Lion's Mouth, The

by Holt, Anne

  “I’ll do it,” his wife said softly from behind his back. “I’ll light it.”

  “It was stupid,” he whispered into the flames when they flared up, coloring his face a golden red. “But she seemed so sympathetic when she phoned.”

  SATURDAY, APRIL 19

  04.20, DEEP INSIDE THE FORESTS OF NORDMARKA, NEAR OSLO

  He had fooled them, and it had been so easy, it was laughable. Admittedly, it had taken a while to find out where they were positioned. He now had six liters of milk in the fridge after four unnecessary trips to the little corner shop. It would go off, but that didn’t matter. It was almost too good to be true. The police were keeping an eye on the entrance to Vidars gate. Period. They had obviously not discovered that it was possible to go through the basement and across into the neighbor’s garden, where a cellar flap into the back yard allowed him to jump over the fence and out through the door three blocks farther down. No one had spotted him. To be entirely on the safe side, he had taken three buses and one tram in different directions, leaping off suddenly at the last minute. Finally he had gone into a sports store and had bought a cheap bicycle.

  He had cycled all the way to the cabin, not arriving until late evening, after darkness had really closed in. The final stretch had been totally deserted; the dismal spring weather was evidently insufficiently tempting, even for the most committed walkers. He had read for a while and had struggled to fall asleep, getting out of bed several times to reassure himself that there was nobody lurking outside. An occasional animal noise came sweeping across the lake, and for an hour or so a light spring shower had whispered softly around the cabin. Otherwise, all was silent.

  He was still tired after only three hours of fitful sleep, but he did not want to sleep any more. He had swum all the way across the lake twice, and his body was wide awake even though his head felt sluggish. He made some coffee and spread a few slices of bread with fish roe.

  He switched on the radio, but there was nothing worth listening to: just lots of noisy pop music, and Brage Håkonsen was not keen on that. Instead he took out a book by David Irving, and read as he ate.

  He had probably lost his job. He had been absent for four days now without getting in touch, and the bad-tempered warehouse boss would certainly bite his head off if he returned. But he didn’t want to go back. In any case, he didn’t want to think about that at the moment. After all, he had money in the bank, and lived modestly.

  He snatched a glimpse out the window and saw that it was bright outside now; it would be sensible to head for the potato cellar while it was still early. People occasionally wandered past at weekends, even though the path was more than two hundred meters from the cabin. The lake seemed enticing to the few walkers with the energy to venture this far, and he had given up trying to frighten them off with a sign: “Fishing and Swimming Forbidden”. The forestry authority removed them after a while anyway.

  The safest course of action would be to go now.

  He pulled a sweatshirt over his head and pushed his feet into a pair of trainers, without tying the laces. He needed a new pair, but he had to be careful now. The bike had cost three thousand kroner, and it was annoying to have spent so much money when he had a good, expensive bicycle in the back yard. However, it hadn’t been worth the risk. It would have been tricky to haul it through the basement, and he wasn’t sure if he would have managed to drag it with him over the fence.

  The morning air had a pungent odor of earth and forest, making him dizzy, even though he had already been outside. He jogged the forty meters over to the little hillock located to the east. The door to the potato cellar was covered in spruce branches and twigs, and would have been invisible if he had not known it was there.

  Removing the camouflage and stacking it beside the entrance, he fished out the key to the hefty padlock from a pocket in his sweatshirt. The lock was well oiled, and it was a simple matter to lift off the heavy cellar flap. The hinges squeaked a little, and Brage paused for a second, stiffening as he strained to listen. Then he exhaled, placing the flap cautiously all the way down on one side of the opening, and entered the pitch-black cave. It always took time for one’s eyes to adjust to the dark, and he switched on a flashlight.

  Now he could hear something. Something other than the occasional small animal. Something more than the wind toying tentatively and ineffectually with last year’s rotting leaves. A twig snapped. Several twigs fractured. He heard footsteps.

  “Come out of there,” he heard a loud voice call out imperiously.

  For a second or two, he considered his options. He had the newly purchased revolver in his pocket and was holding ammunition in his hands. In front of him lay four AG-3s and two shotguns, as well as four saloon rifles. Ammunition for all of them was on the shelf. He would have time to load. He could shoot his way out.

  “Come out right now!” the man roared from the entrance.

  Brage Håkonsen felt anxiety crush his ribs. He attempted to open the package of bullets for the revolver, but his fingers seemed swollen and uncooperative.

  I don’t dare do it, it suddenly dawned on him. For fuck’s sake, I just don’t dare.

  With gritted teeth, he backed out of the potato cellar. His eyes were filled with tears, but he swallowed repeatedly to retain a degree of control.

  Once he emerged from the opening, they threw themselves on him. He lay flat as a pancake on his stomach and could taste the forest floor as spruce needles forced their way into his nose and mouth. A stab of pain jolted through him as the handcuffs were slammed around his wrists.

  “They’re too tight!” he screamed, and spat. “For fuck’s sake! They’re too bloody tight!”

  One of the men had been inside the potato cellar already.

  “Look at this,” he said as his colleague yanked Brage to his feet. “What have we here, then?”

  He was holding an AG-3 in one hand, and in the other the box of documents. The plans. The great ideas.

  “We hoodwinked you completely,” the man said, with a loud guffaw. “You thought we were rank amateurs, only watching the door, didn’t you?”

  His laughter echoed across the water, and a large bird screeched as it took off in fright at the opposite side of the lake.

  “Fucking homo,” Brage growled.

  The police officer holding him, a big, strong guy in his fifties, grinned broadly.

  “It takes one to know one,” he said, pulling Brage firmly and purposefully in the direction of the cabin.

  Severin Heger ran ahead to call for reinforcements.

  09.40, KIRKEVEIEN 129

  This headache was killing her. A drill was boring into each temple, her eyes were smarting, and she had no idea why. She hadn’t drunk any alcohol the night before; in fact, she hadn’t touched a drop since that fatal evening when Birgitte Volter was killed. Even so, she had difficulty keeping herself upright; this pain was new and different and really terrifying. Two Paracet tablets had not helped, and she rummaged around in her bag in search of something more effective.

  The newsprint on the page danced in front of her eyes when she sat down at the kitchen table. The coffee tasted acrid, but after half a cup she felt her headache subsiding slightly. Whether due to the coffee or the Paralgin Forte covered in dust and fluff from her handbag, she was not quite sure.

  The story was no longer a Kveldsavisen exclusive. Although Kveldsavisen had the edge, all the other newspapers in Oslo and the major regions had now thrown their hats into the ring as well. That created a demand for new angles, fresh theories, and a great deal of pessimistic conjecture. There was now, effectively, no limit to what commentators could speculate about. Even though nobody had yet dared identify a murderer, not a single voice in government circles had refrained from expressing the opinion, if you read between the lines, that the health scandal was obviously closely connected to Birgitte Volter’s death.

  The specter of Benjamin Grinde permeated the pages of every newspaper, despite there being hardly a mention
of his name. They all homed in on the friendship between Volter and Grinde, holding it up as an example of the unacceptable culture of influence within central government that had been established by the Labor Party over many years. Buying vaccines from an Eastern bloc country during the frostiest period of the Cold War was far and away the worst scandal in Norwegian post-war history, greater than the Lund Commission’s revelations about the Security Service, infinitely more serious than the debate over government responsibility regarding the Kings Bay coal-mining disasters. Even through her intense headache, Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden had to admit that on this point, the newspapers were probably not entirely out in left field: several hundred lives may have been lost because of the vaccines. If all of this was true, of course – something no one actually knew for certain yet.

  Strictly speaking, the other newspapers had no new facts to add to the revelations contained in yesterday’s extra edition of Kveldsavisen. However, the Kveldsavisen story had been so comprehensive that it spawned innumerable pages of commentary from the learned and the not-so-learned, from politicians and indefatigable spokespeople. As was his wont, Fred Brynjestad, professor of public law, made a number of vitriolic attacks, though the more observant reader might have struggled to deduce quite who he was aiming at. Since Einar Gerhardsen, who had served as Prime Minister from 1963–65, was long dead, and his last Minister of Social Affairs also, the intensity of the criticisms seemed rather reckless. Especially as it had in no way been clarified how high up the political ladder responsibility for the vaccine purchase went, or who had profited by the transaction.

  There were also a couple of comments about Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden’s role in all this. Not that she was singled out as the killer, far from it – in 1965 she had been twelve years old and a Girl Guide – but nevertheless Kveldsavisen, Dagbladet and Aftenposten all went so far as to set a question mark against Nordgarden’s handling of the issue. It was particularly galling that they had “reliable sources” who maintained that she had refused to meet Benjamin Grinde only days before he visited Birgitte Volter. The speculations about why she had not been willing to meet him were as fantastic as they were crazy.

  “I simply didn’t have time,” she muttered to herself. “I couldn’t fit it in.”

  Many MPs had also stuck their oars in, some lamely and hesitantly, others rushing in with no other target in sight than the election, now only five months off. As usual, to a greater or lesser degree, they all prefaced their remarks with meaningless provisos. Meaningless, because they then went on to express themselves with the greatest confidence about absolutely everything: the Labor Party’s relationship to the Eastern bloc in the sixties, the role of politics in the investigation of Volter’s homicide, the work and composition of the Grinde Commission. The opposition also made one hell of a racket about what the murder had done to Norwegian society in general, and Norwegian politics in particular. The closed season was definitely over, and it was time for the opposition to ensure that the Labor Party would not benefit from too powerful a Palme effect during the early summer polls.

  “As if the murder is an indication of how incompetent the Labor Party is.” Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden sighed, touching her forehead as she squeezed her eyes shut. “As if the murder says anything at all about the Labor Party. Six months ago we were accused of persecuting communists in the sixties. Now we stand accused of being in cahoots with them.”

  Furious and dejected, she used the newspaper to clobber an audacious fly, dizzy with spring and crawling in the direction of the marmalade spoon.

  “I’m off, Mum,” said a head of tousled blonde hair that suddenly appeared round the doorframe.

  “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Bye!”

  “Breakfast!”

  Sighing histrionically, she leaned back in her chair. Outside the window, the massive larch had really started to put on its summer clothing: it would be vibrant green by 17 May, Norway’s Constitution Day.

  “Has Astrid gone?”

  Another, if possible even more rumpled, head stared crossly at her.

  “You’re not going until you’ve eaten some breakfast!”

  “But I just have to run.”

  Bang.

  The front door left a vacuum of silence she was not sure she liked, or wanted to fill with something else. She did not need to consider this for long. Her cell phone sitting in its charger was glaring at her with an evil green eye, as though it knew what a trial it was for her to use it.

  She had memorized the number by heart.

  “I hope you slept well,” she said petulantly when someone at the other end eventually picked up.

  “Thanks, the same to you,” came the saccharine reply. “I have slept the sleep of the just.”

  “You can’t write all that stuff,” Ruth-Dorthe exploded. “To think you could write such things about me, after—”

  “After what? After being given so much help, do you mean? But wasn’t that in the service of freedom of expression, Ruth-Dorthe?”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean!”

  “No, honestly, I don’t. You sent me the commission’s document. Entirely voluntarily. There were no promises from me involved in that.”

  “But you have … You have destroyed me! And not only me, but also perhaps the whole government. Just look at what Aftenposten wrote today. To think …”

  She made an angry, rustling noise with the newspapers.

  “Here. ‘It is regrettable that it does not seem possible to eradicate the “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” culture that exists within our largest political party. The only difference here is that the back-scratching seems to have extended to former GDR leader Walter Ulbricht. We honestly do not know which is worse.’”

  She threw the newspaper away.

  “In the editorial! What have you done, Little Lettvik? We had an agreement!”

  “Wrong. We did not have an agreement. I have helped you when it has been expedient. You have helped me. If it is no longer possible to return favors, we’ll just have to put that down to the free press and a vibrant democracy. We both support that, don’t we?”

  “I …”

  She had to compose herself, and be restrained. Her headache was back, pounding mercilessly, and she felt nauseous.

  “I will never, ever, speak to you again,” Ruth-Dorthe whispered into the receiver.

  But there was only a dial tone, and that seemed completely uninterested in her promises, given far too late.

  The phone rang, startling her.

  “Hello?”

  Though the cell phone was stone dead, the ringing continued.

  Bewildered, she looked around the living room, keeping her cheek pressed to the cell phone as if it were a security blanket bringing comfort in difficult times.

  It was the ordinary cordless phone that was ringing.

  “Hello,” she ventured again, this time into the right phone. “No, hello, Tryggve. I was just about to call you. I need to talk to you about this health … okay?”

  She began to chew the nail on her left pinkie.

  “I understand. Four o’clock on Monday. At your office. But then I’ll be … Never mind. I’ll be there. Four o’clock.”

  She had bitten her nail down to the quick, and a jag of pain passed through her finger. A little drop of blood trickled out, and she put her fingertip into her mouth, before traipsing off to find a Band-Aid.

  14.27, SECURITY SERVICE SECTION, OSLO POLICE STATION

  “Look at this, look at this,” Severin Heger said jauntily, his voice conveying a hint of satisfaction.

  He tried to make eye contact with the prisoner facing him, but the young man was staring down at his own hands, muttering something impossible to catch.

  “What did you say?” the police officer asked.

  “Surely these aren’t necessary?” the man repeated, lifting his wrists toward him. “Handcuffs in here!”

  “If you hadn’t tried to run off umpteen tim
es between your cabin and the station, then we could have discussed it. But not now.”

  Smiling broadly, he served Brage Håkonsen a cola.

  “How will I manage to drink this with these on?” the young man complained, now almost sniveling.

  “It’s quite easy,” Severin Heger said. “I’ve tried it myself. So, what have we here?”

  The pages he was reading were sheathed in plastic wraps, every one of them. They were typewritten, in fairly pompous language peppered with spelling mistakes that might have led one to assume that the author was rather elderly. Perhaps they were merely typos.

  “You wrote this, did you?”

  The police officer was still smiling, and his tone was friendly, bordering on cheerful.

  “None of your fucking business,” the prisoner murmured softly.

  “What was that?”

  Severin Heger was no longer smiling. He leaned unceremoniously across the desk and grabbed hold of Brage’s flannel shirt.

  “One more word of that kind, and this will become very much harder for you,” he snarled. “Just you sit up straight and answer all my questions politely. Understood?”

  “I want to speak to a lawyer,” Brage said. “I’m saying nothing until I get to speak to an attorney!”

  Severin Heger stood up and remained there staring at Brage Håkonsen for such a long time that the young man began to squirm in his seat.

  “Of course,” the police officer said finally. “Of course you can speak to a lawyer. That’s your right. It’ll take some time, and I can assure you that in a few hours I’ll be considerably less amiable and patient than I am now. We’ve a great deal here, you know. These papers. And those guns. Enough to let you roast for a really long time. But okay, you’re the one to decide. It goes without saying that a quick, easy round with me now would be best for you, but of course … You can have an attorney if you want one. They’re usually off at weekends, you know, but by tomorrow morning we should probably have organized something.”

  Brage Håkonsen gazed at his glass of cola, and attempted to raise it to his mouth using both hands.