Stairwells. The first impression you get of how people live. A pram blocks a door which must lead to the basement. There is a broken umbrella behind the pram. A stepladder, stained with white and navy blue paint, is leaning against the wall. The letterboxes are green. It smells damp. The residents are undoubtedly plagued by dry rot.
Upstairs, a door is opened. Perhaps Mrs Steen wants to double-check that there really is a delivery man downstairs? Damn, he says to himself. What do I do now? The door slams shut. He stays where he is. Footsteps approach. A woman’s shoes. He can tell from the sound. Should he turn around and leave?
That same moment, another door is opened. Henning suppresses the urge to look up.
‘Oh, hi,’ he hears from upstairs. ‘I’m just popping down to the shops, Mrs Steen.’ He detects a certain fatigue in the voice. Friendly, but long-suffering.
‘Hi.’
How on earth do I explain my presence, he wonders, if the woman coming down the stairs wants to know who I am?
‘Do you need anything?’ she asks Mrs Steen.
‘Please would you get me a copy of Her og Na? I’ve heard there’s a story about Hallvard Flatland today. I do like him.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Wait a moment, let me get you some money.’
‘It’s all right, Mrs Steen. You can pay me later.’
The voices echo strangely off the walls.
‘Thank you ever so much. That’s very kind of you.’
Click, clack. Her footsteps sound like a drum roll to Henning’s ears. He grabs the stepladder and starts walking up. The woman is on her way down. Henning holds the stepladder in front of him and keeps his head down. They are on the same floor now. She comes towards him, he can only see her feet, high heels, ‘hello’ he mutters and carries on walking. She says hello, too, and he is overwhelmed by her perfume, which is so heady that he nearly gasps. She doesn’t stop and they both walk on. He hears her open the entrance door and leave. The door closes with a bang.
Henning stops and takes some deep breaths, letting the silence fill the space. Then he turns and walks softly down the stairs, praying that Mrs Steen won’t hear him. Back on the ground floor, he spots a wooden sign saying FOLDVIK in a child’s asymmetrical writing on a dark blue door. The letters are burned into the wood. He puts down the stepladder and knocks, twice. After all, the doorbell could have been faulty.
He waits, listens out for footsteps, which never come. He knocks twice more. No, they are not in.
He is about to leave when he notices that the door hasn’t been shut properly. Hm, he thinks, that’s strange. He looks over his shoulder, even though he knows there is no one around. Carefully, he prods the door. It swings open. Am I really about to do this, he thinks, should I go inside and have a look?
No. Why would he? He can think of no earthly reason why. And, as far as the law is concerned, it’s the equivalent of breaking in. And how would he explain his presence in the flat, if anyone were to turn up? Like, for example, the people who live there?
Turn around, Henning. Turn around and go home, before it’s too late. But he can’t. He creeps in. It’s dark inside. The only light is coming from the stairwell. He doesn’t want to leave fingerprints, so he ignores the switch on his left, behind the front door. This is a really bad idea, he tells himself.
But he doesn’t leave. He isn’t sure what he is looking for. Is he hoping to find something that might implicate Foldvik? His computer? But he has no intention of touching it, unless he finds it already switched on and displaying incriminating documents.
He is in the hallway. Shoes, a shoe rack, coats on pegs, a wardrobe and a fuse box. Smoke alarms in the ceiling. They have smoke alarms in their ceiling, thank God. He pauses. The green lights reassure him. His own private all-clear signal.
He can smell cooking. Lasagne, would be his guess. Right in front of him, further down the hallway, is a door with a red felt heart. A door to the left leads to the kitchen. He sees a filthy white cooker. A saucepan with leftover spaghetti is resting on one of the hobs.
There are no boxes on the walls indicating that a burglar alarm has been installed, so he carries on. An arch leads him into a spacious living room. A television in the corner, a dining area. High-backed chairs and soft, embroidered cushions. He can see a large, square coffee table in front of a brown, distressed leather sofa further into the living room. There are three candleholders on the coffee table with creamy white candle stubs. The white linen curtains behind the sofa are closed.
Closed? Why closed so early in the evening?
A dark brown woven rug covers the floor and hides a scratch in the parquet floor. He notices it, because the scratch is so long that it carries on either side of the rug. The dining table is clear of objects. Clean and recently wiped, perhaps?
