by Anne Holt
Even though she, like her husband, had maintained the Muslim faith of her childhood, the Muffasa family religion was flexible and well adapted to life in a suburb where there were few, if any, other Arabs. Mrs Muffasa was a highly appreciated asset to the Episcopal church that lay only a block away from the house. The best cakes at the harvest fete always came from her oven. She ran a youth club for young people from less fortunate backgrounds. No one could do flowers like Mrs Muffasa, and she looked after the reverend’s numerous children whenever his wife gave birth to another and was out of action for a couple of weeks.
But the Muffasa family never went to church.
In their own quiet way, they tried to keep Ramadan. They celebrated Eid with relatives from Los Angeles, who always took the time to come. And if Mr Muffasa didn’t actually face Mecca and pray five times a day, he often found time to pray when the garage was empty and quiet before closing time.
Mr and Mrs Muffasa read the Koran in the most user-friendly way. They honoured the prophet Muhammad and prayed that peace be with him, without that preventing them from decorating a Christmas tree so that the children wouldn’t feel left out.
When she died, Mrs Muffasa’s children found a kind of will in the drawer of her bedside table. Her memorial service was to be held in the Church of the Epiphany, and was to be organised by the reverend’s wife.
This caused rumblings in the family ranks, and their mother’s eldest sister threw herself in hysterical tears over the washed and dressed body that lay with folded hands in the coffin, with a cross on either side. But Mr Muffasa insisted. His wife had been of sound mind when she decided on how she wanted to be remembered. No one could dissuade him from fulfilling her final wish, and so Mrs Muffasa was buried in consecrated ground in front of a full Christian congregation.
The funeral was the last time Al Muffet had seen his older brother.
Three years of silence. And then he rang last night.
Al Muffet got out of bed and dressed himself with swift, silent movements. He had some paperwork he could do to pass the time. Anything was better than lying in bed not being able to sleep, plagued by this anxiety that he could not explain.
He and Fayed had never been friends. They put up with each other, as brothers do, but they had never understood each other. While little Ali hid behind his mother’s skirt and was adored by all her Episcopalian friends, Fayed wandered the streets alone and yearned to be with the extended family in Los Angeles, where he could go to the mosque with his uncle every day. There he could eat traditional food and learn more Arabic than the few words he managed to grasp from his father’s mumbled prayers. As an adult, he didn’t deserve to be called a practising Muslim, but on the whole, he upheld the traditions and married a Muslim woman. And when Ali Shaeed Muffasa became Al Muffet in the seventies, his brother Fayed accused him of being an Arab Uncle Tom. The brothers had barely spoken since.
Al Muffet had no idea what Fayed wanted. He had asked outright, but had avoided being positively rude. After all, they were brothers, and as their father was still alive, he didn’t want any dramatic bust-ups in the family, as that would kill the old man.
Fayed was coming to visit.
Fayed, who was a middle manager for a gigantic electronics company based in Atlanta, and who barely had time to see his own children, had phoned to say that he would drop by on the 18th of May. A curt comment that it wasn’t so strange that he wanted to know how Al and the girls were getting on out in the sticks was the closest he came to an explanation.
‘I’ll drop by,’ he had said.
Al Muffet crept past his daughters’ bedrooms. He knew the old house well enough now to step carefully over all the boards that creaked. At the top of the stairs he stood listening for a moment. Catherine’s steady breathing and Louise’s snoring made him smile. He felt calmer. It was his house and his life. Fayed could drop by as much as he liked. No one could harm Al Muffet or his daughters.
He went quietly downstairs and turned on the lights in the kitchen. He put on the kettle and took the cafetière out of the dishwasher, before getting the file he had brought home from the office from his bag.
‘Dad?’ Louise looked at him in surprise from the doorway.
He jumped and dropped the cafetière on the floor.
‘Is anything the matter?’ his daughter asked. Her hair was tangled and her pyjamas were too big.
‘No, sweetpea. I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.’
He found the dustpan and brush in the scullery.
‘But why are you dressed, Dad?’ Louise sounded quite anxious now, and came closer.
‘Watch out for the glass,’ he warned. ‘Nothing’s wrong, nothing at all. I just thought that I could use my sleepless night to do some work. Shall I make some warm milk for us both? Then we can have a natter before you go back to bed. Would you like that?’
She gave a big smile and sat down at the table.
‘What fun,’ she said and grabbed an apple. ‘Just like when I was little. I must tell you what happened when Jody and I got . . .’
Al Muffet half listened as he swept up the broken glass. At least Louise had been reassured. He only wished he could say the same about himself.
V
The young police lawyer was bored. He had been fining people for nearly three hours in an attempt to empty the overcrowded cells. Over half of them were teenagers whose bodies were still not rid of the national-day celebrations. They stood in front of him, one after the other, with hangovers, staring at the floor as they stammered their polite apologies and promised never to do it again. A couple of older drunk drivers tried to drum up an argument, but piped down when threatened with continued detention, and were then released on bail.
The remainder were old acquaintances. Most of them were in fact grateful for free accommodation in a place that was at least warm and dry. The police lawyer had never seen the point in fining people who then had to go to social services to get the money to pay the fine. But he was just doing his job, and soon enough he’d gone through the list.
‘How’s things?’
The young man held out his hand to Bugs Bunny. He normally gave arrestees nothing more than a nod, but Bugsy was in a class of his own. He was a thief by profession and had been a very good one in his day. But he had lost all the fingers on his left hand during a disastrous attempt to blow a safe in the seventies, and alcohol had consumed the rest of his body since then. His real name was Snorre. He had been given his nickname in the days when he still had teeth, because they were so big, and it had stuck ever since. Now he kept himself busy by stealing from lorries that had been left open, cellar storerooms with simple padlocks, and the odd shop. But he was always caught. The notion of modern surveillance equipment had passed him by. He would stand there, resigned, with the stolen goods under his arm as the alarm sounded and the security guards came bounding over.
Bugs Bunny had never physically hurt another person.
‘Not good,’ he complained and sat down carefully on the spindly chair.
‘You don’t look good either,’ the police lawyer said.
‘Cancer. Down below. Really bad.’
‘Are you getting any help?’
‘Pah, not a lot they can do now, you see.’
‘So why did you attempt to break into a chemist shop then?’
‘The pain. The bloody pain.’
‘You’re not up to a chemist shop, Bugsy. Alarms and all that. And the stronger drugs are locked away in a store cupboard that I quite honestly don’t think you could bust, even if you did, against all odds, manage to get into the shop. It was a bit stupid of you, you know.’
Bugsy moaned and rubbed his neck with his left hand.
‘Yes,’ he mumbled. ‘But fucking hell, it hurts.’
The police lawyer tipped his chair back. It was quiet in the small room, and they could hear an argument going on out by the front desk. Someone was crying – it sounded like a young woman. The police lawyer looked at
Bugs Bunny’s face, and he could have sworn he saw tears in the worn old man’s eyes.
‘Here,’ he said suddenly and took his wallet out of his jacket pocket. ‘The offies are open again today. Get yourself something strong.’
He handed him a five-hundred-kroner note. Bugs Bunny’s toothless mouth dropped open in disbelief. He shot a glance at the uniformed policeman on duty by the door, who just smiled and looked away.
‘Thanks,’ Bugs Bunny whispered. ‘You guys are something else.’
‘Yes, but I can’t get rid of these,’ the police lawyer said with his hand on the documents. ‘I assume that you’ll be up in the magistrates’ court, as usual.’
‘Course, yeah. I stand for what I’ve done, you know. Always. Thank you, thanks.’ He stroked the banknote.
‘You can go then. And stop breaking into places. You’re not up to it any more, OK?’
Bugs Bunny got up as carefully as he had sat down. He stuffed the money in his pocket. Normally he would be out of the station as fast as his thin legs would carry him. But now he stood there, swaying slightly, apparently in his own world.
‘Ten past four, it was,’ he said suddenly. ‘That’s when the President got in the car.’
‘What?’
‘Was watching TV yesterday, and realised that the lady I’d seen in the morning was the one you’re all after.’
The police lawyer peered at him as if he hadn’t quite understood what he’d said. Then the uniformed policeman by the door took a step towards the arrestee.
‘Sit back down,’ the police lawyer said.
‘You said I could go.’
‘Sit down, Bugsy. Let’s go over this first.’
The old man sat down again, reluctantly.
‘I’ve just told you all there is to tell,’ he said sullenly.
‘I just want to get this completely clear. Where were you yesterday morning?’
‘I’d been at a party at Backyard Berit’s. Lives down in Skippergata. Was going home, you know. I looked at the clock as I passed Central Station. Ten past four. Then a woman and two blokes crossed the square. They got in a car. The woman was blonde in that way older women are. Bottle blonde. Was wearing a red jacket, just like the one on TV.’
The police lawyer said nothing. He got hold of his snus box and put a pillow under his lip. Then he held the box out to Bugsy, who packed half the contents over his destroyed gums. The man in uniform put a hand on his shoulder, as if to prevent him from running away.
‘And this was yesterday,’ the policeman said slowly. ‘The seventeenth of May?’
‘Yep,’ Bugsy replied, irritated, and spat out a black gob. ‘I might not be at my best, but I’m not so bloody gone that I can’t remember national day!’
‘And it was ten past four. In the morning. Are you sure of that?’
‘Yes, I just said. And now I want to go to the offy.’
He pulled out the five-hundred-kroner note and smoothed it over his knee. Then he neatly and carefully folded it again and put it back in the other pocket. The police lawyer exchanged looks with the policeman.
‘I’m afraid that may have to wait,’ he said. ‘But we’ll get you some painkillers in the meantime.’
He picked up the phone, but had problems hitting the right numbers.
VI
‘They’re starting to get really pissed off.’
‘Who?’‘The FBI. Or whoever all these Americans are.’ The Director General of the PST, Peter Salhus, wrinkled his nose.
‘What is it now?’ he asked in exasperation.
‘I get the impression it’s everything.’ Bastesen, the Chief of Oslo Police, shrugged and held out a cup of coffee. ‘Apparently there was an episode out at Gardermoen. First of all there was a misunderstanding about who was to collect the twenty or so agents who arrived this morning. And then . . .’ He chuckled, but as the corners of Salhus’ mouth didn’t even twitch, he covered his mouth with his hand, gave a discreet cough and then continued in a serious voice: ‘A rather zealous customs officer confiscated all their handguns, which, to be fair, is legally correct. What do they need weapons for in this country? These Secret Service guys are armed all the time, and see what difference that made! But apparently the customs officer was a bit . . . undiplomatic.’
The gym in the police HQ had no windows. The Chief of Police had already started to pull at his collar. Fifty people were sitting in deep concentration at desks placed in a horseshoe around a huge round table. Charts and maps were hanging from the stall bars. The technical equipment gave off a suffocating waft of dust that mixed with the remains of sweat and smelly trainers.
‘They’re not happy with their offices either.’ Bastesen emptied his coffee cup in one final gulp. ‘We’ve given them three offices on the second floor, the red zone, but they don’t appear to be using them. Which is no skin off my nose. And here we’ve got together your guys from PST, the best people from the NCIS and my men. It’s—’
‘And women,’ Salhus interrupted.
‘And women.’ Bastesen nodded. ‘It was more a figure of speech. My point is that we can’t let the Americans just do as they please and trample on everything. I don’t see how that will help the investigation. The language barrier alone would . . . And so far they have given us nothing. Tight as clams.’
‘The reports suggest that they’ve decided to set up shop at the embassy,’ Salhus said. ‘To be expected. The traffic in and out of Drammensveien has increased considerably, and all public services have been closed. They can do what they want in the embassy. I’m sure we would have done the same. And as for their lack of communication . . .’ He turned towards the Chief of Police. He wavered for a moment, then put his hand on Bastesen’s arm in an unexpected friendly gesture. ‘The Americans don’t give anything away unless it’s to their advantage,’ he continued. ‘And certainly not when they don’t trust the other party. Strictly speaking, I can understand why their trust and confidence in us is not optimal at the moment.’
Without waiting for a response, he stepped down from the raised platform in the far corner of the hall. He was still holding his cup of coffee when he stopped beside an overweight man in his forties, who was sitting with his chin cupped in his hands, staring at a computer screen.
‘Still nothing?’ Salhus asked in a quiet voice.
‘Nope.’
The officer rubbed his red eyes. He grabbed a bottle of mineral water and drank half of it before suppressing a burp and screwing the top back on.
‘I’ve watched all the videos three times. In slow motion, fast and real time. Nothing. No one comes and no one goes. The woman must have flown out the window.’
‘No,’ was Salhus’ measured response. ‘She didn’t do that. As you know, Secret Services had someone standing . . . here.’
An aerial photograph of the area around the Hotel Opera was hanging on the wall behind the monitor. Salhus pointed to the roof of the neighbouring building.
‘And all the equipment is in good working order? No one’s tampered with anything? No short circuits or loops?’
‘Well if there are, they’ve been bloody well perfectly done,’ sighed the policeman, scratching his neck. ‘Basically, we’ve found absolutely nothing. I don’t get it . . .’
He looked up, obviously distracted by the sharp clacking of heels across the floor. The atmosphere in the provisional incident room was subdued. Most people tiptoed around. Even the whir of the technical equipment was dampened by lined cases and rubber mats.
A red-haired woman hotfooted over the floor. She was waving a phone enthusiastically in her hand, as if she had won a prize.
‘Witnesses,’ she exclaimed when she reached the Chief of Police, who had followed Salhus and was watching the empty corridor on the ninth floor of the Hotel Opera. ‘People are finally starting to ring in with sightings, and lots of them!’
‘Witnesses?’ Bastesen repeated dubiously. ‘Witnesses to what?’
The woman took a deep breath, and tucked he
r red hair behind her ear. ‘The kidnapping,’ she panted.
The corpulent policeman stared at her, as if he was having difficulty understanding the language.
‘There are no witnesses,’ he said aggressively and pointed at the monitor. ‘There’s not a fucking person to be seen!’
‘Not there,’ the woman said. ‘Outside. Later, I mean. Outside the hotel.’
‘Where?’
Salhus put a hand on her shoulder, but removed it immediately when he detected a slight frown on the woman’s face.
‘A young woman,’ she said, more evenly now. ‘A Russ. She was sitting with a friend in the parking place on the fjord side of Central Station when two men and a woman who fits the description of Helen Bentley went past . . .’ she glanced around swiftly and then leant towards the aerial photograph, ‘from here. They got into a blue Ford.’
‘Hmmm,’ the Chief of Police muttered. ‘Well, well.’
He had crossed his arms and was staring blankly at the wall. Peter Salhus was pensively pulling his earlobe. The policeman sitting in front of the screen couldn’t hide his grin.
‘We believe, tra-la-la,’ he muttered.
‘And she’s not the only one,’ the woman added quickly. ‘She and her friend, that is. Last night one of the old boys was picked up, and when he was questioned this morning before being released, it turns out that he’d been in the same place at the same time. And he says exactly the same thing.’
‘Same time,’ Peter Salhus said, and let go of his ear. ‘And what time was that?’
‘Around four, the two girls said. The old alcoholic said ten past four, because he’d just looked at the clock. And then . . .’ She fumbled eagerly in her jacket pocket for her notebook. ‘Three witnesses have, independent of each other, phoned in to report sightings of a blue Ford with two men and a sleeping woman in a red jacket in it, heading towards Svinesund. They’ve been seen in . . .’ She leafed through her book. She was now surrounded by an audience. No one said anything. The woman with the red hair licked her finger and turned another page. ‘At a petrol station on the E6, close to Moss. In a lay-by outside Fredrikstad, and . . .’ she stopped abruptly and shook her head, ‘in Larvik,’ she finished off in disappointment. ‘In Larvik, which is not on the way to Sweden.’
