Henning moves a chair, clambers to the first desk and opens its drawers one by one, but they are all empty. The desks are identical, and none of them has his or any of his colleagues’ names on them so he has no other choice but to go through all of them and keep his fingers crossed that he might have some luck for once. He clears a path, taking one drawer at a time and slamming it shut as soon as he has looked inside. Soon he has built up a rhythm, but it produces no result.
Perhaps the drawers were emptied first, he speculates. He closes his eyes and imagines being the person who cleared out and removed the tapes from his desk. Could they have been put in a separate box? Bundled together with sticky tape even? Henning opens his eyes and locates the packing crates but soon realises that the filing system used was the one known as chucking stuff in any old box. Ten minutes later he has rummaged through all of them without finding a single audio cassette.
He looks around again. At the rear, behind the storage crates, he can see an unvarnished pine shelving unit filled with old stationery, headed paper with 123news ’s old logo, envelopes, pens — even umbrellas and white T-shirts. Henning works his way across to it, stepping over a dusty computer monitor in the process, and starts scanning the shelf in front of him at eye level. Nothing of interest. He stands on tiptoe and takes down a box from the top shelf. As he does so its bottom falls out and the contents cascade around his feet. He bends down and feels twinges in his back and hip, pain that sometimes returns as a reminder — as if he could ever forget the slippery railing and the fatal flagstones two floors below, but he grits his teeth and searches through the rubbish which someone decided was worth keeping. Conference papers for the Norwegian Foundation for Investigative Journalism. Union agreements. A computer mouse. Three pens that are unlikely to work. He removes two half-empty boxes of drawing pins that have fallen out — and spots a pile of cassettes held together with yellow tape. The initials HJ have been written on the side followed by a question mark.
Henning smiles. So someone did pack them, he thinks, delighted, as he counts eight cassettes, each containing four hours of recording time. He realises immediately that he will be unable to concentrate on anything else until he has listened to all of them. Perhaps he could ask Heidi Kjus for a few days’ leave.
His thoughts are interrupted by his mobile ringing. The caller is unknown, but Henning replies.
‘It’s Tore Pulli. Olsvik said you wanted me to call you.’
Henning stands up and feels his back ache. ‘Yes. Eh, great.’
He tries to organise his thoughts but ends up asking the first question that comes into his head. ‘How do we know each other?’
The seconds pass without Pulli replying.
‘The first time we spoke, you asked me if I remembered you. That’s not a question you ask someone you’ve never met or spoken to before. But I have no memory of us meeting. I remember nothing from the weeks or days before my son died. So, I was wondering, did we have any contact around the time of the fire at my flat? Did we know each other?’
The seconds tick away while Henning grows increasingly agitated.
‘I read somewhere that you weren’t in the habit of giving interviews, Pulli. Was I trying to arrange an interview with you? Was that the reason?’
Pulli doesn’t reply.
‘Was I working on a story where you were one of the players?’
Still silence.
‘Why were you outside my flat that night? And I mean, really?’
Pulli sighs. ‘I can’t tell you anything about that, Juul.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t. The telephone in here is being monitored.’
‘I don’t give a damn about that.’
‘No, but I do.’
‘If you want my help, you have to not care about that.’
Pulli sighs. As does Henning when Pulli takes a long time to consider his response.
‘I can’t tell you on the telephone,’ he says eventually.
‘Then tell me this,’ Henning counters aggressively. ‘How did you know that I was back at work?’
Another silence.
‘Great,’ Henning snorts. ‘I can’t be bothered with this. Good luck with your appeal.’
Chapter 38
‘No! Don’t do it, don’t do it, please, don’t do it!’ Thorleif grabs the man’s left shoulder and pulls him.
‘Watch the road!’
The car has swerved out on the gravel at the edge of the tarmac. Thorleif lets go of the man and forces the car back on the road. The moment he is in control of the car, he pleads with the man again. ‘Don’t do it! I’ll do whatever you want, please, give me another chance, please, don’t hurt her, don’t kill her!’
‘It’s too late, Toffe. You had your chance.’
‘No, it can’t be too late! I’ll do what you want me to. Whatever it is. Please.’
Thorleif is crying. The man ignores him.
‘Please,’ he begs him as he bangs the steering wheel. They reach the end of the road. Thorleif stops the car, rests his head on the steering wheel and sobs.
‘Turn right,’ the man says softly and looks at Thorleif. ‘There is a car behind us. Turn right,’ he repeats, his voice firmer this time.
Slowly, Thorleif straightens up. A swirling mist is dancing in front of his eyes. He doesn’t see where the car is heading; he merely registers that it is accelerating. I’ve killed her, Thorleif thinks in despair. It’s my fault. Soon she’ll be leaving work for the last time. She’ll never see the children again.
The children, he thinks. My God. ‘Please,’ he repeats, weakly. ‘I’ll do anything. Anything. I promise, I’ll get it right next time.’
But the man doesn’t respond.
Thorleif drives quietly. The road is narrow, with grass on both sides right up to the tarmac. The colours around him merge, churn and spin inside his brain. Again his head slumps forwards against the steering wheel as he weeps. The car almost comes to a halt. The man reaches over and takes the wheel, making sure that they stay on the road. Then he looks at Thorleif.
‘Okay,’ he says, calmly. ‘I’ll give you a second chance.’
Thorleif lifts his head quickly and stares at the man; he never would have thought that he would experience such a genuine and profound sense of gratitude towards someone who only a few minutes ago had tried to make him kill another human being.
‘Thank you,’ he says, relieved. ‘Thank you so much.’
His breathing is rasping as he closes his eyes and mouths a silent thank you.
‘Have you calmed down now? Are you fit to drive?’
Thorleif blinks away his tears and nods.
‘Okay. Then drive.’
Thorleif sniffs and wipes his face on his sleeves. His cheeks are burning hot. Sweat is pouring from his forehead and his scalp. They drive past a large glasshouse just begging for kids to throw stones at it.
‘Do you want me to turn around?’ he stutters.
‘No.’
‘But what… where-’
‘Just drive back to the multi-storey car park. Stay on this road.’
‘But don’t you want me to-’
‘Not now.’
Thorleif tries to compose himself. He wipes sweat and tears off his face and presses the accelerator. An infinite feeling of relief washes over him. The trials have ended. At least for now. At the same time he can’t stop panicking about what will happen next, what he will have to do, and to whom. But why does it have to be him? What has he done?
Twenty minutes later they are back in the multi-storey car park under Fritzoe Brygge Shopping Centre. Thorleif parks next to his own car.
‘What happens now?’ he asks when the BMW has come to a standstill.
‘Now you go home. And when you get there, you act normally. You don’t tell anyone what you did today. We have contacts inside the police. If you try to warn anyone, we won’t just kill your girlfriend.’