Tom Cain - Assassin

Ole Ravnsborg didn’t like to tell people that his broken nose was the result of a childhood bicycle spill. He didn’t want to disappoint. It pleased everyone to believe that a man built the way he was and with a face so battered must be a tough guy. And that helped when dealing with criminals, most of whom had an essentially bestial, Darwinian view of life. It instilled a degree of respect and it blinded his opponents to the fact that he might just be smarter than them, too.

With women, of course, the dynamic was different. Ravnsborg felt able to display the more thoughtful and to him more authentic aspects of his personality. Those qualities, too, provided their own smokescreen.

He interviewed Maddy Cross in the presence of a female detective. He took his time sitting down and getting himself set. He wanted to take a look at her, not for any prurient reasons – though he was not blind to her attractions – but simply to get a sense of her as an interview subject and possible adversary.

She was confused and uncertain, that much was to be expected, either as a natural reaction to being dragged off to a police station in a foreign country, or as a pose adopted by a professional criminal, playing the role of the vulnerable female. There was something in her eyes, though: not the truculence of a habitual offender, perhaps, but a certain coolness. She had strength in her, this woman; she was self-possessed. Whether that made her anything other than an innocent bystander, only time would tell.

He began by sliding a picture of Carver’s face, cropped from the emailed photograph, across the table between them. ‘Do you know this man, Mrs Cross?’

She looked at it, frowning: ‘Yes, but… I don’t understand. Why am I here? I’ve done nothing wrong. Do I need a lawyer?’

Her voice was rising in pitch as she spoke, anxiety creeping in with every sentence. Ravnsborg was deliberately casual in reply.

‘I don’t know. Do you? I can say that at the moment you are here as a witness. You have not been charged with any offence. What do you have to worry about? Just tell me the truth and everything will be fine. So… what is his name?’

‘Samuel Carver… but, what is this? Is he in trouble?’

‘Possibly. Do you know where he is now, please?’

She shook her head. ‘No… no, I don’t. He just… disappeared…’

Ravnsborg nodded, tapping the table with his fingers as he pondered Carver’s vanishing act. He was not taking notes of the interview, though the female detective occasionally jotted down words in a notebook.

‘Where were you when this disappearance happened?’ he asked.

‘In the café, at that hotel…’

‘The King Haakon?’

‘Whatever, the one where… you know, the explosion… Is that what this is about? Because I don’t know anything about that.’

‘We’ll see… So, Mrs Cross, how would you describe your relationship with Mr Carver? Are you, how should I say… together?’

Maddy ran her hands through her hair, pulling it back from her face. ‘I guess. I mean, I thought we had something…’

‘And you came to Oslo, why?’

‘For a wedding – his friend Thor’s wedding.’

‘That would be Mr Larsson?’

‘Yes.’

‘So they were old friends.’

‘Sure. Sam was going to give a speech at the wedding.’

‘This wedding was the sole purpose of your trip?’

‘Well, we stayed in Paris for a couple days. We did some shopping. Then we came here. It was just a vacation, you know. That’s what he told me.’

‘Quite so,’ said Ravnsborg, noting the distancing of herself from him, the first indication of doubt. ‘And you arrived in Oslo at what time?’

‘About four in the afternoon, maybe a little after. It was the SAS flight, you can check.’

‘I will. And then?’

‘We took the train into the city and got a cab to our hotel. Thor came with us, then he went off to do wedding stuff. We were both a little tired, still jet-lagged, you know? So we stayed in our room, resting, till it was time to get ready for dinner.’

‘When did you leave the hotel?’

‘I don’t know, around eight, maybe.’

‘And you were in your room until then… resting?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So there were no witnesses who saw you there.’

‘I would hope not.’

If she was telling the truth, thought Ravnsborg, that left no time for Carver to place a bomb at the King Haakon Hotel. Of course, he might have had accomplices who did it for him. Or she might be lying. He made a mental note to have her alibi checked as soon as possible. But if true it made the evidence against Carver less secure, for now at least.

Ravnsborg returned to the interview: ‘Who suggested the café for dinner?’

‘That was Thor. He said it was kind of touristy, but we’d like it anyway.’

‘So it was not Mr Carver’s idea?’

‘No. I don’t think he’d ever heard of the place before.’

‘And you were having a nice time there?’

‘I thought so.’

‘Nothing unusual, out of the ordinary?’

‘No, we talked, had a bottle of wine, it was… it was nice. Everything seemed fine.’

‘Was Mr Carver nervous, or edgy at all – anything unusual about his behaviour at that dinner, or over recent days?’

There was a momentary hesitation before Maddy spoke, but her words, when they came, were hurried and over-emphatic. ‘No, not at all, he was fine.’

‘You’re quite sure about that, Mrs Cross?’

‘Well, maybe he was a little distant, you know, tense. But it was our first trip together. I just assumed he was the kind of guy who takes time getting used to being in a relationship. If he was hiding anything, I got the impression it had to do with me, with us.’

‘I see. So, to return to your meal. He left the table. Why was that?’

‘Sam got a message on his phone.’

‘How did he react to this message?

‘To tell you the truth, he seemed pissed about it. He sent another text straight back and waited till he’d got a reply. He said it was a voice from the past and that he had to take the call. So he got up and left the room. And that… that was the last time I saw him. He’s all right, isn’t he? Tell me he wasn’t hurt.’

That concern sounded genuine to Ravnsborg’s ears. She still cares for him, he thought. He said, ‘I can’t tell you anything for sure. Mr Carver has not been formally identified, alive or dead. I can, however, say that a man who might have been him was seen at the Operaen, that is our opera house, a little over ten minutes after the explosion.’

The bafflement in Maddy Cross’s voice sounded authentic, too. ‘What are you talking about? You’re saying he is alive? But what… I don’t get it… what was he doing at the opera house?’

‘If it was him, Mrs Cross, he killed three men.’

The words hit her like a slap in the face. ‘No! Please…’

Ravnsborg began to apply his pressure now, not by any obvious displays of aggression, but simply by giving her a crisp, impersonal recitation of facts.

‘My men have been interviewing witnesses. A man answering to Mr Carver’s description was observed being chased into the area of the opera house. There were three men following him at first. They were joined by another three men. All six were armed. None of our witnesses report seeing Mr Carver with a weapon. Yet three of the men were killed and he escaped.’

‘So he was defending himself?’

‘It would seem so.’

Ravnsborg looked at his interviewee. She seemed relieved. Yet she had not questioned the account he had given.

‘You know, Mrs Cross, you do not seem entirely surprised by this information. Why is that? What do you know about Mr Carver?’