Henning walks under the ruby-red canopy and stops in front of the two doormen outside Asgard. He looks at them in turn.
‘Which one of you is Petter Holte?’ he asks.
The doormen exchange glances before the bigger one pushes his chest up and out.
‘You don’t seem to be answering your phone,’ Henning says.
Holte makes no reply, he merely stares at him blankly. The light above the entrance shines on the bald patch on Holte’s head. There is a dense crescent of stubble around his pate.
‘I’ve been trying to call you,’ Henning continues.
‘And you are?’
‘My name is Henning Juul.’
Holte looks at him, but shows no signs of recognition. ‘I don’t know you.’
‘No, but I know you. You’re Tore Pulli’s cousin.’
Holte doesn’t reply.
‘Are you going in or what?’ the other doorman says.
‘In a moment. I just need to have a quick word with Petter first. I’m a reporter.’
‘I don’t talk to reporters,’ Holte says, far from impressed.
‘Oh, you don’t? But perhaps you beat them up?’
Henning watches Holte closely as his muscles tense and his face darkens. Henning reacts by straightening up.
‘A colleague of mine was beaten up last night. Before that he had been here.’
Henning has to narrow his eyes in order to see Holte’s pupils in the dim light.
‘We don’t know anything about that,’ the other doorman says.
Henning focuses exclusively on Holte. ‘Why are you wearing gloves?’
Holte looks down at his hands before he steps forwards. His tanned face has taken on a flushed undertone. ‘What do you want?’
In the past, the heavies in front of Henning would have intimidated him. ‘I want to know if you beat up my colleague last night.’
Holte snorts. The light from the lamp above the entrance bounces off his right earring. The voice of the other doorman is softer.
‘Petter has made it clear that he doesn’t want to be interviewed. You need to respect that or we’ll have to ask you to leave.’
Henning looks at Holte for one more second before he holds up his hands and says, ‘Okay.’ Holte’s colleague steps aside and opens the door. It would have been fun, Henning thinks, to accidentally bump into Holte’s inflated shoulder, but it strikes him that he might have pushed his luck far enough as it is. In spite of everything, he would still like to leave in one piece.
Henning enters, and the Swedish bartender tells him to go upstairs to Even Nylund’s office. From the first floor Henning has a view of the small stage where a woman of East European appearance tries to tantalise the sparse audience with sensual movements.
It is like entering an attic. The corridor in front of him has an opening that reminds him of a vagina. The lighting is subdued. On the wall to the left he sees an illuminated picture of a woman having sex with a fallen warrior. It must be Freya, Henning thinks, and remembers from his schooldays how Vikings who died in battle would come to her. In Norse mythology this kind of death was depicted as an erotic encounter.
Henning walks down the corridor, stops in front of an open door and peers inside. A man sitting on a chair with his back to him turns around.
‘Ah, right. There you are.’
Four TV monitors are mounted on the wall above Even Nylund. Nylund gets up as Henning goes inside. They shake hands.
‘So you found me.’
Nylund gestures to a chair. Henning sits down.
‘Can I get you something to drink?’
Henning shakes his head even though his shirt sticks to his body and his throat is parched. He looks around. The walls are decorated with pictures of scantily clad women, advertising posters and press cuttings. The images on the TV screens are replaced every few seconds. They are live shots from the bar, the stage, the whole room seen from a bird’s-eye view plus pictures from outside. Petter Holte stands tall and tough with his thumbs hooked in his belt.
‘I know who you are,’ Nylund says.
‘Do you?’
‘I spoke to Geir Gronningen earlier today. He seemed to think that you might be stopping by. I was sorry to hear about your colleague,’ Nylund says and shakes his head. Henning studies him, not sure what to make of Nylund’s apparently genuine expression of sympathy.
‘Your colleague said you have a theory that Tore Pulli was innocent.’
Henning holds up his hand in front of his mouth and coughs briefly. ‘So he told you? Yes, I suppose we have. I wonder if that’s why he was beaten up.’
‘Who by?’
‘Well, that’s the problem. You, possibly.’
Nylund smiles. ‘Look at me,’ he says. ‘I weigh sixty-eight kilos. Some of my girls can beat me at arm wrestling.’
‘Yes, maybe they can. But those who work for you have been known to beat people up.’
Henning points to the screen where Petter Holte is holding up an authoritarian hand to a middle-aged man on unsteady legs who is trying to enter the club.
‘I can assure you, Juul, that no one here is involved in the attack on your colleague.’
‘And you’re sure that you know what your staff get up to at any given time?’
‘When they’re at work, then yes.’
‘And you keep an eye on them from here?’
Henning points to the monitors.
‘And in person — when I’m downstairs.’
‘Right. Do these monitors record?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you can find out who left the club after my colleague did.’
‘I can.’
‘Would you do it?’
Nylund smiles. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to your colleague, Juul, but my customers are entitled to a certain amount of privacy. I can’t show you recordings of what happens in here just because you want me to.’
‘I could get the police to do it.’
‘Be my guest — the police can see the footage as long as they produce the right paperwork. And just to be clear, it’s nothing personal.’
‘Mm.’
Henning looks around again. One of the video cameras is pointing at a door with a sign saying Glitnir.
‘Why the Norse theme?’ Henning asks and turns to Nylund again.
‘It was Vidar’s idea.’
‘Vidar Fjell?’
‘Yes. Some years ago, when I talked about opening this place, we spent an evening discussing how we could make the club stand out. Vidar talked about Freya and the Vikings and all that, and I was fascinated by the Norse concept of sex. I think we all were. We decided it would be a good look for us, and that’s how Asgard was born.’
‘So Vidar was into Norse mythology?’
‘Yes. In a big way.’
Interesting, Henning thinks, as he remembers that Fjell’s father is a professor of Nordic Studies. This must be where his interest sprang from. Henning realises he is excited by this discovery though he doesn’t quite know why.
He sits for a while looking at the real-time clock at the bottom of the right-hand corner of one of the monitors. It makes him think about the nineteen minutes that left Tore Pulli shaking his head. If he really was innocent and he continued to insist that he had arrived on time, how could time pass so quickly?
The answer is obvious, Henning thinks, and it irritates him that the thought hasn’t occurred to him earlier: time doesn’t run fast unless someone makes sure that it does.
Someone must have tampered with the clock on Pulli’s mobile. Someone with easy access to it.