Fear Not Part 19

'b.l.o.o.d.y man,' he mumbled, glancing over the doc.u.ments in the thin file. 'He was adamant he needed to see me as soon as I got back.'

The secretary didn't reply, and went back to her own office.

This headache was killing him. He stuck his thumb in one eye and his index finger in the other. The pressure didn't help at all. Nor did the coffee; the combination of caffeine and alcohol was giving him palpitations.

The tray containing ongoing cases was overflowing. When he put the latest file on top, it slid off and fell on the floor. He got up crossly and retrieved it. He thought for a moment, opened a drawer and slipped the file inside. Then he closed the drawer and left the room.

'Shall I ring this ... ?' The secretary was looking at the diary over her half-moon gla.s.ses. 'Niclas Winter,' she went on. 'To arrange another appointment, I mean. As you say, he did make an enormous fuss and-'

'No. Wait until he rings us. I've got enough to do this week. If he can't even be bothered to cancel, then tough.'

He picked up the large suitcase which he had thrown down when he arrived, and disappeared without closing the door behind him. He hadn't asked his secretary one single question about how her Christmas had been, visiting her children and grandchildren in Thailand. She sat there listening to his footsteps on the stairs. The suitcase b.u.mped on every step. It sounded as if he had three legs and a limp.

Then, at last, there was silence.

The heavy snow m.u.f.fled every sound. It was as if the peace of Christmas still lay over the area. Rolf Slettan had chosen to walk home from work, even though it took an hour and a half to get from the veterinary surgery on Skyen to the house on Holmenkollen Ridge. The pavements were almost a metre deep in soft snow, and for the last two kilometres he had been forced to walk in the narrow track left in the middle of the road by the snowplough. The few cars that came slithering along from time to time forced him to clamber up on to the still-white mounds of snow at either side. He was breathing heavily, and soaked in sweat. Even so, he began to run when he reached the final stretch.

From a distance the house looked like a scene from a film about the n.a.z.is. The white cap of snow hung down over the edges of the portico, partly hiding the rough-hewn text: Home Sweet Home. Thick drifts surrounded the courtyard, which would need clearing again in a few hours.

He stopped in the turning area outside the portico. Marcus probably wasn't home yet. A layer of virgin snow some ten centimetres deep revealed that no one had come or gone for quite some time. Little Marcus had gone home with a cla.s.smate, and wouldn't be back until about eight o'clock. The house was dark and silent, but several wrought-iron exterior lights provided a welcoming glow, making the snow sparkle. The turf roof was buried in snow. The dragons sticking out their tongues looked as if they might take off at any moment on their new white wings.

He was brushing the snow off his trouser legs when a tyre track caught his attention. A car had turned in and swung in a wide circle in front of the portico. It couldn't have been long ago. Crouching down, he could still make out the tyre pattern. Someone had probably pulled in to give way to oncoming traffic, he thought. As he stood up he followed the marks down the drive and back to the road.

Strange.

He took a couple of steps carefully, so as not to destroy the tracks. They quickly became less distinct. After another half-metre, they had almost completely disappeared. There was only the vaguest hint of a track leading all the way to the road.

Rolf turned and followed the tracks in the opposite direction, where they were just as clear as in the middle. With a sense of unease that he couldn't really explain, he went back to the point where the tracks began, followed them carefully into the small courtyard and beyond until they blended with other tracks on the road. There was no snow piled up between the street and the house; Rolf and Marcus employed a company to clear the snow, and someone came along with a tractor twice a day. They must have come just after the snowplough.

He didn't really understand what he was looking for. Suddenly he realized that the car must have stopped. It had been snowing for a long time, but the car must still have stood there for quite a while. The difference in the depth of the tracks was striking. He could tell from the width that it was a car, or at least not a lorry or anything bigger. It must have come from down below, pulled in and stayed there for a while. As it waited the snow had come whirling in behind the back wheels, but the tracks weren't covered by quite as much snow where they were sheltered by the car.

Suddenly an engine started. He looked up and turned to face the slope just in time to see a car pulling away from the side of the road further up, from the bus stop right by the bend curving towards the east. The whirling snow and the gathering dusk made it impossible for him to read the number plate. Instinctively, he began to run. Before he had covered the fifty metres, the car had disappeared. Everything was silent once more. He could hear nothing but his own breathing as he crouched down to examine the tracks. Feather-light snowflakes danced in the air, covering a pattern he thought he recognized. Quickly he took out his mobile phone. It was so dark that the camera flash went off automatically.

's.h.i.t,' he muttered, and ran back with the phone in his hand.

The quiet side road that wound its way upwards wasn't a natural through route. The gardens were large, and the expensive houses were spread out and sheltered from onlookers. Recently there had been a wave of break-ins around the area. Three of their neighbours had lost everything while they were away over Christmas, despite burglar alarms and a security company. The police believed they were dealing with professional thieves. Four weeks ago the family down at the bottom of the street had been the victims of a robbery. Three men had broken in during the night and taken the man of the house hostage. His nineteen-year-old son had been forced to drive to Majorstua with them in order to empty the family's accounts with the four debit cards and three credit cards the attackers had got hold of by threatening the family and firing a shot at an expensive work of art.

The tracks by the portico were still quite clear. Rolf tried to hold his mobile at the same distance from the ground as he took another picture. He could upload them on to the computer and enlarge the pictures in order to compare them. As he was putting the phone in his pocket, he caught sight of a cigarette b.u.t.t. It must have been covered by the snow, but had now become visible in one of his footprints. He bent down and sc.r.a.ped gently at the impression left by his boot. Another b.u.t.t appeared. And another. When he examined the first one in the dim light of a street lamp, it told him nothing. He couldn't even read the brand.

Three cigarettes. Rolf had given up smoking many years ago, but still remembered that it took about seven minutes to smoke a cigarette. Seven times three was twenty-one. If the driver had been chain-smoking, the car had been here for almost half an hour.

The police thought the burglars might be from Eastern Europe. In the newspaper they had said that people should keep their eyes open; this gang or gangs clearly undertook a considerable amount of preliminary investigation before they struck. The cigarette b.u.t.ts could be valuable evidence.

He carefully placed them in one of the black bags he kept in the pockets of all his jackets for picking up dog s.h.i.t. Then he put the bag in his pocket and set off towards the house. He would ring the police immediately.

The answerphone cut out, but she had no idea why. Perhaps one of the children had pressed some b.u.t.ton or other. At any rate, she hadn't heard the whole of Adam's message. When she heard footsteps on the stairs she stiffened, before a familiar voice called: 'It's me. I'm home.'

'So I see,' she said with a smile, stroking his cheek as he kissed her gently. 'Weren't you going back to Bergen?'

'Yes. I've already been there. But as there a number of things I can work on just as easily from Oslo, I caught an afternoon flight home. I'll stay here for this week, I think.'

'Excellent! Are you hungry?'

'I've eaten. Didn't you get my message?'

'No, there's something wrong with the phone.'

Adam pulled off his tie, after fumbling with the knot for so long that Johanne offered to help.

'The person who invented this ridiculous item of clothing should be shot,' he muttered. 'What on earth is all this?'

He frowned at the piles of doc.u.ments and books, journals and loose sheets of paper lying around her on the sofa and almost covering the coffee table completely. Johanne was sitting cross-legged in the middle of it all with her reading gla.s.ses perched on her nose and a large gla.s.s of steaming hot tea in her hand.

'I'm getting into hatred,' she smiled. 'I'm reading about hatred.'

'Good G.o.d,' he groaned. 'As if I don't get enough of that kind of thing at work. What are you drinking?'

'Tea. Two parts Lady Grey and one part Chinese Pu-erh. There's more in the Thermos in the kitchen if you'd like some.'

He took off his shoes and went to fetch a cup.

Johanne closed her eyes. The inexplicable anxiety and unease were still there, but spending a chaotic afternoon with the children had helped. Ragnhild, who would be five on 21 January and hardly talked about anything else, had arranged a practice birthday for all her dolls and teddy bears. During dinner Johanne and Kristiane had acquired hats, made from Ragnhild's knickers covered in Hannah Montana stickers. Kristiane had given a long lecture about the movement of the planets around the sun, concluding with the announcement that she was going to be an astronaut when she grew up. Since Kristiane's perception of time could be difficult to understand, and as she rarely showed any interest in things that might happen more than a couple of days in the future, Johanne had delightedly dug out all the books from her own childhood, when she had had exactly the same dream.

When the children were in bed, her unease had come back. In order to keep it in check, she had decided to work.

'Tell me all about it,' said Adam, flopping down into an armchair.

He held the cup of tea up to his face, letting the steam cover his skin like a moist film.

'About what?'

'About hatred.'

'I should think you know more about it than I do.'

'Don't joke. I'm interested. What are you up to?'

He took a sip from his cup. The blend of tea was fresh and light, with a slightly acidic scent.

'I was thinking,' she said slowly, then paused. 'I was thinking of approaching the concept of hatred from the outside. From the inside, too, of course, but in order to say anything meaningful about hate crime I think we have to delve deeply into the concept itself. With all this money that's suddenly raining down on us ...'

She looked up as if it really was.

'... I can bring in that girl I mentioned, for example.'

'Girl?'

'Charlotte Holm. She specializes in the history of ideas. She's the one I told you about, the one who wrote ... this.'

She glanced around quickly before picking up a booklet.

'Love and Hatred: A Conceptual Historical a.n.a.lysis,' Adam read slowly.

'Exciting,' she said, tossing the booklet aside. 'I've spoken to her, and she's probably going to start working with me in February.'

'So how many of you will that make?' asked Adam with a frown, as if the thought of a bunch of researchers using taxpayers' money to immerse themselves in hatred made him deeply sceptical.

'Four. Probably. It'll be cool. I've always worked alone, more or less. And this ...'

She picked up a piece of paper in one hand and waved the other hand at the rest of the papers surrounding her.

'This is all legal hatred. Verbal hatred that is protected by the concept of freedom of speech. Since malicious comments against minorities correspond to a significant extent with what is clearly hate crime, I think it's interesting to see how it all hangs together. Where the boundaries are.'

'What boundaries?'

'The boundaries for what is covered by freedom of speech.'

'But isn't that almost everything?'

'Unfortunately, yes.'

'Unfortunately? Surely we should thank G.o.d for the fact that we can say more or less anything we like in this country!'

'Of course. But listen ...'

She tucked her feet underneath her. He looked at her. When he got home he had just wanted to fall into bed, even though it wasn't even ten o'clock. He was still tired after a day that had been much too long and not particularly productive, but he no longer had any desire to sleep. Over the years he and Johanne had fallen into a pattern where most of their life together revolved around his work, her concerns and the children. When he saw her like this, sitting amidst a sea of paper without even mentioning the children, he remembered in a flash what it had been like to be intensely in love with her.

'Freedom of speech goes a long way,' she said, searching for an article among the chaos. 'As it should. But as you know, it has some limitations. The most interesting comes under paragraph 135a in the penal code. I don't want to bore you with too much legal stuff, but I just want to-'

'You never bore me. Never.'

'I'm sure I do.'

'Not at the moment, anyway.'

A fleeting smile, and she went on. 'A few people have been convicted for overstepping the law. Very few. The issue or perhaps I should say the question of priorities relates to freedom of speech. And judging by everything I have here ...'

She waved her hands wearily before she found the book she was looking for.

'... then freedom of speech rules. End of story.'

'Well, isn't that obvious?' said Adam. 'Fortunately. We're a modern society, after all.'

'I don't know about modern. I've ploughed through everything these h.o.m.ophobic idiots have said recently-'

'I'm not sure your conclusions are entirely scientific.'

She allowed herself to be interrupted. Sighed and put her hands behind her neck.

'I'm not feeling particularly scientific at the moment. I'm tired. Worn out. In order for something to be cla.s.sified as hate crime, it isn't enough for the perpetrator to hate the victim as an individual. The hatred must be directed at the victim as the representative of a group. And if there's one thing I have difficulty in grasping, it's the idea of hatred against groups in a society like Norway. In Gaza, yes. In Kabul, yes. But here? In safe, social democratic Norway?'

She took a mouthful of tea and held it there for a few seconds before swallowing.

'First of all I spent two months going through public p.r.o.nouncements about Muslims, blacks and other ethnic and cultural minorities. What I found was generalization of the worst kind. It's "they" and "we" right down the line.'

She drew quotation marks in the air with her fingers.

'In the end I felt sick. I felt sick, Adam! I don't know how an ordinary Norwegian Muslim mother or father can sleep at night. How they feel each night when they put their children to bed and settle them down and read to them, knowing how much c.r.a.p people are saying and writing and thinking and feeling about them ...'

Her eyes narrowed and she took off her gla.s.ses.

'It's as if everything is allowed these days, somehow. And of course most things should be. Political freedom of speech in Norway is getting close to the absolute. But this culture of expressing opinions ...'

She breathed on the lenses and rubbed them with her shirt sleeve.

'Sorry,' she said, with a strained smile. 'It's just that I'd be so scared if I belonged to a distrusted minority and had children.'

Adam laughed. 'I'm sure you could teach them a lot in that particular respect,' he said. 'On the subject of worrying about children, I mean. But ...'

He stood up and pushed his tea cup to the other side of the table. He quickly swept aside the papers closest to Johanne on the sofa, and sat down beside her. Put his arm around her. Kissed her hair, which smelled of pancakes.

'But what's this got to do with hate crime?' he asked. 'I mean, we're agreed that this isn't a criminal issue, but is protected by the law governing freedom of speech.'

'It's ...'

She searched for the right words.

'Since the substance in what is said,' she began again, before breaking off once more. 'Since the content of what is written and said corresponds exactly with ... with what the others claim, those who attack, those who kill ... then in my opinion ...'

She lifted the gla.s.s without drinking.

'If we're going to succeed in saying anything meaningful about hate crimes, then we have to know what triggers them. And I don't mean just the traditional explanations about the conditions in which a person grew up, experiences of loss, a history of conflict, the allocation of resources, religious opposition and so on. We have to know what ... triggers them. I want to investigate whether there's a connection between statements that could be regarded as full of hatred, but entirely legal, on the one hand, and hate-filled illegal crime on the other.'

'You mean whether the former facilitates the latter?'

'Among other things.'

'But isn't that obvious? Even though we can't ban such statements because of it?'

'We can't actually make that a.s.sumption. The connection, I mean. It has to be investigated.'

'Daddy! Daddy!'

Adam shot up. Johanne closed her eyes and prayed for all she was worth that Kristiane wouldn't wake up. All she could hear was Adam's calm, quiet voice interspersed with Ragnhild's sleepy fretfulness. Then everything went quiet again. The neighbours down below must have already gone to bed. Earlier that evening the noise of some film that was clearly action-packed had got on her nerves; it had sounded as if she were actually in the line of fire.