Burned (36 page)

Hassan smiles, but shakes his head. He starts circling him again.

‘A classic. The point is, if you want to be a successful criminal, don’t fill your life with anything you aren’t willing to leave in thirty seconds, if it gets too hot. And you have no plans to leave, have you, Hassan?’

Hassan laughs briefly, but he doesn’t reply.

‘Then we have a problem.’

Hassan looks at Henning.

‘We?’

‘Surely you’re not dumb enough to kill me, just because Yasser Shah didn’t do his job properly?’

Hassan’s steps shorten. Henning decides to keep talking while Hassan reviews his options.

‘Yasser Shah is on the run from the police, who can link Tariq Marhoni’s brother to you, and it doesn’t take much imagination to work out that they’ll turn the heat up on you from now on. You see, Mahmoud Marhoni is about to be released from custody. Detective Inspector Brogeland told me so an hour ago. Do you know what else he told me?’

Henning doesn’t wait for a response.

‘He said that Mahmoud has enough evidence to bring you down. In which case, is it a stupid or a smart move to kill a journalist, even though he witnessed a killing you ordered?’

‘One killing more or less makes very little difference,’ Hassan says brusquely and looks to the others for confirmation. ‘Besides, no one will ever find you.’

‘No, perhaps not. But if you think it’s going to make your life easier, you’re wrong. You drug dealers bumping each other off is one thing. Most people don’t have a problem with that. But murdering a journalist – now that’s something else. We journalists aren’t always popular, far from it, and many people would happily tell you that they loathe us, but deep down, I think they’re glad that we exist. And, if anyone kills a reporter or makes him disappear because he was doing his job, there’ll be hell to pay, believe you me. The police already know you’ve taken an interest in me and, if you think it’s bad now, then wait and see what happens from tomorrow onwards, when they start looking for me. Brogeland offered me protection against you, but I declined. Do you know why? Because I’ve no intention of going into hiding or looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life and because I don’t think you’re stupid enough to make it worse for yourself by hurting me. But if you want to kill me, Hassan, then do it now, don’t hesitate. You’ll be doing me a huge favour.’

His voice sounds thick against the walls. His heart is pounding. He looks at Hassan, who is still prowling around. His shoes make soft, slurping noises against the wet floor. The rest of the gang are following their boss with their eyes.

‘What happened to your face?’ Hassan asks after a while.

Henning sighs. Perhaps it’s right that Jonas is here now, he thinks. My lovely, lovely boy. He remembers the leap through the flames, how he tried to shield his face with his hands and arms, his hair which caught fire, the burning and the stinging, Jonas’s eyes when he saw him, how he helped extinguish the flames before they got to them.

He remembers them standing on the balcony, greedy flames chasing them from the living room, he remembers how Jonas looked to him for support and safety, the words he said to him, words he will never forget,
it’ll be fine, don’t be scared, I’ll take care of you
, he remembers how they climbed up on the top rail of the balcony, he grabbed hold of his son’s hand, looked into his eyes and said it was only a little jump and they would be safe, but it was so cold, it had been raining for days, the railing was slippery, he felt it as he climbed it, but he thought that it didn’t matter what happened to him, as long as I save Jonas, I need to land first, so I can cushion his fall, Jonas can land anywhere on me, it doesn’t matter as long as he survives, and Jonas resisted, he cried, he said he didn’t want to, he was too scared, but Henning made him, his voice became strict, he said that they had to, or they would both die, he promised they would go fishing next weekend, just the two of them, once they were back on the ground, and finally Jonas nodded, shedding tears of bravery, he pulled himself together, he was a big boy. Henning’s eyes were stinging and he struggled to find his way, but he had to make it, had to be in front and do all he could do to save his son. He climbed up on the railing, he balanced on the top, he grabbed hold of Jonas’s trembling hands, lifted him up, reassured him once more, those damn words, but when he looked down, when he tried to look down, he got dizzy, everything started spinning, there was a smell of burning from the flat or perhaps it was coming from his own face, smoke was pouring from the balcony door, which they had left open, but it was now or never, they had to jump, he took a small step to steady himself, only to discover there was nothing under his feet, the railing was gone, so was his hold, so was the child in his arms, Jonas, where the hell is Jonas, he couldn’t see anything, his eyes were stuck together, and he floated, he fell towards the ground, anticipated the impact, felt it even before it came; he was trapped by a wall of darkness, and he saw nothing, he felt nothing, he sensed nothing, everything was darkness, the darkness was total.

He had never seen darkness before. Never seen what the darkness could conceal.

But he saw it then.

Jonas was scared of the dark.

How he loved Jonas.

Jonas
.

‘My flat burned down,’ he says, quietly. ‘Do you have children, Hassan?’

Hassan shakes his head and scoffs.

‘Not going to have any, either.’

Henning nods.

‘Let’s get it over with,’ he says, filled with serenity. He is ready. It doesn’t matter. Let eternity come. Hassan stops right in front of him. He takes out a pistol. He raises it, making sure that Henning has seen it, and presses it against his forehead.

And now the darkness returns, the darkness I’ve been waiting for, where dawn never breaks, where voices fall silent, dreams are still and the flames have gone. Come to me. Take me to the land of the dead, but please, let there be someone waiting for me.

He waits for a bang, or maybe just a puff or a pop, if Hassan uses a silencer. Henning wonders if he will hear anything before his head explodes in a mass of blood and brains. Death is terrible, but at least it takes away the pain.

The pressure against his forehead disappears. Henning opens his eyes and looks into Hassan’s. Hassan has lowered his arm.

‘Okay,’ he says, taking a step closer and coming right up to him.

‘But if they catch Yasser,’ he hisses, ‘and there’s a trial and you’re the prosecution’s only witness, we’ll come back for you. Understand? We may not even offer you a lift first.’

He takes a step backwards, makes a cutting movement across his throat with the pistol. Henning swallows, hard. They stand there, looking at each other. For a long time.

‘Understand?’

Henning nods.

He understands.

‘Open the door,’ Hassan orders one of the men, while still looking at Henning.

‘But –’

‘Just do it.’

The man shuffles along the concrete. He presses a button. The door protests as it rolls open, but it only sounds loud because of the silence in the hall. Henning looks at Hassan as the space fills with light again. Still tough. And Henning doesn’t doubt for a second that Hassan means what he says.

The door has rolled back completely and stops with a bang.

‘My computer,’ Henning says. ‘Can I have it back?’

Hassan jerks his head towards one of the men, who obeys, but with disapproval in his eyes. A few seconds later he comes back and shoves Henning’s computer into his arms.

When Henning is back outside and walking on dry tarmac again, a smart Alfa Romeo sweeps past him. He turns and looks at the car wash. The door slowly closes again. What a strange sight. Bad Boys Burning, standing together, watching him. They look tough. Hardcore. They would make a good CD sleeve, he thinks, for a band about to release its final album. And it feels very quiet and empty, when the door has rolled all the way down and he can no longer see them.

Chapter 68

Someone is having sex. Just as he is about to stick his key in the lock in his mother’s front door, Henning realises – to his considerable relief – that the noise is coming from a television. Thank God, it’s from a television. And thank God, it’s not coming from his mother’s television, but from her neighbour’s, from Karl’s.

Karl is the building’s caretaker. Karl likes porn. Henning has never said anything to his mother, but he thinks Karl fancies her. If she, against all expectation, were to discover this for herself one day, he hopes she won’t bear him any further grudges for failing to steer her in the direction of Karl’s arms in her old age. Something tells him such a set-up might be a little uncomfortable, though it isn’t a thought he intends to pursue.

As always when he visits his mother, he is nearly suffocated by blue fug. The shade of her wallpaper is Marlboro. If anyone ever dared to wash her ceiling, the suds would be brown bubbles of ancient nicotine and tar. Henning realises how pleased he is that he no longer smokes. Because his flat would have looked exactly the same.

He picks up the shopping bags, all six of them, and goes into the living room. He can hear the radio, he can’t avoid hearing it, it is always on. Christine Juul sits in the kitchen, as usual, smoking. She barely raises her eyes from the newspaper when she sees her son.

‘Hi, Mum,’ he calls out to drown the noise from the radio. The return of the prodigal son. But no tearful embraces await him. She looks at the bags he is holding. He deliberately shows her the brown bag from the off-licence first.

‘About time too,’ she barks. He ignores her remark, enters the kitchen and opens the fridge. The bottles clink. And he knows it’s her favourite sound. He unpacks groceries, milk, cheese, sugar, bread and so on, while he steals a glance. She looks unchanged. She is wearing the smoke-stained trousers which were once white, a smoke-stained blouse, which was once pale yellow and a brown cardigan because it’s cold. And it’s cold, because she is airing the flat. Thank God, she has opened the windows.

‘How are you?’ he says.

‘Bad.’

‘Oh? Any news?’

‘News?’

She grunts. It would have been quicker to check her medical records before I came here, he thinks, and smiles to himself.

There is a debate on the radio. It takes him a minute, while he puts away the shopping, to work out that she is listening to
17.30
. He shouldn’t be surprised when he hears Iver Gundersen’s voice, and yet he feels a little bit excited. He listens to the presenter:

So, Iver Gundersen, it was you who solved this case earlier today, what do you think will happen now? Do you think Norway will pay more attention to sharia from now on?

No, Andreas, I don’t think so. I think most people understand that this won’t be something that happens every day in Norway,
no matter how many Muslims come here. It might raise our awareness of what sharia actually is. I think we can all benefit from that.

Good boy, Henning thinks. He is about to ask his mother to turn down the volume, but he knows she won’t, so he tries to block out the sound. He watches her try but fail to unscrew the top of a bottle of St Hallvard. He takes the bottle from her and removes the top in a nanosecond. He finds a shot glass from a cupboard above the kitchen counter and places it in front of her. You can pour your own drink, he thinks. And he sees how her hands tremble and she spills as she does so. Bloody hell, how she shakes.

He is consumed by a mixture of compassion and anger. He sighs as he watches her swallow the first big mouthful. She closes her eyes, he sees the viscous liquid warm her from the roof of her mouth to her throat and down into her chest. And he is absolutely sure that this is her best moment today, perhaps for several days.

The radio presenter moves on to the next story.

Justice Minister
,
Trine Juul-Osmundsen, is courting controversy again.

His mother turns up the volume. Henning wants to scream.

She wants to limit the automatic right to appeal in cases where the defendant has been sentenced to more than two years imprisonment, allegedly as part of an efficiency drive. Her proposal has been met with considerable resistance from some members of the opposition. With us in the studio today, we have Karianne Larsåsen from Venstre, who believes that –

She turns down the volume. Thank God, he thinks.

‘Bloody journalists,’ she mutters. He stops in his tracks, he is about to say something, but changes his mind. What’s the point? He shuts the fridge with an impotent gesture and looks around. Crumbs, mixed with cigarette ash, litter the floor. Everywhere. He can see the dust on the television from the kitchen. The living room, which consists of a brown three-seater sofa, a Stressless with a foot stool in front of it, a dark wooden dining table and Hessian wallpaper, appears tidy, but he knows what it really looks like under the table, in the pile of the red Persian carpet, under the three-seater and under the TV unit.

He starts by fetching the Hoover from a hallway cupboard and switches it on. He quickly hoovers the hallway, the small narrow bathroom, the bedroom and whirls his way through the living room. He is about to take the mouthpiece off the Hoover and suck up dust around the fireplace, when something on the marble mantelpiece catches his eye.

The mantelpiece is covered with pictures. He has seen them a hundred times before. Photographs of his mother, when she still was his mother, his parents on their wedding day, pictures of Trine, Trine and her husband, Pål Fredrik, when they got married, pictures of Trine and Henning together when they were kids, on the pebble beach by their cabin.

And he sees a photograph of Jonas.

He picks it up and studies it. Jonas smiles at the photographer. It is taken around Christmas. He knows this because there are Christmas cards on the wall behind Jonas’s blond curls, on a green silk ribbon. Instead of lining all the cards up on the mantelpiece, they would hang them on a silk ribbon with paperclips and create a Christmas-tree shape of good wishes.