Anne Holt - 1222

I had decided to file the whole issue in the section allocated to things that were nothing to do with me.

But then I needed them after all.

‘My, but you’re in a bad mood,’ said Geir. ‘I thought you’d cheered up a bit.’

He picked up the glass of beer in both hands. His index fingers made patterns in the condensation as he turned the glass around slowly.

‘I’m not in a bad mood,’ I said, still not looking up from the piece of paper giving the name of the woman Cato Hammer had so brutally betrayed, if my assumptions were correct. ‘I’m sad.’

I smiled briefly to take the sting out of what I had just said, and added:

‘Did it go all right?’

‘Well, I’m not sure I’d put it quite like that.’ He drank some of his beer. ‘At first they didn’t want to open the door. I had to talk to your mate for bloody ages through it. As far as the gun went, the answer was a flat no. Not that I know what you want with…’

I gave him a quick warning look.

He put down the glass and held up his hands, palms facing me.

‘No questions. I promise. But it didn’t take long for him to understand your query. He was prepared to help with that, at any rate. Eventually he pushed that piece of paper out through a crack this narrow’ – he measured a centimetre between his thumb and index finger – ‘before he shut the door again. What was it you actually asked?’

He raised his hands again and stopped speaking.

‘They’ve got the very best equipment,’ I murmured. ‘I’m absolutely certain they have the best communication equipment there is. And at the other end there are people who have access to all the information in the world. Data. Registers. Everything. If Severin would just agree to help me, I knew things would work out.’

I wasn’t sure if I was talking to him, or just summarizing for myself. I had taken out Berit’s list of names, and my gaze settled on one of my fellow passengers. One of the guests had a name that didn’t help me get where I wanted to be.

But I had made significant progress.

I hoped I had got far enough, and I folded up all the papers and tucked them in the side pocket where Adrian’s list already lay. There was a weather report on the desk. Berit had given me an odd look when I asked for it, but had given me a copy without any fuss. One of the staff had mapped the progress of the storm from Wednesday morning until an hour ago. I searched for what I needed. Then I folded that sheet of paper up as well and put it with the others. Unfortunately Berit hadn’t managed to find out why Kari Thue was going to Bergen. I suspected that she had forgotten to ask.

‘Hanne,’ said Geir. ‘Yes?’

‘Do you trust me?’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean, do you really trust me?’

I looked up and into those grey eyes. Or brown. Or blue-grey. It was difficult to tell, actually.

I nodded. It was true. I did trust Geir Rugholmen.

‘In that case, can’t you tell me about those four men in the cellar? After all we’ve gone through up here, I think I deserve to know.’

‘You deserve nothing,’ I said. ‘Apart from a medal for gallantry. A prize for a victorious campaign against the storm. An award for putting up with yours truly for two days. Which looks like turning into three.’

He grinned, and the juice from the tobacco ran down between his front teeth.

‘I don’t want anything like that. I just want to know what that extra carriage was about.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said in all honesty.

‘Rubbish,’ he said.

‘No, I really don’t know. But I do have a distinct feeling.’

‘Which is?’

‘Shall we have a smoke?’ I said. ‘Have you got any cigarettes?’

He looked around, slightly confused.

‘Berit will be furious.’

‘Of course. Forget it. I think they’re guarding a terrorist. I think they were transporting a terrorist to Bergen.’

‘A – a terrorist? But what would… why the hell would they be taking a terrorist to Bergen?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘There are both prisons and military institutions in Bergen as well, you know. At any rate, he was being moved.’

‘Moved where? And why? What makes you even think there’s a terrorist on Norwegian soil? And on the Bergen train!’

‘Keep it down,’ I hushed him. ‘The fact that I’m sharing my theories with you doesn’t mean the entire hotel has to know.’

‘The entire hotel? Everybody here knows about that bloody carriage! And how are they going to explain this, when everybody can just leave and say what they like to whoever they like?’

He took a quick breath.

‘You cannot begin to imagine,’ I said quietly, ‘what kind of cover stories the authorities can cook up. In the end you almost believe them yourself, in spite of the fact that you know the real truth. I’ve experienced it myself, Geir.’

I left it at that.

In the spring two years ago, I hid the American President in my apartment for several days. This utterly absurd situation ended when she shot dead an FBI agent. That same evening the story was distorted, simplified, and conveyed to the public in a way that frightened the life out of me. But most of all, and extremely reluctantly, I was impressed. There were still only a handful of us who knew the truth about the American President’s visit to Norway, and that was the way it was going to stay.

‘Believe me,’ was all I said. ‘Right now, well-paid and well-equipped specialists are sitting there cooking up a story that all these people…’

I jerked my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the lobby.

‘… will swallow hook, line and sinker.’

‘But what about me? I mean, I can say what I like when -’

‘As I said,’ I broke in. ‘I trust you. Besides which, no one is likely to believe your story.’

‘My story,’ he repeated. ‘So far I haven’t got a story. Why do you think… what makes you think this is to do with a terrorist? Here?’

He was still immensely worked up. A vein was throbbing at the side of his neck, and his face had taken on a different flush from when he had been out in the storm for several hours.

‘The scope of it,’ I said, trying to force tears to my dry, smarting eyes. ‘The planning needed to carry the whole thing through. The insanity of it.’

And the fact that the Foreign Secretary himself is involved, I thought, without saying it out loud. The only reason I could see why they had the minister’s telephone number as a contact to inspire confidence in case of a crisis was that they were absolutely one hundred per cent dependent on being believed without any further questions. They needed an authority figure with a voice everyone recognized.

‘The insanity.’

Geir had fallen back into his old bad habits. He had reverted to repeating what I had just said.

‘We talked about it, don’t you remember?’ I asked. ‘Outside the cold room? We decided it must be a high-risk prisoner. Who was in a position to be able to make demands. Don’t you remember that?’

‘I suppose so…’

He fished out the snuff with his index finger and threw it in the bin. Then he wiped his hand on his trousers and gulped down the rest of his beer.

‘You said it was absolutely ridiculous to move a prisoner by train,’ he said, suppressing a belch. ‘You said it had to be every police officer’s worst nightmare. And that they must have planned the entire journey taking all eventualities into account. Wind and weather and power failure. Possible escape routes. All the way from Oslo to Bergen.’

I nodded.

‘But a terrorist.’

He still couldn’t utter the word without looking as if he’d just swallowed a wasp.