1222

by Anne Holt

  His face was so close to mine that I felt a fine shower of saliva as he hissed: ‘If you can’t be grateful, you could at least be a little bit more polite towards a bloke who instead of painting his kitchen has been shuttling back and forth in this fucking awful weather to bring both you and your bloody chair to safety!’

  I’m used to people going off and leaving me alone. That’s what I want. It’s a question of finding the balance between being rude and reserved. Too much of the latter simply makes people curious and more intrusive, just like Magnus Streng, who had clearly decided to get to know me better. But I had obviously gone too far when it came to the former.

  ‘I do apologize,’ I said, trying to sound as if I meant it. ‘I am of course grateful for your help. Particularly for the fact that you went to get my chair when the weather had worsened. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.’

  I was lying. Geir Rugholmen looked at me expressionlessly for a few seconds, then shrugged his shoulders and gave a wry smile.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘And I can tell you that we’re holding an information meeting in ...’ he glanced at his diver’s watch made of black plastic, ‘half an hour. It’s going to be held here. Because of you, in fact. It was my idea. And just so we’re clear: it’s going to take a while before anybody comes to fetch us. It’s impossible to say how long. The power lines are down to the west of Haugastøl. The snowstorm is so severe that not even diesel snow ploughs can get through. There’s no chance of a helicopter in weather like this. We’re simply cut off. So you might as well try and relax for the time being. OK?’

  Without waiting for an answer he finished off his drink and walked away.

  Adrian had found someone.

  This surprised me. I had noticed it a little earlier; he sauntered across the rough, worn wooden floor with an older girl trailing behind him. She might have been around eighteen. It was hard to say, actually. She reminded me of a less attractive clone of Nemi, the cartoon character. Thin as a rake, and dressed all in black with coal-black hair. Only the mouse-coloured roots showing along her parting, a silver-coloured piercing in her lower lip, and her pale skin diverged from the monotonous black. Her make-up was so thick she could have been fifteen or twenty-five. The two of them sat down on the floor with their backs to the wall and their arms around their knees right next to the kitchen door. They didn’t appear to be talking to one another. They just sat there like two mute, antisocial individuals in a group of people who had become positively relaxed during the course of the evening.

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a little drop?’

  Magnus Streng was offering me the glass of red wine again.

  What I really wanted to do was to remind him that he was a doctor. That I had just been involved in a major accident, and had suffered loss of blood due to a ski pole penetrating my thigh. I really wanted to ask him if alcohol was appropriate medication for a middle-aged disabled woman with an indubitably lowered general state of health.

  There are limits, even for me.

  ‘No thank you.’

  But I didn’t smile. Which was equally effective, in fact.

  ‘No, right,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Enjoy the rest of your evening, then. I’m going to try and sort out this royal mystery.’

  My mobile rang.

  Well, it glowed silently. I always have the sound switched off. Up to now it had been in the pocket of my padded jacket. It had fallen out onto the floor when I was looking for a piece of chocolate. It showed fifteen missed calls.

  Presumably the accident had been reported across the media. Since the satellite dish in Finse had either been blown down or buried in snow, there were no working televisions in the hotel or the private apartments. A few people had been listening to the radio during the afternoon and evening. None of them had anything new to report on a rescue operation. It seemed as if the matter was not being pursued at present; it could hardly be said that we were in great danger. I have to admit that it seemed pointless to risk life and limb in order to rescue survivors who were safe and warm, cosily installed in a charming hotel. And I don’t suppose the dead train driver was in any hurry to get down from the mountain. As far as the mysterious extra carriage was concerned, it seemed as if those passengers were also safely settled in the top, and doubtless most luxurious, apartment in the wing.

  Basically, everything was more or less OK.

  Apart from the fact that I had forgotten something.

  I too have people who are close to me: a woman and a child.

  I’d forgotten to call home.

  Despite the fact that I was dreading speaking to Nefis, and was busy trying to come up with a strategy before I gathered the courage to call, I couldn’t quite forget Geir Rugholmen’s reaction to the question about the mysterious carriage. It was highly unlikely that Mette-Marit would be on the train. But there was an extra carriage. There had been security guards on the sealed-off area of the platform at Oslo’s central station.

  ‘I’m alive,’ I said before Nefis had time to say anything at all. ‘I’m perfectly OK and things aren’t too bad at all.’

  The telling-off lasted so long that I stopped listening.

  If the people in the last carriage weren’t members of the royal family, then who were they?

  ‘Sorry,’ I said quietly when the tirade on the other end of the line finally petered out. ‘I really am sorry. I should have called straight away.’

  Whoever had been travelling in that last, completely different carriage between Oslo and Bergen, it was incomprehensible that nobody had seen them after the accident. That couldn’t possibly be true. Somebody must have helped them. Somebody from the rescue team must have helped them along the route from the tunnel opening to the hotel. As the rumours about the royal party grew, the only explanation I could come up with was that the people in the last carriage must have been taken out first, and were therefore already indoors and settled in the top apartment before the rest of us started arriving at Finse 1222.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Really I am.’

  Nefis was crying at the other end.

  i

  I was alone in the reception area. The large room was actually just as much a social area for guests, with the table along the windows facing south-west, a couple of capacious wicker chairs next to the staircase, and shabby sofas and chairs in what could, with a little bit of goodwill, be described as the bar at the other end. Someone had switched off most of the lights. In the semi-darkness I rolled my chair over to the corner behind a robust pedestal table where flasks of coffee had been laid out, along with a little machine that evidently provided hot chocolate. Above the bar hung another of the roughly carved signs: Millibar. I almost smiled. For a moment I thought about settling down on one of the two small sofas for the night. It would definitely be more comfortable. I decided against it.

  It was quarter past one, and I was completely alone.

  The information meeting had been less than informative. We had been told that it was snowing more than anyone could ever remember. That it was windy and extremely cold. That the derailed train was blocking the track to the west, and that there was no hope of getting any help from the east for some considerable time. Help from the air was obviously out of the question. We were assured that there was sufficient food and drink for everyone for several days, and that the electricity supply was not a problem either. There was a generator if the situation became critical.

  The last point was the only thing I didn’t know to start with.

  A very boring meeting.

  But afterwards I was still glad I’d been there.

  ii

  The total number of people residing in the hotel and wing was now 196, not counting the passengers in the mystery carriage. This included the hotel’s seven employees, plus four men and one woman from the Red Cross rescue corps who had fortunately been in Finse getting everything ready before the start of the winter season. Three German tourists were the only ordinary guests. Tw
o of them had arrived on the same train as the rest of us; they were the ones I had seen battling their way across the platform just before the train left Finse. They seemed pleased about the storm, and drank vast quantities of beer before being the very last to go to bed. The rest of the passengers from the train had been installed in the nearby buildings, which had names that fitted well with both the railway and the mountains: Finsenut, Elektroboligen and Tusenheimen. The distance between the main hotel and these buildings was no more than one hundred to three hundred metres, we were told. However, given the prevailing weather conditions, there was no possibility that they could come back for the meeting.

  Of course, 196 people is not a valid number from which to draw statistical conclusions. There were, for example, too many men to allow a comparison with the normal population. And far too few people over sixty, as far as I could see. In addition, I had only managed to count four children under ten, plus the pink baby from the train, which I hadn’t actually seen since the accident. Nor did I know much about the professional background of the passengers, even if it subsequently emerged that the number of priests and church employees was alarmingly high. A whole swarm of them were on their way to a conference on church matters in Bergen. Among them was the not universally popular football priest. Although after the confrontation with Kari Thue, I at least had begun to look at the man through new eyes. During the information meeting he sat alone behind one of the pillars by the bar, making it impossible for him to see the woman in knee breeches who calmly and slightly too quietly asked us to be patient, this will take some time. Before I lost sight of him I noticed that he looked unusually serious. Kari Thue really could frighten people out of their wits.

  Despite the limited number of people, and given the excessive proportion of both the servants of God and the medical profession, I still had the impression that I was observing a representative group of Norwegians. Sitting there up against the wall by the stairs leading down to the hobby room and up to the old railway carriage that was suspended in mid-air, forming a bridge between the hotel and the private apartments, I was looking at an almost entirely white collection of individuals. Apart from the two Kurds and the three Germans, there was just one person of non-Norwegian origin: a dark-skinned man in his fifties, who judging by his accent came from South Africa.

  And of course there might be the odd Swede or Dane hiding amongst us.

  Since the number of foreigners resident in Norway comprises barely 9 per cent of the population, we were a little way off reality. But otherwise we had most elements. Self-confident young people in horrendously expensive clothes who didn’t exchange a single word with dross like Adrian and his miserable girlfriend. Stressed businessmen with top-of-the-range laptops, desperately trying to get an internet connection. Screaming kids and middle-aged women. A handball team of fourteen-year-old girls were completely incapable of grasping the point of showing some consideration for others. They made a racket all over the hotel, arguing loudly over who was going to share a room with whom. Some adults were demonstratively uninterested in what was going on, while others chatted animatedly about everything from the allocation of beds and the unexpectedly delicious food to the bridge tournament that was under way down in the hobby room. What we had in common, and what distinguished us from the Kurds, the Germans and the South African, was that nobody was really all that worried. While the two Muslims constantly cast terrified glances at the windows and shrank before both Kari Thue and the roar of the storm, the rest of us were more or less having a nice day out. The Germans did seem excessively delighted at being able to add a hurricane to their list of experiences, but even after six large strong beers none of them was able to hide their respect for the storm and their fear of its consequences. The South African seemed to have a more scientific fascination with the whole thing. He often went over to the window where he would shake his head, place one hand against the glass and peer myopically out into the whirling snow as if he were searching for something. A couple of times he clambered up onto the windowsill and rested his forehead against the cold glass, seemingly lost in dreams.

  The rest of us just sat down in our Norwegian way, and turned into a little piece of Norway.

  Which, when I thought about it, was bound to lead to a crime sooner or later. A quick calculation told me that it would happen within five days, from a purely statistical point of view, taking the average and making no adjustments whatsoever to allow for current circumstances.

  But in five days I would be far, far away from Finse.

  We all would.

  I’d better mention the dogs as well. There were four of them on the Bergen train when it came off the rails, and they were all rescued. A poodle, a Gordon setter, and something that I later discovered was a Portuguese water dog.

  The fourth and final dog frightened the life out of everybody around it, and the owner had to lock it up, keeping it away from children and other sensitive souls.

  iii

  I had fallen asleep.

  Fortunately I realized this straight away when Geir Rugholmen shook me by the shoulder. I quickly turned my head away and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. I dribble terribly in my sleep.

  ‘Is it true what the doctor said?’

  He was speaking quietly in a strained whisper.

  ‘What?’

  I straightened up in my chair and raised my arms. He was too close.

  ‘Are you with the police?’

  ‘I was. It was a long time ago. Can you move a bit further away, please?’

  I drew my head back irritably to show how I was feeling. I glanced at the clock, which was showing five thirty. In the morning.

  ‘What sort of police?’ he persisted, without moving.

  ‘Norwegian. I was a perfectly ordinary Norwegian police officer.’

  ‘Don’t be difficult. What did you work on?’

  ‘I was with the Oslo police for twenty years. I worked on all kinds of stuff.’

  ‘What rank were you?’

  ‘Why are you asking me all this?’

  Geir Rugholmen flopped down heavily on one of the chairs.

  ‘Enough,’ he said drily. ‘I don’t understand why you have to be so unpleasant. There’s a body out there on the porch. Frozen stiff.’

  He covered his face with his hands, resting his elbows on his knees.

  It struck me that I liked his smell. He smelled of mountain and man and fresh air. I’m not all that keen on mountains or men or being outside. Not that I actively dislike any of those things, but they have no importance in my life. And yet the smell of his clothes reminded me of something I couldn’t quite get hold of, something warm and safe that I had presumably tried to forget.

  ‘It was pretty stupid to go out there,’ I said. ‘Talk about asking for it. Freezing to death, I mean.’

  ‘He didn’t freeze to death.’

  I tried to look uninterested. Geir Rugholmen got stiffly to his feet. Shook his head, smiled wryly and pointed over at the windows, which on sunny days presumably provided a fine view of Finsevann and the mighty Hardangerjøkulen glacier on the far side of the lake. The windows were deep and the ledges served as seats.

  ‘Your pal doesn’t seem to need much in the way of comfort,’ he said.

  I hadn’t been alone after all. Adrian was asleep on the window ledge in an icy draught, with a jacket under his head and a blanket over him. His feet were sticking out in their worn-down trainers, and the cap was still pulled well down over his eyebrows. His breathing was regular.

  ‘What happened?’ I said as Geir Rugholmen turned to leave.

  ‘I’ve had enough.’

  ‘You said the body was frozen stiff. But he didn’t freeze to death. So what happened?’

  He stopped without turning around.

  ‘Are you finally giving in? Do you really want to help?’

  I didn’t want to help at all. The only thing I wanted was to be brought down from the mountain, away from all these people and the storm and the
bloody snow, which as time went by had made it difficult to see out. Trying to focus on something in all that chaos where there was nothing on which to focus made me feel sick and dizzy.

  I didn’t reply, but he stayed where he was.

  ‘He was shot,’ he said. ‘At close quarters, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘Shot.’

  He slowly turned around. Took a couple of steps towards me before stopping, wiping the snuff from the corners of his mouth with his thumb and index finger, and taking a breath before saying something.

  ‘My name is Hanne Wilhelmsen,’ I said, pre-empting him. ‘And many people would probably say that I can be a little difficult.’

  Geir Rugholmen took my outstretched hand without smiling.

  ‘They’d be right. Geir, as you have no doubt forgotten.’

  ‘No. So who’s out there?’

  He didn’t let go of my hand.

  ‘Cato,’ he said after a brief hesitation. ‘The football priest. Cato Hammer.’

  For some reason I was not surprised.

  That surprised me.

  In order to avoid giving away what I was thinking, I looked over at Adrian. I was trying to come up with a reason why I had thought of Cato Hammer even before Geir Rugholmen answered my question. My own antipathy towards the man could of course be the reason, but then it struck me that I would have much preferred to see Kari Thue dead. Leaving aside the fact that I didn’t really want to see anyone dead. Let alone murdered.

  I just wanted to go home.

  Adrian snored a little, and turned over in his sleep. Then he curled up into a ball and his breathing became calm and even once again.

  He reminded me of a stray dog that has been badly treated.