Scarred: A Novel

by Thomas Enger

  “One day we found her dead on the steps to the veranda,” the girl continues.

  Her brother glowers at her. A humid smell rises from the grass cuttings. Henning can’t stop himself so he asks: “On the steps, you said?”

  “Yes. I saw blood on her.”

  “Ylva,” her brother warns her.

  “But I did.”

  The boy starts to rake the grass again. Henning stands still and waits.

  “Here,” the girl says, pointing to her own chin. “I know it, because I was the one who saw her first.”

  “Shut up, Ylva.”

  “And Dad has never let us have another dog,” she continues now almost on the verge of tears. “I want a new dog.”

  Henning tries to sift through his thoughts. He knows what he wants to ask the children, but he doesn’t think he needs to.

  “Okay,” he says and feels his heart beat faster. “I’ll come back another time when your dad’s home.”

  Neither of the children says anything. Soon the girl picks up her skipping rope and skips past him as if the conversation they have just had never happened. Henning follows her with his eyes, but his gaze is instinctively drawn to the white cross. It glows, even in the diminishing evening twilight.

  Chapter 65

  Bjarne stares at the sheet in front of him with keywords from interviews they have carried out in the last couple of hours. Discoveries, facts.

  He just can’t get it to add up.

  Gjerløw’s parents were in shock. Though they had only sporadic contact with their son, neither of them could understand why he would do what he had done. They believed they had given him a good, Christian upbringing. As far as they were concerned he had no traumas that involved either Erna Pedersen or Johanne Klingenberg. They remembered the names, but had to be reminded who the women were. And though few children tell their parents everything that happens at school, she would have known if there was a problem, Gjerløw’s mother assured him. Markus was a popular boy, he had lots of friends, he was good at soccer, usually played goal, and was selected for the regional team for several years in a row. He was a happy-go-lucky person most of the time. He had lots of girlfriends as a teenager, though he had been unsuccessful in later life, on both the girlfriend and the job front.

  The absence of success in adulthood, Gjerløw’s parents admitted, had probably affected or upset him, but not to such an extent that he would go and kill people he knew twenty years ago. Nor had he ever shown much interest in photography.

  Bjarne just can’t understand what it was about Emilie Blomvik’s son that had so incensed Markus Gjerløw. When Bjarne called Emilie, she told him she hadn’t spoken to Markus for years. So why did Gjerløw decide to act now? Rather than when the little boy was born?

  An event of some sort must have triggered this, Bjarne thinks, and leans back in his office chair. At the same time it occurs to him that they might never know what turned Markus Gjerløw into a killer. Sometimes it’s just the way it is, unfortunately.

  Bjarne looks at his watch. It has been a long time since he was last home in time to have dinner with Anita and Alisha. A long time since the three of them sat chatting around the dinner table.

  He doesn’t have time to finish his reflections before there is a knock on the door. Pia Nøkleby pops her head around.

  “Hi,” she says. “Are you busy?”

  “Not more than usual,” he replies. “Come in.”

  Bjarne can’t remember when she last came to his office. Nøkleby takes a seat on a chair by the wall and crosses her legs. She folds her hands in her lap.

  “You know Henning Juul, don’t you?”

  Bjarne nods.

  “I had a chat with him recently,” Nøkleby continues. “He said something that got me thinking. He asked if anyone could access Indicia if they knew my username and password. And sadly, these days, that’s not very difficult. What I don’t understand is why he wanted to know.”

  “Didn’t you ask him?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Nøkleby moistens a dry upper lip and sends her eyes on a voyage of discovery around the room.

  “I’m beginning to get to know Henning. He would never have asked me that question unless he had a very good reason. It roused my curiosity. I logged on to Indicia to check my account and I discovered something disturbing. I found one search that I’m absolutely one hundred percent sure that I didn’t do.”

  “So someone had your log-in details and accessed the program remotely?”

  “Yes, so it would seem. And I don’t know which is worse: that it happened or that Henning knows it did. Nor do I know if it would be wise to pressure him about it. After all, he’s a journalist who’ll never reveal his sources or explain how he came to be in possession of such information. He would rather go to prison.”

  It begins to dawn on Bjarne where she is going with this.

  “So you were hoping that I might—”

  Bjarne breaks off; he can tell from her reaction that he is right.

  “I’m afraid it’s a serious security risk, Bjarne. Obviously I changed my password immediately, but in theory someone out there could be sitting on extremely valuable intelligence. I don’t know what we’re going to do. We can’t go public with it; there would be an outcry and years of work would go straight down the toilet. And the last thing we want is for Henning to write a story about it.”

  Bjarne nods slowly.

  “I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get out of him. Or if I can prevent him from writing anything.”

  “No, but I have an idea that I’ll tell you about if you promise me that you won’t mention the security breach to anyone else on the investigation team.”

  She suddenly lowers her voice. Bjarne pricks up his ears and moves closer to her.

  “Henning is a bright guy. And I’m thinking—perhaps we could make use of him?”

  Bjarne watches as Nøkleby struggles to phrase her suggestion.

  “Massage his ego,” she says. “Include him a little in what we’re doing—off the record, of course—and make it clear that you’re doing him a favor, not the other way round. Make him feel that we’re on the same team. Though the breach is regrettable, I don’t think Henning is interested in damaging the police in any way. That has certainly never been his agenda before.”

  “He’s going to see through me,” Bjarne objects.

  “Perhaps. But I think it might be worth a try. We’re firefighting here, but I don’t want to call the fire brigade. It would only aggravate the situation.”

  Bjarne’s shoulders tense up. A vein throbs in his temple.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he says, attempting to sound confident, though he isn’t sure Nøkleby buys it. Nevertheless, she gets up, smooths her skirt, and smiles. Bjarne gets up too; Nøkleby puts her hand on his shoulder and sends him a gaze laden with expectation.

  “But I can’t promise you anything,” he says. “I can’t just ask Henning a question about Indicia out of the blue. I need time.”

  “Of course, I understand. Use your analytical skills. I know how good you are at extracting information from people.”

  Bjarne beams; he feels effervescent. Pia Nøkleby hardly ever praises anyone. And though she probably said it only to flatter him, it still worked.

  She smiles once more before she leaves the room. Bjarne sits down again and exhales noisily. As if he didn’t have enough on his mind already.

  Chapter 66

  Henning doesn’t feel the soft, rocking movements of the bus as it makes its way back to the center of Oslo. Nor is he aware of the darkness that is descending on the city. Stripes of dark blue change into purple before finally mutating into gray and black.

  Did the Kjær family’s dog have an accident? Or did someone kill it?

  You have to be one unlucky dog to die from such a r
elatively minor injury. And why wasn’t the rest of its body damaged?

  The dog was killed, Henning concludes, and it was left on the veranda steps in the Kjærs’ garden so that everyone—especially the children—would see it. And that, Henning thinks, is brutal. It’s twisted. And it’s impossible not to interpret it as a direct threat to the family. Kjær must be in some kind of trouble. A policeman can have many enemies.

  Henning forgot to ask the children when their dog died, but he will have to do that later. He gets off the bus at Alexander Kiellands Plass, but rather than go home, he goes to Dælenenga Sports Park and gazes at the soccer pitch. He sits there until it’s completely dark in the west. And though he can’t see any clouds, it feels as if the air is pregnant with raindrops only waiting to be released.

  Once he gets home, he sits down with his laptop and tries to contact 6tiermes7, but again he is unsuccessful. He heats a frozen dinner in the microwave and eats it in silence. Sated, he paces up and down the living room floor while he thinks. As always, when he passes the piano, he thinks he ought to try playing a little, but he doesn’t know how to make himself do it.

  He stops in front of the IKEA bookcase, which is packed with CDs. Bands and artists lined up and organized alphabetically. Henning can remember the tunes, of course, but not how they sound here, in his new flat. He can’t remember playing a single CD since he moved in just over six months ago, when a flat with a balcony facing his old flat became available to rent.

  He selects the soundtrack to The Thin Red Line and feeds the disk into a dusty CD player. He presses Play and sets the volume to 3; he doesn’t want it to start too violently. The soundtrack begins as low, soft vibrations in the floor; the sound rises out into the room and soon a repetitive keyboard chord is keeping him company. Slowly Hans Zimmer’s violins take over.

  It feels so strange to stand there, in his new flat, listening to music again. It’s as if the room changes and becomes alive. And he can’t understand why he hasn’t listened to music until now.

  He sits down on the sofa, quietly taking in the first track. Then he lies down and closes his eyes, but not to sleep. Track two begins, a lovely, unhurried, and lyrical piece of music. And as he hears the score again, he is convinced that The Thin Red Line is the best war movie he has ever seen.

  Track three is his favorite. In the movie, U.S. forces race to the top of the ridge on the small Japanese island they are trying to take control of. The scene starts low-key, almost subdued, then the soundtrack grows louder. At the end—when the soldiers are shooting and killing and running around in a kind of bloodlust—only the music remains. Not a gunshot, a death cry, or the sound of a single explosion is heard. Only the music.

  Only the magic.

  The moment is ruined when the doorbell rings. Henning turns down the volume, plods over to the intercom by the front door, and asks who it is. A familiar voice answers from the sidewalk, “Hi, it’s Nora.”

  Henning doesn’t reply immediately, but his breathing becomes more labored.

  “Can I come up?”

  Henning hesitates before he says yes, of course she can. He can hear her footsteps against the pavement in the archway. The sound gives him butterflies in his stomach.

  Nora rings the bell at the bottom of the stairs to his flat. Henning lets her in. Half a minute later she reaches the second floor. Henning waits for her in the doorway. Nora is out of breath after the stairs and stops right in front of him.

  “Hi,” she says again.

  They stand there looking at each other for a few seconds until Henning opens the door fully and invites her in. At that very moment he is struck by the urge to tidy up until he realizes that the place is actually quite neat already. His shoes are lined up against the wall. His jackets are on pegs. He has also cleared away his plate and glass, and washed up everything he used for dinner.

  Nora enters.

  From the living room Zimmer’s bewitching notes float toward them. It feels like he is visiting someone else and yet at the same time it doesn’t. It feels strange. It feels very strange indeed to have Nora back in his flat again.

  She kicks off her shoes and hangs up her jacket, then she follows him into the kitchen. Henning doesn’t sit down; he just stands there looking at her. Clammy and tense. Warm and disturbing. There is something in Nora’s eyes that Henning doesn’t like. At the same time he likes it all too much.

  “How are you?” he asks.

  “Well,” she says, still breathless, “all right. I think.”

  The pitch of her voice rises as she speaks. “Lots to do,” she adds. “Especially now.”

  “There’s always lots to do,” Henning says.

  “Yes,” she laughs.

  Silence. Oppressive and awkward.

  “Can I offer you something to drink?” Henning asks.

  Nora’s face looks pensive.

  “Yes, why not?”

  “What would you like?”

  Henning goes over to the fridge, opens it, and looks inside. Cans of Coke. A carton of milk that is definitely well past its sell-by date. Three bottles of Tuborg. A bottle of white wine he won in a Friday lottery he didn’t even know he was taking part in.

  “I’ll have a glass of white wine, please, if you’re having one,” she says.

  Henning can’t remember the last time he drank wine. But he takes out the bottle, finds a corkscrew, and removes the cork, not without some difficulty.

  “Is not exactly Chablis, but—”

  Henning smiles apologetically, remembering Nora’s favorite wine, which they would often share a bottle or two of on Friday evenings when they had eaten their tacos and Jonas was asleep.

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she says.

  Henning finds two glasses, pours, and gestures toward the living room, where they sit down on separate sofas. Their glasses find the table at the same time. Then everything falls quiet again. Henning looks at her, waiting for her to begin.

  “So,” she says. “How are you?”

  Before Henning has time to answer, she says, “And I don’t mean what are you up to, because I think I probably know that. But how are you, Henning? Really?”

  Henning is tempted to ask why she wants to know, but he can’t make himself.

  “Well, I guess I . . . function,” he replies. “I’m busy at the moment with Trine and with . . . with—”

  “Tore Pulli?”

  Henning looks up at her. “Yes,” he replies. “Or rather, there’s not much going on with him, or at least not right now, but—”

  Henning realizes he is on the verge of telling her about Indicia and murdered dogs, and manages to stop himself. It’s too soon.

  “I understand,” is all she says and sips her wine; she smacks her lips and makes a contented, wordless sound. Henning lets his glass stay where it is, untouched. He is pleased that the music is keeping them company, but even with Zimmer’s violins, there is something claustrophobic and weird about sitting so close to Nora again. She takes another sip from her wineglass, leans back in the sofa, and crosses one leg over the other. Then she changes her mind and leans forward again.

  “Sorry,” Henning says. “It’s a rotten sofa.”

  “Oh,” Nora says and smiles awkwardly.

  Once again there is silence between them. Henning watches her.

  “Was there anything in particular you wanted to . . . talk to me about, Nora?”

  She looks up at him suddenly as if he had caught her red-handed.

  “No, I was just—”

  Nora casts down her gaze again. Henning waits. She takes another mouthful of wine.

  “Last week or whenever it was,” she begins. “When you were lying in that grave, I—”

  She looks up hoping the rosette in the ceiling will come to her rescue. “I thought you were dead,” she says at last without meeting his eyes.
“I thought that—that I would have to bury you too.”

  She is still not looking at him.

  “And—”

  Then she sighs and shakes her head.

  “Why do you live here, Henning?”

  Her question takes him by surprise.

  “What made you choose this place?”

  Nora throws up her hands, taking in the room.

  “I mean, from your bedroom you have a view of—if that is your bedroom in there,” she says, pointing to a white painted door. “You can look right out at . . .”

  Nora doesn’t complete the sentence.

  “You even have a balcony exactly like the one we had in the old flat.”

  Nora doesn’t continue; she simply looks at him. It’s Henning’s turn to stare at the floor.

  “Well, I—”

  “Why do you do this terrible thing to yourself?” she asks. “To torment yourself? Is it a form of punishment because—”

  Henning holds up his hand.

  “Don’t say it,” he begs her. “Please don’t say his name.”

  Nora’s eyes start to moisten. As do his.

  “Please don’t say his name,” he repeats in a voice close to breaking. The moment expands, there is a pause between two tracks and for a few seconds the flat is very quiet. Henning can hear his own heavy breathing. He sees the pulse beat in Nora’s neck, her necklace against her thin, white jumper. He doesn’t remember seeing that necklace before.

  Then another song begins and it’s as if they are both roused from their nightmare. Nora doesn’t say anything else, but knocks back her wine with an uncharacteristic urgency.

  “I’ve got to go,” she says and gets up. Henning follows her back to the kitchen, out into the hallway where she puts on her shoes and her jacket. Then she straightens up and looks at him. Really looks at him.

  And then she comes toward him and she doesn’t stop before she is standing very close to him. He puts his arms around her and she clings to him as if she doesn’t ever want to let go. Henning can’t remember the last time he held Nora like this. He places his hand tenderly on her neck and strokes her hair. He closes his eyes. Her soft, lovely hair. Just like he remembers it. The scent of her. Also just like he remembers it.