Henning Juul 04 Cursed by Thomas Enger

Author:Thomas Enger [Enger, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910633656
Publisher: Orenda Books Ltd
Published: 2017-01-20T16:00:00+00:00

32

Nora started the day by reading all the online newspapers she could find, and quickly concluded she still had the scoop. She was the only one who provided detail about the police having strong leads – clues that they were following up. The other papers had only picked up on the case in the small hours, and all they had managed to do was quote her. It was always fun to be quoted.

At a quarter past eight, she sat down for breakfast in the dining room. The plate in front of her was full: she’d picked up slices of bacon, a mound of scrambled eggs and a couple of pieces of smoked salmon. She also had a large glass of juice and an almost overflowing cup of coffee. It might be a while before she had anything else to eat.

Her plan for the day was simple: as soon as she’d finished breakfast, she would go and buy some emergency clothes, then she would go back out to the Hellbergs’ summer house at Hulebakk, take some pictures of the police who were searching the property, then send them over to the news desk with a good, tantalising headline. Then the internet people could add the material that she had already produced. That would make it to around fifteen or twenty lines, and it might even become a top story.

When Nora reached Hulebakk, feeling like she’d eaten a horse, the iron gates were open and there was a row of cars parked outside. There were also cars outside the garage. Nora spotted Cato Løken’s car, parked by itself some way off. She was about to take out her mobile phone when she heard dogs barking among the trees.

Nora walked towards the noise. There were no cordons yet, but it didn’t take long before she bumped into a uniformed policeman.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Aftenposten. What’s happening?’

The man – tall and dark with a beard – looked at her sceptically.

‘Have they found anything?’ she asked, when he said nothing.

‘I don’t know,’ was his reply.

Nora knew what he was thinking: here already, vultures. That was generally what the police – especially the men – thought of journalists.

The noise got closer. Dogs barking, branches snapping. A voice called from among the trees: ‘The dogs have picked up a trace.’

Nora’s right hand went to her mouth.

Hedda, she thought. Poor thing. And before she could stop herself, she was crying. She took a few steps away from the police officer and tried to pull herself together. You’re at work, for goodness sake, she said to herself. She pulled out her phone and typed a quick text to her editor: ‘Seems body has been found. Will call as soon as know for sure. Will send pictures ASAP.’

Detective Inspector Cato Løken stepped out from the group of officers. He wasn’t surprised to see her there. He had his professional mask on.

‘We’ll have to cordon off the whole area,’ he said to the two officers standing closest to him, who then nodded and rushed off to the nearest police car for some red-and-white tape.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.