No, he says to himself, I have to get hold of Bjarne.
He tries calling him again. The telephone rings and rings. Arrghhh! Henning rings the switchboard and asks to be put through to him. A female voice says ‘just a moment’. Too many long seconds pass before he is transferred.
The telephone rings again. But only twice. Then Brogeland picks up.
Chapter 55
Bjarne Brogeland never used to have a problem with dead bodies, but these days he can barely look at them. Especially not teenagers or children. I suppose it’s because I’m a father myself now, he thinks. Every time he arrives at a crime scene or goes to a home where a child has died, or been killed, he always thinks about his daughter, beautiful, lovely Alisha, about what his life would be like without her.
Yngve and Ingvild Foldvik must be devastated.
Brogeland enters the family’s flat. The atmosphere inside is one of professional detachment. The mask the police put on in order to do their job, the subdued voices, the quick glances, conveying the words none of them can bear to utter. No one moves quickly. There is no banter, no smart remarks like in detective series on television.
Brogeland goes into the bedroom. Ella Sandland is bent over the body. He called her on the way because she lives nearby. She turns to him.
‘Suicide, most probably,’ she says quietly. Brogeland looks around; he can’t bear to look at Stefan.
‘Traces of alcohol in the glass, possibly vodka.’
Brogeland goes over to the bedside table and sniffs the glass. He doesn’t nod or shake his head.
‘Suicide note?’
‘Haven’t seen one yet. So there probably isn’t one.’
‘He might have died from natural causes.’
Sandland nods, reluctantly. Brogeland turns around, taking in the whole room. He notices the script which Henning Juul told him about. Scene 9, just like the devious bastard said on the telephone. A poster for the film Seven hangs above Stefan’s bed. An empty CD sleeve for the Danish band Mew lies open on his desk. Brogeland guesses that the CD itself is in the sound system on a stool next to the bed. Speakers have been mounted high up on either side of the wall, behind the desk. A battered skateboard is leaning against the wall behind a chair.
‘Have we managed to get hold of his parents yet?’ he asks.
‘Yes. They’re on their way home.’
‘Where were they?’
‘Don’t know. Fredrik is dealing with that.’
Brogeland nods.
‘Poor people, I feel so sorry for them,’ Sandland begins.
‘Yes, so do I.’
‘However, a couple of things strike me as odd,’ Sandland whispers. She comes closer.
‘What?’
‘Look at him.’
Brogeland looks. He sees nothing but a dead teenager, a dead boy.
‘What is it?’
‘He’s naked.’
‘Naked?’
‘Yes.’
Sandland goes back to the bed and gently lifts up the blanket and duvet. Brogeland looks at Stefan, as naked as the day he was born.
‘I’ve never heard of anyone who took their clothes off before killing themselves.’
‘No, you’re right, that’s extremely rare.’
‘And he’s lying in a strange position.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Look at him. He’s pressed up against the wall.’
‘Surely that’s not unusual? Do you sleep in the middle of your bed?’
‘No, but it looks like he has tried crawling into the wall.’
‘My daughter sleeps like that. Most children, most grownups, in fact, like curling up to something. It’s not necessarily significant. Besides, it might just have been his death throes.’
Sandland studies Stefan’s dead body for a few more seconds, but she doesn’t say anything. They walk around each other, absorbing more details from the room.
‘We need to find out if he had a history of depression,’ Brogeland continues, ‘if he was seeing a psychologist or a psychiatrist. At first glance, I think it looks like suicide, but he might have had an aneurysm or a congenital heart defect. Nevertheless, we’ll treat it as a suspicious death for the time being. Please would you get a court order? We need to seal the crime scene and get some technicians in here.’
Sandland nods, rips off the plastic gloves and takes out her mobile.
Chapter 56
The moment he walks through his front door, he knows someone has been there. He can smell it. Something sharp mixed with a faint trace of sweat. He moves quietly into the kitchen, then into the living room, without turning on the light. He stops, he listens. The tap in the bathroom is dripping. A car hits a puddle outside. Far away, someone shouts something he can’t make out.
No, he thinks. There is no one here now. If there is, they are able to stand completely still and not make a sound. His belief that someone was there is confirmed when he returns to his living room. He looks at the coffee table where his laptop normally sits.
It’s not there now.
He walks over to the coffee table, as if that would make it reappear. He swiftly reviews whether he had something valuable on his hard disk. No. Nothing but FireCracker 2.0. All essential research and documents have been printed out and filed. He doesn’t have a spreadsheet with a list of his sources.
So why steal his computer? He stands in the middle of the room, shaking his head. A long and eventful day, culminating in a break-in in his own flat. ‘Okay, boys,’ he says out loud, ‘you’re clever. You got into my flat, you got out again and you’ve sent me a message: we can get to you any time and we can take anything you care about.’
They are only trying to scare him. But it’s working. When there is a hard knock on his door, his knees buckle. He is half expecting it to be the police, that Brogeland has been unable to keep Gjerstad at bay long enough for Henning to clear his head, but it’s not Brogeland or Gjerstad or his recent uninvited guests.
It’s Gunnar Goma.
‘The door was open,’ Goma says in a loud voice. Henning tries to breathe normally, but his chest tightens and he can feel a warm tingling sensation in his hands. Goma enters, without waiting to be asked. He is wearing the red shorts, but he has a white vest on his upper body this time.
‘If this is about your Nancy boys, then it’s the last time I’m doing you a favour,’ Goma snorts.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nancy boys. The people who came to your flat today. They look like Nancy boys, both of them. If that’s what you’re into, you’re on your own.’
Henning takes a step forward, feeling an urgent need to account for his sexual orientation, but his curiosity gets the better of him.
‘You saw them?’
Goma nods.
‘How many were there?’
‘Two.’
‘Can you describe them?’
‘Do I have to?’
‘No, you don’t have to, but it would be really helpful.’
Goma sighs.
‘They were dark, both of them. Dark-skinned, I mean. Muslims, I reckon. Their beards were too well groomed and fancy. One of them — it didn’t look like he had proper hair. More like it was painted. Or drawn. Very complicated pattern. The other was as thin as a rake, but he walked like a Nancy boy.’
‘Anything else?’
‘The first guy walked in exactly the same way. Wriggling his bum, like, and swinging one arm slightly.’
Goma grimaces.
‘Did you get a look at his face?’
‘Same kind of beard. Sparse, but even, and shaved in straight lines. He was a little chubbier than the other immigrant poof. And he had a bandage on one finger. On his left hand, I think it was.’