The Redbreast

98

Oslo. 17 May 2000.

Rikshospital. 1956.

Helena lost so much blood that her life was in the balance for a while, but fortunately they acted promptly. We lost the child. Naturally, Helena was inconsolable even though I kept repeating that she was young and we would have many more opportunities. The doctor was not so optimistic, however. He said the uterus…

Rikshospital. 12 March 1967.

A daughter. She is going to be called Rakel. I cried and cried, and Helena stroked my cheek and said God's ways were…

Harry was back in the sitting room. He placed his hand over his eyes. Why hadn't he made the connection as soon as he saw the picture of Helena in Beatrice's room? Mother and daughter. His mind must have been elsewhere. Probably that was exactly it-his mind was elsewhere. He saw Rakel everywhere: on the street in passing women's faces, on ten TV channels when he was zapping around, behind the counter in a cafe. So why would he pay any particular attention to seeing her face in a photograph of a beautiful woman on a wall?

Should he ring Mosken for confirmation of what Gudbrand Johansen, alias Sindre Fauke, had written? Did he need to? Not now.

He flicked through the manuscript until he arrived at the entry for 5 October 1999. There were only a few pages left. Harry could feel his palms were sweaty. He felt a trace of the same thing that Rakel's father had described when he received Helena's letter-a reluctance to be confronted finally with the inevitable.

Oslo. 5 October 1999.

I'm going to die. After all the things I have been through it was curious to find out I was. to be given the coup de grace, as most people are, by a common illness. How will I tell Rakel and Oleg? I walked up Karl Johans gate and felt how dear this life, which I have experienced as worthless ever since Helena's death, had suddenly become to me. Not because I don't yearn to be with you again, Helena, but because I have neglected my purpose on earth for so long and now there isn't much time left. I walked up the same gravel path I did on 13 May 1945. The Crown Prince still hasn't come out on the balcony to say he understands. He just understands all the others in need. I don't think he will come. I think he has betrayed us.

Afterwards I fell asleep against a tree and dreamed a long, strange dream, like a revelation. And when I awoke, my old companion was awake too. Daniel is back. And I know what he wants to do.

The Ford Escort groaned as Harry brutally forced the gearstick into reverse, first and second gears in succession. And it roared like a wounded beast when he pressed the accelerator pedal to the floor and held it there. A man wearing a festive Osterdal outfit, on his way over the zebra crossing at the intersection between Vibes gate and Bogstadveien, jumped and thus narrowly avoided an almost perfectly treadless rubber-tyre mark on his stockinged leg. In Hedgehaugsveien there was a queue of traffic for the city centre, so Harry drove down the left-hand side of the road with his hand on the horn, hoping oncoming cars would have the sense to swerve out of the way. He had just manoeuvred his way around the verge outside Lorry Kaft when a wall of light blue suddenly filled his entire field of vision. The tram!

It was too late to stop, so Harry jerked the steering wheel round hard, gave the brake pedal a little squeeze to straighten the back up and bumped across the cobblestones until he crashed into the tram, left side on left side. There was a sharp bang when the wing mirror disappeared, but the sound of the door handle being dragged along the side of the tram was long and piercing.

'Fuck. Fuck!'

Then he was freed and the wheels spun themselves out of the tram rails and found a grip on the tarmac, propelling him towards the next traffic lights.

Green, green, amber.

He drove off at full throttle, still with one hand pressed against the centre of the steering wheel in a vain hope that one paltry car horn would be able to attract attention at 10.15 on 17 May in the centre of Oslo. Then he shrieked, jumped on the brakes and, as the Escort desperately tried to cling to mother earth, empty cassette cases, packets of cigarettes and Harry Hole flew forwards. He hit his head on the windscreen as the car came to rest. A cheering crowd of children waving flags had streamed out onto the zebra crossing in front of him. Harry rubbed his forehead. The Palace Gardens were right in front of him and the path up to the Palace was black with people. From the open cabriolet in the queue next to him he heard the radio and the familiar live broadcast which was the same every year.

'And now the royal family is waving from the balcony to the procession of children and the crowds which have gathered here in the Palace Square. People are cheering, especially for the popular Crown Prince, who has returned home from the USA. He is of course…'

Harry let the clutch out, accelerated and headed for the kerb in front of the gravel path.