by Thomas Enger
Henning knew that he wouldn’t be able to catch up with him. Not with his damaged hips and legs.
‘Damn,’ he muttered to himself, and hurried home.
Back in the flat, he sat down at the computer and sent another email to Atle Abelsen, attaching the photographs of the mystery-man he had taken the evening before. He hoped that Abelsen, in return for a bottle of Calvados, might be able to find out who he was. It was clear now that he was watching Henning; and, in fact, Henning wasn’t that surprised by this. What he was more concerned about was just how long he had been following him, and what he might do next.
Henning wondered whether he should finally try, six months after moving into the flat, to use the gas oven, but he decided instead to have three slices of Turkish bread with butter and banana, which he then ate while he pondered how to deal with the situation. He couldn’t be any more careful than he was already, so what should be his next step?
Finding the answers to his questions was becoming a matter of urgency.
23
Nora drove straight back down to Tønsberg the next day. She didn’t need to go into the office to ask for permission – the way the case was developing, it went without saying she’d get it.
A long night with little sleep had left her with a heavy body and a dull mind, but she forced herself to stay awake by focusing on what she had to do. What she should do. The most obvious thing would be to ring Detective Inspector Cato Løken and arrange a meeting, but she didn’t want to do that yet. There were still several people in the family that she wanted to speak to first. She hoped, in the meantime, that there was a natural connection between Hedda and Daniel Schyman, and that an outsider like Hugo Refsdal couldn’t possibly know all the links in a family as large as the Hellbergs.
Before going into the centre of Tønsberg, Nora tried to ring Hedda’s brother, Patrik, again. He surprised her by answering after the first ring. Nora pulled in at a bus stop. As she introduced herself, she took her pen and pad out of her bag.
‘Hello,’ he said.
His manner was terse and dismissive. She had the distinct impression that Patrik had been avoiding her until now, and had finally decided to answer the phone so she would stop harassing him.
He promptly confirmed her theory.
‘I know why you’re calling and I have nothing to say,’ he snapped.
‘Really?’
‘I don’t know where Hedda is and I have no idea why she has disappeared. OK?’
Nora could tell he was about to hang up. ‘Just a couple of quick questions, if I may,’ she said.
Patrik breathed heavily into the receiver. ‘I’ve got a long day ahead. What do you want to know?’
Nora could hear the sound of traffic in the background and a door opening and closing. Then an engine starting; even over the phone, the deep bass of the engine told her that it was a car with plenty of horsepower.
‘Have you seen today’s Aftenposten? Read about the most recent development?’ Nora pulled the earpieces out of her bag and attached them to the phone.
‘Yes.’
She pressed the earpieces in and put the mobile down on the centre console. ‘And do you have any comments?’
‘Any comments?’
Nora steadied the notepad with one hand and held her pen ready in the other. ‘Yes.’
‘No, I have no comment. And what did you think I might say – that I was surprised? Frightened?’
Nora didn’t answer. She heard him snort at the other end.
‘Was that all?’ Patrik asked. ‘I’m late as it is.’
‘Have you been out to your father’s summer house recently?’
There was silence.
‘The boat season’s almost over,’ he then said.
‘So you’re saying no.’
‘Yes. I’m saying no.’
Nora checked in the rear-view mirror that a bus wasn’t coming. ‘Do you know if Hedda has been there?’
‘No.’
A car sped past. Nora watched it until it was out of sight.
‘What sort of relationship did Hedda have with Georg?’
The question just popped out; Nora immediately regretted asking it.
There was another silence.
‘Your cousin, that is,’ Nora added, to prompt him.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I was just wondering. From what I’ve heard, Hedda spent a fair amount of time with him when they were younger—’
Patrik interrupted her. ‘Keep Georg out of this.’
Nora raised an eyebrow. ‘Why?’
Another silence. Then: ‘I don’t want to say anything about Georg.’
Nora felt a stirring. ‘You don’t have a particularly good relationship with your cousin, I take it?’
Silence.
‘No comment,’ he said, finally.
I see, Nora thought to herself. People who are not used to talking to the media seldom know that saying no comment sometimes speaks volumes.
Patrik took another deep breath. ‘Was there anything else? As I said, I’m late already.’
‘Yes. Do you know who Daniel Schyman is?’
Yet again, there was a few seconds of silence.
‘No,’ he said. Then he hung up.
Nora decided to drive out to the summer house again. Everyone was presumably at work now, so she could poke around out there in peace for a while. This time she parked further back down the road and walked the last few hundred metres through the woods towards the property. Even though she was surrounded by trees, she felt a stiff wind blowing in off the sea and pulled up her collar. The smell of the forest enveloped her.
When she got to the wrought-iron gate, she looked around at the trees closest to her. The last time she was there, she’d felt as though someone was watching her from between the trunks. There wasn’t a sound this time.
Nora walked along the fence as she thought about what to do. The fence was too high to climb over. She wasn’t tall and would need a trampoline to jump it.
It didn’t take long before she spotted a branch that reached out towards the fence. Nora was still fairly slim, and the branch looked solid; it might take her weight. Worth a try, she said to herself. She went over to the tree, remembering how much she used to love climbing trees with her older sister: the feeling of the bark under her hands, which scratched and left scabs that she could pick at later when she was in bed. She felt the same joy again as she grabbed hold of the nearest branch. It was an adventure every time. How high would she get? How high did she dare go?
She didn’t have to climb higher than a couple of metres before she was up on the branch. It bounced under her feet like a diving board. She held onto the trunk as she slowly inched her way out along it. The fence was about six or seven centimetres thick.
She looked down, then straight ahead, tried to muster the courage she’d had when she did gymnastics as a kid. At her best, she’d been able to do a cartwheel on a beam that was narrower than her own feet. And even though it was long ago now, she reckoned she should be able to land on the fence and still keep her balance. All it required was concentration. She had to look straight ahead. Arms out.
When she jumped, the branch protested, but didn’t break. Nora aimed for the fence, touched it with both feet, but the momentum she had from the jump carried her on over the fence. Her knees jarred as she hit the ground, but she managed to roll forwards relatively softly. At least she was able to remember how to do that.
‘You idiot,’ she said aloud, as she brushed the damp leaves and grass from her trousers. There were wet patches on her jacket as well. And some mud on her boots and knees. She stood up straight and looked around again. She could see the summer house through the trees.
It was a nice, wooded area. There was enough space around the trees for the light to filter down. The trees were mainly spruce, but she saw some juniper bushes dotted around, and a few pine and aspen trees.
What do you think you’re going to find in here? she a
sked herself.
Hedda, of course. She was here; that was why Georg had come here the day before. Was he holding her prisoner? Had the article in the paper made him nervous? Had he been trying to hide her body better?
Nora moved as quietly as she could. If there was anyone here, she didn’t want to alarm them. There were cameras above the gate, but they were pointing at the road outside. Nora made her way to the garage and looked around the corner. No cameras on the front of the house. Grey water was washing heavily against the jetty where a boat called La Dolce Vita was moored. Nora walked over to it.
This was a fantastic place.
Close to the jetty and boathouse, a big lawn ran down towards the water. There were two annexes, both the size of a normal home, and a big terrace outside the main house with outdoor furniture that was very definitely not bought at IKEA. There was also a fireplace, and gas canisters beside two enormous, covered barbecues, a cobbled path with fine grass between the stones. Everything was well tended.
Nora approached the house. The curtains were open. She had guessed they would be drawn, as the place was not in use at this time of year. Or perhaps Georg had forgotten to close them again when he was here the day before?
She stepped onto the terrace, looking up at the building. There were two smaller windows next to each other – presumably a bedroom – and a glass door. She peered in through the windows first: in fact, it was a study, with a desk and shelves of files, plus cabinets and lamps. There was a neatly made bed in the next room, with paintings on the wall and rugs on the floor.
She moved over to the door, cupped her hands and, putting them to the glass, looked inside. There was a big fireplace and a TV area the size of a small flat; the walls were lined with bookshelves; and there was a solid wooden dining table and chairs.
But several of the chairs weren’t in their places around the table. They had been pushed out, and there were scratch marks on the slate floor; like thin lines drawn with chalk. The table was at an angle as well, and the rug underneath it was crumpled. Nora now noticed that some of the books were sticking out more than others, as though someone had taken them from the shelves and then put them back in a hurry.
Then she froze. A shard of glass was lying under the table.
And suddenly it was there again, the feeling that someone was watching her.
Nora turned around and looked down towards the fjord. There were no boats on the water, no faces in the annex windows. And the other side of the water was too far away to see anyone.
The next moment, something banged above her.
Nora jumped, not knowing what it was. But when she turned and looked up at the wall above her, she saw a splintered notch. A bullet hole. And she had no sooner turned round again, when there was another loud bang.
24
The small driftwood cupboard was full of stuff that Henning had kept – mostly receipts he would never actually need, Post-it notes, pens, brochures, menus. He rummaged around until he found the tape recorder he’d used until everyone starting using smartphones.
He’d found his old cassettes among all the junk that 123News had got rid of when they refurbished the editorial offices, in the period when Henning was unfit for work. On one of them he’d found the interview he’d done with Rasmus Bjelland at Huk, one day in autumn 2007.
At the time, Bjelland was a desperate man. All the crooks living in Natal in Brazil, who had been hauled in by the police down there – for laundering drugs money and other illegal activities – thought that Bjelland had been a police informer. With a price on his head, Bjelland had gone to ground. There were even rumours that he had approached Kripos, the Norwegian criminal investigation service, to ask for a new identity. Henning had managed to track him down, though, through a former girlfriend Bjelland couldn’t quite manage to let go. Henning had sent a message saying that, if Bjelland wanted to talk about the case, he was happy to provide a channel. A few weeks later, the former girlfriend had contacted Henning. Rasmus had agreed to meet him at Huk.
There, he swore his innocence and said that he had nothing to do with the police operation. At the time, Henning had been most interested in the accusations against Bjelland, which was what he later wrote about. Now, though, he remembered that during the course of their interview, Bjelland had said something about Tore Pulli.
Henning sat down at the kitchen table with a glass of water, put the cassette with the Bjelland interview into the machine and pressed play, only to realise it was at the end of the interview and he had to rewind it. The interview hadn’t been digitalised, so it was a slow process, and not easy to find the start. But he got there eventually.
‘Thank you for agreeing to meet me.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Henning could hear the sound of seagulls swooping and chattering in the background.
‘You’re not an easy man to get hold of,’ Henning said.
‘For good reason.’
‘Are you scared?’
‘You would be, too, if you knew what I know.’
‘And what do you know?’ Henning smiled at his own question. Too direct, too early.
‘If I tell you, they might kill you.’
‘So, what you’re saying, is that I could be killed simply for talking to you. When the interview is published, these people will be wondering what else you might have told me.’
‘You’re here at your own risk.’
‘I’m fully aware of that. So why not tell me everything? Why not share the burden?’
‘Because…’ Bjelland paused for a beat before he continued. ‘Because I don’t know you. For all I know, you might be on their payroll.’
‘If you really believed that, Bjelland, you would never have come. I’m pretty sure you’ll have checked me out beforehand.’
Henning remembered that Bjelland had studied him hard for some time, before a smile started to pull at his lips.
‘Yeah, you’re right. I know you’re a good guy, on paper at least. You’ve written a lot of good articles. But this is heavy shit, and I know that the more I say, the greater the chances are that I’ll be killed.’
‘OK, stay in your comfort zone and tell me what you can. Give me your story.’
Bjelland then told him about all the years he’d worked as a carpenter. The business had gone well for a long time, but then he started to have problems with certain clients. He was fairly vague about why, but when he was offered the opportunity to make a fresh start in Brazil, he grabbed it greedily with both hands. He didn’t want to discuss the rumours about him being an informer, but he assured Henning that there was no truth in them.
They talked about Brazil for a long time: how he had managed to escape after the police operation in May; about his wife, Mariana, who he’d had to leave behind, or, to be more precise, he’d sent to an unknown address; about how much he missed her.
‘But what do you know that makes you so dangerous to these people?’
Bjelland had taken a deep breath and looked around. Throughout the interview he had always been on his guard, checking his surroundings, and looking away whenever anyone was in the vicinity; he was even wary of women with prams.
‘D’you know who Tore Pulli is?’ And before Henning could even answer, he continued: ‘Of course you do, everyone does. But what most people don’t know is that he still has close links with people in the criminal underworld. And that he makes his money through them.’
‘Them?’
‘Yes…’ Bjelland had stopped talking at this point and looked down.
‘In what way?’
‘You’re a journalist, you can find that out for yourself.’
‘It would be far quicker if you just told me.’
‘Put it this way: Tore has never worried about climbing over corpses to get what he wants.’
‘For example?’
Bjelland had smiled. ‘Go back to the nineties,’ he had said. ‘Have a look at his acquisitions, what he was selling. You’ll find some pretty do
dgy things there if you’re prepared to dig a bit.’
Henning then tried to get him to elaborate, but Bjelland countered every attempt. In the end, Henning gave up.
The recording was almost finished. They started to talk about what Bjelland would do next.
‘As little as possible,’ he said. ‘I’m going to lie as low as I can.’
Then they both said their thanks and goodbyes and Bjelland left.
Henning stopped the cassette and sat thinking. The best thing would be if he could find Bjelland again, get him to say more and give concrete examples. But he knew that would be difficult. It was unlikely that Bjelland was still in touch with his former girlfriend, so tracking him down would probably take a lot of time as well.
Go back to the nineties.
Henning had tried this before, but there were no records of the acquisitions and sales companies had made. It was only possible the other way round – if you knew the specific buildings and property registration numbers, as you could then look up the property history. But to go that far back, without knowing which properties you were looking for…
Henning had done some spot checks, without uncovering any irregularities. Bjelland’s claim that Tore would happily climb over corpses to get what he wanted was not exactly a surprise, but it was confirmation that the whole business was sinister. And it wasn’t hard to understand why Tore wanted to avoid any information getting out.
Henning tried to call Charlie Høisæther again, with the same result as before. He took a drink of water and pondered what to do next. After a while, he stood up and went to put on his shoes and jacket.
Why not? he said to himself. It’s worth a try.
25
Nora shielded her head with her hands, threw herself down on the ground and crawled behind one of the barbecues. Her heart was in her mouth, the hairs were standing up on her arms and her breathing was shallow as she listened for footsteps.