Scarred (4 page)

Late to bed, early to rise.

That’s how it has turned out, Bjarne Brogeland concludes, as he sits in his car on his way to work – again. And sometimes that is just the way it has to be. He resigned himself to it long ago and usually he loves giving his all to his work as an investigator. Use his body and his brain to solve a case and then move on to the next one. Do his bit to help make Oslo a city that’s safe to grow up and live in.

But even Bjarne, who has been fit and healthy all his life, who has always watched his diet and rarely poisons his body with alcohol, has started noticing how life as a police officer in the capital takes its toll on him. More importantly it takes its toll on those about him, his family, because he is seldom with them when they get up or go to bed. And when he finally gets home, he is usually so tired and worn out that he can’t be bothered or doesn’t feel like doing anything. He just wants to relax. Enjoy some peace and quiet.

He hasn’t told anyone, not even Anita, that he has written but not yet sent off an application to Vestfold Police. They have a six-month vacancy for a Head of Investigation starting in just four weeks. The current post holder is taking leave to write a book; a crime novel, Bjarne believes. Bjarne thinks this job could give him an opportunity to gain valuable management experience. Everything is about experience.

And that’s the rub. He hasn’t been a detective for very long, but he has been with the police force all his life and is regarded as a safe pair of hands. He has studied management and he has recently made a name for himself with his analytical skills. Previously he always felt he had something to prove whenever he spoke up in a meeting, especially to his boss Arild Gjerstad, Head of Investigation, but he has got over that, thank God.

He has no idea how Anita would react if he were to get the job. It would mean him being away from home, from her and Alisha even more; it would take him further away from the ideal of family life that is so important to his wife. Isn’t he making enough sacrifices as it is?

He can see it in his daughter’s eyes and hear it in the conversation around the kitchen table on the rare occasions they are all there at the same time. He has absolutely no idea how she is getting on. What she learns at nursery, who her friends are. Who is mean to her and who is nice. It’s not easy being a kid, he remembers that from his own childhood. But it’s not easy being a dad, either. Or a dad and a policeman at the same time.

Alisha deigned to let him put her to bed last night as long as he played with her first. Playing covers everything that makes her laugh out loud. He read to her from a Karsten and Petra book, scratched her on the back with sharp nails, something she loves. But he wasn’t allowed to lie next to her when she finally settled down. Only Anita gets to do that.

And maybe it makes no difference how much he plays and reads and scratches. He will always come second. And, yes, that’s still a spot on the podium, but Bjarne has never enjoyed not being first. He has always loathed the thought that someone might be better at something than he is.

I need more hours in the day
, he thinks, and turns off towards Grønland. If you could buy time, he would have ordered it by the shed load. Then there would be time for trips to Legoland, a seaside holiday to Sørlandet, he could have gone camping in the mountains, caught those fish. He could have given Anita the children she always said she wanted.

But if he’s going to do his job properly, if he’s going to be as good a policeman as he wants to be, then he has to live the job. He has to be the job. And the job has to be him. All of him.

And soon they will turn forty, both him and Anita. And even if time isn’t running out for him, then it is definitely running out for her. Exactly what that means they haven’t yet sat down to discuss. They haven’t had the time.

Bjarne met Anita at Idretthøgskolen, the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences, in the mid-nineties. She was in the year below him and not really his type; she was into Aerosmith and TV soaps such as
Beverly Hills 90210
and
Melrose Place
, she was twenty-two centimetres shorter than him and played football from time to time. But with her shoulder-length blonde hair, a slightly crooked front tooth and her echoing, infectious laughter, she grew increasingly irresistible to him. He was happy to ignore the fact that she had grown up in Hamar and kept declaring her intention to move back east, to the home of the Hamar Olympic Hall even though she was born in the beautiful scenic fishing village of Henningsvær in the Lofoten Archipelago. She had charm. The raw charm of Arctic Norway. He simply had to have her.

At first she resisted him, primarily because she already had a boyfriend, but she surprised him by going for what she could get, rather than holding on to what she had. Six years later they got married, and because of Bjarne’s job they now live in a semi-detached house on Tennisveien in Slemdal. Their car is a Volvo estate with a fan belt that never stops complaining. They don’t have a holiday cabin and they don’t have a dog, either, but they have a daughter whom he would happily throw himself under a bus to protect. Even if he is only second-best.

You’ve been lucky
, he tells himself, and watches the grey band of tarmac that stretches out in front of him. He sees people going to work, cyclists jumping a red light and grim-faced pedestrians. The wind urges them on. Bjarne can feel the gusts against the car. A new spell of bad weather sails towards the city over the pointed roof of Oslo Plaza Hotel.

It’s going to be a cold day, Bjarne forecasts, but hopefully a productive one, even though they didn’t learn much about the eighty-three-year-old victim last night. A widow, retired teacher, born and raised in Jessheim, moved to Oslo in the early nineties. She has a son who doesn’t visit her very often, but it was him in the photograph, Tom Sverre Pedersen, and his family. He is a doctor and lives in Vindern. And the photograph of him and his family had indeed been torn down and smashed.

I’m sure it’s important
, Bjarne thinks, but for reasons he has yet to find out. What he finds most peculiar about the case so far is that no one seems to have seen or heard anything. Neither the care workers nor any other staff had noticed if anyone entered or left Erna Pedersen’s room that afternoon. And no one Bjarne spoke to had had a bad word to say about the victim. She never made a fuss, barely communicated with anyone and spent most of her time knitting. An old lady who kept herself to herself and did what little she was capable of.

However, we still have lots of people to interview
, Bjarne thinks. Her primary care worker, for example. Daniel Nielsen. The man who looked after her most of the time. The people from the Volunteer Service. And not least – the little boy playing on the wheelchair who discovered the body. He might have bumped into the killer. Someone must have seen something. People in the street. Residents in neighbouring buildings.

We’ve only just scratched the surface
, Bjarne predicts, as Oslo Police Station appears to his left with its dirt-grey walls and shiny clean windows. And he feels genuinely excited at the prospect; he is looking forward to getting stuck into a new case.

Oh yes
, he thinks with a smile as he drives into the underground car park.

You still love this job
.

Trine Juul-Osmundsen runs to her study, flips open the screen of her laptop and keeps hitting the Internet icon until the computer finally finds the network and downloads the front page of
VG Nett
. What she sees makes her gasp.

There is a huge close-up of her face under the headline:

What the hell?

Trine clicks on the article while her heart starts to pound. The opening sentence merely repeats the lead-in. What the hell is going on, Trine thinks again as she reads on.

‘What’s going on?’

Trine jumps and spins around, slamming shut the laptop a little harder than she intended. She positions herself in front of the desk and looks at her husband who has come into her study dressed in only blue and black striped pyjama bottoms. His short grey hair stands up and he still has sleep in his eyes. A fine layer of stubble covers his cheeks with a mask of something grey and dark, while the skin on his face reveals many active hours spent in the open air. The muscles in his throat and neck are taut like steel wire.

Even after four years of marriage Trine still feels warm all over whenever she sees him like this, rough, unshaven and shirtless. But his inquisitive eyes, still sleepy, bore into her and leave an open, stinging wound.

‘I thought I heard the doorbell?’ he says.

Trine looks at him, but her gaze soon slips away and fails to find anything to settle on. Now she knows why there is a pack of journalists outside. And why more are bound to turn up.

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘This early?’

‘M-hm,’ she replies, absent-minded, but she still can’t bear to look at him; she has no idea what to say. How can she explain to him what has happened and what they are about to be subjected to?

Trine starts to walk past him when he puts out his arm to stop her.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Good morning.’

He smiles and tries to hug her, but Trine can’t cope with it. Not now. So she frees herself from his strong arms and says she is running late. Fortunately he buys her story.

Trine goes into the kitchen where she stops and rests her palms heavily on the worktop while she mutters curses under her breath. She continues swearing until she hears her husband’s voice again.

‘I’m just taking a shower.’

He is on his way to the bathroom when Trine says his name and straightens up. Pål Fredrik stops. She takes a step towards him and sees the look in his eyes, which she knows will change as soon as she starts talking. The doorbell rings again, but Trine doesn’t take her eyes off him.

‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ he asks her, sounding baffled.

‘No,’ she says quietly.

He glances at the front door.

‘Do you want me to get it?’

Trine shakes her head. She can feel her throat tighten.

‘I need to ask you a favour,’ she whispers and faces him.

‘Okay?’ he replies slowly. ‘What is it?’

Words, sentences – even the air – stop their journey across Trine’s lips.

‘What is it?’ he repeats.

She clears her throat: ‘Don’t read anything they write about me in the papers today.’

Trine waits until she can hear the sound of running water before she goes back to her study, closes the door behind her and hits a key on her mobile.

‘Pick up, Harald,’ she says as she paces up and down the floor.

Harald Ullevik has been Trine’s closest and most important sparring partner for the almost three years she has been Secretary of State for Justice. Always wise and knowledgeable. Always warm and friendly. Some of the speeches he has written for her have been brilliantly insightful and rich in persuasive arguments that she was proud to take the credit for. Several times his elephantine memory has rescued her from embarrassing situations. In fact he has been as much of an adviser to her as a Junior Minister. At times he has practically been acting Secretary, willing to stand in for her whenever she needed it. If anyone can help her out of this mess, it’s him.

‘Hi, Trine.’

As always Ullevik’s voice sounds bright.

‘Have you seen today’s
VG
?’ Trine says immediately.

‘No,’ he says after a brief hesitation. ‘But they’ve just called me with a summary. I told them to get lost, obviously. We have to draw the line somewhere.’

Trine flings out her other hand.

‘Half of Norway’s media is in my doorstep, Harald. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Trine,’ Ullevik says. ‘Calm down, it’ll be all right.’

Usually his rock solid voice can convince her that everything will indeed be all right. But right now she struggles to believe him.

‘They’re going to bombard you with questions once you leave your house, but for God’s sake don’t start arguing with them. Don’t say anything until we’ve looked at this together and agreed a strategy.’

Trine heaves a sigh and thinks about Pål Fredrik, wondering if the water can wash away some of the shock and the disbelief she saw in his eyes. When she took another step towards him to assure him that the accusations were not true, he simply turned away.

‘It’ll be all right,’ Ullevik reassures her again. ‘You get yourself to work in one piece and we’ll deal with this together.’

Trine continues to listen to the echo of his voice before she utters an ‘okay’ and hangs up. When the silence returns, she realises that her knees are threatening to buckle under her. She orders them to lock. Then she swallows something viscous and thick that is stuck in her throat, disconnects the laptop, puts it in her bag and hurries out into the hallway. She stops in front of the hall mirror, smooths a crease in her jacket and studies her face, her hair and her eyes. She decides she is wearing too much make-up and starts to wipe off the lipstick she applied earlier, but she is desperate to get out of the house, and she doesn’t want to wait for Pål Fredrik to come out of the shower so she can stare into the depths of his shocked and horrified eyes.

She quickly checks her shoes to see if they are clean. Then she braces herself.
Put on a brave face. And keep your mouth shut
.