Gunnar’s younger sister was lying a short distance from him. Hanne had tripped when the others ran for it; she had got up, started running and fallen into a thicket. Now she just lay there. She had not seen her elder brother being shot, and from where she was lying she could not see anybody. She had no idea her brother was flat on the ground just a few metres away, with massive head injuries.
Neo-Nazis, thought Mari as she ran beside Simon.
‘Mari, Mari,’ was all Simon said, looking at her.
‘You were right, Simon,’ Mari gasped. ‘Come on!’
When she turned to him again, Simon was gone.
On Lovers’ Path she found Anders Kristiansen. He was gabbling so fast it was hard to make out what he was saying. It was as if he could not string his sentences together properly, but then he said: ‘I’ll ring the police.’
‘Yes, do that,’ said Mari. ‘Good idea.’
Viljar and Torje were running side by side. Torje got out his phone and rang their mother’s number, and howled down the line: ‘They’re shooting us! They’re shooting us!’ Viljar took it from him. ‘It’s all right Mum, I’ll take care of everybody,’ he said as calmly as he could while running.
He rang off.
‘Where’s Johannes?’ cried Torje. ‘Johannes!’
His best friend was gone.
The brothers ran along Lovers’ Path until they came to a bend where the rusty fence was broken and a log had been wedged across the gap. They skidded down until they got to a rocky ledge that they could hide under.
On the path Mari came across Tonje Brenna, the secretary-general of the AUF.
‘What’s happening?’ Mari asked.
‘I don’t know. Lie low.’
I’m not bloody well staying anywhere near you, thought Mari. You’re a more likely target than any of us.
People were running past each other, going back the way others had come. Utøya did not have many hiding places. It was mainly open spaces with newly mown grass, steep slopes or sparse areas of trees. In many places there was a sheer drop to the water and it was impossible to get down. Beyond the trees, the firing went on. A group of youngsters came to a stop on Lovers’ Path, unsure of what to do.
Hønefoss police station had one officer in the operations centre. The station had been under financial pressure for the past year and the chief of police had implemented a series of cost-saving measures, including the introduction of single-person shifts in the operations centre.
In addition to the chief of operations there were five police officers on duty. The officers were watching the news broadcasts in the staff room and discussing whether to have their cars at the ready in case they were called in to assist the Oslo district. The chief of operations in Hønefoss rang her colleague in the capital, but there was no request for reinforcements, so they dropped the matter.
At 17.24 they received an emergency call. It initially went through to the medical emergencies call centre, but was then put through to the police. A man shouted that he was ‘the boat driver out here’ and that he would try to get to his boat. ‘There’s a man going round here, shooting,’ he said. ‘He’s dressed as a policeman.’
It was a call from the captain of the MS Thorbjørn. ‘He’s got a machine gun!’
Jon Olsen had just seen his partner Monica being shot. Now he was looking for his elder daughter. ‘Ring me if you need the ferry,’ he finally got out.
There was a simultaneous call on the other emergency line. A boy blurted out that there was ‘shooting everywhere’, panic and chaos, and that people had run to ‘the edges’ of the island.
Suddenly there were red lights on all the incoming lines.
At 17.25, Anders Behring Breivik walked back across the campsite, where Gunnar was lying unconscious.
By then Breivik had killed three people at the landing stage, three by the main entrance, one at the campsite and two on the way there. Now he came round the corner of the long, brown wooden building that housed the café and the main hall, and skirted along the wall.
He wondered whether to go in. There was always a risk attached to entering a building. Someone could be standing behind the door and jump him, set a trap, overpower him. In World of Warcraft, the odds always went down if you entered the enemy stronghold.
‘What’s happening?’ an AUF member called to him from a window. Several other heads appeared. This was their first sight of the man in police uniform.
‘Somebody’s shooting, so stay away from the windows!’ the man told them. ‘Lie down on the floor and I’ll come and help you!’
A girl at the window was holding a pink mobile phone. She had just spoken to her father, a lorry driver who often made deliveries in the Oslo area. Luckily he was safe.
‘Let me know if you lot are getting flooded out over there,’ her father had said right before the shooting started, ‘and I’ll come and get you.’
‘I’d rather you dropped off a pair of wellies if you happen to be passing, Dad,’ Elisabeth answered. She had just finished Year 10 and it was her first time on Utøya. Her face was still that of a child.
‘We’ve run out of dry clothes!’ she had laughed.
Breivik went into the building. The walls were covered with posters of AUF slogans from over the years. In the corridor there were hundreds of shoes and boots, as no outdoor footwear was allowed in the meeting rooms.
He went calmly into the first room, known as the small hall. He paused for a moment in the doorway to get an overview. The youngsters looked at him, awaiting instructions.
He went over to a group and started shooting.
Several fell to the floor.
Ha, they’re faking it, ran through his head. He calmly went round to each of them in turn and ended their lives with a shot to the head.
Some of the youngsters were screaming, standing still as if glued to the floor. They stared at him fixedly, unable to run away, escape, save themselves.
How weird that they’re just standing there, thought Breivik. I’ve never seen that in a movie.
Then he aimed his pistol at them.
Some of them begged for their lives. ‘Please don’t shoot!’
But he always did.
He shot one girl in mid-scream. His pistol was almost touching her face. He fired into her open mouth. Her skull shattered, but her lips remained unharmed.
By the piano at the end of the room a girl was sitting on a piano stool, resting her head on the keyboard as if unconscious. He shot her in the head. Blood poured out and down between the keys. Standing by the piano, he noticed more kids, hiding behind the instrument. He stood over them, raised his arm and fired into the gap between the wall and the piano. Shot after shot, hit after hit.
Many hid their faces in their hands. The bullets splintered their hands before entering their heads. One of those hiding behind the piano was Ina Libak, a friend of Bano and Lara’s from Akershus. A shot went through both her hands and another through the top of her arm. I can survive this, she thought to herself. The next shot got her in the jaw. This was more serious. Eyes closed, she crouched there, trying to hold her jaw in place. She could not see the man who was firing, but she could hear him breathing above them, hear him moving round the piano. Then she felt the impact in her chest. Shots like that kill you, she thought. There was a taste in her mouth she had never had before. Gunpowder. She lost feeling in her arms and thought her hands had been shot off. The taste of bullets mixed with another taste: blood welling in her mouth, over her chin, down over the hands that were holding her jaw in place.