Scarred

Chapter 92

Henning wakes up with a jerk, not entirely sure where he is. Then he recognises the walls of his living room, the ceiling, the matchbox and the Coke can on the table next to the sofa. And before he has opened his eyes properly, it comes back to him, the events of the last five days, everything he has found out. The past has risen like a multi-headed hydra and it bites and snaps at him from all sides.

Henning looks at the clock on his mobile and sees that much of the day has passed already. Fortunately he agreed with Heidi Kjus last night that he can come into the office late today. So he takes a long shower while he makes up his mind to deal with one question at a time. If the East Europeans who terrified the living daylights out of Andreas Kjær have links to Ørjan Mjønes, then someone must know who they are. As long as I get a name, Henning thinks, then I’ll be able to track them down.

Henning has just switched on the kettle when his mobile beeps. He checks the message, sees that it is from the 123news breaking news service.

Truls Ove Henriksen has been appointed as the new Justice Secretary following the resignation of Trine Juul-Osmundsen. Henriksen, who comes from Tromsø, was previously a political adviser.

Henning has barely heard of Henriksen, but he still clicks on the link that follows the text message. The main text doesn’t add much more information about the appointment itself, but Henning notices that Harald Ullevik, considered by many to be Trine’s obvious successor, has resigned with immediate effect. No reasons given other than he ‘has decided to leave the government’.

Henning smiles; he would love to be a fly on the wall in the Justice Department right now, but he has more important things to do.

Bjarne Brogeland’s voice is sleepy when Henning finally gets hold of him. He, too, would appear to be taking it easy today.

‘Thanks for yesterday,’ Henning says.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘I’m glad it ended the way it did.’

‘Mm.’

‘I’ve just got one question for you. The Swedish Albanian criminals Ørjan Mjønes used to work with. Have you caught them yet?’

Brogeland doesn’t reply immediately.

‘You’re calling to ask me that now?’

‘Yes.’

Again it takes a while before Brogeland says anything. Henning hears him yawn.

‘Rough night?’

‘Are you sure that it’s morning?’

‘Quite.’

‘Right, the Swedish Albanians,’ Brogeland says. ‘I can double-check for you, but the last time we spoke about them, they were lying low. I guess most of them have left Norway.’

‘Scared that they would be banged up as well?’

‘Probably.’

‘So, in theory, they could be anywhere.’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Okay,’ Henning sighs and they hang up.

But even if they have gone underground, Henning thinks, it must still be possible to find them. It’s just a matter of asking the right people.

Chapter 93

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?