Exposed at the Back

by Arild Stavrum

  ‘It’s alright,’ she said. She took out a new nappy, put it on him, lifted him and put him down on the floor.

  At least the change of nappy stopped his lip from trembling. He tugged at Benedikte’s shirt while she washed her hands, he was ready to play. She let him drag her over to the cark park play set, just outside his room.

  He showed her where she should sit and gave her a pink car. Benedikte thought he wanted her to let go of it on the ramp so that it came out through the exit.

  ‘No, no,’ said Junior, ‘lady wait.’ He drove his black car up the ramp, against the direction indicated by the arrows. Benedikte was amused to see him playing with it the wrong way round. She wanted to do the same, and started at the bottom.

  ‘No, no. Lady stay there,’ said Junior, turning his car round at the top. Now he was going to let his car roll down. Benedikte switched on the sensor that made the engine sounds. Junior’s car flew down, went round the corner at full speed, then zoomed out the exit and across the living room floor. ‘Vroooooom!’

  ‘Yeaaaah,’ he shouted, getting up. He bumped into the car park, knocking off a piece of plastic. Benedikte picked up the piece and pushed it into place. Then she did the same as Junior, drove the wrong way up the ramp and let her car roll back down and across the floor. Her car rolled about a metre further than Junior’s.

  ‘Vrooooom!’

  Benedikte was worried for a moment that the boy might be disappointed. She’d beaten him. Her competitive instinct meant she’d tried to win, was that fair with a child? It didn’t seem to bother him.

  ‘Yeaaaaah,’ he shouted again, this time running around the living room with his hands in the air.

  Benedikte ran after him with her hands in the air too. They repeated the sequence fourteen times until Benedikte got tired.

  ‘Do you want some ice cream?’ she said.

  Junior ran towards the freezer compartment with his arms in the air, shouting ‘Yeaaaaaah’ again. She helped him to find an ice lolly which disappeared at record speed.

  Benedikte started writing Steinar a text during the short interlude, but she didn’t have time to finish. Junior ran into the living room, took hold of a Captain Hook sword and ran back into the kitchen. Benedikte heard a terrible crash and went through. Junior was bashing away with his sword at the coffee maker, which was only just hanging on. When he spotted her, he opened one of the kitchen cupboards, took out a spatula and gave it to her.

  ‘Fight!’ he said.

  She couldn’t resist. Junior was soon standing on the living room table while Benedikte shouted: ‘En garde!’

  He scored a direct hit on her finger, so she moved her hand further down the spatula handle. Junior was swinging his sword wildly now. Benedikte ducked and Junior missed. He lost his balance and was about to fall off the edge. Benedikte grabbed him just before he tipped over, but she couldn’t stop his sword from flying through the air and hitting a vase with a large sunflower in it. It started rocking and was on the edge for a second while Benedikte softened Junior’s fall to the floor. She put him down, but couldn’t catch the vase in time, which smashed onto the table, sending water everywhere, some of it splashing over her MacBook.

  She turned it upside down and ran to the bathroom, taking a towel and starting to dry it. Not much of the water had gone in, so maybe she’d been lucky. When she’d dried off all visible traces, she went back into the living room, put it down and opened the file with all her notes in it. It worked. She sent a back-up copy to her iPhone.

  Where had Junior gone? Had she scared him? She walked towards his bedroom door. It was closed. Maybe he wanted to play alone for a while, Benedikte thought, sitting back down at the living room table. She scrolled back through the file, relieved that the MacBook still worked. Then Captain Hook came out from the kitchen.

  ‘Hi!’ said Benedikte loudly, checking he wasn’t upset.

  ‘Fight,’ said Junior again, holding out his plastic sword.

  Benedikte was about to assume some kind of defensive position when she noticed that Junior’s eyes were focused on something behind her. His car park made another ‘Vrooooooom!’ Something, or someone, had gone past the sensor.

  An ice-cold voice pierced the air.

  ‘I warned you.’

  Benedikte spun round.

  ‘You?’ she said, before the leather gloves strangled her voice. She heard Junior crying as she was dragged down the steps to the basement, the back of her head hitting each step in turn. The last thing she saw, before everything went black, was what looked like stars.

  Part 9

  20 May 2002

  Arild Golden unlocked the door to his office at Ullevaal Stadion. Even though he’d only had the office for a few weeks, he noticed that something was wrong. He wasn’t alone. He took another step inside and saw the silhouette of a man in the dark, sitting behind his desk.

  ‘I want to be your partner,’ said the man.

  ‘Who are you, and how did you get in here?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is what I can do for you.’

  Golden already had two partners. They’d come along in the early nineties when he needed somebody to open doors for him. With no football career of his own to speak of, he needed help to build a network.

  His first partner had opened the door to Norwegian football, introducing Golden to club chairmen, managers, players and association executives. His second partner had arranged for those first important handshakes in the closed world of English football. Over the years, Golden Boys would go on to export a great number of players to the Premier League and, as a result of that, also to Spain, Italy, France and Germany.

  ‘Does it look like I need your help?’ asked Golden, putting out his arms.

  ‘You’re big, but you’re still just an ordinary football agent. I can make you king.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I make things happen.’

  ‘I need an example.’

  ‘I’ll give you two. Let’s say Golden Boys and another competing agency each have one footballer playing an international. A club’s sent somebody to watch the two players, comparing them against each other. Wouldn’t it be a relief if the other player got food poisoning on the day of the match?’

  Golden looked at the man but didn’t say anything. The man held up two fingers and continued. ‘Secondly, you’ve got an interest in astroturf. Part of Golden Boys’ income derives from it. I can give you a monopoly. I can put pressure on entrepreneurs, clubs and people in the association, so that nobody would dream of building a synthetic pitch outside the Golden Boys system.’

  ‘I’ve got no idea who you are or what fantasies you’re talking about. All I know is that I need to upgrade my security. If I’m to consider working with you at all, I’ll need proof.’

  ‘I thought as much. Norway play Uruguay here at Ullevaal in two days’ time. Put your money on Uruguay. I’ll make Steinar Brunsvik lose the match.’

  ‘That’s risky business.’

  ‘Nobody will ever find out.’

  ‘A player might get injured and lose his influence on the result.’

  ‘You’ve always been annoyed with Steinar Brunsvik, the best player not to be with Golden Boys, haven’t you?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘That’s where my expertise will benefit your firm. If Norway don’t lose against Uruguay, then Steinar Brunsvik will never play football again.’

  Ballet

  ‘Have you done anything for Stanley?’ asked Taribo from the back of the van, partially hidden by a couple of cardboard boxes. Yakubu was at the wheel.

  ‘I haven’t had time. Shadowing Diesen is my main priority at the moment.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ll be able to solve the case more quickly and help Stanley?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘It’s checkmate for me anyway, but if you promise to help Stanley after the case is solved, then we’ll help you now. Deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ said Steinar.

&nb
sp; Steinar showed Yakubu the way to the car park below the ice rink at Valle Hovin, where they could wait for Diesen without being noticed. Steinar texted an update to Benedikte, telling her she could take Junior to the neighbours if there were any problems. How he’d pick up his own car from Vallhall was another problem, but he’d have to deal with that later. He’d seen journalists waiting there, he’d played a bit too well at that training session.

  Diesen was sitting in his white Porsche Cayenne. The car turned towards Fyrstikktorget, then sped up along the motorway into the Vålerenga Tunnel. He braked just before going past the speed camera. Many winters of cars driving past with studded tyres had kicked up dust from the tarmac, so the camera now blended in with the tunnel wall, but everybody knew about it and everybody sped up straight after it, like Diesen did.

  But maybe not all drove quite as fast as him. Diesen swerved and passed other cars on the inside lane. Yakubu pushed the van as fast as it would go to keep up. The tyres squealed and the speedometer was redlining. Diesen got away from them, but they were saved by the slowing traffic in the Festning Tunnel.

  Diesen drove along the motorway all the way to the Bygdøy junction. If he was heading home, surely it would have been quicker to drive through Solli Plass. Had they been spotted?

  Diesen turned onto Karenslyst Allé at Sjølyst and parked in front of Høyer, a high-end clothes shop, coming out a few minutes later with a couple of bags. He stood calmly for a few seconds underneath the shop awning before putting the bags in the Porsche and going into the shopping centre along the road. He came back out with a smoothie.

  With three cars between them Steinar, Yakubu and Taribo followed Diesen, up Bygdøy Allé, over the crest of the hill at Gimle Cinema, then down onto Niels Juels Gate. Diesen parked his car right outside number 48. After waiting for a few minutes, Yakubu parked the van further up the street, with a decent view of the entrance and Diesen’s car.

  ‘Guys, we can’t just sit here like this,’ said Steinar.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Yakubu.

  ‘We’re too black for this part of town,’ said Taribo. They were in the exclusive West End district of Frogner.

  Yakubu kept his eyes on Steinar for a moment before softening his expression and breathing out through his nose.

  ‘Alright,’ he said, climbing into the back with his brother.

  Steinar gave him a hand, holding cardboard boxes to one side so that the enormous man could clamber into the back seat. He landed hard on Steinar’s bike.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Yakubu.

  ‘I’d completely forgotten it was in here,’ said Steinar, checking his phone. No reply from Benedikte.

  ‘Why did you leave football?’ asked Taribo.

  ‘I was forced out.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I was tricked into thinking I’d been doped.’

  ‘Did you give up that easily?’

  He had a point. Why had he given up so easily? And why hadn’t he beaten up Vidić at the airport? Why wasn’t he hunting him down now? Why was something always getting in the way of him taking up the fight with the man he hated more than anything?

  ‘I’m hoping to start afresh now. In more ways than one,’ said Steinar.

  ‘You really should.’

  ‘How are things going in the forest, by the way?’

  ‘We’re on the look-out the whole time. People sometimes come past, and then we’ve got to hurry inside the tent. But the only thing that bothers me is how much I miss Stanley.’

  ‘I can imagine how hard it must be.’ Steinar thought of their little chats on the way home from nursery when Junior told him how his day had been. Maybe Junior could go back to nursery tomorrow. Things seemed to work best for Steinar and Junior when the boy was at nursery. That way, they missed each other enough to be happy the rest of the time.

  ‘So what are we going to do with this Diesen guy?’ asked Taribo.

  ‘I hope I’ve provoked him enough to do something stupid,’ said Steinar, pushing his left fist against his right elbow to stretch his shoulder, which was stiff.

  ‘What do you think he might do?’ asked Taribo.

  ‘There’s only one way I could’ve got hold of the evidence, and that’s from Ola Bugge. Now that I’ve provoked Diesen, I’m hoping that he’ll go after Bugge too. Then I’ll catch him red-handed and hand him over to the police.’

  ‘To the police? Are you sure?’

  ‘What would you do?’

  ‘Which one of us are you asking?’

  ‘Both of you.’

  ‘I’ve lost everything,’ said Taribo. ‘I’m a wanted man, I can’t meet my son and I have to live in the woods. I hate him.’

  ‘But he has done one good thing,’ said Yakubu. ‘I hated Arild Golden. He ruined my life, so I thank the man for killing him, but I also hate what the murder’s done to my brother.’

  ‘So what’s your conclusion?’ asked Steinar.

  ‘If we get hold of the killer,’ said Taribo, ‘then I’ll try to kill him, while Yakubu will try to stop me. It’s hard to say what the outcome will be.’

  It was hard to know with Taribo, but Steinar didn’t believe he was completely joking.

  ‘He’s a good player, though, this Diesen guy,’ said Taribo after a while.

  ‘Yes,’ said Steinar. Diesen was like a ballet dancer gliding over the grass, highly gifted. Nevertheless Steinar had outplayed him, briefly, earlier that day.

  At his peak as a footballer Steinar had experienced a taste of happiness, when his body was performing even better than the sum of his training and talent. When he had no trouble running those extra few steps. When his feints were at their best, his pace was quicker and his opponents seemed more stupid and sluggish. When everything was working, it was as if he was a coach at a soccer school, joining in the game and having to tone down his abilities, so as not to take the pleasure away from the young ones. He’d just had another small taste of it again in the training session today.

  Gliding over the grass. The image of a ballet dancer kept coming back. Maybe it was because they’d found out that Diesen was gay. Steinar would never admit it to anybody, but when he saw a male ballet dancer, he jumped to the conclusion that he was gay. Maybe it was the dressing room banter that had made him like that, but he couldn’t control what his subconscious thought when he saw men in tights.

  Steinar hadn’t seen Diesen play often, as he’d been trying to stay away from football for ten years, but he’d been catching up recently with Football Xtra, live matches on TV and the Internet.

  He’d watched through the highlights of Vålerenga’s matches available on TV2’s online player. They showed some detailed shots of Diesen. When he played on astroturf, Steinar noticed that he wore orange F50 indoor boots with white heels. Among other things, TV2 had also put together a skills guide video of an outside kick Diesen had performed with exquisite precision in an away match against Aalesund, zooming in on his boots. At the movies they would call this product placement.

  Steinar picked up the Adidas catalogue he was given by Hjalmar Bakken. Bakken had drawn a circle around some of the boots, and had also added a couple of explanatory footnotes.

  On astroturf, most players used either normal astroturf boots or fixed studs. Those who played with fixed studs, which were really intended for dry grass pitches, claimed that normal astroturf boots weren’t good enough for key matches, they didn’t have a clean enough touch to them. Astroturf boots were heavy and clumsy. Steinar had picked up on a terrible fuss when one well-known top division player described the newest model of boots from Umbro as being like pitta bread.

  The risk of strain injuries increased the longer the studs were. If a footballer really wanted to enrage a physiotherapist, he would use the sharp rubber studs best suited to medium-wet grass pitches. These were the non-conformist choice. A very small number of players went the other way and wore indoor boots. All in all, the market was open for whatever shoe manufacturer took the trouble to make low fo
otball boots with trainer-style impact absorption and studs made for synthetic turf.

  Ståle Jakobsen had been pretty clear on studs. On astroturf they were to wear fixed, medium-length studs, and screw-in studs on natural grass. Jakobsen wasn’t that worried about strain injuries. He thought they were a new-fangled fad, but if you slipped and he saw that you were using the wrong footwear, he’d be furious. Steinar wouldn’t say that he was afraid of Jakobsen, but it only took the slightest chance of rain for him to opt for screw-ins.

  What would Jakobsen have said about indoor boots? They were flat but they also offered better contact with the playing surface, helping players to get a better feel for the ball. Was that why Diesen seemed to float across the pitch?

  Steinar rubbed his eyes. It was still only early afternoon in Frogner, but the Shorunmo brothers had both nodded off and were snoring loudly. The door to number 48 opened. Out came an old lady with a walking stick. Steinar took a sip from his water bottle. He picked up the catalogue again. Shit! Steinar had been holding Diesen down on the ground when he’d provoked him at the training session, and he’d seen underneath Diesen’s boots. Diesen was wearing normal fixed studs even though it was pouring with rain. If Diesen wore fixed studs when he knew there was a soaking wet pitch, and if he played astroturf matches in indoor boots, there was no chance he would’ve worn screw-in studs while training on a bone-dry pitch at Ullevaal on the warmest day of the year.

  If the murderer had trodden on Golden’s neck with long screw-in studs on his boots, there was no way it could be Diesen. Any kind of boot could break a person’s neck if enough pressure was applied, but then the wounds would only have been superficial and not deep holes, like on the back of Golden’s neck. Per Diesen didn’t kill Arild Golden.

  Where’s the Lady?

  ‘Shit!’ shouted Steinar, starting the van. How could he have been so blind? He put his foot to the floor and the van leapt forward then the engine stalled.

  The brothers sat up in the back. Clearing the car in front by just a few millimetres, Steinar turned the van round, with the help of the pavement on the other side, and raced up Niels Juels Gate. He called Benedikte’s mobile and his home number. No answer. It was over an hour since he’d sent her the text, something was terribly wrong.