The meanest Flood

log fire blazing in the grate and the women’s decolletage was emphasized by the soft glow of beeswax candles. The men were middle-aged, secreting success and excess through every pore. They wore smiles as wide as the table. Neither of them looked as though they’d miss a silver Volvo estate. They were driving towards oblivion, way past the point of no return.
    Sam drove carefully, getting the feel of the right-hand drive and exploring the subtle potency of the five-cylinder engine and power-assisted steering. There was a hands-free GSM telephone, which might come in useful, and a small pop-up menu-driven screen on the dashboard which he could alternate between a map with highlights or as a system of large arrows. Either way it showed him where he was on the map, which route to take and the remaining distance and travel time to his destination. When he stopped to check out the air-conditioning the pop-up screen turned into a television and if he’d had the time and the inclination he could have sat back and watched another showing of Atlantic City.
    Sam had always been something of a Luddite and he was pleased with himself that he could manage the V70’s technology. Took a little time to get to grips with the audio system but he sussed it in the end and listened to a Jacques Brel collection. The only other thing he could bear to play was Villa-Lobos but he decided to keep that for later, when he got out of the city. The remainder of the tapes were all by Neil Diamond - twenty-three of them.
    He made his way down the hill, through Slemdal and Vinderen. He got lost briefly in Majorstuen, passed the Bislet Stadium and the Munch Museum and eventually left Oslo behind. He tucked in behind another Volvo and stayed within the speed limit on the E6, heading for the border with Sweden. Saabs and BMWs overtook from time to time, leather-clad bikers in groups of four or five, the occasional classic Cadillac pulsing with rockabilly music. Seemed like there were no old cars in this country that weren’t classics. Jacques Brel was ecstatic on the audio system, Mathilde had come back to him again. Sam shrugged and gritted his teeth; some people had all the luck.
    He rang Geordie on the hands-free system. Geordie’s voice was tiny but already sounding better than it had when Sam had found him in the street.
    ‘I’ve got the mobile on vibrate,’ he explained. ‘I’m not supposed to use it in here. I’ve already spoken to Janet.’
    Sam imagined him propped up in bed with the smallest whitest face in Scandinavia.
    ‘How you doing?’
    ‘Good. I’m still alive.’ His voice was far off, little more than a whisper. ‘Holly?’
    Sam shook his head. ‘She didn’t make it.’
    ‘Fuck, Sam.’
    ‘What happened back there?’
    ‘I was standing on Calmeyers gate, outside that Christian junk shop, a little further down, near the Vietnamesisk Cafe. It was quiet, no one in the street. I’d been there, what? Ten minutes? Not longer. I saw Holly coming down the street on her own. She went into a shop, then she came out with bread, a baguette or a sandwich. She walked to their flat and went inside.
    ‘I was wide awake, expecting to see the guy. Could be he was following her. So I’m weaving along the street, crossing from side to side, making out like I’m interested in mung beans, sweet potatoes, all that stuff, haricots. But I’m the only one there. There’s a couple of Asian women, and there’s a guy with a van trying to get a table through somebody’s front door.
    ‘So I turn round and make my way back. I’m maybe fifty metres past the flat when I hear the door slam and there he is, on the street. I have to do a double-take because I can’t believe he’s coming out of Holly’s flat. I never saw him go in there. He must’ve gone in before I was on the street. He’s been inside waiting for her.
    ‘He’s walking fast down the street now, past that Greek taverna, and I’m standing with my mouth open, catching flies. So I leg it after him. I spin him round on the pavement, his back against the wall. He’s got an axe in his hand, a hatchet. It’s one of those with a blade, like an ordinary axe, but opposite the blade it’s a small pick-axe. You know what I mean?’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘He swings at me and gets me in the shoulder. The rest you know.’
    ‘You’re gonna be OK,’ Sam told him, relief in his voice. ‘You’re still alive, which is more than can be said for other people he’s gone for.’
    ‘I