by Jo Nesbo
Pictures of old American film stars hung on the walls. The only thing that wasn’t American must have been that famous pair of salon scissors Grete used, a stainless-steel affair which she told anyone who would listen was a Japanese Niigata 1000 that cost fifteen thousand kroner and came with a lifetime guarantee.
Grete looked up, but the Niigata went on cutting.
‘Olsen,’ I said.
‘Hi, Roy. He’s sunning himself.’
‘I know that, I saw his car. Where’s the sun?’ I watched as the Japanese superscissors snipped dangerously close to the customer’s earlobe.
‘I don’t think he wants to be disturbed...’
‘In there?’ I pointed towards the other door in the room. There was a poster on it showing a sun-bronzed and desperately smiling girl in a bikini.
‘He’ll be finished in...’ She glanced down at a remote control on the table next to her. ‘Fourteen minutes. Can’t you wait outside?’
‘Could do. But even men can manage to do two things at once if all that’s involved are sunning yourself and speaking.’ I nodded to the lady in the barber’s chair who was staring at me in the mirror, and opened the door.
It was like entering a lousy horror film. The room was in darkness apart from a bluish light that seeped out from the crack along the side of a Dracula’s coffin, one of two sunbeds that were all the room contained, apart from a chair over the back of which hung Kurt Olsen’s jeans and his light leather jacket. A threatening, juddering sound came from the lamps inside, heightening the sense that something terrible was about to happen.
I pulled the chair up to the side of the sunbed. Heard music buzzing from a couple of earphones. For a moment I thought it was Roger Whittaker and that this really was a horror film, before recognising John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’.
‘I’ve come to warn you,’ I said.
I heard movement from inside, something hit the lid of the coffin so it shook and there was a low cursing. The buzzing of the music stopped.
‘It’s about a possible case of sexual assault,’ I said.
‘Oh yeah?’ Olsen’s voice sounded as if he was talking inside a tin can, and I couldn’t tell if he recognised my voice on the outside.
‘A person having sexual relations with someone in his own immediate family,’ I said.
‘Go on.’
I stopped. Maybe because it suddenly struck me that the situation had bizarre similarities to the Catholic confessional. Apart from the fact that it wasn’t me who was the sinner. Not this time.
‘Moe – the roofer – is buying morning-after pills once a week. As you know, he has a teenage daughter. She bought morning-after pills the other day.’
I waited as I left it up to Sheriff Olsen to reach the obvious conclusion.
‘Why once a week, and why here?’ he asked. ‘Why not bulk-buy in town? Or put the girl on the contraceptive pill?’
‘Because he thinks that every time is the last time,’ I said. ‘He thinks he can manage to stop.’
I heard the clicking of a lighter from inside the sunbed. ‘How do you know that?’
I searched for the right way to answer as the cigarette smoke seeped out of Dracula’s coffin, dissipated in the blue light and vanished into the darkness. Felt the same urge as Egil had felt: to confess. To drive over the edge. To fall.
‘We all like to believe that we’ll be a better person tomorrow,’ I said.
‘It isn’t easy to keep something like that quiet in a village like this for any length of time,’ said Olsen. ‘I’ve never heard anyone suspect Moe of anything.’
‘He’s gone bankrupt,’ I said. ‘Hangs around at home with nothing to do.’
‘But he’s still a teetotaller,’ said Olsen, showing that at least he was following my train of thought. ‘Not everyone starts fucking his own daughter when things begin to go a little wrong for him.’
‘Or purchase morning-after pills once a week,’ I said.
‘Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want his wife to get pregnant again. Or maybe the daughter’s having it away with some lad and Moe is just a concerned father.’ I heard Olsen take a drag on his cigarette in there. ‘He doesn’t want her on anything more permanent, because then he’s worried she might start having it away all the time with whoever. Moe’s a Pentecostal, you know.’
‘I didn’t know that, but that doesn’t exactly diminish the possibility of a little incest.’
I sensed a reaction beneath the coffin lid when I used the i-word.
‘If you’re going to make a serious accusation like that you should have a bit more to go on than the person in question buying contraception,’ said Olsen. ‘Do you?’
What could I say? That I had seen the shame in his eyes? A shame so powerful that for me it was stronger proof than anything?
‘So now you know,’ I said. ‘I suggest you have a chat with the daughter.’
Maybe I should have dropped the ‘suggest’. Maybe I should have known it sounded as though I was telling Olsen how to do his job. On the other hand, maybe I knew all this and went ahead and did it anyway. Whatever, Olsen’s voice went up a semitone and a decibel.
‘And I suggest you leave this to us, although I can tell you straight off we’ll probably go on prioritising more pressing cases.’ His tone of voice left room for my name at the end of his sentence, but he left it there. Churning through his brain was probably the thought that if I later turned out to be right and the sheriff’s office had done nothing then it would be easier for him if he could claim the tip-off that came in was anonymous. Anyway, I fell for it.
‘And what pressing cases might that be?’ I asked, and could have bitten my tongue off.
‘None of your business. In the meantime I suggest you keep this small-town gossip to yourself. We don’t need that type of hysteria here.’
I had to swallow and before I could say anything else John Denver was back.
I stood up and went back into the salon. Grete and her customer had moved to the washbasin where they were rinsing her hair and chatting away. I thought they always washed your hair before they cut it, but this here was clearly something different, some sort of chemical warfare was being waged against the hair, at any rate there were several tubes on the rim of the basin and they were too busy to notice me. I picked up the remote that was next to the door. Looked like Olsen had ten minutes to go. I pressed an upward-pointing arrow until the display showed twenty. Pressed the key above FACIAL TANNER and a display appeared showing a scale with one dot. Three taps on the arrow and it was on maximum. Those of us who work in the service industries know how important it is for people to feel they’re getting value – and plenty of it – for their money.
As I passed Grete and the customer I picked up the words: ‘...jealous now, because of course he was in love with his little brother.’
Grete’s face stiffened when she noticed me, but I merely nodded and pretended not to have heard.
Out in the fresh air I thought how this was like a fucking repeat. Everything had happened before. Everything would happen again. And with the same result.
11
NOT EVEN THE VILLAGE’S ANNUAL fete ever attracted such a crowd. We’d placed six hundred chairs in the main function room at the village hall and still some people had to stand. I turned in my seat and looked towards the back of the hall, pretending to be looking out for someone. Everyone was there. Mari with her husband Dan Krane, who was scanning the place himself with his journalist’s eye. Willum Willumsen the used-car dealer with his tall, elegant wife Rita, who towered a full head above him even when they were seated. The new chairman Voss Gilbert, who also refereed Os Football Club’s home games, not that it seemed to do any good. Erik Nerell with his very pregnant wife Thea. Sheriff Kurt Olsen too, his scorched face glowing like a red lantern. His hate-filled gaze met mine. Grete
Smitt had brought along Mr and Mrs Smitt, I could just see them shuffling speedily across the car park on their way in. Natalie Moe was sitting between her parents. I tried to catch her father’s eye, but he had already looked away. Maybe because he suspected I knew. Or maybe because he knew that everyone knew that his roofing business had gone bust and that if he invested in the hotel project it would be an insult to every one of his creditors in the village. But he could probably get away with just turning up at the meeting. Most of those present had probably come out of curiosity, not out of any desire to invest. Yes, Jo Aas the old council chairman hadn’t seen the place so packed since the seventies, when Preacher Armand was making the rounds. Aas was standing at the podium looking out at the gathering. Tall, and thin and skinny as a flagpole. His upward-arching birch-white eyebrows seemed to reach higher and higher with each passing year.
‘There was a time when entertainment such as talking in tongues and the healing of the sick and lame was every bit as popular as the films on show at the village cinema,’ said Aas. ‘And what’s more it was free.’
The laughter duly came.
‘Now you haven’t come here to listen to me, but to one of our own homecoming sons, Carl Abel Opgard. I don’t know whether his sermon will bring salvation and life everlasting to the village, you’ll have to make up your own minds about that. I have agreed to introduce this young man and his project because this village, at this moment in time, in the situation in which we find ourselves, should welcome any and every fresh initiative. We need new thinking. We need commitment. But we also need old thinking. The thinking that has stood the test of time, and has enabled us to go on living out here in these barren but beautiful villages. And so I ask you to listen with a mind both open and fair to a young man who has proved that a simple farm boy from these parts can also succeed in the big wide world. Carl, the stage is yours!’
Thunderous applause, though it was noticeably muted by the time Carl reached the podium and was probably more for Aas than him. Carl was wearing a suit and tie, but he’d taken off the jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He’d modelled the outfit at home, asked for our opinions. Shannon wondered why he wouldn’t wear the jacket, and I explained it was because Carl had seen American presidential candidates trying to be folksy when addressing factory workers on the campaign trail.
‘They wear windjammers and baseball caps,’ said Shannon.
‘It’s a question of finding just the right balance,’ said Carl. ‘We don’t want to seem stuffy and pompous, we’re from round here, after all, where people drive tractors and walk around in rubber boots. But at the same time we need to appear serious and professional. You don’t turn up for a confirmation here not wearing a tie, and if you do it’s obvious you don’t get it. That I have a jacket, but have taken it off, is a way of signalling that I respect the task ahead and take it seriously, at the same time as I’m keen, fired up, ready to get cracking.’
‘Not scared to get your hands dirty,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ said Carl.
On the way out to the car Shannon had whispered to me with a chuckle in her voice: ‘You know what, I thought the expression was to get dirt under your nails. Is that completely wrong?’
‘Depends what you were trying to say,’ I answered.
‘What I’d like to say,’ said Carl, resting both hands on the podium, ‘...before I start speaking about the adventure I’m inviting you all to join me on, is that simply standing here on this stage in front of so many old friends and faces is really quite something for me. It’s really quite moving.’
I noticed the air of cautious expectation. Carl had been well liked. At least by those whose ladies hadn’t liked him a little too well. And certainly Carl as he was when he had left town. But was he still Carl? The lively mischief-maker and fun guy with the bright smile, the kind, thoughtful boy with a friendly word for everyone, men and women alike, children as well as adults. Or had he turned into what he described himself as on the invitation: a Master of Business? A mountain bird able to fly at heights where others couldn’t breathe? Canada. Property magnate. An exotic and educated wife from the Caribbean sitting there a little too well made up. Would a normal girl from around these parts be too dull for him now?
‘Wonderful and moving,’ Carl said once again. ‘Because now, finally, I get a taste of what it must have been like to stand here and be...’ An artful pause as he looked out over the gathering and adjusted his tie. ‘...Rod.’
A brief moment. And then came the laughter.
Carl’s white smile. Sure now, sure that he had them. He rested his long arms along the sides of the podium as though he owned it.
‘Fairy tales usually begin with Once upon a time, but this fairy tale hasn’t been written yet. But when the time comes for it to be written, it will begin Once upon a time there was a village that had a meeting at Årtun village hall where they talked about a hotel they were going to build. And we are talking about this hotel...’
He tapped on the remote. The plans appeared on the giant screen behind him. There was a gasp, but I could see that Carl had expected a bigger gasp. Saw it because he’s my brother. Or more accurately: a more positive gasp. Because as I said: I think that in general people prefer the comfort of hearth and home to an igloo on the moon. On the other hand, it had undeniably a certain elegance. There was something about the proportions and the lines, there was a universal beauty about them, like that of an ice crystal, a white-topped breaker, or a pristine mountain face. Or even a service station.
Carl could see that he had a job to do to convince the gathering. I could see him regrouping, as people say. Mobilising himself. Gathering himself for the next assault. He went through the plans and explained what was what. The spa section, the gym, the pool, the kids’ playroom, the different classes of hotel room, the reception and lobby, the restaurant. Stressing that everything here would be top of the range, that their main target group was going to be guests with high expectations. In other words: people with fat wallets. The hotel’s name would be the same as the village. The Os Spa and Mountain Hotel. A name that would be promoted across all media platforms. The village’s name would become a byword for quality, he said. Something exclusive. But not excluding. It should be possible for a family on a normal income to spend a weekend here. But it would have to be something they saved up for, something they looked forward to. The village name should be associated with joy. Carl smiled, showed them a little of that joy. It seemed to me that he was beginning to get the crowd on board. I’d even say that the gathering was starting to show signs of enthusiasm, and that’s not something you get every day around these parts. All the same, the next gasp wasn’t until people heard the total cost.
Four hundred million.
A gasp. The temperature in the room plummeted.
Carl had expected the gasp. But, as I saw from his expression, not quite such a big one.
He began speaking faster, afraid now that he was losing them. Said that for landowners in the area the rise in property prices because of the hotel and the cabin developments by itself would be enough to make investment profitable. The same went for those who ran shops and service businesses, as the hotel and the cabins would bring with them a stream of paying customers. Because these were people who had money, and liked to spend it. In fact, taken separately, the village would probably profit more from this than the hotel itself.
He paused for a few moments. People sat silent and unmoving. Everything seemed to be in the balance. From where I sat in the fifth row I saw something move. Like a flagpole in a stiff wind. It was Aas, sitting in the front row. His white head towering above the others. He nodded. Nodded slowly. Everyone saw it.
And then Carl played his ace.
‘But the precondition of all this is that the hotel is built, and that it opens for business. That people are willing to make the necessary effort. That certain people are willing to
accept a degree of risk and finance this project. For the good of the others. Of everyone in the village.’
On average the people round here are less educated than those in the cities. They aren’t as quick to get the point in clever films and urbane sitcoms. But they get the subtext. Because the ideal in Os is not to say more than is necessary, people have a developed understanding of what remains unexpressed. And what remained unexpressed here was that if you didn’t join the ranks of the certain people who invested in the project, then that made you one of the others. Those who would profit from the secondary benefits, without having contributed themselves.
I saw more slow nodding. It seemed to spread.
But then a man raised his voice. Willumsen, the man who had sold Dad the Cadillac.
‘If this is such a good investment, Carl,’ said Willumsen, ‘why do you need all of us? Why not keep the whole cake for yourself? Or as much of it as you can handle alone and get a couple of other big shots to cover the rest?’
‘Because,’ said Carl, ‘I’m not a big shot. And not too many of you are either. I could have taken a bigger share, sure, and I’ll happily take what’s left over if the investment isn’t fully covered. But my vision when I came home with this project was that everyone should have the chance to take part, not just those with money to spare. That’s why I’m seeing this as an SL company. Shared Responsibilty. It means that none of you need to put anything up front at all to become part-owners of this hotel. Not one single øre!’ Carl pounded the podium.
Pause. Silence. I could feel what they were thinking. What kind of fucking hocus pocus is that? Is this Preacher Armand all over again?
Then Carl read them the Good News gospel. About how you can own without paying. And as the Master of Business spoke, they listened.
‘That means,’ he said, ‘that the more who invest, the less the risk at the individual level. If everyone signs up, none of us risks any more than what we might pay for a car. At least, not if we bought it second-hand from Willumsen here.’