‘Tell me what you know about Simon,’ said Kristine.
The words stuck in Brage’s throat. He mumbled something while he wondered what he could say. He had to give her some sort of answer.
‘You won’t be seeing Simon again.’
Kristine gave a shriek. ‘Are you sure? Are you sure?’
‘I didn’t see it happen, but Geir Kåre did…’
That was all Kristine remembered before she leapt into the car and drove to the Sæbø house.
Now she was sobbing. ‘We’ll never see Simon again,’ she cried.
‘He could have got it wrong,’ said Gunnar. ‘Maybe,’ he added.
They had also heard reports that Simon was in hospital, that he had been rescued, that he had been shot in the foot. And after all, Brage had not seen Simon himself. Brage had been hiding somewhere else entirely.
But Simon’s mother, the powerhouse of family love, had been drained of all her strength and dragged herself into the bedroom.
Håvard had gone off into his room to be on his own. He sat there in bed with his laptop and went into his elder brother’s Facebook page, where he wrote a message.
Simon! Come back home!!!!
Down at the water’s edge, Viljar had gone quiet.
He was lying in the foetal position. Completely still. He had stopped telling stories.
He had stopped singing, stopped cursing. His mumbling had also ceased.
There was no more sound coming from Viljar. The hood of his sweatshirt was red with blood. There was something hanging from his eye socket.
Margrethe Rosbach was huddled up on the ledge with her eyes fixed on a single spot. Down by the rocks.
She could feel nothing, no grief, no fear. Simon is dead, and soon we all will be, she thought. The people who were shooting, who kept on shooting, would come back and kill them all. The shots were so regular, so loud. Margrethe had lost her will to live; she did not bother to sit out of sight, she had given up. She had gone numb, up there on the rock ledge. Her phone kept lighting up. Dad, said the display, but she did not take his call.
It was over. This was the end.
Her last conversation with her father had finished before Simon fell. Simon had taken the phone out of Margrethe’s hand and said, ‘We’ve got to be quiet. We’ve got to hide.’ Then he had put the phone down on the rock ledge. But he did not end the call. So her father in Stavanger had heard the two shots, two loud cracks, right in his ear. He had heard the screams. That was them being killed, he thought. One shot hitting Simon, the other Margrethe.
He did not know that one of them had taken both bullets.
A civilian boat with three heavily armed policemen in it came in towards the cliff.
They’re going to shoot us now, thought Margrethe.
‘Police! Police!’ shouted the men.
The teenagers lying wounded on the shoreline thought, either we’re saved now, or we’re done for. There was no panic, nobody trying to flee, because if this lot were in league with that first man the odds against them were too great, the firepower too immense.
The men jumped ashore.
‘Is anyone hurt here?’ they called, and immediately set about bandaging those who could be saved.
Margrethe rushed down to Simon.
How cold he was!
The jersey she had borrowed the night before had ridden up over his back, as had his waterproof jacket, which was almost over his head. She pulled down the fleecy top and tucked his jacket more tightly round him, turning the hood down carefully so his face could be seen.
It was completely white. All the colour was gone. There was no blood. Nothing to indicate he had been shot. In the jacket and jersey there was just a small hole where the rifle shot had entered, and then a wound on his leg. It was as if he were asleep, and freezing.
Margrethe stroked his back, patted his shoulder. Put her arms round him. Clutched him.
Reality tore into her like a claw.
He was dead. And she was saved.
He was dead, and she would live.
The policemen had quickly identified the dead. A boy floating in the water, with four shots to his back and stomach. Dead. Simon, hanging lifeless over a rock. Dead. Viljar, lying at the water’s edge with parts of his brain outside his skull. Dead.
Higher up the cliff, the three girls Breivik shot first. Dead. One had celebrated her fourteenth birthday five days earlier. The second, who was fifteen, had just been chosen as a confirmation course leader at her local church, where she also sang in the choir. The third, a sixteen-year-old, had come with Margrethe from Stavanger and the two had shared a tent. The three girls all bled to death before the rescue team got to them.
The policemen worked quickly and efficiently, concentrating on the youngsters they could save. Ylva, Eirin and Cathrine, their bodies riddled with bullets and splinters of bone and rock, were carried into boats. All three with severe internal bleeding.
‘No!’ Tonje Brenna cried as the police determined who was dead.
‘He was talking just now! He isn’t dead!’ The AUF secretary-general pointed at Viljar. ‘He was singing, not long ago.’
One of the rescuers squatted down by Viljar on the shoreline.
‘He can’t be dead!’ cried Tonje.
Viljar was lying limply in the water. The policeman detected something.
A weak pulse.
And then a sound, an almost imperceptible sound.
‘Here!’ he shouted. ‘There’s life!’
The man had specialist training in first aid and battlefield medical treatment; he had served in Afghanistan and had many years’ experience. He produced a triangular scarf, which he worked under Viljar’s head. He carefully put parts of Viljar’s brain back into his head. He pieced together the bits of skull, paying meticulous attention so that no sharp corners went into the soft mass. He gently packed up Viljar’s head and knotted the scarf around it. With his brain in its proper place, Viljar was carried to a waiting boat by some of the survivors.
Viljar came round with his head in someone’s lap in the middle of the Tyrifjord. He looked at those with him and asked faintly:
‘Where’s Torje?’
They called out to her. The other teenagers were already in the boat. It was the last one taking survivors from the cliff.
A policeman came over to Margrethe.
‘You’ve got to come now.’
‘We can’t just leave him here.’
‘He’ll be looked after,’ said the policeman.
An armed officer had been positioned there to guard the place.
‘We have to take Simon with us!’
‘The dead will be picked up later.’
Simon was so cold.
‘I’m not going without Simon!’
‘The island hasn’t been secured yet. None of the living are allowed to stay here.’
In the end, the policeman dragged her away. Simon was left hanging, as he had fallen, on the rock by the water. He had three dead girls above him, a dead boy at the water’s edge below him, and a policeman to look after him.
‘The injured first! The injured first!’
Lara, icy cold, sat on the shore between the steep slope and the pumping station. She was shivering after so long in the water. In her cavity in the limestone she’d grown indifferent to everything, her head had drooped onto her chest and she was convinced she was going to be shot. She was too cold to care. But now… now they were saved.
Oh, how she needed Bano now. She wanted to be rocked, to be held, to be comforted. She needed to talk to her elder sister. Bano, who laughed at everything, who always found something good in even the worst things, who transformed the ordinary into a fairytale. And fairytales always have a happy ending.