He drew a sketch map of the farm and marked where things were. That would make it easier for the police to find their way around.
‘It sucks to take human life,’ Breivik said suddenly. ‘But it sucks even more not to act. Now that the Labour Party has betrayed its country and its people so categorically over many years, there’s a price to pay for that kind of treachery, and they paid that price yesterday. We know that before every election the Progress Party gets torpedoed. The media dehumanises the conservatives. They’ve been doing that ever since the Second World War: continuous abuse of the cultural conservatives.’
The Knights Templar consisted of extremely gifted individuals, highly intelligent and highly potent, he explained. Those who had ordained themselves single-cell commanders were extremely powerful. The only problem with a single-cell structure was its limitation to the working capacity of one individual. ‘I mean, if one person has to process five tonnes of fertiliser, you have no idea how much hard work that is.’
Then he asked for a break to go to the toilet.
The interview veered all day between Breivik’s actual actions, his political universe and his wishes and whims. He could be complaining about the logistical problems that meant he did not have time to blow up the government quarter in the morning as planned, and thus also missed executing Gro Harlem Brundtland, only to say, ‘I feel really good. I’ve never been mentally stronger than now. I had prepared myself for torture and so on, and I’m positively surprised that I haven’t had to suffer it. I have no negative thoughts now, only positive ones.’ In his cell, he had already planned how he could work out using simple objects such as a chair or a book, he said.
He was still a little high on chemical substances. The effect of the steroids on his body would not wear off for a couple of weeks. ‘I’m biologically weak,’ he explained. ‘But I’ve compensated for that by working out.’
The interviewer produced a picture of Breivik in his full-length white protection suit with a hood, the one he had bought from the British professor of mathematics.
‘Oh, have you seen the other photos too?’ smiled Breivik.
‘This is the photograph we want you to tell us about.’
‘But the others are much more cooler! Well okay, it’s Knights Templar Chemical Warfare and the photo shows the injection of biological weapons into the cartridge.’
‘I’m not even wearing gloves! I should have been!’ Breivik suddenly exclaimed. ‘Have you seen my film yet?’
The interviewer had not.
‘You ought to see it!’
He touched on his mother. ‘Her life is over,’ he said. ‘Because if the media call me a monster her neighbours will too, and that means she can’t go on living. But this task is much more important than me, much more important than her.’
It was late evening by now. He turned to Lippestad. ‘You needn’t sit and listen if you don’t want to. If you, like, want to go home.’
‘I shall stay until the end of the interrogation,’ said the lawyer.
The question why was still to be answered.
‘If you have that sort of pain in your heart, you know you have to inflict pain to stop the pain. But it felt absolutely awful. The first shot was the worst, directed at the biggest threat on the island… the one who was starting to get suspicious. If I’d had a choice, I would have skipped Utøya, it’s too dirty, because even though it’s extremely productive, as history is bound to show… it’s still a hideous thing. It must be absolutely awful being a parent who’s lost a child. But on the other hand, it was their responsibility to make sure their child didn’t turn into an extreme Marxist working for multiculturalism. It’s…’
He looked at the interrogator. ‘It’s a nightmare that I don’t think you can understand until you’ve carried it out. And I hope you won’t have to experience it because it was sheer hell. Taking another person’s life. They were so scared and screaming in terror. It’s possible they were begging for their lives. I don’t remember. They may have said, “Please. Don’t shoot.” They just sat there and didn’t do anything. They were paralysed, and then I executed them. One after another.’
Then he yawned. ‘But listen, you people, I’m exhausted now. I hope this interview won’t go on for much longer.’
But Never Naivety
Why on earth had they lain down just here?
The thought ran through Danijela’s head.
It was early on Sunday morning; around eight o’clock. The island was quiet. No one was shouting orders, no one was screaming. The people there knew what they had to do and were focused on their work.
Danijela was on Lover’s Path. There were ten blankets lying on the ground.
Under them were ten people. As a forensic technician Danijela was used to thinking like a detective. For what reason had the body ended up just here? Why was it lying like that? Had it been moved? How had death occurred?
They usually spent several hours examining a dead body; here they could allow themselves no more than half an hour. The dead were lying out in the open. The weather had turned warmer.
She was gathering evidence in a murder investigation, but the murderer had been caught and had admitted the murders. The case was pretty much solved.
In the course of Saturday they had examined around half of the dead and put them in the white body bags. Then the bodies were transported on the MS Thorbjørn back to the mainland, where black hearses were waiting to take them to the Institute of Forensics. It did not have enough cold storage, so they had hired refrigerated containers.
From where Danijela was now, on Lovers’ Path, there was a clear view inland across the island, to the woods and the campsite. The path wound its way along the fence. Behind the wire netting the rocks dropped away sharply. On the wooded side of the path there was a clearing with a few pine trees dotted around it.
She crouched down beside the dead. That was her working position, kneeling over the bodies. She looked up, and then she understood. Squatting down here, you had the illusion of being hidden. A low rocky outcrop rose about half a metre above the path. If you lay down behind it, you might think you were hidden.
That was how it must have been, she thought. They believed they could not been seen.
She took off the first blanket.
Youngsters almost on top of each other, all together in a row along the narrow path. It pained her to see it.
First she took pictures of the whole group, then close-ups of each individual, from one side, then the other, from in front and from above.
She marked the location of the bodies with little flags in the ground. One flag at the top by the head, one at the bottom by the feet. Later on, GPS coordinates would be made of the site. Everything had to be done accurately. The next of kin would be able to know: it was here, precisely here, that we found your child.
She started from the right. First there was a boy a bit away from the rest, with several bullet wounds.
Then two almost tangled together. A tall, powerfully built boy had his arm round quite a small girl. Long dark hair protruded from her fluorescent yellow hood. The hair was wet. Her face was half covered. The forensic technician pulled the hood aside. All colour had drained from the face, the skin was shiny, smooth as ivory.
Danijela examined her wounds. One bullet had entered the back of her head and gone out through her forehead. Another shot had forced its way down through her throat and into her body, where it lay hidden.
Danijela carefully noted everything down. The girl wore jeans, stuffed into a pair of dark green wellies.
Danijela gently lifted away the arm of the tall boy holding the girl with the ivory skin. Whereas the others on the path were in jackets and warm tops, he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. His hair was close-cropped, his face turned to the side. Like the girl, he had two wounds to the head. In his pocket he had a walkie-talkie. It was switched off.