‘Did you read the press release he issued last night?’
Henning shows him the two fax sheets he is holding in his hands.
‘Your sister is a powerful woman, Henning. She exploited her position to pressure a young man into having sex with her.’
‘She might well have done, but all the media care about now is that Trine resigns and that she apologises. It doesn’t matter what she says or what she did because no one is going to believe her. Especially not now when the press has dug up all kinds of dirt on her.’
Hjeltland scratches his head. Then he looks at Henning with editorial disapproval.
‘I understand how you must be feeling, Henning, since it’s your sister who’s being hounded, but—’
‘It’s got nothing to do with Trine being my sister,’ Henning says with an unexpected touch of anger in his voice. ‘It’s about how history repeats itself whenever a public figure is alleged to have done something wrong. We go for the jugular straightaway, and I can see it in people’s faces – also here in our office – when yet another story is revealed that supports the impression that has already been created. It’s a mixture of indignation and glee, and it’s not just here, Kåre, I’ve seen it in every editorial office I’ve ever worked in. It makes me sick.’
Henning is aware that the blood is rushing to his head. Around them other staff members have noticed his outburst, but they keep their distance. Henning doesn’t care about them; instead he makes a second attempt to get his point across and tries hard not to sound emotional or angry.
‘Besides, Trine has been on sick leave. Not all that long ago. Doesn’t anyone think that perhaps this is more than she can cope with?’
Even though he keeps his voice low, his words are explosive and he can see the effect on Hjeltland’s face. The muscles tighten like wire.
‘So what do you think we ought to do, Henning?’
‘Investigate the allegations,’ he says. ‘Rather than just repeat them.’
Hjeltland emits a sigh from the depths of his chest.
‘You know very well we don’t have the resources, Henning. And our circulation figures, they’ve gone completely through—’
‘And you wouldn’t want to ruin that, would you? You’d rather bank on the story being true?’
‘No, but right now we have to produce a story based on the information currently available to us.’
Henning can feel a fuse burning behind his eyes, but he knows continuing this discussion is pointless. So he shakes his head and says: ‘I’m going out. I can’t stand being here.’
‘Where are you going?’ Hjeltland calls after him.
‘Jessheim.’
Chapter 36
The sound of footsteps wakes up Trine Juul-Osmundsen. At first she is startled and wonders where she is before she remembers it could be one of her bodyguards who might have gone outside for some fresh air. But she doesn’t recognise the noise. It’s a small, hard stomping not made by shoes.
She sits up on the sofa bed in the living room and instantly feels the pounding in her head. Even getting to a sitting position is enough to make her nauseous. She groans and touches her temples. She screws up her eyes and sees the empty bottle of St Hallvard’s in front of her. Her stomach churns at the sight. Nevertheless she gets up and opens the curtains. A grey hare hops away. It was sitting on the hilltop, Tissetoppen, as they used to call the little mound on the side of the cabin that overlooks the sea where Henning used to go for a pee in the evening before they climbed into the bunk beds in the narrow bedroom.
The light outside is sharp and hurts her head. Her mouth is filled with dry cotton wool and the taste of cigarettes lingers on her tongue. Her laptop is open on the dining table. Last night, in between shots of liqueur, she tried to reconstruct her movements on 9 October. She remembered how she sneaked out of Hotel Caledonien and got into a car that was waiting at the goods entrance, a car that took her straight to Kjevik Airport. How she arrived at a different hotel an hour and a half later. The run she went for that same evening to rid herself of some of the anxiety that was coursing around her body at the thought of what she was going to do the next day. Trine even looked up her running profile on a street map, just to assure herself that her memory was correct.
She also tried to find a name and face among all her enemies, but she couldn’t think of a single one. Or, that is to say, the more she drank, the more potential candidates sprang to mind, but not one of them struck her as more plausible than the others. None of them is capable of gambling with such high stakes. It made her wonder if perhaps several colleagues have ganged up on her.
Trine groans and opens the door to let in the sea air. She walks outside in the clothes she fell asleep in. She is tempted to stick two fingers down her throat, so she won’t have to spend the rest of the day recovering from her hangover. On Tissetoppen she has to take a step to the side when a gust of wind almost knocks her over while she looks for the hare. It would appear to be hiding.
Sometimes, when they opened the cabin early in the spring, the hares would come unusually close to them. They hadn’t yet remembered to be wary of people after a long, lonely winter. Once she was sunning herself, wrapped up warm in a rug, when a hare hopped straight past her. It stopped only a few metres away. And it stood there, for a long time, just staring at her. While Trine stared back.
Now all she can see is the sea. An endless horizon, heaven and water united far, far in the distance without a clear dividing line, where one merges into the other. The spray rises behind the rocks of Svartskjær and Måkeskjær. Eider ducks dive under the surface of the water.
Trine goes back inside the cabin to get her mobile phone and brings it out with her to Tissetoppen where mobile coverage is usually better. There are no new text messages from Katarina Hatlem. Her core staff probably haven’t held their morning meeting yet, Trine thinks, while she wonders how long her friend with the curly red hair will manage to hold out. Trine is well aware that the press office is snapping at Katarina’s heels, even though Katarina wouldn’t admit to it when they spoke last night. And they are not the only ones. Trine dare not even think about what people must be saying about her in her department, across the whole Labour Party and in the Prime Minister’s office.
A large ship appears behind the rocks and slides past Rakke towards the foamy crests that are waiting for it. Trine turns towards the wind. The fast, blue colossus slices neatly through the white horses without rocking while her own little boat is listing and taking in water.
Further down the uneven hillside the hare peeks out from behind a bush. It stands still for a few seconds and sniffs before it runs off to hide from its enemies. And she thinks how easy it would be just to disappear out here among the rocks, the crags and the knolls, something she has been fantasising about in the last twenty-four hours. She could go for a walk along the coastal path and then just…
Trine closes her eyes and imagines it. And realises that she isn’t scared of the pain or of the darkness. The door is open. All she has to do is go in.
Chapter 37
The investigation team return to their activities straight after the morning briefing. The information about the missing school photo is a welcome development in the case and much of their work now revolves around it. They contact the three schools where Erna Pedersen taught. Ultimately that could mean hundreds of photographs, thousands of pupils, but at least it’s a place to start. They have also requested pupil registers starting from 1972 and up to 1993 when she retired.