Thomas Enger - Pierced

‘I love driving. I never listen to the radio. I like the silence around me. It helps me think. Don’t you agree?’

Thorleif glances at the man next to him, but he says nothing. He can see something shiny in his inside jacket pocket. The man is wearing gloves. The speedometer shows 100 kilometres per hour, the legal limit exactly. Every time Thorleif nudges the speed up above 110 kilometres, the man leans over and checks the speedometer, a movement always followed by a look of concern.

‘Careful now,’ he says. ‘You don’t want the police to pull you over, do you?’

Of course, I bloody do, Thorleif thinks every time. He has considered doing something insane like driving the car into a ditch in the hope that only he survives. But fear makes him cling to the steering wheel. His heart refuses to beat in a steady rhythm.

He has asked the man what he meant by ‘pedestrian or cyclist’, but the man merely smiled and ignored his question. However, there is something that troubles Thorleif more than that. The man has made no effort to conceal his face. Isn’t he scared that Thorleif will recognise him later or point him out to the police?

The answer when it hits him is as simple as it is brutal. They don’t care. When this is over, they won’t need him any more, and then they will kill him. That is why it doesn’t matter if Thorleif knows the man’s real identity or remembers his face.

‘Where are we going?’ he asks.

They pass the exit to Holmestrand going south on the E18.

‘We’re not there yet. You just carry on driving. And stick to the speed limit.’

The man’s mobile beeps. He takes off his glove and presses some keys. When he has finished, he puts his hand on the armrest and looks out of the window. Thorleif alternates between looking at the road in front of him and at the landscape where the trees are starting to take over. But today he sees no deer lowering their heads towards the ground, only short, rust-coloured wheat stubble and white plastic-covered hay bales that look like giant marshmallows scattered across the undulating fields. The man puts on his glove again.

One hour later they exit towards Larvik.

‘Take a left on that roundabout,’ the man says, pointing at a sign for Fritzoe Brygge Shopping Centre. ‘And go into the multi-storey car park.’

Thorleif drives his Opel Astra slowly down to the basement level where every sound and movement is amplified. He passes a dark wooden entrance which leads to the shopping centre where today’s special offer from Meny is fishcakes. A dozen cars are parked, but there are plenty of vacant spaces.

‘Park next to that car,’ the man says, gesturing towards a dark blue BMW. Thorleif drives around the white supporting pillars. The BMW is the same colour as the one he saw outside Bogstad Farm, but the registration plates are different. Thorleif looks at the man, who smiles slyly.

‘Park here and then we will swap cars.’

Thorleif manoeuvres into the bay and turns off the engine. A heavy silence fills the car. In the distance a door slams with a bang before an engine starts. They get out. He is met by a smell that reminds him of a ferry deck. There is a constant humming above him. The man goes over to the passenger side of the BMW, opens the doors and tosses the keys to Thorleif. Caught off guard, Thorleif only just manages to catch them.

‘You want me to drive?’

‘Let’s find out what you’re made of,’ the man says, and his voice echoes against the walls. He grins. ‘In you get.’

They have left Stavern behind and have driven past horse paddocks, onion fields and a Free Church when Thorleif is told to stop in a bus lay-by opposite a maize field. The crop reaches waist height. Beyond them, far away on the horizon, the Strait of Skagerrak opens wide towards Denmark. White horses on the surface of the water chase boats, big and small. Above them white and dark-grey clouds drift along without bumping into one another.

‘Do you want me to turn off the engine?’ Thorleif says. The sun is roasting him through the window. The man next to him looks at an old garage with rusty doors and a black sheet-metal roof. He turns his whole body towards Thorleif.

‘Earlier today I asked you which way you wanted to go. Remember?’

‘Y-yes.’

The man points ahead where the road bends left in a long, soft curve.

‘A few hundred metres further ahead there is another junction. Technically you can’t turn right there, you’ll have to go straight across it, but I’ll ask you all the same. Right or left?’

‘W-what?’

‘Right or left?’

‘But-’

‘Right or left?’

‘I don’t know! Which way do you want me to go?’

‘You remember how it was earlier today. I’m asking you one last time: right or left? Left: your girlfriend dies. Right: you can still eat tacos-’

‘Right,’ Thorleif replies quickly. ‘I’ll turn right, okay?! Why don’t you just tell me which way you want me to go? I’ll do anything to save my girlfriend!’

‘Good, Toffe, I want you to hold that thought: you’ll do anything to save your girlfriend. Great. Now start driving. Stick to route 301.’

‘What are we going to do when we get there?’

The man doesn’t reply. Thorleif sighs and puts the car in ‘D’. He pulls out into the road again, calmly increases his speed to 60 kilometres per hour and follows the long curve to the left, towards the sign for the 301. He brakes in the bend before continuing straight ahead and accelerating up a small hill. The narrow road continues to wind its way through dense forest interspaced with onion and potato fields on both sides whenever the landscape opens up. No cars come in the opposite direction. Thorleif clutches the steering wheel. Tiny side roads turn off to the right, towards farms and cottages he can’t see.

‘Pull up over there.’

The man points to a faded brown fence enclosing a plot which doesn’t appear to be named, but where gravestones stick up from the well-tended grass. Thorleif parks in between two birches whose branches offer them shade.

‘What do we do now?’ Thorleif asks.

‘We wait. You can turn off the engine now.’

They sit in silence for several minutes. They hear the sound of a car approaching. A black cat runs along the edge of the road before it shoots off in between the rowan bushes. The car appears, zooms past them before it falls silent once more. Soon afterwards a tractor comes along. Then two cyclists. Thorleif notices that the man follows them with his eyes with considerable interest.

Suddenly he leans forwards and says, ‘Perfect.’

‘What is?’

‘Check your wing mirror.’

Behind them a man wearing a headset, dark-blue running trousers and a blue jacket comes jogging. His pace is leisurely.

‘Wait until he has passed us.’

Thorleif waits. He watches the jogger in his mirror, sees him overtake the car. The jogger pays no attention to them, he just disappears around the next bend. The minutes pass.

‘Okay, start the engine.’

‘What are we doing?’

‘Just do as you are told.’

The engine growls menacingly.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Drive. Faster.’

Thorleif pushes down the accelerator a little more. The car gains speed. The jogger appears around the next bend. He has reached the foot of a long sloping hill that twists like a snake.

‘Faster!’ The man leans forwards.

‘Why?’

‘Because I want you to hit him.’

‘I can’t drive into him. I’ll kill him!’

‘Faster!’

Thorleif obeys, gripping the steering wheel. His thoughts bounce up and down like a roller-coaster. What does he do now? Surely he can’t run over someone deliberately?