‘I mean was anyone especially incensed and did they express their anger or disgust at Tore because he didn’t want revenge?’
Gronningen mulls over the question. ‘Robert.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Robert van Derksen. A martial-arts instructor. He was a good mate of Vidar’s, but Tore and Robert weren’t exactly best mates. Or they weren’t then.’
‘Why not?’
Gronningen breathes out. ‘One night, three or four years ago, we went to the opening of Order @ the Bar in the city centre. Veronica was there with some of her models. Free drinks. You know what these events are like.’
‘Robert helped himself — quite liberally you could say — and I’m not just talking about the drinks. It looked as if he thought the girls were free too. Tore didn’t like Robert pawing Veronica’s girls and told him to lay off — for all the good that did — and when, a little later, Tore took him outside to cool down, Robert tried to hit him. Tore saw the punch come a week in advance.’
Henning raises an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t you just say that van Derksen was a martial-arts instructor?’
‘Yes, but he was shit-faced that night. When he sobered up and heard what had happened he felt humiliated. Things between the two of them were never the same again.’
‘So Robert van Derksen had a motive for killing Jocke Brolenius and setting Tore Pulli up?’
‘Yes.’
‘But could he have broken Brolenius’s jaw? In the style of Pulli?’
‘Yes, definitely,’ Gronningen replies without hesitation before he adds, ‘It’s not that difficult. All it takes is a bit of practice.’
Chapter 17
Henning decides to walk home from Akebergveien, an exercise usually conducive to thinking. And he has much to digest after his meetings with Veronica Nansen and Geir Gronningen, especially the information Gronningen gave him about Robert van Derksen. According to Gronningen, van Derksen claimed to be with a woman on the night that Brolenius was killed, although Gronningen was ashamed to admit that he had never double-checked his alibi. Van Derksen had a habit of replacing his women frequently, and Gronningen hadn’t been able to remember which particular woman he had been with at the time. ‘And I’m not sure that Robert would be able to remember either,’ was how he put it.
When Henning comes home he visits the bodybuilding website www.hardenever.no and finds a picture of Robert van Derksen showing off an oiled torso, a six-pack and rippling muscles in his arms and legs, posing in combat style. Henning reads about the courses he teaches: karate, tae kwon do and Krav Maga — and realises that he can’t simply turn up on van Derksen’s doorstep and ask if he murdered Jocke Brolenius. He could sign up for one of the courses and ask if van Derksen would teach him the Pulli punch, but such questions rely on familiarity and trust. And both take time — which Henning doesn’t have.
There must be another way, he thinks, and rings the contact number listed at the bottom of the screen.
‘Hi, my name is Henning Juul from the internet newspaper 123news. Am I speaking to Robert van Derksen?’
‘You are,’ van Derksen replies, sounding bored. His voice is lighter than Henning had expected, bordering on meek.
‘Sorry for disturbing you on a Sunday, but I’m working on a story about Tore Pulli. I understand that the two of you knew each other well?’
There is silence.
‘I’ve got nothing to say about Tore.’
‘You don’t need to say anything about Tore,’ Henning is quick to add, scared that van Derksen might hang up on him. ‘I’m more interested in the murder of Jocke Brolenius. I think there may have been a miscarriage of justice and that Tore might be innocent,’ Henning continues.
The seconds pass.
‘Why do you think that?’
Henning waits a few more moments before he replies: ‘Because certain things in the case against him don’t make sense. The murder weapon has never been found, for one. And if Tore really wanted to kill someone, I don’t think he would have left his calling card behind at the crime scene.’
Another silence.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Pulli punch,’ Henning continues, feeling himself warming to his subject. ‘Brolenius’s fractured jaw. I think that someone with strong fists wanted it to look as if Tore killed Jocke Brolenius.’
Henning lets his words take effect. Many long seconds of silence follow.
‘Are you still there?’ he asks eventually.
‘You need to call someone else,’ van Derksen says. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’
And the line goes dead.
Henning looks at his mobile as if it could tell him why van Derksen went from being interested to cutting him off. Perhaps he got nervous, Henning thinks. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to talk to a journalist.
Henning reviews the information he has obtained during the day. It’s a fair amount. But he still can’t work out how Pulli knew that he was back at work. As far as Henning is aware, prison inmates don’t have Internet access. Did someone tell Pulli? In which case who could it have been? Neither Veronica Nansen nor Geir Gronningen gave the impression of ever having heard of Henning before.
Henning googles his own and Tore Pulli’s name on the Internet but only finds stories he wrote years ago. Henning pulls a face. Something doesn’t add up, he thinks. His reputation is not of sufficient calibre for an inmate to whom he has never previously spoken to call him up out of the blue to ask for his help. There are private investigators who would happily take on this kind of work, and Pulli has enough money to pay them. Henning types the word ‘private investigator’ and googles it with Pulli’s name, but he isn’t rewarded with helpful hits this time either.
Given that a reward of one million kroner was on the table there can only be two reasons why no one has come forward with information that could free Pulli. Either the real killer is so smart that he hasn’t aroused even the slightest suspicion amongst his own people or Tore Pulli is guilty and is merely putting on a show.
Henning butters a slice of crispbread and eats it while he walks up and down the living room. His eyes stop at the dark-brown piano. As always, the lid is closed. He doesn’t want to look at it, at everything it represents. But then he hears Veronica Nansen’s voice. He takes one hesitant step towards the piano before he pauses. Then he takes another towards the piano stool. He pulls it out. Slowly, he sits down and visualises the keys trapped under the lid, tempting ebony and ivory.
He opens the lid with great care. His stomach lurches just at the sight of the keys. Silently, he folds back the lid as his eyes glide from side to side. He remembers how his fingers used to run off, finding their own ways and following any path they liked, repeating movements and sequences until slowly but surely they formed wider roads in an increasingly familiar terrain. He loved how the tone coloured the walls, how the sound and its resonance opened up parallel worlds the moment he closed his eyes.
Henning places his fingers on G7, one of his favourite chords; he didn’t know that’s what it was until he pressed the same keys on a digital piano many years ago, an instrument which was hooked up to a computer, and the name came up on the screen. He has learned the names of his favourite chords — Cm7, E?7b5: chords that cry out to be followed by pure tones. But he was searching for contrasts, exploring the relationship between harmony and discord, believing that something pure and right would emerge out of the dissonance and the friction, something that would grow stronger and transform even disharmony into harmony. Often he would hit random keys until he stumbled across something he liked, something to which he could add side chords and compose a melody around.
Now he barely hears the tones, not to begin with, but they grow, they force their way inside him and compel
