Pierced

Chapter 90

It is five minutes to one in the afternoon. It means Petter Holte is unlikely to be at home, Henning thinks, since Sunday workouts are sacrosanct. He stops outside a block of flats in Herslebsgate and presses the doorbell for Tore Pulli’s cousin. There is no answer. Henning tries again and waits thirty seconds before he accepts defeat. Then he presses all twelve buttons on the intercom, betting that at least one of the residents will do what he himself always used to, which was to just let people in.

Seconds later, Henning closes the door behind him with a satisfied smile and enters a hallway where three prams block the stairs. Arabic music wafts through an upstairs keyhole. Henning battles his way up. On the third floor he stops and knocks on Holte’s door. He tries the bell too, but without success. Henning inspects the door and the lock. It is a regular Yale lock.

Some years ago, he wrote a story about how easy it is to break into someone’s home. It took only a few Internet searches to learn that the most effective way to pick a standard lock was through a method known as lock-bumping, a technique invented by a Danish locksmith a quarter of a century ago. The secret lies in using a blank key, known as a bump key, and cut it so its teeth glide into the lock. But rather than push the key all the way in, you insert the key one notch short of full insertion, and then you give it a firm whack with a hammer or similar. The friction created when the teeth are bashed bumps the pins in the lock the same way balls on a snooker table scatter when you break. This allows you to turn the key and open the door.

Henning tested the method first on his own front door and later at the house of some friends. When his friends eventually accepted that he had done them a favour by breaking into their home, they were happy to provide quotes for his article. Henning has kept the blank key on his key ring ever since, and he decides that now is the right time to put it to use again.

He isn’t sure what he hopes to find in Holte’s flat, but it’s impossible to get these people to talk to him, and he has to find out more about who they are.

Henning puts on a pair of latex gloves, takes out the hammer he brought from home, slides the key in place and gives it a whack that echoes against the walls. Then he turns the key and opens the door. Piece of cake.

The silence that follows confirms that he is alone in the flat. In the hallway two pairs of identical boots are lined up next to a pair of worn trainers. A black Alive Force leather jacket gleams at him from a hook. A white horizontal line across the chest and some white squares decorating the middle of the upper sleeve make the jacket look like something out of a science-fiction movie. Henning can easily imagine Holte wearing it.

Henning starts to explore the flat. There is a small kitchen to the left filled with dirty plates and glasses. The cooker is speckled with food stains and fat splashes. Empty bottles under a blue wooden table. Beer and Coke Zero, a couple of bottles of tequila, empty jars of Metapure Zero Carb. The walls are unfinished. No burglar alarm as far as Henning can see.

He goes into the living room where two heavy dumb-bells lie on the floor next to the fireplace. In front of the television is a messy pile of DVDs, a mixture of action movies and exercise videos with muscular men on the cover. At the centre of the room, a clothes horse laden with socks, underwear and T-shirts dominates the space. On one T-shirt three monkeys are covering their eyes, ears and mouth respectively while appearing to find something hilarious; ‘That’s what friends are for’, it says on another. And a Metallica one, of course. The T-shirts are a size ‘small’, presumably so they will cling as tightly as possible.

Henning stops and listens again, but he can’t hear any noise coming from the outside. He starts on the shelving unit in the living room, rifling through the drawers and finding takeaway menus, cables and a box with a video camera inside it. He opens the drinks cabinet, checks behind books, looks in the drawer under the TV unit, behind the sofa, under the sofa, inside every cupboard, but he finds nothing of interest.

In the bedroom he is met by the smell of stale sleep but resists the temptation to open the windows. Methodically, he searches the cupboards and drawers in there as well but discovers only what he assumes to be a jar of steroids. Under the bed all he finds is dust, a vacuum cleaner and a transparent plastic box with spare duvets and pillows. On the bedside table, a book by R. N. Morris is gathering dust. Henning has difficulties imagining a man like Holte devoting much time to literature, but then again crime fiction is considered light entertainment by some.

The bathroom smells of mould. The cupboard above the sink reveals only toothpaste, shaving foam, some lotions and dental floss. In the laundry basket he catches sight of a bloodstained T-shirt. Iver’s blood? he wonders. He is tempted to take the T-shirt with him, but he decides to photograph it instead.

He spins around when a bang echoes from the stairwell. He rushes back to the hallway and leaves the flat as quietly as he can. The footsteps come closer. Henning looks about him for another way out. As the noise coming from below grows louder, he kicks off his shoes and tiptoes upstairs. When he reaches the fifth floor he leans against the wall and holds his breath. The footsteps stop. Henning can’t be sure, but he thinks that someone is outside Holte’s flat. Perhaps he didn’t go to the gym after all.

There is a jingling of keys. Henning hears a key being inserted and turned, but the door doesn’t budge. It appears to be jammed.

He hears grunting coming from below, but he can’t identify the voice. The door finally opens with a bang before it is slammed shut again. Henning seizes his chance and doesn’t wait to put on his shoes but races down the stairs. His socks are so slippery that he nearly skids down several steps and he has to cling to the banister for support. It’s not until he is back on the ground floor that he stops and breathes a sigh of relief as he quickly glances upwards.

No one is there.

Chapter 91

Light. Is that a light?

Dots far away. They are black, and they dance up and down. Something beeps. A pounding sound comes closer. His eyelids slide open. Yes, there is light. Something white appears. Gradually everything comes into focus, but he doesn’t recognise his surroundings. Where is he?

A fan whirrs in the ceiling. He senses movement by his side. He tries to turn his head. Movement is impossible, but he sees a bright, smiling face.

‘Hi, Iver. I’m glad you’ve finally woken up.’

The grip on his neck. The exploding pulse. Something hard hitting him in the face. He didn’t manage to dodge the punch. Damn.

‘My name is Maria.’

‘Hello, Maria.’ His voice is alien. As if it belongs to someone else.

‘I’ll let the doctor know that you’re awake and he’ll come to have a look at you.’

She appears to float across the floor, away from him.

‘Wait,’ he says in a rusty voice.

Maria turns around and comes back. Nice face. Pretty smile. He still can’t move.

‘Have I been paralysed?’

A warm smile.

‘Oh, no. No danger of that. You’re in plaster, and you have some bandages that will make it hard for you to move for a while. But you’re going to be fine.’

Iver feels himself sinking back into the mattress. ‘How long have I been here?’

‘Since Friday.’

‘And today is-’

‘Today is Sunday.’

Iver nods, gingerly. He remembers straight hair combed back, a man with stubble. A man who spoke Swedish. Jacob Aalls Restaurant. Dinner. The text message. To Henning.

Maria is about to leave the room when Iver calls out again.

‘Yes?’

‘Please would you do me a favour?’

*

Henning has only just stepped back out into the Indian summer when his mobile rings.

‘Hi?’ he says in a hopeful voice.

‘Iver is awake,’ Nora says.

‘He is?’ Henning exclaims. ‘That’s brilliant. Is he… is there any permanent damage?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Has he said anything yet?’

‘No, not very much.’

‘Have the doctors said anything about his injuries?’

‘No, I’m on my way to the hospital now. But… he wants you to come as well.’

Henning stops. ‘He said that?’

‘Yes, you were… the first person he asked after.’

Henning hears an element of disappointment in her voice, but he doesn’t want to address it at this moment in time. So instead he says, ‘Okay, I’m on my way.’

Chapter 92

After regaining consciousness, Iver has been moved from the intensive-care unit to a side ward. Henning spends a long time asking for directions until he finds the right door, and when he finally arrives he hesitates outside it for a few seconds. Going in feels intrusive, like entering someone’s bedroom while they are still under the duvet. That Nora now shares a bed with Iver doesn’t make it easier, but he tries to ignore the image that conjures up.

Henning knocks on the door, opens it tentatively and enters. Nora is sitting on a chair by Iver’s bed. She lets go of his hand. Henning can barely see Iver’s eyes because of the swelling to his face. His lips look dry.

‘Hello,’ Henning says, sheepishly.

‘Hello,’ Iver and Nora reply in unison.

‘How are you?’ Henning asks him.

‘Good, I think. Or good enough.’

Iver’s voice is slow and feeble. His lips curl into a thin, crinkled smile. Henning looks around for a spare chair, but finds none. His eyes stop at a vase with fresh, long-stemmed flowers on the table.

‘I think I’ll go and get myself a cup of coffee,’ Nora says, standing up. ‘Would anyone else like one?’

‘No, thank you,’ Henning says, shaking his head.

Nora looks at Iver.

‘I don’t think I’m allowed to drink coffee yet,’ he says.

Nora nods. Henning waits until she has closed the door behind her before he approaches Iver’s bed.

‘I should have brought something, but… ’

His sentence hangs in the air.

‘What would that be? Flowers?’ Iver’s lips stretch again. They look as if they might tear open at any moment. ‘Sit down, would you please? I get stressed when people stand.’

‘Oh, yes, sorry, I forgot.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

Henning smiles. ‘Christ, you look Swedish,’ he says as he sits down on the chair. The seat is still warm.

‘Why?’

‘Your face is blue and yellow.’

‘Ah.’

Iver’s lips crack into a smile again. A bad time to make jokes, Henning thinks. The silence starts to stick to the walls. Henning looks at Iver in the knowledge that he looked very much like him almost two years ago. But with one crucial difference. The chair by his bed wasn’t warm.

‘Do you remember anything that happened?’ Henning asks in an attempt to shake off the memory.

‘I remember being lifted up as if I weighed nothing at all, and then there was a bang.’

‘Did you see who it was?’

‘No, but he was strong. I wanted to wriggle free, but I never got the chance.’

Iver manoeuvres one arm towards a cable that lies across his stomach, lifts up a handset and presses the button marked ‘up’. The bed starts to hum, and slowly he is raised to a sitting position. Henning takes out his mobile. ‘Do you recognise this T-shirt?’ he says, turning the display to Iver. Iver tries to focus.

‘I don’t know. It happened so quickly.’

Henning nods and puts the mobile back in his pocket.

‘I think the man who beat you up was Petter Holte,’ he says.

‘Pulli’s cousin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. But Petter is or was an enforcer once. He also works as a doorman at Asgard.’

Iver nods. So far so good.

‘Did you know that he went to prison?’ Iver says, trying to make himself more comfortable.

‘No,’ Henning replies, surprised. ‘What for?’

‘Last year on International Women’s Day there was a demonstration outside Asgard. Petter was a bit heavy-handed with one of the feminists. Got a couple of months inside for it.’

‘Really? Did he serve his sentence at Botsen?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know if he was in contact with his cousin while he was inside?’

‘That I don’t know. There are hundreds of cells there, but they probably met in the yard. I believe inmates are entitled to one hour of fresh air every day.’

Henning nods. If Holte and Pulli were in prison at the same time, something could have gone down between them.

‘The doctor has probably told you to take it easy,’ Henning says. ‘So I don’t suppose we should be talking shop.’

‘That’s just something they say in the movies, Sherlock.’

Henning grins. ‘Has the doctor said anything about how long you will be in here?’

‘No, but I think it’ll be a while. I’ll be bored out of my skull. You’ll have to keep feeding the monster yourself while I’m out of action. I know you’ll struggle without me, but-’

Henning laughs. ‘Are you still able to send text messages or do you need help with that as well?’

‘I haven’t tried yet.’

Nora enters the room, which instantly grows hotter and more claustrophobic. Henning gets up.

‘Do you know where my mobile is?’ Iver asks.

‘No,’ Nora replies. ‘But I can find out.’

‘Yes, please, would you?’

She disappears out of the door again. Henning follows her with his eyes before he turns to Iver.

‘I need to leave,’ he says.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going… I’m going home.’

‘Okay.’

There is another silence. Henning starts to walk towards the door.

‘Henning?’

Henning stops and turns around.

‘Has it gone?’

‘Has what gone?’

‘The cocksure look.’

Henning turns to his colleague, serious this time. ‘Yes, Iver. It has. How does it feel?’

‘It hurts like hell.’

Henning’s face creases sympathetically.

He hasn’t felt like smiling this much for a long time.

Chapter 93

Henning’s mobile rings as he is about to go into the hospital newsagent to buy a paper.

‘You just can’t manage without me, can you?’ he mutters, feigning irritation.

‘Henning,’ Iver says eagerly. ‘I think I got an email from Thorleif Brenden.’

‘What?’

‘At first I thought it was spam, but the contents suggest that it’s him.’

‘I’ll be with you in a sec,’ Henning says, tossing down the newspaper. A few minutes later he is back in Iver’s room.

‘What did he say?’ Henning asks, agitated, as he rushes towards the bed. In a brief moment he registers that Nora isn’t there.

‘Read for yourself,’ Iver replies. Henning takes the mobile and starts reading:

From: GulvSprekk ‹gulvsprekk@hotmail. com›

Subject: ‹‹missing TV2 cameraman››

To: iver. gundersen@123news. no

Hello. I see that you are writing about me.

I am contacting you because I don’t know who to trust. I hope I can trust you. I am still alive and I am still sane — though I have good reason not to be.

I need your help. I was forced to commit a murder. I killed Tore Pulli. I had no choice. And now I am on the run from the people who made me do it because I think they want to kill me.

Henning spends some minutes reading the rest of the email before he looks up at Iver. ‘Bloody hell,’ he says. ‘This is-’

‘I know,’ Iver nods. ‘Forward the email to yourself or take my mobile with you.’

‘I’ll forward it to myself. Write a reply and see if you hear anything back from him.’

‘That’s a bit difficult,’ Iver says, looking at his hands. ‘I needed Nora’s help to ring you in the first place.’

‘Oh, right,’ Henning says, flustered. ‘I didn’t think-’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Iver says.

Henning forwards the email and gets ready to go.

‘Keep me updated,’ Iver calls out after him.

‘Of course,’ Henning replies. While he half-runs down the corridor in the direction of the lift he takes out his own mobile and finds Brogeland’s number.

‘There are no new developments,’ Brogeland sighs, wearily.

‘Oh yes there are. Are you at the station?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come downstairs and meet me in reception in half an hour. I have something to show you.’

*

Thirty-five minutes later Henning is in Brogeland’s office. He puts his laptop, which he picked up from home on his way to the police station, on the inspector’s desk. Brogeland sits down and moves his chair closer to the table. Henning reads the email over his shoulder. He pays particular attention to the second half:

I don’t know if this can be used as evidence, but the man who forced me to murder Pulli might have left a fingerprint in my car on the day he tested me to find out if I could be ordered to kill. The fingerprint is on the armrest on the passenger side. I parked my car in Kirkegaten. It has probably been issued with several parking tickets now. But if you can get someone you trust from the police to check this out for me I think it might be possible to discover the man’s real name.

I hope you can help me. The way things look now you are my only hope. At the moment I don’t want to say anything about where I am, but I hope you will help me so I won’t have to remain in hiding for very much longer.

Please would you also contact my girlfriend Elisabeth Haaland and let her know that I am all right? But please do it discreetly. I have reason to believe that our flat is under surveillance.

Yours sincerely,

Thorleif Brenden

Henning waits impatiently for Brogeland to finish.

‘Have you already swept his flat for bugs?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ Brogeland replies. ‘We found masses of high-tech equipment. Video and audio.’

‘Did you now?’ Henning says.

Brogeland nods. The next moment there is a knock on the door. Sergeant Ella Sandland appears. She sees Henning standing behind Brogeland and she makes a gesture with her head to indicate that she needs to speak to her boss. Brogeland returns soon afterwards with a grave expression on his face.

‘What is it?’ Henning asks.

‘We’ve just had a call from Geilo Police. A body has been found at the foot of Hallingskarvet. From the description, it’s likely to be that of Thorleif Brenden.’

Chapter 94

Henning goes home and lies down on his sofa. He stares at the ceiling and thinks about Elisabeth Haaland, of the news awaiting her — if she hasn’t been told already. And he feels for the children, only eight and four years old. A difficult time lies ahead of them.

Henning checks the time on his mobile. It’s too soon, he thinks, to write anything about Brenden except the fact that a body has been found. It will take a couple of hours to confirm Brenden’s identity. Then the police will inform his next of kin, and, out of respect for the bereaved, reporters should really leave family and friends alone for a couple of days. But very few members of the Norwegian media care about that these days.

You should seriously consider a change of career, he tells himself, given how much you loathe your own profession. There is hardly any decency left among reporters. But deep down Henning knows he is exactly like them when he smells a good story. Is this really the kind of person he wants to be? Is this truly how he wants to feel?

That’s the problem. He doesn’t know what he wants.

In the tender infancy of his journalistic career he had an idea — or it may have been more of a fantasy — where he would position himself in the same place in the city for six months, say, and look out for people who repeated the same actions every day. He wasn’t interested in people commuting to and from work, but those who went there just to have somewhere to go. He would seek out those who avoided eye contact, who hid themselves away, who preferred walking close to the wall rather than the kerb. Henning believed that they each had a story that needed telling. Something had made them like this. Something unique to each of them.

But he never found the time. There was always a new story, always something of greater urgency. And before Henning returned to work, after Jonas’s death, he had himself turned into someone who walks in the shadows.

Perhaps I’ll find my way back one day, Henning thinks. When everything is over.

A sudden flash of inspiration makes him sit up. Before he has thought it through, he is on the phone to Iver.

‘What’s happening?’ Iver asks, answering after just a few rings. ‘I’ve managed to get some headphones and a remote control,’ he adds, happily, before Henning has time to say anything. ‘At least I can make calls now.’

‘Don’t do it.’

‘Eh?’

‘I don’t want you to talk to anyone. Especially not the media. Has anyone called you today?’

‘Why would they do that?’

Henning tells him about the coma article and the discovery of Brenden’s body.

‘Many people know that you’re in hospital,’ he continues. ‘And several reporters will probably check how you are, maybe not today, but definitely tomorrow when everyone is back at work. The thing is, I don’t want anyone knowing that you’ve regained consciousness yet. If the people who killed Brenden are aware that he sent you an email, and if they also check up on you and discover that you’re in a coma, then they may believe that Brenden’s email was never received. We can buy ourselves some time.’

‘Okay,’ Iver says. ‘I get it.’

‘You need to tell Nora.’

‘I’ll try.’

The stab wound sends spasms of pain from his shoulder and down his arm even though he cleaned the cut with whatever he could find and applied a makeshift bandage. There is an agonising pounding coming from the point of entry. Perhaps it has already become infected, Orjan Mjones thinks, since he feels feverish all over. The knife was unlikely to be sterile.

The public telephone rings at eleven o’clock exactly, just as it did three days ago. Mjones steps inside and picks up the receiver with his left hand.

‘Hello,’ he says. At the same moment the throbbing in his shoulder escalates.

‘Is everything taken care of?’

‘Yes,’ Mjones says, clenching his teeth. The pain feels like flames brushing his forehead.

‘And you’re quite sure of that?’

‘Yes. There are no loose ends this time.’

The handset is filled with white noise for a few seconds.

‘Good.’

‘Which means only one item is outstanding,’ Mjones says. ‘But there has been a change of plan. I want the balance paid into my bank account.’

Silence. Mjones wipes the sweat away with the same hand that is holding the handset.

‘Why?’

‘I have my reasons.’

There is silence again.

‘Okay.’

‘I have a bank account in Sw-’

‘Not on the telephone,’ Langbein cuts him off. ‘We need to meet.’

Mjones frowns. Why? So that Langbein can shoot him dead and so avoid paying the 2.5 million kroner he owes him?

Mjones makes it a rule never to ask his employers about their motives. He takes on a job, and he sees it through, mostly without getting his own hands dirty. But now that he thinks about this particular assignment, his curiosity is aroused, especially since Langbein hadn’t been in touch since newspapers the world over commemorated the anniversary of 9/11. Prior to that date, he and Langbein regularly did business, but for much lower fees.

If you don’t take the job then you become the job.

So Langbein would have had me killed, Mjones considers, if I hadn’t agreed to do this job. Or was this his plan all along? Get me to kill Pulli and send someone after me later? It might explain why it was so easy for me to push the price up from 2 to 3 million, he thinks, a sum which even to begin with was considerably higher than is usual for this line of work. Perhaps he is walking right into a trap. Given his knowledge of Langbein’s previous operations, it’s not unthinkable even though he doesn’t know who Langbein is or who he works for.

‘We’re not going to do that,’ Mjones says. ‘I’ll contact you the way you contact me. The advert will appear sometime tomorrow morning, and the numbers you’ll need will be in it. If the money hasn’t reached my bank account by Tuesday, I’ll charge interest.’

‘Are you in a hurry?’

‘Yes… or… no.’

‘You’re not thinking of disappearing, are you?’

Mjones hesitates.

‘Oh, no,’ he lies.

Chapter 95

Henning can’t sleep that night. In addition to Pulli’s nineteen minutes, another question is vexing him, so he sends a text message to Frode Olsvik early the next morning asking for a few minutes of his time as soon as possible. The reply arrives immediately: I have five minutes in Stockfleths by the Courthouse at 8.30 a.m.

Henning agrees with Heidi Kjus that he will come into the office a little later and squashes himself in with all the other morning-rush-hour commuters on the number 11 tram to the Courthouse. In Stockfleths he orders a double espresso and takes a seat by a window while he waits for the lawyer. A few minutes past 8.30 a.m. Olsvik appears, but rather than go up to the till to order, he nods to the waiter behind the counter who returns his greeting with a smile.

Olsvik manoeuvres his large body into a chair by the table and holds out his hand to Henning.

‘Thank you for agreeing to meet with me at such short notice.’

‘Not at all.’

In the course of the next minute, Henning learns that Olsvik has been informed about what has happened both to Pulli and to Brenden and that police are looking for the hit man who was probably paid generously for arranging Pulli’s death.

‘How can I help you, Juul?’ Olsvik says and straightens one of his braces. Henning takes a breath‚ but decides to hold off sharing his suspicions about the clock on Pulli’s mobile. He needs to test his hypothesis first.

‘In the past couple of years, no one had more to do with Pulli than you. I would bet that you knew him better than most.’

‘I suppose you could say that.’

‘Did he make any enemies during the time he spent in prison?’

A patronising expression spreads across Olsvik’s face. Henning braces himself for a lecture.

‘My relationship with my client is purely professional, Juul. Our conversations mainly revolved around his case. And my client is still entitled to a duty of confidentiality even though he is dead.’

‘Even though he was killed?’

‘Even though he was killed. Especially if the person asking the question is a reporter.’

‘Even though it was you who tipped off Tore Pulli that I was back at work?’

Olsvik looks at Henning as a cup of steaming hot coffee is placed in front of him.

‘Thank you,’ he says, looking up at the waiter. ‘Put it on the company account, would you?’

‘Sure.’

Olsvik waits until the waiter is out of hearing range. Then he pins his eyes on Henning. ‘What are you talking about, Juul?’

‘The only people to visit Tore while he was inside were you, Geir Gronningen and Veronica Nansen. And I know that neither of them told Tore that I had returned to 123news. ’

Olsvik smiles wearily. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Juul. There are many ways to get information in a prison even if you don’t have visitors every day or access to the Internet. The inmates speak to the prison guards and with other inmates, and they’re entitled to make twenty minutes’ worth of telephone calls every week.’

‘I thought all telephone conversations were monitored?’

‘In theory, yes. But no one listens in to every word that is said. They do spot checks, primarily to determine if any communication relating to drug smuggling or similar is taking place. And I regret to have to tell you, Juul, but no alarm bells would start ringing if someone, in an aside, happens to mention that you’re back at work. People have more important things to worry about.’

Feeling a tad humbled, Henning has to admit that the lawyer is probably right.

‘Do you know if the prison keeps a record of which numbers an inmate has called?’ he says, trying to shake off his embarrassment.

‘I imagine that they log outgoing calls. And Tore might have tried to get someone on the outside to help him by calling or writing a letter. He is not the first inmate to believe he was unfairly convicted. Some write to the press, others to private detectives.’

‘So you and Tore never discussed if a third party might be able to help him?’

‘I really can’t tell you what I did or did not discuss with my client-’

‘Please, Olsvik,’ Henning interrupts him. ‘I know you have attorney-client privileges and rules to observe, but we’re not talking about information that is sensitive to your client’s case. And I’m asking you because I’m still trying to help him — even though he is dead.’

‘And you can do that by finding out how Tore knew that you were working again?’

Henning hesitates for a second. ‘Among other things.’

‘You have to explain the logic in this to me.’

Henning takes a deep breath. ‘In parallel with working on Tore’s case, I’m also trying to find out what happened on the day my son died. Tore claimed that he…’

A thought occurs to Henning that almost takes his breath away. Pulli contacted him in the hope that Henning could help exonerate him. The bait was the truth of what happened the day that Jonas died.

What if that was the reason Pulli had to die?

‘Pulli claimed what?’ Olsvik asks him.

‘That he knew something about the fire in my flat,’ Henning says, distracted.

‘And you think that your son’s death relates to Pulli’s?’

‘Yes. Or… I… I don’t know,’ Henning admits without looking up.

He remembers what Elisabeth Haaland told him about their burglar alarm packing up on a Sunday. That must have been the day after Pulli called me, Henning concludes, since he met the fire investigator Erling Ophus on a Saturday. In which case, someone must have acted with extreme speed. First they would have to identify someone who could get close to Tore Pulli, a job that would surely require time and research, then they would need to get hold of the surveillance equipment for Brenden’s flat — on a Saturday — and install it when the Brenden family left the house the next day.

Henning shakes his head. There wouldn’t be enough time.

‘I know nothing about this,’ Olsvik says. ‘I haven’t heard anything.’

Henning nods slowly. But the thought refuses to go away. And there is another option, he thinks, which Olsvik also touched on. That Pulli had been in contact with someone else regarding the same subject before he called Henning.

I need to get hold of those call logs, Henning says to himself.

Chapter 96

Normally it takes the police five to six weeks to get an answer when they send off a fingerprint to Kripos. But after locating Thorleif Brenden’s car in Kirkegaten and successfully lifting a fingerprint from the armrest on the passenger side, Brogeland persuaded forensic scientist Ann-Mari Sara to convince her bosses to give the sample top priority and run it through AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It took only ten or twelve seconds before she got a hit. And after the result had been checked manually, there was no doubt that the fingerprint belonged to a man called Orjan Mjones.

Brogeland remembers Mjones from his plain-clothes days. His name also appeared on the long list Nokleby gave them after Elisabeth Haaland had described ‘Furio’ — the man who pretended to interview her.

It really is ridiculous, Brogeland thinks, that so few staff within the police force have access to the Indicia database where all information about everyone — obtained both officially and unofficially — is collected and stored. If you have a description of a person and if information about someone with similar features has previously been entered, everything relating to them — including any criminal record — appears in a matter of seconds. In some cases the level of information stored about the person includes the smallest details. All mapping of East Europeans, for example, in connection with Project Borderless is being entered into Indicia.

Brogeland studies the fact sheet on Mjones which Nokleby printed out and gave to them after Elisabeth Haaland had described ‘Furio’. His criminal career began in his teens, and he has two previous convictions. The first is for a robbery in the Majorstua area of Oslo where a car was used to ram-raid a jeweller’s, while the other conviction relates to possession of an illegal weapon in a bar in Oslo. When police searched his remarkably tidy home, they discovered several other weapons as well as explosives and burglary equipment. While he was suspected of being the brains behind a string of minor and major robberies in his early twenties, things quietened down around him at the end of the nineties and the start of the new millennium. For that reason, Mjones was suspected of having made the transition from petty to organised crime and of moving into an even more lucrative and discreet career as a fixer. This could mean anything from providing persuasive heavies to carrying out actual hits. But even though the rumours flourished, the police never found anything concrete they could arrest him for.

Yesterday, Brogeland had called one of his former colleagues at Organised Crime, Njal Vidar Hammerstad, to ask if they had come across Mjones in recent years. Hammerstad said that they didn’t have him under surveillance, but that his face popped up from time to time. They knew, for example, that Mjones had befriended several people in the criminal Albanian community. But Hammerstad didn’t know if there was a link between Mjones and Tore Pulli.

In an ideal world, Brogeland thinks, plain-clothes officers would have followed Mjones and his like every day all year round. But it’s too expensive. Every year Oslo Police spends billions of kroner fighting organised crime and yet it’s still not enough. It doesn’t even scratch the surface. Norway is an attractive country for criminal gangs because we’re an affluent nation, he thinks. With a chronically understaffed police force.

Sometimes his wife asks him if he misses his old life as a plain-clothes police officer. His reply is always no, but that’s a lie. Of course he does. He misses the buzz of the chase even though there might be long boring intervals in between. He remembers the endless hours sitting in cars or trying to blend in in the street. And then the high when everything kicked off at last, when he would explode into action, give his all without hesitating. Not for one second. But he couldn’t live that life once he had a family. The level of risk and the generally anti-social working hours were intolerable in the long run.

Brogeland heaves a sigh and looks at an old photograph of Mjones. A man who has stayed in the shadows in recent years but who has now emerged to carry out a hit. The chances that he has already left the country are considerable — unless something went wrong. But what would that be?

Chapter 97

Orjan Mjones feels cold even though he is sweating. He puts one hand on the tiled wall in Durim’s bathroom for support and stares at his face in the mirror. It’s white. His arm dangles limply by his side. It’s as if a heavy lump is trying to force its way out from the inside of his shoulder and paralyse him totally.

Mjones blinks hard and watches as the damp creases in his face fill with sweat trickling from his forehead and eyes. I’m burning up, he thinks, and splashes himself with cold water. It helps. For now.

The night on Durim’s sofa was one of the worst that he can recall. At one point the ceiling transformed into an ocean where a gigantic wave came crashing towards him. When he blinked, everything returned to normal. Then he started seeing colours, yellow and purple, pink and blue — all mixed up. In a lucid moment he realised that he must be hallucinating. Early the next morning he called the Doctor. A man whose name Mjones doesn’t know, a man who makes house calls at short notice to provide medical assistance to people who prefer to avoid hospitals. It’s an expensive service, but the combination of life-saving first aid and discretion is usually worth the money.

Durim opens the door when the bell rings. A few minutes later the Doctor enters. Mjones stands up on trembling legs. A chill washes over him. The Doctor comes towards him. Tall, well-groomed, newly shaven, hair neatly combed.

‘And here’s the patient,’ the Doctor says, and smiles.

He carries a small suitcase in his hand. He stops in front of Mjones, puts down the suitcase on the floor and inspects the bandage on Mjones’s shoulder. The Doctor starts to ease off the makeshift dressing, slowly persuading the fabric fibres to release their hold on the scab. Mjones cries out in pain when the sticky skin finally lets go. A crust has formed at the edge of the wound, but the cut itself is still open and weeping. Mjones estimates that the cut is between four and five centimetres deep and sees that the area around it has grown redder and even more swollen overnight. Judging from the colour of the bandage the wound has become infected. The skin around it is hot.

‘We need more sterile surroundings,’ the Doctor mutters. ‘We should really cut around the wound and then rinse it with a saline solution.’

‘Can’t you do that here?’

‘No. That would only make it worse. You need to go to an operating theatre.’

‘I don’t have time for that.’

‘You could become very ill, do you realise that? The infection you’ve acquired could spread to the bones in your shoulder, and your blood might become infected with bacteria. That could lead to septicaemia. Worst-case scenario you could die.’

‘Just do the best you can, would you? And spare me the melodrama.’

‘There isn’t very much I can do. I presume the cut is more than eight hours old?’

Mjones nods reluctantly.

‘Then I can’t stitch it. All I can do is clean the wound and keep it open so the pus can drain out. And I’ll give you a course of antibiotics.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

The Doctor puts his suitcase flat on the floor and opens it. Mjones sways.

‘What about travelling with this thing?’ he says, pointing to his shoulder.

‘I wouldn’t recommend it for a couple of days, at least not until you have the infection under control.’

The thought of running away, of leaving Norway behind, makes him remember the safe in his flat where the ampoule is stored. You have to collect it first, he tells himself. Get rid of it and anything else that links you to the murder of Tore Pulli.

But first you have to get better.

Chapter 98

Henning sits down at his workstation and rubs his face with his hands. The chair opposite him is empty. Thank God Iver is going to be okay, he thinks, relieved. Even though he knows that Iver is entirely responsible for his own actions, he wouldn’t have been in hospital if it hadn’t been for Henning.

He stares into the air. Given the police now believe that Tore Pulli was murdered, they may already have requested the call logs from Oslo Prison to find out what kind of contact he had with the outside world. Or perhaps they haven’t. They think that Orjan Mjones is behind Pulli’s death. So why bother with the logs? They are going to be more interested in who Mjones was talking to.

On his way back to the office, Henning calls Knut Olav Nordbo at Oslo Prison and learns that an inmate’s telephone records are deleted if they die or when they are released and that this happens in a matter of days. In other words, it may already be too late. He will never be able to access the logs himself, but the police could if they obtained a court order.

So Henning rings Nokleby. From her tired, fed-up voice he realises that skipping the social niceties is a wise move. He also resists the temptation to ask if she still believes that Tore Pulli was guilty of the murder of Jocke Brolenius.

‘I’ll be quick,’ he begins. ‘As far as Tore Pulli is concerned, have you allocated all your resources to Orjan Mjones now or are you still pursuing other leads?’

‘Still pursuing other leads.’

Henning waits for more, but nothing comes. ‘Can you tell me anything about the leads you’re following up?’

‘Not at this moment in time, no,’ she says in a guarded tone.

‘Do you have any theory as to why Tore Pulli had to die?’

‘No comment.’

Henning hesitates. ‘What about Tore Pulli’s telephone records from prison, have you asked to see them?’

Nokleby doesn’t reply immediately. Then she says, ‘I can’t discuss specific details of the investigation with you, Henning.’

He sighs. ‘I think it might be a good idea if you were to look at those logs.’

‘Yes, I imagine you do.’

Henning lets the slightly ironic remark pass unchallenged. ‘I have nothing else. Oh, yes, are you going to the funeral tomorrow?’

‘We haven’t decided yet.’

‘I see. Well, I’m going.’

‘Okay. Do let us know if you see anything which you think might be a good idea for us to follow up.’

‘I’ll… ’ Henning breaks off and smiles wryly. And when Nokleby ends the call shortly afterwards without saying goodbye, his smile is even broader.

Chapter 99

The light that seeps through the windows of Solvang Church casts a cold, blue sheen across the floor. It matches the covers on the chairs, Henning thinks, as he stands at the entrance looking down the rectangular room. In the middle of the floor, in front of the pulpit, Tore Pulli’s coffin sits, white and beautifully decorated with flowers. Long white ribbons with golden letters express grief and final messages.

Henning knows that he ought to go inside to get a proper look, but he can’t bear being present during the actual ceremony. Afterwards, however, he mixes with the mourners at the graveside. Partly because he wants to see how Pulli’s friends will behave, but also because Heidi Kjus asked him to document the event with his camera. So he takes some close-ups, as discreetly as he can, without becoming intrusive. He wants to get some poignant pictures of big, hulking men struggling to keep their tears at bay. Petter Holte runs a hand over his shaven head and breathes heavily. The clothes he wears look as if they might burst at any moment. Geir Gronningen lets his long hair hang freely over his eyes. For once, his heavy torso has been defeated by gravity. The eyes of Kent Harry Hansen are also shiny. The sunlight makes his white, stubbly hair glow like a torch.

Henning shoots some group photos as more mourners arrive. A man Henning thinks he recognises from somewhere approaches the others. His muscles are tightly packed under his black suit jacket, and he moves lightly across the gravel, looking over his shoulder as if ready to lash out at any moment.

Suddenly there is movement in the crowd as Petter Holte pushes his way to the front and walks right up to the new arrival, who takes a step back. Holte jabs an agitated index finger against the man’s chest. Henning lifts his camera and lets it shoot.

‘You’ve got a bloody nerve showing your face here today,’ Holte hisses.

‘Tore was my mate too, you tosser,’ the man says.

Geir Gronningen and Kent Harry Hansen intervene. Gronningen locks his arms firmly around Holte, who resists.

‘Not here,’ Gronningen tells him. ‘Not at Tore’s funeral. Show some respect.’

Hansen deals with the newcomer, whose mood has also turned ugly. The man adjusts his jacket without taking his eyes off Holte. Eventually Holte backs away.

It takes several minutes before the crowd calms down again. Henning tries, unsuccessfully, to find the face of the man Holte took offence at, but the crowd closes up. The incident is over, but Henning is incapable of paying attention during the committal. Gronningen stands close to Holte, towering over him by a head at least. Nearby, Veronica Nansen clings to an older man with the same eyes and mouth as her. The butch girl from Fighting Fit is there too. Everyone seems to be here. At last Henning spots the man who incurred Holte’s anger, further back amongst the sea of people. His head is bowed. Where have I seen him before? Henning racks his brains.

Soon the first handful of earth falls on Pulli’s coffin. Henning hides behind the camera and takes some more pictures. He sees Holte reach up towards Gronningen’s ear and whisper something before clenching his fist as if he is ready to punch someone.

After the earth has been thrown, a line of people forms in front of Veronica Nansen. She shakes hands with everyone who has come to pay their respects. Henning joins the back of the queue and sees how Nansen grows more and more exhausted the closer he gets. But she carries on, smiling bravely. When it is Henning’s turn, he stops right in front of her.

‘My condolences,’ he says, holding out his hand. Nansen takes it and pulls him closer, almost as if she is on autopilot.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she says.

‘How are you?’ he asks as they glide away from each other.

Nansen shrugs her shoulders. ‘It’s strange,’ she sniffs. ‘It feels as if I’ve lost a huge piece of myself.’ She speaks slowly without looking at him. ‘A part of me has gone, and yet — somehow — that part still hurts. Do you know what I mean?’

Henning looks at her with eyes that are starting to well up too. He would never have thought that a woman like Veronica Nansen could articulate a feeling he has lived with for almost two years.

‘Phantom pains,’ he says quietly.

‘What?’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘Yes, of course you do,’ she says and shakes her head. ‘Sorry.’

The man he presumes to be Nansen’s father comes over to them and nods to Henning.

‘There is a get-together afterwards for Tore’s friends,’ she says as they start to walk. ‘It would be nice if you could join us.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Veronica, but I don’t know if I can call myself a friend of Tore’s. Or if my presence there would be wildly popular. It didn’t look as if everybody was equally welcome.’

‘No,’ Nansen says, and looks down. ‘Petter, he is… ’ She shakes her head in resignation.

‘Who was the other man?’ Henning asks as they reach the car park.

‘That was Robert,’ she replies. ‘Robert van Derksen.’

Chapter 100

The Doctor’s efforts helped Orjan Mjones get a good night’s sleep, but he still woke up early and feeling restless the next morning. The body of Thorleif Brenden had been found far too quickly. Nosy little Mia Sikveland, the receptionist at Ustaoset Mountain Hotel, will probably raise her eyebrows when she reads about Brenden in the newspaper even though his death is likely to be recorded as an accident. She will wonder why Brenden used an assumed name, and she certainly won’t understand why a police officer failed to correct her when she referred to Brenden as Einar. That had been a mistake. A big one. And if he had had a little more cash on him, he would have dispatched Durim to Sikveland’s small flat in Geilo and made sure she was silenced too.

Fortunately, they had had a stroke of luck with Brenden. The email he had sent from Mia Sikveland’s laptop had — according to Flurim Ahmetaj — been addressed to a journalist who was now in a coma. And as far as Mjones is aware, he has yet to regain consciousness. As long as I move quickly, he thinks, there shouldn’t be any problems. He even has the money now. Two point five million kroner have been transferred to his account, adding nicely to the substantial sum he already had there. It will last him a long time. And as his money arrived without delay — despite his misgivings — neither does he need to worry about Langbein. His suspicions were unfounded.

So far, so good.

After lunch, Mjones books a one-way ticket to Marrakech using one of his false identities, for no other reason than he has always wanted to go there. He takes the number 13 tram to Sandaker Shopping Centre, gets off and walks down to Thorshov Sports. He checks the cars parked on both sides of the road, but there is no sign of a driver surreptitiously waiting for anyone. Nor can he see anyone behind the windows or on the rooftops. He walks down Sandakerveien, past the recycling plant on Bentsehjornet where the buses going to Sagene rattle past, before turning 180 degrees and repeating exactly the same exercise. With exactly the same outcome.

Even so, he feels increasingly uneasy the closer he gets to the flat where he has lived for the past six months. If this had been a hit or a burglary, he would have called it off by now. He always used to back down at the first sign of bad vibes. It’s one of the reasons he has stayed out of prison for the past seven or eight years.

Mjones glances around again. You have to go to the flat today, he tells himself. You have to get rid of the evidence. It will only take you a few minutes.

He looks around one last time before he lets himself in.

Inside the flat, a wall of heat hits him, but he refrains from opening the windows in case the place is under surveillance. Instead, he makes a mental list of everything he needs to take with him. All the research he did for the Pulli hit might be retrieved by IT experts even though he did his best to erase every trace from his laptop. Even if he doesn’t take the whole machine, he should at least take the hard disk.

Mjones enters the bedroom where the roof slopes towards the floor. The fetid and stale air sticks to him. The smell reminds him of Durim and the pigsty of a flat he lives in. Mjones puts these thoughts out of his mind, goes over to the large white wardrobe and opens the door. He kneels down, enters the four-digit code that unlocks the grey safe inside and starts stuffing bundles of euros into his backpack. Then he takes out the box where he put the ampoule for safekeeping. He opens it and looks at the transparent liquid inside it.

It had required considerable ingenuity and a touch of creativity to work out how to kill Tore Pulli in a quick, discreet and effective way. The fact that Mjones had to travel all the way to Colombia to pick up the murder weapon only added to the fun. He likes the exotic, the primitive and yet simultaneously sophisticated.

He is about to close the box and the safe when he senses movement on the floor behind him.

‘Orjan Mjones?’ he hears an unknown voice say.

What the hell?

The sound of footsteps. Several pairs of shoes. Cops, he thinks. Damn. He considers his options. He should have brought a weapon. As it is, he has no way of defending himself. Yes, he is holding one in his hands, but he is lacking the most important thing. A needle or something with which to penetrate the skin. The box with the piercing needles is still in the safe, but he knows he doesn’t have time to remove the wrapping from the needle, open the ampoule and dip the needle in the poison. Besides, he would need to do it twice. And he is aware that he will never be able to take on two cops with only one working arm.

Mjones swears again.

‘Get up, slowly.’

Mjones does as he is told, turns his head and sees a police officer he thinks he recognises from somewhere. Big. Tall. Muscular. And, behind him, a man with a similar physique.

‘Who are you?’ he says, his mind racing.

‘You’re under arrest,’ the blond police officer says.

‘Why?’

‘You’re suspected of conspiracy to murder.’

Mjones doesn’t reply‚ but looks at them in turn and sees them take up positions. Mjones thinks about his shoulder, his money, the box with the ampoule. Think quickly, he says to himself. That’s what you’re good at. Thinking on your feet.

Discreetly he takes out the ampoule and slips it into his trouser pocket. Then he turns to the police officers.

‘What is that?’ one of the police officers asks, pointing to Mjones’s hand.

‘It’s just a box,’ he says.

‘Put it down on the table.’

Mjones obeys him. ‘Take it easy,’ he says, holding up his hands to indicate his co-operation. ‘I’m coming of my own free will.’

Mjones takes one step towards them and tries to make eye contact. Lose the ampoule before you reach the police station, he thinks. Drop it in the road, anywhere it will disappear by itself, under a car tyre, in between some bushes.

And without resisting he allows himself be led out of the flat while reminding himself of 2.5 million reasons not to say a single word for a very, very long time.

Chapter 101

Henning can’t stop thinking about the incident in the churchyard. Why was Petter Holte so mad at Robert van Derksen? Had he done something to Pulli?

Henning considers the obvious explanation, namely that van Derksen was responsible for the murder of Jocke Brolenius, but it strikes him that Holte would hardly have reacted as he did if that was an acknowledged truth among Tore’s friends.

On his way back, Henning tries to call Geir Gronningen, but all he gets is his voicemail. He sends him a text message, but that doesn’t produce a response either. He realises why when he remembers that Gronningen is giving the eulogy at the get-together.

Henning winds his way through the rush-hour traffic in his rental car and decides to drive up to visit a source who so far has proved to be the most reliable in her insight into human nature. This time he catches up with Vidar Fjell’s old girlfriend as she is leaving her house.

‘Oh, hi,’ Irene Otnes says. ‘You again?’

Henning doesn’t have time to say anything before she tells him that she is on her way to the shops.

‘Perhaps I could ask you a couple of questions first?’

Otnes closes her front door and locks it. ‘If you don’t mind walking down to the car with me,’ she says in a cheerful tone.

They start to walk. Above them the clouds are moving swiftly.

‘I didn’t see you at the funeral today,’ he remarks.

‘Did you come here to ask me that?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘I hate funerals,’ she says, though she strolls along as if Pulli’s death hasn’t dampened her mood noticeably. ‘I find them upsetting. And I spoke to Veronica on the telephone yesterday, and she said it was okay that I didn’t go.’

Henning begins‚ ‘Would you know why Petter Holte has a problem with Robert van Derksen?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Otnes smiles. ‘I can tell you that. Robert stole Petter’s girlfriend while he was inside. Or rather she dumped him, I think, but she dumped him for Robert. You don’t do that to your friends, you know.’

Otnes starts walking down the steps. Henning follows her doggedly. The scabs under his feet protest, but he ignores the pain.

‘Poor Petter. He’s always being teased about his small feet.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know — small shoes, small… ’ She points to her crotch.

‘I thought that was a myth?’ Henning says.

‘I wouldn’t know about that. Not that it made any difference to his friends. Petter has been made to suffer for years, believe you me.’

‘Was Tore Pulli one of his tormentors?’

‘No, not Tore. It was Tore who told Petter that his girlfriend had started seeing someone else.’

Henning thinks quickly. ‘While they both were in prison?’

‘Yes. I believe he felt that Petter had a right to know. That was one of the things I liked about Tore. He was decent to a certain extent. And he heard it from Veronica during one of her visits. Veronica and I — we tell each other everything,’ she says and laughs. ‘But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Petter. He has never had much success with women, he has always been a loser. Women never stay with him for very long, you see. We women like a challenge.’

Otnes smiles and turns around when she reaches the car. ‘Anyway, I’m off to the shops.’

‘Okay. Nice talking to you,’ he says.

‘Likewise.’

His image of Petter Holte is becoming increasingly complete, Henning thinks as he drives back towards the city centre. Short fuse. A failed enforcer. Never managed to step out of Tore’s shadow. Possibly envious of Geir Gronningen, who became Tore’s best friend instead of him. Even his girlfriend walked all over him.

The question is, how deep are those scars?

Chapter 102

The evening wind wafts through the open window and brushes Robert van Derksen’s glistening face. He takes a deep breath, leans back in the sofa and stares at the ceiling. It has been a long day. Going straight from the funeral to teach a demanding Krav Maga class full of students who expect him to deliver is not to be recommended. It requires energy to perform, especially given how the funeral went.

Tore Pulli — dead as a dodo. Just thinking about it feels weird. In their eyes, Tore was immortal, the man who could do nothing wrong. And then his life fell apart. First he was sentenced and jailed, then dead long before his time.

Van Derksen thinks about what the reporter said to him that day that it made no sense that a man as clever as Tore would leave behind his calling card at the crime scene. It was a valid point, and van Derksen had himself pondered this anomaly shortly after Tore’s arrest — especially once Tore put a reward of one million kroner on the table for information that could help free him. But then Tore was convicted, and everybody stopped talking about it after a while. Nor had Robert given it much thought until the reporter called. And that in turn prompted him to make a call straight afterwards. Now when he re-runs the short conversation it strikes him as really quite odd.

‘I’ve been thinking about something: you didn’t teach anyone else the Pulli punch, did you?’

There was silence for a while.

‘Why do you ask about that?’

‘No, I was just wondering. A guy just called me suggesting someone other than Tore had killed Jocke and elbowed his jaw. To make it look as if Tore did it.’

Again there was silence.

‘What kind of guy?’

‘A journalist.’

‘Name?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘For God’s sake, Robert, of course you do.’

He thinks hard. ‘Juul or something like that.’

Another silence.

‘Henning Juul?’

‘Yes, it could be him. Do you know him?’

Long silence.

‘I know who he is.’

What if the reporter was right? Robert wonders. What if Tore really was innocent? In which case, the list of alternative suspects is very short indeed.

The next moment someone rings the doorbell. Van Derksen gets up, gives the punchbag suspended from the ceiling a Pulli elbow and goes over to the intercom on the wall. He asks who it is‚ but receives no reply. Through the handset he hears hard footsteps on the stairs.

‘Hello?’ he calls out. Downstairs, the front door slams shut. Probably a cold caller, he thinks, and goes back to the living room. He has barely sat down when there is a knock on his door. Wearily, he gets up again and goes out into the hallway. He opens the door and stares at a face that makes his blood run cold. He instinctively takes a step back. And at that moment he knows that he is going to die.

Chapter 103

Bjarne Brogeland is roused from a chaotic dream. He contracts his abdominal muscles and sits up, finds the luminous instrument of torture on his bedside table and answers the call before the ring tone wakes Anita. The duty officer in the control room briefs him while Brogeland registers Anita’s grunting and stirring.

‘Okay,’ he whispers. ‘I’m on my way.’

He tiptoes out of the bedroom as softly as he can and closes the door behind him. Yet another murder, he sighs and knows immediately what the next few days will look like. The initial phase is the most important. The first twenty-four to forty-eight hours are about building the best possible foundations for the investigation. In practice this means that huge resources are reassigned without delay, forensic technicians, investigators and as many officers deployed as possible — in consultation with the head of the Violent Crimes Unit. Everyone drops whatever they are doing and heads for the crime scene. Everybody knows their role and the job they have been trained to do. Fortunately, it is a well-oiled piece of machinery.

It takes him fifteen minutes to reach Vibesgate. Red-and-white police tape has been stretched around the whole block. Nosy onlookers have congregated as usual even though it is past midnight. Cars are parked along pavements, illegally, but no one cares about that now. Brogeland nods to a crime-scene technician before he bumps into Detective Constable Emil Hagen.

It doesn’t surprise Brogeland that Hagen is already there. There is competition to be the first at a crime scene, or at least there is between Hagen and Detective Constable Fredrik Stang. But Stang hasn’t arrived yet as far as Brogeland can see. And it irritates him that Hagen always looks so bloody bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. His footsteps are bouncing, his mouth half open. The gap between his front teeth makes him look so damn young.

‘What happened?’ Brogeland asks.

‘Man in his early thirties, shot five times.’

‘Five times?’

‘Yes. I’ve just spoken to one of the neighbours, but he heard nothing.’

‘He didn’t hear five shots?’ Brogeland says in disbelief.

Hagen shrugs. ‘Silencer, possibly.’

‘Hm. Calibre?’

‘Nine millimetre. The flat belongs to a Robert van Derksen, and it’s very likely that he’s the victim.’

Brogeland walks around in a small circle. The name sounds familiar, he thinks, as they enter the courtyard. Neighbours peer down from open windows. The flowerbed next to van Derksen’s stairwell appears to have been dug up by a dog. There is scattered soil in front of the entrance.

‘Have we found any evidence upstairs?’

‘We found a shoe print outside his front door.’

‘Which doesn’t belong to van Derksen?’

‘That remains to be seen,’ Hagen says, shaking his head. ‘But I don’t think so. It looks like a smaller shoe size.’

Henning gets the message from Heidi Kjus just as he is about to leave his flat. ‘ Murder in number 2 Vibesgate. Can you go straight there?’

Henning rings her immediately rather than reply to her text message. Neither of them bothers with small talk, and Kjus gives him a quick update.

‘So are you going over there?’ Heidi asks.

‘Okay,’ Henning sighs.

He had been chatting with 6tiermes7 the night before and had intended to start the day by breaking the news about Orjan Mjones, but that will have to wait now. He is confident that the news won’t reach anyone else until he has finished in Vibesgate.

Before he leaves, he visits the Yellow Pages website and types in 2 Vibesgate in the search field. It will be some time before the police confirm the victim’s identity, he assumes. He gets two pages of hits and prints them out. As he picks up the sheets, he quickly skims the names. And then he stops and looks up.

‘Oh, sod it,’ he says, softly.

Henning sees that several of his colleagues are already there, and he goes up to the police liaison officer, a tall man in uniform who looks stern-faced and grey as he answers the standard questions according to the book. Henning asks a few of them himself but gets no useful information. It’s too early to say. We’re working on securing evidence. The usual.

A little later, Brogeland emerges and marches resolutely down a side street. Henning makes sure that nobody follows him and catches up with him just as the inspector is about to get into a patrol car.

‘You’re kept busy these days,’ Henning begins. ‘First you arrest Orjan Mjones, the man who arranged the murder of Tore Pulli, and then one of Pulli’s friends is killed on the same day he has an argument with another of Pulli’s friends at Pulli’s funeral.’

Brogeland looks sharply at Henning. ‘What’s on your mind?’

Henning tells him about the altercation between Robert van Derksen and Petter Holte.

‘It’s the body of Robert van Derksen you’ve found, isn’t it?’

Brogeland sighs. ‘You can’t write that it’s him, Henning. Not yet.’

‘I know. So when can I?’

‘I don’t know. We haven’t even told his next of kin.’

‘Okay, I’ll hold fire until you give me the go-ahead, but I want to know before you issue a press release.’

Brogeland looks hard at Henning for a long time before he gets into the car. Before he turns the key in the ignition, he glances up at Henning and nods.

Chapter 104

The patrol car drives off without sirens, but at high speed. Henning watches it disappear around the corner before he takes out his mobile and calls Heidi Kjus. He knows that she hates to act as a switchboard for reporters in the field, but this time she accepts instructions from a field agent without asking questions. Nor does she express an opinion on the quotes from Robert van Derksen’s horrified neighbours. Instead she asks him when he is coming in.

‘I haven’t finished here,’ Henning lies.

There isn’t much more for him to do in Vibesgate, but he has other plans. Plans he doesn’t want to share with Heidi.

Henning flags down a cab and goes to Niels Henrik Abelsgate. It doesn’t take him long to establish that Veronica Nansen isn’t at home so he continues to Ulleval Stadium. There he locates the offices of Nansen Models AS on the second floor, next door to a clinic for allergy and respiratory diseases. Strange juxtaposition to a business that provides scantily clad entertainment, Henning thinks, but dismisses the thought as he enters a reception area and nods to the woman behind the shiny, boomerang-shaped glass counter.

‘Veronica Nansen?’ he says.

‘What’s it about?’

‘I need to speak to Veronica. She knows who I am.’

‘She is a bit busy right now.’

‘Just tell her Henning Juul needs to speak to her,’ he says. ‘And that it’s important.’

The secretary scowls at him before she slips the handset under her long hair and utters some sentences Henning fails to catch. Isn’t it a bit odd, he thinks, that Veronica is back at work so soon? Then again, he knows that many people need distraction at a time like this and try to pick up their old routines as quickly as possible.

‘It’s that way,’ the secretary says, pointing down a corridor. Smiling, he thanks her for her help and knocks twice on the door with Nansen’s name in large silver letters. A voice on the other side asks him to wait a moment. Then he hears footsteps. The door in front of him is opened.

‘Hi, Henning,’ Nansen says, surprised.

She steps aside to let him enter. Then she walks around her desk and sits down. Henning spends thirty seconds breaking the news to her. When he has finished, Nansen leans forward on her elbows. Her hair falls in front of her eyes.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she says, and looks at him.

‘Christ knows,’ Henning says and sits down.

The room gets claustrophobic and quiet. He lets her have a moment to digest the information.

‘It’s tempting to point the finger at Petter in the light of what happened yesterday,’ he begins. ‘Hasn’t he threatened Robert’s life before?’ He puts it as a question, but Nansen doesn’t reply.

‘Do you know what Petter did after the wake?’

‘Some of the guys went to the gym to work out, I think, but the rest went home.’

‘They worked out yesterday?’

‘Yes, they’re always at the gym. Petter thought it was the best way to honour Tore’s memory,’ she says and rolls her eyes.

Henning runs through the deaths in his mind’s eye. Jocke Brolenius was killed with an axe, Tore Pulli appears to have been poisoned, and Robert van Derksen was shot. And since Orjan Mjones has been arrested, he can’t have orchestrated the latter unless he planned it a long time ago.

There must be several killers here, Henning concludes. There have to be.

‘Do you know anything about guns?’ he says and hears immediately how loaded the question is.

‘Why do you ask me that?’

‘No, I was just curious.’

‘I don’t believe that. You’re never just curious.’

Henning tries to evade Nansen’s probing eyes.

‘Do you know anyone who has a gun?’

‘They all do, I think.’

‘What about Tore? Did he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever used it?’

‘Yes, a couple of times. A long time ago.’

‘So you know how to shoot?’

‘Yes.’

Her face instantly darkens. ‘But I didn’t shoot anyone last night if that’s what you’re asking me.’

‘That’s not what I’m asking you,’ Henning replies and lowers his eyes.

But it occurs to him that no one had better access to the knuckle-duster than her. And she could have had a million reasons to want her convicted-killer husband dead. What if van Derksen knew something? What if that was the reason he had to die?

Chapter 105

The Command Centre — CC — lies halfway between the red and green zones on the fifth floor of the police station. The Violent Crimes Unit holds all its joint meetings in the CC, in addition to eight o’clock conferences every morning with the Institute of Forensic Medicine where that day’s autopsies are prioritised.

The room has a golden glow thanks to the Scandinavian furniture and the pale yellow linoleum on the floor. Bjarne Brogeland sits down on a chair with a black floral pattern and pours himself a cup of coffee from a metal pot. The duty officer, a man in uniform with thick blond hair and a noticeable double chin, is standing in front of the whiteboard with an uncapped marker pen in his hand. Before he writes Robert van Derksen’s name in capital letters, he hoists his trousers up well over his hips, but they soon slide down again.

The duty officer spends some time presenting the facts of the case. The soil from the flowerbed, the size 6? shoe print found outside van Derksen’s flat and the bullets. When he has finished, Brogeland takes over and briefs them on what happened at Tore Pulli’s funeral.

‘Interesting,’ Chief Inspector Arild Gjerstad says. ‘How did you find that out?’

‘Henning Juul told me,’ Brogeland replies. ‘He was there. We should have been there too.’

Brogeland looks at Pia Nokleby, who looks away. An ominous silence falls around the table. Gjerstad rubs his moustache with two fingers before he clears his throat.

‘We need to map Petter Holte’s movements after he left the funeral. Bjarne, take Emil with you and pay him a visit.’

Brogeland and Hagen nod.

‘Sandland, you find out what kind of people van Derksen mixed with. Unless we strike lucky, we’ll have to interview the lot of them.’

Sandland nods.

‘We’ll probably have to do that in any case,’ Nokleby interjects.

‘And we also have to consider other possibilities,’ Gjerstad continues. ‘If it was a burglary gone wrong, what — if any — valuables did he have. Find anyone he was in contact with in his last twenty-four hours We also need to go back and speak to potential witnesses. Neighbours. See if there are any CCTV cameras nearby that might have picked up specific vehicles that we should check out. We also need a list of cabs in the area. Pia, do you want to add something?’

‘I can run his name through Indicia and see if anything crops up.’

‘Yes, please,’ Gjerstad says, getting to his feet. ‘Right, let’s get to work.’

Seconds later the CC is empty.

Brogeland and Hagen park outside Holte’s flat in Herslebsgate. Three men standing by the greengrocer’s on the corner turn to look at them. We should have taken Hagen’s car, Brogeland thinks. Patrol cars attract too much attention. And his own car is in the garage. Again. Bloody fan belt.

They get out and quickly climb the stairs until they reach Holte’s flat on the third floor and ring the bell. Soon they hear heavy footsteps on the other side. The door opens. A man with shaving foam covering half his face appears and gives them a dazed look.

‘Petter Holte?’ Brogeland asks.

Holte, whose face looked happy bordering on blissful when he opened the door, immediately puts on his hard-man expression.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Brogeland, and this is Detective Sergeant Hagen, and here’s my warrant card,’ Brogeland continues, unperturbed. ‘Could we come in for a moment, please?’

Holte’s eyes grow even darker. ‘Why?’ he says and inflates his chest.

‘It’s about Robert van Derksen.’

‘What about him?’ Holte says, provocatively.

‘He’s dead.’

Holte makes no reply but continues to glare at Brogeland with the same scornful expression.

‘May we come in, please?’

Holte doesn’t budge. Thin white trails of foam find their way from his scalp to his temples. Long moments pass before his face suddenly changes, as if the news needed a minute to hit home. Reluctantly, he steps aside. Brogeland is the first to enter, but he stops immediately. Lumps of soil are scattered across the floor. Hagen and Brogeland exchange looks before Brogeland turns to Holte and enters without taking off his shoes.

‘What the hell happened?’ Holte asks.

‘Firstly, I need to advise you that I’m recording our conversation,’ Brogeland says, holding up an MP3 dictaphone. Holte gulps and nods.

‘Where were you last night?’

‘I… I went to the gym for my workout.’

‘Was anyone else with you?’

‘Kent Harry and Geir were there. And a couple of other guys.’

‘But not Robert?’

‘No, Robert and I, we… ’ Holte stops, searches for the words, but doesn’t find them in the next thirty seconds.

‘How long was your workout?’

‘I was there until… ’ Holte looks away from Brogeland while he thinks. ‘Until eight or nine o’clock, I think.’

Brogeland nods. Preliminary examinations suggest that van Derksen was killed sometime between nine and ten.

‘What did you do after your workout?’

‘I went home.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you been here since?’

‘Yes, I… ’

Holte doesn’t complete the sentence. His eyes flicker.

‘What shoe size do you take?’

‘What size? What the hell do you want to know that for?’

His tone is instantly aggressive.

‘Just answer the question, will you.’

Holte lowers his head. ‘6?’ he mutters.

‘What did you say?’

‘6?.’

Hagen and Brogeland look at each other again. Then Brogeland says‚ ‘We would like you to accompany us to the station.’

Chapter 106

All the text message from Brogeland says is ‘ OK,’ but Henning needs nothing else to write his story, name the victim and highlight his link to Tore Pulli. Suddenly it’s no longer a straightforward murder. Henning even includes the arrest of Orjan Mjones, though he doesn’t mention him by name.

He notes with satisfaction that the story receives top billing on 123news ’s home page, and, not surprisingly, their competitors are quick to pick it up. In a way, this is unhelpful, Henning thinks, since it will lead to added pressure on the police. It could also make it considerably harder to cover the rest of the story. But he had no choice. News is news. And if he is lucky, the extra pressure from his competitors will result in more information coming to light.

Henning calls Brogeland to hear if there are any developments but gets no reply. Nor had he really expected one. Instead, he writes him a text asking the inspector to ring him when he has a moment. When Henning has sent it, he starts to think about the killing of Jocke Brolenius. Robert van Derksen looked like the prime suspect right from the start though Tore Pulli was quick to dismiss this possibility. And Henning agrees to some extent. A man with such a massive need for recognition wouldn’t be able to keep a secret for two years. But could he have known something all the same — without being aware of it?

The air is stuffy and clammy even though Bjarne Brogeland and Petter Holte have only just sat down in Interview Room 1. A thin white microphone hangs from the ceiling. A camera is pointing at them from its position above the door in the neutral grey room. Brogeland knows that Gjerstad and several of his colleagues are probably sitting in the CC following events via a screen. He could have talked to Petter Holte in his own office, but everything becomes more onerous in an interview room.

‘Do I need a lawyer?’ Holte asks.

‘Do you think you do?’

Holte doesn’t reply.

‘We can get you a lawyer if you want one.’

‘I haven’t done anything wrong so why would I need one?’ Holte replies defiantly. Brogeland looks at the compact body in front of him. As always, it is encased in a layer of aggression, but there is something more. He’s scared, Brogeland realises.

‘Do you own a gun?’ he asks.

‘I’ve a weapon, yes.’

‘What kind of weapon?’

‘A Sig 9.’

Nine millimetres, Brogeland thinks. With the type of barrel that takes a silencer.

‘Have you got a licence for that?’

‘Yes, of course I do,’ Holte sneers.

‘How long since you last used it?’

‘A while,’ Holte replies and starts picking his nails. Tiny beads of moisture have found their way up through the brown and partly polished scalp.

‘Why did you argue with Robert van Derksen at Tore Pulli’s funeral yesterday?’

Holte looks down. His voice grows more outraged. ‘Robert nicked my girlfriend when I was inside. Besides, he was no friend of Tore’s any more. Him showing up was disrespectful.’

‘Did you go over to his flat after your workout yesterday?’

‘No.’

‘There was a lot of soil in your hallway.’

‘Yes, what about it?’

‘There was a lot of soil in Robert’s hallway, too.’

‘What’s so unusual about that?’

‘Nothing, possibly, but we found a shoe print outside his flat that matches the size of your feet.’

Holte looks up. His face takes on a frightened expression. ‘There’s no way that’s my shoe print,’ he says, getting angry now.

Brogeland doesn’t reply but watches Holte for a couple of seconds. The air becomes even more oppressive.

‘Okay,’ Brogeland says and gets up. ‘Wait here, please.’

He goes over to the workstation where he pauses the recording, steps out on to the red floor and goes to the CC. Gjerstad and Hagen turn around as he enters.

‘What do you think?’ he says.

‘There is enough to justify a search warrant,’ Gjerstad replies.

Chapter 107

Searching a suspect’s home has never been Bjarne Brogeland’s thing. Trawling through drawers and bookcases, wardrobes and bed linen, hunting the one piece of evidence that will crack open or close a case. He appreciates the importance of this work, of course he does, but he is pleased that it’s rarely something he has to undertake himself. It simply makes him irritable and impatient.

Being in the field was another matter. They had no other choice than to be patient if they were to catch criminals or, as they call them, villains. And this type of work offered a completely different level of tension. Observing the interaction between the villains from afar, reading their codes. Who delivered what to whom and where? Who was talking to whom and when? In this way patterns would emerge which the police could use as a starting point for further investigations, to eliminate who was worth following and who wasn’t. But evidence found in a flat, fibres on the body. It’s too fiddly for him. Too feminine.

However, he took part in the search of Petter Holte’s flat because Holte was his collar. It was his information that led to Holte being remanded in custody, almost in record time. And the evidence found in Holte’s flat was more than enough to nail him for the killing of Robert van Derksen. That’s why Brogeland experiences a pleasant sensation all over as he returns to his office and lets himself fall into his chair. He takes out his mobile and discovers that he has a long list of calls and texts from known and unknown numbers. Brogeland realises without having to check the Internet that Henning Juul has broken the news about Robert van Derksen.

For a brief moment he feels the taste of disloyalty in his mouth. Nokleby and Gjerstad want to manage the flow of information themselves, and in theory Brogeland can live with this. In fact, he is delighted that someone else is prepared to deal with communication. However, Juul is a special case. Even though he can be an absolute pest, he is a pest with a nose. And surely the bottom line is getting results. Like now.

Brogeland scrolls through his text messages and sees that Juul has asked him to call. He glances at his watch. He is about to resume interviewing Petter Holte, and he needs a little time to prepare. But I can manage a quick call, he says to himself and presses the green button. Juul replies a few seconds later.

Brogeland tells him about the arrest and the imminent charging of Petter Holte on the condition that none of this information ends up in print.

‘Are you quite sure it’s him?’ Juul asks.

‘We found a weapon in his flat which was definitely fired yesterday.’

‘Really? And what does he have to say about that?’

‘We haven’t confronted him with it yet. But it will be difficult for him to wriggle out of it given the other evidence.’

‘What other evidence?’

Brogeland hesitates before telling him about the soil in the hallway and a footprint that matches Holte’s size 6? shoes. When Brogeland has finished there is silence.

‘What is it?’ he asks.

‘No, it’s just that I… I just think it sounds a bit odd,’ Henning replies.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t see why Holte would make it that easy for you. And, moreover, I think there is a link between the murder of Jocke Brolenius and the murder of Robert van Derksen though I can’t put my finger on it yet.’

‘There is nothing to suggest it, Henning. We need evidence. Like the missing murder weapon, for example. And, ideally, we need to place that axe in the killer’s hands, whether that person was Petter or someone else.’

Brogeland hears a sigh down the other end of the telephone, but Henning doesn’t elaborate on his frustration.

‘And there is always the possibility that Pulli really did kill Jocke. You mustn’t ignore that.’

‘No,’ Henning replies, glumly. ‘I won’t. I just can’t get it all to add up.’

Chapter 108

Suddenly everything is happening at once, Henning thinks. Even the weather seems to be changing. An ominous dark cloud has appeared out of nowhere. Could Petter Holte really be responsible for the death of Jocke Brolenius as well? Henning can’t quite imagine how a man who has failed at practically everything in life could plan and execute such a sophisticated murder only to screw up completely when killing one of his oldest friends.

So Henning rings Geir Gronningen repeatedly that afternoon. Finally, he gets hold of him, and Gronningen reluctantly agrees to meet for a chat outside the supermarket in Gronland Torg. By the time Henning arrives it has started to rain. Gronningen has taken shelter under an umbrella, but Henning is oblivious to the downpour.

He decides to cut straight to the point.

‘The police have arrested Petter,’ he announces.

Gronningen reacts with disbelief.

‘Bloody idiot,’ he says, squeezing the handle of the umbrella hard. ‘I don’t know how someone can be that stupid.’

Gronningen shakes his head and looks ready to punch the first person he sees. Instinctively, Henning takes a step back.

‘What did he say to you after his row with Robert yesterday?’

Gronningen looks down at Henning, then he scans the surroundings for anyone who might see or overhear them. ‘I saw him whisper something to you when the earth was scattered on the coffin,’ Henning says to prompt him. ‘And afterwards he clenched his fist.’

‘Yes,’ Gronningen replies. ‘But that had nothing to do with Robert.’

‘Then what was it about?’

‘Petter said that if anyone dared to knock over Tore’s gravestone he would-’

Gronningen imitates Holte and clenches his fist. Henning remembers printing out an article about how Vidar Fjell’s grave was desecrated though he can’t remember the details.

‘But at the wake afterwards he started mouthing off again,’ Gronningen continues. ‘Said he was going to get Robert and blah blah blah.’ He shakes his head again. ‘But you need to know that’s just Petter. Even though he has a temper and does the first thing that comes into his head, he is still a softie. He has had plenty of opportunities to have a go at Robert, but he has never done anything about it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Probably because he knew that he couldn’t have handled it. Robert may not have been as strong as Petter, but he was much better technically. In close combat, for example, there is no doubt who would have had the upper hand.’

‘Perhaps that was why Petter chose to shoot him.’

‘Yes, but he could have done that any time. Why yesterday, when the whole bloody congregation had just seen him argue with Robert? It’s — it’s like asking to be caught.’

Henning nods in agreement. ‘Did he know the Pulli punch?’ Henning lifts up his elbow to demonstrate. Gronningen hesitates.

‘I think he might have practised it, but, like I said, Petter was no technical genius. He was just muscle.’

Exactly, Henning says to himself. And if Petter was too scared to take on a guy like Robert van Derksen, he was unlikely to have tried it on with Jocke Brolenius in the first place.

Something here isn’t right, Henning thinks.

Again his thoughts return to Tore Pulli. ‘Did you work out with Tore on the night that Jocke was killed?’

‘Yes, we always worked out together.’

Henning looks at him closely. ‘Did you have separate lockers?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you would lock them while you worked out, obviously?’

‘Yes, of course we would, we’re not idiots.’

‘Where did you keep your locker keys?’

‘That depended. People who had been members a long time were allowed to leave them behind the reception or in Kent Harry’s office. What Tore did depended on who was on duty. Tore put his trust in people rather than locks. Why do you ask?’

Henning ignores the question and mulls over the information he has just been given. ‘So, when you worked out, how would you know what time it was?’

‘We would check the clock on the wall.’

Henning looks up at him. ‘The clock behind the reception counter?’

Gronningen nods. ‘None of us wear wristwatches these days. We check our mobiles instead.’

Pulli probably did exactly that when he had finished his workout, Henning thinks, excited, to see if he had any messages or missed calls. That’s the first thing Henning does when he has been asleep or has had a shower. So it can’t just be the time on Pulli’s mobile that was wrong, he surmises.

The clock at Fighting Fit must have been wrong too.

Henning thanks Gronningen for his time and heads straight to the gym. He expects the place to be packed given everything that has happened, but it is practically deserted. He assumes the group must be in shock.

Henning takes a step on to the purple carpet. The tall woman behind the counter looks even more surly than usual when she sees who it is. Henning ignores her attitude and asks if Kent Harry Hansen is around.

‘Didn’t he make it clear that you’re not welcome here?’

‘Yes,’ Henning replies. ‘But I still need to talk to him. Where is he?’

‘Dunno.’

Henning nods, but his attention is drawn to the wall behind her. He takes out his mobile and compares the two clocks. They show practically the same time. No wonder, he thinks. If someone deliberately changed the clock the night Pulli was meeting Jocke Brolenius, then that person would have had to change it back again either later the same evening or the following morning at the latest. Anything else would have been a giveaway.

But who could have done it?

‘That clock up there,’ he begins. ‘Has it… do you know if it-’

Henning hesitates, unsure as to how to phrase the question.

‘Is it always precise?’ he asks, and realises instantly that his question is blatantly obvious.

‘I think so,’ she says without taking her eyes off the magazine in front of her.

‘Do you know if it has been too slow… in the past?’

Henning groans inwardly at his atrocious questioning. Behind him the weights clang against each other.

‘No idea,’ she says, sounding bored.

‘I’m only asking because I was wondering if it was very slow on the 26th of October nearly two years ago.’

She lifts her head, slightly less bored now.

‘That was the night Jocke Brolenius was killed,’ Henning informs her. ‘Were you working here that night?’

She snorts. ‘Do you think I can remember that?’

‘No, but please could you check who was? There is probably a list on your computer. A duty roster, possibly. Timesheets. Payroll. How many people work here?’

‘You need to talk to Kent Harry,’ she says and looks down again. ‘Though I very much doubt that he’ll be willing to help you.’

Henning stares at the clock behind her again, at the wall surrounding it, before he looks back at her. His eyes stop at the T-shirt she is wearing. At chest height three monkeys appear to be having a whale of a time.

‘Is that yours?’ he says, pointing to the monkeys.

She looks up and follows his finger. ‘Jesus, of course it’s mine. What kind of stupid question is that?’

Henning nods slowly while he studies her. Her mouth is downturned, exasperated. She eyeballs him back.

‘Don’t you have an Axe T-shirt as well?’

She searches his face for a reason for this question.

‘What’s it to you?’

Henning doesn’t reply. They lock eyes.

‘No reason,’ he says, eventually. ‘Nice talking to you.’

Chapter 109

Bjarne Brogeland sits down on his own in the canteen with a cup of coffee in front of him. The light still streams strongly through the large windows. He massages his face, trying to rub away the tiredness in his eyes. The past few days have been full on. Tore Pulli, Thorleif Brenden, Orjan Mjones, Robert van Derksen. Even so, he shouldn’t be feeling this exhausted. It should all be in a day’s work for him. So what the hell is going on? The first signs of old age? Is his body telling him to start to slow down?

No, he says to himself. He will never show signs of weakness. For him it’s all or nothing. Until the day he drops.

Brogeland picks up his mobile just as a text message from Anita arrives.

Hi, honey. Please would you get dinner tonight? Oda Marie is coming home with Alisha after nursery. Get something healthy and tasty.

xxx

Brogeland quickly replies OK.

He switched his mobile to silent while he was interviewing Petter Holte, and now he sees that seven unanswered calls were received in the meantime. He checks the list of callers. Reporters. Henning Juul, twice. It appears he has also left a message on Brogeland’s voicemail.

Brogeland sighs as he recalls the rebuke in Gjerstad’s voice at the meeting they have just had. As usual it was about leaks. And Gjerstad’s eyes more than hinted that he was blaming Brogeland since he had referred to his conversation with Juul at the joint meeting earlier. His boss warned all of them against further contact with the press and threatened repercussions if anyone were to disregard this order.

Brogeland stares at the letters in Juul’s name. Then he shakes his head and puts down the mobile. Time to call it a day.

Henning tries to call Kent Harry Hansen on his way home to Grunerlokka, but there is no reply, even after numerous rings. Henning thinks about Petter Holte remanded in custody while the evidence against him stacks up. Just like Tore Pulli. And, just like his cousin, Holte insists that he didn’t do it. History is repeating itself, Henning thinks. But if Holte really should turn out to be innocent, then it means that someone else had a reason for killing Robert van Derksen. Why did he have to die? And why did Petter Holte have to take the blame?

Henning is reminded of something Irene Otnes said the last time they spoke. He rings her up and asks her to explain what she meant when she said that Petter Holte wasn’t much of a challenge for women.

‘Well, he’s a wimp, to put it bluntly,’ she replies.

‘Yes, I remember you saying so, but what did you mean? Give me an example.’

Henning presses a finger into his other ear to block out the noise from the torrential rain.

‘There was no doubt who wore the trousers when he was going out with Gunhild. Every time she was near he turned into a puppy.’

‘Gunhild, did you say?’

‘Gunhild Dokken. His ex-girlfriend. And if the rumours are to be believed, he’s still trying to win her back — not that he’s getting anywhere, from what I hear. For Petter’s sake I hope it never happens. Gunhild was no good for him.’

Henning nods as he passes the Deichmanske Public Library in Thorvald Meyersgate.

‘I’ve always felt a bit sorry for Petter,’ she continues. ‘And it can’t be easy for him, either.’

‘In what way?’

‘Have you been to Fighting Fit?’

‘Several times.’

‘Then you’ve probably met Gunhild,’ Otnes says. ‘She works in reception. And Petter works out almost every single day.’

The sour-faced girl, Henning thinks, and hurries across the junction by St Paul’s Church before the green light changes to red.

‘And when she isn’t at work, he sees traces of her everywhere.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asks, eagerly, and stops outside Probat. In the shop window a white T-shirt with an old photo of the Swedish singer Carola Haggkvist beams at him. The caption under her happy-clappy Christian face is, Stranger, what do you hide from me?

‘Gunhild designed the gym’s logo,’ Otnes says.

‘The logo for Fighting Fit?’

Henning tries to visualise it while his thoughts race.

‘Gunhild was one of the first people Vidar helped when he started working with recovering addicts. She had hit rock bottom after a life of thieving, drug abuse and God knows what else. Vidar helped her get back on her feet, got her doing graphic design. She became quite good at it. And when Vidar decided to open Fighting Fit he gave her the job of designing the logo.’

‘Right,’ Henning says, slowly.

‘He helped her get a couple of other jobs, too. A strip club in Majorstua was one of them.’

‘Do you mean Asgard?’

‘How did you know that? Have you been there?’

‘Yes. But not in the way you think.’

‘Yeah, right, that’s what they all say. But I shouldn’t be so hard on Gunhild. She hasn’t had it easy. And her finding Vidar’s body that morning hasn’t exactly helped, either.’

Henning is about to say something, but instead he continues to stare at the vintage-print T-shirts stacked on the square shelves. Without Henning being aware of it, he lowers his arms, including the one holding the mobile. For several minutes he gapes at the shop window until he realises that he hasn’t understood anything at all.

Not until now.

Chapter 110

Henning calls Brogeland straight away, but the inspector doesn’t reply. Henning tries to contact him via the police’s central switchboard but is told that Brogeland isn’t available. The same goes for Nokleby and Gjerstad. They’re probably in meetings, Henning thinks and rings Brogeland’s mobile for the umpteenth time and leaves the world’s longest voicemail message. When he has finished, the inside of the display is covered with condensation. Henning tries to wipe it off, but the wet clothes he is wearing only succeed in spreading the moisture.

Back home, having changed his clothes, he paces up and down the kitchen floor while he thinks of the pieces of the jigsaw that have been right in front of him‚ though he has been unable to fit them into the bigger picture. But the pieces fit. He sees that now.

The clothes he saw drying on the clothes horse in Holte’s living room belonged to Gunhild. It was she who came to Holte’s flat the other day and nearly caught Henning red-handed. Irene Otnes told him that she believed that Gunhild Dokken still has a key to Holte’s flat even though they are no longer together. It would be easy for her to go there and pick up his gun and a pair of his shoes which would probably fit her. She already had experience of planting evidence. And she had every possible motive to kill Brolenius if she thought he had murdered Fjell and she would be angry enough to frame anyone who refused to avenge Fjell. And no one had better access to the clock at Fighting Fit than her.

But what the hell can he do about it? He can’t get hold of anyone. And the question remains, is any of what he has discovered useful if they don’t have the murder weapon? As Brogeland said to him: they need evidence.

In the stairwell, Gunnar Goma is stomping up and down, wheezing and undoubtedly bare-chested. Further down, the front door slams shut before the sound of clicking heels mixes with the slapping of Goma’s naked feet. The acoustics in the stairwell distort the solid seventy-six-year-old army voice into a mishmash of low sounds. Judging from the steps‚ Henning assumes that someone is visiting Arne, his upstairs neighbour. Soon afterwards a door closes.

His mobile rings. Henning picks it up immediately, hoping that it might be Brogeland or one of the other officers at the police station returning his call, but he is just as excited when he sees that it is Nora.

‘Hi,’ he says in a voice that ends up high-pitched.

‘Hi,’ she replies in a dull and unwilling tone.

She doesn’t continue. Something must have happened, Henning thinks.

‘How is Iver doing?’ he asks, now worried.

‘I would have thought you would know that better than me,’ she says, tartly.

Henning exhales with relief. ‘I haven’t visited him since yesterday,’ he says.

‘Oh, really? He’s better,’ she says, quickly.

Henning goes to the kitchen and takes out a carton of juice from the fridge. ‘Have you been to the hospital today?’ he asks her.

‘I’ve just left it.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Only that he was wondering if I knew how this story the two of you are working on is going.’

She is upset, Henning thinks, as he takes a glass from the top cupboard, opens the carton and fills his glass. But there was something else, he can hear it in her voice. He swallows some juice. Another long silence passes.

‘If he asks you again, please tell him that I’ve cracked it,’ Henning says, mainly to keep the conversation going. ‘I think the police will make an arrest sometime tonight. If Bjarne Brogeland gets a move on.’

Henning waits for her to quiz him, but she merely says, ‘I visited his grave today.’

Henning stops in his tracks and puts down the glass. So that was what he heard in her voice. The seconds pass, and then he slowly closes his eyes.

‘And I’ve been thinking about what you said to me in the hospital the other day,’ Nora continues, but struggles to finish what she has started. Henning keeps his eyes closed as he listens. Even though Nora speaks in a calm and normal voice, the sentences elongate and turn into long, strangling hands.

‘And I know you, Henning. I know you wouldn’t have said what you said about the fire if you didn’t have a reason. I know you weren’t trying to hurt me.’

Henning is incapable of speech.

‘I haven’t visited Jonas’s grave for… for a long time. And I felt bad about it.’

Henning nods as the silence returns. He hasn’t managed to visit the grave… his…

Then he opens his eyes.

Nora’s voice continues in his ear, but he is no longer listening to her. He turns on the speakerphone and puts down the mobile on the kitchen table, bends down to the pile of papers on the floor next to the printer and flicks through the messy heap of articles about Rasmus Bjelland, Tore Pulli, Jocke Brolenius and Vidar Fjell. Nora carries on speaking without Henning paying

attention to a word she says. He finds the article he is looking for. His eyes race across the lines as he reads: MURDER VICTIM’S GRAVE DESECRATED

‘It’s a complete nightmare,’ Irene Otnes says.

Only a few weeks ago she buried her boyfriend, Vidar Fjell. Tuesday morning she woke up to the news that someone had overturned his gravestone and vandalised the plot. She is in no doubt as to who the perpetrator is. Last Friday night the man who is believed to have killed her boyfriend was himself found murdered in an old factory in Storo.

‘It’s an act of revenge carried out by his friends,’ Otnes says to Aftenposten. She is being comforted by Gunhild Dokken who discovered the desecration early Saturday morning when she went to put flowers on Fjell’s grave. It was she who alerted the police.

‘It’s despicable,’ she says.

Henning looks up before he examines the photograph of Irene Otnes and Gunhild Dokken by Fjell’s overturned gravestone.

It’s despicable.

‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ Nora says.

Henning doesn’t reply‚ but continues to stare at the photograph that accompanies the article. He concentrates on Gunhild Dokken’s eyes.

And then he runs out of the flat.

Chapter 111

Henning races down the stairs and out into the late afternoon where the rain spatters the tiles in the courtyard. In a flowerbed he finds a small spade which he bends down to pick up and put in his green shoulder-bag, but as he stands up his mobile slips out of his breast pocket and lands in a puddle, face down. Henning swears, quickly retrieves it and wipes it down. He presses a random key. It’s still working, he sees, relieved. Then he straightens up, finds his Vespa and sets off. He doesn’t mind the weather. On the contrary, he thinks it might even be to his advantage.

The early evening traffic is light and easy to navigate, and it takes him only ten minutes to reach Gamlebyen Cemetery where Vidar Fjell lies buried, along with 7,000 other souls. Henning drives on to the pavement and parks up against the fence by Dyvekes Bru. The tall spruce trees growing along the length of the fence make it almost impossible to see into the cemetery from the road. Cars driving past spray water from the puddles, but Henning marches resolutely towards the nearest entrance while he takes out his mobile from his inside pocket to call Brogeland one more time.

But this time the mobile is dead.

Incredulously, he stops and stares at the grey, damp display before he tries to turn it on again. Nothing happens.

‘Damn,’ he swears out loud and returns the mobile to his pocket as he enters the cemetery. A fine layer of mist creeps towards him and envelops the trees and the bushes. From his recollection of the photograph in the newspaper, Fjell is buried near a rectangular fountain. Henning follows the grey flagstones where grass grows in the cracks. The smell of wet autumn and fresh flowers follows him as he walks. Around him the gravestones rise like tall dark teeth, surrounded by flowers that have started to succumb to the beating of the rain. He reaches two medium-sized trees, sees tall bushes lined up at intervals to form an avenue leading to a fountain. That must be it, Henning thinks as the mist comes ever nearer.

Once Henning reaches the fountain he stops and looks around. The flagstones spread out into several paths. He tries unsuccessfully to conjure up the details in the photograph so instead he begins walking around the fountain and reading the gravestones. Name after name after name. Further away, tarpaulin covers what must be an open grave. A pile of earth nearby has also been covered. When Henning has walked all the way around the fountain, he stops. Under a tree, well hidden by bushes, he sees the name Vidar Fjell on a grey stone. Henning goes over to it and spends a moment contemplating the letters and the numbers that make up the life that has ended. Above him the rain increases in volume.

A desecrated grave always attracts attention, Henning thinks. Everyone thought the vandalism was an act of revenge from someone close to Jocke Brolenius. There was no reason to ask questions. No one thought twice about the overturned soil, what else could it conceal but a coffin? No one would ever believe that a girl Vidar Fjell had brought back to life would dream of doing this to her benefactor’s grave.

It’s the perfect hiding place for a murder weapon.

Henning puts down his shoulder-bag next to Fjell’s grave and looks around again. There is no one nearby, no one mad enough to venture out in this dreadful weather. He kneels down and examines the ground in front of the grave, he touches the grass. It is moist and firm. And so it should be since the vandalism occurred nearly two years ago. He gets up and looks down the avenue. All he hears are car tyres against the wet tarmac outside the cemetery mixed with the splashing of raindrops drumming against the flagstones and the water in the fountain.

Are you really going to do this? he asks himself. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until you have convinced someone that it’s absolutely essential? He takes out his mobile and tries to wake it up, but it is still dead.

Henning glances around one last time before he grabs his shoulder-bag and takes out the small spade. For a few seconds he squats down with the spade in his hand. It not only feels like a violation. That’s exactly what it is. But he has to find out if he is right.

Do it, he tells himself. Do it with respect.

He presses the spade into the soft grass. It goes in easily. He repeats the movement and marks out an area roughly half a metre square in front of the gravestone and starts removing the turf carefully. He places it neatly to one side. Then he starts to dig deeper. A feeling of revulsion surges in his stomach the further down he gets. He has never believed in any kind of god, never understood how people can anchor their life in faith, but there is something about disturbing a person’s last place of rest. Despite his honourable intentions, nothing can change the fact that he is violating both a life and a creed. Henning tries hard to convince himself that the end justifies the means.

At regular intervals he stops and looks around, but visibility has deteriorated even further in the past few minutes. He tries to wipe away some of the water from his face with one hand, but it makes no difference. He carries on digging, plunging in the spade as deeply as he can, checking to see if he hits anything other than pebbles and earth, but he doesn’t find anything.

He has been digging for fifteen minutes when he stands up and peers into the square hole he has made in front of Vidar Fjell’s gravestone. The coffin itself must be another metre and a half further below, he thinks. He got soaked through long ago, but when he kneels down again it’s as if both the mud and the wetness penetrate his skin. He is out of breath now. Could I have been wrong? he wonders as he resumes digging more furiously than before.

Then the spade hits something other than earth.

Henning inserts it into the ground again, right next to the place where he has just been, making small, cautious movements just a few centimetres apart. He can feel that he has found something; it could be a large stone or an object of some sort. He starts to remove the soil.

Then he sees it.

The handle of an axe.

Feeling reenergised now he clears away more soil. Part of the blade comes into view. Henning digs faster and faster while reminding himself not to do anything to damage his discovery. With a little bit of luck the police now have the evidence they need.

Henning is about to stand up when he senses movement right behind him. He spins around. But all he has time to see is something black hurtling towards him. And he barely hears the blow.

Chapter 112

Brogeland stretches out his legs on the sofa. On the floor next to the coffee table Alisha has set out a plastic toy castle which Oda Marie is making a concerted effort to destroy. He hasn’t got the energy to tell them off, all he wants to do is close his eyes and go to sleep.

His father always used to lie down after dinner with one leg resting on the back of the sofa. It never took more than a couple of minutes before the family would hear the low hum coming from his nose. Brogeland remembers how he always hoped that his father would play with him. But he hardly ever had the energy. And now he has become exactly like him.

‘Do you want some coffee, honey?’ he hears from the kitchen.

‘No, thank you.’

A doll dressed in pink hits the floor with a bang. Brogeland scowls at the girls as Anita enters the room. She signals to him to move so that she can sit down next to him on the sofa. He shifts a few centimetres.

‘You look exhausted,’ she says and places a warm hand on his forehead.

‘I’m just tired,’ he replies and strangles a yawn.

She smiles. ‘You’re allowed to say that you’re worn out.’

Brogeland looks at her slender neck, the little spot where the neck turns into the chest. He traces her throat with his finger up to her cheek. Soft and smooth.

‘I think you should try and take a couple of days off,’ she says. ‘It’s not good to work as hard as you do.’

‘I can’t,’ he replies.

‘Of course you can.’

‘No, we’re in the middle of-’

Brogeland is interrupted by his mobile buzzing on the coffee table. Anita sends him a look of disapproval as he sits up.

‘Please, would you move?’ he says to her.

Reluctantly she does as he asks. The number is unknown. It could be the station. It could also be a nosy journalist, he thinks, but he has no desire to continue the discussion with Anita so he answers it.

‘Is this Bjarne Brogeland?’ a quick and anxious female voice says.

‘Speaking.’

‘My name is Nora Klemetsen, we’ve spoken a couple of times before.’

Brogeland tries to put a face to the voice.

‘I work for Aftenposten,’ she begins.

Brogeland is about to interrupt her, but she gets there first. ‘But I’m not calling as a journalist. I’m Henning Juul’s ex-wife. And I’m calling you because I’m… because I’m quite worried about him.’

‘Aha?’ Brogeland says and straightens up.

‘I was speaking to him on the telephone earlier when he suddenly stopped talking. I’ve tried calling him back a couple of times since, but there is no reply. I’m outside his flat now, but he doesn’t come to the door when I ring the bell. I don’t know if he has fallen over or what could have happened to him. You haven’t spoken to him, have you?’

Brogeland wrinkles his nose. ‘No.’

‘Just before he hung up, he said that he was waiting for you to get a move on or something like that and that he had found out who did it.’

‘He said that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And now you can’t get hold of him?’

‘No.’

Brogeland stands up while he thinks. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ll ring you back in a moment.’

He ends the call and opens the inbox on his mobile. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Anita looking at him. He ignores her and opens Juul’s text message, which is nothing more than a request to check his voicemail. Brogeland rings his voicemail and waits impatiently for the pre-recorded female voice to finish. Then there is a beep. Juul’s agitated voice fills the handset. Brogeland, who is trying to put on his shoes while still holding the mobile in one hand, stops as he hears the conclusion to Juul’s argument.

‘Bloody hell,’ Brogeland says to himself. And then he starts running.

On his way to Henning’s flat in Grunerlokka, Brogeland calls Gjerstad to tell him what has happened. Then he gets hold of Fredrik Stang and tells him to contact someone from Fighting Fit who might know where Gunhild Dokken can be found if she isn’t at home. He tries to ring Juul, too, but his call goes straight to voicemail. Brogeland can’t remember that ever happening before.

Twenty minutes after Nora Klemetsen’s call Brogeland parks outside Mr Tang and meets her in front of the entrance to 5 Seilduksgaten.

‘Have you heard from him?’

‘No.’

Brogeland tries Juul’s doorbell but to no avail. Then he rings the other doorbells. Several respond. He identifies himself. Soon the door buzzes, he pulls it open and enters a corridor that stinks of cats and rubbish. He has reached the courtyard when he notices that Nora is lagging behind until she comes to a complete stop.

‘What is it?’ he asks. Nora is deathly pale and staring wildly into space. ‘What is it?’ Brogeland says a second time; he has to go right up to her before she reacts.

‘This is where it… happened,’ she says.

‘What did?’

‘Jonas,’ she says with an apathetic stare. ‘Over there,’ she adds, pointing without looking up. Brogeland follows her finger towards an area where three posts have been screwed together to create a football goal with no net. A slide stretches from a ladder towards a fenced-off gravelled patch. Brogeland’s gaze stops at the flagstones further in, under a balcony.

He turns to her again. For a brief moment he wants to ask Nora why the hell Henning decided to live here, in this very place, after the accident, but it strikes him that she is unlikely to know. And right now they don’t have the time.

‘I’m coming,’ she says, feebly.

Brogeland hurries to the next door and presses every single button on the intercom. Soon the door buzzes open again. He takes the stairs three steps at a time. He hears Nora follow him and the door slam downstairs. Doors open, curious faces look out, but Brogeland ignores them. On the second floor he knocks on the door to Henning’s flat, but there is no reply. He takes hold of the handle. Locked. Brogeland tries to contact Henning on his mobile again as Nora comes up the last few steps towards him. He lifts his index finger to his lips. She stops.

No sound.

‘Damn,’ he mutters and ends the call. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a key, would you?’

‘Me?’

At a loss Brogeland looks around before he rings another number. Nora watches him while he waits for the call to be answered.

‘This is Detective Inspector Bjarne Brogeland from the Violent Crimes Unit in Oslo. I’m at number 5 Seilduksgaten in Grunerlokka. I need assistance opening a door. And get a bloody move on.’

Chapter 113

Gunhild Dokken looks at Henning Juul with contempt as he lies on the wet recently disturbed soil with blood pouring from his head. She pushes the dripping wet fringe away from her eyes, takes a step forwards and plunges the spade in the soil. She reckons he is dead. The rain washes away some of the blood flowing from his skull. She smiles with satisfaction and looks around. They are alone.

She should possibly have kept him alive long enough to make him tell her how the hell he knew where to look for the axe, but ultimately it makes no difference. You can’t have everything in life. She got to him in time. Let that be enough, she says to herself. Now move on.

She made up her mind the moment Henning left Fighting Fit, after the business with the clock and — not least — his comment about her T-shirts. She didn’t even go home first to pick up a weapon, she just followed him. He had got too close. And if it hadn’t been for that half-naked old codger in Juul’s stairwell she would have rung the doorbell, forced her way in and happily strangled Juul in his own flat. Much simpler, too. Many more potential weapons as well. Now she has had to make do with a spade she found in the cemetery.

But where can she hide the body?

You should possibly have thought about this before you whacked him, she says to herself, not that there was ever likely to be an ideal solution. She would never be able to haul him from the cemetery without being seen, no matter how atrocious the weather.

Her only regret is not dealing with him earlier. She should have known that he was a threat. Robert was a threat too, but in a different way. She trained with him for years, and he taught her the Pulli punch. And when he called her that day and asked her if she had shown others how to do it, she realised that Juul had managed to sow seeds of doubt in Robert’s mind. And to prevent those seeds from germinating, she had to kill him. The perfect opportunity presented itself when Robert and Petter were at each other’s throats at Tore’s funeral. Petter, that moron, was the perfect fall guy.

Dokken checks Juul’s pockets and finds a mobile which appears to be switched off or dead. She can’t know for sure if he had time to share his suspicions with anyone, but it is possible. She certainly needs to make allowances for it. This means she must act quickly. So what can she do? Leave him there?

No. Not right next to Vidar’s grave. On the other side of the fountain she notices a mound of earth covered by tarpaulin. The raindrops bounce off the plastic.

The door to Henning Juul’s flat bursts open with a crash. Bjarne Brogeland nods to the fireman who destroyed the locks with a few well-aimed whacks of his axe and then forced the door open for them. Brogeland steps inside with Nora on his heels. It takes them only a few seconds to establish that the flat is empty.

‘Who was he looking for?’ Nora asks.

‘I can’t tell you anything about that,’ Brogeland replies.

‘Henning said he had found out who did it,’ Nora continues and walks closer to the kitchen table. ‘Done what?’

Again Brogeland declines to answer. Instead he narrows his eyes, annoyed at himself for not talking to Juul earlier that day when he had the chance. At that moment his mobile rings. Brogeland quickly takes it out from his inside pocket.

‘Hi, it’s me,’ Fredrik Stang says. ‘According to a Telenor aerial in Gamlebyen, Gunhild Dokken is in that area right now. Or she was there a moment ago.’

‘Gamlebyen,’ Brogeland mutters and feels someone elbowing him. He turns to Nora who is holding up a printout of an article from Aftenposten. Brogeland sees the photograph of Irene Otnes and Gunhild Dokken in front of Vidar Fjell’s overturned gravestone. Under the photo there is the caption about the desecration of a grave in Gamlebyen only a few days after the murder of Jocke Brolenius.

‘Bloody hell,’ Brogeland swears and looks at Nora. He issues a quick order to Stang. Seconds later they are on their way out of the flat.

Chapter 114

Gunhild leaves the axe where it is, grabs hold of Juul’s feet and drags him away. The guy weighs next to nothing, she thinks, and looks over her shoulder to make sure she doesn’t back into the fountain. She smiles to herself. Juul’s lifeless head bumps against the flagstones. If he had been alive she imagines that might have been quite painful.

Soon she reaches the mound of earth. A thick sheet of tarpaulin is stretched across the grave which will probably be filled tomorrow. She lets go of Juul’s feet and glances around again. Still no one to be seen. She swiftly flings the tarpaulin to one side. Water pours into the two-metre-deep hole. Feet first she pulls Juul closer to the edge and peers down. She smiles again and looks at Juul.

Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Brogeland drives as fast as he dares down Toftesgate, frightening the life out of a woman with a pram who starts to cross the road by the entrance to Sofienberg Park even though he has switched on both the siren and the flashing blue lights. The windscreen wipers swish back and forth at full speed, sweeping the rain aside. Next to him Nora is clinging to the door handle and pressing herself into the seat as the buildings fly past.

Minutes later he drives under the ring road and turns into Schweigaardsgate. He turns off both the sirens and the blue light without taking his foot off the accelerator. Through his mobile he receives constant updates of where the rest of the units have positioned themselves and who will do what when they get there. Further down the road several patrol cars are driving across Dyvekes Bru. Brogeland runs a red light and follows them.

‘There’s his Vespa,’ Nora exclaims, pointing.

Brogeland hits the brakes without skidding and comes to a smooth halt.

‘Are you sure?’ he says.

‘Yes.’

Brogeland alerts everyone over the radio, forces the car’s tyres on to the pavement and stops. They both jump out. The trees by the fence provide some shelter against the powerful downpour, but even so they are soaked in seconds. Brogeland opens the boot and unlocks the gun case, takes out the police’s standard hand weapon — a Heckler amp; Koch HK P30 — and runs as quickly as he can to the nearest entrance to the cemetery. Nora follows right behind him.

Gunhild Dokken half runs back to Vidar Fjell’s grave, picks up Henning’s shoulder-bag, the axe with which she killed Jocke Brolenius and the spade. As soon as she returns to the open grave, she removes the tarpaulin that covers the mound of earth and starts shovelling it into the hole.

There is a limit to how much earth I can put in, she thinks, since there is probably going to be a funeral the next day. It’s likely that Juul’s body will be found quickly, but she will win herself time. No one coming to the cemetery will think of looking into the hole, not once she has put the tarpaulin back over the opening. And even if anyone were to do so, all they would see is a layer of soil.

She peers into the grave and sees that she has managed to cover most of Juul’s body. Only his head, hands and part of one foot remain visible. She plunges the spade into the disturbed soil again and flings the next load into the hole. She misses Juul’s head, but carries on shovelling. This time she gets him. The soil covers almost all of his face. Satisfied, she registers that the next shovelful will hide Juul’s hands and that the following two will cover his foot and all of his head. She waits for a few seconds to make sure that Juul isn’t moving. Then she resumes digging. Just to be on the safe side.

Brogeland glances at the article they brought with them from Juul’s flat as he moves quickly down the flagstone path. In the distance he can just about make out the fountain in the mist. Around him officers are approaching with their weapons aimed straight ahead. They don’t have time to wait for Delta Force now. Every second could mean the difference between life and death.

They move with stealth. To the side of him a man whose contours he can only just make out raises a clenched fist. Everyone stops. Fresh signals are given, some officers spread out, but Brogeland walks right ahead, stops again. All he can hear is the sound of rain hitting the ground. Then he sees something further ahead. A dark female figure holding a spade, briskly shovelling soil from a pile in front of her. He sees the fringe that keeps flopping over her eyes. There is no sign of Henning Juul.

Slowly, they approach. Brogeland recognises Gunhild Dokken, but she doesn’t notice them. They stop again. The mist makes it difficult to see how far away they are, but he guesses ten or fifteen metres. Dark shadows draw near from various angles through the mist. They have got her. She is surrounded. There is nothing she can do.

Dokken carries on digging. Brogeland looks at his boss to his left a few metres away and gets the go-ahead. He takes off, screaming at the top of his voice like he always does when he wants to surprise someone. He hollers and hopes that the shock itself is enough to stun her so that she won’t have time to use weapons, destroy evidence or flee, and he gets exactly the reaction he was hoping for. Gunhild Dokken is taken by surprise and remains rooted to the spot. He can see her look of incomprehension, baffled how anyone would know to look for her in the cemetery, and she stands like a statue until Brogeland flings his arms around her, topples her to the ground and locks her in an iron grip.

Chapter 115

Down in the grave a foot sticks out through the soil. While Brogeland pins down Gunhild Dokken, Emil Hagen jumps in, landing softly next to the foot and quickly removes the earth covering Henning Juul’s face. Brogeland leaves Dokken to his officers‚ but resists the urge to leap into the grave as well because the space is limited. He sees Hagen find Juul’s mouth and nose, and soon the rain helps wash the soil off his face. Hagen places two fingers on Juul’s neck.

‘There is no pulse,’ Hagen calls out.

‘Call an ambulance,’ Brogeland shouts.

A voice next to him replies that it is already on its way. Four, five minutes, Brogeland estimates and it will be there. He can see that Juul has sustained a heavy blow to the side of his head, probably with the spade, but with the flat side, not the edge. If that had been the case Hagen’s resuscitation attempts would very likely have been in vain. Hagen takes a deep, controlled breath before he gets to work starting with thirty heart compressions, then he blows into Henning’s nose and mouth twice. He repeats this routine several times, but there is no sign of life. They hear the sound of sirens. Hagen carries on with his desperate attempt to revive Henning Juul, who continues to lie there with his eyes closed and an almost serene expression on his face as the rain pelts him.

The sound of a roaring engine comes closer and stops nearby. Shouts and orders ensue, then the hole in the ground is filled with another man who takes over the resuscitation. Hagen is asked to leave to make room for more people in red-and-green fluorescent uniforms and he does as he is told. He jumps, gets hold of the edge and pulls himself quickly out of the grave. Still panting, Hagen joins Brogeland, and together they watch the backs of the ambulance crew. Behind them a stretcher is being prepared. Brogeland takes a step to the side and bumps into Nora, who is gnawing her fingers without blinking.

Then something happens in the grave. One of the uniformed men calls out, and Henning is hoisted up. He is coughing, first deep in his throat then higher up in his mouth. His face contorts. Someone puts their hand on his back to support him, and he sits up, leans forwards while saliva and damp soil dribble from his mouth. At the edge of the grave Nora cries out and covers her mouth with her hands. Then she closes her eyes.

Chapter 116

Five days later

Trees and plants singed by a late summer without rain have regained some of their original colour. Henning Juul stops outside Ulleval Hospital. A few days ago he was a patient there. The doctors refused to discharge him until they were sure there were no complications. X-rays showed that he had fractured his skull, but there were no signs of blood clots.

He would clearly have died under the soil in his unconscious state if Emil Hagen and the ambulance crew hadn’t arrived in time to save him. Henning has since learned that they would never have got there so quickly if it hadn’t been for Nora and Brogeland. Exactly how he feels about that is something he hasn’t dared to address yet. There has been a lot going on. He spent one night in hospital and has been at the police station for several interviews after being discharged. He has also filed a number of stories despite the doctors telling him to take it easy for a while.

Henning walks into Iver Gundersen’s room and finds his colleague sitting up in bed. His hands are clamped around his mobile, and he appears to be using it as a steering wheel. The sound of screeching tyres and potentially fatal collisions cease the moment he spots Henning.

‘Hi,’ Iver calls out happily and chucks the mobile aside. ‘The man of the hour, back from the dead, if I’m not mistaken?’

Henning smiles. The bandages around Iver’s head are gone‚ but his face is swollen and still the colour of the Swedish flag in places. His movements, however, are quicker and more alert.

‘How are you?’ Henning asks as he takes a seat.

‘I think I should be asking you that question.’

‘I’m all right,’ Henning says. ‘My head hurts a bit, that’s all, but I’m fine.’

‘I’m not, far from it,’ Iver replies. ‘Lying here is driving me up the wall. I’m not used to it, you know. I spend most of my time racing cars.’

Henning nods and smiles.

‘Go on then. Tell me all about it. I was hoping you would show up yesterday or the day before, so what has kept you?’

‘I’ve been a bit busy lately.’

‘Yes, so I’ve noticed,’ Iver says and holds up his mobile. ‘I bet the Eagle is thrilled. I bet she doesn’t nag you about scoops any more, does she?’

Henning smiles again. ‘No, she has mellowed in the past few days. She says hello, by the way.’

‘Hm. Right then, come on. I’m going mad in here!’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything!’

Henning laughs.

‘I’ve read about Dokken’s key to Petter Holte’s flat and the clock at the gym, but I haven’t seen anything about how she killed Jocke Brolenius. I’m really curious to know that. I mean, a girl versus a tough enforcer — it’s an unlikely match no matter how angry she was.’

Henning makes himself comfortable in the chair. ‘Gunhild Dokken went to the factory before Jocke and Tore. She went inside the building but left the door open so that Jocke would think that Pulli had already arrived. He was famous for his punctuality. And Jocke swallowed the bait. Dokken was waiting for him behind a pillar. As he walked past her, she attacked him quick as lightning, hitting him with the axe on the side of his neck, here, roughly,’ Henning says, demonstrating on himself. ‘The first whack nearly took his head off. The rest was easy. She hit him thirteen times in total. Back, shoulders, arms and another blow to the neck.’

‘Good God,’ Iver says. ‘That’s a lot of anger. And afterwards she broke his jaw?’

‘Yes. But she needed something more to link Pulli to the killing, and this is where the knuckle-duster comes in.’

‘I still don’t get it. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just shoot Jocke like she did with Robert van whatshisname?’

‘It might have been safer, yes. Dokken has, as far as I know, not said anything about her choice of weapon yet, but I’ve a theory about that. Have you heard about Forsete, the Norse god?’

‘No, but I prefer two-seaters, anyway. Much cooler.’

They both laugh.

‘Through his father, Vidar Fjell had developed a passion for Norse mythology, a world he probably introduced Dokken to during the years they knew each other. Remember, she designed Asgard’s decor where everyone is having Norse sex all over the place. Dokken’s plan was to avenge the murder of Vidar Fjell — she wanted justice for him. Forsete was the god of justice in Norse mythology. And he had an axe.’

‘What about the knuckle-duster? How did she get hold of that?’

Henning scratches his forehead. ‘When Tore Pulli quit debt-collecting, he hung the knuckle-duster on the wall of his study at home as a symbolic gesture. I believe he made a big deal of it, and it was something that everyone who knew Tore would know about. One night when the Fighting Fit gang was back at Pulli’s discussing what to do about Jocke Brolenius, Dokken stole it. She used to live on the streets and had nicked plenty of things in her lifetime.’

Iver nods. He is impressed. They sit for a while in silence.

‘However,’ Henning says, and gets up. ‘I haven’t come all this way just to make small talk to an invalid like you.’

‘No, I didn’t think so.’

‘I have a question for you. From Petter Holte.’

Chapter 117

A week after Gunhild Dokken’s arrest, Henning meets Veronica Nansen outside Sognsvann Station. She gives him a long, warm embrace.

‘Good to see you, Henning,’ she says.

‘Likewise. How are you?’

‘I’m not too bad. How about you? I hear you’ve been a busy boy recently.’

‘Yes, there turned out to be a lot of stories to tell,’ he says and smiles reluctantly.

They pass the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences and walk down towards the lake. People with prams and men and women in tracksuits stroll up and down past them.

‘I didn’t think that Petter would ever have agreed to talk to the press,’ Nansen says. ‘And, what’s more, to be so open and honest about being in custody, how he thought about what had happened to Tore and dreading that he, too, would be fitted up for something he hadn’t done. You did a great job, Henning.’

‘Thank you,’ he says, blushing. ‘And it wasn’t the only thing he came clean about.’

Henning tells her how the same fear prompted Holte to put his cards on the table and admit to the assault on Iver Gundersen. Kent Harry Hansen was fuming when he returned to Fighting Fit after being interviewed by Iver. Holte went into his office, and Hansen told him what had happened. Later that night, when Iver visited Asgard, he met Holte at the door. Holte decided to take matters into his own hands. He saw an opportunity to protect his friends and increase his status in their eyes. But he never intended to injure Iver quite so severely. He just wasn’t very good at knowing when to stop.

‘That’s so like him,’ Nansen says. ‘What’s going to happen to him as far as that charge is concerned?’

‘I’m not really sure. I asked Iver if he would consider drawing a line under the whole business, and he said he would think about it. But even so, Holte could still be charged.’

Nansen nods and takes Henning’s arm. They turn on to a broad path. Henning kicks a pine cone which jumps up and rolls away. A runner passes them, wheezing and checking his pulse monitor.

‘I heard it was a T-shirt that led you to identify Gunhild as the killer?’

Henning starts to laugh. ‘I think that’s a case of Chinese whispers. But it’s true that I saw a T-shirt in Holte’s flat which I guessed must be hers. It turned out that Gunhild’s washing machine had broken down, and Holte, being the wimp he is, had offered her the use of his.’

‘Poor guy. I bet he thought it might help win her back.’

‘Yes. And I’m sure he believed that he had succeeded when she turned up at his place after killing Robert van Derksen. But she went there purely to return Holte’s gun and his shoes which she had taken earlier. I spoke to one of the officers who arrested Holte and he said that Holte’s face was practically euphoric that morning.’

‘So Gunhild spent the night with him?’

Henning nods. ‘One night probably made no difference to her.’

Nansen shakes her head. ‘I’ve tried to look back,’ she says after a pause. ‘I’ve tried to remember if Gunhild ever did anything that I should have noticed so that some of this might have been avoided. But I haven’t been able to think of a single thing.’

Henning nods while he recalls the book he saw on Petter Holte’s bedside table. A Gentle Axe by R. N. Morris. And he thinks about the T-shirt Gunhild wore the first time he met her. With the logo for Axe men’s deodorant. There was something provocative about the way she pushed her chest up and out, almost as if she wanted him to notice her. It might have been a coincidence. Or it could have been Gunhild’s substitute for heroin surrounding herself with subtle hints of what she had done while believing that nobody would ever be able to expose her. Henning realises that he is inspired to explore not just her wardrobe but her whole life for other references to the murder of Jocke Brolenius. Though this would be purely to satisfy his own curiosity.

‘Don’t beat yourself up, Veronica,’ he says. ‘It won’t make it any easier.’

She looks at him as she attempts a smile. ‘I’ll try not to.’

They walk for a while in silence.

‘How is the investigation into… into what happened to Tore going?’

‘Slowly,’ Henning says. ‘The man they arrested, Orjan Mjones, hasn’t said one word during interviews. But the police have found incriminating evidence on his laptop. Mjones appears to have carried out extensive research about an extremely deadly nerve poison called batrachotoxin. It comes from a frog in Colombia. Choco Indians dip their darts in it. The frog is actually called the poison dart frog, and a single frog contains enough poison to kill anywhere between fifty and one hundred people.’

‘And that was the poison given to Tore?’

‘The Institute of Public Health is still checking it, but it very much looks like it. There will be a story about it in the paper tomorrow. A dose of one hundred micrograms is enough to kill an adult, and all you need to do is scratch their skin.’

Nansen nods pensively. ‘Imagine if they ever came to Norway.’

‘The frogs, you mean? That’s the fascinating bit. They can’t produce their poison anywhere except the western slopes of the Andes because the ants and the insects on which they feed form a unique chemical bond in the frog that creates the poison.’

‘Mjones went to South America?’

‘Most probably. But he isn’t saying anything. Not yet, anyway.’

‘Isn’t that unusual?’

‘Yes, perhaps. But I’m guessing he’s keeping his mouth shut because he’s banking on the evidence against him being purely circumstantial. However, it would take a lot for him not to be convicted. A receptionist at the mountain hotel close to where the body of Thorleif Brenden was found has said that Mjones impersonated a police officer looking for Brenden. A chalet girl in the area also alerted them to a break-in in a cabin where Brenden’s notes were later found. In them he describes Mjones and the events that happened in the days leading up to Tore’s death in considerable detail. That plus the frog poison will weigh heavily against him in court.’

There might be two other reasons, Henning thinks, why Mjones won’t talk. Firstly, he knows that the money he was paid for killing Pulli is waiting for him somewhere when he has served his sentence. Secondly, he might also be scared that what happened to Pulli could happen to him even though he might not know the identity of his employer and so couldn’t give him up even if he wanted to. Most orders for hits are made in code and under fictitious names.

The smell of a barbecue wafts towards them. Soon they reach a gravel path. The sunlight sparkles in the water. In the distance a red kayak slices through the dark-blue surface. Nansen and Henning sit down on a bench overlooking the lake.

‘I need to ask you something,’ he begins. ‘You usually visited Tore once a week while he was inside. During that time did he ever seem… how can I put it?… more tense or nervous than usual?’

She turns to him. ‘His mood varied, but I can’t think of anything in particular. Why do you ask?’

‘Because… ’

Henning looks down and thinks about Pia Nokleby. When he spoke to her a couple of days after the arrest of Gunhild Dokken, he asked again if the police had put in a request for Pulli’s telephone records from the prison. Her reply had been no, they hadn’t prioritised it. And Knut Olav Nordbo from Oslo Prison confirmed the same day that it was now too late.

‘I think Tore was killed because he knew who was behind the fire in my flat,’ Henning says. ‘I don’t think that Tore contacting me was the direct cause, but that he might have been speaking to someone else about it before he called me.’

‘Why would Tore have done that?’

‘I don’t know. Because he thought it might be to his advantage?’

‘How?’

‘If Tore knew who torched my flat, he might have tried to use that knowledge as leverage against that man or whoever that man works for. People who are in the same line of business as he used to be in and who might be coerced into helping him.’

‘Tore would never have threatened anyone,’ Nansen says, shaking her head. ‘Not any more.’

‘Are you sure about that, Veronica? Prison is hell, and it’s even worse if you’re innocent. I don’t have a problem believing that Tore was desperate — especially since his appeal was about to be heard. I can easily imagine that the person or persons who were responsible for the death of my son didn’t want that information to come out.’

Nansen looks at him before she bows her head. ‘And now we’ll never know what it was,’ she says.

‘No,’ Henning sighs. ‘I don’t suppose we will.’

Chapter 118

Special offers from supermarkets, requests from estate agents looking for a property just like his, furniture sales — Henning fails to catch all the junk mail that spills from his mailbox as he opens it. He bends down, picks it up and flicks through his post with lukewarm interest. But he freezes when he sees the name Erling Ophus and his address in Leirsund written on the back of an A4 envelope.

The police report, Henning thinks.

He runs up the stairs as quickly as he can and opens his brand-new front door. Once he has sat down on the sofa, he tears open the envelope and pulls out two sheets. He reads:

Venue and Fire Investigation Report

Commissioning party: Chief Inspector Tom Arne Sveen, E-section, Oslo Police Station.

Remit: Location investigation following a fire at 23 Markveien, Oslo, at approximately 20.35.

Date of request: Tuesday 12 September 2007 at 08.10.

Investigators: The scene of the fire was examined by Engineering Inspector Rune Olsen, Oslo Electricity Board, Fire Chief Nicolai Juve, Oslo Fire Service, and Chief Inspector Tom Arne Sveen who prepared this report at 10.00 on 12 September 2007.

Conclusion

After examining the scene of the fire and considering other information relating to this incident, it is my opinion that:

• the fire originated in the hallway behind the front door of the second-floor flat belonging to HENNING JUUL, but that

• the cause of the fire remains unknown.

Location of the fire

23 Markveien is an apartment block containing thirteen flats and a full basement. The flat on the second floor is accessed through a communal front door.

Additional information

The door to the second-floor flat was unlocked. The communal front door at street level was also open.

Investigation of the scene of the fire

The fire started in the hallway behind the front door to the left when viewed from the landing outside. There is most damage to the surface of the internal west-facing wall. Here the internal wall has completely burned away and there is substantial damage to the back of the external wall.

The wall between the hallway and the stairwell was badly damaged as the internal wall had been destroyed, but the fire damage was considerably less on the back of the panel.

Having removed debris from the floor in the hallway near the stairwell, we noticed that the floor covering (linoleum) and chipboard flooring were badly charred and there were some burn marks to the surface of the underlying wooden floor. This damaged area extended across the whole floor, all the way to the walls.

Samples taken

A section of partly charred woodwork was taken from the internal west wall.

Examination of material

This sample will be sent to Kripos to be tested for accelerants.

Observations

The photo shows that the fire started low, in the hallway right inside the front door leading to the flat. The damage was relatively major and the fire spread to large parts of the flat.

The open kitchen window caused the fire to spread quickly.

The front door showed no signs of forced entry.

Chief Inspector Tom Arne Sveen

Henning puts down the report. So the kitchen window was open, he thinks, though he can’t remember why. Perhaps they had been frying eggs, Jonas and him, and needed to air the room. If only they had eaten crispbread instead.

He looks inside the envelope and discovers a yellow Post-it note that must have fallen off the report. He takes it out. The note says Ring me when you have read the report, and Ophus’s initials and mobile number are written below the message. Henning rings him immediately and introduces himself when Ophus answers.

‘Oh, hi,’ Ophus says. ‘It’s you, is it? You’ve got the report, I gather?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t get the chance to send you the photographs, and they wouldn’t have been very helpful either, as photocopies. Black and white, you know. Everything looks like soot.’

‘Hm.’

‘But I wanted to ask you about your front door. I remember us talking about how you always locked it, but that you couldn’t remember if you had locked it that day. Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ Henning replies, intrigued.

‘The report says that your front door was unlocked and that there was no sign of forced entry.’

‘I can only imagine that I didn’t lock it.’

‘Yes, that was what you said. But something puzzled me when I took a closer look at the photographs of your door. Had you attached something to it? A picture or a piece of paper, something like that?’

‘No. Or… I don’t remember. I don’t think so. We always stuck things on the fridge. Oh, yes, I put up a picture Jonas had made at nursery, a picture of him and me, but that was on the outside of the door.’

‘And you’re quite sure that you never stuck anything to the inside?’

‘Quite. I certainly never had before. What’s on your mind, Ophus?’

There is a short silence.

‘There was a drawing pin stuck to the inside of your door. Like the door itself, it was badly burned. And that’s why I wanted to know if you had stuck anything there.’

‘I can’t imagine.’

‘But if you’re right that someone was trying to frighten you, it might be that this person stuck a note to the back of your door which you were supposed to see as you left. That sounds plausible to me,’ Ophus says, keenly.

Yes, it does, Henning thinks and tries to visualise the scene. He closes his eyes. When he opens them again it’s like he is back in the dream. He is awake, but he isn’t waving his arms in front of him to clear the smoke. This time the smoke stands still. The flames sting and burn his face. There is a beam of light in the smoke, an opening he can peer through. The light grows stronger and brighter with every second, and suddenly a picture emerges. For a brief, gripping moment he observes himself looking at the door while the flames lick the walls and consume him with intense heat. He is about to take a step back in the run-up to jumping through the wall of flames, but he pauses. And that’s when he notices a piece of paper on the door. A standard white A4

sheet. And now he sees that there is writing on it: FIRST AND LAST WARNING.

Chapter 119

That evening, Henning sits in front of his laptop for hours waiting for 6tiermes7 to log on. It is nearly midnight before he gets a response.

Henning immediately brings up the warning note.

6tiermes7: And you didn’t notice anything? You didn’t hear anyone enter?

MakkaPakka: No. I was woken up by Jonas’s screaming.

6tiermes7: Do you think it could have been someone looking for Rasmus Bjelland?

MakkaPakka: No idea. Right now I just don’t know.

6tiermes7: I haven’t found any updated info on Bjelland, by the way. It’s not going to be easy if he has got himself a new identity.

MakkaPakka: Okay. But please carry on looking.

6tiermes7: Will do.

Neither of them has anything to report for a while, but they don’t leave the chat. Henning thinks about the people who want to get Bjelland‚ but can’t convince himself that B-gjengen or Svenskeligaen — whatever is left of them — would torch a flat to obtain information because flames are difficult to control. They would have chosen a physical approach, aimed directly at him. Even so, Henning has a distinct feeling that Bjelland is important. He just doesn’t know why.

6tiermes7: By the way, I have something to tell you.

It takes a few seconds before the continuation comes.

6tiermes7: I wasn’t going to tell you at first, but I’ve reached the conclusion that I have to.

MakkaPakka: What is it?

6tiermes7: Your son died on 11 September 2007, didn’t he?

Henning sits up.

MakkaPakka: Yes, why?

6tiermes7: After what you told me about Tore Pulli and the fire, I checked him out. And I found out something interesting. A traffic warden in Grunerlokka contacted the police the following day because of a car with a man inside that had been parked outside your flat several nights in a row. The traffic warden thought it suspicious, and a patrol car was dispatched. The man in the car was identified as Tore Pulli.

MakkaPakka: But Pulli has already admitted to being there. Are you saying he sat there for several nights?

6tiermes7: Yes. But I haven’t found out anything about what he was doing there.

MakkaPakka: So nobody challenged him?

6tiermes7: I certainly found no information to that effect. And neither the officers nor the traffic warden are named in the incident so there is not much to go on.

MakkaPakka: Is that normal procedure?

6tiermes7: Whoever entered the incident into Indicia may not have known which officers were dispatched. And the traffic warden could have requested that his or her name was kept out of it to avoid possible repercussions.

MakkaPakka: Quite. But does it say anything else?

6tiermes7: No. That’s it.

Henning sits for a while thinking, but he isn’t sure how to interpret the information he has just been given.

MakkaPakka: But if someone entered information about Pulli being in my street on 11 September 2007, surely his name should have cropped up during the fire investigation?

6tiermes7: Not necessarily. We can’t be sure that an Indicia search was carried out in connection with the fire. Many swear by the old systems. And Pulli was never called in for an interview.

Dear God, Henning thinks. Is that possible?

MakkaPakka: But why were you reluctant to tell me this?

6tiermes7: Because the entry has been edited. And I think that important information has been deleted.

MakkaPakka: What makes you think that?

6tiermes7: Because there is hardly anything there.

MakkaPakka: But why would anyone do that?

6tiermes7: Why do you delete information?

MakkaPakka: Because it’s wrong?

6tiermes7: Or because it’s sensitive.

The sentence he is staring at sends a shiver down Henning’s back. His head spins.

MakkaPakka: You’re saying that someone who works for the police probably deleted information about what Tore Pulli was doing outside my flat that evening?

6tiermes7: That’s how I interpret it, yes.

Henning leans closer to the table.

MakkaPakka: What’s the point of deleting some of the information? Wouldn’t it make more sense to delete the whole entry?

6tiermes7: That’s probably the biggest mistake you can make. Pulli was a celebrity, and it wasn’t just the traffic warden and the officers in the patrol car who knew that he had been spotted outside your flat. It was known in the control room, the duty officer probably knew about it, and it’s likely that several staff members discussed it that night. It would look more suspicious if a well-known incident about a recently deceased celebrity disappears from the system than if only bits of information are missing.

MakkaPakka: Okay, so tell me who edited the log.

6tiermes7: This is the part that makes me uncomfortable.

The continuation, when it comes a few seconds later, takes Henning’s breath away.

6tiermes7: It was Pia Nokleby.