Authors: Thomas Enger
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #General, #Mystery & Detective
Burned (40 page)
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me
il nome mio nessun saprà!
Arne Halldis is a multi-faceted man, Henning thinks. Either that or he is a first-class cad who exploits poetry and opera to score with women. He imagines that’s why Gunnar Goma is such a big fan of him.
No, no! Sulla tua bocca lo dirò
quando la luce splenderà!
Arne Halldis turns up the volume, as the opera reaches its climax:
All’alba vincerò!
vincerò, vincerò!
The song soars, it travels through walls and concrete, wood and plaster, before hitting Henning right in the middle of his forehead, penetrating his thick skull and rushing through him; his cheeks redden and, before he knows what has happened, the tears are streaming down his face. He can feel them roll down his scars, suddenly he finds himself sobbing.
Only That Which He Doesn’t Think About has made him cry since That Which He Doesn’t Think About. It feels a little odd, tasting my own salt, he thinks, after so long and knowing that it’s Arne Halldis’s music that triggered it.
But it doesn’t surprise him that music has made him cry again. And he feels the urge to play a chord or two. But he isn’t sure if he dares.
He lets himself in as the applause dies down and it grows quiet around him. He replaces the batteries in the smoke alarms, sits down on the sofa and opens up his laptop. It wakes up from its sleep mode. It takes a few seconds, before it finds the wireless signal and he loads FireCracker 2.0. It doesn’t take long before
6tiermes7
responds.
6tiermes7: I’m excited. How did it go?
MakkaPakka: As expected. She denied it all.
6tiermes7: Clever girl.
MakkaPakka: The smartest I’ve ever met.
6tiermes7: You didn’t get anything on tape, either? Nothing we can use?
MakkaPakka: I haven’t listened to the recording yet, but I doubt it.
6tiermes7: Okay. You did the best you could. Now you need to let us take it from here.
MakkaPakka: I’ll try.
6tiermes7: You’re not telling me you’re planning another investigation?
Henning ponders this while the cursor blinks in the chat window. Something has happened to him in the past week. Though three people have died and families have been destroyed forever, it has done him good to work again. Anette hasn’t confessed and Hassan’s threats won’t be easy to ignore, but Henning has proved to himself that he still has it. The little grey cells have woken up again.
He looks at his fingers, before typing the words that have been smouldering inside him for so long. He knows that when he writes this, there is no return. He will have fired the starting pistol.
Dr Helge would probably tell me to wait, he thinks, until I’m absolutely certain that I’m ready. But I haven’t got time to wait. No one can say if Yasser Shah will be caught, or if Mahmoud Marhoni’s evidence will make Hassan and his gang do a Robert De Niro and disappear. No one can tell me when I can walk down the street without looking over my shoulder, or if my nights will be forever filled with sounds that prevent me from sleeping.
That’s why he writes:
MakkaPakka: Actually, there was one thing.
He feels cold all over.
6tiermes7: You’re joking. What is it?
He takes a deep breath. Almost two years ago I stopped while I was going downhill, he thinks. I pulled the handbrake. He is like Ingvild Foldvik. He has been a zombie since the death of Jonas. But sometimes you need to release the brake, let yourself hurtle towards the abyss, to gain momentum to get back up again. He doesn’t know how far down it is, but this time he won’t stop until he hits the bottom. No matter how much it hurts.
Henning exhales and starts typing.
MakkaPakka: I need your help.
He looks up at the ceiling. He isn’t sure why he does that. Perhaps he is trying to absorb what Pavarotti was singing about. His strength. His will. He looks up a long time; in his head he can hear Luciano’s voice again.
All’alba vincerò!
vincerò, vincerò!
At dawn I shall be victorious.
He turns to the screen again. At that moment, he is filled by a resolve, the like of which he has never known. He writes the words with a determination that makes the hairs on his arms stand on end:
MakkaPakka: I need help to find out who torched my flat.
There. The words are out, words only he has been thinking. The police concluded that the fire wasn’t suspicious. So Henning buried his words for nearly two years.
Now they are free.
And now that he has written them, now that he has started investigating the toughest story of his life, he might as well say them out loud.
MakkaPakka: Please help me find my son’s killer.
Acknowledgements
Burned
would never have become a reality without many contributions from friends and family and others who have been willing to read, listen, play ball and share their expertise and experience. Jørn Lier Horst, Erik Werge Bøyesen, Johnny Brenna, Hege Enger, Line Onsrud Buan, Petter Anthon Næss, Torgeir Higraff, Nicolai Ljøgodt, Kristin ‘Kikki’ Jenssen, Vibeke Ødegård Nohr – a thousand thanks!
An extra special thanks to Benedicte. You are bright. You are great.
Those who know me well also know that the path to my first published book has been long. A final thank you therefore goes to myself. Thank you because you never stopped writing.
Thomas Enger
Oslo, December 2009
About the Author
Thomas Enger (b. 1973) previously worked as a journalist.
Burned
is his first novel. As well as writing, he also composes music. He lives in Oslo and is currently at work on
Pierced
, the next novel in the Henning Juul series.
Copyright
First published in 2011
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2011
Originally published in Norway as
Skinndød
by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag in 2010
All rights reserved
© Thomas Enger, 2010
Translation © Charlotte Barslund, 2011
The right of Thomas Enger to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–27223–5
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