Scarred: A Novel Page 14

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “Did anything last Sunday strike you as a little unusual?”

  Gjerløw falls silent.

  “Well, I’m not really—”

  “Did anyone behave differently, a patient, a staff member or . . . or anyone else?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Bjarne lifts his pen from the paper while he thinks.

  “How well do you know the other volunteers?”

  Gjerløw sighs again.

  “I only know Remi. I don’t know what it’s like with the rest, if they know each other.”

  Bjarne nods to himself and looks down at his notepad. Depressingly few notes.

  “What made you volunteer in the first place?” he asks.

  Gjerløw doesn’t reply immediately.

  “Helping others is a good thing to do,” he says eventually. “Making a positive difference to someone’s day. You ought to try it sometime.”

  The words smart like an unexpected slap to the face. Bjarne is lost for an answer.

  “Was there anything else?” Gjerløw asks. “I’m about to go out.”

  “No,” Bjarne says. “Thanks for your help.”

  * * *

  Bjarne spends the next hour calling the other four names on the list from the volunteer service, but none of them can add a single new detail. All of them confirm that they left the care home around the same time as they normally do.

  Bjarne shakes his head while he tries to sum up the case for himself. First Erna Pedersen is strangled in her own room, then her eyes are pierced with her own knitting needles; the killer proceeds to smash a picture of her son’s family, which was on the wall, and takes with him a school photo from the crime scene without anyone seeing or hearing anything.

  The only thing he can think of that could have distracted an entire floor in a care home is the volunteer service’s singalong that afternoon. Someone could have stolen away from the entertainment, gone to Erna Pedersen’s room, killed her, and then returned to the singalong. It need not have taken more than a couple of minutes and no one would have noticed. Pedersen wouldn’t have been capable of making very much noise and her room was quite a distance from the TV lounge, where the singalong was taking place. And it’s fairly easy to hide a framed school photo. All you need is a bag or jacket with big pockets.

  But what was the point of mutilating her eyes? And what about the missing picture? Was Pedersen meant to look at it before she was killed?

  His train of thought is interrupted by Ella Sandland knocking on his door and popping her head in.

  “I’ve just had a call from Forensics,” she says, sounding agitated. “They’ve found a fingerprint on the knitting needles that doesn’t belong to Erna Pedersen.”

  Bjarne looks up at her.

  “Okay? So who does it belong to?”

  Chapter 38

  A layer of gray clouds hangs across Jessheim and refuses to let in the sun, but Emilie Blomvik doesn’t even notice it when she drops off Sebastian at nursery, just in time for him to join in the trip to the Raknehaugen burial mound. Inside his Lightning McQueen bag are two packed lunches, a clear blue plastic bottle of tap water, and a green apple. She sends him inside with whispered instructions to have lots of fun today because that’s exactly what she intends to do.

  As expected, the morning started slowly after she came home late from work last night and found Mattis asleep on the sofa under a blanket. On the table stood a bottle of red wine that he had clearly consumed single-handedly, because his dry cracked lips were stained blue. Next to the bottle was a note saying “Wake me when you get home . . .” followed by three Xs—as if the first hint could be misunderstood.

  But she didn’t have the energy. A long night shift at the airport had worn her out. The luggage belt had broken down—again—which meant it took longer to check in passengers, whose bad mood increased in line with Emilie’s. When she finally got home, well past midnight, she had only one thought in her head and that was to go to bed. So that was what she did. She fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

  Mattis was woken up by his mobile, which on weekdays makes an infernal noise at a quarter to six in the morning. She heard him get in the shower, but when he returned to the bedroom to get dressed, she pretended to be asleep. She didn’t really know why she did that. He came over to her just before he left, but by then she had buried her head under the duvet and curled up in a ball.

  As usual Sebastian woke up around seven o’clock and Emilie plonked him in front of the television for an hour, expertly ignoring all the voices in her head that called out You’re a bad mother, you’re a bad mother, and went back to bed. She set the alarm for eight o’clock and woke up with a panicky feeling of being late for something. Fortunately she found Sebastian right where she had left him with his Lightning McQueen car in his hands and the remote control right beside him.

  Television.

  The world’s best invention, surpassed only by a baby’s pacifier and the dishwasher.

  But the mood of the day changed completely when she remembered that she was going to Oslo to have lunch with Johanne.

  * * *

  Emilie thinks about her friend’s gentle face as she leaves the nursery and walks out into a day that is waiting just for her. She is so looking forward to seeing Johanne again, hearing the latest news in her life since they last saw each other, what she did last summer, if she has met a new man, what’s going on with her.

  Emilie drives toward the motorway while she wonders about Mattis. If anyone can make sense of the thoughts and feelings that have started to appear about the man she thought she loved, then it has to be Johanne. She has always given her such good advice.

  * * *

  He blinks and carefully opens his eyes.

  It is a new day. It means he only has two days left.

  The realization makes him feel dizzy. The pills he took last night always have that effect on him. They slow him down. But the thought of what he is going to do today makes him leap out of bed and go over to the computer. Has she told the whole world where she is? And what she is doing?

  Of course she has.

  He goes to the bathroom and washes his face. Puts on his clothes and gets ready. Takes some pills with him, different ones that make him stronger. Then he goes outside. Out into a day, the number of which is decreasing.

  But it makes no difference. All he can think about is how it will feel. If he’ll be there this time, all of him. When the light goes out.

  Chapter 39

  Henning made a point of asking if the rental firm had a yellow car, but had to settle for a small white vehicle that hasn’t even clocked 3,000 kilometers. Now it has clocked another forty and his first stop is Jessheim School—one of Erna Pedersen’s former employers.

  It’s more than sixteen years since she stopped working there and Henning realizes there is a limit to what he can hope to achieve in just one morning. Even so, he parks the car and enters the school’s playground, an area that has changed considerably since Henning was last in Jessheim. He played a soccer match here when he was in year five. It was a big deal at the time for a class from Kløfta to come all the way to Jessheim to play. It was rivalry at its best—and at its worst. On the lumpy pitch behind the school they played two halves of twenty minutes each and won 5–2. Henning scored three of the goals. He can still remember being lifted up on the teacher’s shoulders after the match.

  If Tom Sverre Pedersen was right and the school walls used to be covered in graffiti about his mother, there is no trace of it now. The paint on the walls looks fresh and the school has been extended since Henning took part in the legendary soccer match back in the eighties.

  He walks around to the rear of the school. Everything looks much better than he remembers it. Back in his day the place was unloved and filthy. Today there are green areas.
A new volleyball sand court. The soccer pitch that Henning used to play on now looks like something a reasonably well off soccer club would use for training purposes. It feels a little odd to be retracing his footsteps now that the past has been erased and replaced with something better. But he tries to visualize them, the pupils who detested Erna Pedersen, what they did, what they thought. The graffiti on the walls would probably have been removed as soon as it was discovered and the culprits probably wouldn’t have been hard to find. But would the kid who hated her most have done something quite so obvious?

  Maybe. Maybe not. People differ. But if Henning had wanted to hate, he would have picked a spot where he could nurse his hatred. A specific place that no one could destroy, erase, or restore.

  Henning looks around. No pupils outside. The sun shines on the school’s windows, but he can see activity behind them. There are some trees at the end of the playground close to the fence separating it from the gray high-rise buildings on the other side. Trees of various heights. Trees you can climb.

  Henning studies them as he walks over to them. The branches stretch up high and spread to the sides, some of them have become tangled up in each other. He reckons there are ten or twelve trees clustered together.

  He looks around for the thickest branch, tests it, and starts to climb. He can find no carvings in the tree trunk after the first or the second meter, so he climbs back down again and tries the next tree. Same result. An elderly woman with a walker goes past on the pavement outside the fence. Henning smiles to her before he scales yet another tree; he manages to climb quite high; he swings one leg over the biggest, fattest branch, leans into the tree trunk, and looks around.

  No.

  Nothing.

  And yet somehow he feels closer to the killer, or at least he can imagine having a place like this, a place where you can sit and think and feel and hate. The school photo that was removed from Erna Pedersen’s wall and the word fractions that she uttered in horror the day before she was killed both suggest that someone truly loathed her. And that her death is linked to her job as a teacher.

  Henning climbs back down again and goes inside the school just as the bell goes for break; a small boy helps him find the head teacher’s office. The head teacher isn’t there today, a helpful secretary tells Henning, but perhaps she can help?

  “Yes, perhaps,” Henning says and smiles at the friendly woman with the long, black hair. “Tell me, how does it work—do you keep old yearbooks here?”

  “Yes, indeed we do.” She smiles. “But we don’t have very many of them. We didn’t start producing yearbooks until after 2004 I think.”

  “So if I were to ask you to find me a school photo that includes Erna Pedersen, then you wouldn’t have it?”

  The secretary’s smile freezes.

  “Oh,” she says. “So that’s why you’re asking.”

  Henning realizes that news of the murder of Erna Pedersen has obviously reached her former employer. He introduces himself and explains the reason for his visit.

  “I’m trying to find someone who knew her when she worked here. Do you have any teachers who were hired before Pedersen retired in 1993?”

  The secretary thinks about it.

  “We have quite a young team here, so I don’t think so. But if you’re looking for a photo of her, you’re better off trying one of her former pupils. If you can find one, that is.”

  Another smile.

  “Yes, that’s just it,” Henning says. “Anyway, thanks for your help.”

  Chapter 40

  The uneven tarmac rumbles under the car. Bjarne looks across to the passenger seat, where Ella Sandland is gazing out through the window.

  “I’ve been thinking about the care workers at Grünerhjemmet,” he says. “Nielsen, Sund, and Thorbjørnsen.”

  “What about them?”

  Bjarne holds up one finger.

  “We know that Daniel Nielsen lied about what he had been doing when we visited him in his flat yesterday. He hadn’t been working out at Svein’s Gym as he claimed. We know that he stopped by the care home last Sunday to drop something off and that the time of his visit fits with the time of the killing. And none of the staff knew the victim better than him.”

  Bjarne holds up a second finger.

  “We know that Ole Christian Sund was at work when Erna Pedersen was killed and that he was most likely the man who drove Daniel Nielsen up to Holmenkollen yesterday for reasons we’ve yet to establish. So they’re more than just colleagues. They could be protecting each other.”

  “Don’t forget that Sund’s son was present at the care home that evening,” Sandland objects. “Surely you don’t think that Sund took part in a brutal murder while his son was just around the corner?”

  “Hush, I’m on a roll here. And then we have Pernille Thorbjørnsen,” Bjarne says, holding up a third finger. But the train of thought that was so clear in his head has been derailed.

  “What about her?”

  “I don’t know,” Bjarne says. “But it was her car they used to drive up to Holmenkollen yesterday. Sund and Nielsen, I mean.”

  “But that’s not exactly a crime.”

  “No, but I’ve had another thought. What kind of temptation might staff in a care home be exposed to?”

  Sandland shrugs. “Not money, certainly.”

  “How about medication?” Bjarne suggests.

  Sandland looks unconvinced.

  “The manager of Grünerhjemmet did say yesterday that quite a lot of medication has gone missing.”

  “I don’t think that’s particularly unusual, Bjarne.”

  “No, you may be right, but prescription medication has a certain street value no matter what part of Oslo you live in. And Daniel Nielsen, you remember, has already admitted needing cash.”

  At the entrance to Birkelunden Park the car rattles as it crosses the tramlines. Three trams are lined up at a tram stop. There is an endless flow of passengers getting on and off.

  “But what does that have to do with Erna Pedersen?” Sandland asks while Bjarne maneuvers between two cars at the pedestrian crossing. “Could she have seen them pilfer medication and threaten to expose them?”

  Bjarne doesn’t reply immediately.

  “I don’t know,” he says, pressing the accelerator. “But let’s see if we can find out. There has to be a reason why Pernille Thorbjørnsen’s fingerprints are on Erna Pedersen’s knitting needles.”

  Chapter 41

  The dots signposting the route aren’t quite as blue as she remembers them. Nor does she have a clear recollection of the coastal path, only that they used to walk it and that it was a great walk. Cocoa and gooey brown cheese sandwiches. Perhaps a bar of milk chocolate—on special occasions.

  While she put some food in a knapsack she found in the cabin, she told her bodyguards to prepare themselves for a bit of a walk today. But when she announced where she was planning to go, they insisted on positioning themselves in front and behind her, so they could check the path first and warn her should anyone appear. If she really didn’t want anyone to know where she was, then that was what they had to do, they said. Besides, there was a security risk that couldn’t be ignored and which she obviously understood and accepted, but she still insisted that they keep their distance.

  They have been walking for one and a half hours in spitting rain when Trine’s mobile rings. She takes it out from her anorak and stops on a knoll that reminds her of a bald head.

  “Hi, Katarina,” she says. “I was wondering when you’d call.”

  “Yes, there has—there has been quite a lot to do this morning. Have you seen today’s headlines?”

  “No.”

  “It’s—”

  Trine’s director of communications sighs heavily before she tells her about the press release that was issued last night.

  “You’re jo
king,” Trine says.

  “I wish. The permanent secretary came up to me this morning and asked me what the hell you think you’re doing. ‘She’s holding us hostage,’ those were her exact words.”

  Trine closes her eyes. That incompetent, sour-faced bitch.

  “I don’t know how long we can keep putting out the same statement, Trine. The press office is very frustrated. I think that Ullevik can weather the worst of the political pressure, but—”

  “What about the prime minister’s office? Have they said anything?”

  “Their director of communications called me this morning wanting to know what our strategy was. I said I would have to call him back. That was some time ago now.”

  Trine opens her eyes again and stares across the surface of the water where ripples are starting to form.

  “By the way, where are you?” Katarina asks.

  “I’ve gone out for a walk. I’m trying to clear my head.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. And I don’t want to pressure you, Trine, because I know how hard it is for you. But have you given any further thought as to what you’re going to do?”

  Trine sighs and takes a step nearer the edge of the knoll. There is a drop of several meters down to a pile of stones that leads on farther to some rocks that are getting a thorough and constant wash from the waves. She feels the wind take hold of strands of her hair, which have torn themselves loose from under her red baseball cap.

  “No,” she says.

  Trine turns away from the wind, which makes the mobile howl. But it’s not true. She has thought about what to do. She’s going to do the only sensible thing she can. There is no other way out.

  Chapter 42

  Brinken is a residential development the size of a small village. It lies to the left of the main road when you approach Jessheim from the south.