Anne Holt: Death In Oslo

Al Muffet breathed in as deeply as he could.

He had never doubted that he had done the right thing. When his wife died and he was left with three daughters aged eight, eleven and sixteen, it took only a matter of weeks for him to realise that his career at one of Chicago’s prestigious universities was simply not compatible with sole responsibility for his children. Their finances also implied that he should move what was left of his family to a quiet place in the country as soon as possible.

Three weeks and two days after the family had moved to their new home at Rural Route #4 in Farmington, Maine, two passenger planes each flew into a tower on Manhattan. A few minutes later, another thundered into the Pentagon. That same evening, Al Muffet closed his eyes in silent gratitude for his foresight: already, as a student, he had shed his real name, Ali Shaeed Muffasa. The children were sensibly called Sheryl, Catherine and Louise, and had all inherited their mother’s delightful snub nose and ash-blonde hair.

Now, a good three years later, barely a day passed without him enjoying his country life. The girls were blossoming, and he had rediscovered the joys of clinical practice remarkably quickly. His practice was varied, a good mixture of small animals, pets and farm animals: poorly canaries, dogs giving birth, and every now and then an aggressive ox that needed a bullet through the head. Every Thursday he played chess down at the club. He went to the cinema with the girls on Saturdays. On Monday evenings he generally played a couple of games of squash with a neighbour who had a court in a converted barn. One day followed the next, a steady flow of pleasing monotony.

Only on Sundays were the Muffets any different from the rest of the community. They did not go to church. Al Muffet had lost any contact with Allah a long time ago, but had no plans of getting to know God. Initially, there was some reaction: veiled questions at parents’ meetings, ambiguous remarks at the petrol station or by the popcorn machine at the cinema on a Saturday night.

But these gradually petered out.

Everything passes, Al Muffet thought to himself as he struggled to unearth his watch, which was buried under his mitten and his down jacket. He had to get a move on. His youngest daughter was going to make dinner, and from experience, he knew that it was worthwhile being at home when she did. Unless he wanted to be greeted by an extravagant meal and a bare goodies store. The last time Louise had made dinner it had been a Monday night and she had served up a four-course meal of foie gras, truffle risotto, and the venison he had got in the autumn and intended to have for their annual Christmas dinner with the neighbours.

The cold had more bite now that the sun had gone down. He took off his mittens and put his palms to his cheeks. A few seconds later he started to walk, with the long, slow snowshoe steps that he had finally mastered.

He had not watched the swearing-in of the President, but not because it would bother him in any way. When Helen Lardahl Bentley had entered the public arena, big time, ten years ago, he had in fact been horrified. He remembered with unnerving clarity that morning in Chicago, when he was lying at home in bed with flu, channel-hopping through his fever. Helen Lardahl, so different from how he remembered her, making a speech in the Senate. Gone were the glasses. The puppy fat that had stayed with her far into her twenties had fallen away. Only characteristics such as the determined diagonal movement through the air with an open, flat hand to underline every second point convinced him that it really was the same woman.

How does she dare? he’d thought at the time.

And then he had gradually come to accept it.

Al Muffet stopped again and drew the ice-cold air into his lungs. He was down by the stream now, where the water was still running under a lid of clear ice.

She trusted him, it was simple. She must have chosen to trust the promise he had made back then, a lifetime ago, in another life and in a completely different place. Given her position, it would have been simple to find out whether he was still alive, still lived in the US.

But now she had got herself elected as the world’s most powerful national leader, in a country where morality was a virtue and double standards a necessity.

He stepped across the stream and scrambled over the mounds of snow left by the snowplough. Suddenly his pulse was so fast that his ears were ringing. It was so long ago, he thought, and took off his snowshoes. With one in each hand, he started to run down the small, wintry road.

‘We got away with it,’ he whispered in rhythm with his own heavy steps. ‘I am to be trusted. I am a man of honour. We got away with it.’

He was far too late. No doubt he would get home to oysters and an open bottle of champagne. Louise would say it was a celebration, in honour of the first female president of America.

‘Bloody great timing. Who the hell chose that date?’

The Director General of the Norwegian Police Security Service, PST, brushed a hand over his cropped ginger hair. ‘You know perfectly well,’ replied a slightly younger woman, who was watching an old TV screen that was balanced on a filing cabinet in the corner of the office. The colours were faded and a black stripe flickered at the bottom of the image. ‘It was the Prime Minister. Great opportunity, you know, to show the old country in all its national romantic glory.’

‘Drunkenness, trouble and rubbish everywhere,’ grunted Peter Salhus. ‘Not very romantic. Our national day has become pure hell. And how in God’s name’ – he was shouting now as he pointed at the TV – ‘do they think it will be possible to look after that woman?’

Madam President was about to set foot on Norwegian soil. In front of her were three men in dark overcoats. The characteristic earpieces were clearly visible. Despite the low cloud, they were all wearing sunglasses, as if they were trying to parody themselves. Their doubles were coming down the steps from Air Force One behind the President; just as big, just as brooding and just as devoid of expression.

‘Looks like they could do the job on their own,’ Anna Birke-land quipped, nodding at the screen. ‘And I hope that no one else shares your… pessimism, shall we say. I’m actually quite worried. You don’t normally…’

She broke off. Peter Salhus didn’t say anything either, his eyes fixed on the TV screen. It was not like him to have such an outburst. Quite the contrary: when, a couple of years previously, he was appointed as director general, a post that historically had some embarrassing blemishes, it was because of his placid and pleasant nature, and not because of his military background. The protests from the left had been muted by the revelation that Salhus had been a young socialist. He had joined the army at nineteen in order to ‘expose American imperialism’, he explained with a smile in an interview broadcast on TV. When he then gave an earnest one-anda-half-minute account of the threats facing modern society, which most people could recognise, the battle was as good as won. Peter Salhus had changed out of his uniform and into a suit, and moved into the PST offices, if not with universal acclaim, then at least with cross-party support behind him. He was well liked by his staff and respected by his colleagues abroad. His cropped military hair and salt-and-pepper beard gave him an air of old-fashioned, masculine confidence. Paradoxically, he was in fact a popular head of security.

And Anna Birkeland had never seen this side of him.

The light in the ceiling was reflected in the sweat on his brow. He rocked his body backwards and forwards, apparently without realising. When Anna Birkeland looked at his hands, they were clenched tight.