Thomas Enger - Burned

He finds the escape rope coiled up under the bed and ties it around the TV stand. The television alone weighs 40 kg, and with various DVDs plus the stand itself, it should be enough to take his weight, he estimates. The last time he checked, he weighed 71 kg. He probably weighs even less now.

He sits down on the sofa and stares at the ceiling. He still hasn’t switched on the light. If anyone is watching him from the street, he doesn’t want to reveal that he is back.

Stefan’s pale face pops into his head. Please don’t let him haunt me as well, he prays. What on earth causes a seventeen-year-old boy to take his own life? If that is what he did?

The thought makes him sit up. What if he didn’t? What if someone killed him and made it look like suicide?

No. So what about the script? It looked staged, somehow. As if someone wanted it to be noticed, to add the interpretation of the scene? It must have been a suicide, Henning tries to convince himself. Stefan must have got hold of the script and read it. Leaving the script in plain view was a message to his parents or, more likely, his father. Look what you made me do. I hope you can live with yourself.

Yes. That must have been what happened. But all the same. Henning has done this before, reasoned his way to a logical conclusion and yet been unable to shake off a feeling that a vague but ominous hook has anchored itself in his stomach. It yanks him, not constantly, but every now and then it wriggles, making him unpick the jigsaw puzzle and put the pieces back together again differently.

He doesn’t know why. There is nothing to suggest that he is wrong, but his feeling of unease tells him that some of the pieces in Stefan’s puzzle don’t fit. Stefan’s puzzle might not be complete yet.

He nods off in the early morning hours and is woken up by a car beeping its horn. He is lying on the sofa, adjusting his eyes to the light. It is 5.30 a.m. He shuffles into the kitchen, gets a glass of water, fetches the medicine jars from his bedside table and swallows two tablets. The matchbox is where it always is, but he hasn’t got the energy to challenge the soldiers from hell today.

He feels like he has been on a week-long bender. He knows he ought to eat something, but the thought of stale bread with dried-out ham is about as attractive as eating sawdust.

He thinks about the men who came to his flat. What would they have done if he had been there? Were they armed? Would they have tried to kill him?

He pushes the thought away. The point is that he wasn’t there, that there was no confrontation. He decides to forget about breakfast and go straight to work, even though the day is just beginning.

An hour later, he rings Brogeland. A detective never sleeps more than a couple of hours when an investigation intensifies and Henning has questions he is dying to ask. Brogeland’s voice sounds groggy when he finally picks up.

‘Hi, Bjarne, it’s me,’ Henning says, suitably jovial and matey.

‘Hi.’

‘Are you awake?’

‘No.’

‘Well, are you up?’

‘Define up.’

‘How did it go yesterday?’

‘That’s also up for discussion.’

‘What do you mean?’

Brogeland doesn’t reply.

‘Are you saying he didn’t kill himself?’

Henning is on the edge of his seat.

‘No. No, I didn’t say that. It went well, in the sense that we did what we had to do at the crime scene. What do you want to talk about? Why are you calling me this early?’

Henning is wrong-footed by Brogeland’s brusque tone.

‘Well, I — ’

‘I’m about to go to a meeting and I’ve got work to do. So if it’s not anything in particular, then — ’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘Okay, spit it out.’

It takes Henning a moment to gather his thoughts.

‘There’s something I need to know.’

‘Yes, I imagined as much.’

‘Was there any e-mail correspondence between Henriette Hagerup and Yngve Foldvik in the time leading up to her murder?’

‘Why do you ask? Why do you need to know?’

‘I just do. Okay? I feel I’ve a certain right to know.’

‘Right?’

‘Yes. I’ve helped you quite a lot in this investigation.’

‘I know.’

Brogeland sighs deeply.

‘E-mails? I don’t know. Don’t remember. I’m too tired to remember things.’

‘For God’s sake, Bjarne, you can’t be; the son of one of your potential suspects has just died. I don’t know why you’re suddenly being an arsehole after everything I’ve done for you, but that’s fine. I don’t need to talk to you anyway.’

He is about to hang up, when Brogeland yawns.

‘Okay, sorry, I’m just so bloody tired. And Gjerstad, he — ’

More yawning.

‘What about Gjerstad?’

‘Oh, forget it. Yes, Hagerup e-mailed Yngve Foldvik several times and he replied.’ Brogeland says and exhales heavily.

‘Were any of the e-mails about the script?’

‘Yes, one of them. But not about the contents, only that she would send him the script when she had finished it.’

‘Do you remember roughly when that was?’

‘A while ago. I don’t remember the exact date.’

‘How about text messages? Have you found out who texted Henriette on the day she was killed? About the time she was with Marhoni?’

‘She received two or three texts during that period. One of them said “check your e-mail”.’

‘Who sent it?’

‘We don’t know. But we know that that text, like the e-mail with the photo, was also sent from Mozambique, from one of those anonymous sites.’

‘Right. Okay. Thank you.’

‘By the way, you need to come in for an interview today. Gjerstad lost his rag last night when I told him we had only spoken on the telephone.’

‘When?’

‘We’ll be interviewing Mahmoud Marhoni again at ten o’clock. Sometime after that. Why don’t we say 11 a.m., and see how the land lies around that time?’

‘I’ll try and make it.’

‘You have to.’

‘You said “the crime scene” a minute ago. Does that mean you’re treating Stefan’s death as suspicious?’

Brogeland groans.

‘I haven’t got time to talk to you. I’ve got to go. We can talk later.’

‘So you are treating his death as suspicious.’

‘I didn’t say that. And don’t you dare speculate about it in your newspaper either.’

‘I never speculate about suicide.’

‘No, okay. Talk to you later.’

Click. Henning stares into the distance. The police have found something, he thinks, or the absence of something is enough to make them suspicious. If not, Brogeland would have dismissed it categorically.

Brogeland happens to meet Ella Sandland at the coffee machine.

‘Good morning,’ she says, without turning around.

Damn, she’s hot.

‘Good morning.’

Her hair looks as if she has just washed it. She smells discreetly of lavender. Or is it jasmine? He doesn’t remember her smelling of creams or soaps before. Scents suit her. Damn, how they suit her. He feels like eating her up, savouring her, slowly, with a spoon and sugar and whipped cream.

Brogeland is reminded of something Henning Juul said, when they met at Lompa. ‘And it wasn’t that blonde you can’t keep your eyes off?’

Is he really that obvious? And if Juul can see it, then surely Sandland can, too? He hopes so and, at the same time, doesn’t. Whether she has noticed or not, she is doing disappointingly little about it. Perhaps she’s just waiting for me to make the first move, he thinks. Perhaps she’s one of those.

‘Sleep well?’ she asks and pours herself a cup of coffee.

‘No.’