Anne Holt - 1222

‘I referred him to a psychiatrist,’ said Streng after taking a deep breath. ‘Even though I was of the definite opinion that the best thing for him would be to talk to an educated and experienced theologian. Which I told him, in fact. But it didn’t help. I think he simply didn’t dare to go down that road.’

Silence descended over the kitchen, as if we were all rather embarrassed to have learned that the boastful TV celebrity Cato Hammer had been in need of psychiatric help.

‘It would have been helpful…’ said Dr Streng so suddenly that I jumped. Then he stopped. Peered at the bullet hole. His head was just on a level with the corpse, but he didn’t look for anything to stand on. ‘It would have been helpful,’ he repeated, ‘if someone had taken the trouble to check the temperature of the body when he was found.’

Geir caught my eye. A little twitch at the corner of his mouth was all he allowed himself. And he didn’t give me away. Instead he shrugged his shoulders apologetically and said: ‘There are only electronic thermometers here in the hotel. For medical use, I mean. And we didn’t think it was a good idea to take the temperature inside the ear of a corpse.’

‘Hmm,’ said Streng. ‘But the best thing would have been the liver. A meat thermometer would have done the job perfectly. There must be one of those around, surely? I mean, the brain is a bit of a mess,’ carefully he lifted Hammer’s head and examined the brutal exit wound, ‘so the simplest method, which is to shove the thermometer up here…’ he pointed at the priest’s nostril, ‘and into the brain would presumably have told us very little. When was he brought inside?’

Geir looked at his watch. ‘Just over an hour ago.’

‘It’s quite simple to work out, actually,’ said Magnus Streng. ‘In principle it takes twenty-four hours to halve the difference in temperature between the body and its surroundings. In other words, if it’s minus twenty-five outside and we start with the premise that Hammer was an active, healthy man with a body temperature of thirty-seven degrees, then the difference will be…’

‘Sixty-two degrees,’ I said.

The doctor smiled and nodded.

‘In other words, twenty-four hours in the snow would give our man here a core temperature of six degrees,’ I added. ‘Thirty-seven minus half of sixty-two, which is thirty-one. Six degrees. I’d call that dead. But he wasn’t lying out there for that long. And he’s been lying in here for a while. And he was partly covered by snow, which protected him. Plus the strong wind out there is an uncertain factor when it comes to the actual temperature. Plus…’

Streng smiled again and held up his chubby hands.

‘I got your point quite some time ago.’

Berit Tverre came into the kitchen. She was out of breath, and hadn’t got round to removing all her outdoor clothes. Her voice almost disappeared as she made her way around the partition screening off the washing-up area, struggling to take off her capacious anorak.

‘It’s pointless. I’ve tried three times. The first time, Mr Cabbage Head was completely covered in snow in four and a half minutes. The second time it took almost quarter of an hour. The last time it happened so fast I didn’t even have a chance to check how long it took.’

‘Ergo,’ I said, ‘in this case we will just have to rely on good old tactical work.’

‘Which should be easy, according to you.’

I looked enquiringly at Geir.

‘That’s what you said when you were in here earlier,’ he insisted. ‘You said this investigation would be incredibly simple. Or something along those lines. Is that what you think?’

I nodded.

‘We have a very limited number of suspects, all of whom are trapped up here. A limited geographical area to examine, to put it mildly. I think the murder will be cleared up in a day or two. Once the police have taken over, of course. I mean, they have to make a start first.’

‘But in the meantime…’ Berit Tverre said hesitantly.

‘In the meantime you can do as I said, and fetch one of the police officers I assume are in the top apartment. Or you can do what you’ve told everybody else to do, just chill out and relax. This storm has to die out at some point.’

In the meantime, I thought, there’s a murderer with a heavy-calibre weapon wandering around amongst us. In the meantime we can only hope that the intention of the person in question was to kill Cato Hammer, and that he or she would not dream of harming anyone else. While we are waiting for the police, I thought without saying anything, we could pray to the gods every one of us must believe in that the perpetrator was rational, focused, and did not suspect any of us of knowing who he or she was. And that he or she would have no reason to suspect that anyone might be starting to investigate the case here and now.

‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘Everything will be fine.’

I was definitely getting rusty.

When Adrian gave me the list he had made, I was impressed. The only problem was that I couldn’t work out what I wanted it for. Perhaps I had hoped it would be complete when I asked him to do it. I took the fact that I could even think such a thing as an indication that I was further away from the Oslo police district than I had felt in many years. And not just literally.

The document would have been useful if it had contained a complete overview of all the passengers and what they had brought with them from the train. The compilation of such a list presupposed that someone had been given the task before people started arriving at the hotel. A thorough registration process, like in a prison. The papers the boy handed me with an embarrassed gesture barely supplied more than the obvious. Their artistic appearance was impressive, and they told me something new about Adrian.

‘Thank you,’ I said, and meant it.

‘OK.’

I looked up at him when I had finished going through the list, folded the sheets and tucked them in a pocket on the wheelchair. He just stood there looking awkward with his hands dangling by his sides, his eyes downcast.

‘You did have someone,’ I said. ‘In spite of everything. So did I. For me it was wooden houses.’

‘What?’

‘For me it was cottages built of wood. I had a neighbour when I was a child. He was a carpenter. A caretaker. To be honest, he was the only person who was really there for me. The other adults around me didn’t waste much energy on my existence. But I’m bloody good at building wooden houses.’

Adrian looked sceptically at my chair.

‘Was.’ I corrected myself with a nod. ‘I was good at building wooden cottages. Bloody good.’

‘What’s the list for?’

‘It could be useful. Who did you have? Who taught you this? This fantastic, elegant handwriting?’

‘Has something happened?’

He was scraping at the worn, uneven floorboards with his shoe.

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

I was saved from coming up with an answer. Geir Rugholmen rushed in, grabbed hold of my chair without a word and pushed me towards the kitchen. Adrian followed a few steps behind, but stopped dead when Geir snapped at him.

‘I don’t like being pushed,’ I said as the door closed behind us.

I could see that the corpse had disappeared. Since they couldn’t have taken it through reception without my seeing them, I assumed they had used the walk-in freezer. On the other hand, I wasn’t really sure whether there might be another way out of the kitchen.

The thought of the freezer reminded me how hungry I was, and I placed a hand on my stomach.