Thomas Enger - Pierced

Nokleby doesn’t reply. Her arms are folded across her chest. The colour of her cheeks has darkened. For a while they watch the green area outside the police station. Near the pavement a man is pushing a lawnmower up and down.

‘It wasn’t my intention to criticise you, Pia,’ Henning says, after a long pause.

‘No, I know.’

‘Pulli called the police himself, didn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you trawled the neighbourhood looking for the murder weapon?’

‘Obviously.’

‘Why did Pulli return to the crime scene to call the police?’

‘Probably because he couldn’t find his knuckle-duster.’

Henning looks at her for a long time. ‘Do you think that sounds convincing?’

‘No, not totally convincing, but plausible. I’m perfectly aware that a man like Tore Pulli realised that he would have a problem explaining himself after killing Jocke Brolenius. It was widely known that he had asked Brolenius for a meeting. That’s why he concealed the most important piece of evidence against him, the murder weapon, before coming up with this conspiracy theory that someone stole his knuckle-duster and gave Brolenius a Pulli punch to fit him up for something he hadn’t done.’

‘You’re forgetting that Pulli tried to prevent Brolenius getting killed in the first place.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard that story too. It could have been his plan all along, getting people to testify that he had been working to avert a bloodbath so we were more likely to buy his conspiracy theory.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘No.’

‘Something of a gamble, I must say.’

‘You may be right. But you’re forgetting that Brolenius very likely killed Pulli’s friend. No one can convince me that Tore Pulli didn’t want revenge.’

Henning nods quietly.

‘And there’s one more thing: during his initial interviews, Tore Pulli claimed that he turned up at the factory exactly at the agreed time of eleven o’clock that night and that Brolenius was already dead when he arrived. But Pulli didn’t call the police to report the death until 11.19. So tell me this: does it take nineteen minutes to discover a body and call the police, or does it take nineteen minutes to kill someone, conceal the murder weapon and then return to the crime scene to pick up anything you have forgotten?’

Henning doesn’t respond immediately. ‘But in that case why call the police at all?’

‘Because he had come to the conclusion that showing his hand was his best chance of getting off. He knew he would be our prime suspect. But nobody bought his story.’

Nokleby gets up. ‘Pulli did it, Henning.’

Henning doesn’t reply.

‘I’ve got to get back,’ Nokleby continues. ‘If you’re going to write about this, I want copy approval if you quote me. You haven’t made any notes.’

He nods.

‘Thanks for the ice cream,’ she says. ‘It was really good.’

‘And quite sickly.’

She smiles, waves and walks away. Henning gets up too. He shakes his foot, which has gone to sleep, and watches her stride towards the entrance at a brisk pace. He notices with a certain degree of fascination that he likes what he sees.

On his way back to the newspaper, Henning reviews his conversation with Pia Nokleby. She has a point. If Pulli is adamant that he arrived at the factory at the agreed time, he has a problem explaining the nineteen minutes. Henning wonders if he can trust him at all.

He gets himself a cup of coffee, sits down by his desk and starts thinking about Vidar Fjell. Who was he really?

Henning finds out that Vidar Fjell’s parents, Linda and Erik, live in Lillestrom. Erik is a professor of Nordic Studies and works at the University of Oslo, but he can find no information about Linda other than a home telephone number she shares with her husband. A rusty female voice answers after a few rings.

‘Hello, it’s Henning Juul from the internet newspaper 123news. Can I have a few of minutes of your time?’

‘That depends,’ she replies, with that buttoned-up, brusque voice that many people switch to the moment they realise they are speaking to a journalist.

‘It’s about your son.’

There is silence.

‘Why are you writing about Vidar? Now?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’m working on a story where Vidar’s name keeps cropping up. I-’

‘What kind of story?’

‘Tore Pulli’s appeal.’

Linda Fjell snorts. ‘Vidar is dead. That’s bad enough without you journalists bringing it up all the time.’

‘I-’

‘I don’t want to talk about Vidar,’ she interrupts him sharply.

‘What about your husband then? Is he at home?’

‘No,’ she replies, swiftly.

Henning can hear that she is about to hang up.

‘I’m sorry to call you about this,’ he says, quickly. ‘I don’t know you, and I don’t know your husband. But I know how you feel. I’ve lost a child myself.’

There is silence. Henning closes his eyes, tries to will away the images that surface whenever he mentions Jonas. Scenes he never saw but which he can’t stop imagining.

‘I know what it’s like,’ he says, gently. ‘And nothing helps.’

He can hear her breathing, heavy and tortured.

‘So how do you manage?’ Linda Fjell asks him after a pause.

Henning is incapable of replying straight away. ‘Who says I’m managing?’ he whispers, finally. When he continues his voice is soft and slow. ‘But I try to make my boy as alive as I can. For me that means thinking about him as often as I can bear it. I talk about him when I get the chance. And I talk to him sometimes — even if it’s just inside my head. If I don’t do that then I might as well be dead too. I still draw breath just to keep the memory of him alive. It deserves that. And he deserves it.’

Neither of them says anything for a while. Henning feels in need of a shower. ‘Is it okay if I ask you some questions about Vidar?’

Linda Fjell heaves a sigh. ‘Okay,’ she sniffs.

‘Good. Thank you so much.’

‘I don’t really know what you want to know, but-’

‘Perhaps you could begin by telling me something about your son.’

‘Ah.’

‘Perhaps we could start with the place where he worked,’ Henning says to help her get started. ‘His gym.’

‘Fighting Fit,’ she says, proudly. ‘It was his pride and joy. He did everything himself, almost. He was never tempted to sell out to a chain or anything like that. No, not Vidar. He always wanted to do things his way, ever since he was little. Did you know that his gym was a place where young people who had been in trouble could work out?’

‘Yes, I knew that.’

‘Vidar practically dragged them in off the street. At his funeral they were queuing all the way out to the cemetery. There wasn’t room enough in the church. Vidar had so many friends.’

Henning can hear how she grows with every word. ‘Did he have a lot of close friends too?’

‘Yes, he did.’

Linda Fjell reels off the names Henning was expecting to hear: Robert van Derksen, Geir Gronningen, Petter Holte, Kent Harry Hansen. But not Tore Pulli. Henning asks if Tore was one of Vidar’s close friends.

‘No.’

‘Pardon me for asking,’ he says after a short pause. ‘But how do you know that?’

‘Because real friends are there for each other.’

‘And Tore wasn’t?’

‘No.’

‘In what way was he not there for Vidar? After all, he was convicted of avenging your son’s killing.’

Linda Fjell snorts. ‘Is that how you prove what a good friend you are? By killing people? I’m talking about something completely different. Some years ago Vidar had problems at the gym, money trouble. The rent shot up, and the grant the council gave him through the Inner City Project wasn’t enough to cover it. Tore had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it. Vidar went to see Tore to ask for his help. And you know what he said? He said no, that’s what he said.’