Thomas Enger - Scarred

He isn’t that lucky.

‘Well, if there’s nothing else, then—’

Nøkleby stands up.

‘There is.’

She stops and looks down at him.

‘How far back in time are you going to have to go to find the reason for the revenge killing of Erna Pedersen?’

Nøkleby looks at him. She shakes her head almost imperceptibly.

Then she leaves.

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.

Fridtjof Holby

Astrid Solberg

Carl-Severin Lorentzen

Per Espen Feydt

Reidun Ruud

Maria Reymert

Markus Gjerløw – VS

Unni Kristine Fagereng – VS

Remi Gulliksen – VS

Petra Jørgensen – VS

Dorthe Arentz – VS

Ivar Lorentz Løkkeberg

Knut Bergstrøm

Signe Marie Godske

Trond Monsen

Janne Næss

Danijela Kaosar

Per-Aslak Rønneberg

Egil Skarra

Ole Edvald Åmås

Mette Yvonne Smith

Kristin Tømmerås

Thea Marie Krogh-Sørensen

‘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.’