Thomas Enger - Burned

‘Did you upload my story?’ Henning thunders.

‘Your story?’

‘Yes, the one about Tariq Marhoni.’

‘When did you submit it?’

‘Last night.’

‘I started my shift at midnight, so it can’t have been me.’

Henning shakes his head and swears silently to himself.

‘Is anything wrong?’

‘You bet your life something’s wrong. I wasn’t supposed to have a by-line and now my face is plastered all over the story.’

The duty editor says nothing. The young woman sitting opposite carries on typing as if nothing has happened. Henning snorts.

‘Is there any way I can find out who uploaded the story?’

‘Yes, hold on a moment.’

The duty editor clicks. Henning paces up and down, and then stops behind him. The publishing tool, Escenic Content Studio, is open. The duty editor opens the article log and clears his throat.

‘It was entered by Jorgen last night at 20.03, edited by Jorgen at 20.06 and 20.08, before Heidi opened it at 21.39 and 21.42.’

‘Heidi Kjus?’

‘Yes.’

His cheeks feel hot. He returns to his desk without saying thank you. Heidi ought to thank her lucky stars that she isn’t here yet.

She arrives half an hour later. She goes straight to Henning’s desk. She looks angry. That makes two of us, Henning fumes.

‘Why don’t you answer when I call you?’ she says, dumping her bag on his desk. He is temporarily flummoxed.

‘I — ’

‘When I call you, you pick up. I don’t care what time it is. Is that clear?’

‘No.’

‘What did you say?’

She plants her hands on her hips.

‘I said no. When I’m off duty, then I’m off duty. I don’t have to report to you then. And why the hell did you insert my by-line photo, when I expressly said I didn’t want a byline on the Tariq story?’

Now it’s Heidi’s turn to be taken aback.

‘I — ’

‘You realise how easy it’ll be for the killer to find me now, if he wants to?’

She digests this.

‘On this paper, everyone who writes a story gets a by-line,’ she begins cautiously, then gets into her stride.

‘If we don’t have the balls to stand by what we write and put our name and photograph to it, then we shouldn’t publish it.’

He is unsure if he has heard her correctly, so he says ‘hm’ and looks at her.

‘Besides, your name and photograph are in every paper today, so if we don’t include it, it just looks weird.’

He looks at her, but can’t think of anything to say. Because she has a point. Bloody hell, he thinks, she’s actually right.

Heidi sits down and begins her morning rituals. She switches on her computer, takes her mobile out of her bag, opens her diary. She has won. The bitch was right.

And he was just thinking that today had got off to a good start.

Heidi walks quietly up and down, while Henning drinks his coffee in silence. She probably has important meetings today, he imagines. Every time she sits down, she glances at him, before her eyes become managerial again.

The clock turns eight without Lord Corduroy deigning to make an appearance. He probably worked late last night. Perhaps he is doing something? Or he has already filed a story? Henning decides to give him a call, even though their last conversation wasn’t particularly amicable. Sometimes you have to offer your hand in friendship, swallow a camel and all that. This has rarely been Henning’s strongest point.

Gundersen answers quickly, but his voice sounds sleepy.

‘Hi, it’s Henning.’

‘Good morning.’

No background noises. Good.

‘Where are you?’ he asks, even though he doesn’t want to know.

‘At home. I’ll be in a little later. I’ve already spoken to Heidi about it.’

‘That’s not why I’m calling.’

‘Oh?’

Gundersen is slightly more awake now, but a pause arises and gives Henning the feeling that they both have something they want to say, but that neither of them wants to go first. Like two awkward teenagers.

‘Are you busy?’ Henning asks at last. ‘Any plans for today?’

He hears Gundersen sit up. His voice sounds distant. He lights a cigarette and blows the smoke hard into the handset.

‘I had a brief chat to Emil Hagen,’ he says, inhaling deeply.

‘Who is he?’

‘A police officer from the investigation. Seems quite new. He bridled a little when I mentioned the stun gun.’

Henning gulps.

‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t want to comment on it. Mahmoud still denies having done anything wrong, but he hasn’t said anything to prove his innocence, either, so the police aren’t really getting anywhere. He doesn’t have an alibi for the evening. You met the only person who could provide him with one, yesterday.’

‘Do you think that’s why Tariq was killed?’

He asks on impulse. But now that the question has been aired, he decides it was actually a good one.

‘That’s hard to know. Might have been.’

He nods to himself. It might very well have been. In which case, someone doesn’t mind if Mahmoud Marhoni stays where he is. But why doesn’t Marhoni say something?

‘And you? Are you at work since you ask?’

Henning looks at Heidi.

‘Yes, I’m at the paper.’

‘I thought you were meant to take it easy for a couple of days?’

‘So did I.’

He is in no mood to discuss his mental health with Gundersen, so he carries on:

‘Did Emil Hagen say anything about the hunt for Yasser Shah?’

‘Yasser who?’

‘The man who shot at me yesterday. I picked him out on a police database.’

‘I asked how far they had got in the hunt for the killer, but Hagen didn’t know. Didn’t seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer. Hagen, I mean.’

Henning nods to himself and wonders if the Operation Gangbuster team is now in charge of the hunt for Shah, seeing that he was a member of BBB.

‘I’ve an appointment with the first victim’s supervisor today. I don’t know if he has anything useful to tell us, and I’ll try to speak to more of her friends. There’s something wrong at that college.’

‘Sounds good. I might see you later,’ Gundersen says and inflects it as a question. Henning has no idea what will happen after his meeting with Foldvik, but he still says:

‘Yeah, you probably will.’

Then he hangs up. He is left with a strange feeling that this was possibly their first civilised conversation. Or it was their first conversation which lasted more than two sentences.

‘Don’t forget we have a staff meeting today at two o’clock.’

Heidi’s voice is frosty. She doesn’t look at him.

‘A staff meeting?’

‘Yes. Sture will be giving us a general update. Business is bad at the moment.’

Isn’t it always?

‘I only mention it because I overheard you saying you have an appointment later today. Attendance is compulsory.’

Henning thinks yes, I bet it is, but refrains from saying it out loud.

Sture Skipsrud. Founder and editor-in-chief of 123news. Sture and Henning worked together at Kapital for a couple of years. The advantage of working on a specialist journal, which isn’t published daily, is that you have time to investigate a story in depth. Interview several sources, form a proper and balanced impression of the issue. Good stories are born in that atmosphere. Stories that need a little more time.

Sture was a great investigative journalist. He received the profession’s self-congratulatory award, The SKUP, at the start of the nineties for an expose of the Trade Minister which led to the minister’s resignation. It made his career and Sture used his superstar status to negotiate better contracts; he worked for Dagens N?ringsliv for a while, wrote a couple of books about some finance wizards, joined TV2 before he left to start 123news in the late nineties. Many have wondered why a man who had made his name in investigative journalism would suddenly want to promote its absolute opposite.