Pierced (25 page)

Thorleif is about to leave, but turns around. ‘Excuse me, do you happen to know if there is a public telephone nearby?’

The man laughs. ‘No, we don’t have those in Ustaoset.’

‘I thought they were everywhere.’

‘Not any more.’

‘Oh, right, no, I don’t suppose they are. I forgot my mobile, you see. Is there anywhere around here you can make calls if you need to . . . if you haven’t got one?’

‘You could try the hotel and see if they can help you,’ the man says without the smile leaving his lips.

‘Thank you.’

Thorleif leaves the shop and makes his way to the main entrance of the hotel, but when he gets there the door is locked. He tries it again without success. He presses his face against the glass in the door but sees no movement inside.

‘Damn,’ he says and looks around while he decides what to do next. How on earth can a hotel be shut in the middle of the day? Feeling despondent and even guiltier towards Elisabeth he wanders back to the cabin. There he spreads a few slices of bread with cream cheese and reads the papers without finding anything to suggest that Tore Pulli’s death is being treated as suspicious. But much could have happened since the tabloids went to print.
If I’m to know what is going on
, Thorleif thinks,
I’m going to have to try something else.

Heidi Kjus gets up as Iver and Henning appear from around the corner looking as if they are about to join the queue of coffee-deprived early birds. Henning can see what she wants to say long before she says it and yet he still lets her make her first management mistake of the day.

‘Where have you been?’

‘We went out for a cigarette,’ Henning mutters.

‘What did you say?’

‘Sorry,’ Iver says and holds up his hands. ‘It’s my fault. Henning and I have just had a meeting to prepare for the morning meeting with you.’

‘That meeting was supposed to start ten minutes ago! And not just because of me, but because of everyone else in the department. Wasting other people’s time shows a lack of respect.’

‘Yes, we know. Sorry. It won’t happen again.’

Heidi turns her attention to Henning. ‘What are you doing here today? I thought you were taking today off as well?’

‘Yes, but I decided I would much rather be here,’ he replies, making no attempt to cover up his irony. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Iver smile.

‘Okay, fine. But are you ready now? Have you finished your little chat?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Henning, will you be joining us?’

‘Obviously. It’s the highlight of my day. Do I have time to make a quick phone call first?’

‘To whom?’

‘It’ll only take a minute.’

She checks her watch and sighs. ‘All right then. But be quick.’

Heidi and Iver are sitting alone in the meeting room when Henning enters.

‘So, tell me,’ Heidi says. ‘What are you doing about Tore Pulli?’

Henning and Iver look at each other.

‘The preliminary autopsy report will probably be ready sometime today,’ Iver says.

‘Okay. Anything else?’

Iver and Henning exchange glances, but neither of them says anything.

‘Is that it?’ she asks, suspiciously.

Henning clears his throat. ‘One of the people present when Pulli died has gone missing.’

Iver and Heidi both look at Henning.

‘Missing how? Has he done a runner?’ she asks.

‘Nobody knows yet. I’ve just been speaking to the police. He was supposed to turn up at the station to make a statement last night, but no one has seen him since yesterday, since Pulli died.’

‘Do the police suspect him of anything?’

‘Not at the moment. But they would very much like to know what he has been up to.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Thorleif Brenden. He’s a cameraman.’

‘Perhaps the shutter went down for him,’ Iver jokes.

‘An experienced cameraman who has covered wars and atrocities all over the world? He goes AWOL just because he sees a man collapse and die in prison?’

Iver says nothing.

‘Besides, he lives with his girlfriend and their two children,’ Henning adds.

‘There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he is missing,’ Heidi suggests.

‘Sure, but it’s still a remarkable coincidence.’

Heidi makes a quick note on the pad in front of her. ‘Okay,’ she says, in her summing-up voice. ‘We need some scoops‚ boys. Real news. It’s been a long time.’

Iver Gundersen places another steaming cup of coffee on his desk and sits down. An avalanche of emails has arrived since he last checked, but not one of them is from Nora. They always say hi to each other in the morning, especially if they haven’t spent the night together. He sent her a few lines just before Henning turned up, but she has yet to respond. He guesses she is still sulking and checks his mobile. No messages there either.

He finds her number and lets it ring for a long time, but there is no reply. With a dawning realisation that she may be not only sulking but also mad at him, he decides to leave a message. Before he starts to talk, he glances around, quickly checking that there is no one in the immediate vicinity. He hears the beep at the other end.

‘Hi, it’s me. I wanted to ask you about tonight. If you haven’t got plans I was wondering if you would like to go to the cinema? Or out for a meal somewhere nice? That would be . . . nice. As I didn’t make it last night and . . . eh—’

Iver looks up and sees Henning limp out from the lavatories.

‘Eh, okay, call me. Or send me an email. Okay. Take care.’

Iver hangs up just as Henning sits down. Iver looks at him. ‘How did you know Brenden was missing?’ he says.

Henning looks up.

‘You didn’t come to work yesterday,’ Iver continues.

Henning still makes no reply.

‘You also knew that he has a girlfriend and two children, that he is an experienced cameraman, etc. How did you manage to find all that out?’

Henning looks at Iver for a few moments before he says, ‘None of your business.’

‘None of my business?’

‘Do I ever ask you where you get your information from?’

‘No, but—’

‘No, precisely. Why don’t we agree how best to develop this story?’

Iver hesitates before he nods.

‘As far as Tore Pulli is concerned,’ Henning says, ‘the police are awaiting the preliminary autopsy report before they do anything. It’s also too soon for them to take action in respect of Brenden. But we ought to have a chat to TV2.’

‘I know Guri Palme a bit,’ Iver says. ‘I could try to speak to her.’

Henning looks at him for a couple of long seconds. ‘Okay. I’ll see if I can get hold of Brenden’s family. Unless they’ve already appointed a spokesperson. Everybody does, these days. Do you still have the CD?’

Iver looks around his desk. ‘What about it?’

‘I want to have another look at it.’

‘Okay. But be discreet. I don’t want anyone else seeing it.’

‘Fine. Do we have something we can feed to the monster?’

‘Pulli’s funeral, probably. It’ll be a glorious mix of celebrities and villains.’

‘Yes, but we can’t know in advance who’ll show and we need something now. Plus it would take up a lot of time.’

‘Yes. Stupid idea.’

‘No, we should still go. And if we’re to get to the bottom of this story, there are a couple of people we need to talk to. Kent Harry Hansen is one of them. He is the manager of the gym where Tore Pulli used to go and it’s where most of Pulli’s friends hang out.’

‘Okay. I’ll see if I can get hold of him.’

‘Fine. If you want to talk to him face to face it might be wise to do it away from the gym. They’re not very fond of visits from the press. In fact, it might be a good idea to tread carefully among those guys.’

‘I’ve taken a walk on the wild side before.’

‘Yes, I know. You have that I’m-invincible-because-I’m-a-journalist look. It will vanish once you’ve had your head kicked in.’

Iver scrutinises Henning. ‘I know you’ve just told me it’s none of my business, but how the hell do you know all this? Where Pulli worked out, the kind of people who go there, their names, etc.?’

Henning hesitates. ‘I did a bit of research last night,’ is all he says.

‘Yes, you could say that again.’

Henning shows no sign of wanting to elaborate. Instead he says, ‘If you get hold of Hansen, I’ve got some suggestions as to what you should ask him.’

Henning finds the meeting room as empty as it was earlier that morning, closes the door behind him and inserts the CD. He puts on headphones and concentrates on Pulli’s face while observing everything that happens in the room, the movements of the cameraman, the cables, the gobos. Henning didn’t find any photos of Brenden on the Internet, but he thinks he must be the man with practically no hair and a goatee. Underneath his khaki photographer’s waistcoat he wears a red T-shirt with a logo Henning can’t make out.

He is reminded of a question his mentor Jarle Høgseth used to ask, especially when Henning muttered phrases such as ‘I don’t understand’ or ‘I’m stuck; this isn’t going anywhere.’ Høgseth always made him look at the problem again from different angles.

‘What does it mean to understand?’
he would sometimes ask him.

‘To know something, perhaps, to appreciate its implications.’

‘There are two ways of looking, Henning. If you don’t look properly, you’ll never see anything. But if you look a little less, you can also see much more.’

Høgseth went on to explain his philosophy, which Henning has applied to every aspect of journalism ever since.
‘All journalists focus on the speaker because that’s the reason they are there. But it’s often much more rewarding to study the person next to the speaker or their spouse for that matter, to see how they react. It’s about spotting something no one else is paying attention to.’

Henning watches Brenden as Pulli enters. They nod and shake hands before Pulli sits down. The camera follows Pulli’s movements. Brenden comes into view again. He attaches a microphone to Pulli’s T-shirt, runs a cable from his body in the direction of the camera before he puts his hand on Pulli’s back and pushes him a little closer to the table. Brenden’s physical contact with Pulli lasts ten or perhaps fifteen seconds. Then only Pulli can be seen on the screen.

Henning rewinds the recording and replays the scene. He plays it a third time before he hits the stop button and zooms in on Brenden’s left hand. It is clenched even while he clips on the microphone. Henning studies the hand more closely in slow motion. It remains clenched. When Brenden leans towards Pulli to make him straighten up, both his hands are behind Pulli’s neck. Suddenly Pulli glances sideways, towards Brenden, but Brenden merely steps away from him, still with his fist closed.

‘Hm,’ Henning mutters to himself and rewinds the recording again and stops it just as Pulli looks at Brenden. Henning stares into Pulli’s eyes. Then he calls Brogeland to ask if the police have seen the footage.

‘No, we haven’t got the recording from TV2 yet. I think it’s coming later today.’

‘Okay. Call me when you’ve seen it. There are a couple of things I need to talk to you about.’

‘What things? Can’t you just tell me now?’

‘I need to check something first. Have you spoken to Thorleif Brenden’s family yet?’

‘Ella Sandland spoke to his girlfriend late last night.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘The usual, that they hadn’t argued, that he would never just stay away like this.’

‘So he hadn’t been behaving strangely up until he went to film Pulli in prison?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay. Call me later today, would you?’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘It’s beyond me how you can live like this.’

Ørjan Mjønes marches into the inner sanctum of Flurim Ahmetaj, a room that serves as his centre of operations, living room and also bedroom – or so it would appear. A duvet is scrunched up on a mattress under the window, which is covered with a black blind. The only source of light in the room is coming from three computer monitors lined up next to each other.

‘That’s how I like it,’ Ahmetaj says in Swedish.

Plates with crumbs and cold pizza crusts are piled high on his desk. The floor space by the computer tower is covered with Coke bottles, empty as well as half-full ones.

Mjønes finds an office chair and rolls over to the desk. He looks for somewhere to put down his mobile but gives up.

‘You wanted to show me something?’

Ahmetaj slurps from a 1.5-litre Coke bottle and lets out an unashamed burp.

‘Check this out,’ he says and plays a video on the screen. From a bird’s-eye perspective they see people walk quickly in and out of a Burger King restaurant. Mjønes looks at Ahmetaj.

‘I know a guy who knows a guy who does security for Burger King,’ Ahmetaj says in broken Swedish. ‘You wouldn’t believe what people will do in exchange for a couple of grand – which you now owe me, by the way.’

‘I’m sure we can sort that out,’ Mjønes smiles.

The camera is mounted under the ceiling with the lens overlooking the tills and the entrance. At the bottom-right corner a counter shows the time as being 12:38:04.

‘Look at him,’ Ahmetaj says, pointing to a man who walks quickly into the restaurant. In his hand he holds a bulging white plastic bag.

‘That’s Brenden,’ Mjønes says.

‘Okay. And now look, a few minutes later.’

Ahmetaj fast-forwards the recording until the counter shows 12:43:26. A man in a white T-shirt is standing with his back to the camera, glancing nervously around and carrying an identical but slightly less bulging plastic bag.

‘Brenden again,’ Mjønes says, getting excited now.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. It’s the same hairstyle and posture.’

Brenden leaves Burger King, making sure he is looking at the ground and shielding his face with his hand as he does so.