Burned (3 page)

He takes a few, hesitant steps and looks around to see if he recognises anyone. It’s all faces and fragments from a distant past, like an episode of
This Is Your Life
. Then he spots Kåre.

Kåre Hjeltland is looking over the shoulder of a reporter at the news desk. Kåre is the news editor at
123news
. He is a short, skinny man with messy hair and a passion which exceeds anything Henning has ever known. Kåre is the Duracell bunny on speed with a hundred stories in his head at any given time and an arsenal of possible angles for practically anything.

That’s why he is the news editor. If it had been up to Kåre, he would have been in charge of every department and worked as the night duty editor as well. He has Tourette’s Syndrome, not the easiest condition to manage when you’re trying to run a news desk and have a social life.

However, despite his tics and various other symptoms, Kåre pulls it off. Henning doesn’t know how, but Kåre pulls it off.

Kåre has noticed him, too. He waves and holds up one finger. Henning nods and waits patiently, while Kåre issues instructions to the reporter.

‘And stress that in the introduction. That’s the hook, no one cares that the tent was white or bought from Maxbo last March. Get it?’

‘Maxbo doesn’t sell tents.’

‘Whatever. You know what I mean. And mention that she was found naked as soon as possible. It’s important. It plants a sexy image in people’s minds. Gives them something to get off on.’

The reporter nods. Kåre slaps him on the shoulder and bounces towards Henning. He nearly trips over a cable running across the floor, but carries on regardless. Even though he is only a few metres away now, he shouts.

‘Henning, good to see you again. Welcome back.’

Kåre extends a hand, but doesn’t wait for Henning to offer him his. He simply grabs Henning’s hand and shakes it. Henning’s forehead feels hot.

‘So – how are things? You ready to chase web hits again?’

Henning thinks earmuffs might be a good investment.

‘Well, I’m here, that’s a start.’

‘Super. Fantastic. We need people like you, people who know how to give the public what they want. Great. Sex sells, coffers swell! Tits and ass bring in the cash!’

Kåre laughs out loud. His face starts to twitch, but he carries on all the same. Kåre has coined a lot of rhyming slogans in his time. Kåre loves rhymes.

‘Ahem, I thought you could sit over there with the rest of the team.’

Kåre takes Henning by the arm and leads him past a red glass partition. Six computers, three on opposite sides of a square table, are backed up against each other. A mountain of newspapers lies on a round table behind it.

‘You may have noticed that things have changed, but I haven’t touched your work station. It’s exactly the same. After what happened, I thought that you – eh – would want to decide for yourself if there was anything you wanted to throw out.’

‘Throw out?’

‘Yes. Or reorganise. Or – you know.’

Henning looks around.

‘Where are the others?’

‘Who?’

‘The rest of the team?’

‘Buggered if I know, lazy sods. Oh yes, Heidi is here. Heidi Kjus. She’s around somewhere. In charge of national news now, she is.’

Henning feels his chest tighten. Heidi Kjus.

Heidi was one of the first temps from the Oslo School of Journalism he hired a million years ago. Newly qualified journalists are usually so bursting with theory that they have forgotten what really makes a good reporter: charming manners and common sense. If you’re curious by nature and don’t allow yourself to be fobbed off with the first thing people tell you, you’ll go far. But if you want to be a star reporter, you also need to be a bit of a bastard, throw caution to the wind and have enough fire in your belly to go the distance, accept adversity, and never give up if you smell a good story.

Heidi Kjus had all of the above. From day one. On top of that, she had a hunger Henning had never seen before. Right from the start, no story was too small or too big, and it wasn’t long before she had acquired sources and contacts as well as experience. As she began to realise just how good she was, she added a generous helping of arrogance to the heavy make-up, she plastered on every morning.

Some reporters have an aura about them, an attitude which screams: ‘My job is the most important in the whole world and I’m better than the lot of you.’ Heidi admired people with sharp elbows and soon developed her own. She took up space, even when she was working as a temp. She made demands.

Henning was working for
Nettavisen
at the time Heidi graduated. He was their crime reporter, but it was also his job to train new reporters and temps, show them the ropes, put them straight and nudge them in the direction of the overall aim: turning them into workhorses who wouldn’t need micromanaging in order to deliver top stories that attract web hits 24/7.

He enjoyed this aspect of his job. And
Nettavisen
was a great first job for young journalists, even though most of them had no idea they were driving a Formula 1 car around increasingly congested streets in a media circus that grew bigger every day. Many were unsuited for this life, this way of thinking and working. And the problem was that as soon as he saw the beginnings of a good on-line reporter, they would leave. They would get offers of new jobs, better jobs or full-time employment contracts elsewhere.

Heidi left after only four months. She got an offer from
Dagbladet
she couldn’t refuse. He didn’t blame her. It was
Dagbladet
, after all. More status. More money. Heidi wanted it all and she wanted it now. And she got it.

And she’s my new boss, he thinks. Bloody hell. This is bound to end in tears.

‘It’ll be good to have you back in the saddle, Henning,’ Kåre enthuses.

Henning says ‘mm’.

‘Morning meeting in ten minutes. You’ll be there, won’t you?’

Henning says ‘mm’ again.

‘Lovely. Lovely. Got to dash. I’ve another meeting.’

Kåre smiles, gives him a thumbs-up, and leaves. In passing, he slaps someone on the shoulder, before he disappears around the corner. Henning shakes his head. Then he sits down on a chair that squeaks and rocks like a boat. A new red notebook, still in its wrapper, lies next to the keyboard. Four pens. He guesses that none of them works. A pile of old print-outs. He recognises them as research for stories he was working on. An ancient mobile telephone takes up an unnecessary amount of space and he notices a box of business cards.
His
business cards.

His eyes stop at a framed photograph resting at an angle on the desk. There are two people in it, a woman and a boy.

Nora and Jonas.

He stares at them without seeing them clearly. Don’t smile. Please, don’t smile at me.

It’ll be all right. Don’t be scared. I’ll take care of you.

He reaches for the frame, picks it up and puts it down again.

Face down.

Chapter 4

Morning meetings. The core of every newspaper, where the day’s production plans are defined, tasks distributed, stories up- or down-graded, based on criteria such as topicality, importance and – in the case of
123news
– potential readership.

Each news desk starts by holding its own morning meeting. Sports, business, arts and national and international news. Lists of potential stories are drawn up. At this stage, a morning meeting can be inspirational. A good story often matures through discussion, while others are discarded – by common consent – because they are bad or a rival newspaper ran something similar two weeks ago. Afterwards, the editors meet to update each other and inform the duty editor of the kind of stories that will unfold throughout the day.

The one thing Henning hasn’t missed is meetings. He knows before it has even begun that this meeting is a total waste of time. He is supposed to cover crime; murders, filth, evil. So why does he need to know that a sports personality is making another comeback? Or that Bruce Springsteen is getting divorced? He can read about it in the paper – later – if he cares, and if the reporter in question writes something worth reading. The finance editor or the sports editor is often clueless about arts and vice versa, which ruins any chance of a productive meeting. And secondly, each editor is too preoccupied with their own area of interest to offer each other valuable ideas or suggestions. However, the paper’s management insists on such meetings, which is why Henning is now entering a meeting room with a table whose surface shines like a newly polished mirror. A stack of plastic cups and a jug of water are placed in the middle. He hazards a guess that the water is stale.

He sits down on a chair that isn’t designed for lengthy discussions and avoids making eye contact with the others who are taking their seats around the table. He doesn’t do small talk, especially when he believes everyone knows who he is anyway and isn’t entirely comfortable with his presence.

Why is he here?

He’s not an editor?

I heard he had a breakdown?

Kåre Hjeltland is the last to arrive and he closes the door.

‘Okay, let’s get started,’ he shouts and sits down at the end of the table. He looks around.

‘We’re not expecting anyone else?’

No one replies.

‘Right, let’s kick off with foreign news. Knut. What have you got for us today?’

Knut Hammerstad, the foreign news editor, coughs and puts down his coffee cup.

‘There’s an upcoming election in Sweden. We’re putting together profiles of their potential new prime ministers, who they are, what they stand for. A plane crash-landed in Indonesia. Suspected terrorist attack. Crash investigators are looking for the black box. Four terror suspects have been arrested in London. They were planning to blow Parliament sky high, I heard.’

‘Great headline,’ Kåre roars. ‘Sod the Swedish election. Don’t waste too much time on the plane crash. No one cares about it, unless any Norwegians were killed.’

‘We’re checking that, obviously.’

‘Good. Push the terror story. Get the details, planning, execution, how many potential deaths and so on and so forth.’

‘We’re on it.’

‘Great. What’s next?’

Rikke Ringheim sits next to Knut Hammerstad. Rikke edits the sex and gossip columns. The paper’s most important news desk.

Kåre ploughs on.

‘Rikke, what have you got for us today?’

‘We’ll be talking to Carrie Olson.’

Rikke beams with pride and glee. Henning looks at her and wonders if she is aware his face is one big question mark.

‘Who the hell is Carrie Olson?’ Kåre demands to know.

‘The author of
How to Get 10 Orgasms a Day
. A bestseller in the US, top of the sales charts in Germany and France. She’s in Norway right now.’

Kåre claps his hands. The room reverberates.

‘Bloody brilliant!’

Rikke smiles smugly.

‘And she has Norwegian ancestors.’

‘Can it get much better? Anything else?’

‘We’ve started a survey. “How often do you have sex?” It’s already attracting plenty of hits.’

‘Another magnet. Sucks in the reader. He-he. Sucks, get it?’

‘And we have another web hit: a sexologist says we need to prioritise sex in relationships. Might run it a little later today.’

Kåre nods.

‘Well done, Rikke.’

He carries on, full steam ahead.

‘Heidi?’

Henning hadn’t noticed Heidi Kjus until then, but he does now. She is still skinny, her cheekbones are gaunt, the makeup around her hollow eyes is far too gaudy and she wears a lip gloss whose colour reminds him of fireworks and cheap champagne on New Year’s Eve. She leans forward and coughs.

‘Not much doubt about our big story today: the murder at Ekeberg Common. I’ve been informed that it is murder. Quite a brutal one. Police are holding a press conference later. Iver is going straight there and will be working on the story for the rest of the day. I’ve already spoken to him.’

‘Great. Henning should probably join him at the press conference. Right, Henning?’

Henning jumps at the sound of his name and says ‘hm?’ The pitch of his voice rises. He sounds like a ninety-year-old in need of a hearing aid.

‘The murder at Ekeberg Common. Press conference later today. Would be a good start for you, wouldn’t it?’

From ninety to newbie in four seconds. He clears his throat.

‘Yes, sure.’

He hears a voice, but fails to recognise it as his own.

‘Super. You all know Henning Juul, I presume. He needs no further introduction. You know what he’s been through, so please give him a warm welcome. No one deserves it more than him.’

Silence. The inside of his face is burning. The number of people in the room seems to have doubled in the last ten seconds and they are all staring at him. He wants to run. But he can’t. So he looks up and concentrates on a point on the wall, above all of them, in the hope they might think he is looking at someone else.

‘Time’s flying. I’ve another meeting. Anything else you need to know before you go off chasing clicks?’

Kåre is addressing the duty editor, a man with black glasses, whom Henning has never seen before. The duty editor is about to say something, but Kåre has already leapt from his chair.

‘That’s it, then.’

He leaves.

‘Ole and Anders, would you send me your lists, please?’The duty editor’s voice is meek. There is no reply. Henning is thrilled that the meeting is over, until the chairs are pushed back and a bottleneck is created at the door. People breathe down his neck, they bump into him accidentally, his breathing becomes constricted and claustrophobic, but he holds it together, he doesn’t push anyone out of the way, he doesn’t panic.

He exhales with relief when he gets outside. His forehead feels hot.

A murder so soon. Henning had hoped for a gentler return, time to find his feet, read up on stories, check out what has been happening, get in touch with old sources, re-learn publishing tools, office routines, discover where everything is kept, chat to his new colleagues, acclimatise gradually, get used to thinking about a story. No time for any of that now.