By today, Sheldon and Paul have been on the road for several hours before Sigrid finally sits up on her sofa to a large, shapeless mass in front of her making cloying, guttural sounds, both off-putting and strangely insistent.
As through a sea of molasses, Sigrid wades to her desk, where she takes a piece of salty liquorice from the drawer and pops it into her mouth.
With each heartbeat, she is being slammed in the back of the head by a semi driven by a persistent old woman who will take no further lessons.
‘He’s still in custody?’ she asks.
‘Your assailant? Yes. Still here.’
‘Is he the killer?’
‘We don’t think so.’
‘In that case, can I just smash him over the head with a fire extinguisher?’
‘Unfortunately, no,’ the shapeless mass answers in a voice much like Petter’s.
‘We didn’t shoot him in some struggle, did we?’
‘Again, unfortunately, no.’
‘We should interrogate him.’
‘We should open the box.’
‘What box?’
‘The pink box. The one on your desk. That you think belongs to the dead woman.’
‘Yes. That’s a good idea. I can use my gun. Where’s my gun?’
‘No,’ says the someone, who is evidently Petter. ‘We want to use the key. We don’t just want to open the box. We want to know whether it belonged to the woman. So we want to use her key.’
‘Right. And if the key fits the lock on the box, it’ll establish the connection between the key, the box, and the woman.’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘And it might explain something about the murder.’
‘Yes, it might. We’re hoping it will give us the legal grounds to arrest the father.’
‘Legal.’
‘We’re upholding the law.’
‘Which is how we fight crime.’
Petter smiles. ‘You’re feeling better.’
‘Burn after reading.’
‘No, we don’t want to burn anything.’
‘George Clooney shot Brad Pitt in Burn after Reading. In a closet. I knew that guy was wrong.’
‘He probably didn’t see that one.’
Changing the subject: ‘Norwegian law isn’t good enough. Not for this case.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Between throbs last night, I was looking at their records. None of them, not one, is in the Schengen database.’
‘Not so surprising. If there’s no criminal record …’
‘Well, see, that’s the thing about war crimes. No able-or-functioning courts in a war-torn country means no trials and no convictions, and so no record in the SIS, which means almost no grounds for rejecting their immigrant status. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was supposed to fill some of that gap, but it’s a big, big gap.’
‘There are many things to fix in the world. Can we open the box now?’
‘What box?’
‘Here’s the key.’
Petter hands her a very small silver key. It is less than two centimetres long, with a small tooth that splits into two. It is extremely rudimentary, designed to do little more than deter siblings and parents. The lock is intended to hold off the perpetrator just long enough for him to be arrested by his own sense of guilt.
Sigrid takes the key.
‘The problem is that all the things that aren’t fixed allow the flotsam and jetsam of Europe to flow into our little Norwegian boat here. The politicians are so excited about uniting Europe that they set the little boat to sea before its hull was patched up and ready for the voyage. And that means the water just starts coming in and we sink before we set off. And we sink because of the unfounded optimism of a bunch of people we elected to office and don’t get rid of, and don’t educate, and don’t hold accountable, who make feel-good policies that in the end wash all the problems up onto the deck as we sink. And the ones who have to bail them out are us. The cops. Want to know what’s wrong with Norway? Ask us. We know.’
‘That’s very lucid of you. Can we please open the box?’
Sigrid holds up the key and moves it towards the lock on the box.
‘It’s awfully small.’
‘I’ll do it.’
Petter takes the key and rotates the box around so it faces him. He places it in the lock, looks up at Sigrid, and then twists it.
It opens.
‘OK, then.’
Petter flips open the lid and looks in.
‘What are those?’ he asks.
Sigrid isn’t sure.
She opens the drawer of her desk, and takes out a pair of latex gloves. She puts them on, and takes out the contents of the box.
‘Letters and photos.’
‘Of what?’
She doesn’t know. The letters are written in a foreign language. Serbo-Croatian, perhaps — when it was still the same language. Maybe Albanian. The photos are of a village. Or what once was a village.
They are carefully ordered. On top of each photograph there is a small piece of paper with the name of a person, a place, and then other information she can’t discern. The top photo shows the person in some everyday snapshot. At a table, waving. By a car, carrying groceries. Lifting a child. Raking leaves. These are all typical events captured on 35mm film, and usually placed in albums so we can remember who we and our loved ones used to be.
Under each of these are photos of that person’s murder.
The images are gruesome. Some have been shot. Others have been sliced open. Throats have been cut. Children have been shot in the backs of their heads. Some have been shot in the front. Children too young to even fear their killers.
Sigrid is holding evidence of a massacre that someone has courageously documented and hidden, and possibly fought to the death to protect.
‘We need to contact Interpol, Europol, the Foreign Ministry, and the Ministry of Justice and Police. We need to photograph all of this immediately, so there is a copy of everything. I am beginning to see what might have happened here.
‘Let’s call everyone together. I want the briefing on what happened around Oslo yesterday. Anything out of the ordinary. We need to find these people.’
Gathered in a circle again, Sigrid sips a cup of coffee despite the instructions of her medic, who insists it is a diuretic and will increase dehydration, which is not what she wants to be doing right now.
Evidently he is wrong.
‘Anything,’ she says. ‘Anything at all. Did anyone phone in?’
A few calls did come in — domestic abuse, drunks, an attempted rape. Nothing that seems entirely connected.
‘So you’re telling me that we received no calls of any kind about an old American accompanied by a young boy from the Balkans. We issued a very clear description. I want to be sure I’m hearing this correctly.
‘Fine. Start calling around. If the information isn’t coming to us, we start asking for it.’
As Sigrid returns to her office, a junior police officer comes to her with a young woman in civilian clothes.
‘Inspector, I think you need to hear this,’ says the officer.
‘Hear what?’
‘Inspector Ødegård? My name is Adrijana Rasmussen.’ She hesitates and then adds, ‘But I was born Adriana Stojkovi. In Serbia. There are some very bad people looking for a small boy and an old man. And I think they’re in trouble.’
Adrijana speaks Norwegian with an upper-class, west-end accent. Everything about her, other than her Slavic features, expresses the qualities of a native Norwegian. Her clothes are stylish, but just slightly toned down so as not to make other women jealous of her looks. Her hair is carefully styled to look natural.
She’s not self-consciously trendy or rebellious enough to be from Grünerløkka, but she isn’t bedecked in watches and jewelery that she hasn’t had the time to earn either, and therefore suggesting old money from Frogner.
Perhaps out in Skøyen or St Hanshaugen. Maybe a nice part of Bislett.
She tells her story quickly and with such narrative confidence that she exudes integrity and purpose. And a certain level of youthful immaturity as well.
‘He’s not a bad person,’ she says to Sigrid. ‘He’s a good person. He’s just stupid. Stupid like a piece of fruit. Stupid, stupid, stupid …’
‘OK. I see. What did he do?’
‘Well, he didn’t come home last night, that’s for one thing. He asked me about this old man and kid, and I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I told him to explain it, and he wouldn’t, and he said I should ask around “in my community” … and what does that mean, anyway … so I got upset and told him that the Serbs aren’t “my community” any more than the Japanese are, and then he started getting high and mighty like he had some deep insight into the human condition, and … ’
‘Where is he now?’ asks Petter, trying to find a foothold.
‘Now? Like, right now? I have no idea. He disappeared. So I assume he’s with his dangerous friends. Gjon, Enver, Kadri …’
‘Enver Bardhosh Berisha? Kadri …’
‘Yeah, yeah, them. You know them?’
‘Yes. Where are they?’
‘I don’t know. But Burim said they’re looking for the old man and the boy. I think they saw something. I think the old man is hiding with the boy. I think you need to find them.’
‘Can you stay here for a few minutes, please?’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘No, no, it’s not that. We’re very grateful you’re here. Just don’t go away. I need some of my colleagues to ask you a few details.’
‘I love him,’ says Adrijana. ‘He’s stupid, but he’s kind, and he’s gentle, and he’s a moron, and he acts like an abused puppy, but …’
‘I understand,’ says Sigrid. ‘Just stay here.’
Out in the main room again, she waves to get everyone’s attention. When she feels she has it, she calls out loudly.
‘Anything. Anything at all. Any information on Horowitz. Just shout it out.’
A quiet man named Jørgen raises his hand. Sigrid opens her palms to signal that she is prepared to catch anything.
‘I spoke to an officer from Trøgstad. He said he pulled over an old German man yesterday. He was driving a tractor pulling a raft. He had his grandson with him.’
‘An old German and a young boy.’
‘Yeah. He said he remembers it clearly because the boy was dressed like a Jewish Viking.’
‘A Jewish Viking.’
‘Yeah. A big star on his shirt, and horns on his head.’
‘An old German was driving a tractor pulling a Jewish Viking on a raft, and no one thought this was worth bringing to my attention?’
‘The bulletin we sent out said the old man was American. Since this man was German, he didn’t see the need to mention it.’
Sigrid sits down in the nearest empty chair. She can no longer be sure of the source of the pain in her head. This morning she was sure the pain was coming from the outside of her skull. Now she is not so certain.
Petter is still standing. He says, ‘It looks like the woman was right.’
‘What woman?’
‘Ms Horowitz. She said being Jewish mattered. Perhaps we should have mentioned it in the bulletin.’
‘You think?’ Shaking her head, she asks, ‘Are we the most naïve people in Europe?’
‘Actually, there was recently a survey …’
‘I don’t want to know.’
‘If we consider when the boat was found, and then draw a line to the tractor sighting, we can see them moving north-east from Drøbak.’
‘In the direction of the summer house.’
‘More or less.’
‘Any sighting of the tractor?’
Jørgen shakes his head.
‘Call every unit between Trøgstad and Kongsvinger, and tell them to get on the road and look for it. And start with the ones in the north, not the south, OK? We tighten the grip from the top, not the bottom.’
Petter puts his hand on Sigrid’s shoulder.
Sigrid looks up at Petter. She gives him a smirk.
‘You have to admit, the old fox is kicking our arse,’ Petter says.
‘I’ll take my hat off to him when we get the boy back safely.’
‘He should have turned the child over to us.’
Sigrid knows better.
‘I don’t think this is a man defined by trust,’ she says.
Chapter 19
Sigrid sits in the passenger seat of the speeding Volvo V60. The lights are flashing, and Petter’s face is grim. They have called Rhea and Lars. They have not received an answer.
The police radio is on, and the local law-enforcement has been notified. The Beredskapstroppen are coming from three different locations to converge on the summer house, and are well-armed and briefed. Sigrid has taken command of the operation, and everything is on hold until she gives the word for an assault.
‘We’re out on a limb here,’ Petter says after thirty minutes of silence on the highway.
‘I’m right. The old man is going to the house with the boy, and I’ll bet you a whisky that Enver and his clan are waiting to take the boy if they haven’t already.’
‘We really don’t know any of this.’
The nausea remains, but her focus has returned. Sigrid is angry, and the anger heals her. Petter is not wrong, but he isn’t right either.
‘The man and boy live in the same building,’ she says. ‘The box from the boy’s mother was under the man’s bed. She went in there with her son to hide. He hid them because he’s that kind of a man. He heard his neighbour at risk, and he stepped up to help. But something happened. Bardosh broke in, and Horowitz and the son hid in the closet. The boy urinated, and somehow they both got out. Bardosh and his gang learned this, one way or another, and they’ve been hunting for them. Horowitz has kept a step ahead of all of us. He probably thinks they don’t know about the summer house. And maybe they don’t. But maybe they do. After all, the movie buff was skulking around in the old man’s room. If they learned about the summer house, surely they’d send someone there to look around.
‘I can’t get Rhea and Lars on the phone. So I’m going to take a risk and assume they can’t pick it up. If I’m wrong, we scare them with a big entrance and I become the laughing stock of the police force for a few weeks. If I’m right, we’re showing up to a fight, well armed. Unless,’ she says, ‘the fight is already over.’
The speed limit on this stretch of road is eighty kilometres an hour, and Petter is driving at one hundred and thirty. They should be at the staging point in forty or fifty minutes if the traffic stays light.
She takes a key from around her neck, opens the glove box, and removes a Glock 17 9mm pistol. She releases the magazine and pulls it from the gun, which she places on her lap. Then she presses her fingers down hard on the bullets to check that the magazine is fully loaded. She puts it between her thighs and picks up the pistol. She pulls the slide all the way back until it clicks open, and then peers into the chamber to make sure it’s empty. She checks the magazine receiver for any debris or lint. Satisfied, she returns the magazine to the pistol. With a flick of her thumb on the release, the spring rams the slide forward, chambering the first round ‘American style’.
She engages the safety and then holsters the gun.
Petter looks at her, and she looks back.
She turns her head fully to him and says, ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ says Petter.
The radio crackles. Sigrid can picture the operations room back at the police station, and imagines the computer-system display that tracks all the vehicles as they converge on the summer house.
It is a rushed mission, and she knew it, but the Beredskapstroppen are ready. Like her, they have already seen the satellite images of the approaches to the cabin, and have noted that there is only one road. They’ll have checked the angle of the sun against the available natural covers, to position snipers and assault teams. It is likely that the Kosovars are armed. There are a great many unregistered weapons across the country, and criminals are getting bolder in exploiting that weakness faster than the state can guard against it. They might also have found the two rifles registered to Lars Bjørnsson for hunting. Unless Lars got them first. Or Horowitz has. In which case, everyone is armed, and the situation is volatile.
Sigrid taps her fingers anxiously on her knees and checks their speed.
‘Can’t we go any faster?’
‘Yes, but we shouldn’t.’
She taps faster and looks out the window again.
River Rats. The old man’s letter was a quote from Huckleberry Finn, the American anti-slavery novel by Mark Twain, where Huck and the runaway slave Jim make their way down the Mississippi River, evading capture for wrongs they never committed. Sigrid had typed it in on the Internet, and it popped right up. Horowitz’s spelling of ‘sivilize’ with an ‘s’ and a ‘z’ made it a specifically American misspelling that was unique to the novel.
Sigrid keeps tapping.
It was probably pity that motivated the hunters to drive Sheldon and Paul all the way to Glåmlia. It must have been out of their way, even if they had been heading north. The ride has taken more than an hour, and now that it has finally ended, Sheldon is staring straight at his biggest fear.
The Ford pick-up approaches a white Mercedes 190 E parked on the shoulder of the dirt road behind a yellow Toyota Corolla from the mid-1990s.
‘Stop the truck,’ Sheldon says to the driver.
The pick-up crunches to a halt behind the Mercedes. Only a metre away, the car looks like a sleeping white panther waiting for its tail to be pulled.
Norwegian by Night Page 24