Thomas Enger: Pierced

Brogeland stretches out his legs on the sofa. On the floor next to the coffee table Alisha has set out a plastic toy castle which Oda Marie is making a concerted effort to destroy. He hasn’t got the energy to tell them off, all he wants to do is close his eyes and go to sleep.

His father always used to lie down after dinner with one leg resting on the back of the sofa. It never took more than a couple of minutes before the family would hear the low hum coming from his nose. Brogeland remembers how he always hoped that his father would play with him. But he hardly ever had the energy. And now he has become exactly like him.

‘Do you want some coffee, honey?’ he hears from the kitchen.

‘No, thank you.’

A doll dressed in pink hits the floor with a bang. Brogeland scowls at the girls as Anita enters the room. She signals to him to move so that she can sit down next to him on the sofa. He shifts a few centimetres.

‘You look exhausted,’ she says and places a warm hand on his forehead.

‘I’m just tired,’ he replies and strangles a yawn.

She smiles. ‘You’re allowed to say that you’re worn out.’

Brogeland looks at her slender neck, the little spot where the neck turns into the chest. He traces her throat with his finger up to her cheek. Soft and smooth.

‘I think you should try and take a couple of days off,’ she says. ‘It’s not good to work as hard as you do.’

‘I can’t,’ he replies.

‘Of course you can.’

‘No, we’re in the middle of-’

Brogeland is interrupted by his mobile buzzing on the coffee table. Anita sends him a look of disapproval as he sits up.

‘Please, would you move?’ he says to her.

Reluctantly she does as he asks. The number is unknown. It could be the station. It could also be a nosy journalist, he thinks, but he has no desire to continue the discussion with Anita so he answers it.

‘Is this Bjarne Brogeland?’ a quick and anxious female voice says.

‘Speaking.’

‘My name is Nora Klemetsen, we’ve spoken a couple of times before.’

Brogeland tries to put a face to the voice.

‘I work for Aftenposten,’ she begins.

Brogeland is about to interrupt her, but she gets there first. ‘But I’m not calling as a journalist. I’m Henning Juul’s ex-wife. And I’m calling you because I’m… because I’m quite worried about him.’

‘Aha?’ Brogeland says and straightens up.

‘I was speaking to him on the telephone earlier when he suddenly stopped talking. I’ve tried calling him back a couple of times since, but there is no reply. I’m outside his flat now, but he doesn’t come to the door when I ring the bell. I don’t know if he has fallen over or what could have happened to him. You haven’t spoken to him, have you?’

Brogeland wrinkles his nose. ‘No.’

‘Just before he hung up, he said that he was waiting for you to get a move on or something like that and that he had found out who did it.’

‘He said that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And now you can’t get hold of him?’

‘No.’

Brogeland stands up while he thinks. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ll ring you back in a moment.’

He ends the call and opens the inbox on his mobile. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Anita looking at him. He ignores her and opens Juul’s text message, which is nothing more than a request to check his voicemail. Brogeland rings his voicemail and waits impatiently for the pre-recorded female voice to finish. Then there is a beep. Juul’s agitated voice fills the handset. Brogeland, who is trying to put on his shoes while still holding the mobile in one hand, stops as he hears the conclusion to Juul’s argument.

‘Bloody hell,’ Brogeland says to himself. And then he starts running.

On his way to Henning’s flat in Grunerlokka, Brogeland calls Gjerstad to tell him what has happened. Then he gets hold of Fredrik Stang and tells him to contact someone from Fighting Fit who might know where Gunhild Dokken can be found if she isn’t at home. He tries to ring Juul, too, but his call goes straight to voicemail. Brogeland can’t remember that ever happening before.

Twenty minutes after Nora Klemetsen’s call Brogeland parks outside Mr Tang and meets her in front of the entrance to 5 Seilduksgaten.

‘Have you heard from him?’

‘No.’

Brogeland tries Juul’s doorbell but to no avail. Then he rings the other doorbells. Several respond. He identifies himself. Soon the door buzzes, he pulls it open and enters a corridor that stinks of cats and rubbish. He has reached the courtyard when he notices that Nora is lagging behind until she comes to a complete stop.

‘What is it?’ he asks. Nora is deathly pale and staring wildly into space. ‘What is it?’ Brogeland says a second time; he has to go right up to her before she reacts.

‘This is where it… happened,’ she says.

‘What did?’

‘Jonas,’ she says with an apathetic stare. ‘Over there,’ she adds, pointing without looking up. Brogeland follows her finger towards an area where three posts have been screwed together to create a football goal with no net. A slide stretches from a ladder towards a fenced-off gravelled patch. Brogeland’s gaze stops at the flagstones further in, under a balcony.

He turns to her again. For a brief moment he wants to ask Nora why the hell Henning decided to live here, in this very place, after the accident, but it strikes him that she is unlikely to know. And right now they don’t have the time.

‘I’m coming,’ she says, feebly.

Brogeland hurries to the next door and presses every single button on the intercom. Soon the door buzzes open again. He takes the stairs three steps at a time. He hears Nora follow him and the door slam downstairs. Doors open, curious faces look out, but Brogeland ignores them. On the second floor he knocks on the door to Henning’s flat, but there is no reply. He takes hold of the handle. Locked. Brogeland tries to contact Henning on his mobile again as Nora comes up the last few steps towards him. He lifts his index finger to his lips. She stops.

No sound.

‘Damn,’ he mutters and ends the call. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a key, would you?’

‘Me?’

At a loss Brogeland looks around before he rings another number. Nora watches him while he waits for the call to be answered.

‘This is Detective Inspector Bjarne Brogeland from the Violent Crimes Unit in Oslo. I’m at number 5 Seilduksgaten in Grunerlokka. I need assistance opening a door. And get a bloody move on.’

Gunhild Dokken looks at Henning Juul with contempt as he lies on the wet recently disturbed soil with blood pouring from his head. She pushes the dripping wet fringe away from her eyes, takes a step forwards and plunges the spade in the soil. She reckons he is dead. The rain washes away some of the blood flowing from his skull. She smiles with satisfaction and looks around. They are alone.

She should possibly have kept him alive long enough to make him tell her how the hell he knew where to look for the axe, but ultimately it makes no difference. You can’t have everything in life. She got to him in time. Let that be enough, she says to herself. Now move on.

She made up her mind the moment Henning left Fighting Fit, after the business with the clock and — not least — his comment about her T-shirts. She didn’t even go home first to pick up a weapon, she just followed him. He had got too close. And if it hadn’t been for that half-naked old codger in Juul’s stairwell she would have rung the doorbell, forced her way in and happily strangled Juul in his own flat. Much simpler, too. Many more potential weapons as well. Now she has had to make do with a spade she found in the cemetery.