Anne Holt: Fear Not

The fourth book in the Vik and Stubo series, 2011

Translation copyright © 2011 by Marlaine Delargy.

To Ann-Marie,

for fifteen wonderful years

of love and collaboration

Christmas 2008

It was the twentieth night of December.

One of those Saturday nights that promise more than they can deliver had imperceptibly slipped into the last Sunday of Advent. People were still moving from bar to bar and from pub to pub as they cursed the heavy snow that had moved in across Oslo without warning just a few hours earlier. The temperature had then crept up to three degrees above zero, and all that remained of the festive atmosphere was grey slush on top of the mounds of snow, and lakes of dirty water as it melted.

A child was standing motionless in the middle of Stortingsgate.

She was barefoot.

‘When the nights grow long,’ she sang quietly, ‘and the cold sets in…’

Her nightdress was pale lemon with embroidered ladybirds on the yoke. The legs beneath the nightdress were as thin as chopsticks, and her feet seemed to be planted in the slush. The skinny, half-naked child was so out of place in the image of the city at night that no one had noticed her yet. The Christmas party season was approaching its climax, and everybody was preoccupied with their own affairs. A half-naked, singing child on one of the city streets in the middle of the night became completely invisible, just like in one of the books the little girl had at home, where exciting animals from Africa were cunningly hidden in drawings of Norwegian landscapes, concealed among bark and foliage, almost impossible to spot because they didn’t belong there.

‘… then the little mummy mouse says…’

Everyone was out to have a good time, and a few actually were enjoying themselves. Outside Langgaard’s jewellers a woman was leaning against the security grille over the window as she stared at her own vomit. Undigested, deep red raspberry jam oozed among the remains of spare ribs and fried beef, slush and sand. A gang of young lads whooped at her and sang dirty songs from the other side of the street, their voices off-key. They were dragging a wasted mate with them past the National Theatre, ignoring the fact that he had lost a shoe. Outside every bar smokers stood huddled against the cold. A salty wind from the fjord blew along the streets, blending with the smell of tobacco smoke, alcohol and cheap perfume; the smell of a Norwegian city night just before Christmas.

But nobody noticed the girl singing so quietly on the street, right in the middle of two shining silver tramlines.

‘And the mummy mouse… and the mummy mouse… and the mummy mouse…’

She couldn’t get any further.

The Number 19 tram set off from the stop further up towards the Palace. Like a sleigh as heavy as lead, full of people who didn’t really know where they were going, it accelerated slowly down the gentle slope towards the Hotel Continental. Some people hardly even knew where they had been. They were asleep. Others were rambling about going on somewhere, having a few more drinks, chatting up a few more girls before it was too late. Others simply stared blankly out into the thick warmth that settled on the windows like a damp, grey veil.

A man by the entrance to the Theatre Café looked up from the expensive shoes he had chosen for the evening in the hope that the snow wouldn’t come just yet. His feet were soaked, and the marks left by the road salt would be difficult to get rid of when his shoes had finally dried out.

He was the first to see the child.

His mouth opened to shout a warning. Before he had chance to take a breath, he was pushed hard in the back, and it was all he could do to stay on his feet.

‘Kristiane! Kristiane!’

A woman in national costume stumbled in her full skirt. Instinctively she grabbed at the man with the ruined Enzo Poli shoes. He hadn’t properly regained his balance, and both of them fell over.

‘Kristiane,’ the woman sobbed, trying to get up.

The warning bell on the tram was clanging frantically.

The driver, who was coming to the end of an exhausting double shift, had finally spotted the girl. There was a screech of metal on metal as he slammed the brakes on as hard as he could on the wet, icy rails.

‘… and the little mummy mouse says to all her babies,’ sang Kristiane.

The tram was only six metres away from her and travelling at the same speed when the mother finally managed to get to her feet. She hurled herself into the road with her skirt half ripped off, stumbled but managed to stay upright, and screamed again:

‘Kristiane!’

Afterwards someone would say that the man who appeared from nowhere resembled Batman. In which case it was due to his wide coat. He was, in fact, both short and slightly overweight, and bald into the bargain. Since everyone’s eyes were on the child and the despairing mother, no one really saw how the man darted in front of the screeching tram with surprising agility. Without slowing down he scooped up the child with one arm. He had just cleared the line when the tram slid over the almost invisible footprints left by the child and stopped. A torn-off scrap of the dark coat flapped gently in the breeze, caught on the tram’s front bumper.

The city let out a sigh of relief.

No cars could be heard; screams and laughter died away. The bell on the tram stopped clanging. The tram driver sat motionless, his hands on his head and his eyes staring. Even the little girl’s mother stood there frozen to the spot a metre or so away from her, her party outfit ruined, her arms dangling helplessly by her sides.

‘… if nobody gets caught in the trap,’ Kristiane continued to warble, without looking at the man carrying her.

Someone tentatively began to applaud. Others joined in. The applause grew, and it was as if the woman in national costume suddenly woke up.

‘Sweetheart!’ she screamed. She dashed up to her daughter, grabbed her and clutched her to her breast. ‘You must never do anything like that again! You must promise me that you’ll never, ever do anything like that again!’

Johanne Vik raised one arm without thinking and without slackening her grip on her child. The man’s expression didn’t change as her hand struck his cheek. Without paying any attention to the livid red marks left by her fingers, he gave a wry smile, inclined his head in a slow, deep, old-fashioned bow, then turned away and disappeared.

‘… but steady as you go, soon everyone will be celebrating Christmas,’ the child sang.

‘Is it all right? Is everything OK?’

More and more people were pouring out of the Hotel Continental, all talking at the same time. Everyone realized that something had happened, but only a few knew what it was. Some were talking about someone being run over, others about an attempt to kidnap little Kristiane, the bride’s sister’s unusual child.

‘Oh, sweetheart,’ her mother wept. ‘You mustn’t do this kind of thing!’

‘The lady was dead,’ said Kristiane. ‘I’m cold.’

‘Of course you are!’

The mother set off towards the hotel, taking small, tentative steps to avoid slipping. The bride was standing in the doorway. Her strapless bodice was strewn with shimmering white sequins. Heavy silk fell in luxurious folds over her slender hips and down to her feet, where a pair of beaded shoes were still equally white and shimmering. The main focus of the evening was, as she should be, beautiful and perfectly made up, with her hair just as elegantly swept up as it had been when the reception started several hours earlier. The glow on the skin of her bare shoulders suggested she had been on her honeymoon in advance. She didn’t even look cold.