The Lion's Mouth (16 page)

“Eight hundred too many children died in 1965, Little Lettvik,” he eventually commented, softly and dramatically, his voice
earnest; she heard the rustling of paper in the background. “At least eight hundred children! In 1964, 1,078 children under the age of one died in this country. In 1966, the figure was 976. The numbers for the years before and after this are relatively constant at around a thousand; these days it’s dropped to around three hundred. But in 1965, Little Lettvik, 1,914 infants died! Such a fluctuation cannot be simply chance. They died of something. And the authorities will not investigate what that something was. A scandal. I repeat: a huge scandal.”

Little Lettvik knew all this. She had read everything about the case. She had still not received an answer to her question, and for a moment she wondered whether she had the energy to continue the conversation. Then she suddenly changed tack. “What about Benjamin Grinde?”

Advocate Fredriksen gave a loud, booming laugh.

“You’re certainly wide of the mark there! Or the police are, at least. And they have obviously realized that, as far as I understand it, even though you’ve hyped it all up. Benjamin Grinde is an outstanding man. Slightly boring, slightly pompous, but that comes with the territory. It’s pervasive in that place. Oh no, Benjamin Grinde’s an unusually talented lawyer, and an irreproachable citizen. I was very pleased when they chose him to be chairman of the investigating commission. I have also taken the liberty of telling him so. On the quiet.”

This was futile. Little Lettvik said thanks for the information without tangible enthusiasm and then she dialed a final phone number. She would have to eat something soon.

“Edvard Larsen,” a pleasant voice answered.

“Hi, Teddy. Little Lettvik here. How’s it going?”

“All right,” the public relations manager in the Ministry of Health said tamely at the other end; Little Lettvik called at all hours and seemed to have limited understanding that he could
not permit her a direct connection to Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden. “How can I help you today?”

“Listen here. I really
must
speak to the Minister of Health.”

“What’s it about?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you. But it’s important.”

Teddy Larsen was usually the most patient of people, an invaluable talent in his post as the minister’s mouthpiece in the media world. But now he was about to run aground.

“You know very well that I need to know what it’s about. We don’t really have to go over all that yet again, do we?”

He tried to take the edge off his own irritation by laughing briefly. Little Lettvik groaned.

“Okay, then. It’s completely harmless, but it is important. I want to ask her something in connection with the work of the Grinde Commission.”

“Just give me your questions, and I’ll make sure that you receive the answers as quickly as possible.”

“Thanks for your help, but no thanks,” Little Lettvik said, slamming down the receiver.

However, she was not so very discouraged. No member of the government was as easy to talk to as Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden. It was only a matter of finding something with which she could scratch the Cabinet minister’s back. An exchange. Little Lettvik sat absent-mindedly flicking through her Filofax, and of their own volition, her fingers found their way to Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden’s confidential home number.

It was just so bloody annoying that she had to wait until tonight.

20.50,
STOLMAKERGATA
15

“You could really try to make it a bit more attractive in here, you know. For the boys’ sake, at least.”

Hanne Wilhelmsen wore an apron around her middle, its aged leather spattered with wine and food stains. She waved the wooden spoon in the air, splashing the tomato sauce.

“You could at least try not to cover my entire kitchen in sauce, then,” Billy T. replied, grinning. “That doesn’t help make the place more attractive, does it?”

He wiped the fridge door with the back of his hand and licked off the red mess.

“Mmm, delicious. The boys should’ve been here. Spaghetti with minced beef and tomato is their favorite.”

“Tagliatelle bolognese,” she corrected him. “That’s not spaghetti.” She held up the packet in front of him.

“Flat spaghetti,” he declared. “But what are you going to do with that?” Snatching up a stick of celery, he popped it into his mouth and pointed at a whole nutmeg.

“Don’t touch!” She waved the wooden spoon again, and this time he got a long red stain across his immaculate white T-shirt.

“Look at this living room,” she said dejectedly, securing the lid on the pan. “Those curtains must be from some time in the seventies!”

She was probably right. They were made of coarse-weave fabric, orange with brown stripes, and were hanging sadly crooked. In the folds you could see dust that must have been gathering there for years.

“At least you could have washed them. And meanwhile look at that.” She peered between the upper and lower cabinets in the open-plan kitchen, at the stereo system on the bookshelf; it sparkled and shone in the light from a steel lamp with three bulbs and a raffia shade. “How much did that cost?”

“Eighty-two thousand,” Billy T. mumbled, attempting to reach the pan with a spoon.

“Don’t
touch
, I said. Eighty-two thousand? If you had taken just
half that sum and spent it at IKEA instead, you could have made it really nice in here. You don’t even have a proper settee!”

“The boys like sitting on the floor.”

“You really are an oddball.” She smiled. “I’ll see what I can get done while I’m here.”

Billy T. set the table and turned the television around so that they could watch Channel 21 while they were eating. Then he opened two beers and poured them as he adjusted the volume.

“By now people will be getting fed up with all these extra bulletins,” Hanne Wilhelmsen muttered as she took off her apron. “I’ve watched two of them today, and they repeat the same thing all the time. Very nearly, anyway.”

The lady on screen was smart and inspired confidence, even though she reminded Hanne of a cartoon character.

“My goodness, she’s had her hair cut,” Hanne Wilhelmsen commented. “It looks lovely, actually.”

“That lady must be almost as exhausted as us by now,” Billy T. remarked, shoveling down his food. “Bloody fantastic! She’s had umpteen bulletins a day. And Channel 21’s not what it usually is, either. It’s supposed to be news first, then sport, followed by commentary. Everything’s been turned upside down now. Even them.”

He used his spoon to point at the screen.

“Shh,” Hanne signaled. “Keep quiet.”

“And in the studio for this bulletin we have with us Chief of Police Hans Christian Mykland. Welcome, Sir!”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll come directly to the point, Sir, since I know you have far more important things to do than stand here with me. Can you give a straight answer as to whether the police are now any closer to solving the Volter case, almost exactly three days after her murder?”

“Poor man,” Hanne mumbled as she listened to the Police Chief’s reply. “He’s really got nothing to report, and yet he has to
pad it out as though there was a great deal. Are you honestly so at a loss, Billy T.?”

“Just about.”

He slurped the tagliatelle so that it formed a big red rose at the far corner of his mouth.

“Clown,” Hanne muttered.

“We do have something more,” Billy T. said, drying his mouth with his lower arm. “For instance, we’ve quite a rare caliber of weapon.”

“Oh. How rare?”

“It’s a 7.62 millimeter. We’ll have the answer to what kind of gun was used quite soon, I think. But he can’t say that there.”

He nodded again in the direction of the television.

“I just can’t understand the point of appearing in the studio, because he can’t really say anything at all. For fuck’s sake, he’s bloody furious about the nonsense that came out about the arrest warrant, and we’ve all had an extraordinary double-strength muzzle clamped on us.”

“There’s little hope of that being particularly effective,” Hanne said as she took a slug of beer. “Oslo Police Station leaks like a sieve. Always has.”

The Police Chief looked incredibly relieved when he was eventually allowed to leave. The red-haired lady transferred the viewers to another studio, where the leaders of the parties represented in Parliament were seated along a boomerang-shaped table. The program host in the center stared rather too long at the camera before starting to speak. He introduced a film clip that also appeared after a lengthy pause.

“Why can’t they
ever
manage to get it together?” Hanne asked with a smile. “In the States, you never see that kind of thing. They’re able to do things smoothly, each and every time.”

To the accompaniment of fairly meaningless images from Parliament, a commentator gave an account of the difficult game
of solitaire that was now being played. Eventually, the program host in the studio turned to an immaculately dressed and extremely solemn man in a light suit jacket.

“I thought it was that woman who was the leader of the Christian Democratic Party,” Billy T. commented. “Not that guy there.”

“She’s the leader, but he’s the parliamentary … Shh!”

“It would be completely crazy if we were to make political capital out of this very tragic situation that has occurred with the murder of Prime Minister Volter.”

“Does that mean that your centrist coalition – the Center Party; the Liberals; and your own party, the Christian Democrats – will not be seizing this opportunity to take power?”

The program host spoke in an odd mixture of dialects with a faint trace of a Trøndelag accent, and the strange lock of hair at the nape of his neck was bobbing up and down in time to his voice.

“As I said, a particularly tragic event has struck our country, and we parties of the center have decided that this is not the time to make changes. We must all stand together during this difficult period, and then the people will have the chance to decide the future government of the country at the election in September.”

The Christian Democrat man was not finished, but the interviewer turned to the left and addressed a man with a full, well-maintained, mottled beard and a resigned expression.

“How do you in the Conservative Party interpret this?”

The man shook his head almost imperceptibly, with a discouraged air, and immediately fixed his gaze on the interviewer.

“Media course,” Hanne said. “He’s been on a media course.”

“What?” Billy T. asked, helping himself yet again.

“Forget it. Shh.”

“This is a difficult time, and certainly not the time for political game-playing or mud-slinging. Nevertheless, I take the liberty of saying that this clearly demonstrates just how unrealistic the
centrist alternative is. For several months now, the three centrist parties have been promoting their coalition in readiness for the election this autumn, but now that an opportunity has arisen, they’ve dropped the idea like a hot potato. This shows that we Conservatives have been right all along. An alternative to the Labor Party
must
include the Conservatives.”

“We won’t receive an answer to that until this autumn, however.” It was the Christian Democratic representative who intervened, but the interviewer resolutely cut him off.

Hanne laughed loudly. “They don’t want power, any of them! They’re damn well afraid!”

“Politics.” Billy T. snorted, helping himself for a third time. “You can have a job here. As a cook.”

“Chef,” Hanne said absent-mindedly, without taking her eyes from the TV screen.

“What?”

“As a chef. Really good cooks are called chefs, whether male or female. But I want to listen to this, if you don’t mind.”

“It would quite simply be wrong to take advantage of this extraordinary situation.” This was the representative of the Center Party echoing his coalition partner in the Christian Democrats, and the Conservative shook his head again, this time more decidedly.

“But what’s the difference?” he asked. “What exactly will be different come the autumn? The Labor Party is in a minority today, and will still be so in September. As they have been throughout the post-war period. Do the Center Party, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats really believe they’ll gain a
majority
in Parliament after the election?”

“As I said, that remains to be seen,” the Christian Democrat man tried to interject, but the program host waved his hand determinedly and the Conservative did not brook any interruption.

“Then it’s really about time we got to know what your policies are on the important issues. The voters are entitled to hear. What’s your position on the building of gas-fired power stations? What about the European Economic Area? Child benefits? And what do you genuinely believe with regard to the sickness benefit system? Are we going to find out anything about these matters before people go to the ballot boxes?”

They all began to speak at once.

“When the cat’s away, the mice will play,” Hanne commented.

“But that lot don’t want to play,” Billy T. said. “They’re sitting stock still, frightened that somebody will invite them out to the playground! Sick. They make me sick.”

That did not seem to be holding him back any, and he piled his plate for a fourth time, scraping the bottom of the casserole dish.

“Can’t I put on some music instead?” he asked.

“No, honestly, this is important.”

At last the men had stopped arguing, or at least they were not allowed to continue. Instead the viewers were transferred to the woman in the other studio, who had Tryggve Storstein standing at her side.

“Bloody hell,
he
looks exhausted, doesn’t he?” Hanne said under her breath, as she put down her beer glass without touching another drop.

Tryggve Storstein was so drained that not even the makeup artists at NRK had been able to do much for him. The dark shadows under his eyes were obvious in the strong light, and his mouth had taken on a sad, almost sullen expression that persisted throughout the interview.

“Yes, Tryggve Storstein, despite the tragic circumstances, may we now congratulate you on becoming the new Party Leader?”