Lion's Mouth, The

by Holt, Anne

  Clutching the baby to her shoulder, she looked exhausted and drawn. It bothered Hanne Wilhelmsen, who had quite simply not spared a thought for Karen, hadn’t even considered that it might be too much for her to have to entertain a house full of people the day she returned home from hospital with a new baby and a fresh surgical scar.

  “I’m off to bed. I can’t hear anything up there, so just go ahead and enjoy yourselves. I’d appreciate it, though, if you’d try not to make too much noise when you leave, okay?”

  Håkon Sand jumped to his feet.

  “I’ll help you!”

  “No, no, you sit down. Have a good time. But remember, you have to take Hans Wilhelm early tomorrow morning.”

  “I can take him,” Billy T. roared. “Just send the boy over to me, Karen.”

  Karen did not reply, but made a slight movement with the baby as a goodnight salute before vanishing into the upstairs area of their spacious, comfortable wooden house.

  Billy T. took hold of the sixth bottle of red wine and opened it with a worldly flourish.

  “Hope you’ve got enough of this in your cellar, Håkon.” He grinned, and did the rounds of refilling glasses.

  “No thanks, I’ve had enough,” Øyvind Olve said, placing his hand over his glass.

  “What kind of wimp is this you’ve brought with you today, Hanne? Doesn’t even drink!”

  Øyvind Olve still felt like an outsider. He could not quite understand why Hanne had insisted on him accompanying her. It was true that he had met Billy T. a couple of times before, with Hanne and Cecilie at their apartment, but the gigantic, boisterous man had obviously forgotten him. He had never met any of the others.

  “I have to drive in the morning,” he mumbled, refusing to relinquish the glass.

  “Drive! He’s going to drive a car! What’s all that about?”

  “You need to behave, Billy T.,” Hanne said, patting him reassuringly on the back to make him sit down. “Not everybody can match your pace, you know.”

  “Go on, Tone-Marit,” Billy T. said as he resumed his seat. “What did he say then?”

  Tone-Marit was still seated; she was laughing and had tears in her eyes. Lowering her voice, she mimicked a halting, broad Kristiansand dialect.

  “‘Perhaps he did not owe anyone anything.’ And then Billy T. started talking about Madame Butterfly and honor! You should have seen the Superintendent’s face! He looked like somebody just released from a mental institution!”

  The others screamed with laughter, and even Øyvind Olve smiled, despite not having any idea what was so amusing about Billy T. and Tone-Marit’s account of Monday’s plenary meeting.

  “And then …” Billy T. bellowed, waving his glass of red wine, narrowly missing knocking over the entire bottle as he stood up without warning to slam his fist on the tabletop. “Then the wit had gone too far for His Excellency the Security Service Chief. He …”

  Billy T. cleared his throat, and when he resumed speaking, he had suddenly turned into Ole Henrik Hermansen. “With all respect, Chief of Police! I’m not spending my demanding workday listening to this nonsense!”

  Now Hanne had to hush the others, as they were laughing so loudly it would be impossible for Karen to get any sleep. Tone-Marit had a chunk of potato salad stuck in her throat and her face was rapidly turning puce. Billy T. hammered her back mercilessly.

  “But it’s really quite impressive that the Chief is so preoccupied by such things, don’t you think?” Hanne said.

  “His son committed suicide two years ago,” Tone-Marit said, having retrieved the piece of potato and wiped her tears. “So really, we shouldn’t laugh.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Hanne said, pressing her glass against her cheek. “How do you know?”

  “I know everything, Hanne! Absolutely everything!” Tone-Marit whispered loudly and dramatically, holding eye contact for so long that Hanne suddenly felt the need to help herself to more grilled meat.

  “But why were you talking about honor in that context?”

  This was Øyvind Olve, only the third time he had said anything all evening.

  Billy T. regarded him for some time, adopting a reflective pose.

  “To be honest, I don’t quite know why I brought that up. When we talk about ‘integrity’, we all know what that means. We’re focused on that all the time. But ‘honor’, on the other hand … It’s become a word that makes us look down at the floor in embarrassment. But really, they’re two sides of the same coin, if you think about it.”

  He shoved his plate of leftover food and barbecue sauce to one side, and leaned his elbows on the table.

  “Consider Benjamin Grinde. Clever boy all his life. Really fucking clever boy. Everything goes well for him. Judge and doctor and God knows what. Then he’s smeared in the newspapers and dragged down into the dirt. One week later, he takes his own life. We should be allowed to think about honor in those circumstances, don’t you agree?”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen stared down into her glass of red wine. It almost glowed, sending little rays of light toward her eyes as she slowly rotated the glass.

  “It could be as straightforward as that, as far as Benjamin Grinde is concerned,” she said, sipping the wine. “But, for the sake of the hypothesis, let’s look more closely at the order of events. If Benjamin Grinde had committed suicide in a different situation, no one other than his closest relatives would have raised an eyebrow. The police would have put their heads around the door to establish that it was suicide, and closed the file. But Grinde’s sudden and probably self-inflicted death occurred …”

  She unfolded a large paper napkin and leaned across the table to steal a pen from Øyvind Olve’s breast pocket.

  “Birgitte Volter was murdered on April 4.”

  She drew a little dot and wrote the number four above it.

  “We know that she was shot in the head, with a gun the murderer could not have been entirely sure would actually kill anyone, even if it was fired at short range. There’s no trace of a perpetrator. A total of three people had business either at or in extremely close proximity to the crime scene – at the time of the murder, I mean. The secretary, the guard and Grinde. Within one short week, two of them are dead, even though they were both in the prime of life. Strange, don’t you think?”

  She emphasized the point by sketching two tiny crosses on the paper.

  “And then there’s a—”

  “But Hanne,” Tone-Marit interrupted.

  Håkon felt his muscles tense; cutting in on Hanne Wilhelmsen’s train of thought was normally punished by an icy look that shut most people up for a very long time. He dipped into his plate of food, hoping to avoid witnessing the humiliation. To his great surprise, he saw Hanne lean back in her chair, look amiably at Tone-Marit, and wait for her to continue.

  “Sometimes we over-interpret aspects of cases,” Tone-Marit said eagerly. “Don’t you agree? I mean, the guard died in a natural catastrophe, and no one other than the Good Lord has control of that.”

  She blushed slightly at the religious reference, but moved on swiftly. “And quite honestly, I think it sounds strange that Benjamin Grinde should have taken his own life because he regretted having killed the Prime Minister of the country, who, what’s more, was an old friend. Maybe the suicide doesn’t have anything to do with the case at all! Maybe he’d been feeling depressed for a long time? Besides, since we can now state with certainty that the gun was at the guard’s home, we can entirely exclude Benjamin Grinde from the case. Can’t we?”

  “Yes, we are doing that, in a sense. At least, I think we can rule out the possibility that he killed her. But the suicide may still have a connection to the case. In a different way!”

  No one uttered a word, and they had all stopped eating.

  “My point is,” Hanne said, clearing more space in front of her. “My point is that the order of events can sometimes confuse us. We’re searching for a pattern, for a logical connection, where nothing of the kind exists!”


  Drumming the pen on the table, she tilted her head to one side. Her hair fell across her face, and Billy T. turned to her and coiled the strands behind her ear.

  “You look so sweet when you’re enthusiastic,” he murmured, kissing her on the cheek.

  “Idiot. Listen to this, then. If you’re still sober enough. In addition to two dead people, and a number of peculiar items that have led us astray but have now been located, we have also almost experienced a government crisis. Isn’t that true, Øyvind?”

  Øyvind Olve’s eyes blinked behind his small glasses. He had listened to the conversation with interest, but it came as a surprise that he was expected to contribute something.

  “Well,” he said hesitantly, toying with his fork. “Actually there have been two. The first had to do with forming the new government. And that went tolerably well. From a political point of view, we have obtained a lot of ammunition for the election. Our friends in the political center weren’t exactly falling over themselves to take over the reins of power.”

  He paused for a moment, and Severin took advantage of the opportunity. He had drunk too much, and knew it was not wise. He was not used to alcohol, and took a big slug of Farris mineral water.

  “But you said two crises,” he insisted. “What was the other one?”

  “The health scandal, of course. Not exactly a government crisis, but it has been tough. All the same, we’ve ridden that one out now. Tryggve made a fairly good job of the preliminary report to Parliament. In addition, it acted like pure Valium on our good friends in the opposition that there were non-socialist as well as social-democratic governments in power in 64 and 65. We gave the East Germans good iron ore, and got bad vaccines in return. As far as I’m concerned, the entire vaccine issue is an example of the cynicism that reigned supreme during the Cold War. No one escaped it. Not even a few hundred babies.”

  The table went completely quiet and they could hear little toddling steps descending the stairs.

  “In a way, those babies were war victims.” Øyvind sighed, suddenly thirsty for more wine. “They are war victims as much as anybody.”

  A two-year-old stood in the doorway beside the huge, impressive soapstone fireplace. He was wearing blue pajamas adorned with footballs, and rubbing his eyes.

  “Daddy! Hansillem can’t sleep.”

  “I’ll tell Hansillem some lovely bedtime stories,” Billy T. volunteered, getting to his feet.

  “Billitee.” The child smiled, holding out his arms.

  “It’ll take five minutes, max,” Billy T. said before he disappeared. “Don’t say anything important!”

  “Hanne,” Håkon said quickly; it stung him slightly that the little boy had been so easily pacified by Billy T. “Of the two theories … if you had to choose between the Brage–guard line of enquiry and the Pharmamed one, which would you choose? Because one really rules out the other, doesn’t it? And to be honest, I’ve …”

  He began to clear away the plates. “Anyone for dessert?”

  “What have you got?” Hanne said, giving him a hand.

  “Ice cream and Spanish strawberries.”

  “Yes, please,” Severin responded. “Both! You said you had a problem?”

  “Hanne, of course, has said that the Security Service Chief’s original theory is too over the top,” Håkon said, standing in the center of the room with three plates in each hand. “And we’re actually agreed on that. It sounds too much like a cops and robbers story. To think that a large company in a democratic country would send a team of killers to visit the Prime Minister of a friendly country, and a close ally into the bargain!”

  “It’s true, you have a point,” Hanne said, after placing strawberries and ice cream on the table and handing round the dessert plates. “But you should never let yourself be constrained by your imagination. I have to confess that I had problems when the Mannesmann affair came to light.”

  She anticipated Tone-Marit’s question.

  “As you’d expect, Statoil, being a key player in both the national and international oil industry, spends billions buying goods and services. These contracts are worth their weight in gold, and the company directors put a great deal of time and effort into preventing corruption in their own ranks. Nevertheless, there was one person who allowed himself to be bribed by an enormous German conglomerate. The Statoil employee received generous gifts, and the Mannesmann company was awarded contracts to supply steel pipes for oil platforms. I didn’t think such things were possible, at least not in Norway. Not in Germany either, for that matter. The moral is: there are no morals. Other than making money. And if we take, for example, the thalidomide case …”

  She could have bitten off her tongue. As she said it, she recalled something Billy T. had told her many years earlier. Severin Heger’s sister had been born without arms or legs. And only one ear.

  “It’s okay,” Severin said, taking another drink. “It’s quite all right, Hanne.”

  Embarrassed, she stirred her ice cream, which had started to melt.

  “Didn’t you hear me, Hanne? I said it’s all right.”

  “Well. Thalidomide, which was sold in Norway under the brand name Neurodyn, was a medicine for pregnancy sickness. Among other things. I seem to remember that it also had a certain sedative effect. It was produced in West Germany in the fifties, and only after more than ten thousand children had been born with significant disabilities did a German geneticist discover there was a connection between the medicine the mothers had taken and the serious damage caused to the fetuses.”

  “How on earth do you know all this stuff?” Tone-Marit murmured.

  “I know everything,” Hanne whispered, looking her straight in the eye. “Absolutely everything!”

  Øyvind laughed heartily, but Hanne did not allow herself to be knocked off course.

  “Naturally, it was a catastrophe for the producers. Lawsuits for huge compensation sums, followed by bankruptcy. Even though the company produced a number of other quite excellent medicines, no one would touch the organization afterward. And don’t you think, my dear friends …”

  Her hand gesture included them all, even a big yellow alligator sitting on the chair beside the window.

  “… that they’re quaking in their boots down at Pharmamed right now! Even though it was a long time ago. Even though they’re under different ownership. The name is tarnished. For a long time to come, the word ‘Pharmamed’ will be linked with the wicked, tragic deaths of infant children.”

  For some time, the only sound to be heard was the scraping of spoons against the household’s expensive glass bowls.

  “But,” Severin said unexpectedly, “although in principle …”

  He slurred slightly: “principle” was a difficult word.

  “Although I really agree with you, that is to say that you should never exclude anything at all and that money is a powerful motive for most things, but—”

  Billy T. came crashing into the room.

  “Have I missed anything?”

  “Is he asleep?” Håkon asked.

  “Like a log. I told him two scary stories. He was paralyzed with fear, and now he’s sleeping soundly. Where are you?”

  “I have to tell you, unfortunately, that the Pharmamed line of enquiry has to be shelved,” Severin said. “At least, there was nothing suspicious about Himmelheimer being in Oslo this spring. He was busy with … other things, so to speak.”

  “No more, Severin,” Billy T. said softly, sending him a warning look. “We’re not all police officers here, you know.”

  “That guy there,” Severin said, pointing to Øyvind Olve, “is well used to big secrets. He’s worked with the Prime Minister. But listen to this then …”

  He took an enormous gulp of red wine.

  “When we were checking out this Hans Himmelheimer guy, we went to the SAS Hotel. Staff, room service, telephone records … everything. He didn’t make any suspicious calls. Two home to his dear wife in Germany, four to the Ph
armamed office. But do you know what, his wife at home did not know that there were two people staying in Herr Himmelheimer’s hotel room. As well as himself, this guy Hans had signed in a Frau!”

  “His mistress,” Billy T. muttered.

  “Exactly! And now you’ll have to guess. I can tell you that she’s Norwegian. But then you’ll probably name two million one hundred and eighty-seven other Norwegian women before you arrive at the right one.”

  No one felt compelled to participate in a guessing game, and Billy T. frowned with impatience.

  “His Frau was Little Lettvik!”

  “That can’t be true,” Billy T. said.

  “That woman at Kveldsavisen?” Øyvind asked.

  “It’s just not possible,” Hanne murmured.

  “Little Lettvik,” Håkon repeated.

  Tone-Marit burst out laughing, her eyes again becoming two narrow lines above her cheekbones.

  “Shhhh,” Severin said, moving his palms up and down on the tabletop. “I must ask you to be really quiet. They have known each other for years. Met at university here in Oslo, at Blindern, in 1964, at a time when Little Lettvik’s name suited her rather better. Since then they’ve met up every so often, when Hans has been at conferences abroad. At home in Leipzig he has a wife and three teenage children, but when he’s abroad having fun, his companion has been Little Lettvik. Sweet, really.”

  He emptied his glass and held it out to Billy T., who eagerly poured him another.

  “We pulled her in for interview. She hummed and hawed a great deal about protecting her sources and all that shit, so we didn’t get very much out of her. But there’s absolutely no doubt that she somehow got the information from him. Probably fooled him completely. Perhaps a little spot of pillow talk?”

  “So that’s how her newspaper managed to crack the case so bloody fast,” Hanne said thoughtfully. “I wondered about that. To be quite honest, I was ever so slightly impressed.”

  “Anyway,” Severin said, with a deep sigh. “Hans Himmelheimer didn’t do anything in Oslo other than attend two meetings and spend the rest of his time in bed with Little Lettvik. We’ve managed to discover that much. And we’re not one iota closer to substantiating that Pharmamed had anything whatsoever to do with the murder.”