Turn around, Henning. Turn around and go home, before it’s too late. But he can’t. He creeps in. It’s dark inside. The only light is coming from the stairwell. He doesn’t want to leave fingerprints, so he ignores the switch on his left, behind the front door. This is a really bad idea, he tells himself.
But he doesn’t leave. He isn’t sure what he is looking for. Is he hoping to find something that might implicate Foldvik? His computer? But he has no intention of touching it, unless he finds it already switched on and displaying incriminating documents.
He is in the hallway. Shoes, a shoe rack, coats on pegs, a wardrobe and a fuse box. Smoke alarms in the ceiling. They have smoke alarms in their ceiling, thank God. He pauses. The green lights reassure him. His own private all-clear signal.
He can smell cooking. Lasagne, would be his guess. Right in front of him, further down the hallway, is a door with a red felt heart. A door to the left leads to the kitchen. He sees a filthy white cooker. A saucepan with leftover spaghetti is resting on one of the hobs.
There are no boxes on the walls indicating that a burglar alarm has been installed, so he carries on. An arch leads him into a spacious living room. A television in the corner, a dining area. High-backed chairs and soft, embroidered cushions. He can see a large, square coffee table in front of a brown, distressed leather sofa further into the living room. There are three candleholders on the coffee table with creamy white candle stubs. The white linen curtains behind the sofa are closed.
Closed? Why closed so early in the evening?
A dark brown woven rug covers the floor and hides a scratch in the parquet floor. He notices it, because the scratch is so long that it carries on either side of the rug. The dining table is clear of objects. Clean and recently wiped, perhaps?
The Foldviks had spaghetti for dinner before going out. They must have been in a hurry, since they forgot to close their front door properly. There is another open door. It leads to the master bedroom. It’s dark. The curtains are closed there, too. A digital piano stands up against one wall. Henning nearly trips over some cables on the floor. A laptop with a mouse sits on the piano. There is another door in the room and very welcome light pours in from it.
An en-suite bathroom. Henning enters. It is small and has a floor of white tiles and a shower cabin in the corner. The sink is white, too. It is right in front of him and there is a mirror above it. The mirror is on the door of a wall-mounted cabinet. He can see the remains of toothpaste spit on the glass; tiny, white dots. He opens the cabinet and takes a peek inside. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss, mouthwash, face creams, several pill jars whose labels face away from him. He turns one of them around. The label reads ‘Vival’ and Ingvild Foldvik’s name is printed on it. The jar is nearly empty. But that’s not what catches his attention. Further inside the cabinet, to the far right, is a bottle of aftershave. And though the wording on the label has partly worn off, he can see that the aftershave is called Romance.
Henning gulps as he recalls Thorbjorn Skagestad outside the tent at Ekeberg Common, how Skagestad entered the tent and smelled death and the aftershave that he splashes on himself to attract the opposite sex. What are the chances of finding the same aftershave in Yngve Foldvik’s bathroom cabinet?
I’m reasonably well informed, Henning thinks, but my knowledge is somewhat limited when it comes to aftershave in general and the popularity of Romance in particular. Did Yngve Foldvik kill his favourite student? Or could the aftershave belong to Stefan?
He closes the cabinet and decides to leave. He stops in the hallway when he notices a door to the left of the lavatory. A piece of paper saying STEFAN in black letters is attached with a pin. There is a sticker depicting a red skull on a black background underneath. He goes to the door. That too, is ajar. He pushes it open. And that’s when he sees him.
Stefan.
He is lying under the duvet with his eyes open.
But his eyes are open because he is dead.
Chapter 54
Bjarne Brogeland is in his office, staring into space. His hands are folded behind his head. He is thinking. And, for once, he isn’t thinking about Ella Sandland, stark-naked and free of inhibitions. He is thinking about Anette Skoppum, if she is in danger, who might be trying to hurt her and where she might be hiding. Brogeland jerks upright, picks up his telephone and calls Emil Hagen.
Hagen answers immediately.
‘Where are you?’ Brogeland barks. His voice is authoritarian. He feels he can speak like this to a junior officer.
‘Westerdal School of Communication. No one has seen her. I’m thinking I might hang round anyway.’
‘Is anyone still there this late in the evening?’
‘Yes, quite a few people, would you believe it? Last-minute exam cramming. And I think there’s a party later. There are posters on the notice board to that effect.’
‘Okay. Stay where you are and see if you can find her.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Brogeland hangs up without saying goodbye. He leans back and starts thinking about Henning Juul. Could I really have been wrong about him, he wonders? Am I the one being used here? Could I really have been that naive?
He doesn’t have time to think about the Nigerian women before his mobile starts to vibrate on his desk. He looks at it. Talk of the devil, Brogeland thinks.
And ignores Juul’s call.
*
It feels like his feet are nailed to the floor. He has seen dead bodies before and death tends to look peaceful. Not in Stefan’s case. He looks tormented, as if he suffered right up until his final moment. Black rings around his eyes, bags under them, pallid skin; his face looks exhausted. One arm is on top of the duvet, stretching up towards his head. He is curled up against the wall as if he was trying to crawl inside it.
There is a glass on Stefan’s bedside table with a few drops of liquid in it. A pill lies next to it, on top of a book with a black cover. Valium, he thinks. An overdose. He knows he shouldn’t do it, but he goes over to the bedside table, leans forwards and sniffs the glass. It smells sharp. Alcohol. He steps closer to the bed. There is a crunching sound under his foot. He looks at the sole of his shoe and sees the remainder of something white and powdery. He mutters a curse, as he bends down and removes the blanket which overhangs the edge of bed.
He has stepped on a pill. A whole one is lying next to his shoe. Carefully, he picks it up, studies it and sniffs it. The pill and its smell remind him of something, but he can’t place it. He curses a second time and returns the pill to the exact same spot he found it, and stands up. The powder on the sole of my shoe will leave a trail, he thinks. And if I don’t boil my shoe, crime scene technicians will be able to place me here.
The room grows stuffy and humid. Henning feels the urge to run, but he doesn’t give in to it. Something on the desk stops him. It’s Henriette and Anette’s script. ‘A Sharia Caste’ is lying there, open on scene 9, the scene where the Gaarder family is having dinner. And Henning thinks that something is terribly, terribly wrong.
He rings Brogeland’s mobile. While he waits for him to reply, he tries to remember if he touched anything. The last thing he needs is the police to find his fingerprints in the Foldviks’ home.
The bathroom cabinet. Damn. He opened the bathroom cabinet. He closed it with his right hand.
Damn.
He lets the phone ring, but Brogeland doesn’t reply. He picked a great time to be busy, Henning fumes. You bloody amateur, he berates himself. But how was he to know that there was a dead body in a flat he just happened to visit?
He leaves, making sure the front door is almost closed, like it was when he arrived, and he does the same with the door to the backyard. Back outside, he feels how wonderful it is to be surrounded by fresh air, and he looks up at the windows. No one is looking down. He lets his mobile ring twenty times, at least, before he gives up. Damn, he thinks. Damn, damn, DAMN. What do I do now? I have to get hold of Bjarne. I can’t ring the police like I normally would and report this. If I do that, I’ll have to wait here, tell them what I was doing and I know it won’t look good. I won’t be able to give a proper explanation, at least not one that puts me in the clear. First Tariq and now Stefan.