by Thomas Enger
Henning got out of his car into a day that had started heavy with grey clouds, but had now lightened to give the good people of Oslo some hope that the sun would break through. It was much needed.
When he got to the junction of Steenstrups gate and Seilduksgaten, he stopped. The white car that had come towards him at speed had been waiting here. It was as if he were reliving it all: he heard the sound of the engine, saw the lights, felt Iver push him to one side, felt his head landing on the asphalt.
Henning’s heart started to race as he approached his building. He let himself in the entrance by the rubbish bins and prayed that he wouldn’t meet any of the neighbours. Luck would probably be on his side, as most people would be at work. But when he went into the stairwell and opened his mailbox, releasing a cascade of advertising and envelopes addressed to him, he heard heavy footsteps a couple of floors up.
For a second, Henning wondered if he should turn around and leave. The footsteps were getting closer. He looked up the stairs and saw a hairy hand on the banister; he heard the shallow, short breaths, as though someone had a plastic bag over their face, and his shoulders sank. He started up the stairs.
‘Hi Gunnar,’ he called up when he saw his 78-year-old neighbour, who sometimes tramped up and down the stairs. He’d had a heart attack a few years before and used the stairs for exercise. In warmer weather, Gunnar Goma wore practically nothing as he went up and down, but Henning could see that, thankfully he had his trousers and shirt on today. His feet, on the other hand, were bare inside his old, worn sandals. Dirty, hairy feet.
‘Is that you, son?’ Goma said.
‘Certainly is,’ Henning replied.
Goma had clearly not shaved for a few days, and white tufts stuck out from his folds of skin.
‘Your foot’s alright again then, I see.’
‘Yep,’ Henning said. ‘How are you?’
‘Fit as a fiddle and strong as a bear.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
Goma pushed back his shoulders. ‘You should come by for coffee one day.’
‘Mm,’ Henning said.
The old man walked past him, his sandals slapping on the stairs. Then he stopped again.
‘There was a bloody awful smell from your flat this morning.’
Henning looked at him. ‘Was there?’
‘Yes. Have you forgotten to feed the cat or something?’
Henning shook his head.
Goma shrugged. ‘Well, now you know.’
Goma carried on down the stairs. And Henning went up. Soon he was outside his door. He sniffed, could smell something, but couldn’t place it.
Henning put his ear to the door, tried to hear if there was anyone inside, but the noise of his neighbour struggling back up the stairs drowned anything else out.
Henning tried the door. Locked. No scratches or splinters on the door frame. Henning waited until Goma arrived at his floor. The old man stopped and sniffed as well.
‘Not so bad now,’ he said. ‘This morning it smelt like dead monkeys out here.’
Henning put his key in the lock and turned it slowly. The door swung open. The flat was dark. A film of grey light filtered through from the kitchen window.
Henning went in. His shoes were standing where they always stood. The bag of empty bottles was exactly where he’d left it, just beside the door. His laptop was even on the kitchen table, with the screen open.
Had he really turned off all the lights the last time he left the flat?
He normally left something on – the light in the hall or the living room. Sometimes, he even forgot to turn off the light in the bathroom. But everything was off now.
Had a fuse blown?
He went in a bit further, looked around and sniffed again. He didn’t see or hear any movement – no sign of anyone there. But something was wrong, he could feel it.
The fuse box was on the wall by the kitchen. Henning opened it and looked inside. The main fuse switch was off. He put his finger on the switch and was about to flick it on, when he suddenly thought of something.
He went into the kitchen and looked around again. Nothing amiss. He went into the living room, nothing there either.
Apart from the Hoover.
Henning hadn’t used it for a few days, he was sure of that, and he always put it away when he’d finished with it. But there it was. And it was still plugged in. He went back to the kitchen, and took his time examining everything. He spotted a glass on the shelf by the cookery books, to the left of the cupboard over the cooker.
He definitely hadn’t put that there.
Henning took it down from the shelf and sniffed it.
Vinegar.
Which you often put out if you want to get rid of a smell. And Goma had said that it smelt of dead monkeys there in the morning.
Henning looked at the cooker. Everything was off. He opened the cupboard under the sink where the gas canister was kept. The smell was stronger there.
Then he saw it.
A hole in the pipe.
It wasn’t ordinary wear and tear – the pipe had been fine when Henning moved in. The hole had been made with a knife. Henning reckoned it was around two centimetres wide.
‘Christ, it’s dark in here,’ Goma said, out in the hall.
Henning got a fright and banged his head on the worktop.
‘Not so strange, your fuse has blown.’
Goma stomped into the flat, his hand reaching up to open the fuse box, when Henning shouted: ‘Stop!’
Goma stopped.
‘Don’t touch it,’ Henning said in quiet, but firm voice. ‘There’s a gas leak. If you switch on the fuse, the whole flat will blow up.’
It was just after one o’clock when Nora parked behind the small, red car outside Fritz Hellberg III’s house. She got out, locked the doors, looked at the car in front with a puzzled expression, but decided that she wouldn’t let the fact that Ellen Hellberg’s husband obviously had a visitor stop her.
It was still relatively early in the day, so the odds were that he hadn’t tucked into the whisky decanter yet. She rang the bell and it didn’t take long before she heard footsteps inside.
Unni Hellberg opened the door.
Nora didn’t know what to say. And for the first few seconds it seemed the same was true of Hedda’s mother; when she looked at Nora, there was none of the warmth she had shown when she met her out at Kalvetangen two days earlier.
‘Hi,’ Nora said. ‘Is Fritz in?’
Unni pushed back her shoulders a touch.
‘Yes, he’s here,’ she said, without showing any sign that she would let Nora inside.
‘I’d like to have a word with him. Or actually, as you’re here, it would be good to talk to both of you.’
Nora looked up at the woman in front of her. Her chin was defiant, her lips pursed. She didn’t blink.
‘Primarily about Oscar’s will,’ Nora explained.
Unni gave her a cold smile. ‘We would obviously not discuss that with you.’
‘The police will be told of the contents either today or tomorrow, Unni. Can’t we just sit down and talk about it? Nothing needs to be printed in the paper, if you don’t want it to be.’
Unni was about to reply when Fritz appeared behind her. He was unsteady on his feet, his eyes were blurry, but he still managed to focus on Nora.
‘Let her in, Unni. We both know that it’s too late for firefighting, so the least we can do is help shape the outcome. You’re concerned about that, aren’t you?’
He took a step closer and looked up at her. Unni sent him a hard look before he pushed open the door and invited Nora in.
She didn’t need to be asked twice. She was about to take off her boots when Fritz stopped her with a wave of the hand. ‘Leave them on,’ he said. ‘Then it won’t just be my ghost that leaves a mark.’
Nora smiled and followed them into the library where she had talked to him the day before. Fritz made straight for the crystal decanter in the corner.
‘Do you have to? Now?’ Unni asked.
Fritz turned with the delay of an alcoholic. His eyelids were drooping, and it looked as though he was making an effort to keep them open.
‘My dear sister-in-law, in your house you can deny me a dram or two, but here, in my own house, I will have as many as I like.’
‘I’m only thinking about your health, Fritz. It’s not good for your heart to…’
‘Puh,’ he said, with an irritated shake of the head. Then he smiled at Nora, reminding her of Jack Nicholson as he stood there, almost swaying. ‘Miss Klemetsen, could I…’
Nora held up her hand.
‘As you will,’ he said and turned round again. ‘Then I’ll drink alone. I’m used to that, after all.’
He poured himself a generous glass and took a swig. Sighed happily.
‘There,’ he said, and walked over to the chair behind the large oak table. ‘Oscar’s will. Would you like to start, my dear sister-in-law?’ The words came singing out of his mouth.
Unni looked sceptical as she sat down in one of the chairs by the table, opened her bag and took out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. She lit a cigarette and took a drag.
‘No, I guessed as much,’ Fritz said, sitting down heavily. ‘As the good journalist mentioned, Oscar’s will has caused a slight problem for both of us. It’s no longer possible for me to hide the fact that Georg is not my biological son, and you, Unni, would rather that the world didn’t know that your husband has, for all these years, had an illegitimate son.’
Unni took another drag on her cigarette, refusing to look at him.
‘But, he became a sentimental old fool in the end, Mr Casanova, and he wanted to Georg to get his rightful share of the inheritance. So Georg got the summer house. It’s worth a few kroner, I’m sure.’
Nora nodded.
‘That isn’t the only reason why,’ Unni interjected, leaning over towards the ashtray. ‘It’s also where they … met – Oscar and Ellen, that is.’ Unni tapped the ash off the end of her cigarette.
‘Of course,’ Fritz said.
Nora looked at them both, first one, then the other.
‘Was there anyone else in the family who knew about the affair?’
Unni shook her head.
‘Not even your son William?’
Unni looked at Nora as though she hadn’t understood the question. Nora weighed up whether she should share her suspicions with them or not. She somewhat hesitantly concluded that, yes, she should.
‘Around the time that Ellen went missing, William was working with someone called Tore Pulli,’ she started, ‘a well-known enforcer from Horten, who died earlier this year. Ellen was found in a well on the summer-house property; a well that had a heavy, concrete cover, which only a strongly built man could lift without any help.’
Nora decided not to go into any more details – they could fill them in themselves.
Fritz looked surprised. ‘William?’ he said. ‘Is that … can it really…’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Unni retorted, and took another drag on her cigarette.
Nora pulled back a little. ‘William might not have liked the fact that Ellen was destroying the family,’ she suggested, turning away from Unni. ‘So he may have had her killed.’
None of them said anything for a while.
‘Do you have any proof?’ Unni then asked.
‘No,’ Nora replied, turning back to look at her. ‘If William doesn’t confess, that is. And there’s not much chance of that – he’s unlikely to admit to hiring a killer, because he’ll end up in prison. But,’ Nora continued, looking at them one after the other, ‘I’m starting to wonder if this is where Hedda fits in.’
Nora waited until she had their full attention.
‘I think she may have discovered that William had a hand in it.’
Unni crossed her legs. ‘And how would she have discovered that?’ she asked. The greyish-blue smoke from her cigarette spiralled up towards the ceiling.
‘She sat by her father’s bed day and night at the end,’ Nora said. ‘Oscar may have shared his suspicions with her.’
Unni gave an exasperated smile. ‘That’s pure speculation.’
‘It is,’ Nora admitted. ‘But do you have any other explanation?’
Unni took a last drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray.
‘Hedda went out to Hulebakk five weeks ago,’ Nora continued. ‘I think she was going to reveal who killed Ellen; but someone managed to stop her before it was too late.’
Fritz took a sip of whisky. ‘And you think it was William?’ he asked, in disbelief.
Nora shrugged. ‘It’s certainly a possibility,’ she said.
There was silence. Unni covered her mouth with her hand, the index finger resting on the bridge of her nose. Fritz also appeared to be deep in thought.
Ask that drunken husband of hers.
‘Where does the Hellberg family fortune come from?’ said Nora quietly.
They both snapped to attention.
‘What do you mean?’ Unni asked.
Nora looked directly at Fritz. ‘What did Ellen discover about the family, Fritz?’
He looked back at her with wide eyes. Nora didn’t blink, just waited for him to say something.
His shoulders relaxed. ‘Oh. You’ve been talking to Tanja,’ he said.
Nora didn’t answer.
Fritz glanced at his sister-in-law and shook his head. ‘That old bag of bones. Didn’t I tell you she was a little muddled?’
‘Yes, you did,’ said Nora. ‘But she said that Ellen had found out where the family fortune came from, and that I should ask you what kind of people you were. And that’s not the sort of thing you say with no reason. She must have heard something somewhere.’
‘The reason that we’ve never invited her here,’ he said, pointing his shaky index finger in the air, ‘is that she might say something to Georg.’
‘So there’s nothing in what she says?’
‘No,’ he said, quickly.
Unni stood up. Fritz followed her with his eyes as she walked behind Nora’s back. Nora waited for him to explain, but he didn’t.
Nora realised there was one more possibility: Fritz had the strongest motive of them all for killing Ellen. His wife had been unfaithful – with his brother, no less; and Georg wasn’t even his son. If Ellen had then also found out something that might tarnish the family name – if it became known – well, then he may have arranged to have her killed. His heart attack meant that he couldn’t have done it himself, but he had enough money to get someone else to do the job for him.
Nora looked at the picture that was hanging on the wall behind Fritz. It was the same one that William had in his office. Suddenly she had an idea.
‘OK,’ she said, and tried to smile. ‘I’d better get going.’
Fritz stood up and took a step closer. ‘Don’t you dare write anything about this,’ he said, in a hard voice.
‘No, no, of course not,’ Nora said. ‘Not until I’ve found out what the truth is.’
She turned and started to walk towards the door.
‘Thank you for taking the time to talk to me,’ she said. ‘I can find my own way out.’
47
Henning managed to get Goma back out into the stairwell, opened all the windows, and quickly phoned Oslo Fire Brigade and Bjarne Brogeland at Oslo Police. Then he knocked on all the doors in the building and got everyone out, before he himself sat down, exhausted, on a pile of stone slabs in the back yard to wait.
A couple of years earlier, he’d covered a case in which a married couple in their fifties, planning to make a claim on the insurance by causing a gas explosion in their kitchen, had managed to blow up their whole house. They’d totally miscalculated how far the gas would spread, and the damage that such an explosion might cause. The husband had presumably thought he was far enough away to light up a cigarette as he came down the steps.
It was the last th
ing he did.
So Henning knew you had to be careful with gas, and what the intention was here. Whoever had been in his flat wanted him to come home and, finding his flat was dark, think that a fuse had blown; he’d switch the fuse back on, and … Bang. When Henning had worked on the story about the insurance fraud, someone from the fire brigade had explained that a spark was enough. If he’d flicked the fuse switch, the fridge would have started up again; and if that didn’t do the trick, the Hoover had been plugged in and was presumably on, so the gas would have been be sucked into it, and promptly cause an explosion.
It would have been hard to prove what had actually happened – what had caused the explosion. The evidence would be destroyed. And Henning would have burned to death.
Smart, he thought. He also knew that a special smell was added to domestic gas so people would know when there was a leak, which was why they’d put out a glass of vinegar – to hide the smell. Henning hadn’t checked, but guessed there were probably more glasses dotted around the flat.
Bjarne Brogeland arrived just after the fire brigade. Henning took him to one side and they went and sat on the steps that led down to the play area.
Henning had gone to the same school as Bjarne in Kløfta, where they grew up. They hadn’t had much to do with each other at the time – or even, later on, when Bjarne was in love with Henning’s sister, Trine. The policeman was Henning’s opposite in every way. Tall, muscular, fit and particular about his appearance, even his fingernails; but he’d proved to be a very good detective.
Henning told him everything – just as he had with Iver; about the story he was working on, about all the things that had happened so far; and that someone had apparently tampered with Indicia – the police shared reporting system – and removed information about Tore Pulli’s movements in Markveien in the hour before Henning’s flat was set on fire. Initially, everything had pointed to Assistant Chief of Police, Pia Nøkleby, as her user information was registered in the Indicia log, but Henning didn’t think she had anything to do with it; he believed instead that someone had somehow managed to get hold of her username and password.