Scarred (33 page)

Bjarne lay in his bed all night, wide awake, staring at the ceiling. At one point he got up, went to his study and sat down with the application he had prepared for Vestfold Police. He reread his bombastic statements, ambitions and visions. Then he scrunched up the pages and threw them in the wastepaper basket.

Now he walks into the kitchen where Alisha sits on her Tripp Trapp chair doing everything but what she was supposed to do, which is to eat her breakfast. He stops and gazes at her tenderly.

So big and yet still so small.

And he doesn’t know if there is any point in him trying to explain to her why the evenings come and go without him being there for her bedtime. But he owes it to her to try, perhaps tonight, even though he isn’t sure he knows the answer himself. If what he does makes a difference, if he helps make Oslo safer.

‘Hi, girls,’ he says and walks across to the cupboard by the window and takes out a bottle. He removes a few more until he finds the one he is looking for. Unopened and dusty. With a well-aimed puff he blows away a layer of grey household dirt and looks at the brown contents of the bottle that bears the good old Norwegian name Braastad Cognac.

‘What are you doing with that?’ Anita asks, sounding alarmed. ‘Surely you’re not going to drink cognac at this hour?’

‘Of course not,’ Bjarne says and laughs, then he rubs his eyes and stretches his hands high above his head. He finds a bag for the bottle.

‘Where are you going?’

Bjarne gives her a kiss on the cheek and is still smiling when he says: ‘I’m off to see a friend.’

It is early evening when Henning makes another visit to the building where his mother lives, but this time he doesn’t let himself into her flat. Instead he knocks on her neighbour’s door. He hears footsteps and the door opens. The caretaker Karl Ove Marcussen, a man with a beer belly, thin longish hair and six-day-old stubble that gives his face scattered patches of colour, looks him up and down.

‘Hi,’ Henning says. ‘I’m Christine’s son.’

He jerks a thumb in the direction of his mother’s front door.

‘Ah,’ Marcussen says and nods. ‘You rang me the other day.’

‘That’s right.’

Marcussen nods again. His stomach wobbles.

‘What the hell happened to your face?’

‘Microlight flight accident,’ Henning replies. ‘Dangerous things.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘Thanks for doing me that favour I asked you for. I don’t think my mother has been listening to the radio or watched TV in the last few days. But it’s safe again now.’

‘So you want me to reconnect—’

‘Yes, please. It would be great if you could, so she can carry on destroying her hearing. But here,’ Henning says as he hands him a bag from an unnamed shop with black windows he visited on his way here.

‘A contribution to your collection, in recognition of all your help.’

The caretaker hoicks up his trousers, takes the bag and looks inside it. He smiles when he sees what kind of movies they are. He is about to thank him, when Henning holds up his palms.

‘Don’t mention it.’

Henning makes a Scouts salute to Karl Ove Marcussen, thanks him again and starts making his way home. But as he realises it is coming up for 8.30 p.m., he is reminded of something his mentor Jarle Høgseth would often do when he was stuck on a story. He would return to the scene of the crime, usually at the same time as the crime had been committed, to take in the mood, see if a detail that wasn’t clear when there were police cordons everywhere might suddenly stand out. And the fire brigade’s report stated that the police had received a call about the fire in Henning’s flat at 20.35.

So he walks back to his old flat and stops outside the entrance he would so often go in and out of, usually accompanied by Jonas. He looks around and tries to work out where Tore Pulli must have parked in order to keep an eye on the building’s front door. There are several possibilities on both sides of the street. And Henning realises how suspicious Pulli’s presence must have seemed to the sharp-eyed traffic warden who saw him sitting in his car in roughly the same place several nights in a row and why the traffic warden alerted the police.

Henning walks up and down the street, meets some people in party clothes with bottles that clink in carrier bags, a woman pushing a pram, and sees cars whose suspensions groan as they go over the speed bumps.
If I’d been Tore Pulli
, Henning thinks,
and I’d been sitting in my car, what would be my reason for being there? And why did Pulli get in touch with me while he was in prison? After all, we had never had anything to do with each other before the fire
.

Once again he comes to the same conclusion: Pulli was watching him. And that’s when Henning gets a flash of inspiration. If
he
had been watching someone, how would he have gone about it?

He would have mapped that person’s movements. Made notes. Taken pictures.

What if Tore Pulli did the same?

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 materialised, 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?

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 Club House. 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 East 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 which makes him leap up.

Quickly he walks down from the seating planks, along the tarmac and through Birkelunden Park. He realises 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 recognised feelings he’d had, thoughts he 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 realises 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 build up between his fingers and spread 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 realises 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 towards 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 shrivelled, 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.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Also by Thomas Enger

BURNED

PIERCED

First published in 2014
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2014
 

Originally published in Norway as
Blodtåke
by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag in 2013
 

Typeset by Faber and Faber Ltd.
All rights reserved
© Thomas Enger, 2014
Translation © Charlotte Barslund, 2014
 

Cover photograph © Jessica Islam Lia / Getty.
Match image © Kesu / Shutterstock
 

The right of Thomas Enger to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
 

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
 

ISBN
978–0–571–27250–1