‘I need something higher than this to stand on,’ he said and looked around. ‘I would rather not touch anything up there.’
‘Look,’ Adam said quietly; he held the metal grate up to his eyes and squinted. ‘Look, Warren.’
The American leant towards him; their heads almost touched. Warren looked over the top of his glasses.
‘Glue? Tape?’
He folded the screwdriver back into the army knife and pulled out an awl. With great care he pricked at the almost transparent, apparently sticky mass. It could hardly be more than a millimetre wide and perhaps half a centimetre long.
‘Be careful,’ Adam warned him. ‘I’ll get it sent over for analysis.’
‘Glue,’ Warren stated and straightened his glasses. ‘Perhaps the remains of double-sided tape.’
Adam looked instinctively at the ceiling, where an edging of enamelled metal framed the opening. The light in the room made it impossible to see any details in the shaft. The reflection of the table lamp showed that the actual ventilation pipe was matt aluminium. But he was more interested in two tiny specks on the white frame than in the space inside.
‘We definitely need something to stand on,’ Warren said, and went over to the door into the other room. ‘Maybe we can…’ The rest was swallowed in a mumble.
‘I’ll call for some people,’ Adam said. ‘This is the responsibility of Oslo Police and I…’
Warren didn’t answer.
Adam followed him into the smaller room. A large black desk was positioned at an angle in the middle of the room. The surface was empty apart from a beautiful flower arrangement and a leather folder, which Adam assumed contained writing paper. In front of the glass doors out on to the terrace was a chaise longue with exquisite silk cushions in shades of pink and red. They matched the curtains and a feature wall with Japanese-inspired, patterned wallpaper.
On the opposite wall, behind a sitting area, was a robust bookshelf in solid wood, which must have been about one and a half metres tall. The American tried to tip it.
‘It’s free-standing,’ he said, emptying the shelves of ten or so books and a glass bowl. ‘Can you give me a hand?’
‘This is not our job,’ Adam said and pulled out his mobile phone.
‘Give me a hand,’ Warren said. ‘I just want to look, not touch.’
‘No, I’m going to get people over here now.’
‘Adam,’ Warren exclaimed in exasperation, throwing out his arms, ‘you said it yourself. This suite has been gone over with a fine-toothed comb, and all the evidence has been secured. But they still… someone has overlooked a small detail. You and I are both experienced policemen. We won’t damage anything. I just want to have a look. OK? Then these people of yours can come over and do their job.’
‘They’re not my people,’ Adam muttered.
Warren smiled and started to pull at the bookshelf. Adam hesitated for a little while longer before reluctantly taking hold of the other end. Together they managed to get the bookshelf into the main room and position it right under the open shaft.
‘Will you hold it steady?’
Adam nodded and Warren tested with one foot on the second lowest shelf. It held him, so with his right hand on Adam’s shoulder, he carried on climbing to the top. He had to twist his neck in order to study the small specks Adam had noticed.
‘Glue here too,’ he mumbled without touching it. ‘Looks like the same stuff that was on the grate.’
He stuck his head up into the shaft.
‘Plenty of room,’ he confirmed. His voice sounded hollow and muffled, due to the reverberation within the metal walls. ‘It would be perfectly possible for…’
Adam couldn’t make out the rest.
‘What did you say?’
Warren lowered his head down from the opening in the ceiling.
‘Just as I thought,’ he said. ‘It’s big enough for a grown man. And these friends of yours…’ He bent his knees and dropped to the floor. ‘I hope that they secured any evidence in the shaft before they crawled in to check the grates.’
‘I’m sure they did.’
‘But they overlooked this,’ said Warren and once again bent down over the loose grate.
‘We don’t know that for certain.’
‘Would there still be traces there if they’d discovered it? Wouldn’t the whole grate have been taken in for investigation?’
Adam didn’t answer.
‘And this,’ Warren continued and pointed with his penknife to a spot in the middle of the grate. ‘Do you see? All the scratches?’
Adam studied the nearly invisible stripes in the white metal. Someone had scraped against the enamel without breaking it.
‘Genius in its simplicity,’ he said quietly.
‘Quite,’ said Warren.
‘Someone has unfastened the grate, pulled a stay tied to string or rope through the middle hole, attached double-sided tape to the edge of the grate…’
‘And climbed in,’ concluded Warren. ‘It was simply a matter of pulling the grate up to close it. Then there he was. That explains why he was carrying a small ladder.’ He pointed at the ceiling with his thumb. ‘All he had to do was crawl in when-’
‘But how the hell did he manage to get in in the first place?’ Adam cut in. ‘Can you explain to me how anyone managed to get into the suite where the US president was staying, set up all this…’ he pointed at the ceiling and then at the loose grate that was lying on the table, ‘get comfy in the air vent, then creep out and take the President away with him, and
He coughed before continuing, his voice low and exasperated. ‘And all that in a hotel room that was minutely examined only a few hours before the President retired. How is it possible? How is that at all possible?’
‘There are lots of loose ends here,’ Warren said, with his hand on the Norwegian’s shoulder.
Adam moved almost imperceptibly, and Warren lifted his hand.
‘We have to find out when the CCTV cameras were turned on,’ he said swiftly. ‘And if they were ever turned off. We must establish when the room was last examined before Madam President came back from the meal. We must-’
‘Not we,’ Adam corrected and pulled out his mobile phone again. ‘I should have called ages ago. That is the investigators’ job. Not yours. Not mine.’
He held Warren’s gaze as he waited for an answer at the other end. The American was as expressionless as he had been when they came into the suite half an hour ago. When Adam made contact, he turned away and walked slowly towards the windows facing the fjord, talking in a low voice.
Warren Scifford sank down into a chair. He stared at the floor. His arms hung limply by his sides, as if he didn’t really know what to do with them. His suit didn’t look so elegant any more. It was crumpled and his tie knot was loose.
‘Is anything wrong?’ Adam asked. He had finished his conversation and turned round without warning.
Warren quickly straightened his tie and stood up. The surprise in his face vanished so swiftly that Adam wasn’t sure if he had seen correctly.
‘Everything,’ Warren laughed. ‘Everything’s wrong at the moment. Shall we go?’
‘No. I’ll wait here for my colleagues to come. It shouldn’t be long.’
‘Then,’ Warren started, lightly brushing the right sleeve of his jacket, ‘I hope that you won’t mind if I go.’
‘Not at all,’ Adam said. ‘Just ring me when you need me.’
He wanted to ask Warren where he was going, but something stopped him. If the American wanted to play that game, he would let him have all the secrets he liked.
Adam had other things to think about.
