Henning goes home and lies down on his sofa. He stares at the ceiling and thinks about Elisabeth Haaland, of the news awaiting her — if she hasn’t been told already. And he feels for the children, only eight and four years old. A difficult time lies ahead of them.
Henning checks the time on his mobile. It’s too soon, he thinks, to write anything about Brenden except the fact that a body has been found. It will take a couple of hours to confirm Brenden’s identity. Then the police will inform his next of kin, and, out of respect for the bereaved, reporters should really leave family and friends alone for a couple of days. But very few members of the Norwegian media care about that these days.
You should seriously consider a change of career, he tells himself, given how much you loathe your own profession. There is hardly any decency left among reporters. But deep down Henning knows he is exactly like them when he smells a good story. Is this really the kind of person he wants to be? Is this truly how he wants to feel?
That’s the problem. He doesn’t know what he wants.
In the tender infancy of his journalistic career he had an idea — or it may have been more of a fantasy — where he would position himself in the same place in the city for six months, say, and look out for people who repeated the same actions every day. He wasn’t interested in people commuting to and from work, but those who went there just to have somewhere to go. He would seek out those who avoided eye contact, who hid themselves away, who preferred walking close to the wall rather than the kerb. Henning believed that they each had a story that needed telling. Something had made them like this. Something unique to each of them.
But he never found the time. There was always a new story, always something of greater urgency. And before Henning returned to work, after Jonas’s death, he had himself turned into someone who walks in the shadows.
Perhaps I’ll find my way back one day, Henning thinks. When everything is over.
A sudden flash of inspiration makes him sit up. Before he has thought it through, he is on the phone to Iver.
‘What’s happening?’ Iver asks, answering after just a few rings. ‘I’ve managed to get some headphones and a remote control,’ he adds, happily, before Henning has time to say anything. ‘At least I can make calls now.’
‘Don’t do it.’
‘Eh?’
‘I don’t want you to talk to anyone. Especially not the media. Has anyone called you today?’
‘Why would they do that?’
Henning tells him about the coma article and the discovery of Brenden’s body.
‘Many people know that you’re in hospital,’ he continues. ‘And several reporters will probably check how you are, maybe not today, but definitely tomorrow when everyone is back at work. The thing is, I don’t want anyone knowing that you’ve regained consciousness yet. If the people who killed Brenden are aware that he sent you an email, and if they also check up on you and discover that you’re in a coma, then they may believe that Brenden’s email was never received. We can buy ourselves some time.’
‘Okay,’ Iver says. ‘I get it.’
‘You need to tell Nora.’
‘I’ll try.’
The stab wound sends spasms of pain from his shoulder and down his arm even though he cleaned the cut with whatever he could find and applied a makeshift bandage. There is an agonising pounding coming from the point of entry. Perhaps it has already become infected, Orjan Mjones thinks, since he feels feverish all over. The knife was unlikely to be sterile.
The public telephone rings at eleven o’clock exactly, just as it did three days ago. Mjones steps inside and picks up the receiver with his left hand.
‘Hello,’ he says. At the same moment the throbbing in his shoulder escalates.
‘Is everything taken care of?’
‘Yes,’ Mjones says, clenching his teeth. The pain feels like flames brushing his forehead.
‘And you’re quite sure of that?’
‘Yes. There are no loose ends this time.’
The handset is filled with white noise for a few seconds.
‘Good.’
‘Which means only one item is outstanding,’ Mjones says. ‘But there has been a change of plan. I want the balance paid into my bank account.’
Silence. Mjones wipes the sweat away with the same hand that is holding the handset.
‘Why?’
‘I have my reasons.’
There is silence again.
‘Okay.’
‘I have a bank account in Sw-’
‘Not on the telephone,’ Langbein cuts him off. ‘We need to meet.’
Mjones frowns. Why? So that Langbein can shoot him dead and so avoid paying the 2.5 million kroner he owes him?
Mjones makes it a rule never to ask his employers about their motives. He takes on a job, and he sees it through, mostly without getting his own hands dirty. But now that he thinks about this particular assignment, his curiosity is aroused, especially since Langbein hadn’t been in touch since newspapers the world over commemorated the anniversary of 9/11. Prior to that date, he and Langbein regularly did business, but for much lower fees.
If you don’t take the job then you become the job.
So Langbein would have had me killed, Mjones considers, if I hadn’t agreed to do this job. Or was this his plan all along? Get me to kill Pulli and send someone after me later? It might explain why it was so easy for me to push the price up from 2 to 3 million, he thinks, a sum which even to begin with was considerably higher than is usual for this line of work. Perhaps he is walking right into a trap. Given his knowledge of Langbein’s previous operations, it’s not unthinkable even though he doesn’t know who Langbein is or who he works for.
‘We’re not going to do that,’ Mjones says. ‘I’ll contact you the way you contact me. The advert will appear sometime tomorrow morning, and the numbers you’ll need will be in it. If the money hasn’t reached my bank account by Tuesday, I’ll charge interest.’
‘Are you in a hurry?’
‘Yes… or… no.’
‘You’re not thinking of disappearing, are you?’
Mjones hesitates.
‘Oh, no,’ he lies.