Anne Holt - 1222

Three police officers, a handful of hotel staff and Red Cross personnel, a gang of girls dressed in red with ponytails, some doctors, Kari Thue and Mikkel, Magnus and the lady with the knitting, the Germans and the rest of the passengers from the derailed train: they were all looking at me, and only at me. I could see contempt and curiosity in their eyes, expectation and impatience, indifference and possibly something reminiscent of fear. But not where I had hoped to see it.

Suddenly I didn’t know what to say.

The silence was so strange.

I still had a rushing sound in my ears, but this echo against my eardrums of a storm that had died away was the only thing I could hear in the big room. These people would start kicking off at any moment, they would protest, demand that something must be done, something must be said. I would lose this opportunity in a few seconds.

‘Why are you wearing Adrian’s red socks?’ I asked, looking at Veronica.

Somebody sniggered. Others shushed them.

A fine, slender furrow divided her forehead.

‘I borrowed them,’ she said slowly.

‘Sorry? Could you speak up, please?’

‘I borrowed them. My feet were cold.’

Her expression left me in no doubt of what she thought of me. Her voice, which was already remarkably deep, became even deeper.

‘Adrian was cold and I lent him my sweater,’ she added. ‘My feet were cold and he lent me his socks.’

‘But not at the same time,’ I said. ‘He borrowed your sweater that very first evening, or at least before he settled down to sleep. You borrowed his socks the following day.’

She gazed blankly straight ahead. Her gaze was fixed on me, but it didn’t look as if she was seeing anything at all. The thin, crooked line on her forehead was gone, and she was once again a deathly pale creature utterly devoid of expression.

‘Whatever,’ she said, pushing her hair behind her ear.

A contemptuous snort could be clearly heard from the far side of the room. The sound was easy to recognize.

‘Kari Thue,’ I said loudly. ‘I realize you’re impatient. You’re not interested in borrowed socks and sweaters. But I can ask you a question straight away. Could you stand up, please? I can’t see you very well from over here.’

No reaction.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure you can hear me. How did you know that the storm eased at around three o’clock on the night Cato Hammer died?’

Still she sat there, quiet as a mouse. I couldn’t see her, but I suddenly saw a hare in my mind’s eye, a little brown terrified hare pressing itself to the ground, thinking it can make itself invisible.

A sense of unease spread around her.

‘Answer the question, then.’

‘She asked you a question.’

‘I didn’t know that the storm had eased at around three o’clock,’ said Kari Thue, without getting up. ‘How can you say that I -’

‘When the rumour started,’ I interrupted her. ‘When people started saying that Cato Hammer had run away, you added weight to the theory of a stolen snowmobile by informing everyone that the storm had eased just then.’

‘I suppose I must have been awake at about three,’ said Kari Thue, still invisible to me. ‘There’s nothing odd about it, I just happened to be awake! I noticed things were calmer outside.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘You were awake. And yes, the storm had in fact eased for a while just then. The weather log confirms that.’

Now she got to her feet. She smiled triumphantly at her entourage and they smiled back, with a slight hint of anxiety.

‘Exactly. In which case I don’t really understand why-’

‘However, you did state that you were asleep,’ I broke in. ‘In the morning when you came down into the lobby, you complained about how heavily you had slept. You believed it was irresponsible of Berit to let the guests sleep all night. We could all have had concussion, you insisted, and should have been woken up.’

‘But I -’

‘Judging by the evidence, Cato Hammer was murdered at about three o’clock. Were you asleep or were you awake? At three o’clock, I mean. I think you have to choose one or the other, since it isn’t possible to combine the two alternatives. When were you lying; then or just now?’

It occurred to me that I liked this. I was enjoying it.

‘I was… I was awake. But only for a few minutes because I… I had to go to the loo. Then I slept heavily.’

‘OK.’

I adopted an indifferent expression before turning my attention to Mikkel.

‘So I expect you went to the loo as well. At about three o’clock in the morning on Thursday.’

He blushed. He actually blushed.

‘We’ll leave it there,’ I said. Tor the time being, anyway. But let’s ask everybody else: who was awake at three o’clock on Thursday morning?’

An arm was raised. It was one of the staff, a lad of no more than twenty who had spent more or less the whole time since the accident in the smallest of the offices behind reception.

‘I was on night duty,’ he said tentatively. ‘I was in the office all the time.’

One of the doctors gave a sign.

‘I was awake for most of the night,’ he said, without any attempt to disguise the sarcasm in his voice as he went on. ‘As some people might remember, there was a terrible storm. It kept me awake. But I didn’t get out of bed.’

Another hand went up. And another. Several more followed. In the end I was able to establish that no fewer than thirty-two people admitted to having been awake for the whole night or parts of it. All of them, except for the lad on night duty, swore that they had remained in their rooms. Most of them had been sharing a room with others, but this didn’t really constitute an alibi. Kari Thue was right about one thing, anyway: most people had enjoyed a deep, dreamless sleep after the violent experience and the depredations of Wednesday 14 February.

‘And what about you,’ I said, looking at Adrian. ‘Were you asleep?’

‘Me? Why the fuck are you asking me? I wasn’t fucking sleeping. I mean, I was sleeping in the same…’ He stopped and started again. ‘I was sleeping in the lobby. Just a few metres from you, for fuck’s sake.’

‘And what about you,’ I said to Veronica. ‘As I understand it, you were the only person who begged for a single room right away on Wednesday?’

‘I didn’t beg,’ she replied calmly. ‘Nobody wanted to share a room with me. I got the distinct impression early on that I’m not exactly what you’d call popular.’

She looked me straight in the eye.

She didn’t mention Adrian. She didn’t reveal that the boy would have been more than happy to share far more than a room with her.

That was considerate. Almost kind. Adrian had been holding his breath. Now he let it seep out slowly as he picked at a spot near the top of his nose.

‘In that case I am really only interested in you two,’ I said.

The Kurdish man looked at me in surprise.

‘Us?’ he said enquiringly, running his thumb over his beard. ‘We were asleep, of course. I’m afraid we’re in the same situation as her. Nobody exactly complained when my wife and I were given a room to ourselves.’

The alleged wife gazed at her folded hands without expressing anything at all. A few seconds passed, and she gave no sign of either confirming or contradicting the man’s statement.

Another loud snort came from the direction of the window.

‘Kari Thue,’ I said, and had to swallow in order to control my voice. ‘Is there something you’d like to say? Something you’d like to share with the rest of us?’

Per Langerud cleared his throat. I had almost forgotten him, in spite of the fact that his brooding figure was just a metre away, off to the side behind my chair. I turned my head and noticed him glance almost imperceptibly at his left wrist.