The Lion's Mouth (23 page)

He resisted as vigorously as he could as three men forced him into the vehicle.

“I’m not fucking involved in this! Can’t you hear?”

“Shut your mouth,” snarled a uniformed woman at the front of the van. “You lot lack all sense of decency. To wreck a …
wreck a funeral! Have you no shame!
”

She had turned to face him, and her words seemed almost to punch holes in the wire screen that separated off the space at the back where the detainees sat on benches.

“But I’m not bloody part of this!” Brage screamed again, banging his head repeatedly on the wall. “Let me go, for God’s sake!”

The only response was the rumble of the engine as it started, and a mumbled mantra from his fellow prisoners: “Stop the whaling NOW! Stop the whaling NOW!”

12.13,
OSLO CATHEDRAL

“I
t was absolutely beautiful. So touchingly beautiful.”

Birdie Grinde tried to keep her voice down, but it was so high-pitched that, even when she whispered, it could be heard from a radius of several meters. She clung to her son’s arm, dressed in the kind of black clothing that would be more suitable for a funeral in
The Godfather
than that of a Norwegian, social democrat Prime Minister. Everything was black. And shiny. High-heeled shoes, fishnet stockings, dress, and cape; to round it off she wore a glossy pillbox hat, with a stiff black veil covering her face. What she did not yet know, but would take great pleasure in witnessing later that evening when she watched the footage of the ceremony on television, was that she was repeatedly captured by the TV cameras; this sobbing woman dressed in full mourning must surely be a close family member.

“Tone it down, Mother,” Benjamin Grinde whispered. “Can you just tone it down a little?”

Roy Hansen and Per Volter were standing in the vestibule, both wearing dark suits. The son was half a head taller than his father, but both had gray complexions and downcast eyes. They held out their hands at random intervals, and after a moment’s hesitation, many people chose to walk past the two of them without offering
their condolences. Others stood for a few seconds in quiet conversation, and most of the female government ministers gave them both long, heartfelt hugs.

Little Lettvik was with a group of journalists several meters away, scrutinizing the mourners. When Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden stepped forward, last in the line of Cabinet ministers, Little noticed that Roy Hansen turned away, apparently overcome by a wave of sobs, but the spasm did not subside until Ruth-Dorthe gave up and headed for the massive oak doors of the exit. Per Volter had been more obvious than his father: he refused to take her proffered hand and turned decisively toward the Bishop of Oslo, who towered over the mourners in full pontificals, looking like an old eagle in borrowed feathers.

“Roy,” whispered Birdie Grinde when she finally reached him. “Roy! What a tragedy!”

Little Lettvik moved closer to the exit: who was this old woman on Judge Grinde’s arm?

“And Birgitte too,” Birdie Grinde continued; people were beginning to turn and look at her. “What a dreadful thing to happen. Little Birgitte! Little, innocent, lovely Birgitte!”

She sniffed loudly as she turned toward Per Volter, who stared in surprise at this strange woman he had never clapped eyes on before.

“Per! So tall and handsome!”

She tried to embrace the young man, but he stepped back in alarm. Birdie Grinde was left hanging onto her son’s arm, teetering dangerously because her high heels had got caught in a crack on the floor; she was on the verge of falling over.

“My God, I think I’m going to faint,” she gasped.

Benjamin Grinde clutched his mother’s arm tightly, and a police officer managed to grasp her around the waist and lift her upright.

“May I help you outside, madam?” he said politely, and without waiting for an answer, he escorted her out of the doors, through
the crowds and across to the Parliament Building thirty meters away. Benjamin Grinde slinked after them, his lapels pulled up to conceal his face.

The journalists in the vestibule chortled at the incident. Everyone apart from Little Lettvik. Instead, she jotted down a few words on a spiral notepad: “Old woman with BG. Interesting?”

13.00,
SLOTTSBAKKEN
,
THE SLOPE LEADING UP TO THE ROYAL PALACE

T
he journalists had been right. They had scored a bull’s-eye in a total of sixteen ministerial posts. The pre-appointment talks had not produced a single surprise. Tryggve Storstein stood in the middle of the long row of ministers with a large bouquet of red roses and a preoccupied, aloof smile appropriate to the occasion. After all, only an hour had passed since his predecessor had been laid to rest. Fewer spectators than normal had gathered to greet the new Cabinet, but even more journalists and photographers.

It was drizzling, and the Minister of Transport and Communications appeared impatient to have the customary photo session over and done with. She continually looked at her watch, and was premature in heading for the black government cars; Tryggve Storstein hauled her back.

Finally it was all over, and the crowd dispersed. Grabbing hold of Ruth-Dorthe’s arm, Little Lettvik coerced her into an embrace. “Cell phone tonight,” she whispered in her ear.

17.15,
OSLO POLICE STATION

“F
irst he invites the cops to look at his guns; then he vanishes into thin air! Don’t you realize this stinks to high heaven, Håkon?”

Håkon Sand used his right hand to produce an exuberant drum roll on the desk.

“Not being at home when you’re on sick leave is not what I call ‘vanishing into thin air,’ Billy T. He could be anywhere. At the doctor’s. At his girlfriend’s. At his mother’s, for that matter.”

“But he’s not answering his phone either! I’ve phoned him several times since yesterday evening, and he can’t be at the bloody doctor’s for twenty-four hours!”

“At the hospital, then. Or at his girlfriend’s, as I said.”

“That guy doesn’t have a girlfriend. Sure as shooting.”

Running his hands through his hair, Håkon Sand invited Billy T. to take a seat.

“What do you actually think you’ve got on this guard?” he asked wearily.

“In the first place, he was definitely at the scene. Secondly, he owns guns. Four listed here in the gun register. And most suspicious of all …”

Reaching out for a half-empty bottle of cola, Billy T. guzzled the contents without asking the owner’s permission.

“You’re welcome,” Håkon said sourly.

“But listen,” Billy T. said, before his face changed into a grimace as he raised one buttock to emit a substantial, prolonged fart.

“For fuck’s sake, Billy T., can’t you
cut
that out?”

Standing up, Håkon waved one hand frantically as he held his nose with the other. Then he clumsily unlatched the window, throwing it open as wide as he possibly could. Billy T. guffawed and threw the cola bottle in the wastepaper basket.

“The most suspicious thing of all,” Billy T. repeated, “is that the man changed his mind.”

“What do you mean by changed his mind?”

Håkon was holding a box of matches, lighting them one at a time until the sulfur had burned out and he could light another.

“First of all he said that I could come home with him to check his guns. Then he changed his mind and told me that he’d bring them here. I accepted gracefully. Since then, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him. And now he’s supposed to be on sick leave. Huh!”

“So you think, then,” Håkon said slowly, “that we should pull in a guy that we have nothing more on than that he did his job last Friday. A guy who has made the grave error of not coming running to Billy T. as he had promised, and what’s more has made himself guilty in this particularly serious criminal case by falling ill!”

He threw the box of matches across the table; then tilted his head back and supported his hands on the armrests.

“Then you’ll have to find a different lawyer. A search warrant implies there will be an arrest. We’ve had one over-hasty warrant already. Besides, this is not your job, in fact. You have just as much a problem as Hanne! In sticking to what you’re meant to do, I mean. The role of the security guard in all this is not up to you to judge.”

“Bloody hell, Håkon!”

Billy T. slammed his fist down on the desk.

“It was Tone-Marit who insisted that I interview the guy!”

“It’s no use.” Håkon grinned. “Forget it. Just you shuffle back to your own office and find some more of Volter’s friends to talk to.”

Without uttering a word, Billy T. left the room and slammed the door behind him.

“Stop the whaling NOW,” Håkon Sand said, giving a long and hearty chuckle.

Not until he had concluded two telephone conversations and was about to get down to work again did he discover that Billy T. had duped him completely.

The copy of the autopsy report that most certainly had nothing to do with Billy T. but that he had fussed like a child to be allowed sight of, was no longer on his desk.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Billy T. must have swiped it.

19.00,
STOLMAKERGATA
15

“D
on’t you want to watch the news roundup, Hanne?”

Taking a cold beer from the fridge, Billy T. surveyed his living room with an air of satisfaction. Although he had never noticed the orange curtains that had hung there before, he could see that the new, Air Force blue ones were more attractive, especially now that Hanne had been to the Idé Skeidar furniture store to buy a settee, also in blue. And she had found some old posters lying in the attic. He had no idea where she had got hold of the frames, but they looked very attractive on the wall behind the settee. On the other hand, the potted plants were quite unnecessary. Even though the pots with their Indian patterns were fine in themselves, the greenery would be dead within three weeks. He knew that only too well. He had tried it before.

Hanne, sitting engrossed in the copy of the autopsy report, chewing on a pen, did not reply.

“Hello! Earth calling Hanne Wilhelmsen! Do you want to watch
Dagsrevy?”

He tapped her head with his bottle and switched on the television. Funeral music thundered from the loudspeakers.

“Fine. But don’t disturb me!”

Irritated, she rubbed her head where the bottle had thumped her, but did not even lift her eyes to the screen. Billy T. groaned and sat on the floor to watch the broadcast.

Without warning, he burst into gales of laughter.

“Look at those idiots! Look!”

An astonishing piece of footage captured the hotheaded protesters whose chief aim, quite literally, was to put an end to Norwegian whaling. A voiceover related that one Norwegian, three Dutch, two French and six American citizens had been arrested after the demonstration in front of Oslo Cathedral.

“Those Americans who protest against whaling! The very people who grill and gas and poison
human beings!
And who have millions of citizens living below the poverty line! Bloody hypocrites!”

He took a proper slug of the beer, and farted again.

“You really need to cut that out,” Hanne muttered, but she still didn’t look up. “Didn’t your mother teach you to go to the loo to do that sort of thing?”

“First it was my ear,” Billy T. said testily. “Now that’s better, but my stomach’s playing up. I just
have to
get rid of that gas! Better out than in, as my grandmother used to say. Hush!”

There was no need to hush her, as Hanne was completely immersed in the autopsy report. The news bulletin about the demonstrators had finished, and the anchorman informed them that the Norwegian had been freed when it turned out that he had not had anything to do with the protest, while the foreigners had been remanded in custody.

“What is it you’re actually looking for?” Billy T. asked, for the first time showing more than a passing interest in what Hanne was doing.

“Nothing,” Hanne sighed, gathering the papers together before inserting them in a plastic wallet. “Absolutely nothing. I thought I’d had an ingenious idea that would have given us the answer to everything.”

“What?”

“But as usual it wasn’t so ingenious after all. The autopsy report precludes what I thought. But it was helpful to check it out. Thanks for getting it for me.”

“I had to fool that nice boy of yours. What was it you thought that was so ingenious?”

“Nothing,” Hanne said with a smile. “It didn’t add up. Shall we play?”

“Yes!”

Billy T. sprang up to fetch the bulky, old-fashioned table-soccer set from the bedroom.

“I bags being England,” he shouted as he maneuvered the table with its rubber figures impaled on eight steel rods into the living room.

“Fine. I’ll be the Netherlands.”

It did not bother either of them in the slightest that one team had pale green shirts and the other blue. After all, they could have been old spare kits.

21.30,
OLE BRUMMS VEI
212

A
lone at last. His dark suit jacket, which looked just as tired and dejected as he did, was hanging on the back of a chair. Roy Hansen gazed at the photo of Birgitte on the sideboard. The candle beside it, the only source of light in the room, seemed almost hypnotic.

This past week had been unbelievable. He had never had any interest in New Age or paranormal phenomena, and was not religious either. However, the last few days had been as close to an out-of-body experience as he reckoned it was possible to have.

Tryggve Storstein had come to visit, embarrassed and exhausted but showing such empathy and sincere sorrow that, in some strange way, it had gratified Roy Hansen.

Tryggve had moved him. They had talked for a long time, and had sat quietly together for even longer. The pair who had come from the Protocol Section of the Department of State had been
less welcome. The woman had insisted on obtaining the services of City Maid: the flowers, dust and darkness had to be swept away. At least now it was clean and tidy in here.

They had all tried to foist themselves on him this afternoon. They wished him well; he knew that. But he did not want anyone here. Only Per. But Per would not speak to him. He was either out jogging, on endless long runs; or else he sat in his room by himself, doing nothing, or talking on the phone, sometimes for ages, in conversation with somebody or other, though Roy had no idea who.