Henning finds the meeting room as empty as it was earlier that morning, closes the door behind him and inserts the CD. He puts on headphones and concentrates on Pulli’s face while observing everything that happens in the room, the movements of the cameraman, the cables, the gobos. Henning didn’t find any photos of Brenden on the Internet, but he thinks he must be the man with practically no hair and a goatee. Underneath his khaki photographer’s waistcoat he wears a red T-shirt with a logo Henning can’t make out.
He is reminded of a question his mentor Jarle Hogseth used to ask, especially when Henning muttered phrases such as ‘I don’t understand’ or ‘I’m stuck; this isn’t going anywhere.’ Hogseth always made him look at the problem again from different angles.
‘What does it mean to understand?’ he would sometimes ask him.
‘To know something, perhaps, to appreciate its implications.’
‘There are two ways of looking, Henning. If you don’t look properly, you’ll never see anything. But if you look a little less, you can also see much more.’
Hogseth went on to explain his philosophy, which Henning has applied to every aspect of journalism ever since. ‘All journalists focus on the speaker because that’s the reason they are there. But it’s often much more rewarding to study the person next to the speaker or their spouse for that matter, to see how they react. It’s about spotting something no one else is paying attention to.’
Henning watches Brenden as Pulli enters. They nod and shake hands before Pulli sits down. The camera follows Pulli’s movements. Brenden comes into view again. He attaches a microphone to Pulli’s T-shirt, runs a cable from his body in the direction of the camera before he puts his hand on Pulli’s back and pushes him a little closer to the table. Brenden’s physical contact with Pulli lasts ten or perhaps fifteen seconds. Then only Pulli can be seen on the screen.
Henning rewinds the recording and replays the scene. He plays it a third time before he hits the stop button and zooms in on Brenden’s left hand. It is clenched even while he clips on the microphone. Henning studies the hand more closely in slow motion. It remains clenched. When Brenden leans towards Pulli to make him straighten up, both his hands are behind Pulli’s neck. Suddenly Pulli glances sideways, towards Brenden, but Brenden merely steps away from him, still with his fist closed.
‘Hm,’ Henning mutters to himself and rewinds the recording again and stops it just as Pulli looks at Brenden. Henning stares into Pulli’s eyes. Then he calls Brogeland to ask if the police have seen the footage.
‘No, we haven’t got the recording from TV2 yet. I think it’s coming later today.’
‘Okay. Call me when you’ve seen it. There are a couple of things I need to talk to you about.’
‘What things? Can’t you just tell me now?’
‘I need to check something first. Have you spoken to Thorleif Brenden’s family yet?’
‘Ella Sandland spoke to his girlfriend late last night.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘The usual, that they hadn’t argued, that he would never just stay away like this.’
‘So he hadn’t been behaving strangely up until he went to film Pulli in prison?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Okay. Call me later today, would you?’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’