beyond the lines of pontoons against which all the yachts were moored, he flattened the throttle, felt the boat accelerate up to thirty knots and roared off towards the setting sun.
At the Gabelshus Hotel, Ravnsborg’s two men were leading Maddy Cross and Thor Larsson down the steps from the hotel entrance, towards their waiting squad car.
At Oslo police headquarters, the press officer gave the release one last read-through. Yes, she concluded, it was all exactly as her boss had demanded. She sent it off. Within minutes the bomber Carver’s name and face would be on every TV station, every news website, every media outlet in Norway. He would have no hiding place.
47
Damon Tyzack was sorely tempted to shoot the two men who’d come with him as he’d run up the opera house after Carver. The chopper he’d whistled up, originally to take him and Carver away, couldn’t land on the roof – typical nonsensical modern architecture, not a flat surface anywhere – and they’d had to be winched up one at a time on a rope. It took for bloody ever and did his state of mind no good at all.
He was already feeling stressed that Carver had taken out the other three and vanished. By the time Tyzack had got to the far ramp, Carver had gone. When he heard the sound of the engine, looked over the side and saw a man – it had to be Carver – riding off on a tinpot moped, it was too late for the three of them to make a run for the cars. They’d be better off up in the air. Still, he didn’t feel too clever being hauled up to the chopper like some drowning sailor and then having to wait in the cabin while the other two came aboard. Not with the Oslo police sure to pitch up any moment. He seriously considered leaning out of the door and giving his men the old double- tap, there and then. But Carver was still out there somewhere and there was work to do. He didn’t want to lose any more people just yet. And one of the men was Foster Lafferty: a total oaf, but he had his uses.
So now what?
Tyzack pulled on a headset and told his pilot to head south, over the water, away from the city. He needed to get away from the heat, find a minute to think. If he made a wrong move now, the whole thing could go tits-up. And he couldn’t afford that. Not with a president to kill.
48
Ole Ravnsborg didn’t like to tell people that his broken nose was the result of a childhood bicycle spill. He didn’t want to disappoint. It pleased everyone to believe that a man built the way he was and with a face so battered must be a tough guy. And that helped when dealing with criminals, most of whom had an essentially bestial, Darwinian view of life. It instilled a degree of respect and it blinded his opponents to the fact that he might just be smarter than them, too.
With women, of course, the dynamic was different. Ravnsborg felt able to display the more thoughtful and to him more authentic aspects of his personality. Those qualities, too, provided their own smokescreen.
He interviewed Maddy Cross in the presence of a female detective. He took his time sitting down and getting himself set. He wanted to take a look at her, not for any prurient reasons – though he was not blind to her attractions – but simply to get a sense of her as an interview subject and possible adversary.
She was confused and uncertain, that much was to be expected, either as a natural reaction to being dragged off to a police station in a foreign country, or as a pose adopted by a professional criminal, playing the role of the vulnerable female. There was something in her eyes, though: not the truculence of a habitual offender, perhaps, but a certain coolness. She had strength in her, this woman; she was self-possessed. Whether that made her anything other than an innocent bystander, only time would tell.
He began by sliding a picture of Carver’s face, cropped from the emailed photograph, across the table between them. ‘Do you know this man, Mrs Cross?’
She looked at it, frowning: ‘Yes, but… I don’t understand. Why am I here? I’ve done nothing wrong. Do I need a lawyer?’
Her voice was rising in pitch as she spoke, anxiety creeping in with every sentence. Ravnsborg was deliberately casual in reply.
‘I don’t know. Do you? I can say that at the moment you are here as a witness. You have not been charged with any offence. What do you have to worry about? Just tell me the truth and everything will be fine. So… what is his name?’
‘Samuel Carver… but, what is this? Is he in trouble?’
‘Possibly. Do you know where he is now, please?’
She shook her head. ‘No… no, I don’t. He just… disappeared…’
Ravnsborg nodded, tapping the table with his fingers as he pondered Carver’s vanishing act. He was not taking notes of the interview, though the female detective occasionally jotted down words in a notebook.
‘Where were you when this disappearance happened?’ he asked.
‘In the cafe, at that hotel…’
‘The King Haakon?’
‘Whatever, the one where… you know, the explosion… Is that what this is about? Because I don’t know anything about that.’
‘We’ll see… So, Mrs Cross, how would you describe your relationship with Mr Carver? Are you, how should I say… together?’
Maddy ran her hands through her hair, pulling it back from her face. ‘I guess. I mean, I thought we had something…’
‘And you came to Oslo, why?’
‘For a wedding – his friend Thor’s wedding.’
‘That would be Mr Larsson?’
‘Yes.’
‘So they were old friends.’
‘Sure. Sam was going to give a speech at the wedding.’
‘This wedding was the sole purpose of your trip?’
‘Well, we stayed in Paris for a couple days. We did some shopping. Then we came here. It was just a vacation, you know. That’s what he told me.’
‘Quite so,’ said Ravnsborg, noting the distancing of herself from him, the first indication of doubt. ‘And you arrived in Oslo at what time?’
‘About four in the afternoon, maybe a little after. It was the SAS flight, you can check.’
‘I will. And then?’
‘We took the train into the city and got a cab to our hotel. Thor came with us, then he went off to do wedding stuff. We were both a little tired, still jet-lagged, you know? So we stayed in our room, resting, till it was time to get ready for dinner.’
‘When did you leave the hotel?’
‘I don’t know, around eight, maybe.’
‘And you were in your room until then… resting?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So there were no witnesses who saw you there.’
‘I would hope not.’
If she was telling the truth, thought Ravnsborg, that left no time for Carver to place a bomb at the King Haakon Hotel. Of course, he might have had accomplices who did it for him. Or she might be lying. He made a mental note to have her alibi checked as soon as possible. But if true it made the evidence against Carver less secure, for now at least.
Ravnsborg returned to the interview: ‘Who suggested the cafe for dinner?’
