As the train approached Elverum station, the old man stood up to get off but Anders grabbed him and held him. The man tried to twist free but failed, and the train pulled out of the station.
The ticket collector came along and Anders released his grip. The old man hastily grabbed up his jacket and bag and followed the ticket collector. All he told him was that that he had not got off at Elverum when he was meant to. He could get off at Løten and take the train back to Elverum, he was informed. The old man went to the exit and stood by the door for the rest of the journey to be sure of getting off in time. He was about to do so when the young man passed him a scrap of paper. On it were a name, a Hotmail address and a telephone number.
It was several hours until the next train back, so the old man ended up taking a taxi to Elverum. There he told friends about ‘that idiot’, as he called him. ‘There was something burning him up from inside,’ he said. ‘I could hardly believe he was on the loose.’ There was indeed something about the young man that made him hard to forget; the older man wondered whether he needed someone to talk to and rang the number. A little girl answered. He apologised and tried again. The same little girl answered. Oh well. Wrong number. Anders had actually written down his real number, but the man had read the zeros as sixes. He never tried to reach Anders at the other address he’d written down: anders.behring@hotmail.com.
Late that evening, Anders returned from Oslo in his hired van. He removed all the Avis logos from the bodywork with a drill bit designed for taking off dealership stickers, and rubbed over the sticky patches with acetone. There was still a faint outline of the hire firm’s logo, but it would have to do. He started calculating the weight of the bomb, and whether the van would be able to carry it. The capacity of a Volkswagen Crafter was 1340 kilos, and now he had 900 kilos of fertiliser plus 50 kilos of internal charge. He assumed his own weight to be 130 kilos including weapons, ammunition and body armour. He was also planning to take a small motorbike weighing 80 kilos. That meant he still had about a hundred kilos’ leeway.
Monday evening, 18 July: he took the last batches of picric acid and DDNP out of the oven. The bomb was ready. He packed the explosives in the sturdy sacks he had got from China and the internal charge was in two plastic bags. When it got dark he loaded it into the van. He had cut up a mattress and used three sections to pad a cardboard box. In this box he would transport the booster and the detonator, separate from the bomb. He put in the heavy case containing the rifle, pistol, shotgun and ammunition – more than three thousand bullets in all. Once he had satisfied himself that it all fitted and was in its proper place, he filled up both vehicles with diesel. In the morning he would strap everything down tightly.
He was ready to go.
That evening he took an extra dose of steroids.
But now he had to sleep. He was shattered. ‘At this point I should be fearful, but I am too exhausted to think much about it,’ he wrote in the log.
All We Could Dream Of
‘Have you packed?’
The evening sun sent streaks of light across the living-room floor at Heiaveien. Simon stretched his long body and shook his head. Here on the floor was where Simon generally put out what he was taking with him when he went away. His first solo trips had been to football tournaments and track and field meetings. His parents had often accompanied him to the Norway Cup events. His father as trainer, his mother as a contact point and extra mum for all the little boys. Tone had carried on doing her son’s packing for a long time, but then she decided they should do it together. Simon would come up with heaps of clothes which he laid out on the living-room floor: boxers in one pile, jerseys in another, shirts, trousers and socks, all in their separate piles. Then Tone would go round the various heaps like a judge, approving or rejecting. Simon usually put out too much; he always liked to have a choice, clothes-conscious as he was. He often stopped his younger brother on his way to the door with a ‘You’re not going out in that, are you?’ and ordered him to change.
This late summer evening, the living-room floor was empty.
Simon’s almost nineteen, Tone thought, and after the summer he’ll be called up for his military service, I can’t carry on sorting his things out for him. Soon he would be leaving the nest, going out into the big world. He had to learn to cope on his own.
She and Gunnar were just back from a fortnight in Turkey. It was their first holiday without the boys.
On one of their last evenings away, they had dinner at a restaurant by the beach.
‘I’m just sitting here thinking,’ Gunnar said, ‘that if someone asked me whether there was one thing I wanted to change about my life, anything at all, I wouldn’t be able to think of a single thing.’
Tone stroked his arm and smiled. ‘Well, life has given us all we could dream of.’ They had been together for over thirty years and were now in their late forties. Ever since they met on the dance floor that dark St Lucia night in Lavangen, they had known that this was the love of their life.
They sat there with their arms round each other. ‘If there was one little thing, right this minute,’ smiled Tone, ‘it would be that we’d brought the boys with us and they were here now.’
They laughed. Gunnar nodded.
The boys had been offered the chance of a sunshine holiday, but they preferred to work. They both had summer jobs in the technical services department at Salangen District Council. Håvard’s was cutting the grass and undergrowth on verges and in car parks, while Simon’s was keeping the churchyard neat and tidy. He was expected to turn his hand to all sorts of odd jobs and maintenance. ‘It’s just that it’s a bit awkward sometimes, Mum,’ he said just before his parents left for Turkey, ‘having to go round with that noisy mower when people are visiting graves and want to be left in peace.’
He usually got round it by finding something else to do for a while, like painting one of the toolsheds over by the new graves. The paint was red and he had already done three sides. He would do the fourth when he got back from Utøya.
All year he had had a part-time job as a reporter on Troms Folkeblad and the summer had brought with it more assignments than ever. ‘Think I must have one of the coolest summer jobs in the whole of Troms!’ he wrote on Facebook the time they sent him to cover the Millionfisken festival, with free access to all the concerts. That day he had also been honoured with a visit from Bardu, and his friend Anders Kristiansen had gone round with him to interview people. It was one of the best days of the whole summer. Anders was more fun than ever, inspiring people to give entertaining answers. Perhaps he wanted to be a journalist.
By the time his parents were flying home from Turkey, Simon had updated his Facebook status again: ‘Time to rush round and make sure there’s domestic harmony when Mum and Dad get home. 14 days on our own has left its mark.’
So now the freshly mopped living-room floor was empty. It was nearly midnight and the sun hung like a ball just above the surface of the sea. Tone could hear Simon rummaging about downstairs and went down to check what he was doing. It was time the boy was in bed; he had to be up early tomorrow to catch the flight to Oslo.
She came into Simon’s room just as he was zipping up the family’s largest suitcase.
‘Oh, have you packed your stuff in the suitcase, Simon?’
‘Yes, it’s practical. There’s room for the tent, the ground pad and my clothes, all in the same case.’