The Kingdom

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Well?’ said Carl, leaning on his ski poles. ‘Can you see?’

  All I saw was the same burnt-out ruins of the previous month.

  ‘Can’t you see it? The new hotel?’

  ‘No.’

  Carl laughed. ‘Just wait. Fourteen months. I’ve spoken to my people, and we’re going to bloody well get it done in fourteen months. In a month’s time we’ll be cutting the ribbon down there for the start of the new building. And it’s going to be bigger than the first launch. Anna Falla has agreed to come and cut the ribbon.’

  I nodded. Elected member of the Storting, leader of the Committee for Business and Industry. It was pretty big.

  ‘And afterwards, a party for the whole village at Årtun, just like the old days.’

  ‘Nothing can be just like the old days, Carl.’

  ‘Wait and see. I’m asking Rod to get the old band together for a reunion.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ I laughed. Rod. That was way bigger than anyone the Storting could send.

  Carl turned. ‘Shannon?’

  She had struggled her way up the hill behind us. ‘It’s bakglatt. I kept slipping backwards,’ she said with a smile, panting. ‘Great Norwegian word. Easy to glide backwards, not so easy forwards.’

  ‘Want to show Uncle Roy how you’ve learned to ski downhill?’ Carl pointed to a sheltered slope. The fresh snow glistened like a carpet of diamonds.

  Shannon made a face at him. ‘I’m not proposing to entertain you two.’

  ‘Just imagine you’re surfing at Surfer’s Point back home,’ he said teasingly.

  She swung out at him with a ski pole and almost lost her balance again. Carl laughed.

  ‘You going to show her how to ski?’ Carl asked me.

  ‘No,’ I said, and closed my eyes, which were smarting, even though I was wearing sunglasses. ‘I don’t want to spoil.’

  ‘He means he doesn’t want to spoil the fresh snow,’ I heard Carl say to Shannon. ‘It used to drive Dad nuts. We’d come to some perfect downhill slope with untouched, powdery snow, and he’d ask Roy to go down first, because Roy’s the best of us on skis, and then Roy refuses. Says it’s so lovely and he doesn’t want to spoil it with ski tracks.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ said Shannon.

  ‘Not Dad,’ said Carl. ‘He said if you don’t spoil then you won’t get anywhere.’

  We took off our skis, sat down on them and divided an orange into three.

  ‘Did you know that the orange tree came from Barbados?’ said Carl, squinting his eyes at me.

  ‘That’s the grapefruit tree,’ said Shannon. ‘And not even that is by any means certain. But then...’ She looked at me. ‘It’s all the things we don’t know that make history true.’

  Once the orange had disappeared, Shannon said she was going to head back, so she wouldn’t have to worry about keeping us waiting.

  Carl and I sat watching her until she disappeared over the rise.

  Then Carl heaved a heavy sigh. ‘That bloody fire...’

  ‘Have they found out any more about how it happened?’

  ‘Only that someone started it, and that a rocket was put there so it would look like that was what started it. That Lithuanian...’

  ‘Latvian.’

  ‘...couldn’t even tell them the make of the car he’d seen, so they don’t exclude the possibility that he started it himself.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Pyromaniac. Or else someone paid him to do it. There are a few jealous souls in this village who hate that hotel, Roy.’

  ‘Hate us, you mean.’

  ‘That too.’

  There was a distant howl. A dog. Someone claimed to have seen wolf tracks up here on the mountain. And even bear tracks. Not impossible, of course, only pretty unlikely. Almost nothing is impossible. It’s just a question of time, and then everything happens.

  ‘I believe him,’ I said.

  ‘The Lithuanian?’

  ‘Not even a pyromaniac would want to go on living on the same plot of land he’s scorched himself. And if he was paid to do it, why complicate it by saying he’d seen a car with a defective brake light heading down from the site? He could have said it was already on fire when he got there; or that he was asleep in the cabin, that he knew nothing about it. And let the police find out if it was the rocket or something else.’

  ‘Not everyone thinks as logically as you, Roy.’

  I wedged in another snuff pellet. ‘Maybe not. Who hates you enough to burn down your hotel?’

  ‘Let’s see now. Kurt Olsen, because he’s still convinced we had something to do with his father’s death. Erik Nerell, after we humiliated him with those naked pictures we got him to send. Simon Nergard, because he...because he lives at Nergard, you beat him up, and he’s always hated us.’

  ‘What about Dan Krane?’

  ‘No. Him and Mari are part-owners of the hotel.’

  ‘In whose name?’

  ‘Mari’s.’

  ‘If I know Mari, they’ll have a separate ownership agreement in that house.’

  ‘Definitely. But then Dan would never do anything to harm Mari—’

  ‘No? Consider a man whose wife has been unfaithful to him, and you’re the man she did it with. Who’s been threatened, censored, humiliated by an enforcer because he wants to write something about the hotel that is critical, but true. Who’s lost his friends in high places and has to mingle with people like me on New Year’s Eve. That marriage was already on the rocks, and on New Year’s Eve he was planning to put the final nail in the coffin with a character assassination of her father in the leader column of his paper. Would a man like that never harm the cause of all his misery? If he could at the same time ruin you? At Stanley’s party I met a Dan Krane who’d gone to the wall.’

  ‘Gone to the wall?’

  ‘Do you know how scary it is to have your life threatened by someone who knows exactly the right buttons to push?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Carl with a sidelong glance at me.

  ‘It eats away at your soul, as people say.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Carl quietly.

  ‘And what happens then?’

  ‘In the end you just can’t face being scared any more.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You don’t give a fuck, you’d rather die. Destroy yourself or destroy the other. Burn down, murder. Anything, not to go on being afraid. That’s what going to the wall means.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Carl. ‘That’s the wall. And it’s better on the other side of the wall, no matter what.’

  We sat in silence. I heard rapid wingbeats above, a shadow crossed the snow. Grouse, maybe. I didn’t look up.

  ‘She seems happy,’ I said. ‘Shannon.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Carl. ‘She thinks she’s going to get her hotel, the way she drew it.’

  ‘Thinks?’

  Carl nodded. He seemed to collapse imperceptibly and the smile, that bright smile, was gone.

  ‘I haven’t told her yet, but the news has somehow got out that the hotel wasn’t insured against fire. That it’s only Willumsen’s money that’s kept the project afloat until now. Dan Krane’s probably the source.’

  ‘Damn him!’

  ‘People are worried about their money. Even the board members are muttering about getting out while the going’s good. The meeting this evening could be the beginning of the end, Roy.’

  ‘What do you intend to do?’

  ‘I’ve got to somehow try to turn the mood around. But after that thunderous oration Aas gave at Willumsen’s funeral, and what Dan wrote, and what he’s been spreading through the village, I’m not exactly wading in confidence right now.’

  ‘People here know you,’ I said. ‘In the final analysis that’s more important than what some newcome
r of a hack journalist scribbles and babbles about. And they’ll have forgotten what Aas said once they see you standing tall again. When they realise the guy from Opgard doesn’t give up, not even when he’s been down for the count.’

  Carl looked at me. ‘D’you think so?’

  I gave him a punch on the shoulder. ‘You know what they say. Everybody loves a comeback kid. Anyway, the really rough work and the costliest investments on the site are behind you now, all that’s left is the actual building. It would be idiotic to give up now. You can do this, brother.’

  Carl rested a hand on my shoulder. ‘Thanks, Roy. Thanks for believing in me.’

  ‘The problem is getting everyone to agree to Shannon’s original drawings. The council probably still wants trolls and timber. You need to get the investors to sanction the extra cost of the more expensive materials and solutions Shannon wants to use.’

  Carl straightened up. It looked as if I’d pumped a little optimism back into him. ‘Shannon and I have been thinking about that. The problem when we showed the drawings at the first investors’ meeting was that we hadn’t done enough work on the visual aspect of the presentation, it looked too sad and bleak. Shannon’s done some drawings and sketches with completely different lighting using completely different perspectives. The biggest difference is that these are in a summer landscape, not winter. The previous time, all the concrete merged into a monotonous, colourless winter landscape, the hotel looked like an extension of the winter people round here hate, right? Now we’ve got a colourful landscape that borrows light and colour from the concrete, the hotel stands out against the background, it doesn’t look like a bunker trying to disappear into the landscape.

  ‘Same shit, new wrapping?’ I said in English.

  ‘And not a soul will realise that’s what it is. I promise you, they’re going to be beside themselves in their enthusiasm.’ He was back in the saddle now, sunlight flashing off his white teeth.

  ‘Like natives being offered glass beads.’ I smiled too.

  ‘The pearls are real enough, only this time we’re giving them a little polish before we offer them.’

  ‘That’s honest enough,’ I said.

  ‘Honest enough.’

  ‘One simply does what one must do.’

  ‘One does,’ said Carl. He turned his gaze to the west.

  I heard him take a breath. Shrink a little. Had he fallen off his horse again?

  ‘Even when you know it’s very, very wrong,’ said Carl.

  ‘True enough,’ I said, though I knew he was talking about something else now. My eyes followed the tracks to where Shannon had vanished.

  ‘And yet still we go on doing it,’ he said slowly and with his new, clearer diction. ‘Day after day. Night after night. Committing the same sin.’

  I held my breath. Of course he could well be talking about Dad. Or about himself and Mari. But unless I was mistaken, this was about Shannon. Shannon and me.

  ‘For example...’ said Carl. His voice was tight, and he swallowed hard. I steeled myself. ‘Like when Kurt Olsen stood there looking down into Huken for the Jaguar. And I freaked out and thought here we go again, now we’re going to be exposed. Exactly the same as when his father stood in the same place and looked down to see if the wheels of the Cadillac had punctures.’

  I didn’t respond.

  ‘But that time you weren’t there to stop me. I pushed Sigmund Olsen over, Roy.’

  My mouth was as dry as a bloody rusk, but at least I was breathing again.

  ‘But you knew that all along,’ he said.

  I kept my gaze fastened on the ski tracks. Moved my head slightly. Nodded.

  ‘So why did you never let me tell you?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘You didn’t want to be made an accomplice to a murder,’ he said.

  ‘You think I’m afraid of that?’ I said with a twisted smile.

  ‘Willumsen and his enforcer are something else,’ said Carl. ‘This was an innocent sheriff.’

  ‘You must have pushed him hard – he landed a long way out from the vertical.’

  ‘I made him fly.’ Carl closed his eyes, maybe the sunlight was too strong. Then he opened them again. ‘You already knew when I called you at the workshop, that it wasn’t an accident. But you didn’t ask. Because it’s always easier that way. To pretend that ugliness doesn’t exist. Like when Dad came into our room at night and—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Carl shut up. Rapid wingbeats. Sounded like the same bird on its way back.

  ‘I don’t want to know, Carl. I wanted to believe you were more of a human being than me. That you weren’t capable of killing in cold blood. But you’re still my brother. And when you pushed him, maybe you rescued me from being accused of the murder of Mum and Dad.’

  Carl made a face. He put his sunglasses back on and tossed the orange peel into the snow.

  ‘Everybody loves a comeback kid. Do people say that, or is that just something you made up?’

  I didn’t answer, looked at my watch instead. ‘They’re having problems with the stocktaking at the station and asked if I could help out. See you at Årtun at seven.’

  ‘But you’ll be spending the night with us?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll be driving straight home after the meeting. Got to be at work early tomorrow morning.’

  * * *

  —

  Despite the fact that only the participants had a vote, the meeting at Årtun was advertised as being open to all. I had arrived early, taken a seat on the back row and watched as the hall gradually filled. But whereas there had been an atmosphere of excited anticipation at the first meeting eighteen months earlier, the mood this time was very different. Dark, sombre. A lynching mood, as people say. Everyone was there by the time the meeting began. On the front row Jo and Mari Aas sitting next to Voss Gilbert. A few rows behind them, Stanley next to Dan Krane. Grete Smitt was sitting next to Simon Nergard, leaning into him and whispering something in his ear, God knows when the two of them had become such friends. Anton Moe was there with his wife. Julie and Alex. Markus had taken time off from the station – I noticed him exchanging glances with Rita Willumsen sitting two rows behind him. Erik Nerell and his wife were next to Kurt Olsen, but when Erik tried to start a conversation it was obvious Kurt wasn’t in the mood for it, and Erik probably regretted sitting there but could hardly get up and move now.

  At precisely seven o’clock Carl stepped out onto the stage. The room fell silent. Carl looked up. And I didn’t like what I saw. Now, when it was so important for him to be at his very best, to turn that tide of negativity, to part the waters like a Moses, he seemed overwhelmed by the gravity of the occasion. He seemed tired even before he started.

  ‘Fellow inhabitants of Os,’ he began. His voice sounded impotent, his gaze flitting about from place to place as though seeking eye contact but being rejected everywhere. ‘We are a mountain people. We live in a place where life has traditionally been hard. Where we have had to fend for ourselves.’

  I’m guessing it was a pretty unusual way to open a partners’ meeting, but then most of those in the room probably didn’t know any more than me about the rituals involved in partners’ meetings.

  ‘In order to survive therefore, we have had to adopt the same maxim as the one my father taught my brother and me. Do what has to be done.’ His gaze met mine. And stopped its flitting. He still looked tormented, but a slight smile crossed his lips. ‘So that’s what we do. Every day, every time. Not because we can, but because we have to. So each time we meet adversity, each time a flock wanders over the clifftop, a crop freezes, or the village is cut off by a landslide, we find a way back out to the world again. And when the route of the main highway is changed, and there is no longer a way in for the world out there, then we make one. We build a mountain hotel.’ His voice was sounding a little
livelier now and, almost imperceptibly, he stood up straighter. ‘And when the hotel burns down, and everything lies in ruins, then we look upon the scene of destruction and we despair...’ He held up his index finger and raised his voice. ‘...for one, single day.’

  His gaze moved on from me and seemed to find other places to dwell, other invitations to accept.

  ‘When we’ve laid our plan, and things don’t work out as expected, then we do what we have to do. We make another. So things aren’t exactly as we had imagined they would be. Fine. Then let’s imagine something else.’ Again his gaze found mine. ‘For mountain people like us there is no place for useless sentimentality, no alternative in looking backwards. As our father used to say: kill your darlings and babies. Let us look forwards, my friends. Together.’

  There was a long, deliberate pause. Was I mistaken, or did Jo Aas just move his head? Yes, that was a nod. And as though that had been the signal he had been waiting for, Carl continued.

  ‘Because we are together, whether we like it or not. Like a family, you, me, all of us here this evening are together in a fateful union from which we cannot opt out. We, the mountain people of Os, will go down together. Or we will rise together.’

  The mood turned. Slowly, but I could feel it. The lynching atmosphere was gone. Still a certain cool scepticism, of course. And as was only to be expected, an as yet unarticulated demand that Carl give his answers to certain vital questions. But they liked what they were hearing. Both what he said, and the Os way he said it. And I realised that the uncertain opening had been deliberate. That he had taken note of what I had said. Everybody loves a comeback kid.

  But then, just as it seemed as though he had them hooked, Carl took a step backwards from the podium and showed the palms of his hands to the gathering.

  ‘I can’t guarantee anything. The future’s too uncertain for that, and my powers of prophecy too feeble. The only thing I can guarantee is that, as solitary individuals, we are condemned to failure. We are as the sheep that has wandered from the flock and will be eaten up or freeze to death. But together, and only together, we have at least this one, unique possibility of getting out of the bind we undeniably find ourselves in, as a result of the fire.’