The Lion's Mouth (8 page)

“Well, as I said, it was black, with a red pattern. Provençal pattern, I would call it. It was big, approximately …”

Wenche Andersen held out her hands about a meter apart.

“… and it was probably made of wool. I’m fairly sure it was pure wool. But now it’s vanished.”

Tone-Marit turned toward her computer beside the window. Without uttering a word, she sat writing for ten minutes.

Wenche Andersen drank some more Farris, and glanced discreetly at her wristwatch. She felt fatigue seep through her, and the monotonous, rattling sound of the police officer’s fingers on the keyboard made her struggle to keep her eyes open.

“And you never heard a shot?”

Wenche Andersen was startled; she must have dozed off momentarily.

“No. Never.”

“Then we’ll draw a line under this for today. You can take a taxi home and charge it to us. Thanks for taking the trouble to come back again. Unfortunately, I can’t promise it’ll be the last time.”

After shaking hands in farewell, Wenche Andersen hesitated at the door.

“Do you think you’ll catch him? The killer, I mean?”

Her eyes, until now only very slightly red, seemed full of tears.

“I don’t know. It’s impossible to say. But we’re going to do our very, very best.”

“If that’s any consolation,” she added after a few moments.

However, by that time the Prime Minister’s secretary had already left, closing the door carefully behind her.

12.00,
PLENARY CHAMBER
,
PARLIAMENT BUILDING

T
he half-moon-shaped plenary chamber in the Parliament Building, which resembled an amphitheater, had never been more crowded. Every one of the 165 seats was occupied, and had been for more than a quarter of an hour. Unusually, no one spoke. The Cabinet members were sitting in the first semi-circle of chairs, at the front; only the Prime Minister’s seat was vacant, except for a bouquet of a dozen red roses that had been placed there haphazardly and looked as if they might fall to the floor at any moment. No one felt inclined to straighten them. The spaces reserved for diplomats were chock-f of bureaucrats and foreign representatives, all in dark clothes and with pale faces, apart from the South African ambassador, who was black and dressed in colorful traditional costume. The only noise, other than the occasional splutter and cough, came from the whirring of camera motors in the press box. The gallery above the rotunda was packed, and two security guards had their hands full holding latecomers outside the doors.

The President of the Parliament entered from the left. She strode across the floor, actually strode, her back erect and eyes swollen. She had been one of Birgitte Volter’s few genuine friends, and it was only long training in official decorum that kept her upright. Her curls trembled sadly on her head, as though they too were mourning the loss of a close friend.

She hammered three times on the table with a gavel before clearing her throat, then stood for so long without uttering a word that the atmosphere in the chamber became even more tense. In the end, she swallowed so loudly and so close to the microphone that the sound could be heard in every corner of the chamber.

“Parliament is lawfully convened,” she said finally, before reading out the list of deputies, for once rather short, which was good, since formalities seemed misplaced on a day such as this.

“Prime Minister Birgitte Volter has passed away,” she said at last. “And in the most brutal fashion imaginable.”

Lost in his own thoughts, Finance Minister Tryggve Storstein missed out on the memorial speech. Everything around him seemed to blur. The golden decorations on the ceiling, the burgundy carpet at his feet, the sound of the Parliamentary President’s voice; a glass bell jar formed around his chair and he felt totally alone. He was going to become Party Leader. Ruth-Dorthe did not have a chance. She was far too controversial for that. But would he also become Prime Minister? He did not even know if he wanted to. Of course, the thought had been there. Earlier. Before the final confrontation in 1992, when Gro Harlem Brundtland had resigned as Leader of the Labor Party, thus launching the cat-and-dog fight that Birgitte Volter had won. But now? Did he want to be Prime Minister?

He shook his head peremptorily. People did not ask such questions. One did what the situation demanded. What the party required. Frowning at the old cliché, he closed his eyes. For one fleeting, liberating moment he considered the possibility of the
opposition taking over, but that blasphemous notion was swiftly displaced. They had to retain power. Anything else would mean chaos. Defeat. He was tired of defeat.

“In conclusion, I propose that the costs of Prime Minister Birgitte Volter’s funeral be borne by the state,” the President said.

Tryggve Storstein straightened up.

“Carried unanimously,” the woman at the front declared, hammering the gavel, and stroking her cheek rapidly, in a gesture of vulnerability. “The Foreign Minister has asked to speak.”

The ungainly man appeared even skinnier and more exhausted than he had that morning. Once installed at the Speaker’s chair, he seemed to forget himself entirely, before pulling himself together sufficiently to face right.

“Madam President,” he said with a brief nod, glancing down at a small scrap of paper he had set in front of him. “I have taken the liberty of asking to speak in order to say that, as a matter of course, all members of the government place their positions at your disposal now, since the Prime Minister herself is deceased.”

That was all. Hesitating slightly, he adjusted his glasses, as if he was considering continuing, then stepped from the Speaker’s chair and back to his place without taking the slip of paper with him.

“Then I would like to ask for one minute’s silence,” the President of the Parliament said.

The intense, empty silence lasted for two and a half minutes. Now and again a sniff was audible, but even the press photographers did not disrupt the solemn pause.

“The meeting is closed.”

The Parliamentary President banged the gavel again.

Finance Minister Tryggve Storstein stood up. Thirty-six hours without sleep was now beginning to make him feel intoxicated; he was out of sorts and remained on his feet, staring at his hands, as though they belonged to someone else entirely.

“When’s the Cabinet meeting, Tryggve?”

It was the Minister of Culture, in a charcoal-gray suit and makeup that looked as though it had been a long time since she’d glanced in a mirror.

“Two o’clock,” he said abruptly.

They all immediately left the chamber, in a quiet and orderly fashion, eyes downcast, like a procession of mourners rehearsing for the funeral. The press photographers noticed that the only person who actually looked as though she might be hiding a smile was Health Minister Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden.

However, it might just as well have been a scowl.

15.32,
GAMLE CHRISTIANIA RESTAURANT

“T
he Christer Pettersson sort. Quite sure. Dead cert.”

The man wore a suit that looked as though it had been bought in a Texaco service station, its shiny material reminiscent of Beaver nylon from the 1970s. He raised his almost empty half-liter glass and continued speaking, with a foam moustache above his lip. “The police are going to make fools of themselves. Just like in Sweden. They’re going to get completely bogged down in all kinds of stupid, highly political leads. And then it’ll be some peculiar guy or other who turns out to have done it. Somebody like Christer Pettersson, the Olof Palme guy.”

“Or a jealous lover.”

The woman with the not entirely original idea was relatively young, around thirty years old, her voice almost falsetto.

“Does anyone know anything about Birgitte Volter’s love life?”

Four of the five others around the table, all men, started to laugh.

“Love life? She was having an affair with Tryggve Storstein, that’s for sure. Bloody hell, he’s also the one who’ll probably take
over the whole shooting match, isn’t he! A slightly delicate situation for the police, don’t you think, since he must be on the list of suspects! I know that—”

The Texaco man sounded confident but was interrupted by a booming voice that came from the enormous beard of a man in his forties. His head was completely shaven, but the jet-black beard reached down to his chest.

“That rumor about Volter and Storstein is nothing but nonsense. Storstein’s in a relationship with
Helene Burvik
now, not Volter. That ended long ago. Long before the big showdown in 92.”

“I thought Tryggve Storstein was happily married,” muttered the youngest of the journalists around the table, a girl from
Aftenposten
who had still not managed to establish a regular seat in the Gamle restaurant. “How on earth does somebody like that have the
time
for a mistress?”

The silence was total, as they all froze; even the beer was left sitting for a short while. Though she blushed deeply and unflatteringly, the girl was brash enough to continue. “I mean to say, how do you know it’s
true
, what you’re saying? If I believed half the rumors I’ve heard in the last six months, most members of the Cabinet have a sleazy past and a sex life we all might envy. That is, the ones who aren’t gay. Or them as well, for that matter. How do they find the
time
? That’s what I’m asking. For all the sordid goings-on they’re supposed to get up to, I mean. And how do you
know
all this? And is it actually so very
interesting
, anyway?”

She raised her wine glass. She was the only one not drinking beer.

As though someone had waved an invisible magic wand, she was immediately pushed out of the group. She was sitting at the edge of the table, on a stool, and the two men on either side of her turned away; their shoulders expanded, forming a wall that separated her from the others.

“So sweet,” the beard muttered. “Sweet and virtuous, I must say.”

As Little Lettvik entered, she caught sight of them and lifted her hand in greeting; three swinging half-liter glasses waved in response. She approached the bar, then headed toward her colleagues, carrying a glass.

“Cola, Little? Incredible!” The man in Beaver nylon shook his head. “This should be immortalized. Call the photographer.”

“Unlike you …” Little Lettvik said softly, perching on a stool that supported only the small inner circle of her backside; the remainder overflowed so that it seemed as if four chair legs were growing out of her posterior. “… I’m now working twenty-four hours a day, and am staying sober. You can tell from your newspapers, of course …”

She raised her glass to the
Dagbladet
journalists at her side.

“… that you have a different agenda to us. What’s got into you today? The whole newspaper looks like one long tribute to Birgitte Volter. God’s gift to the country, the greatest Prime Minister of our times! What’s happened to your critical faculties, Ola? Your incisive journalism? The harsh spotlight?
Dagbladet
always to the fore! Today, to be honest, it’s bringing up the rear.”

“At least we understand that we shouldn’t speculate in a wild, unrestrained fashion if we don’t know a bloody thing.”

The beard was insulted. A very experienced journalist, he was a prizewinner several times over. He had been offered the editor’s post on repeated occasions, but had always responded with a roared refusal, despite his satisfaction at the offer, since it basically confirmed how clever he was. He wanted to be an investigative journalist. He knew everything, and was good company for those who recognized his sovereignty. But not for anyone else.

“When a Norwegian Prime Minister is shot in her office, it
really is
the time for speculation,” Little Lettvik countered. “What do you think the police are doing? Of course they’re speculating
too. They don’t know anything. They’re inventing theories and thinking, and acting accordingly. Exactly like us.”

“This is not the day for speculation,” Ola Henriksen said crossly. “Tomorrow will be time enough for that. When people have finished grieving.”

“We won’t have managed that by tomorrow,” the ostracized girl piped up in a reedy voice.

“What are you up to, then?” Ola Henriksen said, staring at Little as he rotated his beer glass over and over again. “What do you know that nobody else does?”

Little Lettvik gave a husky, heartfelt laugh.

“As if I would tell you.”

Suddenly she looked at her watch, a plastic Swatch with a wide pattern of eczema around its strap.

“Need to make a call,” she said abruptly. “Keep my place.”

The others remained seated, watching as she left. They were all struck by the same uncomfortable feeling – that they should really be somewhere else entirely, doing entirely different things, not just sitting in the Gamla drinking beer – and they were all struck dumb.

“When does that other bar, the Tostrup Kjelleren, actually open?” one of the eldest men muttered eventually; his words had already begun to slur.

No one replied. They sat watching Little Lettvik, who had not been content with simply leaving the dark premises; to be on the safe side, she had also crossed the street, where she took up position outside the GlasMagasinet department store, several meters away from its café entrance.

It was chilly outside. The drizzle made her draw close to the wall, and she stood with her back to the street as she tapped in the secret number.

“Storskog,” the voice snapped as usual.

“Konrad, Konrad, my very best friend,” Little Lettvik purred, and was met by the normal resounding silence. “Just one little question today. The same one as yesterday, in fact. After all, you weren’t very cooperative.”

The pause did not last as long as she had expected.

“This is the last time I ever give you anything, Lettvik. Do you hear? The last thing you’re ever getting.”

The voice stopped, obviously waiting to hear a promise that did not come.

“Do you hear me, Lettvik? I want an end to all this now. Agreed?”

“That depends. What is it you’ve got?”