Nicola Griffith - The Blue Place

She ran down the names. “No. No, I don’t see anyone of that name.”

“Have you been on duty all week?”

“Yes.”

“And you haven’t seen a thin man with red hair?”

“No.”

I let my face fall.

“Perhaps it’s for the best.”

“I suppose so. Well, thank you.”

On to the Majorstuen, on Bogstadsveien. This time the desk clerk was an older woman who told me bluntly I was a fool and if I knew what was good for me I’d go home to my parents and forget this foolish nonsense. But she did tell me there was no one called McCall and no thin young man with ginger hair. When I left I realized how close I was to Vigeland Park and for one wild moment I thought: Julia will be in the sculpture park. But she wouldn’t be. She would be meeting with Edvard Borlaug and one or more members of the board. Somewhere. It was Sampo’s job to follow that trail.

The phone in my pocket remained obstinately silent. I pulled it out and called information, called four different Borlaugs before I heard Edvard’s brisk voice telling me to leave a message. “Edvard, it’s Aud. I need to talk to Julia. If you know where she is, call me. Immediately. It’s very important. You have the number.”

I had a sudden vision of Edvard lying on the carpeted living room floor, neck broken, while blood leaked from his eyes and my voice echoed from his machine. Perhaps Julia was lying next to him….

I called information again, this time gave them Edvard’s name and number and got his address in exchange. I called Sampo. “Send one of your people to this address. Break in if necessary. Make sure she’s not there. Check any schedules or calendars or address books.” It was ten-thirty. How long would the meeting last? “If you haven’t heard from me by eleven-thirty, put someone on E16, just past Nordehov.” She might come to it via some scenic route, but it would have to be very circuitous to join the highway north of Nordehov. “It’s a dark blue Audi.” I gave him the licence plate number.

This was all wrong. We were in too many places, like four people standing in the corners of a vast field full of horses with our hands spread. Too many gaps.

The second syrette of morphine was wearing off.

On to another hotel. McCall and Ginger had to be staying somewhere.

After I had exhausted the least expensive places, I started in on the moderately priced. Time was running out and the streets were beginning to fill with holiday crowds.

At the Continental on Stortingsgaten I gave the doorman two hundred Nkr to leave my car right by the entrance. The desk clerk was a young man, so this time when I gave my story I was a slightly older woman who had seen just a bit too much of the world and hadn’t liked the way it had treated her.

“Why, yes,” the young man behind the counter said. “They checked in this morning. I remember. They were here very early. They seemed tired. They were most insistent that they be given a room immediately. I thought they’d sleep. They certainly looked as though they needed it, but”—tapping of keys, nod of head at screen—“all they seemed to do was make a lot of phone calls.”

“Are they still here?”

“Oh, no. They left about twenty minutes ago.”

I beckoned over the doorman. “The two men who left here twenty minutes ago, what were they driving?”

“Dark green Toyota 4Runner.”

I nodded my thanks and he resumed his post by the door.

The only other person in the lobby was a fifty-year-old woman sitting on a couch with her eyes closed. I slid a hundred-Nkr note over the counter towards the clerk. “Can I see who they called?”

He pocketed the money and turned the screen slightly. Olsen Glass at 8:08. Edvard Borlaug at 8:09. That call had lasted ten minutes, too long for a message. What had Borlaug told them? Then information, followed by a local number I didn’t recognize. I tapped the number into my own phone, disconnected when the machine told me I had reached a sporting goods shop that was closed for the day. Short of ammunition? If so, they would stay short. Everything was shut on National Day.

Outside, the pavement was drenched in sunshine. The warmth on my arm and shoulder, even swaddled as they were, was almost unbearable. The Volvo was stuffy. I rolled down the windows and nosed out into the road, which was clogged with people in the bright red and white of national costume, all beaming in the sunshine, happily eating pølse and drinking fizzy brus , heading good-naturedly towards the square for the speeches that would begin at midday. I called Sampo—“They’re in a dark green Toyota 4Runner”—and concentrated on not running down any of the herd.

It was eleven forty-five. Julia’s meeting would be over by now.

Think. I tried to put myself in her head, imagined stepping out of an office or home, pleased with myself because I’d persuaded Olsen to fund the sculpture garden. The sun would be warm on my hair, my dress light around my thighs. Stepping to the car, thinking of the drive back, of the beautiful day. People having a good time. Celebrating. Being with family….

And I knew where Julia would go, knew what Borlaug had told McCall and Ginger, knew where I must go.

I dialed the numbers. The phone rang and rang and rang. The sound was quite unreal. Eventually I was answered by a rather cross and breathless, “Hei.”

“Tante. Is Julia there?”

“Aud? No. But she will be any minute. I was just in the cellar. I have to go back there now. She’s coming for lunch before driving back to the seter. There’s a note she wants me to translate for her. It might be personal, she says. She tried to read it out to me over the phone but the line was bad and she makes Norwegian sound like German, and then that man, Edvard, came and told her the meeting was about to begin. Would you like me to ask her to call you when she gets in?”

“Tante, listen. I’m in Oslo. I’m on my way to your house. Don’t let anyone in. No one except me or Julia. No one. And if you see a dark green four-by-four on your street, call the police.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Two men are on their way there to kill Julia—”

“Julia? In Oslo? Why should—”

“One of them shot me yesterday on the glacier. Two are on their way to your house. They are armed. Keep the door shut. Keep a lookout for Julia. When she gets there, leave. Head straight up E16. Use your Saab. Do you understand?”

“But why do they—”

There was a roaring in my ears like the sea. “Do you understand? Will you do as I say?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there very soon.” Click. Dial. “Sampo? Tell your man on E16 that he’s now looking for a red Saab driven by an older woman. Julia will be with her. When he sees them, he’s to keep them both safe. I know where Ginger and McCall are heading. I’m going there now. Meet me.” I gave him the address, disconnected, and put the phone down gently on the soft leather of the passenger seat.

My shoulder no longer hurt. My mind was stropped clean and sharp as a razor. The muscles in my face were perfectly relaxed and the world outside hardened and slowed until I saw everything with crystal clarity and there was time to notice every detail: the untied lace of a three-year-old’s sneaker, the beautiful deep amber of the traffic light I ignored. My heart was no longer a combustion engine, thumping with explosions deep in its chambers: it was silent, smooth, and I was a maglev train flying effortlessly down its single track, my only purpose the journey, my destination fixed.

Buildings got smaller and moved back from the road. Stone became brick and wood and now there were fences, and front doors, and trees. Each clean, shining window, each green leaf with its delicate tracery of veins filled me with joy. I moved through it all like a ghost, as easy as a breath.