Scarred (8 page)

Bjarne has only just stepped out of the lift on the third floor at Grünerhjemmet when Emil Hagen sees him and signals for him to wait. Bjarne duly stops halfway between the two corridors that run parallel like an H with the TV lounge to the right and the nursing station to the left. Behind a large glass window a woman is concentrating on a computer screen. Its green glare reflects in her glasses.

Hagen, a police officer with short legs and brown spiky hair, ends the call and snaps shut his mobile, then comes towards Bjarne with bouncy trainer steps that squeal against the shiny, polished floor. His jeans fit snugly around his thighs. A black leather jacket envelops taut upper body muscles that strain against a plain white T-shirt.

Emil Hagen joined the Violent Crimes Unit less than three years ago, straight out of the police academy. At first his youthful enthusiasm and naivety might give people the impression that he was head over heels with the profession and the status it gave him. But Bjarne soon realised that there was an entirely different reason for Hagen’s dedication.

Hagen had been brought up in a home without any boundaries, where his parents were rarely present or, if they were there, were rarely sober. Hagen rapidly realised that if he wanted to escape, he had only himself to rely on. He would need to take responsibility for his own life. Work hard at school, look out for himself. And he did it, that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was his sister, Lise Merethe.

Boys quickly discovered her; she would often come home drunk late at night and at the age of sixteen she was well on her way to becoming a fully paid up member of the intravenous drug user community. Hagen grew up as he walked the streets of Oslo trying to save his baby sister from ruin. To no avail. One autumn day in 2005 she was found under a bridge near Oslo’s Stock Exchange. Killed by an overdose. But instead of burying himself in grief, Hagen set to work systematically; caring little for the tough guys he encountered on the drugs scene or how he spoke to them, he just wanted to find the answer to the question of who had sold Lise Merethe the fatal dose.

The dealer in question turned out to be a small fish in a big pond, but Hagen realised something about himself: he had a gene or two that made him well suited for investigative work. The course of the rest of his life had been set. Every day he turns up for work with a resilience and a spring in his step that Bjarne envies him. As if he is still trying to save his sister.

As far as Bjarne is concerned, the reason for his choice of career was nowhere near as noble. For him being a police officer made you a tough guy. As did wearing the uniform, being where the action was, speeding away in a car without worrying about losing your licence. And it was also about the women. For a while everything was about them. He worked out and knew that he looked good; he had the uniform, the handcuffs and the gun – three attributes you can never go wrong with when you’re trying to become an alpha male. A test, however, he has yet to pass when it comes to Ella Sandland.

Now she comes up alongside him while Emil Hagen pushes two pieces of chewing tobacco under his upper lip.

‘The pathologist says the victim was killed sometime between three and six yesterday afternoon,’ he begins. ‘I’ve gone through the visitors’ log and eliminated everyone who came and left before that time. That leaves us with twenty-three potential suspects.’

‘Right,’ Bjarne replies.

‘Yes, this is a big care home. If we were to include everyone who worked here during that slot we’re talking about sixty to seventy people. But I’ve made a list of the twenty-three visitors.’

Hagen hands Bjarne a sheet of paper.

‘The names of anyone who visited someone in Ward 4 in that three-hour window are in bold.’

Bjarne studies the list and recognises the names of several people he spoke to the night before.

‘And the people whose names are followed by “VS” – they’re the ones from the Volunteer Service?’ Bjarne asks.

‘Yes.’

‘We should also take into account that not everyone signs themselves in,’ Ella Sandland interjects. ‘Especially not frequent visitors.’

Bjarne nods.

‘It’s also easy to move between floors here, using either the lift or the stairs,’ Hagen continues. ‘But we’re starting with anyone who is known to have been to Ward 4.’

‘And do you have a list of staff members?’

Hagen nods.

‘Plus the patients, of course.’

‘Okay,’ Bjarne says as he visualises an endless queue of interviewees. ‘Discovered anything interesting yet?’

‘Might have,’ Hagen says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. ‘One of the cleaners told me she heard an argument up here yesterday afternoon. She didn’t know if it was between patients, staff or relatives, but she thought she heard doors slamming. And that it was on this side of the corridor,’ Hagen says, taking a step towards the nursing station and pointing down the corridor in the direction of Erna Pedersen’s room.

‘She couldn’t give me the exact time, but she was sure it was in the afternoon. We haven’t spoken to anyone else so far who has seen or heard anything,’ Hagen finishes and licks his upper lip.

‘Which might suggest that the killer is known to most people here.’

‘You mean he works here?’

‘Could be. If you pass someone you see every day, you don’t really notice them. Take you, for example, I know that you come to get water from the water cooler outside my office every day. If I asked you if the water cooler was half or quarter full, would you be able to tell me?’

Hagen thinks about it for a few moments before he shakes his head.

‘So the killer could have been here so often that people didn’t question his presence.’

‘Or hers,’ Sandland says.

Bjarne raised an eyebrow.

‘Do you really think that a woman could have done this?’

‘Why not? You don’t have to be especially strong to strangle an old woman who was half dead already.’

Bjarne quickly rubs the bridge of his nose.

‘Incidentally, the manager was very chatty about a lot of other problems they’re having here,’ Hagen continues. ‘But I don’t know how important they are.’

Another furrow appears in Bjarne’s brow.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘The question is how relevant they are,’ Hagen muses.

‘Right now everything is relevant. What did he say?’

‘She,’ Hagen says, jutting out his chin a little.

‘Eh?’

‘The manager is a woman.’

‘Oh.’

Hagen looks down at his notes.

‘Her name is Vibeke Schou,’ he informs them. ‘She talked about relatives who moan and complain, patients who steal, broken equipment, medication going missing.’ Hagen throws up his hands. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, everything was a problem. That’s what they call care for the elderly today, eh,’ he tuts and sighs.

‘Medication going missing?’ Bjarne asks.

‘Yes, apparently. But she told me something that is quite interesting now that I think about it. Not all that long ago they had to introduce house rules in the TV lounge over there.’

Hagen points with his thumb over his shoulder.

‘House rules?’ Bjarne says.

‘Yes, about who gets to decide what they watch and when. Some of the men were hogging the remote control a little too much and the women got upset about it. Erna Pedersen was one of them.’

Sandland tries to keep a straight face, but fails to suppress her smile.

‘I can’t imagine that those rules went down terribly well with the men.’

‘No. Especially not with one particular resident, a—’

Hagen glances down at his lists again.

‘Guttorm Tveter,’ he says.

Bjarne looks over at Sandland.

‘I’ll see if I can find him,’ Sandland says.

‘Great,’ Bjarne says.

Sandland walks past both of them, past the TV lounge and turns left into the corridor. Both officers turn to follow her with their eyes. Her uniform seems to fit her figure exactly.

‘Have you seen Daniel Nielsen around?’ Bjarne asks and shakes his head to dispel the image. Hagen licks his lips.

‘Who’s he?’

‘Erna Pedersen’s primary care worker. I’ve tried calling him several times today, but there’s no reply. He’s not returning my calls, either.’

Hagen takes out a fresh sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. His eyes skim it a couple of times before he replies: ‘No. He’s not in today.’

‘Okay,’ Bjarne says and nods. ‘I’ll talk to some of the others instead. Who do you suggest I start with?’

It’s not often that Trine drives herself these days, but it feels good to be behind the wheel again, alone and in perfect silence. The steady sound of tyres against tarmac makes her feel drowsy, something that surprises her. She would never have thought she could feel sleepy now after what has happened and given what she is doing now.

Resign or the truth will come out
.

Replying to that email was not an option. She would never agree to enter into an email exchange that would be difficult to keep private. But neither could she stand staying in her office, being interrupted every five minutes by new problems, new statements, new media stories and new demands. The walls were starting to close in on her. She needed to be alone for a while; she couldn’t bear the thought of fighting her way through a media scrum every time she tried to get in or out of a building. Not without knowing what to say or do.

She told Katarina Hatlem that she thought she had been set up, quite simply because she couldn’t keep her suspicions to herself any longer. But she said nothing about the email because she didn’t want Katarina to initiate her own investigation. Katarina can be quite headstrong once she gets the bit between her teeth.

Trine has a red baseball cap pulled down over her eyes and is wearing different glasses. She takes care not to look at any of the drivers in the oncoming traffic, but she thinks it’s unlikely that anyone would recognise her. She realises how tempting it would be to try to shake off her bodyguards who are in the car behind her, but she daren’t, she can’t. It would have repercussions not just for her, but also for Katarina.

It was Katarina who helped Trine leave the Ministry of Justice unnoticed less than an hour ago through the concrete tunnel under Building R5 where a man was waiting to take her to a hire car in which she drove off. Katarina had also bought some food, clothes and a new mobile phone, since it would be easy for the police to trace Trine’s old one.

Trine drives into the Lier Tunnel while she remembers the first question she was asked by a journalist when William Jespersen’s newly formed government stepped out on to Slottsplassen for the very first time. ‘Will you still have enough time for your husband now that you’re going to be Justice Secretary?’ Trine was completely taken aback; she had imagined she would have a chance to promote her core issues. No one had prepared her that the media would be more interested in her private life. Afterwards she wished she had been able to come up with something pithy and clever, but all she managed to stutter was: ‘Yes, of course.’

And now she is running away from Pål Fredrik too. She sent him a text message right before she left to let him know that she wouldn’t be coming home tonight, but she hadn’t got a reply by the time she had to leave.

The new mobile rings. She recognises the number.

‘Hi, Katarina,’ Trine says.

‘Hi. Where are you?’

‘I’m close to Drammen.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, of course, Katarina, I’m all right.’

‘Now this isn’t unexpected, but I thought I should draw your attention to it anyway. As you can imagine, the opposition is having a field day with this, but what’s worse is that the leader of the Labour Party’s youth branch is saying that if the allegations are true then it’s a very serious matter.’

Trine sighs.

‘You know what the media are like. Every headline is now going to preface the allegations with “very serious”. The disclaimer won’t be mentioned until halfway down the story.’

‘Typical. Anything else?’

‘No. That’s all for now.’

‘Okay.’

‘Call me when you get there.’

‘Mm.’

But Trine doesn’t want to call or talk to anyone. She just wants to get out of Oslo.

She glances up at the rear-view mirror and sees the black Audi behind her with the two men in the front.
I bet they’re sweating
, she thinks,
given the situation and the job they have to do
. They are going to an unnamed location and haven’t been able to secure it yet. She sympathises with them. What if something were to happen to the Justice Secretary on their watch?

He studies the colours and the contrasts on the screen. He can see that he needs to brighten the surroundings, intensify their colour. Or maybe it’s fine as it is.

He likes the mood in the picture. The early morning mist lying across the ground at the nursery. The trees around it, wrapped in nature’s floating cotton wool. He should have taken some pictures of that as well, not just of the boy who has sand around his mouth. He is not smiling in this particular picture. He sits on the ground, lost in a world of his own. His waders keep him dry and warm. He is blissfully ignorant that the world only seems to be a safe place. Anything could happen to a boy of two and a half.

He selects the boy, increases the contrast so his colouring stands out more sharply against the dim morning light, and plays with various filters. Even though he doesn’t need to, he prints out the picture. Soon a long, whooshing sound starts up under his desk. And the boy appears, clear and bright.

He studies the face, the cheekbones he can barely make out under the chubby toddler cheeks. Looks at the nose and the mouth. The teeth.

Does he bear any resemblance to me?

He knows the thought is absurd, but he can’t help himself. And he imagines her, imagines them, hand-in-hand, the way she often drags the boy along, usually because she is late for work. But she can’t have been late for work today given the leisurely pace with which she walked. And always so beautiful. Still so bloody beautiful. And the boy. Small and untouched.

At least for now.

He sits down in front of his computer again and feels the soft latex around his fingers when he rubs them together. He goes on Facebook to check the latest updates. Shakes his head. Everyone is so bloody happy and successful. He starts to play a computer game, but finds it impossible to concentrate.

He thinks about yesterday and how it all happened before he had time to savour it. The old woman died almost immediately. He didn’t really know what he had done before he had done it and so he never saw the light go out. He never felt the struggle, no matter how short and feeble it would have been, in her fingers.

Four intense beeps from his mobile snap him out of his reverie. He picks up the phone and heaves a sigh.

He visualises his mother on her lunch break at work calling him to find out what he is up to, if he would like to come home for dinner tomorrow. He can’t be bothered to reply. Nag, nag, nag. Every time the same questions: ‘Have you been down to the job centre yet?’ ‘How do you pass the time?’

If only you knew
, he thinks. And he won’t be coming home for dinner tomorrow. He has plans. Big plans.

He looks at the boy again. Then he scrunches up the printout and throws it at the wall, finds his USB-driven mini Hoover, points its nozzle at the keyboard and removes any breadcrumbs or dust that might have settled in the last few days. And especially any DNA.

When he has finished, he pushes himself away from the desk, opens the desk drawer and looks at the open envelope with the large, green ‘G’ on the outside. He takes it out and puts it next to a wrap – slightly bigger than a street dose – of morphine capsules.

He can hardly wait until the next struggle. He is desperate to experience that. He wants to see the light. Especially when it goes out.