by Thomas Enger
He hears another swift plop, a hole is ripped in the door behind him, but the bullet doesn’t touch him; he is in another room, a small living room with a large window, he reaches for the catch, pushes it down, but it’s the wrong way, he pushes it outward instead, but it only opens a few centimeters before it refuses to budge. He pushes it again, harder this time, but it stops in the same place. He turns around; the killer hasn’t caught up with him yet. Henning looks at the window, discovers a child lock which he can override and opens the window in one movement. He climbs out onto the windowsill, looks down, sees that the drop is only two meters, and has a flashback to the balcony where he stood with Jonas, ready to jump. At that moment, he hears the killer enter the room. He expects to feel the sharp, paralyzing pain from a bullet in his back, but before he has time to think, he is in the air, he feels nothing underneath him, he waves his arms, scared to look around, all he knows is that the ground is below him. Suddenly it’s there, his knees buckle, he tumbles forward, breaks the fall with his hands, pushes himself up on his palms, rolls around and nearly ends up in the street, on the tram lines, but the danger from the window is far greater, he tells himself, all the killer needs to do is pull the trigger and it will all be over.
Henning stands up, he hears a car coming toward him and gets out of the way. Forget the pain in your legs and hips, he commands himself, just keep running. He doesn’t know which direction he is going, there is tarmac and litter all around, he sees a house, a yellow one. He has no idea where he is, he just carries on running. He corners the building as two bullets hit the wall in quick succession, but he is unhurt.
He finds himself in a small street, a one-way street, it must be St. Hallvardsgate, he thinks, what a stroke of dramatic irony that would be, if he were to die here. He doesn’t want to think about his mother now, all that matters is that he is out of the killer’s range, and he keeps on running. He feels his heart pumping, adrenaline is released straight into his bloodstream. He runs past parked cars, sees people in the street, flashes of color, the street bends, he follows it, running as fast as he can, he can’t feel his legs; it is as if his legs and his hips are oddly out of sync and can’t decide which of them should do what, but he doesn’t give a damn about it, he knows he must put as much distance between him and the killer as possible, because the killer is fleeing, too.
Henning knows he ought to call the police, but his own safety takes priority. He must get himself to a place where he can catch his breath and talk without wheezing. He spots an open space. A sign above the entrance says GAMLEBYEN SPORT AND LEISURE PARK in curved black letters, and Henning runs inside, past a red Mitsubishi Estate. There is no one around; rubbish bags slump against a derelict hut, the walls are covered with graffiti. His shoes pound the smooth concrete. He can see a ramp, a skateboard, and an old plastic chair; it is not a large area. A sign on a blue wall says WELCOME EVERYONE in clumsy italics. The graffiti letters and flames are intertwined in a way Henning doesn’t understand. He reads “We look out for each other because nobody else is bloody going to” below on the same sign. He looks around, the area is fenced in, Jesus Christ, he’s trapped! There are trees all around, but then he sees a gap in the fence, a hole. He aims for that hole and creeps through it. His jacket catches on something, but he yanks it free and hears it rip. He crawls between trees and shrubs, dense like a jungle, and skids past a rusty old fridge. He sees a house on the slope opposite and knows where he is.
He walks down to the train tracks, looking over his shoulder to see if he is being followed, but there is no sign of the killer. He hides behind a large tree, sits down, and pants.
Breathe, Henning. For God’s sake, man, breathe!
He finds his mobile, calls the police, and inhales deeply while he waits for a reply. His call is answered quickly. He identifies himself and says:
“Get me Detective Inspector Bjarne Brogeland. Now!”
25
When Henning turned thirteen, he was allowed to rent Witness, the film starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis, where Danny Glover makes a rare appearance as the killer. After seeing it, Henning didn’t use a public toilet for a long time.
Even though it is twenty-two years ago, he has never forgotten the scene in the gents where the terrified Amish boy is crying and Danny Glover opens one door after another to check if there were any witnesses to the murder. Henning must admit that Danny springs to mind as he sits in the clearing, watching the trains speed by and listening out for approaching killers.
Now he is in a waiting room. He knows why they are called that. This is where you are meant to wait. And Henning waits. He has been given a glass of water. Nothing to read. That’s because he needs to think. When the officers who will be questioning him finally arrive, his memory needs to be as organized, as detailed, and as accurate as possible.
He is usually very accurate, but he feels out of practice. He thinks about Iver Gundersen and Heidi Kjus—perhaps he should have called them as well, but before he has time to think it through, the door to the waiting room is opened. A tall female officer with short hair enters. She looks at him.
“Sergeant Ella Sandland,” she introduces herself and holds out her hand. Henning gets up, shakes her hand, and nods briefly. Bjarne Brogeland, who follows just behind her, eats her up with his eyes, before he sees his old school friend and grins broadly.
“Hallo, Henning!”
And there it is, the feeling he always used to get when he was around Bjarne. Aversion. These days, it is unlikely to have anything to do with Trine. Certain things just don’t change.
Ella Sandland sits down on the other side of the table. Brogeland comes up to Henning and offers him his hand, too. Brogeland must have interviewed hundreds of suspects, Henning thinks, met all kinds of people, but despite his training, it is still there, the slight change in his expression that Henning has seen so many times, usually much more obvious. It is only a fraction of a second and Brogeland tries to be cool about it, tries to be professional, but Henning sees him recoiling at the scars.
They shake hands. A firm squeeze.
“Holy cow, Henning!” Brogeland says and sits down. “It’s been a long time. How many years is it?”
His tone is jovial, cozy, chummy. They applied to the Police Academy at the same time, but they had nothing in common then, either. Henning replies:
“Fifteen, twenty years, perhaps?”
“Yes, it must be, at least.”
Silence. He usually likes silence, but now the walls cry out for sound.
“Good to see you again, Henning.”
He can’t quite say the same thing about Bjarne, but he replies:
“Likewise.”
“I only wish the circumstances were different. We’ve a lot to talk about.”
Do we? Henning wonders. Perhaps we do. But he looks at Brogeland without replying.
“Perhaps we should start?” Ella Sandland suggests. Her voice is firm. Brogeland looks at her as though she is lunch, dinner, and a midnight snack rolled into one. Sandland goes through the formalities. Henning listens to her, reckons that she comes from Sunnmøre or somewhere close by, Hareid, possibly?
“Have you got the guy?” he asks, as she is about to ask her first question. The officers look at each other.
“No,” Brogeland replies.
“Do you know which way he escaped?”
“We’re actually here to interview you, not the other way round,” Sandland says.
“It’s fine,” Brogeland interjects, placing his hand on her arm. “Of course he wants to know. No, we don’t know where the killer is. But we hope you can help us find him.”
“So can you tell us what happened?” Sandland asks. Henning inhales and tells them about the interview with Tariq Marhoni, the shots, his escape. He speaks quietly and with composure, even though his insides are churning. It feels weird to relive it, articulate it, to know that he was a millimeter or two from death.
“What were you doing at Marhoni’s?”
Sandland asks.
“I interviewed him.”
“Why?”
“Why not? His brother’s in custody for a murder he didn’t do. Tariq knows, or knew, his brother best. I would be worried if that thought hadn’t already occurred to you.”
“Of course it has,” Sandland says, offended. “We just haven’t got that far yet.”
“Is that right?”
“What did you talk about?”
“His brother.”
“Can you be a bit more specific?”
He breathes in, theatrically, while he tries to remember. He has everything on the Dictaphone in his pocket, but he has no plans to hand it over.
“I asked him to tell me about his brother, what he did for a living, what his relationship with Henriette Hagerup was like—the sort of questions you ask people you want to know a little more about.”
“What did he reply?”
“Not very much of interest. We never got that far.”
“You said his brother’s in custody for a murder he didn’t do. What do you mean by that? What makes you say that?”
“Because I seriously doubt that he did it.”
“Why?”
“There’s little in his background to suggest that he’s a fervent supporter of hudud punishments, and the murder has—as far as I understand it—links to that.”
Sandland sits immobile and looks at him for a long time before she exchanges glances with Brogeland.
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
Sandland and Brogeland look at each other, again. Henning can guess what they are thinking.
Do we have a leak?
Sandland fixes her eyes blue eyes on him. He feels the urge for a gin and tonic.
“You seem to know quite a lot.”
Sandland says it like a question. Henning shrugs.
“Or you used to, Kapital, Aftenposten, Nettavisen, 123news. How many front-page stories have you had, Juul? How many scoops? That’s what you journalists call it, isn’t it?”
Henning’s shoulders rise in preparation of another deep breath.
“If it will help your investigation, then I can find things out.”
Sandland smiles. It is the first time he sees her smile. Perfect teeth. A red, inviting tongue. He guesses Brogeland has tasted it.
No, on second thought, no. She is not that stupid.
“And, once again, you’re at the center of an investigation, but this time you’re a witness. How does that feel?”
“Are you fishing for a second career with NRK Sport, by any chance?”
“I think this interview will go better and quicker if we avoid sarcasm, Henning,” Brogeland says and gives him an amicable look. Henning nods and concedes that, for once, Brogeland has a point.
“It’s more like a new experience, you could say,” he starts, a tad more polite now. “I’ve witnessed a few things in my time, robberies and stabbings, two goals by the same player in the same match, but it’s a strange feeling to see someone I’ve just been speaking to, who has just offered me a glass of milk, be shot twice in the chest and once in the head.”
“Milk?”
“Skimmed.”
Brogeland nods and smiles briefly.
“Did you catch a glimpse of the killer?”
He hesitates.
“It happened so quickly.”
“But even in brief flashes, the brain can register a great deal of information. Think about it again. Think hard.”
He thinks hard. And, suddenly, the shell cracks. He sees something. A face. An oval face. A beard. Not covering the whole face, only around the mouth, in a square. Thick sideburns.
He tells them. And he describes something else: his lips. A little crooked to the left. Brogeland was right, he thinks. Bloody hell, Bjarne Brogeland, that prize arsehole, was right!
“Did you see what kind of weapon he used?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“A hand gun. A pistol? I don’t know a lot about weapons.”
“Silencer?”
“Yes. Haven’t you found bullet cases at the crime scene?”
Sandland looks at Brogeland again. Yes, of course they have, Henning thinks, and then he feels his mobile vibrate in his pocket. He tries to ignore the call, but it refuses to be silenced.
“Sorry,” he mutters, pointing to his pocket.
“Turn off your mobile,” Sandland orders him. He takes it out and has time to see that Iver Gundersen is trying to get hold of him. He presses extra hard on the “Off” button and holds it down for a long time.
“Did you see what the killer was wearing?”
Think. Think.
“Dark trousers. I think his jacket was black. No, it wasn’t. It was beige.”
“Black or beige?”
“Beige.”
“What color was his hair?”
“Don’t remember, but I think it was dark, too. The guy was dark.”
Sandland sends him a dubious look.
“Apart from his beige jacket,” he adds, quickly.
“Immigrant?” Brogeland asks.
“Yes, I would guess so.”
“Pakistani? Like the victim?”
“Yes, that’s possible.”
Brogeland and Sandland both make notes. Henning can’t see them, but he knows what they say.
The killer knew the victim.
He exploits the short pause that has arisen.
“So, what do you think, did you arrest the wrong Marhoni?”
He takes out his notepad. Sandland and Brogeland look at each other again.
“I thought I had made it clear to you that—”
Brogeland coughs. His hand goes back on Sandland’s arm. She reddens.
“It’s too soon to say.”
“So you don’t rule out revenge as the motive?”
“We rule out nothing.”
“On which theory are you basing the investigation, then? Mahmoud is arrested, suspected of murder, and less than twenty-four hours later, his brother is killed.”
“Inspector—” Sandland objects.
“No comments. And the interview’s over,” Brogeland announces.
“Would you recognize the killer if you saw him again?” Sandland continues. Henning thinks about it, replays the scene in Marhoni’s flat in his head, and says:
“I don’t know.”
“Could you try?”
He sees what she means.
“Have you got some pictures for me to look at?”
She nods gravely.
“I could always give it a try,” he says.
26
“Are you always like that?” Brogeland asks as he sits down at a table and opens up a laptop. They have relocated to a smaller room. Henning sits on the other side of the table and watches Brogeland clicking and typing on the tiny keyboard.
“Like what?” Henning replies.
“Disrespectful and arrogant?”
Brogeland turns the laptop toward him and smiles. The question takes Henning by surprise. He turns down corners of his mouth and tilts his head, first to the left and then to the right. If he hopes to turn the officer in front of him into a potential source, arrogant and disrespectful behavior isn’t the recommended approach in Journalism for Dummies. So he says:
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
He holds up his hands.
“I’m not quite myself after what happened. It’s not every day I witness a murder. I’m not usually like this. It’s probably a defense mechanism or something.”
Brogeland nods.
“I understand.”
It’s not a bull’s-eye, but he hits the target at least. Brogeland pushes the computer a little closer.
“Use the arrows to go forward and backward. If you want to have a closer look at one of the pictures, you just click on it.”
“These people all fit the bill?”
“Yes. I’ve selected offenders with an immigrant background.
I’ve added a couple of other criteria as well.”
Henning nods and starts scrolling through the pictures.
“So, Bjarne, what have you been up to since you left school?” he asks while he looks at the screen.
“A bit of this and that, like most people. After A-levels, I joined the army, I was abroad for one year, Kosovo, and then I did a three-year-degree course at the Sports College. After that, I applied to the police. And I’ve been here ever since.”
“Family?”
Henning despises himself right now.
“Wife and child.”
“Your wife—is she someone I know or would know of?”
“I doubt it. I met her at Sports College. Anita’s from Hamar.”
Henning nods while he carries on looking. He does recognize some of the faces, but only because he has written about them previously, or seen them in the papers.
“Do you enjoy being a police officer?” he fawns and wants to puke.
“Very much so, though it’s a tough job. I don’t get to see as much of my daughter as I would like. Antisocial working hours. There’s always an investigation going on.”
“How old is your daughter?”
“Three. Three and a half,” Brogeland adds quickly.
“Lovely age,” Henning says and regrets going down this route immediately. He hopes Brogeland will refrain from asking the question which would traditionally follow his, and says:
“What’s her name?”
“Alisha.”
“Nice name.”
Henning feels the bile rise in his throat with that morning’s coffee.
“My wife wanted an international name. So our kid can live abroad without having to spell her name all the time.”
