Thomas Enger - Pierced

Henning watches Brenden as Pulli enters. They nod and shake hands before Pulli sits down. The camera follows Pulli’s movements. Brenden comes into view again. He attaches a microphone to Pulli’s T-shirt, runs a cable from his body in the direction of the camera before he puts his hand on Pulli’s back and pushes him a little closer to the table. Brenden’s physical contact with Pulli lasts ten or perhaps fifteen seconds. Then only Pulli can be seen on the screen.

Henning rewinds the recording and replays the scene. He plays it a third time before he hits the stop button and zooms in on Brenden’s left hand. It is clenched even while he clips on the microphone. Henning studies the hand more closely in slow motion. It remains clenched. When Brenden leans towards Pulli to make him straighten up, both his hands are behind Pulli’s neck. Suddenly Pulli glances sideways, towards Brenden, but Brenden merely steps away from him, still with his fist closed.

‘Hm,’ Henning mutters to himself and rewinds the recording again and stops it just as Pulli looks at Brenden. Henning stares into Pulli’s eyes. Then he calls Brogeland to ask if the police have seen the footage.

‘No, we haven’t got the recording from TV2 yet. I think it’s coming later today.’

‘Okay. Call me when you’ve seen it. There are a couple of things I need to talk to you about.’

‘What things? Can’t you just tell me now?’

‘I need to check something first. Have you spoken to Thorleif Brenden’s family yet?’

‘Ella Sandland spoke to his girlfriend late last night.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘The usual, that they hadn’t argued, that he would never just stay away like this.’

‘So he hadn’t been behaving strangely up until he went to film Pulli in prison?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay. Call me later today, would you?’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘It’s beyond me how you can live like this.’

Orjan Mjones marches into the inner sanctum of Flurim Ahmetaj, a room that serves as his centre of operations, living room and also bedroom — or so it would appear. A duvet is scrunched up on a mattress under the window, which is covered with a black blind. The only source of light in the room is coming from three computer monitors lined up next to each other.

‘That’s how I like it,’ Ahmetaj says in Swedish.

Plates with crumbs and cold pizza crusts are piled high on his desk. The floor space by the computer tower is covered with Coke bottles, empty as well as half-full ones.

Mjones finds an office chair and rolls over to the desk. He looks for somewhere to put down his mobile but gives up.

‘You wanted to show me something?’

Ahmetaj slurps from a 1.5-litre Coke bottle and lets out an unashamed burp.

‘Check this out,’ he says and plays a video on the screen. From a bird’s-eye perspective they see people walk quickly in and out of a Burger King restaurant. Mjones looks at Ahmetaj.

‘I know a guy who knows a guy who does security for Burger King,’ Ahmetaj says in broken Swedish. ‘You wouldn’t believe what people will do in exchange for a couple of grand — which you now owe me, by the way.’

‘I’m sure we can sort that out,’ Mjones smiles.

The camera is mounted under the ceiling with the lens overlooking the tills and the entrance. At the bottom-right corner a counter shows the time as being 12:38:04.

‘Look at him,’ Ahmetaj says, pointing to a man who walks quickly into the restaurant. In his hand he holds a bulging white plastic bag.

‘That’s Brenden,’ Mjones says.

‘Okay. And now look, a few minutes later.’

Ahmetaj fast-forwards the recording until the counter shows 12:43:26. A man in a white T-shirt is standing with his back to the camera, glancing nervously around and carrying an identical but slightly less bulging plastic bag.

‘Brenden again,’ Mjones says, getting excited now.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. It’s the same hairstyle and posture.’

Brenden leaves Burger King, making sure he is looking at the ground and shielding his face with his hand as he does so.

‘Okay,’ Mjones says. ‘From his bank statement we know that he went into JeanTV in Arkaden Mall and bought something that cost 399 kroner.’

‘A hat, maybe.’

‘Yes, that was my first thought. Or a baseball cap. And since he ditched his mobile on a train leaving Oslo Central Station, it’s highly probable that he himself travelled in another direction around the same time. Can you find out which other trains left then?’

‘Okay.’ Ahmetaj’s fingers fly across the keyboard.

‘Wait a moment. I’ve got a better idea. Can you give me a printout of the best picture you have of Brenden?’

Ahmetaj clicks again and replays the video. He waits for Brenden to turn his head. His face appears in profile. Ahmetaj freezes the picture, takes a screen dump and opens the file in Photoshop where he adjusts the colours and the contrasts. Then he hits Crtl + P. The sound of a printer warming up comes from somewhere under the desk. Mjones bends down and kicks away an empty Coke bottle, which in turn knocks over several other empty bottles. He pulls a face as the dust rises.

‘What are you going to do?’ Ahmetaj asks when Mjones reappears with a sheet of paper in his hand.

‘I’m going to play cops and robbers,’ Mjones replies and grins.

In US TV crime dramas, male pathologists are short and fat while female ones have long legs and are as immaculately groomed as only newly divorced women can be. Both sexes have complicated private lives, but as far as Henning knows Dr Karoline Omdahl fits none of the above categories. When he wrote a story about a day in the life of a forensic pathologist some years ago and used Dr Omdahl as his subject, he learned that she is married with three grown-up children and has a passion for golden retrievers. The numerous photos of dogs, children and grandchildren Dr Omdahl displayed in her office made it easy for Henning to bust every myth and cliche about the profession of forensic medicine. Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from spicing up his feature with references to smelly corpses, stomach contents and open chest cavities.

Dr Omdahl replies after several long rings. Henning introduces himself and asks if she remembers him.

‘Oh, hi,’ she says, surprised. ‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘Good to talk to you again.’

‘Likewise.’

‘How are the dogs?’

Henning hears her drink from a cup and swallow. ‘Why, thank you, they’re fine. Yash had an infected paw last week, but it seems to have cleared up now, fortunately.’

‘Glad to hear it. Do you have a couple of minutes?’

A few seconds of silence follow. ‘That depends on what it’s about.’

‘It’s about Tore Pulli.’

She falls silent again. ‘I can’t discuss him with you, Juul.’

‘No, I know. But have you finished his autopsy?’

‘The police have requested a forensic autopsy, yes, and we’ve made it our top priority. That’s all I can say.’

Henning nods. ‘How long will it be, do you think, before the preliminary autopsy report will be available?’

‘It’ll be ready later today.’

‘Can I ask… What exactly goes into a preliminary report? What do you look for?’

‘We open up the body and carry out a macroscopic assessment of the organs. We check for internal damage, possible stab injuries, gunshot wounds and so on.’

‘And what about the final report?’

‘That contains toxicology information and analyses of blood and other fluids, possibly a DNA analysis. In addition, we always take tissue samples from various organs. These samples are collected as a matter of routine, but we will also take samples of any discoveries we make during the autopsy. All of this goes into the final report.’