had deserved his punishment whichever way you
looked at it. And it was there they had shot Vidkun
Quisling and the others who had been tried for war
crimes and sentenced to death. Quisling had been
imprisoned in the Powder Tower. The old man had
often wondered if the Powder Tower had inspired
Jens Bjørneboe’s book, in which he described, in
great detail, various methods of execution over the
centuries. Was his description of execution by
firing squad actually a portrait of the execution of
Vidkun Quisling that October day in 1945 when
they led the traitor out to the square to drill his
body with bullets? Had they, as the author wrote,
placed a hood over his head and fastened a white
square of cloth over his heart as a marker? Had
they given the command to shoot four times before
the shots rang out? And had the trained marksmen
shot so badly that the doctor with the stethoscope
had been forced to say that the condemned man
would have to be executed again – until they had
done it four or five times and death occurred
through loss of blood from the many surface
wounds?
The old man had cut out the description from the
book.
The grey coat had finished his business and was
on his way down the slope to his car. The woman
still stood by the wall; she had pulled her skirt
back into place and lit a cigarette which glowed in
the dark when she inhaled. The old man waited.
Then she crushed the cigarette under her heel and
began to walk down the muddy path round the
fortress and back to her ‘office’ in the streets
around Norges Bank.
The old man turned towards the back seat where
the gagged woman stared at him with the same
petrified eyes he had seen when she became
conscious after being given diethyl ether. He could
see her mouth moving behind the gag.
‘Don’t be frightened, Signe,’ he said, leaning
over and fastening something on to her coat. She
tried to bend her head to see what it was, but he
forced her head up.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said. ‘As we used to.’
He got out of the car, opened the rear door, pulled
her out and shoved her in front of him. She
stumbled and fell on the gravel in the grass beside
the path, but he caught hold of the rope which
bound her hands behind her back and pulled her to
her feet. He positioned her directly in front of one
of the floodlight projectors, with the light in her
eyes.
‘Stand still. I forgot the wine,’ he said. ‘Red
Ribeiros. You can remember it, can’t you? Quite
still, otherwise I . . .’
She was blinded by the light and he had to put the
knife right in front of her face for her to see it.
Despite the piercing light, the pupils were so large
that her eyes seemed almost completely black. He
went down to the car and scouted around. No one
in sight. He listened and all he heard was the usual
drone of the town. Then he opened the boot. He
shoved the black rubbish bag to the side and could
feel that the body of the dog inside had already
begun to go stiff. The steel of the Märklin rifle
twinkled darkly. He took it out and sat in the front
seat. He rolled the window half-down and rested
the gun on it. When he looked up he could see her
gigantic shadow dancing on the yellowish brown
sixteenth-century wall. The shadow had to be
visible all the way across the bay from Nesodden.
Beautiful.
He started up the car with his right hand and
revved the engine. He took a last look around
before peering through the sights. The distance was
barely fifty metres and her coat filled the whole of
the circle in the sight lens. He shifted his aim
marginally to the right and the black cross-hair
found what he was searching for – the white piece
of paper. He released the air from his lungs and
crooked his finger around the trigger.
‘Welcome back,’ he whispered.
Part Eight
THE REVELATION
85
Vienna. 14 May 2000.
HARRY TREATED HIMSELF TO THREE SECONDS OF
RELISHING the sensation of cool leather against the
back of his neck and forearms on the seats of
Tyrolean Air. Then he went back to his reflections.
Beneath them the countryside lay like an unbroken
patchwork of green and yellow, with the Danube
glittering in the sun like a weeping brown wound.
The air stewardess had just informed them that they
were about to land in Schwechat, and Harry
prepared himself.
He had never been ecstatic about flying, but in
recent years he had begun to be downright
frightened. Ellen had once asked him what he was
frightened of. ‘Crashing and dying, what the fuck
else?’ he had answered. She had told him that the
odds of dying in a plane on the occasional trip
were thirty million to one against. He had thanked