The Redbreast(10)

incident as there would be too many. I doubt that

any American president over the last twenty years

has completed his term of office without at least

ten attempts on his life being uncovered and the

perpetrator arrested. The media were none the

wiser.’

‘Why not?’

Crime Squad chief Bjarne Møller imagined he

had only thought the question and was as surprised

as the others when he heard his own voice. He

swallowed when he noticed the heads turning and

tried to keep his eyes on Meirik, but couldn’t help

them wandering in Brandhaug’s direction. The

Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs winked

reassuringly.

‘Well, as you know, it’s usual to keep attempted

assassinations under wraps,’ Meirik said, taking

off his glasses. They looked like the glasses which

go darker as you go into the sun, worn by Horst

Tappert in the Oberinspektor Derrick role, very

popular with German mail-order catalogues.

‘Attempted assassinations have proved to be at

least as contagious as suicides. And besides, we in

the field don’t want to reveal our working

practices.’

‘What plans have been made regarding

surveillance?’ the Under Secretary of State asked.

The woman with the cheekbones passed Meirik a

sheet and he put on his glasses again and read it.

‘Eight men from the Secret Service are coming on

Thursday. We will then start going through the

hotels and the route, vet all those who will come

into contact with the President and train the

Norwegian police officers we’re going to deploy.

We’ll need to call in units from Romerike, Asker

and Bærum.’

‘And they will be used to what end?’ Brandhaug

asked.

‘Mainly observation duties. Around the American

embassy, the hotel where the entourage will be

staying, the car park —’

‘In short, all the places where the President isn’t.’

‘POT will take care of that. With the American

Secret Service.’

‘I thought you didn’t like doing surveillance jobs,

Kurt?’ Brandhaug said with a smirk.

The memory caused Kurt Meirik to grimace.

During the Mining Conference in Oslo in 1998,

POT had refused to offer surveillance on the basis

of their own threat assessment. They concluded it

was ‘medium to low security risk’. On the second

day of the conference the Norwegian Directorate

of Immigration drew the conference’s attention to

the fact that one of the Norwegian drivers POT had

cleared for the Croat delegation was a Bosnian

Muslim. He had come to Norway in the 1970s and

had Norwegian citizenship for many years. But in

1993 both his parents and four members of his

family had been butchered by Croats at Mostar, in

Bosnia Herzegovina. When the man’s flat was

searched they had found two hand-grenades and a

suicide letter. Of course, the press had never got a

sniff of it, but the repercussions reached

government level, and Kurt Meirik’s career had

hung in the balance until Bernt Brandhaug himself

had intervened. The matter had been hushed up

after the police inspector in charge of the security

clearances had resigned. Brandhaug couldn’t

remember the man’s name, but ever since then his

working relations with Meirik had been excellent.

‘Bjørn!’ Brandhaug exclaimed, clapping his

hands together. ‘Now we’re all keen to hear what

it was you wanted to tell us. Come on!’

Brandhaug scanned the room, swiftly moving past

Meirik’s assistant, but not so swiftly that he didn’t

notice her looking at him. That is, she was looking

in his direction, but her eyes were expressionless,

blank. He considered whether to return her look, to

see what expression would emerge when she

realised what he was doing, but he dropped the

idea. What was her name? Rakel, wasn’t it?

5

Palace Gardens. 5 October 1999.

‘ARE YOU DEAD?’

The old man opened his eyes and saw the outline

of a head standing over him, but the face merged

into a corona of white light. Was it her? Had she

come to collect him already?

‘Are you dead?’ the bright voice repeated.

He didn’t answer because he didn’t know

whether his eyes were open or he was simply

dreaming. Or, as the voice asked him, if he was

dead.

‘What’s your name?’

The head moved and he saw the tips of trees and

blue sky. He had been dreaming. Something in a

poem. German bombers are overhead. Nordahl

Grieg. The King fleeing to England. His pupils

began to adjust to the light again and he

remembered he had sat down on the grass in the

Palace Gardens to rest. He must have fallen

asleep. A little boy crouched beside him and a pair