Death Deserved

by Thomas Enger

  When it was almost 7.00 p.m., Blix headed for the public entrance. Outside, people huddled together. A loudspeaker played music with a thumping bass to whip up some atmosphere. Two security guards stood on either side of the doorway. Another one stood inside.

  The first audience members were asked to empty their pockets. When one of the guards simply gave a quick glance at the contents of one girl’s handbag, Blix stopped both her and the guard. ‘You have to check it more carefully,’ he said.

  ‘Come off it,’ the guard said glumly. ‘She can’t be more than fourteen.’ He pointed at the girl beside him.

  Blix took a step closer and whispered: ‘I don’t give a shit. All pockets, bags, rucksacks – you have to go through them all.’

  Blix had said precisely this during the briefing. He noticed the guard roll his eyes in disgust, but made no comment. He needed everyone with him on the team.

  Even though things progressed slowly at the entrance, it didn’t take long for the auditorium to fill up. At the moment it looked as if the audience comprised only family members, enthusiastic fans and the usual spectators; and the guards had come across nothing that could potentially be used as a weapon.

  When Merete appeared at the entrance, Blix went over to meet her.

  ‘She’s OK,’ Blix told the guards. ‘I know her.’

  The guard he’d reprimanded earlier rolled his eyes again.

  ‘What’s up?’ Merete asked, looking at his stiffly pressed uniform shirt. ‘Are you working? Here?’

  ‘Yes, it…’ Blix didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Isn’t Jan-Arne with you?’

  ‘Jan-Egil,’ Merete corrected him. ‘No, he couldn’t make it tonight. Now tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ Blix told her. ‘It’s just to be on the safe side.’

  It took only a second for Merete to understand the connection. Her hand leapt to her mouth.

  ‘It’s just a precaution,’ he said, trying to allay her fears. ‘We have people at TV 2 and NRK as well. And several other places, in fact.’

  Merete gulped a couple of times before nodding. Blix escorted her inside, following her to a seat approximately in the middle of the auditorium, where they had a good view over everything that would happen on stage.

  78

  Anita had reminded Emma that she needed to produce something on the semi-final of Worthy Winner, but added that she could just as easily do it from home via the TV broadcast, since she’d been working so much in the past few days. Emma had nothing against turning up at the TV studio, though. She always wrote better pieces when she’d been physically on the spot; and Blix’s daughter being one of the three semi-finalists had given her renewed interest in the programme.

  It was just gone 7.30 when Emma parked her bike in a side street near the building where Worthy Winner was recorded, and stood in the queue to get in. There was no separate press entrance, something that had annoyed several of her colleagues. Emma noticed there were more security guards around than on previous occasions. She also had to hand over her bag to a guard, who looked up at her when he took out the personal alarm to scrutinise it.

  ‘Crazy ex-boyfriend,’ Emma said.

  The guard replaced the alarm in the bag and nodded as a sign that she was free to enter.

  Emma found a seat in the part of the audience cordoned off with red tape and labelled PRESS. She wordlessly greeted some of the other journalists who’d turned up. Sat down. Caught sight of Blix down on the floor; he was in uniform and talking to a member of the production team.

  As Emma glanced around the studio, she spotted many of the people she’d seen working at the police station at the weekend. A great many, in fact. This made her frown. She tried to catch Blix’s eye, but he didn’t notice her, he was too preoccupied. She sent him a text message and asked what was going on. Received no reply.

  Soon the auditorium was full. Blix had still not taken his seat. Through a microphone, someone in the production team requested the audience’s attention for a few minutes. The woman ran over the signals that would be given from the floor to indicate when the audience should cheer and yell at the top of their lungs. They tried it out a couple of times until the woman was satisfied with the level of noise.

  Emma looked at the time. 7.57. The air was full of expectation and excitement, buzzing with the general racket of the crowd and their roars of approval. The cheers rose a notch or two when the programme host appeared on stage.

  Tore Berg Tollersrud picked up the mic and said hello to the audience. He thanked them for coming and hoped that together they would give a tremendous performance.

  Emma was less than keen on his choice of words. It was as if they all had a role to play.

  ‘Are you ready, Totto?’

  The voice came from somewhere on the floor, but Emma couldn’t see where exactly. The lighting technicians checked that everything functioned as it should. A cameraman slid closer to the sofa where the contestants would sit.

  Emma felt a creeping sense of foreboding. Once again she spotted Blix down at the front, scanning the audience with a watchful eye.

  As the producer moved centre stage, the studio manager held up a hand. Tollersrud took a deep breath and closed his eyes, appearing to go into some kind of trance. Deep concentration.

  Then it dawned on her.

  Tore Berg Tollersrud.

  Totto.

  Emma was on the verge of getting to her feet, on the brink of calling out his nickname.

  Originally it had been ‘To-To’, since both his first name and surname began with ‘To’.

  Two-Two. The number two, twice.

  Then the music struck up on the loudspeaker system.

  The transmission had started.

  79

  So far so good, Blix thought once the first tranche of the programme was over. In the auditorium people had stood up to move their legs a little and stretch their backs. But no one left the studio, or made any sign of wanting to.

  Blix had not taken in a single word of what had been said. He’d been busy concentrating intently on every single movement in the auditorium, as well as behind the cameras and under the roof, every place where it might be possible for someone to hide. With a gun, for example. But everything had gone smoothly.

  He wheeled around and made eye contact with Iselin. At first he didn’t know what to do. Then he smiled and waved, fleetingly, but received only a question mark from her eyes in return. She was wearing jeans, a white top and a knitted woollen cardigan. A pale-pink scarf was wrapped haphazardly around her neck. It was almost as if he didn’t recognise her. She seemed different. Larger than life. More grown up, perhaps.

  A member of the production team approached her, and with that Iselin’s attention turned to something else.

  Blix was back in search mode. The auditorium was full of activity. He noticed a hand waving – it was Emma. She clutched her phone in her hand and was pointing at it. Blix took out his and saw that Emma and a few others had sent him text messages.

  He found Emma’s and opened it.

  The presenter’s name is Totto. To-To. Two – twice.

  Blix raised his gaze and made eye contact with Emma again. Then he looked at Tore Berg Tollersrud, standing behind a curtain drinking a glass of water. Checking his appearance in a mirror.

  Kovic approached. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  Blix told her about the message he’d received from Emma.

  ‘Shit,’ Kovic exclaimed. ‘Why on earth didn’t we think of him?’

  ‘I didn’t know that was his nickname,’ Blix answered; his heart had picked up its pace. ‘We have to get the broadcast stopped somehow. Get him out of here.’

  ‘How do you suggest we should go about that?’

  Blix stopped to think, but couldn’t come up with a useful solution. Tollersrud was the only person who could present the show. And the channel would never stop a programme that was going out live, unless there was a terrorist attac
k or something.

  Blix looked again at the presenter, searching for signs that he felt unwell – as Calle Seeberg had been before he collapsed. Tollersrud was still standing behind the curtain passing his thumb across his mobile screen. Smiling to himself as if someone had sent him a message making an obscene suggestion.

  ‘Let’s go backstage,’ Blix said, digging out his temporary pass. ‘I want to take a look at his dressing room. The make-up chair and wardrobe. And talk to everyone who’s been in contact with him since he arrived.’

  ‘We should speak to him as well,’ Kovic interjected.

  ‘We won’t manage that before the next commercial break,’ Blix said, as they hurried towards the nearest security door.

  ‘As long as he doesn’t drop dead before that,’ Kovic said behind him.

  80

  Emma couldn’t sit still. In the second commercial break she went to the toilet, mainly to have a chance to move about. She waited in the queue, her head whirling with the idea that the broadcast was a natural target for a killer who yearned for attention. Three people would be whittled down to two.

  She looked around, noticing a number of plain-clothes policemen with earplugs in. The perpetrator could be somewhere inside the building. She could have unwittingly walked past him. He could be gazing at her now, for all she knew. The very thought made her shudder.

  She heard from the auditorium that the transmission was about to resume so she left the queue and returned to her seat. Tore Berg Tollersrud was interviewing Toralf Schanke about his relationship with Iselin. It had become a recurring theme; the presenter wanted to know if they’d struck up a relationship.

  ‘It’s no secret we find each other attractive,’ Schanke admitted.

  ‘But are you in a relationship?’ Tollersrud pressed him.

  Schanke withheld his answer. He smiled, as if he knew he was about to tell a lie no one would believe. He glanced at Iselin, who rushed to his rescue:

  ‘Say “no comment”,’ she suggested.

  People in the audience laughed.

  Tollersrud refused to give up, and turned to Iselin with exactly the same question. Emma could imagine the headlines if the lovebirds confirmed they were in a relationship. ‘Found Love in the TV House’. ‘Yes, We’re in Love’. ‘We’ve Already Won First Prize’ – a quote neither of them would really have given directly. This evening in particular Emma hoped she could avoid writing about a sloppy public romance.

  Jonas Sakshaug was then asked about some of the dishes he’d served up to the contestants. Emma had already stopped listening when her mobile phone vibrated.

  A message from Kasper.

  He’d spoken to Jeppe Sørensen’s girlfriend who had no idea if he knew many Norwegians. The only one she knew of herself was a Norwegian who’d been treated at the same clinic as Jeppe after a surgical procedure on his cruciate knee ligaments, but she didn’t know his name.

  Emma replied: What clinic was that?

  The answer came only a few seconds later.

  Athlete’s Retreat. Situated a short distance from Copenhagen.

  Emma Googled the clinic and found their home page. She knew that such treatment centres never gave out information about their clients, but she decided all the same to send an email explaining who she was and that she was trying to get in touch with a fellow countryman who had been there at the same time as Jeppe. It would make an excellent story, she wrote, obtaining a Norwegian’s account of what Jeppe had been like during that post-operative period.

  Afterwards she thanked Kasper for his help, then fell deep into thought. She located the screen image she’d stored of Kasper’s arm around Jeppe Sørensen’s shoulder, from the article in the Dagbladet Holstebro-Struer newspaper. In the end she made up her mind to send it to Kasper and at the same time ask why he hadn’t mentioned before that the two of them were personal friends.

  The longer it took for him to respond, the more uncertain she became that she’d embarrassed him or asked something he found difficult to answer. Then the phone buzzed again.

  Funny, I’d forgotten that picture. But it was a long time ago, and I don’t really like mixing business with pleasure.

  The very next moment, Emma heard a gasp from the audience. She glanced up at once, struggling to see what had happened.

  ‘You heard right,’ Tore Berg Tollersrud said on stage. ‘The contestants are about to undergo a lie-detector test, here and now, on live TV. Are you ready for it? Iselin, what do you say?’

  Iselin struggled for a few seconds in an effort to compose herself.

  ‘Well …’ she began, ‘I was more or less prepared for anything when I agreed to take part in this, but … I hadn’t anticipated a lie-detector test, to be honest.’

  ‘What about you, Toralf?’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ he said. ‘Just don’t ask me where my house keys are.’

  That made the audience laugh.

  The presenter then turned to Jonas Sakshaug.

  ‘I’ve got loads of secret recipes,’ the chef said. ‘Just don’t ask me to reveal them and I’m sure I’ll get through this OK.’

  ‘That sounds fine, then,’ Tollersrud said. ‘Now, each of our contestants is going to be examined individually by our expert.’

  Tollersrud pointed to a man who’d taken his place behind a desk with a computer on it. The man smiled and waved to the audience.

  ‘He’ll connect you up to his machine and then I’ll ask you some questions to which you have to answer either yes or no.’

  He turned from the contestants to the camera.

  ‘And then, as ever, it’s up to you at home to vote for whoever you believe to be worthy of a place in the final. I think I can guarantee we’re going to uncover a liar or two, maybe even three, here tonight. The question is how fatal that will be for them. It depends on whether their moral compass is good or bad. We’ll soon have the answer to that. But first – a short break. Keep your seats, folks, we’ll be back in just over four minutes.’

  81

  As befitted a TV star, Tore Berg Tollersrud was allocated his own dressing room, make-up artist and make-up chair. Blix and Kovic were ushered in by a female member of the production team.

  ‘I have to rush back,’ she said. ‘We’re going straight back on air.’

  ‘Just a very quick question: how many people would you say have been in contact with Tollersrud today?’ Blix asked.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said. ‘Probably thirty or forty altogether.’

  She waited, cooling her heels, as Blix digested this information.

  ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  They went inside the room.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Kovic asked.

  ‘Pills,’ Blix said. ‘Perhaps the same kind as the ones we found in Calle Seeberg’s home.’

  They searched the table in front of the mirror. Nothing but make-up and a bottle of water. Blix opened the bottle and sniffed the contents. Kovic checked Tollersrud’s jacket pockets. She took out a pack of chewing gum, a tin of snuff, and a pen. A business card for a woman called Jorunn Tangen who worked at Rubicon TV. Blix examined the rubbish bin, empty. Sniffed at all the make-up paraphernalia on the table. There were no strange smells indicating that something extra had been added.

  ‘He’s done OK up till now,’ Kovic commented as she surveyed the room. ‘The presenter, I mean. There’s nothing to suggest he’s feeling off colour.’

  Blix surveyed the small, confined space. So far everything appeared normal.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to grab hold of him at the next commercial break.’

  They passed through the building again, until they were just behind the stage, where they were stopped by a man wearing a headset.

  ‘You can’t go out there now,’ he said, making signs for them to stay quiet.

  Blix turned towards a monitor to see what was happening on stage. Toralf Schanke was seated on a chair with cables attached
to his head and wrists, and his back to the audience.

  Tollersrud asked some preliminary questions that had verifiable answers. Name, age, family relationships. The reliability of the test increased when the answers Schanke gave tallied with reality. Then Tollersrud moved on to more difficult questions.

  ‘Have you ever stolen anything?’ he demanded.

  Schanke considered this for a moment before replying: ‘Yes.’

  Several seconds elapsed. On the TV the picture changed to a bald man sitting staring at a computer screen. The seconds ticked by. He lifted his eyes and gave a thumbs-up.

  Tollersrud continued: ‘Are you and Iselin Skaar in a relationship?’

  Schanke smiled and shook his head, as if he’d known this question would come up. The onscreen image shifted to a close-up of Iselin, who was watching with interest. Blix could see that his daughter’s neck was flushed.

  ‘No,’ Schanke answered.

  Once again the focus turned to the man overseeing the lie-detector test. He raised his hand in the air as if he were a Caesar deciding whether a slave in the gladiator’s arena should live or die. Then he gave a thumbs-down.

  A gasp rippled through the auditorium.

  Tollersrud smiled as if he wanted to say: ‘We all knew that already.’

  The camera focused on Schanke. The studio lights made his forehead glisten.

  ‘Is money more important to you than love?’ Tollersrud now wanted to know.

  ‘No,’ Schanke replied after taking a few seconds to think about it.

  Zoom in on the lie detector man. His hand went up. His thumb went down. Schanke gave a fleeting smile, shamefaced. A swift shot of Iselin showed her disappointment at the result.

  Tollersrud asked a few more questions, before saying: ‘That’s all we have for you, Toralf.’