Scarred (3 page)

In the old days Henning used to go running along the River Aker late at night, though he would sometimes come across people he would rather not meet after the hours of darkness. He would always jog straight past them and ignore their offers of all sorts of dubious merchandise. Even so, it was never a very pleasant experience.

A similar unease comes over him as he walks past Riverside, the café at the bottom of Markveien, to get round to the back of Grünerhjemmet. But there are no unsavoury characters around tonight, only the river, which winds its way down to Oslo Fjord under a bridge.

It could have been a picture postcard of the city. There are old ruins and tall trees on the far side of the river. On warm summer days people sit in Riverside or on the grassy bank leading down to the water and let life and the river flow past. But the area around the mouth of the Aker has become a haven for drug dealers and their customers. Once upon a time such people would have hidden in the shadows because it was shameful both to sell and to buy drugs, but now everything is out in the open and no one seems to care. The police know what goes on, but don’t have the resources to do anything about it. And if one dealer is arrested, another will take his place the next day.

Henning follows the road around the care home where bushes as lifeless as the residents inside have been planted along the walls. He knows how hard it is to get a place in a care home these days. You practically have to have one foot in the grave already. It means that many vulnerable people in Oslo and in the rest of Norway have to rely on self-sacrificing relatives or visits from care workers in their own homes.

Henning wanders around the car park while he waits for someone to emerge from the back entrance. For the first fifteen minutes nothing happens. He looks at his watch. Slowly 9 p.m. turns into 9.30. In his former life he might have lit a cigarette – or fourteen – while he waited, but he stopped smoking completely after the fire. There’s something about flames and embers. He can’t look at them without seeing his son’s eyes in all the red and orange.

The door opens and a woman comes out. She has brown hair and is wearing a beige coat.

‘Excuse me,’ Henning says, rushing towards her. She instinctively slows down.

‘Do you work here?’ he asks.

The woman’s expression immediately becomes guarded as she reluctantly replies ‘yes’. Henning knows that the burn scars on his face can make him look scary, especially in the dark, so he follows up his assertive opening with a smile that’s intended to be disarming. The woman walks off.

‘Sorry, but you’ll have to talk to someone else,’ she calls out.

‘I—’

‘I don’t talk to people like you.’

Henning is left standing with a reply that withers on the tip of his tongue.

Ten minutes later a man appears. He is happy to stop, but neither speaks nor understands Norwegian terribly well. It doesn’t, however, prevent him from chatting and smiling. Henning eventually works out that the man has washed the floors on the ground and first floors tonight, but he doesn’t know anything about what happened on the floors higher up.

‘Who lives on the third floor?’ Henning asks him.

‘All the mad people,’ the man says.

Henning frowns.

‘The mad people?’

‘Yes, the ones who’ve gone gaga.’

The man smiles and reveals a row of bright white teeth.

‘Right,’ Henning says.

The man gives him a thumbs-up before he gets on his bicycle and rides off.

So the victim suffered from dementia, Henning concludes. It’s not a story in itself, but it’s a useful detail to include. He needs more.

Henning knows that care staff have a duty of confidentiality, but it’s not a rule that has bothered him before. In his experience some people simply enjoy chatting. It’s just a question of finding them. Working on them.

Not so easy on a Sunday night.

A woman in a hijab comes out. Again Henning smiles, but she ignores him. A little later he tries a man with dark stubble, but learns only that he has been to visit his mother and is annoyed that he missed the Brann versus Vålerenga match on TV.

Henning is about to call it a day and crosses his fingers that
6tiermes7
– his secret Internet source in the police – can give him some information when a man in a black leather jacket and trousers comes out. His hair, long and blond, swings rhythmically from side to side as he quickly crosses the car park. Henning thinks he recognises him from somewhere and goes up to him.

‘Hi, my name is Henning Juul. I work for
123news
. Could I have a word with you?’

The man glances at Henning.

‘I’m busy,’ he says.

‘I can walk with you if that’s more convenient?’

The man still doesn’t say anything, but Henning can see there are signs of recognition in his face too.

‘What’s going on up there?’ Henning asks.

The man looks at him quickly.

‘I won’t quote you. I’m just trying to find out what happened. I hear someone killed a demented old lady?’

The man glances at him again.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘But I have to get home. My son—’

The man breaks off halfway through the sentence and his eyes flicker. Henning continues to follow him.

‘Okay, fine,’ Henning says. ‘But here’s . . . ’

He starts to jog as he produces a business card from his pocket. ‘If there’s anything you want to tell me, on or off the record, then just give me a call. Any time. Okay?’

Reluctantly the man takes the card Henning is holding out.

‘Thank you. Then I won’t keep you any longer. I hope your son isn’t asleep yet.’

He smiles after the man who looks over his shoulder several times before he disappears in the night. There, Henning thinks, was an interesting person, someone who stands out from the crowd. A staff member who didn’t look exhausted after working, but upset. Or possibly frightened.

For the next hour Henning tries to speak to more people, then he goes home. He sits down in front of his laptop hoping to chat to
6tiermes7
, a hope that gradually diminishes as the clock approaches midnight. A little desperate now, Henning sends Bjarne Brogeland a few more text messages. He doesn’t give up before his police contact rings him back.

‘You’re a pest,’ Brogeland says.

‘You said you’d call when you had two minutes.’

The roar of traffic mingles with the sound of Brogeland’s exasperation.

‘Are you on your way home?’

‘Wow, you should’ve been a detective, Henning. It’s five to one in the morning.’

‘Then let’s make it quick. Demented old woman found killed. What happened?’

‘Your version is fine.’

‘Mm. But she wasn’t shot or someone would have heard it. And it would’ve been messy. So, for the same reason, I don’t think she was stabbed, either, because then you would already have arrested the killer.’

‘Who says we haven’t?’

‘You do. I can tell from your voice. You’re exhausted. You sound defeated. You wouldn’t if the case had been solved.’

Brogeland sighs.

‘I can’t give you much, Henning. Tactical considerations, you know.’

‘Mm. What if I were to tell you that I spoke to a staff member tonight, a man with long, blond hair who looked like he’d seen the grim reaper—’

‘Did he talk to you?’ Brogeland interrupts him.

Henning makes no reply.

‘I hope he didn’t say anything?’

Henning doesn’t reply immediately.

‘He said he had to hurry home to his son.’

‘Damn,’ Brogeland hisses softly down the phone. Seconds pass. Henning knows better than to ruin a moment like this with more questions.

Finally Brogeland heaves a sigh. And when he pulls over at a bus stop and starts talking, Henning fills a whole A4 sheet with a story that, back in the old days when he was a cynical and less sensitive reporter, he would have summarised in three words:

GRANNY BRUTALLY SLAIN
.

She chose the ring tone because it reminded her of a fabulous party with a deluge of presents. Even so the sound of her mobile is never a welcome intrusion.

Trine Juul-Osmundsen, Secretary of State for Justice, flings out her arm towards the bedside table and tries to silence her phone before the noise wakes up Pål Fredrik, who often complains that she always gets up at the crack of dawn. She is too tired to open her eyes while she fumbles for the rectangular instrument of torture. Finally she gets hold of it and slides her thumb across the screen. Peace at last.

Trine sinks back on her pillow. How many hours of sleep did she manage this time?

Far too few.

She had woken up in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat. In her dream she had found herself in a big, open space surrounded by a large crowd. She knew she couldn’t move her hands or her arms, but she still tried to free herself, calmly at first then with rising panic. She turned her head to one side and gasped as she looked up at the grey sky. Something metallic was gleaming above her and she could see that it was sharp. Cheers broke out just as she saw the rope being cut and the huge blade come crashing down towards her. She knew it was the last thing she would ever see; the feeling was so strong, so vivid that she thought she must have died and was still clasping her neck when the terror of her nightmare woke her up and she had to remind herself to breathe.

Trine turns over to look at Pål Fredrik who is snoring away with his mouth half open. Sometimes he will ask what her night terrors were about and every time she gives a vague answer or tries to make light of them before she asks him a question in return in the hope it will distract him. And every time he replies: ‘I dreamt about you, darling. I only ever dream about you.’ And then he smiles, that remarkably charming smile of his that she couldn’t help falling in love with one evening God knows how many years ago when they met in Lillehammer at a conference about economic crime.

She resists the urge to sneak a couple of minutes in his embrace before the day claims her. This tall, slim, muscular man who when he is awake is a bundle of energy, never happier than when he is on a bike or climbing a mountain. Now he is far away in a carefree slumber.

Trine smiles tenderly; she has always envied her husband his ability to sleep. She can’t remember when she was last able just to close her eyes and drift off. She lies awake at night, though she tries not to think about that day’s events, the people and the stories she encountered, tomorrow’s challenges and how she will meet them. Her brain refuses to go into hibernation mode. There is rarely or never room for personal reflection even though Pål Fredrik is good at giving her something to smile about during the night before he turns over on his side and goes to sleep.

Another reason Trine dreads sleep is that her nightmares seem to have a recurrent theme. Things she doesn’t want to dream about. Things she doesn’t want to remember.

She can see that it’s light outside, but it’s not as bright as it was yesterday. Autumn is upon them and the mere thought of it makes it harder to leave the bed. But she forces herself to sit up, stretches out her arms and opens up her lungs, exhaling slowly in a yawn. Naked, she shuffles out into the passage, into the bathroom and steps under the shower where she ponders what lies in store for her this week.

She is off to Sandvika Police Station later today where the police’s IT support and purchasing services department is presenting a technical solution for electronic monitoring of people who have been served with non-contact orders. This will be followed by lunch at the Prime Minister’s office and a Cabinet meeting. Tomorrow she is making a visit to Bruvoll Prison and later she will open a new children’s home in Oslo. She’s also going on a trip to Kongsvinger in eastern Norway to discuss initiatives to strengthen border control. And she has a feeling she is due to speak about police preparedness in this Wednesday’s question time in Parliament.

It’s going to be a busy week.

When she has dried herself, applied body lotion and not too heavy make-up, she returns to the bedroom to select today’s skirt, blouse and jacket. On her way to the kitchen she picks up her mobile, wakes the screen up purely out of habit, but stops in her tracks when she sees that she has already received a call from a
VG
journalist. Before 6.30 in the morning.

The same man had tried to call her last night, but she never answers calls or requests from the fourth estate on Sundays. Or before she has had her first cup of coffee.

So she goes to the kitchen, turns on the coffee machine and adds ground coffee and water. She waits until the light stops flashing and presses a button with a picture of a miniature cup. Soon she is inhaling the aroma of an espresso, something that usually wakes her up.

Then her mobile rings again.

Trine puts down her cup. This time it’s a reporter from
Dagbladet
. She sighs and ignores the call. When will they learn that all requests must go through her press office? Trine decides to get a new mobile number – again. Far too many people in the media know it even though she changes it regularly. Someone in her department is clearly keen to curry favour with the press. As if the press has ever done anything to help her.

Trine has gone over to the fridge to get some orange juice and cream cheese when her mobile starts ringing again.
Nettavisen
this time.

She stops and stares at the display. Three calls this early.

Something must have happened.

Trine is about to go to her study to check the Internet newspapers when her mobile lights up again and beeps. A text message. A moment later another one arrives. And another one. Trine is in the process of opening the first message when the ringing of the doorbell makes her jump.

A visitor at this hour?

Trine pulls her jacket tightly around her, goes into the living room and peeks out from behind the white curtains. There is a reporter outside with a pen and notepad in his hands. A photographer stands right behind him with the camera ready at head height.

But what piques her curiosity, what makes her particularly anxious, is the sight of many cars arriving outside the house she and Pål Fredrik bought in Ullern in west Oslo for almost eighteen million kroner last year. She sees that several of the cars bear the logos of NRK and TV2. A slightly bigger car with a satellite dish on its roof pulls up and parks outside her front door.

Not only has something major happened, Trine realises. Something is terribly, terribly wrong.