Pierced, p.26
Pierced, page 26
‘I don’t talk to reporters,’ Holte says, far from impressed.
‘Oh, you don’t? But perhaps you beat them up?’
Henning watches Holte closely as his muscles tense and his face darkens. Henning reacts by straightening up.
‘A colleague of mine was beaten up last night. Before that he had been here.’
Henning has to narrow his eyes in order to see Holte’s pupils in the dim light.
‘We don’t know anything about that,’ the other doorman says.
Henning focuses exclusively on Holte. ‘Why are you wearing gloves?’
Holte looks down at his hands before he steps forwards. His tanned face has taken on a flushed undertone. ‘What do you want?’
In the past, the heavies in front of Henning would have intimidated him. ‘I want to know if you beat up my colleague last night.’
Holte snorts. The light from the lamp above the entrance bounces off his right earring. The voice of the other doorman is softer.
‘Petter has made it clear that he doesn’t want to be interviewed. You need to respect that or we’ll have to ask you to leave.’
Henning looks at Holte for one more second before he holds up his hands and says, ‘Okay.’ Holte’s colleague steps aside and opens the door. It would have been fun, Henning thinks, to accidentally bump into Holte’s inflated shoulder, but it strikes him that he might have pushed his luck far enough as it is. In spite of everything, he would still like to leave in one piece.
Henning enters, and the Swedish bartender tells him to go upstairs to Even Nylund’s office. From the first floor Henning has a view of the small stage where a woman of East European appearance tries to tantalise the sparse audience with sensual movements.
It is like entering an attic. The corridor in front of him has an opening that reminds him of a vagina. The lighting is subdued. On the wall to the left he sees an illuminated picture of a woman having sex with a fallen warrior. It must be Freya, Henning thinks, and remembers from his schooldays how Vikings who died in battle would come to her. In Norse mythology this kind of death was depicted as an erotic encounter.
Henning walks down the corridor, stops in front of an open door and peers inside. A man sitting on a chair with his back to him turns around.
‘Ah, right. There you are.’
Four TV monitors are mounted on the wall above Even Nylund. Nylund gets up as Henning goes inside. They shake hands.
‘So you found me.’
Nylund gestures to a chair. Henning sits down.
‘Can I get you something to drink?’
Henning shakes his head even though his shirt sticks to his body and his throat is parched. He looks around. The walls are decorated with pictures of scantily clad women, advertising posters and press cuttings. The images on the TV screens are replaced every few seconds. They are live shots from the bar, the stage, the whole room seen from a bird’s-eye view plus pictures from outside. Petter Holte stands tall and tough with his thumbs hooked in his belt.
‘I know who you are,’ Nylund says.
‘Do you?’
‘I spoke to Geir Grønningen earlier today. He seemed to think that you might be stopping by. I was sorry to hear about your colleague,’ Nylund says and shakes his head. Henning studies him, not sure what to make of Nylund’s apparently genuine expression of sympathy.
‘Your colleague said you have a theory that Tore Pulli was innocent.’
Henning holds up his hand in front of his mouth and coughs briefly. ‘So he told you? Yes, I suppose we have. I wonder if that’s why he was beaten up.’
‘Who by?’
‘Well, that’s the problem. You, possibly.’
Nylund smiles. ‘Look at me,’ he says. ‘I weigh sixty-eight kilos. Some of my girls can beat me at arm wrestling.’
‘Yes, maybe they can. But those who work for you have been known to beat people up.’
Henning points to the screen where Petter Holte is holding up an authoritarian hand to a middle-aged man on unsteady legs who is trying to enter the club.
‘I can assure you, Juul, that no one here is involved in the attack on your colleague.’
‘And you’re sure that you know what your staff get up to at any given time?’
‘When they’re at work, then yes.’
‘And you keep an eye on them from here?’
Henning points to the monitors.
‘And in person – when I’m downstairs.’
‘Right. Do these monitors record?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you can find out who left the club after my colleague did.’
‘I can.’
‘Would you do it?’
Nylund smiles. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to your colleague, Juul, but my customers are entitled to a certain amount of privacy. I can’t show you recordings of what happens in here just because you want me to.’
‘I could get the police to do it.’
‘Be my guest – the police can see the footage as long as they produce the right paperwork. And just to be clear, it’s nothing personal.’
‘Mm.’
Henning looks around again. One of the video cameras is pointing at a door with a sign saying Glitnir.
‘Why the Norse theme?’ Henning asks and turns to Nylund again.
‘It was Vidar’s idea.’
‘Vidar Fjell?’
‘Yes. Some years ago, when I talked about opening this place, we spent an evening discussing how we could make the club stand out. Vidar talked about Freya and the Vikings and all that, and I was fascinated by the Norse concept of sex. I think we all were. We decided it would be a good look for us, and that’s how Åsgard was born.’
‘So Vidar was into Norse mythology?’
‘Yes. In a big way.’
Interesting, Henning thinks, as he remembers that Fjell’s father is a professor of Nordic Studies. This must be where his interest sprang from. Henning realises he is excited by this discovery though he doesn’t quite know why.
He sits for a while looking at the real-time clock at the bottom of the right-hand corner of one of the monitors. It makes him think about the nineteen minutes that left Tore Pulli shaking his head. If he really was innocent and he continued to insist that he had arrived on time, how could time pass so quickly?
The answer is obvious, Henning thinks, and it irritates him that the thought hasn’t occurred to him earlier: time doesn’t run fast unless someone makes sure that it does.
Someone must have tampered with the clock on Pulli’s mobile. Someone with easy access to it.
Chapter 85
Mia is working today as well. Thorleif smiles to her as he enters the hotel lobby.
‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Hello, you.’
‘I was wondering if I could borrow your laptop for a little while. Just for a couple of minutes,’ he says, apologetically.
‘Of course you can.’
‘Thank you so much. There was just something I wanted to check.’
‘Take as long as you like. It’s fine.’
Mia smiles and lifts the bag with the laptop over the counter. He takes it.
‘Thank you. How is the book coming along?’
‘Not too bad. I’m working on an escape scene at the moment. It takes place in a hotel,’ she says with her most conspiratorial smile.
‘Oh, good,’ Thorleif says. He realises he would genuinely like to hear more about Mia’s other experiences as a budding writer but suppresses the urge. He can’t allow himself to get to know her or anyone else here. Instead, he sits down in the same seat as yesterday and throws his denim jacket on the adjacent chair. The hotel’s home page glows at him as he opens the screen. Thorleif straightens his cap, opens his newly created email account and waits with bated breath as it downloads. There is no reply from Iver Gundersen.
Thorleif slumps a little in the chair but decides he might as well check the newspapers as he is already online. He finds an article that informs him that the preliminary autopsy report on Tore Pulli provided no answers as to his cause of death. Apart from that, there are no interesting stories about Pulli.
Most newspapers have produced their own, near identical stories about Thorleif’s disappearance, but none of them is accompanied by a picture. This is one of the advantages of being behind the camera, he thinks. You’re practically invisible to the public.
‘Mia?’ he calls out.
‘Yes.’
‘Where is the gents, please?’
She leans over the counter and points to the right. ‘Go past the piano and you’ll find the lavatories on the other side.’
‘Okay. Thank you. Is it all right if I leave your laptop here while I’m gone?’
‘Yes, as there is no one else around—’
Mia smiles again. Thorleif gets up and walks past the fireplace. He passes a lobster tank by the entrance to the restaurant and turns the corner by the dark brown piano. After the smell of the old earth closet in Einar’s cabin, it is a treat to enter a fragrant room. There are grey tiles on the floor. The walls are white.
Thorleif relieves himself and spends a long time washing his hands in one of the two square sinks in front of the mirror before he dries them with a paper towel which instantly disintegrates and sticks to his fingers. He is about to return to the lobby‚ but stops at the sight of a man at the reception with his back to him. The man is wearing a black leather jacket. And he has a ponytail.
*
Ørjan Mjønes looks around as he gets off the train. A petrol station, a hotel, a shop and a kiosk. Is that all this place has to offer? he wonders. In that case it will be a brief visit. If I was Thorleif, he thinks, and I had got off the train here, where would I have gone? What would I have needed?
Mjønes tries the shop by the petrol station first, but finds it closed. The kiosk, however, is open, but the woman behind the counter has never heard of Brenden. Mjønes walks down the steps and out into the evening heat. The sky above him is turning as dark and gloomy as he feels.
The hotel, red and built in the eighties, looms large in the landscape. I might as well stay here for the night, he thinks. The last train back to Oslo left long ago.
He enters the lobby and smiles to a friendly girl behind the counter. He takes out the folded photo of Brenden and introduces himself as Detective Inspector Stian Henriksen. ‘I’m looking for this man,’ he says. ‘Have you seen him?’
Chapter 86
Thorleif stands rooted to the spot. His breath has stopped somewhere at the back of his throat. He can’t move. Mustn’t move.
How the hell did the man with the ponytail get here?
Thorleif looks around, panicking. He can’t risk running into the restaurant from where soft music and muffled conversation drift out towards the lobby. It’s too near the reception. Nor can he go back inside the lavatory because there is no way out from there. He turns around and sees a door right behind him. And above the door there is a green exit sign.
His only chance.
He backs towards the door as calmly and quietly as he can. He sees the man lean across the counter, but it is impossible to hear what he is saying to Mia. Thorleif holds his breath as he takes tiny steps backwards. When he can no longer see the man, he turns around and narrows his eyes as if that will prevent the door from making a sound. As noiselessly as he can, he pulls the door open and enters a bright room with art on the walls. He closes the door carefully behind him. Without looking back he starts to walk, softly to begin with, then faster, until he finally starts to run.
He passes a grey staircase which splits into a right and left branch and continues towards the Plenary Hall but decides to follow the green exit sign past a bench, two chairs and a table in pale pine that have been placed in front of a window. He reaches a corridor with no windows, but there is a door at the end of it. He tears it open and steps out into the evening as he gasps for air.
To his right is a covered wooden walkway with red doorframes and green doors leading to the new holiday apartments. It gets darker and darker further down the corridor. Don’t go that way, Thorleif tells himself, you don’t know if there is a door at the other end. Instead, he steps out on to the gravel, sees hundreds of cabins up to his left and a mountain that has shed its misty veil. He runs past first one cabin, then another before he reaches the road which leads either to the petrol station or further up the hillside, past Presttun. I can’t go back to the village, he thinks. The man could come out of the hotel at any moment, and he would have no trouble spotting me out here in the open. But does he know that I’m here? Or is he just trying his luck?
Then he remembers it. The denim jacket. The laptop. And Mia would have recognised me, Thorleif thinks, if the man gave her a description or showed her a picture. But perhaps she has guessed the man is a villain – after all, she is obsessed with studying faces. What are the chances that the man would then give up, try the next village and never come back?
Thorleif swears to himself. It’s Saturday night. The last train is bound to have left long ago. He looks up towards Einar’s cabin.
Then he starts to run.
*
Ørjan Mjønes stares at the girl behind the counter.
‘I’m not sure,’ she says, nervously, and glances furtively over his shoulder. Mjønes turns around; on a low table he sees a solitary laptop whose screen is facing them. There is a black denim jacket on the sofa. He gives her a look before he walks over to the laptop, bends down and reads the newspaper article displayed on the screen.
The story is about Thorleif Brenden.
He is here, Mjønes thinks, and glances at the jacket. The stupid prat is in Ustaoset, and he was here a minute ago. Mjønes walks back towards the girl.
‘Y-yes, I have seen him,’ she stutters as she points to the lobby area. ‘His name is Einar and he has just gone to the lavatory.’
Einar, Mjønes thinks, and glances around. The corridor is empty. He turns to her again and looks briefly at her anxious eyes before he thanks her and marches briskly past the dark brown piano. Inside the lavatory all he finds are two urinals, two sinks and a cubicle. The door is closed, but Mjønes pushes it open.
No one there.
He goes back out into the lobby, checks the restaurant and sees a solitary couple engrossed in conversation at a table. But no Brenden. He must have seen me, Mjønes thinks. Otherwise why wouldn’t he be in the lavatory? And he left his jacket behind. Mjønes returns to the corridor where he discovers the gallery. Brenden must have gone that way, he thinks. It is the only way out from there.
Mjønes opens the door and enters. It’s as if he can see Brenden’s footprints on the dark-grey slate floor. He continues across the bright room, looks around, stops and listens. No footsteps anywhere. Mjønes follows the exit sign through the gallery. Soon he is outside. He scans the landscape. No Brenden in sight, only more buildings and cabins that block his view. At that moment his mobile rings.
‘Yes?’
‘Hi, it’s me again,’ Flurim Ahmetaj says. ‘Why are you whispering?’
‘Because I’m hot on his heels. Number One is in Ustaoset.’
‘That makes perfect sense. One of Number One’s Facebook friends is called Einar Fløtaker. His family owns a cabin in Ustaoset.
Einar, Mjønes thinks, and at that moment he hears the sound of pieces falling into place.
‘Right,’ he whispers. ‘Email me everything you’ve got.’
‘Okay.’
Mjønes thinks about the girl behind the hotel reception. She has seen his face, and she knows who Brenden is. And if Brenden turns up dead in Ustaoset in the next few days she might put two and two together.
He turns to the door he has just come out of and looks through it. Then he shakes his head. One thing at a time, he says to himself. First things first.
Chapter 87
Once he is back inside the cabin, Thorleif realises that he hasn’t drawn breath for a long time. With a gasp he hunches his shoulders and inhales deeply, planting his hands on his thighs as he does so in order not to fall. He stands like for a few moments before he slumps down on the floor and leans against a kitchen cupboard. He looks up at the ceiling and closes his eyes.
He sits there in deep despair, panting, before he stands up on wobbly legs and creeps over to the window. Carefully, he twitches the curtain and looks outside. The evening is matte and dark. There is not much left of the moon in the night sky, only a torn nail that offers little light. There is no one on the road below.
It was possibly a mistake to return to the cabin, Thorleif thinks, but he couldn’t think of anywhere else to hide. As he surveys the landscape and can clearly see both the roads and the cabins, he concludes that it was actually quite a smart move. He can easily see anyone approaching. All he has to do is stay where he is and keep a lookout. Stay awake and wait. But what does he do if the man should turn up?
Thorleif looks around. He can’t remember if he saw any weapons in the tool shed. There must be an axe, he thinks. Next to the tap he sees a set of kitchen knives. He takes the biggest one, the one that looks the sharpest, and feels the edge. Yes, it’s nice and sharp, he decides. He knows that he must get the first strike right. No mistakes. He has covered several crime stories where the victim tried to use a knife against a burglar or boyfriend only to fall victim to their own weapon.
Thorleif puts down the knife on the table and looks outside again. In just a couple of minutes the sky has grown darker. But he sees no one. He hears no one. He blinks and runs a hand over his sweaty face. His T-shirt sticks to his body. Take it easy now, Thorleif, he says to himself. Stay alert.
You have been in worse situations than this.
*
A dark Mercedes saloon stops in front of the red information board cut in the shape of a cabin, complete with ridged roof and windows. Ørjan Mjønes, who had been leaning against the left wall of the Mix kiosk while he listened out for the sound of the engine, steps forwards and goes over to Jeton Pocoli and Durim Redzepi as they emerge from the car.
