Death in Oslo (2 page)

She braced her arms against the armrests, lifted herself and twisted her body slightly closer to the back of the chair. Then she absent-mindedly smoothed her sweater down over her chest.

‘. . . they must have decided bloody early on,’ she said finally.

‘I don’t understand . . .’

‘To work so hard. To be so clever. Never to do anything wrong. Never to make mistakes. Never, never to be caught with their trousers down. In fact, it’s totally unbelievable.’

‘But there’s always something . . . some little secret . . . Even the deeply religious George W had—’

The woman in the wheelchair lit up with a sudden smile and turned towards the living room door. A small girl of about eighteen months peeked guiltily round the door. The woman held out her hand.

‘Come here, sweetheart. You should be asleep.’

‘Does she manage to get out of the cot by herself?’ Johanne asked with some concern.

‘She goes to sleep in our bed. Come here, Ida!’

The child padded over the floor and let herself be lifted up on to the woman’s lap. Her black hair curled over her round cheeks and her eyes were ice blue, with a clear black ring round the iris. The little girl gave the guest a shy smile of recognition and then snuggled down.

‘It’s strange that she looks so like you,’ Johanne said, leaning forward and stroking the girl’s soft cheek with the back of her hand.

‘Only the eyes,’ the other woman replied. ‘It’s the colour. People are always deceived by the colour. Of the eyes.’

Once again they were silent.

In Washington DC, the people exhaled grey steam in the harsh January light. The Chief Justice was helped down from the podium; from the back he looked like a sorcerer as he was led gently indoors. The newly elected president was bare-headed and smiled broadly as she pulled her pale pink coat closer.

In Oslo, evening was advancing stealthily outside the windows in Krusesgate and the streets were wet and free of snow.

An odd-looking character came into the large living room. She limped, dragging one foot behind her, like the caricature of a villain in an old-fashioned film. Her hair was tired and thin and looked like a bird’s nest. Her legs resembled two pencils and went straight down from under her apron into a pair of tartan slippers.

‘That girl should’ve been in her bed ages ago,’ she muttered without saying hello. ‘Nothin’ gets done right in this house. She should sleep in her own bed, I’ve said it a thousand million times. Come over here, my princess.’

Without waiting for the woman in the wheelchair or the little girl to respond, she scooped the child up on to her difficult hip and limped back the way she had come.

‘Wish I had a woman-who-does like her,’ Johanne sighed.

‘It has its advantages.’

They sat in silence again. CNN switched between various commentators, interspersed with clips from the podium, where the elite gathering of politicians had admitted defeat in the face of the cold and were leaving to prepare themselves for the greatest swearing-in celebrations the US capital had ever seen. The Democrats had achieved their three goals. They had beaten a president who was up for re-election, which was a feat in itself. They had won by a greater margin than they had dared to hope for. And they had won with a woman at the
helm. None of these facts were to be underplayed. Pictures of Hollywood stars who had already arrived in town or who were expected in the course of the afternoon flickered on the screen. The entire weekend was to be filled with celebrations and fireworks. Madam President would go from one party to the next, receiving praise and giving endless thanks to her helpers, and would undoubtedly change into an array of outfits along the way. And in between it all, she would reward those worthy of reward with posts and positions, compare campaign efforts and financial donations, assess loyalty and measure ability, disappoint many and please a few, just as forty-three men had done before her in the course of the nation’s 230 years of history.

‘Do you think you can sleep after something like that?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Do you think she’ll be able to sleep tonight?’ Johanne asked.

‘You are funny.’ The other woman smiled. ‘Of course she’ll be able to sleep. You don’t get to where she is without sleeping. She’s a fighter, Johanne. Don’t let her neat figure and feminine clothes deceive you.’

When the woman in the wheelchair turned the TV off, they heard a lullaby being sung elsewhere in the flat.

‘Ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-BOFF-BOFF.’

Johanne chuckled. ‘That would frighten the life out of my children.’

The other woman steered the wheelchair over to a low coffee table and lifted up a cup. She took a sip, wrinkled her nose and put the cup down again.

‘I guess I should go home,’ Johanne said, though it sounded like a question.

‘Yes,’ the other woman replied. ‘You should.’

‘Thank you for your help. For all your help over the past few months.’

‘There’s not much to thank me for.’

Johanne rubbed her lower back lightly before pushing her uncontrollable hair back behind her ears and straightening her glasses with a slim index finger.

‘Yes, there is,’ she said.

‘I think you just have to learn to live with it. There’s nothing you can do about the fact that she exists.’

‘She threatened my children. She’s dangerous. Talking to you, being taken seriously, being believed . . . it’s at least made things easier.’

‘It’s nearly a year ago now,’ the woman in the wheelchair continued. ‘It was last year that things were really serious. What happened this winter . . . well, I can’t help thinking that she’s . . . teasing you.’

‘Teasing me?’

‘She triggers your curiosity. You are a seeking person, Johanne. That’s why you do research. Your curiosity is what gets you involved in investigations that you actually want nothing to do with, and that’s what is driving you to get to the bottom of what it is this woman wants from you. It was your curiosity that . . . that brought you here. And it is—’

‘I have to go,’ Johanne interrupted, with a fleeting smile. ‘No point in going through it all again. But thank you all the same. I can see myself out.’

She stayed standing where she was for a moment. She was struck by how beautiful the paralysed woman was. She was slim, almost too thin, with an oval face and eyes that were remarkably like the little girl’s: ice blue, clear, and nearly leached of colour, with a broad black ring round the iris. Her mouth was shapely, with a clearly defined upper lip, surrounded by delicate, beautiful wrinkles that indicated that she must be well over forty. She was elegantly dressed in a light blue V-necked cashmere sweater and jeans that were presumably not bought in Norway. A simple, big diamond
hung, swinging gently, in the hollow of her neck.

‘You look lovely, by the way!’

The woman smiled faintly, almost embarrassed.

‘See you again soon,’ she said and rolled over to the window, where she remained sitting with her back to her guest, without saying goodbye.

T
he snow lay knee-deep over the long strips of field. It had been frosty for a long time now. The naked trees in the woods to the west were glazed with ice. Every now and then his snowshoes broke through the rough crust on the snow, making him nearly lose his balance for a moment. Al Muffet stopped and caught his breath. The sun was about to go down behind the hills to the west. Only the odd bird cry broke the silence. The snow glittered in the golden-red evening light and the man with the snowshoes stood for a moment to watch a hare that leapt out from the woods and zigzagged down to the stream on the other side of the field.

Al Muffet breathed in as deeply as he could.

He had never doubted that he had done the right thing. When his wife died and he was left with three daughters aged eight, eleven and sixteen, it took only a matter of weeks for him to realise that his career at one of Chicago’s prestigious universities was simply not compatible with sole responsibility for his children. Their finances also implied that he should move what was left of his family to a quiet place in the country as soon as possible.

Three weeks and two days after the family had moved to their new home at Rural Route #4 in Farmington, Maine, two passenger planes each flew into a tower on Manhattan. A few minutes later, another thundered into the Pentagon. That same evening, Al Muffet closed his eyes in silent gratitude for his foresight: already, as a student, he had shed his real name,
Ali Shaeed Muffasa. The children were sensibly called Sheryl, Catherine and Louise, and had all inherited their mother’s delightful snub nose and ash-blonde hair.

Now, a good three years later, barely a day passed without him enjoying his country life. The girls were blossoming, and he had rediscovered the joys of clinical practice remarkably quickly. His practice was varied, a good mixture of small animals, pets and farm animals: poorly canaries, dogs giving birth, and every now and then an aggressive ox that needed a bullet through the head. Every Thursday he played chess down at the club. He went to the cinema with the girls on Saturdays. On Monday evenings he generally played a couple of games of squash with a neighbour who had a court in a converted barn. One day followed the next, a steady flow of pleasing monotony.

Only on Sundays were the Muffets any different from the rest of the community. They did not go to church. Al Muffet had lost any contact with Allah a long time ago, but had no plans of getting to know God. Initially, there was some reaction: veiled questions at parents’ meetings, ambiguous remarks at the petrol station or by the popcorn machine at the cinema on a Saturday night.

But these gradually petered out.

Everything passes, Al Muffet thought to himself as he struggled to unearth his watch, which was buried under his mitten and his down jacket. He had to get a move on. His youngest daughter was going to make dinner, and from experience, he knew that it was worthwhile being at home when she did. Unless he wanted to be greeted by an extravagant meal and a bare goodies store. The last time Louise had made dinner it had been a Monday night and she had served up a four-course meal of foie gras, truffle risotto, and the venison he had got in the autumn and intended to have for their annual Christmas dinner with the neighbours.

The cold had more bite now that the sun had gone down. He took off his mittens and put his palms to his cheeks. A few seconds later he started to walk, with the long, slow snowshoe steps that he had finally mastered.

He had not watched the swearing-in of the President, but not because it would bother him in any way. When Helen Lardahl Bentley had entered the public arena, big time, ten years ago, he had in fact been horrified. He remembered with unnerving clarity that morning in Chicago, when he was lying at home in bed with flu, channel-hopping through his fever. Helen Lardahl, so different from how he remembered her, making a speech in the Senate. Gone were the glasses. The puppy fat that had stayed with her far into her twenties had fallen away. Only characteristics such as the determined diagonal movement through the air with an open, flat hand to underline every second point convinced him that it really was the same woman.

How does she dare? he’d thought at the time.

And then he had gradually come to accept it.

Al Muffet stopped again and drew the ice-cold air into his lungs. He was down by the stream now, where the water was still running under a lid of clear ice.

She trusted him, it was simple. She must have chosen to trust the promise he had made back then, a lifetime ago, in another life and in a completely different place. Given her position, it would have been simple to find out whether he was still alive, still lived in the US.

But now she had got herself elected as the world’s most powerful national leader, in a country where morality was a virtue and double standards a necessity.

He stepped across the stream and scrambled over the mounds of snow left by the snowplough. Suddenly his pulse was so fast that his ears were ringing. It was so long ago, he thought, and took off his snowshoes. With one in each hand,
he started to run down the small, wintry road.

‘We got away with it,’ he whispered in rhythm with his own heavy steps. ‘I am to be trusted. I am a man of honour. We got away with it.’

He was far too late. No doubt he would get home to oysters and an open bottle of champagne. Louise would say it was a celebration, in honour of the first female president of America.

‘B
loody great timing. Who the hell chose that date?’

The Director General of the Norwegian Police Security Service, PST, brushed a hand over his cropped ginger hair. ‘You know perfectly well,’ replied a slightly younger woman, who was watching an old TV screen that was balanced on a filing cabinet in the corner of the office. The colours were faded and a black stripe flickered at the bottom of the image. ‘It was the Prime Minister. Great opportunity, you know, to show the old country in all its national romantic glory.’

‘Drunkenness, trouble and rubbish everywhere,’ grunted Peter Salhus. ‘Not very romantic. Our national day has become pure hell. And how in God’s name’ – he was shouting now as he pointed at the TV – ‘do they think it will be possible to look after that woman?’

Madam President was about to set foot on Norwegian soil. In front of her were three men in dark overcoats. The characteristic earpieces were clearly visible. Despite the low cloud, they were all wearing sunglasses, as if they were trying to parody themselves. Their doubles were coming down the steps from Air Force One behind the President; just as big, just as brooding and just as devoid of expression.

‘Looks like they could do the job on their own,’ Anna Birke-land quipped, nodding at the screen. ‘And I hope that no one else shares your . . . pessimism, shall we say. I’m actually quite worried. You don’t normally . . .’

She broke off. Peter Salhus didn’t say anything either, his
eyes fixed on the TV screen. It was not like him to have such an outburst. Quite the contrary: when, a couple of years previously, he was appointed as director general, a post that historically had some embarrassing blemishes, it was because of his placid and pleasant nature, and not because of his military background. The protests from the left had been muted by the revelation that Salhus had been a young socialist. He had joined the army at nineteen in order to ‘expose American imperialism’, he explained with a smile in an interview broadcast on TV. When he then gave an earnest one-anda-half-minute account of the threats facing modern society, which most people could recognise, the battle was as good as won. Peter Salhus had changed out of his uniform and into a suit, and moved into the PST offices, if not with universal acclaim, then at least with cross-party support behind him. He was well liked by his staff and respected by his colleagues abroad. His cropped military hair and salt-and-pepper beard gave him an air of old-fashioned, masculine confidence. Paradoxically, he was in fact a popular head of security.