Odd Numbers

by Anne Holt

  However, the atmosphere was not quite as it usually was.

  There was something watchful about people. For some reason there were fewer youngsters than normal, and when he thought about it, he had not seen a single stroller.

  The city center seemed to be swarming with Muslims.

  Lars Johan did not have the slightest thing against Muslims. He did not like them particularly, but then he was not very fond of people at all. Not even himself, and Muslims were neither better nor worse than any others.

  Apart from that they never gave anything to beggars.

  But anyway, fewer and fewer people did. Those damned gypsies, who all of a sudden were supposed to be called Roma people, after having been called gypsies for hundreds of years, had spoiled that business entirely.

  He didn’t have much time for the gypsies.

  Muslims, on the other hand, were absolutely fine, and my goodness how they dressed themselves up for a party.

  The women wore the most colorful clothes, the men the darkest suits. They had the longest streamers, carried the biggest flags, and waved them more enthusiastically than anyone else.

  But this year, bizarrely enough, it seemed as if no one was waving back. Skoa had noticed that Pakistani children in regional costumes were often photographed by total strangers on May 17. Old ladies smiled and snapped, and visitors from outside the city usually appeared to find regional dress on dark-skinned children charmingly exotic.

  Today he had not seen anything like that. Far from it. At Stortorvet, where he had found an unopened soda bottle in a trash can, he had overheard two women speak disparagingly about a black-haired toddler in festive dark-blue clothing and traditional red woolen socks.

  “They’re destroying the tradition of regional costumes,” one woman had complained indignantly to the other.

  After all, they were not wearing genuine costumes, the women agreed. Just cheap stuff, and it shouldn’t be allowed.

  Something was definitely different, Skoa thought, and not only the unusually large numbers of police in attendance. They were everywhere. Even though the city center seemed otherwise totally devoid of vehicles, he constantly heard the pervasive, short blast of sirens every time a patrol car struggled to make its way through the crowds.

  Now he had reached the spot where Karl Johans gate crossed Kongens gate. He was scared the whole time that someone might stand on his sore foot. That had already happened twice, and he tried to walk as close to the walls of the buildings as possible. Along the curbs on the sidewalks, people jostled for places so that they could see the procession when it arrived.

  He narrowly avoided colliding with a balloon seller. The man had a clown nose and a tight grip on a huge bouquet of foil balloons as he tried to take up a spot on the higher ground outside the Cubus chain store. Skoa lost his balance when a young girl of ten or twelve attempted to drag her father along with her to the balloon seller, who by now was easy to spot.

  Skoa only just managed to stay on his feet. He had found unexpected support from several instruments that must have been put down by a marching band. A fellow in band uniform was standing there trying to keep an eye on them, but it would be quite easy to help himself in all this chaos. As Skoa was just beginning to speculate what a second-hand shop would give him for a big bass drum, a fat hand landed on his shoulder.

  “You there,” a deep voice spoke, and Skoa, long suffering, turned around.

  “Not today,” he begged plaintively. “It’s a party, for fuck’s sake! Not today! Okay?”

  “Turn out your pockets,” the policeman ordered, pushing him closer to the wall of the building. “Now.”

  “Please. There must be more to keep you busy today than bothering me.”

  “Turn out your pockets. Now.”

  Skoa had never seen the man before, but Oslo Police had started to send out so many strange characters onto the streets after those damn bombs had gone off. Days could go by without seeing a familiar face. From the epaulets, he could see that this man was a police trainee. Evidently he had never been out on the streets before. He wanted to prove he was a tough guy, but didn’t dare take on anyone other than a poor junkie with sore feet, despite being a big, burly man.

  “Okay, okay—don’t harass me!”

  Skoa tried to hide the little package he had, a single-user dose wrapped in aluminum foil, between his second and third fingers. As he pulled his hand from his pocket, it fell to the ground all the same.

  “What do we have here?” the police trainee said briskly, retrieving the modest package. “And then the other pocket.”

  Skoa pulled out his Swiss Army knife: the very bulkiest type, with countless tools he seldom had any use for.

  “Are you carrying a knife in a public place?”

  Imperiously, the uniformed giant held out an open palm.

  “I’m always allowed to keep it,” Skoa said, devastated. “It’s just about the only thing I own, you see.”

  “Hand it over. Right now.”

  “What’s going on here?” inquired an authoritative voice.

  “Praise be and thank God,” Skoa said.

  “What I presume to be a user dose of heroin and carrying a knife in a public place,” the police trainee thundered. “Should he be brought in, or will I simply confiscate them?”

  “Bring in Skoa? On May 17 of all days? We’ve got better things to do. Let me see the knife, Skoa.”

  Lars Johan Austad put the heavy pocketknife in the Superintendent’s hand.

  “I’ve never seen you in uniform,” he mumbled.

  “Yes, of course you have. I always wear it in court. Great knife.”

  He slid his thumb over the smooth, red surface with the Swiss cross. Then he turned it over. On the other side was the logo of the United Nations Veterans’ National Association, engraved in gold and light blue on the red metal.

  “I think Skoa should be allowed to keep this,” he said, handing it back. “But put it in your deepest pocket, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  Skoa quickly thrust it into his pocket.

  “This . . . um . . . I don’t have money for more than one user dose.” He looked pleadingly at the Superintendent who, after a moment’s consideration, held his hand out to the trainee.

  “Off you go—away from the city center,” he said, stuffing the package into Skoa’s breast pocket. “It’s far from certain that the next officer you meet will be just as accommodating as me. As you’ve seen, there’re an awful lot of us here today.”

  “Thanks very much,” Skoa said, beaming. “I’ll never forget that. I’ll shuffle off down to the subway and get away as soon as I can.”

  He certainly didn’t really intend to do that, but to be on the safe side, he threw in a couple of imaginative words of honor before forcing his way through the crowds and disappearing.

  Billy T. had vanished into thin air.

  Hanne had tried to phone him at least twenty times. Half an hour ago, quite desperate, she had struggled to remember what Grete’s full name was. At first she couldn’t come up with it for the life of her, until it sprang to mind that Linus’s surname was Bakken. He didn’t have that from his father, and when Hanne checked the phone book, she tracked down three Grete Bakkens in Oslo. Crossing her fingers that Linus’s mother still lived in the capital city, she began to make the calls.

  The first Grete she came across, to judge from her voice and phrasing, was extremely old. Hanne speedily talked her way out of the conversation by making the excuse that she had dialed the wrong number. The second one seemed completely confused when Hanne mentioned Linus’s name. That conversation was also brief.

  The third woman in Oslo by the name of Grete Bakken did not answer the phone. After five rings, Hanne was transferred to voice mail. She did not recognize the voice. On the other hand, she had spoken to Grete only five or six times, and that must have been at least twelve years ago.

  She had left an urgent request for her to call back.

  Tha
t had been twenty minutes ago, and it was already quarter past nine.

  In three-quarters of an hour, the children’s parade would be on the move.

  She could hear laughter and loud music from the living room. Five other parents in Ida’s class had thought it an excellent idea to hold the celebrations away from the streets of Oslo. Henrik had come ten minutes early, in a blue suit and red tie. He must be the only policeman in the whole of Oslo who had escaped street patrol today.

  It seemed the bosses in the Violent Crime Section had no idea what a treasure they possessed in such a policeman, Hanne had mused when she had sneaked one of her many Internet surfing sessions that morning. The city was really besieged by police.

  When the phone rang, Hanne was startled and nearly dropped it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello. I’m Grete Bakken, and I got a call from this number—”

  “Hi, Grete. Thanks for phoning. As you heard from my message, it’s Hanne Wilhelmsen here. I don’t know if you remember me, but—”

  “Of course I remember you, Hanne. Heavens, you picked up Linus from my place lots of times when he was little. Dropped him off a couple of times, too, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Exactly.”

  Hanne held her breath for a moment.

  “I want to ask you a really strange question. It’s of the greatest importance that you answer as precisely and honestly as you possibly can. Right now, unfortunately, I can’t tell you why I’m asking, but—”

  “Ask away, then. I’m a bit short of time, because I’m going to lunch at my friends’ house.”

  “It’s about Linus.”

  “Oh?”

  “Does he play in a marching band?”

  “What?”

  Grete gave an anxious laugh, as if she had not quite caught the question and thought there was something wrong with Hanne.

  “Does Linus play in a band?” Hanne insisted. “Or has he ever done?”

  “Linus?”

  This time the laughter was lighter.

  “No, definitely not. He’s the most unmusical person on earth. No, he spent all his money on football until he was sixteen or seventeen and no longer good enough to play with the best of them. In a band?”

  Now she was laughing heartily. “Why on earth are you asking that?”

  “As I said,” Hanne told her, feeling her cheeks burning, “I can’t elaborate. At the moment. Thanks very much, and enjoy the rest of the day.”

  “Was that all . . . was that all you wanted to ask me?”

  “Yes. Thanks for returning my call.”

  Her pulse must have risen to at least 120, and she clutched her chest.

  Linus had had a band uniform in his wardrobe. Hanne had not been quite able to get that to tally with the Linus she had known when he was little, and she had asked Billy T. which instrument his son played. Trombone, Billy T. had replied, confirming this, once he had given it some thought.

  Trombone.

  He had lied out of shame.

  Billy T. knew so little about his children that he didn’t have a clue what interests they had. He was not willing to admit that and instead clutched at something he thought would be an insignificant white lie.

  The problem was that there had been a similar uniform in Andreas Kielland Olsen’s apartment. Hanne had spotted it in a wardrobe pictured on Billy T.’s cell phone, among probably fifteen other photographs.

  And there had been a big bass drum in Kirsten Ranvik’s basement.

  Hanne remembered that specifically: it was sitting on a wide shelf on top of a blue-green surfboard, just beside the staircase in the tidiest basement she had ever seen.

  The center of Oslo was free of cars and motorbikes, apart from ones belonging to the police. There were no strollers, backpacks, big bags, or shopping carts. Not even electric wheelchairs were permitted.

  But it would not be May 17 without musical instruments, and Oslo was now full of them.

  Big bass drums. Tubas.

  Explosives.

  Huge instruments to which no one paid any attention: they were the most natural sight in the world on a day such as this.

  “My God,” Hanne whispered, trying to control her pulse.

  She had no idea what to do and had still not heard from Billy T.

  Billy T. was on his way to die.

  No specific decision lay behind it. No thorough and considered process. The conclusion had come to him entirely by itself, in the bathroom, when he forced the truth out of his son and was made to realize, inexorably, what he was capable of doing to a person he loved so dearly. And, at the same time, had no idea who that person was.

  He was walking about with his hands in his pockets.

  His denim jacket fit him now but had started to smell foul.

  It did not matter, just as nothing mattered anymore.

  His suspicions had not been unfounded. Until the very last, until he had Linus on his knees and a knife at the boy’s throat, he had hoped for a miracle. For everything to be explained in some way other than that his son had shared the responsibility for so many deaths.

  It could not be.

  Linus had been in the group carrying Jørgen Fjellstad’s body into the forest. The boy from Lørenskog had needed to die. When, after appearing in the videos, he had started to get cold feet, Peder wanted to be on the safe side.

  Peder, Linus had said, but had not known his surname.

  Linus had been in the NCIN office when the charges had been set. He had known about the bomb that was to be left in the Grønnere Gress restaurant.

  Billy T. had nearly murdered him.

  He had locked his son in the bathroom. The door was locked on the outside with the ordinary bathroom key. To make absolutely certain that Linus did not escape, Billy T. had fixed three rough planks of wood over the doorway, after having ripped off the door trim to ensure the door was level with the wall. He had hammered in forty crude nails—they were probably sticking out like a fakir’s bed on the inside. What’s more, he had removed the handcuffs from one of Linus’s wrists and secured him to the U-bend.

  The boy had been so terrified, beaten black and blue, and exhausted that he had barely offered any resistance.

  There was water in the bathroom.

  Linus would not die of thirst.

  Billy T. had sent a text message to Grete, asking her to call in and pick up a photo album she had repeatedly asked for. Tomorrow morning. She was not to come later, because Billy T. was going away for an indefinite period and was keen to get rid of the album.

  He had left the front door open. If Linus did not have the strength to shout when he heard someone arrive, the mind-boggling bathroom door would force her to react. Just in case, he had left a crowbar lying on the floor.

  He hadn’t the foggiest how things would go with Linus.

  He knew nothing about Linus, he understood that now, and began to weep over the story he had forced his boy to reveal through intimidation. It was unbearable. Billy T. did not know which was worse: that his son had been involved in killing twenty-three people with bombs and one with cyanide, or that he had enticed an old friend to his death.

  Shazad had been promised 5,000 kroner if he delivered the Darth Vader figure to its rightful owner. Since he had bought it from Linus a year earlier for only 500, this was an offer he couldn’t resist. They were to meet in Gimle terrasse, where Linus claimed to have a rich aunt. Mohammad Awad was also to come, and the three of them would go together to a meeting of Islam Net afterward.

  As snot and blood ran down his face, Linus had explained how the two boys, dressed in traditional clothing, were supposed to be visible in the area to reinforce the message that would later be broadcast by the Prophet’s True Ummah. It had been simply a stroke of luck that Mohammad had arrived just as the bomb exploded. He had died, just as Shazad had done only fifteen minutes later in Bygdøy allé.

  Two problems solved, Linus had sniveled, and Billy T. began to sob. The knife edge penetrated another mi
llimeter into the skin of his son’s neck.

  “They’re idiots!” Linus had screamed. They had believed blindly in Andreas and him. Believed that they sympathized with them. Believed in Andreas’s conversion. They had been fired up by the idea of the Prophet’s True Ummah. They did not even understand that they were being used. Mohammad, Shazad, and Jørgen were complete ignoramuses who were not even allowed to hang out with the real jihadists. That was how little they knew and thought and could cope with.

  They deserved no better.

  They didn’t even deserve to be here.

  An occasional group, dressed in their best finery, approached Billy T. on the way. They had started to swerve away from him. Fathers grabbed their children, holding them by the arm at the very sight of him as he staggered slightly on his journey up to Trondheimsveien. Mothers, looking scared, jerked their toddlers closer.

  He stepped up his pace.

  He had one thing left to do before he died. As he approached the intersection between the student residences and Bjerke racecourse, he pulled out his cell phone. Dizzy and light-headed, he slowed down a couple of times as he keyed in the letters.

  He felt calmer now.

  Determined, in a sense.

  The message was lengthy. When it was nearly finished, he had reached the pedestrian bridge over the Riksvei 4 motorway, thirty feet or so south of the larger bridge. He came to a complete standstill and completed the text:

  If you can keep Linus out of it all, you’d make me really happy. It’s probably impossible. But at least I’ve prevented him from taking part in whatever happens today.

  I’ve never been good enough for anyone other than myself.

  I’ve loved you since I was twenty-two.

  Those were the days, Hanne.

  All the best from your Billy T.

  He climbed up on the outside of the railings. His phone was still clutched in his right hand as he steadied himself, holding his arms out to the side.

  A bus was approaching from the south, decorated with Norwegian flags and birch branches attached to the side mirrors. Billy T. let his thumb touch the Send button and cast a final glance at the display to make sure it was sent.