‘Is it that obvious?’ Trine says and laughs quickly.
‘I’m always nervous in situations like these,’ the negotiator says. ‘It usually brings out the best in me. And one more thing: use his first name, Remi. It might make him feel that you know each other. And, if you can, refer to the hostages by their first names. It’ll make it harder for him to hurt them.’
Trine nods and closes her eyes in an attempt to focus her thoughts. What if this goes belly up as well? What kind of legacy will she leave behind? She can see the demands. APOLOGISE! the front pages will clamour. Again.
Trine’s chest is pounding. Her pulse is 190. Adrenaline. A feeling she normally loves, but this is nothing like a high. She closes her eyes for a moment. Then she rings the number.
Remi looks at the phone vibrating on the worktop in the kitchen. The police have stopped ringing Emilie’s phone. And started calling his.
It means they know who he is now. They must also have discovered what he has done. But how could they? Where did he screw up?
Once more he reviews the murder of Erna Pedersen in his mind. She didn’t remember him the first time he rolled her wheelchair back from the singalong in the TV lounge, not until he showed her pictures from the year he was in and reminded her about the fractions.
Remi had never been much good at maths. One day, she ordered him up to the blackboard, told him to reduce a fraction she had written. And he stood there, staring at the confusion of numbers without understanding anything at all. Later, he suspected that had been her intention all along, make him go up there so they could all have a good laugh at his expense, the whole class. What she did afterwards, as the volume of her voice rose, certainly caused some of his fellow pupils to snicker. She ordered him to crawl under one of the desks in the front row and screamed while she hit the desk with her cane, ‘This is a fraction. And you can’t have a nothing under a fraction!’
Another time she had turned up with three large bars of chocolate and told them that if every single pupil in the class could work out an equation she had taught them, they could have the chocolate. As expected Remi failed and, surprise, surprise, she made a big point out of stressing how he had ruined it for everyone. Then there was the way she always looked at him. Her scornful laughter.
When he held up the school photo to her and pointed himself out, she showed signs of recognition, but she said nothing. And he felt the urge, right there and then, to extinguish the light in the eyes he had hated ever since his school days, but he couldn’t do it. Too many people had seen him wheel her in. Markus was waiting for him. So he left the school photo on the wall in the hope that she would remember what she had done. Perhaps she would say sorry next time.
But no. What he saw instead were traces of the same contempt she had treated him with at school. And though he had planned it, he didn’t actually understand what had happened until after he had killed her. He had also destroyed the trophy on her wall, the photograph of her son’s family displayed like a prize for successful mothering. Then he took the school photo with him and sneaked back into the TV lounge, took up position right behind Markus and sang along with ‘Thine Be the Glory, Risen Conquering Son’.
Remi hadn’t spoken to Markus since sixth form when one day they bumped into each other in the Storgata branch of Spaceworld where Remi had gone to buy a computer. They got talking and it was actually quite amusing to hear what had become of the old Romeo: absolutely nothing. No girlfriend, no children. A hefty spare tyre had formed around his waist and most of his wavy, blond hair had been replaced with a shiny, bald circle at the top of his head. Nor had he been very successful at finding work.
But as neither of them had that many friends, they started hanging out together. It was awkward to begin with. Remi wasn’t over Emilie and Markus made a point of never mentioning her name. Not voluntarily. They had to drink a whole bottle of Vargtass before Remi could ask Markus if he was still in touch with Emilie, a question that inevitably stirred up the past.
And if Remi’s father has taught him anything, it is that apologies come in many forms. It wasn’t until Markus’s body was practically anaesthetised with alcohol that he produced a feeble, miserable apology. But saying sorry means only that you sympathise, not that you take responsibility for what you did. That was the night Remi made up his mind.
Markus must be made to take responsibility.
Remi knew that Markus had dated Johanne at some point. He had also discovered that Erna Pedersen lived at Grünerhjemmet and that the Volunteer Service would visit from time to time to sing and play to the residents. And even though Markus might have lapsed over the years, he came from a family where Christian values mattered. So when Remi suggested that the two of them did something other than play computer games and get drunk, Markus was surprisingly easy to persuade.
It was well over twenty years since Erna Pedersen taught them and time had made her grey and lined. There was nothing to suggest that Markus recognised her when he saw her again. Remi knew that the police would check who had visited Grünerhjemmet on that day. If they were to discover that Johanne Klingenberg was another one of Erna Pedersen’s former’s pupils, they would start looking for a killer with a similar background. If they then tried to find out if any of Pedersen’s former pupils had been present at Grünerhjemmet on the day in question, they would finally get a hit with Markus Gjerløw. Remi Gulliksen, as he had signed himself in the visitors’ log, had never been one of Pedersen’s pupils. Remi Winsnes, however, was the name he had been known by until he turned eighteen.
The laptop arrangement was also straightforward. Markus, who always had to have the latest thing, didn’t mind selling his old laptop to Remi, a laptop Remi made sure to load with photos of Johanne and pictures taken in Erna Pedersen’s room. If the police checked if the laptop really belonged to Markus, then they would find his name registered against the computer’s serial number. All the evidence would point them to a man who, about to be exposed, had swallowed a blister pack of morphine capsules. Once again Remi saw the light extinguished in the eyes of someone he hated. And, as the perfect finish, Remi posted an apology on Markus’s Facebook profile, a status that remained unexplained.
It was perfect, wasn’t it?
So why are the police outside now?
Johanne’s murder, Remi thinks. Could Markus have had an alibi? Remi shakes his head. Halo 3 had just come out and Markus would have done nothing but play the game and play it 24/7. When Killzone 2 came out, he didn’t sleep for two days. Remi doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks it was even worse with Crysis. It was a risk, obviously, but Remi sent a text to Markus just before he went to Johanne’s flat to ask what he was doing. The reply was as he expected: Markus was playing on the computer. ‘Hate the graphics, but love the sound.’ Everything was as it should be.
So what had he got wrong?
Not that it really matters now. There are only two ways out of this situation: either with his hands above his head or staring up at the inside of a body bag.
So what do you choose?
He picks up the phone from the worktop, presses the green button and puts it to his ear. He hears white noise and senses tension. It takes a few seconds before someone says:
‘Hi.’
The voice sounds different, but he knows who it is.
‘This is Trine Juul-Osmundsen, Justice Secretary.’