The Lion's Mouth (18 page)

Teddy Larsen did not like his new boss, and that bothered him intensely.

“We’ll draw this morning’s meeting to a close now.”

The undersecretary, political adviser and Senior Private Secretary stood up at the same time as Teddy Larsen.

“You!”

Startled, they all turned to face the minister.

“Gudmund! You stay behind.”

The political adviser, a robust young man from Fauske, shrank and looked enviously at the others as they left the room in relief.

Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden crossed from the conference table to her own large office chair. She sat there gazing at Gudmund Herland. She looked like a slightly worn Barbie doll: her face blank, her eyes like saucers as she made an odd gesture with her upper lip that forced the nervous young man to stare out the window.

“This Grinde case,” she said vaguely.

The political adviser did
not know whether to sit down, but did not receive any assistance from his boss, and therefore remained on his feet. He felt like an idiot.

“Yes,” he ventured, tentatively.

“Why was I not informed that he wants more money?”

“But,” Gudmund Herland began, “I tried to raise the subject—”

“Tried! I won’t put up with not being kept informed about such important matters.”

She was fiddling with a pen that threatened to disintegrate under her hard, stabbing movements.

“Ruth-Dorthe, I did tell you that he wanted a meeting to discuss this with you, but you—”

“You did
not
tell me what it was about.”

“But—”

“That’s an end to it.”

She was determined, and waved her hands wildly without looking at him.

“You need to sharpen up. You really must sharpen up. You can go now.”

Gudmund Herland did not leave. He stood in the middle of the floor, feeling a wave of uncontrollable rage surge through his body, as he clamped his mouth shut and closed his eyes. The bloody bitch. The damn bastard harpy. Not only had he informed her that Benjamin Grinde wanted to talk to her, he had also advised her as earnestly as he could to meet the man. The health scandal was something she could use to make her name: she could demonstrate initiative. If there was one thing this government needed to do, it was to show exactly that kind of ability to take action. But she had listened to him with half an ear, and brushed him aside. She did not have time. Maybe later. That was her perennial comment: maybe later. This woman had no idea what it meant to be a government minister. She thought you could keep normal office hours, and she became completely
pissed off if anything came between her and dinner with her gorgeous daughters.

He clenched his teeth so hard that there was a cracking sound, and he only just managed to hear what she said.

“Are you going to just stand there?”

He opened his eyes. Now she looked like a member of the Addams Family, her cheeks were drawn up in such a diabolical expression. She was not worth it. His political career would not run aground on this particular rock. Without uttering a word, he turned on his heel and walked out, seizing one minuscule scrap of pleasure, all the same, by slamming the door unnecessarily hard behind him.

Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden lifted the phone and asked her secretary to invite the Senior Private Secretary to come in again. While she waited, she leaned back in the chair and rested her feet on the wastepaper basket as she studied the curtains. They were not to her taste, and it annoyed her that they had still not been replaced, despite her having given instructions about them several times.

She was nervous about this infant mortality case. If she was going to lose her ministerial job in the coming reshuffle, which she seriously doubted, it might turn out that she had overlooked something, something that might then be used against her. Perhaps. What was it Benjamin Grinde had wanted to discuss with her, that he had chosen to take to Birgitte instead? Was it simply a fuss about money, or was there something more to it? Something else?

She dipped a sugar cube into her coffee cup and placed the sweet, brown lump on her tongue. Irritated, and not without a certain sense of anxiety, she reflected on her conversation with Little Lettvik the previous evening. She had not understood what the journalist was looking for. Nor had she given the woman anything either. But the conversation had left Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden
with a gnawing feeling of unease, and she gulped sour reflux in the midst of all the sweetness.

The Senior Private Secretary stood in the doorway.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Yes.” Ruth-Dorthe sniffled and sat properly in the chair, sugar crunching between her teeth, causing her to swallow several times. “I want all the papers concerning the infant mortality case here at once. Immediately.”

The Senior Private Secretary nodded gently, aware that this actually meant she would have preferred to have been given the papers yesterday.

12.39,
SECURITY SERVICE SECTION
,
OSLO POLICE STATION

W
hen Ole Henrik Hermansen laughed, the sound was explosive and unfamiliar. The Security Service Chief was a buttoned-up man in every respect: his immaculate exterior and expressionless features made him the cliché of a secret agent. His face was impassive and lacked distinctive characteristics, from his graying, combed-back hair to his pale, watery eyes and his straight, thin-lipped mouth; this man could blend into any crowd of human beings, anywhere whatsoever in the Western world.

“Where did you get hold of that?”

The police officer facing him looked down at his chest and smiled self-consciously.

“I only wear it up here. Only at work. Never outside.”

Bold black letters across the entire front of the gray T-shirt declared: “I’ve got your file”.

“No, I certainly hope not. That sort of thing could bring us trouble.”

“More trouble here, boss,” the police officer said, placing a file on his desk and searching around for a chair.

“Sit down. What’s this?”

“A report from the Swedish Security Police. Very troubling.” Massaging his right shoulder with his left hand, he pulled a face.

The Security Service Chief did not touch the folder, but gazed intently at his subordinate.

“Yesterday evening a small plane, a little six-seater Cessna, crashed in northern Sweden, in Norrland. In Västerbotten County, between Umeå and Skellefteå,” the man in the T-shirt began.

Now he changed tack, and brutally kneaded his left shoulder with his right hand.

“We sent a full emergency warning to all our neighboring countries on Friday evening, and security measures surrounding the Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, and his Danish counterpart, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, have been ramped up. Therefore this has not come out, fortunately …”

Hesitating, he stared at the folder he had placed before his boss. It would be better if his boss read it. But Ole Henrik Hermansen still made no sign of touching anything. Only an almost imperceptible raising of his eyebrows indicated his growing impatience to hear the rest.

“Prime Minister Göran Persson should have been on that plane. He was scheduled to open a major boat exhibition in Skellefteå, and because of the Social Democrats’ national conference in Umeå, he had to take a small plane in order to manage both.”

“He
should
have been on that flight,” the Security Service Chief commented quietly, implying a question in his words.

“Yes. Fortunately, he had to cancel the trip. At the last minute. The pilot flew the plane alone. As far as I understand it, he lived there – in Skellefteå. The pilot, that is. Now he’s dead.”

At long last, Hermansen opened the folder. He leafed through it rapidly, so quickly that he could not possibly have absorbed much of its contents.

“And what are our Swedish friends saying? Sabotage?”

“They don’t know. For the time being, they are mostly happy the story has not leaked out. But they have their own thoughts about it. As do we.”

Ole Henrik Hermansen got to his feet and crossed over to a map of Scandinavia on the wall. It was covered in red pinheads, clustered together in places. The map was well used. He let his finger run along the east coast of Sweden.

“Farther up,” the police officer said. “Here.”

He had followed his boss, and now placed a stubby forefinger on the map.

“Right between Kvärnbyn and Vebomark.”

Two pinheads cruelly spearing Malmö fell to the floor, though neither of the two men had touched them.

“I need to put up a new map,” Hermansen said. “This must have been hanging here since the dawn of time. How many people knew that he was to make that journey?”

“Next to no one. Not even the pilot.”

“Not even the pilot,” the Security Service Chief repeated softly, using a finger to scratch his hairline. “How concerned are the Swedish Security Police?”

“Extremely.”

The police officer hoisted his shoulders and rolled his head from side to side.

“And what’s more, Göran Persson is coming here to Norway. For the funeral. Of course.”

Ole Henrik Hermansen took a deep breath.

“Yes. Who’s not coming!”

The police officer walked over to the door and was about to close it behind him when Hermansen suddenly called out.

“You!”

The police officer pushed his head round the door again.

“Yes?”

“Take off that shirt. On reflection, it’s not so amusing after all. Take it off, please. And put it away somewhere.”

15.30,
PMO

“I
sat here. I just … I just sat here!”

Wenche Andersen buried her face in her hands and started to cry, quietly and inconsolably. Her shoulders were shaking underneath her russet-colored jacket, and, crouching beside her, Tone-Marit laid her hand on Wenche Andersen’s back. The Prime Minister’s secretary had finally begun to reveal that the events of the past few days had left their mark: she seemed shrunken, and much older.

“Can I get you something? Maybe a glass of water?”

“I just sat there. I didn’t do a thing!”

She removed her hands from her face. Underneath her left eye, a black streak showed that her mascara had started to run.

“If only I had
done
something,” she hiccupped. “Then I might have been able to save her!”

A reconstruction was never easy. Billy T. merely sighed, snatching a glimpse of Supreme Court Judge Benjamin Grinde, who also looked somehow diminished. His suit hung more loosely, and the pale tan of his complexion had completely vanished. Now he could see the slight pattern of broken veins on each of the man’s cheeks, and his lips were pressed together in a tight, unattractive line.

“You couldn’t have saved her,” Tone-Marit consoled her. “She died instantly. We know that now. There was nothing you could have done.”

“But who on earth
did
it, then? How did they get
in?
They must have gone past me somehow or other. Why did I just
sit
here?”

Wenche Andersen stretched out across the table, and Billy T. peered at the ceiling, trying to find the patience that he had lost long ago. It had taken an unnecessarily long time to complete the sound test: a police officer with blank cartridges had fired several shots in the Prime Minister’s office. Although they could be heard only faintly through the double doors, Wenche Andersen had jumped just as high in her seat every time. From the toilet, nothing could be heard. The problem was that Wenche Andersen could not say with any certainty when she had left her post.

“Perhaps we should just try and get started,” he suggested. “Wouldn’t it be better to get this over and done with?”

The secretary sniffed loudly, but did not stop weeping. However, she did at least straighten up, and took hold of the tissue that Tone-Marit offered her.

“Maybe so,” Wenche Andersen whispered. “Maybe we should just begin.”

Benjamin Grinde looked at Billy T., and after receiving a nod as a signal to leave, he stepped out into the corridor.

“Wait!” Billy T. shouted. “Don’t come in until I tell you!”

Then he leaned across Wenche Andersen’s desk, and said softly, “So, the time was quarter to five. Around 16.45. Those who were still here were …”

He shuffled the papers in front of him.

“Øyvind Olve, Kari Slotten, Sylvi Berit Grønningen and Arne Kavli,” Wenche Andersen said helpfully, with a sniff between each name. “But they weren’t here the whole time. They left in the course of the next half hour. All of them.”

“Fine,” Billy T. said. Turning toward the door, he yelled, “Come in!”

Benjamin Grinde strolled through the doorway, attempting to wrench a smile from the fixed grimace he had worn since his arrival. He nodded to Wenche Andersen.

“I have an appointment with the Prime Minister,” he said.

“Stop,” Billy T. commanded, scratching his ear. “There’s no need to do any play-acting here. Just tell me what you did.”

“All right,” muttered Benjamin Grinde. “So I came in, and said what I just said. Then I was asked to wait for a second, and then …”

He concentrated, and Wenche Andersen rushed to help once again.

“I stood up and went in to see Mrs. Volter, and she just waved him in, and I said to go ahead, and he went past me, just like that.”

Benjamin Grinde moved tentatively toward Wenche Andersen. They could not agree on which side to pass each other, and stood on one spot, swaying from one side to the other like two fighting cocks unsure which was the stronger.

“Stop,” Billy T. demanded again, with a deep sigh and meaningful look in the direction of the Head of CID, who had still not uttered a single word. “As I said a moment ago …”

He spoke in exaggeratedly slow, clear tones, as though faced with five-year-old children who still had no idea how to play Ludo.

“… don’t act it out. Try to relax. It’s not particularly significant how you stood and where you walked in here. So …”

Placing a large fist on Benjamin Grinde’s shoulder, he led him purposefully through the doors to the Prime Minister’s office.

“You entered here, and then …”

Benjamin Grinde willingly allowed himself to be led past the conference table and out to the center of the floor. Billy T. released his shoulder warily, and nodded forward. It was no use. The Supreme Court judge remained standing there, puzzled, and his complexion had turned even paler.