The Lion's Mouth (17 page)

He muttered something that might have been interpreted as thanks.

“You’ve been here with me listening to the discussion. Is it the case that you’ll be the one who forms a new administration on Friday?”

Tryggve Storstein cleared his throat and nodded.

“Yes.”

The interviewer seemed perplexed by the terse response, and made some vigorous arm movements before managing to pose another question. Storstein continued to be concise, sometimes seeming downright dismissive, and the interviewer struggled energetically to fill the time that the program schedule had obviously allocated to the interview.

“He doesn’t exactly seem like the great white hope,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said as she began to clear the table. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

“You can make it then.”

The bespectacled man with the Trøndelag accent had taken over once again. Now his guests were three newspaper editors, who commented on the present situation with great pathos and gravity.

“How are we to have a normal, healthy political process in the days ahead, as we move forward to the formation of a new government, when a police investigation is being conducted that could, and I emphasize could, lead to the discovery of murder suspects in the very circles from which the government will emerge?”

It was the program host who was posing the question.

“I really wish people would learn to speak using periods,” Hanne said, almost to herself. Billy T. was whistling as he toiled over the coffee machine.

The editor of
Dagbladet
leaned forward eagerly, his beard almost touching the tabletop.

“Now, it’s definitely of extreme importance for the police to keep out of the political process. It must be quite clear that no
such considerations should hinder the police in their work. But, on the other hand, we can’t have a situation where the party that is to form the government is emasculated by the fact that most of the present candidates for the post of Prime Minister actually knew Birgitte Volter.”

“Typical.” Hanne Wilhelmsen sighed. “No one believes it could be someone close to her, despite statistics showing that murderers almost always belong to the victim’s inner circle. But the entire political elite in Norway knew Birgitte Volter. Then it becomes too dangerous to believe in the statistics.”

She stood up and switched off the TV set.

“Music?” Billy T. enquired optimistically.

“No! I want some silence, okay?”

For lack of a proper settee, they lay down in the bedroom, head to toe in the double bed. Hanne’s head was leaning against the wall, and her back was resting on a well-worn, skinny beanbag. She sipped the coffee he handed her.

“Yuck!”

She spluttered, spraying the coffee, and making a grimace.

“What on earth
is
this? Tar?”

“Too strong?”

Without waiting for a reply, he fetched milk from the fridge and poured a generous portion into her cup.

“There. Now we’ll stay awake for a while.”

He attempted to find a comfortable position on the bed, but there were no more cushions, so in the end he sat up.

“There’s something about Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden,” he said, scratching his ear. “Fuck, there’s something wrong inside here. It’s bloody sore at times.”

“What do you mean by something?”

“Well, an infection, or something like that.”

“Idiot. I meant with Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden.”

“Oh.”

Billy T. squinted at his fingertip, but there was still nothing visible.

“Strange lady,” he said. “Lots of nervous hand movements and peculiar grimaces. At the same time, she gives the impression of being … cold!”

He waved his forefinger in the air.

“She seems cold as ice! Like a fish. There’s something I’d like to investigate further, but I can’t get hold of
what
it is, and there’s absolutely no reason to think that she was anywhere near the PMO on the evening of the murder.”

“PMO?”

“The Prime Minister’s office. Now you’ll have to learn the jargon.”

“Was she a friend of the Prime Minister?”

“No, not according to what she herself says. They did not socialize, she told me. Bloody peculiar woman. There’s something … spooky about her. I get damn nervous being in the same room as her!”

Hanne Wilhelmsen did not answer. She warmed her hands on the steaming cup, and stared at a child’s drawing hanging on the notice board: a very advanced Batmobile with inlaid wings and cannons.

“And that—”

“SHH,” Hanne interrupted noisily. Billy T. jumped and spilled his coffee.

“But what …?”

“SHH!”

Billy T. swore under his breath, though Hanne pretended not to notice. Instead she examined the wall behind him thoroughly, and Billy T. whirled around to find out what she was staring at with such concentration.

“Alexander,” she said tentatively. “It was Alexander who drew that.”

Suddenly she looked directly at him. Her eyes seemed larger than normal, and the black circles around the irises even more pronounced.

“Did she tell you they did not socialize?”

“Yes. What about it?”

Hanne rose from the bed, and placed her coffee cup on the floor before crossing to Alexander’s drawing and peering at it searchingly.

“What
is
it about that drawing?” Billy T. asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” Hanne said. “It’s marvelous. But that’s not what I’m thinking about.”

She turned to face him, hands on hips and head canted to one side.

“Birgitte Volter’s son, Per, is quite a good marksman. I’ve met him a few times at the Løvenskiold shooting range. When he was younger, his father often accompanied him. I can’t say that I know him, but we’ve chatted now and again, and it would be natural to nod to each other if we met on the street. And …”

Billy T. stared at her, but his finger was still digging deep into his ear canal.

“If you have an infection coming, you really shouldn’t pick at it like that,” Hanne said, shoving his hand away. “But then, a year or so ago … no, actually, it was just before we left for the States in November, so it must have been around the time of the change of government … I caught sight of Roy Hansen and Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden at Café 33 in Grünerløkka.”

“At Café 33?
That
dive?”

“Yes, it struck me too. I went in to deliver something to someone who works there, and there they were sitting at the far end of the bar, with a glass of beer each. Yes, it must have been after the
change of government, because before that I hardly knew who Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden was. She is really quite … pretty? Blonde bimbo and all that, easy to notice. At first I thought of saying hello to Roy, but something held me back, and I left without him spotting me.”

“But, Hanne, how can you remember this so clearly?”

“Because that same day I’d read an article in a newspaper.
Dagbladet
, I think, about these networks journalists are so fascinated by. About dynasties and such like. I think in fact I was carrying that newspaper when I was in Café 33.”

“Fuck,” Billy T. muttered, rubbing his earlobe. “I think I need to go to the doctor’s.”

“But isn’t that quite odd, Billy T.?” Hanne remarked thoughtfully, again gazing at the Batmobile that she had now discovered had a television on its hood and “Il Tempo Gigante” on the trunk. “Isn’t it really striking that Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden says that she doesn’t associate with Birgitte Volter outside work when she actually, just six months ago, was drinking beer with the woman’s husband in a dingy joint in Grünerløkka?”

Billy T. stared at her, rubbing his head repeatedly.

“Yes,” he finally said. “You’re right. It’s strange.”

TUESDAY, APRIL 8

09.00,
OSLO POLICE STATION

“A
nd to think that you have stopped smoking, Hanne!”

“You’re sharp; it took you only ten minutes to register that. Billy T. hasn’t worked it out yet. And you’ve become an Assistant Chief of Police. Splendid!”

Håkon Sand, smiling from ear to ear, grasped her hand and squeezed it hard.

“You must come to visit us as soon as you can. Hans Wilhelm is growing so big!”

Håkon’s little boy was named after Hanne Wilhelmsen, and she thanked the gods she did not believe in that she had remembered to bring a present. Strictly speaking, it was Cecilie who had remembered, in great haste at the airport, when Hanne had left California so abruptly. A soccer shirt for Billy T. and an enormous bright yellow alligator for Hans Wilhelm.

“Won’t you stay with us?”

It was as though the brilliant idea had just dawned on him, and his entire face opened up in a sincere invitation.

“Karen might not be so happy to have a lodger,” Hanne said, brushing him aside. “Isn’t she in the pudding club?”

“Next weekend,” Håkon mumbled, and did not insist. “But you must visit us. Soon.”

There was a faint knock at the door and a uniformed police officer entered. Taken aback, the man stood staring at Hanne.

“Heavens above! Have you come back? Welcome! When did you get here? Are you returning to work?”

As he gazed at Hanne in search of answers, he placed a folder in front of the Assistant Chief of Police.

“No, just a holiday.” Hanne smiled stiffly. “Only a couple of weeks.”

“Hah! I’ll be surprised if you can keep away from the station now!”

They could hear the officer’s laughter long after the door had closed behind him.

“What is it?” Hanne asked, pointing at the folder.

“Let’s have a look.”

Håkon Sand browsed through the contents of the folder, and Hanne Wilhelmsen had to steel herself not to stand up and read over his shoulder. She gave him two minutes, after which she couldn’t bear it any longer.

“What is it? Is it something important?”

“The gun. We think we know what kind of gun the bullet came from.”

“Let me see,” Hanne said enthusiastically, trying to grab the papers.

“Hey, hey,” Håkon protested, placing both hands flat on the bundle of papers. “Confidentiality, you know. You’re on leave. Don’t forget that.”

“Doh!”

For a moment it looked as though he meant it, and she glared at him in disbelief.

“Once a police officer, always a police officer. Honestly!”

“Idiot!”

Laughing, he handed her the green folder.

“Nagant,” Hanne Wilhelmsen mumbled, thumbing through the papers. “Probably a Russian Model 1895. Strange. Bloody strange.”

“Why so?”

She closed the folder but continued to cradle it on her lap.

“Interesting gun. Extremely unusual. Has an entirely unique patented device in the cylinder. The mechanism turns it when the hammer is cocked, and then moves it forward over a little projection on the barrel. A so-called ‘gas-seal’ between the cylinder and barrel. Curious, really, because the patent was once actually stolen from a Norwegian!”

“What?”

“Hans Larsen of Drammen. He invented a unique system for gas-sealed revolvers, and sent it to Liège in Belgium to be produced. They didn’t give a damn about the weapon, stole the patent, and it was developed into a revolver in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century. The Tsar and all that lot.”

“You never cease to amaze me.” Håkon Sand smiled. But he knew that Hanne’s knowledge of marksmanship was such that, many years earlier, several colleagues had tried to enter her as a contestant on the TV quiz show
Double or Quits
. She had protested vigorously when NRK got in touch, and nothing had come of it.

“And what’s the point of having a … gas-sealed barrel, was that what you called it?”

“Greater precision,” Hanne explained. “The problem with a revolver is that there’s a loss of pressure between the cylinder and the barrel, so precision is diminished. It doesn’t usually matter too much, because revolvers were never meant to be used at great distances. I saw one once.”

She fell silent and read on.

“It says here that there are only five such guns listed in the gun register. But you have a big problem, Håkon. A huge problem.”

She closed the folder again, and for a moment it looked as though she longed to slip it surreptitiously into the handbag beside her chair. However, she placed it instead on the table between them.

“As far as I know, we have more than one huge problem in this case,” Håkon said, yawning. “There’s a whole line of problems, so to speak. But what are you referring to?”

“This gun was mass-produced over a long period of time. You’ll find it in a lot of countries, especially in regions that have been under Soviet influence. They sold them cheaply to all their allies both in Europe and Africa in the fifties. For instance, you’ll come across them in …”

She hesitated, and passed her hand quickly over her eyes.

“… in the Middle East. And there are in fact a number of them in Norway. More than five anyway. They tend to have arrived here in curious ways. The one I saw belonged to a Russian exile who had inherited it from his father who had served in the Red Army during the Second World War.”

“Unregistered weapon,” Håkon said dejectedly under his breath, and puffed his cheeks. “That’s all we need.”

Hanne Wilhelmsen laughed heartily and ran her fingers through her hair.

“But you weren’t expecting anything else, were you, Håkon? Did you think the Norwegian Prime Minister would be killed with a gun that was listed in our totally useless gun register, full of holes as it is? Did you honestly think so?”

09.45,
MINISTRY OF HEALTH

A
ctually, no one quite understood how she had become Health Minister. It struck Teddy Larsen, when she closed the meeting with a strange scowl – always these odd facial expressions, ticks, sudden, unprompted and unexplained facial movements – it struck him that nobody actually understood why she was there. Hardly anyone outside the press–Parliament–government triangle had really known who she was when she
was appointed Minister of Health, despite her having been joint Deputy Leader of the Labor Party for four years. The woman had a degree in history and had studied a couple of other insignificant subjects, and had worked as a teacher at one time, long ago. She was divorced and had twin teenage daughters, and had in fact stayed at home for a not inconsiderable period of time. Afterward, she had taken a step up here and there: had spent a short time in the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, but not long, and some time in the Workers’ Education Association, but there too she had not lasted long. Gradually she had attained more powerful positions, while still managing to keep in the background to a remarkable degree. And she had never distinguished herself in health matters in any way. Until she became the minister.