Thomas Enger - Scarred

The picture the media are creating of her now is very far removed from the little girl he grew up with. He remembers how every Christmas Eve they would sit in front of the television with bags of sweets and watch Christmas movies. They also used to have some bean bags; Trine’s was pink, while Henning’s was mint green. Some evenings he would go to her room just to give her a goodnight hug, and he would stay there and chat for a long time until there would be a knock on the wall from his parents’ bedroom because their talking was keeping them awake.

They also used to play and exercise together down in the basement passage on the grey, knobbly carpet. Often there would be an acrid smell of urine because local cats favoured the foundations of their house. Trine and Henning had a foam ball and switched between playing handball and football; the door to the lavatory and the door to the larder served as goals. One Christmas they were given Adidas shorts, which they wore when they played and their game appeared to improve because they felt they looked so much smarter.

He wonders if Trine ever thinks about those days.

Perhaps they started drifting apart as teenagers when they developed different interests. Once he had finished sixth form and joined the army to do his national service, he barely spoke to her. Whenever he called home, it was always his mother who answered the telephone. Trine never called. Never gave him a welcome-home hug when he visited; instead she would usually go out straight after dinner and come back late.

Despite the lack of contact between them, there is something about her plight that moves him. He doesn’t like to see her bleed. But no matter how tempting it is to get involved, he can’t report on a story about his own sister. Besides, he would meet with closed doors everywhere. He doesn’t have any contacts in the world of politics. And what could he really do? So far her young accuser hasn’t even been named.

Leave it alone , Henning tells himself. It’s not your story .

Bjarne Brogeland doesn’t know when he will be able to leave the office and anyway the weather doesn’t encourage him to go outside, so he texts Anita to apologise for missing dinner yet again and tells her to eat without him. There is no reply.

The investigation team is about to hold another meeting when Bjarne receives a call from the unit that has spent the last two hours watching Daniel Nielsen’s flat.

‘Yes?’ Bjarne replies.

‘You wanted to know if the subject moved,’ says the voice down the other end.

‘Yes,’ Bjarne replies again.

‘He came outside a little while ago and was picked up by a red BMW with a massive hole in the silencer.’

‘Go on?’

‘They drove up to Holmenkollen via Majorstua and Smedstadkrysset, but we lost him at a red light. And we can’t hear the noisy silencer any more.’

‘Holmenkollen?’

‘Yes.’

Bjarne wonders what Nielsen’s car could be doing there.

‘We’ve checked the registration number. The car belongs to a Pernille Thorbjørnsen. Do you know her?’

Bjarne thinks about it.

‘Yes,’ he replies.

‘But she wasn’t driving the car. The driver was a man with blond, shoulder-length hair.’

A man with blond, shoulder-length hair , Bjarne thinks, and tries to recall all the people he has spoken to recently. It doesn’t take long before he gets a hit.

Could the man have been Ole Christian Sund, the care worker who found Erna Pedersen dead?

The bodyguards offered to carry Trine’s bags of food and clothing, but she declined. The pain burning in her arms and spreading up to her shoulders is something she has to endure if only because it makes her feel vaguely alive. She hasn’t felt that for the last couple of hours. She has merely existed, almost in a state of weightlessness, without being able to sense the ground beneath her feet.

Pål Fredrik doesn’t like the sea, he prefers the mountains. His objection is that nothing ever happens by the sea. No, precisely. That’s exactly why she loves it, because nothing ever happens. It’s about being at one with the wind, the breeze and the sea. Because they never look at her with accusing eyes.

She finds the key where she left it the last time she was here – God knows how many years ago – under the bench by the door to the log cabin. The smell that comes towards her as she enters floods her with memories. Everything is as she remembers it from her childhood. The white, open fireplace in the corner, still in one piece. The crumbling old log basket beside it. The small, dusty portable television, the white display cabinet with glasses and bottles. The sofa bed up against the wall. The table in the middle, which can be extended to almost twice its size if she can be bothered to attach the flaps. Old, worn chairs with blue seat cushions.

She recalls one spring when they came here to get the cabin ready for the season; it might have been the middle of May. They found mouse droppings everywhere. The mice had nibbled the pillows, the bed linen, the wax candles; there were tiny black dots of mouse droppings all over the place. Another time they found a wagtail, completely stiff, but just as beautiful as if it had still been alive. It was lying under a bed. How it had got inside after they had locked up the cabin, nobody could explain. Not even Henning, even though he tried.

Trine sees that as usual the mice have sought refuge inside the cabin. Lots of them. And she discovers that she looks forward to cleaning, moving her body and concentrating on something completely different than the sword hanging over her. She draws the curtains, opens the door and lets in the sea breeze. The clammy, stuffy atmosphere of stale dust will soon be gone. The walls will come alive again. Already she feels what a good idea it was to come here. The constant waves even ease her breathing.

Trine turns on the water. The pipes gurgle and splutter a little before a steady, cold stream comes out of the tap above the utility sink. She puts on water to boil and takes out some cleaning supplies.

Trine has been scrubbing away for an hour when her mobile beeps in her jacket pocket. It’s a text message from Katarina. She wonders if they have arrived yet and if everything is all right. Yes, Trine replies to both questions, surprised that the message goes through as mobile coverage in the area has always been poor. But it takes only a minute, then she gets a reply.

I don’t know if you have a TV where you are, but there will be debates both on NRK and TV2 tonight. The subject is: Has society done too little to prevent sexual harassment – and both male and female incest victims will be in the studio.

Of course, Trine sighs. They’re already having a debate based on the assumption that the allegations are true. But what on earth does incest have to do with anything?

And that’s when she feels it. The pull of the white display cabinet in the corner, next to the TV. She goes over to it and opens the door. A stuffy smell wafts towards her. Glass after glass, neatly lined up. And at the bottom – the bottles. Liqueurs. Cognac.

She recalls that her parents always drank cognac when they went to the cabin. It was part of the whole experience, they said. Coffee, cognac and chocolate. The holy trinity.

Trine takes out a bottle and looks at it. St Hallvard’s liqueur, half empty. She sits down at the table and gazes at the bottle. And she wonders at what point you turn into your parents, no matter how hard you try to fight it.

She fetches a glass from the cabinet, blows the dust out from its bottom and fills it with St Hallvard’s. Finds a cigarette from her bag and lights up. Like mother like daughter , she thinks. And she raises the glass to her lips and proposes a toast to yet another member of the Juul family who has stepped off the cliff while staring down at the bottom of a bottle.