She brings her hands round to the front, looks at them red and sticky with blood; she doesn’t recognise them and they don’t hurt. She is free and Sebastian is still with Remi. Mattis tries to say something to her, but she hushes him in order to listen out to noises from the kitchen. Her first instinct is to rush in before it’s too late, divert Remi’s attention away from Sebastian and on to herself. But she has no way of knowing what would happen then, Remi might panic and lash out and she can’t run that risk because of Sebastian.
So now what?
Emilie looks around for a weapon, anything that can inflict injury. It’s not enough to knock Remi out even if she does get the chance. She has to make sure that he can’t get back up again.
My weights, she thinks. The dumbbells Johanne gave her for Christmas and which she keeps under the sofa in case she feels a sudden urge to exercise. Emilie rushes over to the sofa, lies down flat on the floor and spots the dumbbells in between dust bunnies, Lego bricks and an old grape that is turning into a raisin. She stretches out as far as she can, gets hold of one of the dumbbells and rolls it towards herself. Then she stands back up, raises the dumbbell to chest height and pledges that if she – and Sebastian and Mattis – get out alive, she is going to start exercising properly rather than just talk about doing it. She will take responsibility for her life. Improve herself. Try to love all of Mattis and not just the reindeer hunter in him.
Emilie hurries over to the door and braces herself.
At that moment the kitchen door handle is pushed down.
Remi doesn’t reply.
Trine turns to the hostage negotiator, to Simen Krogh, to the police officers and everyone in uniform who begin to move in almost robot-like unison. Trine knows why. A scream from a hostage means danger, that lives may be lost.
The officers from the armed response unit move closer, orders are issued, code words and warnings that make no sense to her. Everyone is standing by.
Trine closes her eyes.
Please, she says to herself. Please let this end well.
Chapter 84
Emilie raises the dumbbell over her head, ready to strike. She knows that Remi might be holding Sebastian so she hides behind the kitchen door when it opens. Remi takes a step forward. And she sees that Sebastian is right behind him, but neither of them has noticed her.
Emilie closes her eyes and lets her arm fall. She has only one thought in her head and that is to hit Remi and hit him again and again until there is nothing left to hit.
At that moment there is a bang. She has never heard such a loud bang before and when she opens her eyes, she realises at once that Mattis’s rifle has been fired, but it doesn’t stop her, she still lets the dumbbell fall and she feels that she hits something, but has no idea what.
She is about to strike again when one of the living room windows is smashed in. The floor starts to shake with the heavy footsteps of men in dark uniforms and her arm stops moving. There is a lot of shouting, but Emilie doesn’t understand a word that is being said, she just concentrates on hitting Remi, but it’s no use. Someone is restraining her.
Emilie exhales and then she sees Remi’s feet under a pile of men and Mattis’s gun trapped under a solid, black boot on the birch parquet floor. White powder scatters from the ceiling as if it has started to snow indoors. And that’s when she realises it’s all over.
The tiny, delicate crying of a toddler emerges from the pandemonium of loud, male voices and Emilie wriggles free. She rushes over to her son, who is looking up at her with wide-open, moist eyes. His cheeks are flushed. Lightning McQueen is lying next to a bowl of half-eaten cornflakes on the kitchen floor. There is mess everywhere. And Emilie doesn’t really understand what has happened, but right now she doesn’t care, either.
She puts her hand on Sebastian’s head and hugs him tightly. And she thinks that nothing in the whole world will ever make her let go.
Trine doesn’t notice that the drizzling rain has turned into heavy drops. It is as if she has a puncture. The air is escaping from her, making her heavy and empty. She feels a hand on her shoulder as someone speaks to her, but she doesn’t hear what they say and she doesn’t know who they are. It’s not until now that she realises she is shaking all over.
Slowly she becomes aware of the uproar around her; someone starts to clap, a round of applause, born out of relief, which gradually gains momentum. But Trine doesn’t join in. She just stands there panting.
It ended well. No one was hurt.
And she doesn’t know where they come from, the tears that now engulf her. She hasn’t cried for as long as she can remember. She didn’t cry when she was accused of sexual assault and life became intolerable. She didn’t cry when she lost a friend to cancer some years ago. She didn’t cry when they watched Atonement on DVD, she and Pål Fredrik, even though he did. Nor did she shed tears of joy when Petter Northug beat Axel Teichmann in the last lap of the World Championship Relay Race in Liberec, though she was a little moved.
But she is crying now.
The heavy rain disguises her tears and Trine cries as if her body needs to make up for all the tears she never shed. She doesn’t know for how long she stands there sobbing in the rain, but when she turns around and walks back to the police cordons, to the TV cameras and all the onlookers, knowing full well that she has another battle to fight before this day is over, she straightens up a little and juts out her chin.
And it strikes her that she hasn’t felt this strong for a long time.
Chapter 85
Henning cranes his neck to see what is going on. Exactly what has happened doesn’t require major analytical skills. Applause and cheers spread across the neighbourhood. The hostage situation has been resolved, clearly without the loss of life, otherwise people would not be cheering.
Henning sends a quick message to the news desk. To the extent it was possible outside the police cordons, he has kept the news desk updated and he knows that they have been feeding the readers of 123news with an account of events as they happened.
But that the story would conclude with Trine coming to Jessheim to try talking Remi Gulliksen out of Emilie Blomvik’s house, Henning would never have imagined. He should really have stayed away since conflict of interest means he can’t write anything about his sister, but she wasn’t the central character in the hostage drama.
Now she comes towards the police cordons. Her head is held high. Her stride is purposeful and her gaze is steady. She looks confident again, Henning thinks. Trine straightens her shoulders as she walks directly towards TV2’s reporter Guri Palme, adjusts her clothing and pushes out her chest slightly.
Henning makes his way to the front and earns himself a look of disapproval from the other journalists, which he decides to ignore. Trine stops in front of the TV2 camera where Palme waits until she gets a message in her ear that everything is ready. Then she asks what happened and what part Trine played in it. And Trine gives plain and simple answers without dramatising or overplaying her own role; she stresses how delighted she is that there was no loss of life.
‘But Trine Juul-Osmundsen, earlier today you were about to hold a press conference to tell your side of the sexual assault allegations. What can you tell us about that right now?’
‘What I can tell you is that I’ve offered my resignation to the Prime Minister and that he has accepted it. We’ll have to see what the King says when the Cabinet meets tomorrow.’