Scarred (23 page)

Heidi Kjus marches towards Henning as he is about to help himself to a cup of freshly brewed coffee to take back to his desk. Her speed does not bode well.

‘Where have you been?’ she barks and stops right in front of him.

‘I had to return the hire car,’ he says.

‘I thought you were working on the Bislett murder?’

‘I am.’

‘They’ve got him,’ she announces.

‘Got who?’

‘The man who killed Johanne Klingenberg. He has been found dead. Suicide, I believe.’

Henning blows carefully into the cup and walks past her on his way back to his desk.

‘Great, so the case has been solved then.’

Heidi doesn’t say anything immediately, but she follows him.

‘I had hoped that we could write our own story,’ she says. ‘All we have so far are five lines from NTB. You know I hate using agency material.’

‘Mm,’ Henning says. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Okay, fine. And it wouldn’t hurt if you went out and took some pictures, either.’

Henning sits down, runs his hands over his face and is struck by a sudden realisation. He is actually missing Iver Gundersen. Iver could have shared the workload with him or at least he would have had a sparring partner. Too much is happening at once.

But he has to prioritise and right now helping Trine is more important, even though he hasn’t decided what to do with his discovery. It’s not proof as such, but it should give Trine the ammunition she needs to fight back. The question now is how to communicate it to her and if she will even listen to him.

Even so, Henning makes a quick call to the duty crime editor and gets a summary of what happened at Grorud. He pads out the NTB story and inserts his own byline even though it goes against the grain when he is so far behind the other reporters. He also rings Bjarne Brogeland, but his call goes straight through to voicemail.

Right, I’ve done everything I can on that story
, he says to himself.
At least for now
.

Now what do I do about Trine?

Perhaps I could give the information to a colleague
, he thinks.
Is there anyone here who could make use of the damning evidence I’ve found?

He shakes his head. The story is too important for him to delegate it. And if it’s to have any impact at all he needs irrefutable, physical proof, legally acquired. Trine is Justice Secretary, after all. Secondly, he must make sure that she is informed, preferably without revealing his own involvement. Trine made it clear that she didn’t want his help, a point she emphasised with a hard stare.

How does he do that?

He can’t go to the police, either. They need reasonable grounds to subpoena the records from Eiksmarka Internet café.

And one big obstacle remains, the biggest of them all: Trine must be willing to face her accusers. There has been no sign of it so far and Henning has no idea why. And as long as he doesn’t understand that, it’s impossible to know if what he has found out will help her.

You’ll just have to risk it
, he says to himself.
Trine deserves to know who is trying to ruin her career. Then it’s up to her what she does with the information.

Trine takes a deep breath and keeps her eyes firmly on her front door. She knows that the moment she leaves the car, it will be impossible to hear anything other than a cacophony of noise. Questions will be fired at her, it will be claustrophobic. But she will just have to get through it.

She braces herself and shuts everything out. While a blitz of flashlights turns the front door blinding white, she keeps telling herself that she will be inside her own home in a moment.

Pål Fredrik is waiting for her in the doorway. He ushers her in and closes the door behind them. But the sound of the media scrum continues to penetrate both the keyhole and the air-conditioning ducts.

She looks at him. He looks back at her.

‘Hello,’ she says at last, quietly.

But Pål Fredrik says nothing. He just comes closer and stands right in front of her. Then he pulls her towards him. And Trine disappears into his arms. Rests her head against his chest. Hears his heartbeat. Her big, strong man. She could try pushing him away, but she knows that he wouldn’t budge an inch.

They stand like this for a long time without saying anything. Finally, she takes a step back from him.

‘How are you?’ he asks and helps her take off her jacket.

‘How are you?’ she counters.

He smiles feebly.

‘I’ve been better.’

‘Me too.’

They exchange quick and guarded smiles.

Trine enters the living room first; she stops when she sees the soft lighting. The dining table is set for two. A bottle of red wine is open and breathing.

‘I’ve had a go at cooking,’ he says.

Trine blows air through her nostrils and smiles tenderly.

‘You know what a great cook I am,’ he quips.

Trine can’t help laughing.

‘It’ll be ready in ten minutes, I think. Or it will be if Nigella knew what she was doing when she wrote this book.’

Trine had forgotten how good it feels to laugh, how good it is to be home. How much she loves this handsome man, how much she longs to give him everything he wants, right now, because he is so kind to her. Because he doesn’t press her for answers, but is willing to wait until she is ready.

They eat slowly while they talk about work. That is to say, Pål Fredrik talks and Trine listens. She takes a few bites of the marinated chicken, sips the chambré wine. But though she tries, she can’t manage to eat very much. Eating doesn’t feel right. Nor does drinking or talking. To think about what she has done and look him in the eye at the same time is torture.

You can’t tell him
, she thinks to herself.
You just can’t
.

After dinner they sit down on the sofa with some more wine. Listen to music. Chet Baker. Trine has never liked jazz all that much, but the sensitive trumpet-playing goes well with the soft lighting. They don’t turn on the TV. They don’t ask each other anything. Their teeth turn dark blue, but when Pål Fredrik returns with another bottle of red wine, there is a harder and more determined quality to his footsteps.

‘I have a plan,’ he announces and sits down. ‘I’m going to get you very drunk.’

He isn’t smiling or laughing. The light in his eyes bores into hers.

‘But it’s not so that you’ll blurt out the truth. I’m actually not that interested in what the papers say. I believe you when you say that you didn’t do the things they’re accusing you of.’

He pauses before he goes on.

‘But we’ve been married quite a long time now, Trine. And though I might know you better than anyone, I don’t think I can say that I know you all that well.’

Trine bows her head.

‘We live our lives in the public eye. I signed up for it, I’ve enjoyed it. But not any more. Not after this. You owe me much more explanation than what’s written in the papers, Trine.’

He pauses again.

‘I’ll only say this to you once.’

He waits until she looks up at him.

‘I love you. I’ll probably always love you. But if you want me to stay, then you have to give me all of you. I want all of you. It’s about time that you tell me who you really are, Trine. Who Trine Juul is. Who Trine Juul was before she met me.’

He tries to penetrate her gaze, but she shuts him out.

‘You can start by telling me about your family,’ he says firmly. ‘Tell me about your parents. Tell me about Henning. What happened to you? Why are you no longer in touch?’

Trine lifts her head and looks at him anxiously.

‘Henning?’ she says. ‘Have you been talking to him?’

Pål Fredrik is about to reply, but he stops. And Trine sees that she is right.

‘He came to me, Trine. He also sent me a text message last night to tell me that he’d found you and that you were still alive.’

Trine stands and starts walking over to the living-room window. She turns her back to him. Pål Fredrik doesn’t follow her. Trine stops at the piano.

‘He was only trying to help you,’ Pål Fredrik says and gets up. ‘And now you’re doing it again.’

He comes over to her.

‘Every time I ask you about Henning and your family, you shut me out. I asked Henning why, but he says he has no idea why the two of you fell out. So what’s really going on here?’

She spins around to face him.

‘Is that what he said? That he doesn’t know?’

‘Yes.’

Again, she walks away from him, but Pål Fredrik follows her. Neither of them says anything for a long time. He positions himself in front of her, takes her by the shoulders and tries to look into her eyes. She can’t manage to look back at him so she wriggles free and goes over to her wine glass and swallows a big gulp. She puts down the glass hard.

Pål Fredrik continues to follow her. He says nothing. He just looks at her.

Trine thinks about all the things she doesn’t want to think about. Events she has been trying to forget. What she saw that night. The subject of some of her nightmares.

It takes a long time before she can look at him.

‘I’ve never told anyone,’ she begins. ‘And you must take this with you to your grave. Will you promise me that?’

Pål Fredrik nods quickly.

Trine sighs and drinks another mouthful of wine. She massages her temples. Then she sits down. The room is silent. Chet Baker stopped playing long ago.

She lowers her gaze. She knows she won’t be able to look at him while she talks. So she picks a spot on the coffee table in front of her. And she says: ‘I’ve told you about my dad?’

Pål Fredrik nods.

‘He died when I was fifteen years old.’

She can barely hear her own voice. She pauses again.

‘You want to know why we don’t talk to each other in my family?’ she says and looks at Pål Fredrik. ‘Why I can’t bear to have anything to do with Henning?’

Pål Fredrik nods again.

‘I need to tell you a couple of things about my dad.’

Henning stays at the office until late that afternoon. He spends most of his time in the small telephone cubicle where he can talk undisturbed.

He finally realised who to call. And when he has finished, he has a good feeling about it. Things have been set in motion. He has done everything he can do. The rest is up to Trine.

There are still people left in the office, but most have gone home. Henning sits down in his chair, unlocks his mobile and sees to his immense frustration that no one has called him back yet. Neither Ole Christian Sund nor Erna Pedersen’s old neighbours.

But there’s nothing new about that. A journalist casts his line hoping to get a bite. Usually he ends up with nothing.

Henning is about to try Bjarne Brogeland again when a number further down his call list catches his attention. It’s the number for Andreas Kjær. The man who was on duty on the night Henning’s flat burned down.
There was something curt about the way he spoke to me, wasn’t there?
Henning asks himself.
Kjær couldn’t wait to get rid of me especially once I mentioned Tore Pulli’s name
.

And again Henning thinks about priorities. What is more important – the suicide in Grorud or the fire in his own flat?

He puts down the telephone, goes online and discovers that the Kjær family lives in Tåsen Allé. He leaves the office and finds the nearest bus stop.

Forty minutes later Henning is standing on the drive outside a large, red house. The roof tiles might once have been orange, now they are dark brown. The ridge tiles are sagging.

Henning walks past a trailer with a pile of shingle and up some stone steps staying close to the black painted railings, and presses the doorbell. He takes a step back, waits and checks the time on his mobile. 5.30 p.m. No one answers. He rings the bell a couple of times and waits again. He hears no footsteps coming from inside the house.

Henning swears under his breath, then he steps back down on the crunchy gravel in front of the house. He takes a brief moment to decide before he walks out on to the dewy grass, continues past the garage and around to the rear of the house. He stops next to a tall hedge. The smell of freshly mown grass reminds Henning of his childhood garden back in Kløfta, big with lots of pine cones, a peat bog and tall trees.

A boy of twelve or thirteen and wearing the obligatory earphones is raking up the freshly cut grass. Henning holds up his hand, puts on his I’m-not-a-pervert face, but isn’t convinced if the boy is able to see past his scars.

‘Hi,’ Henning mouths.

The boy removes the earphones and grips the rake harder.

‘I wanted a word with your dad. Is he in?’

The boy doesn’t say anything.

‘My name is Henning Juul. I’m a reporter for an Internet newspaper.’

The boy loosens his grip slightly.

‘My dad’s not here,’ he says in a surly voice.

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘At work, I guess. I don’t know.’

Henning nods, irritated with himself for not calling ahead.

‘So you don’t know when he’ll be home?’

‘No.’

‘No, I guess not,’ Henning says while his gaze sweeps across the large garden, the small strawberry patch, the redcurrant bushes, the hedges that provide privacy from the neighbours. He is about to leave when his eyes are drawn to something white sticking out of the ground under one of the cherry trees nearby.

‘Is that for your hamster?’ he asks, pointing to the home-made cross. The boy follows Henning’s finger.

‘No,’ the boy mutters before he carries on raking.

‘It’s our dog.’

The tiny voice makes Henning jump and he turns around abruptly. A little girl, eight years old possibly, is standing right in front of him.

‘We were allowed to bury her over there,’ she says, pointing towards the white cross.

‘Aha?’ Henning replies while he looks at the children in turn. The boy forces the rake angrily across the grass as if scratching an itch.

‘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.