them in clingfilm, and warm them up to seal them. Then they stuff a condom full of them, grease it with something or other, and swallow the whole lot. It’s quite phenomenal what they can get down. And after anything from one to three days it plops out at the other end; they dig it out of the crap, and there you are: riches galore!”
Billy T. spoke with a mixture of passion and disgust. He’d almost finished eating, a great pile of thick slices of dark-brown bread. The only items he’d treated himself to from the canteen counter were two half-litres of milk and a cup of coffee. It was all going down in record time.
“As Galen said: ‘Slow eating is sensible eating.’”
Billy T. stopped chewing for a moment and looked at her in amazement.
“The Koran,” said Hanne.
“Huh, the Koran…”
He went on chewing obstinately at the same speed.
Hanne hadn’t had time to have breakfast that morning, nor to make herself a packed lunch. A dry open sandwich of peeled prawns on white bread lay unfinished on the plate in front of her. “Not exactly suffering from overload,” Billy T. had remarked with a nod at the sparse topping. The mayonnaise was stale. But the worst of her hunger was appeased. The rest could wait.
“Cocaine, on the other hand, usually comes from South America. There are entire regimes over there thriving on the fact that our society creates a need for drugs in so many people. The worldwide drugs trade is a multi- billion-dollar one. Even in this country the turnover must run into several billion kroner a year. We think. With seven thousand addicts feeding a habit that costs up to two thousand kroner a day, it amounts to quite a hefty sum. Of course we don’t know exactly how much. But big money? You bet it is. If it weren’t illegal, I’d have started up myself. No hesitation!”
She didn’t doubt it; she was well aware of Billy’s burdensome maintenance contributions. But a man of his appearance would be a rather obvious target at border crossings. He would certainly be the first one
The canteen was beginning to fill up. It was getting on towards the lunch hour. Since a number of people were showing signs of heading in their direction, Hanne decided it was time to get back to work. Before she went, Billy T. solemnly promised to search for the missing boot.
“We’re all keeping our eyes peeled,” he grinned. “I’ve distributed a picture of the item in question to all units. The big boot hunt is on!”
He gave her an even broader grin and a Scout salute with two fingers up to his bald pate.
Hanne smiled in return. There wasn’t really much of a policeman about the guy.
The room was guaranteed bug-free. Needless to say. It was right at the end of a corridor deep inside no. 16 Platou Gata on the second floor. The building looked thoroughly uninteresting and anonymous on the outside, an impression reinforced in the minds of the few who were granted access. It had been the headquarters of the Intelligence Services since 1965. It was small and cramped, but served its purpose. Discreetly enough.
The office itself wasn’t very big either. It was bare, apart from a square laminated table in the centre with four tubular steel chairs along each side. There was also a telephone on the floor in one corner. The walls were unadorned and dirty yellow, adding quite an echo to the voices of the three men around the table.
“Is there even the remotest possibility of you two taking over the case?”
The man asking the question, blond and in his forties, was an employee of the Service. So was the dark-haired man in sweater and jeans. The third, older than the other two and wearing a grey flannel suit, was attached to the Police Special Branch. He was sitting with his elbows on the table, tapping his fingertips rhythmically together.
“Too late,” he stated tersely. “We could perhaps have done it a month ago, before it took on such wide ramifications. Now it’s definitely too late. It would arouse far too much attention.”
“Is there anything that can be done at all?”
“Hardly. As long as we ourselves aren’t sure of the full extent of the case, I can only recommend that you maintain contact with Peter Strup, keep an eye on our friend, and in general try to stay one step ahead of everybody else. But don’t ask me how.”
There was no more to be said. The chair legs made a screech of protest on the floor as the three men rose simultaneously. Before they headed towards the door, the visitor shook the hands of his two hosts as if they’d all been attending a funeral.
“This isn’t good. Not good at all. I pray to God that you’re wrong. Best of luck.”
Ten minutes later he was back on the inaccessible top floor of police headquarters. His boss listened to him for half an hour; then gazed at his experienced colleague for over a minute without saying a word.
“What a bloody mess,” he said. Vehemently.
The commissioner felt slightly aggrieved that the parliamentary under secretary wouldn’t succumb. On the other hand, perhaps he was actually just using the case as a pretext for contacting her. It was a flattering notion. She looked in the mirror, and turned up her mouth in an unbecoming grimace at what she saw. Disheartening. The slimmer she got, the older she looked. Over recent months she’d been getting steadily more nervous as she approached her next period, each a little less reliable than the last. They were slightly late, unpredictable, and had diminished from a four-day flood to a two-day trickle. The pains had decreased too, and she missed them. She was horrified to notice instead the onset of hot flashes. She saw in the mirror a woman whom nature was mercilessly consigning to the status of grandmother. With a daughter of twenty-three it was far from merely theoretical. She gave an involuntary shiver at the thought. Well, she would just have to keep trying.
From her desk drawer she took out a jar of moisturiser, “Visible Difference.” “Invisible difference” had been her husband’s sarcastic comment one morning a few weeks ago, his mouth flexed beneath his razor. She’d given him such a vicious punch that he’d cut his upper lip.
She returned to the mirror and massaged the cream slowly into her skin. It was singularly ineffectual.
The under secretary must still be married of course. The weekly magazines hadn’t given any indication to the contrary, anyway. However, she wouldn’t leap to conclusions. Back in her seat she glanced again at the fax before she rang. It was signed by the minister himself, though she was requested to phone the under secretary.
His voice was deep and attractive. He was from Oslo, but had a very distinctive pronunciation of individual words, a feature that made him sound special and easily recognisable, almost musical.
He didn’t suggest dinner. Not even a miserable lunch. He was curt and impersonal, and excused himself for having to trouble her. He was being nagged by the minister of justice. Would a briefing be possible? The media were starting to badger the minister. A meeting would be a useful idea. With the commissioner herself, or the appropriate departmental head. But no lunch.
Right. If the under secretary was going to be so offhand, she could be too.
“I’ll send you a fax of the indictment.” That was all.
“Fine,” he replied, and to her disappointment didn’t even exert himself to argue. “Personally I’m not bothered. But don’t come to me for help when the minister himself weighs in on you. I wash my hands of it. Good-bye.”
She sat in silence looking at the receiver, feeling utterly rejected. He’d get no information at all. Not one single bloody word.
WEDNESDAY 25 NOVEMBER
The sound of the bell was so unexpected that she almost fell out of bed in sheer confusion. She was still sitting up reading, even though it was getting on for two in the morning. Not because the book was so especially enthralling, but because she had slept heavily for three hours after dinner. On her bedside table, which she had made herself many years before, were a candle and a glass of red wine. The bottle next to it was almost empty. Karen Borg was half drunk.
