E-Book, Englisch, Band 9, 432 Seiten
Reihe: Hanne Wilhelmsen Series
Holt Offline
Main
ISBN: 978-1-78239-881-3
Verlag: Corvus
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, Band 9, 432 Seiten
Reihe: Hanne Wilhelmsen Series
ISBN: 978-1-78239-881-3
Verlag: Corvus
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
ANNE HOLT is Norway's bestselling female crime writer. She spent two years working for the Oslo Police Department before founding her own law firm and serving as Norway's Minster for Justice between 1996 and 1997. She is published in 30 languages with over 6 million copies of her books sold.
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CHAPTER TWO
Time went by in a loop.
He had changed so much. Maybe it was the extra weight that, paradoxically enough, made him look shorter than the six foot seven she knew he measured on a good day. The broad shoulders were stooped and his trouser belt strained below his potbelly. His face was smooth-shaven, just like his head.
“Hanne,” he said.
“Billy T.,” she answered after a few seconds’ pause, without making any move to push her wheelchair back from the doorway to allow him access. “It’s been a long time.”
Billy T. rested his arm on the door frame, leaning against it and burying his face in his huge hand.
“Eleven years,” he mumbled.
A door slammed outside in the corridor. Decisive footsteps could be heard heading from the neighboring apartment in the direction of the elevator. They slowed as they approached Hanne Wilhelmsen’s front door and the big man, who was standing in what could easily be interpreted as a threatening pose.
“Everything okay here?” a deep male voice enquired.
“How did you get in downstairs?” Hanne asked, without replying to her neighbor. “We have an entry phone—”
“My God,” Billy T. groaned, tearing his hand away from his face. “I’ve been in the police longer than you. A fucking miserable door security system! You wouldn’t have let me in if I’d rung the bell, just as you’ve rejected every damned attempt I’ve ever made to contact you.”
“Hello,” the neighbor said gruffly, trying to insinuate himself between Billy T. and the wheelchair. He was almost as tall as Hanne’s old colleague. “It looks as though Ms. Wilhelmsen here isn’t particularly keen to see you.”
He looked quizzically at her, but she did not respond.
Eleven years.
And three months.
Plus a few days.
“Or what?” the neighbor said, irritated, placing a hand on Billy T.’s chest to push him farther out into the corridor.
“That’s right,” she said at last. “I’m not interested. I’d be grateful if you’d see him out.”
“Hanne …”
Billy T. shoved the man’s hand away and dropped to his knees. The neighbor took a step back. His surprise at seeing this enormous body kneel and fold his hands in prayer made him stare open-mouthed.
“Hanne. Please. I need help.”
She did not answer. She tried to look away, but his eyes had locked on hers. He had husky eyes, absolutely unforgettable, one blue and one brown. It was his eyes she feared most. So little else about this figure reminded her of the man Billy T. had once been. The fleece-lined denim jacket was too small for him and a big stain of something, possibly ketchup, disfigured one of the breast pockets. Black outlines of snuff were etched at both corners of his mouth, and his complexion was bloated and winter-pale.
His blue-brown gaze was still the same. In front of her wheelchair, only a few centimeters from those useless legs of hers, all the forgotten years stared her in the face. Jostling at her. As she resisted, she noticed she had stopped breathing.
“Come here,” the neighbor eventually said, so loudly that Hanne flinched. “You’re not wanted, didn’t you hear that? If you don’t come with me, I’ll have to call the police.”
Billy T. did not stir. His hands were still folded. His face was still turned toward her. Hanne said nothing. Outside in Kruses gate, an ambulance approached and, through the window at the end of the corridor, a blue flashing light swept across one wall before it faded and the noise subsided.
It grew quiet again.
Finally Billy T. got to his feet. Stiff and groaning slightly. He brushed the knees of his trousers with a light touch and tried to straighten his tight jacket. Without a word, he began to walk toward the elevator. Giving Hanne a self-assured smile, the neighbor followed him.
She sat watching them. Watching Billy T. He was the only one she saw. She let the wheels of her chair roll soundlessly out into the corridor.
“Billy T.,” she said as he pressed the button to summon the elevator.
He turned around.
“Yes?”
“You’ve never met Ida.”
“No.”
He ran his hand over his scalp, smiling warily.
“But I had heard you … that you both had a child. How old is she now?”
“Ten. She’ll turn eleven this summer.”
The elevator door opened with a ding.
Billy T. did not budge as the neighbor waved him in.
“She’ll be at school now, then,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Shall we?” the neighbor insisted, thrusting his foot forward to prevent the door from closing.
“I need help, Hanne. I need help with something that …”
Billy T. gasped for breath, as if on the brink of tears.
“It’s about Linus. Do you remember Linus, Hanne? My boy? Do you remember …?”
He checked himself and shook his head. Shrugging, he took one step into the elevator.
“Come in,” he heard, pulling him up short.
“What?”
He stepped back and stared along the corridor. Hanne was no longer there. But her door was open, he noticed; the front door invited him in and he was certain he had not misheard.
“Have a nice day,” he muttered to the neighbor as he walked hesitantly, almost anxiously, toward Hanne’s apartment.
Symbolically enough, the National Council for Islam in Norway, NCIN, was situated virtually next door to the American Lutheran Church in Frogner. In one of the best districts in Oslo, the increasingly large and influential organization had bought two apartments in Gimle terrasse and knocked them together into an impressive office. The protests of neighbors and political fanfare had made the process tortuous and prolonged, but some time after the inauguration, most of the neighbors were appeased. A woman who lived two floors above the office was interviewed by NRK, the national broadcaster, in connection with NCIN’s fifth anniversary. She was evidently pleased that they did not cook any food on the premises, as she had feared beforehand. Moreover, the organization had spent a lot of money on much-needed upgrading of the common areas. The eighty-year-old lady had also pointed out that her Muslims were beautifully dressed. None of them looked like that jihadist Mullah Krekar, and neither turbans nor tunics had gained admission to the respectable apartment block.
The American Church, which from a bird’s eye view looked like a bushy potted plant, was located diagonally opposite. It was mostly built of concrete. One of the advantages of which was that damage caused by the violent explosion would be limited.
The apartment block where NCIN was located sustained greater devastation.
As well as the old lady.
It was early in the day. Until then it had been like all others. The morning had brought freezing rain that had not been forecast, and traffic chaos. In some of the flowerbeds, overconfident daffodils had shown their faces to check the temperature the previous day; now they were hanging their heads in remorse. Afterward, when the entire area was combed and several hundred witnesses were required to relate what they had seen and where they had been, it turned out that one detail had, however, been unusual in that fashionable locality.
A young man in what they all called “traditional Islamic clothes” had approached the NCIN office, carrying a bag. The bag grew in size in the days following the blast. His clothing became increasingly eccentric. Some thought he had been wearing a turban, others were sure they had made out something that might have been a machine gun underneath his loose robes. Some individuals were convinced it was a question of two such figures, and three witnesses insisted they had spotted a whole gang of these odd birds in the minutes prior to the explosion.
It was difficult to know. The bomb was so powerful that the work of establishing the identities of the dead was far from simple.
Nevertheless, and on the basis of all the information quickly garnered from the relatives of the apartment block’s residents and NCIN’s numerous members who had not been present when the blast occurred, the police were able to issue an estimated total of fatalities that same evening. Or the missing, as they more correctly called most of them.
Sixteen people who could no longer be accounted for had been present in the NCIN offices. An unfortunate mailman had also disappeared. Of the neighbors in the apartments above NCIN’s office, only the old woman had been at home. She was found with all her body parts still attached to her torso, but her chest riddled with countless glass splinters and a door handle embedded four centimeters deep in her temple. Three pedestrians in Gimle terrasse and two in nearby Fritzners gate were also killed, but were sufficiently recognizable to receive a dignified funeral a few days later. One of them was a local employee in the embassy of the Czech Republic farther down the street, who had been on her way, far too early, to a lunch appointment.
In addition to the estimated twenty-three victims, the provisional statistics included eight more or less seriously wounded casualties. Among them the American pastor from the church directly across the street, who had been out walking his wife’s little Jack Russell puppy. The dog had died instantly, and the pastor had received a facial injury that would cost him repeated plastic-surgery operations. Very few concerned themselves to any great extent with the material damage in the days that followed, but it would later become apparent that...
