Lion's Mouth, The

by Holt, Anne

  Leaning forward, he dialed a four-digit number on the phone.

  “Would you be kind enough to bring in two cups of tea, Wenche?”

  He disconnected the call and waited.

  Neither of them said a word until Wenche Andersen entered. Little blotches of lilac colored her cheeks, but her hand movements were steady and familiar as she set out cups and saucers and poured generous servings for them both.

  “Sugar?” she asked Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden. “Milk?”

  The Health Minister made no response, and Wenche Andersen did not consider it appropriate to press for an answer. She tiptoed lightly back to her own domain, but managed to catch an encouraging smile from her boss as she closed the door.

  “You are being put under supervision,” he said softly, stirring a spoonful of sugar into the golden-brown tea. “With immediate effect. Not a single decision of any significance is to be taken without consulting me. Understood?”

  “But …”

  Something was happening to Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden. Her face had adopted a different expression, as though all her features had become magnified; her mouth grew, her nose seemed swollen, her eyes appeared too coarsely carved, too large for her face, which was actually quite narrow. The shadows cast by the desk lamp emphasized the irregular proportions: a thin face with overlarge details.

  “You can’t do that! In fact, you haven’t got the right to do that! Vote me down at the next Cabinet meeting, go ahead and do that, but … You’re not entitled to take control away from me!”

  Tryggve Storstein continued to stir his tea, with an unnecessary circular rhythm that gave him something to look at. Suddenly he stopped, licked the spoon and blew on the hot tea.

  “The alternative is that you resign now,” he said softly. “You can choose between the two evils. Either you do as I say, and then I replace you some time after the election. Nice and quietly, and nobody will be any the wiser. Or else you resign now, and I announce the reason for your departure. All of it.”

  “But you can’t … The party … Tryggve!”

  “The party!”

  He laughed again, even more heartily, as though he really did find the situation entertaining.

  “You have never thought of the party,” he said, drained. “Now you get to choose. The devil or the deep blue sea.”

  They sat in silence for fully five minutes. Tryggve drank his tea, stretched his legs out in front of his chair and looked as if he were thinking of something else entirely. Ruth-Dorthe seemed to have been turned to stone. A lonely teardrop ran down her scarlet, inflamed cheek. Seeing it, he momentarily felt a touch of something resembling compassion, but swiftly brushed it aside.

  “The devil or the deep blue sea, Ruth-Dorthe. The choice is yours.”

  At that instant, the phone rang, startling them both, and Tryggve Storstein hesitated before grabbing the receiver.

  “It’s for you,” he said curtly, surprised, and passed the phone across the desk.

  The Minister of Health clutched it mechanically, like a mannequin in a shop window, with stiff limbs and staccato movements.

  “Okay,” she said a moment later, and handed back the phone. “I’m required at Oslo Police Station. Immediately.”

  And so Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden left her Prime Minister, without saying which option she would take.

  It did not matter.

  He knew that she would never in her wildest moments opt for a public humiliation.

  He had crushed her. It astonished him that he did not feel even a scintilla of regret or sorrow. When he took stock, he realized that he felt pity for her, but that was all.

  Someone should have destroyed her long ago.

  23.10, OSLO POLICE STATION

  “I don’t bloody know.”

  Rubbing his face quickly and roughly, Billy T. made a sound with his lips as if he had just emerged from ice-cold water.

  “But her explanation actually sounds credible. There’s something about that woman …”

  He shivered, and now tried to reach a point on his back with his fingers, wriggling in desperation.

  “Scratch me, Hanne, give me a scratch! There! No, no, farther up, to the side. Yes, there.”

  Rolling her eyes, Hanne Wilhelmsen scratched the same spot, quite savagely, for several seconds.

  “So. Sit down.”

  She smiled at Håkon Sand, who seemed unable to focus on anything except the fact that the new baby had still shown no sign of wanting to emerge from its mother’s womb. He dialed a short number and indicated to the other two to keep quiet.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, pulling a grimace into empty space. “Were you sleeping?”

  He listened for a short while before making a kissing noise into the receiver and putting down the phone.

  “She thinks my solicitude is going too far when I keep on waking her.” He grinned sheepishly. “But all this is making me so bloody nervous! I missed the big meeting today just because I thought I saw some spasms in Karen’s stomach when we got up this morning. My God, this is so tiresome.”

  “Relax,” the other two chorused. “He’ll arrive when he’s ready.”

  “It’s a girl,” Håkon Sand muttered, gazing at Birgitte Volter’s pass, enclosed in a plastic wallet and already examined for prints.

  Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden’s had been extremely distinct. Two instances. One of her thumb, and one of her right middle finger. The expression on her face when she was confronted with this had indicated absolute, total bewilderment. With some assistance and given time to think, she had stammeringly arrived at the conclusion that Birgitte had mislaid it in the Cabinet Room of the Parliament Building about a month earlier. Ruth-Dorthe had picked it up, chased a few steps after her, and handed it back. That was the only reason she could come up with for her fingerprints having turned up on Birgitte Volter’s government pass.

  “If she really had used it, she would have ensured the prints were removed before placing it in the vehicle for someone to find,” Hanne said wearily. “As far as I understand, government ministers don’t have personal cars, and Tone-Marit said that both Birgitte and Ruth-Dorthe used the same vehicle several times during the fortnight prior to the murder.”

  “I believe the lady,” Billy T. agreed. “As I said, there’s something altogether nasty about her, but it seems that her neighbor saw her going out with the garbage at half past six on the evening in question. I have to admit I became slightly curious when it turned out that nobody managed to get hold of her on the phone all that evening, but she claims that she simply wanted a quiet night at home and had disconnected everything.”

  “Ruth-Dorthe is just a serpent in Paradise,” Hanne said quietly. “The sort who screws up every investigation, because she has so many secrets and forces us to dislike her. What in the world can Roy Hansen have seen in a bitch like her?”

  “Slip of the dick,” Billy T. said with a grin.

  “Yes, you know all about that,” was Hanne’s rejoinder. “But honestly! What was that all about?”

  “At the risk of you calling me a male chauvinist pig, Hanne, I do believe that it was a little intrigue on the part of our friend Ruth-Dorthe. That woman collects secrets and sexual entanglements the way other people collect stamps. She has both the ingenuity and the looks to do it. In any case, it’s none of our business who she sleeps with. Not unless it has any relevance to the case, and in this instance, it hasn’t. I’m convinced of that.”

  Yawning, Håkon glanced at the time.

  “I must go home now. If the baby hasn’t arrived within twenty-four hours, I’m going to insist on a caesarian section.”

  A man was standing at the door of Håkon’s office: he had arrived so quietly that no one had noticed him.

  “Severin the Supreme,” Billy T. greeted him enthusiastically. “Did you get up late too?”

  “I’m awake round the clock these days,” he said. Then, nodding in Hanne’s direction, “My goodness, what a tan you’ve got! Back from holiday,
or what?”

  “Sort of,” she answered. “How are things?”

  “Okay, thanks. I’d like a word with you, Billy T,” he said, with a toss of his head.

  “Of course,” Billy T. replied. “We’ll go to my office.”

  He extricated himself noisily from the cramped room, stepping over Hanne and knocking over a container filled with pens.

  “See you in the foyer in ten minutes, then,” he said to Hanne as he slapped Severin Heger on the back.

  Then he turned back, thrust his torso into the room again and whispered so loudly that everyone could hear, “She’s sleeping in my double bed, Håkon. With me!”

  “Kiss and tell,” Hanne Wilhelmsen muttered, making up her mind to spend the night at the house of a female friend.

  However, on second thoughts, it was too late to call.

  TUESDAY, APRIL 22

  07.35, JENS BJELKES GATE 13

  Jens Bjelkes gate 13 was located in the middle of no man’s land. Too far east to be called Grünerløkka, and too far west for Tøyen. It was a block both God and the urban regeneration program had forgotten. Modern technology had yet to reach this gray, peeling apartment building: as there was no intercom system, Hanne Wilhelmsen and Billy T. were able to stride straight into the dark entryway.

  “This is madness,” Hanne whispered. “I can’t see how you intend to go about this. And why couldn’t the Security Service guys follow it up themselves?”

  “They’re totally paranoid up there at the moment,” Billy T. said, coming to a halt. “The way they’ve been turned upside down and inside out these last few years, it’s a wonder they survive at all.”

  “Heavens,” Hanne said, “are you siding with the Security Service now?”

  “Nah! But we all agree, don’t we, that we need to have a security section?”

  “Do we? All of us?” Hanne mumbled, keen to walk on.

  “Wait,” Billy T. said. “Severin knows something he’s not allowed to know officially. I’ve no idea why, maybe it has something to do with illegally acquired information; what do I know? Anyway …”

  Lowering his voice, he put his arm around Hanne and thrust his face almost directly into hers.

  “… they remanded that Brage guy I was telling you about. Yesterday afternoon. Provisionally, he’s only accused of 104a, but they’re hoping for a breakthrough with regard to Volter’s homicide. The problem is that the guy has an alibi for the evening of the murder – he was at The Scotchman with some Swedish Nazi cretin, and about twenty people can vouch for their presence there.”

  “Which in itself doesn’t exclude the possibility of a conspiracy,” Hanne said reflectively.

  “Exactly! And what Severin also can’t know officially, is that this Brage guy can somehow be linked to the security guard!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ask me how. I’m guessing there are a few illegal files up there on the top floors. Anyway, I’ve insisted all along that there was something about that guard. All along!”

  Unexpectedly, a girl ambled through the entranceway. She was slim and gangly, and she stared at them with ill-concealed inquisitiveness. As she passed, she blew a huge bubble of bright pink bubblegum: it burst and lay like a torn, wet tissue across her face.

  “Hi,” Hanne said, with a smile.

  “Hi,” the girl mumbled, picking the remains of the bubblegum from her skin.

  “Stop a minute,” Billy T. said as amiably as he could, but it was no use – the girl looked at him in alarm and headed for the street.

  “Hold on,” Hanne said, rapidly following her and clutching at her arm. “We’d like to ask you something. Do you live here?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” the girl said angrily. “Let me go!”

  Hanne released her immediately, but she still caught the little glimmer of curiosity in the girl’s eye, and knew she would not leave.

  “Did you know the man on the first floor? The slim guy with brown hair?”

  As the girl stared at them, it struck both police officers that they had never before seen anyone’s complexion change color so swiftly.

  “No,” she said abruptly, and made to go.

  But Billy T. had walked past her and was now blocking the exit.

  “Did he have many visitors?” he asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  She was a strange mixture of child and woman. Her body was skinny, but her breasts had begun to fill out, no longer just pointed intimations of something yet to emerge. Her hips were boyishly narrow, but she had already learned to move with a challenging, clichéd gait. Her hair was unevenly streaked with shades ranging from dirty red to chocolate brown, and her left nostril sported a silver ball. But the eyes below her penciled eyebrows were those of a child: big, blue and rather anxious.

  “How old are you?” Hanne asked, again trying to adopt a friendly tone; she flung out her arms and opened her palms in an inviting, unthreatening fashion.

  “Fifteen,” the girl whispered.

  “What’s your name?”

  Suddenly her adult side gained the upper hand.

  “Who the fuck are you?” she asked, trying to sneak past Billy T. yet again.

  “We’re from the police,” he said, moving sideways.

  Without warning, her top lip began to tremble, and she hid her face in her hands.

  “Let me past,” she sobbed. “Let me leave!”

  Placing a hand on her shoulder, Hanne tried to persuade the girl to take her hands away from her face. The nails she could discern under her hairline were bitten down to the quick.

  “He hadn’t done anything wrong,” the girl whispered. “That’s the honest truth!”

  11.00, OSLO POLICE STATION

  It did not take long for Billy T. to realize that he would not get one single word closer to the facts: at least, not while Kaja’s father remained in the room. The man had to be around fifty years old, but alcohol, cigarettes and poor diet had resulted in a complexion that was open-pored and flaccid, giving him the appearance of being in his late sixties. When he coughed, it was obvious that he had one foot planted well inside a wide-open grave, and Billy T. found himself placing his hand over his mouth in a futile attempt to keep the apparently life-threatening bacteria at a distance.

  “Bloody hell,” the caretaker panted. “I demand a lawyer, I’ll have you know!”

  “Listen here,” Billy T. said, staring at Kaja, who sat like a flower that had withered all too soon, unable to decide which of the two men in the room she feared more. “Either you stay here while I have a chat with Kaja, or else I’ll contact the child welfare service to find a substitute guardian. Your choice.”

  “Child welfare? They’ve got nothing to do with us. I’m staying.”

  The man folded his arms over his belly. A huge red stain on his undershirt made it look as though he had placed his hands on a map of Norway. He hawked vigorously, and for a second Billy T. thought he was about to spit on the floor. Instead, he struggled to swallow.

  “But I told you, I need an attorney.”

  “No, you don’t. I’m going to talk to Kaja, not accuse her of anything.”

  “No, you’re no’ fucking doin’ that. Kaja’s no’ done anythin’ wrong. At least, nothin’ the police need to poke their noses into.”

  Billy T. looked from Kaja to her father.

  “Does Kaja have a mother?” he asked optimistically. “Perhaps she could be here instead of you, if it’s difficult to spare the time and suchlike?”

  “Her mother’s dead. I’m staying. I can’t just leave my daughter and let the cops sink their claws into her.”

  It seemed the man was now beginning to enjoy being at the police station. A different expression, one of contentment, spread across his ashen, sweaty face, and he fumbled in the lining of his trousers for a pack of rolling tobacco.

  “No smoking here, sorry,” Billy T. murmured. “But listen …”

  He produced a notepad from his desk drawer, and as he filled somet
hing out, he continued.

  “I’m writing you a chit for something to eat. The canteen’s on the sixth floor. They have a separate smoking section there. So I’ll have a chat with Kaja while you’re away, but of course, I won’t write anything down until you’re back. How does that suit?”

  He assumed his most winning smile. The caretaker hesitated, his eyes alternating between the chit and Kaja.

  “What can I have to eat, then?” he asked, mumbling.

  “Whatever you like. Just help yourself to whatever you want.”

  The caretaker came to a decision, and rose to his feet, puffing.

  “But no’ a fuckin’ word down on paper until I’m back again! D’you hear? No’ a word!”

  “Of course not. Take all the time you need. Here …” Billy T. handed the man a copy of a men’s magazine as well as the chit. “Take all the time you need.”

  The void left by Kaja’s father’s departure was palpable. The spartan office seemed to grow larger, finally affording space to the fragile young girl. She had at last stopped biting her nails and now gazed out the window, screwing up her eyes; she looked as if she had forgotten where she was.

  “Sorry to hear about your mother,” Billy T. said softly. “Very sorry.”

  “Mmm,” the girl responded, apparently unmoved.

  “Were you afraid of him?”

  She turned abruptly, focusing on the room.

  “Of my dad?”

  “No. Of him.”

  She shook her head gently.

  “Maybe you were in love with him, then?”

  It crossed Billy T.’s mind that the security guard – who had sat in the very same seat where Kaja was now ensconced almost exactly a fortnight earlier, a grouchy, feeble and thoroughly stubborn character – must have been enormously difficult to have any feelings for, other than loathing. However, there was something in the young girl’s eyes. Something in the slight hand movements, as she clasped her fingers and tugged at a little ring of plain metal. Still saying nothing.