by Thomas Enger
Nora nodded slowly as she thought this through.
‘What do the rest of her family say about it? Do they think it’s the right way to go?’
‘They don’t know that I’m here.’
Nora pushed out her chin.
‘And I don’t care what they think. Henrik and I are closest to her, we’re her immediate family, and we have to find out what’s happened to her. If Hedda is dead, I’d like to be able to visit a grave. The rest of the family couldn’t disagree with that.’
There was a half-full jug of water in the middle of the table, with a stack of plastic glasses beside it. Refsdal stood up, reached out for the water and poured himself a glass, looking at Nora to see if she wanted any.
‘I think that’s been there since yesterday,’ she said.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, and emptied the glass in a few swift gulps.
Nora carried on: ‘Has there been any activity on Hedda’s mobile phone or email accounts since she disappeared? I’m assuming the police have checked?’
Refsdal swallowed and sat down. ‘Nothing,’ he said, drying his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘What about money? Did she make any withdrawals before she went missing?’
He shook his head. ‘I did ask if she was going to get any euros before she left, but she said that she could sort that out down there. In Italy.’
Clearly a lie, Nora thought to herself. She realised that she was becoming increasingly curious as to why Hedda had lied about a trip she was never going to make, especially as she then promptly disappeared.
‘So Hedda has left no data traces from the day you drove her to the airport until now?’
Refsdal shook his head in silence.
Nora activated the screen on her mobile phone and saw that she only had four minutes left until the morning meeting. She took a deep breath and said: ‘I’m going to be honest with you, Hugo. On first impressions, I would say the police were right. Not a single email, no movement in her bank account…’
‘But her father’s death wouldn’t have made her that depressed…’ Refsdal stood up again. His cheeks were flushed now. ‘Oscar had been ill for some time, and not only that – Hedda has a son, and I’m sure she would never abandon him of her own free will.’
Nora looked up at him with sympathetic eyes. ‘I realise that you still have hope, Refsdal, but—’
‘It’s not a matter of hope,’ he interrupted. ‘I have slowly started to accept that I may never get Hedda back, but I have to find out what happened to her.’
Nora stood up as well. ‘So what do you think has happened then? You clearly don’t believe she’s disappeared of her own free will. Did someone abduct her at Gardermoen, in front of thousands of potential witnesses?’
The first of the managers looked in through the window.
‘I don’t know,’ was Refsdal’s muted response. ‘I really don’t know. All I know is that, when Henrik goes to bed at night and wonders where his mum is, I have nothing to tell him that makes any sense.’
Nora looked at him, could understand how he felt, and yet at the same time couldn’t. For two years, she had found it hard to understand that Jonas was dead. And even though she knew that something that was in some way related to Henning had happened, she couldn’t get past the paralysing grief. She couldn’t bear to think about whose fault it was. It was no one’s fault, and it was everyone’s fault. Nothing could make Jonas come back, anyway.
She picked up her phone from the table. ‘I’m sure I can do a good article for the paper and internet editions. I’ll ask anyone who was at Gardermoen that day to come forward if they saw her; and anyone else who knows anything, for that matter. Something might turn up.’
Refsdal nodded enthusiastically.
‘But, before I do that,’ Nora said and looked him straight in the eye, ‘I need to know that you are one hundred per cent certain about doing it. The article will put a lot of pressure on everyone who knows you – your son included. Other newspapers, magazines, television, radio will probably contact you. Are you ready for that?’
Refsdal gave her a hard look and balled his fists so tight his knuckles turned white.
‘I’m ready for it. I’m prepared to do whatever it takes, as long as I get an answer I can at least try to live with.’
‘Good,’ Nora said, and took a step towards the door. ‘Do you have a car?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Did you come here by car?’ she asked over her shoulder.
‘Yes, I…’
‘Excellent,’ she said, and put her hand on the door handle. ‘Let’s go for a drive then. I’ll just pick up my camera first.’
2
The clean, shiny Skoda zipped silently down the motorway. Fields flashed by outside the window, flat and brownish-yellow; the trees lining the road over Gjelleråsen towards Nittedal were dark and sad. The sky above was a uniform grey. It felt to Nora as though it might rain at any moment. Yet she longed to be out in the fresh air, to get out of the stuffy car that smelt of old aftershave, away from the forgotten child’s sweater on the back seat that made her feel queasy.
Thinking about Hedda helped.
‘Tell me about her family,’ she asked as they passed a large warehouse, pallets of plastic-packaged products standing outside. Refsdal turned down the volume on the radio by running his thumb over a small ball on the wheel.
‘How much do you know from before?’ he asked.
‘Not a lot, really. Hedda never talked much about her family. But I do know they were pretty wealthy and had some land and gold here and there. They even had a coat of arms, if I’m not mistaken.’
Refsdal nodded, put a hand on the gearstick. His wedding ring made a small clack sound.
‘They’re not aristocracy or anything like that,’ he said. ‘It was Hedda’s great-grandfather who bought the coat of arms not long after the war.’ He rolled his eyes.
‘You can do that?’
‘You can. That sort of thing was important to Great-Grandfather Hellberg. He was a lawyer.’
Nora nodded pensively. ‘You said that Nora’s father died. Is her mother still alive?’
‘Oh yes,’ Refsdal replied. ‘Unni is still very much alive, no doubt about that.’
The car accelerated a little.
‘Oscar and Unni didn’t exactly have the best relationship,’ he told her. ‘They had separate bedrooms, among other things. And they never went on holiday together or anything like that. I don’t think she visited him much in the hospital towards the end. She couldn’t face it, she said – as though she was the one you should feel sorry for.’
They passed an articulated lorry, with only a few centimetres to spare. Its backdraught made Nora feel that it was about to topple over.
‘What does she do?’
‘Unni, you mean? Or Hedda?’
‘Both, for that matter,’ Nora said, and started to pick at a broken nail.
‘Hedda has been a wine importer for a few years now,’ Refsdal said. ‘Her own company. And Unni worked in the family business, looking after the accounts – but now she’s a full-time widow. Whatever that may entail.’ Again, he rolled his eyes.
‘And the family business is…’
‘Hellberg Property. They have property all over Vestfold – developing and selling. Hedda’s older brother, William, is the director of both departments.’
The car overtook a big Mercedes towing a cream cabin-cruiser. Money on wheels, Nora mused; she couldn’t remember the last time she had been on a boat.
‘But Hedda was never interested in working there?’
‘She might well have been, but Hedda, well, she would rather be her own boss, if you know what I mean. She wanted to try and make it on her own.’
Another memory of Hedda popped into Nora’s head. In one of their lectures, they had been asked to write four sentences that summarised the contents of a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A Norwegian family had been involved in an acc
ident in Thailand, and Hedda had insisted on naming the spokesperson from the local police – a name that meant nothing to Norwegians, a name they would forget as soon as they heard it – instead of just saying a spokesperson from the police in Bangkok. When the lecturer pointed out that everyone else in the class agreed, Hedda simply refused to accept it, then stormed out of the classroom and didn’t come back until the following day.
‘How was her company doing?’
Refsdal waited a moment before answering: ‘The wine business is very competitive,’ he started. ‘She decided to give it a try after a holiday in Italy. She fell totally in love with a wine we had there, but it wasn’t possible to get it here. So it more or less became her mission in life to have it included in the Vinmonopolet selection. And she succeeded, but it was dropped again six months later after a couple of bad reviews in the papers. Even though people could still order it, Hedda was left with a lot of boxes that she struggled to sell. They’re still standing in a storage space she rents in Tønsberg.’
‘I see,’ Nora said.
‘She’s tried to sell it at various fairs, and approached all kinds of hotel and restaurant chains, but you have to pay your way into that market. And Hedda couldn’t afford to do that.’
‘So she didn’t get any financial help from the family to get started?’
Refsdal shook his head. ‘As I said, she liked to do things her own way.’
The yellow line along the edge of the road was wide, and drew Nora’s attention. After a few hundred metres, she forced herself to look at something else; it was as if she was being hypnotised.
‘Did she inherit any money from her father?’
Refsdal glanced over at her again.
‘I only ask because money, or a lack of money, is often what drives people to suicide.’
Refsdal had his eyes on the road again. He drummed his index finger against the steering wheel.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She probably did.’
Nora turned to look at him. ‘You don’t know?’
He held back for a moment.
‘Hedda didn’t want to go into details,’ he said at last. ‘And I didn’t feel it was right to pry about money and things like that, given the situation. But even after my father-in-law had died, we talked about the possibility of selling the house and moving.’
‘And she didn’t say how much she’d inherited? How much she had to play with?’
Refsdal shook his head.
Nora nodded again. She waited a good while before asking her next question.
‘What was your relationship like?’
‘Mine and Hedda’s?’
She gave an encouraging nod. Refsdal took his time.
‘Well, it was…’ He reconsidered. ‘We had our problems, of course, just like everyone else, but we’ve never talked about separating.’
Nora thought about herself and Iver for a moment. She had never felt any particular joy at being with him, but then she wasn’t sure what that word meant any more. She definitely had feelings for him, but how deep did they run? How important were they?
‘Hedda had another brother as well, didn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ Refsdal confirmed. ‘Patrik. He works for a pharmacy company in Oslo. I reckon he travels more in a year than the prime minister.’
Nora let out a quick laugh.
‘And how did the brothers take their father’s death?’
Refsdal cocked his head to the left, and then to the right. ‘With composure, I would say. Or … I don’t know really, I was more concerned about looking after Hedda. But when they carried the coffin out, they were crying like everyone else.’
He moved back into the inside lane. Nora looked out of the window at the fields and trees, saw several rows of houses in a dip between Olavsgaard and the turnoff to Skedsmo. They all looked the same. As though a child had been given a Lego set and been told to build a town but had only used one kind of brick.
‘I need the phone numbers of everyone you think Hedda may have spoken to in the weeks before she disappeared,’ Nora said.
Refsdal pulled his fingers through his hair again.
‘Does she have a best friend?’
‘Kristin Theodorsen,’ he said, and coughed discreetly into his hand. ‘She lives in Tønsberg.’
‘OK, good. Then I’ve got something to start with.’
They drove for some kilometres without saying anything. Nora looked out of the window again, watching the world pass by. The only sound was that of the wheels running over the asphalt. An airport express train rushed past in the opposite direction. It looked like a furious snake moving with determination.
‘You said that there were no electronic traces of Hedda,’ she remarked after a while. ‘Does that mean the police have looked through her computer?’
Refsdal shook his head. ‘Because they don’t suspect anything criminal, they didn’t check it. I’ve had a look myself, but didn’t find anything of particular interest.’
‘Did you check the recycling bin? Old log files?’
He hesitated slightly.
‘Please do,’ Nora said. ‘There might be something that can tell us where she is, or what’s happened to her.’
They passed the fields outside Langelandsåsen near Jessheim. Two deer were grazing by the edge of the forest. Nora watched them until they disappeared behind a hill.
Soon they pulled up in front of Departures at Oslo Airport. When the car came to a stop and Refsdal had put it into neutral, he gripped the steering wheel with both hands and looked straight ahead. The car was filled with the noise of a plane landing and the reverse thrust. In front of them, a car boot opened. It was full of suitcases and bags. A little girl jumped out of the car, her eyes gleaming with excitement. She had a doll in her hand.
Nora got out her camera, looked over at Refsdal and put her hand on his arm.
‘I know this is hard,’ she said, sympathetically. ‘But I promise you, it will be a good article. People will read it. So let’s just hope that someone has seen Hedda.’
3
The Zippo lighter felt like a friend in his hand. As though it belonged there.
Henning Juul slid his thumb over the spark wheel, slowly to begin with, then in one quick movement. A yellow flame appeared and danced teasingly in front of him.
He looked at it, then closed the lighter.
There was a time when he couldn’t even look at flames, when the very thought of lighting a match made him sweat. But he had persevered all the same, every day, until he managed it. And once he had done it, he felt lighter; he could see more clearly, it was easier to breathe. As though a physical weight had been lifted from his body.
Henning flipped open the lighter again, lit it: the sharp sound mixing with the soft drumming on the windscreen. He extinguished the flame. Lit it. Extinguished it and lit it, several times, sat there staring at the dancing yellow tongues while he waited for Geir Grønningen, Tore Pulli’s best friend, to appear.
Henning was sitting in a car that he’d found on finn.no, and had bought more or less the same day. It was yellow and just the right size, just the right age. He needed a reliable form of transport that would keep him warm when the rain fell steadily, night and day, when people wrapped themselves up in thick clothes and struggled to see how they would cope with the cold months that were rapidly approaching. Henning loved his ancient Vespa, but it was no match for King Winter.
He closed the lighter, put it away in the centre console and turned on the windscreen wipers. Looking up, he caught sight of himself in the rear-view mirror.
‘Are you a killer?’ he asked himself.
That was what she had said, his mother, the last time he had been to see her. That Henning was responsible for his father dying too young – at the age of forty-four. Henning had no idea what she meant. He couldn’t remember much about that day, other than that he went into the bathroom in the morning to find his sister, Trine, sitting on the floor hugging her knees. She looked at him, p
ointed to the bedroom door and said: ‘He’s dead.’
How the hell could he have killed his own father? He was only sixteen at the time.
Henning was plagued by so many thoughts and questions, but there was no point in asking her, Christine – his emphysema-ridden, alcoholic mother. She had refused to explain herself, just closed down, as she always did when he wanted an answer.
Henning knew that he would have to stock up her fridge again soon, buy her cigarettes and some bottles of St Hallvard liqueur, do the washing up, hoovering, laundry. Trine never went to see her. And now she had escaped to the Bahamas for some peace after the scandal that had forced her to step down as Minister of Justice.
Henning looked away from the mirror. He had enough problems as it was. Sometimes the nights went on forever; he couldn’t close his eyes without reliving it all – the smoke billowing towards him and the intense stinging in his eyes; Jonas’s screams from the room engulfed in flames; the heat that hit him like a wall; his skin and hair catching fire when he galvanised himself to jump through the angry, snaking, yellow-orange arms.
Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat, the smell of burned hair and skin tearing at his nose. He heard sirens and thought that they were coming to get him where he lay in the backyard, unable to move his body, unable to understand how you could possibly hold your son in your arms and still not be able to save him.
That was two years ago.
Two years since he and Jonas came home after school, lit the fire, had tomato soup and macaroni for supper, with three boiled eggs – two for Henning and one, minus the yolk, for Jonas – and then did what they always did on a normal Tuesday: played Funny Bunny until Jonas won; did a hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle with the picture of a killer whale and two seals; and then watched a bit of TV. There wasn’t time to fit much more into that day. And even though they were indoors, Henning hadn’t been able to get rid of the chill in his bones from earlier in the day when he had stood for hours outside a block of flats in Lambertseter where a woman had been found dead.