The Redbreast Read Free

questions had taken, the way his client, Sverre Olsen, had openly declared his programme, and the fact that Olsen had deemed it appropriate to roll up his shirt-sleeves to display to the judge and colleagues on the panel the spider-web tattoos on both elbows and the row of swastikas on his left forearm. On his right forearm was tattooed a chain of Norse symbols and VALKYRIA , a neo-Nazi gang, in black gothic letters.
    But there was something else about the whole procedure that rankled with him. He just couldn’t put his finger on what.
    The Public Prosecutor, a little man by the name of Herman Groth, pushed the microphone away with his little finger, which was decorated with a ring bearing the symbol of the lawyers’ union.
    ‘Just a couple of questions to finish, Your Honour.’ The voice was gentle and subdued. The light under the microphone showed green.
    ‘So when, at nine o’ clock on 3 January, you went into Dennis Kebab in Dronningens gate, it was with the clear intention of performing the duty of protecting our race which you were just talking about?’
    Johan Krohn launched himself at the microphone.
    ‘My client has already answered that a row developed between himself and the Vietnamese owner.’ Red light. ‘He was provoked,’ Krohn said. ‘There’s absolutely no reason to suggest premeditation.’
    Groth closed his eyes.
    ‘If what your defending counsel says is correct, herr Olsen, it was therefore quite by chance that you were carrying a baseball bat at the time?’
    ‘For self-defence,’ Krohn interrupted and threw his arms up in despair. ‘Your Honour, my client has already answered these questions.’
    The judge rubbed his chin as he surveyed the counsel for the defence. Everyone knew that Johan Krohn Jr. was a defence constellation in the ascendancy – particularly Johan Krohn himself – and that was presumably what finally made the judge accede with some irritation: ‘I agree with the defending counsel. Unless the prosecutor has anything new to add, may I suggest we move on?’
    Groth opened his eyes so that a narrow white stripe could be seen above and beneath the iris. He inclined his head. With a fatigued movement, he raised a newspaper aloft.
    ‘This is Dagbladet from 25 January. In an interview on page eight one of the accused’s co-idealogues —’
    ‘I object . . .’ Krohn began.
    Groth sighed. ‘Let me change that to a man who expresses racist views.’
    The judge nodded, but sent Krohn an admonitory glare at the same time. Groth continued.
    ‘This man, commenting on the attack at Dennis Kebab, says we need more racists like Sverre Olsen to regain control of Norway. In the interview the word “racist” is used as a term of respect. Does the accused consider himself a “racist”?’
    ‘Yes, I am a racist,’ said Olsen before Krohn managed to interpose. ‘In the sense that I use the word.’
    ‘And what might that be?’ Groth smiled.
    Krohn clenched his fists under the table and looked up at the podium, at the two associate judges flanking the judge. These three would decide the fate of his client for the next few years, and his own status in the Tostrupkjeller bar for the next few months. Two ordinary citizens representing the people, representing common-sense justice. They used to call them ‘lay judges’, but perhaps they had realised that it was too reminiscent of ‘play judges’. To the right of the judge was a young man wearing a cheap, sensible suit, who hardly dared raise his eyes. The young, slightly plump woman to the left seemed to be pretending to follow the proceedings, while extending her neck so that the incipient double chin could not be seen from the floor. Average Norwegians. What did they know about people like Sverre Olsen? What did they want to know?
    Eight witnesses had seen Sverre Olsen go into the burger bar with a baseball bat under his arm and, after a brief exchange of expletives, hit the owner, Ho Dai – a forty-year-old Vietnamese, who