Orjan Mjones looks around as he gets off the train. A petrol station, a hotel, a shop and a kiosk. Is that all this place has to offer? he wonders. In that case it will be a brief visit. If I was Thorleif, he thinks, and I had got off the train here, where would I have gone? What would I have needed?
Mjones tries the shop by the petrol station first, but finds it closed. The kiosk, however, is open, but the woman behind the counter has never heard of Brenden. Mjones walks down the steps and out into the evening heat. The sky above him is turning as dark and gloomy as he feels.
The hotel, red and built in the eighties, looms large in the landscape. I might as well stay here for the night, he thinks. The last train back to Oslo left long ago.
He enters the lobby and smiles to a friendly girl behind the counter. He takes out the folded photo of Brenden and introduces himself as Detective Inspector Stian Henriksen. ‘I’m looking for this man,’ he says. ‘Have you seen him?’
Chapter 86
Thorleif stands rooted to the spot. His breath has stopped somewhere at the back of his throat. He can’t move. Mustn’t move.
How the hell did the man with the ponytail get here?
Thorleif looks around, panicking. He can’t risk running into the restaurant from where soft music and muffled conversation drift out towards the lobby. It’s too near the reception. Nor can he go back inside the lavatory because there is no way out from there. He turns around and sees a door right behind him. And above the door there is a green exit sign.
His only chance.
He backs towards the door as calmly and quietly as he can. He sees the man lean across the counter, but it is impossible to hear what he is saying to Mia. Thorleif holds his breath as he takes tiny steps backwards. When he can no longer see the man, he turns around and narrows his eyes as if that will prevent the door from making a sound. As noiselessly as he can, he pulls the door open and enters a bright room with art on the walls. He closes the door carefully behind him. Without looking back he starts to walk, softly to begin with, then faster, until he finally starts to run.
He passes a grey staircase which splits into a right and left branch and continues towards the Plenary Hall but decides to follow the green exit sign past a bench, two chairs and a table in pale pine that have been placed in front of a window. He reaches a corridor with no windows, but there is a door at the end of it. He tears it open and steps out into the evening as he gasps for air.
To his right is a covered wooden walkway with red doorframes and green doors leading to the new holiday apartments. It gets darker and darker further down the corridor. Don’t go that way, Thorleif tells himself, you don’t know if there is a door at the other end. Instead, he steps out on to the gravel, sees hundreds of cabins up to his left and a mountain that has shed its misty veil. He runs past first one cabin, then another before he reaches the road which leads either to the petrol station or further up the hillside, past Presttun. I can’t go back to the village, he thinks. The man could come out of the hotel at any moment, and he would have no trouble spotting me out here in the open. But does he know that I’m here? Or is he just trying his luck?
Then he remembers it. The denim jacket. The laptop. And Mia would have recognised me, Thorleif thinks, if the man gave her a description or showed her a picture. But perhaps she has guessed the man is a villain — after all, she is obsessed with studying faces. What are the chances that the man would then give up, try the next village and never come back?
Thorleif swears to himself. It’s Saturday night. The last train is bound to have left long ago. He looks up towards Einar’s cabin.
Then he starts to run.
Orjan Mjones stares at the girl behind the counter.
‘I’m not sure,’ she says, nervously, and glances furtively over his shoulder. Mjones turns around; on a low table he sees a solitary laptop whose screen is facing them. There is a black denim jacket on the sofa. He gives her a look before he walks over to the laptop, bends down and reads the newspaper article displayed on the screen.
The story is about Thorleif Brenden.
He is here, Mjones thinks, and glances at the jacket. The stupid prat is in Ustaoset, and he was here a minute ago. Mjones walks back towards the girl.
‘Y-yes, I have seen him,’ she stutters as she points to the lobby area. ‘His name is Einar and he has just gone to the lavatory.’
Einar, Mjones thinks, and glances around. The corridor is empty. He turns to her again and looks briefly at her anxious eyes before he thanks her and marches briskly past the dark brown piano. Inside the lavatory all he finds are two urinals, two sinks and a cubicle. The door is closed, but Mjones pushes it open.
No one there.
He goes back out into the lobby, checks the restaurant and sees a solitary couple engrossed in conversation at a table. But no Brenden. He must have seen me, Mjones thinks. Otherwise why wouldn’t he be in the lavatory? And he left his jacket behind. Mjones returns to the corridor where he discovers the gallery. Brenden must have gone that way, he thinks. It is the only way out from there.
Mjones opens the door and enters. It’s as if he can see Brenden’s footprints on the dark-grey slate floor. He continues across the bright room, looks around, stops and listens. No footsteps anywhere. Mjones follows the exit sign through the gallery. Soon he is outside. He scans the landscape. No Brenden in sight, only more buildings and cabins that block his view. At that moment his mobile rings.
‘Yes?’
‘Hi, it’s me again,’ Flurim Ahmetaj says. ‘Why are you whispering?’
‘Because I’m hot on his heels. Number One is in Ustaoset.’
‘That makes perfect sense. One of Number One’s Facebook friends is called Einar Flotaker. His family owns a cabin in Ustaoset.
Einar, Mjones thinks, and at that moment he hears the sound of pieces falling into place.
‘Right,’ he whispers. ‘Email me everything you’ve got.’
‘Okay.’
Mjones thinks about the girl behind the hotel reception. She has seen his face, and she knows who Brenden is. And if Brenden turns up dead in Ustaoset in the next few days she might put two and two together.
He turns to the door he has just come out of and looks through it. Then he shakes his head. One thing at a time, he says to himself. First things first.
Chapter 87
Once he is back inside the cabin, Thorleif realises that he hasn’t drawn breath for a long time. With a gasp he hunches his shoulders and inhales deeply, planting his hands on his thighs as he does so in order not to fall. He stands like for a few moments before he slumps down on the floor and leans against a kitchen cupboard. He looks up at the ceiling and closes his eyes.
He sits there in deep despair, panting, before he stands up on wobbly legs and creeps over to the window. Carefully, he twitches the curtain and looks outside. The evening is matte and dark. There is not much left of the moon in the night sky, only a torn nail that offers little light. There is no one on the road below.
It was possibly a mistake to return to the cabin, Thorleif thinks, but he couldn’t think of anywhere else to hide. As he surveys the landscape and can clearly see both the roads and the cabins, he concludes that it was actually quite a smart move. He can easily see anyone approaching. All he has to do is stay where he is and keep a lookout. Stay awake and wait. But what does he do if the man should turn up?