Pierced (14 page)

‘There were stories about you in the paper in the days that followed. I put two and two together.’

‘Just so,’ Henning says, reluctantly. ‘This man, where do you know him from?’

‘That’s enough.’

‘No.’

‘I’m not giving you any more.’

‘How did he get in?’

‘Eh?’

‘Into the courtyard. Did he break in? Did he have a key? Did he ring anyone’s bell?’

‘It was difficult to see from where I was sitting. But he gained entry. And that’s all I’m going to give you. This time.’

‘Was he carrying anything?’

Pulli sighs again. ‘A bag.’

‘Black? Blue? White?’

‘I couldn’t see. It was dark. And that’s it.’

Henning snorts again. ‘You could easily have made up everything you’ve just told me.’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’

‘Not necessarily, but we have an inherent problem. I can’t check what you’ve just said. A man entering the courtyard as it was getting dark? Come on, Pulli.’

‘I’m telling you the truth’

‘Yes, I heard you the first time.’

‘Look at me,’ Pulli says, leaning forwards aggressively. ‘Do I look like a liar?’

Irene Otnes’s words come back to Henning as he examines Pulli’s face. He hears his breathing quicken as he focuses on the eyes, staring deeply into Pulli’s irises.

‘I don’t know,’ Henning says, at last.

‘No, you don’t, do you?’ Pulli says wearily and leans back. ‘You’ll have to make up your mind what your son’s life is worth. I guarantee that you’ll be interested in what I know. If that isn’t enough for you, I suggest you leave now.’

Pulli looks away. He’s angry, Henning thinks. Either that or he’s a brilliant actor. Henning inspects Pulli a little longer before he nods.

‘Okay,’ he says.

Thank God it’s nearly lunchtime
, Thorleif Brenden thinks and hugs his stomach, which has been troubling him recently. He hopes he isn’t coming down with something.

His computer pings to alert him to an incoming email. Thorleif leans towards the screen, minimises a web page and brings up his inbox. He doesn’t recognise the sender, but the title in the subject field makes him open the new email.

‘Elisabeth – survey’

The email has an attachment, a photograph. He downloads it. Elisabeth appears, talking to someone whose profile he can only just make out. She is holding up one hand, but not high enough to cover her face like she often does when she is talking or explaining something. The picture has a date stamp in the bottom right-hand corner.

Thorleif’s eyes widen. It was taken yesterday. It must be Elisabeth’s ‘Your Say’ interview, he thinks. The man she is talking to is wearing a black leather jacket and dark trousers. He has no distinguishing features apart from his height and ponytail. The man must be at least two heads taller than her. Why would anyone send him this picture?

Thorleif is about to call Elisabeth to ask if the picture has also been sent to her when he clicks to close it and sees the sender’s email address: [email protected]. He looks up over the screen. Murder? As in
murder
? What on earth . . . ?

Thorleif leans back in his chair and tries to remember what
Elisabeth
told him about the interview, the questions she was asked. Crime and immigration, was it? Or organised crime, Elisabeth hadn’t been entirely sure. Now what was it the interviewer had wanted to know?
Have you or your family ever been threatened? How far would you go to protect your family?
Is someone playing a joke on them?

‘Are you coming for lunch, Toffe?’

A colleague walks past him, but Thorleif doesn’t register who. He stares at the picture.

‘Toffe?’

‘Coming,’ he replies, absentmindedly. A cold wind chills him. He looks at the man with the ponytail. Didn’t the man who drove the BMW the other day have a ponytail? Don’t they look a bit similar? He looks at the email again and sees that it comes with an acknowledge-receipt request.

The next second his work telephone rings.

Thorleif’s attention instantly switches to the ringing telephone. The display merely shows ‘. . .
calling
.’ He decides to ignore it. Somewhere in the open-plan office a door slams shut. The telephone refuses to be silenced. Thorleif stares at it. Reluctantly, he reaches out and lifts the receiver, but he says nothing.

‘Thorleif?’

‘Yes?’ he replies eventually in a feeble voice.

‘Have you opened the photo?’

The Swedish accent has a strong hint of Eastern Europe.

‘I know what you’re thinking. The answer is yes,’ the voice continues. ‘We know. We know quite a lot about you, Thorleif. Or perhaps I should call you . . . Toffe?’

Thorleif quickly glances around the room. Only his work colleagues ever call him Toffe.

‘Who are you?’ he stutters. ‘What do you want?’

‘We need your help.’

‘My help?’

‘Yes. Your help. Soon you’ll find out why. And when we ask you to be ready, Toffe, then you’ll do what we tell you. No questions asked.’

‘B-but—’

‘And, Toffe, if you care about your family at all, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Thorleif nods.

‘I can’t hear you, Toffe.’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he nods again. ‘I understand.’

‘Good. We’ll be in touch.’

‘I’ll set this to record if that’s all right with you,’ Henning says and holds up his mobile. Pulli nods and leans back in the leather sofa, crossing his legs.

‘Before we begin there’s one thing you need to be absolutely clear about,’ Henning says, looking hard at Pulli. ‘If I’m going to be able to help you, you need to answer every single question I ask you. That means no secrets. Nothing. Agreed?’

‘Sure,’ Pulli says and shrugs his shoulders.

‘Okay. Good. Then we’ll start with Jocke Brolenius. Who was he?’

Pulli lifts the mug to his lips. ‘A Swede, like most Swedes in that business. Brutal and totally unscrupulous.’

‘But he worked out with you?’

Pulli nods as he slurps. ‘Jocke was a guy who took up space. He was quite cocky and tough, liked to brag if he had beaten up someone in a particularly nasty way. Not to everyone’s liking, if you know what I mean. And he had other business interests.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard about those. How could you be sure that he had killed Vidar Fjell?’

‘Who else could it have been? A few days before Vidar was killed, the two of them had a massive row. Several people heard Jocke threaten Vidar.’

‘And when Vidar was found dead that was when the trouble started?’

Pulli nods before he goes on to tell him about the discussions at the gym and at home in his flat where he finally managed to convince everyone that he would sort out the problem alone.

‘But wasn’t it a bit risky to meet that night – just you and Jocke? After all, you knew what he was capable of.’

‘Yes, but my name and reputation were still worth something then. And I knew Jocke quite well. He and I had agreed to come alone and unarmed. I’ve seen enough gang wars to know that people often get their retaliation in first to beat their opponent to it.’

‘And that was what you were trying to prevent – a gang war?’

‘Yes. It might have been quite a naive attempt at diplomacy, but I felt I had to give it a try.’

Henning nods again. ‘So, according to you, what happened the day Jocke Brolenius was killed?’

Pulli takes off his baseball cap and scratches his head before replacing it. ‘I don’t suppose there is much I can say that I haven’t said already. I was due to meet Jocke at eleven o’clock, but when I arrived he was already dead.’

‘You saw no one else in the area? No one coming in the opposite direction?’

‘No. And I was only meeting Jocke, no one else, so I wasn’t expecting—’

‘You said in court that you arrived to meet Jocke precisely at the agreed time, but you didn’t report his death to the police until nineteen minutes later. How do you explain the gap?’

Pulli looks down. ‘I don’t think I can. I must have lost track of time.’

Henning looks at him for a few seconds. ‘That doesn’t sound very convincing.’

‘No, I know. But I have no other explanation for it.’

‘You’re quite sure that you were on time?’

‘Yes, of course I bloody was. I was never usually late for meetings and I certainly wouldn’t screw up such an important one.’

‘But all the same,’ Henning persists. ‘Nineteen minutes. That’s quite a lot.’

‘Yes, I . . . I know. But I give you my word: Jocke was dead when I arrived. And, remember, I spent a little time checking that he really was dead so that must account for some of it.’

Henning nods slowly and studies Pulli. He looks sincere, Henning thinks and decides to continue the conversation on Pulli’s terms. ‘I’m sure you’ve spent a lot of time wondering who could be behind this.’

‘Believe me, I’ve checked the archives,’ Pulli says, tapping his forehead with his index finger. ‘I certainly had plenty of enemies, but I don’t know if any of them were smart enough to frame me.’

‘Not even Robert van Derksen?’

Pulli looks up. ‘Why do you ask about him?’

‘Oh, I was just curious. I heard that the two of you didn’t really get on. And he was a good friend of Vidar, as far as I understand.’

‘Robert is a tosser,’ Pulli says with contempt. ‘He has an IQ deficit.’

‘But he did know your elbow technique?’

‘Yes, I taught it to him a hundred years ago.’

‘And yet you still don’t think he could have done it?’

Pulli shakes his head. ‘Robert is so full of himself that he would never have been able to pull a stunt like that without boasting about it.’

Henning nods. ‘Were any of the others jealous? Or resentful of your status, for example?’

‘No, we respected each other. I’ve always believed that if you treat people with respect then they’ll respect you back. I’ve done some things in my life that I’m not very proud of and I’m quite sure that some people envy me, but to go to such extremes?’ Pulli makes a sweeping gesture with his hand out into the room. He shakes his head wearily and drinks more tea. Henning looks at his notes.

‘So what’s with the knuckle-duster?’

Pulli starts to laugh. ‘To start with I haven’t worked as a debt collector for years. But even so I can’t remember the last time I used the knuckle-duster. I probably did a bit in the beginning before I discovered that my elbow had given me something of a reputation and all I had to do was roll up my sleeves and people would pay. Why would I turn up to the meeting with Jocke with my knuckle-duster? It makes no sense at all. Somebody obviously nicked it from me. But nobody in court cared about that. They had their nineteen minutes.’

‘Did you report the theft?’

‘No, I didn’t even know the knuckle-duster was missing then.’

‘And your flat hadn’t been burgled in the days or weeks before?’

‘No.’

‘Did you have a lot of visitors?’

‘Yes, people came over practically every single day.’

‘So anyone could have taken the knuckle-duster?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who has keys to your flat?’

‘My nan has one in case we lose ours, but she is eighty-seven years old and lives in Enebakk. And even if someone had nicked her key, it wouldn’t have done them much good. The flat has a burglar alarm. Veronica and I are the only two people who know the code.’

The key to the flat, Henning says to himself, and drifts off for a moment. He remembers what Erling Ophus, the fire investigator, asked him: if he had locked the door on the night of the fire or if there were any signs of a break-in. If Pulli is right and someone gained access to Henning’s courtyard, it suggests that this person had a key. But Henning has only one set of spare keys and he keeps them at his mother’s. And she never leaves the house because her smoker’s lungs confine her to the kitchen where she sits with a bottle of St Hallvard in front of her all day.

Something beeps. Henning looks around.

‘It’s that time again,’ Pulli says and takes out an object that looks like a pen. ‘I’ve got diabetes. I need insulin several times a day.’

Pulli presses the pen against his trouser leg and pushes down the top of it.

‘I’ve always wondered if that hurts,’ Henning says.

‘You get used to it,’ Pulli replies and returns the pen to his breast pocket. ‘Nowadays I hardly ever feel it.’

‘Is it the same with piercings? I seem to recall that you had some before you became a property developer.’

‘Yes, it’s a bit like that.’

They smile quickly at each other. There is a knock on the door. Nordbø sticks his head around.

‘Time’s up,’ he says, apologetically.

‘Okay,’ Henning replies, looking at Pulli. The bags under his eyes seem even heavier. ‘We need to talk further. I’ve many more questions for you.’

‘I have to do some media interviews in the next few days,’ Pulli replies. ‘But yes, we need to meet again.’

They get up and shake hands before Henning is escorted out the same way he came in. Just like Egon Olsen he walks out and back into freedom. He realises how good it feels not to be surrounded by concrete walls.

Thorleif turns his attention away from the roofs outside the kitchen window and gazes at Elisabeth across the dinner table. She looks back at him quizzically.

‘Would you pass me the salt, please?’

Thorleif finds the bowl of Maldon salt next to his knife and hands it to her before he resumes staring out of the window. He sees nothing. Something grey, perhaps. Around him cutlery clangs against plates, children eat noisily.

‘Hello, what planet are you on?’

He turns to Elisabeth again.

‘You haven’t said one word during dinner.’

‘No, I’m – I’m not very hungry.’

‘Right. So just because you’re not hungry you can’t talk to us?’

Her eyes pin him down.

‘I’m not feeling very well,’ he whispers and looks at her. There is no change in her face to suggest sympathy. Perhaps she can tell that he is lying. Though he isn’t really. He feels terrible. His stomach is in constant turmoil. Everything he eats seems only to pour petrol on the fire burning below. Since he came home he has been to the lavatory three times. Four times while he was at work.