Pierced (18 page)

‘Thank you,’ he says, relieved. ‘Thank you so much.’

His breathing is rasping as he closes his eyes and mouths a silent thank you.

‘Have you calmed down now? Are you fit to drive?’

Thorleif blinks away his tears and nods.

‘Okay. Then drive.’

Thorleif sniffs and wipes his face on his sleeves. His cheeks are burning hot. Sweat is pouring from his forehead and his scalp. They drive past a large glasshouse just begging for kids to throw stones at it.

‘Do you want me to turn around?’ he stutters.

‘No.’

‘But what . . . where—’

‘Just drive back to the multi-storey car park. Stay on this road.’

‘But don’t you want me to—’

‘Not now.’

Thorleif tries to compose himself. He wipes sweat and tears off his face and presses the accelerator. An infinite feeling of relief washes over him. The trials have ended. At least for now. At the same time he can’t stop panicking about what will happen next, what he will have to do, and to whom. But why does it have to be him? What has he done?

Twenty minutes later they are back in the multi-storey car park under Fritzøe Brygge Shopping Centre. Thorleif parks next to his own car.

‘What happens now?’ he asks when the BMW has come to a standstill.

‘Now you go home. And when you get there, you act normally. You don’t tell anyone what you did today. We have contacts inside the police. If you try to warn anyone, we won’t just kill your girlfriend.’

Thorleif is speechless with shock.

‘Now go home.’

‘But what do I . . . when do you want—’

‘We’ll contact you again. Now go home.’

Thorleif stays in the car.

‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he asks, quietly.

The man doesn’t reply.

‘Okay,’ Thorleif says with a sigh and opens the car door. He gets out and walks around to his own car. The window on the BMW’s passenger side is rolled down.

‘Drive safely,’ the man says. ‘We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. And if you try to harm yourself, we’ll make it even worse for your family.’

‘I understand,’ Thorleif nods.

‘And Thorleif,’ the man says, looking at him, ‘you should seriously think about fixing the cracks in your kitchen floor.’

As soon as Thorleif has left the multi-storey car park, he calls
Elisabeth
, but she doesn’t answer her mobile. Thorleif looks at his watch. She is probably still teaching, he thinks and joins the E18 towards Oslo. On his way home he calls her at regular intervals, but she doesn’t pick up until he passes Sandvika.

‘Hi,’ she says, anxiously. ‘What’s happened?’

Thorleif closes his eyes. He is so relieved to hear her voice that he almost bursts into tears. He takes a deep breath and regains some sort of composure. He thinks carefully before he answers. ‘Nothing.’

‘For God’s sake, Thorleif, I have eight missed calls on my mobile. I thought something had happened to the kids!’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘You can’t do this to me.’

‘Where are you?’ he says, trying to distract her.

‘Where am I? I’m at work, of course. Where are you? I can hear you’re in the car.’

‘Eh, yes. I’m working, too.’

‘Why did you ring me eight times?’

‘Because . . . could you do me a favour?’ he says.

‘Yes, of course, but—’

‘Could you pick up the kids today? I’m going to be a bit late‚ I think.’

‘Hello, I pick them up every day! Why would you ask me to do that? You don’t need to call me eight times to ask me to do something I do every day already. Have you gone completely mad?’

‘No. It’s just that . . . ’ he shakes his head at himself, ‘just drive carefully. Okay?’

‘Drive carefully? Jesus Christ, Thorleif, you’re sitting in our car! What is wrong with you?’

‘Nothing, I’m just joking,’ he says quickly, hoping that will suffice.

‘When will you be back?’ she sighs.

‘I’m not really sure.’

‘No, I didn’t think so. If you’re later than five, we’ll go ahead and eat without you.’

‘Okay. Take care. I . . . ’ He can’t complete the sentence so he hangs up. He regrets it instantly. He should have warned her, told her to look over her shoulder, be on her guard. But what if they are bugging his mobile? Or both their mobiles? They must have been in his home since the man in the car knew about the cracks in the kitchen floor. Thorleif feels sick just thinking about what else the man has seen. The children. Their lives.

I can’t talk to anyone about this
, Thorleif concludes.
I can’t and I daren’t. But how do I get myself out of this nightmare? I can’t just do what they want since they are clearly going to kill me afterwards. First I kill, then I am killed
.

No, he says to himself and feels the car accelerate. He has to come up with something.

The queue at the off-licence in Grønland Basar is never very long. Henning buys two bottles of St Hallvard and walks out into the mix of aromatic spices that always fills the air in this part of Oslo. His most recent conversation with Pulli replays in his head while he walks.
I just can’t
, Henning mimics. At the time Henning meant it when he said that he could not be bothered to waste any more time on a man who is used to getting what he wants and who – according to Irene Otnes – also has a habit of lying. But Henning knows he has nowhere else to go. And he hopes it gave Pulli something to think about until the next time.

As always, he finds his mother in the kitchen with a lit cigarette between her fingers. Another cigarette is burning in the ashtray next to her.

‘Hi Mum,’ he shouts, trying to drown out the sound of the radio. ‘Losing My Religion’ is playing on P4 for the umpteenth time, he registers.

‘How are you?’

She glances up from the newspaper in front of her. Her face is seething with irritation.

‘Look at this,’ she snorts. ‘Look what they have done to my newspaper.’

Henning goes over to the kitchen counter and puts down the bottles. Today’s edition of
Aftenposten
is scrunched up at the bottom.

‘How annoying,’ he shouts and tries to smooth out the crinkled paper. She sweeps his hand away with a dismissive gesture. REM finish singing, and the voice of an intense female announcer fills the kitchen. Christine Juul looks at him.

‘Did you get the liqueur?’

‘I did.’

‘Would you . . . ?’ She waves her hands in the direction of the cupboard. Henning opens it and takes out a glass. He removes the top of one of the bottles and is about pour the first soothing drops into the glass when he stops.

‘This glass is filthy, Mum.’

Her eyes shoot sideways, towards him, but she says nothing. Henning turns on the tap, waits for the water to warm up before he washes and dries the glass, but then he discovers that the tea towel is damp. He sniffs it, pulls away from it quickly and looks at her.

His mum needs a carer, he thinks. Someone who could help her with the basics. She can’t manage on her own. It’s either that or she has given up. He doesn’t have the energy to decide which is worse at this particular moment in time. His sister Trine can obviously never spare a single minute of her precious Minister for Justice time.

Henning puts the glass in front of his mother where a fawning
Se og Hør
feature about Trine and her husband just happens to lie open. ‘We Want Kids!’ screams the headline.

‘Did you buy cigarettes?’ she asks as she knocks back the liqueur.

‘No, you didn’t say anything about—’

‘You didn’t buy cigarettes?’

Henning is shocked by the anger in her voice which is soon replaced by a coughing fit that tears holes in her lungs. He puts his hand on her back and is about to slap it, but she wriggles away from him, pointing to the home respirator on the kitchen table near the wall while she hacks almost to the point of throwing up. Henning pushes the machine closer to her and attaches the mask over her nose and mouth with a blue strap around her head before he switches on the device. Soon her breathing calms down. Minutes later only spasms of her cough remain. She sits like this for some time, slowly breathing in and out.

Henning waits until her shoulders are no longer heaving before he slips out and locks the door behind him. Outside he can still hear the sound of the machine that is keeping her alive – for the time being, at least. And he catches himself wondering if he will feel sad the day she dies.

Suddenly his duvet feels suffocating and hot – even though he was shivering with goose pimples a minute ago. In the living room Pål is racing across the floor with Endre, one of his new classmates, close behind.

Thorleif went straight to bed when he came home‚ blaming a stomach upset. He knows he would not have been able to look at their faces without collapsing with terror. His family would think that he had gone mad, something which – now that he thinks about it – is close to the truth. What the hell is he going to do? They are watching his every move. The man with the ponytail told him they even have contacts within the police. Is there anyone at all who can help him? Is there some way he could raise the alarm?

This leads him to another thought. When did the burglar alarm stop working? Sunday? The days of the week are a blur to him, but he thinks it was Sunday. Could someone have been in their flat while they visited Bogstad Farm?

He is startled by a thud on the wall. He hears squeals of laughter coming from the living room. Pål’s laughter always makes him smile. Footsteps disappear and new footsteps approach. The bedroom door opens. Thorleif jumps again, then he sees Julie stop on the threshold. Even the sight of her pout is enough to take his breath away.

‘What is it, sweetheart?’

‘Pål says I’m rubbish at drawing.’

‘Does he now?’ Thorleif says in a gentle voice. ‘Don’t listen to him, my love. Pål is just showing off to Endre. You’re great at drawing. Did I hear Mummy say that you’ve learned to draw hearts?’

Julie’s face explodes in a smile. ‘Can I show you?’

‘Yes, please!’

Little feet patter across the floorboards. Thirty seconds later she returns to the bedroom holding a sheet of paper in her hand.

‘Look, Daddy.’ Beaming with pride she shows him the heart drawn in fat red pen.

‘Well, I never,’ he enthuses. ‘What a fantastic heart.’

‘Would you like me to draw you one?’

‘Would you?’

Another broad smile followed by running feet. Thorleif straightens up and looks at the heart. It resembles a pair of buttocks. But it is a heart. The finest heart he has ever seen.

It gives him an idea.

‘Julie?’ he calls out.

‘Yesss?’

‘Why don’t you bring your colouring pencils in here? Then I can watch you while you draw?’

‘Would you like that, Daddy?’

‘Yes, absolutely. Perhaps I could do a bit of drawing myself.’

‘Yesss!’

Shortly afterwards she comes running across the floor. Thorleif hears her drop the box, and all the colouring pencils fall out and roll across the floor.

‘Oh,’ Julie cries out.

‘Never mind, my love,’ he says. ‘Just pick them up again.’

‘You need to help me.’

Thorleif sighs in the knowledge that the job will never be done unless he gets out of bed and picks up every single pencil with the possible exception of one or two. So that’s what he does: he gets up. His whole body aches, but it is re-energised by his idea. He goes out into the living room and can see no sign of Pål, Endre or Elisabeth.

‘Come on,’ he says, picking up the last pencil. ‘We need to find something we can rest the paper on so we don’t accidentally draw on the bed linen. Or Mummy will be cross.’

‘We’re going to draw in bed?’

‘Yes. And we’ll build ourselves a tent so we can sit inside it and draw. Won’t that be fun?’

‘Lots of fun!’

‘Come on.’

He nudges her, picks up two newspapers from the coffee table and crawls back into bed. They wrap the duvets around themselves. Thorleif sits upright so the duvets form a wall around them. Julie puts newspaper under the paper she is going to draw on.

‘Listen,’ he says to get her attention. She doesn’t respond, she’s busy deciding which colours to use. ‘Do we have any crisps?’

Now Julie looks at him. ‘But, Daddy, it’s not Saturday.’

‘No, I know. But we could pretend,’ he whispers. Julie’s face lights up.

‘Run off and get some. Make sure nobody sees you. Or at least not Mummy.’

‘Okay, Daddy.’

Her feet dart across the floor. She soon returns with a crumpled bag in her hands. Her face is glowing. Julie climbs back into bed and gives the bag to Thorleif. He opens it and offers it to her first. Julie takes out a single crisp that soon crunches between her teeth. She smiles again.

‘Take care not to leave crumbs,’ Thorleif whispers. ‘Mummy mustn’t find out what we’ve been up to, do you understand?’

Julie sends him a conspiratorial smile and nods her head as she munches happily. Thorleif takes the bag and helps himself to some crisps. The salt stings his taste buds and almost makes them shrivel. He holds out the bag to Julie while he looks at her. She takes some more crisps and carries on drawing. One heart after another. Red and yellow, black and purple.

‘Daddy, are you crying?’

‘No,’ he sniffles.

‘So why are your cheeks wet?’

‘Because.’

He looks at her for a long time: at her swift movements, her tangled hair, the traces of tomato sauce at the corners of her mouth. He removes a strand of hair from her eyes.

‘It’s going to be really good,’ he says, pointing to her drawing.

‘What are you going to draw, Daddy?’ she asks him.

Thorleif looks at the red heart and turns over the paper before he looks up at the ceiling, scanning the room for something small and round that might be a camera. But he sees nothing. Even so he bends down and speaks carefully into her ear.

‘I’m going to draw a car,’ he whispers. ‘A really fine car.’