He takes a few, hesitant steps and looks around to see if he recognises anyone. It’s all faces and fragments from a distant past, like an episode of This Is Your Life. Then he spots Kare.
Kare Hjeltland is looking over the shoulder of a reporter at the news desk. Kare is the news editor at 123news. He is a short, skinny man with messy hair and a passion which exceeds anything Henning has ever known. Kare is the Duracell bunny on speed with a hundred stories in his head at any given time and an arsenal of possible angles for practically anything.
That’s why he is the news editor. If it had been up to Kare, he would have been in charge of every department and worked as the night duty editor as well. He has Tourette’s Syndrome, not the easiest condition to manage when you’re trying to run a news desk and have a social life.
However, despite his tics and various other symptoms, Kare pulls it off. Henning doesn’t know how, but Kare pulls it off.
Kare has noticed him, too. He waves and holds up one finger. Henning nods and waits patiently, while Kare issues instructions to the reporter.
‘And stress that in the introduction. That’s the hook, no one cares that the tent was white or bought from Maxbo last March. Get it?’
‘Maxbo doesn’t sell tents.’
‘Whatever. You know what I mean. And mention that she was found naked as soon as possible. It’s important. It plants a sexy image in people’s minds. Gives them something to get off on.’
The reporter nods. Kare slaps him on the shoulder and bounces towards Henning. He nearly trips over a cable running across the floor, but carries on regardless. Even though he is only a few metres away now, he shouts.
‘Henning, good to see you again. Welcome back.’
Kare extends a hand, but doesn’t wait for Henning to offer him his. He simply grabs Henning’s hand and shakes it. Henning’s forehead feels hot.
‘So — how are things? You ready to chase web hits again?’
Henning thinks earmuffs might be a good investment.
‘Well, I’m here, that’s a start.’
‘Super. Fantastic. We need people like you, people who know how to give the public what they want. Great. Sex sells, coffers swell! Tits and ass bring in the cash!’
Kare laughs out loud. His face starts to twitch, but he carries on all the same. Kare has coined a lot of rhyming slogans in his time. Kare loves rhymes.
‘Ahem, I thought you could sit over there with the rest of the team.’
Kare takes Henning by the arm and leads him past a red glass partition. Six computers, three on opposite sides of a square table, are backed up against each other. A mountain of newspapers lies on a round table behind it.
‘You may have noticed that things have changed, but I haven’t touched your work station. It’s exactly the same. After what happened, I thought that you — eh — would want to decide for yourself if there was anything you wanted to throw out.’
‘Throw out?’
‘Yes. Or reorganise. Or — you know.’
Henning looks around.
‘Where are the others?’
‘Who?’
‘The rest of the team?’
‘Buggered if I know, lazy sods. Oh yes, Heidi is here. Heidi Kjus. She’s around somewhere. In charge of national news now, she is.’
Henning feels his chest tighten. Heidi Kjus.
Heidi was one of the first temps from the Oslo School of Journalism he hired a million years ago. Newly qualified journalists are usually so bursting with theory that they have forgotten what really makes a good reporter: charming manners and common sense. If you’re curious by nature and don’t allow yourself to be fobbed off with the first thing people tell you, you’ll go far. But if you want to be a star reporter, you also need to be a bit of a bastard, throw caution to the wind and have enough fire in your belly to go the distance, accept adversity, and never give up if you smell a good story.
Heidi Kjus had all of the above. From day one. On top of that, she had a hunger Henning had never seen before. Right from the start, no story was too small or too big, and it wasn’t long before she had acquired sources and contacts as well as experience. As she began to realise just how good she was, she added a generous helping of arrogance to the heavy make-up, she plastered on every morning.
Some reporters have an aura about them, an attitude which screams: ‘My job is the most important in the whole world and I’m better than the lot of you.’ Heidi admired people with sharp elbows and soon developed her own. She took up space, even when she was working as a temp. She made demands.
Henning was working for Nettavisen at the time Heidi graduated. He was their crime reporter, but it was also his job to train new reporters and temps, show them the ropes, put them straight and nudge them in the direction of the overall aim: turning them into workhorses who wouldn’t need micromanaging in order to deliver top stories that attract web hits 24/7.
He enjoyed this aspect of his job. And Nettavisen was a great first job for young journalists, even though most of them had no idea they were driving a Formula 1 car around increasingly congested streets in a media circus that grew bigger every day. Many were unsuited for this life, this way of thinking and working. And the problem was that as soon as he saw the beginnings of a good on-line reporter, they would leave. They would get offers of new jobs, better jobs or full-time employment contracts elsewhere.
Heidi left after only four months. She got an offer from Dagbladet she couldn’t refuse. He didn’t blame her. It was Dagbladet, after all. More status. More money. Heidi wanted it all and she wanted it now. And she got it.
And she’s my new boss, he thinks. Bloody hell. This is bound to end in tears.
‘It’ll be good to have you back in the saddle, Henning,’ Kare enthuses.
Henning says ‘mm’.
‘Morning meeting in ten minutes. You’ll be there, won’t you?’
Henning says ‘mm’ again.
‘Lovely. Lovely. Got to dash. I’ve another meeting.’
Kare smiles, gives him a thumbs-up, and leaves. In passing, he slaps someone on the shoulder, before he disappears around the corner. Henning shakes his head. Then he sits down on a chair that squeaks and rocks like a boat. A new red notebook, still in its wrapper, lies next to the keyboard. Four pens. He guesses that none of them works. A pile of old print-outs. He recognises them as research for stories he was working on. An ancient mobile telephone takes up an unnecessary amount of space and he notices a box of business cards. His business cards.
His eyes stop at a framed photograph resting at an angle on the desk. There are two people in it, a woman and a boy.
Nora and Jonas.
He stares at them without seeing them clearly. Don’t smile. Please, don’t smile at me.
It’ll be all right. Don’t be scared. I’ll take care of you.
He reaches for the frame, picks it up and puts it down again.
Face down.
Chapter 4
Morning meetings. The core of every newspaper, where the day’s production plans are defined, tasks distributed, stories up- or down-graded, based on criteria such as topicality, importance and — in the case of 123news — potential readership.
Each news desk starts by holding its own morning meeting. Sports, business, arts and national and international news. Lists of potential stories are drawn up. At this stage, a morning meeting can be inspirational. A
