The evening wind wafts through the open window and brushes Robert van Derksen’s glistening face. He takes a deep breath, leans back in the sofa and stares at the ceiling. It has been a long day. Going straight from the funeral to teach a demanding Krav Maga class full of students who expect him to deliver is not to be recommended. It requires energy to perform, especially given how the funeral went.
Tore Pulli — dead as a dodo. Just thinking about it feels weird. In their eyes, Tore was immortal, the man who could do nothing wrong. And then his life fell apart. First he was sentenced and jailed, then dead long before his time.
Van Derksen thinks about what the reporter said to him that day that it made no sense that a man as clever as Tore would leave behind his calling card at the crime scene. It was a valid point, and van Derksen had himself pondered this anomaly shortly after Tore’s arrest — especially once Tore put a reward of one million kroner on the table for information that could help free him. But then Tore was convicted, and everybody stopped talking about it after a while. Nor had Robert given it much thought until the reporter called. And that in turn prompted him to make a call straight afterwards. Now when he re-runs the short conversation it strikes him as really quite odd.
‘I’ve been thinking about something: you didn’t teach anyone else the Pulli punch, did you?’
There was silence for a while.
‘Why do you ask about that?’
‘No, I was just wondering. A guy just called me suggesting someone other than Tore had killed Jocke and elbowed his jaw. To make it look as if Tore did it.’
Again there was silence.
‘What kind of guy?’
‘A journalist.’
‘Name?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘For God’s sake, Robert, of course you do.’
He thinks hard. ‘Juul or something like that.’
Another silence.
‘Henning Juul?’
‘Yes, it could be him. Do you know him?’
Long silence.
‘I know who he is.’
What if the reporter was right? Robert wonders. What if Tore really was innocent? In which case, the list of alternative suspects is very short indeed.
The next moment someone rings the doorbell. Van Derksen gets up, gives the punchbag suspended from the ceiling a Pulli elbow and goes over to the intercom on the wall. He asks who it is‚ but receives no reply. Through the handset he hears hard footsteps on the stairs.
‘Hello?’ he calls out. Downstairs, the front door slams shut. Probably a cold caller, he thinks, and goes back to the living room. He has barely sat down when there is a knock on his door. Wearily, he gets up again and goes out into the hallway. He opens the door and stares at a face that makes his blood run cold. He instinctively takes a step back. And at that moment he knows that he is going to die.