by Thomas Enger
“I can tell from your voice that you don’t mean it.”
Emilie rolls her eyes, but Remi just sends her an icy glare.
“Okay,” Emilie says with a sigh. “Fine. But don’t come back later and say that I didn’t apologize.”
“It’s too late now, anyway.”
The next moment the phone rings. Remi looks at it for a long time before he presses a button and puts it to his ear. But he says nothing. Emilie presumes it’s the police trying to talk him down.
But Emilie’s intuition tells her that talking won’t help; only action will do. And there is something in Remi’s eyes that terrifies the life out of her. There is no hope left in them. Only hatred.
You have to do something, she thinks.
Chapter 80
Trine is given a telephone and a headset, which she puts on, and she exhales.
“I’m ready,” she says and looks at the hostage negotiator who nods back in return.
“We need to go inside the truck,” she says. “You can’t stand out here and make yourself a target. This is a man who clearly wants attention, and you—”
“I get it,” Trine interrupts her.
They step inside the mobile incident truck. Trine is given a chair, a pad of paper, and pen. The negotiator sits down next to her.
Trine has read the police contingency plan for situations like this, so she knows that every action suggested and executed will be logged. Everything she says will be subject to close scrutiny afterward.
“Remember, I’m with you all the way,” the negotiator says. “Look at me and any notes I write down for you while you talk to him. Be calm. Self-assured. Controlled. Don’t let him know that you’re nervous.”
“Is it that obvious?” Trine says and laughs quickly.
“I’m always nervous in situations like these,” the negotiator says. “It usually brings out the best in me. And one more thing: use his first name, Remi. It might make him feel that you know each other. And, if you can, refer to the hostages by their first names. It’ll make it harder for him to hurt them.”
Trine nods and closes her eyes in an attempt to focus her thoughts. What if this goes belly-up as well? What kind of legacy will she leave behind? She can see the demands. Apologize! the front pages will clamor. Again.
Trine’s chest is pounding. Her pulse is 190. Adrenaline. A feeling she normally loves, but this is nothing like a high. She closes her eyes for a moment. Then she rings the number.
* * *
Remi looks at the phone vibrating on the worktop in the kitchen. The police have stopped ringing Emilie’s phone. And started calling his.
It means they know who he is now. They must also have discovered what he has done. But how could they? Where did he screw up?
Once more he reviews the murder of Erna Pedersen in his mind. She didn’t remember him the first time he rolled her wheelchair back from the singalong in the TV lounge, not until he showed her pictures from the year he was in and reminded her about the fractions.
Remi had never been much good at math. One day, she ordered him up to the blackboard, told him to reduce a fraction she had written. And he stood there, staring at the confusion of numbers without understanding anything at all. Later, he suspected that had been her intention all along, make him go up there so they could all have a good laugh at his expense, the whole class. What she did afterward, as the volume of her voice rose, certainly caused some of his fellow pupils to snicker. She ordered him to crawl under one of the desks in the front row and screamed while she hit the desk with her cane, “This is a fraction. And you can’t have a nothing under a fraction!”
Another time she had turned up with three large bars of chocolate and told them that if every single pupil in the class could work out an equation she had taught them, they could have the chocolate. As expected Remi failed and, surprise, surprise, she made a big point out of stressing how he had ruined it for everyone. Then there was the way she always looked at him. Her scornful laughter.
When he held up the school photo to her and pointed himself out, she showed signs of recognition, but she said nothing. And he felt the urge, right there and then, to extinguish the light in the eyes he had hated ever since his school days, but he couldn’t do it. Too many people had seen him wheel her in. Markus was waiting for him. So he left the school photo on the wall in the hope that she would remember what she had done. Perhaps she would say sorry next time.
But no. What he saw instead were traces of the same contempt she had treated him with at school. And though he had planned it, he didn’t actually understand what had happened until after he had killed her. He had also destroyed the trophy on her wall, the photograph of her son’s family displayed like a prize for successful mothering. Then he took the school photo with him and sneaked back into the TV lounge, took up position right behind Markus, and sang along with “Thine Be the Glory, Risen Conquering Son.”
Remi hadn’t spoken to Markus since sixth year when one day they bumped into each other in the Storgata branch of Spaceworld where Remi had gone to buy a computer. They got talking and it was actually quite amusing to hear what had become of the old Romeo: absolutely nothing. No girlfriend, no children. A hefty spare tire had formed around his waist and most of his wavy, blond hair had been replaced with a shiny, bald circle at the top of his head. Nor had he been very successful at finding work.
But as neither of them had that many friends, they started hanging out together. It was awkward to begin with. Remi wasn’t over Emilie and Markus made a point of never mentioning her name. Not voluntarily. They had to drink a whole bottle of Vargtass before Remi could ask Markus if he was still in touch with Emilie, a question that inevitably stirred up the past.
And if Remi’s father has taught him anything, it is that apologies come in many forms. It wasn’t until Markus’s body was practically anesthetized with alcohol that he produced a feeble, miserable apology. But saying sorry means only that you sympathize, not that you take responsibility for what you did. That was the night Remi made up his mind.
Markus must be made to take responsibility.
Remi knew that Markus had dated Johanne at some point. He had also discovered that Erna Pedersen lived at Grünerhjemmet and that the volunteer service would visit from time to time to sing and play to the residents. And even though Markus might have lapsed over the years, he came from a family where Christian values mattered. So when Remi suggested that the two of them do something other than play computer games and get drunk, Markus was surprisingly easy to persuade.
It was well over twenty years since Erna Pedersen taught them and time had made her gray and lined. There was nothing to suggest that Markus recognized her when he saw her again. Remi knew that the police would check who had visited Grünerhjemmet on that day. If they were to discover that Johanne Klingenberg was another one of Erna Pedersen’s former’s pupils, they would start looking for a killer with a similar background. If they then tried to find out if any of Pedersen’s former pupils had been present at Grünerhjemmet on the day in question, they would finally get a hit with Markus Gjerløw. Remi Gulliksen, as he had signed himself in the visitors’ log, had never been one of Pedersen’s pupils. Remi Winsnes, however, was the name he had been known by until he turned eighteen.
The laptop arrangement was also straightforward. Markus, who always had to have the latest thing, didn’t mind selling his old laptop to Remi, a laptop Remi made sure to load with photos of Johanne and pictures taken in Erna Pedersen’s room. If the police checked if the laptop really belonged to Markus, then they would find his name registered against the computer’s serial number. All the evidence would point them to a man who, about to be exposed, had swallowed a blister pack of morphine capsules. Once again Remi saw the light extinguished in the eyes of someone he hated. And, as the perfect finish, Remi posted an apology on Markus’s Facebook profile, a message that remained une
xplained.
It was perfect, wasn’t it?
So why are the police outside now?
Johanne’s murder, Remi thinks. Could Markus have had an alibi? Remi shakes his head. Halo 3 had just come out and Markus would have done nothing but play the game and play it 24/7. When Killzone 2 came out, he didn’t sleep for two days. Remi doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks it was even worse with Crysis. It was a risk, obviously, but Remi sent a text to Markus just before he went to Johanne’s flat to ask what he was doing. The reply was as he expected: Markus was playing on the computer. “Hate the graphics, but love the sound.” Everything was as it should be.
So what had he got wrong?
Not that it really matters now. There are only two ways out of this situation: either with his hands above his head or staring up at the inside of a body bag.
So what do you choose?
He picks up the phone from the worktop, presses the green button, and puts it to his ear. He hears white noise and senses tension. It takes a few seconds before someone says, “Hi.”
The voice sounds different, but he knows who it is.
“This is Trine Juul-Osmundsen, justice secretary.”
It feels weird to hear the voice of a public figure he has never met in real life. But everyone in Jessheim knows who she is as she comes from Kløfta and would often be seen in Jessheim when she was young. The local newspapers have followed her political career from the start. Somehow Remi feels that he knows her and right now he doesn’t want to talk to a total stranger.
“You wanted me to come,” Trine says in a slightly harsh tone of voice that startles him. “And here I am. It’s my understanding that you haven’t met the demand I made. If you want something, Remi, then you have to give something. This means that if we’re to continue with this, talking, I mean, you and me, then you have to show good faith. You have to give me something in return.”
Remi snorts, but takes care that no sound escapes his nostrils. In view of the mess Trine Juul-Osmundsen has gotten herself into, he might have expected her to understand. But no. Instead, he has to give her something.
He knows what will happen if he does. The moment he opens the door, the police will storm the house and overpower him.
There is no way he will give her anything.
“How many people are inside with you?”
Too many, Remi thinks to himself while he shakes his head.
“I want you to release one of the hostages, Remi. No more, no less.”
Remi snorts again.
This was a mistake, he thinks. The day has been full of mistakes. And he knows what the rest of his life will be like. First he will be remanded in custody, then there will be mass vilification in the media and meetings with his lawyers in prison, and finally the trial. Even if they let him out in twenty years, everyone will know who he is and what he did. That’s no kind of life.
So what do you choose?
He looks at the gun. Then he gets up.
“No,” he says, picking up the gun. He looks at Emilie.
“What did you say?” Trine asks.
“I won’t be releasing anyone.”
“You have to,” she protests.
I don’t have to do anything, Remi thinks as he squeezes the gunstock.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says quietly.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s all over now.”
“No, Remi, it isn’t.”
“Yes,” he says, cocking the gun. “It’s over. And now I’m going to kill us all.”
Chapter 81
If anyone were to ask Trine to recount what happened next, she wouldn’t have been able to. Not in detail. She saw Simen Krogh make a thrusting movement with his hand and then she screamed. She doesn’t remember what came out of her mouth, but whatever it was, it must have worked because he stopped and looked at her. And God knows what the hostage negotiator did. But the gunshot never rang out. Nor did the hostage taker hang up.
The hissing from the other end of the phone feels like piercing, high-frequency pain. Trine blinks, tries to focus, and it helps, her vision improves, but she keeps staring at a point in front of her. The hostage negotiator says something to her, but Trine ignores her.
She filters out all noises and tries to imagine Remi Gulliksen and the terrified hostages who are with him inside the house. What they must be going through. Pressing Remi to release a hostage was a mistake.
“Remi,” she says quietly. “I think I know why you wanted me to come.”
And this time she waits until he says something. It’s not much of an answer, but there is a grunt, a signal that he is interested in hearing what she has to say.
“You and I,” she says and waits a little longer again. “We’ve both done something we shouldn’t have. We’ve both been backed into a corner and we’re desperate to find a way out.”
Trine holds another pause; her forehead gets hot.
“I think I know a little about how you feel,” she says and leans forward on her elbows, resting them on her knees. Some hair falls in front of her eyes, but she doesn’t brush it away. She waits a little longer before she says,“I’ve never let anyone dictate to me. I’ve fought injustice wherever I’ve come across it. But I’ve learned something in the last few days, Remi. Or, at least, I think I have. And I understand that sometimes it’s pointless to fight the inevitable. You can stand in the sea with water up to your knees and tell yourself you’ll stay where you are, even if a giant wave comes toward you. But no matter how strong you are, that wave will knock you over.”
Trine pauses.
“Do you understand what I mean, Remi? Do you hear what I’m saying?”
Pause. The silence gnaws at her insides. Trine holds her breath, clutches her fingers.
“I hear you.”
“I’ve got a suggestion,” Trine says, warming to her subject. “I’ve never liked talking on the phone. I prefer being able to look people in the eye. So what I’m going to do now,” she says and looks up for a brief moment at the protests she can read in the faces of the police officers in the mobile incident truck, “is to leave this truck and go and stand outside the house. I want you to walk to a window, so that—”
“Why? So you can take me out?”
“No,” Trine says emphatically. “No one here will shoot you. I give you my word.”
She gets up and brushes off a police officer who tries to stop her.
“If you look up now,” she says, taking a step down on to the tarmac outside the truck, “then you’ll see me. I’d really like to be able to see you, too, Remi.”
There is silence.
Trine scans every window for signs of movement. She sees nothing. Hears nothing.
Then a curtain twitches.
“Like that, yes,” she says and feels a sense of agitation. She notices that it has started to rain, a soft, cool drizzle that lowers the temperature in her head and makes it easier to think. “And I’d like to see the whole of you. Do you think you can do that for me?”
Remi makes no reply. But soon she sees the face of a man with dark eyes. The raindrops settle like tiny pearls on her glasses, but she can still see him clearly.
“Hi,” she says and smiles. “Good to see you.”
No response.
“What I wanted to tell you,” she continues and locks eyes with Remi, “is that I’ve realized that I have to let it happen. There’s nothing I can do to make this . . . giant wave . . . disappear.”
Trine loses the thread for a moment. She shakes her head and a thought occurs to her. The fighter in her miraculously returns. There is no way she will accept that the winner takes all. There is no way she will be the only one who takes a beating. She will dish one out as well.
She feels all eager and excited, but then her mind returns to the situation in hand.
“Remi, I know it’s tempting to just wait for the wave to sweep you away. God knows the thought has crossed my mind, too, more than once. I’ve raged at the people who made my life difficult and caused me pain, but at some point you have to let go of the past and start looking forward.”
Trine tries to see through her misted-up glasses. It is becoming increasingly difficult.
“And I think starting with an apology is a good thing. Apologies matter, Remi. It’s a—”
“What did you say?”
“Eh?”
“I said what did you say?”
Remi’s voice has grown harsher.
“I said it’s important to say you’re sorry. It’s the cornerstone of every human relationship.”
“Don’t talk to me about apologies.”
“Why n—”
“You know nothing about apologies.”
Trine is temporarily off-guard.
“No, perhaps I don’t,” she says and tries to find Remi’s eyes through the beads of moisture on her glasses. “But I know it’s a thin line between love and hate. And I’m absolutely sure that you loved Emilie once, Remi, and that perhaps you still do. It’s easy to love and to hate. But forgiving someone might well be the hardest thing of all. And I’m not saying that you have to forgive the people who ruined your life, because no one can demand to be forgiven. But nor do I think you can force someone to apologize. If you say you’re sorry, then you have to mean it. And you yourself have to recognize that you did something wrong and you must truly want to make amends. Wouldn’t you agree with me, Remi?”
There is silence again. Trine listens out for the sound of his breathing, but all she can hear is white noise. Then he moves away from the window.
“Remi?”
No reply.
“Remi, are you there?”