‘Hello, Enok here.’
The voice is dark and deep, but welcoming.
‘Hi, my name is Henning Juul.’
‘Hello, Henning,’ Enoksen says, greeting Henning like an old friend.
‘I work for the on-line newspaper, 123news. I’m working on a story about Henriette Hagerup.’
A moment of silence follows.
‘I see. How can I help you?’
Henning quickly explains that he is curious about the screenplay written by Henriette Hagerup, which Spot the Difference Productions had taken out an option on.
‘Hagerup, yes,’ Enoksen sighs. ‘A tragedy.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Henning says and waits for Enoksen to add something. He doesn’t. Henning clears his throat.
‘Can you tell me anything about the script?’
‘Will you be writing about this?’
‘No, I doubt it.’
‘Then why do you want to know? Didn’t you just say you were a reporter?’
Enoksen’s powers of deduction are impressive.
‘I’ve a hunch that the script might be important.’
‘Why?’
Something tells him that Enoksen was a right pain at school.
‘To find out what happened, to find out who killed her.’
‘Right.’
‘So, please, would you tell me about the script, which you must have liked, since you took out an option on it?’
He hears mouse clicking in the background, fingers skating across a keyboard.
‘Well, to be honest, it was mostly my co-producer, Truls, who was in touch with her.’
‘So you’ve never read the script?’
‘Ah, well, obviously — ’
‘What’s it about?’
More clicking.
‘It’s about — ’
He pauses to cough.
‘It’s about, eh, I don’t actually know what it’s about. Like I said, it was Truls who dealt with Henriette and Yngve, and — ’
‘Yngve?’
‘Yes?’
‘Yngve Foldvik?’
‘Correct. Do you know him?’
‘Was Yngve Foldvik involved with the script?’
‘He was her supervisor, I think.’
‘Yes, but I thought she’d written the script in her own time? Not as part of her coursework?’
Enoksen hesitates.
‘I don’t really know anything about that.’
Henning decides he needs another chat with Yngve Foldvik.
‘Do you and Truls normally buy options on scripts you haven’t discussed?’
‘No, this was a special case.’
‘How?’
‘Truls and Yngve used to work together, Yngve tipped us off about Hagerup’s script.’
‘I see.’
‘But remember, it was only an option.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means we think the script has potential and we want to develop the idea, see if we can turn it into a decent film.’
‘You’re not obliged to do anything more?’
‘That’s right.’
That question came automatically while Henning’s brain was busy absorbing the information he had just been given. Yngve Foldvik was actively involved in a project that Henriette Hagerup hoped would launch her career. Henning wonders if Foldvik’s interest extends to all his students, or if his enthusiasm is reserved for pretty young women with an outgoing personality and a flirtatious streak.
‘Do you think I could have a quick word with Truls?’ Henning asks, while he checks the company’s contact details and reads that Truls’s surname is Leirvag.
‘Er, he’s a bit busy right now,’ Enoksen says, quickly.
‘Okay.’
He deliberately waits a few seconds. But Enoksen doesn’t elaborate.
‘I’ll try him on his mobile later. If you could tell him that I would like a word, that would be great.’
‘I’ll try to remember that.’
‘Thank you.’
Henning hangs up, wondering what was on the tip of Enoksen’s tongue.
Chapter 49
A couple of quick Internet searches inform him that Henriette’s parents are called Vebjorn and Linda, and that she has an older brother, Ole Petter. He looks up Anette Skoppum. Her parents, Ulf Vidar and Froydis, are both over seventy, so Anette is most definitely an afterthought. She has three older sisters, Kirsten (thirty-eight), Silje (forty-one) and Torill (forty-four). In a matter of minutes, Henning has established that neither the Hagerups nor the Skoppums are a good match for the Gaarder family in the script.
He drops the idea and visits a public register of licences. Here, you can search for information from three different categories: 1) Business Type and Named Licence Holder. 2) Licences. 3) Applications for Cross-county Routes. The page is produced by the Department of Transport in collaboration with Hordeland County Council, which might explain the convoluted language.
Henning moves the cursor to box 2, selects ‘Oslo’ and ‘Taxi Licences’ and types in the serial number ‘2052’. Then he hits ‘enter’. The answer pops up instantly. And his heart skips a beat.
Omar Rabia Rashid.
He knows where he has heard that name before. Omar Rabia Rashid is the man Mahmoud Marhoni was driving a minicab for. It wasn’t a coincidence. Why else would Omar’s taxi be there, in that very place? Why else would those two men be staring at him?
Omar is registered as having three minicabs in Oslo. The number three is blue and when he clicks on it, a page entitled ‘Information about the Licence Holder’ appears. It sounds a dead end, he thinks, but is pleasantly surprised at the text which fills the screen a few seconds later. He skims through it and smiles. Omar, he thinks.
I know where you live.
*
He decides to go home. The urge to sit down, have a think and work out what to do next is impossible to ignore. He waits until some of his colleagues, two women, get up and he follows them. They exit the office building. The black gate is open. He leaves some space between him and the women, walks down the pavement and checks the street. Two large stones divide Urtegata in half, making it impossible to drive in the direction of Gronland.
A Honda and a Ford are parked behind the stones. Both are empty. There is a man with a mangy-looking dog lying at his feet outside the Salvation Army building. If he were to suddenly jump up and pull out a Kalashnikov,
