The Lion's Mouth (6 page)

“Now you’d damn well better set to work, Little.”

It was the editor. As usual he shot a look filled with loathing across the tiny room, before turning on his heel and repeating, “Now you’d better get to it. There should be more than enough to be going on with.”

07.00,
GOVERNMENT CONFERENCE ROOM IN THE TOWER BLOCK

T
hey all felt the same insistent revulsion as they passed the entrance to the Prime Minister’s office on the floor below. Although there was no longer a police presence in the vicinity – at least not a visible one – and although the only obvious abnormality was a closed door that was usually kept open, they were aware that, behind the wall they all tried to avoid staring at, Birgitte Volter had been shot and killed twelve hours previously.

The government ministers were extraordinarily quiet; only the Minister of Trade’s singsong voice was just about audible.

“It’s just so awful. I simply can’t find the words.”

She was sitting at the massive oval table on which stood several slim, modern microphones. One of them was audaciously pointing directly at her; she held her hand over it as she leaned forward to gain the ear of the Minister of Defense. It was no use. They were both sitting near the top of the table, as their age and seniority in Cabinet required, and the sound carried right across the room.

The Foreign Minister was last to enter. The others were already seated. He was unusually pale, and the Minister of Culture could swear that his hair had turned grayer overnight. She tried to send him an encouraging smile, but he did not make eye contact with any of them. Standing momentarily beside the Prime Minister’s seat at the head of the oval table, he made up his mind quickly and drew out the large leather chair, left it vacant, and sat down on the chair to its left. The Foreign Minister’s seat.

“Good that you could all manage to come,” he said, peering round at his colleagues.

The Minister of Agriculture was the only one dressed in everyday clothes: denim jeans and a flannel shirt. He had been fishing at his summer cottage when the government car came to collect him, and there had not been time to go to his apartment for a more appropriate outfit. Now he was sitting fiddling with a tin of snuff but did not dare help himself to a pinch, even though the craving was overwhelming. It would appear disrespectful. He stuffed the tin into his breast pocket.

“This is a terrible day for us all,” the Foreign Minister said, after clearing his throat. “As far as the case itself is concerned … the police case, I mean, I actually know very little. No weapon has been found. No one has been arrested. It goes without saying that
the police are working flat out. With assistance from their Security Service. I hardly need to tell you why they are in the picture.”

He fumbled for the glass of Farris mineral water in front of him, and drank its entire contents. No one took the opportunity to ask questions, even though there were quite a few of these bouncing off the soundproof walls of the room. All that could be heard was the sound of the Oil and Energy Minister sniffing.

“My primary concern is to let you know what is going on. Factually and constitutionally. I have a formal meeting with the King at nine o’clock today, and there will be an extraordinary meeting of the Cabinet later in the day. You will be told when.”

The Foreign Minister continued to hold the empty glass in his hand, staring at it as though he hoped it would refill all by itself. He then reluctantly put it down and turned to face the Senior Private Secretary, who was sitting on the other side of the vacant chair.

“Could you provide us with a short briefing?”

The Senior Private Secretary from the Prime Minister’s office was an older woman who chafed strenuously against the fact that she would be turning seventy in two months’ time. Several times during the previous night she had caught herself having the objectionably egotistical thought that this incident might mean the postponement of her pensioner status for perhaps a year.

“Otto B. Halvorsen …” she began, slipping a pair of reading glasses on to her narrow, angular face. “He passed away on 23rd May, 1923. He and Peder Ludvig Kolstad are the only ones to have died while in post as Prime Minister. So we do in a sense have precedents to follow. I can’t see any reason why we should handle this case differently.”

This case … Finance Minister Tryggve Storstein felt a strong surge of irritation, bordering on rage. This was no “case”. This concerned the dreadful fact that Birgitte Volter was dead.

Tryggve Storstein was basically quite a good-looking man. He had regular features that made life difficult for the cartoonists, short dark hair that showed no sign of receding, even though he was approaching fifty, and anxious, downcast eyes that sometimes made him look sad even when he was smiling. His North European nose was straight, and his mouth sometimes had an undeniably sensual quiver to it when he spoke. However, Tryggve Storstein did not make a big deal out of his appearance. Perhaps this was down to his upbringing in Storsteinnes in Troms County, or maybe it was that he had practically been born into the party. In any case, he had the peculiar trait that ill-tempered right-wingers ascribed to every former member of the AUF, the youth wing of the Labor movement: he was ever so slightly tacky. Although his clothes hung well on his athletic frame, they never looked quite right. Were never really tasteful. The dark suits were too dark, and everything else came from the Dressmann chain store. Now he was wearing a brown “tweed” jacket of synthetic material, black trousers and brown shoes. He was upset, and tinkered with a pen he continually pressed in and out. Click-click. Click-click.

“Of course, Otto B. Halvorsen died after a short illness,” the Senior Private Secretary continued, glancing with irritation in Storstein’s direction over her spectacle rims. “So people had time to prepare themselves to some extent. That probably came in handy when Peder Kolstad died suddenly following a thrombosis in March 1932. The same procedure was followed then. In any case, the Foreign Minister takes over the post of Prime Minister on a temporary basis, until the government resigns. That can happen as soon as a new government is ready. Until then, the present government functions as a caretaker administration.”

She pursed her lips momentarily, which made her look like a bespectacled mouse.

“That is to say, it deals only with current issues. I have prepared a memorandum …”

She gave a peremptory signal to a woman who had just entered the room. Standing beside the coffee table near the door, the woman seemed extremely uneasy. At the sign from her superior, she moved rapidly around the oval table, issuing each of the Cabinet ministers with three booklets.

The Senior Private Secretary continued: “… that explains what can be considered ‘current issues’. Mainly they are issues that cannot be said to commit the next government in any way. The appointment of judges, for example …”

Looking up from the paper in front of her, she sought eye contact with the Justice Minister, but he was gazing at the ceiling, his eyes fixed on the tiny halogen lamps that for the moment resembled planets in an alien universe.

“… must be put on hold. Well. Everything is detailed in the papers. We are at your disposal to answer questions twenty-four hours a day.”

The Senior Private Secretary tapped the papers in front of her and looked at the Foreign Minister with a forced smile.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, coughing.

He was about to come down with a cold: a chill, tight band of pain was pressing into his head. “I have spoken to the President of the Parliament. There will be an extraordinary sitting of Parliament today at twelve noon. I expect to have a new government in place within a week. But we’ll wait until after the funeral.”

There was silence. Total silence. The Minister of Agriculture instinctively clutched his breast pocket, but still let the snuff tin be. The Minister of Trade ran his hands over his hair: for once, his hairstyle was not perfect, and several loose strands were hanging over his left ear. Tryggve Storstein broke the stillness.

“We are holding an extraordinary meeting of the Labor Party National Executive tomorrow afternoon,” he said softly. “Until further notice, I will take on the role of Party Leader. You will be immediately informed about what happens in the party in the days ahead.”

Health Minister Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden looked up. Winding her blonde hair around her ear, she glanced at the Finance Minister. Together with Tryggve Storstein, she was joint Deputy Leader of the Party. They had been granted these positions as a consolation prize following the dramatic confrontation five years earlier, when Gro Harlem Brundtland, abruptly and for personal reasons, had stepped down as Party Leader and concentrated on being Prime Minister. Birgitte Volter had won. There had been little to separate the three candidates until an hour before the result was announced. The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions had decided the matter. Birgitte Volter had originally come from the trade union movement and had wisely nurtured relationships there.

So they became joint Deputy Leaders. The most important difference between them was that Tryggve Storstein had accepted the defeat five years earlier with composure. He enjoyed widespread, universal respect, though most people disagreed with him on one issue or another. By contrast, Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden had both a coterie of devoted, uncritical friends and a number of thoroughly malicious enemies. As long as the former were very much in the majority, she would manage fine. Tryggve Storstein did not belong to that group, and the mistrust was mutual.

“And one thing we must make clear,” Tryggve Storstein added, leafing through the papers in front of him, “is that there is no guarantee – as the situation in Parliament currently stands, and given the appetite for government shown by the centrist parties in
the past six months – that the Labor Party will be running the country in a week’s time. Now they have the opportunity, if they want to take it – our friends in the centrist parties.”

No one had yet thought that far ahead. They all looked at one another.

“Hell, no,” muttered the Minister for Children and Families. Despite her young age, she had spent a long time in Parliament. “I’ll bet my boots they won’t take the chance now. They’ll wait until the autumn.”

Then she suddenly raised her hand to her mouth, as though it wasn’t quite polite to bet your boots on anything.

08.00,
OSLO POLICE STATION

“T
here are far too many bloody cooks around here,” muttered Billy T. “This is turning into a real mess.”

The woman at his side nodded gently. There had to be at least fifty people in the parade room on the third floor of the police building. The men from the Police Security Service were easy to distinguish, as they sat on their own and looked as though they were keeping an extremely big secret. What’s more, most of them were well rested, in contrast to other members of the police force, many of whom had been working for almost twenty-four hours. An whiff of old perspiration permeated the large space.

“Damn Security Service,” Billy T. continued. “It’s sure to be a shambles. Those guys are going to conjure up the worst-case scenarios. Terrorism and devilment and threats from the Middle East. And we’re probably only dealing with a lunatic. Hell’s teeth, Tone-Marit, we don’t need a Norwegian Palme case. If we don’t get to the bottom of this in a couple of weeks, then it’ll be too late. That’s for absolute certain.”

“You’re just tired, Billy T.,” Tone-Marit replied. “Obviously the Security Service has to be involved in this. They’re the ones who know all about the threat levels.”

“Yes, I am bloody tired. But they can’t have a particularly good handle on threat levels, since the lady’s already dead. And so …”

Grinning, he tried in vain to find room for his legs between the rows of chairs; in the end he had to ask the man in the seat in front to move.

“And so they’re in a Catch-22 dilemma. Either
they
are right that the homicide has a political or terrorist motive, and they haven’t done their job. Or else
I’m
right about it being the work of some madman, and then the Security Service doesn’t have any business being here. That’s the kind of thing
we’re
good at.”

“You’ll just have to calm down now,” Tone-Marit said quietly. “You never got over the fact that they had doubts about your security clearance.”

“Just because I’m fond of women,” Billy T. spluttered.

“You sleep with any woman who makes herself available,” Tone-Marit corrected him. “And a few more besides. But that had nothing to do with it, and you know that perfectly well. You were once in the Communist Party. What’s more, you can’t possibly have any grounds for stating that this is the work of a madman. We don’t have grounds for drawing
any
conclusions. None. You should know that.”

“I’ve
never
been a member of the Communist Party. Never! I was a radical! That’s something entirely different. I
am
a radical, for fuck’s sake. That doesn’t mean that I can’t be relied upon!”

The Security Service Chief and the Chief of Police had taken their places at a table at the very front of the room, and were sitting facing the others like two teachers facing a class they weren’t quite sure how to tackle. The Chief of Police, who had been appointed to the post only three months earlier, had streaks
of grime on his face and was scratching his dark-blue stubble. His uniform shirt had a dirty rim around the collar, and his tie was crooked. The Security Service Chief was not in uniform; he was immaculately dressed in a beige summer suit over a brilliant white shirt with a tan-colored tie, and he was gazing at the ceiling.

“A staff base has been set up in the communications room at the central switchboard,” the Police Chief began, without any further introductions or opening preamble. “We’ll continue with that arrangement in the days ahead. Time will tell whether we move out from there.”

Time will tell. They all knew what that meant.

“We’re left bloody high and dry,” Billy T. whispered.