Scarred: A Novel

by Thomas Enger

  The online version of VG, VG Nett, has managed to track down an old boyfriend of his sister’s when she was a law student, who can tell the newspaper’s readers that “Trine Juul, as she then was, was known for her excessive partying. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if she is guilty of the accusations being made against her.” None of the newspapers has a single new picture to publish. The most recent ones they have are from this morning, when she hurried inside the Ministry of Justice and didn’t make eye contact with any of the cameras. A headline repeated by several papers is “Trine Hides.”

  Henning would have expected that the identity of the young Labor Party politician would have become known during the day, but even though online speculation is rife, no one has yet come forward, nor has any particular name taken more hold in the public imagination than others. As far as Henning can work out, most members of the Labor Party’s youth branch who took part in last year’s conference must have been interviewed by now. All of them are denying that they went to Trine’s hotel room.

  The picture the media are creating of her now is very far removed from the little girl he grew up with. He remembers how every Christmas Eve they would sit in front of the television with bags of sweets and watch Christmas movies. They also used to have some beanbags; Trine’s was pink, while Henning’s was mint green. Some evenings he would go to her room just to give her a good-night hug, and he would stay there and chat for a long time until there would be a knock on the wall from his parents’ bedroom because their talking was keeping them awake.

  They also used to play and exercise together down in the basement passage on the gray, knobbly carpet. Often there would be an acrid smell of urine because local cats favored the foundations of their house. Trine and Henning had a foam ball and switched between playing handball and soccer; the door to the lavatory and the door to the pantry served as goals. One Christmas they were given Adidas shorts, which they wore when they played, and their game appeared to improve because they felt they looked so much smarter.

  He wonders if Trine ever thinks about those days.

  Perhaps they started drifting apart as teenagers when they developed different interests. Once he had finished sixth form and joined the army to do his national service, he barely spoke to her. Whenever he called home, it was always his mother who answered the telephone. Trine never called. Never gave him a welcome-home hug when he visited; instead she would usually go out straight after dinner and come back late.

  Despite the lack of contact between them, there is something about her plight that moves him. He doesn’t like to see her bleed. But no matter how tempting it is to get involved, he can’t report on a story about his own sister. Besides, he would meet with closed doors everywhere. He doesn’t have any contacts in the world of politics. And what could he really do? So far her young accuser hasn’t even been named.

  Leave it alone, Henning tells himself. It’s not your story.

  Chapter 29

  Bjarne Brogeland doesn’t know when he will be able to leave the office and anyway the weather doesn’t encourage him to go outside, so he texts Anita to apologize for missing dinner yet again and tells her to eat without him. There is no reply.

  The investigation team is about to hold another meeting when Bjarne receives a call from the unit that has spent the last two hours watching Daniel Nielsen’s flat.

  “Yes?” Bjarne replies.

  “You wanted to know if the subject moved,” says the voice down the other end.

  “Yes,” Bjarne replies again.

  “He came outside a little while ago and was picked up by a red BMW with a massive hole in the muffler.”

  “Go on?”

  “They drove up to Holmenkollen via Majorstua and Smedstadkrysset, but we lost him at a red light. And we can’t hear the noisy muffler anymore.”

  “Holmenkollen?”

  “Yes.”

  Bjarne wonders what Nielsen’s car could be doing there.

  “We’ve checked the registration number. The car belongs to a Pernille Thorbjørnsen. Do you know her?”

  Bjarne thinks about it.

  “Yes,” he replies.

  “But she wasn’t driving the car. The driver was a man with blond, shoulder-length hair.”

  A man with blond, shoulder-length hair, Bjarne thinks, and tries to recall all the people he has spoken to recently. It doesn’t take long before he gets a hit.

  Could the man have been Ole Christian Sund, the care worker who found Erna Pedersen dead?

  * * *

  The bodyguards offered to carry Trine’s bags of food and clothing, but she declined. The pain burning in her arms and spreading up to her shoulders is something she has to endure if only because it makes her feel vaguely alive. She hasn’t felt that for the last couple of hours. She has merely existed, almost in a state of weightlessness, without being able to sense the ground beneath her feet.

  Pål Fredrik doesn’t like the sea, he prefers the mountains. His objection is that nothing ever happens by the sea. No, precisely. That’s exactly why she loves it, because nothing ever happens. It’s about being at one with the wind, the breeze, and the sea. Because they never look at her with accusing eyes.

  She finds the key where she left it the last time she was here—God knows how many years ago—under the bench by the door to the log cabin. The smell that comes toward her as she enters floods her with memories. Everything is as she remembers it from her childhood. The white, open fireplace in the corner, still in one piece. The crumbling old log basket beside it. The small, dusty portable television, the white display cabinet with glasses and bottles. The sofa bed up against the wall. The table in the middle, which can be extended to almost twice its size if she can be bothered to attach the flaps. Old, worn chairs with blue seat cushions.

  She recalls one spring when they came here to get the cabin ready for the season; it might have been the middle of May. They found mouse droppings everywhere. The mice had nibbled the pillows, the bedlinens, the wax candles; there were tiny black dots of mouse droppings all over the place. Another time they found a wagtail, completely stiff, but just as beautiful as if it had still been alive. It was lying under a bed. How it had got inside after they had locked up the cabin, nobody could explain. Not even Henning, though he tried.

  Trine sees that as usual the mice have sought refuge inside the cabin. Lots of them. And she discovers that she looks forward to cleaning, moving her body and concentrating on something completely different from the sword hanging over her. She draws the curtains, opens the door, and lets in the sea breeze. The clammy, stuffy atmosphere of stale dust will soon be gone. The walls will come alive again. Already she feels what a good idea it was to come here. The constant waves even ease her breathing.

  Trine turns on the water. The pipes gurgle and splutter a little before a steady, cold stream comes out of the tap above the utility sink. She puts on water to boil and takes out some cleaning supplies.

  Trine has been scrubbing away for an hour when her mobile beeps in her jacket pocket. It’s a text message from Katarina. She wonders if they have arrived yet and if everything is all right. Yes, Trine replies to both questions, surprised that the message goes through, as mobile coverage in the area has always been poor. But it takes only a minute, then she gets a reply.

  I don’t know if you have a TV where you are, but there will be debates on both NRK and TV2 tonight. The subject is: Has society done too little to prevent sexual harassment?—and both male and female incest victims will be in the studio.

  Of course. Trine sighs. They’re already having a debate based on the assumption that the allegations are true. But what on earth does incest have to do with anything?

  And that’s when she feels it. The pull of the white display cabinet in the corner, next to the TV. She goes over to it and opens the door. A stuffy smell wafts toward her. Glass after glass, neatly lined up. An
d at the bottom—the bottles. Liqueurs. Cognac.

  She recalls that her parents always drank cognac when they went to the cabin. It was part of the whole experience, they said. Coffee, cognac, and chocolate. The holy trinity.

  Trine takes out a bottle and looks at it. St. Hallvard liqueur, half empty. She sits down at the table and gazes at the bottle. And she wonders at what point you turn into your parents, no matter how hard you try to fight it.

  She fetches a glass from the cabinet, blows the dust out from its bottom, and fills it with St. Hallvard. Finds a cigarette from her bag and lights up. Like mother like daughter, she thinks. And she raises the glass to her lips and proposes a toast to yet another member of the Juul family who has stepped off the cliff while staring down at the bottom of a bottle.

  Chapter 30

  Above him the wind nudges the gray, dense clouds along. Around him the swallows screech, loud and piercing.

  How strange that they never crash into each other, Henning thinks, and tries to follow one of them with his eyes. It flies from side to side, it soars and it plummets. Choppy, sudden turns. A free display of inexhaustible energy. All its movements seem random, as if its entire existence is ruled by impulses, in sharp contrast to the migrating birds that will soon start their annual trip to the south in V formations.

  It must be a lovely life, Henning decides, and takes a swig of his daily ration of liquid black sugar. Whether it be living exclusively on whims or having a fixed plan with your life. Right now either option seems equally attractive.

  Henning takes another sip of his Coke while he thinks. And thinking is what he always does best in Dælenenga Sports Park. There aren’t many people around yet, but it’s still early afternoon. And even though the weather forecast is bad, he knows they will turn up eventually. Children, teenagers, and adults.

  So Erna Pedersen was a strict and unpopular teacher. But what was she apart from that? Did she have any interests? Did she get involved with anything?

  He believes she enjoyed knitting. Perhaps she had joined forces with people with similar interests, in a club or in an association of some kind. Someone must have known her. But according to Bjarne Brogeland, she hadn’t had a visitor at Grünerhjemmet for ages. There is more and more evidence to suggest that she lived an isolated life while she waited for death to find her.

  Henning is halfway through another mouthful when his mobile rings. He is surprised to see that the caller is Tom Sverre Pedersen, the victim’s son. Flustered, Henning puts down the Coke can and takes out his notepad from his inside pocket while he answers the phone.

  “Tom Sverre Pedersen here. You’ve been trying to get hold of me?”

  “Yes, I—yes I have,” Henning says, biting off the plastic cap of his pen. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  Henning makes himself comfortable, wedges the phone in between his ear and shoulder, and tries to find a position that means he can make notes at the same time. Not easy on the cold, hard planks.

  “And I’m sorry for disturbing you at such a difficult time.”

  Pedersen makes no reply even after Henning has given him an opening.

  “I work for 123news, and I—”

  “I know who you are, Juul. I follow the news.”

  “Er, okay. Then you can probably guess why I’ve been trying to contact you. I want to write a story about your mother. The kind of person she was. The idea is for our readers to get to know her a little better.”

  “I’m not so sure that they would want to.”

  Henning is put temporarily off-guard by the unexpected answer.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Listen, Juul, I don’t know how much you’ve found out about my mother, but if you’re looking for a fairy tale to splash across your front page, you’re wasting your time. My mother was no Mother Teresa.”

  Henning presses his pen as hard against the paper as he can without tearing it, but no ink comes out. He tries, without success, to shake the pen alive.

  “Strong words coming from her son?”

  “Strong, yes, but true. My mother wasn’t terribly popular.”

  Henning gives up, puts down his pen, and accepts he will just have to try to memorize the conversation to the best of his ability.

  “I’ve been told she could be quite strict. As a teacher, I mean.”

  “Hah, that’s just for starters. She wanted things her way, and she was extra hard on the hard kids.”

  “She and the Phantom both.”

  “Yes. I’m sure you can imagine what it was like for me to grow up when my friends had my mother for a teacher.”

  “All the kids wanted to come home and play at your house?”

  “Not exactly. It’s hard to separate the apple from the tree, if I can put it like that.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m not sure that you do, Juul. And the reason I’m telling you this is that I’ve read some of your articles. You seem like a reporter who wants to get to the truth. My experience with the media is that not many of you are. And people in Jessheim will laugh at you if you paint a pretty picture of my mother’s life.”

  “So your mother had many enemies?”

  Pedersen snorts. “My mother was a real bitch. It’s a miracle that my father managed to stay married to her for all those years. Don’t get me wrong—she was my mother and I loved her in my own way. I made sure that she got a place at Grünerhjemmet because I had neither the time nor the inclination to look after her myself. Now, that last bit you don’t need to include in your story, but despite her behavior, I wanted her to end her life in comfort. And with the exception of her actual death, I think she was really quite happy where she was.”

  Henning nods to himself as he senses the temptation of handing over the responsibility for his mother to someone who can do a better job than he.

  “I’ve heard that there was quite a lot of vandalism done to your mother’s house while she lived in Jessheim?”

  “Yes, at one point it almost seemed as if it had become a sport.”

  “Did you ever find out who did it?”

  “No, but I know that my mother had her suspicions. And there were several different gangs of kids who could have done it. You only had to look at the graffiti on the walls of Jessheim School.”

  “Do you happen to know if anyone hated her more than others?”

  Pedersen is quiet for a few moments.

  “Not that I can recall. Don’t forget it’s a really long time ago.”

  Henning raises his gaze in the pause that follows. He spots Adil walking toward the Astroturf with a bag slung over his shoulder.

  “I presume the police have interviewed you?”

  “They have.”

  “Then they’ve probably asked you if you suspect anyone of murdering your mother.”

  Pedersen waits a little before he replies.

  “They have.”

  “And do you?”

  Long pause. Henning doesn’t push him.

  “No. But I’m concerned that someone might have a grudge against me too.”

  Henning sits up.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m thinking about the damaged photo in my mother’s room.”

  Henning doesn’t interrupt, but lets Pedersen tell him the story in his own words. And when he has finished, Henning feels a slight chill down his neck.

  “So do you have any enemies? Someone you’ve reason to be scared of?”

  “No. And that’s what I told the police.”

  “Okay.”

  At that moment Henning sees another boy walking toward the soccer pitch, holding hands with his mother. And suddenly he remembers who the boy’s father is.

  “Thank you for being so frank with me, Pedersen. I really appreciate it.”

&
nbsp; Henning gets up and looks at the boy.

  “You’re welcome. So will you be writing about my mother?”

  Henning thinks about it.

  “Yes, I hope so. But right now I don’t know what kind of story it’s going to be.”

  Chapter 31

  The incident room is filled with officers and investigators. As usual, everyone’s attention is focused at the head of the boardroom table, where Arild Gjerstad is reviewing the discoveries, evidence, and facts of the murder case.

  “How far have you gotten with interviewing people at the care home?” he asks.

  Emil Hagen clears his throat.

  “We’ve yet to cross the finishing line.”

  “Does anyone stand out?”

  Hagen shakes his head.

  “Many people have alibied each other and most of them say that they didn’t see anything. We’re going to have to be a little more thorough in our interviews.”

  Gjerstad nods. “Forensics have finished analyzing the crumbs and the dust they found on Erna Pedersen’s clothing,” he informs them, running his index finger and thumb over his mustache. “It’s rock, that’s all. Tiny rock fragments, probably from the other weapon that we’ve yet to trace.”

  “The weapon used to whack the knitting needles into her eyes?” Ella Sandland asks. Gjerstad nods to confirm it is.

  “A few wool fibers were found on one of the fragments. Wool with a tiny speck of glue.”

  “Wool?” Emil Hagen says in disbelief and licks his upper lip.

  “Rock, wool, and glue,” Gjerstad says, looking around. “What does that make?”

  The officers stare at each other.

  “Hair,” Sandland says.

  More baffled expressions.

  “Didn’t you ever make stone trolls when you were little?”

  “No,” Hagen says quickly and snorts at the same time.

  “You take two stones,” Sandland explains. “You glue them together and decorate them with straw or wool or something like that to make the hair. Then you paint on the eyes, the nose, and the mouth. It’s a very popular activity in nurseries and schools.”