Blix was restless; and the closer he drew to TV headquarters, the worse he became. He thought of Iselin. The participants had been completely isolated from the news in recent weeks. They’d had no access to newspapers and had only communicated with viewers via a restricted Facebook page. Unless one of them had informed the participants about Dahlmann or the countdown, they knew nothing about what was going on. Maybe that was just as well.
Outside the entrance to the TV building, crowds were already gathering. Several had homemade placards to cheer on the contestants. Blix couldn’t help feeling disappointed that none mentioned Iselin, but he quickly shook that off.
Blix and Kovic approached the public entrance. On Fosse’s orders, they were both dressed in uniform. The idea was that a visible police presence might scare off any potential perpetrator. At the same time they couldn’t turn up with too many uniformed officers as that would generate panic. Instead they were letting plain clothes police officers monitor most of the crowd without them being aware of it.
Inside, Blix located Even Eckhoff, who referred him on to the producer, Petter Due-Eriksen.
Blix had met him once in connection with the promotion and editorial discussions about the programme concept.254
‘We have plenty of security,’ Due-Eriksen said. ‘We don’t need any outside help.’
‘We’re not here to help you,’ Blix said. ‘We’re here to keep the spectators and the contestants safe.’
‘Believe it or not, officer,’ Due-Eriksen replied, looking at his mobile phone at the same time. ‘Our staff are more than capable of doing just that. It’s why we hire them. I don’t want your people to interfere with their work.’
‘Believe it or not,’ Blix answered straight back, ‘I don’t need your permission. Just tell them to meet me.’
Due-Eriksen grinned, clearly not impressed, but made a nodding motion with his head and then took them to a meeting room, where he assembled all the guards and a few key players from the production side.
Blix spent ten minutes with them, briefing them on the situation. He made sure he created the impression that all of this was normal procedure in the circumstances and merely a preventive measure.
Blix devoted the next half hour to acquainting himself with the layout of the building. The control room for the online transmission was located beside the stage. Inside, three men and two women followed the twenty-eight cameras that produced the live stream twenty-four hours a day.
Iselin was in the centre of the picture on one of the screens on the wall.
Blix approached one of the staff who had attended the briefing meeting. ‘Is it possible to stop the live stream if we need to?’ he asked.
The employee, a man in his early twenties, turned to face him. ‘The main broadcast is easy to pull the plug on, if anything happens,’ he answered. ‘It’s a slightly more complicated process with all the images that go out on the Internet. We’ll manage it, of course, but it takes longer.’
On screen, Iselin walked up to a table and took an apple from a bowl. The camera followed her every move.
‘Who controls the cameras?’ Blix inquired.255
‘Most of the cameras are triggered by movement. They automatically follow the contestants when they move. We also have two cameramen behind the one-way mirrors in there.’
He nodded towards a door. Blix crossed over and peered inside. It was a cramped back room with cables snaking over the floor. A man with a camera on his shoulder was filming through a mirror wall into the house. Iselin was laughing at something Toralf said.
Blix put his fingertips on the glass and stood watching her. She was so close he could almost touch her. The fact that he couldn’t made him blink rapidly several times. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d given her a hug. Or received one.
The cameraman turned towards him. Blix gave him a brief nod, then withdrew and closed the door behind him before moving on. He toured the rest of the studio, speaking to everyone wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word CREW, in order to gain an impression of who they were, what kind of job they had, and where in the building they would be located during the show.
When it was almost 7.00 p.m., Blix headed for the public entrance. Outside, people huddled together. A loudspeaker played music with a thumping bass to whip up some atmosphere. Two security guards stood on either side of the doorway. Another one stood inside.
The first audience members were asked to empty their pockets. When one of the guards simply gave a quick glance at the contents of one girl’s handbag, Blix stopped both her and the guard. ‘You have to check it more carefully,’ he said.
‘Come off it,’ the guard said glumly. ‘She can’t be more than fourteen.’ He pointed at the girl beside him.
Blix took a step closer and whispered: ‘I don’t give a shit. All pockets, bags, rucksacks – you have to go through them all.’
Blix had said precisely this during the briefing. He noticed the guard roll his eyes in disgust, but made no comment. He needed everyone with him on the team.
Even though things progressed slowly at the entrance, it didn’t take long for the auditorium to fill up. At the moment it looked as if 256the audience comprised only family members, enthusiastic fans and the usual spectators; and the guards had come across nothing that could potentially be used as a weapon.
When Merete appeared at the entrance, Blix went over to meet her.
‘She’s OK,’ Blix told the guards. ‘I know her.’
The guard he’d reprimanded earlier rolled his eyes again.
‘What’s up?’ Merete asked, looking at his stiffly pressed uniform shirt. ‘Are you working? Here?’
‘Yes, it…’ Blix didn’t know what to say.
‘Isn’t Jan-Arne with you?’
‘Jan-Egil,’ Merete corrected him. ‘No, he couldn’t make it tonight. Now tell me what’s going on.’
‘It’s probably nothing,’ Blix told her. ‘It’s just to be on the safe side.’
It took only a second for Merete to understand the connection. Her hand leapt to her mouth.
‘It’s just a precaution,’ he said, trying to allay her fears. ‘We have people at TV 2 and NRK as well. And several other places, in fact.’
Merete gulped a couple of times before nodding. Blix escorted her inside, following her to a seat approximately in the middle of the auditorium, where they had a good view over everything that would happen on stage.