Scarred (26 page)

Henning follows Bjarne across the street, but his police friend is deep in thought while at the same time trying to get hold of someone on the phone. At that moment, Henning’s own mobile rings; it’s a number he doesn’t recognise.

He takes the call.

‘Hello. Am I speaking to Henning Juul?’

It is an old person’s voice. Henning stuffs a finger in his ear to shut out the noise from the street.

‘You are.’

‘I’m sitting here with your business card,’ says the woman down the other end.

‘Oh, right,’ Henning says, now remembering Erna Pedersen’s old neighbour in Brinken. Borgny Ramstad, that was her name, wasn’t it?

‘I’ve been visiting my daughter in Bergen for a couple of days and I’ve only just got back. I caught the night train. And the first thing I saw when I came home was your card stuck in my front door. I hope you’re not going to try to sell me something?’

‘No, not at all,’ Henning assures her. ‘I wanted to talk to you because you knew Erna Pedersen.’

‘Indeed I did. We were neighbours for twenty-four years.’

Henning looks across to Bjarne and sees him take out his notebook and check something.

‘Mrs Ramstad, I want to ask you about something that happened quite a few years ago. It’s to do with Erna Pedersen.’

Henning tells her that Erna Pedersen has been murdered.

‘Oh, how dreadful,’ Borgny Ramstad says. ‘I haven’t been following the news recently. My grandchild has colic, you see.’

‘I understand,’ Henning says. ‘What I’m particularly interested in is the vandalism done to Erna Pedersen’s house while she was still working as a teacher. Did she ever talk to you about it?’

‘She certainly did. Erna was in such a state about it.’

‘I know she had her suspicions about who was behind it. Did she ever tell you?’

There is silence for a moment. Henning watches Bjarne press the phone to his ear again.

‘I don’t really—’

‘As far as I understand there were several culprits. But do you know if Erna was scared of any of them?’

There is another silence.

‘Well, in that case, it must have been the boy who—’

Silence again.

‘Oh, I can’t remember his name.’

‘Please try—’

‘Oh, now I remember!’ she exclaims. ‘It was the brother of the boy who died in that snow cave accident, wasn’t it?’

Bjarne remembers what Markus Gjerløw said to him on the telephone.

‘I only know Remi.’

Bjarne pulls out the list of names that Emil Hagen gave him. Sees that there is a Remi highlighted in bold.

Remi Gulliksen
.

Bjarne takes out his mobile and calls Fredrik Stang.

‘Hi, it’s me,’ Bjarne says. ‘Can you check if a boy called Remi Gulliksen went to school with Markus Gjerløw?’

‘Okay, hold on.’

It has to be Remi Gulliksen, Bjarne thinks while he listens to Stang flicking through documents down the other end of the phone. Of the people who were at Grünerhjemmet on the day that Erna Pedersen was killed, Gulliksen was the only person Markus Gjerløw knew. As a friend of Gjerløw’s, Gulliksen would have been able to gain access to Gjerløw’s flat, force him to swallow the morphine capsules and then write a cryptic apology on Facebook that would make everyone think that Gjerløw was apologising for the lives he had taken.

‘No, I can’t find a Remi Gulliksen,’ Fredrik Stang says. ‘But there is another Remi in his class. A Remi Winsnes.’

Bjarne tastes the name a little. It rings no bells.

‘Okay, can you look up both Winsnes and Gulliksen for me? Try including Jessheim in your search as well and see if you get any hits.’

He hears clicking and keyboard sounds in the background. The seconds pass.

‘I’ve found a Nils Jørgen Winsnes and a Susanne Marie Gulliksen. They live in Jessheim at the same address.’

‘They must be Remi’s parents.’

‘Looks like it. He must have changed his surname as an adult.’

It has to be him, Bjarne thinks.

‘And it says here that they lost a child,’ Stang says. ‘In a snow cave accident in Jessheim in the eighties.’

Bjarne makes no reply; all he can think about is that he couldn’t get hold of Emilie Blomvik a few minutes ago. He is still very unhappy that Romerike Police decided to call off the protection Bjarne had requested for Blomvik and her family once Markus Gjerløw was found dead.

‘Call Romerike Police and ask them to go to the home of Emilie Blomvik,’ Bjarne says to Stang. ‘And tell them to hurry up.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Just get them to check that everything is okay with her and her family.’

‘Okay.’

They end their calls. Henning comes up behind him.

‘I think I might know the name of the man you’re looking for,’ he says.

Bjarne spins around.

‘Do you now?’

‘It wouldn’t happen to be Remi, would it?’

Remi can still remember it. Her birthday.

Eighteen years. The portal to adulthood. Old enough to drive and finally able to get into most bars without fake ID. Not that Emilie ever needed to. She got in everywhere, even though the doormen knew that she wasn’t old enough.

He gave her a very special present on that momentous day. A picture of two footprints, partly covering each other, on a beach. To let her know what he thought about the two of them and their future. He also gave her eighteen long-stemmed red roses, though the man in the florist told him that even numbers and flowers didn’t go all that well together.

Memories.

Memories are crap.

He wishes he had never opened the local newspaper that day when the past suddenly became the present. The years had left their marks in her cheeks, time had done something to her chin and her eyes, but he could see that she was the same girl. Just as lovely. She still had that special light in her eyes, which beamed into him and turned everything it found upside down. And it was as if the smile she sent the readers of
Eidsvoll Ullensaker Blad
was aimed at him. He wanted the ground to open and swallow him up.

They used to talk about what they would call their children if they ever had children together. Emilie had said Sebastian if it was a boy, and Johanne if it was a girl. Remi didn’t really mind, he just wanted Emilie to be happy. And suddenly, there she was, in the newspaper with a child on her lap. A little boy called Sebastian. He could no longer remember what the article had been about, only that the picture had been taken at the boy’s nursery.

And hey presto, they came back.

The memories.

Not only had they come back, he could physically feel them in his body, he started reliving the past, he felt the butterflies in his stomach when he walked past the places where it had happened, the place where – according to Emilie – absolutely nothing had happened. But he knew that it was all a lie.

They did it in the grove between the junction and the school playground where houses have since been built. Markus and Emilie hadn’t even been able to wait until they got home, but they were seen – at least so the rumour went. And this at a time when she was supposed to be his girlfriend, when life was meant to be good, but it became a living nightmare.

Some people are just like that; they covet what others have. If Markus saw someone with a cool jumper or jacket at school, he had to have the same – or preferably something better and more expensive. He had to have the latest thing. For some reason he had always been popular with the girls. And, to top it all, he was Erna Pedersen’s teacher’s pet.

So when Remi started going out with Emilie, Markus obviously couldn’t help himself. He had to have her, too, couldn’t bear that someone else had something so wonderful. And as for Emilie, she was out of control and just wanted to party all the time.

Emilie had pleaded innocence, of course, and blamed it all on common gossip in Jessheim. She managed to sow just enough doubt in Remi for them to get back together. And that was when it happened with the worst possible timing; she missed her period. And he remembered what it had been like, when he hoped it could have marked a fresh start for them, that everything would be different. We’ll erase the past and start over. We’ll be a family, build a life together. And we’ll call our child Sebastian.

Remi tightens his fists when he remembers the conversation they had a few days after she had told him about the pregnancy. Though she never said so outright, he realised that Johanne had been whispering in her ear and told her no, you can’t do this, Emilie. Don’t throw your life away. It’s too soon to have kids.

So what are you going to do? You’re not going to marry him, are you?

Johanne had never liked him much even though he had saved her life when she choked on that kebab outside the takeaway. He could see it in her eyes.

He finally got his proof a couple of days ago in the form of the message Johanne had sent to Emilie on Facebook.

A red ride-on tractor is parked on the shingle outside the garage. All Remi can think about is what it would have been like to live in this house, in its warmth. With her and Sebastian. It should have been like this. She said it would be.

The front door opens and a man comes out. A man who shouldn’t be there. He walks down the steps and smiles to himself, he looks so bloody smug, just like Erna Pedersen’s son in the picture the old hag had hanging on her wall.

Then something clouds Remi’s vision. He can’t see that he has started to move, he just feels it, he hears the shingle crunch under his feet. He doesn’t say anything, either; he can just about make out that the garage door glides open and something shiny and expensive appears behind it. He doesn’t feel his hands, his arms or his head, doesn’t feel them make contact, doesn’t hear the punch or the crack. And he doesn’t know what he has done before he realises that his knuckles are red.

‘How the hell did you know that?’ Bjarne asks as he starts to run.

‘Forget it,’ Henning says, trying to keep up. ‘What’s going on?’

The distant between them grows with each step.

‘Where are you going?’

Bjarne turns his head, but increases his speed. Henning tries to follow, but his body protests.

‘Are you going to Jessheim?’ Henning calls out after him, but Bjarne just keeps on running. ‘Can I get a lift? I think I’ve earned it, don’t you?’

Henning stops outside the entrance to the police station’s underground car park and watches Bjarne disappear inside. A few seconds later a car starts up in the darkness below. Tyres squeal. A fan belt complains. Then a grey Volvo estate comes towards Henning at a furious pace and brakes abruptly right by his feet. The window is already down.

Henning looks inside and meets Bjarne’s wide-open eyes.

‘Go on then, get in!’

Emilie looks up from Mattis’s bloodied face and stares at the man who appears right behind him. With a hard push he shoves Mattis into the hallway, follows him and locks the door behind them.

‘Remi?’ she exclaims.

Remi keeps pushing Mattis towards the living room and stares at her with glazed eyes.

‘You,’ he says, pointing at her. ‘Come here.’

Emilie stands rooted to the spot.

‘But—’

‘Come here,’ Remi demands again, louder this time.

From the kitchen they hear the sound of quiet weeping. It grows and becomes increasingly desperate. Emilie sees the look Remi sends her little boy. A look that is seething with rage.

Emilie blocks the door.

‘Please,’ she says. ‘Don’t—’

But Remi interrupts her by raising his index finger, grabbing hold of her and forcing her into the living room. Mattis tries to stop him, but he has never been much of a fighter, nor is he particularly strong and Remi wards off the attack with a punch that hits him in the mouth. Mattis crashes on to the floor.

Sebastian cries even louder.

‘Please,’ Mattis stutters through split lips. ‘Take whatever you want. Only please don’t hurt us.’

Remi says nothing.

‘Just leave us alone. Please,’ Mattis implores him.

Emilie has no idea what is going on. And then there is Remi, who—

Remi’s army jacket. It’s khaki. Remi was the man with the camera outside Sebastian’s nursery the other morning. Her gaze shifts to the wall, to the framed picture. The two footprints in the sand.

Emilie clasps her mouth with both hands while her eyes well up. Remi grabs Mattis and pushes him towards the dining table. In his hands he holds a thick green rope that Emilie recognises from the garage. He orders Mattis to sit down.

Mattis does as he is told and sits on the floor next to a table leg. The sweat pours from his forehead and mingles with blood that stains his bright white shirt. A sob escapes from Emilie’s lips as she sees the madness in Remi’s eyes, a wide-eyed expression that is new to her, as if he has become someone else. She watches him tie single, double and triple knots, criss-crossing the rope and tightening it so hard that Mattis groans. Sebastian is still crying in the kitchen.

‘Get that kid to shut up,’ Remi snarls and wags an angry finger at her. ‘Make him shut up, or I will.’

Emilie sniffles, turns around and goes out into the kitchen. She kneels down to Sebastian, wipes his face, hushes him, says it’ll be all right, it’ll be all right, you just have to be very, very quiet, listen to me everything is going to be all right if you can just be very, very quiet. But it’s no use. Mattis, too, tries to call out words of reassurance to Sebastian from the living room, but to no avail. Sebastian keeps crying, his wailing rises and falls. Emilie looks around for a dummy. Finds none.

‘Where is his room?’ Remi says in a harsh voice as he comes up behind her. He grabs hold of her arm and holds her tight. Emilie tries to wriggle free, but his grip is so hard and so vicious that resistance only causes her more pain.

‘Where is his room?’ Remi says again, now louder.

‘In there,’ Emilie sobs and nods her head in the direction of the hallway.

Remi releases his hold on her.

‘Put him in there, I don’t want to listen to that bloody—’

Emilie picks up Sebastian, puts his head close to her own and strokes his back while she tries to console him. She walks down the hallway, past the door to the bathroom and into Sebastian’s room.

‘You need to be quiet now,’ she says, trying to control herself, but even she can hear that her pleading voice is close to breaking.
Be strong
, she tells herself,
for Sebastian’s sake. It’s up to you to stop him from experiencing even more trauma than he already has
.

Fortunately Sebastian seems to calm down at the sight of his things and his bed, the pale blue wallpaper, the action figures, the stuffed toys and Lightning McQueen – they all help to make him breathe more easily and he finally stops wailing and sobbing.

This in turn makes Emilie weep even harder. Her little boy. So small and vulnerable.

‘And you,’ Remi says to her when she comes back out. ‘Stop your bloody crying.’

Emilie nods, even though the tears keep flowing.

‘Close the door.’

Emilie does as she is told. Remi nods in the direction of the living room where Mattis is frantically trying to free himself. Emilie rushes over to him, she tries wiping away some of the blood on him, and doesn’t care that her hands and clothes get wet and sticky.

She turns to Remi, who has followed and stopped right in front of her.

‘What are you doing, Remi, why—’

He wags an angry finger at her.

‘I think you know if you just think about it.’

Emilie stops.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t.’

‘Then you’re a stupid cow.’

Again Emilie tries to understand, but she can feel the effects of not having eaten for two days. Her brain quite simply refuses to work and the frantic thoughts make her dizzy.

‘You may be right, so why don’t you tell me? Explain it to me.’

Remi inhales and clutches his head. He massages his temples. Then he looks up at the wall, at the two footprints.

Emilie’s mobile rings. Her eyes automatically seek out the sound.

‘Is that yours?’ Remi asks.

Emilie doesn’t reply.

‘Is that yours?’ he demands to know.

Emilie nods.

Remi walks towards the sound and finds her mobile on the large, black coffee table. He takes it, checks the display and lets it ring. However, she can see that the noise troubles him. With a brusque, panicky movement he blocks the call and tosses the mobile aside.

Then he sits down on a chair. Rubs his fingertips against his temples again. Something glides across his face. An expression or an emotion, Emilie isn’t sure. But she’s quite sure that she doesn’t like what she sees.

Remi tries to think clearly.

It proves to be difficult.

He has only been inside the house once before and he hadn’t planned on doing this. He doesn’t know what he had hoped to get from Emilie. Just something. That she would say she was sorry and mean it, rather than merely say it. That she would understand.

He should have taken some more of the pills he swallowed before he went to Johanne’s flat, then he wouldn’t have been able to feel anything. But now he feels everything. The pain in his hand and in his head. It’s as if the walls are closing in on him and threatening to crush him.

So what’s he going to do now?

What next?

He lifts his head and looks around. His gaze stops on the stuffed reindeer head mounted on the wall. The eyes are dark and shiny. As if the light is still on in them.

‘Do you hunt?’ he asks, looking at Mattis.

Mattis nods reluctantly.

‘Then I guess you keep guns in the house, don’t you?’