Scarred (32 page)

Henning crosses the street at Café 33 and walks down Seilduksgaten, which is quiet as always, even though the street is in the middle of a bustling part of Oslo. Still, the area could be filled with noise without Henning noticing; he is completely lost in a world of his own.

That is why the man who comes up behind him has to speak to him twice before Henning reacts.

‘Don’t turn around.’

Henning turns his head instinctively, but doesn’t recognise the man’s face in the brief glimpse he catches of him before he does as he is told. But he noticed that the man had his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets and that the hood over his head cast dark shadows across his face.

‘Just keep walking,’ the man says. ‘Walk straight ahead and don’t turn around.’

Henning does as the man says while his heart jumps in his chest. As he walks, he tries to remember if he has seen the man before, but the face rings no bells.

Markveien appears in front of them, dark like a river at night. There is no traffic so he crosses the street and slows down outside the entrance to his own apartment block, but the man tells him to keep moving. Henning crosses Steenstrupsgate and continues towards Fossveien. He can barely resist the temptation to turn around.

Suddenly the footsteps gain on him and before Henning has time to react, he feels two strong hands pushing him into a dark archway and slamming him hard against a wall. A face is shoved right up in his; he smells garlic breath and a furious rage.

And that’s when he realises who the man is.

Henning tries to lean back his head so he can look into the eyes of Andreas Kjær, but the concrete wall prevents him.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Kjær hisses. ‘Talking to my kids in my garden when my wife and I are out.’

Henning tries to stay calm, but struggles to reply because Kjær’s hand is pressing his cheek into his teeth. Kjær glances furtively out at the street to see if anyone is watching them, before his eyes return with rekindled anger. He relaxes his hold on Henning’s face and Henning tries to say something, but only gurgling sounds come out.

‘Don’t you dare come near my home again, you bastard,’ Kjær snarls.

Henning is paralysed with terror and all he can manage is a nod. This makes Kjær let go of him. Henning touches his face and neck and realises that he hurt his back when Kjær flung him against the wall, but when he looks at Kjær’s eyes, he sees not only rage.

He also sees fear.

The white cross in the garden, the dead dog on the veranda steps. Someone has tried to scare him. And they have managed to scare him so much that he doesn’t want anyone to see or hear him when he confronts Henning.

‘We’re alone,’ Henning says, surprised at how quickly he rediscovers the composure in his voice. ‘I think you know something about Tore Pulli. Is that why you decided to come looking for me?’

Kjær’s defences are still intact and his eyes continue to smoulder.

‘Is that why they killed your dog? So you won’t tell anyone what you know?’

Kjær is about to say something, but he stops and takes another look around.

‘Please,’ Henning appeals to him. ‘You’re a father yourself; you fear for your children, that’s why you’re here. You want to protect them. But I lost my son that day, Kjær. So I’m sure you can understand why I need to know what happened.’

A car drives through the puddles in the street outside. Kjær’s gaze flits.

‘I promise you, Kjær, no matter what you tell me it’ll stay between us.’

Again Kjær looks as if he is tempted to say something. His eyes search for a point on the ground.

‘It . . .’

He looks up, he looks down. Out into the street and back again.

Then he fixes his eyes on Henning and stands with his back to the street.

‘I don’t know who it was,’ he whispers.

‘You don’t know?’

‘Hush,’ Kjær hisses. ‘That’s all I can tell you.’

‘Come on, Kjær.’

For the second time Henning is slammed hard against the wall.

‘I don’t know,’ he says with his mouth close to Henning’s ear. ‘Okay? I don’t know. And I don’t want to know, either.’

Kjær glances around again before he lets go of Henning.

‘But they spoke funny.’

‘Funny?’

‘Yes. They spoke Swedish, but with an East European accent. That’s all I’m prepared to tell you. Now stay away from me,’ Kjær says with renewed intensity in his voice. ‘Stay away from my family. If I see or hear from you ever again, then—’

Kjær points an angry index finger at Henning’s face. It stops, quivering, in front of his eyes.

Then he turns around and disappears out of the archway.

Bjarne Brogeland savours the pleasant sensation of having solved a crime, of having tightened up the loose screws. It’s like hunting for your glasses for a long, long time before finally finding them and putting them on. Suddenly the world comes into focus again.

In Markus Gjerløw’s bank account they found a transfer of 3,500 kroner from Remi Gulliksen with the reference ‘PC purchase’. The police concluded that Remi must have bought Markus’s old laptop and uploaded pictures of his victims on it before leaving it in Markus’s flat to incriminate him.

Bjarne takes out the photographs of Remi’s childhood bedroom in Jessheim. His parents haven’t changed it much over the years. The few times Remi stayed the night, he always slept in it. And the picture of his dead brother on the wall always kept him company.

Bjarne can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like to grow up with Werner’s eyes resting on him every time Remi went to sleep. According to Remi’s mother, his father always blamed Remi for his brother’s death.

Bjarne is happy and exhausted and should be heading home, but he walks down the corridor and knocks on the door to Ella Sandland’s office. She calls out ‘enter’ and smiles at him as he does.

‘Hi,’ she says.

‘Hi. Fancy a beer?’

Bjarne can see that she is about to say ‘no’ out of habit, but she surprises him by hesitating before she replies.

‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Just you and me, is it, or are any of the others coming?’

‘Everyone else has gone home.’

Sandland nods.

‘Okay,’ she smiles.

And Bjarne, who has been waiting to hear her say this for as long as he has known her, smiles and completely fails to disguise the excitement in his voice:

‘Great! See you in five minutes?’

Henning is still standing in the archway, trying to calm himself down. A man glances at him as he walks past, but only for a second then he is gone.

Slowly Henning makes his way back to the street. A gust of wind whistles towards him, but he is too preoccupied to feel the touch of autumn it brings. Cars go past him at a snail’s pace looking for spaces to park, but Henning doesn’t see them. He just wanders along, pondering, while pebbles, cigarette butts and rubbish crunch under his shoes.

The people who threatened Andreas Kjær were from Eastern Europe. Now that could mean any number of countries, but it’s a beginning. Tore Pulli was going to reveal what he knew about whoever started the fire in Henning’s flat, but before he could do it, he was killed – a murder that was arranged by a man who had long been in cahoots with East European criminals.

Ørjan Mjønes.

Could he also be behind the threats against Kjær?

The car brakes slowly as if the driver is trying to make the moment last.

Trine knows the perks will disappear now that she is no longer Justice Secretary. She will miss the car in particular. And the driver.

Trine finds his eyes in the rear-view mirror.

‘Thank you so much, Bjørn. It’s been great sitting here with you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he says.

He sends her a pale smile. But instead of prolonging the agony, she steps out into an evening where drifting clouds liven up the darkening sky above her. She realises that she is already longing for tomorrow.

As she expected, several journalists have gathered outside her house, but this time she isn’t intimidated by them. She holds up her head and nods to some, refusing to let herself be distracted by the questions they call out. She just aims for the door where Pål Fredrik is waiting for her as usual.

And perhaps none of this would have happened if she had told him the truth in the first place. She would have been able to convince him, wouldn’t she?

Neither of them ever thought she would be able to get pregnant. They had tried for years without success. But then one day, she discovered she was. And she didn’t really know what happened, but suddenly she no longer wanted a child. The child became much more concrete. A new life. She didn’t know if she would be able to do it, if she would be a good mother. If Pål Fredrik had known then what he knows now about Trine’s family, perhaps that wouldn’t have been so hard to understand.

But she knew that Pål Fredrik desperately wanted to be a father and she robbed him of that chance. Without ever consulting him.

Now he takes her jacket, as he so often does, being the gentleman that he is. In a way she dislikes it, it makes her feel like a guest in her own home. And she is more than a guest. Or at least she wants to be.

He ushers her into the living room where music from hidden loudspeakers fills the room. But it is music for other, more cheerful occasions, so she switches it off and steels herself before she turns to face him.

Bjarne Brogeland and Ella Sandland arrive at Asylet. The café is always busy on Thursday evenings, but Bjarne manages to get them a table for two near the fireplace. He orders two beers and folds his hands on the table while he tries to make eye contact with Sandland. Her eyes keep slipping past him, out into the room.

‘Hey,’ Bjarne says and smiles. ‘That’s
my
occupational hazard.’

‘What is?’

‘Being on the lookout for villains.’

‘Ah.’

Sandland is embarrassed and laughs.

‘Always on the job?’ he asks.

‘Always.’

A waiter brings their beers.

‘Are you hungry?’ Bjarne asks her.

He realises that he wants to keep her to himself for as long as possible, but Sandland shakes her head. Bjarne nods to dismiss the waiter who disappears immediately.

Silence descends on the table. Sandland takes a sip from her glass, sends her gaze on a new voyage of discovery before she suddenly turns it on him.

‘So – who will be our new Justice Secretary, do you think?’ she asks.

Bjarne shrugs.

‘It makes no difference to me. It won’t affect how I do my job.’

‘But the way she resigned was really very odd.’

Bjarne makes a ‘whatever’ gesture with his head while he thinks about Trine Juul-Osmundsen, his teenage crush.

‘She can’t have been a particularly good boss,’ Sandland declares.

‘No, perhaps not,’ Bjarne says quietly.

‘Sexual harassment in the workplace,’ Sandland goes on and looks at him. ‘I’ve got a friend in the force who was the victim of that. It was fairly low-key, but still very upsetting. Looks, comments, whispers and gossiping behind her back.’

Bjarne suddenly feels the need to undo the top button of his shirt.

‘And she told her boss, but you think he did anything about it?’

Sandland shakes her head before Bjarne has time to answer.

‘A good manager would have done something,’ she says, without taking her eyes off him. ‘A good manager nips that kind of thing in the bud.’

And now, for the first time, it is Bjarne’s turn to look away. He seeks refuge in his beer where the foam clings to the inside of the glass. He doesn’t know what to say next so he looks across the room. An early Thursday evening. Life and laughter. Good times.

Sandland raises her glass towards him.

‘But cheers,’ she says and smiles her most dazzling smile at him. Bjarne returns her toast and empties his glass.

A word has formed in his mouth when he looks at her again.

But he can’t get it past his lips.

Henning wakes up with a jerk, not entirely sure where he is. Then he recognises the walls of his living room, the ceiling, the matchbox and the Coke can on the table next to the sofa. And before he has opened his eyes properly, it comes back to him, the events of the last five days, everything he has found out. The past has risen like a multi-headed hydra and it bites and snaps at him from all sides.

Henning looks at the clock on his mobile and sees that much of the day has passed already. Fortunately he agreed with Heidi Kjus last night that he can come into the office late today. So he takes a long shower while he makes up his mind to deal with one question at a time. If the East Europeans who terrified the living daylights out of Andreas Kjær have links to Ørjan Mjønes, then someone must know who they are.
As long as I get a name
, Henning thinks,
then I’ll be able to track them down
.

Henning has just switched on the kettle when his mobile beeps. He checks the message, sees that it is from the
123news
breaking news service.

Henning has barely heard of Henriksen, but he still clicks on the link that follows the text message. The main text doesn’t add much more information about the appointment itself, but Henning notices that Harald Ullevik, considered by many to be Trine’s obvious successor, has resigned with immediate effect. No reasons given other than he ‘has decided to leave the government’.

Henning smiles; he would love to be a fly on the wall in the Justice Department right now, but he has more important things to do.

Bjarne Brogeland’s voice is sleepy when Henning finally gets hold of him. He, too, would appear to be taking it easy today.

‘Thanks for yesterday,’ Henning says.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘I’m glad it ended the way it did.’

‘Mm.’

‘I’ve just got one question for you. The Swedish Albanian criminals Ørjan Mjønes used to work with. Have you caught them yet?’

Brogeland doesn’t reply immediately.

‘You’re calling to ask me that now?’

‘Yes.’

Again it takes a while before Brogeland says anything. Henning hears him yawn.

‘Rough night?’

‘Are you sure that it’s morning?’

‘Quite.’

‘Right, the Swedish Albanians,’ Brogeland says. ‘I can double-check for you, but the last time we spoke about them, they were lying low. I guess most of them have left Norway.’

‘Scared that they would be banged up as well?’

‘Probably.’

‘So, in theory, they could be anywhere.’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Okay,’ Henning sighs and they hang up.

But even if they have gone underground, Henning thinks, it must still be possible to find them. It’s just a matter of asking the right people.