176

Bjorn had just sat down in his chair when he became aware of a car coming down from Neiden. Every time the car made a turn, the headlights flickered in the big mirror hanging outside the office. Bjorn watch the car as it came down the windy road, disappearing behind rocks and hills, reappearing a little later, and then disappearing again, off and on until it finally arrived at the checkpoint.

"Passport!" Bjorn said in a formal voice. Then he proceeded to tell the driver about the new rules before typing in the number found in the passport handed over to him. Bjorn hit return, and up came a copy of the passport he was holding in his hand, complete with a green banner telling him that all was clear.
"So I better stock up on things today, while it's still legal?" the driver asked rhetorically.
"That's right!" Bjorn answered with a friendly smile, handing the passport back to the driver. Then he pushed the green button to raise the barrier.

Bjorn followed the car with his eyes as it wound its way downhill until it disappeared behind the hill to the north east, and he was again left to his own thoughts. He looked at his PC. Then he pulled up a second tab on his browser. "I wonder what the Lundby Blacklist has to say about Einar," Bjorn thought, finding the web address in his browser history. "Somehow I doubt they have anything on the man." And sure enough, the Blacklist used by the citizens of Lundby did not contain any mention of Einar.

Bjorn typed in Katinka's name. Nothing. Then he typed in Roger's name: also nothing. "How about David?" Bjorn wondered. He typed in his name, and got nothing. "But he's married to that Maria woman. That's probably worth something," Bjorn thought while idly typing in Cecilie's name for a final search. Bjorn hit return, and to his surprise, he got up Cecilie's profile. However, it was the same page he had seen earlier so his surprise soon passed. She was, as Bjorn already knew, listed as plaintiff in the case against the head of the child protection service in Alta. There were no charges against Cecilie. No one had charged her of anything.

Bjorn looked at the woman's profile. "So, which is it?" he wondered. "Is she dangerous and a criminal, or not?" He thought back to the episode in the church where Cecilie had come with her daughter, all done up and pretty. It did not look like anything was amiss. And they sat down with Ane and Ola. Why would Ane and Ola be involved with this woman if she was dangerous?

On the other hand, why would the child protecting service want to interfere if nothing was amiss? That made no sense either. Bjorn stared at the computer screen, trying to make sense of the situation. But the pieces simply did not fit together. He was missing something, some important fact that would solve the puzzle. Then he became aware of the status field associated with Cecilie's complaint. The case was on hold. It was not new, not active, nor resolved. It was on hold, and curious to know why, Bjorn clicked on it.

Up came the details of the complaint with its long list of plaintiffs. Bjorn clicked on the name of the defendant. However, all he got was her summary page. The woman was either ignorant of this case, or more likely, ignoring it as a crank thing with no legitimacy. Either way, she did not have a profile on the Blacklist.

Bjorn returned to the complaint. Then he scrolled down to the comment section, the last comment being posted by Maria. "Again, and I repeat myself," it read. "Just like following orders is no defense, giving orders is no crime. Unless you can show hard evidence that this woman has acted and aggressed personally against you and your children, you have no case. Please go to my defense of the foreign minister for a complete explanation."

174

Bjorn felt a sting of discomfort on seeing the red banner above Cecilie's passport details. His suspicions were at once confirmed, and it did not feel good. The woman was a fugitive, and he had let her into the colony.

He sat back in his chair, focusing again on the view ahead of him. "It's a good thing I kept this to myself," Bjorn thought. "I'd better keep this a secret between Ante and me."

Bjorn's eyes were drawn to the little gray ship patrolling the straight. It moved a little to the side as the ferry entered the bay. And soon after, a fishing boat appeared. The ferry headed towards the port, the fishing boat towards Ane's factory.

The coastguard did not interfere visibly with any of the two boats. The ship just laid there idly in the water, and the lack of activity felt reassuring. The rules concerning the colony had been tightened, but business went on as usual. The appearance of the coastguard did not signal a great shift in policy, just a general tidying up of loose ends. People had been slipping into the village. People who should not be there, and no one was to blame for it. Bjorn was surely not the only one having let somebody in who should have been arrested.

He returned his focus to his PC. He typed in Einar in the search field and hit return. And up came a list of two people. The top one, appearing with a red frame, was the Einar he had met in the village. Bjorn clicked on the name, and sure enough, there was Einar's passport details, complete with a red banner.  "Warning:" it read. "Immediate arrest on charges of: Murder (1 count), Assault (6 counts)."

So, there he had it. Definite proof that someone had let in a true criminal, much worse than Cecilie. Bjorn felt strangely relieved by this fact. He was not the only one having inadvertently done something wrong. "How about Katinka?" Bjorn wondered, suddenly curious to know how many criminals he had actually come across down in the village.

Having first misspelled her name, using Cs instead of Ks, which returned nothing, he then got up a single suggestion. And sure enough, her name had a red frame too. He clicked on it, and there she was, wanted on charges of three counts of assault. Bjorn made a search for Roger. "Fraud, embezzlement, and copyright infringement."

"How about David?" Bjorn wondered, eager to see what the Department of Justice might have on him. Bjorn got up a relatively long list, but Bjorn recognized David's face immediately. He clicked on it. "So he is from Lebanon," Bjorn thought to himself on seeing David's foreign passport. "Wanted by Interpol, no less, on charges of drug trafficking."

"The village is indeed full of desperadoes," Bjorn concluded, focusing again on the mountains across the fjord.

170

Bjorn woke up right before the alarm on his mobile was about to go off. He had slept like a log and felt superbly well rested despite having had one of his uncomfortable dreams. The medicine must have taken the sting out of the dream. He had been more active in his dream than usual, defending himself as it were, holding the goblins at a distance and refusing to succumb to despair.

There had been the usual episode with him and his ex. But this time he had a ready answer for her. He was where he was because he felt like it, and with that simple answer she was gone. However, she returned later in his dream, this time with a sheet of paper in her hand. It was the official inheritance document which he had sent to the local tax office for them to calculate the inheritance tax. It was the document that had put him hopelessly in debt to the tax office, and when she asked him why he had signed it Bjorn was again lost for words.

But he did not react in despair. He simply observed that his ex had a point, and that he should not have signed it, at least not before checking that the stipulated value of the inheritance was in fact correct. It was a stupid mistake, a ruinous mistake, but nevertheless an understandable one. He had acted in good faith. He had nothing to be ashamed of. If anyone should be ashamed, it was his ex for abandoning him as soon as it was clear that he was bankrupt and in eternal debt to the state.

The thought of his hopeless economic situation did not bother him even as he rose out of bed. The situation was as it was, and he had to deal with it as such. Lamenting the situation was not going to set anything right. And this insight was strangely liberating. There had to be a solution to the problem, he felt, and he could almost hear his children beg him to do it, whatever they meant by that. "Do it for us," they had pleaded in his dream, begging him to take some action, and Bjorn had replied, "yes of course," as if he had understood exactly what they meant and knew exactly what to do.

However, these were but episodes in a larger dream dominated by the citizens of Lundby, but also featuring people like Odd the painter, and Ingunn with her wild and surreal interpretation of the world. Odd had painted a ship for her on a large canvas, and she stepped into it as if it was a real ship. "Let us join Jesus and Mother Earth in holy matrimony," she exclaimed from the stem of the ship. And with those words it sailed out of the canvas on a cloud of frothy water. Then, to everyone's consternation, she vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving a large blank spot on the canvas.

The vanishing act took place in Pedro's apartment. Bjorn was there together with a large group of people. They had come to see the painting, and now it was ruined. Odd was there too, and immediately picked up his pencils to repair the damage, excusing himself for having painted the ship a little too life like.

"This is what happens when you invite people like Ingunn to your house," Frederico commented dryly to Pedro in the back of the room.
Pedro chuckled and shook his head. He did not seem the least bit concerned about what had just happened. "It is a good thing we have Odd here, isn't it?" he commented. Then he pointed to Bjorn, calling out his name and telling him to behave on Tuesday, making it clear that it would be a grave mistake to disappoint him.

Bjorn did not know what to say, but Katinka was suddenly there, right next to him. "It's quite simple, really," she explained. "The whole thing is a network. If you push the red button and then make a quick calculation before pushing the green button, you'll be fine. But whatever you do, do not push the green button before the red."
"Is that so?" Bjorn asked, puzzled.
"Nah, just beat him about the head with a plank," Einar suggested. "That's the quickest and easiest solution."
"You're mad," Bjorn protested.
Then he heard a cold feminine voice asking "who you calling mad?" When Bjorn turned to look, he stared into the ice cold gaze of Jan's two daughters. Behind them stood Ane and Ola, both dressed like villains from an old Western. "You should be a little careful about who you call mad down here in good old Lundby," Ane added, putting her hand on the handle of the large pistol strapped to her thigh.
"Oh my. Here we go again!" said another voice. It was Olga, and she was clearly unimpressed by the other ladies. "It's all show and no substance. Take no notice of them."
Tyrone was there too, chuckling to himself. "If you think Lundby is crazy, you should try Liberia," he said, smiling from ear to ear. "That's crazy, if you know what I mean."

And then there was suddenly music. Elisabeth and Aung started singing, and everybody were praising the Lord and swinging from side to side. "Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise the Lord. We are the citizens, and we will inherit the Earth."

There was much more to the dream, but Bjorn was getting ready for breakfast, and his memory of the dream was fading rapidly. However, the overall feel of the dream stuck with him. The fact that he had not woken up with a start was a victory to him. He had observed and even enjoyed the challenges in his dream. The medicine had definitely helped calm his nerves, and he felt ready to face the world. Not with apprehension, but with anticipation. He was genuinely looking forward to what the day might bring.

150

Ante signaled to Katinka that he was ready to pay by waving his debit card in the air, prompting her to come over with a terminal to take his payment.

"So, was everything to your liking?" she asked, handing the device over to Ante to let him type in his pin code.
"Oh yeah," Bjorn said with a smile. "And I really liked your little lecture on the ID chip thing. Very well presented, I must say."
"Well, thank you, I'm glad you liked it."

Ante handed the terminal back to Katinka who checked that all was in order before handing Ante his card back, together with the receipt.

"It's hard to believe you're able to make a living with these prices," Ante commented.
"Well, there's no taxes and no fees."
"Still... I'm sure you two have bills to pay like everyone else."
"Yes we do," Katinka answered with a smile reflecting her appreciation for Ante's implicit recognition of Katinka and Roger as a legitimate couple. "It's tough, but we get by."
"Don't you think you could raise the prices a bit without hurting your business?" Ante continued, pushing his chair back and readying himself to get up.
"Maybe... but we got Nora's Place to compete with, and they serve food at the casino too, and... well, you know. Even people form Kirkenes are feeling the pinch, with the crisis and all... And the Gram has appreciated quite a lot over the last few months."
"It has, hasn't it?" Ante commented, looking over at Bjorn. "Remember how upset Espen got on Friday when he had to pay more for his tokens?"
"Yeah, he got really angry, didn't he?" Bjorn confirmed.
"So, you see," Katinka concluded. "Upping our prices wouldn't sit well with our regular customers. And the appreciating Gram is actually making things a little cheaper for us. Things like flour and sugar and meat. It's all getting cheaper."
"In Grams," Ante noted.
"Yeah, but still. That's the money we use. So we are actually better off now than we were. And we keep getting more customers too."
"So, you're optimistic for the future?" Ante asked, finally getting up from his chair.

Bjorn rose from his chair too, but was immediately struck by a spell of dizziness, making him fall over to the side.

"Oh my!" Bjorn gasped clutching the table in front of him in order to keep himself from falling flat onto the floor, and he was immediately griped by a sense of intense embarrassment.

"You're all right there?" Katinka asked, clearly concerned about Bjorn's sudden dizzy spell.
"Yeah, yeah," Bjorn replied with a sheepish smile, continuing his hold on the table. "It's just a dizzy spell. That's all."
"You get this often?" Katinka asked, seeing that Bjorn was not letting go of the table.
"No, no..." Bjorn replied, noting with terror that the discomfort was lingering. "It'll soon pass."

But it did not pass for several long seconds, and even when the worst was over, Bjorn felt a lingering nausea.

"You look a little pale," Ante commented. "I'd have that checked if I were you."
"Yeah. Why don't you talk to David. He's good with this kind of things," Katinka suggested.
"David?" Bjorn asked confused.
"Yeah. He's practically a doctor. He knows his stuff."
"Really?"

Bjorn felt it a silly proposition. But Katinka was clearly serious, and when he looked over at Ante, it seemed that he too thought it a good idea.

"Just as a first quick check up," Ante noted. "What harm can come of it?"
"And it's free," Katinka added. "He's a serious guy. He knows his stuff."
"But... He's a drug dealer," Bjorn protested.
"No, no, no," Katinka protested. "He sells some stuff that's illegal in other places. But he's actually a very nice guy."
"Ah, well, I don't think we need to," Bjorn said, smiling bravely. "I'm better all ready."

Ante and Katinka looked at Bjorn quietly.

"You know, I'll hold your hand," Ante said with a patronizing smile. "It won't take long. And you know... I'm rather curious about the place myself. Let's have a look at it!"

Bjorn straightened up and pulled his jacket on. Then he collected the token's he had spread out on the table, leaving a ten MG token for Katinka.

"Okay. Let's go!" he said. Then, thanking Katinka for an excellent meal, he joined Ante out into the cold but sunny weather.

148

Katinka came back into the dining hall with a flushed look and a rosy nose from crying, sending Bjorn and Ante a suspicious look before going over to the couple by the wall. The couple were finished with their meal and ready to pay, which they did with casino tokens that Katinka checked with the same little device that Bjorn had seen used at Nora's place.

"I wonder how that thing works," Bjorn commented, breaking the silence between him and Ante, happy to have something neutral and harmless to talk about.
"What you mean?" Ante asked, munching thoughtfully on pizza.
"That thing to check if the tokens are counterfeit or not," Bjorn explained.
"Ah... well... beats me," Ante said, clearly more interested in his pizza than Bjorn's question. "Does it matter?"
"No... but I'm curious. You know... how difficult is it really to counterfeit those chips?"
"Pretty hard, I would guess."
"But they are just pieces of plastic. Not even very fancy," Bjorn continued, grabbing a few from his trouser pocket and putting them on the table between them.
"No, you're right," Ante agreed, picking up one of the tokens to have a closer look. "But that machine probably makes it harder to fake."
"Exactly! So, how does it work. Aren't you a tiny bit curious?"
"A tiny bit maybe," Ante said, still not looking very interested.

However, the appearance of tokens on their table had caught Katinka's attention, and having just ushered out the other couple, she headed over to them.

"Is everything all right?" she asked. "You're ready for coffee maybe?"
"Well yeah, that would be nice," Bjorn answered without waiting for Ante's opinion.
"And you?" Katinka asked, turning to Ante.
"Yeah, that would be nice," Ante replied.
"Desert too, maybe?"
"Um... no thanks," Bjorn answered, looking over at Ante who nodded in agreement. "But... I was just wondering. Do you have any idea how that thing works? That counterfeit check thing, I mean."
"How it works?"
"Yeah."

Katinka did not answer immediately, and Bjorn got a sinking feeling that he may have touched a nerve again, and that even this seemingly neutral question was a bit much to ask after Ante's interrogation. But just as Bjorn thought he had to back track on his question, or at least moderate it somehow to prevent another scene, Katinka replied that she did in fact know how the device worked.

"It's quite simple actually," she explained with a self conscious smile. "There's an ID chip in each of those tokens. You can easily see them if you hold them up to the light."
"Okay," Bjorn replied, lifting one of his chips up against the light outside. "There it is. But how does that guarantee anything? What if I got hold of a bunch of those chips? Then, what's to stop me from producing as many of these as I want?"
"Exactly. That was what I was wondering too," Katinka replied, happy to be ahead of Bjorn in her understanding.
"And?"
"Well... each chip is registered in a database over at the casino," Katinka explained. "And that's what the device does. It simply calls up the database and checks that the chip is registered there. If it isn't, it's a counterfeit."
"Ah... I see," Bjorn said with a nod, thinking that was the whole explanation. "So I can't just make a bunch of my own tokens."
"No, you can't. Unless you know what ID's are registered in the database, of course."
"Yeah... Of course," Bjorn agreed, realizing that Katinka had just undermined her whole argument. "Even knowing one ID would be enough for me to make a whole bunch of copies, wouldn't it?"

Katinka nodded with a knowing smile, clearly relishing the fact that she had understood this problem and knew its solution.

"Exactly. But the database does more than just check if the ID is registered," Katinka explained. "Because if it only checked the ID, anyone could do what you're suggesting, and we could have like thousands of copies of one and the same chip, all valid in the database."
"So there's a way to prevent that?" Bjorn asked puzzled.
"There is, and it's very simple," Katinka said with enthusiasm.
"Yeah?"
"They use a time stamp."
"A time stamp?" Bjorn asked, puzzled by Katinka's insight. "Where did you learn about this?"
"Well, I was curious. Just like you. So I asked Roger, and he explained a bit. And then I looked it up on the web. You know... to understand it."
"So you know what a time stamp is?" Bjorn asked, still surprised by Katinka's insight.
"Well... It's just the date and time. You know... when things have happened, like."
"Yeah... I know... I was just a little surprised to hear it from you. You talk like an expert."
"Well, thank you," Katinka said with a big honest smile.
"Anyway... so what's with the times tamp."

Katinka made a dramatic pause, not so much to impress the men, but to focus her thoughts into a concise explanation.

"Well, each chip comes with an ID and a time stamp," Katinka said, stressing this point. "Both are stored in the database and in the chip, and both have to match for the chip to be valid."
"Okay," Bjorn said, with growing respect for the young girl.
"The ID never changes, but the time stamp does," she continued, still speaking very deliberately to hammer in the information. "Every time I check a chip, the time stamp is changed in the database and on the chip."
"Yeah?"
"So if you want to counterfeit a chip, you have to copy the ID and the time stamp from an existing chip."
"Yes, right..."
"But the moment either the counterfeit, or the original chip is used and checked with our little device, all the other copies are suddenly having the wrong time stamp and can no longer be used."
"Ah! I see," Bjorn said, seeing dimly how it all works. "So if I take this token, for instance, and make a thousand copies of it with the same ID and time stamp. Then I can still only use one of them. The other ones will become useless the moment I use one, due to the time stamp."
"Exactly. The new time stamp will only match the one we checked, so you can never use more than one token. The other ones become useless the moment one is checked."
"Provided the chip is checked, right?" Bjorn continued. "If I use my counterfeit tokens down at the market, for instance. That may work."
"Yeah. That's true. But if that started happening, even the stall owners would get themselves these counterfeit checking devices, I guess. So far, no one has tried to counterfeit any tokens, though. And as long as the tokens are being checked regularly by some of us, the rest, like the stall owners, can be pretty sure there are no counterfeits in the system."

Bjorn leaned back, totally impressed by the explanation. The girl had figured it all out, and had explained it so well that he was simply speechless.

"So... you want some coffee now," Katinka asked with a satisfied smile.
"Oh yeah. That will be great!" Bjorn answered, looking over at Ante who still seemed to be struggling to understand how exactly the counterfeit checking worked.

Katinka headed for the kitchen and Bjorn asked Ante if had been able to follow what Katinka had said.

"Well... not really," Ante had to admit. "So it has an ID and a time stamp in it?" Ante continued. "And every time the chip is checked, the time stamp is changed?"
"Right," Bjorn said with a smile and a nod.
"And that prevents counterfeiting?"
"Yeah, it does."
"Because the copies will immediately have the wrong time stamp, once one of them have been checked."
"Exactly."
"Well... hey! Maybe I understood it anyway." Ante said with a smile.
"Good for you," Bjorn said with a patronizing grin. "That makes you almost as smart as Katinka."

147

"Why did you do that?" Bjorn asked, following Katinka with his eyes as she headed for the kitchen. "Poor girl. What came over you?"
"Well, I was curious," Ante replied sheepishly.
"But you know how rude that was, don't you?"
"Ah... Well..."
"Would you have asked that kind of questions if she was a grown woman?"

Ante did not answer right away, taking instead another piece of pizza.

"But she isn't, is she?" Ante said defiantly. "She's not even seventeen. You know what that makes Roger. Well... it makes him a pervert. That's what it makes him."

But just as Ante said this, Roger appeared in the door of the kitchen, looking straight at the two men.

"Oh my," Bjorn muttered. "Look what you've done."
"Ups."
"So, what you gonna do now?" Bjorn whispered, following Roger with his eyes as he descended on their table.
"Me? Well..."

"If you two could treat Katinka with a little respect, that would be fine," Roger said as he neared the table.
"Respect?" Ante asked, pretending to be clueless.
"Yeah, you  know. A little courtesy never hurt anyone."
"No?"
"But people have been known to regret their disrespect for other people."
"Disrespect?"
"Are you a little hard of hearing or what?"
"Me?"
"Yeah, you."

Ante looked over at Bjorn, begging for help.

"You know... I'm sorry," Bjorn ventured.
"You're sorry?" Roger asked. "And how about your buddy over here. Is he sorry too? After all, he's the twit, not you."
"I... I'm sorry," Ante said. "I was just..."
"You were just?"
"Well..."
"She's an orphan, all right?" Roger explained. "She doesn't need you to make herself feel less for it."
"But..."
"But what?"
"I wasn't criticizing her for being an orphan."
"No?"

Ante looked again over at Bjorn for help.

"Well... eh... I guess we did in a way... unintentionally," Bjorn said, trying desperately to find a way to avoid the real issue. "You know... without knowing it."
"Yeah?"
"Well... you know the Guardian Angels?" Bjorn continued, spinning his story as fast as he could.
"The TV show?"
"Yeah..."
"It's tripe. What about it?"
"Ah... well... we kind of like it, don't we, Ante?" Bjorn said, now looking to Ante for help.
"Yes we do. We think they are great!" Ante continued. "Love the way they take care of the kids, you know... Real heroes! But... well... I guess you two see it differently?"
"Yeah we do," Roger said with a serious frown. "It's a bunch of self serving crap."
"Oh, but they save the children. I mean... what would happen to those poor little kiddies if it wasn't for them?" Ante continued, a little too enthusiastically for Bjorn's taste.
"You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?" Roger said with disgust.
"Well... but seriously... who would take care of the kiddies?"
"Good people," Roger answered. "Like me and Elisabeth, and you know... There's no shortage of good people in the world. We don't need a bunch of evil psychopaths to run these things."
"Eh... good people like you?" Ante asked, unable to contain his curiosity.
"Yeah. I'm taking care of Katinka. You got a problem with that?"
"Eh... no..." Ante answered, pretending not to care.
"Good... So, is that all then?" Roger asked, changing his focus to the pizza pieces still left on the serving tray. "You're still working on that, are you?"
"Yeah, we're still eating," Bjorn answered.
"Okay. And go a little easy on Katinka, will you?" Roger continued in conclusion, turning back to the kitchen before the two men could answer.

146

"Okay, I'll have water," Ante commented, nodding in Katinka's direction to signal that Bjorn was right. Katinka on her side got the message, and returned moments later from the kitchen with a pitcher of water and two glasses which she put on the table.

"Will that be all?" Katinka asked, looking first at Ante and then at Bjorn. "How about another beer for you?"
"No thank you," Bjorn replied. "I'm fine. I'll go over to water, just like my friend here."
"Okay."

Then, just as Katinka was about to leave the men alone again, Ante asked her if she happened to know Einar.

"Einar, the carpenter?" Katinka asked.
"Yeah, well, the carpenter apprentice."
"Sure. He's half the reason I'm here."
"Really?" Ante asked delighted. "You're like good friends, the two of you?"
"No, not really. But... well... he sort of discovered this place for us."
"Einar discovered Lundby?"
"Kind of."

Ante looked blankly at Katinka, expecting some explanation.

"He was the first one to run away," Katinka explained.
"And?"
"Well, once we saw that no one went after him, we thought that we could do the same. He kept updating his Facebook page with stuff he was doing, and it looked really cool."
"Like what."
"Like working for those Italians, and living on his own, and stuff like that."
"So you're like Facebook friends, are you?"
"Yeah, that too. But we were at the same... well... jail, you know."
"Correctional facility. Isn't that the right word?"
"Yeah... But you know, it's a jail. That's what it is."
"So you've killed someone too?" Ante asked cheekily.
"No, no. I kept running away from my foster parents, and... well... they ended up giving up on me and sent me up here where there wasn't anywhere I could run away to."
"Until this whole Lundby thing," Ante suggested.
"Exactly."
"So, by now that jail must be empty, or what?" Ante asked, fascinated by Katinka's story.
"Well, they shut it down. That's the last thing I heard."
"Really?"
"Yeah. They moved everyone to Alta. But even that is not far enough away from Lundby."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. People keep finding their way to this place. It's more difficult, but it still happens."

Bjorn was as fascinated as Ante, and could not help being reminded of the TV program about the Guardian Angels.

"So, you're not a big fan of the child protection services, are you?" Bjorn asked.
"No, not at all."
"But some kids really need help, right?"
"Sure! I was abandoned as a kid. So yeah..."
"And yet you're against them. That doesn't make any sense, does it?"
"Well... I just didn't like my foster parents. That's all."

Bjorn felt that they had been holding on to Katinka quite enough, and stopped asking questions. But Ante was evidently not completely satisfied.

"You heard about that murder in Asker?" he asked quite shamelessly. "At that institution."
"Yes. What about it?"
"Nah, I was just wondering what you make of it."
"Well, she was mad, wasn't she?"
"And what about Einar? Is he mad too?"
"Oh... I see what you mean. No, he's not mad. Just a little aggressive at times."
"A little?"
"It was an accident. I'm quite sure of it."
"That's what he keeps saying."
"You're not going to arrest him, are you?"
"No, no. But we had the pleasure of meeting him. He seems like a nice guy."
"And he is."
"So you're one of those camping out down at the new apartment building, together with Einar?" Ante asked, paying no attention to Katinka's growing impatience with his inquiry.
"No. I'm not. I live here. But it's really none of your business, is it?"
"No. I'm sorry," Ante replied, finally getting the message that his inquiry was less than pleasant for the young girl. But unable to restrain his curiosity he pushed on anyway. "So you live here alone?" he asked.
"No. I live here with Roger."
"The chef?"
"Yeah."
"He's not your boyfriend is he?" Ante asked, concerned.
"Well... Actually he is," Kartinka answered, straightening up a notch to look more mature.
"Oh my!" Ante exclaimed. "But he could be your father. How old are you?"

Katinka hesitated a moment.

"I'm seventeen," she said, convincing neither Bjorn nor Ante. Then she turned and headed straight for the kitchen, clearly upset by Ante's intrusive questioning.

144

Bjorn started leafing through the menu in front of him, mostly to check what sort of prices they were charging for the food. It was the very same glossy menu that he was used to from Oslo, but all the prices were covered with little handwritten tags expressing the prices in MG.

"I wonder how they make ends meet with these prices," Bjorn commented. "Hundred MG for a pizza. That's nothing."
"Well, everything else is cheep too," Ante replied. "I bet they can make that pizza for less than fifty. And then they make some money on the drinks and stuff, too. They'll make like a hundred MG on the two of us by the time we're finished."
"That's still not a lot, is it?"
"Maybe not, but better than what Ane's workers are getting."
"True."
"And let's say they sell like twenty pizzas in a day, plus extras. That's two Gram in a day. That's not so bad here in Lundby."
"So you think they're doing all right?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"Well, there's wages for one, and renting and heating this place. And what about the license for the franchise. That's not free either. Two Gram can't possibly cover all that."

Ante looked out of the window, as if searching for an answer.

"And yet, here they are," Ante commented thoughtfully. "Maybe they're not paying the franchising license."
"Well... Actually... That would explain a few things, wouldn't it? Like the beer, and this interior. You think they are just pretending to be a Peppe's franchise?"
"It would explain their concern about getting arrested too, wouldn't it?"
"It would."

Bjorn was impressed by Ante's reasoning. It made perfect sense, and explained all the little oddities.

"You're quite a detective!" Bjorn said, lifting his beer to his lips.
"Thanks."

Ante too, took a sip of his beer. Then he placed the glass back on a coaster in a deliberate and thoughtful manner.

"You know, my grandfather would have loved this," he said.
"Peppe's?"
"No. Opening a restaurant like this. Or rather... a restaurant of his own, in his own house."
"Yeah?"
"Yep. He actually did so. He got laid off at the iron mine. And the first thing he did was to make an informal restaurant in his house. He was a bit of a wizard in the kitchen."
"A little like you, in other words?"
"Yeah. Thanks. Only better. He made these fantastic reindeer steaks. And he had all these local herbs that he knew how to use."
"Local herbs? Here in the arctic?"
"Well, yeah. Things grow here too you know. It's not like we don't get any summer at all."
"Yeah. Well. Anyway... So he opened a restaurant?"
"He did."
"How did it go?"
"Pretty badly. He got shut down almost immediately. And he had to pay a fee and all."
"Really?"
"Yep. They took a big chunk of his savings."
"But why?"
"Well. He didn't have the licenses and the papers and stuff. It was illegal back then to open a restaurant in a private home."
"It still is, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Except here in Lundby. They got different rules here now."
"More like no rules at all."

Bjorn took another sip of his beer.

"It's not going to end well," he commented thoughtfully.
"You keep saying that," Ante protested. "Yet nothing wrong has happened."
"Not yet, no."
"And what exactly is going to go wrong, you think?"
"Well, I don't know. But it's not like all those rules we live under serve no purpose. They are there for a reason."
"You think so?"
"Yeah, of course!"
"So you feel unsafe, having a pizza here in Lundby, eating at Nora's Place and having a sandwich down at the market?"
"No. But it would have been better if it was regulated in some way."
"But it is."
"No it isn't. This is completely unregulated. You know that."
"It's regulated by the market."
"What?"
"If any of these guys serve bad food, people will stop going to their restaurants. You don't need anyone to shut down places just in case."

Bjorn had no idea why he was defending the regulatory bodies that had shut down Ante's grandfather's restaurant. He just did. Almost mechanically, as if it was his duty to defend the rules and regulations that so obviously were infringing on people's freedoms. Yet he could not stop himself from playing the devils advocate.

"And what about the so called pharmacy across the road here?" Bjorn said defiantly. "Surely, you don't think that's all right too?"
"Well, actually I do. But here's the pizza."

And sure enough, Katinka was heading straight for their table with a large pizza, straight from the oven and cut into a grid of palm size pieces.

"You want some garlic sauce to go with that?" Katinka asked as she put the pizza on the table between the two men.
"Yeah, that would be nice," Ante answered.
"Okay, I'll be right back."

Katinka hurried back off to the kitchen to get the sauce, which gave Ante an opportunity to mention Bjorn's intention to question Katinka about her worry about getting arrested.

"And here she is," Ante said with a smile on seeing Katinka return. "I'm all ears."

Katinka put the garlic sauce on the table.

"And you are fine with drinks and all?" she asked looking from Ante to Bjorn.
"Well, I have a question," Bjorn ventured.
"Yes?"
"Is this a real Peppe's franchise, or just a copy?"
"Ah... Why do you ask?"
"Well... You seem to be concerned about getting arrested, right?" Bjorn continued, feeling suddenly uncomfortable about his intrusive questioning.

Katinka straightened up and looked at Bjorn with suspicion.

"We're protected by Lance."
"And?" Bjorn asked puzzled.
"You're under their jurisdiction."
"What you mean?"
"It means you cannot come here and arrest people or harass us or anything like that."
"And if we did, what would they do?"
"Well, they would arrest you."
"Arrest us?"
"Yeah."
"How?"
"They would send some guys over and put you in irons, I guess."
"Like immediately?"
"No. We would call them first."
"But you'd be on your way to Kirkenes long before they get here."
"Only if you managed to get out of the house. And even then, they would arrest you at their first opportunity."
"Well, we carry guns you know."
"So do they."

Bjorn was stunned by Katinka's insinuation, and was unable to come up with more to say.

"Well, thank you for your explanation," Ante added. "So I take it, you're insured by Lance."
"Yes. I think everyone here is. Everyone with a business, that is."
"Like David across the street?" Ante suggested.
"Oh yeah. I mean... He really needs protection."
"Why?"
"Well, it's not exactly legal, what he's doing."
"Not even here in Lundby?"
"No. It's legal here of course. But. Well, he's selling drugs, you know."
"And what's your feeling about that?"
"Ah. Well, As long as he's not pushing his drugs on anyone."
"And he isn't, is he?"
"No. I don't think so."

Ante sent Bjorn a knowing smile and a nod.

"Well, thank you Katinka," he said. "Thanks a lot."

143

The two men walked up the short foot path from the road to the house that served as a pizza restaurant. The place was a good deal larger than Nora's Place, and a whiff of freshly baked pizza met them in the hallway.

The door had set off a mechanical bell, signalling their arrival, and a young woman came to meet them. But as soon as she saw them, she scurried to the back and disappeared into the kitchen, returning moments later with a large, muscular man in his mid forties.

"So, what can I do for you, gentlemen?" he asked in Norwegian.
"We'd like to have a pizza," Ante replied.
"Here, or to go?"
"Here."
"And what's with the uniform?" the man asked.
"The uniform?"
"Yeah."
"Well, we're from the checkpoint, up the Neiden road."
"What's your assignment?"
"Our assignment?"
"Yeah, why are you here?"
"Well, as I said, we'd like to sit down and have a pizza."
"That's all?"
"And something to drink, maybe? This is a restaurant, right?"
"Yeah of course. So you are not here to arrest anyone?"
"No."

The man looked at Bjorn and Ante with some lingering suspicion.

"Well then," he said. "Please come in. Have a seat!"

He showed Bjorn and Ante into the living room which was furnished much like Nora's Place, with tables of different shapes and sizes.

"Feel free to pick a table," the man said generously. "You can have the table by the window if you wish, if you don't mind waiting for Katinka to clear it first."
"Well, that's great," Ante answered. "We'll wait for Katinka."
"Okay, I'll leave you here then. I got things to do."

The man went back into the kitchen, and was gone.

"I'm sorry about that," Katinka said, immediately getting busy cleaning the table over by the window. "I'll be back with the menus and cutlery in a moment. Please sit down."

Then, Katinka too disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Ante and Bjorn to themselves. With the exception of a couple sitting at a table by the wall, they were the only ones in the restaurant.

"I guess it's not the busiest time of the day," Ante commented on sitting down at the table which was still a little damp from the cloth that Katinka had used to clean it.
"So they got a Peppe's here in Lundby too," Bjorn commented idly on his part. "Imagine that!"
"Yeah. There used to be one in Kirkenes, but they gave up. I wonder if these guys are going to do any better."
"It's a tough business to be in these days, with the crisis and all," Bjorn added, still idly looking around, and out the window.

Katinka appeared with a pizza for the couple by the wall, and headed subsequently over to Bjorn and Ante with two menus.

"You want anything to drink?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'll have a beer," Bjorn replied with a smile.
"Yeah, why not? I´ll have one too," Ante added.
"Okay. Two beers. Any snacks to go with that. Garlic bread? Toasts?"
"No. That's all," Ante replied, looking to Bjorn for confirmation.
"Yeah, just the beer. That's all," Bjorn added.

Katinka went back to the kitchen, leaving the men once again to themselves.

"You're not getting drunk on me again, are you?" Bjorn asked. "And you shouldn't be drinking at all, should you? I mean, you're driving."
"Ah! Just one beer," Ante protested. "I'll switch to water. I swear. Only one beer, and then I'll have water after that."
"Okay," Bjorn said with a smile. "And we better not get stopped by the police on our way home. Even one beer is more than they allow these days."
"Ah, but you forget that this is Lundby. There's no traffic controls here."
"That's true," Bjorn said thoughtfully. "There isn't, is there? That's not going to end well, is it?"
"What you mean?"
"Well, somebody is going to drive into somebody one day. Some drunk driver. Don't you think?"

Ante looked around in the room, as if looking for that drunk driver. Then, he lightened up, seeing Katinka return with two bottles of beer on a tray, together with two small glasses.

"Bottled beer?" Bjorn commented as Katinka poured in some beer in his glass. "I was expecting draught beer."
"Well, I'm sorry, but we only have bottled beer," Katinka replied modestly.
"Super Bock? What is this?" Bjorn continued, as Katinka put the bottle down in front of him.
"It's Portuguese," Ante explained.
"But isn't this Peppe's? I thought they were owned by Ringnes. Isn't that so?"
"Yeah, but you're fine with the beer are you?" Katinka asked.
"Sure! I'm just a little confused."
"Well, it's cheaper and better than Ringnes. Or at least, that's what I've heard," Katinka explained.
"But even then..."
"You know, you really should know when to shut up," Ante interjected with a smile. "We're getting great beer for very little money. What are you complaining about?"
"Okay, but I still find it a bit strange."
"Well, we're not your average Peppe's," Katinka commented politely. "But our pizza is just like the ones you're used to. Are you ready to order?"

The two men looked at each other, and then briefly at the menu.

"Let's just have the Chicago Classic," Bjorn suggested. "It's my favorite."
"A large one?" Katinka asked.
"Yeah, a large one for the two of us."
"Okay, Is that all right for you too?" Katinka asked, looking at Ante.
"Yeah, sure," Ante replied with a friendly smile.

Katinka did not bother to note down the order, heading instead over to the other couple to check with them that all was all right before going back to the kitchen.

"She's not even eighteen, is she?" Bjorn commented the moment she disappeared out of sight.
"No. Probably not."
"And yet she's serving alcohol."
"Yeah?"
"Isn't that against the law?"
"Man! Wake up! You're in Lundby," Ante protested. "Who cares what the law says? She's doing an excellent job, isn't she?"
"She is," Bjorn agreed. "But she's clearly worried about getting arrested. You think it's because of this?"
"Serving alcohol, you mean?" Ante asked redundantly. "Well, I don't think so."
"So, what's going on?"
"I don't know. Does it matter?"
"Well. Aren't you curious?" Bjorn asked.
"If you're so curious, why don't you ask her?" Ante suggested.
"Okay. I think I will. Yeah, I'll do that. For sure."