Anne Holt - 1222

He was simple. Totally uncomplicated.

People like that don’t commit murder. They turn their backs and move on.

That was what I believed. Absolutely.

It was more difficult to get a handle on Berit Tverre. She had changed over this last couple of days. She had become so different that I barely recognized her from that evening during low season when we came tumbling into her hotel, demanding care, food, lodgings and protection from a storm of which even she was afraid. Absolutely terrified, to be honest. She had changed so radically that it made me uneasy.

While the others at my table ate their way through the main course and dessert, I looked around. My companions were chatting and laughing, relieved because it would all soon be over, and because most things would soon be back to normal. Meanwhile, I let my gaze roam over a collection of people I would never forget.

The woman with the knitting was knitting. The dog owners were watching the clock and keeping an eye on their pets, who were tied up in the lobby, gazing longingly at the aromatic plates from which we were eating. The young handball players were giggling in the way that fourteen-year-olds do, and the Germans were happy because they were allowed to knock back beer and sing drinking songs that made others laugh in embarrassment. The members of the church commission were sitting at a long table of their own; some were drinking wine, others water, and the knitter had a glass in front of her containing a liquid that looked like whisky.

Perhaps it was apple juice.

Perhaps they were just as anxious as I was.

But they were hiding it well, all of them.

I was starting to feel sure I knew who had murdered Cato Hammer and Roar Hanson.

However, one of many problems was that people were not behaving in a manner that matched my theories. They were certainly opening the way for other ideas about connections and causality. Since every theory must be refutable in order to be valid, I ought to dismiss the idea that had been growing stronger in my mind over the past few hours. I ought to start again from the beginning.

I didn’t want to do that. Not yet, anyway.

An even bigger problem was that the weather had seriously begun to change. Through the top part of the window in the dining room I could see that it had stopped snowing.

To put it simply, I didn’t have much time.

What’s more, I had lost my appetite.

I can’t remember when I last left good food lying untouched on my plate, but I just couldn’t manage a single piece of the delicious venison with cranberry sauce, and asparagus that the chef had got hold of from goodness knows where.

If only the snowstorm had gone on for a little bit longer, I thought; and allowed the waiter to take my plate back to the kitchen, virtually untouched.

‘He answered no to your first question. This is a written answer to your second question.’

Geir handed me a sheet of paper, placed a large glass of strong beer on the desk, sat down on a chair he had moved across from one of the other work stations, and stroked his beard. It now covered his cheeks completely, thick and dark with greyish streaks at the corners of his mouth. He pushed a substantial plug of snuff under his lip. I didn’t really understand what he was waiting for. I didn’t need him any longer. It was possible that he had read the message from Severin Heger, but by no means certain. If he had, it wouldn’t have meant anything to him, so I had no need to worry.

There was just a name; a name and a few simple facts on a piece of white paper.

Margrete Koht. Born 14.10.1957. Died 07.01.2007. Convicted of embezzling 3,125,000 Norwegian kroner in 1998. In-patient at Gaustad Hospital from the date of the verdict until her death.

Margrete, that was it.

During my last conversation with Roar Hanson, he talked about a woman. I had tried to remember the name, just as I had tried to remember everything Roar Hanson had said and done. The key to the murder of Cato Hammer lay with Roar Hanson. I was convinced of that. I had spoken to him and seen him devastated by mental agony during the last twenty-four hours of his life, and I had hoped that in spite of Adrian’s interruption and the priest’s own hesitancy, I might find clues and answers in what remained of him within my memory.

But I hadn’t been able to recall the woman’s name. It was mentioned in passing, and disappeared in my own confusion about the man’s disjointed talk of the Public Information Service, which I thought was an organization that had something to do with meat and vegetables.

It was when the two of us were working in the Public Information Service . I remembered his voice had trembled slightly. I mean, Cato was… He took a deep breath and held it as if he needed to brace himself. I really can’t understand why I didn’t raise an objection at the time. Why I didn’t do anything. And Margrete… I can’t bear it. Of course I couldn’t have known, but it seemed so… unthinkable that he would…

As soon as I saw the name on the piece of paper, I remembered what Roar Hanson had said. Word for word. I closed my eyes and saw him standing there in front of me. Nervous and shrunken. Watchful glances in all directions. He sat there hitting his painful, injured shoulder as he talked, a middle-aged priest doing penance for a sin that wasn’t even his own.

Perhaps he didn’t see it that way. He had talked about Cato Hammer’s betrayal and greed, but he was just as devastated by his own guilt, his own failure to raise the alarm about something I was beginning to think I had worked out.

‘Isn’t there something you should be doing?’ I asked without looking up from the piece of paper. ‘Clearing some snow? Digging out some houses? Anything, really.’

It was nine thirty on Friday evening.

From the lobby I could hear laughter and quiet music. One of Mikkel’s gang had speakers with his iPod, and for the first time since the accident the clearly defined boundaries between the different groups from the train were becoming blurred. Middle-aged ladies were laughing as they bobbed around the floor dancing, celebrating the fact that the storm had abated. The fourteen-year-olds were allowed to sit with the bad boys. Eventually I had felt compelled to whisper in Berit’s ear that the boys were busy getting two of the handball players drunk. The church commission had temporarily dissolved itself, and its members were dispersed throughout all the different rooms, relaxed from the effects of red wine and various other beverages. Elias Grav’s widow was the last person I saw as I fled to the office, weary of all this happiness. She was still shocked following her husband’s death, but at least she had come down from her room and politely asked for something to eat. The cheerful and friendly assistant from the kiosk had put her arm around the widow’s shoulders and accompanied her down to the dining room.

Johan still hadn’t got the satellite phone working, so I had been left with no choice. I had been forced to ask Severin for help.

When I watched him hurry down to the cellar after the others earlier in the day, I had decided to forget all about the secret carriage. It had nothing to do with us, and that was that. The murders of Cato Hammer and Roar Hanson were a different matter altogether from this business of the men who were determined not to let anyone near them, and who were hardly likely to emerge from their hiding place until Finse was virtually empty. When the rest of us had gone, picked up by Sea King helicopters or trains or all-terrain vehicles, only then would the four men in the cellar leave the hotel and eventually be conveyed to their destination, probably under cover of darkness.