The Blue Place

by Nicola Griffith

  A silky threat. You owe us. We will collect.

  fourteen

  I drove like a berserker up the track to the secondary road at the tip of the fjord. Honeycutt was not the man from Atlanta. Honeycutt was dead. I should have paid attention to my unease. I should have listened. The morphine sliding slick as ice through my system could not dim the fear that kept my foot down on the accelerator even though the Volvo was already fishtailing on the loose grit and holding the wheel steady was agony. Someone hidden in the shadows was reaching out with a pair of shears to cut the strings.

  I skidded onto the secondary road and brought the Volvo up to a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour. That lasted for ten minutes, then I was back on another twenty kilometers of track but it was a straight stretch, and it was empty. I risked taking my good hand off the wheel to punch in the Bristol’s phone number and tuck the phone under my chin. It was nearly seven in the morning. The desk clerk put me through to Julia’s room without demur. The phone rang and rang and rang. I disconnected and called again. When the desk clerk answered I asked for Rolf.

  “Ms. Torvingen. What can I do for you?”

  “There’s no reply from Ms. Lyons-Bennet’s room and she hasn’t called me. Did you leave the note?”

  “Indeed. I took it up personally.”

  “And you’re sure she’s there?”

  “A moment.” Ticking of keys. “Yes. She came in late last night and told the desk clerk she would be checking out after lunch.”

  “Thank you, you’ve been most helpful. But if you see her, please tell her I’ve been trying to contact her. Please also tell her to stay in the hotel. I should be there in under two hours.”

  “I will pass on your request.”

  There was nothing more I could do.

  I took the hard left onto E16 without slowing and as soon as all four wheels were on the highway, I pushed the accelerator flat to the floor. Like the secondary road, the highway was deserted. My heart was a sledgehammer, driving the car forward. Without taking my eyes off the road, I punched in the number of the cartel’s local contact.

  “Hei.” A coffee-grounds voice, dark and used.

  “Torvingen.”

  “You can call me Sampo.” Sampo Lappelil—the Little Lapp Boy who saves the world from the king of trolls and permanent winter. A bitter man.

  “I’ll be there in two hours. Less. You have something for me.”

  “Yes.” He gave me an address near the Akershus. “Be here before nine.”

  I called the Bristol again, but here in the Oppland my signal just bounced from rock to rock.

  I tore south, never easing up, letting speed and adrenalin flense away dread and pain and all feeling until I was bone clothed in muscle moving forward with deadly purpose.

  As soon as I hit the outskirts of Oslo and saw the flags fluttering from every flagpole, I understood why the roads had been empty. It was May 17, National Day, a public holiday when proud Norwegians flocked from their houses to commemorate the anniversary of the constitution of 1814, clogging the streets with processions and ceremonies and celebration.

  I cursed steadily and aimed the car for the city center.

  It was eight-thirty. The boulevards and avenues were empty and silent but for hammering as carpenters put the final touches to speaking platforms, and the shrieks of microphone feedback as techs tested the public address systems. The workers all swung around, astonished, when I screeched by. Good Norwegians all, at least one would call the police.

  I pulled up in a no-parking zone in front of the Bristol and brushed aside the doorman and his protests. The man behind the desk literally stepped back a pace when he saw me.

  “Tell me what room Julia Lyons-Bennet is in.”

  He swallowed. “She’s…I’m sorry. She checked out half an hour ago.”

  “Where is Rolf?”

  His eyes bugged like boiled eggs. “Rolf?”

  “The night manager.”

  “His…his shift ended twenty minutes ago.” But his eyes shifted towards a door marked STAFF ONLY.

  I vaulted over the counter and slammed open the door. Rolf was a big, soft thirtyish man who leapt out of an easy chair and spilled his tea.

  “Where is she?” He shook his head. His left hand cupped his genitals. I don’t think he even knew he was doing it. “Tell me what you said in that note.”

  “I kept a copy.” Such a small, tight voice for a soft man.

  A copy. So Norwegian. “Show me.”

  He edged past me as though terrified I might rip his guts from his belly with my bare hands. He pulled open a drawer under the counter and extracted a sheet of paper. He checked it carefully. What he saw gave him confidence; he blinked but did not shake as he handed it over.

  It was written in Norwegian. I crumpled it slowly in my fist. Rolf stepped back. Stupid. I was so stupid. I should never have let her go. So many mistakes. I fought to keep my voice level. “Did you speak to her before she checked out?”

  He shook his head. Once started, he couldn’t seem to stop. “No. But don’t you see,” he pleaded, “it was after my shift. After my shift!”

  “Give me the phone book.” I looked up Olsen Glass. Dialed. After seven rings a cheery recorded voice told me to call again tomorrow and to have a happy National Day.

  When I slid into the car, the phone was still hanging from the counter, the two men standing like figures from a tableau.

  Ten minutes to find Sampo.

  It was a modern warehouse building. Sampo opened a loading bay and motioned the Volvo inside. He was compact and brown and much younger than I had expected. A man and a woman emerged from the concrete corners.

  “Your army stands ready to serve,” Sampo said. He spared me the ironic salute. From the bench that ran around half the bay, he picked up something wrapped in dirty cloth and handed it to me. I unwrapped it. A massive old Lahti, nine millimeter. Full clip. “It’s old. Unregistered.” He held out his other hand. It clinked. “Extra rounds but no extra clip.” I dropped them in my pocket, tossed the Lahti onto the front seat of the Volvo, and took Julia’s passport from the glove compartment.

  “This woman is Julia Lyons-Bennet.” Unsmiling, hair pulled back. Beautiful. “She was registered at the Bristol Hotel. She has an appointment with the board, or some members of the board, of Olsen Glass this morning at ten o’clock. It’s an informal meeting, and this is National Day, so it may not be at the Olsen building.” They passed the passport around. “There are two men who want to kill her. You will stop them. Their names are Ginger and McCall.” I gave their descriptions. “Find them. When you find them, get information on who sent them, then kill them. Protect this woman. That is your first priority. That’s all.”

  “That’s all,” Sampo mused. “And we don’t even know where to begin.”

  “You’re not a fool. Check the Olsen Glass building. Find out who is on the board, find out where they live and check there. Find the woman. You have my phone number. Keep me informed.”

  I was going to find Ginger and McCall.

  In the bathroom of the Rainbow Hotek Stefan I flexed my face a few times and studied it in the mirror. A slightly nervous and rather young woman looked back. Good.

  At the reception desk I smiled shyly. “Hello?”

  Answering smile. “How can I help you?”

  “Well, it’s…it’s silly, really,” I said in a rush, looking over my shoulder, “but, you know the Internet? I’m expecting to meet…well, to meet a man. He’s called Ginger. At least that’s what he tells me. He’s from America. We talked such a lot online. He says he’s young and unmarried and has ginger hair and, I don’t know, I said last week we could meet here this morning. ‘On National Day,’ I said. Only now, now that it’s the day…”

  “You think you might have been a bit hasty.” She was only in her early twenties, but she was stern, playing the older and wiser woman of the world.

  I nodded, shamefaced. “I thought maybe you could tell me if he’s
here. Then I could get a look at him first, before I introduce myself. Just in case.”

  “Much more sensible,” she said approvingly, and opened up the guest register screen.

  “He was supposed to come here with his business partner, a man called McCall,” I said helpfully.

  She ran down the names. “No. No, I don’t see anyone of that name.”

  “Have you been on duty all week?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you haven’t seen a thin man with red hair?”

  “No.”

  I let my face fall.

  “Perhaps it’s for the best.”

  “I suppose so. Well, thank you.”

  On to the Majorstuen, on Bogstadsveien. This time the desk clerk was an older woman who told me bluntly I was a fool and if I knew what was good for me I’d go home to my parents and forget this foolish nonsense. But she did tell me there was no one called McCall and no thin young man with ginger hair. When I left I realized how close I was to Vigeland Park and for one wild moment I thought: Julia will be in the sculpture park. But she wouldn’t be. She would be meeting with Edvard Borlaug and one or more members of the board. Somewhere. It was Sampo’s job to follow that trail.

  The phone in my pocket remained obstinately silent. I pulled it out and called information, called four different Borlaugs before I heard Edvard’s brisk voice telling me to leave a message. “Edvard, it’s Aud. I need to talk to Julia. If you know where she is, call me. Immediately. It’s very important. You have the number.”

  I had a sudden vision of Edvard lying on the carpeted living room floor, neck broken, while blood leaked from his eyes and my voice echoed from his machine. Perhaps Julia was lying next to him….

  I called information again, this time gave them Edvard’s name and number and got his address in exchange. I called Sampo. “Send one of your people to this address. Break in if necessary. Make sure she’s not there. Check any schedules or calendars or address books.” It was ten-thirty. How long would the meeting last? “If you haven’t heard from me by eleven-thirty, put someone on E16, just past Nordehov.” She might come to it via some scenic route, but it would have to be very circuitous to join the highway north of Nordehov. “It’s a dark blue Audi.” I gave him the licence plate number.

  This was all wrong. We were in too many places, like four people standing in the corners of a vast field full of horses with our hands spread. Too many gaps.

  The second syrette of morphine was wearing off.

  On to another hotel. McCall and Ginger had to be staying somewhere.

  After I had exhausted the least expensive places, I started in on the moderately priced. Time was running out and the streets were beginning to fill with holiday crowds.

  At the Continental on Stortingsgaten I gave the doorman two hundred Nkr to leave my car right by the entrance. The desk clerk was a young man, so this time when I gave my story I was a slightly older woman who had seen just a bit too much of the world and hadn’t liked the way it had treated her.

  “Why, yes,” the young man behind the counter said. “They checked in this morning. I remember. They were here very early. They seemed tired. They were most insistent that they be given a room immediately. I thought they’d sleep. They certainly looked as though they needed it, but”—tapping of keys, nod of head at screen—“all they seemed to do was make a lot of phone calls.”

  “Are they still here?”

  “Oh, no. They left about twenty minutes ago.”

  I beckoned over the doorman. “The two men who left here twenty minutes ago, what were they driving?”

  “Dark green Toyota 4Runner.”

  I nodded my thanks and he resumed his post by the door.

  The only other person in the lobby was a fifty-year-old woman sitting on a couch with her eyes closed. I slid a hundred-Nkr note over the counter towards the clerk. “Can I see who they called?”

  He pocketed the money and turned the screen slightly. Olsen Glass at 8:08. Edvard Borlaug at 8:09. That call had lasted ten minutes, too long for a message. What had Borlaug told them? Then information, followed by a local number I didn’t recognize. I tapped the number into my own phone, disconnected when the machine told me I had reached a sporting goods shop that was closed for the day. Short of ammunition? If so, they would stay short. Everything was shut on National Day.

  Outside, the pavement was drenched in sunshine. The warmth on my arm and shoulder, even swaddled as they were, was almost unbearable. The Volvo was stuffy. I rolled down the windows and nosed out into the road, which was clogged with people in the bright red and white of national costume, all beaming in the sunshine, happily eating pølse and drinking fizzy brus, heading good-naturedly towards the square for the speeches that would begin at midday. I called Sampo—“They’re in a dark green Toyota 4Runner”—and concentrated on not running down any of the herd.

  It was eleven forty-five. Julia’s meeting would be over by now.

  Think. I tried to put myself in her head, imagined stepping out of an office or home, pleased with myself because I’d persuaded Olsen to fund the sculpture garden. The sun would be warm on my hair, my dress light around my thighs. Stepping to the car, thinking of the drive back, of the beautiful day. People having a good time. Celebrating. Being with family….

  And I knew where Julia would go, knew what Borlaug had told McCall and Ginger, knew where I must go.

  I dialed the numbers. The phone rang and rang and rang. The sound was quite unreal. Eventually I was answered by a rather cross and breathless, “Hei.”

  “Tante. Is Julia there?”

  “Aud? No. But she will be any minute. I was just in the cellar. I have to go back there now. She’s coming for lunch before driving back to the seter. There’s a note she wants me to translate for her. It might be personal, she says. She tried to read it out to me over the phone but the line was bad and she makes Norwegian sound like German, and then that man, Edvard, came and told her the meeting was about to begin. Would you like me to ask her to call you when she gets in?”

  “Tante, listen. I’m in Oslo. I’m on my way to your house. Don’t let anyone in. No one except me or Julia. No one. And if you see a dark green four-by-four on your street, call the police.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Two men are on their way there to kill Julia—”

  “Julia? In Oslo? Why should—”

  “One of them shot me yesterday on the glacier. Two are on their way to your house. They are armed. Keep the door shut. Keep a lookout for Julia. When she gets there, leave. Head straight up E16. Use your Saab. Do you understand?”

  “But why do they—”

  There was a roaring in my ears like the sea. “Do you understand? Will you do as I say?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be there very soon.” Click. Dial. “Sampo? Tell your man on E16 that he’s now looking for a red Saab driven by an older woman. Julia will be with her. When he sees them, he’s to keep them both safe. I know where Ginger and McCall are heading. I’m going there now. Meet me.” I gave him the address, disconnected, and put the phone down gently on the soft leather of the passenger seat.

  My shoulder no longer hurt. My mind was stropped clean and sharp as a razor. The muscles in my face were perfectly relaxed and the world outside hardened and slowed until I saw everything with crystal clarity and there was time to notice every detail: the untied lace of a three-year-old’s sneaker, the beautiful deep amber of the traffic light I ignored. My heart was no longer a combustion engine, thumping with explosions deep in its chambers: it was silent, smooth, and I was a maglev train flying effortlessly down its single track, my only purpose the journey, my destination fixed.

  Buildings got smaller and moved back from the road. Stone became brick and wood and now there were fences, and front doors, and trees. Each clean, shining window, each green leaf with its delicate tracery of veins filled me with joy. I moved through it all like a ghost, as easy as a breath.

  Hj�
�rdis’s street appeared magically on my left and I turned, and there it was, events unfurling like a brightly coloured pennant: Julia in her blue cotton dress walking back up the street on the right-hand side, towards Hjørdis’s door—the car keys are still in her hand and she hums to herself; the doors of a dark green Toyota opening and two men stepping out, guns in hand—guns suddenly held close to their thighs and hidden as they hear the Volvo engine.

  Unhurriedly, smiling slightly, I drive sedately down the street. Level with them, face to face, past them. They flick me a glance, dismiss me, relax. I flip on the cruise control, open the door, and roll out into the street. They don’t notice. They are watching Julia, one crossing the street behind her, one staying on this side. Time slows and stretches, and I glide like butter up behind the man raising his Glock. The grey polymer barrel doesn’t even gleam in the sun as he lines it up on the woman in the blue dress.

  It is too easy. My elbow flashes out and docks perfectly with the soft spot at the base of his skull just as he squeezes the trigger, and he hits the pavement, dead, at the same time as his bullet hits the steps that lead up to Hjørdis’s front door. Then we’re all moving: the woman in the blue dress turning, mouth open, the man across the street to look at me, then back at the woman. His arm rises, a tiny tongue of light like a second, little sun jumps from the tip of the barrel, and I laugh as I sweep him off his feet, laugh as I land with my knees in his stomach, laugh as I take his fist in mine and turn it, laugh at the shock on his freckled face as I squeeze that tight warm hand and the freckles disappear in red ruin.

  I stretch and smile. All done. I am still smiling as I walk over to the woman, who is lying on the pavement, one arm stretched up the steps. From the waist down, the blue dress is red. She begins to writhe and mewl. I kneel, touch the brown hair coming loose from the bandeau, then frown and start to get up when I realize I’m kneeling in something wet, but there’s something about the smell of the woman’s hair, something…