Thomas Enger - Scarred

A stroke of luck.

Trine rushes outside, glancing quickly up and down the corridor; she can hear voices and noises from every direction, but even so she races around to the back of the reception counter, wakes up the computer mouse and finds the email program and the email from biglie0910. She deletes it, both from the inbox and from the deleted items folder. She hurries back to her office before anyone sees her.

When she has shut the door, she leans against it, closes her eyes and hyperventilates. Again she has to concentrate hard not to cry. But how can anyone know what she did? Who is trying to set her up?

There is no shortage of enemies, neither in the Ministry of Justice itself, the police force or the Labour Party. Several people felt overlooked when she was appointed Justice Secretary three years ago. Words such as quotas for women were mentioned, there were hints that Trine would never have got the job if the Prime Minister hadn’t had to appoint a woman. I bet my enemies are gloating now , she thinks. But who could have found out what she did? She didn’t tell anyone, did she?

Trine shakes her head, goes back to her chair and sits down. She checks her mobile. Sixteen missed calls in only the last twenty minutes.

How quickly things can change. When she first appeared on TV or in the newspapers, she would get heaps of supportive text messages from people she knew and quite a few she didn’t. It hardly ever happens now. That’s why she makes a point of sending sympathetic messages to Ministers or other politicians, especially women, when they have been involved in a controversy. Quite simply because nobody else will. Not a single one of her government colleagues has texted her their support. Nor have any of her friends.

Maybe she doesn’t have any. Not any real friends.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door. Trine sniffs, straightens up and blinks hard a couple of times. The door opens and Harald Ullevik pops his head around.

‘Hi,’ he says softly. ‘Can I come in?’

Trine feels incapable of saying anything yet, so she simply nods. Ullevik opens the door fully, enters and quickly closes it behind him. Takes a slow step forwards, presses his palms together and looks at her.

‘Please,’ she whispers. ‘No pity. I don’t think I can handle that right now.’

Ullevik says nothing, but nods gently.

‘I just wanted to ask if there’s anything I can do for you.’

‘You can sue VG ,’ she says half in earnest, half in jest. ‘No,’ she sighs. ‘I don’t know.’

Ullevik doesn’t move. The walls radiate silence.

‘Trine, I—’

Ullevik lowers his gaze and digs the toe of his shoe into the floor.

‘What is it, Harald?’

It takes a few moments before he looks up at her.

‘I just wanted you to know that I… that you have my full support. No matter what. You’ve done a brilliant job as Justice Secretary. You’re the best one we’ve had for years.’

Don’t cry , Trine tells herself. Don’t you dare start crying now .

‘If there’s anything you need, then… Don’t hesitate to ask. Okay?’

Stupid eyes.

‘I will,’ she stutters while the corners of her mouth start to tremble. ‘Thank you, Harald. It means a lot to me to hear you say that.’

Ullevik smiles warmly. Eyes meet eyes and she could have hugged him if there hadn’t been a desk between them, as well as her knowledge that she would most certainly burst into tears.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’

She watches him go and soon she is alone in the silence once more – normally a welcome friend on a noisy day. But not today.

Eventually Trine gets up and rings an internal number. Katarina Hatlem shows up in her office less than one minute later.

‘What is it?’ she asks and closes the door behind her. And before Trine has time to respond, she says: ‘How are you?’

‘I can’t handle this on my own,’ Trine says. ‘You have to help me.’

Emilie Blomvik can’t sit still for one minute. It’s almost like being back at school and waiting to get the results of a test you know you have done well in. She is quivering with anticipation, but it’s still a welcome sensation. She can only imagine how Mattis must be feeling right now.

Before he left work last Friday, the partners told him they would like to meet with him Monday morning. You’ve been doing very well recently, they said, but that was all they told him. Emilie has asked him several times during the weekend why he thought they wanted to meet with him. And even though he only shrugged and replied ‘I don’t know’, she could tell from looking at him what he was thinking. The way a small smile would curl up at the corners of his mouth though he tried very hard to suppress it.

Is it finally his turn to be made a partner?

Emilie isn’t quite sure what being made a partner entails, but she is absolutely sure that it’s a good thing. It holds out a promise of better times to come. Nicer holidays. More of everything. Before Mattis went to work today, he promised to ring her as soon as the meeting with his bosses was over. She doesn’t know what a Monday morning means for a lawyer, but surely it can’t be that long before he calls?

Emilie smiles to herself when she remembers how she met Mattis, or rather how he met her. He came up to the check-in counter at Gardermoen Airport where she worked and asked if she had ever been reindeer hunting. Emilie was lost for words after this unexpected question and when she didn’t reply immediately, he said: ‘Would you like to try?’

She didn’t know what to say; she is quite sure that she blushed as she sat there behind the counter. She had had her fair share of chat-up lines over the years, but the word ‘reindeer’ had never featured in any of them. And she was instantly attracted to the idea of leaving everything behind, eloping with a total stranger to a foreign place. He looked almost ruggedly handsome as he stood there, even though he is really quite skinny and not particularly attractive or brave, but Emilie had never been drawn to men with film star looks. And she had no trouble imagining how much tougher he would look with a hunting rifle in his hand. Had she been ten years younger, she might have thrown caution to the wind and gone off with him.

But she remembered him the next time he came to check in. She spotted him in the crowd, saw him wait until her counter was free. She got butterflies in her stomach and felt hot all over. She is quite sure that he noticed the warmth in the smile she flashed him. And there was something appealing about his confidence when he asked her if he could buy her a cup of coffee when he came back. Or a beer. Or a Strawberry Daiquiri.

Now the latter might have been a fluke, but at the time she loved Strawberry Daiquiris. And one Strawberry Daiquiri turned into two and three when he called her one month later. Now they have been living together for three years and been parents for two and a half. And she would have to agree that they’re happy.

But she is not sure that he is Mr Right.

Mattis is kind, funny and sociable. He is a great father to Sebastian – when he is at home, that is. He gets on very well with Emilie’s mother, with her friends, he even says that he likes or indeed ‘absolutely loves’ Jessheim, where they live. But sometimes it’s as if they are on different planets. One fortnight every year he goes hunting up in Finnmarksvidda in northern Norway. In the summer he prefers to go to rock festivals with his friends, while she prefers sun loungers and all-inclusive holidays. They don’t spend very much time together these days. He is busy with his work in Oslo; she with hers at the airport. Emilie had thought that living together, being a family, would be about more than just simple logistics, the organisation of everyday life. And the question she has been asking herself more and more often recently is: does she really love him?