Anne Holt - 1222

Veronica never carried a bag.

Odd.

I have little pockets here and there on my wheelchair, so a handbag would be superfluous. And I very rarely use make-up. When I was still able to walk, I usually managed with just the pockets in my jacket.

Women who wear make-up don’t do that. Kari Thue, for example, never let go of that ridiculous little bag with the straps. She clutched it tightly as if it contained the crown jewels, for which she was entirely responsible. I looked over at the bottom table, where she had gathered her entourage. Five other women were sitting around the table, four of them with handbags that were either hanging over the back of the chair, or at the owner’s feet. Kari Thue had placed her bag on her knee, to be on the safe side.

Women take their handbags seriously.

Almost all women. But not Veronica.

On the plate in front of me lay a piece of venison. The sauce was a deep brown colour, almost red. Where the chef had got hold of fresh asparagus during a snowstorm in February was a mystery. I picked up a spear with my fingers and tasted.

‘I don’t understand this,’ I murmured, eating it slowly just the way that delicious, tender asparagus should be enjoyed.

Veronica had had a bag.

I licked my fingers one by one. They tasted of salty butter, with a faint hint of Parmesan.

In the left-hand side pocket lay Adrian’s list, his notes on some fifty people and the bags they had brought with them from the train. I had hardly given the list a thought since I saw it for the first time. I placed the sheets of paper on my knee and smoothed them out. The beautiful handwriting flowed over the densely filled pages, perfectly legible. Now that I had a considerably better overview of my fellow passengers than when I asked the boy to compile the list almost two days ago, I was even more struck by how observant he was.

Really skinny woman with even thinner hair and a terrible voice; light brown almost yellow bag, can be worn as a rucksack. Doesn’t look heavy. Not very big. Keeps her eye on it all the time!

Fat git with pale hair; laptop case. Brazilian flag on the flap.

‘What have you got there?’ asked Magnus Streng. ‘Have you tasted this sauce, Hanne? Cranberry, I think.’

I wasn’t really listening to him. My eyes moved down the list.

There.

Veronica.

She was one of only six people Adrian had mentioned by name.

Veronica. Cool girl wearing Gothic clothes and an Enga top; black shoulder bag. Not big, but looks a bit heavy. I think she’s got a bottle with her. (Hope so, anyway!)

‘Your food’s getting cold,’ said Berit, pointing at my plate with her fork. ‘Eat!’

‘If you had something valuable,’ I said, folding the list up carefully before tucking it back in the pocket, ‘here in the hotel, I mean, would you have chosen to drag it around with you? In a bag, for example? Or would you have put it somewhere? Hidden it?’

‘I’ve got cupboards I can lock,’ said Berit with a smile. ‘And a safe as well. Why?’

‘Obviously,’ I said, trying not to sound impatient. ‘But if you were one of the guests?’

She popped a large piece of meat in her mouth and didn’t answer before she had finished chewing and swallowed it.

‘Hidden it, I think. It would depend on the size, of course.’

I measured about twenty-five centimetres between my index fingers.

‘Well. Carting something like that around involves a certain element of risk. I mean, you could leave your bag behind somewhere, just misplace it. It’s probably easier to steal something out of a bag than from a hiding place in your hotel room. On the other hand, it’s fairly easy to get into the rooms here. If you’re intent on stealing something, that is. We rely on people’s honesty, and in principle that always works out well up here on the mountain. Has someone… has someone stolen something from you?’

‘Oh, no. It was just something that occurred to me. A thought. Nothing really. By the way, have you got a list of all the guests? With names and addresses, I mean.’

‘Yes. I’m assuming things could get a bit tricky when it comes to…’ she smiled apologetically before going on, ‘when it comes to who’s going to pay. For board and lodging and… I’m sure it will be some insurance company. Norwegian State Railway’s insurers, or the individual guests’. I don’t know. But I have to have the names in any case.’

‘Could I have a copy of the list?’

‘Well, I don’t know whether…’

‘Please. It could be important.’

She looked from Magnus to Geir as if they could clarify, in their roles as doctor and solicitor, whether the list might be subject to some kind of rule of confidentiality. Neither of them spoke. I wasn’t even sure they’d grasped what we were talking about.

‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘After dinner.’

‘Just one more thing,’ I said in a whisper. ‘Do you think you could find out what Kari Thue was actually going to do in Bergen? And whether those people she surrounds herself with are people she met on the train, or if they already knew each other? If they were going to the same place, I mean?’

‘Can’t you just ask her?’

‘She doesn’t like me.’

‘She doesn’t like me either.’

‘But your position means you can camouflage the question. You could say that -’

‘OK, OK,’ she mumbled, her mouth full of food. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Calm settled over our table.

Veronica and Adrian were also eating in silence. Adrian wiped his soup bowl with a piece of bread, stuffed it in his mouth and emptied his beer glass before he’d finished chewing.

It certainly wasn’t the staff who were providing him with alcohol.

Beneath the table, Veronica’s red feet were dancing up and down, nervously and continuously.

I stared at her for so long she might have felt it. At any rate, she suddenly looked up. I looked away as quickly as possible, only to realize that Kari Thue was staring intently at me, and with far less discretion than I had shown towards Veronica. Mikkel, whom I hadn’t noticed until now, was heading slowly towards our table. Halfway across the floor he hesitated, took one step towards us, then suddenly speeded up and ran up the stairs to the lobby. His two strongest companions sat back down uncertainly at the table just behind Kari Thue, as if they weren’t quite brave enough to follow without their leader’s permission.

Magnus Streng was insatiable. He ate and ate. I liked him. I liked him very much, but I didn’t really know why. I didn’t understand the man at all. He was unusually friendly and outgoing, but he also had a unique way of suddenly taking offence that bordered on presumption. Sometimes he almost seemed conceited, or at least over-fond of his superior intellect, his impressive level of knowledge and his memory. One moment he could appear to be wallowing in the misfortune of others, for example when he couldn’t hide his hopes that the entire community of Finse had been devastated by the storm. At the same time he showed a concern for other people, an insight and understanding into their lives that I found touching. Magnus Streng was a man who could be deeply serious, which in itself was a rare quality these days.

Now he was asking for even more food. The grease from the sauce was smeared around his large mouth like Vaseline, and I had to turn away.

Geir Rugholmen, on the other hand, was a simple soul.

Face value, that’s what the Americans say about people like him.

Perhaps he was the only person among all the adults at Finse 1222 who I could definitely say had not murdered either of the priests. Geir was a genuine man who said what he thought and was in a position to rise above most things. He would be a useless liar, I imagined, quite simply because he wouldn’t see any point in lying. It didn’t matter to Geir Rugholmen what others thought about who he was and what he said.