Scarred: A Novel Page 6

  “What are you watching?” he says, looking at the boy’s flitting eyes, which follow the images on the screen. Fiona is busy beating up a guy pretending to be Robin Hood.

  “Holy cow,” Bjarne says. “That’s one tough lady.”

  Ulrik makes no reply.

  “My little girl loves this film,” Bjarne says after a pause. “I think I must have seen it thirty times.”

  Ulrik still hasn’t got anything to say. Bjarne lets his gaze roam around the room while he thinks about how best to approach this nine-year-old boy. DVD boxes for several films are piled up in front of the television. There is a crate of LEGOs under the coffee table. Marbles lie scattered around. There is an indoor soccer ball on the floor near the sofa.

  “Ulrik,” Bjarne says, turning to the boy. “My name is Bjarne. I work for the police.”

  The boy doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.

  “I’m trying to find out what happened at the care home yesterday. I know that you were the first person who saw that Erna Pedersen had died.”

  This time the nine-year-old looks at Bjarne.

  “Can you tell me what you saw?”

  Ulrik’s eyes return to the TV.

  “Would you mind if I turn down the volume?” Bjarne says, pointing to the remote control. “Makes it easier to talk?”

  Ulrik says nothing, but Bjarne takes it as an indication that it’s fine. He reaches out for the remote control and turns off the sound. Immediately they can hear noises coming from the kitchen. Muffled talking, a cup clattering.

  “We know that somebody hurt her,” Bjarne continues. “And it’s my job to stop anything like that from happening again. I’m hoping you might be able to help me.”

  Ulrik meets Bjarne’s eyes.

  “Did you see someone hurt Mrs. Pedersen?”

  Ulrik lowers his gaze and fidgets. This time Bjarne waits.

  “She was just dead,” Ulrik says eventually.

  “You didn’t see what happened when she died?”

  Ulrik shakes his head fiercely. Bjarne nods and tries to think of another way to ask the same question. Can’t think of one.

  “Did you see anyone in her room?”

  Same response. Again there is something brooding and sad about Ulrik.

  “Was she nice, Mrs. Pedersen?”

  The boy nods.

  “She used to give me toffees.”

  “Toffees? That was nice of her,” Bjarne says. “So you knew her?”

  “Not very much.”

  “But a little?”

  Ulrik stares down at the floor again. Bjarne doesn’t know if there is any point in continuing the interview. Though he doesn’t know the boy, it’s clear to see that he has retreated deep inside himself. If that is for any other reason than having seen a dead body, a murdered body at that, it is hard to say.

  “Okay,” Bjarne says and gets up. “Thanks for talking to me, Ulrik. I hope we can talk some more another time.”

  The boy says nothing and Bjarne gives him the remote control. The room immediately fills with song. It’s a pretty melody, totally unsuited to the moment.

  Bjarne finds the others in the kitchen.

  “He’s a great kid,” he says to Martine Elvevold. “I think he’s going to be all right.”

  Ulrik’s mother smiles tenderly.

  “Was he any help?”

  “He was,” Bjarne says and nods at the same time.

  “I think perhaps I should let him spend some time with his friends after school today. If he wants to. It might be good for him to do something normal again.”

  Sandland smiles and puts down her cup.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” she says.

  Chapter 14

  The words in the email hit Trine so hard she starts to hyperventilate. It is as if the room begins spinning and she has to sit down in order not to fall. At her desk she rests her head in her hands and leans forward on her elbows. Her hair falls over her eyes and forms a shield around her face, but one that offers no protection.

  She raises her head and notices that the email was sent by biglie0910@hotmail.com. She splutters at the sender’s name and guesses that whoever is threatening her isn’t using an IP address that will prove easy to trace. Nor will she tell the Security Service about it either; she doesn’t want to involve anyone else.

  Then she remembers that her secretary automatically receives copies of all emails that go to the justice secretary’s email address. Trine gets up, a little too quickly, and instantly feels dizzy again. She clutches her head and regains her balance. Then she goes to the door and opens it. Sees that her secretary isn’t at her desk right now.

  A stroke of luck.

  Trine rushes outside, glancing quickly up and down the corridor; she can hear voices and noises from every direction, but even so she races around to the back of the reception counter, wakes up the computer mouse, and finds the email program and the email from biglie0910. She deletes it, both from the inbox and from the deleted items folder. She hurries back to her office before anyone sees her.

  When she has shut the door, she leans against it, closes her eyes, and hyperventilates. Again she has to concentrate hard not to cry. But how can anyone know what she did? Who is trying to set her up?

  There is no shortage of enemies, either in the Ministry of Justice itself, the police force, or the Labor Party. Several people felt overlooked when she was appointed justice secretary three years ago. Terms such as quotas for women were mentioned, and there were hints that Trine would never have gotten the job if the prime minister hadn’t had to appoint a woman. I bet my enemies are gloating now, she thinks. But who could have found out what she did? She didn’t tell anyone, did she?

  Trine shakes her head, goes back to her chair, and sits down. She checks her mobile. Sixteen missed calls in only the last twenty minutes.

  How quickly things can change. When she first appeared on TV or in the newspapers, she would get heaps of supportive text messages from people she knew and quite a few she didn’t. It hardly ever happens now. That’s why she makes a point of sending sympathetic messages to ministers or other politicians, especially women, when they have been involved in a controversy. Quite simply because nobody else will. Not a single one of her government colleagues has texted her their support. Nor have any of her friends.

  Maybe she doesn’t have any. Not any real friends.

  Her thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door. Trine sniffs, straightens up, and blinks hard a couple of times. The door opens and Harald Ullevik pops his head around.

  “Hi,” he says softly. “Can I come in?”

  Trine feels incapable of saying anything yet, so she simply nods. Ullevik opens the door fully, enters, and quickly closes it behind him. Takes a slow step forward, presses his palms together, and looks at her.

  “Please,” she whispers. “No pity. I don’t think I can handle that right now.”

  Ullevik says nothing, but nods gently.

  “I just wanted to ask if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  “You can sue VG,” she says half in earnest, half in jest. “No,” she sighs. “I don’t know.”

  Ullevik doesn’t move. The walls radiate silence.

  “Trine, I—”

  Ullevik lowers his gaze and digs the toe of his shoe into the floor.

  “What is it, Harald?”

  It takes a few moments before he looks up at her.

  “I just wanted you to know that I . . . that you have my full support. No matter what. You’ve done a brilliant job as justice secretary. You’re the best one we’ve had for years.”

  Don’t cry, Trine tells herself. Don’t you dare start crying now.

  “If there’s anything you need, then . . . don’t hesitate to ask. Okay?”

  Stupid eyes.

&
nbsp; “I will,” she stutters while the corners of her mouth start to tremble. “Thank you, Harald. It means a lot to me to hear you say that.”

  Ullevik smiles warmly. Eyes meet eyes and she could have hugged him if there hadn’t been a desk between them, as well as her knowledge that she would most certainly burst into tears.

  “Okay,” he says. “I’ll leave you in peace.”

  She watches him go and soon she is alone in the silence once more—normally a welcome friend on a noisy day. But not today.

  Eventually Trine gets up and rings an internal number. Katarina Hatlem shows up in her office less than one minute later.

  “What is it?” she asks and closes the door behind her. And before Trine has time to respond, she says: “How are you?”

  “I can’t handle this on my own,” Trine says. “You have to help me.”

  Chapter 15

  Emilie Blomvik can’t sit still for one minute. It’s almost like being back at school and waiting to get the results of a test you know you have done well on. She is quivering with anticipation, but it’s still a welcome sensation. She can only imagine how Mattis must be feeling right now.

  Before he left work last Friday, the partners told him they would like to meet with him Monday morning. You’ve been doing very well recently, they said, but that was all they told him. Emilie has asked him several times during the weekend why he thought they wanted to meet with him. And even though he only shrugged and replied, “I don’t know,” she could tell from looking at him what he was thinking. The way a small smile would curl up at the corners of his mouth though he tried very hard to suppress it.

  Is it finally his turn to be made a partner?

  Emilie isn’t quite sure what being made a partner entails, but she is absolutely sure that it’s a good thing. It holds out a promise of better times to come. Nicer holidays. More of everything. Before Mattis went to work today, he promised to ring her as soon as the meeting with his bosses was over. She doesn’t know what a Monday morning means for a lawyer, but surely it can’t be that long before he calls?

  Emilie smiles to herself when she remembers how she met Mattis, or rather how he met her. He came up to the check-in counter at Gardermoen Airport, where she worked, and asked if she had ever been reindeer hunting. Emilie was lost for words after this unexpected question and when she didn’t reply immediately, he said, “Would you like to try?”

  She didn’t know what to say; she is quite sure that she blushed as she sat there behind the counter. She had had her fair share of pickup lines over the years, but the word reindeer had never featured in any of them. And she was instantly attracted to the idea of leaving everything behind, eloping with a total stranger to a foreign place. He looked almost ruggedly handsome as he stood there, even though he is really quite skinny and not particularly attractive or brave, but Emilie had never been drawn to men with film star looks. And she had no trouble imagining how much tougher he would look with a hunting rifle in his hand. Had she been ten years younger, she might have thrown caution to the wind and gone off with him.

  But she remembered him the next time he came to check in. She spotted him in the crowd, saw him wait until her counter was free. She got butterflies in her stomach and felt hot all over. She is quite sure that he noticed the warmth in the smile she flashed him. And there was something appealing about his confidence when he asked her if he could buy her a cup of coffee when he came back. Or a beer. Or a strawberry daiquiri.

  Now the latter might have been a fluke, but at the time she loved strawberry daiquiris. And one strawberry daiquiri turned into two and three when he called her one month later. Now they have been living together for three years and been parents for two and a half. And she would have to agree that they’re happy.

  But she is not sure that he is Mr. Right.

  Mattis is kind, funny, and sociable. He is a great father to Sebastian—when he is at home, that is. He gets on very well with Emilie’s mother, with her friends, he even says that he likes or indeed “absolutely loves” Jessheim, where they live. But sometimes it’s as if they are on different planets. One fortnight every year he goes hunting up in Finnmarksvidda in northern Norway. In the summer he prefers to go to rock festivals with his friends, while she prefers sun loungers and all-inclusive holidays. They don’t spend very much time together these days. He is busy with his work in Oslo; she with hers at the airport. Emilie had thought that living together, being a family, would be about more than just simple logistics, the organization of everyday life. And the question she has been asking herself more and more often recently is, does she really love him?

  Fortunately, deciding where they were going to live required little discussion. Mattis wasn’t particularly bothered. Nor was he worried about how the house should look. Interiors, choice of sofa, the color on the walls, the dinner service, none of that mattered to him and he was happy to leave all the decisions to her. So they bought a house that Emilie plans to redecorate over time, once she gets a clearer idea of what she wants.

  Her only regret is that Johanne didn’t move back home to Jessheim once she had finished her studies. It would have made it so much easier for them to meet, or at least they would be seeing each other more than they do now. A whole summer has come and gone since the last time. And that is why Emilie is particularly excited about having lunch with her friend tomorrow.

  But tomorrow is twenty-four hours away. Right now it is about the usual morning routine. Give Sebastian his breakfast, clean his teeth, brush his hair, make his packed lunch, help him into his coat and boots, pack a spare set of clothing in case—no, not in case—because he inevitably gets dirty or wets himself.

  She can’t wait until that stage is over. Sometimes she wishes it was possible to press the fast-forward button, as if life was a DVD series where you could skip all the boring episodes. But then Sebastian will smile or laugh or say something that gives her a warm glow all over, and she wishes she could change the pace of life to slow motion instead.

  * * *

  It is just past 8:30 in the morning when Emilie parks outside Nordby Nursery, a long flat building that has never been painted any color other than red. She went there herself when she was little. She doesn’t remember very much about it except that they spent most of the day outdoors regardless of the weather—a tradition that seems to have endured. The nursery has a large outdoor space with plenty of playground equipment and a hill where the children can toboggan and roll down in winter.

  Emilie gets out of the car, adjusts her clothing slightly, lifts Sebastian out of his car seat, and puts him down carefully on the ground. Then she holds out her hand to him and he takes it. Slowly they start walking toward the entrance, a paved footpath where prams are lined up all the way to the wall. A father she meets practically every morning smiles at her. Emilie smiles back. It’s a fine morning and it’s important to enjoy it while it lasts. The sun breaks through the trees, which are craning their necks toward the sky. An autumnal morning mist has wrapped the branches and leaves in candy floss.

  Her attention is drawn to a man standing close to the fence behind a fir tree. He is holding up a camera and isn’t moving. Emilie slows down and narrows her eyes to get a better look at him. She can’t see much in the drowsy morning light other than that he wears a khaki army jacket and that his face is obscured by the camera. When he lowers it, he seems to be staring right at her. At them.

  “Mummy,” says a small, squeaky and impatient voice at her side. She looks down at Sebastian, who is pulling at her.

  “I’m coming, darling, I was just—”

  She turns again and looks toward the fir tree. The man is no longer there. She tries to work out where he could have gone, but all she can see are branches swaying in the wind and clouds of dust whirling up from the ground.

  How strange, she thinks. Was he taking pictures of us?

  She looks around. Right now they a
re the only people outside. And she thought there was something familiar about him.

  She brushes the idea aside. He might just have been taking pictures of the beautiful light. Nothing to worry about.

  Emilie carries on walking to the entrance while she glances at her watch. And it comes back, this twitchy, nagging feeling. Surely Mattis has to ring soon?

  Chapter 16

  The reporters gathered around the big staircase at Oslo Police Station instantly fall silent when Pia Nøkleby arrives. She is usually accompanied by Chief Inspector Arild Gjerstad, but this time she is alone.

  Henning has to be honest: he has grown to like Pia Nøkleby since he returned to work in the spring. He likes her dark hair, the fringe that she always brushes behind her right ear even though the hair instantly falls back over her eyes again. And her eyes—brown with a fleck of green, eyes that never look tired. The little beauty spot to the left of her nose, which gives him yet another reason to look at her heart-shaped face. Her lips always moist, not too red, as if she deliberately stops herself from being too beautiful. Her cheeks, soft and rosy with only a hint of pale, delicate hairs, are tempting to touch.

  She is always very serious when the microphone is switched on, behaving like she thinks she should and ought. But as soon as the cameras are turned off, her personality changes and she will come out with quick and insightful comments. She has always had this professional acuity that rarely or never leads her astray in interviews.

  Henning has seen something in her eyes, not often, but every now and then she drops her facade. True, it’s some time since he last felt a woman’s warmth, or even interest, but he hasn’t completely lost his touch. Pia’s voice tends to soften when she speaks to him, also when other journalists or police officers are present.

  But Henning also remembers how Pia’s replies became more and more evasive when he started asking questions about the police investigation into a murder for which ex–torpedo and property magnate Tore Pulli was found guilty. At first he had put her behavior down to work-related stress, concluding that she might not be inclined to answer questions from someone who was clearly critical of an investigation she had headed. But ever since Henning discovered that Pia had redacted a report in the police investigation program, Indicia, that stated that Tore Pulli was outside Henning’s flat on the night of the fire that killed his son, it’s tempting to think that her less than forthcoming answers were prompted by other motives.