Burned

He reads everything he can find about the company on the Internet. They have produced a couple of films, which he hasn’t seen yet and has no intention of ever seeing. They have a website, whose homepage is a collage of continuity errors from different Hollywood productions. He recognises photos from Gladiator, Ocean’s 11, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider-Man, Titanic, Lord of the Rings and Jurassic Park. There are more, but he can’t place them off the top of his head. It says ‘Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen ’ in a small font at the bottom of the page, and the quote is attributed to Robert Bresson.

He clicks away and finds the page with contact details. Spot the Difference Productions have two producers and a director on their staff. He decides to call the first person on the list, for no reason other than he has such a fine first name. He rings Henning Enoksen’s mobile. The call is answered after several long rings.

‘Hello, Enok here.’

The voice is dark and deep, but welcoming.

‘Hi, my name is Henning Juul.’

‘Hello, Henning,’ Enoksen says, greeting Henning like an old friend.

‘I work for the on-line newspaper, 123news. I’m working on a story about Henriette Hagerup.’

A moment of silence follows.

‘I see. How can I help you?’

Henning quickly explains that he is curious about the screenplay written by Henriette Hagerup, which Spot the Difference Productions had taken out an option on.

‘Hagerup, yes,’ Enoksen sighs. ‘A tragedy.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Henning says and waits for Enoksen to add something. He doesn’t. Henning clears his throat.

‘Can you tell me anything about the script?’

‘Will you be writing about this?’

‘No, I doubt it.’

‘Then why do you want to know? Didn’t you just say you were a reporter?’

Enoksen’s powers of deduction are impressive.

‘I’ve a hunch that the script might be important.’

‘Why?’

Something tells him that Enoksen was a right pain at school.

‘To find out what happened, to find out who killed her.’

‘Right.’

‘So, please, would you tell me about the script, which you must have liked, since you took out an option on it?’

He hears mouse clicking in the background, fingers skating across a keyboard.

‘Well, to be honest, it was mostly my co-producer, Truls, who was in touch with her.’

‘So you’ve never read the script?’

‘Ah, well, obviously — ’

‘What’s it about?’

More clicking.

‘It’s about — ’

He pauses to cough.

‘It’s about, eh, I don’t actually know what it’s about. Like I said, it was Truls who dealt with Henriette and Yngve, and — ’

‘Yngve?’

‘Yes?’

‘Yngve Foldvik?’

‘Correct. Do you know him?’

‘Was Yngve Foldvik involved with the script?’

‘He was her supervisor, I think.’

‘Yes, but I thought she’d written the script in her own time? Not as part of her coursework?’

Enoksen hesitates.

‘I don’t really know anything about that.’

Henning decides he needs another chat with Yngve Foldvik.

‘Do you and Truls normally buy options on scripts you haven’t discussed?’

‘No, this was a special case.’

‘How?’

‘Truls and Yngve used to work together, Yngve tipped us off about Hagerup’s script.’

‘I see.’

‘But remember, it was only an option.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means we think the script has potential and we want to develop the idea, see if we can turn it into a decent film.’

‘You’re not obliged to do anything more?’

‘That’s right.’

That question came automatically while Henning’s brain was busy absorbing the information he had just been given. Yngve Foldvik was actively involved in a project that Henriette Hagerup hoped would launch her career. Henning wonders if Foldvik’s interest extends to all his students, or if his enthusiasm is reserved for pretty young women with an outgoing personality and a flirtatious streak.

‘Do you think I could have a quick word with Truls?’ Henning asks, while he checks the company’s contact details and reads that Truls’s surname is Leirvag.

‘Er, he’s a bit busy right now,’ Enoksen says, quickly.

‘Okay.’

He deliberately waits a few seconds. But Enoksen doesn’t elaborate.

‘I’ll try him on his mobile later. If you could tell him that I would like a word, that would be great.’

‘I’ll try to remember that.’

‘Thank you.’

Henning hangs up, wondering what was on the tip of Enoksen’s tongue.

Chapter 49

A couple of quick Internet searches inform him that Henriette’s parents are called Vebjorn and Linda, and that she has an older brother, Ole Petter. He looks up Anette Skoppum. Her parents, Ulf Vidar and Froydis, are both over seventy, so Anette is most definitely an afterthought. She has three older sisters, Kirsten (thirty-eight), Silje (forty-one) and Torill (forty-four). In a matter of minutes, Henning has established that neither the Hagerups nor the Skoppums are a good match for the Gaarder family in the script.