Pierced (24 page)

But seventy-two hours, Mjønes thinks, that’s not a lot. And Brenden showed initiative when he got rid of his clothes and left his mobile on a train to Eidsvoll without getting on himself. Brenden is keeping his cool. And that’s why he has to die. Preferably within the next seventy-two hours.

Mjønes takes another drag and stubs out the cigarette on a nearby bin before he turns his attention to the cab rank and gets into a white Toyota Prius. It’s time to stir things up.

The cuts to his feet throb all the way from Grünerløkka to Grønland, but Henning alternates between putting his weight on the heel and the ball of his feet so as not to aggravate the injuries more than necessary. It works to some extent.

At the office he hangs up his jacket on a coat hook by the grid of desks and chairs that is the national news desk. A quick glance across the room tells him that neither Heidi Kjus nor Kåre Hjeltland have arrived yet. Iver Gundersen, however, is already behind his desk. Henning nods to him, sees that his eyes look bright and contented. He probably got laid last night, Henning thinks. Or this morning.

‘I thought you were taking today off as well?’ Iver snipes.

‘Yes, but I . . . I wanted to join in.’

Iver looks at Henning for a few seconds before he replies, ‘How nice of you.’

Henning sits down. The room starts to fill with voices from a television screen and the sound of stiff fingers across reluctant keyboards. He switches on his computer and leans back. He watches as Iver puts down his mug so quickly that the coffee splashes.

‘Listen, I’ve got something to show you,’ Iver says.

‘Eh?’

Iver looks around to check that no one is close enough to overhear. ‘We need to discuss it in private. Is now a good time?’

‘Time?’

‘I know the morning meeting is about to start, but we need a quick review. In my opinion.’

Henning shrugs his shoulders. He feels more like ringing
Brogeland
to check if Thorleif Brenden turned up during the night, but he decides that it can wait.

‘Why not,’ he says.

‘Great. Come on.’

Iver takes a CD, gets up and walks briskly past the coffee machine, where a small queue of bleary-eyed journalists has formed. Henning tries to walk as naturally as he can to avoid awkward questions he doesn’t feel like answering.

They go to a meeting room where four chairs are arranged around a table. A computer is pushed up against the wall. Iver closes the door, walks over to the computer and moves the mouse to wake up the screen. He types in his username and password and hits the enter key.

‘Sit down, would you?’ Iver says. ‘Please? People standing make me nervous.’

Henning does as he is told. ‘What is it you want to show me?’ he says.

‘Just wait.’

Iver inserts the CD into the computer and double-clicks on the icon that appears on the right-hand side of the screen. He drums his fingers on the table while he waits for the file to open. Soon the screen is filled with light coming from a doorway. Henning sees a familiar woman’s face on the other side of the door. And then he realises what they are looking at.

‘How the hell did you get hold of this?’

‘That specific piece of information is something I need to keep to myself,’ Iver smiles without taking his eyes off Guri Palme. Henning is forced to admit that he is impressed.

‘Which version is this?’ he asks. Iver’s smug world-champion smile appears to be glued to his face.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Have TV2 edited it?’

‘No, this is raw footage. Or at least I think it is. This is the footage from one camera. Something went wrong with the other recording I think.’

Tore Pulli’s massive body comes into focus. He is wearing jeans and a tight T-shirt. Pulli shakes hands with Guri Palme, who can just about be seen. She is wearing dark-blue jeans, a white top and a short suede jacket. Her cleavage is clearly visible in the slanted camera angle. Pulli doesn’t smile, he merely looks her in the eye but can’t resist the temptation to look further down.

Palme ushers him into the room, and Pulli follows her. He stops and greets the other man from the TV2 crew.
Could it be Thorleif Brenden?
Henning wonders, and sees how the man helps to seat Pulli, attaches a microphone to his T-shirt and connects a cable from the microphone to the camera opposite. After that he adjusts Pulli’s sitting position slightly. From then on the camera focuses exclusively on Pulli.

‘Are you ready to start?’
Palme asks.
‘Would you like a glass of water?’

Pulli doesn’t respond. He looks nervous, Henning thinks and stares at Pulli’s restless eyes.

‘Tore Pulli, thank you for talking to us.’

Pulli’s head lolls forwards, but he tries to lift it up.

‘You’ve been convicted of murder, but you maintain your innocence and claim that someone set you up. Who set you up?’

Pulli still doesn’t reply. Henning leans forwards. Gravity seems to be forcing Pulli’s head down to his chest, and he starts to sway. Henning sees something that looks like fear in Pulli’s eyes before the spark in them fades away. Iver turns up the sound a bit more.

‘Pulli, are you feeling all right?’

Pulli alternates between swaying from side to side and rocking back and forth. He starts to shake all over, his eyes roll into the back of his head and his face turns blue. The cameraman captures it: he zooms in on Pulli’s face, then he zooms out again. Pulli’s convulsions increase before he keels over on his side and lies on the sofa in spasms. Then he stops moving. His eyes take on a glassy stillness.

‘Toffe, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Just carry on filming, will you?’

Iver starts to laugh.

‘What is it?’

‘They’ll want to cut that bit.’

‘Which bit?’

‘The bit where she tells Toffe or whatever his name is to carry on filming.’

Henning watches the chaos that ensues. He hears Guri Palme shout, ‘
He collapsed! He just collapsed!
’ as she bangs on what Henning assumes to be a door with her bare fists. Shortly afterwards a prison officer enters the room. She orders everyone to leave. Palme starts arguing with Knut Olav Nordbø who has entered with the prison officer.

‘We need to get out of here!’

‘I have to call an ambulance
. . .
the police
. . .
they
. . .
I—’

‘Yes, but we want to get out!’

The camera wobbles before the screen goes blue. Iver lets the CD play for a few seconds before he stops it.

‘Well, that didn’t take long,’ he says and exhales hard. An acrid smell of stale coffee and Pall Mall cigarettes reaches Henning’s nostrils.

‘What are you thinking?’ Iver asks.

Henning looks at him. It feels weird to sit in a small room with Iver, just the two of them, discussing a story. Henning leans forwards and rests his elbows on the table.

‘I don’t really know,’ he says and thinks about Thorleif Brenden. ‘There is not much we can do about the death itself except wait for the result of the preliminary autopsy report. And you dealt with everything else yesterday.’

‘So you did read it,’ Iver smiles happily.

Henning doesn’t reply.

‘But his case,’ Henning begins, and realises instantly that he has gone too far to turn back. The knowledge of what it involves makes his heart beat faster and harder.

‘You’re referring to his appeal?’

‘Yes, or the reason there was an appeal to be heard in the first place. I’ve a good mind to review the whole case,’ Henning says, surprised at the determination in his own voice.

‘What do you mean?’

Since the moment Henning heard that Pulli had died, he has gone over what Pulli said to him when they met in prison. ‘
I guarantee that you’ll be interested in
what I know.
’ And the more he thinks about it, the more convinced he is that Pulli wasn’t lying or trying to scam him. It’s only human to want to think well of the dead, but he feels sure that Pulli had something on someone. And bearing in mind how many people he knew, it’s likely that others knew it too.
If I’m to find out what it is
, Henning thinks,
I have to get to know Pulli better
.

‘Pulli always maintained his innocence,’ Henning continues.

Iver scoffs and smiles. ‘Pull the other one‚ Henning,’ he says, sounding jaded.

‘What if he was telling the truth?’

‘A guy like Pulli? I refuse to believe that. He has nineteen minutes he can’t account for.’

‘Yes, I’m aware of that, but there are other aspects of his case which are highly suspect.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as why a former enforcer who didn’t even use his knuckle-duster when he went debt-collecting would take his old museum piece with him to what was supposedly a peaceful meeting.’

‘He was losing his touch.’

‘Seriously, Iver.’

‘Yes, but why not?’

Henning is about to say something but stops himself. ‘I’m not saying that he didn’t do it, but that it wouldn’t hurt to take a look. Something about this case isn’t right.’

Iver scratches his sparse beard. ‘It’s going to take for ever, Henning. And‚ besides, we don’t know if it’ll get us anywhere. Plus, we’re going to upset a lot of people.’

‘I know, but it’s worth doing some work on the story for that reason alone. On the side.’

Iver looks at Henning with an expression of scepticism in his eyes.

‘Why is this suddenly so important to you?’ he says.

Henning doesn’t reply straight away. ‘I just think there is a good story here,’ he says at last. ‘And I . . . I don’t think I can crack it on my own.’

Iver stares at Henning, who looks steadily back at him. Neither of them speaks for a while.

‘Besides, you owe me,’ Henning declares.

‘What did you say?’ Iver gasps.

‘The Henriette Hagerup story,’ Henning reminds him. ‘I handed it to you on a plate, and I know it opened doors for you. Is it just the two job offers you have received since then? Or did more come in during the summer?’

Iver stares at Henning with incredulity.

‘But that’s all right,’ Henning tells him. ‘I’m going to work on this story with or without your help.’

Iver looks down. A long, awkward silence ensues.

Finally, he nods.

Thorleif wakes up with a start. He looks around, but doesn’t recognise his surroundings.

Then he remembers where he is.

He quickly flips back the duvet and sits up, heaving his legs over the edge of the bed so his feet touch the dark-brown wooden floor. There is a yellow bedside table next to the bed underneath a small window where white curtains make an unsuccessful attempt at keeping out the light. Thorleif runs his hands up and down his face, looks around for his mobile and sighs when he remembers that he put it on the Eidsvoll train. He has no idea what time it is except that it must be morning. At home he would have shuffled to the bathroom and woken himself up under the shower.

Home.

He wonders what Elisabeth and the children are doing. Perhaps Julie is playing and having fun at nursery. Perhaps Pål is tumbling about in PE as he always does on Friday mornings. Elisabeth is unlikely to have gone to work. If he knows her well, she will be too upset. But if that’s the case then he can’t contact her, and he is afraid to call her at home.

Thorleif goes to the living room where he carefully opens one of the curtains and looks out of the window. The cabin lies halfway up the slope, with breathtaking views across Ustaoset and Ustetind at the end of the lake and over the open terrain. It feels good to rest his eyes on the horizon. He sees a tiny aeroplane. Flocks of birds. A car drives down the grey snake of tarmac. Someone is walking from the petrol station to the hotel.

Even though Thorleif isn’t hungry he knows that he has to eat something. He won’t be very much use to himself if his head and body aren’t working. He potters sleepily to the larder and checks his supplies. Nothing very appetising. A few tins of lamb casserole. Peas and ham. Tinned pineapple. He can see he has food for a couple of days, but there are no dried foods, cold meats or beverages. He will have to go shopping.

It occurs to him that the weekend is about to start. People who have finished their summer holidays might already be contemplating getting their cabins ready for the winter season. Many love the vivid autumn colours that have started to emerge. There is bound to be considerably more traffic over the weekend, Thorleif thinks. Consequently, he should buy enough food to last him at least two days. If not longer.

Soon he is leaving the cabin the same way he came in, through the kitchen, the larder and the woodshed. The fresh mountain air feels good on his face. He walks at a steady pace down to the main road and into what he, with a little generosity, can call the centre of Ustaoset. He climbs the grey concrete steps and enters the shop, which he quickly sees is a cross between a Clas Ohlson home store and an Ica supermarket. On entry he is met by a display of all sorts of handy tools. Spades, mops, boiler suits, wellies, snowshoes – even though the snow is a couple of months away.

The first thing Thorleif does is check the newspapers. Tore Pulli’s death is on the front page of both
VG
and
Dagbladet
.
Aftenposten
, too, features Pulli’s death. As does
Bergens Tidende
. The local newspaper,
Hallingdølen
, leads with the unusual rise in break-ins in cabins in Ustaoset recently and how the Ustaoset–Haugastøl area has been particularly badly affected. Thorleif’s stomach lurches, but he tries to shake it off by wandering around the aisles with the shopping basket. He fills it with a loaf of sliced bread, a tub of cream cheese, two cartons of juice and a large block of milk chocolate. He also picks up both tabloid newspapers on his way out and says a quick thank you to the man behind the till when he gets his receipt.