That was when he saw Peter Strup.
The motorbike wasn’t very well suited to cross-country riding. She was also frozen solid, and realised that her coordination and strength were failing her. She stopped just a few metres along the forest track and dismounted, numb and aching. Hakon said not a word. It would be a waste of time even attempting to use the stand on the uneven ground, so she tried instead to lay the heavy machine carefully on its side. She had to drop it the last bit. The owner would be furious. She would have killed anybody herself in similar circumstances. They ran as best they could along the track-not exactly fast. Rounding a bend they came to an abrupt halt. They could see a frightening orange glow through the trees two hundred metres ahead, and above the bare trees yellow flames leaping into the sky.
In seconds they were running again-much faster now.
Jorgen Lavik hadn’t quite known what to do. But his uncertainty was short-lived. He’d thrown three matches, and all of them hit the mark. Flames leapt up instantaneously. He could see Peter Strup tugging at the verandah door, which fortunately was locked. He was unlikely to go away, and must have spotted Karen Borg where she lay, perfectly visible from outside. Had she moved? He was sure she’d been lying on her back before.
It wasn’t so certain that Peter Strup had recognised him. His cap was still pulled down low over his face, and his jacket had a high collar. But he couldn’t take the risk. The question was which would Strup regard as the more important, catching him, or saving Karen Borg? Probably the latter.
He made up his mind fast, picked up the monkey wrench, and ran across to the verandah door. Peter Strup was so surprised that he let go of the handle and lurched back a few paces. He must have caught his foot on a rock or a stump, since he swayed momentarily and then fell backwards. It was the chance Lavik needed. He opened the door, and the flames, which by now had taken hold of the walls and some of the furniture, blazed up fiercely.
He jumped on the man as he lay there, and raised the wrench to strike. But a split second before the blow would have smashed into his mouth, Strup twisted his head out of danger. The wrench hit the ground harmlessly and dropped from Lavik’s grasp.
Intent only on recovering his weapon, Lavik relaxed his guard. Strup wriggled over to one side of him and drove his knee into Lavik’s groin. Not hard, but enough to make him double up and forget the wrench. In a fury, he seized Strup’s legs just as he struggled to his feet. Down went Strup again, but with his arms free, and as he tried to work his legs loose by kicking out at his opponent, he got his hand inside his jacket. The kicking had an effect, and he felt his foot make contact with Lavik’s face. Suddenly his legs were released and he was able to stand up. As he staggered towards the edge of the wood twenty metres away he heard a yell and turned to look behind him in trepidation.
Police officers Sand and Wilhelmsen had reached the blazing house in time to see a figure in hunting gear wielding a massive wrench charging after a man in a suit. They came to a standstill, too winded to intervene.
“Stop!” shrieked Hanne in a futile attempt to prevent the catastrophe, but the huntsman ignored her.
He had only three metres to go when there was a bang. Not very loud, but short and sibilant and very, very distinct. The huntsman’s face assumed a weird expression, clearly defined in the strong light from the flames, as if he were amused by a game he didn’t really understand. His mouth, wide open as he ran, closed in a cautious smile, and he dropped the tool he’d been carrying, let his arms fall, looked down with interest at his own chest, and collapsed in a heap on the ground.
Peter Strup turned to the two police officers and threw down the gun, as an overt demonstration of his good faith.
“She’s still inside,” he shouted, pointing at the burning cottage.
Hakon didn’t pause to think. He tore across to the open verandah door, not even hearing the warning cries of the others as he plunged into the inferno. He ran so fast that he couldn’t stop until he reached the centre of the room, where the only thing as yet in flames was one end of a rag rug. But the heat was so intense that he could feel the skin on his face beginning to tighten.
She was as light as a feather; or perhaps he had suddenly acquired superhuman strength. It took no more than seconds to heave her up onto his shoulder, in a proper fireman’s lift. As he swung round to get back out the way he’d come in, there was an almighty crash. The noise was deafening, like a gigantic explosion. The picture windows had done their best to withstand the heat, but had eventually succumbed. The powerful draught from outside made the roaring flames almost unbearable, and his exit was cut off. At least in that direction. He turned round slowly, like a helicopter with Karen as a broken, lifeless rotor blade. The smoke and heat made it difficult to see anything. The stairs were ablaze.
But perhaps not as engulfed as they seemed? He didn’t have any choice. He drew a deep breath, which made him cough violently. The flames had caught his trousers now. With a howl of agony he leapt down the stairs, and could hear Karen’s head bumping against the wall with every stride.
The fire had been considerate enough to blow out the cellar door. With one final effort he was outside, and the fresh air gave him the extra strength to run another ten metres away from the building. Karen toppled to the ground, and all he had time to notice before he himself lost consciousness was that his trousers were still on fire.
This had all been something of a failure. For one thing, Lavik could have got there before him. Not very likely, though, because murder is easier at night; and it would have been simpler for him to throw off the men tailing him after dark.
But it was boring just sitting there. He finally took the risk of a little walk outside the car-nothing had come past since the crazy motorcyclists. It was bitterly cold, but fine and dry. The frost crunched beneath his feet, and he stretched his arms above his head.
There was a faint pink glow reflected on the low cloud-cover where he imagined Sandefjord must be. He turned towards Larvik and saw the same there. Above Ula, on the other hand, the glow was more of an orange colour, and much more conspicuous-and he thought he could see smoke. He stared towards the light. It was a fire!
Damn and blast! Lavik must have beaten him to it. Or maybe he hadn’t been driving the Volvo? Perhaps he’d changed cars to fool the police. He tried to remember what makes had gone past: two Opels and a Renault-or was it a Peugeot? No matter. The fire couldn’t be coincidence. Arson was one way of taking someone’s life. The man must be completely insane.
He was probably too late. It would be difficult to get Lavik now. The flames were so high that someone would be bound to notice them and call the fire brigade. In a few minutes the place would be full of fire engines and firemen.
But he couldn’t resist stealing a glimpse. Back in the driver’s seat, he put the car in gear and drove slowly towards the conflagration.
“The ambulance is the urgent thing. Very urgent.”
She gave the mobile phone back to Peter Strup, who stood up and put it in his pocket.
“Karen Borg is the worse of the two,” he said. “But the burns on your colleague don’t look good, either. And inhaling all that smoke can’t have helped.”
Between them they had managed to drag the two unconscious bodies down to the parking space where Karen’s car was standing. Hanne hadn’t hesitated to smash the window of the driver’s door with a big stone. There was a woollen blanket in the car, and two small cushions. It was also draped in a tarpaulin that they’d removed and laid beneath the injured pair. They’d torn off a large piece first and filled it with ice-cold water from a little stream just below. Even though the water quickly ran out again, they both thought it had some cooling effect on Hakon’s
