Odd Numbers

by Anne Holt

  “A . . . guest? Billy T.?”

  “No. Henrik Holme. That young policeman I was telling you about.”

  “Of course! That’s brilliant, Hanna. I’m so happy now.”

  “Ida has met him. Managed to embarrass him, too, but I think it was okay.”

  “Embarrass him? Ida?”

  “Yes. He looks a bit . . . unusual. But you know what?”

  “No?”

  “I like him. A great deal, in fact. And I think he’s lonely.”

  She raised her glass and looked down into the wine.

  “Yes,” she said, almost to herself. “He’s lonely, and I have a distinct feeling that he’s incredibly smart.”

  “In other words,” Nefis said with a smile, “he’s like you.”

  “No. I have you and Ida. Henrik has only . . . his mother, I think.”

  On the TV screen, Kari Thue seemed to be having the last word—something she did increasingly often and accompanied by increasingly mild criticism.

  “I’ll take that blanket after all,” Hanne muttered. “I’m freezing.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  After a brief taste of spring, lasting a few days, it turned cold again.

  Henrik Holme had walked all the way from Grünerløkka to Korsvoll and was standing once again outside the cast-iron gate in Skjoldveien.

  May 1 had come and gone.

  With no more bombs.

  Support for the Labor Day procession had been greater than for many years. The square at Youngstorget had been filled, with crowds extending far into the side streets when the outgoing Labor Party leader had delivered a speech dealing more with solidarity and freedom than with workers’ rights. The only unfortunate episodes had led to five arrests, all involving dark-skinned Norwegians whom a nervous armed policeman had considered suspicious and had driven to Grønlandsleiret without ceremony. None of them had so much as a parking ticket on his conscience, and one was a seventeen-year-old boy by the name of Torstein Gundersen.

  He had been adopted from Sri Lanka at the age of four months—something he had desperately tried to explain to the police. To deaf ears. He was released only when his father, with the boy’s passport in his pocket, arrived to pick him up three hours later.

  Some still continued to get worked up about individual incidents. The media still gave them free rein. Reports of civil harassment and unwarranted arrests came almost daily now. However, it seemed to Henrik that no one any longer paid real attention when someone took the trouble to protest in public. It seemed as if the twenty-three days that had elapsed since the first attack had produced a new state of normality in the country—as if Norway was simply paying a price that it was impossible to haggle over.

  But of course it was not the majority of Norwegians who were paying that price, it had crossed Henrik’s mind at the breakfast table as he read the feature called “The Cost of Freedom” in Aftenposten.

  We were not the ones who paid.

  They were.

  Only when he was on his way up to Korsvoll had Henrik begun to worry that Kirsten Ranvik might have taken the Friday between the holiday and the weekend off. Fortunately, she was obviously industrious: at half past seven, she had emerged from the gate and set off toward Maridalsveien, in all likelihood to take a bus.

  Gunnar had still not shown his face. Henrik had decided to wait until he came out before making contact. That would probably seem less threatening. The pigeons would most likely need to be seen to at some time or other.

  And indeed that proved to be the case.

  At twenty to nine, the red front door opened. Gunnar stomped out with a plastic bag in one hand. Pausing on the little porch with the concrete steps that led down to the gravel path, he squinted up at the weather. It had stopped raining fifteen minutes earlier, and that strange grimace resembling a smile passed over his face as he began to walk.

  Henrik opened the gate and stepped inside, jogging the first thirty feet. The gravel crunched under his shoes, and Gunnar came to a sudden halt.

  “Not you,” he said, staring straight at Henrik. “Not you. You weren’t to come back.”

  “You remember me,” Henrik said, smiling, and stopped a couple of yards away from the man. “That’s nice. Then you’ll also remember that I’m from the police?”

  “The police didn’t do their job. The police don’t do their job. You have to go.”

  Henrik raised both palms and took half a step back.

  “I’ll go soon, Gunnar. I just wanted to show you a picture I’ve come across. A picture I think you’d like to see.”

  He quickly dipped his hand into his inside pocket and whipped out a piece of paper folded twice.

  “Can we go under shelter, Gunnar? I don’t want the picture to get wet.”

  “It’s not raining any more.”

  “No, but you can still feel a bit of drizzle.”

  Gunnar retreated hesitantly before turning to walk the four steps up to the front door. Henrik followed him with the paper held out invitingly in front of him. Once he had reached the top of the steps, he perched on the railings and unfolded the paper.

  “Look,” Henrik said, beaming.

  Gunnar stared at it. His face was entirely blank when he exclaimed: “Karina! Karina with the pigeon hair.”

  His eyes suddenly opened wide and darted to the left, before his face broke into a huge smile.

  “She was my girlfriend,” he said, clutching the sheet of paper. “I don’t have any pictures of Karina. Just inside my head. Inside my head. Inside my head.”

  He held the paper so tightly to his face that Henrik was confirmed in his suspicion that the assault had also impaired Gunnar’s eyesight.

  “I know,” he said softly, jumping down from the bannister.

  Gingerly, he placed his hand on Gunnar’s shoulder. It was allowed to stay there.

  “She’s pretty,” he said in an undertone. “And I think her hair’s really cool.”

  “She fell in the water. They pushed her.”

  Gunnar began to sway slightly, quietly, from side to side. Henrik let him be. Said nothing. Left his hand on the shorter man’s shoulder until he could feel the warmth through his college sweater.

  “Mohammad,” he said finally. “Mohammad and Fawad. That’s what they were called. The boys. Karina’s friends. Isn’t that right?”

  The swaying stopped abruptly.

  “Pakkies,” Gunnar said. “The Pakkies pushed Karina. They wanted to get hold of . . .”

  His hands were trembling as he struggled to fold the sheet of paper exactly the way it had been. He could not manage it, so Henrik took it carefully and helped him.

  “What did they want to get hold of, Gunnar?”

  “You have to go. Karina’s father gets so angry. Can I keep the picture?”

  “Of course you can keep the picture. Karina’s your girlfriend, not mine. I knew you’d like it. If I’d had a girlfriend, I would have had lots of pictures of her.”

  “You don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “No. I’m not that lucky. What was it Mohammad and Fawad wanted to get hold of, Gunnar?”

  “Mohammad and Fawad,” Gunnar repeated.

  His eyes had become clearer, almost glassy. He gazed at Henrik, but nonetheless they seemed completely out of focus. As if staring at something in the far distance.

  “I didn’t want to go there,” he said. “I don’t like things like that. Mum doesn’t like things like that. But Karina wanted to, and Karina . . .”

  He moved his hand tentatively to the folded picture. Henrik gave it to him.

  “Was it drugs, Gunnar? Had Karina got hold of some hash that you and she were going to try up there? That Mohammad and Fawad wanted to take off you?”

  Henrik was astounded. He had never seen anything like it before: Gunnar’s pupils contracted on the spot. It was like looking into a camera lens as it changed aperture.

  “You have to go,” he whispered. “Karina has an angry dad.”

  He had s
tarted to cry. He hugged the copy of Karina’s picture to his body and cried so hard that he broke into sobs.

  “Do you really want me to go?” Henrik asked in a quiet voice. “Are you absolutely sure? I can easily stay here for a while, so you’re not on your own when you’re feeling so unhappy.”

  “Go. I have to hide the picture. Mum can’t see it. You have to go. You mustn’t come here again. The pigeons.”

  All of a sudden he looked down at the plastic bag he had set aside. “The pigeons,” he repeated, grabbing the bag. “You have to go, Policeman.”

  Henrik stepped backward down the steps. Not until he was a few yards along the driveway did he hold his hand aloft in farewell.

  “Have a nice day, Gunnar. Take good care of the picture.”

  Then he turned on his heel and set off to walk back to the city center.

  He felt terribly sorry for Gunnar Ranvik, but all the same he was wreathed in smiles most of the way back. Extremely well satisfied with his first task of the day.

  “Anyway, we must at least thank our lucky stars that May 1 went so well,” the Mayor of Oslo said, letting his eyes roam over the five other people in the large conference room in the left tower of the City Hall.

  “We have very little to thank our lucky stars about these days,” Harald Jensen, head of the Security Service, commented. “I’d prefer to say that yesterday added to the problem. The turnout in the city center was formidable. People quite simply don’t have the sense to stay at home. They won’t on May 17 either.”

  “More likely the opposite,” the Mayor continued. “What we saw yesterday was a clear and sharp indication: the citizens don’t like having their city taken from them. That’s something I’m proud of. We expect 150,000 visitors on our National Day, in addition to the 60,000 children in the parade.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  The new Minister of Justice looked lost in thought about something. Silje Sørensen stole a glance at a note she had received from the leader of the Royal Police Escort, a document that the Master of the King’s Household also seemed eager to look at. Seated beside her, he was not particularly discreet as he leaned toward her to read it. She slipped the sheet of paper into a folder and adjusted her lapels.

  Police Commissioner Caroline Bae cleared her throat.

  “So, the arrangements for May 17 are going ahead as planned,” she said. “Regardless.”

  “It’s not right to say regardless,” the Mayor corrected her. “Naturally we will defer to any direct instruction from the Justice authorities or the police. What I wanted to assert in my report was that a large majority in the city council are eager for the day to be celebrated as normal. Yes, not entirely as normal exactly, since there will be a whole lot of additional arrangements because of the bicentenary, of course.”

  Clasping his hands on the table in front of him, he smiled at Silje. She did not smile back.

  “How is that, Police Chief Sørensen? Will you and your people be able to protect our citizens on that big day?”

  Silje felt an impulse to bawl him out. Most of all, she wanted to cancel the whole National Day. The rest of the month of May, if it had been up to her, would be a time of house arrest and isolation for everybody. People ought to be cooped up inside their homes until she and her people, as the Mayor had expressed it, had managed to unravel this dreadful situation they had been placed in by the two terrorist bombs.

  Anyway, the month of May was far too optimistic a time frame, as it all looked now.

  “No one can give guarantees, of course,” she said, forcing down the pitch of her voice. “That is self-evident. But we’ve had promises from the Police Directorate . . .”

  She nodded briefly at Caroline Bae.

  “. . . with regard to extremely flexible limits, as far as staffing and budgets are concerned. The arming of police officers, introduced as a temporary measure, will be maintained—”

  “Is the children’s parade to be guarded by submachine guns?” the Mayor exclaimed. “That would be—”

  Justice Minister Salomonsson broke in authoritatively: “It is out of the question to disarm the police in the meantime. That is my decision, and mine alone, based on professional police advice and information from the Security Service. It is unnecessary to waste valuable time on this point.”

  As if to underscore her own impatience, she looked demonstratively at her wristwatch.

  “I see,” the Mayor said, a touch milder now. “Then we’re left with the royal family. How will that be, Damsgaard, since you’re in charge of the royal household? Everyone on the balcony? Same procedure as every year?”

  “For security reasons, we can’t make any public comment on that.”

  “Do you mean that—”

  “The royal family’s program was officially withdrawn as early as Tuesday, April 8. The royal couple, the Crown Prince couple, and to some degree the Princess too are all still carrying out some of their duties, though under a different security regime. The extent of their public appearances has been scaled back, of course. We do not issue any advance notification. It may be that they will appear on the balcony. It might just as easily be that they do not. Even their presence in the palace is not guaranteed.”

  Pressing his mouth shut until it looked like the slit on a miserly money box, he opened it again to add: “We are in continual dialogue with the Royal Police Escort. Who are in turn working closely with their boss.”

  He nodded at Silje.

  Who knew that the royal couple were in the United States right now, despite the palace’s web pages making it clear, reading between the lines, that they were at Kongsseteren, the royal lodge in Holmenkollen. Only the gods knew how much effort it had taken to ensure they got away with such a smokescreen.

  “I see, then,” the Mayor said, again letting his gaze wander around the small gathering of six of the people responsible for ensuring that May 17, 2014, would not end in total catastrophe. “Well, all that’s left is to look forward to it!”

  Really, he seemed to be the only one.

  No one apart from him had discovered so much in such a short time almost entirely without use of the Internet. He was convinced of that. Henrik Holme was so proud it felt as though his Adam’s apple was dancing when Hanne opened the door and ushered him into her home office instead of to the dining table in the living room.

  The room was suitably large and exceptionally stylish.

  The cabinets with their gray metal doors were so original that he had to touch them. The desk was something entirely different from the tiny kitchen table he used as his office desk at home. Most impressive of all, however, was a huge painting on one of the walls. It was Las Vegas, as he immediately recognized. By night. The Strip, neon lights, and a cascade of colors against the black sky. Two police cars moving in the foreground.

  “Wow!” he cried out. “That’s the most wonderful painting I’ve ever seen.”

  “Do you think so?” Hanne asked.

  Not seeming especially enthusiastic herself, she asked him to sit down.

  “Ida has friends visiting,” she added. “That’s why we have to be here. What have you found out?”

  Henrik was beginning to get used to Hanne’s habit of refusing to waste time on small talk.

  He would wait to tell her that he had paid Gunnar another visit. He had not asked for permission and wanted first of all to impress her with everything else he had discovered. Something in reserve if she lost her temper, he had calculated in the taxi on his way to Kruses gate.

  “I started with the Population Register,” he began, sitting comfortably in the elegant grayish-blue visitor’s chair. “I wanted to find out something about extended family relationships first. Then I talked to—”

  “To hell with that. You can write a report about your methods. What I’m after is whatever you found out.”

  He let the red flush spread unhindered as he tapped three times on his left shoulder with his right fist.

  “My good
ness,” he muttered, staring at his hand.

  This was a new twitch.

  “Kirsten Ranvik,” he rushed to say, “was born on November 14, 1950, at the maternity hospital in Josefinesgate. Or the Oslo Municipal Maternity Hospital, which was its real title.”

  He had not opened his notes, which were still tucked inside the small backpack he had left in the hallway when he took off his shoes and jacket. It did not matter.

  “She had two older brothers at the time of her birth. Arne, born in 1948, and Walter, born in ’46. When she was sixteen months old, she had a third brother, Simon. Nowadays they are spread all over Norway: one in Tromsø, one in Ålesund, and the last in Sandefjord.”

  Slightly taken aback, he noticed that Hanne had taken out pen and paper and was making notes.

  “Uh,” he stammered. “Excuse me?”

  She looked up.

  “I’ve written a thorough report for you. It’s in the hallway.”

  “So what? Continue.”

  The pen scratched over the paper as she continued to write.

  “Her siblings have Kalvefjord as their surname. That is to say, Kirsten married someone called Trond Ranvik in 1976 and took his name. He was ten years older than her and ran a grocery store in Lilleborg. Or Torshov, which would be the most correct description nowadays. They had their first child in 1977. His name is Peder.”

  Hanne looked up again.

  “So Gunnar has an elder brother?”

  “Yes. He’s a professional soldier. A captain. I’ve had some difficulty finding out where he’s based—there’s next to nothing about him on the Internet.”

  He drummed his fingers loudly on the desk.

  “But I found a picture of him on Facebook. On the account of a woman of the same age, you see, since he’s not on social media himself, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain. He’s wearing a wine-red beret. The Armed Forces Special Command, in other words. There’s a lot of excessive secrecy surrounding them, so . . . I’ve used the Internet a little. But not a lot.”