Scarred (13 page)

Henning’s hips ache as he gets up from the rough seating planks. His legs feel stiff and he shakes them to boost his circulation.

He stops at the entrance to watch Adil and his friend who have sat down on the ground. They are not talking to each other; they just watch others play football on the Astroturf.

Henning turns and looks around for the boy’s father, the man he met behind Grünerhjemmet yesterday, the man who was in such a rush to get home to his son. His son, who was the first person to realise that something was terribly wrong with Erna Pedersen.

Henning bends down, slips through a gap in the fence and carefully approaches the boys.

‘Hi, boys,’ he says. Only the boy with the blond fringe turns to face him. Henning smiles as he takes another step forwards.

‘So you’re a United fan too?’ he says to Adil, pointing to the sticker of Wayne Rooney on his sports bag. The name of the football club makes Adil glance up at Henning.

‘Is Rooney your favourite player?’

It takes a few seconds, then he nods.

‘Mine too. But then again I’m a big fan of all the Man U players.’

Henning smiles and sees a tiny twitch reflected in the corner of Adil’s mouth.

‘Boys, I’ve been watching you practise. Can I show you something?’

The blond boy continues to sit motionless on the ground. Adil looks up at him; this time his gaze is more alert.

‘Come on then, up you get.’

Adil hesitates.

‘Come on,’ Henning says again. ‘It works, I promise you.’

He holds out his hand to help Adil to his feet, but the boy doesn’t take it. Instead he looks at his friend before he gets up unaided.

‘Do you have a football in your sports bag?’

Adil slowly loosens the strings and takes out a ball. Henning smiles.

‘A Man U football. Good heavens,’ he says and looks at the ball, which is printed with pictures of the whole team. He squeezes it. Not enough air. But it will have to do.

‘Right, let’s get started,’ Henning says, putting the ball on the ground. ‘Can you see that wall over there?’

He points to a high wall at the end of the football pitch. He takes care not to look at the other boy.

‘The best way to practise passing and gaining possession of the ball is to kick it against a wall. That way you have a fellow player who never moves. Watch me.’

Henning kicks the ball quite hard. It hits the wall and bounces back.

‘When the ball comes back towards you, you stick out your foot to meet it and then you use your foot to slow it down. You have to move your leg or the ball will simply slip under your foot. It’ll be much harder for you to regain possession of the ball. Do you understand?’

Henning demonstrates again and stops the ball with his foot.

‘Your turn.’

Adil is still a little reluctant. Then he takes a step back, kicks the ball, but has to move to the side to stop it as it comes back. It jumps out from under his foot, just like before. He looks at Henning.

‘Okay, not bad. But you saw what happened if you don’t kick the ball straight to your teammate, didn’t you? It forces him to move to one side and makes it more difficult for him to control the ball. Have another go. And remember your foot is there to slow down the speed of the ball, not to stop it completely. Your foot is not a wall. Come on, try again.’

Adil sets down the ball on the ground, kicks it, it hits the wall and this time he doesn’t have to move; it comes straight back towards him. He sticks out his foot again. Same result, the ball escapes.

‘Try to exaggerate the movement to start with so you learn how the ball behaves. And try to relax your foot, let your leg be loose and flexible when the ball comes towards you.’

Henning demonstrates again and then it’s Adil’s turn.

This time the ball doesn’t roll quite as far away from his foot as it did before.

‘Great,’ Henning shouts out a little louder than he had intended. ‘Good job! Now do the same again. And relax your leg even more.’

Adil kicks the ball against the wall one more time. Then he sticks out his foot and slows down the speed of the ball so it comes to a halt against his trainer.

Henning says nothing; he just waits for Adil to look at him.

‘I don’t think even Wayne Rooney could have managed that.’

Adil smiles shyly.

‘So all you have to do now is to practise this again and again until you can do it in your sleep.’

Adil smiles. Henning goes over to him and ruffles his hair.

‘You did really well.’

Adil doesn’t say anything, but this time he looks straight at Henning. Henning turns and looks at the blond boy.

‘So how about you? Do you fancy a go?’

Not only does Henning show the boys how to practise passing, he also teaches them how to improve their technique by keeping the ball in the air with either foot, not just their better one. He also shows them basic techniques for side foot passing, again using both their left and their right feet. Standing in a triangle, they kick the ball back and forth to each other. And Henning can see that the boys pay attention to his instructions.

They have been practising for about an hour when Henning says he is tired and needs to sit down for a little while. Adil and his friend do likewise; their brows are sweaty.

‘Doesn’t your coach ever show you things like that?’ Henning asks.

The boys shake their heads.

‘Nobody gets better from being yelled at,’ Henning says. ‘Don’t you agree?’

The boys nod.

Henning leans back on his elbows. It’s a long time since he last played football. He has lost count of the number of times Jonas and he would come down here on a Sunday morning where they would have the whole pitch to themselves. Jonas in goal. Jonas taking penalties. Practising side foot passing, doing ball tricks using both feet. He could have kept going all day if Henning had let him. Without even stopping for food.

Henning looks over at the boy whose name he has learned is Ulrik, a boy who reminds him a little of Jonas. Same facial colouring, same hair. But where Jonas was a powder keg, frequently exploding, Ulrik is withdrawn. He is more of a thinker and not quite so chatty. Jonas talked the whole time. He used to ask all sorts of questions.

‘Do you know what happened to me today?’ Henning says, and doesn’t continue until he is sure that he has the attention of both boys. ‘I saw a bird get hit by a car in Markveien. It didn’t die; the car just clipped it so the bird rolled over and landed near the kerb.’

Henning pauses.

‘What happened?’ Ulrik asks.

‘Well, I went over to it and picked it up. I saw that it had broken its leg, poor thing, so I put a splint on it. Do you know what that means?’

They both shake their heads.

‘It means making sure the fractured bone is kept completely rigid. So it has a chance to heal.’

Henning looks at them.

‘I couldn’t just leave it there. Some cat would have got it.’

The boys nod. Henning stretches out on the ground even though it is damp. He stares up at the ominous grey sky, which will soon turn black. He stays where he is. Right until Ulrik says: ‘I saw a dead person yesterday.’

Henning tries not to lift his head too quickly.

‘Did you?’

Ulrik nods.

‘It was an old lady in a care home.’

Henning sits up and leans forward across his knees. His heart starts to beat faster and he has to force himself to stay calm.

‘She just sat there in her wheelchair. It was really gross.’

Henning waits until the boy looks at him. Then he nods without saying anything.

‘I had been to see her the day before and she told me that she was scared.’

Henning is sorely tempted to bombard the boy with questions, but he manages to restrain himself.

‘And she sat like this,’ Ulrik says, holding up an index finger. ‘Pointing at the wall.’

‘At a picture or something?’ Henning tries.

The boy nods.

‘And she kept saying: “Fractions. Fractions. Fractions.”’

Ulrik imitates her crow-like voice.

‘Fractions?’

The boy nods.

‘What a strange thing to say,’ Henning remarks.

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Was that all she said?’

‘Yes. And when I came to see her the next day, she was dead.’

Henning can no longer control himself.

‘Was anyone else there?’

Ulrik shakes his head.

‘Did you see anyone else who had been to her room?’

Same response.

Hm
, Henning says to himself.
Interesting
.

He thinks about the photograph of Tom Sverre Pedersen and his family, the photograph that had been smashed. Surely she couldn’t have been pointing at that? What connection could there be between a family photo and some fractions? After all Tom Sverre Pedersen is a doctor, not a teacher.

So what was she pointing at?

The stone troll in Daniel Nielsen’s flat proved to be free from dents and scratches, exactly as Bjarne had predicted. Before they entered the flat, Nielsen told them that it had been a present from Sund’s son; he got it a couple of weeks ago after the boy had made several stone trolls in a science lesson after a school trip. Nielsen also confirmed that Ulrik had given one to Erna Pedersen as a thank you for all the toffees she had given him.

They found nothing else of interest in Nielsen’s flat, only signs of a family-free life. Nor did his finances suggest anything other than his income was his monthly salary from Oslo City Council and that he had bills to pay like everybody else.

They are currently checking all his electronic traffic, but something tells Bjarne that it’s a dead end as well.

He is about to get back in his car when his mobile rings for the umpteenth time today. It’s Henning Juul. Bjarne looks around. Ella Sandland is still inside Nielsen’s flat so he takes the call.

‘How many pictures were on the wall in Erna Pedersen’s room?’

‘Eh?’

Henning repeats the question.

‘Why do you want to know that?’

‘I might have something for you. But first answer my question.’

Bjarne sighs.

‘None. That’s to say there had been a picture, but someone had torn it down.’

‘Was that a photo of Tom Sverre Pedersen and his family?’

Bjarne freezes.

‘How the hell do you know that?’

‘Take another look at the wall. See if you can find anything to suggest there might have been other pictures.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because I think you’re missing one.’

Bjarne hangs up after talking to Henning and immediately calls Daniel Nielsen. This time he fully expects Nielsen to pick up – even though he is at work. It takes only a couple of seconds before Bjarne is proved right.

He tells Nielsen about the evidence – or lack of – in Nielsen’s flat.

‘That’s what I kept telling you.’

‘I know, but we still had to check it out. However, I want to talk to you about something else. You’re very interested in photography, aren’t you? I noticed that you have a lot of pictures on your walls at home.’

‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ Nielsen replies unwillingly.

‘And no one went to Erna Pedersen’s room more often than you in the last few months?’

‘No, that’s . . . probably true.’

Bjarne waits a moment before he continues.

‘If I were to say there were two photographs on her wall, next to the chest of drawers – what would you say?’

There is silence for a few seconds.

‘That you would be right. Or at least there used to be two until recently.’

Bjarne sticks a finger in his ear to block out the background noise.

‘What do you mean?’

‘When I started looking after Erna Pedersen, there was only one picture on the wall, a photograph. But not all that long ago a second photograph appeared. Why do you ask about that?’

Bjarne makes eye contact with Ella Sandland, who realises the conversation is important. She comes up to him.

‘I want you to think carefully, Nielsen. One photo was Erna Pedersen’s son and his family. The other one – do you remember what kind of picture it was?’

‘It was a school photo,’ Nielsen replies immediately.

Sandland makes a
what’s going on
movement with her head, but Bjarne ignores her.

‘A school photo?’

‘Yes, you know – a typical group photo of everyone in the same class.’

‘Aha?’ Bjarne says.

‘But it was taken quite a few years ago.’

Bjarne nods while he thinks about Erna Pedersen again. She was a teacher and she muttered something about fractions before she was killed. And someone recently put up an old school photo on her wall, a picture that wasn’t there after she died. Which means it’s highly likely that the killer took it with him.

Why on earth would he want to do that?

The press release had been sent by fax late last night and it caused frantic activity in every newspaper office, both before and after their deadlines. The first paper versions hitting the streets of Norway didn’t have time to include the news that a young Labour politician had made contact with every editor in the country, but that was about to change.

Fresh editions with new front pages went to press; a few newspapers also increased the number of pages to give both the press release and various follow-up articles sufficient space as it had now become obvious that it was going to be the story of the week. In the press release the unnamed young man announced that it would be his final word on the matter. He doesn’t want a sexual assault by one of the country’s best-known politicians to be brought up every time he himself features in the media as he has major political ambitions of his own. Nevertheless, in his statement he challenges the Secretary of State for Justice and he also gives a brief summary of the incident.

It started with a glance. At first, the man felt honoured that a Minister – and a woman he has always liked – and yes, in that way, too – would be interested in him. During that evening one glance turned into many. And when he spilled a little red wine on his white shirt and went up to his hotel room to change, he suddenly found Trine standing right behind him. She asked if he wouldn’t rather change in her room instead, and the rest, he wrote, people could work out for themselves.

Afterwards, when she had practically shoved him out of the door, he had felt used. And when he contacted the Minister a couple of weeks later to get her to admit that she had crossed a line, he was coldly dismissed with ‘Plenty of men would count themselves lucky to have been in your shoes.’

VG
has twelve pages about Trine,
Dagbladet
has nine.
Aftenposten
devotes practically its entire front page and four pages inside the newspaper to the alleged assault and there are reactions and commentaries about them in addition to a series of pictures of Trine. The sexiest and most seductive photographs have been dug out and reproduced. Newspapers carry editorials that demand that Juul-Osmundsen either resign as soon as possible or come up with an explanation, ‘and a good one at that’. No one can understand why she hasn’t yet resigned and they mock her for apparently running away from the Ministry of Justice yesterday to escape the media.

Several newspapers have visited Hotel Caledonien, they have discovered which room was registered in Trine’s name on the night in question, and they have – as usual – photographed the door. ‘
It happened behind this door
,’ reads the caption. The media have contacted every single member of the Labour Party’s youth branch who was present that night to ask if they know the identity of the victim. No one does. But the media keep speculating. They have also spoken to other party members who were there, but no one remembers seeing Trine during the dinner. A revelation that causes several media commentators to conclude that ‘she probably had other things on her mind’.

When Henning gets to the offices of
123news
, he realises that Trine won’t be able to ride out this storm. Too much negative publicity about her has appeared in the wake of the initial story. She is accused of having doctored a working environment survey in the Justice Department because it made her look bad. Sacked a member of staff, apparently for no reason. Failed to produce receipts for her travelling expenses. Accepted gifts without declaring them or paying tax on them. During an official trip to India, her Indian counterpart presented her with a rug, which she brought back and put in one of the guest bedrooms in her house in Ullern. Last Christmas she was given a 3.5-litre bottle of whisky by the Parliament’s Press Association, which she failed to declare.

The press has also resurrected a story from two years ago when she travelled to the US and flew business class, even though economy class tickets were available on the same flight. Travelling too often and too expensively never enhances a politician’s popularity. And what about that cookery course she was given by the famous Norwegian chef and food writer, Arne Brimi?

The house, which Trine and her husband bought for 17.8 million kroner last year, becomes a story in itself. Several papers have included photo montages and added catty captions to the effect that Labour politicians don’t usually live in mansions. A quote from an unnamed Labour Party politician helps to pour petrol on the flames: ‘How many of us can afford to live like this? And I’ve heard she has a cleaner as well.’ And a chalet in the Hafjell ski resort with four, possibly even five bedrooms? Shame on you. Nor does it help Trine’s case that her husband drives a Porsche Cayenne, a hugely polluting car. And since when is it appropriate for a Minister to wear such short skirts or be allowed to borrow jewellery for free for three months at a time from one of Oslo’s most prestigious jewellers?

Opposition politicians also make sure to stick the knife in with a ‘what she promised but failed to deliver’ list. Anything she has done in the last three years that can be interpreted even remotely as a failure is dumped in a box labelled ‘character assassination’. And more is to come. The fact that she doesn’t get on very well with the head of Norway’s police force gives especially the Conservative section of the opposition yet another reason to demand that the Minister be replaced at the earliest opportunity. If the opposition hadn’t already lost confidence in her over the Hotel Caledonien scandal, then they certainly will now. In an opinion poll on the front page of
123news
, 97 per cent of readers demand that Trine resign immediately, 2 per cent disagree, while 1 per cent ‘don’t know’. These figures are practically identical in every other publication that Henning checked before he went to work.

Instead of sitting down at his computer, he walks over to the national news desk where he finds the fax that was sent to them along with every other newspaper late last night and locates Kåre Hjeltland. The news editor’s gaze is focused on a PC screen a few workstations away. His hair stands straight up as usual and he looks as if he slept at the office and hasn’t had time to shower before new stories appeared and demanded his undivided attention.

‘Do you have two minutes, Kåre?’ Henning says and stops in front of him. Hjeltland registers Henning’s arrival, nods, bashes the keyboard hard for thirty seconds before he gets up so abruptly that his chair rolls several metres backwards.

‘What is it?’ he asks.

Henning waits until Hjeltland’s eyes stop flitting.

‘You know it’s a stitch-up, don’t you?’

Hjeltland folds his arms across his chest and looks at him for a few seconds.

‘The whole case against Trine bears all the hallmarks,’ Henning continues. ‘Ever since yesterday morning
VG
has been drip-feeding stories to its readers, stories it couldn’t possibly have written in just one day. It must have known about this for a while and planned it carefully.’

Hjeltland gives Henning a baffled look.

‘Yes, and so what?’

‘So what? Don’t you think it’s just a little bit suspicious?’

‘No, not at all. We would have done exactly the same if a big story like this had landed in our lap.’

‘It doesn’t worry you that the story was deliberately leaked to Norway’s biggest newspaper, and that Trine wasn’t even offered the opportunity to respond to the allegations before the first articles went to print?’

Hjeltland is about to say something, but Henning has no intention of letting him get a word in yet.

‘And don’t tell me that
VG
didn’t try because that’s bullshit. It’s had every opportunity to confront Trine
before
it started this smear campaign against her, precisely because it’s known about it for a long time. It’s obvious what
VG
wants. And the rest of the media will blindly follow its lead while doing everything they can to come up with their own take on the story.’

‘But—’

‘I haven’t seen a single article that tries to defend Trine or examines the story from her point of view. No, that’s not true, I saw a two-liner saying one of her Junior Ministers is one hundred per cent behind his boss. No one has yet managed to establish what exactly happened in that hotel room.’

‘But she’s refusing to say anything,’ Hjeltland protests. ‘What do you want us to do, Henning? Not cover the story?’

‘No, but it has got completely out of hand. Trine might well be guilty of the things she’s accused of, but that’s exactly why it would have been refreshing to see a newspaper or a TV channel take a step backwards and assess the story from a balanced point of view. Or at least acknowledge that there could be more to it.’

‘Did you read the press release he issued last night?’

Henning shows him the two fax sheets he is holding in his hands.

‘Your sister is a powerful woman, Henning. She exploited her position to pressure a young man into having sex with her.’

‘She might well have done, but all the media care about now is that Trine resigns and that she apologises. It doesn’t matter what she says or what she did because no one is going to believe her. Especially not now when the press has dug up all kinds of dirt on her.’

Hjeltland scratches his head. Then he looks at Henning with editorial disapproval.

‘I understand how you must be feeling, Henning, since it’s your sister who’s being hounded, but—’

‘It’s got nothing to do with Trine being my sister,’ Henning says with an unexpected touch of anger in his voice. ‘It’s about how history repeats itself whenever a public figure is alleged to have done something wrong. We go for the jugular straightaway, and I can see it in people’s faces – also here in our office – when yet another story is revealed that supports the impression that has already been created. It’s a mixture of indignation and glee, and it’s not just here, Kåre, I’ve seen it in every editorial office I’ve ever worked in. It makes me sick.’

Henning is aware that the blood is rushing to his head. Around them other staff members have noticed his outburst, but they keep their distance. Henning doesn’t care about them; instead he makes a second attempt to get his point across and tries hard not to sound emotional or angry.

‘Besides, Trine has been on sick leave. Not all that long ago. Doesn’t anyone think that perhaps this is more than she can cope with?’

Even though he keeps his voice low, his words are explosive and he can see the effect on Hjeltland’s face. The muscles tighten like wire.

‘So what do you think we ought to do, Henning?’

‘Investigate the allegations,’ he says. ‘Rather than just repeat them.’

Hjeltland emits a sigh from the depths of his chest.

‘You know very well we don’t have the resources, Henning. And our circulation figures, they’ve gone completely through—’

‘And you wouldn’t want to ruin that, would you? You’d rather bank on the story being true?’

‘No, but right now we have to produce a story based on the information currently available to us.’

Henning can feel a fuse burning behind his eyes, but he knows continuing this discussion is pointless. So he shakes his head and says: ‘I’m going out. I can’t stand being here.’

‘Where are you going?’ Hjeltland calls after him.

‘Jessheim.’