by Thomas Enger
Blystad shook his head.
Alfred snapped his fingers.
‘Tell you what, give me your address and I’ll make sure you get an invite.’
Blystad didn’t answer. It was hard to breathe.
‘I’m a bit busy actually,’ he said, abruptly. ‘It’s getting late, I have to get home.’
He stepped back, then stood and took a measure of Alfred.
Alfred stepped forward and nudged him again, this time in the side.
‘Well, good to see you again anyway.’
Blystad smiled briefly; he wasn’t sure if Alfred could tell how desperate he was to get away, as quickly as possible.
‘See you again.’
He lifted a hand, then turned and walked away, picking up speed. He felt Alfred’s eyes on his neck, like two laser beams. When Blystad turned into the next aisle, he stopped, leaned against the shelves and squeezed his eyes shut.
What the fuck was he going to do?
Should he ask Alfred to keep quiet and not say that they’d met?
He might not mention it to anyone. Why would he? But then there was the fucking reunion. Hundreds of old pupils would be there, all reminiscing, and then that old gossip, The Shower, would say guess who I met at Brandbu…
Blystad knew what it meant.
He had to move.
Again.
He always had a rucksack ready in the bedroom at home, packed with everything he needed. Money, passport, clothes, light and practical tools, dehydrated food that didn’t take much space, water, a basic first-aid kit. He got the rucksack out of the cupboard, checked that everything was there and nothing was out of date. It was all good.
Damn Alfred, he thought.
Damn Facebook and damn the fucking reunion. He didn’t want to move, not again; he’d kind of settled in Brandbu, even though his life was monotonous and boring. He didn’t do much more than sleep, watch TV, play on the computer, and go to the shop. And work out, of course.
He occasionally took on a job or two, but only for something to do and to earn a bit of extra money, but more often than not he said no, as there was always a microscopic chance that he might bump into someone he knew.
Norway was far too small. He should have gone to the USA and disappeared in some enormous city, but then he’d have to start all over again in a new country. At least here at home he knew how things worked, the social code, the culture. And he’d always liked Norway, Norwegian milk, the newspapers and TV programmes. And he wanted to be near his mum, as she was alone with the cat and all those demanding patients at the Majorstua Clinic in Oslo.
Blystad went down into the basement and started the treadmill, ran for three-quarters of an hour, even though it was late, while he listened to AC/DC and thought about what he should do. By the time he stopped, he’d decided to wait and see and keep an eye on the situation. He didn’t need to move immediately. After all, it was some time until the reunion. It wasn’t likely that Alfred would meet anyone and tell them before then.
So he took a long shower, made up some sandwiches, then sat down at the kitchen table and opened his PC. It had become a habit – since Tore Pulli was killed – to check the news in the online papers before he went to bed. He always started with VG and the first headline he saw was that a journalist had been killed in his own home.
Blystad clicked on the report and took a bite of his sandwich. He stopped chewing as soon as he saw a photograph of the dead journalist further down.
But … it was…
Iver Gundersen.
Blystad didn’t register his own gasp. Nothing was said about how Gundersen had been killed, but Blystad opened his emails straightaway. He hadn’t used his computer since the morning. He’d been playing Call of Duty all day. He checked to see if he’d received any new emails.
He hadn’t.
All the same. Gundersen was dead.
Him too.
Blystad sat back and thought about what it might mean, and whether he should say anything to the police. But then again, what would he say?
Gundersen had been given strict instructions to delete any correspondence between them, not to print anything out, and to make sure that the emails were wiped from any servers and hard disks.
Had he done that?
Could he be sure that Gundersen had done that?
Blystad went to all the online newspapers he knew, to see if there were any more details. The police were still examining Gundersen’s flat for clues. They hadn’t finished questioning the neighbours and potential witnesses, and there would be a press conference the following morning. But for the moment, there was nothing more to be found.
Blystad thought about his wife, the escape he’d planned for her that she never had the chance to try. He’d told her to trust him and that had killed her. Henning Juul had also taken him on his word and look what happened to him.
And now Iver Gundersen.
Blystad took a deep breath, then released it through his mouth.
What the fuck was he going to do?
20
Isabel was wearing nothing more than the tiniest of bikini briefs and a scarf – a scarf that she would pull round her neck, torso and over her nipples. Sometimes she pulled it back and forth between her legs as well – to whoops and wolf whistles from the audience. Her dark curls were sleek, as though she’d taken a dip and then laid in the sun for ten minutes.
She really was a talent, Charlie Høisæther thought. She had the audience in the palm of her hand, with her seductive eyes and sensual moves. She was elegant and sexy, and used the whole stage; she wrapped herself round the pole with ease and grace, showing off the muscles in her stomach and arms. Made it look effortless.
The pumping rhythms reminded Charlie of Oslo, of Odeon.
And Tore.
In the past few weeks, Charlie had been trying to remember when they first met, how they’d become friends. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t remember the sequence in which things had happened. He just knew that his entire childhood and youth, his life here today, was pervaded by Tore.
Perhaps the strongest memory he had of Tore was the evening that Tore’s parents were killed in a car crash, and he’d knocked on Charlie’s window late that night. They’d sat in his room all night, talking and listening to music. Tore had wept on and off – the first and only time Charlie had seen him cry. Perhaps that’s why this memory had stuck for so long. Because he was the one Tore had come to. Not William, nor any of their other friends. He and Tore were most alike, the two of them understood each other.
For a few moments, Charlie had forgotten the show and music, but then suddenly he felt the scarf round his neck. Above him, Isabel got closer, bent down towards him, pulled the scarf to the left and right until his neck burned, then drew his face in towards her and kissed him on the cheek. Charlie knew that the audience at Senzuela, which was 95 per cent men, was jealous of him.
He finished his drink, turned round to look at the audience with a cat-that-got-the-cream expression on his face, which produced a few cheers. She took the scarf back onto the stage and finished the dance, but didn’t get many tips. The men were too scared to give her much when Charlie was there. So he took out 200 reais and tucked it in her bikini, but when she was about to thank him with another kiss on the cheek, he stopped her, held her firmly by the neck, under all her curls.
‘Never do that again,’ he said brutally.
Then he let her go and went to the back of the club where Freddy was waiting for him, standing tall and broad.
‘Did everything go well at the airport?’ Charlie asked over his shoulder, as he moved towards the exit.
‘Yep,’ Freddy replied. ‘The plane was delayed, but everything went fine at customs.’
‘How much did he have with him?’
‘Just over 20,000 euros.’
A quarter of an apartment, Charlie mused. That wasn’t much. A good thing the deliveries were frequent.
‘Has Daddy Longlegs called?’
‘No,’ Freddy said.
Charlie swore to himself. He’d read what had happened in Norway, but the details in the online papers were scant.
As soon as they were out on the street, Charlie lit a cigarette. A car sailed by, close to the pavement in front of him. It made him look up and over to the other side of the street. A black Audi had stopped there, motor running. There were two men in the car. Charlie nodded to Freddy, who immediately knew what he was thinking.
Freddy dodged the passing cars and crossed over to the other side of the road, putting a hand to his inner pocket as he approached. As he was about to rap on the car window, the Audi sped off, tyres screeching. Freddy was left standing in a cloud of exhaust.
And the car was gone.
Moments later, Freddy was back with Charlie.
‘I got the registration number.’
Charlie took a draw on his cigarette as he looked to see if the car was coming back.
‘Do you think that’s the one that’s been outside your building recently?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘Looked the same. Same colour and model.’
He didn’t like it, that was for sure. God knows, he had plenty of potential enemies in the area. And knowing what was going on at home in Norway at the moment, who knows what might happen.
‘I’ll find out who they are,’ Freddy said.
Charlie continued to stare down the road. The car was nowhere to be seen.
‘There’s a party at Hassan’s in B Block later,’ Freddy said. ‘Do you want to check it out?’
Charlie shook his head.
‘Going in again?’
Freddy nodded towards the strip club.
‘No,’ Charlie said, and threw the cigarette butt down on the ground, but didn’t step on it. ‘Take me home. I’ve had enough of whores for one night.’
21
Henning thought about Iver, the fact that they’d left him to hang there and bleed to death.
It bore all the hallmarks of torture; someone had tried to get information out of him. His flat had been ransacked, which also indicated that whoever was responsible had been looking for physical evidence as well. Notes, printouts – presumably that was why they had taken Iver’s mobile phone and computer.
Henning thought about what he’d asked Iver to do no more than a week ago: to try and find out more about Rasmus Bjelland, in particular, about his relationship with Tore Pulli and Charlie Høisæther. Henning had done some research on Bjelland himself in advance of interviewing him in 2007, and remembered that carpenter Bjelland and his Brazilian wife had fled Norway and started out for themselves in the property development business down there in Natal, Brazil, with Bjelland working as Charlie’s carpenter. But then one of Bjelland’s business associates had been shot when he went to look at a potential site. And even though the man still had cash on him when he was found, the local police had concluded that he’d been the victim of a robbery.
Brazil was a country of corruption and crime, and it wasn’t entirely unthinkable that someone in the business didn’t like the fact that Bjelland and his wife had also set up store – especially as Bjelland had been accused of supplying the police with information as part of their 2007 Norwegian-Brazilian operation. It was widely rumoured that what Bjelland told the police had led to a lot of people being arrested, charged and then sentenced.
His wife might be of interest.
Mariana, wasn’t that her name?
Bjelland hadn’t told him much about her, except that he’d had to leave her, or rather: send her away to a secret address. Presumably that meant she would be just as hard to find as Bjelland himself, but Henning decided to give it a try all the same.
He opened a new window and typed ‘Mariana+Bjelland+Natal’. Got hits for a hotel in Hordaland, an Italian language school and a horoscope for celebrities who had Saturn in Aquarius. He found some Brazilian sites as well, but nothing that was relevant. Google asked if he meant Marianne.
He tried just Mariana+Natal. Found the Facebook profile of a woman called Mariana Natal, photographs of what looked like a town getting ready for fiesta, a website that claimed to give the precise distance from KwaZuluNatal to Ilha Mariana.
Henning sighed.
His thoughts went back to Charlie Høisæther and the fact that Bjelland had worked for him. He did a search for Høisæther as well, used his proper name Charles and then typed in Natal and Mariana. The first hit made him sit up and move closer to the screen.
It was an article from a local paper in the Natal region. Henning couldn’t understand the text, but judging from the pictures, it was about the development of a new residential complex. Charlie was standing smiling in front of a digger. There were several other people around him, including a Mariana de la Rosa. She was standing in the background with a file in her hand and a hard plastic helmet on her head. If she didn’t actually work for Charlie, she certainly knew him.
This was the woman Bjelland had married, Henning reasoned, and then googled her name. Found a woman with exactly the same name, who had a Twitter account. She was also on Facebook, but she was from Monterrey. It was, Henning discovered, a very common name and he started to lose hope. If Mariana de la Rosa didn’t want to be found, or if Rasmus Bjelland had hidden her away, she would probably keep a low profile, just like her husband.
Henning worked his way through the first thirty hits, but found no one with any likeness to the woman who was photographed with Charlie. Not until he clicked on to a news website and saw a report about a woman who had died in a car explosion not far from Alto do Rodrigues on 16 June 2007. The woman was called Mariana de la Rosa and there was a small square photograph of her further down the page.
It was her.
So Mariana de la Rosa was dead.
Henning Google-translated the article, and even though a lot of the text made no sense in Norwegian, there was little doubt about the essence of the story: Mariana’s car had blown up because someone had wanted it to. The police went as far as to say the explosion was caused by a bomb.
Henning remembered the sadness in Bjelland’s eyes when he spoke about her. Henning had originally thought it was because he missed her, because she was on the other side of the world and it would be a long time before they saw each other again, but now he understood.
Mariana de la Rosa was killed not long before Bjelland left Brazil himself. A threat to Bjelland could equally be a threat to his wife, or both of them. And the fact that they’d taken her out had given him the incentive to flee.
Henning realised his thoughts were running wild, so he sat back and tried to get them into some kind of order. He thought about what Bjelland’s motive for telling him about Tore Pulli’s involvement in the nineties murder might be, and wondered if perhaps he had now found it.
What if it was Tore’s fault that Mariana was killed?
What if Tore had spread the rumour that Bjelland was an informer?
Then we’re talking about a serious motive, Henning thought enthusiastically. And somebody had clearly given the police valuable information prior to their massive operation in May 2007, which had resulted in so many people being arrested. But it wasn’t Bjelland. Henning believed him.
What if it had been Tore?
What if he’d tried to lay the blame on Bjelland afterwards?
Henning checked the time. It was late, but if he knew Veronica Nansen, she would still be up. He decided to ring her.
‘Hi,’ she said when she answered the phone, clearing her throat at the same time. Henning heard her sit up on the white leather sofa. ‘I’m so glad you called,’ she said. ‘I’ve been worried about you. I heard what happened to your colleague. I’m so sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ Henning said.
‘How are you?’ she asked before he could start on his questions.
‘It…’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about. Is this a good time? Had you gone to bed?’
> ‘No, no. I was just sitting here watching a bad film. What is it? Do you need somewhere to stay?’
‘No, I…’
Henning wondered how best to say it.
‘I’ve found something,’ he said, and spent the next few minutes telling her about Rasmus Bjelland’s wife. He then shared his most recent theories and ideas with Veronica.
The fact that Tore might have started a false rumour about someone, and that his rumour might have led to a woman being killed, didn’t seem to make her angry or sad. Perhaps she’d just learned to accept that Tore had a criminal past and was still a criminal when they married, Henning thought.
‘But he must have had his reasons for doing it,’ Henning said. ‘Which could indicate that he had a more active role in Natal than we’ve previously thought. And that he was still working with Charlie in some way or another.’
That wasn’t hard for Henning to imagine; Tore had lied to Veronica before, and it was perfectly feasible that the two former best friends still had a kind of criminal partnership.
He shared his line of thought with her.
‘Tore might have given the police information,’ he carried on. ‘So that Charlie’s competitors – of which there were quite a few by then – would get into trouble or disappear altogether.’
It made sense, especially as Tore had struggled with debt for a few years. And who was best placed to take the blame afterwards?
Rasmus Bjelland.
A man who had branched out on his own and was not affected by the police operation in 2007. A man who knew a lot about Charlie’s business – and therefore possibly also Tore’s – after working with him in Brazil for years. He was a danger to them.
‘Charlie’s offices were also searched by the police,’ Henning told her, ‘but that might just have been a scam. Charlie had been in Natal for years, and he may well have strategically popped a few thousand real notes in important police pockets. Anyway, he was never charged with anything.’
‘But it sounds a bit foolhardy all the same,’ Veronica said.