Death Deserved

by Thomas Enger

  Theodorsen walked into the Samson bakery and café, took off his glasses and surveyed the premises. At the far end he saw a hand flapping in the air. Theodorsen nodded to an assistant and stepped inside. He was met by one or two looks, but no one seemed to recognise him. The person who had waved at him got to his feet and shifted the rain jacket that was slung over his chair.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Theodorsen said.

  ‘I’m just happy you could come,’ the journalist said. ‘I ordered a large pot of coffee. Would you like anything else? A bun or a cake?’

  ‘Coffee’s more than sufficient,’ Theodorsen said as he sat down. ‘Thanks anyway.’

  He picked up a napkin from the table and began to clean his glasses. He put them back on as the journalist turned over a cup and began to pour.

  ‘There’s milk and sugar here too, if you want some.’

  The light voice sounded slightly lethargic.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Theodorsen took a mouthful of coffee and gazed at the journalist’s shock of hair. It looked a little … off centre? Was it a wig?

  ‘The Fabulous Five,’ the journalist said. ‘You’ve been in the game for a few years now. Does it get easier or more difficult, do you think?’

  Theodorsen mulled this over. It was a good question, one he had pondered a great deal recently. ‘A bit of both,’ he answered. ‘It’s easier to be on tour, because we’ve done that for so long. It’s almost like going to the loo, if you know what I mean. Goodness, don’t quote me on that.’ He burst out laughing. ‘What I’m trying to say is that we just go ahead and do it, without a moment’s thought. It’s no longer so strenuous either. But it’s more difficult to come up with good tunes than it was before. Maybe that’s got something to do with age. After all, I’m fifty-seven now.’

  He laughed again, but the journalist just looked at him coldly. There was no note pad with a list of questions on the table. No tape recorder, either.

  ‘What’s it like being famous?’

  Theodorsen smiled. ‘Well … I don’t feel really famous, to be honest. I can walk about freely in the city streets. It’s worse in rural areas, in fact, when we’re on tour. Sometimes a lot of people crowd round asking for selfies and suchlike. Especially the ladies.’

  He tried another burst of laughter. But there was still no response. Theodorsen found this strange and felt slightly uncomfortable. He took another slurp of coffee and racked his brains for something else to say.

  ‘It was fun for as long as it lasted. Being famous, I mean. Loads of attention.’

  ‘Did you feel you deserved it?’

  Theodorsen squinted at the questioner. ‘In some ways … I think it’s always deserved in one way or another. You strike a chord with people somehow. Mean something to them. And I think we did that. Thirty years ago, anyway, when we started out.’ He chuckled again. ‘But I like to think we do still mean something to people. At least to the ones who turn up to our concerts. There must be some reason they do that.’

  The journalist waited, just looking at him. Waiting for more.

  ‘We write old-fashioned dance-band music. It’s not rocket science. Not the world’s most advanced form of music either.’

  ‘There are some people who write a song with only four chords, and yet they become world superstars. Earning millions.’

  ‘Yes … well, if you think of it like that, then maybe it’s not really deserved. But … it has something to do with the whole package. What you sell in addition to the music.’

  ‘Have you anything more to sell?’

  ‘Other than my handsome appearance, you mean?’

  Once again he attempted to raise a laugh, but it fell on stony ground.

  ‘What I think people like about us is that we are ourselves. Honest. Unaffected. We don’t try to be anybody else.’

  ‘So fame is no longer a driving force for you?’

  Theodorsen gave this some thought. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I do miss those early days, when people stood waiting for the tour bus to arrive, going crazy when we got out. It would really be great to relive some of that. And stay at swankier hotels than we do now.’

  He smiled. Took another gulp of coffee, waiting for the next question, which he hoped would be about their forthcoming tour, or the album they were going to record around New Year.

  Instead the journalist asked: ‘Did you know that one of your songs was played at a murder scene recently?’

  Theodorsen looked up at the journalist.

  ‘Someone found a dead girl in a cabin up in Nordmarka. “Angel”, that song of yours, was playing on repeat.’

  Theodorsen swallowed hard a couple of times. ‘No, I … didn’t know that.’

  ‘What do you think about it?’

  ‘What do I think about it? Well, I … don’t really know. It’s…’ He cast around for words for a moment or two.

  ‘Do you mean that … Jessica something or other?’

  A mere nod in response.

  ‘I read about her in the newspaper, of course, but I’d no idea that … I haven’t seen any mention of “Angel” in either VG or Dagbladet.’

  ‘It’s not general knowledge yet.’

  ‘I see. So why—?’

  ‘When it is – do you think it will make your song popular again?’

  Theodorsen smacked his lips and put down his coffee cup. The porcelain rattled. ‘No, I shouldn’t think so … After all, it’s not really important to the whole story.’

  ‘It’s not so unusual, you know,’ the journalist said. ‘Artists who die becoming hugely popular again.’

  ‘I haven’t thought much about that, to be perfectly honest.’

  *

  Ten minutes later, the interview was over.

  The journalist pulled a cap on his head, stood up and shrugged on the rain jacket.

  It had been a bizarre meeting – all that chat about fame. Theodorsen was uneasy about what sort of angle the journalist intended to take.

  ‘When will this appear in print?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not up to me,’ the journalist answered. ‘But I imagine it will hit the headlines soon.’

  ‘Do you? That’s … terrific.’

  There were fewer people than usual in the café. The heavy rain, Theodorsen thought, as he turned to face the journalist.

  ‘Do you want to take any photos?’

  ‘All right,’ the journalist replied, pulling his jacket hood over his cap. ‘Do you think you could stand over there?’ He pointed outside, to the stairway leading down into Stortinget subway station.

  ‘Over there?’ Theodorsen queried. ‘Right in front of the stairs?’

  ‘Yes, that’d be perfect.’

  Theodorsen had been on many strange photo assignments over the years, so this didn’t surprise him too much. He had learned just to do as he was asked; that way it was done and dusted all the sooner. He was keen to rush home to his new song. So he went outside to the staircase, struck a pose and waited for the journalist to take out his camera, probably just his mobile.

  ‘You’ll be really famous after this,’ the journalist promised, thrusting his hand inside his rain jacket.

  Theodorsen was about to smile, but instead his lips, parted slightly, froze in an expression of astonishment.

  Then he heard two pops, in rapid succession, before he felt something in his chest, a sharp pain penetrating deeper and deeper. He couldn’t breathe, no matter how hard he tried. He touched his chest; his hands were quickly coloured red, and when he lifted his eyes again, smoke was still oozing from the barrel of the pistol – now aimed at his head.

  And when he saw the flash from the muzzle, he thought of the song that had been at his fingertips that morning. At this precise moment the chords escaped him, and the words too: he couldn’t recapture a single stanza. He only knew that he was no longer on his feet and was falling backwards. Towards the stairs. Towards eternity.

  37

  The first news alert arrived at 8.14 p.m. NTB,
VG and TV 2 were all reporting that someone had been shot and killed close to Stortinget subway station. On social media the victim’s identity was already circulating. The rumours of yet another celebrity murder had Emma scurrying through the rain.

  She tried to manoeuvre through the onlookers who had gathered around the police cordon. She wanted to catch Blix’s eye, but couldn’t find him among all the uniforms.

  The entire subway station was taped off, and Emma assumed that all the trains had been halted too.

  She tried to remember everything she knew about Ragnar Ole Theodorsen. It wasn’t much, she quickly realised, but she was aware he was the singer in the Fabulous Five, a dance band that had released a big hit quite a few years ago. She tried to recall how it went, but couldn’t: there was too much of a din around her. Rain hammering on the ground, pattering on umbrellas.

  But the name suddenly came to her. ‘Angel’. And that unlocked the melody. She’d actually heard it somewhere recently.

  At the police press conference only yesterday.

  At that exact moment she spotted Blix ducking under the police tape. He was accompanied by a number of officers, among them the detective Emma had met at Nordstrøm’s house.

  Emma took out her phone. She had sent him a message early that morning, desperate to learn more about Jessica Flatebø’s murder, but he hadn’t yet answered. It didn’t stop her from trying again.

  ANGEL at yesterday’s PC. The man who wrote ANGEL killed today. Connection? Comment? I’m by the Stortinget station entrance.

  She followed him with her gaze, hoping he would see her or hear her message, but he moved down the steps, presumably to where Theodorsen’s body still lay.

  She sent another text: I’m sure I’m not the only reporter who remembers that. Thinking about an article.

  For the next few minutes, nothing happened, but shortly Blix emerged again. He exchanged a few words with a colleague before checking his mobile and raising his eyes, as if scanning his surroundings. Then he caught Emma’s eye and shook his head. Emma was unsure how to interpret this, so she tried to respond with a look of surprise. Blix looked down at his phone again and tapped in a few words.

  Emma’s phone buzzed.

  Can’t talk now. Will call later.

  Emma keyed in a reply: When?

  Blix, engaged in conversation, immediately disappeared down the stairs again. At that same instant, she spotted Henrik Wollan, standing beside several other representatives of the Norwegian press. He looked back at her with an icy stare. She decided to go home as she needed a change of dry clothes. Not least a dry wig.

  38

  ‘Where is Dahlmann? Have we tracked him down yet?’ Gard Fosse barked.

  Blix, seated beside Ragnar Ole Theodorsen’s corpse, looked calmly up at his boss. The nearest they’d come to Dahlmann was a seven-day-old ATM withdrawal in the city centre. The photo from the CCTV camera was worse than the one they already had.

  ‘Have we anything to go on here?’ Fosse demanded, looking around. ‘He was shot in broad daylight in a very public place. Surely someone must have seen something?’

  Blix got to his feet and muttered his thanks to Ann-Mari Sara who continued her examination of the body.

  ‘A man in a dark rain jacket and cap,’ Wibe read aloud from his notebook. ‘He disappeared down into the subway station. Very few people noticed him in the commotion, unfortunately. There are a number of possible escape routes from here, in every direction. Every single subway line leads into Stortinget. The perpetrator could be anywhere in the city within minutes.’

  Abelvik came up the steps carrying a large, grey paper evidence bag. ‘His rain jacket,’ she said. ‘It was lying in one of the rubbish bins beside the ticket barriers.’

  ‘There must be cameras here?’ Fosse scanned the area.

  ‘Krohn has gone to collect the footage,’ Kovic replied. ‘But they’ve been vandalised a lot recently. Spray paint.’

  Fosse turned towards the stairs. ‘Do we have anything we can give the press? Apart from a dark rain jacket?’

  ‘Black cap, dark trousers, blue Wellington boots,’ Wibe answered. ‘About six feet tall.’

  Fosse stood contemplating the corpse, before wheeling around to face Blix. ‘This is urgent,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘Who knows what this madman will think of next?’

  Blix had the feeling his boss held him personally responsible for the homicides, and for there being so little to go on.

  ‘We don’t know for certain that this was Dahlmann,’ he said.

  They began to ascend the stairs.

  ‘Maybe we should be more open about the connections?’ Blix suggested. ‘After all, spreading information can produce information.’

  ‘But we don’t know anything!’

  ‘People could draw conclusions for themselves,’ Blix added. ‘Someone who was at the press conference yesterday and heard the ring tone, for instance.’

  Fosse simply shook his head.

  ‘We do have a suspect,’ Blix reminded him. ‘What about publicising our search for Dahlmann?’

  They emerged on to the square.

  ‘He shouldn’t know we’re pursuing him,’ Fosse said, surveying the scene before crossing to the waiting press corps.

  Blix couldn’t see Emma among them. He took out his phone, opened her last message and wrote:

  Talk to Unni Sarenbrant and Berit Norberg, the mushroom pickers who found Jessica Flatebø. Ask them what kind of music was playing at the crime scene.

  He paused for a moment before pressing ‘send’. He was not giving her information from the case, just nudging her in the right direction. That much he could do for her.

  39

  Calle Seeberg was on all fours. He couldn’t fathom how there could be anything more to throw up, but his body obviously thought there was.

  He let the waves ebb and flow. All he really wanted to do was lie down, but he was due to be on air again in ten minutes, and he had to be ready.

  Eventually it felt as if his body had completely emptied itself out. He had no idea how he would find the strength to get up, go into the studio and lead another half-hour of current-affairs chat. He couldn’t even remember whether he was due any guests.

  He blinked. His eyes felt dry and sore. His head was aching. He tried to struggle to his feet. Couldn’t do it. Good God, he said to himself, what had happened to his body? It must be some kind of allergic reaction. He’d experienced it before, but never as horrendous as this.

  Still on all fours, he tried to think whether he might have ingested something he had no tolerance for. He had eaten dinner last night, pizza. Nothing out of the ordinary about that. He had knocked back a beer and munched a few leftover potato crisps. There had been nothing wrong with his body then, other than that his allergy tablets hadn’t had any effect; his eyes had been itchy and his nose stuffy for some reason or other. It had been harder to breathe than usual too, which made him take two more allergy pills.

  Calle Seeberg made another effort. This time he succeeded in pulling himself up to his full height. He clung to the wash hand basin, turned on the tap and let the water run until it was really cold. Only now did he realise how hot he felt; and when he raised his eyes to peer at himself in the mirror he saw that he was pouring with sweat.

  Christ, what did he look like? His face white, his eyes red, as if he had taken a shower in baking powder.

  Seeberg rinsed his hands and face, took a few mouthfuls of water and spat it out again. He only just managed to do it all. How the hell would he be able to speak?

  He put both hands in the basin and took several deep breaths, but it gave him a pain in the chest again. He tried to summon some energy, but he knew he didn’t possess it. Should he do what he’d never done before in his entire career? Should he leave work and go home?

  But who would take over for him then? They had no one who could step in at such short notice.

  Seeberg washed his hands again and dried them off. Str
uggled to pull himself together. Just one more half-hour and he could take a taxi home, or go to A&E. He hazarded a guess that his body was reacting to his new diet. But he hadn’t lost that much weight. He’d maybe smoked a packet of fags less each week. Nothing to cause such an effect on his body. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that he must have consumed something or other.

  On his way back to his desk he turned over in his mind what he had eaten in the past twenty-four hours. A totally ordinary breakfast: four slices of rye bread with butter and Jarlsberg cheese. A glass of fruit juice. Coffee. He’d drunk a glass of water as well, before brushing his teeth.

  Seeberg was aware of bumping into something on his way back to his desk, but he didn’t see what. He noticed some kind of movement in his peripheral vision, voices in adverts, jingles being played, and ending. He swayed and had to clutch the room dividers as he moved towards his own place.

  His full 105 kilos crashed down on the seat. He grabbed hold of the armrests and held on tight. In a moment or so the blurred desk came into focus again, and he saw, lying on top of it, a letter with his name on it. It bore no stamp.

  ‘Are you feeling OK, Calle?’

  It was his producer talking, shouting, somewhere in the room. Seeberg raised his thumb in the air, because he was unable to speak. He grasped the envelope, but laid it down again: there was no urgency; he could read it later.

  ‘Are you sure? You look white as a ghost.’

  The producer again. Maybe. He gave her another thumbs-up. Took a deep breath and braced himself.

  Seven hundred thousand listeners a day. He couldn’t let them down.

  Just one last half-hour, he said to himself, like a mantra, as he stood up and tottered towards the studio. Only a few final minutes.

  40

  Emma was busy pinning photos on the wall in her living room, even though she felt daft doing so. As if she were in a bad movie. But there was actually a point to it. It gave her oversight, and it was what all investigators did.