“I can’t stand the way all this hatred seems to seep into my soul. I don’t have the stomach for it. I want us to go home, and we can’t. So I guess we stay here and we pick ourselves up off the floor and we set about finding Licia. All over again.”

“My poor tired horse,” I said.

She leaned in to me. “Promise me you won’t have me euthanized.”

I knew I should ask her about the gun, but I could not. Because when we laughed our laughter felt very close to tears. And so we sat for the longest time, arms around each other, watching as the sky turned from gold to the deepest red.

Thirty-Four

The prosecutor was playing the video in short segments, taking the court through the timeline, reading from her notes: the names of the dead; the manner of each death. Elsa looked weary. Vee was alert, desperate to know what other people thought of the footage.

We could see whose children the prosecutor was talking about simply from looking at their backs. A small group would stiffen in anticipation. The Andersens would stare at the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, of the children they had cut down. The family would clasp each other tightly, sit stock-still while the prosecutor read out her text. No one cried; no one was willing to hand the Andersens that victory.

The brothers showed neither pleasure nor shame; their eyes were unblinking and clear. In the face of such cruelty, the families’ quiet courage was almost too much to bear.

When the helicopter crossed the fjord, when the screen showed the tactical unit foundering in their red rubber boat, people murmured. The chief judge sat with her hand across her mouth. Here and there people laughed in outrage, an eerie sound in this solemn place. When the boat turned around the laughter increased.

The Andersen brothers looked out across the rows of seats, at the survivors and the families of the victims, taking in the shock and the laughter. Then John Andersen turned to Paul Andersen, and the brothers laughed too, as if joining in a shared joke.

The laughter among the families stopped. Only the brothers were laughing now, hard and cold and cruel.

Vee leaned in. “Dad, is this making people feel worse?”

I pulled her to me. “People have a right to know the truth. You did a good thing.”

The courtroom was silent but for the rustling of clothes and the catching of breath. The camera was above the shower block, silently looking down, while inside nineteen children were murdered.

When I looked up it was into the face of Paul Andersen. He made sure he had my attention, then gave the smallest of nods. He turned and said something to his brother, who laughed.

It was our turn.

They were staring hard at Vee, trying to lock onto her gaze.