by Thomas Enger
Anette stares at him. He turns around and sees the funeral procession leave the church.
“Like you said, Anette, the hysteria is about to begin.”
She laughs at his remark.
“Wow,” she says, alternately shaking and nodding her head. She comes up to him again. She takes the sweet from his hand and pops it into her mouth.
“Do you know who taught me that they taste best when you eat them all at once?”
She sucks the pastille demonstratively.
“Given how clever you are, I’m sure you can find out,” she says, without waiting for him to reply. She looks at him for a long time. Then she smiles again and walks past him, in the direction of the funeral procession. He follows her with his eyes, as she strolls across the grass, past the mourners, she glances at them, nods to some acquaintances, but she doesn’t join them. Instead she strolls on, taking her time. As if she doesn’t have a care in the world.
And she might well be right, Henning thinks, when Anette disappears from view and the cemetery fills with mourners in black clothes. It may well be impossible to prove that she plotted and executed plans which resulted in the deaths of two people. Because she has never admitted to anything, not today or in the tent at Ekeberg Common, and the evidence is, at best, circumstantial.
Jarle Høgseth used to say: Crimes are rarely delivered gift wrapped to the police. Sometimes it is straightforward. The evidence speaks an unequivocal language, the perpetrator confesses, either spontaneously or due to evidence presented during interrogations; or in the subsequent trial, the prosecution’s version stands in sharp contrast to the explanations given by the defendant. That’s the way it is and always will be.
But the truth will never be lost to him. He saw it in Anette’s frozen eyes. And plenty can happen during an investigation. New evidence might appear. Witnesses could come forward with testimony that sheds fresh light on Anette’s actions. She will have a lot of questions to answer, and it is difficult to give consistent replies, time after time after time, to complex questions, no matter how clever you are.
He remains in the churchyard during the interment. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t listen to what is being said; he only listens when they sing:
Help me, God, to hum this song
so my heart will carry on
just one day, one moment at a time
until I reach your good country
He grits his teeth and swallows the memories and the pain, even though he sees Jonas all the time. He feels that he can finally say good-bye. He hasn’t been ready until now. He couldn’t manage it back then, because he couldn’t, didn’t want to accept that Jonas would never again wake him in the morning, at the crack of dawn, would never again snuggle up to him and cuddle, cuddle, cuddle until children’s TV began.
It’s hard to be grateful for what I had, he thinks, it’s hard to remember every day, every moment instead of mourning what will never be. But if I can convince myself that the six years Jonas lived were the finest of my life, then that’s a start.
It doesn’t feel like much, but it’s a start.
He refrains from offering his condolences after Henriette’s coffin has been lowered six feet into the ground. He knows he won’t be able to handle it, won’t have the strength to meet her parents and her family without identifying with them. He won’t suppress his grief, because he needs to feel it. But not here. Not now.
The time will come.
Just one day, one moment at a time. Until I, Jonas, reach your good country.
73
Music is playing in the flat above when he comes home. He stops in front of the entrance door. Arne Halldis is listening to opera. Henning recognizes the aria straightaway. It is “Nessun Dorma,” from Turandot, by Puccini. Henning’s favorite aria. Luciano Pavarotti’s unmistakable voice fills the stairwell:
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me
il nome mio nessun saprà!
Arne Halldis is a multifaceted man, Henning thinks. Either that or he is a first-class cad who exploits poetry and opera to score with women. He imagines that’s why Gunnar Goma is such a big fan of his.
No, no! Sulla tua bocca lo dirò
quando la luce splenderà!
Arne Halldis turns up the volume, as the opera reaches its climax:
All’alba vincerò!
vincerò, vincerò!
The song soars, it travels through walls and concrete, wood and plaster, before hitting Henning right in the middle of his forehead, penetrating his thick skull and rushing through him, his cheeks redden and, before he knows what has happened, the tears are streaming down his face. He can feel them roll down his scars, suddenly he finds himself sobbing.
Only That Which He Doesn’t Think About has made him cry since That Which He Doesn’t Think About. It feels a little odd, tasting his own salt after so long, he thinks, and knowing that it’s Arne Halldis’s music that triggered it.
But it doesn’t surprise him that music has made him cry again. And he feels the urge to play a chord or two. But he isn’t sure if he dares.
As he opens the door to his flat, the applause dies down and it grows quiet around him. He replaces the batteries in the smoke alarms, sits down on the sofa, and opens his laptop. It wakes up from its sleep mode. It takes a few seconds before it finds the wireless signal and he loads FireCracker 2.0. It doesn’t take long before 6tiermes7 responds.
6tiermes7:
I’m excited. How did it go?
MakkaPakka:
As expected. She denied it all.
6tiermes7:
Clever girl.
MakkaPakka:
The smartest I’ve ever met.
6tiermes7:
You didn’t get anything on tape, either? Nothing we can use?
MakkaPakka:
I haven’t listened to the recording yet, but I doubt it.
6tiermes7:
Okay. You did the best you could. Now you need to let us take it from here.
MakkaPakka:
I’ll try.
6tiermes7:
You’re not telling me you’re planning another investigation?
Henning ponders this while the cursor blinks in the chat window. Something has happened to him in the past week. Though three people have died and families have been destroyed forever, it has done him good to work again. Anette hasn’t confessed and Hassan’s threats won’t be easy to ignore, but Henning has proved to himself that he still has it. The little gray cells have woken up again.
He looks at his fingers before typing the words which have been smoldering inside him for so long. He knows that when he writes this, there is no return. He will have fired the starting pistol.
Dr. Helge would probably tell me to wait, he thinks, until I’m absolutely certain that I’m ready. But I haven’t got time to wait. No one can say if Yasser Shah will be caught, or if Mahmoud Marhoni’s evidence will make Hassan and his gang do a Robert De Niro and disappear. No one can tell him when he can walk down the street without looking over his shoulder, or if his nights will be forever filled with sounds that prevent him from sleeping.
That’s why he writes:
MakkaPakka:
Actually, there was one thing.
He feels cold all over.
6tiermes7:
You’re joking. What is it?
He takes a deep breath. Almost two years ago I stopped while I was going downhill, he thinks. I pulled the handbrake. He is like Ingvild Foldvik. He has been a zombie since the death of Jonas. But sometimes you need to release the brake, let yourself hurtle toward the abyss, to gain momentum to get back up again. He doesn’t know how far down it is, but this time he won’t stop until he hits the bottom. No matter how much it hurts.
Henning exhales and start typing.
MakkaPakka:
I need your help.
He looks up at the ceiling. He isn’t sure why he does that. Perhaps he is trying to absorb what Pavarotti was singing about. His strength. His will. He
looks up a long time; in his head he can hear Luciano’s voice again.
All’alba vincerò!
vincerò, vincerò!
At dawn I shall be victorious.
He turns to the screen again. At that moment, he is filled by a resolve the likes of which he has never known. He writes the words with a determination that makes the hairs on his arms stand on end:
MakkaPakka:
I need help to find out who torched my flat.
There. The words are out, words only he has been thinking. The police concluded that the fire wasn’t suspicious. So Henning buried his words for nearly two years.
Now they are free.
And now that he has written them, now that he has started investigating the toughest story of his life, he might as well say them out loud.
MakkaPakka:
Please help me find my son’s killer.
Acknowledgments
BURNED would never have become a reality without many contributions from friends and family and others who have been willing to read, listen, play ball, and share their expertise and experience. Jørn Lier Horst, Erik Werge Bøyesen, Johnny Brenna, Hege Enger, Line Onsrud Buan, Petter Anthon Næss, Torgeir Higraff, Nicolai Ljøgodt, Kristin “Kikki” Jenssen, Vibeke Ødegård Nohr—a thousand thanks!
An extra special thanks to Benedicte. You are bright. You are great.
Those who know me well, also know that the path to my first published book has been long. A final thank-you therefore goes to myself. Thank you because you never stopped writing.
Oslo, December 2009
Thomas Enger
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