Anne Holt - 1222

‘And it’s almost true, after all,’ I said. ‘It certainly was a real bleed in the brain.’

Nobody cracked a smile.

We were in the kitchen: Berit Tverre, Geir, Dr Streng and I. We couldn’t hear a sound from the lobby, and not only because of the noise from outside. The old man’s heart attack had been a shocking thing to witness. The widow’s lack of self-control hadn’t exactly improved the situation. People moved away in silent embarrassment, and when the sad explanation for Cato Hammer’s disappearance was delivered, most of those present had had more than enough. Some went back to their rooms. Others chose to stay in the communal areas without really knowing what to do. The continuation of the previous day’s bridge tournament had been postponed for the time being. Evidently playing cards was regarded as inappropriate under the present circumstances. It didn’t stop the gang of poker-playing teenagers, but at least they’d had the decency to withdraw down to Blåstuen. On the whole, people seemed to have swallowed Berit’s lie hook, line and sinker. However, I was still somewhat concerned about how the murderer might have reacted to the story. I had tried to look for any changes in facial expression as Berit was giving her little speech, but it was pointless to try to read anything from the small number of people I could see from the position I was in. If the perpetrator had actually been in the lobby when Cato Hammer’s death was announced, we could only hope that he or she accepted the incorrect cause of death as a temporary declaration of peace from the hotel management.

People must be kept calm at all costs.

Including the perpetrator.

‘Who’s actually up there on the top floor?’ I asked, looking from Geir Rugholmen to Berit Tverre. ‘I really do think I ought to be told at this point.’

They were spared the need to answer the question.

‘It’s rather difficult to prepare food for almost two hundred people when my kitchen has been converted into some kind of conference room,’ the chef interrupted us crossly.

He was surprisingly young, with a thin beard and short, spiky hair. Despite the cold draught coming from the broken window, he was wearing only a vest over his full-length apron. Both items of clothing were dazzling white and freshly ironed. He was chewing on a toothpick. Behind him stood two assistants, a woman and a man.

‘Could you at least move a bit further in? Over there?’

‘It’ll be a bit cramped,’ said Berit, shrugging her shoulders apologetically. ‘But I suppose we can…’

She pulled two bar stools that had turned up during the morning towards a door I had never opened. I followed slowly, with Geir and Magnus Streng right behind me.

We were standing in a storeroom with three substantial doors on the right-hand side. Freezer, fridge, and another cool room.

‘This is where we have our deliveries,’ said Berit, banging a metal door with her hand. ‘As you can tell, the insulation in here isn’t much good. But we’ll just have to put up with it. We do have an office behind reception, with no steps,’ she nodded in my direction, ‘but I’ve got three men in there trying to keep in touch with the outside world. This is the only place on this floor where we can be left in peace, to a certain extent. Don’t worry about the kitchen staff. They’re concentrating on what they’re meant to be doing.’

‘I’m perfectly comfortable sitting here,’ I said.

Nobody thought that was funny either. Magnus Streng hopped up onto the high bar stool with surprising agility. Berit took the other. Geir Rugholmen leaned against the wall and folded his arms.

‘So,’ I said.

‘We don’t really know much,’ said Geir, scratching at his beard.

I waited in vain for him to continue. Berit and Geir looked enquiringly at each other, as if they hadn’t really decided who was going to speak.

‘When the train crashed,’ Berit began hesitantly, stopping to take a deep breath before going on. ‘When the train came off the rails and crashed, we heard it. In spite of the fact that by that stage the weather was already unpleasant, to say the least. The Red Cross people rushed over.’

I remembered somebody mentioned the Red Cross depot, a building attached to the wing of the hotel on the opposite side.

‘But the strange thing is,’ Berit said, taking her time. ‘The strange thing is that there was a phone call. It can’t have been more than two or three minutes after we heard the crash, and the telephone rang. At first I was intending to ignore it, I was convinced something serious had happened to the train and I really wanted to get the rescue operation under way. But somebody…’

She shook her head, as if she were trying to come up with an explanation for her own behaviour.

‘I answered the phone.’

From the kitchen I could hear the clatter of pans and a whining noise that I took to be an electric meat saw. By now the draught from the door leading to the delivery area was so strong it felt like a breeze. I shivered.

‘Who was it?’ I asked, when nobody seemed keen to continue.

‘I don’t really know.’

‘Right. What did this person want?’

‘He… It was a man. He mentioned a name, but I didn’t hear it properly. What I did grasp, however, was that he was from the police security service, PST. His voice was… insistent, I’d say. Authoritative. As if he was totally used to giving orders. And everything happened really quickly.’

‘But what did he say?’ Magnus Streng asked impatiently. ‘What did the man whose name you can’t remember want, and what did you do?’

‘He said the last carriage had to be emptied first. They had their own snowmobile with them, he said, but they would need more than that. One more.’

‘Their own snowmobile? A snowmobile? On the train?’

Magnus Streng reminded me of a clown again, just when I had forgotten how funny he was.

‘Yes. It turned out to be true. Not one of the biggest, but big enough for a driver and one passenger to get here long before the others. Perhaps twenty minutes or so. But the strangest thing of all was that he knew where they were to go.’

‘Who?’ I said. ‘The man on the phone, or the one on the snowmobile?’

‘Both, actually. But I meant the man on the phone. “Put them in Trygve Norman’s apartment,” he said.’

Streng’s mouth fell open. I don’t suppose I looked all that much more composed. We looked at each other and closed our mouths simultaneously.

‘Yes.’

Berit raised her hands in a gesture that was half resigned, half eager.

‘That’s what he said! That’s exactly what he said. And Trygve’s apartment is indeed the one right at the top, furthest to the west. It’s the best apartment here at 1222, if we ignore the director’s residential quarters which are of course…’

She shook her head and broke off.

‘It’s no secret that Trygve owns that apartment, on the contrary, he’s one of the driving forces when it comes to keeping this place going and…’

Once again she stopped. Cleared her throat and went on:

‘But the whole situation left me so confused that I didn’t say a thing. And then… then he gave me a mobile number. But that was only after he…’

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. I could see the muscles in her cheeks twitching as she gritted her teeth. She was breathing deeply through her nose.

‘Everything’s fine,’ said Dr Streng, placing his chubby hand over hers.

She merely nodded. Then she swallowed once more.

‘We are not in a dangerous situation.’

‘The man on the phone,’ I reminded her. ‘First of all he did or said something. Then he gave you a telephone number.’