Burned

Chapter 47

It is almost four o’clock, but Henning decides to stop by the office anyway. He has no articles to file, because he hasn’t found out anything he feels he can write about yet, but he is working. And he hasn’t shown his face since this morning. I ought to report to Heidi or Tourette Kare, he thinks. Have a chat with Gundersen, perhaps, if he is around.

He takes a risk and crosses the street at Vaterlands Park. He is dragging his legs across the road, some distance away from the pedestrian crossing, dodging the worst of the rush-hour traffic, when he becomes aware of a car on the far side of the lights. It’s not a silver Mercedes, it’s a Volvo too far away for him to make out the model, but it accelerates as the lights change from green to amber. It is forced to brake when the car in front blocks it. Tyres screech. Horns beep. Horns beep all over Oslo. All day long.

The Volvo gets a response from the car in front. Henning is half expecting a confrontation, that the Volvo driver will get out and have a go at the driver of the car in front, but it doesn’t happen. Instead the man in the passenger seat rolls down his window and sticks his head out. Henning can’t make out his face properly, all he can see is a pair of gleaming, gold-framed sunglasses, even though there isn’t a single ray of sunshine for miles around.

He registers this because he instantly gets the feeling that the man is looking for him. If they are all like Ray-Ban Man, Henning thinks, perhaps he doesn’t have much to fear. But some idiots carry guns and if you give a moron a gun, you can get him to do almost anything.

The thought makes him speed up and he decides to make a detour on his way to the office. The area between Gronlandsleiret and Urtegata can seem a little inhospitable, regardless of the time of day, so he walks up Brugata, mingles with people at the bus station and jumps on the number 17 tram when it arrives a few minutes later. He rides it up Trondheimsvei and gets off at the Rimi supermarket, follows Herslebsgate until the large yellow building at the top of Urtegata is once more in sight. Cars zoom past him in both directions; it is the height of the rush-hour, and if anyone wants to kill him or kidnap him, it would be impossible to do it here. With one million witnesses and no clear escape routes, Henning can feel safe. Or relatively safe.

Perhaps I’m just paranoid, he thinks, perhaps I’ve been out of the game too long to know that this is completely normal, that nothing is going to happen? But there was something about the way Brogeland spoke which got his attention. Brogeland was worried. He knows about this gang. And as Nora said: they’re not nice people.

He catches himself wondering how this is all going to end. If they are trying to kill him — as Brogeland hinted — because he can place Yasser Shah in Tariq Marhoni’s flat, they won’t stop until they have succeeded.