Heggelund can only manage some gurgling sounds.
‘You’ve been lying to us,’ Holte says through clenched teeth. ‘You’ve been having us on. Did you really think we wouldn’t find out that you’re starting at the Police College in the autumn?’
Heggelund’s eyes widen even further.
‘So what was your game?’ Gronningen continues. ‘Have you been watching too much television? Did you think you could get a head start? Go under cover, like?’
‘No chance,’ Holte takes over. ‘No one messes with us like that!’
‘Please,’ Heggelund begs as his arms tremble. Holte pushes the bar down until it makes contact with Heggelund’s skin. Sparks fly from his eyes.
‘So do you think you’ll be coming back here?’ Gronningen asks him. Heggelund squeezes his eyes shut and tries to shake his head. Tears mix with drops of sweat on his face.
‘Are you going to tell anyone about this?’ Holte hisses. Again, Heggelund attempts to shake his head. Gronningen looks at him for a few seconds before he gets off and nods to Holte. Heggelund can barely breathe, but Holte doesn’t remove the bar.
‘Petter!’
Reluctantly Holte lifts the bar aided by what little is left of Heggelund’s strength. He slams it back in the stand. Holte turns around and snatches a towel while he snorts with contempt. Gronningen pulls him to one side.
‘You could have killed him!’ he whispers. Holte doesn’t reply, he merely looks at Heggelund, who is gasping for air. His cheeks are stained with tears, his eyelids heavy.
‘Enough is enough,’ Gronningen says. ‘Have you forgotten everything Tore taught us?’
Holte makes no reply, he just walks off a few steps. Heggelund discreetly moves into a sitting position while James Hetfield’s voice roars from the sound system. Gronningen turns around and goes back to Heggelund, who is still clutching his throat. Gronningen waits until the two of them have eye contact before he nods his head in the direction of the door. Heggelund struggles to his feet and staggers towards the exit, where the name of the gym glows at him in letters the colour of blood: Fighting Fit.
Chapter 3
A sharp light makes Henning blink. His eyes feel gritty. He rubs away the sleep and feels an ache across his lower back.
He sits up slowly. The Coke on the coffee table is no longer cold, but he takes a sip all the same, letting it fizz in his mouth. Outside, shades of blue sky merge into one another. He lets in the warm summer wind through a window in the living room. A swallow cries out, but there is no answer. Behind the block of flats opposite his a yellow construction crane skims the tops of the trees.
Henning goes to the bedroom, takes two tablets from the jar on his bedside table and swallows them dry before he continues to the kitchen where he glances at the chaotic pile of newspapers and printouts on the table. He sits down in front of his laptop, bumping into one of the table legs as he does so, and jolts the remains of a mug of cold coffee with dark brown rings on the inside. He opens up the screen and is greeted by an old version of the home page of 123news. no, before it automatically updates itself. Henning reads the main story, then he scrolls down and learns that nothing much has happened overnight. Heatwaves in Europe. Russia thinks Iran will soon have the ability to develop a nuclear bomb. Two people seriously injured following a traffic accident in Hedmark. Some girl he has seen before, but whose name he can’t remember, has had enough of her breast implants.
Henning checks the competition’s websites as well, even though he doesn’t know why he bothers, because it’s a waste of time. It’s the same news everywhere. But this is how he starts his day. And it’s what he used to do before Jonas died.
Soon it will be two years, Henning thinks. For most people, two years is an eternity of moments and memories stacked on top of each other. For him it’s no time at all. He hasn’t managed to uncover a single clue. It would have been so much easier if only he could remember something, anything, from the days and weeks leading up to the fire.
The face of Mikael Vollan stares out at him from the top of the pile. Mikael Vollan, the man who bombarded businesses and private individuals with 153 million fraudulent emails sent through accounts he created using false identities. Vollan advertised pyramid schemes and other scams to trick people into paying for something that didn’t exist. Henning got so fed up with receiving all that spam that he decided to find out who was behind it and what was in it for them. Together with 6tiermes7 (Henning’s anonymous police source) and his good friend and computer wiz Atle Abelsen, he eventually managed to unravel Vollan’s network. When the most important pieces were in place, Henning handed over his file to the Norwegian Gaming Authority, the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime and, eventually, Kripos, the Norwegian Serious Crime Unit, in return for a head start of a couple of hours before the long arm of the law went into action. Vollan was later sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, and he was ordered to pay compensation as well.
Henning studies the printouts once more before putting them away with a sigh. In court Vollan expressed both remorse and relief: he was glad that someone had finally put a stop to him. It had become an obsession was how he put it.
Vollan wouldn’t have had any money left to pay a hit man to eliminate Henning. Or Jonas.
Henning rubs his face wearily. Something will turn up, he tells himself. It has to.
Chapter 4
Tore Pulli used to enjoy looking at himself in the mirror. The ultra-short hair. The bright blue eyes. The strong nose. The dense, neatly combed beard. His sharp chin that no one had ever managed to punch without having their own smashed soon afterwards. The gold chains around his neck. The tight-fitting clothes. He loved to see how his muscles bulged, how his veins swelled under the tanned, tattooed skin. No one was ever in any doubt that he, Tore Pulli, was a guy they really didn’t want to mess with.
But that’s not what he sees now. His clothes no longer fit his body as snugly as they once did. What was at one time a tightly packed explosion, feared and revered, is nothing but a distant memory.
Pulli turns on the tap and lets the water run until it gets cold before he bends down and immerses his face in his wet hands. He rubs his eyes, dragging his fingers across his cheeks, his forehead, the frown lines and the bald patch before he dries himself with a white towel. Are you ready? he asks the face in the mirror. Are you really going to go through with this?
Veronica looks back at him from the picture on the cork noticeboard. As always, she looks straight at him with her lovely youthful smile. And as always he wonders how she keeps going.
Pulli sits down on the narrow pine bed, rests his elbows on his knees and cups his hands under his chin. His eyes wander to the rubbish bin overflowing on the grey linoleum floor. An ashtray, a lighter and a remote control are lying on a stool in front of him. His best friends. Surrounding him, his four worst enemies.
Resolutely he gets up and walks out into a corridor almost as long as a handball pitch, only narrower and with tables and seating arrangements, benches and chairs, placed either side of thick yellow lines. He nods briefly to the guard in the armoured glass cage, points to a telephone and gets a nod in return before he walks, unwillingly, to a table on the opposite side of the room A grey telephone sits on top of a dark-red plastic cloth. Stacks of writing paper, envelopes and forms are lying next to it. Pulli looks at the wall clock. Twenty minutes max.
He lifts the receiver but puts it back immediately. Have you done everything you can? he wonders. Is there really no one else who can help you?
No. There are no other options left.
