‘Okay,’ he says, gets up and extends his hand to Emilie Blomvik. ‘Thank you so much. You’ve been a great help.’
Chapter 59
Trine’s legs are killing her after yesterday’s coastal walk. Her head feels leaden too. She hasn’t managed to eat very much in the last few days. Nor has she had enough to drink. Not water, anyway.
Though she still doesn’t know what to do, she feels better for having spent time out here. It has been good to have only the sea, the wind and the rocks for company. Feeling small again. She realises she would like to return to the cabin as soon as possible, but knows she will have a hard time persuading Pål Fredrik to join her. She will have to bribe him with at least fifty kilometres of main road cycling every day; though whether she will still have him after recent events remains to be seen. Perhaps that is why she feels so drained of energy. So terrified.
Trine locks the cabin, returns the key to the nail under the bench and says a quiet ‘goodbye for now’ in her head. Then she walks up the mound and rings Katarina Hatlem, who answers after just a few rings.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ Trine says. ‘I’m coming home.’
The voice of her Director of Communications sounds instantly relieved, but Trine adds that she won’t be returning to her office today. She probably won’t come in until tomorrow.
‘Okay.’
‘But you can tell anyone who might be wondering that I intend to make a statement soon. I have to. I just don’t know when.’
‘That’s great, Trine. But what are you going to say?’
Trine stops, turns to look at the sea, at Tvistein Lighthouse and the endless blue.
‘Well, that’s the thing. Whatever will do the least damage.’
At the morning meeting, Heidi Kjus is in a foul mood because Henning isn’t up to speed on the Bislett murder and even more annoyed because 123news are still having to quote NTB. Henning has been told to cover the Bislett murder as well, but he has little interest in it as he finally appears to be making headway in the mystery surrounding Trine.
He thinks about the fax that was sent to every newspaper in the country a couple of days ago. The death blow to his sister’s career. Surely it must be possible to trace where that fax was sent from?
Trine’s enemy probably wouldn’t be stupid enough to send it from their own office. They might have got someone else to do it, of course, but that would be risky. If you want to keep a secret, tell no one.
Henning’s gaze is drawn towards the desk where Kåre Hjeltland is clapping his hands for joy.
‘Sign of life from Juul-Osmundsen!’ he shouts.
Hjeltland turns to one of his staff.
‘Great,’ he continues. ‘Issue a short version. Two lines maximum and put it on the front page.’
The news desk assistant nods.
‘Tuva, what other cases are we waiting to publish?’
Henning cranes his neck; he can just see the head of the girl who looks down at the screen in front of her. Henning blocks out her voice while he shakes his head. Business as usual, he thinks. Nothing ever changes.
And if it hadn’t been the equivalent of banging his head against a brick wall, Henning would have contacted the VG journalists himself and asked them straight out who had sold them this pathetic pile of tosh that they have been happy to splash across several front pages without a second thought. But no journalist ever reveals their sources and certainly not to another journalist. And no newspaper would ever admit that they had allowed themselves to be used to bring down a government Minister.
Instead Henning retrieves the notorious fax from the huge pile of documents and newspapers on his desk. At the top of the printout he sees a fax number. It takes only minutes to discover that it belongs to an Internet café in Eiksmarka Shopping Centre. He decides to give them a call.
‘Hello,’ he says and introduces himself. ‘I’m wondering about something: do people have to show ID when they want to use one of your machines?’
‘People have to give their name and mobile number, which we register in our database, yes. If the FBI, for example, were to discover that someone had sent a threatening email to the US President from one of my machines, then I’m obliged to tell them the name of the person who used it.’
‘So if I were from the FBI, you’d be able to tell me who came to your café Monday evening sometime after ten o’clock to send a fax?’
‘Not exactly; the fax machine is available to anyone who comes here. But it’s probably going to be a short list. There weren’t that many people here that night.’
‘Great,’ Henning says. ‘Thank you so much.’
Chapter 60
Fredrik Stang races into Bjarne’s office without knocking.
‘We’ve got a hit!’ he exclaims. ‘We’ve gone through some of Erna Pedersen’s registers from Jessheim School. We’ve got a hit!’ he says again.
‘Who is it?’
‘Markus Gjerløw,’ Stang says with jubilation written all over his face.
Markus Gjerløw, Bjarne mutters to himself. The man he spoke to only yesterday. He was one of the volunteers who visited Grünerhjemmet.
‘He was two years above Emilie Blomvik and Johanne Klingenberg,’ Stang continues.
It has to be him.
‘Okay. Fantastic, Fredrik. Good job.’
Bjarne rings Emilie Blomvik immediately.
‘Markus Gjerløw,’ he says, pronouncing the name with exaggerated clarity when she answers. ‘Do you know who he is?’
Blomvik doesn’t reply immediately. Background noise from Oslo intrudes on the line.
‘Markus? Yes, of course I know him.’
‘Were Markus and Johanne ever friends?’
Bjarne sticks a finger in his ear in order to hear better.
‘They were an item at school, I think. I went out with Markus as well, but only for a short time in sixth form.’
Bjarne can barely sit still.
‘Emilie, this is very important. Can you remember why Markus and Johanne broke up?’
‘Yes,’ she says and laughs. ‘They were thirteen or fourteen years old. At that age it’s a miracle if anyone stays together for more than three weeks.’
‘So it wasn’t very serious, is that what you’re saying?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying, yes.’
‘And what about your relationship with him?’
Another short pause.
‘I don’t suppose I could have been more than seventeen or eighteen years old. Far too young for a serious relationship. And anyway, he was off to do national service, and so—’
Bjarne nods slowly while he digests the information.
‘Do you know what his relationship with Erna Pedersen was like?’
‘No, he was a few years older than me. But why do you want to know about that? Is he the man you’re—’
‘We don’t know yet,’ Bjarne interrupts her.
But his gut feeling tells him that Markus Gjerløw is his man.
A child, Henning ponders. How strange that such a blessing can cause so much destruction. His life is ruined by the death of a child. Trine’s life might be falling apart because of a child she never had. And he thinks about how his family slipped through his fingers without him doing anything about it. But could he really have prevented it? Was he even interested in stopping it happening?
He doesn’t think so. Not after he met Nora, not after Jonas. When he had his own family and became preoccupied with them. He didn’t think much about Trine or their shared past, he just accepted that it was a closed book for them both. He never made any attempt to patch up his family. Yes, he makes sure that their mother has cigarettes and alcohol, and that her flat is reasonably clean, but that’s the limit of his involvement. And now, as he sits here alone, knowing full well that Trine lives her life independently of him, independently of him and their mother, it’s tempting to think that the breakdown of the Juul family is his fault. He was the man of the house after his father died, he should have done something. Taken steps to uncover the problems and then fix them. Instead, he just let it fall apart.