Burned (29 page)

He rings the bell again. Perhaps it doesn’t work, he thinks? Or they are simply not in? He presses it again, but soon realises it is a waste of time. He swears, tries another bell that says STEEN, just to make sure that it isn’t the bell or the cables that are faulty. Soon he hears a crackling voice say: ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, I’m from Mester Grønn. I’ve got a delivery for Foldvik. They’re not answering. Please would you let me in?’

He closes his eyes, knowing he is about to do something stupid. A few seconds pass. Then there is a buzz. He opens the door and enters. He doesn’t know why, Yngve Foldvik is obviously not at home. I’ll just take a quick look, he thinks, sniff around a bit, like Jarle Høgseth always told me to.
Use your senses, Henning. Use them to form an impression of the people you’re interviewing.

He finds himself in a smallish backyard. Leaves he presumes to be from last autumn still cling to the ground like obstinate stickers. There is a strange absence of greenery. A pot plant, whose name he doesn’t know, is standing in the centre. An unlocked bicycle is tilted against the wall.

There are two doors, one directly in front of him and one to the right. He checks the one to the right first, because it is nearer. There are no doorbells with Foldvik or Steen. He tries the other door, quickly finds both names and presses the bell saying STEEN. Without him needing to identify himself again, the door buzzes and he opens it.

Stairwells. The first impression you get of how people live. A pram blocks a door which must lead to the basement. There is a broken umbrella behind the pram. A stepladder, stained with white and navy blue paint, is leaning against the wall. The letterboxes are green. It smells damp. The residents are undoubtedly plagued by dry rot.

Upstairs, a door is opened. Perhaps Mrs Steen wants to double-check that there really is a delivery man downstairs? Damn, he says to himself. What do I do now? The door slams shut. He stays where he is. Footsteps approach. A woman’s shoes. He can tell from the sound. Should he turn around and leave?

That same moment, another door is opened. Henning suppresses the urge to look up.

‘Oh, hi,’ he hears from upstairs. ‘I’m just popping down to the shops, Mrs Steen.’ He detects a certain fatigue in the voice. Friendly, but long-suffering.

‘Hi.’

How on earth do I explain my presence, he wonders, if the woman coming down the stairs wants to know who I am?

‘Do you need anything?’ she asks Mrs Steen.

‘Please would you get me a copy of
Her og Nå
? I’ve heard there’s a story about Hallvard Flatland today. I do like him.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Wait a moment, let me get you some money.’

‘It’s all right, Mrs Steen. You can pay me later.’

The voices echo strangely off the walls.

‘Thank you ever so much. That’s very kind of you.’

Click, clack. Her footsteps sound like a drum roll to Henning’s ears. He grabs the stepladder and starts walking up. The woman is on her way down. Henning holds the stepladder in front of him and keeps his head down. They are on the same floor now. She comes towards him, he can only see her feet, high heels, ‘hello’ he mutters and carries on walking. She says hello, too, and he is overwhelmed by her perfume, which is so heady that he nearly gasps. She doesn’t stop and they both walk on. He hears her open the entrance door and leave. The door closes with a bang.

Henning stops and takes some deep breaths, letting the silence fill the space. Then he turns and walks softly down the stairs, praying that Mrs Steen won’t hear him. Back on the ground floor, he spots a wooden sign saying FOLDVIK in a child’s asymmetrical writing on a dark blue door. The letters are burned into the wood. He puts down the stepladder and knocks, twice. After all, the doorbell could have been faulty.

He waits, listens out for footsteps, which never come. He knocks twice more. No, they are not in.

He is about to leave when he notices that the door hasn’t been shut properly. Hm, he thinks, that’s strange. He looks over his shoulder, even though he knows there is no one around. Carefully, he prods the door. It swings open. Am I really about to do this, he thinks, should I go inside and have a look?

No. Why would he? He can think of no earthly reason why. And, as far as the law is concerned, it’s the equivalent of breaking in. And how would he explain his presence in the flat, if anyone were to turn up? Like, for example, the people who live there?

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 Thorbjørn 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.

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.