by Anne Holt
‘He can get away with that because he’s little,’ the ambassador said. ‘He’s a sweet little Afro-American boy, so he’s allowed to wave the Star-Spangled Banner on the Norwegian national day. Won’t be like that in a few years’ time.’
Silence again. The guest seemed to be fascinated by what was going on down on the street and remained standing at the window. The ambassador showed no sign of wanting to sit down either. A large group of young people came storming down from the Nobel Institute. They were singing so loudly and out of tune that it penetrated even through the reinforced glass. One of the girls was around eighteen and was so drunk that she had to be supported by two friends. One had his left hand cupped around her breast, which didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. Coming towards them was a primary-school class, walking hand-in-hand in a crocodile. The front pair, two girls with blonde plaits, burst out crying when one of the youths roared in their faces. The furious parents came rushing over. A young man in blue overalls poured beer all over the angriest father.
A police car was trying to force its way through the crowd. It had to give up halfway and stop. Two of the youths sat down on the bonnet. One girl insisted on kissing the policeman who got out of the car to sort things out. Several others ran over. A whole flock of girls in red overalls badgered the uniformed policeman for a kiss.
‘What is this?’ the guest mumbled. ‘What kind of a country is this?’
‘Strictly speaking, you should have known that,’ the ambassador responded, ‘before sending Madam President here. On a day like this.’
The guest gave an audible sigh, almost demonstrative. He went over to a table where mineral water and glasses were set out on a silver tray. He lifted one of the bottles and looked sidelong at the ambassador.
‘Go ahead. Please, help yourself.’
The ambassador also appeared to have had enough of the Norwegian people. He picked up a remote control and pushed a button. The curtains closed.
‘I apologise for making that comment, Warren.’
The ambassador sat down. His movements were heavier now, as if the day so far had already been too long and his age was becoming a burden.
‘That’s fine,’ Warren Scifford assured him. ‘And in any case, you’re right. I should have known. The point is that I do know. I know everything there is to read or hear about this place. You know the procedures, George. You know how we work.’
He held a bottle of Farris mineral water at arm’s length and looked at the label with suspicion. Then he shrugged and poured himself a glass.
‘We’ve been working on it for two months,’ he said. ‘And in fact we thought it was a great idea when Madam President first suggested Norway as the destination of her first overseas visit. An . . .’ he lifted his glass in a silent cheers, ‘an excellent idea. And you, of course, know why.’
The ambassador said nothing.
‘We have a scale,’ Warren Scifford continued. ‘Completely unofficial, naturally, but still fairly serious. With the exception of a handful of Pacific states where there are only a few thousand friendly inhabitants and the only threat to the President would be an unexpected tsunami . . .’ he took a sip of water, swallowed and wiped his mouth with his shirt sleeve, ‘Norway is the safest country to visit in the world. Last time . . .’ He shook his head slightly. ‘President Clinton behaved like he was on some scout trip in Little Rock when he was here. That was before your time, and before . . .’ He suddenly rubbed his temples.
‘Everything OK?’ asked the ambassador.
Warren Scifford frowned and rolled his neck. ‘Tiring flight,’ he mumbled. ‘In fact, I haven’t slept for twenty-four hours. It all happened a bit fast, you might say. When’s this guy coming? And when can I—?’
The telephone on the vast desk started to ring.
‘Yes?’ The ambassador held the receiver a few centimetres from his ear. ‘Yes,’ he said again and put the receiver down.
Warren Scifford put the glass back on the tray.
‘He’s not coming,’ the ambassador said and got up.
‘What?’
‘We’re going to them.’ He grabbed his jacket and pulled it on.
‘But we had an agreement . . .’
‘Well, actually, it was more of an order.’ The ambassador pointed at Scifford’s jacket. ‘An order from us to them. Put your jacket on. They won’t tolerate that. They want us to go there.’
Before Warren Scifford could complain again, the ambassador put a fatherly hand on the younger man’s arm. ‘You would do exactly the same, Warren. We’re guests in this country. They want to play at home. And even though there aren’t many of them, be prepared for . . .’
He stopped and laughed, a surprisingly high whinny. Then he went over to the door before finishing the conversation. ‘There may not be many people in this country, but they are incredibly stubborn. Every single one of them. You might as well get used to it, son. Get used to it!’
X
‘Mum! It’s true! Just ask Caroline!’
She crumpled over the table and hit the surface with her left hand. Her eyes were red and her make-up had run in grey streaks down her cheeks. Her hair, which the evening before had been tied up with colourful ribbons and shoelaces in an eighties-style fashion, was now hanging down her back in bedraggled knots after what had been a slightly too successful party. She had her overalls half down. The arms were tied loosely around her waist and she had stuffed a half-litre bottle of Coke in the waistband. ‘Why won’t you believe me? You never believe what I say!’
‘Of course I do,’ her mother said calmly and put a dish in the oven.
‘No you don’t. You just think that I drink and fu—’
‘Careful, young lady!’ The mother’s voice was sharper and she slammed the oven door shut with a bang. ‘You may be moving away from home this autumn, and then you can do what you like. But until then . . .’
The woman turned to her daughter. She put her hands on her hips and opened her mouth to say something else. Then she closed it again and smoothed down her hair in exasperation.
‘Just ask Caroline,’ sobbed the daughter and grabbed hold of a half-full glass of milk. ‘We were both there. I don’t know where they came from, but they got into a car. A blue car. It’s true. It’s the truth, Mum!’
‘I don’t doubt that you’re telling the truth,’ her mother replied in a strained voice. ‘I’m just trying to point out that it couldn’t have been the American president that you saw. It must have been someone else. Don’t you understand? Don’t you realise . . .’
With a groan, she sat down at the table and tried to hold her daughter’s hand. ‘If someone had just kidnapped the American president, they wouldn’t calmly walk over to a car parked by the Central Station on the morning of the seventeenth of May, where everyone could see them. You’ll have to stop—’
The girl pulled her hand away.
‘Where everyone could see them? Where everyone could see them? There was no one bloody else there. It was only me and Caroline and—’
‘You must try to stop being so dramatic all the time! Surely you understand that—’
‘I’m going to call the pigs. The woman was wearing the same clothes as on TV. Exactly the same. I’m going to phone, Mum.’
‘Well, if that’s what you want to do. But you’ll just make a fool of yourself. And remember that they call themselves the police. Not pigs. Phone away.’
The mother got up. There was a strong smell of cooking. She opened the window a bit.
‘Who the hell has a dinner party on the seventeenth of May, anyway?’ the girl muttered and finished the glass of milk.
‘Now you watch yourself, my girl. And stop all that unnecessary swearing!’
‘People have breakfast on the seventeenth of May, Mum. Breakfast, or at a push a nice lunch. I have never heard of anyone having a bloody—’
A casserole was thumped down on the worktop. The woman pulled off her apron and took two neat steps towards h
er daughter. Then she slapped the table.
‘We have a dinner party on the seventeenth of May, Pernille. We, the Schou family. And we have done so for generations, and you . . .’ She lifted a finger. It was trembling. ‘You had better be in the dining room at six o’clock sharp, and in a better state than you are now. Understood?’
The mother interpreted her daughter’s muttering as agreement.
‘But I did see the President,’ the girl insisted, almost inaudibly. ‘And she didn’t bloody well look like she’d been kidnapped.’
XI
The model of the Hotel Opera was made to a scale of one to fifty. It was mounted on a free-standing solid column, like a miniature accommodation platform. The details were impressive. The small swing doors in the entrance moved. The windows were made out of the thinnest glass possible, and even the curtains had the right pattern. When Warren Scifford bent his knees and peered into the foyer, he could see the yellow sofas facing each other with tiny tables in between. The lamps gave a yellow glow and the royal-blue armchairs looked temptingly comfortable.
‘But this is not the building as it stands,’ he mumbled and scratched his stubble.
‘No,’ replied the Chief of Police, Terje Bastesen. ‘It was made in connection with the renovations. The hotel management have of course been extremely . . .’ he searched for the right word, ‘obliging. The roof can also be removed.’
His hands were coarse and he was shaking slightly. As he put his fingers gently round the roof, it slipped. A rasping sound made a young policeman who had been in the background, in the corner of the room, rush forwards. He lifted the roof with the utmost care to reveal the hotel’s ninth floor.
‘Look at that,’ Warren Scifford exclaimed. ‘And that is where she was staying.’
The presidential suite was in the left wing of the hotel, facing south. Even when the roof had been removed from the model, the windows overlooking the fjord stayed in place. There were sliding doors leading out on to the roof terrace, which was bordered with minute flowerpots. The suite was tastefully furnished down to the smallest detail, like a doll’s house for a rich man’s spoilt daughter.
‘So you come in here . . .’ Bastesen used a laser pen to point; the red spot danced and shook, ‘straight into the reception room. Then you can go through here . . .’ the spot hopped to the east, ‘to the office. Well, it’s supposed to be some kind of office. And here we have . . .’ He bent down and peered short-sightedly at the model. ‘Here we have a PC and a minuscule printer. And as you can see, the bedroom is at the far end of the reception room. We assume that the Presi—that Madam President was sleeping when the kidnappers came in.’
‘Kidnappers,’ Warren Scifford repeated, carefully touching the bedclothes with his index finger. ‘As far as I know, there is no information to indicate how many there were.’
The Chief of Police nodded and popped the laser pen back in his breast pocket.
‘No, that is correct. What I’m saying is based on the message. We’ll be in touch, it says. “We”. Not “I”. We’ve got her. We’ll be in touch.’
Warren Scifford straightened up and was handed a piece of laminated paper.
‘I take it this is a copy,’ he said.
‘Of course. The original has been sent for analysis. It was your men who found it, and they . . . they had the sense not to touch it until it could be handled correctly.’
‘Times New Roman,’ Scifford stated. ‘The most common font of all. I assume there are no fingerprints? And it’s the sort of paper that can be found in every office and home?’
He didn’t even bother to look up to see the Chief of Police’s affirmative nod. Instead, he handed the sheet back and focused on the model again.
‘By the way, they’re not my men,’ he said, slowly moving a couple of steps to the left to get a new perspective on the entrance to the presidential suite.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You said that it was my men who found the note.’
‘Yes . . .’
‘They’re not my men. They’re from the Secret Service. And as I assume you know, I am . . .’ His hair flopped over his forehead as he bent down and closed one eye. He squinted along the corridor outside the presidential suite. ‘I am from the FBI. Different organisations.’
His voice was cool. He had still made no eye contact with the Chief of Police. But he did put his hand on the other man’s arm, as if he wanted to move an obstinate schoolboy.
‘Give me some room,’ he muttered, and once again became totally focused on the model of the Hotel Opera. ‘Is this as exact as it appears to be?’
The Chief of Police didn’t answer. A flush spread over his cheeks. He blinked several times before brushing some dust off his uniform jacket and clearing his throat.
‘Mr Scyfford,’ he said. His voice was deeper and raspier.
‘Scifford,’ the FBI agent corrected. ‘Ski, like the planks you use to walk on snow with in winter. Not sky as in clouds.’ He pointed at the ceiling.
‘I apologise, and take note of the correct pronunciation,’ the Chief of Police said slowly. ‘But before we go any further, I would just like to clarify a couple of things. First of all—’
‘Just a moment, please.’ Warren Scifford lifted a hand. ‘There’s a camera installed here, is that correct?’
He fished a pen out of his pocket and pointed towards the corridor.
‘Yes,’ Bastesen replied hesitantly. ‘And over here. Just where there’s a bend in the corridor. That way the whole corridor is kept under surveillance. From both sides. There’s also a camera here . . .’ He pointed to the area by the lifts. ‘And here, on the stairs. The emergency exit. But before we go any further, I just want—’
‘Please wait. Just a moment.’
Warren Scifford circled the model in deep concentration. Every now and then he stopped, bent down so his face was level with the wall and squinted down the corridor. His dark grey wavy hair was constantly falling over his face. He pursed and smacked his lips, before going round again. Slowly.
‘I’ll obviously have to go and see the actual hotel,’ he said without moving his eyes from the model. ‘This evening, preferably. But you’re right. The whole corridor does seem to be covered. What about the terrace?’
‘Well, it’s not possible to get up there from the outside, unless you—’
‘Nothing is impossible,’ Warren Scifford interrupted, adding with a smile that was impossible to interpret: ‘My question was about the camera coverage.’
‘Well, Madam President didn’t want cameras in the suite. Apparently she was very insistent. Both we and—’
Warren Scifford raised both his hands. The Chief of Police allowed himself to be interrupted again. The young policeman, who had withdrawn to the corner by the door again, looked uncomfortable, and was staring at the floor. The room was starting to feel stuffy, really too hot. Bastesen was sweating in his uniform. The flush on his cheeks had spread over his whole face. His thin hair was sticking to his forehead. Scifford had thrown off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves some time ago. His tie was hanging loose and the top button of his shirt was undone. His eyes were deep-set and dark brown, with unusually long lashes. His curls and unkempt hair made him look younger than he presumably was. He looked directly at the Chief of Police. Bastesen stared back.
‘I know my president,’ Warren Scifford said deliberately. ‘I know her very well and I therefore feel it is unnecessary for you to inform me of her habits. I think we would both benefit from keeping this . . . conversation . . . strictly to what I need to know. To put it simply, you answer my questions. OK?’
The Chief of Police took a deep breath. Then he suddenly smiled, unexpectedly. He took his time unbuttoning his jacket and pulled it off. He didn’t seem to be embarrassed by the large sweat marks under his arms as he brushed his hair back with both hands. He then gave an even broader smile, put his hands behind his back and slowly rolled backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet
, like an old-fashioned bobby. His shoes squeaked.
‘No,’ he said cheerfully. ‘That’s not OK.’
Warren Scifford lifted an eyebrow.
‘I think that what is most important right now,’ Bastesen continued, ‘is that you understand what your role is here. And what my role is.’
He stood up on his toes for a moment, before rolling back down and continuing. ‘I am the Chief of Police here in Oslo. A crime has been committed here, in my town and my country. In Norway, an independent state. The investigation of this crime falls under my governance. And the fact that the victim is a . . . a prominent person from another country . . .’ His hands were no longer shaking as he carefully touched the flowerpots on the terrace outside the presidential suite. It was so quiet in the room that they heard the sound of the paper against his skin. ‘. . . means that out of common courtesy to you as a close ally, and respect for the importance of this case, we will keep you informed. And that is the key word. Information. You will provide us with the information necessary to solve the case as speedily as possible. We will inform you of developments in the case and what is going on. To the extent that it does not jeopardise the investigation.’
The sudden increase in the volume of his voice made the policeman in the corner jump. Then there was silence.
Warren Scifford pulled at his ear lobe. He was tanned for the time of year. There was a white bracelet round his left wrist where a watch had presumably prevented the sun from touching his skin.
‘Sure,’ he said in a friendly voice, and nodded.
‘I hope so,’ Bastesen said, and this time he did not return the smile. ‘And if I may get to the point now?’
Scifford just nodded.
