

And it’s her fault.

Tiril isn’t the only one peering out the window at the ambulance that’s come to a sudden stop outside the entrance and thrown open it’s back doors, at the medics readying a trolley stretcher, at the headmaster and deputy head running out, at Frida Riska gesticulating and taking control; the entire class has got to its feet. Mai has put down the book she was holding, a murmur spreads through the classroom, eyes wander, and hands and feet shift and shuffle: ‘What is it?’ ‘What’s happened?’ ‘Jesus!’ ‘No way?!’ ‘What are they doing?’.

Tiril knocks over a chair on her way out of the classroom. Mai casts a wavering glance in her direction, but refrains from saying anything. Tiril runs out into the corridor, hating the linoleum under her feet, hating the stupid charts along the walls, hating the framed photographs of past pupils, hating the teachers, hating everything that’s happened and is going to happen, hating The International Cunty Wankskop and hating herself as she emerges into the strong sunlight at the same moment that Frida Riska shouts: ‘Tiril Fagerland! Can you please move!’

The flash in Frida’s eyes: ‘And someone will be speaking to you afterwards. You and Shaun and Malene.’

Tiril moves to the side and is almost mowed down by the ambulance crew wheeling a stretcher. One of them, a young woman with a ponytail and a hawk nose, holds an oxygen mask over Sandra’s face; a white face, thinks Tiril, a white face with dead eyelids. The woman says something as the stretcher is rolled into the back of the vehicle, but she can’t make it out, and just as quickly as they arrived, they’re off again: the double doors slam shut.

Frida Riska stands in front of the headmaster, nodding, ‘Yes, of course, I’ll call the parents, right away,’ and she takes out a mobile phone.

Malene comes over to Tiril and puts her arm around her, but doesn’t say anything. Shaun shows up — or has he been there all along? She looks dejectedly at the glue-sniffer she’s fallen for, who all of a sudden doesn’t seem so attractive, standing there, nodding, unable to meet her eyes, looking like that squirrel in Ice Age, Scrat, with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and nothing at all to say.

‘Frida?’

Frida Riska presses the buttons on her phone. ‘I can’t get hold of them…’ She turns, visibly irritated, to Tiril: ‘Yes?’

‘Yes?’

‘What happens now, I mean, like—’

‘We don’t know, Tiril.’

‘But… she’ll live?’

‘We don’t know that yet,’ says Frida, and then fixing her eyes upon her: ‘All you should be thinking about is that it’s time you started telling the truth, and stopped playing with somebody’s life.’

Then she hurries off.

Tiril feels her face smarting from Frida’s words. Malene runs her hands up and down her back and says: ‘Guess we’re the ones who need to breathe easy now, aren’t we?’

‘Yeah…’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘I…’

‘Tiril, you have to say something, what will we do? I mean, we said it was Shaun and Sandra, that’s what Frida’s told them, but … Tiril? What are we going to do?’

Then Tiril begins to cry.

All she manages to think is that it must be years since she has, since she’s cried. Then she moves off. Twisting away, determinedly, but without anger, from Malene’s consolatory hand, and walks across the schoolyard.

Shaun runs after her. ‘Hey, baby, do you need, like, help? I mean, we can’t be sure that … you know, it could turn out all right, all this.

He’s sweet again now, sweet and small and stupid as a smurf, and cool in a way, but what does that matter when you’ve killed a person, what does that matter when you’ve chosen lies in order to satisfy your own rage, what the fuck does it matter when you’re the one who’s pressed The Big Red Button, the button that opens a trapdoor in the floor under another person, when you’re the one who’s done it, all because you’re so wrapped up in yourself, so busy thinking about being first, being biggest, being best, what does it matter then that Scrat stands in front of you asking if you want his nut?

Tiril shakes her head, rebuffs him with a wave of her hand and walks towards the gym hall. Scrat stands looking after her.

She walks towards the large building and the others let her go. She rounds the corner, sniffles and spits, takes a cigarette from her packet and wonders what in the hell she’s going to do. Just say balls to everything? Screw the singing. Don’t be bothered about Dad, about Malene, about the songbirds, about Mum in Bergen, about love, to hell with everything; and she means everything. This old school, this Stavanger suburb, the telecom tower on top of Ullandhaug, the hill at Limahaugen, these streets, everything.

If you take another person’s life, you have to offer your own.

She hears the sound of footsteps while standing there. She sees a little guy scurrying towards her. He has an awful running style, not even bothering to take his hands out of his pockets. He has a fresh shiner, a daft-looking body and his head wobbles as though not properly attached to his neck. He draws closer and he’s only thirteen years old, but pants and puffs like he has lung disease and he clearly won’t give up.

Shaun comes to a halt in front of her. He’s sweating and needs to swallow, put his palms on the wall and gather himself before he manages to say anything: ‘Just wanted … fuck … okay, give me a sec here … just wanted … awh … shit … people don’t always die because their consciousness faints … or … yeah … I just wanted to say that you have to sing tonight and … well … you’ll figure out what we should say, y’know … you’ll figure out what’s right, because that’s your style … and everyone says you should all go ahead and sing … that no matter what happens, we’ll sing, because it’s … shit … like solidarity and international and the environment and that … nobody’s going to give up, we’re not going to let fear … get the upper hand, or something like that …. Anyway, the headmaster says the international, like, workshop is going ahead and everyone’s talking about unity, and fellowship and solidarity … and you’re going to sing … because it doesn’t help not to sing … or … I can’t exactly sing myself … but that’s probably just me … anyway … yeah … I just wanted to … hear if you needed help with anything … I’m like really into you … Tiril?

88. RUDI HOLDS A SPEECH ON THE EAST SIDE OF STOKKAVANN LAKE (Cecilie)

Men? Cecilie walks a few paces behind them. They’re not real men, not that lot. A fat guy who’s always eating crisps, watching horror movies and thinks he’s a business executive. A beanpole with ADHD who walks around with a constant hard-on and lies in bed crying at night. A twisted Korean brute without any feelings at all. They’re just little boys. They haven’t grown up at all, they’re just like they were twenty-five years ago, the only difference is that any charm they had then is long gone.

That’s how boys are.

They never grow up. They grow down.

I’d do anything for you.

Cecilie has her eyes fixed on Tong’s back as they walk along Store Stokkavann. The white sun shimmers on the surface of the water, one or two people out walking pass in the opposite direction. She wants to explode. The fact she had sex with him the whole summer. The guy is just plain evil.

She lets her gaze drift from the back of Tong’s taut neck, via her brother’s bloated neck over to Rudi’s unsteady bird neck. A feeling of guilt spreads in her stomach; the way she’s treated him over the years. He’s been there right in front of her with that glittering intensity of his, waiting upon her every single second, and what has she done?

Cecilie dries away a tear from under one eye as they enter the wooded area along the east bank of the lake, about a kilometre and a half along the trail, and the boys slow down and exchange glances.

‘Yeah,’ says Rudi, his voice a little despondent, ‘feel a little ashamed now, fetching that stuff. I mean, with that woman and her piano and everything. Those grandkids of hers. Jørgen and whatever the hell his name was.’

Jan Inge pokes at the gravel with the tip of his shoe. ‘Svein Anders.’

Tong looks out at the lake.

‘We need to pick it up anyway,’ says Jan Inge. ‘Did you hear, Tong, what we found out?’

Tong looks at Jan Inge with disinterest.

‘Yep,’ Jan Inge says. ‘Stegas is a homo. Eh? You wouldn’t have guessed that. Sits at home baking muffins, lighting candles and climbing on top of Bunny.’

‘Each to their own,’ Rudi mutters, ‘but it’s not natural.’

‘Amen,’ Jan Inge nods, ‘amen to that.’

Tong spits on the ground. ‘And you’re still working with him all the same?’

‘Listen,’ Rudi says, ‘I’ll tell you something. Stegas … I agree. It’s against the word of the Lord. It’s against nature. It’s disfuckingusting.’ He pauses and turns to look at Tong. ‘But when you get older, when life begins to … when life begins to … how can I explain this … okay: when I was five, life was simple. It was like this: Get up! Go out! Play with something! Get fed! Sleep! When I was fifteen, it was like this: Get up! Go out! See if I could get laid! Get fed! Sleep! Y’know, simple, yeah? Nothing to get philosophical about. But then. Okay. Tong. And you need to listen fucking closely here. And there was me thinking you’d had time to do some thinking in the joint. I have to say, I thought you’d become richer, not poorer in there, but fair enough, our time as colleagues will soon be over, so hey, I can say what I think: You understand, after a while, that simple, that is the one thing which life is not. It’s … shit, I don’t know what you’d call it…’

‘Ambiguous?’ Jan Inge says. ‘Is that what you’re thinking of?’

‘Ambiguous …’ Rudi sways his head from side to side, ‘yeeeah … but…’

‘Multifaceted?’ Jan Inge inquires. ‘Could that be the word?’

‘Better,’ says Rudi, continuing to move his head from side to side as he sucks on his lip, ‘but…’

‘What you might be thinking of,’ says Jan Inge, sweating in the sunshine, ‘is the sense of majesty. Of gravity. A feeling of interminable complexity.’

Rudi stops swaying his head, bends down, picks up a stone from the gravel path and throws it out into the lake.

‘You’ve put your finger on it,’ Rudi says solemnly, before turning again to Tong. ‘It’s probably true that you don’t fit in with us. We’re on a different level from you. We’re alive to the feeling of gravity, to the feeling of majesty. What is it Deep Purple sing? “I’m a blind man and my world is pale.” Well, I can see very well, as Elton John sings on “Madman Across the Water”, and yeah, I’m not quoting Elton because I like him, I’m quoting him out of reluctant respect for his fellow bumchum Stegas, and I’m not quoting him because my brother, that jackal, didn’t listen to anything but Elton when I was small, before he became a Cars fan, but that’s another thing entirely. But anyway, my brother — who I have a serious problem even talking about, in fact even the mention of my brother makes me bristle, so when I bring him, that rat, up, you know that I’ve something important to say, something that surpasses my hatred for him, burninhellyoubastard. He used to sit there going on about Elton this and Elton that … shit! Now I’ve forgotten what I was on about. Why am I even talking about that git, get thee behind me, carpenter! I hope you drown in your own puke! I find it so fucking hard … my own brother … and to think we slept in the same room when we were small … in the bunk beds … not to mention my own fam … my own fam—’

Rudi gasps for breath.

‘Listen,’ Cecilie says, ‘you know you don’t need to talk about them, not if you don’t want to, you know how worked up you get.’

‘That my own fam—’

‘I know.’

‘That my own famil—’

Cecilie rubs the back of his hand. ‘I know, Rudi.’

‘Rikki and Ben … and Kate…’

‘I know.’

‘Rewind!’ sniffles Rudi, and slaps his hands together. ‘Where was I? Yeah, Tong: Elton. John. An openly homosexual man. And friend of the British royal family. Yes.’ He clears his throat. ‘And that’s what he sings, my Korean friend, or rather my former Korean friend: “I can see, very well.” And that’s what Deep Purple sing: “I’m a blind man and my world is pale.” And to take it slightly further, what is it The Cars sing: “Oh, heartbeat city, here we come.” Hm? Tong. Have you been there? In heartbeat city? And what is it Marillion — yeah, I know you hate Marillion, and I’d be only too happy to sit down and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of that band — what is it Marillion sing? “You’ve got venom in your stomach, you’ve got poison in your head.” Well, I’ll tell you one thing, brother of evil: I was blind, but now I can see, and my address is in heartbeat city, and my stomach isn’t full of venom, my head isn’t filled with poison, I’m rich. How is your stomach, yellow adder? How is your head, my furious friend? That’s the way it is, Tong, you have to accept that your best friend sucks cock, no matter how fucked up it seems.’

It’s quiet after Rudi’s flood of words lets up. Four pensioners pass by, one of them smiles, raises his hand to his forehead and gives them a three-fingered scout salute and says: ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’

Cecilie feels warmth spread across her skin. Her eyes are moist.

‘In prison,’ says Tong calmly, ‘I read a good bit of psychology. And psychiatry. There’s a diagnosis for people like you, Rudi. It’s called manic. A lot of unstable people suffer from it.’

Cecilie continues looking at Rudi. The warm feeling on her skin increases, like a friendly fever. Please, whispers Cecilie to herself, please baby, don’t be Tong’s kid. And please, baby, please never let Rudi find out what I did. He’s my man, she whispers to herself, and now finally, I’m in love with him.

It just took a little time.

Then she approaches Rudi, places her hand in his, and says: ‘Hey, Rudi boy. Manic?’ She turns to Tong. ‘So what? Manic, my ass. I love manic.’

Rudi stares at her, his eyes look like they’re going to fall out of his head.

Cecilie continues to look at Tong.

‘Hey, Tong,’ she says, her voice clear and distinct. ‘Can you see how ugly I am?’ Then she goes up on her toes, reaches towards Rudi, takes hold of his head, finds his mouth, gives him her tongue and whispers: ‘I’d do fucking anything for you.’

His kiss is stiff. His eyes flit about. ‘Shhh!’

‘Wha?’

‘Pogo!’

She turns and looks in the direction he’s staring. About fifty or sixty metres from them, Tommy Pogo is approaching along the path. He’s wearing white trainers, blue jeans and a black belt with a shiny, silver buckle. A freshly washed, black T-shirt sits tight across his torso. Kia is rolling alongside in a motorised wheelchair. She has wavy, blonde hair and curling eyelashes to match, and she’s almost alarmingly pretty; imagine having a daughter like that.

‘No way,’ Rudi whispers, kissing Cecilie back as naturally as he’s able, ‘there’s no way this is a coincidence.’

Tommy and his daughter draw closer. Kia turns her head to her father and says something. He nods three times in succession. They’ve recognised them.

‘Tampon is sticking so close to us,’ Rudi whispers. ‘So bloody close. Come on, baby, let’s show him a bit of tongue here.’

And so Rudi snogs his woman, with such passion and intensity that his whole body is shaking as he hears Tommy Pogo’s resonant voice: ‘Well hello, didn’t expect to see you lot up here. I didn’t get a chance to pop by. Kia was off school due to some rehearsals, so I took the day off too, and voilà, here we are, and what do you know, you lot are here too. Tong, you’re back again. Did you have an okay time in Åna? Hi, Jan Inge, seems like either we never meet or we can’t stop bumping into each other, eh? You know, I’ve often thought about it, how you and Cecilie were left there in Hillevåg in the eighties; that’d never happen today, Child Welfare would have intervened, we would have stepped in, but maybe you’re happy we never did?’

Jan Inge smiles, but doesn’t reply, and Rudi merely continues making out with his girlfriend.

Pogo laughs. ‘Will there be wedding bells in the near future, Rudi? See, Kia, love can work out too, can last a long time. Good thing Rudi isn’t inside, the way the two of them carry on, eh?’

His daughter laughs, a mellifluous sound, she’s obviously inherited her father’s vocalisation. Tommy Pogo is a very handsome man. His beard is trimmed, his harelip barely visible beneath, not that it mars his appearance — it’s more of a liberating feature under the straight nose and piercing eyes.

Cecilie smiles mischievously and Rudi frees himself from her lips. Buoyed by self-confidence, he stares fixedly at Tommy: ‘Not that I believe for one second that you’re here by chance, Tommy. But I’ll tell you this, man, here we are, four friends, four bloody good friends, it’s Thursday and we’ve just had a heavy moving job, a grand piano in Våland, and we have one more job this evening, entire contents of a terraced house in Sandal, and now we’re taking a walk, and that, sir, we intend to continue with, and love, which I heard you talking about while I was giving Dolly here a little taste of things, yes, love, that’s the flag blowing in our breeze.’

Tommy Pogo nods.

‘It’s a free country, Rudi. Good to hear. Well, what do you say, Kia, will we be getting on?’

And so they part, Tommy and his daughter in one direction around the lake, the four crooks in the other. They stop and fall silent just five minutes from the car park, they look around, and on Jan Inge’s signal, Rudi runs up into the woods towards a large stone where he sticks his hand into a crevice and locates a bag of speed. Cecilie observes him from a distance, she feels like her face is burning up and she thinks about how strange this life can be, where one day the sight of a certain person makes you want to puke, and the next he’s your god, and she turns abruptly and looks straight into Tong’s face with utter disdain.

89. IT’LL BE A REAL BLAST (Pål)

Pål reads the text once more as the sound of the doorbell fills the room: On my way. Heh heh! I’ll get a taxi. Zitha’s ears stiffen and her tail begins to beat against the floor. Pål checks that his answer is sent, OK, great, and looks out the window, which could really use a wash; when was the last time they did that? They had it on a list once, Malene was to wash the windows, Tiril was to do the shopping, and he was to, yeah, what was he supposed to do? They disappeared, those lists. They couldn’t manage to run such a tight ship.

So she is coming after all. Here. Today. Great.

How’s that going to go?

He squints: a moped?

Pål’s mouth runs dry, he hears Rudi’s agitated voice in his head, Jan Inge’s reedy voice, Cecilie’s warm voice, and he begins breaking out in a sweat. Is that them? They’re not supposed to be here before tonight. Now? On a moped?

It starts to sink in. He’s agreed to this scheme with people who cut their teeth in the Tjensvoll Gang, people who’ve been hardened criminals for over twenty years, and he’s put his trust in them. Christine should have been here now — she will be soon of course, great — she would have shaken her head as hard as humanely possible, she would have lowered those sexy eyelids of hers, sighed heavily and said: Pål. What is wrong with you. How naïve can you possibly be? Will you never learn?

He walks slowly into the hall, holding Zitha tightly by the neck, firmly enough for her to understand how quiet she needs to be.

In for it now. He takes a furtive peek through the glass beside the door.

He pulls his head back quickly. A young girl with her face all cut up. Flaming red hair. Pål slumps against the wall and closes his eyes. He grabs hold of Zitha’s snout as she begins to whine. ‘Shhh!’ What is it Rudi has sent my way now? His psycho niece? A heroin addict he’s planned to include in this insane scheme?

The doorbell rings again. Zitha beats the floor with her tail, uneasy in her body.

Pål orders Zitha to sit. He places two fingertips on the bridge of his nose, then sweeps them under each eye while opening his mouth and feeling the skin tightening over his gums. Okay. He rehearses a few opening lines in his head, grabs hold of the dog and opens the door.

Before Pål can speak he recognises the guy from under the floodlights at the football pitch the night before. The beautiful, young man with the disquieting eyes, the one that laughed at his Metallica T-shirt. What’s he doing here with a girl who looks like a patient from a psych ward?

‘Hi,’ Pål says, holding Zitha back as she makes to go closer to the visitors, and keeping the door only half open to indicate that this needs to be quick: ‘Tiril and Malene aren’t home yet.’

‘Good,’ says Daniel.

‘Eh…?’

‘I didn’t come to see them,’ says the boy.

A unpleasant feeling begins to takes hold of Pål. Young people, strange how they can knock adults off their stride. Are they working for Videoboy?

‘Okay?’

The girl looks terrible. Someone has slashed her face. She’s freaking Pål out the way she’s just standing staring at his lips, studying his face intently.

Daniel takes a step closer.

‘I don’t know what you’re up to,’ he says.

Pål feels like he has a lead apple in his throat.

‘What I’m up to?’ Pål straightens up. ‘Listen, I don’t think I need to stand here and—’

‘I don’t know what you’ve got yourself mixed up in,’ Daniel continues, as though he didn’t hear what Pål said. The girl keeps on staring at his lips. ‘But I—’

‘Listen,’ Pål cuts in, ‘I really think you need to g—’

‘I saw you in the woods.’

‘Eh?’

The girl bends down to Zitha, pats her.

Daniel shrugs. ‘You might be getting yourself into something stupid.’

‘What is this? I think you better—’

The girl continues rubbing Zitha’s snout.

‘I get that you can’t stand here and admit that something fucked up is going on, but I did see you, and I thought about it afterwards, without really knowing if I should say it to anybody — I haven’t, by the way — but I decided to ride up here. And tell you straight out. That I don’t know what it is you’re involved in. But it might be stupid for you to see it through. And I know what I’m talking about.’

She opens her mouth to speak now, the girl with the cut-up face. Her voice is strange and her eyes shine like burnt copper. She says: ‘It’s true. He knows what he’s talking about.’

Zitha barks and Pål feels saliva accumulate in his mouth again. He shakes his head. ‘It might well be you know what you’re talking about,’ Pål gives Daniel a gentle, lofty pat on the shoulder, ‘but I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I have to make some food for Tiril and Malene now, because they’ll soon be home and it’s a busy day. Tiril is going to be singing at the school in—’ he checks his watch, ‘yeah, in just over a couple of hours. All right?’

Daniel smiles. ‘That’s fine,’ he says. ‘You have to lie. You need to protect yourself. I know. That’s the way it works.’ He extends his hand to Pål, who shakes it, remaining nonplussed, as Daniel puts his helmet back on, climbs on to the moped together with his girlfriend and disappears down the street.

Pål sinks down on to the doorstep.

Zitha places her snout in his lap and emits a faint whimper. He runs his hand over her warm coat. ‘Dad was seen, Zitha,’ he whispers.

God, I should never have got mixed up in this.

Pål takes out his mobile and composes a text: ‘I’ll let you know when the girls have left. Just have to make them something to eat and then you can come. It’ll be a real blast!’

Five, ten minutes pass, Pål sits with September light all around and he’s barely aware if he’s alive or dead, then he hears them. He has a sinking sensation in his chest and wishes it were a simpler day, say around six years ago, when the girls were small and he was the safe, secure dad. A plain, maybe slightly boring dad they could count on, one who could look his own girls in the eyes.

He jumps up, affects an air of energy as he sees them approach. Tiril has a pained expression on her face, Malene is calm and collected and alongside them walks a guy who looks like a warped ball, with moist eyes and a hoodie. Zitha runs towards the girls.

‘Hi! I haven’t had a chance to sort out food today, things just got on top of me, but we’ll throw a frozen pizza on, will we? So, getting excited? Eh?’

‘Dad, this is Shaun,’ says Tiril, patting the dog.

Pål looks at the little guy, who gives him a crooked smile, revealing a row of rust-coloured teeth. He isn’t exactly what Pål was expecting; is Tiril actually going out with that there?

‘Okay? Hi, I’m Pål,’ he says, putting his hand out and feeling a feeble grip, like shaking hands with a mollusc.

He accompanies them inside, he can tell by their body language that something is up, he sees them exchange uncertain glances, but he neglects to ask what’s happened. He understands that they have something behind them that’s hard to put aside and just as hard to talk about, as though he realises it’s not for grown-ups’ ears. That’s how he’s raised them, always allowed the girls plenty of space, never went into their rooms and asked what they were up to, but has made himself available to them whenever they feel the need to talk. Sometimes it’s gone too far, and Pål has been left standing at a distance when their world has begun to catch fire.

That may be how it is now, but he can’t face going into the flames today. All he wants is for them to eat some food and be on their way, because they need to get out of here; what’s going to happen is just too degrading.

It doesn’t seem as if Daniel or the girl with the face have spoken to them.

Zitha has taken her place on the mat, safe and secure; for a dog the house is as it usually is. Dad is here, the girls are here. Pål lets the kids go to Tiril’s room. He puts a pizza on and stands facing the oven for a quarter of an hour watching the cheese slowly begin to bubble, and he finally takes it out and carries it into Tiril’s room where the three teenagers sit in a sort of youthful darkness that somehow seems to glow.

The voices fall silent as he enters, all expression on their faces wiped clean and their eyes dim.

‘Pizza, girls.’

‘Great, we’ll just eat and head off.’

‘It’s going to be exciting, this here,’ he says.

‘Very,’ says Malene.

He can see she’s lying. Or rather, keeping something to herself.

‘Dad?’ Tiril turns to him, looking lost.

‘Yes, honey?’

‘Do you know what happens to people who suffer concussion?’

It’s a strange question.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, just if they’re concussed and everything seems fine, but then they get problems. Do you know what can happen?’ Tiril’s eyes are moist. ‘Like, could she, you know, die?’

Pål looks at Shaun. Is Tiril really with this guy? He doesn’t seem able to speak, his teeth are rotting in his head and he has a black eye, what sort of boy is he?

‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t know about that kind of thing. Who’s she? Has someone got concussion?’

Malene nods. ‘A girl at school. She collapsed.’

‘I see,’ he says. ‘Well, I hope she’s all right anyway. Get some food in you, okay?’ He leaves the room.

He can’t face being with them right now.

A quarter of an hour later, all three of them thank him for the food and get ready to leave. There’re no feelings in the air other than those of pretence, thinks Pål. Everybody in this room is holding something back.

‘See you soon, then,’ he says, smiling. ‘Really looking forward to it, Tiril.’

‘See you later,’ she says.

‘Gonna be a real blast! Love you both!’

Malene turns as though he has said something strange. Pål lifts his hand up and waves vigorously with his entire arm, as if trying to catch their attention in a school parade: ‘Love you!’ he shouts again.

The door opens, warm air floods towards him and they disappear.

A little while later, the mobile in his pocket vibrates. Pål takes it out, reads: ‘Can I come?’

He sends a reply: ‘Yes. All clear now.’

Pål crouches down in front of Zitha and scratches her under the chin. He’s not quite sure how he’s going to get through the next hour. He has no idea how this whole thing is going to end. But he can’t picture anything other than it turning out badly.

Zitha rolls on to her back, asking to be rubbed on her stomach.

90. WE SEND HELENE CHRISTMAS GREETINGS EVERY YEAR IN CONTEMPT of THAT MANGY MONGEREL OF A FATHER SHE HAD (Jan Inge)

‘So, Jan Inge Haraldsen, this must be a big day for you?’

‘Heh heh, well I suppose you’d have to say it is.’

‘Indeed, what went through your mind when you heard you’d won the prize in the category of non-fiction?’

‘Well, I felt like a little God, to draw a comparison.’

‘It’s Too Late, a study in Horror Films has sold thousands of copies and been translated into a host of different languages. What would you say was your main motivation in writing it?’

‘Motivation? Well … an exceptional number of research hours have been put into this…’

‘Yes, the material is overwhelming. Is there, in fact, any horror film you haven’t seen?’

‘I doubt it. But what you’re asking me about motivation … you have to picture an ordinary boy. Slightly overweight perhaps, mildly asthmatic, without a mother and practically fatherless. He’s captivated at a young age by the horrible world of horror.’

‘I see. And this boy, it’s you?’

‘That’s right. But then, after a few years sitting in front of the screen, I began to gain some valuable insights, and I hit upon what today forms my main thesis…’

‘You refer to it as a thesis?’

‘Indeed, a thesis. Let me paint you a picture, since you’ve come all the way from Frankfurter Allgemeine to interview me. Many years ago. An ordinary day in my ordinary life. A dark living room. An armchair. Me. And a glowing TV screen. I was re-watching one of my favourite films. It was Dario Argento’s masterpiece, Suspiria. Horror, which I love so much, filled the room, and it filled me. And then all of a sudden I began to weep.’

‘To weep? You’re telling me you began to cry?’

‘I’m telling you I began to cry.’

‘Why?’

‘Safe to say I wondered about that myself. Tears were streaming down my face and I was incapable of stopping them.’

‘My word.’

‘Yes. I was on my own that day. My sister, whom I live with, was out at work with my best friend, Rune Digervold, whom I also live with. The tears just flooded down my face. Eventually I had to stand up and pace around the room. And that was when I began to ask myself what it was that these tears contained. Do you understand?’

‘Yes … or rather, no. Did you find an answer?’

‘Yes. It was the feeling that it can all suddenly be too late. That was what the tears were telling me. That was what I had understood after so many years in the world of horror, that it’s not a horrible world, but a world of goodness, a world that struggles to lead us into kindness before it’s too late, and that this is what every real horror film is about.’

‘A remarkable thesis, Jan Inge Haraldsen, which you explore at length in your book, through in-depth analyses of a number of films, Evil Dead, Suspiria which you’ve already mentioned, A Nightmare on Elm Street…’

‘They’re all there. As well as less well-known movies like Rosemary’s Killer, also titled The Prowler. Joseph Zito, 1981. The Golden Age of The Nasty. An important time for the slasher film in particular and the horror genre in general. What about the scene in the shower, when the girl is stabbed in the stomach with the pitchfork, just below her breasts — have you read my thoughts on that? I don’t go on about how well made it is and the type of things horror fans often do. I focus on what it’s about, in a philosophical sense. I take a large part of the horror fan base to task, the ones who sit grinning at body counts, the ones who view horror as a form of ironic humour and the people who believe it’s all about the amount of gore, which in my view, it isn’t.

‘Exciting.’

‘Exciting. That’s the word.’

‘But moving on, this is after all not just an interview with you about your book but also a profile: Who is Jan Inge Haraldsen?’

‘Oh, he’s just an ordinary, slightly overweight boy. A butterball. The Coca-Cola Kid from Hillevåg. Heh heh.’

‘What else have you done, where are you from, indeed, who are you, Mr Haraldsen?’

‘Oh, a bit of everything, this and that, heh heh.’

‘Come now, give us some impression of who you are.’

‘Let me see, an impression…’

‘Yes, an impression…’

‘Well, I can tell you this: I’ve run my own company since I was quite young. I’ve had a good number of employees along the way. My sister, as well as my best friend Rudi have always worked with me.’

‘And what does it do, this company?’

‘What does it do?’

‘Yes, what sector is it involved in?’

‘Eh, sector … we’re in removals.’

‘So the rumours which have reached us at Frankfurter Allgemeine, that you are all actually petty criminals and that Mariero Moving is just a front for your activities, these aren’t true? That for years now, ever since you were a small boy and lost your mother, and then your father abandoned you and your sister in a most inhumane manner, leaving for America to pursue his own selfish interests and start up a business, Southern Oil — that ever since you were young you’ve been involved in criminal activity, been behind many break-ins, many scams, quite brutal instances of debt collection, yes, that for a time early in your career you even pimped your sister, whom you rented out within the confines of your own home; is that also incorrect? Jan Inge? Mr Haraldsen?’

Jan Inge looks up from his plate, where potatoes, broccoli, carrots and meatballs swim in gravy, and a dollop of lingonberry jam wreathes the rim. The sun is low, casting a wavering light into the room, shining skittishly upon the old Coca-Cola poster hanging beside the fridge, in which a sailor with white teeth holds up a bottle, and shimmering tentatively on the salt and pepper pots standing on the table, one in the shape of a reindeer, the other a seal; both from Dad’s childhood home.

Motörhead blasts from the living room, ‘Stone Dead Forever.’

Nobody has opened their mouth for a long time.

SOMETIMES THINGS ARE SO DELICATE.

You would think the future would be looking brighter now.

Rudi giving his big performance when they were on their way around Stokkavannet.

Cecilie responding so quickly and with such passion, such affection, of a type she rarely reveals.

But then.

They get into the Volvo, everyone refreshed, except for Tong. Everything seems flushed, the sky, the tarmac, the car and its occupants, but as they drive past the allotments near Byhaugen, it’s almost as if it becomes too much to take. Suddenly there’s a clearing of throats and coughing in the back seat, the shifting of feet, people looking in all directions but at each other and mumbled half-sentences abound. The oxygen disappears from inside the car. Cecilie stares out the window. Rudi’s eyes remain fixed on his lap. There has to be some terminology within psychology for it. Suddenly Cecilie and Rudi are so unbelievably awkward. They had been snogging in full public view, then they were like two lovesick teenagers in the back of the van and now they are utterly out of sync. Both of them look like frightened birds, maybe that’s what its known as in psychology? Frightened bird syndrome?

And Tong?

Tong is sitting silent as a stone by the window, longing for a chocolate chip cookie.

EVERYTHING HAS BEEN TURNED ON ITS HEAD, thinks Jan Inge, massaging his front teeth with his fingertips. One moment everything is allt i lagi, as Buonanotte says, the next it’s all fallen apart. Not to mention Tommy Pogo, who’s also obviously got them in his sights. Taking a walk around Stokkavannet, coincidence?

Jan Inge can’t handle this. Now is the time he should show them who’s wearing the pants, but he sinks back down into his own thoughts, while the world he’s created heads for … what’s it called again…?

Jan Inge pictures himself getting up from his chair, offering his hand to the interviewer who has come all the way from Frankfurt and thanking him for the visit. He imagines the photographer taking two photos of him, one in front of the van, with him dressed in Mariero Moving working attire, and one in the video room, with him standing in front of his vast collection of films.

‘Atlantis,’ he whispers.

Cecilie looks up. ‘Wha?’

Jan Inge clears his throat. ‘Oh, I was just thinking about something. How’s the food?’ He checks the time. ‘After five,’ he says, ‘nearly ten past. We’d better start packing the stuff together. I don’t think we need to concern ourselves with Pogo. He’s been on us. He was smart. Caught us on the hop. But he’s not going to strike twice in one day. We’ll be at Pål’s place in a couple of hours. We’ll leave the moving van in Sandal before making our way there. And I just want to say one thing: there’s a weird vibe in the air today. I can’t say I like it. But I would ask that all of you, to the extent you’re able, not lose your composure, and please try and remain focused.’

Cecilie has put down her knife and fork. Rudi chomps his food pensively. Even Tong has his eyes on Jan Inge.

‘What do you say each of us try to bring to mind some happy memories to cheer us up?’

Yes.

They’re listening now.

‘Personally, I’m going to call this memory to mind,’ continues Jan Inge: one day in the eighties, Cecilie and I received word that our uncle, our father’s brother, had passed away. John Fredrick Haraldsen. He was a mangy mongerel, who had brought pain to the entire family by interfering with his daughter, Helene, our cousin. She’s never recovered and lives in a flat paid for by Social Services somewhere up in Trøndelag — and, as you’re all aware, we send her a Christmas card every year, something she no doubt appreciates. You’ll remember we sent her a lovely gold ring the year before last, Rudi, which we took with us from the job out in Sola. Well. On this particular day in the eighties we were informed that he was dead, her father that is. John Fredrik had been killed in a bicycle accident. That’s a good memory for me. Cecilie and I looked at one another with relief, and she made waffles while I–I was a few kilos lighter back then — I ran out into the garden to cut the grass. Which reminds me, we need to have a big clear-out on Sunday.’

Cecilie has tears in her eyes.

Brilliant.

You tell a good story.

And the audience weep.

They’re moved.

That’s the whole point of a good story right there.

The journalist has one final question as Jan Inge is showing him out: ‘Tell me, Haraldsen, is it all horror with you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is it all horror films, do you not like anything else?’

‘What, do you think I’m just a fat guy with a one-track mind who sits in a wheelchair watching horror all day?’

‘I don’t know, you tell me.’

‘E.T. I love E.T. And everything it stands for. And I’ll tell you something else: I love everyone who wants to phone home.

91. KINDA LOOKS LIKE A WAY OUT (Shaun)

Shaun tilts his head back and looks up at the sky.

Those sisters are close. But they’re so frigging different.

He walks a little behind them. Shaun is good at that. Knowing when to hang back.

Kenny just laid into him. Unleashed blow after blow after blow as though Shaun were a punching bag. Mum was asleep on a cocktail of pills and Dad had already gone out, because it’s so long since he cared. Kenny just came into his room, his hair sticking up as if he’d been struck by lightning. He came barging in, and it was obvious he’d only just woken up, because that’s when he’s at his worst, always been that way with him, a big fucking bunch of energy building up in his body when he sleeps and then he’s like a sharpened pencil or something in the morning, and that’s how he was when he burst into the bedroom. Shaun lay sleeping and woke up with a shock, just managed to make out it was six-thirty on his mobile, before he felt Kenny’s hands pulling him out of bed and dumping him on the floor like he was a sack of potatoes, grabbing him by the neck, forcing his head down, and rubbing his face against the rug before turning him over and pounding and pounding and really beating the shit out of him, all the time repeating: ‘You need to learn to shut up, Shauny! You don’t fuckin’ get it, Shauny! You need to learn to shut up, Shauny! You don’t fuckin’ get it, Shauny! You need to learn to shut up, Shauny! You don’t fuckin’ get it, Shauny!’

Bunny should have been here now.

That was what he thought while he lay there listening to a continuous whistle in his head.

Everybody says Bunny is a nutcase.

But he’s not really.

That’s just hearsay.

Bunny is just Bunny. Kenny is the nutcase.

Look at them.

Sisters.

So nice to look at.

The way Malene runs her hand up and down her sister’s back, speaking so calmly to her after their falling out, after everything has been turned upside down.

‘Yeah, Tiril. Yeah. But listen to me. We’ll take it easy now. One step at a time.’

Shaun has no rock of a sister, not like Tiril has. He only has preoccupied Bunny and psycho Kenny.

‘Listen to me,’ says Malene, when they’ve walked about halfway to the school, ‘listen to me, Tiril,’ and Tiril’s features go all small like a cat and she listens, really listens, when her sister says: ‘There’s nothing we can do for Sandra. We made a choice and what’s happened has happened. And we’ll sort it out, I’m sure. But now it’s time for the performance. And Dad is going to come. And you’re going to sing. You got it? My Immortal.’

Tiril sniffles. ‘I don’t want to any more.’

Malene stares fixedly at her. She says: ‘My immortal sister. You will. Will. For me. For Dad.’

‘And for Shaun!’ he shouts from behind them, because he thinks it fits in well. Heh heh. ‘For Shauny!’

Tiril turns. Not in her pottiest dreams would she have believed that she would be together with him. She turned, looking super cute — fuck, Bunny, you should have seen that — when she said: ‘For Shauny.’

Bunny is gay.

No one else knows.

Just Shaun.

And he doesn’t give a shit.

If he wants to stick his cock up guys’ asses it’s no business of Shaun’s. Bunny’s not the one in the family there’s something wrong with; Kenny’s the psycho. Kenny and Mom, she doesn’t even have eyes for fuck’s sake. Shaun has never seen any, just eyelids falling down over pupils that swim; it’s all the pills she stuffs down her throat — fo sho, honey, is all she says, fo sho, precious. Soon that’s all she’ll be able to say. That’s what she’ll say when she’s dying, thinks Shaun, when he’s standing over her, and she’s breathing with a rattling sound, on her way out and he asks if she’s all right, then she’ll say fo sho, precious and then she’ll throw up or something and die, and it won’t be too different from how it is now, fo sho, honey. But there’s nothing in those words. She just longs for her dope and for the United States of Shit, as Dad calls it. Bet you he regrets picking up Cindy Wilder from North Dakota and trying to make a Norwegian out of her, yessir. Like he says, beware of the titties, they’re pointing right at you, but they’re loaded.

Heh heh.

For Shauny.

Gonna be fine, this here, Shaun feels, as they near the school. That one Sandra is going to come around and everything will be okay. Heh heh. It’s the first time he’s actually been happy about heading to school. It’s the first time Shaun has felt as though this tarmac is a friend and not an enemy. The first time he notices houses and fields and doesn’t just see a shithole all around him. He was all right, Tiril’s father. Nice guy, no hassle, no fuss, pizza man.

He looks at the girls. Seems like Tiril has got it together now. Straightened up a bit. Her sister has got her back on track. Yeah. This is going to be fine too — there’s that Thea one running out of the gym hall, heh heh, people are a little wired now, whoa, Thea is totally stressed out, calm down, girl, no biggie.

‘Tiril, seriously, I was starting to get worried.’

Tiril smiles. Yeah. She’s all set.

‘Chill out,’ Tiril says, ‘relax, just got a little delayed. Heard anything about Sandra?’

Thea shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says, ‘but Frida and the headmaster are saying we’re all still going on, that we’re doing it for her.’

Tiril nods.

Heh heh. Tiril’s taking care of business.

‘Svein Arne is shitting it,’ Thea says, motioning for Thea to follow her to the gym hall, ‘he’s been asking for you, plus we sent you heaps of texts and—’

Heh heh. Look at Tiril. Heh heh. Hands on her hips. Feet apart.

‘Thea. Please. Enough. Jesus.’

Heh heh. Now she’s found her voice.

‘What do you think? That I can’t handle a rough day? Got any gum?’

Heh heh. Way to go.

‘Shaun, Malene,’ she says, gathering them around. That’s sort of how it is with these sisters, Shaun notices; while Malene is the one who steps up and holds the fort when a typhoon is blowing, Tiril gets the plaudits. Her eyes are all steel and flowers now, thinks Shaun. She is so ready to go and it’s no wonder she rocks my world.

‘Shaun, Malene,’ she repeats. ‘Go in and find a seat, Thea and me have about eight minutes to get changed backstage before we go on. For Sandra. Okay?’

Heh heh. Tiril. Niiiiiice, girl.

Kinda looks like a way out, like Dad said once when it was completely quiet in the living room, which it isn’t so very often. Bunny was out, probably round at that guy Stegas’ place, and Kenny wasn’t home either — he was beating up some Chechens in Sandnes. Mum was strung out on something in her room, him and Dad were watching that movie, can’t remember what it was called, but it was about a guy who takes his kid and goes to another country after he kills his wife with sleeping pills and buries her in the garden. Kinda looks like a way out, said Dad, giving Shaun a thump on the arm.

‘Okay,’ Shaun says, giving Tiril a hug, ‘sing like a fucking star. We’re on your side.’

Malene smiles. A really confident smile. And says: ‘Go on, get going. We’ll keep a seat for Dad.’

Shaun tilts his head back and looks up at the sky.

It’s just something he needs to do now and again.

92. ONCE IT WAS YOU AND ME (Pål)

At some point, although he can’t remember when exactly, Pål realised that life wasn’t one ever brighter journey, the way he often pictured it when he was young, but was composed instead of phases. Different phases that arrived with age, circumstances and settings. He realised at the same time, at some point after Christine left, that neither is life some marvellous path onward towards ever increasing maturity, as he had also imagined when he was young and observed those around him with curiosity; his parents, uncles, aunts, grown-ups on TV, teachers and football coaches. He can’t remember when it sank in, that everything happens in phases, and maturity is not a reality but a cultural ideal, yet as he sees Christine again, as she alights from the taxi in front of the house he once shared with her, when he witnesses that outrageous alertness of hers that seems to fill the whole driveway, he is emphatically reminded of it. Once she meant everything to him. Once he was so in love with her that he trembled when he woke up in the morning. That was that phase. Then they lived together for a few years, not beneath the roof of the first flush of love, but under the roof of routine; school lunch boxes, washing machine, MOT. That was that phase. Then she left him and Pål experienced hate for the first time. That was that phase. And now? What is it he feels as she approaches him? A black, waist-length jacket, a tight, dark skirt, a white blouse, those high cheekbones and healthy-looking hair. It’s not forgiveness, and certainly not a rekindling of love, although his feelings of hate are long extinguished; so what is it then? Some sort of … sufferance? He’s unable to put his feelings into words as she sallies towards him, like she’s always done towards the whole world, but there’s a surprising measure of kindness in his feelings, even on such an unprecedented and downright dangerous day as today.

‘Pål!’

She’s so stunning, Christine. She really is quite beautiful, maybe even more beautiful than before. She’s one of those women who look better with age, even when it arrives with an extra few inches around the waist, even when it arrives with wrinkles — everything looks gorgeous on her.

‘Pål, Pål, Pål,’ she says, throwing her arms around him, firm, warm and friendly, and he’s surprised at experiencing the same sensation, the one he underwent on a daily basis so many years ago, of feeling that no matter how unreasonable this woman is, she still possesses an incredible ability to make him feel safe, in the sense that being in proximity to her makes it seem as though nothing troubling can occur. It is of course erroneous, but the feeling is real.

She pulls back and looks him up and down. Presses her lips together and nods twice with one eyebrow raised in an expression that combines both sincerity and jest: ‘You’re skin and bone, man! Are you eating at all? I’ll have to have a chat with those girls of ours — what are their names again?’

Her sense of humour, always bordering on indelicate. The words couldn’t come from someone else’s mouth without sounding cheeky; from hers they sound fine.

He laughs, just like he used to; for her.

‘It’s all good,’ he says, lying, ‘conscious dieting. You know. Middle-age spread. Have to stay trim. Cut back on frozen pizza. Watch the carbs. Working out a good bit lately, actually.’

‘Hm,’ she says, in disbelief. ‘You haven’t become a spinning instructor too, have you? So, how much time do we have? Enough for a coffee in my old house before we have to go?’

He smiles again, aware once more of how she manages to make imminent events disappear from his mind, but shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says, lying again, ‘we’re a little pushed for time.’

‘Oh,’ says Christine, and pouts before extending her tongue, ‘you know how tetchy I get without coffee. You’ve been warned, ex-hubby.’

‘Yeah, I’m bricking it,’ he says, laughing as he revels in how nice it is to be with someone he can be effortlessly flippant with; it’s how he and Christine were at their best, it was precisely this tone that drove the days onward. He smiles warmly and for a moment forgets all his anxiety. He says: ‘But you’ll have to go without, unless you want to skip seeing your daughter perform, and just have a cup of coffee in Stavanger before you fly back out again.’

He’s aware of how, in the space of a few seconds, he’s begun to speak differently; speak like her. At her speed, with her tongue. As though he were imitating her.

Was that how it was?

‘Hm,’ Christine says, ‘I think I’ll choose coffee.’

‘Come on,’ he says, locking the front door. He’s been standing outside the house with the key ready for almost a quarter of an hour, because he doesn’t want her going inside. She’d only walk around passing remarks on this and that in the brusque, effortless manner she has.

His plan is a bad one. But it’s the only one he’s got.

They walk down Ernst Askildsens Gate and Pål feels a composure in his stride. Perhaps one of the neighbours can see them from a kitchen window, and thinks it strange to see them together again. Maybe it was already strange back when she lived here. An odd couple — him so timid and ordinary, her so outré and out-there. The fact that the two of them got together was surprising to themselves; it must have been surprising for others.

‘What is it she’s going to si—’ says Christine, halting in mid-sentence: ‘Oh Jesus. Evanescence. It’s so turgid.’

He shrugs. ‘What did you like when you were thirteen?’

She ponders the question for a moment as they peel off to the right, cross the street, and continue along by the low-rises. ‘Thirteen? We’d be talking Wham! for the most part.’

Christine stops for a moment. She takes in the surroundings. Her eyes are calm, as is her body, that fabulous concentration of hers has stirred, that ability she has to dedicate herself to one purpose, which has got her where she is.

‘Yeah,’ she says, mainly to herself. ‘Yeah.’

‘What?’

‘I can hardly fathom it, Pål, that I used to live here.’

He looks away, towards the trees.

‘What the hell was I thinking?’ she sighs.

Pål feigns interest in the trunks of the trees, letting his eyes linger on them.

‘I don’t particularly remember that much of it. Of my time living here, I mean. It all feels very distant to me.’

That’s one thing you were always adept at, he thinks as he allows his gaze to sweep down a tree trunk and fall upon the ground, you were always adept, Christine, at trampling on things other people liked. He refrains from responding, takes a few steps to indicate they’re pushed for time, and she snaps out of her musing just as quickly as she’d fallen into it, and soon she’s the one in front of him as they make their way down towards the school.

Then he suddenly stops in his tracks, just as he’s planned. He tries not to overdo it, does his best to be just as good a liar as he has been for months, and the slight put-down, the earlier remark she made, has provided him with that little extra he needs. Then he lifts his hands up and takes a sharp intake of breath: ‘Aw shit.’

He says it as though talking to himself.

It looks real.

‘What?’

He looks at her, shakes his head a little.

It looks genuine as well.

‘Sorry, I’m such a numbskull—’

‘What?’

‘The candles. I—’

She rolls her eyes.

It’s working.

‘Pål, Pål, Pål.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Candles in September?’

‘Mhm,’ he nods and points. ‘I won’t be long. You go on ahead, that’ll be even cooler, you coming on your own. Five minutes, tops, that’s all it’ll take me.’

Then he runs.

‘Candles in September,’ Pål mumbles while he looks at the tarmac blur under his feet and has a horrible feeling of having deserved all of this, the hate Tiril is going to dish out when she realises what he’s done, the disappointment Malene is going to dish out when she realises what he’s done, the disgust Christine is going to dish out when she realises what he’s done, and the violence Rudi is going to dish out to him very soon.

Pål makes it to his own street. As he nears the house, he hears Zitha barking and he remembers how that was the first thing that entered his head the day Christine told him she’d had enough: I’m going to get a dog. You’ve refused me that all these years and that’s what I’m going to get and it’ll be such joy. Four weeks later a little puppy was running around on the carpet, gnawing at chair legs, chewing on slippers, paring its teeth down until they were sharp as scissors, snipping holes in the carpets, peeing on the parquet flooring, wagging its tail every day the girls came home from school, jumping up in their laps, licking their faces and looking up at Pål with almost unbearable trust as it lay in its basket whimpering for fifteen seconds before falling asleep. And it turned out to be true, what that idiot Bjørn Ingvar Totland said during the Christmas party at work a couple of years ago, when he knocked back a beer, looked over at Pål and said that a dog is man’s best friend and a woman man’s worst enemy.

‘Yeaah yeaah, Zitha, Daddy’s coming, yeeah.’ Pål looks at his mobile.

18:45.

93. NANCY ROSE BOTNEVASS (Rudi)

Rudi has a secret. He has it tucked away in a place of such impenetrable darkness that it’s almost hidden from him. He’s dug a hole in his soul and consigned it to the depths. Then he covered it with earth, with stones and cemented it over. He’s promised himself never to go down there again. But the mind cannot be compelled to be silent. The foulness seeps from cracks and fissures no matter how much Rudi tells it to remain below. The foul matter comes before him, presents itself. Oh no. What is it the Gospel of Luke says about repentance? ‘If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.’ Wise words, Luke, but to whom can Rudi speak of the unspeakable? How can forgiveness come about when what we’re speaking of is the unspeakable? Who can Rudi apologise to? And if he was to be granted forgiveness, how can he undo the thing he has done?

It isn’t possible.

That’s the truth, Luke.

What you have done can never be undone.

Some nights are like that: Rudi cries. He lies beside Cecilie, weeping as silently as he can while listening to her breathing in the darkness. He clenches his powerful fists and whispers: ‘I’m sorry, my love. You must never find out, that your Rudi did the unmentionable. That your Rudi went with another woman into the deepest woods. That your Rudi went down on her, and she went down on your Rudi, that once, for a few weeks, almost fifteen years ago I was not myself. I did everything a man is capable of doing with a woman, and that woman was not you, but the daughter of the Devil, Kvinesdal’s very own poisonous flower, Nancy Rose Botnevass.’

Then Rudi sniffles. As quietly as he can. ‘What is it the Lord says,’ he whispers. ‘Keep thee from strange women’. He strokes Cecilie across her tattoed back, running his fingertips along the eagle’s wings of the Aerosmith logo, feeling the tiny goosebumps on her skin and listening to her heavy breathing. ‘And you must never,’ he whispers even lower, ‘you must never get to hear of this, Cecilie. Or to put it another way, you must never catch sight of my cock — your cock — on a TV screen. Thank God nobody in this house can stand porn.’

He gradually slips into her rhythm and falls asleep. And every morning he awakes. The sun rises in the sky and he’s aware of his own breathing, aware of Cecilie being grumpy and close by; he’s happy he gets to live yet another brilliant day on earth, and in high spirits he breaks bread with pleasure and plunges into the day.

He wept last night, but now he’s ready. The beanpole stands in the basement. He’s dressed in black. He’s confused. He hardly dares think his own thoughts. Outside the sun is sinking, the evening is on its way. Jan Inge and Cecilie are back after parking the moving van in Sandal. Rudi has two fully packed bags in his hands. Baseball bats, hand weights, knuckle dusters, balaclavas and tools. A roll of blue plastic shoe covers, a roll of tape. Scissors. Everything they need to go to work. But he just does not understand what is going on. The way Cecilie has suddenly been behaving. Snogging him as though he were Steven Tyler. It scares the pants off him. And the way her eyes were sparkling and one thing and the fucking other, and acting all sexy like she never has before. And then complete silence. Total shut off. And Tong? He should have stayed behind lock and key. And Tommy Pogo? Turning up all over the place?

Fucking Thursday.

Right, time to get to it. A man needs beating up.

‘Are you lot almost ready?’ he calls out in the direction of the stairs while he scans the room. At some stage this screwed-up family probably harboured ideas about what this room would be used for, a pool table for the kids, carom, board hockey, maybe a cosy den, a little bar, who knows, some kittens in a basket. Now it smells strongly of mould and it’s minging everywhere. Rudi relaxes his facial muscles and shakes his head before setting his foot on the bottom step and ascending the staircase.

Tong is in the hallway, dressed in black, his body taut. Everything has gone to hell since he came home. You’d think it was Tong’s fault that troublesome air abounded. Rudi can’t be bothered saying anything to the little Korean. He just nods and avoids looking at Tong, who bends down and begins to tie his shoelaces without responding.

Jan Inge waddles out, dressed in black and looking fat — he needs to consider cutting back on guzzling now, bit much flab bursting out. Jani doesn’t say anything either.

Eventually Cecilie joins them, dressed in black and looking anxious. She slips her little feet into her shoes.

Rudi knits his brows when he sees Jan Inge open the closet door beneath the stairs and take out the pump-action shotgun. Cecilie stops tying her shoelaces. Tong raises one black eyebrow ever so slightly.

‘What’s the story?’ Rudi asks, as he watches Jan Inge put a box of shotgun shells into the bag.

Jan Inge gives a faint shrug.

‘Is there a meeting on in the Arms and Armour Society? What’s with the shooter? Are we not anti-violence?

‘Yes, we are.’

‘So? We’re not planning on putting someone in a coffin, or have we started with that now?’

Jan Inge shakes his head slightly. ‘Rudi, Rudi. Take it easy. We’re just raising the level of security a notch. You know. Pogo. Tampon.’

‘You’re going to shoot a cop?!’

‘Rudi. Look at me. I’m not going to shoot anyone. It’s just for … security.’

Cecilie finishes tying her laces, Tong listens with his mouth shut and Rudi yields to the leader.

‘So we’re ready?’

Jan Inge’s eyes sweep each of them in turn.

‘Yeah,’ says Cecilie.

‘Can’t wait,’ says Tong in a sarcastic tone.

‘Headgear, hairbands and hairnets, footwear and shoe covers, handgear, gloves, tape?’

Cecilie nods.

‘Knuckle dusters, baseball bat, table leg, hand weights, speed?’

Rudi gives the bags in his hands an affirmative shake.

‘Good,’ says Jan Inge, ‘then we just need to get on with it.’

This is depressing. The lousy atmosphere is so thick it fills the room like exhaust fumes. No more snogging now. Not even Rudi, who prides himself on his ability to raise a smile, could turn this room around. Strike a warm blow for love.

Because everything, Rudi feels, is a matter of love.

Nancy Rose Botnevass didn’t have hips like shelves, or nubbly skin, or eyes set far apart that made her look like a burrowing animal, or crooked lips and tiny little mollusc eyes. She smelt of randy soil and salt ore, had lips like a bitch, drove a tractor and went elk-hunting like a man. She was a poisonous flower with a gap between her two front teeth, a she-devil with enormous thigh muscles, so greedy she ate your house clean and it was impossible to keep your hands from her skin, because it was nature at work. Everyone who’d been near her knew that she was born with an electric fervour and if she wanted something, she got it. In the valley, people said that nobody had ever seen a smile cross Nancy’s face, they said she never slept at night, but went up on the heath, sniffed at the moss, talked to grouse and killed adders with just a look, and there were rumours that it wasn’t Solomon the priest who was her father, but a lynx from up on Krokevasshei, and that Rose Marie wasn’t her mother but an eagle from Mjauntjønn.

You smell like a bull, Rudi, she had whispered.

‘Okay,’ Jan Inge says, opening the door on the last light of the September day and on the van outside, ‘let’s drive up to Pål Fagerland’s and give him a good working over.’

The loudest screams you hear can be your own.

94. THAT’S NOT GOING TO BRING YOU AROUND (Tiril)

Tiril enters the backstage area with her jaw muscles tensed and her eyes narrowed. The room is packed with people, the air buzzing with different languages and diverse English pronunciation. The make-up group fit masks on the Finnish girls who are going to perform a dramatic piece, the wardrobe group have put out the clothes people will wear, numbered the hangers and hung up an information sheet at the entrance. People tiptoe nervously around, Svein Arne wanders this way and that, curly hair dancing and forehead sweaty, some people are biting their nails, and everyone has a serious look in their eyes because they all know there’s a girl in hospital and they all agree with Frida and the headmaster: we’ll perform for freedom, democracy, solidarity and for Sandra.

Tiril doesn’t want any help. Not with make-up. Not with clothes. She doesn’t want smiles from people and she doesn’t want to smile back. She has no idea who a third of them are and she doesn’t have time to get to know them. This is make-believe, but my day is authentic. I am Amy Lee. I’ve grown up by the Arkansas River and this is much too real. I’m going to fill the hall with pain, let it bleed out of my mouth and eyes so those poetry-reciting, guitar-playing, dancing kids know they’ve been totally parked.

‘It’s not really on, arriving so late, Tiril,’ Svein Arne says. ‘You do know that?’

She looks at him, feeling her gaze send a spear between his eyes, penetrating the flesh.

‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘I know everything.’

Thea hurries past: ‘Have you seen my shoes?’

Tiril gets changed. Because now she’s going to be someone other than herself. The black tights. They have a nice sheen to them when they’re stretched tight across her skin. The black shoes with the high heels. The black skirt. The black top. The black shawl. The bold, red lipstick. The purple eye shadow. Her fringe, which she takes right above her eyebrows. The shawl she’ll let drape down over her face.

Tiril studies herself in the mirror while people scurry all around her. The foreign kids Thea is so friendly with. Ulrik Pogo. Svein Arne, who’s more nervous than anyone; does he not realise how hideous those curls look, doesn’t he have a wife and don’t they have a pair of scissors in their house?

Sometimes it’s such a pain being a part of something.

Just twenty-fours ago this was all she wanted.

Now it’s the exact opposite.

They’re the fourth act on. First out is a girl from Nicaragua, who’s going to deliver a speech on peace. Then Ulrik, who’ll play ‘Stairway to Heaven’. People will no doubt sit with their heads cocked to the side, thinking he’s so cute that it’ll seem like the whole hall is dipped in honey. Everyone remembers what Frida Riska said the day he began at school, and some said she was actually talking about herself: You are so pretty, Ulrik Pogo, that a lot of people are going to have trouble being in the same room as you, so your challenge, young man, will be not to allow the dazzling looks you’ve been blessed with to govern your entire life.

After Ulrik, the two Finnish girls from Jyväskyla are performing a drama about fair trade.

Then they’re up. Tiril would have liked to be last, she said as much to Svein Arne, but it wasn’t up to her to decide. You two will be number four, Svein Arne had said. Yeah, who’s going to help us take the lights right down, then? The volunteer helpers will take care of it.

Tiril applies the eye shadow.

Mum, that witch, has said a lot of stupid things, but there’s one thing she said that Tiril will never forget: if you want something done, Tiril, then do it yourself.

Light the pillar candles. Look at the frightened faces in the audience. Walk up to the microphone.

I’m so tired of being here.

I’ll bring you round, Sandra. Watch out, Daniel, I’m not finished with you.

Tiril takes a step back from the mirror. She narrows her eyes, feeling she can shoot sparks from them. Then the corners of her mouth begin to quiver. At first she doesn’t understand what it is, and she brings her hand to her mouth as though something strange is emanating from her body, and presses two flat fingertips to the side of her mouth, but then in the mirror she sees that her eyes are shiny and she feels it in her throat, how something’s growing and she realises she’s crying.

She closes her eyes and orders herself to count to twenty.

Opens her eyes again.

There we go. Her mouth is taut. Her eyes are normal.

The headmaster and Frida Riska enter the backstage area. Frida claps her hands twice to quieten people down. She nods to Svein Arne.

‘Only two minutes to go, folks.’ Svein Arne talks in a low voice and gathers the teenagers around him. He calls each and every one of them by their name and says, in his impressively poor English, how proud he is of this production, how hard they’ve worked, and how positive it is that so many talented, hard-working people from Stavanger’s twin towns have come to make this very special cultural evening about solidarity, democracy and freedom: ‘Okay, all ready?’

The kids whistle and clap, Tiril remains rigid, and then Svein Arne’s face takes on an idiotic expression that makes him look like a mother admiring her little girls as they stand in front of her, dressed up for a Christmas dinner. He straightens the red-and-white shirt he’s put on for the occasion, turns to the teenagers one last time, lifting his eyebrows twice in rapid succession, before slipping out between the gap in the stage curtain.

Cheering and clapping greets his entrance. ‘Yeah! Gosen! Hello everybody! Wow!’

‘You ready?’ Thea shifts nervously from foot to foot beside her.

‘Of course I’m ready,’ says Tiril, while they hear Svein Arne give a speech to the audience about the value of unity and the exchange of experience across national boundaries.

Tiril looks at her. ‘Stage fright?’

‘No, just…’ Thea shifts her weight on her small feet again. ‘Hasn’t been the most ordinary of days.’

‘So?’ Tiril entwines her fingers, twists her hand around at arm’s length and cracks her knuckles.

‘Okay,’ Svein Arne says from the other side of the curtain, ‘I’m going to hand you over to the headmaster who wants to say a few short words.’

Frida nods to the headmaster and he walks out on to the stage. ‘I don’t want to keep you,’ he says, ‘but I have some information to share. Earlier today there was an accident at the school. One of our pupils, Sandra Vikadal, lost consciousness and was taken to hospital in an ambulance.’

There’s silence in the hall, as well as backstage.

‘We’ve decided to go ahead with this evening of culture…’ says the headmaster, pausing slightly. Frida Riska nods. ‘…Because we don’t wish to allow despair to defeat us.’

The audience claps. Tiril can hear from the sound of it that they clap the way people do when they feel they have won. But what is it they have won?

‘We haven’t heard anything new from the hospital,’ says the headmaster. ‘I spoke to them not too long ago. Her condition is critical, but stable.’

Silence spreads through the hall again.

‘We can do this,’ says the headmaster, placing emphasis on each word. ‘Now, would you please welcome back, our very devoted teacher, the man who’s put this wonderful evening together, Svein Arne Bendiksen!’

Tiril’s throat is itchy. We can do this. We? The clapping grows louder and the stage curtain is drawn aside, the headmaster and Svein Arne swap places and Frida Riska hastens to her seat. Svein Arne introduces ‘a brave girl from Nicaragua’, and the show is underway.

Tiril takes a small step forward. She puts her head slightly to the right and glances out into the dimly lit hall. There’s not one chair free. There are people standing along the walls. She directs her gaze along the rows of faces trying to catch sight of Malene, Dad and Shaun, but she can’t spot them. She sees other parents, Ulrik’s mum and dad, Tommy Pogo and his wife, along with Kia in the wheelchair, Thea’s folks, her dad with that irresistible smile of his, and there, in the first row sit the teachers, Frida Riska, Mai and the others.

Tiril sees Sandra’s face. It enters her mind with such clarity, such intensity, that she almost feels the girl is in the room. She shakes her head, shoves the image aside and concentrates. She holds the matchbox tightly.

The curtain is pulled aside again; Tiril hears the foreign tones of the girl from Nicaragua fill the room and thinks how it sounds like talking soil. Svein Arne catches her eye and lifts his eyebrows enthusiastically, twice, as if to say eh, exciting, eh.

A taut sensation takes hold of her body, a false sensation, her head feels dizzy and she wishes she could think clearly. We? What is it we can do? Poor Sandra, kind Malene, psycho Veronika, dangerous Daniel, distracted Dad, bloody Mum, cool Shaun, screwed-up Kenny and weird Bunny.

‘Shit, I can feel it in my stomach,’ Thea says, rubbing her hands together.

There’s applause from the gym hall, Tiril’s throat itches and Svein Arne pats Ulrik on the shoulder. He’s standing with the guitar in his hand, an Idol hairdo and admirable self-assurance in his eyes: ‘You’re up next, Ulrik, good luck!’

Svein Arne disappears out to the enthusiastic parents: ‘Wasn’t that fantastic? Salve a ti, Nicaragua!’ Fresh applause. ‘And now, one of our own, Ulrik Pogo from 10A with his version of Led Zeppelin’s timeless classic “Stairway to Heaven”!’

Ulrik, glistening slightly above his top lip, where he’s begun to perspire at the last minute, unveils a gleaming set of teeth and walks towards the stage curtain. It’s drawn aside and once again Tiril catches a glimpse of the audience; Ulrik’s parents, the parents of the people in her class, Frida Riska, looking close to tears.

Tiril lets her gaze wander and then stop abruptly.

It can’t be.

While the black curtain is still drawn, while Ulrik is given a stool and the lighting is being adjusted, she has time to confirm it: Mum.

It’s Mum sitting there. Between Shaun and Malene. It’s not Dad.

The curtain comes together, Ulrik picks the first notes of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and Tiril clenches her fists.

Fucking Led Zeppelin.

She grinds her teeth. You leave us behind without giving a shit, you stay away year after year, and now you show up? And think everything’s okay?

‘What is it?’ Thea whispers. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No,’ Tiril replies brusquely. ‘What would be wrong? Are you ready?’

Thea nods. ‘Nervous. But, like, yeah. I’m ready.’

‘Good,’ Tiril says. She turns to Thea. ‘And when you catch sight of my mother out there in the hall, don’t flip out. I have no idea what she’s doing here. But forget it. She can do whatever she wants as far as I care. We’re going to be amazing, okay?’

‘Your mother?’

‘Forget it, all right? Are you ready?’

‘Stairway to Heaven’ finishes, to rapturous applause, whistling and whoops, wow, the length of that boy’s nails, he can sing, takes after his mother there, poor thing, must be tough for Kia having a brother like that, I mean, he’s almost unnervingly good-looking that boy, but you know what, I think there’s nearly something scary about him. No matter what Ulrik Pogo does he bowls people over.

‘Eh?’ Svein Arne calls out above the tremendous response of the crowd in the hall. ‘If that didn’t blow you away, then I don’t know what will, Gosen! Okay, now we’re moving on to something different, to the world of theatre, to a little piece about taking care of our planet, where we’ll witness the talents of two fantastic Finnish girls!’

Fresh applause.

‘I’ll be back in two minutes,’ she says, turns on her heels and leaves. Thea gawks at her as though Tiril has told her she’s off to murder someone, but that can’t be helped right now. She’s nauseous, her throat itches and something’s just not right. She walks quickly towards the door. Her throat feels blocked and her head is swirling and she needs a smoke. The sharp evening air snatches at her skin as she emerges outside.

She goes around the back of the gym hall and lights up a cigarette with unsteady hands.

I need to calm down.

That’s what Mum always said.

Don’t lose your head.

That’s rich, coming from her.

People have always said that Tiril is like her mother.

She inhales the smoke, feels it tear at her throat.

No frigging way I’m like Mum.

Sing now? And where’s Dad? Solidarity? Freedom? Democracy? Song? That’s not going to bring you round, Sandra.

Tiril takes one last drag and flicks the cigarette away. She walks around the building and up to the front entrance, where she can see into the hall. She leans towards the glass and makes out her mother’s profile. The slanted, yellow streak of a moped headlamp lights up her back.

95. ELECTRA (Tong)

Jan Inge sits behind the wheel, dressed in black from head to toe. Hansi’s Transporter, a grey 1998 model, will soon have 300,000 on the dial; it splutters a bit in low gear, and one of the back windows leaks, but it’s not a bad van for an old banger. Tong is in the passenger seat, also all in black, and Rudi and Cecilie sit in the back.

Tong is so pissed off that he can barely keep a lid on it, but he’s told himself that this is something he just needs to get through. Make a bit of cash, because he sorely needs to, and then turn his back and walk the fuck away from this gang. There are better people to work with out there. And if that doesn’t pan out, he can go solo, like Melvin Gausel. Melvin was head of the Kvernevik Gang, did a great job, but suddenly one day chubby chops and his shrill laughter were gone, some people said he’d been snapped up by the crowd around Toska in Oslo, some said he’d been sighted in Gothenburg, others maintained he’d been killed by Mini from Haugesund in a drunken quarrel, but then some genius began to put two and two together after a series of outstanding robberies were carried out in the region, several in the space of a month, all impeccably executed and unsolved: Melvin had gone it alone. Impressive. Lives up in Randaberg now, has an Asian wife, and works for himself. Tong could do that. Do it even better than Fat Melvin. Is there anyone in the district who knows more about security and breaking into places than Tong?

No.

Cecilie deserves a kick in her slut stomach. If it wouldn’t cause such trouble, he’d have beat her until she was lying on the tarmac and then stamped on her until she was dead. Sitting back there holding hands with Rudi. And he doesn’t have a clue, the idiot, but that’s not surprising; trust her? Trust women?

Tong leans his elbow on the door and looks out the side window as Jan Inge changes gear to ascend Ullandhaugbakken.

Those letters. Not easy to get your head around. Shouldn’t Sverre and Ragnhild have let him know about it? He left home — his Norwegian parents’ home — a long time ago. Tong was in and out of Child Welfare institutions from the age of thirteen, and those poor parents in Bømlo couldn’t keep up. Wasn’t their fault. Sverre and Ragnhild did what they could, but sometimes what you can do isn’t good enough.

They told him his Korean parents were dead, but they failed to tell Tong he had a sister out there somewhere. They could have mentioned it. They could have told him she lived less than fifty miles away in Egersund. They could have told him that she had two kids and played in the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. Must be talented. Sharp-witted. Precise. Tong is too. Must be in their genes. A violinist in a symphony orchestra. Intense, able to concentrate, with an ability to focus. What was it she wrote? ‘We have opened the new concert hall now, it’s absolutely beautiful, we’re going to perform Electra. Are you familiar with that opera?’

Tong went to the prison library and asked if they had anything called Electra. Greek tragedy, said the librarian, Iselin Vasshus, and gave Tong a strange look. He really wouldn’t mind fucking her, he thought, and nodded. Whatever, he said. Sophocles, Iselin said, gathering her nut-brown hair into a bun in her hand. All right, said Tong, so do you have it? No, said Iselin, and gave a lopsided smile, mostly crime here. Well, can you get it, Tong asked, and pictured himself taking hold of Iselin by the hair, pushing her face down on to the desk and taking her from behind. Yes, I can order it, she said. What’s it about? Tong asked. It’s about revenge, Iselin answered — nearly all the Greek tragedies are about that.

‘Revenge?’

‘Mhm.’

‘Revenge for what?’

‘Electra and her brother, I can’t remember his name, take revenge on their mother, Clytemnestra.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she killed Agamemnon. The father.’

‘So how do they take revenge?’

‘The brother — Orestes, that was his name — murders her, I think.’

Tong clenched his teeth and nodded.

‘With a knife?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But why did the mother kill her husband?’

‘He sacrificed their daughter.’

‘Sacrificed?’

‘Yes, before the war. Iphigenia. On the orders of the gods.’

‘Hm.’

‘That’s how it is in the Greek tragedies.’

‘Hm. Sound good — the Greek tragedies.’

‘Yes, they are. They’re our heritage in many ways. But — why are you so interested in this?’

‘What do you mean by our heritage?’ Tong asked, leaving her question unanswered.

‘Well, our cultural heritage. Many people are of the opinion that everything we do and think is to be found there, in ancient Greek culture.’

‘Hm. So, it’s the daughter, this Electra one, and her brother Orestes who bump off the mother, this Clytemnestra.’

‘Yes, at least that’s how I remember it from lit crit.’

‘Lit crit?’

‘Literary theory and criticism,’ smiled Iselin, and once again Tong pictured holding her hair tight and pressing her cheek down against the tabletop as he took her from behind. ‘I studied it at one stage.’

‘Do you think you know more about life than me because you went to college, is that it?’ Tong cocked his head to the side and looked fixedly at her.

Iselin swallowed, gave another lopsided smile and said: ‘No, I don’t think that, Tong.’

‘I want to borrow that book. Order a copy. I know someone who plays it. In the symphony orchestra.’

The Transporter makes it to the top of Ullandhaugbakken and the view over Hafrsfjord stretches out before them. It’s beautiful. Tong has had plenty of time in Åna to reflect upon what’s beautiful. He’s received three letters from his sister, Jin Eikeland, as she’s called. Three letters. That too is beautiful. He hasn’t managed to reply. But Jin has continued to write. As though she knows that he reads them. As though she’s used to talking to people who don’t respond.

‘Hey,’ says a voice from the back seat.

That big gob of Rudi’s. Tong would like to pour cement down it. Years ago, Rudi was funny, stupid and entertaining. Then he began to get slightly annoying, then he became really irritating, and soon it grew into hate and during his time in prison it’s become unbearable, even the mere thought of his face, of the way he takes up all the space in a room, the thought of that continuing to be a part of Tong’s life; it makes him want to puke.

‘Hey!’ says the voice again from the back seat.

‘Yes, Rudi, what’s on your mind?’ Jan Inge replies as he takes a right turn and drives alongside Haugtussa, with the tower blocks on the left, only a minute or two from Ernst Askildsens Gate.

‘What is on my mind,’ says Rudi, and Tong can hear how it’s kind of bubbling up in the guy’s throat, ‘is that we need to put down the hatchets here. We can view life as a billy can, yeah? Sometimes it can be a bit much. And I’ve been sitting here thinking. We are such friggin’ old friends, we have gone through so much feckin’ shit together, and then today has been a bit screwed up, and yes, I’m willing to take a share of the blame, I mean, what kind of buffalo am I who can’t accept love when my woman offers it to me on a silver platter? Yeah, I’m—’

‘But Rudi I—’

‘No, don’t interrupt me, Chessi — like I said, I’m a reptile, but I’m talking now, I’m lifting the words over my tongue, and I see all you guys, I see our shared past in my head, and I’m asking you, as we make our way towards our friend Pål Fagerland, a man we have to do over for his own sake: can we air out this foul atmosphere before we get out of the Transporter?’ Rudi takes a short pause and looks around at them. ‘Can we wash our mouths out with Fairy Liquid and remember what advice Solomon gave us, what The Good Book says? A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Hm? Can we try and recall some good times and enjoy a pleasant hour on the job? Eh?’

Tong can see Jan Inge nodding his head. He puts the van into second and turns into Ernst Askildsens Gate. Jan Inge smiles. Everyone sits smiling and it’s revolting, it’s utterly revolting.

‘Rudi,’ Jan Inge says, ‘you’ve got a real gift when it comes to people, you know that?’

Rudi shrugs proudly, ‘Weeell, I don’t know about that…’

Cecilie gives him a rub on the cheek.

‘Okay,’ Jan Inge says, bending his head down a little and looking out the windscreen. ‘There’s the house. We just need to reverse in … Everyone ready? Beanies on, gloves on. The tape, you have the tape, Rudi? We don’t want to leave any traces behind.’

Rudi nods, finds the roll of tape in the bag and takes it out. He picks at the roll with a fingernail to work the end free and then tapes over the gap between his gloves and sleeves, before passing it to Cecilie.

‘Electra,’ Tong says.

‘Hm?’

‘I read a book in prison.’

‘Hey! Tongo! Man of books now, too!’

‘A Greek tragedy,’ he says coldly.

‘Wow! A Greek tragedy! Mr I-Read-A-Lot from Korea!’ Rudi thumps him on the back and lets out a loud laugh.

Tong wants to pulverise Rudi’s face. But he controls himself. ‘There’s a woman,’ he continues while putting on his gloves, ‘in this book, who kills her mother. She’s called Electra. And there’s a line in it where it says: The result excuses any evil.’

Jan Inge shrugs. ‘Well. I have heard better quotations than that, to be honest with you, so if that’s the level of Greek tragedies these days I can’t say I’m overly impressed. Your suffering will be legendary, even in hell, to put it like that.’

‘Heh heh! Brother of quotes! There you go, Mr Reader, you’ll never reach Jani’s level.’

Tong has never killed anyone. No one in the gang has ever killed a person. That has been one of their most important principles. Life will not be lost due to our work.

Jan Inge has reversed the Transporter into the drive, backed right up to the garage door, which is opening from the inside. ‘Okay,’ he says, and backs into the garage, at the same time as Tong catches sight of the outline of a small man in the rear-view mirror. It looks like he’s trying to hide in there.

‘Let’s get to it,’ Jan Inge says. ‘Everyone all set? Everyone sharp? Hairnets on, everyone?’

You must come visit Egersund sometime, Jin wrote, when you get out of Åna. It would be so nice to see you. Sometimes I feel like I know you, even though we have never met one another. Ofttimes I feel like I would understand more about myself if only I had the opportunity to meet you, my brother. I won’t judge you by the life you have lived, that you should know. Come to Egersund, we have a big guest room with a comfy bed.

Why not?

Why not leave all this behind and go knock on a door in Egersund? The garage door comes back down and shuts, and Rudi rubs his hands together before taking out the small bag of speed he has in his pocket. His eyes are sparkling as he uses his driving licence to set up a few lines on the dashboard. Tong has a ticking sensation in his temples. He ought to keep away from this stuff. But he accepts the speed as it’s offered round, placing a finger over one nostril, sniffing it up the other and feeling it hit.

Rudi is electric. He takes hold of the blue roll of shoe bags Cecilie hands him, pulling a pair over his shoes while he laughs. He opens the side door of the Transporter, that long, bloody body of his tottering out into the garage like Pinocchio on speed, and he calls out: ‘Pål Schmål! Well? Been keeping away from the internet?’

Tong has never killed anyone.

But there’s a first time for everything.

96. DANIEL’S WISH (Daniel William)

Daniel slows down the Suzuki a little way off from the gym hall. Veronika, riding pillion, shifts uneasily behind him.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asks. ‘We shouldn’t be here, can’t we just go back to the practice room and—’

‘Shut up.’

Daniel dismounts. He sets down the kickstand and parks. There’s a girl standing over by the gym hall.

‘Daniel, you can’t just ride around thinking I’ll go with you without having a clue where we’re—’

‘I’m squaring things up,’ he interjects.

Veronika squints in annoyance. ‘And I’m supposed to like, understand that? That we come here? Were we not going to leave—’

‘We will leave,’ he says, cutting her off again. ‘But I have to square things up first.’ Daniel throws his hands up in frustration: ‘I’ve asked you before and I’m asking you again, are you type who needs to know everything?’

‘No, I—’

‘Well shut up, then.’

‘But you said you wouldn’t go to her—’

‘I’m not going to her! I’m squaring things! Shut up!’

The girl by the gym hall turns to look at them. It’s that Tiril one. Pål’s daughter. She’s dressed in an emo get-up, black from head to toe, her eyes are teary and she doesn’t look too good.

He starts to walk towards the gym hall and Veronika follows.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she asks when they reach her, fixing two purple eyes on Daniel. ‘Are you sick in the head? And you,’ she points at Veronika, ‘you should be locked up.’

‘Give it a rest,’ Daniel says, noticing how easy it is to talk to this girl, ‘how’s Sandra doing?’

‘What the hell do you care?’ Tiril answers, taking out a stick of gum before beginning to make her way round the other side of the building. ‘Start reading the obituaries if you’re that interested.’

Daniel feels a hand close around his heart and squeeze it.

‘Relax,’ Veronika says, ‘I know her. She’s a drama queen.’

Daniel draws a breath. ‘I need to know if she’s alive or not,’ he says.

‘Please,’ says Veronika. ‘We can’t be here. Don’t you understand anything? If they see you it’s all over.’

Daniel walks towards the heavy doors, opens one and hears the applause grow inside the gym hall. Veronika goes after him. It’s packed, not one seat free. Daniel keeps his eyes down and sidles along the wall bars together with Veronika, hoping not to be noticed.

Within a few seconds they’ve gained the attention of the entire hall. Face after face turns to look in their direction, as though he and Veronika were magnets. One set of eyes after the other stare at them. Whispering, muttering.

A wildly enthusiastic guy with socialist curls and round glasses comes on stage. He says that that was just amazing, fantastic girls, and then he spreads his arms wide: ‘And now we’re going to enter the world of emotion! Into the darkness! Please give a big welcome to Tiril and Thea, who are going to perform Evanescence’s “My Immortal”.’

The attention of the audience has been divided. A lot of eyes are focused on the stage and a lot of eyes are looking directly at Daniel and Veronika. The teachers are talking together in hushed tones.

‘W-e-n-e-e-d-t-o-g-o,’ Veronika mouths. ‘N-o-w.’

He doesn’t reply.

A girl has taken up position beside Daniel. He turns his head slowly, bringing it around as though on a rail, while keeping his eyes on the stage, where Tiril and Thea emerge from between a gap in the curtain. One black and one white angel. The lights in the hall dim, turning everything red, then green.

Daniel’s eyes settle on the girl beside him. It’s Malene.

‘Yeah?’ he whispers, as if he doesn’t know what she wants.

‘What are you doing here?’ she whispers harshly. ‘How have you got the nerve to come here? Have you turned yourself in to the police?’

‘Malene,’ he whispers, his forehead lowered, ‘please.’

‘Haven’t you two caused enough problems?’

‘Malene,’ he whispers, rarely having seen such an angry face. ‘Have you heard anything about Sandra? Tell me what you know, and I’ll do what I need to.’

‘She’s in a coma,’ Malene says. ‘That’s all we know.’

He nods. Then he says: ‘Please. Go home.’

Malene is taken aback, a line bisects her eyebrows.

‘Go home,’ he whispers, beginning to move towards the exit. ‘Okay? Go home. There’s something seriously fucked-up going on with your dad.’

The room is bathed in a dim, dark red light. Thea sits by the piano. She’s white as aching snow that makes your eyes smart. She places her fingers on the keys and plays the first notes. Tiril stands in front of her holding a lit match. The flame trembles in front of her, casting a reflection on her skin, making troubled waves on her face. The girl stands with her gaze fixed and face impassive, looking like some black, twisted progeny of Satan, thinks Daniel, and the hate she radiates is not foreign to him; on the contrary, it feels soothing, stimulating and welcome. If the girl on the stage was to open her mouth and say Daniel, come with me, and we’ll make the pain worse, he would obey.

Tiril lifts her chin, lets her gaze sweep over the room as the flame burns closer and closer to her fingers, before bringing the match to a pillar candle and the wick begins to glow, and Daniel hopes she manages to burn the whole world down.

‘Sorry,’ he whispers.

The music increases in volume. Daniel opens the door, with Veronika right behind him. They run towards the Suzuki.

97. SHALL WE MAKE A START? (Jan Inge)

‘So Pål, you in form?’

‘Heh heh, formformform?’

‘How’s the form, Pål?’

‘Heh heh, form schmorm?’

Pål stands with his arms hanging loosely at his sides in the dimly lit garage. His eyes are as they should be, puppylike. He stands at the back wall radiating docility. Offering a reassuring impression immediately.

Jan Inge walks across the concrete floor. ‘What do you say? In form?’

Pål is dressed casually. He doesn’t appear to have worked himself into a tizzy deciding what to wear. Jeans. A simple, stripy shirt. He’s newly shaved. That’s good. His complexion looks clean and fresh. Which means he slept last night. That’s a good sign. No one needs Pål roving around like a nervous wreck. No one needs Pål with bags under his eyes and his head all a frazzle when they’re going to work him over.

Jan Inge nods and smiles. ‘Hm, Pål? Good form?’

‘Heh heh, form the norm?’ Rudi draws up alongside Jan Inge and slaps Pål on the arm. ‘Good to see you, Mr Poker Joker! Sprouted more grey hairs lately? What does the word of the Lord have to say about that, Pål Kål? Grey hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life. And what else does God say: A truly wise person uses few words; a person with understanding is even-tempered. Well, that’s sure not me the Good Book is talking about!’

‘Rudi. Easy now.’

Rudi mimes a gun with his finger and thumb and shoots himself: ‘Relaxed Rupert. Heh heh.’

‘Well,’ Pål says, ‘I’m … yeah, suppose I’m in form. Just want to get this over with. Y’know.’

Cecilie approaches Pål. She smiles warmly and places a gloved hand on one of his arms hanging limply by his side.

Jan Inge feels his chest swell with pride as he watches her do it in such a gentle, maternal fashion. Generate stability. Offer him assurance. He’s also aware of how little Rudi likes her doing it, so he takes a quick hold of his friend as he makes to move towards his girlfriend.

‘Rudi. This is work,’ he whispers.

Rudi exhales through his nose and nods.

‘Are you scared?’ Cecilie asks, presenting her most feminine side.

Pål shrugs. ‘Scared … I, well…’

‘I can understand that,’ she says. ‘Where’s the dog? That cute dog, what was it call—’

‘I,’ Pål gives a lopsided smile, ‘I left her in the basement, figured maybe—’

‘That’s good.’ Cecilie pats him on the arm. ‘This is going to work out just fine. Okay? You’re among friends. Rudi, Jan Inge, my brother, and Tong.’ She points to the silent Korean who’s closely inspecting the garage and its contents. ‘It’s the four of us who are working today. And in order for this to go well, you need to view us as your friends. Okay?’

Pål clears his throat.

‘Okay, Pål?’

He nods.

‘Good. Then there’re just a few things we need to go through with you, okay, Pål?’

Pål raises his eyebrows.

‘Okay, Pål?’

This truly is Cecilie at her absolute best. It’s just a shame that this social, feminine and tremendously perceptive side only comes to the fore when we’re at work. Imagine if it was more evident on the home front, if she was like this when the house needed cleaning or when she got up for breakfast. But, it’s important to look ahead. Jan Inge harbours hope that she’ll be filled from top to toe like this after she gives birth. He has faith that this child, who may be Rudi’s, or Tong’s, but for God’s sake must remain unspoken of for the next while, that this child will fill her with maternal joy.

Pål sniffles and clears his throat again. ‘Yeah,’ he says.

‘Great,’ Cecilie says, reminiscent in no small measure of a nurse who has done something unpleasant to a patient, but who still has the ability to coax a smile, ‘great.’ She turns to Jan Inge, giving him a barely perceptible nod. ‘Jan Inge? Will you present Pål with a quick run-through of what’s going to take place?’

Jan Inge takes a step forward. Out of the corner of his eye he notices Rudi has wandered over to a workbench at the end of the garage where he is standing messing about with something. A bird table?

‘Rudi!’

‘Heh heh. Oops! Ich komme, mein General!’ Rudi puts the bird table aside. ‘Yess, the Rudi reporting for duty. What’s going on?’

Jan Inge ignores him, he knows this is how Rudi reacts to speed, straight into his bloodstream at the start, but stabilises pretty quickly.

‘Yes,’ Jan Inge says, hiking up his black work pants, taking hold of the belt and trying to almost hook the trousers over his ample hips, ‘shall we go inside?’

‘Sorry,’ Pål says, showing the way, ‘it’s through here.’

‘A door from the garage right into the house,’ Jan Inge remarks, clicking his fingers. ‘I like that. Pål. I like it a lot.’

They enter a hall. A series of family photos in IKEA frames hang along the walls. Two girls aged about ten with a large cod in their laps, a girl with a ponytail wearing a purple leotard with silver stars on it, holding a trophy in her hands, a girl sitting in a little car in what must be Legoland. The four of them are dressed in black and focused, they carry their black bags, all having taped the gaps between footwear and trousers, between sleeves and gloves, all wearing blue shoe bags, all with hairnets and hats. Pål leads them into a spacious kitchen. An ordinary kitchen table. Five chairs. A plastic tablecloth. A coffee maker, toaster and radio. Curtains drawn, very good. Pål pulls out the chairs and the four of them sit down at the table.

‘Great, Pål,’ Jan Inge says, with a satisfied smile and a real warmth in his cheeks, ‘we’re off to a good start.’ He glances at the clock on the wall. ‘Okay. We need to be relatively efficient here. As I’m sure you understand.’

Pål presses his lips together and rests his elbows on the table. A padding, shuffling sound comes from the stairs to the basement and a moment later a dog’s head appears in the doorway.

‘Pål!’ Jan Inge lifts his hands up in exasperation. ‘Did we not talk about—’

Pål hurries over to Zitha and grabs her by the scruff. ‘I must not have — sorry, I’ll make sure to—’

‘You’d better,’ Jan Inge says sternly, watching Pål pull Zitha down the stairs while admonishing her. He returns a moment later.

‘There. Now she’s well secured to—’

‘We won’t talk about it any more, Pål,’ Jan Inge says calmly. ‘Now. Before we start, would you put some coffee on, just so it looks like we’ve barged in while you were going about your daily routine? You could also put out a loaf of bread on the worktop, you might want to take it from the wrapper and cut a slice, and place some salami beside it and leave the fridge door ajar, then it won’t look too far off.’

Pål jumps up as though having received strict orders, nodding with reassuring appreciation, does exactly as he’s asked and does it quickly: takes out the filters, measures out the amount of coffee, fills the water, turns on the coffee machine, takes the bread from the bread bin beneath the window and opens the door of the fridge.

‘Very good, Pål,’ Cecilie says.

‘Cheese, is that all right?’

‘Can’t go wrong with cheese, Pål. I like your willingness to cooperate,’ Jan Inge says. ‘If everyone was like you, things would be a lot more tidy in our line of business. In any case,’ he continues, feeling an almost Mediterranean warmth spread through his stomach, ‘our purpose is to leave you in a sufficiently altered—’

‘Altered!’ Rudi bangs his fist on the table. ‘I love that fucking word so much I want to screw it!’

‘Rudi! That’s enough!’ Jan Inge clicks his fingers loudly at Rudi. ‘I beg your pardon, Pål. The purpose, as I was saying, is to leave you altered to the extent that there’s no doubt as to what has taken place. It’s in your interest and our interest. You need the money. We don’t need the attention. And the dog stays in the basement.’ Jan Inge sees Pål nod energetically. ‘That’s great. You maintain the first impression you make. Have you always done that?’

‘Eh?’

‘Have you always maintained the first impression you make?’

‘No, I don’t quite — what do you mea—’

‘Something I often think about. That a person presents themselves in some way or another. Appears to be a certain way. And then a winter passes and spring rolls by, and suddenly the birch trees are in bloom and you see that this person isn’t what they sold themselves as. While in other cases — yours? — you get what you pay for.’

‘Well, I, yeah—’

Jan Inge holds up the palm of his right hand to signal that they don’t have time to get any further into this, in itself, compelling topic.

‘The alteration. We have to cause you sufficient damage so that nobody can suspect it’s self-inflicted.’

Pål clears his throat once again, deeper this time. ‘Right. Sure. Okay.’ His gaze wanders over the surface of the table. ‘Are you going to have some coffee too? Or will I just leave it on?’

Jan Inge casts a quick glance in Cecilie’s direction, to let her know that she may perhaps need to step in again and behave in a soothing, maternal fashion as the subject is displaying nervous tendencies, but now she doesn’t appear to be paying attention.

‘You can let it sit there,’ he says. ‘We’re not exactly eager to leave any DNA traces. Crime scene investigators these days, they’re a skilled bunch. We do have to cause you some damage. But we’re no more fond of violence than you are. On the contrary, we’re anti-violence, almost pacifists in fact; you don’t need to be worried about permanent injuries. Come and sit down now, Pål. Don’t stand there getting all worked up. No good will come of it. Are you worried?’

Pål lets slip a despairing smile and shuffles back with his head hanging limply, which makes him resemble his dog, before he sits down at the kitchen table with the others.

‘It’s quite understandable,’ Jan Inge says, becoming aware of a mild irritation creeping into his gut over Cecilie no longer being at the ready with that nurselike warmth. ‘But listen.’ He places a soft hand on Pål’s wrist and gives a gentle squeeze. ‘You. Dogman. Father to two beautiful girls. The man who will soon be free.’

‘Hear, hear! Cry freedom!’

‘We know how to punch and kick a body,’ Jan Inge continues, ‘we know what can be broken and what can’t without it having serious consequences.’

‘Youbetya, Pål Wall!’

‘Rudi, could you exercise a modicum of calm?’ Jan Inge speaks slowly to Rudi, letting his eyebrows dance up and down to make him understand that he’s marring the current tactics. ‘You will,’ he goes on, ‘you will feel pain, but it shall pass. My advice to you is to think about how good things are going to be for you and your daughters.’

Jan Inge raises his corpulent form from the seat. He’s definitely going to start working out after this job is over with. He begins to swagger across the floor, doing his best to resemble a barrister or something along those lines. Pål follows him with anxious eyes.

Jan Inge stops. ‘What’s going to happen,’ he says, ‘is the following. Cecilie is going to explore the house. She’ll take a close look at your possessions, point out what we’re going to take with us and what we’re going to wreck. Isn’t that right, Cecilie?’

Cecilie turns to Pål, her face tracing a pretty arc, making her resemble Beverly Hinna, and serves him a smile of class. Good, she’s singing from the same hymn sheet again.

‘The last part,’ Jan Inge continues, ‘is mostly for the sake of realism. It’s important for it to look like the crooks who broke into your house and beat you up were looking for stuff to steal. People like that usually leave a trail of senseless destruction in their wake.’

A hmph sound escapes Rudi, ‘Hopeless sorts.’

‘They’re on drugs and they take pleasure in wrecking things,’ Jan Inge says. ‘They have a need for destruction, Pål. Have you heard of that?’

‘No, can’t say—’

‘It’s the same as when a gang of youths kick the wing mirrors off parked cars. They’re generally acting out after a painful upbringing. They’ve experienced maltreatment and abuse. We’re talking about failure of care a lot of the time. These people have something inside that has to come out. A need for destruction. The crooks that were at your place tonight suffer from something like that. Do you understand, Pål?’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘It sounds … well, realistic.’

‘Good, Pål. You catch on quick.’

‘I think so too,’ Cecilie says.

‘While Cecilie carries out an evaluation of your household contents,’ Jan Inge says, smiling, ‘the three of us will get started on you. We’ll leave a few signs of forced entry, we need to fake a modus operandi so it looks like we’ve broken in. We’ll smash the window beside the front door to make it look like that was how we gained access, we’ll mess up the hall a little — what do you think, Tong, smash the mirror? Evidence of a struggle?’

Tong nods. ‘Enough with a crack in it. Turn a chair over.’

‘If Tong says it’s enough with a crack and an overturned chair, then it’s enough with a crack and an overturned chair.’ Jan Inge nods. ‘So. We’ll rearrange the hallway a little, make it look like a scuffle has taken place, same goes for the kitchen here, where I think we’ll let the main action play out. Or actually.’ He stops to think for a moment. ‘Let me have a look at your living room.’

Pål shows Jan Inge and Pål into the living room and they take a look around. A corner sofa, an armchair, a table, large windows facing the garden.

Tong shakes his head. Jan Inge does the same. He points to a framed photograph standing on a sideboard. The same two girls from the pictures in the hall. They’re about ten or twelve years old in the photo. ‘Your daughters?’

Pål nods gravely.

‘Lovely girls. Think of them. The living room is a no go,’ Jan Inge says as they walk back to the kitchen. ‘This is where we’ll let it all go down. We’ll tie you to one of the chairs. You’ll be in some pain overnight, and sore for a few days after, but without serious injury. And we’ll break a few things around us—’

‘The Tjeeeeensvoll Gang! The Tjeeeensvoll Gang!’ Rudi exclaims, grabbing Cecilie on the behind. ‘Sorry, capo,’ he says, as he receives a stern look from Jan Inge, and removes his hand from her behind, ‘I’m just so happy today. Job satisfaction! Arbeit macht frei!’

‘So,’ Pål says meekly. ‘This … I don’t know what you’d call it … this…’

‘The actual violence, is that what you’re thinking of?’ Jan Inge folds his arms, noticing at the same time that he actually has a pair of tits now.

Pål nods.

‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ Jan Inge says. ‘Would you like to know what we’re going to do beforehand?’

Pål rubs his palms against one another and shifts his weight. ‘Weeell, em … can I get a cup of coffee?’

Jan Inge nods and Pål pours himself a coffee, immediately warming up his nervous hands around it.

‘You don’t want to know,’ Cecilie says, again producing that motherly warmth that impels Jan Inge to believe, truly believe, in the future.

‘Pål,’ she says, with the air of an old-time continuity announcer, ‘it’s not worth it. You’ll only work yourself up and that’ll make the pain worse.’

‘Right,’ Pål says, ‘I see…’

Cecilie strokes him across the cheek and Jan Inge sees Rudi’s eyelids quiver.

‘That is,’ Tong says, ‘if you don’t find it reassuring to know what’s in store. People are different. Some people work in the symphony orchestra, some study lit crit and some specialise in break-ins.’

‘True,’ Jan Inge says, taken aback by Tong’s comparison. He turns to Pål again: ‘It’s something you’ll need to decide for yourself. We’ll blindfold you after we’ve tied you up anyway.’

‘Shit,’ Pål says, putting his hand to his hair, ‘not easy to decide.’

‘That I can well understand,’ Rudi says, seeming more together now.

‘You need to make a decision,’ Jan Inge says, glancing at the clock, ‘we have to get started.’

He leans down to one of the bags by his feet.

‘What have you got inside that?’ Pål asks nervously.

‘That’s sort of what you either want to know or don’t want to know,’ Jan Inge says impatiently. ‘What’s it going to be?’ He looks at Cecilie. ‘Will you start taking a gander round?’

She straightens up and nods. Stroking Pål across the cheek one last time she says, ‘Trust me. Think of your daughters, what were their names again?’

‘Malene and Tiril.’

Cecilie’s forehead relaxes and her face takes on a faraway expression, that of an expectant mother. ‘Malene and Tiril,’ she says, a growing colour in her cheeks, ‘such gorgeous names. I’m sure they’re lovely daughters.’

‘Yeah,’ Pål says, and Jan Inge can see that he’s having a hard time swallowing.

‘Think about them,’ Cecilie says, ‘and just go with it. Think of it as giving birth.’

Jan Inge clears his throat unintentionally.

‘A birth?’

Cecilie nods.

‘Okay,’ Pål says. ‘I’ll go with … that. I don’t want to know anything.’

Tong takes a step forward. He demands attention from everyone in the room, just by the look in his eyes, and he gets it. ‘One last thing,’ he says, ‘there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding about the insurance money.’

‘Yes, that,’ Jan Inge says, producing his inhaler from his pocket and sucking in air.

Pål frowns. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve discussed it within the company—’

‘We’re taking a cut,’ Tong breaks in. He places both hands on the table in front of Pål. ‘Half.’

Pål’s eyes widen. He looks from one of them to the other. ‘But — but — the deal was — the whole point of it is … I need … but, I need a million! It’s not enough with — we made a deal—’

Jan Inge shrugs. Tong keeps his eyes fixed on Pål.

‘We made a de—’

Again, Jan Inge shrugs.

‘But we have—’

Pål stops talking. His chest rises and he exhales slowly, his pallid hands poised for a moment in front of his stomach before falling on to his lap like leaves.

Jan Inge nods. ‘Good, Pål,’ he says, ‘no point making a song and dance about it.’

Rudi bends down to the bag containing baseball bats, hand weights, pliers, knuckle dusters and table legs. Jan Inge takes a bandana from his pocket and hands it to Rudi. Tong holds Pål tight and Rudi ties it around his head. Cecilie turns and walks towards the basement.

‘Hey, we agreed that … I can’t … this isn’t on—’

‘Pål,’ Jan Inge says assertively, ‘that’s enough! Sit down so we can make a start here.’

Rudi tightens the bandana over his eyes. ‘Can you see anything?’

‘You can’t see anything, Pål, can you?’

‘All dark, Pål Wall?’

‘Looks good, Jan Inge! Loads of good stuff to take with us!’

‘Tong, can you hand me that eh … yeah, that…’

‘Has the tape come loose? Look, just hold it here and…’

‘Rudi, see this, can you not…’

‘No, but I was actually thinking of using…’

‘Oh right, you wanted…’

‘Yeah, maestro, I mean, whythehellnot?’

‘Won’t that be a little … all right, yeah, why not?’

‘There’s a nice big TV down here, Jan Inge! And a computer!’

‘Darkness imprisoning me! You there, Pål Nål?’

‘Think of your daughters!’

‘Aww, here’s where that cute dog is. Yeaah, good doggie.’

‘Shall we make a start?’

98. SHE CARRIES HER OWN WEIGHT (Malene)

Tiril glides towards the microphone. She moves as though her feet aren’t touching the ground, a glimmer in her eyes.

There’s something unreal about such a quick-tempered person suddenly becoming so balanced and self-possessed, as if she wasn’t of this world, but of another; and which would that be?

Malene has palpitations and the sound of Daniel’s whispering voice still in her head, there’s something seriously fucked up going on with your dad. Her thoughts race this way and that like scatterbrained pups, not realising what’s going on, other than that something terrible is happening, right now. Ordinarily this gym hall is packed with kids running, climbing ropes or lifting weights, now it seems drowned in pain as it glows in that deep red light; what, Dad, what?

Daniel and Veronika have slipped out, the moped has ridden off, Frida has got to her feet and is tapping something into her phone; is she calling the police, has she realised we were lying?

Malene remains standing by the wall bars. Mum is sitting on a black, plastic chair looking at the stage and Malene’s devil sister is standing in front of the microphone.

Is her head going to start smouldering? Will her skin crackle like a porcelain glaze and smoke begin to seep from the fissures in her head? What is Tiril planning? The people in the gym hall are silent, not seeming like they dare to breathe, not seeming like they dare to swallow, chins forward, cheeks sunken, their hands resting on their laps and between their fingers they have a frail hold on their own hearts.

The first bars of ‘My Immortal’ resound through the room, Thea’s fingers playing them over and over again. The girl at the microphone just stares at the audience. She doesn’t blink.

Dad? What is it?

Tiril raises her hand to her mouth.

What is she going to do?

Tear out her own teeth?

Tiril puts the top of her thumb and finger in her mouth. Takes out some chewing gum and without taking her eyes from the audience, she sticks it to the microphone stand.

‘Sometimes it hurts so much you can hardly breathe.’

Tiril’s voice is deep and flat.

What did she say? Unease spreads through the hall.

‘I’ll say it again: Sometimes it hurts so much you can hardly breathe.’

Tiril keeps her voice clear and cold, as though it were ice.

The audience grow increasingly restless, people begin to shift in their seats, look at those seated next to them. The curtain behind Tiril moves, Svein Arne’s wimpy head comes into view.

Tiril just continues staring at the audience.

Is she not going to sing?

Hold on. It’s not the audience she’s looking at. It’s Mum. Tiril is staring at her mother and the empty chair beside her.

‘Do you hear me?’

Oh, Jesus.

Tiril.

‘Do you hear me?’

Malene peers along the row of chairs. Mum looks small and afraid, almost unrecognisable. Her cheeks are shiny, as though someone’s polished them. She’s crying, and it strikes Malene that she’s never seen her do that before.

‘There’s a girl lying in hospital,’ the icy voice says. ‘We know her. Everyone knows her.’

Now people breathe again. Their hearts are back in their chests, they’ve swallowed, the oxygen has returned to their heads and they breathe again. They move their feet cautiously and nod.

‘Sandra, I’ve been an idiot. You don’t deserve this song, Mum, and you don’t deserve it, Dad.’

Malene gives a start. She feels panic well up in her throat, takes out her mobile, finds Dad’s number and calls.

It’s ringing.

Come on, pick it up.

‘You were run over, Sandra. By the one who said he loved you.’

Frida Riska’s head and neck give a jerk and she sits up in her chair.

‘Daniel William Moi,’ Tirils says. ‘You know who he is. Veronika Ulland sat behind. You know who she is.’

Frida looks at the headmaster, he nods and she gets to her feet, almost stumbling as she makes her way along the row of chairs, mobile phone in hand.

‘They ran off,’ Tiril says. ‘That was gutless.’

Frida punches in a number, runs her hand through her hair and brings the phone to her ear.

‘We lied,’ Tiril says. ‘Sorry, Sandra. We’ll breathe on you now.’

Still ringing. Pick it up, Dad.

Voicemail: Hi, you’ve reached Pål, I can’t take your call right now but leave a message after the beep.

I have to run, Malene thinks, as her body becomes aware of something her mind can’t comprehend, as she hears Tiril’s thin, birdlike, but beautiful voice begin to sing the song Malene hasn’t understood before now: ‘I’m so tired of being here.’

Malene throws open the doors, Mum sits in the hall watching one daughter sing and the other one run, and Malene gets out in front of the gym hall, places her feet on the tarmac, feels how strong her tendons are, feels how her body obeys her, not the slightest stinging, nothing. She carries her own weight across the tarmacked schoolyard, through the small streets, along the lane separating the terraced houses in Anton Brøggers Gate, across the playground and the green area beyond, ringing again, running with the phone to her ear, but her father doesn’t pick up and she slips on the grass as she nears the road by the low-rises, skids and falls, but gets back on her feet, and has the feeling of doing the right thing, but of getting there way too late.

99. STRAIGHT TO VIDEO (Jan Inge)

‘Ow! Fuck! Owwwwwh!’

‘Pål?’

‘Owwwaaaah, owwahhhh, ouchouchouch!’

‘Hey, Pål?’

‘Arrrrghiiii, arrrrghiiii, ouchouchouchouch!’

‘Pål, we’ve talked about this, you can’t make this much noise.’

‘Woof, woof!’

‘Pål, didn’t you say that mutt wasn’t going cause any problems?’

‘Brrrr! Brrrr!’

‘Hey, Rudi! Can you turn off that mobile?’

Jan Inge extends both arms straight out, striking as much of a superior officer-type pose as he possibly can, to signal that he has now reached his limit. Pål writhes in pain, his mouth closed, blood running from his ear and over his neck, from the cut left by Tong’s knife across his cheek.

Jan Inge listens. The dog has quit barking. The mobile has stopped ringing. He lowers his arms and nods to Tong, who has folded the knife and put it back in his pocket. Tong takes a step closer to Pål. He raises his hand and plants the knuckle duster in his face. It is a clean blow, but once again Pål screams like it is the end of the world.

‘Pål! Keep it down! Will you please try and remember what we talked about? Go ahead and scream, but do it on the inside!’

The whimpering from the dog can once again be heard from the basement. Pål swallows his own sounds, his head hangs by tensed muscles in his neck, and all that escapes him are grunts.

‘Good, Tong,’ Jan Inge says, pleased, and he turns his head nearly 180 degrees and shouts in the direction of the stairs: ‘You find anything down there? You got the dog under control?’

‘No problem, it was just the screaming he didn’t like! Some nice stuff here, Buonanotte will be happy!’

Jan Inge nods and tightens his grip around the baseball bat he has in his hands.

‘Brrr! Brrrr!’

He is about to bring it down on Pål’s fingers when once again the telephone vibrates loudly on the table. ‘Rudi? Can you help out a little here? Could you at least turn off that damned mobile phone so I can get on with my job?’

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, Jani, help out? I’m not even—’

Jan Inge stands with the bat raised above his head while he turns to look at Rudi who’s on his way to the kitchen, sulking over Jan Inge lavishing all his attention on Tong. ‘Hold on a sec,’ he says. ‘Who’s calling?’

Rudi lifts his hands in despair. ‘Was I supposed to turn it off or not to turn it off? I’ve switched it off now! You told me to switch it off!’

Jan Inge raises his eyebrows. ‘Fuck it,’ he says, and sets his jaw. He slams the bat down on Pål’s fingers; Pål twists his face in pain and howls even louder. The dog barks in the basement.

‘Pål. I’m going to get angry soon.’

Pål splutters noisily and the dog begins whimpering again.

‘Cecilie! Shut that dog up!’

Jan Inge places the end of the bat on the floor and leans on it, like a golfer. He listens. It is quiet again. The dog is calm. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘You need to learn to answer people when they’re talking to you, Pål. Things just get messy if you don’t. All right. Focus. Next step.’

‘Focus!’ Rudi says in encouragement, but Jan Inge is just not able to deal with his friend now, so he turns instead to Tong and offers him an inquiring look. Tong folds his arms and cocks his head.

‘Hmm,’ says Tong. ‘The fingers?’

He bends down and takes a pair of pliers from the bag.

‘I don’t know if we need to,’ Jan Inge says, ‘surely they’re already broken?’

Tong shrugs and puts the pliers down. ‘The nose?’

‘Hello? Lionel Ritchie? Am I not here?’

Once again Jan Inge ignores Rudi. He checks to see if Pål’s fingers are broken — four of them are — and then stands next to Tong. They both study Pål. He is not screaming, but he snorts as though in labour.

‘Well, yeah,’ Jan Inge says. ‘The nose. We probably ought to do that.’

Rudi peeps over their heads while he waves a broken-off chair leg casually around. ‘Why wouldn’t we?’

‘Why wouldn’t we,’ mimics Jan Inge. ‘What kind of answer is that? Is that your assessment, Rudi? Round and round we go and where we stop nobody knows?’

Cecilie comes walking up the basement stairs. She sighs when she sees Pål’s battered face, the wound from the corner of his mouth and the blood dripping on to his jeans.

‘Oh dear, Pål,’ she says in a gentle voice, ‘you should be glad you can’t see it. Can you keep it down a bit? Hm? For the sake of the dog?’

‘I think so,’ Pål replies breathlessly. ‘It’s just that it’s pretty tough going, this here.’

‘I understand that.’ Cecilie looks at Rudi, who has sat down on one of the kitchen chairs — after having first turned it demonstratively to face the window. He’s crossed his legs and folded his arms, one bagged foot bobbing up and down from the knee.

She leaves him be and turns to Jan Inge. ‘The nose?’

‘That’s what we’re standing here discussing.’

She lines up next to Tong and Jan Inge and studies Pål.

‘We need to do the nose,’ she says, in a firm voice. ‘The people that were here tonight — they would’ve done that, I think.’

‘They would,’ says Jan Inge, allowing himself time to reflect briefly on femininity and motherhood, how much he has missed them down through the years and how nice it will be to have them in the house.

‘We need to,’ says Tong.

‘Of course we need to,’ Rudi says, getting up from the chair.

‘But we hav—’ something between a sign and groan escapes Jan Inge.

‘True, but we can—’

‘We don’t really need to tal—’

‘Pål stamps on the floor. Jan Inge turns to him. ‘Yes, Pål? Did you want to say something?’

‘What are … what … are … you talking … about?’

Jan Inge shrugs. ‘Well,’ he explains, ‘it’s just that we have had a mishap with a nose before.’

‘Mishap? Whatkindamishap?’

‘It’s not really something we ought to be discussing with you, Pål. That just wouldn’t be right. Now we’re going to break it, it will hurt, but Tong knows what he’s doing. Put it this way, the mishap wasn’t his fault—’

‘Yeah, rub it in!’ Rudi shouts.

‘Rudi, don’t be so touchy. Remember what we talked about. Little good comes from taking affront. You only have to look at your brother.’

‘Rubitinbaby! You had to bring up that toe rag in Sandnes as well? One mistake and it haunts you for the rest of your life! I’m here too y’know, I do exist! What is it you’re always saying? That we’re a team? You’ll never walk alone? Well then, Mr Bullshit Writer, Mr Horror, what do you think it’s like not to be noticed? Just because that little Korean is back again? Have you forgotten your chocolate chip cookies, Manchurian Candidate? I WON’T STAND FOR THIS! ONE MISTAKE AND YOU’RE HAUN—’

Jan Inge fixes his gaze on a point picked in the air at random. He inhales and exhales, feeling like an adult in a nursery.

‘Rudi.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ve talked about this.’

‘I don’t remember that.’

‘We have.’

‘Don’t remember.’

‘Rudi. We have. Talked about it. About you being touchy.’

‘Yeah, and? So are you.’

‘Yes, I can be now and then. But they’re two different conversations. We’re talking about you now.’

‘Okay, okay, but all the same. You can be touchy too. If we don’t like a film that you like for instance.’

‘Fine. I’m willing to accept the criticism. But. The thing is Tong is home. It’s his first day back at work. So it’s hardly unreasonable for him to get a bigger slice of the pie.’

‘The pie?’

‘A metaphor.’

Rudi nods. ‘Right, okay.’ He fills his mouth with air and it looks as though he’s playing the trumpet when he blows out.

‘As I was saying,’ Jan Inge says, regarding the situation as retrieved. He turns to Pål: ‘As I was saying, Tong knows what he’s doing. As opposed to certain other people,’ he adds, realising at the last moment it’s a bit much, but sometimes you have to tell the truth. ‘You’ll experience severe pain now,’ he concludes, ‘but then it’ll all be over. Can you live with that?’

Rudi is staring at the window again. But to no effect. Cecilie has noticed him sulking, and runs her hand up and down his back.

Pål nods.

Jan Inge raises a forefinger to his nose and taps it lightly. Tong lines up, a few feet from Pål. His concentration is a joy to watch, his Asian body perfectly balanced, before he takes a single preparatory step and plants his foot full in Pål’s face.

‘That was act one, in a way,’ says Jan Inge and watches the blood cascade from Pål’s nose. ‘Act two,’ he continues, ‘is somewhat shorter. Put your head back, Pål, it’ll help stem the flow of blood a bit. Act two. All that’s left to do, is break a couple of your ribs, and then we’ll go and get your stuff — how many things have you got on the list, Cecilie?’

‘Twenty-two in total’

‘Twenty-two. Great. And then we’ll be out of here in no time. Okay, Pål?’

Tong straightens up, assumes the stance in the centre of the room again.

‘Okay, Tong,’ Jan Inge says, laughing, ‘that’s enough now.’

Tong remains poised. His muscles flexed.

‘Tong?’

He takes one quick step and again lands his foot in Pål’s face. This time making his whole head fly backwards, as if he has been shot, and Pål screams.

‘Tong! What the fu—’

He straightens up a third time, the others not managing to react before he again kicks out and strikes Pål full in the face. It is a slab of blood and mucus. The sound of Zitha barking comes from the basement.

‘Owwwwwwwwahhhhhhhhh!’

‘Je-sus,’ says Jan Inge and throws his hands up, ‘what are you doing?’

There’s a racket from the basement. Something falls over, something breaks, and the next moment the sound of paws coming up the steps. The door is pushed open and Zitha comes storming into the kitchen. The dog stops for a second, her head going from side to side, a feral look in her eyes, but when she catches sight of her master sitting beaten up and bound to a kitchen chair, she darts across the parquet. But before she gets there, Tong shoots out an arm, takes a vice-like grip on her by the scruff of the neck and holds her tight. The dog writhes beneath his hand, paws flailing and mouth snarling, and then, before anyone can blink, a blade flashes and a split second after, the knife is planted, the handle vibrating, in Zitha’s throat. She lets out a howl before she lies ruptured on the kitchen floor with her tongue hanging out and her front paws stretched out towards Pål.

‘Tong!’ Cecilie shouts. ‘What have you — Jesus Christ!’

Tong grins and turns to her. The knife is sticking out of Zitha’s neck.

‘Jan Inge! He’s killed the dog!’

Pål’s head rolls from left to right, his mouth twisted. ‘Zitha?! Zitha?! What’s happened? Zitha!’

Jan Inge gapes at Tong.

Tong points at Rudi and smirks.

‘Zitha! Hello? What’s happened?’

Tong pulls the knife from the dead dog and dries the blade on the arm of his jacket. He leans over to Pål. ‘Pål,’ he says, ‘let me tell you something. I’ve screwed Rudi’s woman. In prison. Once a week.’

The room is silent.

Jan Inge cannot form a single thought. Rudi’s eyes slowly enlarge. Cecilie’s head sinks towards the floor and she takes her hands to her cheeks. Pearls of sweat form on Jan Inge’s forehead, and then run from his armpits, his mouth is dry. He fumbles in his pocket for his inhaler, puts it to his mouth, sucks and feels the sweat trickle, and he does not resemble a company executive in the slightest.

I’ve seen this in movies, Jan Inge thinks. People letting you down when it counts.

‘Zitha,’ Pål sobs. ‘You’ve killed Zitha.’

Rudi begins to quiver. The towering man starts to shake, his eyes look like they are ready to burst out of his head.

‘You know what, Pål?’ Tong says calmly, ‘it was like coming in old lettuce.’ The room is even more silent now.

Tears run down Cecilie’s cheek.

Rudi is just quivering.

Pål swallows, several times in a row, while whispering: ‘Zitha. Zitha.’

‘And you know what else, Pål?’ Tong whispers. ‘I’m never going to work with this crowd again. Something new has come into my life, a symphony orchestra, and I’m going far away from here.’

This, thinks Jan Inge, sweating from every pore, while he has that gruesome feeling of being unable to open his mouth, of being unable to do anything at all, as though it were Mum lying in front of him like a damned compost heap and he was just standing there, looking at her, sweating, frightened, eight years old and unable to do anything at all; this is going straight to video.

100. SIBLING LOVE (Cecilie)

The nausea seethes like boiling milk. Suddenly she’s afraid of vomiting up the child, it’s as though she can feel the little baby kick, punch and cry in there.

‘Fucking yellow peril!’ Rudi shouts, eyes blazing.

Tong stands sneering, some blood still dripping from the edge of the knife in his hand. ‘Come on then, birdshit skin, I’m right here.’

Cecilie hears Pål crying quietly, he’s stretched his feet out to locate Zitha’s form, which is still warm, the bandana around his head is damp with tears and he whispers: ‘Zitha, Zitha, oh Jesus, what has Daddy done.’ She understands that she only has a few seconds to halt a crisis no one will be able to handle. But what will she do; is there anything that can restrain a man who finds out his mate has slept with his girlfriend?

‘I’m going to reach down your throat and rip your tongue out!’

‘Yikes.’ Tong tosses the knife back and forth between his hands. ‘I’m shitting myself.’

Rudi is snorting like a horse and shaking like a drill, and in a matter of moments he’s going to explode. Fly at Tong’s face and tear it to pieces with his teeth, rip his heart out and rend it into small pieces, and nobody’s going to be able to prevent it, not her, not Jan Inge, not Jesus, not God, not Steven Tyler and not even Lemmy, but she needs to come up with something, so what will she do?

It’s like Jan Inge has dropped out of himself, or the opposite; he has sunk into himself. That happens sometimes, he loses everything he’s built up, and when Jan Inge diminishes there’s nobody smaller, as a result Bro isn’t going to be of any help; what will she do?

Rudi stands like a cat ready to pounce, facing Tong, still calmly tossing the knife back and forth between his hands. ‘I’ve never fucking liked you, China man.’

‘Same here,’ Tong smirks, ‘same here, I’ve detested you from day one.’

Hey Dad, what is it you always say?

When storm clouds gather, what is you say to do again?

Just tell the truth, honeybunch, then everything will be just fine.

Vein after vein is becoming visible through Rudi’s skin, his teeth are chattering.

The truth, Dad?

Cecilie clears her throat and shuts her eyes for a second. Then she reopens them, and looking at the man sitting sobbing on the chair says: ‘I’m pregnant.’

Her voice carries clearly and her words fill the room.

No one looks at her at first. Rudi just quivers, Tong just sneers. It’s as though the sentence is spoken in a language nobody understands, slowly catching and drawing them in. Jan Inge’s near-void blueberry eyes, Tong’s iron stare, Rudi’s coffee-brown ADHD eyes, even Pål turns his face towards her.

Rudi sways, looking ready to collapse like a house of cards. ‘You’re what?’

Tong snorts.

Cecilie dries a tear from under one eye. ‘I’m pregnant. With—’

‘But—’ Rudi raises the back of his hand to his mouth, wiping it hard across his lips as if he had shit on them.

‘Yeah,’ she repeats, watching Rudi as his brain labours, his face reflecting each step until it dawns on him.

‘But—’

‘Yes, Rudi. Yes. By one of you.’

Laughter. Lean, derisive laughter.

Cecilie sinks down on to one of the dining chairs near Pål, perhaps in the place where one of the sisters usually sits. Who knows, she thinks, picturing a home life she wishes were her own, before looking at what she has in front of her: three boys — one crazy and wild, one scornful and hard-hearted, one at a complete loss; a badly beaten man with a broken nose, dangling blood and mucus dropping on to his thighs, broken fingers and a cut-up face, and a dead dog.

She places her hand on her stomach, not because the baby bids her to, but because she’s frightened.

Rudi grinds his teeth. There’s just as much chance of him letting loose on her and the child as there is of him going for Tong. She hadn’t considered it before, but now it’s obvious.

‘Rudi, you mustn’t, you hear me,’ she gets to her feet, reaching for his hands, trying to make eye contact, ‘are you listening to me, you mustn’t. I can see what you’re thinking … you know I’m Chessi … listen … Rudi … please—’

There it is again, Tong’s laughter.

Rudi shuts his eyes, like he does at times when he looks truly beautiful, then turns his head to the left, stretching it around until the muscles make a cracking sound. He opens his eyes again, places his palm on the left side of his chest while keeping his gaze fixed on Cecilie. He thumps his hand resolutely over his own heart and says: ‘Sometimes, Chessi, I wonder if you know who I am.’

‘Huh?’ Her mouth trembles. ‘What do you mean, sweetheart?’

Rudi’s eyes spin. He’s really high and really scary.

‘If you know who I am, Chessi. I wonder about it sometimes. If even after having lived with me for all these years you know who I am.’

‘I kn—’

He bends down, his face right up in hers, his warm breath on her skin and she doesn’t know whether she’s going to live or die.

‘I’m a man of love,’ he whispers.

She feels the touch of his finger, stroking her across the cheek.

‘Meandyou, baby, from here to heaven,’ he whispers.

She nods.

‘I don’t give a shit who you’ve screwed,’ he says, and turns to Tong. ‘You know what Gran used to say: I can trust you, Rune.’

Then he bounds at Tong. He shoots through the air like a vengeful dog, sending Pål and the chair tumbling to the ground, the back of his head seeming almost to rattle, but nobody has time to attend to him as he lies moaning.

Tong protects himself as he’s knocked to the floor, bringing a knee up into Rudi’s stomach, who in turn tenses his abdominal muscles, the way he learned in the eighties fighting the Ullandhaug Gang, thwarting the worst of the intent. Tong gets hold of his face with his fingers, tightening and squeezing as hard as he can, searching for Rudi’s eyes with his thumb and middle finger, but Rudi has the upper hand, has the advantage of his bodyweight on Tong and he’s in possession of the strongest weapon a person can have, raging love. He quickly raises his right arm, angles it and plants an elbow in Tong’s mouth, filling the room with a crunching sound, while he employs his legs to try and gain control over the wriggling body beneath.

‘What the fuck have you been playing at!’ Rudi pounds his elbow repeatedly into Tong’s mouth. ‘What the fuck have you been playing at!’

‘I haven’t been playing at anything,’ Tong screams, his mouth bleeding as he spits out a tooth. ‘She’s a slag! She’s the one who came on to me.

‘Like I’d fucking believe you,’ Rudi yells. ‘She loves me, you twisted fuck!’

Jan Inge stands looking immobile, flummoxed and tiny next to where the fight is taking place. He has given up. His eyes have always been small, it’s one of the few things Cecilie can remember her mother saying, That boy’s eyes are so small they scare the life out of me; now they resemble minute little pebbles.

Tong exerts himself and manages to tip Rudi off him. Rudi is sent rolling across the floor, crashing into the kitchen table, both feet smashing into Pål’s head, which is still resting on the ground. The table is knocked on its side and Tong is nimbly back on his feet and within seconds is astride Rudi, pinning him to the floor, the knife in his hand.

‘Jan Inge!’ Cecilie screams.

Her brother turns his head slowly towards her. He’s broken out in a rash, the same purple blotches he had so often on his cheeks when he was young, which vanished when Rudi started coming to the house. He has those red streaks in the whites of his eyes, which she hasn’t seen in years either. He looks like a little boy who’s going to walk out a door alone, into darkness, never to return.

‘Jani! You have to do something!’

Tong straddles Rudi, immobilising him with his thigh muscles. He pauses to bring the knife to his own mouth and pick at his incisors with the blade, just like he always did in the eighties when they sat in the living room watching video after video, when boys were in and out of the house, boys with cartons of cigarettes and VCRs, boys that Jan Inge paid with her.

‘Aren’t you going to fucking do something!’

Jan Inge strokes Cecilie across the cheek.

What a useless pile of shit to have for a brother.

Is he thinking it would be best if he could rent her out again, like before? How could she have been so stupid, why has she never just left?

Then Jan Inge goes down on his knees, reaches his hands to the bag by his feet, unzips it and takes out the pump-action shotgun. He nods to Cecilie, lifts up the shotgun and holds it at stomach height.

‘Tong,’ Jan Inge says, ‘you’ve gone too far. This is precisely what all good horror deals with. And you haven’t understood anything I’ve taught you.’

Jan Inge puts the muzzle of the gun to Tong’s temple.

‘Get up.’

Tong smirks and gets to his feet. ‘What are you planning to do? Shoot me? Like you fucking have it in you.’

‘Move,’ Jan Inge says, poking Tong. ‘Move.’

Rudi gets up stiffly, Cecilie wobbles on her skinny knees and watches her brother push Tong into the hall, prodding him in the back with the shotgun, towards the door that leads to the garage.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Tong says, ‘what the hell are you going do?’

Pål lies writhing on the kitchen floor. Cecilie gives him an apologetic look before she and Rudi follow Jan Inge.

At the end of the hall, Jan Inge puts his elbow on the door handle, presses down and pushes the door open, still holding his hands on the shotgun. Then he orders Tong to step through on to the cement floor inside.

‘Rudi?’

‘Yeah?’

Jan Inge motions with the shotgun in the direction of the van. ‘Will you open the back doors?’

Rudi scurries past his best friend and opens the doors. Jan Inge places the muzzle to the back of Tong’s neck and compels him to walk towards the open doors. When they reach them, Tong resists slightly, but Jan Inge presses the barrel harder against the nape of his neck. Tong gives in after a couple of seconds, squats down and climbs into the van.

‘Jan Inge,’ he says, sneering, ‘you’re such a fucking idiot.’

‘Sit down,’ Jan Inge says.

‘Jesus,’ says Tong, shaking his head. Then he sits down.

Jan Inge shoots Tong in the face.

Rudi looks at his best friend with a mixture of admiration and horror.

Tong lies stretched out on the floor of the van, his face torn asunder. The roof and sides splattered in blood, skin and flesh.

Jan Inge lowers the shotgun, the rash on his face beginning to wane.

In the kitchen, Pål’s thighs shudder when he hears the powerful, resounding bang from the garage. He swings his head from side to side, making the mucus and stringy blood swing under his chin. ‘Wha? Hello? What’s happened?’

Cecilie takes a step forward. She looks at her brother.

‘I couldn’t very well spray-paint the kitchen with his DNA,’ Jan Inge says calmly.

What a fantastic brother.

See, little one, see what a fantastic uncle you’ve got?

Then Cecilie hears a click in her ear as a switch from the past is flicked on. She pictures the man who’s lost his dog, the man who’s lying in there on the kitchen floor and she remembers him, Pål Fagerland, from an afternoon in 1985, an afternoon smelling strongly of vanilla. She can picture the room as it was back then, the poster of the ochre cat hanging to the right of the window, the pink hairbrush on the desk, the hair elastics beside it, the red desk lamp and the globe, a crack going from north to south, the Aerosmith poster, the Foreigner poster, the Lois jeans sticker on the door, she can hear the muffled sounds from the living room, a horror movie on the TV, and she can see Pål’s young body, so thin and hairless, and she can see his gentle, frightened face, and she can hear her own voice saying: ‘Come on, I don’t bite.’

101. PURE METAL (Daniel William)

‘Seventh,’ she whispers.

Daniel raises his head, but his eyes remain downcast. He should never have got messed up in this. He should have done what Dejan suggested a couple of months ago: Hey, Dano! What do you say — me and you, we rob a bank, get the fuck outta here, go and live like kings in Dubai, eh, man?

But the girls came into the picture and Dubai went out the window.

Minutes from now, maybe a few hours, and he’ll be sitting in the police station.

Daniel brings his finger to the button and presses it.

She knows her way around here. Veronika has been in and out of hospital since she was a little girl. She’s been back and forth together with Inger, check-up after check-up at the audiology clinic. Seventh floor, said the woman at reception, and nodded to Veronika the way you nod to somebody you’re used to seeing, but she struggled to maintain a natural expression when she saw the mesh of cuts on her face.

‘Sandra Vikadal? Seventh floor.’

The lift is slow and heavy. Veronika seeks out his hand, finds his fingers.

‘My finger friend.’

What is she on about? Daniel shoots her a puzzled look.

She laughs. ‘Just popped into my head.’

‘You come out with some weird stuff.’

‘What did you say?’ She looks at him with that expression she always gets in her eyes when she doesn’t catch what’s been said. Vigilant, the tiniest bit offended.

‘Nothing,’ Daniel says, ‘nothing.’

The lift ascends, passing floor after floor. A sterile smell pervades, even in here, the odour of hospital and of unease. People go quiet when they use lifts, doubly so in hospitals.

The doors slide open.

‘Hey?’ She squeezes his hand.

‘Mhm?’

‘It’s okay, you know. I’m with you, all right?’

Daniel nods. He can’t bring himself to speak.

‘We’ll go in, you get to see her, and after that you’re mine. Yeah? We’ll just ride. You and me. Far from here. We still have time.’

He nods, but he doesn’t believe what she’s saying. They exit the lift and set their feet on the linoleum of the seventh floor. It’s almost as though the ground is swaying beneath them. There are double doors to either side of them and Veronika points to the ones to the right. Daniel doesn’t say anything, just nods and lets her lead the way.

She wants to hold him by the hand, reaches for his, but he avoids her attempt. He speeds up, noses a few inches ahead of her as they walk down the corridor. A doctor and a nurse are walking towards them. Daniel looks down. They pass empty chairs, doors and rooms, people inside with pain in their bodies. Veronika draws level with him, tries to take hold of his hand once more. Daniel brings his fingers to his eye, pretends to have something in it.

Then they halt. A man and a woman are standing outside a room about fifty feet in front of them. Daniel takes an audible intake of breath and makes as if to turn back.

‘Who’s that?’

He gives her a quick glance and she understands who it is.

The man is tall and slim, wears a suit and shirt and has polished shoes. The woman is petite, slender, dressed in a blue jacket, with a neckerchief and her hair neatly styled.

‘Relax,’ Veronika says, ‘do they know who you are?’

Daniel tugs her with him, back towards the lift, but she resists.

‘Wait, stand still. Don’t look at them. Look at me. Have you met them?’

‘No, I haven’t met them,’ he says, angrily.

‘Take it easy, Daniel,’ she says. ‘They’re talking to a doctor. Look. He’s quite calm. The father has his arm round the mother. She’s crying.’

Daniel brings his hands to his head. Massages his forehead with his fingertips.

Then they see them. Two uniformed police. A man and a woman. They come out of the same room. The woman tilts her head to the side, says something into the radio mounted almost at her shoulder. The other speaks to the doctor and Sandra’s parents.

Daniel and Veronika turn and walk quickly away. They don’t stop until they make it around the corner by the lift.

‘What are we going to do?’ Daniel’s eyes flash fiercely.

Veronika takes a step to the side, looks down the corridor.

‘They’re talking,’ she says.

Daniel swallows.

‘Wait,’ she says, ‘wait, they’re leaving.’

‘What?’

‘They’re going the other way.’

‘The other way?’

Daniel sticks his head round the corner to take a look. She’s right. The doctor and the police are accompanying Sandra’s parents further down the corridor. The doctor opens a door and shows them in.

‘Come on,’ Veronika says, giving him a tug, ‘now.’ She begins to walk towards the room Sandra is in.

Daniel hesitates, but she’s stronger. Veronika won’t hear him. She doesn’t want to hear him. That’s how this girl is. She says weird things and has no trouble crossing boundaries others wouldn’t dare contemplate. She lacks something other people have. She possesses something they do not.

Daniel is on the verge of letting her go into Sandra’s room on her own, on the brink of turning around and leaving. But he’s unable to resist her. She’s too much. That copper-red hair. That pursuable body. She’s like pure metal.

They reach the mint-green door and Veronika reaches for the handle, pressing it down gently.

Daniel wavers as she enters, but follows her in.

It’s a single room. A narrow entrance with a bathroom to the side, a window ahead with the curtains opened. The late September light shines into the room. A poster of a flower arrangement hangs on the wall to the right. To the left, a bed with curtains drawn around it. A low hum from the air conditioner. A chair facing the bed.

‘I can’t do this.’ Daniel closes his eyes.

‘You can,’ Veronika whispers, reaching her hand towards the curtain.

102. SING SONGS OF PRAISE (Sandra)

The sound of the curtain rings sliding along the pole. A soft swish. The material is drawn aside. It’s her. The burnt hair, the slashed face. It’s him. The bright mouth, the deep-set eyes.

They approach the bed.

Sandra is lying under a duvet with the hospital emblem on it. Her head is turned to the right and she can’t move it. Her hair is lying neatly across the pillow the way her mother arranged it. Her lips are dry and cracked, even though her father has applied lip balm to them. She has bruises on her face, a cut under her cheekbone, because the people standing in front of her knocked her down. There’s a glass of water on the table beside the bed, as well as a vase with three red roses; one for hope, her mother said, one for faith, she said, and one for the future.

Sandra can’t feel a thing. Not anywhere. Her senses, with the exception of sight and hearing, are gone. She doesn’t know if they can see that she sees them. She doesn’t know if her eyes are moving.

‘Jesus.’

Daniel brings his hands together, fingertip to fingertip. He sinks down into the chair.

‘She’s in a coma,’ Veronika says, leaning down so her face is closer to Sandra. Studying her.

‘What have we done?’

‘Don’t you want to talk to her?’ Veronika brings her eyes up close to Sandra’s, scrutinises them, as though she suspects Sandra of pretending to lie so still.

‘Aren’t you going to say something?’ Veronika doesn’t take her eyes off Sandra. ‘Get on with it, so.’

‘What will I say?’ Daniel’s voice is meek.

‘I don’t know. Say what you need to say.’

Veronika gives a short nod to herself, as though confirming her belief in what she sees: Sandra is in a coma. She can’t move. This is not an act.

Daniel clears his throat, ‘Sorry, Sandra,’ he says in a stilted voice, ‘you should never have met me.’

The bright boy isn’t able to look at her. He isn’t able to talk naturally. He closes his eyes when he speaks, hardly opens his mouth. He backs away from the bed.

The corners of Veronika’s mouth begin to turn up into a smile as she sees Daniel move away. He walks over to the wall by the door and hides his face in his hands.

The girl who’s ruined Sandra’s life comes closer to the bed again.

What is she doing?

Sandra sees her lift her hands, bring them towards her neck. Her fingers curl, as though she were feline, her nails are long and painted; what is she doing?

The cuts on Veronika’s face glisten, a triumphant smile appears and her eyes are aglow. Her fingers touch Sandra’s throat. The crucifix. She takes it between her fingers, inspects it. Sandra can feel the disgusting breath on her face, and she wants to spit on her, wants to open her mouth and bite off her head, but she can’t do anything. Veronika loosens the clasp of the necklace, takes the crucifix and leans forward so her mouth is up to Sandra’s ear. Veronika lifts away a lock of hair, disturbing her summer blonde fringe, and whispers: ‘Hi, Sandra. Are you in pain?’

Sandra pictures kneeing her in the cunt.

‘It’s Veronika,’ she says, her lips millimetres from Sandra’s ear. ‘You’re nothing now. Nothing. Your tits are too small, those Met jeans suck, your thighs are too fat and your mouth makes you look like a weasel.’

Sandra pictures tearing her apart with her bare hands.

‘You can’t move,’ Veronika whispers. ‘You’re nothing now.’

Sandra imagines carrying her dismembered limbs. She walks across a dry stony landscape and after a while she reaches a fire-scorched rock-face. She crouches down and lets the body parts roll from her arms, as if they were logs of firewood. Then she lights it, sees Veronika’s skin start to melt, watches the flesh begin to drip, smells the rising fetor of marred meat and makes out the bones beginning to appear.

Veronika straightens up. She breathes calmly. A summer of sorts has taken hold of her. A barrage of sunbeams shine through her very being.

Veronika turns to Daniel.

But he is not there. He is no longer by the door. He is out in the corridor. There is a doctor standing beside him. Not the same one as a little while ago. A different doctor. Now Veronika is nervous. Sandra tries to see what’s happening, but it’s beyond her field of vision. She can only hear voices and see Veronika’s form moving towards the door, nearer to the doctor and Daniel.

‘And who are you?’

‘I’m just a friend of hers.’

His voice.

‘A friend?’

‘Yes. I know her.’

That bright mouth of his.

‘Okay—’ the doctor looks slightly puzzled.

‘How is she?’

My Daniel.

‘Well, it’s too early to say,’ the doctor looks even more uncertain now, looks from Daniel to Veronika and says: ‘And who is she?’

Sandra sees Veronika draw closer to Daniel and the doctor.

‘No, she’s nobody,’ Daniel says.

‘Just a moment,’ the doctor says, ‘wait here for a second, I need to check something.’

Daniel turns his head to look at Sandra. So deep, those eyes of his, she feels she could fall into them.

He puts two fingers to his bright mouth, and leaves.

Love, Sandra thinks, as she notices her vision begin to fail, love bears all things, believes all things and hopes all things. And love, she thinks, and sees that she no longer sees, love endures all things. Sing songs of praise for my bright boy.

103. SOIL WITH LEAVES ON (Veronika)

Veronika places the necklace around her neck. Fastens it. Lets it rest in the hollow of her throat.

She watches Daniel go down the corridor, walk away with a heavy footfall. She sees the lift doors open and him disappear inside. She moves to the window on the seventh floor and waits. A minute goes by, maybe two, and then she catches sight of him below. He emerges from the main entrance. He walks towards the Suzuki.

She knows how to do this.

Don’t look, don’t listen.

It’s been like this a thousand times before and it can be like this again.

My wolf man, you called me one unusual girl, but you didn’t exist and here’s the rule I made when I was small, when I lay under the duvet and thought about how I was always alone, how there would never be anyone for me:

Trees with bark on

bark with soil on

soil with leaves on

leaves with water on

water with boats in

boats with people in

people with clothes on

clothes with me in

me with bark on

me with soil on

me with leaves on

me with water on

water with people in

people with soil in

soil with leaves in

leaves with trees in.

104. SILLY DADDY (Pål)

‘There you are, girls. Could you give me a hand here? Yeah, I know. Some people were here, I just came home to put out the candle — silly Daddy, leaving it burning, eh — so I sent Mummy on ahead. Wasn’t that a nice surprise, Tiril, Mummy turning up, you weren’t expecting that, eh? You might have seen a van driving off, yeah, that was them, they just broke in, I think they must have been a motorbike gang or something, they were masked, they tied me up, beat me and took a load of our stuff, but never mind, fortunately we’re insured, and I’m here, Daddy’s here, it’s fine, it’s fine, I’ve only a broken nose, as well as some fingers and ribs, along with a few cuts and bruises, it’s fine, unbelievable what a body can take, don’t cry, Malene, hi Tiril, it’s fine, Daddy’s sorted everything out now, things will be good now, we’re a nice little family so we are, we’ll be all right, we’ll get a new dog, it’ll all be okay.’

He hears the front door open.

The sound of Malene’s steps. Then Tiril’s. And Christine’s stomping.

Like she lived here.

‘Dad?’

Pål sits with his back to the oven. Aching pain all through his body. He’s lost feeling in parts of his back and he’s not certain, but it’s like something in his mouth is smashed. His hands are still tied behind his back, but he lifts a finger, an unbroken one, as though they could see him.

‘In here!’

Sounds in the hall. Crunching, crackling.

‘Jesus, Dad! What happened here!’

‘Oh, it—’

‘Shit! There’s glass everywhere!’

‘Hi, Tiril, how did it go? I’m in here!’

The footsteps near the kitchen.

‘Dad?’

They’ve entered the room. The footsteps have stopped. Breathing. A gasp. Someone says, ‘Jesus.’

It’ll be good to see light again, good to get the blindfold off.

The worst is over now.

‘Hi, are you there?’

Pål hears Malene begin to sob, the same sound as the night she lay with her face buried in a pillow after injuring her ankle. He hears Tiril scream, Zitha, Zitha, Zitha, and he hears what he thinks are her knees hitting the floor with a thud as she sinks down in front of the dead dog. He hears Christine’s silence, which only occurs when something has gone completely awry.

Well, she might move back home now? Who knows, never say never.

He clears his throat. ‘There you are, girls,’ he says, feeling a stinging pain in his mouth as he speaks. ‘Could you give me a hand here? Yeah, I know, there were some people here, I was just coming home to put out the candle, silly Daddy, eh?’

105. LURA TURISTHEIM? DOLLY’S PIZZA? HINNA BISTRO? (Rudi)

Cecilie is lying with her head in his lap and it feels pretty damn good. Rudi becomes aware of a growing erection developing against her cheek and that feels pretty damn good too. They left in a hurry, managing to hump some of Pål’s possessions from the house, a couple of computers, a TV and some other odds and ends, not exactly the haul of a lifetime, but like Jan Inge said: ‘It’ll do given the day that’s in it.’ Tong is lying in the back of the van under an old dog blanket they grabbed on the way out, faceless and bloody, and Jan Inge is sitting behind the wheel of the Transporter, as they drive uphill in the darkness towards Ullandhaug.

A strange mix of emotions.

Rudi can’t feel it inside. He doesn’t feel as though he’s been cheated on. He has no emotional reaction to his woman having been unfaithful to him for months. Nothing. Almost the opposite, and that’s what’s so weird, he feels only happiness. As if he had won it all, and maybe he has!

What did Gran say that time?

‘Rune, dear,’ she said, ‘you’ll soon be a man.’ He was sixteen or seventeen, sitting in Gran’s, drinking decaf, outside it was raining cats and dogs, she’d served him Swiss roll and she had that crafty expression round her eyes that made her look like an owl, and she said: ‘And you know what it means to be a man?’

‘No, I mean, yes, well…’

‘It means you have to be big-hearted, Rune,’ she said. ‘Kind and big-hearted. That’s what the girls like, you know.’

Chessi’s eyes are shining. She is so bloody gorgeous.

The Transporter slows down as it reaches the top of Limahaugen, Jani puts on the indicator, pulls up to the kerb and turns around to them, and Rudi can’t help but feel everything is just perfect as their conversation unfolds: ‘So. What’ll it be? Lura Turistheim?

‘Brother? You mean?’

‘Well, just figured, before we get home and take care of this—’

‘Reindeer stew with Waldorf salad and lingonberry jam. That was good. You can’t go wrong with meatballs and mushy peas. Salt cod with bacon and onion, you liked that, brother.’

‘I think they close at six.’

‘Ah shit.’

‘Dolly’s Pizza?’

‘We’re always ordering from Dolly’s.’

‘Thai Summer number two, baby, Thai Summer number two, you know how much you love that. Lime and coriander.’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’

‘No no. Hinna Bistro, then.’

‘They only do pizza too.’

‘Yeah yeah. But we do like pizza. Number fifteen — Gringo?’

‘Is that the one with chicken, chilli and salsa?’

‘Mhm.’

‘I can’t help but feel we’ve made idiots of ourselves.’

‘Yeah yeah. Depends how you look at it.’

‘Word.’

‘Just think of George Michael.’

‘Whaddayamean?’

‘If you want to compare. People who’ve made idiots of themselves.’

‘Poor guy.’

‘I have no sympathy for him.’

‘Yeah, yeah. It’s cosy at Hinna Bistro. Long time since we were there. Must have been before the summer.’

‘Aww. I’m looking forward to the summer.’

‘Eh, yeah. But summer has just been.’

‘Well. Y’know, I’m a summer kid, baby.’

‘Yeah, but it’s a long way off.’

‘So, Hinna Bistro?’

‘Hinna Bistro.’

‘Be just the ticket. Some pizza, a nice kip, and then — Christ, I just realised we’ll have a baby by the time summer comes.’

‘Wow, yeah. Imagine that. Running around the garden.’

‘He’ll like that.’

‘How do you know it’s a he?’

‘Heh heh. Daddy just knows.’

‘You don’t even know if you are the daddy, you nitwit.’

‘I can feel it.’

‘That it’s a he or that you’re the father?’

‘Both, Chessi, both.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘So that’s the reason your tits are bigger.’

‘Mhm.’

‘Hinna Bistro, so.’

‘Weather’s been nice for days now.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I like this time of year. Brisk and bright. Kind of like summer but autumn.’

‘How do you think Pål is now?’

‘Well, not great, I suppose.’

‘Poor dog.’

‘I have a feeling this isn’t going to be any problem.’

‘Me too. No chance of Pogo suspecting us.’

‘Probably not. And I think we can rely on Pål.’

‘Good thing you shot Tong in the van though.’

‘Yeah. Otherwise we’d already be in Åna.’

‘You know, he was at our place once.’

‘Eh?’

‘Oh?’

‘At our place?’

‘Eh?’

‘In Hillevåg?’

‘Mhm. In the eighties.’

‘Gosh.’

‘Gosh.’

‘There was something familiar about him though.’

‘There was.’

‘So. You mean—’

‘Yeah.’

‘When you say he was at our place.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Does that mean that, that you—’

‘We’re not going to talk about it.’

‘No. Ah. That’s what it is to be a man.’

‘Eh?’

‘Big-hearted and kind.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m considering cutting out the speed.’

‘Oh?’

‘Something about kids and drugs that doesn’t really go together.’

‘Mhm.’

‘Something about our line of business and drugs that doesn’t really go together either.’

‘Mhm.’

‘Yeah. Reindeer stew with Waldorf salad and lingonberry jam. Now they go together.’

‘I wish Lura was open.’

‘Yeah yeah, but it’s not. Hinna Bistro is cosy.’

‘Strange seeing Tong like that. Without a face, I mean.’

‘Yeah, but makes things better in a lot of ways.’

‘I can’t get George Michael out of my head now.’

‘That’s so you, soon as you get something on your mind, it just sticks.’

‘Our first murder.’

‘Not good.’

‘Not good.’

‘Not good.’

‘Do you think there was something wrong with Tong?’

‘Eh?’

‘Well, I mean, he has always been a vicious bastard, but like, I don’t know, just wondering if there was something up with him now.’

‘Nah, that there had been coming a long time. Sick in the head, sick all over.’

‘You’re going a bit far now. To be fair, we did have a lot of good times together.’

‘Yeah, but did we though.’

‘I thought the worst thing was the dog.’

‘Not good.’

‘Killing a dog. I don’t know. I just feel like it’s not on.’

‘You’re not wrong there.’

‘It was so cute. Doing that to it, horrible.’

‘We’ll get him a new dog.’

‘That makes two murders then.’

‘Three with the hedgehog.’

‘Now you’re being unfair, mamacita. That was an accident.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay, we’re agreed. Hinna Bistro it is.’

The telecom tower on top of Ullandhaug, Rudi thinks, has always been one of the most beautiful things in the world. But most people probably feel that way, it occurs to him as he feels his erection twitch against Cecilie’s cheek, as though she were a door he was knocking on. Most people must have something bolted on tight inside of them, something so dear to them that it never disappears, something that just grows and grows for every strange day that passes.