Free Pierced by Thomas Enger Page A

too.
    ‘Of course I want you to show me, sweetheart. Hang on, let me just put my shoes on.’

Chapter 16
     
     
    Henning walks across the golden brown floor of Jarlen. A wall painted red at the top and white at the bottom welcomes him to the restaurant. The wall sconces look like hats someone thought it would be amusing to turn upside down. There are white tablecloths and napkins on the tables but hardly any customers eating at them.
    Henning picks a table in the middle of the room, orders Danish-style beefburger with potatoes, vegetables and pickled beetroot for no other reason than he likes Denmark and the Danes. While he waits for his food, he looks out of the window at the five-metre-high wall across the road.
    Oslo Prison.
    He is somewhere inside it , Henning thinks, the man with information about the fire . The time when he meets Tore Pulli face to face can’t come soon enough.
    Henning is still feeling uncomfortably full after his meal when Geir Grønningen shows up, two hours and fifteen minutes after their brief chat at Fighting Fit. He has showered and is wearing tight leather trousers and a white T-shirt which strains over his belly. His steps are measured and decisive, and his arms hang well away from his upper body as if something has been stuffed under his armpits. His long hair falls loosely over his shoulders, but his hairline has retreated high up his forehead and has made room for deep frown lines.
    Henning gets up when Grønningen appears. ‘I don’t think we managed to introduce ourselves properly earlier,’ he says and holds out his hand. ‘Henning Juul.’
    Grønningen shakes his hand reluctantly. ‘You’ve got a nerve,’ he says as he sits down.
    ‘Why is that?’
    ‘Walking straight into the gym and talking to me about what I—’
    Grønningen breaks off, looks around, but all he sees is a noisy family with children at a table further away.
    ‘You’re lucky no one saw you,’ he continues.
    ‘I am or you are?’
    Grønningen doesn’t reply.
    ‘So no one knows that you’re trying to find out who set Tore up?’
    Grønningen looks at Henning. His lips form the beginning of an answer, but Henning sees that he opts for an alternative reply. ‘Turning up at the gym and asking questions about people isn’t very smart,’ he says archly. ‘People might think you’re trying to fit them up.’
    ‘And they’ve developed this paranoia because they’ve been law-abiding citizens all their lives?’
    ‘You know what I mean.’
    ‘I think so. But I wanted to talk to you because Veronica said that you’ve tried to help Tore while he has been inside.’
    ‘I’ve tried and tried, Mrs Blom,’ he says and looks down.
    ‘So you haven’t found anything out?’
    Grønningen studies his napkin in detail. ‘Not much, no.’
    ‘That probably explains why Tore rang me yesterday,’ Henning says and waits for Grønningen to look up. Which he does half a second later.
    ‘Did he?’
    ‘Yes. He asked for my help. Since you’re clearly trying to help him too, I thought we might be useful to each other.’
    Grønningen snorts with ill-concealed contempt.
    ‘I get it,’ Henning continues. ‘You don’t know if you can trust me. And no one has claimed the one-million-krone reward yet. But you can relax, Geir. I don’t give a toss about the money. I have my own reason for doing this.’
    ‘What reason would that be?’
    ‘This is how we do it,’ Henning says and waits until he has Grønningen’s undivided attention. ‘I tell you everything you want to know about me and why I’m here, and then you tell me what you know about your friend’s case. I’m interested in anyone who knew Tore. Who they were and what they stood for.’
    Grønningen directs his dark-brown eyes at a floral arrangement on one of the console tables.
    ‘I don’t snitch on my mates,’ he says in a mournful voice that suggests that he has just betrayed a lifelong principle.
    ‘I’m not asking you to. All you have to