they pass. I breathe out in relief. I'm on the point of laughing out loud when there is a tap on the window. Slowly I crane my neck around. Incredibly slowly. She smiles and I discover the window is already rolled down. Strange. She says something which is drowned out by the revving engine in front.
'What?' I ask, opening my eyes again.
'Could you please put the back of your seat into an upright position?'
'The back of my seat?' I ask, perplexed.
'We'll be landing shortly, sir.' She smiles again and disappears.
I rub the sleep out of my eyes and everything comes back to me. The hold-up. The escape. The suitcase with the plane ticket ready at the chalet. The text message from the Prince that the coast was clear. But still the little prickles of nervousness as I showed my passport while checking in at Gardemoen. Take-off. Everything had gone according to plan.
I look out of the window. I am obviously still not quite out of dreamland. For a brief moment I seem to be flying above the stars. Then I realise it is the lights from the town and start thinking about the hire car I have booked. Should I sleep in a hotel in the huge, steaming, stinking town and drive south tomorrow? No, tomorrow I will be just as tired, from jet lag. Best to get there as soon as possible. The place I'm going is better than its reputation. There are even a couple of Norwegians there to talk to. Waking up to sun, sea and a better life. That's the plan. My plan anyway.
I hold onto the drink I managed to save before the stewardess folded my table. So why don't I trust the plan?
The drone of the engine rises and falls. I can feel I'm on the way down now. I close my eyes and instinctively breathe in, knowing what is to come. Her. She is wearing the same dress as when I first saw her. My God, I already long for her. The fact that the longing could not have been satisfied, even if she had lived, changes nothing. Everything about her was impossible. Virtue and passion. Hair which seemed to absorb all light, but instead shone like gold. The defiant laughter as tears rolled down her cheeks. The hate-filled eyes when I entered her. Her false declarations of love and her genuine pleasure when I went to her with threadbare excuses after broken agreements. Which were repeated as I lay beside her in bed with my head in the imprint of another. That's a long time ago now. Millions of years. I squeeze my eyes shut so as not to see the continuation. The shot I fired into her. Her pupils which widened slowly like a black rose; the blood trickling out, falling and landing with a weary sigh; the breaking of her neck and her head tipping back. And now the woman I love is dead. As simple as that. But it still doesn't make sense. That's what is so beautiful. So simple and beautiful you can hardly live with it. The pressure in the cabin falls and tensions increase. From the inside. An invisible force pressing on my eardrums and the soft brain. Something tells me this is how it will happen. No one will find me, no one will wrest my secret from me, but the plan will explode anyway. From inside.
21
Monopoly
Harry was awoken by the radio alarm clock and the news. The bombing had been intensified. It sounded like a reprise.
He tried to find a reason for getting up.
The voice on the radio said that since 1975 the average weight of a Norwegian man and woman had increased by thirteen and nine kilos respectively. Harry closed his eyes and was reminded of something Aune had said. Escapism has an undeservedly bad reputation. Sleep came. The same warm, sweet feeling as when he was small and lay in bed with the door open, listening to his father walking around the house switching off all the lights-one by one-and for every light that was switched off the darkness outside his door deepened.
'After the violent robberies in Oslo over recent weeks bank employees have called for armed guards in the city centre's most vulnerable banks. Yesterday's hold-up of the Den norske Bank branch in Grшnlandsleiret is the latest in a series of armed robberies, for which police suspect the man dubbed the Expeditor to be responsible. It is the same person who shot and killed…'
Harry placed his feet on the cold linoleum. The face in the bathroom mirror was late Picasso.
Beate was talking on the telephone. She shook her head when she saw Harry in the office doorway. He nodded and was about to go, but she waved him back.
'Thank you for your help anyway,' she said and put down the receiver.
'Am I disturbing?' Harry asked, putting a cup of coffee in front of her.
'No, I shook my head to say there was no luck with Focus. He was the last name on the list. Of all the men we know were at Focus at the time in question, only one vaguely remembers seeing a man in a boiler suit. And he wasn't even sure whether he had seen him in the changing room or not.'
'Mm.' Harry took a seat and looked around. Her office was just as tidy as he had expected. Apart from a familiar potted plant he couldn't name on the windowsill, her room was as free of ornaments as his own. On her desk he noticed the back of a framed photograph. He had an idea who it might be.
'Have you only talked to men?' he asked.
'The theory is that he went into the men's changing room to change, isn't it?'
'Then he walked the streets of Morristown like any normal person, yes. Anything new on yesterday's hold-up in Grшnlandsleiret?'
'Depends on what you mean by new. It's more a carbon copy, I would say. Same clothes and AG3. Used a hostage to speak. Took money from the ATM, all over in one minute and fifty seconds. No clues. In short…'
'The Expeditor,' Harry said.
'What's this?' Beate raised the cup and peered into it.
'Cappuccino. Regards from Halvorsen.'
'Coffee with milk?' She wrinkled her nose.
'Let me guess. Your dad said he never trusted anyone who didn't drink black coffee?'
He regretted it immediately he saw Beate's expression of surprise. 'Sorry,' he mumbled. 'I didn't mean to… that was stupid of me.'
'So what do we do now?' Beate hastened to ask while fidgeting with the coffee-cup handle. 'We're back to square one.'
Harry collapsed in the chair and contemplated the toes of his boots. 'Go to prison.'
'What?'
'Go straight to prison.' He sat up. 'Do not pass GO. Do not collect two thousand kroner.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Monopoly cards. That's what we have left. Trying our luck. In prison. Have you got the number of Botsen prison?'
'This is a waste of time,' Beate said.
Her voice echoed between the walls of the Culvert as she jogged along beside Harry.
'Maybe,' he said. 'Like ninety per cent of all investigation work.'
'I've read all the reports and the interview tapescripts that have ever been done. He never says anything. Except for a load of irrelevant philosophical rubbish.'
Harry pressed the intercom button beside the grey iron door at the end of the tunnel.
'Have you heard the old adage about looking for what you've lost in the light? I suppose it is meant to illustrate human foolishness. To me it makes good sense.'
'Hold your IDs up to the camera,' said the loudspeaker.
'What's the point of me coming if you're going to talk to him on your own?' Beate asked, nipping in behind
