Billy T.”
“Fuck, there’s nowhere here that I can sit down!”
“Here. Take this.”
Håkon Sand passed the chair over to him, and Billy T. smiled.
“It’s her birthday on Friday. She’s damn well going to have her funeral on her fifty-first birthday. She got married when she was only eighteen years old, to a childhood friend of the same age, Roy Hansen. They are still married. One child. Per Volter. Aged twenty-two. Student at the military academy, stays at the Fredriksvern naval base in Stavern. Decent young man; the only sorrow he seems to have brought upon his parents is that he’s a member of the Young Conservatives. Fairly clever at school, vice-chairman of a handgun club, the boy has inherited his mother’s flair for organization.”
“Handgun club? Does he have access to guns?”
“Yes, oh yes. Several guns. But that weekend he was on an expedition bloody miles away up on the Hardanger Plateau; in fact there were problems trying to get in touch with him to inform him of his mother’s death. And there’s nothing to suggest that he had a strained relationship with his mother. On the contrary. Nice boy. Apart from all that stuff about the Young Conservatives. But, honestly, the boy is far beyond any suspicion.”
“More,” Håkon mumbled.
“Birgitte Volter was born in Sweden on April 11, 1946. Her father was Swedish, her mother had fled there during the war. They moved to Norway, to Nesodden, in 1950. She graduated from high school and moved quickly into the trade union movement. Became secretary or something of that nature at the State Liquor Monopoly in Hasle. Then on to the local authority in Nesodden, and gradually took more prominent positions in the Norwegian Civil Service Union. And so on and so forth. The rest is history, as they say. Great girl. Great favorite. All the same, it was a close-run thing in 1992.”
“Friends?”
“That’s strange too,” Billy T. said, scratching his ear again. “I think I’m getting a bloody ear infection. That’s all I need.”
He stared at his forefinger, but could see nothing apart from an ink stain from the previous day.
“You know all that stuff we read in the newspapers. About these networks, you know. That this person knows that person and is best of friends with this one and that one. I don’t think that can be right. Or else the newspapers are using an entirely different definition of friendship from that used by you and me. They’re actually not friends . They’re more like party colleagues, so to speak. They seem to have few proper friends, and those are almost always entirely outside politics: people they’ve met in ordinary workplaces, at school years ago and that kind of thing. The only person inside politics I believe was really a friend of Birgitte’s was the President of the Parliament.”
“Enemies, then?”
“Same thing again. It depends what you mean by enemies. What is an enemy? If it’s someone who speaks badly of you, then we’ve all got plenty of enemies. But is it right to call them that? It’s obvious, Håkon, that when you reach so far inside a high-profile politicalparty like the Labor Party – the governing party – you’ll find many people who have on occasion felt aggrieved. But enemies? Not to mention, someone who would actually go so far as to murder you? No. Not that I can see. Not yet, at least.”
“No …” Håkon Sand crossed to the window and opened it a crack. “Actually we’ve got the same problem if we approach it all from a different angle,” he said as he sat down again.
“A different angle?”
“Yes, if we view it as the actual … role? Was that what you called it? It seems really so … tame here. In Norway. It’s as if it’s not possible to think about Anne Enger Lahnstein plotting to kill Birgitte Volter, even though she’s fanatical about stopping this Schengen agreement!”
Billy T.’s laughter was loud and booming.
“No, that would be something! That Lahnstein
“Fuck, there’s nowhere here that I can sit down!”
“Here. Take this.”
Håkon Sand passed the chair over to him, and Billy T. smiled.
“It’s her birthday on Friday. She’s damn well going to have her funeral on her fifty-first birthday. She got married when she was only eighteen years old, to a childhood friend of the same age, Roy Hansen. They are still married. One child. Per Volter. Aged twenty-two. Student at the military academy, stays at the Fredriksvern naval base in Stavern. Decent young man; the only sorrow he seems to have brought upon his parents is that he’s a member of the Young Conservatives. Fairly clever at school, vice-chairman of a handgun club, the boy has inherited his mother’s flair for organization.”
“Handgun club? Does he have access to guns?”
“Yes, oh yes. Several guns. But that weekend he was on an expedition bloody miles away up on the Hardanger Plateau; in fact there were problems trying to get in touch with him to inform him of his mother’s death. And there’s nothing to suggest that he had a strained relationship with his mother. On the contrary. Nice boy. Apart from all that stuff about the Young Conservatives. But, honestly, the boy is far beyond any suspicion.”
“More,” Håkon mumbled.
“Birgitte Volter was born in Sweden on April 11, 1946. Her father was Swedish, her mother had fled there during the war. They moved to Norway, to Nesodden, in 1950. She graduated from high school and moved quickly into the trade union movement. Became secretary or something of that nature at the State Liquor Monopoly in Hasle. Then on to the local authority in Nesodden, and gradually took more prominent positions in the Norwegian Civil Service Union. And so on and so forth. The rest is history, as they say. Great girl. Great favorite. All the same, it was a close-run thing in 1992.”
“Friends?”
“That’s strange too,” Billy T. said, scratching his ear again. “I think I’m getting a bloody ear infection. That’s all I need.”
He stared at his forefinger, but could see nothing apart from an ink stain from the previous day.
“You know all that stuff we read in the newspapers. About these networks, you know. That this person knows that person and is best of friends with this one and that one. I don’t think that can be right. Or else the newspapers are using an entirely different definition of friendship from that used by you and me. They’re actually not friends . They’re more like party colleagues, so to speak. They seem to have few proper friends, and those are almost always entirely outside politics: people they’ve met in ordinary workplaces, at school years ago and that kind of thing. The only person inside politics I believe was really a friend of Birgitte’s was the President of the Parliament.”
“Enemies, then?”
“Same thing again. It depends what you mean by enemies. What is an enemy? If it’s someone who speaks badly of you, then we’ve all got plenty of enemies. But is it right to call them that? It’s obvious, Håkon, that when you reach so far inside a high-profile politicalparty like the Labor Party – the governing party – you’ll find many people who have on occasion felt aggrieved. But enemies? Not to mention, someone who would actually go so far as to murder you? No. Not that I can see. Not yet, at least.”
“No …” Håkon Sand crossed to the window and opened it a crack. “Actually we’ve got the same problem if we approach it all from a different angle,” he said as he sat down again.
“A different angle?”
“Yes, if we view it as the actual … role? Was that what you called it? It seems really so … tame here. In Norway. It’s as if it’s not possible to think about Anne Enger Lahnstein plotting to kill Birgitte Volter, even though she’s fanatical about stopping this Schengen agreement!”
Billy T.’s laughter was loud and booming.
“No, that would be something! That Lahnstein
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