Orjan Mjones has to stop himself from laughing out loud. Everyone he meets on his way into Oslo Central Station quickly averts their eyes when he pretends to look them up and down. He can easily understand why someone would want to join the police. Having the power to make people shrink the moment they see a uniform even though they haven’t done anything wrong. When you think about it, it is ridiculous.
He goes over to the ticket office, nods to a woman behind the glass and asks to speak to ‘someone in charge’ — a safe bet since all offices have a manager. She gives him a name he doesn’t catch, but further into the office a corpulent man gets up from a chair. The man grabs hold of his belt and hoists up his trousers, peers out through the glass and walks reluctantly towards the door. Soon he joins Mjones outside.
‘Inspector Stian Henriksen, Oslo Police,’ Mjones says, holding out his hand.
‘Terje Eggen. How can I help you?’
‘We’re looking for this man,’ Mjones says, holding up the picture Flurim Ahmetaj printed out for him. ‘He is wanted in connection with a murder, and we have reason to believe that he was here at Oslo Central Station around one o’clock yesterday afternoon. We also believe that he left Oslo on a train that departed around that time. I need a list of all one o’clock departures.’
‘I’m sure that should be possible. Do you mean one o’clock precisely?’
‘A few minutes either side would be fine. Let’s say between 12.50 and 13.10, then we have a margin to work with.’
‘Okay.’
Eggen disappears back inside the glass office. Mjones waits outside until he returns a few minutes later with a printout. Mjones studies it and nods sternly.
‘I also need a list of ticket inspectors working on those trains. I want to start with the trains going furthest, and I’ll contact you again if I need the names of anybody else.’
‘I’ll have to ring around to get those for you. It could take some time.’
‘I can wait.’
Eggen is about to go back inside the glass office when he stops and turns around. ‘There are more than 500 cameras at the station,’ Eggen says, looking up. ‘There is bound to be a recording of him.’
Mjones improvises. ‘My officers are looking into that, obviously. However, it’s not enough to know which train he boarded. We also need to know where he got off. And I believe that the ticket inspectors are best placed to answer that question.’
Eggen nods. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-’
‘Not at all.’
Mjones smiles. Pretending to be a police officer is great fun.