The brothers and Steinar’s bike slammed hard against the side of the van as he rounded the sharp turn into Briskebyveien without slowing down. The brothers had no time to pick themselves back up again before they were thrown towards the other side as the van roared over Riddersvolds Plass. Then Steinar turned the wheel sharply and drove along Camilla Colletts Vei.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Taribo.
Steinar drove on through the city, heading north, and onto the outer ring road. He kept trying Benedikte’s mobile. Just after the bridge at Nydalen, they found themselves stuck in traffic. Two young lads were fumbling around in the open bonnet of an old Audi, with number plates that were home-made from cardboard. Only one lane was moving. They were crawling forwards at a snail’s pace. He tried Benedikte’s phone again.
The traffic eased off and Steinar turned left through a red light at the Storo junction. Crossing over the tram lines and the bumpy tarmac, the road was like a cattle grid. Steinar turned right at the bakery and didn’t check for traffic when he darted over the crossroads next to the old Svetter’n cinema. He just managed to avoid crashing into the newsagent’s as he went up Lofthusveien. He hit the brakes outside his house, ran out of the van and in through the door. He slid the last couple of feet on his knees, coming to a halt in front of a terrified Junior.
He held the boy by the shoulders, looking over every inch of him. Junior seemed to be unharmed. Steinar put his hands over his own face, breathing in and out with his eyes closed.
Where was Benedikte? She must have heard him coming in. Steinar took hold of Junior by the shoulders and asked him: ‘Where’s the lady?’
Junior looked at Steinar with a very serious expression and pointed at the door to the basement. Steinar opened it and turned on the light. He couldn’t see anything at the bottom of the stairs. Junior kept pointing and said: ‘Down there.’
Steinar heard the basement window being smashed. He ran down the stairs but he was too late. He heard footsteps making off over the lawn at the back of the house.
He looked around. Everything was like normal. The paint cans were where they always were, the architect’s drawings were where they were supposed to be, and the makeshift goal he’d made for Junior out of cans and the brush handle was still there. Everything was as it should be except that door to the storage room was ajar. Steinar was certain that he’d closed it after he’d got out his football boots. He went over and opened it.
Benedikte was sitting with her back against the wall. Her head was hanging forward and her eyes closed. She didn’t respond when Steinar lifted her up and carried her out of the cupboard. He put her down on the basement floor, checked for her pulse and listened for her breathing. Nothing. On the floor above, he could hear the Shorunmo brothers in the living room laughing at something with Junior.
Steinar shouted. ‘Call an ambulance, quick! And don’t let the boy down here!’
Steinar tilted Benedikte’s head back, put a paint roller under her neck and started resuscitation. How did it go again? Was it breathe five times, then two heart compressions, or the other way round? Shit. He blew air twice into her lungs. Then he pressed down on her chest, keeping a fast rhythm. He probably had to keep that going a little longer. Ten times, twenty. He lost count and put his ear to her chest. Mouth-to-mouth again. Still nothing.
Steinar shouted and raised his fist, struck it against her chest. He breathed into her mouth again. He checked for breathing again. For her pulse. Still nothing.
He saw red bruises on her neck, hands had been pressing hard against her throat. Her airway must be blocked. How was he supposed to get her to breathe? Steinar saw an old first-aid box and acted on instinct. It was a mixture of madness, risk-taking, rage and memories from countless TV series. He grabbed an empty, sterilised syringe from the box. He only knew approximately where the needle was supposed to go in, but she would die if he didn’t do something.
He felt his way down her neck, believing it was supposed to go in below the voice box, but what did that feel like? He found what he thought must be the bottom of her voice box, took one deep breath and thrust it in.
The needle went through skin, through tissue and something else, he wasn’t sure what. He kept pushing until he no longer felt any resistance, as that would have to be the windpipe.
There! It felt as if he’d reached empty space. He pulled off the plastic plunger at the back of the syringe, put his mouth around the opening and blew as hard as he could. He blew until he almost fainted, then started heart compressions again. He blew in again, and then he felt it. A slight twitch in the lifeless body.
Slowly, Benedikte opened her mouth. It opened and closed again silently, like the mouth of a dying goldfish. It opened again. She pushed out a sound.
‘Ma, Ma…’
‘I know,’ said Steinar, ‘but hush now. The ambulance is on its way.’
She passed out, but Steinar saw her chest moving and felt a weak pulse against his hand just as the paramedics came running down the stairs.
Part 10
7 July 1991
While Arild Golden was waiting for his bag to arrive at Istanbul Airport, he thought through the coincidences that had led to this key first transfer. A transfer that he hoped would lead to a domino effect. A reputation as a dealmaking agent could attract better players and better clubs to take up his services.
The whole thing had started two weeks earlier in the terminal at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. Golden had landed there for a connecting flight on his way home from one of his many trips to Nigeria.
Sitting along from him was a man in his early fifties. He had greyish hair and a dark moustache and eyebrows. An expensive suit. Next to him was a sports bag that didn’t quite fit in, with a logo that Golden didn’t recognise but that made him curious. The man turned out to be the chairman of Turkish club Trabzonspor, and very liberal when it came to the Muslim rules on alcohol. His flight was delayed too.
An hour later, Golden had shown the chairman that beer and rum made a good combination, while also getting him to buy the captain of the Nigerian under-18 national team, most of whom were represented by Golden. They agreed to meet for formal talks in Istanbul the week after.
When the negotiations started, Golden realised why his fellow students and the lecturers at the BI Norwegian Business School had called him Goldfinger. He took over the negotiation room and instinctively saw how power was distributed in the club. Most importantly, he knew how much more time he’d have to spend with the chairman as opposed to the others who had less say.
He also noticed that the negotiations went even better when the player went to the toilet. Golden made his first business note: players should never be present at the negotiations themselves.
It was a lucrative deal for all parties, with the exception of the African club. The contract was signed, and the chairman wrote the address of where the player should turn up on a small scrap of paper.
Golden could feel that scrap of paper at the bottom of his trouser pocket. He’d gone through everything and was sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. His bag appeared on the carousel, as did the player’s two suitcases. Golden had decided to tag along with the player to his first training session, which was due to start in three hours. He would also join him to look for a flat and a car. His first transfer would be flawless.
They got in a taxi and Golden passed the handwritten note to the driver, who gave it a long, hard look before starting the meter and setting off. An infernal racket came pumping out of the stereo speakers.
‘Excuse me, sir, are you sure this is the right direction?’ asked Golden when they’d been driving for nearly an hour and seemed to be going further and further away from Istanbul.
‘Hm?’ said the driver.
‘How far to the stadium?’
‘I think maybe fourteen or fifteen.’
‘Minutes?’ said Golden, pointing at the minute hand on his watch. The driver shook his head and pointed at the shorter hand.
They went back to Istanbul. Golden borrowed a phone at a hotel and got hold of the chairman at Trabzonspor, but it was too late. They wouldn’t make it to the first training session, and it was a breach of trust. They were going to tear up the contract.
Golden pointed out that he still had his part of the contract, and that surely this mistake wasn’t sufficient grounds for dismissal. There were rules in football too, after all. The chairman laughed out loud on the other end.
‘Good luck with FIFA, then,’ he said.
Beyond the Placebo Effect of Acupuncture
Steinar lifted up Junior and carried him out of the house and over to the white van. He ordered Yakubu and Taribo to get in the passenger seats, sat Junior on Taribo’s lap and put the safety belt round them. He got in the driving seat.
The paramedics had taken Benedikte away at full speed. She was alive. There was nothing else Steinar could do for her now, other than avenge what had been done to her.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Taribo as they drove a slalom course past the apparently neverending roadworks just after Sinsen.
‘To Vallhall,’ said Steinar.
‘Then it’s probably quicker to drive down along Økernveien,’ said Taribo, pointing.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Steinar, carrying on along the outer ring road. Taribo nodded and put his hands round Junior like a protective airbag. Junior started laughing, turning his head to look at Taribo and pointing.
‘Newspaper,’ said Junior.
‘Shit,’ said Steinar, smacking the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. How was this going to affect Junior? Steinar had been impressed by the boy’s memory many times before. Whatever they did, the boy remembered it. ‘Been before,’ was his standard phrase if they returned somewhere. It didn’t even have to be a playground or something else that appealed to him, it could just as easily be a supermarket or a doctor’s surgery.
Of course it didn’t really matter that he recognised Taribo from the newspaper. Actually it was quite a nice thing, as Taribo was innocent anyway, but Steinar was worried about how much Junior would remember the assault on Benedikte. He didn’t know much about how traumatic incidents like this might affect him later in life. A break-in, an assault, even an attempted murder. Steinar banged his hand against the wheel again.
Just before the new office building at Valle, Steinar bulldozed his own new exit from the ring road, driving over the grass, between some trees, over a cycle path and down towards the car park. He sped across it and slammed on the brakes outside the entrance to Vallhall, the indoor arena.
‘You look after the boy while I’m in there,’ said Steinar. The brothers nodded in agreement as Steinar went in.
‘Steinar Brunsvik again,’ said a thick voice, spluttering like a rusty old Evinrude outboard motor. ‘Have you come to sign with us?’
Steinar turned his head and saw Hjalmar Bakken sitting on the deep sofa to the right of the entrance.
‘Have the players gone?’ asked Steinar.
‘They went a while ago.’
‘Do you know Ola Bugge?’
‘What do you want with that pig?’
‘I need to talk to him.’
‘I think he’s sitting in the cafeteria,’ said Bakken.
Steinar started running and found Bugge sitting at a table. They’d never spoken, but Steinar had no time for courtesies, he slammed his hands on the table and leant over the football agent.
‘Where’s Marius Bjartmann?’
‘I can’t tell,’ said Bugge.
‘You don’t know?’
‘I do know, but I’m sworn to secrecy with my clients. I can’t just tell anyone where they are and what they’re doing.’
Steinar grabbed Bugge, lifted him up by his shirt collar and slammed him onto the cafeteria table.
‘He’s a killer. You’re going to tell me where he is, and you’re going to tell me now!’
‘In that case you’ll have to go to the police.’
Steinar slammed Bugge down on the table again. The girl behind the counter gave no sign of getting involved.
‘Tell me where he is!’
‘Go to the police!’
Steinar lifted Bugge from the table. He put his knee in his stomach, making him double over. Then he dragged him back to the entrance. His rage was back. It had been dormant all those years he hadn’t been playing football, but now it was really back. If it had been a match, Steinar would have got one of his red cards, but there was no referee here. Just an executioner and executioners worked alone, executioners had no linesmen.
‘Open up the dressing room,’ said Steinar.
Bakken did as he said.
‘Tape,’ said Steinar, and Bakken fetched some rolls of sports tape. Steinar tore off Bugge’s shirt and trousers and tied him to the massage table. He wound the sports tape several times round his chest, arms, hips and thighs. Bugge could barely move.
‘Get me the physio’s bag,’ said Steinar. Bakken went to fetch it.
Steinar went on: ‘Still sure you don’t want to talk?’
‘I protect my clients,’ said Bugge.
Bakken came back with the physio’s equipment. Steinar opened the bag.
‘I had a physio when I played in the Netherlands who was a psychopath,’ he said. ‘He liked to cause others pain. A simple massage with him was a form of advanced torture, and his favourite thing was treating periostitis, inflammation of the membrane around the bones.’ Steinar tapped Bugge’s lower leg before he went on. ‘The treatment involved him taking hold of the skin over the fibula and stretching it to increase the blood circulation and flush out the inflammation. The pain was colossal.’ Steinar pressed his thumb hard down along Bugge’s own leg. Bugge couldn’t disguise how uncomfortable it was. Then Steinar took out two long needles from the physio’s bag.
‘These are acupuncture needles, the famous 21 centimetre ones. You use these on buttocks to get deep enough into the fat layer. They’re used for treating sciatica, and I’m pretty sure they’re not meant to be used on inflamed bones.’ He leant over, aimed and pushed the needle slowly under the skin, down along Bugge’s fibula.
Steinar took the other long needle, holding it like a knife this time.
‘Last chance.’
Bugge shook his head.
Steinar used all his force to drive the needle down at an angle through the other calf and into the fibula. Then he took out the electrotheraphy device, attached the electrodes to the needles and pressed the button. Bugge’s legs started to vibrate.
Level two was already enough to make Bugge scream. Steinar turned the machine so that Bugge could see it went all the way up to ten.
‘Where is he?’
‘I can’t tell you. I’m sworn to secrecy.’
‘Where is he?’ Steinar repeated, turning the current up to four.
At six, Bugge’s screams could be heard throughout the building, but he still wouldn’t talk. Steinar wouldn’t have thought that feeble doughball would be able to hold anything back. He’d thought a slight gust of wind would be enough to make Bugge spill the beans on everything. His normal feelings no longer functioned, and torture didn’t produce the desired effect. It seemed that there were only two things that could get a determined football agent like Bugge to talk. He’d either have to offer him money or intensify the torture.
Steinar tore off Bugge’s last remaining item of clothing and moved the electrodes.
The Hunt
Bugge talked. He started babbling deliriously about Nigerians, people with scars, cowboys and Indians. He’d told them everything he knew, but Bugge didn’t know everything.
Benedikte was in a life-threatening condition, and Steinar would forever blame himself if she didn’t make it. He’d been too slow to realise what was going on. Of course the ki
ller was a centre-back, only a destructive defender could think of doing something as idiotic as training on a dry grass pitch wearing screw-in studs. Since Vålerenga’s other centre-back was that gifted Danish player, the killer had to be Marius Bjartmann.
‘Did you find him?’ Taribo asked Steinar when he got back in the van.
‘He’s gone. All I know is that he’s using one of Golden’s apartments. Bjartmann used it for his lover. Bugge thought he might have gone there, but he doesn’t know where it is.’
‘I did up one of Golden’s apartments once, he owned several in the same block at Manglerud.’
‘Do you remember where?’
‘In Plogveien. I’ll recognise the block when I see it.’
The wheels spun on the gravelly expanse in front of Vallhall. Steinar sped through the Vålerenga Tunnel, jumped when he saw the speed camera flash but didn’t slow down. He turned off at Galgeberg, where the old gallows used to be, and swerved the van into the other lane to overtake a slow-moving Volvo up the twisting road along Ryenbergveien, which continued onto Enebakkveien. He turned off just before the car dealership at Ryen and past the modern white-brick building that didn’t fit with the Rema 1000 supermarket occupying it. They raced towards the new block of flats at the bottom of the hill.
‘Stop!’ shouted Taribo. Steinar slammed on the brakes.
‘Which one is it?’ asked Steinar, pointing at all the blocks in Plogveien. He knew the road well. Mette had grown up here, just before the turn-off to Manglerudhallen sports centre. The name Plogveien meant ‘plough road’, and Steinar wished he were a plough, he wanted to pull out some weeds.
‘Look over there!’ said Taribo, pointing down Svartdalsveien.
Bjartmann was coming out of one of the low-rise blocks. Steinar put his foot to the floor, turning the wheel hard left at the same time. The sound of the van’s engine put the whole neighbourhood on alert, including Bjartmann, but he couldn’t get away from them now.
Exposed at the Back Page 25