he followed the marks down the drive and back to the road.
Strange.
He took a couple of steps – carefully, so as not to destroy the tracks. They quickly became less distinct. After another half-metre, they had almost completely disappeared. There was only the vaguest hint of a track leading all the way to the road.
Rolf turned and followed the tracks in the opposite direction, where they were just as clear as in the middle. With a sense of unease that he couldn’t really explain, he went back to the point where the tracks began, followed them carefully into the small courtyard and beyond until they blended with other tracks on the road. There was no snow piled up between the street and the house; Rolf and Marcus employed a company to clear the snow, and someone came along with a tractor twice a day. They must have come just after the snowplough.
He didn’t really understand what he was looking for. Suddenly he realized that the car must have stopped. It had been snowing for a long time, but the car must still have stood there for quite a while. The difference in the depth of the tracks was striking. He could tell from the width that it was a car, or at least not a lorry or anything bigger. It must have come from down below, pulled in and stayed there for a while. As it waited the snow had come whirling in behind the back wheels, but the tracks weren’t covered by quite as much snow where they were sheltered by the car.
Suddenly an engine started. He looked up and turned to face the slope just in time to see a car pulling away from the side of the road further up, from the bus stop right by the bend curving towards the east. The whirling snow and the gathering dusk made it impossible for him to read the number plate. Instinctively, he began to run. Before he had covered the fifty metres, the car had disappeared. Everything was silent once more. He could hear nothing but his own breathing as he crouched down to examine the tracks. Feather-light snowflakes danced in the air, covering a pattern he thought he recognized. Quickly he took out his mobile phone. It was so dark that the camera flash went off automatically.
‘Shit,’ he muttered, and ran back with the phone in his hand.
The quiet side road that wound its way upwards wasn’t a natural through route. The gardens were large, and the expensive houses were spread out and sheltered from onlookers. Recently there had been a wave of break-ins around the area. Three of their neighbours had lost everything while they were away over Christmas, despite burglar alarms and a security company. The police believed they were dealing with professional thieves. Four weeks ago the family down at the bottom of the street had been the victims of a robbery. Three men had broken in during the night and taken the man of the house hostage. His nineteen-year-old son had been forced to drive to Majorstua with them in order to empty the family’s accounts with the four debit cards and three credit cards the attackers had got hold of by threatening the family and firing a shot at an expensive work of art.
The tracks by the portico were still quite clear. Rolf tried to hold his mobile at the same distance from the ground as he took another picture. He could upload them on to the computer and enlarge the pictures in order to compare them. As he was putting the phone in his pocket, he caught sight of a cigarette butt. It must have been covered by the snow, but had now become visible in one of his footprints. He bent down and scraped gently at the impression left by his boot. Another butt appeared. And another. When he examined the first one in the dim light of a street lamp, it told him nothing. He couldn’t even read the brand.
Three cigarettes. Rolf had given up smoking many years ago, but still remembered that it took about seven minutes to smoke a cigarette. Seven times three was twenty-one. If the driver had been chain-smoking, the car had been here for almost half an hour.
The police thought the burglars might be from Eastern Europe. In the newspaper they had said that people should keep their eyes open; this gang or gangs clearly undertook a considerable amount of preliminary investigation before they struck. The cigarette butts could be valuable evidence.
He carefully placed them in one of the black bags he kept in the pockets of all his jackets for picking up dog shit. Then he put the bag in his pocket and set off towards the house. He would ring the police immediately.
The answerphone cut out, but she had no idea why. Perhaps one of the children had pressed some button or other. At any rate, she hadn’t heard the whole of Adam’s message. When she heard footsteps on the stairs she stiffened, before a familiar voice called: ‘It’s me. I’m home.’
‘So I see,’ she said with a smile, stroking his cheek as he kissed her gently. ‘Weren’t you going back to Bergen?’
‘Yes. I’ve already been there. But as there a number of things I can work on just as easily from Oslo, I caught an afternoon flight home. I’ll stay here for this week, I think.’
‘Excellent! Are you hungry?’
‘I’ve eaten. Didn’t you get my message?’
‘No, there’s something wrong with the phone.’
Adam pulled off his tie, after fumbling with the knot for so long that Johanne offered to help.
‘The person who invented this ridiculous item of clothing should be shot,’ he muttered. ‘What on earth is all this?’
He frowned at the piles of documents and books, journals and loose sheets of paper lying around her on the sofa and almost covering the coffee table completely. Johanne was sitting cross-legged in the middle of it all with her reading glasses perched on her nose and a large glass of steaming hot tea in her hand.
‘I’m getting into hatred,’ she smiled. ‘I’m reading about hatred.’
‘Good God,’ he groaned. ‘As if I don’t get enough of that kind of thing at work. What are you drinking?’
‘Tea. Two parts Lady Grey and one part Chinese Pu-erh. There’s more in the Thermos in the kitchen if you’d like some.’
He took off his shoes and went to fetch a cup.
Johanne closed her eyes. The inexplicable anxiety and unease were still there, but spending a chaotic afternoon with the children had helped. Ragnhild, who would be five on 21 January and hardly talked about anything else, had arranged a practice birthday for all her dolls and teddy bears. During dinner Johanne and Kristiane had acquired hats, made from Ragnhild’s knickers covered in Hannah Montana stickers. Kristiane had given a long lecture about the movement of the planets around the sun, concluding with the announcement that she was going to be an astronaut when she grew up. Since Kristiane’s perception of time could be difficult to understand, and as she rarely showed any interest in things that might happen more than a couple of days in the future, Johanne had delightedly dug out all the books from her own childhood, when she had had exactly the same dream.
When the children were in bed, her unease had come back. In order to keep it in check, she had decided to work.
‘Tell me all about it,’ said Adam, flopping down into an armchair.
He held the cup of tea up to his face, letting the steam cover his skin like a moist film.
‘About what?’
‘About hatred.’
‘I should think you know more about it than I do.’
‘Don’t joke. I’m interested. What are you up to?’
He took a sip from his cup. The blend of tea was fresh and light, with a slightly acidic scent.
‘I was thinking,’ she said slowly, then paused. ‘I was thinking of approaching the concept of hatred from the outside. From the inside, too, of course, but in order to say anything meaningful about hate crime I think we have to delve deeply into the concept itself. With all this money that’s suddenly raining down on us…’
She looked up as if it really was.
‘… I can bring in that girl I mentioned, for example.’
‘Girl?’
‘Charlotte Holm. She specializes in the history of ideas. She’s the one I told you about, the one who wrote… this.’
She glanced around quickly before picking up a booklet.
‘
‘Exciting,’ she said, tossing the booklet aside. ‘I’ve spoken to her, and she’s probably going to start working
