Thomas Enger: Burned

‘So you couldn’t stand it inside, either?’ she says and flashes him a smile.

‘Hi, Anette,’ he says, stops next to her and looks down into the hole.

‘I hate funerals,’ she begins. ‘I think it’s better to say goodbye like this, out here, before the hysteria begins.’

He nods. Neither of them speaks for a while.

‘I hadn’t expected to see you here,’ she says, finally looking at him. ‘Dull day was it?’

‘No,’ he replies. ‘I’m right where I need to be.’

‘What do you mean?’

He takes a step closer to the edge of the hole and looks at it again. He is reminded of Kolbein Falkeid’s poem, which Vamp set to music: When evening falls, I quietly embark and my lifeboat is lowered six foot down.

Twenty-three years, he thinks. Henriette Hagerup only lived for twenty-three years. He wonders if she had time to feel that she had had a life.

He sticks his hand into his jacket pocket.

‘You thought you had remembered everything,’ he says, meeting Anette’s eyes. Her cautious smile melts into an uneasy twitch in the corner of her mouth. He can see his words have taken her by surprise. Good, he intended them to. He waits until the dramatic effect is complete.

‘What?’

‘I couldn’t understand why you suddenly became so helpful and obliging. You drove me up to Ekeberg Common, right in the middle of a rainstorm. At that point, Stefan’s death wasn’t public knowledge. But you knew about it. You knew because you were the last person to see him alive. You knew because you talked him into taking his own life.’

She raises her eyebrows.

‘What the hell are you — ’

‘You suffer from epilepsy, don’t you?’

Anette shifts her weight from one leg to the other.

‘Can I have a look in your backpack?’

‘What — no.’

‘Epileptics are often prescribed Orfiril. I bet you have Orfiril in there,’ he says, pointing to her backpack. ‘Or perhaps you’ve run out?’

She doesn’t reply, but sends him a look that suggests he has wounded her deeply.

‘Orfiril tablets look just like this,’ he says and pulls out a bag of Knott from his suit pocket. He takes out a small, white pastille and holds it up.

‘Stefan had already let the cat out of the bag to his parents. You were going to prison for a long time, both of you. You saw a chance for Stefan to take all the credit. Or was that your plan all along?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I stepped on one of these, when I found Stefan dead in his bed,’ he says, and shows her the sweets. ‘Orfiril mixed with alcohol is a lethal cocktail. But the only one who took Orfiril was Stefan. You swallowed a fistful of sweets. Yum. After all, you enjoy eating them all at once. The only problem with Knott is that sometimes they fall out of the bag or you spill some when you’re trying to swallow a handful.’

Anette shakes her head and holds up her hands.

‘This is beyond me. I’m leaving.’

‘I know why you gave me a lift to Ekeberg Common,’ he says, following her. She turns and stares at him again. ‘You were nervous. You knew that Stefan had blabbed, you were scared he might have told his parents what really happened, revealed the name of his partner in crime. You couldn’t ask Stefan about it that afternoon — he would have twigged that you were up to something — that the suicide pact wasn’t genuine, at least not as far as you were concerned. That’s why you offered to drive me: it gave you a reason to be there and find out how much his parents knew. That’s why you appeared in the tent.’

Anette puts her hands on her hips. She is about to say something, but she stops.

‘And what a performance,’ he continues. ‘You realised that Ingvild didn’t know who you were. You were safe. And you knew that Ingvild had been raped, because Stefan had told you. You also knew that she had taken self-defence classes, that she had a stun gun and that she had been trained to react defensively if someone approached her from behind. Like you did in the tent. Such a compassionate gesture, placing your hand on her back, near her throat, to show kindness, but you did it because you knew what Ingvild would do, she would stun you and surely there can be no better way to remove suspicion from yourself than by becoming the next victim, even if you survive.’

Anette averts her eyes. He can tell from looking at her that it is true, though she hides it well. He is convinced she has been to the Foldviks’ flat more than once. That’s why she closed the curtains. She knew how it was overlooked from the street, from the flats opposite, and she also knew that the Foldviks had nosy neighbours. Every time a front door was opened, Mrs Steen’s curtains would twitch. That was why the front door was almost closed, but not shut. So no one would see or hear her.

Anette scratches her cheek and flicks aside strands of hair that have flopped into her eyes. Henning continues:

‘After killing Henriette, you tried to implicate her boyfriend, a man who had won Henriette’s heart. You tried to set him up, just like in the script, so you could go free. It didn’t quite go according to plan, but with Stefan out of the picture, after his confession, all the loose ends were tidied up, as far as you were concerned. You thought you had remembered everything, Anette, but you missed a couple of things,’ he says and pauses for dramatic effect again. It appears to be lost on her. She looks at him with expressionless eyes.

‘Stefan,’ he says and waits a little longer. ‘How did Stefan know that Henriette would be in the tent that night?’

He lets the question linger for a long time. Anette doesn’t reply.

‘No texts were sent from Stefan’s mobile to Henriette that day or night. Or from her mobile to his. I know, because I checked.’

She doesn’t stir, she simply looks at him. Her face is blank and her breathing indifferent. He straightens up.

‘However, a call was made from his telephone to yours on the afternoon he died. It lasted thirty-seven seconds. Was that when he told you he had confessed to his parents? Is that why you drove over? To carry out a little damage limitation?’

Still no reply. He remembers what Anette said to him, outside the college, that Henriette had said she was going to email ‘A Sharia Caste’ to Foldvik. 6tiermes7, or someone else from the police, went through Henriette’s e-mails and established that she never did. Yngve wasn’t lying. Stefan couldn’t have found the script at home. There was only one way it could have happened: Anette must have shown, or given, it to him.

Henning watches her. There are no chinks in her armour.

‘I’m asking you again: how did Stefan know that Henriette would be in the tent that evening?’

This time, he doesn’t wait for a reply.

‘Because you told him. Henriette and you had already agreed to meet there. Otherwise, why would she leave her boyfriend’s flat? It had to be because of something important, something previously arranged. And you were going to start filming the following day.’

Anette doesn’t react.

‘What did you say to Stefan that evening?’ he continues, unaffected by her stonewalling. ‘That you were just going to scare her little? Was that how you made him bring his mother’s stun gun?’

Even though Anette doesn’t say anything, Henning is convinced that Henriette must have been surprised when Stefan appeared in the tent with Anette. That hadn’t been part of her agreement with Anette. But Stefan still thought that Henriette was the woman his father had had an affair with. Perfect for Anette. And the hole had already been dug, because it was needed for the filming the morning after.

‘Did you throw the first stone, or did you provoke him into killing her?’