Thomas Enger - Pierced

‘What happened?’ Brogeland asks.

‘Man in his early thirties, shot five times.’

‘Five times?’

‘Yes. I’ve just spoken to one of the neighbours, but he heard nothing.’

‘He didn’t hear five shots?’ Brogeland says in disbelief.

Hagen shrugs. ‘Silencer, possibly.’

‘Hm. Calibre?’

‘Nine millimetre. The flat belongs to a Robert van Derksen, and it’s very likely that he’s the victim.’

Brogeland walks around in a small circle. The name sounds familiar, he thinks, as they enter the courtyard. Neighbours peer down from open windows. The flowerbed next to van Derksen’s stairwell appears to have been dug up by a dog. There is scattered soil in front of the entrance.

‘Have we found any evidence upstairs?’

‘We found a shoe print outside his front door.’

‘Which doesn’t belong to van Derksen?’

‘That remains to be seen,’ Hagen says, shaking his head. ‘But I don’t think so. It looks like a smaller shoe size.’

Henning gets the message from Heidi Kjus just as he is about to leave his flat. ‘ Murder in number 2 Vibesgate. Can you go straight there?’

Henning rings her immediately rather than reply to her text message. Neither of them bothers with small talk, and Kjus gives him a quick update.

‘So are you going over there?’ Heidi asks.

‘Okay,’ Henning sighs.

He had been chatting with 6tiermes7 the night before and had intended to start the day by breaking the news about Orjan Mjones, but that will have to wait now. He is confident that the news won’t reach anyone else until he has finished in Vibesgate.

Before he leaves, he visits the Yellow Pages website and types in 2 Vibesgate in the search field. It will be some time before the police confirm the victim’s identity, he assumes. He gets two pages of hits and prints them out. As he picks up the sheets, he quickly skims the names. And then he stops and looks up.

‘Oh, sod it,’ he says, softly.

Henning sees that several of his colleagues are already there, and he goes up to the police liaison officer, a tall man in uniform who looks stern-faced and grey as he answers the standard questions according to the book. Henning asks a few of them himself but gets no useful information. It’s too early to say. We’re working on securing evidence. The usual.

A little later, Brogeland emerges and marches resolutely down a side street. Henning makes sure that nobody follows him and catches up with him just as the inspector is about to get into a patrol car.

‘You’re kept busy these days,’ Henning begins. ‘First you arrest Orjan Mjones, the man who arranged the murder of Tore Pulli, and then one of Pulli’s friends is killed on the same day he has an argument with another of Pulli’s friends at Pulli’s funeral.’

Brogeland looks sharply at Henning. ‘What’s on your mind?’

Henning tells him about the altercation between Robert van Derksen and Petter Holte.

‘It’s the body of Robert van Derksen you’ve found, isn’t it?’

Brogeland sighs. ‘You can’t write that it’s him, Henning. Not yet.’

‘I know. So when can I?’

‘I don’t know. We haven’t even told his next of kin.’

‘Okay, I’ll hold fire until you give me the go-ahead, but I want to know before you issue a press release.’

Brogeland looks hard at Henning for a long time before he gets into the car. Before he turns the key in the ignition, he glances up at Henning and nods.

The patrol car drives off without sirens, but at high speed. Henning watches it disappear around the corner before he takes out his mobile and calls Heidi Kjus. He knows that she hates to act as a switchboard for reporters in the field, but this time she accepts instructions from a field agent without asking questions. Nor does she express an opinion on the quotes from Robert van Derksen’s horrified neighbours. Instead she asks him when he is coming in.

‘I haven’t finished here,’ Henning lies.

There isn’t much more for him to do in Vibesgate, but he has other plans. Plans he doesn’t want to share with Heidi.

Henning flags down a cab and goes to Niels Henrik Abelsgate. It doesn’t take him long to establish that Veronica Nansen isn’t at home so he continues to Ulleval Stadium. There he locates the offices of Nansen Models AS on the second floor, next door to a clinic for allergy and respiratory diseases. Strange juxtaposition to a business that provides scantily clad entertainment, Henning thinks, but dismisses the thought as he enters a reception area and nods to the woman behind the shiny, boomerang-shaped glass counter.

‘Veronica Nansen?’ he says.

‘What’s it about?’

‘I need to speak to Veronica. She knows who I am.’

‘She is a bit busy right now.’

‘Just tell her Henning Juul needs to speak to her,’ he says. ‘And that it’s important.’

The secretary scowls at him before she slips the handset under her long hair and utters some sentences Henning fails to catch. Isn’t it a bit odd, he thinks, that Veronica is back at work so soon? Then again, he knows that many people need distraction at a time like this and try to pick up their old routines as quickly as possible.

‘It’s that way,’ the secretary says, pointing down a corridor. Smiling, he thanks her for her help and knocks twice on the door with Nansen’s name in large silver letters. A voice on the other side asks him to wait a moment. Then he hears footsteps. The door in front of him is opened.

‘Hi, Henning,’ Nansen says, surprised.

She steps aside to let him enter. Then she walks around her desk and sits down. Henning spends thirty seconds breaking the news to her. When he has finished, Nansen leans forward on her elbows. Her hair falls in front of her eyes.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she says, and looks at him.

‘Christ knows,’ Henning says and sits down.

The room gets claustrophobic and quiet. He lets her have a moment to digest the information.

‘It’s tempting to point the finger at Petter in the light of what happened yesterday,’ he begins. ‘Hasn’t he threatened Robert’s life before?’ He puts it as a question, but Nansen doesn’t reply.

‘Do you know what Petter did after the wake?’

‘Some of the guys went to the gym to work out, I think, but the rest went home.’

‘They worked out yesterday?’

‘Yes, they’re always at the gym. Petter thought it was the best way to honour Tore’s memory,’ she says and rolls her eyes.

Henning runs through the deaths in his mind’s eye. Jocke Brolenius was killed with an axe, Tore Pulli appears to have been poisoned, and Robert van Derksen was shot. And since Orjan Mjones has been arrested, he can’t have orchestrated the latter unless he planned it a long time ago.

There must be several killers here, Henning concludes. There have to be.

‘Do you know anything about guns?’ he says and hears immediately how loaded the question is.

‘Why do you ask me that?’

‘No, I was just curious.’

‘I don’t believe that. You’re never just curious.’

Henning tries to evade Nansen’s probing eyes.

‘Do you know anyone who has a gun?’

‘They all do, I think.’

‘What about Tore? Did he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever used it?’

‘Yes, a couple of times. A long time ago.’

‘So you know how to shoot?’

‘Yes.’

Her face instantly darkens. ‘But I didn’t shoot anyone last night if that’s what you’re asking me.’

‘That’s not what I’m asking you,’ Henning replies and lowers his eyes.

But it occurs to him that no one had better access to the knuckle-duster than her. And she could have had a million reasons to want her convicted-killer husband dead. What if van Derksen knew something? What if that was the reason he had to die?