He was worried. His overconfidence of the morning had been replaced by growing uncertainty. He hadn’t learnt anything about burglary or other illegal activities at the College of Journalism. Rather the reverse. He wasn’t even sure how to begin.
The building had offices on three floors, and flats on the top two, as far as he could see from the names by the bells. In films the burglar would try all of them and say, “Hi, it’s Joe,” in the hope that someone would know a Joe and activate the door release. But that would hardly work here. The outer entrance door to the courtyard was very firmly closed. Going for the next best solution, he drew out a jemmy from his sheepskin jacket.
Getting in was a doddle. Two tugs and the door gave way. It didn’t even creak on its hinges when he opened it just enough to slip through. To the left there was another door at the top of three little granite steps, already salted against the night frost. He was anticipating another obstacle, but to make certain he turned the door handle before he set to with his crowbar. Someone must have forgotten to lock it, because it opened outwards so easily and unexpectedly that he took an involuntary step back, found his foot in midair, and yelped as he touched the ground later than his reflexes had reckoned on. But it didn’t detract from his delight at how well everything was going.
He bounded up the stairs in half the time it had taken him a few hours earlier. He stopped at the opaque window and stood for a moment to recover his breath, and to listen in case anyone had heard him. There was nothing except a faint ringing in his ears, so a moment later he took out a little tub of Plasticine and pressed the soft lump against the glass, using his thumbs to knead it into shape round the edges. It was difficult to know how much pressure he could exert without the window falling out, but when he was satisfied he repeated the operation with a new lump of Plasticine further down. Then he took hold of both lumps and pushed hard. The window wouldn’t budge.
He was beginning to perspire and felt the need to dispense with his jacket. It was also hampering his movements, so after his second attempt on the glass he took it off. Despite his gloves, he had a firm grip on the Plasticine. When he put the whole weight of his body into his third attempt he could feel the screws giving way. Luckily the lower part of the window came loose first, and he was able to lift the frame at the same time as he clambered over the sill and into the little room. The window was completely free and all in one piece. He grabbed his jacket before removing the Plasticine, and eased the window back into position.
Cautiously he opened the door into the lobby. He was not so stupid as to assume there was no alarm. It didn’t look very sophisticated: he could see a small box with a tiny red light above the window. He got down and squirmed his way across to the door of Lavik’s office on his stomach. His torch was tucked into his belt and dug into him painfully with every ponderous movement. The door was open. He shone his torch round the room looking for a corresponding alarm box to the one in the anteroom. There wasn’t one. Or at least the beam of his torch didn’t pick anything out. He took a chance and stood up as soon as he was through the doorway.
Naturally he had no idea what he was looking for. He hadn’t thought about it, and now he felt rather foolish standing there in an office he had no lawful right to be in, committing his first crime, but without any clear objective. The safe was locked. That was hardly suspicious. The filing cabinet was unlocked, however, and pulling out the drawers he found a sequence of cardboard folders, each with a little label projecting at one corner bearing a name written in a clear and elegant hand. The names meant nothing to him.
The desk drawer contents were what could have been predicted. Yellow message stickers, pink markers, a pile of ballpoint pens, and a few pencils. They lay in a tray subdivided into sections, supported by the sides of the drawer, to leave room for papers underneath, in the drawer itself. He lifted the tray, but the documents were of no interest. Star Tours’ winter brochure, an A4 pad of preprinted fee notes. And a pad of lined paper. He put the pen tray back and closed the drawer. Beneath it was a low free-standing cupboard on castors, which was locked.
He ran his gloved hands along the underside of the desk. It was smooth and polished, and his fingers met no resistance. Disappointed, he turned again to the filing cabinet in the corner of the room. He walked across to it, bent down, and felt underneath it in the same way. Nothing. He lay flat and shone his torch systematically from one side to the other.
He almost missed it, because he wasn’t expecting to find it. The beam had already gone past it before his brain registered what he’d seen, and in his slight confusion he dropped the torch, but it was still close enough for him to spot the little dark lump. He worked it free and stood up. The streetlights cast a pale glow into the room, enough to show him immediately what it was. A key, quite small, which had been attached to the bottom of the cupboard with tape.
He was inordinately pleased, and was about to put it in his pocket when he had a far better idea. He brought out a piece of Plasticine from the tub in his pocket, warmed it against his cheek, and fashioned it into two flat oval shapes. He pressed the key into one of them, long and hard. He had to take off his gloves to get it out again without damaging the impression. Then he did the same with the other side, and finally made an imprint of the diameter at the top of the first piece of Plasticine.
The tape was reusable, and he felt sure he’d got the key back in exactly the same place he’d found it. He put his jacket on, crawled out the way he’d come in, and fixed the window back on the inside without leaving any visible marks from the screwdriver. He brushed over the frame to get rid of possible splinters, and paused in the doorway of the waiting room to gather his breath for the big run. He counted down from ten, and on zero he shot like a rocket towards the entrance door, opened it, closed it behind him, and was halfway down the staircase before he heard the high-pitched shriek of the alarm. He was round the next block before anyone in the building had even got their slippers on.
“That’ll give them something to think about,” he thought triumphantly. “No sign of a break-in, nothing taken, nothing touched. Just an unlocked entrance door.”
Fredrick Myhreng was used to feeling pleased with himself. This surpassed almost everything. He was humming as he skipped along, like a child who had played a successful trick, and with a yell to the driver and a huge grin on his face he just managed to catch the last tram home.
FRIDAY 6 NOVEMBER
She had developed a routine of calling in on her unfortunate client every Friday afternoon. He said nothing, but it seemed as if in some strange way he valued these meetings. Huddled up and thin as a rake, he still had the empty look in his eyes, but she thought she could detect a trace of a smile each time he saw her. Even though Han van der Kerch had so tenaciously resisted being transferred there while he had the mental capacity to say what he wanted, he was now in Oslo Prison. Karen Borg had permission to visit him in his cell, since it was impractical to bring him out to an interview room. It was lighter here, and the warders seemed both fair-minded and considerate, insofar as their workloads allowed. The door was secured behind her during every visit, and she felt an odd comfort from being locked in, the same feeling that had driven her into the cupboard under the stairs at home in Bergen as a child whenever the world seemed against her. The prison visits had become a time for contemplation. She sat there with the silent man in front of her, and listened to the orderly in the corridor clattering by with his trolley, the echo of obscene shouts and laughter, and the heavy jangling of keys whenever a warder passed the door.
He didn’t look quite so pale today. He kept his eyes on her all the way to the bed as she sat down beside him. When she took his hand, she felt him squeeze hers in response; almost imperceptibly, but she was sure she had discerned a slight pressure. With hesitant optimism she bent forward and brushed his hair away from his forehead. It was growing too long, and immediately fell back again. She continued stroking his brow, running her fingers through his hair. It was evidently soothing, because he closed his eyes and leant towards her. They remained sitting like that for several minutes.
“Roger,” he murmured, his voice a husky croak after not having been used for such a length of time.
Karen Borg didn’t react. She went on caressing him and asked no questions.
“Roger,” said the Dutchman again, a little louder now. “The guy at Sagene with the second-hand cars. Roger.”
Then he fell asleep. His breathing became more regular, and his weight against her body increased. She rose carefully to her feet, moved him into a more comfortable position, and couldn’t help kissing him gently on the forehead.
“Roger at Sagene,” she repeated to herself, knocking softly on the door to be let out.
