Anne Holt - 1222

That first drag.

You never forget how good it is.

All cigarettes should be put out after the very first drag.

‘Has it been a long time?’

Geir smiled and lit one for himself.

‘Many years. I’ve got a kid.’

‘Me too. Three of them. I still smoke. In secret, mostly.’

He laughed out loud, that delighted, girlish laugh.

He still smelled good. A scent of something I didn’t want to think about, but it was so strong right here and right now that I couldn’t help it.

Once upon a time I had someone called Billy T. He was my best friend, and that was why he had to go. I barely have room for Nefis in my life. The fact that it is possible for us to share a life that is sometimes both good and secure is down to the fact that she’s the only person in the world who has mastered the art of being close and completely absent at the same time.

And then I have Ida. She has ice-blue eyes that look at me with a love I didn’t believe existed. Ida still thinks I am a good person. But she’s still only three years old.

We also have a kind of housekeeper, our little family, an old sparrow with a broken wing who sort of moved in without anyone actually asking her. But I’m not fond of Mary. She is simply there, like a human piece of furniture, and I have learned to live under the same roof as her.

That’s enough for me: Nefis, Ida, and a tired, dried-up whore who cooks our meals.

I never think about Billy T any more.

Perhaps it was because of the smell of Geir Rugholmen. Perhaps it was because of the endless noise of the storm and the wind raging around Finse 1222, lumping us together into more than just 196 separate individuals, or rather 194: Hammer and Elias Grav had already been removed from the register. And perhaps that was what it was. Two dramatic deaths in less than twenty-four hours had proved too much even for me.

Once upon a time I was knee-deep in corpses. Literally, on a couple of occasions.

I really was out of practice. In police work as well as everything else.

It had cost me too much, letting people into my life. So I stopped trying. Only now, after many years of self-imposed isolation, was I beginning to see what hard work it was, keeping people at a distance. And I thought about Billy T for the first time since I don’t know when.

‘You’re doing it again,’ said Geir, stubbing out his cigarette on the floor with his heel.

‘Doing what?’

‘Disappearing.’

‘I don’t think you should leave the butt there,’ I said. ‘We are in a kitchen, after all.’

He held out his hand for my cigarette, dropped it on the floor and stood on it before picking up both butts.

‘What do you think about the people upstairs?’ I asked slowly.

He frowned.

‘A little while ago you said we ought to forget about them!’

‘Yes. But now it’s just the two of us. What do you think?’

‘Everything and nothing. I really have no idea who they might be.’

‘In that case, you haven’t looked closely at the facts we already know.’

‘Which are?’

The chef suddenly appeared in the wide opening leading into the kitchen. His hands were on his hips, and he looked furious.

‘Is someone smoking in here? Well?’

‘No,’ said Geir and I in unison.

Geir slipped the butts unobtrusively into his pocket. I caught myself hoping they were still burning slightly.

‘It stinks in here,’ said the chef, wrinkling his nose. ‘One more time, and that’s it – no more using this for your meetings. Got it?’

We both mumbled heartfelt assurances of cooperation.

He went back to the food. I could have released the brakes on my wheelchair and said thank you for the cigarette. I could have gone back to reception and started to look forward to lunch. I had so many opportunities to upset Geir all over again.

‘They’re Norwegians,’ I stated instead. ‘They have something that requires a particularly high level of protection. An object or a person.’

‘A person,’ said Geir firmly. He was perched on the bar stool Berit had left. ‘They didn’t bring any luggage from the train. It would be somewhat over-dramatic to have all those guards up there if they’re supposed to be guarding something that’s been left behind in an empty train wreck.’

‘The object could be small. They could have had it on them.’

‘They could have looked after a small object down here. There’s no need to barricade yourself in an apartment because of a small object.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But you said… I thought…’

‘I’m only going through the possibilities. I totally agree with you. There’s a person up there who requires protection. Who requires that?’

‘What?’

‘Who requires high-level protection?’

‘Politicians, the royal family, superstars…’

‘We’re in Norway,’ I interrupted him. ‘None of our politicians or royals need that kind of protection. And we’re not exactly falling over superstars. In any case, even Madonna or Robbie Williams wouldn’t want this kind of fuss. They’d rather have -’

‘A prisoner,’ he suddenly broke in.

‘Exactly. A prisoner. Since the Norwegian National Railways would hardly have cooperated with anyone other than the national authorities when it came to something as irregular as adding an extra carriage to the train, we must assume that this is about transporting a prisoner.’

The draught from the door to the delivery area was starting to get me down. My muscles were aching, and I regretted leaving my padded jacket in the lobby.

‘A prisoner who needs to be moved,’ I summarized. ‘How are prisoners moved?’

‘How are prisoners moved?’

I smiled. Before I had time to point out that he had already fallen back into his old, sinful ways, he went on:

‘By plane. By car. But by… train?’

‘Completely impractical,’ I nodded. ‘In fact, I’ve never heard of such a thing. The train is bound by the track. It is driven by others. It starts and stops according to a timetable. Horror of horrors. Of course the same thing is more or less true of a plane, but at least it’s fast.’

‘Perhaps the prisoner is afraid of flying?’

‘In that case they could use a car, easy as pie. Even if the journey across the mountains in winter isn’t exactly a pleasure, travelling by car would be considerably easier than attaching an extra carriage to a train full of civilian passengers. To be perfectly honest…’

I was looking, presumably longingly, at the cigarette packet in his breast pocket. He took it out and offered it to me.

‘No. I don’t want the chef after me.’

‘You said you were going to be honest.’

‘Yes. We’ve already established that it must be a prisoner. With all the fuss we can safely assume that it’s a high-risk prisoner.’ The cold really was painful. I clasped my hands together and held them up to my mouth. Blew. The warm air made me shudder. ‘And in that case, nobody,’ I said emphatically, ‘not one single guardian of the law on this earth would voluntarily transport a high-risk prisoner on a passenger train. Least of all on the Bergen line in the middle of winter. They were obviously aware of the risks imposed by storms and snow, since they brought their own snowmobile with them. Impressive. And that one detail tells us more than a lot of other things. This is a journey they have dreaded. A journey they have been planning for a long time. A journey that has scared the shit out of them.’

‘So why did they do it, then? And who are they, anyway? Police? The military? The prison service? Why couldn’t they just…’

He stopped dead as he saw me smiling broadly for the first time. Perhaps the sight frightened him.