Stop! What was going on? Was he going mad? He concentrated on breathing. He mustn't lose control now.
He clung to the black bag as the train glided into the station.
The train doors opened with a puff of air, he boarded, put the suitcase and rucksack in the luggage compartment and found an empty seat.
There was a gap in the row of seats like a missing tooth. Harry studied the faces on either side of the empty seat, but they were too old, too young or the wrong gender. He ran to the first seat in row 19 and crouched down by the old white-haired man sitting there.
'Police. We're-'
'What?' the man shouted with a hand behind his ear.
'Police,' Harry said, louder this time. In a row a bit further forward he noticed a man with a wire behind his ear move and talk to his lapel.
'We're on the lookout for someone who was supposed to be sitting in the middle of this row. Have you seen anyone leave or-'
'What?'
An elderly lady, obviously his companion for the evening, leaned over. 'He just left. The auditorium, that is. During the performance. ..' She said the latter in such a way that it was clear she assumed that this was the reason the police wanted to talk to him.
Harry ran up the aisle, pushed open the door, stormed through the foyer and down the stairs to the front doors. He saw the uniformed back outside and shouted from the stairs. 'Falkeid!'
Sivert Falkeid turned, saw Harry and opened the door.
'Did a man just come out here?'
Falkeid shook his head.
'Stankic is in the building,' Harry said. 'Sound the alarm.'
Falkeid nodded and raised his lapel.
Harry raced back into the foyer, spotted a small, red mobile phone on the floor and asked the women in the cloakroom if they had seen anyone leaving the auditorium. They looked at each other and answered no in unison. He asked if there were other exits apart from down the stairs to the front doors.
'The emergency exit,' one suggested.
'Yes, but the doors make such a noise when they shut we would have heard it,' the other one said.
Harry stood by the auditorium door surveying the foyer from left to right as he tried to figure out escape routes. Had Stankic really been here? Had Martine told him the truth this time? At that very instant he knew she had. There was that sweet smell in the air again. The man who had been standing in the way when Harry arrived. He knew in an instant where Stankic must have made his getaway.
Harry tore open the door to the men's toilet and was met by a gust of ice-cold wind from the open window on the far side. He went to the window, looked down at the cornice and the car park beneath and thumped the sill with his fist. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck.'
A sound came from one of the toilet cubicles.
'Hello!' Harry shouted. 'Is there anyone in there?'
By way of an answer the urinal flushed with an angry hiss.
There was that sound again. A sort of sobbing. Harry's eyes ran along the locks on the cubicle doors and found one with red for engaged. He threw himself down on his stomach and saw a pair of legs and pumps.
'Police,' Harry shouted. 'Are you hurt?'
The sobbing ceased. 'Has he gone?' asked a tremulous woman's voice.
'Who?'
'He said I had to stay here for fifteen minutes.'
'He's gone.'
The cubicle door slid open. Thea Nilsen was sitting on the floor, between the bowl and the wall, with make- up running down her face.
'He said he would kill me if I didn't say where Jon was,' she said through her tears. As though to apologise.
'And what did you say?' Harry asked, helping her up onto the toilet lid.
She blinked twice.
'Thea, what did you tell him?'
'Jon texted me,' she said, staring without focus at the toilet walls. 'His father's ill, he said. He's flying to Bangkok tonight. Imagine. This evening of all evenings.'
'Bangkok? Did you tell Stankic?'
'We were supposed to meet the Prime Minister this evening,' Thea said as a tear rolled down her cheek. 'And he didn't even answer me when I rang, the… the-'
'Thea! Did you tell him Jon was catching a plane this evening?' She nodded, like a somnambulist, as though none of this had anything to do with her.
Harry rose to his feet and strode into the foyer where Martine and Rikard were standing and talking to a man Harry recognised as one of the Prime Minister's bodyguards.
'Call off the alarm,' Harry shouted. 'Stankic is no longer in the building.'
The three of them turned towards him.
'Rikard, your sister is sitting in there. Could you look after her? And, Martine, could you come with me?'
Without waiting for an answer, Harry took her arm and she had to jog to keep up with him down the steps towards the exit.
'Where are we going?' she asked.
'Gardemoen Airport.'
'And what are you going to do with me there?'
'You will be my eyes, dear Martine. You will see the invisible man for me.'
He studied his facial features in the reflection from the train window. The forehead, the nose, the cheeks, the mouth, the chin, the eyes. Tried to see what it was, where the secret lay. But he couldn't see anything special above the red neckerchief, just an expressionless face with eyes and hair which, against the walls of the tunnel between Oslo Central and Lillestrom, were as black as the night outside.
33
Monday, 22 December. The Shortest Day.
It took Harry and Martine exactly two minutes and thirty-eight seconds to run from the concert hall to the platform of the National Theatre station where, two minutes later, they boarded an Inter City train stopping at Oslo Central and Gardemoen Airport on its way to Lillehammer. True, this was a slower train but it was still faster than waiting for the next airport express. They dropped into the two free seats left in a carriage full of soldiers on their way home for Christmas leave and gangs of students with boxes of wine and Santa hats.
'What's going on?' Martine asked.
'Jon's making his getaway,' Harry said.
'Does he know Stankic is alive?'
'He's not fleeing from Stankic, but from us. He knows his cover is blown.'
Martine's eyes widened. 'What do you mean?'
'I hardly know where to begin.'
The train drew into Oslo Central. Harry scrutinised the passengers on the platform, but did not see Jon Karlsen.
'It all started when Ragnhild Gilstrup offered Jon two million kroner to help Gilstrup Invest buy some of the Salvation Army's properties,' Harry said. 'He turned her down because he wasn't convinced she was scrupulous enough to keep a secret. Instead he went behind her back and spoke to Mads and Albert Gilstrup. He demanded five million and they were instructed not to tell Ragnhild about the deal. They agreed.'
Martine's mouth fell. 'How do you know this?'
