Anne Holt - 1222

‘Bricanyl,’ she murmured. ‘I have asthma too. Deep, calm breaths.’

I will never forget Magnus Streng’s face as he greedily swallowed air containing the healing micro-particles. He cupped his hands around the rocket-shaped inhaler. His eyes were gratefully fixed on Berit’s face. Big, heavy tears slowly trickled from his eyelashes and ran down towards the corners of his mouth. He gave the dosage dispenser one more turn and inhaled deeply.

Once Berit could see that Magnus had the situation under control, she raised both hands and shouted down to the agitated crowd.

‘Roar Hanson is dead,’ she almost bellowed. ‘And so is Steinar Aass. Sit down. Sit down! ’

There was complete silence. It seemed as if the weather gods themselves had had a shock; the monotonous roar from outside seemed more distant and subdued. Berit walked quickly down the short staircase and cut across St Paal’s Bar. She stopped by the wide opening leading into Blåstuen, where the doors were folded right back so that both rooms formed one big space. Kari Thue was still standing on the table. Most of the others were looking embarrassed, searching for somewhere to sit. The dog owners had settled in one corner, where the three surviving dogs seemed to be getting on well. I couldn’t see Muffe’s owner anywhere, but a number of people were hidden from me behind the walls between the two rooms. Some were also sitting in Jøkulsalen. The double doors leading into this area were open, so that everyone could hear what was said. Adrian and Veronica must be in there, because I couldn’t see them.

‘Get down from there,’ Berit hissed at Kari Thue. ‘I will not have you treating my furniture like this. Down! Down!’

She could have been talking to a disobedient dog.

‘What’s happened to Roar and Steinar?’ said Kari Thue, without showing any sign of obeying.

‘As I said, they’re both dead. Steinar Aass got the idiotic idea that he could make his way down from the mountain by himself. He froze to death. Roar Hanson… He’s dead too. There isn’t much you can do about that.’

‘How did he die?’

I had to strain to hear what they were saying. For the first time since the accident I regretted not asking for a ramp from the lobby down to the communal areas.

‘ Will you come down from there! ’

Berit was trying to grab hold of Kari Thue’s arm. Mikkel, who was sitting at the other end of the room, got to his feet hesitantly. It looked as if he hadn’t quite decided what he was going to do. He eased his way slowly between tables and chairs before suddenly speeding up. When he reached Kari Thue, he stopped and put his hands on his hips.

‘Do as the lady says. Get down.’

‘First I want to know what’s happened.’

‘You’ve already been told what you need to know,’ said Berit.

‘No. You lied to us before. I want to know the truth about Roar Hanson, and I want to know right now.’

‘You look absolutely ridiculous,’ said Mikkel. ‘Stop making such a fuss. Get down. This lady here is in charge, OK!’

Kari Thue looked at him as if he were something she had dug out of the bathroom plughole.

‘I seem to remember that you agreed with me.’

Mikkel had his back to me, but I could make a guess at his facial expression from his posture. His head tilted slowly backwards at an angle, and he made his shoulders look broader by raising them.

‘Bitch,’ he hissed all of a sudden, waving his hand in the air as if to ward off some annoying insect.

He turned around and sauntered indifferently away, mumbling something I couldn’t hear. When a couple of his friends stood up to follow him, he snapped at them to stay where they were. I expected him to walk past Magnus and me without a word. To my surprise he sat down on the stairs in front of me, on the bottom step.

‘Bitch,’ he said, without looking at us.

Kari Thue clearly believed that she was leading the battle. In a way she was. With renewed self-confidence she gazed out over the assembled crowd before turning to Berit once more.

‘It can hardly be a coincidence if two members of the church commission die within the course of just a few hours. You have already confirmed that Cato Hammer was murdered, although of course you did try to pull the wool over our eyes with regard to his death as well. Which, incidentally, is a fundamental infringement of my rights, and the rights of everyone here. We are snowed in on the mountain under extreme circumstances. Each and every one of us has the right to make decisions in order to save our own lives.’

She was speaking on each inhalation and exhalation. This made the brief pause even more dramatic.

‘Within the boundaries of the law, of course. I must remind you that we are not on board a ship. You are not the captain. None of the maritime rules of hierarchy apply here.’

She stabbed her index finger at Berit’s shoulder and took a step back.

‘I am not aware of any laws that give you the right to make decisions on behalf of all of us,’ Kari Thue went on. ‘Quite the reverse. In the absence of either the police or some other authority, it is up to us to find the best solutions to help us survive. And therefore I demand to be given the information necessary to enable me to take care of myself. I would say that…’

‘Mikkel,’ I whispered.

He half turned and ran a casual hand over the handkerchief tied around his head.

‘What?’ he mumbled.

‘Help me down. Down the stairs.’

‘I would say,’ said Kari Thue more loudly, ‘that with the current mortality rate in this place, information about what people are actually dying of is to be considered absolutely vital.’

Instead of easing the chair down the three steps, Mikkel simply picked up the chair with me in it, and carried me down before gently placing me on the floor, with no sign of exertion whatsoever. The boy really was as strong as he looked.

‘Thanks,’ I whispered.

He didn’t answer.

‘What did Roar Hanson die of?’ Kari Thue shouted accusingly at Berit.

‘You’re right,’ I shouted back as I moved closer to the crowd.

Kari Thue jumped, quite literally. She reminded me of a squirrel, a nervous, quick, alert creature who nevertheless hadn’t had the sense to take in enough food. Berit looked at me, slightly confused. I would have liked to have told her what I was thinking.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ I repeated instead. ‘You all have the right to know what people are dying of up here.’

I stopped my chair three or four metres from the doorway leading into Blåstuen. I put the brakes on and placed my hands on my lap.

‘Steinar Aass froze to death,’ I said loudly. ‘As Berit has just told you. As far as Roar Hanson is concerned, all the indications are that he was murdered last night.’

The woman with the knitting, who I had eventually realized was one of the lay members of the church commission, burst into tears. She raised the half-finished knitting to her face and sobbed. A man leaned over to console her. The sound of murmuring grew louder, and after just a few seconds everybody was talking over the top of one another. Kari Thue looked as if she didn’t really know what to do. It was as if the confirmation that she was right was so unexpected that she had lost her balance, rhetorically at least.

‘I was right,’ she said, talking to the air; no one was listening.

‘And what are you going to do about it?’ I asked her.

‘What did he die… How was he murdered?’

Neither of us was talking particularly loudly any more. This was a conversation between the two of us, as I had hoped. But people were starting to shush one another. They wanted to hear.

‘We don’t really know,’ I replied. ‘But he was stabbed with some kind of object.’