‘I see you’re wearing training gear, but I’m afraid Kasparov’s running days are behind him.’
‘I’ve noticed. Have you considered an operation?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Several times. But the vet has advised against it. But I think he’s on the right track, with proper food and — the periods it’s bad — painkillers and anti-inflammatories.’
‘Sounds like you care about your dog.’
‘Oh yes. Have you a dog yourself?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m more into hook-ups. Like with Kasparov here.’
Now they both laughed.
‘I’m afraid I didn’t hit it off so well with your boss the other day,’ he said. ‘Is he always so morose?’
‘I don’t know,’ Thanh said. The policeman was quiet, and she was aware that he was waiting for her to elaborate. She didn’t need to, of course, but such silent pauses might serve to underscore an unwillingness to say more, as though there was something fishy going on.
‘I don’t know him that well,’ she said, although hearing that now it sounded like she wanted to distance herself from Jonathan, which might put him in an unfavourable light, and that certainly wasn’t her intention.
‘That’s odd,’ the policeman said. ‘You not knowing one another when the two of you are the only people in the shop.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. They stopped for a red light at the pedestrian crossing over Kirkeveien. ‘It may be a little odd. But what you’re wondering is if I know whether he’s smuggled something into the country. And I don’t.’
In her peripheral vision she could see him looking at her, and when the light changed to green, she walked so quickly that he was left standing on the pavement behind her.
Sung-min hurried after the girl from the pet shop.
He was annoyed. Clearly, this wasn’t leading anywhere, she had her guard up and wasn’t going to talk. It was a waste of a day off, and his mood was not improved by the fact he and Chris had argued yesterday.
A flower seller was standing by the monumental main gate to Frogner Park, proffering his sad specimens to the tourists.
‘A rose for the beautiful beloved.’
The seller had taken a step forward so that he was blocking one of the smaller side gates which Sung-min and Thanh had headed towards.
‘No thank you,’ Sung-min said.
The seller repeated his sales pitch in broken Norwegian, as though Sung-min must have misheard him.
‘No,’ Sung-min said, and followed Thanh and Kasparov, who had skirted round the man and walked through the gate.
But the seller came after him.
‘A rose for the beautiful—’
‘No!’
The man obviously thought that Sung-min, judging by his attire, could afford it, and that Sung-min and Thanh were a couple since they both looked Asian. Not an unreasonable assumption, of course, and neither was it one that would have bothered Sung-min on another day. He rarely, if ever, allowed himself to be provoked by preconceptions, they were just a part of how people dealt with a complicated world. In fact, Sung-min was more often provoked by people who were so self-centred that they took offence every time they believed themselves the victim of even the most innocuous preconception. ‘A rose for—’
‘I’m gay.’
The seller stopped and stared blankly at Sung-min for a moment. Then he moistened his lips and held out one of the plastic-wrapped, pallid flowers.
‘A rose for the beau—’
‘I’m gay!’ Sung-min roared. ‘Do you understand? Gay as gay can be!’
The flower seller backed away and Sung-min saw that people going in and out of the gates had turned to look at them. Thanh had come to a halt, a startled expression on her face, and Kasparov gave a brief bark and pulled at the lead to come to his owner’s rescue.
‘I’m sorry.’ Sung-min sighed. ‘Here.’ He took the flower and handed the seller a hundred-krone note.
‘I don’t have any...’ the man began.
‘It’s fine.’ Sung-min walked over to Thanh and held out the rose to her.
At first she just looked at him in surprise. Then she began to laugh.
Sung-min hesitated a moment before seeing the funny side of the situation then laughed as well.
‘My dad says it’s largely a European tradition, giving flowers to your sweetheart,’ Thanh said. ‘The Greeks in antiquity, the French and English in the Middle Ages.’
‘Yes, but the rose is originally from the same continent as us,’ Sung-min said. ‘The place where I was born in South Korea, Samcheok, has a very well-known rose festival. And mugunghwa, the rose of Sharon, is the national symbol of Korea.’
‘Yes, but is mugunghwa strictly speaking a rose?’
Before they reached the Monolith, the conversation had moved on from flowers to pets.
‘I don’t know if Jonathan really likes animals that much,’ she said when they were standing at the top of the park looking down towards Skøyen. ‘I think he just ended up in this business. It could just as easily have been, like, a grocery or electronics store.’
‘But you don’t know anything about him continuing to stock Hillman Pets after the import ban?’
‘What makes you so sure he has?’
‘He was very stressed when I called round to the shop.’
‘Maybe he was scared of...’
‘Yes?’
‘No, nothing.’
