by Anne Holt
Not only had I decided to leave the murder of Cato Hammer alone until the weather improved and the police were able to take over what was essentially a fairly simple case, even if it was quite tragic, I had in fact also managed to persuade Berit, Geir and Magnus Streng that this very temporary suspension was the only sensible course of action. A murderer among us was bad enough; we didn’t want to frighten him or her unnecessarily.
And yet I still couldn’t help thinking about it.
Irritatingly, I had started to regard Cato Hammer with a kind of benevolence. I couldn’t understand why. It’s a long time since I stopped feeling sympathy for murder victims just because a crime has been committed against them. I have bent over far too many corpses for that. I have met far too many of the dead who, while they were alive, headed straight for their demise with their eyes wide open, greedy, dulled to all feeling, and without a thought for anyone but themselves.
However, the victim’s background can make me feel for them. The circumstances surrounding the crime. You could call it the extent of the dead person’s own guilt, however politically incorrect that might sound. For many years I put everything I had into the job. The murder of a gang member with countless violent crimes to his name was the focus of exactly the same persistence on my part as the crime against a defiled and murdered eleven-year-old girl.
But my emotions were reserved for a minority.
Fewer and fewer as time passed, I must confess.
Cato Hammer had been a posturing peacock, the kind of attention seeker I have never been able to stand. Normally I would be able to disregard the man and concentrate on the crime, which of course was something I had decided not to do in this particular case. And yet there was something about him. I couldn’t get his face out of my mind as he lay there on the kitchen worktop, soul-less and naked, if not literally then at least figuratively. The surprise in the dead eyes was so genuine, the expression of happy astonishment so striking that I still couldn’t shake off the idea that he really had seen God waiting at the end of that white, shining tunnel.
Nonsense, of course.
Irrational sentimentality, due to the fact that I no longer had anything to do with dead people. The sight of the murdered Cato Hammer had definitely touched me.
At least the man had never harmed anyone but himself.
Unlike Kari Thue.
I caught myself hoping, with surprising sincerity, that she was the one who had killed Cato Hammer. A warm, shameful pleasure spread through my body at the thought.
There wasn’t a shred of evidence to suggest that she was a murderer.
But Nefis gets so upset whenever she hears her.
Otherwise, Nefis hardly ever gets upset. Nefis is Turkish, a lesbian, a professor of mathematics, and thus fairly pragmatic about most things in life. At the same time she carries within herself a wondrous, childish faith, a certainty of a divine presence; she has lived with this certainty for so long that it is unaffected by knowledge and intelligence. It is strange, of course, and during those early years we would sometimes quarrel about it. Only when I gradually came to realize that it was really to do with the fact that Nefis had a childhood that was worth remembering did I understand that I had to let it be.
For Nefis, Islam is the strict love of her father and the sound of the soles of her brothers’ shoes on the floor as they laughed and chased her around the palatial house where she grew up. Islam is her mother’s reproachful wailing and forgiving hugs. For Nefis, faith is the presence of her three sisters and everything else that is beautiful and dignified; her maternal grandparents out in the country, the smell of books in her father’s great library, and the musical voices of the muezzins from the minarets. For Nefis, Allah is the power that made her father miss her so much after two years of curses and rejection that he finally gave in; in spite of everything, a lesbian daughter is a gift from God, and he just couldn’t deny her for all eternity, even though she loved a woman and had also started to enjoy good wine. Nefis’s father has seventeen grandchildren, but Ida is the youngest and the only one with ice-blue eyes and her maternal grandmother’s hair. She cannot be loved too much, worshipped too deeply, and all this is Nefis’s faith and religion.
For me, God is someone who never glanced in my direction.
If he had existed, he would never have allowed me to live as I did for the first eighteen years of my life. When I finally found the strength to break with my family, with my neurotic, snobbish, prejudiced, dry-as-dust academic, pseudo-Christian and utterly Norwegian family, I saw no sign of the Lord then either. The only thing I discovered was a resigned, sorrowful certainty that I had done something right.
Breaking with your family is the most dearly bought liberty.
It means breaking with parts of yourself.
Breaking off parts of yourself.
Kari Thue encourages that kind of thing. She stomps around on delicate ground in spiked shoes. She opens up opportunities for young girls who do not have the maturity to understand the consequences of these opportunities. For Kari Thue, Islam is a straitjacket to be broken out of, and she does not believe in people like my Nefis.
It makes me furious. But it doesn’t make Kari Thue a murderer. At least not just like that.
I shifted my position on the sofa.
At any rate, there was no longer any reason to worry about who might be up in Trygve Norman’s apartment in the wing. After the violent events of the day, we were effectively cut off from the passengers from the mysterious extra carriage. Berit had assured me that the two men from the Red Cross who were over there would ensure that nobody went up to the dark, narrow corridor where the armed guards were, outside the cordoned-off apartments.
I wouldn’t have needed to bother about it any more, had it not been for the two Kurds.
It was impossible to find a comfortable sleeping position.
Although the man appeared to have accepted the fact that his request to move had been turned down, I wasn’t convinced. I would have felt much happier if I had known exactly what role those two were playing in the midst of all the secrecy.
Whether they were hunters or guardians, I mean.
Time I stopped thinking. I wanted to sleep.
I opened my eyes.
It was as if the sound of the storm had altered. The wind was still angry and howling, but I was certain the thuds and blows were coming less often, and with less ferocity. Since it was impossible to insulate the hole in the wall properly, there was a new freshness in the air indoors, a chilly draught that had not completely disappeared despite the fact that the heating had been turned up and fires had been lit.
Berit had said that the storm would start to ease early tomorrow evening. Perhaps even in the afternoon. I thought it seemed as if a change in the weather was already on the way. I tried to absorb the monotonous roar of the storm, like a lullaby telling me that everything would get better, that everything would turn out all right in the end.
I thought about Ida and fell asleep.
Just before I dozed off I noticed Adrian coming back. He lay down on the window ledge and pulled a blanket over him as he had done the previous night, and I hadn’t the energy to say anything.
ii
‘Hanne! You have to wake up!’
I didn’t know where I was. It was a long time since I had slept so deeply. The journey from the land of dreams was long and winding, and for several seconds I tried to focus on the man who was crouching beside me, his hand on my shoulder as he whispered again.
‘You have to wake up!’
‘What’s the matter?’ I mumbled eventually. ‘What time is it?’
‘Three. Almost three.’
‘I’m asleep.’
‘Roar Hanson has disappeared.’
I tried to sit up. Fortunately Geir had learned his lesson and didn’t try to help, even though I must have seemed very confused.
‘Roar Hanson,’ I repeated mechanically. ‘What do you mean, he’s disappeared?’
Eventually I managed to sit up. Geir slid his bottom onto the sofa where I had been lying, and leaned forward.
‘He shares a room with Sebastian Robeck.’
‘Seb— What are you talking about?’
I sank back against the cushions. Sleep just didn’t want to let go of me now it had finally got a firm grip.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ hissed Geir. ‘He’s just one of the blokes from the church commission. They were sharing a room. But when Sebastian Robeck got up for a pee half an hour ago, he discovered that Hanson’s bed was empty. It hasn’t been touched. He never went to bed.’
‘A different room,’ I mumbled. ‘He’s probably gone to bed on his own somewhere. Since the carriage fell there are a few empty rooms.’
‘That’s what I thought. But this bloke, this Sebastian, he said something about ...’
I waved my hands to get him to move back a bit. My tongue tasted dry and stale, and I grabbed my jacket to look for some chewing gum.
‘What did he say?’ I asked quietly, rubbing my eyes with both hands. ‘Is Adrian asleep, by the way?’
Geir glanced over at the window and nodded.
‘Roar Hanson had said something,’ he whispered. ‘Tonight, just before everybody went to bed. He told his roommate he had a little errand to do, but it would only take quarter of an hour. He ...’
He suddenly looked up.
‘Here he comes,’ he whispered, pointing.
Berit Tverre was moving silently across the room. I threw off the covers and managed to get into my wheelchair before she and her companion reached me.
Fortunately I had gone to bed fully dressed. A sharp smell from my own unwashed body made me roll the chair back as the man held out his hand. He lowered it again, shrugged his shoulders and introduced himself anyway. I mumbled my own name.
‘What’s all this about?’ I said, shaking my head violently; it didn’t help much. ‘Why the drama? It’s the middle of the night, and as there are plenty of empty rooms ...’
‘He asked me to wait,’ Sebastian said so loudly that I had to shush him. When he continued, his voice was considerably more subdued. ‘He said he was going to sort something out or meet someone, or maybe he said he had an errand to do. I can’t remember properly. But the strange thing is, he asked me to wait. It was only going to take quarter of an hour or so. I asked him why, but he just repeated that I had to wait.’
‘But were you intending to go somewhere? Why would he ask you to wait – surely you were going to bed anyway?’
‘Of course.’
The man scratched his armpit and a furrow of discontent appeared at the top of his nose.
‘He asked me not to go to sleep. To stay awake until he came back.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Did you ask him?’
‘Yes. But he just asked me even more insistently to wait.’
‘And what happened?’
The man squirmed.
‘I fell asleep. I was just so worn out.’
His voice had a complaining, almost guilty undertone.
‘I can’t see that you’ve committed any sort of crime, exactly.’
I tried to stifle a yawn. Tears sprang to my eyes. I picked up a bottle of Farris mineral water from the coffee table and had a drink. At the same time I swallowed my chewing gum.
‘What shall we do?’ asked Geir. ‘Start searching?’
Silence.
‘Let’s wait,’ said Berit eventually. ‘The last thing we need is to wake everybody up long before they’ve had enough sleep. Hanson has probably gone to bed in one of the other rooms. He might have come back, seen that Sebastian was asleep, felt like reading for a while, and decided to go to a different room so that he wouldn’t disturb him.’
‘Are the empty rooms open?’ I asked. ‘I mean, don’t you have to collect the keys from reception?’
Berit gave a resigned smile. ‘We gave up on that early yesterday. Everything’s open. We’ve put out piles of clean sheets. People have to make their own beds if they want to change rooms. Easier for us, of course, but it also means we have less control. But what could we do, we ...’
‘It sounds eminently sensible. And I agree with you. Since it seems probable that there is a perfectly natural explanation for Roar Hanson’s disappearance ...’
I stopped. The others were looking at me. All three of them knew I was lying. We were all thinking the same thing: the fact that another member of the church commission had disappeared during the night under slightly mysterious circumstances, almost exactly twenty-four hours after his colleague had been shot dead, was suspicious to say the least. I also assumed that I wasn’t the only one who had noticed Roar Hanson’s unstable state of mind. As far as both Sebastian Robeck and I knew, the priest could have smashed a window and jumped out into the bitter cold of his own free will.
Or something along those lines.
‘... we’ll wait before raising the alarm. If we wake people up now, I’m afraid it could cause an even bigger catastrophe than ...’
It was impossible to finish the sentence. And nobody tried to help me out.
‘Could we meet here at ...’
It was now ten past three.
‘... six. No, half past six should be fine. Most people will still be asleep then. And we can take it from there. OK?’
Nobody protested. They padded away, each to his or her own space, and I lay down again. Adrian was lying in exactly the same position as when he had settled down three hours earlier. Before I had time to fear insomnia, I was in a deep, dreamless sleep.
It’s strange, what people can cope with.
i
The clock insisted that it was morning; 06.20, explained the luminous numbers on my mobile. My body protested with some tenacity. I was just as far gone when the monotonous mechanical noise tried to drag me from my sleep as when Geir had woken me a few hours earlier.
My back was aching. A fire was running downwards from the small of my back, disappearing into a pain I could no longer feel. For a moment I wondered if I had regained my mobility. If so, it would be a miracle of biblical proportions. A heavy-calibre projectile had severed the spinal cord between the tenth and eleventh vertebrae, and it was beyond all hope of healing.
I tried to sit up. Although the sofa had seemed like a good idea, I couldn’t lie there all night. At home we had a 120,000 kroner bed from Auping, ordered especially to take into account Nefis’s and my weight and height. Even that can sometimes give me problems. Right now I doubted briefly whether I would be able to pull myself up into a sitting position.
I just about managed it.
‘We’ll start with those rooms we know are empty,’ said Berit quietly, frowning as she noticed that Adrian was gone.
‘The boy went off a while ago,’ I mumbled. ‘I’ve no idea where.’
‘Geir’s already started searching,’ she said. ‘And Sebastian Robeck insists on helping. We’ll see if luck is on our side. Hopefully he’ll turn up in one of the beds.’
‘How many rooms do you actually have?’
Her smile was resigned, and didn’t reach her eyes.
‘More than I’d like at this particular moment. First of all we’ll take the storerooms, the cubby holes in the cellar, the workshop and the technical rooms. And the attic. With a bit of luck, people will sleep late today. After everything that happened yesterday, I mean. If they’re all as tired as I am, they’ll sleep until twelve! I just hope we can find Roar Hanson before we have to start waking the guests.’
I was thinking precisely the opposite. If we found the priest in a room that wasn’t a bedroom, I had a bad feeling about the state he would be in. Since I very much doubted that he’d embarked on some amorous adventure, given the circumstances, for the time being I was clinging to the hope that he had found a bedroom all to himself. In which case it would be more difficult to find him without starting to wake other people.
Berit ran a hand over her ponytail,
which was caught up in a blue band. There was something helpless about the movement, a childishness that formed a stark contrast to the strong face with its intense, blue, open gaze.
She talked about us as guests.
Only a handful of us had ever bothered to thank Berit and the rest of the staff for their help during this dramatic interlude. Many people had commented that the food was good, but most were so preoccupied with themselves as victims of an accident that they took everything for granted. Some people complained about the beds, others about the fact that the dogs were constantly allowed to come down into Blåstuen, when they weren’t really supposed to be in there. A married couple in their fifties had struck a chord when they said that the selection of diversions available was poor; there were counters missing from most of the games, and there were far too few packs of cards. When the cheerful, friendly woman in the kiosk pointed out that such things were on sale, the woman pursed her mouth haughtily; she certainly hadn’t asked to end up in a train crash on the mountain, and she definitely had no intention of spending her money because of it.
Berit had dark circles under her eyes. A weary, almost sorrowful expression had settled around her mouth during the course of the night.
As far as I could see, it was only in the kiosk and the Millibar that anyone asked for payment. So far not one single credit card had been asked for to cover accommodation or food, not one guarantee had been requested. The staff had worked from morning to night. So far they had all functioned as a combination of spiritual mentor, nurse, child minder, waiter or waitress, wailing wall and cleaner.
Only Magnus Streng had clearly expressed the view that Finse 1222 must be one of the country’s most generous and charming hotels, ever since he first waddled in from the platform and set to work bandaging wounds and putting broken bones in splints.
We really were an ungrateful lot.
We really were Norwegians, the majority of us.
And yet Berit Tverre was still referring to us as guests, and she even managed a wan smile before she hurried off towards the stairs. As far as I could see, she was heading downwards.