more.
In front of the balcony, out of focus, the dead oak pointed its black witches' fingers to the sky. A bird sat on one of the branches. Right in the firing line. The old man shifted nervously. It hadn't been there before. It would soon fly away again. He put down the gun and drew fresh air into his aching lungs.
Click-click.
Harry slapped the steering wheel and twisted the ignition key one more time. Click-click.
'Start, you bastard! Or else it's off to the scrap heap tomorrow.'
The Escort started with a roar and the car shot off, spitting grass and earth. He took a sharp right by the lake. The young people stretched out on the blanket raised their bottles of beer and cheered Harry on as he lurched towards the SAS Hotel. With the engine screaming in first gear and his hand on the horn he effectively cleared a way down through the crowded gravel path, but by the kindergarten at the bottom a pram suddenly appeared from behind a tree, and he flung the car to the left, wrenched the wheel to the right, went into a skid and only just avoided the fence in front of the greenhouses. The car slid sideways into Wergelandsveien, in front of a taxi with Norwegian flags and a birch twig festooning the radiator grille. The taxi driver jumped on his brakes, but Harry accelerated and threaded his way through oncoming traffic and into Holbergs gate.
He braked in front of the hotel's swing doors and leaped out. When he sprinted into the packed reception area there was an immediate moment of silence, with everyone wondering if they were going to witness a unique experience. But it was just a very drunken man on 17 May. They had seen that before and the volume was turned up again. Harry raced across to one of the absurd 'islands'.
'Good morning,' a voice said. A pair of raised eyebrows under curly blonde hair resembling a wig sized him up from top to toe. Harry spotted her name badge.
'Betty Andresen, what I'm going to tell you now is not a joke in poor taste, so listen carefully. I'm a policeman and you have an assassin in the hotel'
Betty Andresen contemplated the tall, half-dressed man with the bloodshot eyes whom she had, quite understandably, judged to be either drunk or crazy, or both. She studied the ID card he held up for her. She scrutinised him again. At length.
'Name,' she said.
'His name's Sindre Fauke.'
Her fingers danced across the keyboard.
'Sorry, there's no one here by that name.'
'Fuck! Try Gudbrand Johansen.'
'No Gudbrand Johansen either, Inspector Hole. Wrong hotel perhaps?'
'No! He's here, he's in his room right now.'
'So you've spoken to him, have you?'
'No. No, I… it'll take too long to explain.'
Harry ran his hand across his face.
'Let's see. I have to think. He must be high up. How many floors are there here?’
‘Twenty one.'
'And how many of them have not handed in room keys yet?’
‘Quite a few, I'm afraid.'
Harry threw both hands into the air and stared at her. 'Of course,' he whispered. 'This is a Daniel job.' I beg your pardon?’
‘Please check for Daniel Gudeson.'
What would happen afterwards? The old man didn't know. There was nothing afterwards. At least, there hadn't been so far. He had put four bullets on the window-sill. The yellowish-brown matt metal of the housing reflected the rays of the sun.
He peered through the rifle sights again. The bird was still there. He recognised it. They had the same name. He pointed the sights at the crowds. Scanned the lines of people at the barriers. Stopped when he saw something familiar. Could it really be…? He focused the sights. Yes, no doubt about it, it was Rakel. What was she doing in the Palace Square? And there was Oleg too. He seemed to be running over from the children's parade. Rakel lifted him over the barrier with outstretched arms. She was strong. Strong hands. Like her mother. Now they were walking up towards the guardhouse. Rakel looked at her watch. She seemed to be waiting for someone. Oleg was wearing the jacket he had given him for Christmas. Rakel said Oleg called it Grandpa's jacket. It seemed to be a little on the small side already.
The old man chuckled. He would have to buy him a new one for autumn.
The pains came without warning this time and he gasped helplessly for air.
The flare was sinking and their stooped shadows scrambled towards him along the walls of the trench.
Everything went dark, but just as he felt himself slipping into the blackness, the pains released their hold again. The gun had slid on to the floor, and the sweat made his shirt stick to his body.
He straightened up, put the gun back on the window ledge. The bird had flown away. He had a clear line of fire.
The youthful face filled the telescopic sights again. The Prince had studied. And so should Oleg. That was the last thing he had said to Rakel. That was the last thing he said to himself before he shot Brandhaug. Rakel had not been at home the day he had dropped into Holmenkollveien to pick up a couple of books, so he had let himself in and he happened to see the envelope lying on the desk and the Russian embassy on the letterhead. He had read it, put it down and stared through the window at the garden, at the snowflakes lying there after the shower, the last throes of winter. Afterwards he had sifted through the other drawers in the desk until he found the other letters, the ones with the Norwegian embassy on the letterhead, and also those without letterheads, written on serviettes and sheets torn out of notepads, signed by Bernt Brandhaug. And he had thought about Christopher Brockhard.
No Russian arsehole will be able to shoot at our watch tonight.
The old man released the safety catch. He felt a strange calm. He had just remembered how easy it had been to cut Brockhard's throat. And to shoot Bernt Brandhaug. Grandpa's jacket, a new Grandpa's jacket. He emptied the air out of his lungs and crooked his finger around the trigger.
With a key card to all the rooms in his hand, Harry did a sliding tackle into the lift and got one foot between the closing doors. They slid open again. Amazed faces met him as he stood up.
'Police!' Harry shouted. 'Everyone out!'
It was as if the school bell had rung for lunchbreak, but a man in his fifties with a black goatee, a blue striped suit, a thick 17 May ribbon on his chest and a thin layer of dandruff on his shoulders remained where he was.
'We are Norwegian citizens, my good man, and this is not a police state!'
Harry walked round the man into the lift and pressed 21. But the goatee had not finished.
'Tell me one good reason why I as a taxpayer should put up with
…' Harry took out Weber's Smith amp; Wesson from his shoulder holster. 'I have six good reasons here, taxpayer. Out!'
Time passes quickly, and soon it is another day. In the morning light we'll see him better, see whether he is friend or foe.
Foe, foe. Too soon or not, I'll get him anyway.
Grandpa's jacket.
Shit, there is nothing afterwards.
The face in the sights looks serious. Smile, boy.
Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal.
The trigger has been pulled back so far now there is no longer any resistance, the threshold lies somewhere in a no man's land. Don't think about the noise and the recoil, just press, let it come when it comes.
The bang took him completely by surprise. For a fraction of a second it was totally quiet. Then the echo reverberated and the wave of sound settled over the city and the sudden silence of thousands of sounds that died away at this instant.
Harry was sprinting through the corridors on the twenty-first floor when he heard the bang.
'Fuck!' he wheezed.
The walls coming towards him and passing him on both sides gave him the feeling he was moving inside a
