Pierced (4 page)

An intense rush surged through Mjønes’s body, but he didn’t have time to savour it. The next moment, a suitcase was pushed in his direction.

‘It must happen quickly and quietly. No traces. No questions. And no mistakes this time.’

Mjønes nodded. Ideally, he would have liked plenty of time to plan, but he had always been good at thinking on his feet. In his head he had already come up with one possible scenario. But he had no time to ask Langbein any more questions because immediately afterwards a car door slammed shut. And when Mjønes walked around the pillar, Langbein had gone.

Mjønes thought for several minutes about what he was being forced to do. Langbein could be bluffing, but even before the threats and the money were mentioned Mjønes had already made up his mind. It was an opportunity to redeem himself. To be generously paid for it as well was simply an added bonus. Besides, it was a long time since he had taken on a job of this magnitude and his fingers were already itching. All of his senses seemed heightened. He felt so much more alive.

Five days go quickly
, Mjønes thinks, and prepares himself for landing. So much has happened in that time. And yet so little. Perhaps that’s why he has been unable to sleep. Perhaps his body can’t relax until it’s all over. Nor will he have much time to rest when he gets home. The operation begins in a few hours. Everything must be in place.

The aeroplane lands, and half an hour later Mjønes is on the train to Oslo. He thinks about the small box in his suitcase, about the plan he has come up with. It’s daring. It’s fiendish.

But if it works, it’s pure genius.

Henning stares out of the window while the silence fills the space between the walls. The façade of the white building opposite him is streaked with brown trails of grime. His gaze continues down towards windowsills and intricate decorations. But he doesn’t look down. Not all the way down. He never can.

Behind a window without any curtains a woman is pacing up and down. She is talking on the telephone, gesturing angrily. Henning thinks about his conversation with Erling Ophus. Ophus is right, of course. Simply believing that the fire was arson is a sign of desperation. There has to be something he can investigate. But what?

Perhaps it’s true that he is only looking for another explanation so he doesn’t have to face the truth. And whether or not it was arson, nothing will change the fact that he could have saved Jonas if his eyes hadn’t been stuck together with melted skin. If he hadn’t slipped on that wet railing. If he hadn’t been so bloody—

A vibrating sound from the kitchen table makes him turn around. He doesn’t feel like talking to anyone right now, but the seven letters on the display arouse his curiosity. He presses the green answer button and puts the mobile to his ear.

‘Is this a better time?’

Tore Pulli’s voice is deeper than Henning managed to register in the noisy street in Grønland.

‘Eh, yes, I think so, but—’

‘11 September 2007.’

Henning stops.

‘What did you say?’

‘I know what happened that day.’

Henning feels a sudden rush of heat to his forehead. Something sharp stirs in his stomach. His throat tightens. He tries to swallow.

‘You lost your son,’ Pulli continues.

‘Y-yes,’ Henning replies in a weak and dry voice. ‘I did. What do you know about it?’

‘So now you’re prepared to listen to me? Now you’ve got time for me?’

‘Yes, I’ve got time to talk to you now,’ he says, rather more combatively this time. ‘What do you want? Why are you talking about my son?’

‘I’ve a story for you.’

‘Yes, so you said. What does that have to do with my son?’

Henning is unaware that he is standing on tiptoe.

‘Nothing. Not directly.’

‘What you mean? And cut the bullshit, Pulli, I’m starting to get annoyed—’

‘Do you know who I am?’

‘Yes, I told you when we spoke earlier today. What about it?’

‘Then perhaps you know why I’m calling.’

Henning racks his brains. He doesn’t remember reading anything about Tore Pulli since returning to work earlier in the summer. Before Jonas died, the former enforcer was forever in the newspapers, often depicted with a broad grin on his face and usually accompanied by his glamour-model wife.

‘No,’ Henning says.

Pulli starts to laugh.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Sorry, I just—’

He leaves the sentence hanging in the air.

‘You just what?’

‘So you don’t know that I’m inside?’

‘No.’

‘Okay, I guess you’ve had other things on your mind in the past two years. But I’m calling you because you’re a good reporter. You’re good at finding things out.’

‘Do you know anything about the fire in my flat?’

There is a long silence. Then Pulli replies ‘Yes.’

Henning stands as if rooted to the floor. Pulli’s deep voice drills into him. There is something about the depth of gravity in it. He is not joking.

‘Are you there, Juul?’

‘What do you know about the fire?’ Henning demands to know and fails to hide the aggression lying right under the surface. ‘Did you start it?’

‘No.’

‘So, who did?’

‘Before we talk about that, I want you to do something for me.’

‘What?’

‘You obviously don’t know why I’m in jail. When you’ve found that out we can talk again.’

Outraged, Henning starts to pace around the flat.

‘You can’t just expect me to—’

‘I’m only allowed twenty minutes of phone calls per week, Juul. I need a few minutes with Veronica as well.’

‘What do you know about the fire?’ Henning shouts and stops right in front of the piano. ‘What do you want from me? Why are you calling?’

There is a short silence while Henning holds his breath.

‘Because I want you to find out who set me up,’ Tore Pulli says, slowly. ‘I want you to find out who should be sitting in here instead of me. If you can do that then I’ll tell you everything I know about the fire in your flat.’

Henning puts down the mobile, runs his sweaty hands through his hair and resumes pacing up and down the living-room floor. How the hell could a man like Tore Pulli know anything about the fire? What exactly does he know, and why hasn’t he said anything before?

If it hadn’t been for the fact that Pulli was in prison, Henning would have called back immediately, grilled him and refused to let go until all his questions had been answered. But he can’t simply march down to Oslo Prison, knock on the door and demand to be let in. First, Pulli must add him to a visitors’ list, then Henning has to apply for permission to visit, and then the prison authorities will check his criminal record. And even though he is a journalist, it can take days, weeks even, for permission to be granted.

But then it strikes him that one important question has just been answered, perhaps the most important of all. Somebody knows something. Perhaps the fire in his flat was started deliberately after all.

Rattled, Henning sits down in front of his computer and googles Pulli’s name. He can’t remember the last time his heart beat so fast. A second later, the search engine brings up a list of thousands of hits. Henning sees Pulli’s mug shot, sombre photos of him outside Oslo Court and inside the courtroom in conversation with people Henning can only see the back of.

Pulli cuts a towering figure. Thick ox neck, broad shoulders, a huge chest and biceps the size of Henning’s thighs. His body matches his voice. Dark, big, terrifying. In some of the earlier photos he has pierced eyebrows. Together with the rings in his ears they reinforce his thuggish appearance, a look he clearly abandoned when he announced his new career as a property developer.

Henning clicks on an article from dagbladet.no.

Joachim Brolenius, Henning mutters to himself and tastes the name. Never heard of him. He reads on:

Henning rereads the article. Who was Joachim Brolenius? What was his relationship to Tore Pulli, and why were they meeting?

Brolenius was killed on 26 October 2007, Henning reads. Only six weeks after the death of Jonas. At that time, Henning was in Haukeland Hospital, and all he can remember doing is staring at the wall. He avoided newspapers like the plague. People too, as far as he could.

Henning scrolls down to the article’s list of links and clicks the first one:

Henning reads on:

Henning finds a Wikipedia article about Pulli.

Henning looks up from the screen. ‘“Just by breaking a few jaws”,’ he repeats to himself. Why would an enforcer known for using his fists to solve problems ever kill anyone with an axe?

Henning skims several other articles about Tore Pulli. He clicks on an article headlined ‘Pulli Promises Million Kroner Reward’ and reads:

‘Wow,’ Henning exclaims. He clicks on other articles on the same subject without finding anything indicating an avalanche of tip-offs.
What does that mean?
, he wonders.
Surely someone must know something?

I want you to find out who should be sitting in here instead of me.

Well, that’s not going to be easy
, Henning thinks to himself,
when not even a million kroner could entice anyone to come out of the woodwork
. And the prosecution appeared to have had a strong case. It was widely known that Pulli had invited Brolenius to a meeting at a place where they wouldn’t be disturbed. Pulli’s fingerprints were found on the knuckle-duster. He had Brolenius’s blood on his clothes, and Brolenius had been beaten up in a way which had Pulli’s MO all over it. Four bullets which were hard to dodge.