Thomas Enger: Scarred

Sund thinks about it.

‘The Volunteer Service people were here in the afternoon to play and sing for the residents.’

‘Go on?’

‘They come once a fortnight.’

‘I see. Are they popular?’

‘Yes, very.’

‘Did Erna Pedersen usually join in?’

‘Yes, but I don’t think I saw her there today.’

Bjarne makes another note.

‘How many people usually come from the Volunteer Service?’

‘Five or six, I think.’

Bjarne has met members of the Volunteer Service before, people of all ages who help others in return for no money at all. They’re unlikely to be the type to force knitting needles into the head of an old lady, Bjarne thinks, but he still makes a note of the name of the service in capital letters with an arrow pointing to it.

‘Okay,’ he says, getting up. ‘I can imagine that you want to get home and check on your son. But please think about what you saw here today, especially if something strikes you as a little odd or unusual. Anything that might be of interest.’

‘Will do,’ Sund says, taking the card Bjarne hands him. Then he hurries towards the lift while switching on his mobile to check for new messages. It doesn’t even have time to beep before he shakes his head in despair.

In the old days Henning used to go running along the River Aker late at night, though he would sometimes come across people he would rather not meet after the hours of darkness. He would always jog straight past them and ignore their offers of all sorts of dubious merchandise. Even so, it was never a very pleasant experience.

A similar unease comes over him as he walks past Riverside, the café at the bottom of Markveien, to get round to the back of Grünerhjemmet. But there are no unsavoury characters around tonight, only the river, which winds its way down to Oslo Fjord under a bridge.

It could have been a picture postcard of the city. There are old ruins and tall trees on the far side of the river. On warm summer days people sit in Riverside or on the grassy bank leading down to the water and let life and the river flow past. But the area around the mouth of the Aker has become a haven for drug dealers and their customers. Once upon a time such people would have hidden in the shadows because it was shameful both to sell and to buy drugs, but now everything is out in the open and no one seems to care. The police know what goes on, but don’t have the resources to do anything about it. And if one dealer is arrested, another will take his place the next day.

Henning follows the road around the care home where bushes as lifeless as the residents inside have been planted along the walls. He knows how hard it is to get a place in a care home these days. You practically have to have one foot in the grave already. It means that many vulnerable people in Oslo and in the rest of Norway have to rely on self-sacrificing relatives or visits from care workers in their own homes.

Henning wanders around the car park while he waits for someone to emerge from the back entrance. For the first fifteen minutes nothing happens. He looks at his watch. Slowly 9 p.m. turns into 9.30. In his former life he might have lit a cigarette – or fourteen – while he waited, but he stopped smoking completely after the fire. There’s something about flames and embers. He can’t look at them without seeing his son’s eyes in all the red and orange.

The door opens and a woman comes out. She has brown hair and is wearing a beige coat.

‘Excuse me,’ Henning says, rushing towards her. She instinctively slows down.

‘Do you work here?’ he asks.

The woman’s expression immediately becomes guarded as she reluctantly replies ‘yes’. Henning knows that the burn scars on his face can make him look scary, especially in the dark, so he follows up his assertive opening with a smile that’s intended to be disarming. The woman walks off.

‘Sorry, but you’ll have to talk to someone else,’ she calls out.

‘I—’

‘I don’t talk to people like you.’

Henning is left standing with a reply that withers on the tip of his tongue.

Ten minutes later a man appears. He is happy to stop, but neither speaks nor understands Norwegian terribly well. It doesn’t, however, prevent him from chatting and smiling. Henning eventually works out that the man has washed the floors on the ground and first floors tonight, but he doesn’t know anything about what happened on the floors higher up.

‘Who lives on the third floor?’ Henning asks him.

‘All the mad people,’ the man says.

Henning frowns.

‘The mad people?’

‘Yes, the ones who’ve gone gaga.’

The man smiles and reveals a row of bright white teeth.

‘Right,’ Henning says.

The man gives him a thumbs-up before he gets on his bicycle and rides off.

So the victim suffered from dementia, Henning concludes. It’s not a story in itself, but it’s a useful detail to include. He needs more.

Henning knows that care staff have a duty of confidentiality, but it’s not a rule that has bothered him before. In his experience some people simply enjoy chatting. It’s just a question of finding them. Working on them.

Not so easy on a Sunday night.

A woman in a hijab comes out. Again Henning smiles, but she ignores him. A little later he tries a man with dark stubble, but learns only that he has been to visit his mother and is annoyed that he missed the Brann versus Vålerenga match on TV.

Henning is about to call it a day and crosses his fingers that 6tiermes7 – his secret Internet source in the police – can give him some information when a man in a black leather jacket and trousers comes out. His hair, long and blond, swings rhythmically from side to side as he quickly crosses the car park. Henning thinks he recognises him from somewhere and goes up to him.

‘Hi, my name is Henning Juul. I work for 123news . Could I have a word with you?’

The man glances at Henning.

‘I’m busy,’ he says.

‘I can walk with you if that’s more convenient?’

The man still doesn’t say anything, but Henning can see there are signs of recognition in his face too.

‘What’s going on up there?’ Henning asks.

The man looks at him quickly.

‘I won’t quote you. I’m just trying to find out what happened. I hear someone killed a demented old lady?’

The man glances at him again.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘But I have to get home. My son—’

The man breaks off halfway through the sentence and his eyes flicker. Henning continues to follow him.

‘Okay, fine,’ Henning says. ‘But here’s… ’

He starts to jog as he produces a business card from his pocket. ‘If there’s anything you want to tell me, on or off the record, then just give me a call. Any time. Okay?’

Reluctantly the man takes the card Henning is holding out.

‘Thank you. Then I won’t keep you any longer. I hope your son isn’t asleep yet.’

He smiles after the man who looks over his shoulder several times before he disappears in the night. There, Henning thinks, was an interesting person, someone who stands out from the crowd. A staff member who didn’t look exhausted after working, but upset. Or possibly frightened.

For the next hour Henning tries to speak to more people, then he goes home. He sits down in front of his laptop hoping to chat to 6tiermes7 , a hope that gradually diminishes as the clock approaches midnight. A little desperate now, Henning sends Bjarne Brogeland a few more text messages. He doesn’t give up before his police contact rings him back.

‘You’re a pest,’ Brogeland says.

‘You said you’d call when you had two minutes.’