scent. A hint of coconut against warm skin. He doesn’t recall the name of the lotion, the one she loved and which he loved that she wore. But he can smell coconut all around him. He turns, gets halfway up from his chair and looks around. The duty editor and he are the only two people there. And yet he can smell coconut. Sniff, sniff. Why can’t he recall the name of that lotion?
The scent disappears as quickly as it came. He falls back into his chair.
The sea, Henning, he tells himself. Focus on the sea.
Chapter 22
Research is a fine word. It’s even a profession. A researcher. Every TV series has one. Every TV news desk has one, sometimes many.
Henning spends his time doing a little research while the rest of the newspaper wakes up. Research matters, it is possibly a journalist’s most important task when there isn’t much else to do. Dig, dig dig. The oddest but ultimately crucial snippets of information can be found in the strangest texts or public records.
He remembers a story he worked on years ago. He was relatively inexperienced at the time, probably hadn’t covered more than ten murders when a vicar, Olav Jorstad disappeared in the sea, off the coast of Sorland. Everyone knew how much Jorstad liked fishing, but he was familiar with the sea and would never have gone out if bad weather had been forecast.
Eventually, his boat was found, bottom up. Jorstad himself was never found and everything pointed to a tragic accident. The current had very likely carried his body out into the wide, blue sea.
Henning covered the story for Aftenposten, and put together a standard package, which meant interviewing family, neighbours, friends, Jorstad’s congregation, the whole Norwegian Bible belt, practically. After discussing the story with his editor, Henning decided to stay on because he had a hunch that something was missing from the picture of Jorstad that everyone was painting. In the eyes of his parishioners, Jorstad was an outstanding vicar, a brilliant spiritual leader, who had the gift of the gab; some even claimed that he had healed them, but Henning never reported such claims in his articles. He suspected some of them of actively courting publicity.
However, Jorstad’s role as a choir master and conductor received very little attention. Every church has a choir. Vicars are trained in choral song. The Reverend Mr Jorstad was a man who liked discipline and consequently, it was a fine choir. Some days after Jorstad’s disappearance, after the media novelty had faded, Henning was chatting to Jorstad’s son, Lukas. They happened to talk about the choir and Henning asked if Lukas had been a member. Lukas replied no.
A few weeks later, Henning was trying to contact a member of the choir, a woman called Susanne Opseth, who was supposedly one of the last people to see Jorstad alive. Henning did his research and found several newspaper cuttings in which she was featured. And in one of them, from the early 1990s, before the Internet, he spotted her in a photo, singing in the choir with Mr Jorstad conducting. What Henning didn’t notice at first, but discovered when he examined the picture in detail, was that Lukas was lined up in the back row.
Lukas had lied when he told Henning he had never sung in the choir. Why he would lie about something so trivial? The answer was obvious. There was something about the choir that Lukas didn’t want Henning to know or find out about.
So Henning started digging, interviewing the rest of the choir and it didn’t take long before he discovered that Lukas had left the choir as an act of rebellion against his father, to humiliate him publicly. The choir wasn’t the only place where Mr Jorstad demanded discipline. It found expression in strict routines, the reciting of Bible verses, a stern upbringing devoid of affection. And it ruined Lukas’s budding relationship with a girl his own age, Agnes. Mr Jorstad didn’t approve of her and he didn’t want Lukas wasting his time with her.
Lukas released, as police interviews later revealed, years of frustration and oppression one night when his father took him fishing. Lukas hit his father over the head with an oar, sending him over the railing. Afterwards, Lukas overturned the boat and swam ashore.
Lukas was a strong swimmer and he was willing to face the consequences of his actions. Anything to rid himself of his father’s hold on him. But Lukas had an unexpected stroke of luck: his father’s body was never found.
Henning worked with the local police force and was able to break the story the day they arrested Lukas. He hasn’t checked, but as far as he knows, Lukas is still in jail. And all because of a single picture printed in a local paper many, many years ago.
Research. Even the slightest gust of wind can upset a house of cards.
Henning likes research, likes finding out information about people. Especially if those people interest him or have done something he finds fascinating. The Internet is brilliant for research. He didn’t like the Internet to begin with; in fact, he was opposed to it, but now he can’t imagine life without it. Once you have driven a Mercedes, you never go back to your pushbike.
The research he is doing now gives him no obvious clues for how to spend the rest of the day. He hasn’t come up with a plan when Heidi Kjus and Iver Gundersen enter together. Henning can’t hear what they are talking about, but his ears prick up. Gundersen smiles and looks suitably pleased — with himself, Henning reckons — but Heidi is serious as always. She reeks of ‘let’s get this show on the road’ attitude.
Heidi rarely allows herself to smile: she regards it as a sign of weakness. When she started working at Nettavisen, she would often join them for a beer on Fridays. She would be chatty and sociable, but never visibly drunk. Today, he can’t imagine Heidi in the pub. Now she is the Boss. And bosses are always in charge. If she is tired, she never lets on. She suppresses her laughter if someone cracks a joke. It is inappropriate to allow oneself to be seduced by humour during business hours: it dulls her focus.
Heidi looks at Henning while she talks to Gundersen. She is excited about something and gesticulates enthusiastically. Gundersen nods. Henning notices that Gundersen’s facial expression changes when he sees Henning is already at his desk. It is as if the self-assured, arrogant and smug cosmopolitan develops teenage acne and regresses fifteen years.
‘You’re in early?’ Gundersen remarks and looks at Henning. Henning nods, but doesn’t reply and glances at Heidi who sits down without saying anything.
‘How did it go yesterday?’ Gundersen asks. Henning glares at him. Tosser, he thinks. Haven’t you read my story?
‘All right.’
‘People keen to talk?’
Gundersen sits down and switches on his PC.
‘Enough.’
Gundersen smiles a crooked smile and looks at Heidi. Henning knows she is listening, though she pretends she isn’t. He turns his attention back to the screen.
Salty waves, Henning.
Oh, what fun this is going to be.
A little later Heidi says, in her Boss voice, that it is time to have a meeting. Neither Gundersen nor Henning says anything, but they get up and trundle after her. Gundersen slips to the front of the queue and waits for twenty-nine seconds so he can take a fresh cup of coffee with him. This creates a moment alone for Henning and his Boss. He steels himself for another bollocking, but Heidi says:
‘That was a good story, Henning.’
He already knew that. But he didn’t know that Heidi was big enough to admit it. He feels like saying that he will be quicker next time, but he doesn’t. She might be like one of those Death Eaters in Harry Potter. Perhaps she will be different tomorrow or change when it is a full moon? For Christ’s sake — the last time he had a meeting with Heidi, he was evaluating her stories. Not the other way around. Imagine Cristiano Ronaldo teaching an eight-year- old kid to play football and then getting a pat on the back from the same boy a few years later for a good insider pass.
Okay, wrong metaphor, but really. He is sure that Heidi can read his mind, but Gundersen comes to his rescue by entering the meeting room.
‘Just the three of us?’ he asks.
