I wonder what I did, Henning thinks to himself. What did I do that made Mum hate me and worship Trine?
Henning looks at the photo album again, the pebble beach, the rocks, the ships in the Skagerrak. He can’t remember when he last visited the cabin, but it must be many years ago. He remembers how the small community and the holiday resort seemed to die every year in mid-August. Their sun-loving cabin neighbours would disappear before the schools started again. When Henning’s family came back in September to shut down the cabin for the winter, their neighbours would already have left. The sea could carry on gambolling without an audience. And it occurs to him that if Trine has gone somewhere to be alone right now, then that has to be the place.
It has started to rain again when Bjarne comes back outside, a cold shower with big, heavy drops. But neither the wet nor the cool autumn air has any effect on him. An uneasy gut feeling has brought on a fever that is spreading to the rest of his body.
Two crime scenes in the space of just a few days presenting with very similar evidence. Is that a coincidence? he asks himself, and answers his own question immediately. Photographs can easily get broken in the heat of a struggle. Murder by strangulation is not uncommon. And only Erna Pedersen was mutilated after her death.
But even so.
Shortly afterwards Bjarne sees Emil Hagen outside the entrance to the apartment block. Because of the heavy rain they get into one of the patrol cars, but don’t start the engine. The raindrops batter the windscreen. Big curtains of water are blown across the bodywork.
‘I checked with the emergency services,’ Bjarne says. ‘There were no calls to them from the victim’s mobile.’
Hagen runs a hand over his wet face and wipes it on his trousers.
‘I’ve spoken to those neighbours who were at home,’ he says. ‘Nobody heard anything.’
Bjarne tries looking out through the windscreen. It’s starting to mist up. Outside two police officers walk past, chatting to each other, but their words can’t be heard inside the car.
‘But there was one interesting thing,’ Hagen says. ‘The victim reported a break-in two weeks ago.’
Bjarne turns his head to his colleague whose jaw looks even more tightly clenched than usual.
‘Nothing was taken, but she said – if I’ve understood this correctly – that someone had been bleeding in her flat.’
‘Bleeding?’
‘Yes. She found a blood stain right next to the cat basket, I believe. And someone had smashed a photo on the wall.’
Bjarne looks at him.
‘Two weeks ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘The same picture hanging there now or a different one?’
‘I’m not sure, but I think it was the same one. It’s possible she hadn’t replaced the frame. Or the glass yet.’
‘And left broken glass on the floor?’
Bjarne shakes his head.
‘I highly doubt that.’
Hagen doesn’t reply. A smell of wet leather rises from his jacket.
How bizarre, Bjarne thinks. Someone broke a picture in the victim’s home two weeks ago and the same thing happens again today?
This is definitely not a coincidence. And it bears witness to a deep-seated rage.
‘Who handled the investigation?’ Bjarne asks.
Hagen looks at him.
‘It was low priority. Nothing was stolen. And nobody got hurt.’
‘Except, possibly, the man who broke in.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘But what about the blood? Can that help us?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hagen says. ‘I guess it’s at the back of the queue at the lab, like everything else.’
Bjarne shakes his head and sighs.
‘What kind of blood was it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Are we talking drops, blood spurts – what was it?’
‘A smear. Like if you have a cut, but you don’t know it and then you accidentally touch—’
‘I know what a smear is, Emil.’
The investigators sit in pensive silence for a few seconds while the rain lashes the windscreen. Bjarne puts his hand on the door handle.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘I guess we’ll have to do what we always do.’
‘I guess so.’
Chapter 49
Henning loves autumn. In the summer only the copper beeches and the bright yellow rapeseed fields stand out from all the lush shades of green. But in the autumn nearly every tree and bush changes colour. It’s as if the year has matured. And yes, the colour palette warns of darker times, and yes, there is something sad about the dying plants and withering leaves. But even so Henning has always welcomed it.
Nora could never understand why halfway through Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Henning would sit there with tears in his eyes and yet expect her to believe that the saltwater was a sign that he was enjoying himself.
Now autumn rushes past outside the car window. The fields lie shorn and dormant, like a memorial to bright, warm summer evenings.
Henning remembers that the drive to Stavern used to take two and a half hours, but that was going from Kløfta. It was also in a different car, in another age. They would pack the small, blue VW Beetle to the rafters and, had they been spotted today, the police would have pulled them over for careless driving. Just being back on the same road – or almost the same road because motorways have been built since – reminds Henning how he used to be squashed on the backseat, barely able to reach out to undo the small latch that opened a window to get rid of the cigarette smoke in the car.
His mobile rings when he is almost halfway there. It is the 123news national news editor. He is tempted to ignore the call, but capitulates in the end.
‘Hello, Heidi.’
‘Where are you?’
As usual, his boss skips the small talk.
‘I’m in the car.’
‘A woman has been found murdered in a flat in Bislett. I want you to go there straightaway.’
‘Sorry, but that’s going to be difficult. I’m on my way to—’
Henning stops himself; he doesn’t want to reveal his destination.
‘On your way to where?’
‘I’ve almost got to Tønsberg.’
‘What on earth are you doing in Tønsberg?’
‘There’s just something I need to check.’
Heidi sighs heavily into the telephone.
‘So when do you think you’ll be back?’
‘Don’t know. Later tonight, hopefully.’
Another sigh.
‘Okay.’
She hangs up without saying goodbye.
For the next hour Henning concentrates on the road. All he has to do is remember to turn off at the crazy golf course at Anvikstranda Camping, which they were allowed to visit once every summer, and he’ll be there. It’s a trip down memory lane.
He remembers too small hands trying to grip too big golf clubs. He remembers the bumpy road, which hasn’t grown less bumpy over the years, how they practically had to drive off-road to make way for any cars coming towards them. But he doesn’t need those memories now.
Past the grove a large grassy area opens out. This is where they used to play football in the summer. Where they tried to fly kites. Where they would practise cartwheels, throw Frisbees and forget to eat because they were having so much fun. And on the horizon lies the sea, big, blue and beautiful.