Thomas Enger: Scarred

‘Oh, right.’

‘Thanks for doing me that favour I asked you for. I don’t think my mother has been listening to the radio or watched TV in the last few days. But it’s safe again now.’

‘So you want me to reconnect—’

‘Yes, please. It would be great if you could, so she can carry on destroying her hearing. But here,’ Henning says as he hands him a bag from an unnamed shop with black windows he visited on his way here.

‘A contribution to your collection, in recognition of all your help.’

The caretaker hoicks up his trousers, takes the bag and looks inside it. He smiles when he sees what kind of movies they are. He is about to thank him, when Henning holds up his palms.

‘Don’t mention it.’

Henning makes a Scouts salute to Karl Ove Marcussen, thanks him again and starts making his way home. But as he realises it is coming up for 8.30 p.m., he is reminded of something his mentor Jarle Høgseth would often do when he was stuck on a story. He would return to the scene of the crime, usually at the same time as the crime had been committed, to take in the mood, see if a detail that wasn’t clear when there were police cordons everywhere might suddenly stand out. And the fire brigade’s report stated that the police had received a call about the fire in Henning’s flat at 20.35.

So he walks back to his old flat and stops outside the entrance he would so often go in and out of, usually accompanied by Jonas. He looks around and tries to work out where Tore Pulli must have parked in order to keep an eye on the building’s front door. There are several possibilities on both sides of the street. And Henning realises how suspicious Pulli’s presence must have seemed to the sharp-eyed traffic warden who saw him sitting in his car in roughly the same place several nights in a row and why the traffic warden alerted the police.

Henning walks up and down the street, meets some people in party clothes with bottles that clink in carrier bags, a woman pushing a pram, and sees cars whose suspensions groan as they go over the speed bumps. If I’d been Tore Pulli , Henning thinks, and I’d been sitting in my car, what would be my reason for being there? And why did Pulli get in touch with me while he was in prison? After all, we had never had anything to do with each other before the fire .

Once again he comes to the same conclusion: Pulli was watching him. And that’s when Henning gets a flash of inspiration. If he had been watching someone, how would he have gone about it?

He would have mapped that person’s movements. Made notes. Taken pictures.

What if Tore Pulli did the same?

What if he photographed all the people who entered or left the building that night?

Henning walks as quickly as he can up to his new flat. He sits down at the kitchen table and calls Tore Pulli’s widow, Veronica Nansen, whose delighted voice says that it’s good to hear from him again. And though Henning is sorely tempted to cross-examine her immediately, he takes the time to ask her how she is. After all, it’s only a few weeks since she buried her husband.

‘I guess I’m all right,’ Veronica says. ‘All things considered.’

Henning nods; he can’t restrain himself any longer.

‘Listen, the reason I’m calling is that there’s something I wanted to ask you. Now I know that you’re the photographer in your house, but did Tore have a camera as well?’

There is a short silence.

‘Yes, he… did.’

‘Why do you say it like that?’ Henning asks.

Veronica Nansen sighs.

‘Because someone broke into my flat last week. Stole some camera equipment. Including Tore’s camera.’

Henning stands up.

‘It was really quite creepy,’ she continues.

‘Was anything else taken?’ he asks as his hope deflates.

‘A few bits and pieces.’

‘And the police haven’t caught the people who did it?’

‘Oh, the police. I could barely be bothered to report it. They wouldn’t waste their time on it.’

No , Henning thinks. They probably wouldn’t .

‘Do you know what kind of pictures were on Tore’s camera?’

‘Holiday snaps, I presume. Why do you want to know?’

Henning is tempted to tell her the whole story, but he hasn’t got the energy.

‘Do you know if he’d backed up the pictures?’

‘We always back up our digital photos, but I’m afraid they stole the backup disks as well. I’m really upset, to put it mildly. My whole life with Tore was on those disks.’

‘I understand,’ Henning says, resigned.

But he can’t summon up much grief for her loss right now. He can think only of his own. So near and yet so far away. And he knows without a shadow of a doubt that those photos are gone forever.

It has happened again .

And once that thought has materialised, the next one follows close behind. Could that have been the information that was redacted from the Indicia report? That Tore Pulli was sitting outside his flat with a camera ? Could that be the information that Andreas Kjær was too scared to tell him?

The morning has arrived with an unstable layer of clouds when Henning decides to go out and get some fresh air to clear his head. He spent most of last night on the sofa thinking. Then he got up and meandered around the room for a bit. Did some more thinking. Finally he was on the verge of losing his mind.

He buys himself a cold can of Coke and sits down in his usual spot below Dælenenga Club House. He thinks about Jonas again, about the evidence that slips away the moment he discovers it. Tore Pulli who might have had photographic proof of who entered Henning’s flat. All gone. And someone with an East European accent who went to the trouble of threatening Andreas Kjær so he wouldn’t disclose whatever it was that he knew. That evidence is probably gone as well. If Henning’s theory about the deleted Indicia report is correct, it might even be that that was the information which Kjær had. That Tore Pulli had taken pictures of the person or persons who set fire to Henning’s flat. He knows it’s a long shot, but right now he is clutching at straws.

As usual he is frustrated with himself for not being able to remember more of the weeks leading up to the fire. He recalls that it said ‘first and last warning’ on the note someone had pinned to the inside of his front door after starting the fire. But a warning against what? Why does his memory keep failing him?

Knowing that his mind has a tendency to short-circuit when confronted with painful or traumatic events, perhaps he should do something about it. Seek professional help? At least he is starting to remember more from his childhood. His memories of Trine have grown more vivid in the last few days.

And that’s the insight which makes him leap up.

Quickly he walks down from the seating planks, along the tarmac and through Birkelunden Park. He realises that it wasn’t until he started thinking about Trine properly that memories of the life they shared before their father died came back to him. Without even trying to he grew close to her again, he recognised feelings he’d had, thoughts he believed were long forgotten.

It all goes back to the fire , Henning thinks, now getting agitated while at the same time dreading what he has to do next. It’s the fire that is stopping him, the flames that are blocking his memories, and that is why he has to feel them on his body again. Just like his childhood memories started to return when he decided to help Trine.

He runs up the stairs and lets himself into his flat with only one thing on his mind.

To find the damned matchbox.