The Lion's Mouth (27 page)

He got to his feet and stepped across to a small plant just beyond the bench; Hanne could not quite decide whether it was a tree seedling, or if it was meant to be so tiny.

“Look at this bush here, miss,” the man said. “It comes all the way from Africa! I don’t have to read books to understand that this little lady needs some extra warmth and care, you know. She sits there, poor thing, longing for home and the heat and her pals down in Africa.”

He stroked the stem with his hand, and Hanne blinked fiercely when it struck her that it did in fact look as if the shrub enjoyed the contact. His hand was large and coarse, but he touched the plant with a soft, sensual sensitivity.

“You love these plants, I can see.” Hanne smiled.

He straightened up proudly, leaning on his rake.

“Can’t do a job like this otherwise,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for forty-two years, you know. What do you do?”

“I’m in the police.”

The man laughed loudly, a rousing, infectious rumble.

“Well, then you’ve got your hands full! With that poor Birgitte woman who kicked the bucket and all that! Have you got time to be running around the streets, eh?”

“I’m actually on leave,” Hanne began, but checked herself. “But I have to keep fit, you know. Regardless.”

The man produced a sizeable pocket watch.

“My goodness, I have to get on now,” he said. “This is my busiest time, you see, miss. The spring. Bye for now!”

Smiling, he lifted his rake in a parting gesture, but farther down the hill he turned on his heel and made his way back.

“Listen,” he said earnestly. “I don’t know much about these investigations. I just work in the garden. But it must be the same in your job too, mustn’t it? That the most important thing is to follow your
instinct
?”

Hanne Wilhelmsen had sat down again. “Yes,” she said softly. “I think you’re right.”

The old man raised his rake once more in farewell, and shuffled off.

Hanne Wilhelmsen inhaled deeply. The air was cool and damp, a kind of internal cleansing cream. She felt light-headed and her thoughts seemed clearer, more ordered than in a long time.

She felt like Monsieur Poirot: dedicated to “the little gray cells”. This situation was unfamiliar. Usually, she was in charge. Usually, all the information about a case was at her fingertips. But this time she knew only bits and pieces: even Billy T. had expressed his frustration at having to be part of such a large team with only a very few people in possession of all the information. Unquestionably, Håkon
was better informed about the bigger picture, but he was in a spin, consumed with anxiety because Karen had not yet given birth.

The victim had two identities: Prime Minister Volter and Birgitte. Which one of these was the actual victim?

Hanne started running again. Downhill, past the old man, now on his knees digging the earth; he did not even notice her. She increased her speed.

Neither identity was linked to a motive. At least not obviously so. Hanne was deeply skeptical about the international motive continually mooted in the newspapers. The extremists angle seemed more likely, even though the Security Service did not seem to have anything specific to offer on that either. On the other hand, it was always difficult to know what the boys on the top floors were up to.

According to Billy T., Birgitte Volter’s life seemed, not to put too fine a point on it, rather boring. Her personal life. Seemingly, there was no room for scandals; her public life was all-consuming. If she had been involved with a secret lover, then it must have been the most secret lover in all of history. The rumors that attached themselves to her, as to all people in the public eye, were vague and had turned out to be totally unverifiable, and most of those were anyway in the distant past.

There was no real reason to murder the Prime Minister either. People did not assassinate Prime Ministers in Norway. On the other hand, Olof Palme had probably thought the same about his country, when he refused to have bodyguards accompany him on his visit to a movie theater on that fateful February evening in 1986.

Hanne had reached Sofienberg Park, and it had now stopped raining. She peered toward the west. That chink in the clouds the old man had pointed out had increased in size, and now there was a whole little patch of blue over there. Sitting down on a swing, she swayed gently to and fro.

The few people with access to the Prime Minister’s office seemed improbable perpetrators. Wenche Andersen would have had to have killed her boss in cold blood and then given a performance worthy of an Oscar for best supporting actress in her dealings with the police. Out of the question. Benjamin Grinde? Who had gone home to make preparations for his fiftieth birthday party and who, according to the police officers who had picked him up, had been completely calm until they told him that Volter was dead? It couldn’t have been him. All the other co-workers at the office had watertight alibis. They had been at meetings, in radio studios, or at dinner engagements.

The answer had seemed so close when she’d asked to see the autopsy report. She had lain awake all night doing battle with the thought. Suicide. The simplest explanation of all. But how had a suicide victim been able to remove the gun she had used and then send it to the police several days later? Hanne Wilhelmsen did not believe in life after death. At least not such an active life. She had tossed and turned, and come up with a number of theories. Fired up, she had begged to see the postmortem report. However, that shattered her theory with a simple little test. It was impossible to kill yourself without leaving forensic evidence. The pathologist had examined Birgitte’s hands, partly to search for evidence of a struggle, and partly as a routine procedure to exclude the possibility of suicide. Which he did. Her hands were chemically free of all traces of gunshot residue. Her theory had collapsed like a house of cards.

Hanne Wilhelmsen did not have the energy to jog any farther. She stood up from the car-tire swing and began to walk home, to Billy T.’s strange hangout at Stolmakergata 15.

Did the answer lie in
why
the gun had been returned to the police? Was somebody trying to tell the police something?

Hanne shook her head in irritation. Her brain was getting
clogged again; her thoughts whirled around noisily without finding a place within the vague pattern she had spent all weekend trying to put together.

The homicide of Birgitte Volter was a case that lacked a motive. Not an obvious one, at least. Not at present. What on earth did they have? Nothing but an eclectic collection of vanished objects, and a dead body. They did have one returned, cleaned revolver of unknown origin. The ballistics tests had shown it
was
the murder weapon that had arrived in the envelope.

A shawl had disappeared. And a pillbox in enameled silver or gold. And a pass. Were these items connected?

Hanne Wilhelmsen’s thoughts suddenly returned to the old man in the Botanic Gardens. Instinct. She stopped, closed her eyes, and attempted to check. She was used to trusting her instincts. Gut feeling. Spinal reflex. Now she could feel nothing but the start of a blister on her left heel.

All the same, she sprinted the rest of the way home.

09.10,
OSLO POLICE STATION

“A
nyhow, it can’t be sheer chance, Håkon!”

Billy T. burst into the Assistant Police Chief’s office, speaking far too loudly. He was carrying something huge and amorphous; it was red and looked like some rubber creature that had deflated.

“What is that you’ve got?” Håkon Sand yawned.

“The whale,” Billy T. said with a grin, propping the expired rubber whale in a corner. “My boys will love that this summer! The biggest floating toy on the beach.”

“Bloody hell, Billy T. You can’t just help yourself to confiscated property!”

“No? Should he just lie there then, this whale …”

As he kicked the toe of his boot in the direction of the red heap, it rustled softly, sadly.

“… and stay all on his own down there in the dark basement? No, he’ll have a better time with my boys.”

Shaking his head, Håkon Sand yawned again.

“Listen to this, Håkon,” Billy T. said, leaning over him. “This can’t be sheer chance. The security guard from the government complex died in that avalanche out in the middle of nowhere on Saturday!”

“Tromsø is a university city with sixty thousand inhabitants. I doubt they’d appreciate you saying the place is in the middle of nowhere.”

“It makes no difference, anyway. Don’t you get it? Now the guy’s dead, we can at least go into his apartment and take a look.”

Billy T. slapped a blue sheet down on the desk in front of the police attorney. “Here. Fill out a search warrant.”

Håkon Sand pushed the sheet away as though it were a box of scorpions.

“How long can they go past their due date before it becomes dangerous?” he mumbled.

“Eh?”

“Women. Pregnant women. How long can they go over their date?”

Billy T. grinned broadly. “Nervous, are we? You’ve been through all this before, Håkon. It’ll be fine.”

“But Hans Wilhelm arrived a week early.”

Håkon tried to suppress yet another yawn.

“I thought Karen said she was due yesterday,” Billy T. remarked.

“Yes,” Håkon muttered, rubbing his face. “But no baby came.”

“Jesus Christ, Håkon! They can go one or two weeks over the date without it being a problem. Anyway, the doctor might have made a mistake about the date. Relax. Fill out this instead.”

Once more he tried to shove the paper across to Håkon.

“Give me a break!”

Håkon attempted first of all to push the paper back, but when this did not work, he grabbed hold of it and tore it to pieces with abrupt, angry movements.

“I don’t know whether you recollect, Billy T. But I remember
fucking
well an episode a few years back when I tried to have that attorney, Jørgen Ulf, taken into custody, based on a witness statement from Karen. It was a real nightmare. The judge bit my head off because I had not acknowledged that the dead have the same rights as the living. I’m not bloody going down that road again.”

Billy T. stared open-mouthed at Håkon.

“Stop catching flies,” Håkon continued. “You might not learn from your mistakes, but I certainly do. What’s more, and I’m saying this now for the last time:
the guard is none of your business
!”

Håkon slammed the flat of his hand on the table, and raised his voice yet another notch. “If you now go off to Tone-Marit to get her to run your errand, then … I’ll be furious! There’s no legal authority for a warrant. And neither is there any reason at all to assume that there’s anything at the security guard’s house that we have legal authority to seize. Here!”

Turning around abruptly, Håkon took hold of one of four statute books on the shelf behind him. He smacked it down on the desk so vehemently that the windowpanes rattled.

“Criminal Procedure Act, section 194! Read it for yourself!”

Billy T. squirmed in his seat.

“What a bloody fuss you’re making!”

Håkon Sand gave a deep sigh.

“I get so bloody
fed up
, Billy T.”

He had dropped his voice, and he appeared to be directing his mutterings at the statute book.

“I get so fed up with you and Hanne sometimes. I know you’re smart. I know you’re usually right. It’s just that …”

Leaning back in the office chair, he stared at the window. Two seagulls were sitting on the window ledge, peering in; they canted their heads, as if they felt sorry for him.

“… you’re not the one who takes all the shit when the legal details don’t add up. It’s me. Do you know what the other attorneys in the building have started calling me?”

“Errand boy,” Billy T. mumbled, trying not to smile.

“It doesn’t bother me. Actually, I’m okay with it. I’m grateful for the relationship I have with you and Hanne. We have solved some major cases along the way, of course.”

Now they were both smiling, and the seagulls hoarsely screeched their agreement outside the window.

“But is it not possible to show me a little … a little respect? Now and again?”

Billy T. looked solemnly at his colleague.

“Now you’re really bloody mistaken, Håkon. I have to tell you …”

Leaning forward, he took hold of Håkon’s hand. Håkon attempted to pull it back, but Billy T. would not let go.

“… if there’s one single lawyer in this building Hanne and I do have respect for, it’s you. No one else. And do you know why?”

Håkon gazed at their two hands without offering a response. Billy T.’s was large and hairy, and surprisingly soft and warm. His own was bony and firm. He turned his hand over; now they were holding hands as if they were going to dance.

“We like you, Håkon. You show us respect. You’re willing to bend the rules a little …”

Billy T. nodded in the direction of the large, red book.

“… when you realize they get in the way of catching the bad guys. You’ve stuck your neck out for Hanne and me loads of times. You are seriously wrong if you don’t think we respect you. Completely wrong.”

Håkon was suffused with a warm glow, and a pleasant feeling flooded through his abdomen; it felt like the long-lost childhood emotion of happiness. But he was also overwhelmed by an indescribable exhaustion. His eyes drifted shut, and he felt faint.

“Bloody hell, I’m so tired. Didn’t sleep the whole night. Just lay there staring and staring at Karen’s stomach. Are you sure it isn’t dangerous?”

“Sure as shooting!” Billy T. said, releasing his hand. “But now you really must listen.”

He rubbed his knuckles across his head.

“This might be really important. Birgitte Volter is dead. And then the security guard is killed in an avalanche. The person who was at her office at absolutely the most critical point. The guy who has been grouchy and surly, owns guns, and who fails to present them for inspection as he promised to. This could be a matter of life and death, Håkon! I’ve got to have that blue sheet!”

Håkon Sand got to his feet, stretched his arms up toward the ceiling and rocked up and down on his toes.