Pierced (16 page)

‘I don’t think I do.’

‘Yes, you do. Earlier tonight you asked if that journalist from
Aftenposten
spoke Norwegian. Have you gone mad? Why do you keep asking me if everyone I meet speaks Norwegian?’

‘I—’ He looks down.

‘I don’t think he said anything, so I don’t know. He just sat there, smiling and looking at us, nodding and raising his glass. That’s all I remember. Oh, hang on. He was slightly chubby. Balding. He looked like he thought he could pull, if you know what I mean. Fancied himself. But relax – he’s not my type.’

Elisabeth glances at him and smiles. Thorleif looks at her dark hair which falls loosely over her shoulders when she doesn’t put it up. At her tempting mouth.

‘Seriously,’ he says, pulling her close again. ‘You mustn’t ever say such negative things about yourself. Do you hear?’

Elisabeth closes her eyes and smiles.

‘You’re the best, the most wonderful woman in the whole world,’ he whispers to her.

She opens her eyes again and kisses him on the lips. Her lips taste of stale alcohol. But it doesn’t matter.

‘Thank you,’ she says, tenderly.

Thorleif swallows to make the lump in his throat go away. And he realises as he looks deep into her eyes even though it’s late and they are tired, that his girlfriend has never been lovelier.

The morning meeting has already begun when Henning rushes into the meeting room on the ground floor. News editor Kåre Hjeltland is sitting at the end of the table with Heidi Kjus diagonally opposite him.

‘Hi Henning,’ Hjeltland shouts as Henning arrives. ‘Good to see you. Climb on board, climb on board.’

‘Sorry, I’m late,’ he says. ‘Something . . . something came up.’

‘Not to worry, not to worry.’

Heidi glares at him as he sits down. Henning spent some time earlier this morning looking for old telephone records because Telenor only stores files online for three months, but he found nothing. Nor would the Data Retention Directive have been much use since he is looking for information that is more than a year old.

‘We were just discussing today’s stories, stories, stories,’ Hjeltland shouts as a twitch takes control of his face. Henning has never got used to the news editor’s Tourette’s. The fact that his hair stands out on all sides does little to lessen Hjeltland’s comical appearance.

‘Have you got something you want to add?’ he yells, looking at Henning.

Henning clears his throat, aware that everyone’s eyes are on him.

‘No, I—’ He looks at Heidi. ‘I don’t mind being on cuttings duty today as well, if the cuttings team is still short-staffed.’

‘Cuttings duty?’ Hjeltland exclaims. ‘Why on earth would you want to be on cuttings duty? You’re going out, Juul. To work. Chasing scoops.’

Heidi’s cheeks redden. ‘All right, I’ll do that then—’

‘Okay. Great,’ Hjeltland says and checks his watch. ‘I’ve another meeting, MEETING,’ he hollers. Henning struggles for a second or two to suppress an involuntary laugh and sees that Iver Gundersen is doing likewise. Hjeltland storms out of the door, closely followed by Heidi. Henning is the last to leave, with Iver right in front of him.

‘He ought to be called Holler,’ Iver jokes. ‘Holler and the Eagle. They would make a great team.’

‘Good film title.’

‘Yes.
Starsky and Hutch
.
Thelma and Louise
.
Holler and the Eagle
.’

They walk back up to the second floor and return to their desks. Henning looks at Iver, who loses himself in the screen.
Perhaps Iver can help me
, Henning thinks.
He’s smart enough
. He contemplates asking him for a moment. Then he shakes his head.

Thorleif simultaneously loves and hates dropping off Julie at nursery in the morning. He hates it because sometimes she starts to cry when he leaves. And he loves it for the very same reason. At home, Elisabeth is always her favourite. Julie wants Mummy to put her to bed, to read to her. But at nursery she only wants him.

Today, fortunately, she is all smiles. He hugs her for a long time and whispers in her ear that Mummy will pick her up at four o’clock as usual. Then they go through their goodbye ritual.

‘I love you,’ he says. ‘All the way to the moon.’

‘I love you all the way to the sun. No, to Morocco!’

‘Ah,’ Thorleif says. ‘That’s very far away.’

She nods and squeezes him hard until he has to free himself. He waves to her again and again and again. Even when he is back at the car park outside the Ladybird Nursery he has to wave and wave and wave towards the window where she always stands. As usual he blows her kisses as well. And he gets one back. As he always does.

Kids, Thorleif thinks and opens the car door. The only thing they ever care about is the next treat or the next game. The dangers that lurk out there in the real world never cross their minds. All that matters is getting sweets on Saturdays.

He checks the time and sees that he is running late. He is just about to start the engine when the door on the passenger side is pulled open and a man sits down next to him. Thorleif turns in his seat and is about to protest when he realises who the man is.

The BMW man.

Furio.

Thorleif nearly has a heart attack. The man looks unperturbed.

‘Drive,’ he orders him.

‘But—’

‘In’, the man checks his watch, ‘three minutes a friend of mine will enter a school not very far from here. He will sit down in the canteen. At regular intervals he will go to classrooms 38 and 39 where Elisabeth Haaland is teaching today – with the exception of period four when she has a free period. Your behaviour today will determine whether or not she makes it home from work. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Are you listening?’

Thorleif nods feverishly and swallows hard.

‘Drive.’

Thorleif turns the key in the ignition with trembling fingers. The car starts. Nearly. He makes a second attempt, and this time the engine roars. Thorleif’s cheeks are flushed. He tries to breathe, but it is difficult.

‘Drive,’ the man says for the third time. Thorleif puts the car into first gear. The car jumps when he releases the clutch. He manoeuvres out between the other parked cars and parents with children, spare clothes and lunchboxes in their hands. Thorleif lets the car roll down the hill towards a junction.

‘W-which way?’ he stammers.

‘That’s what’s so great about this,’ the man says. ‘You can choose.’

‘Choose?’

‘Yes.’

‘I-I don’t understand.’

‘It’s a simple choice. If you turn left, your girlfriend will die. If you turn right, the four of you will still be eating tacos on Friday.’

Thorleif is speechless.
Your girlfriend.
He indicates right. The man smiles.

‘Good,’ the man says. ‘Wise choice. Now you’ll call work and tell them that you’re ill today.’

‘Ill?’

Thorleif changes from first to second gear.

‘Yes. Ill. But that you’ll be well enough to return to work tomorrow.’

‘But—’

‘If you can’t remember the number, then I’ve got it on my mobile.’

Thorleif stares at the man, who smiles again. As cold as ice. Thorleif eases out the mobile from his inside pocket. He scrolls down to the number for TV2 with shaking fingers and presses
call.
He wedges his mobile against his left shoulder as he steers the car into the central lane. He can feel his pulse throb in his neck. He stops at another junction and looks at the car next to him. A woman in the passenger seat meets his eyes. In a manic moment he wonders if he can alert her but realises immediately how hopeless it would be. What would he signal? How? With what?

Guri Palme picks up at the first ring.

‘Hi, Guri, it’s me, Toffe.’

‘Oh, hi, Toffe.’

‘Hi. Listen – I’m . . . I’m not feeling very well today.’

‘Aren’t you?’ she says, sounding concerned. ‘I’m sorry.’

Thorleif squeezes his eyes shut.

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ she continues.

‘I threw up this morning, but I’m absolutely sure I’ll be fine tomorrow.’

‘Are you really? I can probably get Trude to find someone else for tomorrow.’

‘No, no, I’ll be all right.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Okay. Good. I hope you feel better soon.’

‘Thank you.’

He ends the call and hyperventilates. The man next to him claps his hands.

‘Bravo,’ he says. ‘I liked the bit about throwing up. I’m starting to think this is going to work out just fine, Toffe. You’re good at improvising. That’s very promising. Take a right up there.’

The man points towards the upcoming roundabout. The emerging autumn colours of Frogner Park glow in the morning sun.

‘I’ve got another very important question for you,’ the man says and turns to Thorleif. ‘Which do you prefer: pedestrian or cyclist?’

Henning is working his way through a pile of papers on his desk. It takes him only minutes to establish that none of the printouts or notes that have been lying there since Jonas died can be linked to a story that relates even remotely to Tore Pulli. He simply can’t recall who he interviewed around that time. Nor are any of the notes dated.

There has to be something, he thinks, something that will remind him of what he was working on in the weeks leading up to the fire. He found nothing significant in the archive, only standard news stories about a robbery, an assault and a couple of court verdicts. Isn’t there anyone he can ring? Talk to?

For a brief moment he considers calling Nora, but dismisses the idea instantly. When they were married they worked for rival newspapers and hardly ever discussed details of the stories they were investigating. And they had been separated for months when Jonas died. Nora would get hysterical if she were to discover that Henning is digging up the past which she is making a determined – albeit counter-intuitive – effort to slam the lid on by trying to find happiness with Iver.

My tapes
, it suddenly occurs to him. The old recordings I made of my sources so I could quote them and use them as evidence in case someone kicked up a fuss after the story had been published. Perhaps there was something on them? The ones he has made since returning to work are in a driftwood cupboard in the kitchen in his flat. But what about his old tapes?

He pulls out his desk drawers and sees at once that they are empty. They had different desks before the refurbishment, he recalls, and gets up, walks past the coffee machine and around the corner to where the national news section used to be. But the old workstations are no longer there.

Henning returns just as the news editor is finishing a telephone conversation.

‘The old office furniture we used to have,’ Henning says, and gets Kåre Hjeltland’s attention. ‘Do you know what happened to it?’

‘Retired along with the office bike – I rode them all to death, ha-ha,’ Hjeltland says and folds his hands behind his head. His armpits are wet. Henning tries not to look at them. ‘Oh, the furniture? Not a clue. Why do you ask? Thinking of giving your flat a makeover?’

‘No.’

‘Try asking Ida. I think she was in charge of the refurbishment.’

‘Okay. Thank you.’

‘Nice day for a drive, isn’t it?’

Thorleif doesn’t reply.

‘I love driving. I never listen to the radio. I like the silence around me. It helps me think. Don’t you agree?’

Thorleif glances at the man next to him, but he says nothing. He can see something shiny in his inside jacket pocket. The man is wearing gloves. The speedometer shows 100 kilometres per hour, the legal limit exactly. Every time Thorleif nudges the speed up above 110 kilometres, the man leans over and checks the speedometer, a movement always followed by a look of concern.

‘Careful now,’ he says. ‘You don’t want the police to pull you over, do you?’

Of course, I bloody do
, Thorleif thinks every time. He has considered doing something insane like driving the car into a ditch in the hope that only he survives. But fear makes him cling to the steering wheel. His heart refuses to beat in a steady rhythm.

He has asked the man what he meant by ‘pedestrian or cyclist’, but the man merely smiled and ignored his question. However, there is something that troubles Thorleif more than that. The man has made no effort to conceal his face. Isn’t he scared that Thorleif will recognise him later or point him out to the police?

The answer when it hits him is as simple as it is brutal. They don’t care. When this is over, they won’t need him any more, and then they will kill him. That is why it doesn’t matter if Thorleif knows the man’s real identity or remembers his face.

‘Where are we going?’ he asks.

They pass the exit to Holmestrand going south on the E18.

‘We’re not there yet. You just carry on driving. And stick to the speed limit.’

The man’s mobile beeps. He takes off his glove and presses some keys. When he has finished, he puts his hand on the armrest and looks out of the window. Thorleif alternates between looking at the road in front of him and at the landscape where the trees are starting to take over. But today he sees no deer lowering their heads towards the ground, only short, rust-coloured wheat stubble and white plastic-covered hay bales that look like giant marshmallows scattered across the undulating fields. The man puts on his glove again.

One hour later they exit towards Larvik.

‘Take a left on that roundabout,’ the man says, pointing at a sign for Fritzøe Brygge Shopping Centre. ‘And go into the multi-storey car park.’

Thorleif drives his Opel Astra slowly down to the basement level where every sound and movement is amplified. He passes a dark wooden entrance which leads to the shopping centre where today’s special offer from Meny is fishcakes. A dozen cars are parked, but there are plenty of vacant spaces.

‘Park next to that car,’ the man says, gesturing towards a dark blue BMW. Thorleif drives around the white supporting pillars. The BMW is the same colour as the one he saw outside Bogstad Farm, but the registration plates are different. Thorleif looks at the man, who smiles slyly.