The Redbreast(175)

Drammensveien. The sound cut right through the

blanket of brass-band music.

‘Fuck. Fuck!’

He broke into a run.

104

Radisson SAS. 17 May 2000.

THE OLD MAN WAS LEANING AGAINST THE WINDOW

WITH HIS legs drawn up beneath him, holding the

gun with both hands and listening to the ambulance

siren slowly fading away into the distance. It’s too

late, he thought. Everyone dies.

He had been sick again. Mostly blood. The pain

had almost deprived him of consciousness and

afterwards he lay bent double on the floor, waiting

for the pills to take effect. Four of them. The pain

had subsided, with one last stab to remind him that

it would soon come back, and the bathroom had

assumed normal proportions again. One of the two

bathrooms. With a jacuzzi. Or was it a sauna?

There was a TV anyway, and he had turned it on.

There were patriotic songs, the national anthem,

festively dressed journalists reporting on the

children’s parade on all the channels.

Now he was sitting in the living room, and the sun

hung in the sky like a huge flare, lighting up

everything. He knew he shouldn’t look straight at

the flare, because you would become night-blind

and you wouldn’t be able to see the Russian

snipers wriggling through the snow in no man’s

land.

I can see him, Daniel whispered. One o’clock,

on the balcony right behind the dead tree.

Trees? There were no trees here in the crater

landscape.

The Crown Prince has walked out on to the

balcony, but he doesn’t say anything.

‘He’ll get away!’ a voice sounding like

Gudbrand’s shouted.

No, he won’t, Daniel said. No bloody Bolshevik

gets away. ‘He knows we’ve seen him, he’s

crawling into the hollow.’

No, he isn’t.

The old man rested the gun against the edge of the

window. He had used a screwdriver to open it

further than the permitted crack. What was it that

the girl in reception had told him that time? It was

to prevent guests from ‘getting silly ideas’. He

looked through the rifle sights. People were so

small down there. He set the range. Four-hundred

metres. Shooting from above and down, you have

to take into account the fact that gravity affects the

bullet differently; it is a different trajectory from

shooting on the level. But Daniel knew that, Daniel

knew everything.

The old man looked at his watch: 10.45. Time to

let it happen. He rested his cheek against the cold,

heavy rifle butt, placed his left hand on the barrel

slightly further down. Contorted his left eye. The

railing on the balcony filled the sights. Then black

coats and top hats. He found the face he was

searching for. There was certainly a strong

resemblance. It was the same young face as in

1945.

Daniel had gone even quieter and took aim. There

was almost no frost smoke coming out of his mouth

any more.

In front of the balcony, out of focus, the dead oak

pointed its black witches’ fingers to the sky. A bird

sat on one of the branches. Right in the firing line.

The old man shifted nervously. It hadn’t been there

before. It would soon fly away again. He put down

the gun and drew fresh air into his aching lungs.

Click – click.

Harry slapped the steering wheel and twisted the

ignition key one more time.

Click – click.

‘Start, you bastard! Or else it’s off to the scrap

heap tomorrow.’

The Escort started with a roar and the car shot

off, spitting grass and earth. He took a sharp right

by the lake. The young people stretched out on the

blanket raised their bottles of beer and cheered

Harry on as he lurched towards the SAS Hotel.

With the engine screaming in first gear and his

hand on the horn he effectively cleared a way

down through the crowded gravel path, but by the

kindergarten at the bottom a pram suddenly

appeared from behind a tree, and he flung the car

to the left, wrenched the wheel to the right, went

into a skid and only just avoided the fence in front

of the greenhouses. The car slid sideways into

Wergelandsveien, in front of a taxi with

Norwegian flags and a birch twig festooning the

radiator grille. The taxi driver jumped on his

brakes, but Harry accelerated and threaded his

way through oncoming traffic and into Holbergs

gate.

He braked in front of the hotel’s swing doors and

leaped out. When he sprinted into the packed

reception area there was an immediate moment of

silence, with everyone wondering if they were

going to witness a unique experience. But it was

just a very drunken man on 17 May. They had seen

that before and the volume was turned up again.

Harry raced across to one of the absurd ‘islands’.

‘Good morning,’ a voice said. A pair of raised