Scarred
Page 32
What if he photographed all the people who entered or left the building that night?
Henning walks as quickly as he can up to his new flat. He sits down at the kitchen table and calls Tore Pulli’s widow, Veronica Nansen, whose delighted voice says that it’s good to hear from him again. And though Henning is sorely tempted to cross-examine her immediately, he takes the time to ask her how she is. After all, it’s only a few weeks since she buried her husband.
“I guess I’m all right,” Veronica says. “All things considered.”
Henning nods; he can’t restrain himself any longer.
“Listen, the reason I’m calling is that there’s something I wanted to ask you. Now, I know that you’re the photographer in your house, but did Tore have a camera as well?”
There is a short silence.
“Yes, he . . . did.”
“Why do you say it like that?” Henning asks.
Veronica Nansen sighs.
“Because someone broke into my flat last week. Stole some camera equipment. Including Tore’s camera.”
Henning stands up.
“It was really quite creepy,” she continues.
“Was anything else taken?” he asks as his hope deflates.
“A few bits and pieces.”
“And the police haven’t caught the people who did it?”
“Oh, the police. I could barely be bothered to report it. They wouldn’t waste their time on it.”
No, Henning thinks. They probably wouldn’t.
“Do you know what kind of pictures were on Tore’s camera?”
“Holiday snaps, I presume. Why do you want to know?”
Henning is tempted to tell her the whole story, but he hasn’t got the energy.
“Do you know if he’d backed up the pictures?”
“We always back up our digital photos, but I’m afraid they stole the backup disks as well. I’m really upset, to put it mildly. My whole life with Tore was on those disks.”
“I understand,” Henning says, resigned.
But he can’t summon up much grief for her loss right now. He can think only of his own. So near and yet so far away. And he knows without a shadow of a doubt that those photos are gone forever.
It has happened again.
And once that thought has materialized, the next one follows close behind. Could that have been the information that was redacted from the Indicia report? That Tore Pulli was sitting outside his flat with a camera? Could that be the information that Andreas Kjær was too scared to tell him?
SATURDAY
Chapter 94
The morning has arrived with an unstable layer of clouds when Henning decides to go out and get some fresh air to clear his head. He spent most of last night on the sofa thinking. Then he got up and meandered around the room for a bit. Did some more thinking. Finally he was on the verge of losing his mind.
He buys himself a cold can of Coke and sits down in his usual spot below Dælenenga Clubhouse. He thinks about Jonas again, about the evidence that slips away the moment he discovers it. Tore Pulli, who might have had photographic proof of who entered Henning’s flat. All gone. And someone with an Eastern European accent who went to the trouble of threatening Andreas Kjær so he wouldn’t disclose whatever it was that he knew. That evidence is probably gone as well. If Henning’s theory about the deleted Indicia report is correct, it might even be that that was the information which Kjær had. That Tore Pulli had taken pictures of the person or persons who set fire to Henning’s flat. He knows it’s a long shot, but right now he is clutching at straws.
As usual he is frustrated with himself for not being able to remember more of the weeks leading up to the fire. He recalls that it said “first and last warning” on the note someone had pinned to the inside of his front door after starting the fire. But a warning against what? Why does his memory keep failing him?
Knowing that his mind has a tendency to short-circuit when confronted with painful or traumatic events, perhaps he should do something about it. Seek professional help? At least he is starting to remember more from his childhood. His memories of Trine have grown more vivid in the last few days.
And that’s the insight that makes him leap up.
Quickly he walks down from the seating planks, along the tarmac and through Birkelunden Park. He realizes that it wasn’t until he started thinking about Trine properly that memories of the life they shared before their father died came back to him. Without even trying to, he grew close to her again, he recognized feelings he’d had, thoughts he’d believed were long forgotten.
It all goes back to the fire, Henning thinks, now getting agitated while at the same time dreading what he has to do next. It’s the fire that is stopping him, the flames that are blocking his memories, and that is why he has to feel them on his body again. Just like his childhood memories started to return when he decided to help Trine.
He runs up the stairs and lets himself into his flat with only one thing on his mind.
To find the damned matchbox.
It is where he has tended to leave it recently, on the small table next to the sofa where he often sleeps. And he sits down, focusing all his attention on the rectangular box from hell, knowing that it contains an arsenal of weapons and that every single one of them is out to get him.
He realizes that he has forgotten to replace the batteries in his smoke alarms, but the moment has passed and he knows it won’t make any difference now. Henning closes his eyes and summons up all the courage he can. Come on, he says to himself, you know what you have to do, just take out a match and strike it.
Henning steels himself before he opens his eyes, shutting out everything but the matchbox. He picks it up and weighs it in his hand before he opens it and sees them lie there, every single one of them. The soldiers from hell.
Henning takes one out; he stares at the slim matchstick, which looks so tiny and innocent between his thumb and index finger. Then he puts the head to the side of the box, holds it there, senses the friction building up between his fingers and spreading to the box, but the matchstick refuses to budge.
Henning pauses before he makes a second attempt, and this time he feels the matchstick scrape against the strip before he lets go. But there is no flame.
Okay, he says to himself. That’s one–all.
He presses the head of the matchstick against the side of the box and again the box nearly wins. But suddenly he realizes that the box and the matchstick are no longer in contact. And what he sees next makes him hold his breath.
A flame.
A proud, bright flame.
He stares at the red-and-orange tongue as it eats its way quietly down the wooden splinter. He can barely believe he has done it. At last he has slain one of his demons. But he still has one lap left. The most difficult. It’s not enough to light the match. His body must feel the flames.
His fingers are starting to hurt as the heat approaches, but he has only one thought in his head and that is to endure. To grit his teeth. Fight his instincts and reflexes, and hold on.
And that is exactly what he does, he clings to the tiny bit of pine that is slowly losing its fight against the flame that creeps ever nearer the end, eating its way toward Henning’s fingers, and he is shouting now, he screams because it hurts so much, it hurts like hell, but he doesn’t let go. Not until the match has burned itself out. And Henning has large, red burns on his index finger and thumb.
He gasps for air. When he opens his eyes again and looks at the shriveled, pathetic remains of a fallen soldier’s brave fight, it is as if a curtain has lifted and the light shines on a blurred image.
And Henning sees.
He sees.
And now he remembers too.
“Tore Pulli,” he mutters as his fingers clench into a fist. “You bastard.”
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About the Author
Thomas Enger is a former journalist and a music composer. He lives in Oslo, Norway.
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