by Anne Holt
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CHAPTER ONE
A racing pigeon flew over Oslo.
His owner called him the Colonel because of the three star-shaped marks on his chest. He was a small, squat bird, almost twelve years old. Age and experience had made him confident, but also extremely cautious. He flew low to avoid birds of prey. Watchful, he darted through the air, swooping in from the fjord between the city hall towers, before veering slightly to the east.
A high-rise block was covered in scaffolding and tarpaulins. The Colonel prepared to land.
He had flown a great distance.
Homesickness gnawed within his broad gray chest, with its insignia so distinct and beautiful that at the time he had been bought as a fledgling, he had cost his owner more than his pedigree alone would merit. His parents were ordinary working stock. Tender care and great expectations had nevertheless made a racer of the Colonel, and this was one of Northern Europe’s most prizewinning racing pigeons, now perched on top of the tower block that had been destroyed one July day less than three years earlier.
The Colonel wanted to go home. He was eager to reach Ingelill, his mate of more than ten years. He longed to hear his owner’s whistle at feeding time and the soothing cooing of the other pigeons. The old, sharp-eyed gray bird felt drawn to the pigeon loft in the orchard and the nesting box where Ingelill was waiting. He knew exactly where he was headed. It was not far now—only a few minutes if he took to his wings and soared.
High above, between the Colonel and the cold April sun, a bird of prey was hovering. It was still so young that now and then it migrated from the forests north of the city to feast on lethargic collared doves in city-center parks. It caught sight of the Colonel at the very moment the gray veteran softly shook its wings and plucked its plumage in preparation for takeoff.
The hawk pounced.
An emaciated man was standing below, outside the cordon around the half-dead building, using his hand to shade his eyes. A hawk, he noticed. A sparrow hawk, he felt certain, even though this was a rare sight here in the city center. The man lingered. The sparrow hawk, with its shorter, powerful wings, did not normally hunt like this. It depended on hilly terrain to conceal itself: the sparrow hawk was a stealthy killer rather than a fighter pilot.
Now the bird swooped quickly and suddenly, homing in on something the man could not see. As he stood there, still with his hand held level above his eyes, he was aware of his own rank body odor stinging his nostrils. He had not washed in more than a week. It still embarrassed him to be so unclean, even after all these years scuttling between drunkenness and night shelters and the Church City Mission.
It must be a pigeon the hawk had caught, he decided as a little cloud of gray feathers descended from the edge of the roof high above him. Skoa liked pigeons. They were sociable birds, especially in summer when he chose to sleep outdoors in the main.
He dropped his arm and began to walk.
A good way to die, he thought, as he shuffled off in the direction of Karl Johans gate with his hands deep inside his pockets. One minute you’re enjoying the view, the next you’re somebody’s lunch.
When all was said and done, Lars Johan Austad wished he had suffered the same fate. Shivering in the April chill as he reached the shadow cast by the Ministry of Finance building, he realized it was time to find something to eat. It was midday and he could hear the clock strike at city hall.
A brass bell tinkled.
“Come on, Colonel! Peeep!”
His whistling made the other pigeons coo restlessly. It was now approaching evening, and feeding time had finished some time ago.
“Colonel! Peeeeep!”
“I think you’ll have to give that up for today.”
A slender woman arrived along the flagstones, picking her way between the patchy remnants of snow that still lay in dirty brown heaps across the lawn that led down to the pigeon loft.
“Colonel!” the man repeated, whistling once more, before ringing the little bell.
The woman slid her arm carefully around his shoulders.
“Come on now, Gunnar. The Colonel will find his way without you having to attract him, as you well know.”
“He should have been here by now,” the man complained, rocking stiffly from one foot to the other. “The Colonel should have been here hours ago.”
“He’s just been delayed,” the middle-aged woman comforted him. “You’ll see, he’ll be back here in his box when you wake tomorrow. With Ingelill. The Colonel would never let his little Ingelill down, you know that. Come on now. I’ve made some tea. And scones. The nice ones that you like best.”
“Don’t want to, Mom. Don’t want to.”
Smiling, she pretended not to hear him. Grasping his hand discreetly, she drew him up toward the house. He accompanied her with some reluctance.
“It’s your birthday tomorrow,” the woman said. “Thirty-five years old. Where has the time gone, Gunnar?”
“The Colonel,” the man whimpered. “Something must have happened to him.”
“Not at all. Come on now. I’ve baked a cake. Tomorrow you can help me to decorate the cake. With cream and strawberries and candles.”
“The Colonel—”
“Where has the time gone?” she repeated, mostly to herself, as she opened the back door and pushed her son into the warmth.
CHAPTER TWO
Time went by in a loop.
He had changed so much. Maybe it was the extra weight that, paradoxically enough, made him look shorter than the six foot seven she knew he measured on a good day. The broad shoulders were stooped, and his pants belt strained below his potbelly. His face was smooth-shaven, just like his head.
“Hanne,” he said.
“Billy T.,” she answered after a few seconds’ pause, without making any move to push her wheelchair back from the doorway to allow him access. “It’s been a long time.”
Billy T. rested his arm on the door frame, leaning against it and burying his face in his huge hand.
“Eleven years,” he mumbled.
A door slammed outside in the corridor. Decisive footsteps could be heard heading from the neighboring apartment in the direction of the elevator. They slowed as they approached Hanne Wilhelmsen’s front door and the big man who was standing in what could easily be interpreted as a threatening pose.
“Everything okay here?” a deep male voice inquired.
“How did you get in downstairs?” Hanne asked, without replying to her neighbor. “We have an entry phone—”
“My God,” Billy T. groaned, tearing his hand away from his face. “I’ve been in the police longer than you. A fucking miserable door security system! You wouldn’t have let me in if I’d rung the bell, just as you’ve rejected every damned attempt I’ve ever made to contact you.”
“Hello,” the neighbor said gruffly, trying to insinuate himself between Billy T. and the wheelchair. He was almost as tall as Hanne’s old colleague. “It looks as though Ms. Wilhelmsen here isn’t particularly happy to see you.”
He looked quizzically at her, but she did not respond.
Eleven years.
And three months.
Plus a few days.
“Or what?” the neighbor said, irritated, placing a hand on Billy T.’s chest to push him farther out into the corri
dor.
“That’s right,” she said at last. “I’m not interested. I’d be grateful if you’d see him out.”
“Hanne . . .”
Billy T. shoved the man’s hand away and dropped to his knees. The neighbor took a step back. His surprise at seeing this enormous body kneel and fold his hands in prayer made him stare openmouthed.
“Hanne. Please. I need help.”
She did not answer. She tried to look away, but his eyes had locked on hers. He had Husky eyes, absolutely unforgettable, one blue and one brown. It was his eyes she feared most. So little else about this figure reminded her of the man Billy T. had once been. The fleece-lined denim jacket was too small for him, and a big stain of something, possibly ketchup, disfigured one of the breast pockets. Black outlines of snuff were etched at both corners of his mouth, and his complexion was bloated and winter-pale.
His blue-brown gaze was still the same. In front of her wheelchair, only a few inches from those useless legs of hers, all the forgotten years stared her in the face. Jostling at her. As she resisted, she noticed she had stopped breathing.
“Come here,” the neighbor eventually said, so loudly that Hanne flinched. “You’re not wanted, didn’t you hear that? If you don’t come with me, I’ll have to call the police.”
Billy T. did not stir. His hands were still folded. His face was still turned toward her. Hanne said nothing. Outside in Kruses gate, an ambulance approached, and through the window at the end of the corridor, a flashing blue light swept across one wall before it faded and the noise subsided.
It grew quiet again.
Finally Billy T. got to his feet. Stiff and groaning slightly. He brushed the knees of his pants with a light touch and tried to straighten his tight jacket. Without a word, he began to walk toward the elevator. Giving Hanne a self-assured smile, the neighbor followed him.
She sat watching them. Watching Billy T. He was the only one she saw. She let the wheels of her chair roll soundlessly out into the corridor.
“Billy T.,” she said as he pressed the button to summon the elevator.
He turned around.
“Yes?”
“You’ve never met Ida.”
“No.”
He ran his hand over his scalp, smiling warily.
“But I had heard that you—that you both had a child. How old is she now?”
“Ten. She’ll turn eleven this summer.”
The elevator door opened with a ding.
Billy T. did not budge as the neighbor waved him in.
“She’ll be at school now, then,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Shall we?” the neighbor insisted, thrusting his foot forward to prevent the door from closing.
“I need help, Hanne. I need help with something that . . .”
Billy T. gasped for breath, as if on the brink of tears.
“It’s about Linus. Do you remember Linus, Hanne? My boy? Do you remember . . . ?”
He checked himself and shook his head. Shrugging, he took one step into the elevator.
“Come in,” he heard, pulling him up short.
“What?”
He stepped back and stared along the corridor. Hanne was no longer there. But her door was open, he noticed; the front door invited him in, and he was certain he had not misheard.
“Have a nice day,” he muttered to the neighbor as he walked hesitantly, almost anxiously, toward Hanne’s apartment.
Symbolically enough, the National Council for Islam in Norway, NCIN, was situated virtually next door to the American Lutheran Church in Frogner. In one of the best districts in Oslo, the increasingly large and influential organization had bought two apartments in Gimle terrasse and knocked them together into an impressive office. The protests of neighbors and political fanfare had made the process tortuous and prolonged, but some time after it opened, most of the neighbors were appeased. A woman who lived two floors above the office was interviewed by NRK, the national broadcaster, in connection with NCIN’s fifth anniversary. She was evidently pleased that they did not cook any food on the premises, as she had feared beforehand. Moreover, the organization had spent a lot of money on much-needed upgrading of the common areas. The eighty-year-old woman had also pointed out that her Muslims were beautifully dressed. None of them looked like that jihadist Mullah Krekar, and neither turbans nor tunics had gained admission to the respectable apartment building.
The American Church, which from a bird’s-eye view looked like a bushy potted plant, was located diagonally opposite. It was mostly built of concrete—one of the advantages of which was that damage caused by the violent explosion would be limited.
The apartment building where NCIN was located sustained greater devastation.
As did the old woman.
It was early in the day. Until then, it had been like all the others. The morning had brought freezing rain that had not been forecast and traffic chaos. In some of the flower beds, overconfident daffodils had shown their faces to check the temperature the previous day; now they were hanging their heads in remorse. Afterward, when the entire area was combed and several hundred witnesses were required to relate what they had seen and where they had been, it turned out that one detail had been unusual in that fashionable locality.
A young man in what they all called “traditional Islamic clothes,” and carrying a bag, had approached the NCIN office. The bag grew in size in the days following the blast. His clothing became increasingly eccentric. Some thought he had been wearing a turban; others were sure they had made out something that might have been a machine gun underneath his loose robes. Some individuals were convinced it was a question of two such figures, and three witnesses insisted they had spotted a whole gang of these odd people in the minutes prior to the explosion.
It was difficult to know. The bomb was so powerful that the work of establishing the identities of the dead was far from simple.
Nevertheless, and on the basis of all the information quickly garnered from the relatives of the apartment building’s residents and NCIN’s numerous members who had not been present when the blast occurred, the police were able to issue an estimated total of fatalities that same evening. Or the missing, as they more correctly called most of them.
Sixteen people who could no longer be accounted for had been present in the NCIN offices. An unfortunate mailman had also disappeared. Of the neighbors in the apartments above NCIN’s office, only the old woman had been at home. She was found with all her body parts still attached to her torso, but her chest riddled with countless glass splinters and a door handle embedded two inches deep in her temple. Three pedestrians in Gimle terrasse and two in nearby Fritzners gate, also killed, were sufficiently recognizable to receive a dignified funeral a few days later. One of them was a local employee in the embassy of the Czech Republic farther down the street, who had been on her way, far too early, to a lunch appointment.
In addition to the estimated twenty-three victims, the provisional statistics included eight more or less seriously wounded casualties. Among them was the American pastor from the church directly across the street, who had been walking his wife’s little Jack Russell puppy. The dog had died instantly, and the pastor had received a facial injury that would cost him repeated plastic surgery operations. Very few concerned themselves to any great extent with the material damage in the days that followed, but it would later become apparent that this had been substantial.
The bomb went off at 10:57 on Tuesday morning, April 8, 2014.
Hanne Wilhelmsen glanced at her wristwatch, which showed three minutes to eleven.
“What in—”
“What the hell was that?” Billy T. exclaimed.
He placed his hands on the massive, opaque glass coffee table. It was still vibrating. A large living room window facing Kruses gate had cracked from corner to corner in a distinct diagonal line.
“Not again,” Hanne whispered as she rolled across to the outside wall, where she positioned herself at the wi
ndow in order to peer out cautiously. “It can’t be . . .”
“A bomb? No . . .”
Standing up from the cushioned sofa, Billy T. fiddled with his cell phone.
“There’s nothing on VG online,” he mumbled as he crossed tentatively to the window.
“The Internet is fast,” Hanne said tartly, “but maybe not at such lightning speed.”
“A gas explosion? An accident?”
Hanne trundled back to the glass table and grabbed a remote control. A gigantic, slightly curved flat-screen TV appeared from behind a panel that slid silently up and into the wall. After a few seconds’ delay, Twitter’s easily recognizable Internet page appeared.
“Twitter? Are . . . are you on Twitter, Hanne?”
“Just an anonymous egghead. No followers. I follow three thousand. Never tweet myself. But it’s the fastest medium in the world, and at times like this . . . look!”
She pointed with the remote control.
The three last tweets in the feed were about the explosion. Hanne pressed the refresh button. Seven reports. Another keystroke. Eleven reports now. She began to scroll down. A hashtag quickly popped up, and she guided the cursor toward #osloexpl to find out more.
“There,” she said, dropping the hand that held the remote control to her thigh. “Dear god.”
Billy T. ran both hands over his head.
“Fuck!” he said softly. “The NCIN office. The intersection of Fritzners gate and Gimle terrasse. Some damned Knight Templar again?”
Hanne did not answer: she was engrossed in reading the ever-accumulating reports. Many of them seemed quite confused. Some claimed this related to a failed attack on the American Church. When some of the reports were in a language she thought must be Czech, she understood that country’s embassy was in the vicinity of the NCIN premises.
“Anyway, NCIN really shouldn’t scare anyone,” Billy T. continued. “Aren’t they the most Norwegian of all our Muslims? The ones who don’t seem particularly Muslim at all, if you ask me? Eager to cooperate with everyone and everything, and speaking Norwegian better than me—at least that’s my impression. Female deputy leader. No hijab.”