Burned (10 page)

After visiting several different child porn sites, he was befriended on-line by a woman calling herself Chicketita. She promised to give him some child porn DVDs if he met her in Vaterlands Park at 11 p.m. that night. He never went.

The day after, he was brought in for questioning, his laptop was seized and sent to Forensics to check if he had surfed for child porn before. Which he obviously hadn’t. He was quickly released, once he had explained his actions to officers from the Sexual Crimes Unit. Chicketita, who turned out to be a female police officer called Elisa, was sympathetic. He was given permission to carry on with his project. She was in favour of the press highlighting the issue.

Some days later, he was contacted by
6tiermes7
. At first, he thought it was another police officer hunting paedophiles, but he eventually decided that it couldn’t be.
6tiermes7
had a completely different agenda.

He didn’t know if
6tiermes7
knew about his child porn story, but he suspected that he or she had followed his work for a while or, at least, checked him out to know that he was sound. At that time, he often worked undercover; he had exposed several scandals, which led to the police starting new investigations or solving cold cases. He got results.
6tiermes7
was willing to help him on the non-negotiable premise that he never revealed his source.

Via an e-mail account, which couldn’t be traced to
6tiermes7
’s real name, Henning was sent a file containing a program called FireCracker 2.0 which he was told to install. Henning later searched the Internet for the program, but never found anything which suggested it might be for sale anywhere. He assumed that
6tiermes7
had written it, but he never asked. The program, once opened, connected to a server so they could chat safely. Or, in relative safety.

They used an encryption algorithm that made any keystrokes they sent to each other incomprehensible to outsiders – unless they had the key. This security feature obviously depended on their keystrokes not being recorded before they were encrypted. After all, it is possible to monitor a keyboard.
6tiermes7
could be risking his/her own life, but Henning had no wish to question the morals and ethical dilemmas faced by his source.

6tiermes7
soon turned out to be the best source he had ever had. Everything in journalism is about contacts. Having a reliable source, who brings the stories to you, not the other way round, someone who will regularly feed you information that helps you in interviews, insider knowledge that may not be useful at the time, but which turns out to be worth knowing, nonetheless. As leverage, for example. Or new developments in an investigation, what the police have discovered, which leads they are pursuing, names of people brought in for questioning – that kind of information.

6tiermes7
gave him all of that. He or she was Deep Throat, the deepest of them all. In the three years before That Which He Doesn’t Think About, Henning had published several stories as a result of his partnership with
6tiermes7. 6tiermes7
helped him, he in turn helped the police by breaking stories that threw fresh light on their investigations, new and old, and together they got results.
Quid pro quo
, as Hannibal Lecter would have put it.

But
6tiermes7
has never told him why or how. And Henning has never tried to uncover the identity of
6tiermes7
. Nor has he any plans to do so. Some things are best left alone.

Before he went back to work, he hadn’t thought about
6tiermes7
for almost two years. He has no idea whether
6tiermes7
is still available to him as a source, if he or she has started working with other people, or if
6tiermes7
has simply vanished from cyberspace.

But he is about to find out.

Chapter 18

The steam rises and condenses under the roof. A high pressure hose is systematically swept across a dark red Audi A8 with shiny 19-inch chrome rims. Encrusted bird pooh, grit, gravel and pebbles are quickly washed off the paintwork. The car is drenched in seconds.

Yasser Shah puts down the high pressure hose and gestures to two men to get to work. A third man opens the doors and starts hoovering the interior. Soapy sponges squeak against the luxury car. The quartet works fast and efficiently. Mats are removed and hosed down. The boot is cleared of bark, grass and rubbish. Strips are wiped and soon the interior, steering wheel, dashboard, gears, sound system and windows all gleam. It takes them less than ten minutes.

And all for 150 kroner.

The car’s owner, a man in a grey suit with a matching tie, waits outside. At regular intervals, he peers inside to check on progress. Zaheerullah Hassan Mintroza sits in his glass booth, aware of the owner’s scepticism. It’s probably because we’re Pakistanis, he thinks. But we’re cheap, so the guy’s prepared to take a chance.

Wanker. If only you knew who is washing your car.

Hassan lets the quartet finish, then he presses a button which opens the door. The owner isn’t sure if he is expected to go inside. Hassan gets up, comes outside and gestures to the four men to finish off the car in daylight. Yasser Shah gets in and starts the car, which roars aggressively in the acoustically perfect space, and backs out. The others follow with chamois leathers.

Hassan goes over to the owner and accepts the cash.

‘Looks very good,’ the owner remarks. Hassan nods, counts the eight 20-kroner notes and omits to mention there is 10 kroner too much. Quite right, he thinks, since he got the express-while-u-wait service.

Shah gets out of the car and hands the owner the keys. The other three wipe off the remaining moisture on the Audi’s roof, doors and rims.

‘Thank you so much,’ the owner says and gets in. He drives off at a leisurely pace. Hassan looks at the others and signals that they should go back inside. They obey his command and step inside Hassan’s glass cage office. It is the size of a bedroom. There are three chairs and a television in the corner, Al-Jazeera with the sound off. There is a mug of coffee, a computer and piles of documents and newspapers on Hassan’s desk. An old nude picture of Nereida Gallardo Alvarez decorates the wall behind Hassan’s squeaking chair.

‘Close the door,’ Hassan orders Yasser Shah. Hassan presses a button. A red light goes on outside the car wash.

The others wait. Hassan looks at them. His hair is longish, shining with Brylcreem and combed back. He doesn’t have a ponytail, though his hair is long enough for one. He has strips of beard, carefully combed, around his mouth and on his cheeks. He wears a thick gold chain around his neck and earrings that match. He is wearing worn, stonewashed jeans and a white vest which stretches tightly across his stomach and chest. Hassan is thin, but not gangly. The muscles in his arms are noticeable. He has a tattoo of a green frog on one arm and a black scorpion on the other.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ he says, looking gravely at them in turn. ‘We’ve talked about this before, what to do should such a situation arise, and especially if this particular situation should arise.’

The others nod silently. Yasser Shah opens his mouth slightly. Hassan registers it.

‘Yasser – over to you now,’ he says firmly. Yasser’s about to speak, but Hassan interrupts him.

‘We need to send him a message. This is your chance to prove that you’re one of us, that you’re serious about being here.’

Shah looks down. He is short and of heavy build. There is a square of dense beard around his mouth, his skin is smooth, and he has sideburns. His nose is crooked from a fist fight in Gujrat in 1994. His lip was split in the same fight, and he has a scar on his upper lip, to the left. The stud in his left ear looks like a diamond.

‘Do you want to go to jail?’

Shah looks up again.

‘No,’ he mutters.

‘Do you want the rest of us to end up in jail?’

‘No.’

His voice is firmer this time.

‘This way of life demands that we sacrifice ourselves for each other,’ Hassan continues. ‘We can’t take risks.’

The others look at Hassan and then at Shah. Hassan waits a long time before opening a drawer and taking out a black box. He opens it, takes out a pistol and a silencer and gives both to Shah.

‘Nice and easy. No mistakes.’

Shah nods reluctantly.

‘As for the rest of you. As soon as this hits the headlines – make sure you’re near a CCTV camera and have plenty of witnesses who can vouch for you. The cops mightn’t call, but if they do, it’ll be to find out where you were.’

Everyone, apart from Yasser Shah, nods. He stares at the floor.

Chapter 19

Henning opens his laptop again and locates FireCracker 2.0 on the program menu. He hesitates for a few seconds before he double-clicks the icon of a miniature firecracker. Perhaps
6tiermes7
uses a different version now, a more recent one, new applications might have been added which require upgrades, but he clicks anyway. It’s worth a try.

The program takes forever to load. I must get a new computer, he thinks, as the fan starts to whirr. While the machine hums into action, he goes to the homepage of
123news
to check if his story has been published.

It has. A quick glance tells him the news desk has made very few changes. It is their lead story. Iver Gundersen’s story about the arrest is accessible via a link in the introduction. Just looking at Gundersen’s words makes Henning feel sick.

So he concentrates on his own headline:
‘We’ll never forget
you’
. The accompanying photograph is of the shrine and the cards and messages for Henriette Hagerup. A standard package. But a good one, a good start. It’s not proper news as such, but it’s a good start.

Someone stomps up and down the communal stairs. Henning tries to ignore it and checks if FireCracker 2.0 is up and running. It is. But
6tiermes7
isn’t there. He leaves it for a few more minutes. In the meantime, he forces himself to read Iver Gundersen’s story, telling himself that it might contain useful information. He remembers that Nora’s new loverboy asked him to find out the name of Hagerup’s boyfriend, something which completely slipped his mind.

He curses his useless grey cells, before he clicks on the story and begins to read.

STONING: MAN ARRESTED

A man in his twenties has been arrested in connection with the brutal murder of Henriette Hagerup.

There is a photograph of the crime scene – the right one, this time – next to the introduction. He can see the large white tent in the background. Some onlookers are standing behind the police tape. He reads on.

The man was arrested following a routine police visit to his flat. The man attempted to escape when officers knocked on his door, but he was quickly apprehended.

123news
has learned that incriminating evidence was discovered in the suspect’s flat. He will be brought before a judge and remanded in custody later today. Lars Indrehaug, the suspect’s solicitor, denies that his client is guilty.

Gundersen then reviews the story, explains what has happened, when it happened and how the story has developed in the course of the day. He also includes a quote from Chief Inspector Gjerstad, a quote Henning recognises from the press conference.

Noise continues to come from the stairwell. He checks FireCracker 2.0 again. He is still the only user to be logged on. He decides not to log out in case
6tiermes7
logs on during the evening or overnight. But he has a sinking feeling that’s not going to happen.

He sighs and stares blankly at the wall. His first day back at work is over and done with. He thinks about the people he met: Kåre, Heidi, Nora, Iver, Anette. After just one day at work, he has acquired knowledge and formed relationships he could, quite happily, have done without. Memories are returning, memories he had hoped would remain in the darkness.

He thinks about Nora, what she is doing now, if she is with Gundersen. Of course she is. Mister Super Fucking Corduroy. They are probably having dinner. In a restaurant. Swapping stories about their day, what they will do when they get home, under the duvet, or on top of it, possibly.

He decides not to think about it and hopes that the evening and the night will come quickly.

*

The stomping still hasn’t ended. Henning gets up to investigate. An elderly man is on his way up the stairs when Henning peers out. The man is wheezing. He is dressed in shorts only, nothing on his upper body. Despite his age – Henning reckons he is well in excess of seventy – he still has plenty of muscles. They look at each other. The man is about to carry on, but stops and takes another look at Henning.

‘Have you just moved in?’ he asks.

‘No,’ Henning replies. ‘I’ve lived here for six months.’

‘Oh, have you? I live just below you.’

‘Right.’

He walks down to Henning and holds out his hand.

‘Gunnar Goma. I’ve had bypass surgery. Four veins.’

He points to a huge scar on his chest. Henning nods and shakes his hand.

‘That’s why I’m out of breath. I’ve getting back in shape. So I can satisfy the ladies, he-he.’

‘Henning Juul.’

‘And I go commando.’

‘Thanks for sharing that with me.’

‘Fancy a coffee some day?’

Henning nods again. He likes coffee, but he thinks it is unlikely that he will ever be drinking coffee with Gunnar Goma. Though, on second thoughts, the invitation isn’t entirely unwelcome.

He hears a ping from his laptop as he goes inside. He remembers that ping. Ding-dong, like a doorbell. It means someone has sent him a message via FireCracker.