‘Am I assumed dead?’
‘No. Nothing is assumed. It’s more… confusion. In the US, they believe-’
‘You have my word…’ the President said, holding out a slim hand. She staggered slightly and had to step sideways to catch her balance. ‘You have my word that it is of the utmost importance that no one is told that I’ve been found. My word should be more than enough.’
Hanne took hold of her hand. It was freezing.
They looked at each other.
The President stumbled to one side again. It was as if her knee kept buckling. She tried to straighten up after what looked like a comical curtsy, then let go of Hanne’s hand and whispered: ‘Don’t ring anyone. It’s essential that no one must know!’
She sank slowly back down into the sofa and fell to one side, like an ancient ragdoll. Her head hit the cushion. She stayed lying like that, with one hand on her hip and the other tucked under her cheek, as if she had suddenly decided to take a nap.
‘Here’s some soup,’ Mary said.
She stopped in the middle of the room with a steaming bowl in her hands.
‘Poor thing’s exhausted,’ she said and turned. ‘If anyone else wants some, they’ll have to come into the kitchen.’
‘We’ve got to phone,’ Johanne said in desperation, squatting down beside the unconscious president. ‘We at least need to get a doctor.’
XXVII
The May night had fallen over Oslo.
The clouds were heavy and grey and so low that the top floors of the Hotel Plaza had vanished. It was as if the severe, slim tower had simply evaporated into the sky. The air was chilly, with gusts of warmer wind that promised a better day tomorrow.
Adam Stubo had never really liked spring. He didn’t like the changes in the weather, from baking summer sun to a bitter three degrees; from icy rain to swimming weather, turn and turn about and completely unpredictable. It was impossible to dress appropriately. When he went to the office, he wore a sweater against the morning chill, and then was drenched in sweat by lunch. An impulsive barbecue that seemed like a good idea in the morning could turn into a freezing nightmare by dinner.
He thought that spring smelt bad as well. Especially in the centre of town. The mild weather uncovered all the rubbish left from winter, the decay of autumn and turds from innumerable dogs that shouldn’t be living in town.
Adam was an autumn person. November was his favourite month. Rain from start to finish, with steadily falling temperatures, which with any luck would bring snow before Advent. November smelt wet and raw and was a predictable, melancholy month that always made him feel happy.
May, on the other hand, was another story.
He sat down on a bench and breathed in deeply. The surface of the water in Middelalderparken, a park with medieval ruins, rippled gently in the breeze. There wasn’t a soul around. Even the birds that carried on a volley of calls from dawn until dusk at this time of year had settled for the night. A small cluster of ducks was resting on the bank, with their beaks under their wings. Only the rotund drake waddled happily around, keeping watch over his family.
It was as if the events of the past couple of days had drained not only Oslo of its energy, but the whole of the Western world. Adam had managed to watch the news earlier on in the evening. The streets of New York had never been so deserted. The city that never slept had fallen into a stupor, a state of numb, unresolved waiting. In Washington and Lillesand, in metropolises and small towns, it seemed that everyone saw the disappearance of the President as an omen of something worse to come; something terrible was going to happen, so it was safest to withdraw and stay at home behind locked doors and closed curtains.
He shut his eyes. The constant sound of the city and the odd noisy trailer in the traffic flow on the other side of the water reminded him that he was sitting in the middle of a capital. Otherwise he could have been somewhere completely different. He felt utterly alone in the world.
He had been trying to get hold of Warren Scifford for over an hour. There was no point in going home before they’d spoken. He had left two messages, one on his mobile phone and one at the embassy. They hadn’t seen Mr Scifford at the hotel since the early afternoon.
The dead Secret Service agent, Jeffrey William Hunter, was found about an hour after a flustered taxi driver had turned up at a police station with a badge he had found in his dead mother’s jacket pocket. As the ambulance service could immediately tell them where the dying woman had been picked up, they just had to spread out and search the area.
The man was found twelve metres from the spot where the woman had collapsed. He was lying in a ditch near the track. A 9mm bullet from a SIG-Sauer P229, which he was holding in his hand, had made a path straight through his skull. The team examining the scene had been puzzled for a while by the fact that his right arm was partially hidden, wedged into a space between two big rocks, which they initially thought would be impossible for a dead man to do. However, a quick and informal reconstruction of the fall had convinced them that it was in fact a case of suicide. The pathologist was of the same opinion, though with the reservation that it would take several days to reach a definite conclusion.
It was nearly half past ten and Adam gave a long yawn. He was tired and yet at the same time awake. On the one hand, he longed to go to bed. His body was heavy and exhausted. On the other, he was overwhelmed by a disquiet that would make it impossible to sleep.
The police HQ had become unbearable. There was no longer any talk of overtime or when the seemingly endless shifts would be over. People hurried around like ants in a heap. More and more people arrived at the huge curved building, and no one seemed to leave. The corridors were crawling with people. All the offices were in use. Some cleaning cupboards were even being used as temporary accommodation for contracted office staff.
It felt like the building was besieged. The village on the grassy slope down towards Grønlandsleiret was expanding steadily. A couple of Swedish TV companies had chosen to set up camp on the other side of the HQ building. They had blocked Åkebergveien for a while with two buses. They had then been moved to Borggata, just by Grønland church, but the side road was so narrow that the police cars couldn’t get out of the car park if the buses stayed where they were. The Swedes had been arguing with the duty officers for three quarters of an hour when Adam suddenly decided he couldn’t take any more. He had to get some air.
He had been stuffing himself with food at every opportunity since the afternoon. Before he went out, he helped himself greedily to a barely warm pizza from Pepe’s. There were flat pizza boxes everywhere. In the course of two days, Oslo Police had become the fast-food chain’s largest customer ever.
He still felt hungry.
He patted his stomach. It was a long time since he had been able to call himself simply large. Without really knowing when it happened, in much the same way that his hair was now thinner, Adam had become fat. His stomach hung heavily over his belt, which he loosened as soon as he thought no one could see. He had pushed the reminder from the police doctor to one side with the excuse that he was too busy. He didn’t dare to go. In silence he thanked the fact that routines were so poor that he wouldn’t be sent another reminder until next year. Sometimes, when he woke up at night because he needed the toilet, he could feel the cholesterol sticking to his arteries like some horrible, life-threatening slime. He thought he noticed double beats and felt pains in his heart and left arm, and for the first time in his life he was kept awake at night worrying about his health.
When morning finally came, he realised with some relief that it was all imagination, and sat down to a hearty fried breakfast, as always. He was a large man and he needed real food. He would start exercising again. When he had more time.