The Boy in the Headlights

by Samuel Bjork

  It’s about my brother.

  Father Malley was well prepared. He had sat up late last night reading the Scriptures again, finding quotes about brothers. About loving your neighbour. About sacrificing yourself for other people. The desperate young voice had followed him in his dreams. He had woken up with the sun on his face and a strange feeling that someone was talking to him. Was it God? It wasn’t entirely clear, but it could have been. The Lord had praised him for what he had done, encouraging this poor lamb in need of divine guidance, and the Virgin had sat on a cloud with a harp and a big smile on her face, so he couldn’t have been properly awake because, not long afterwards, his alarm had gone off, but as he lay with his head resting on the white pillow, he had felt born again. He had barely been able to eat his breakfast, he had been that excited.

  But no one had come.

  I’m here for you. Every morning. I want you to know that.

  You come back to me when you’re ready.

  What about the next day? Why hadn’t he come?

  Yes, he had been disappointed, he had to admit it.

  He had managed to conduct today’s morning Mass well, although his focus had been elsewhere.

  The young man, would he turn up today?

  And then a less Christian thought occurred to him:

  If he doesn’t turn up today, how long do I wait?

  He pushed up the sleeve of his cassock and checked his watch.

  Maybe it was a silly idea, making such a grandiose promise.

  Father Malley heaved a sigh and drummed his fingers lightly against his thigh. The wooden seat was hard and uncomfortable and he was hungry too; after all, he had been sitting there for almost an hour now. The forty-three-year-old priest had decided that enough was enough when he suddenly heard footsteps on the church floor and a figure slipped in on the other side of the lattice.

  ‘Father,’ the young man mumbled, and closed the door carefully behind him.

  Jubilant trumpets and bassoons.

  He was back.

  ‘My son,’ Father Malley said in his deepest, most priestly voice. ‘You found your way back?’

  There was silence for a moment behind the lattice.

  ‘I really wasn’t sure. But I think I’m doing the right thing, Father. I want to thank you for convincing me to come here.’

  Thank him?

  Father Malley smiled to himself and felt warm in his chest.

  ‘Thank the Lord and the Virgin,’ he said softly. ‘We are all mere servants of the divine. I’m no one. I’m just here for you.’

  ‘Thank you anyway,’ the young man said. ‘I’ve given it a lot of thought. And I’ve made up my mind.’

  ‘Yes?’ Father Malley said cautiously.

  ‘I will tell you everything.’

  ‘You can trust me,’ Father Malley said calmly. ‘In this room, only the eyes of the Lord will judge.’

  ‘Judge?’

  Father Malley cleared his throat.

  ‘I didn’t mean “judge”, I meant “see”. That was what I meant: in here, only the Lord sees us.’

  ‘What if the Lord doesn’t like what he sees?’

  ‘Listen,’ Father Malley said, moving a little closer to the lattice. ‘No one is judging you. It came out the wrong way. There’s only you and me here. No one else.’

  He leaned back a little and waited in tense anticipation.

  ‘Yes, that’s fine, Father,’ the unknown voice said at length. ‘I think I need to tell someone. I hope it’s not a mistake. And that no one gets hurt.’

  ‘The Lord is pleased to hear you,’ Father Malley said, hoping he didn’t sound too keen. ‘And He wants you to know that, no matter what troubles you, He will receive it with compassion and understanding.’

  There was another silence on the other side, but at last it came.

  ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I know things that I haven’t told to anyone, and I can’t bear it any more. My heart is so heavy, I have to tell someone.’

  Father Malley couldn’t be sure, but he thought he could hear soft weeping behind the lattice.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ he said calmly. ‘The Lord is willing to listen to what you have to say. A dark burden is heavy for a light heart.’

  He couldn’t remember if the last line was a quote from the Scriptures, but it felt like the right thing to say.

  ‘Yes, Father, in our house everything is dark,’ the stranger said in a whisper. ‘But that’s not my fault, is it?’

  Definite tears now. Sobbing behind trembling lips.

  ‘Absolutely not, my son.’ Father Malley shifted still closer to the lattice.

  He was sorely tempted to open the lattice and give the brave young man a big hug, make him realize that he wasn’t alone, but he hoped that the warmth of his nearby voice would have the same effect.

  Poor lad.

  ‘How much time do I have?’ the voice stuttered beneath the tears.

  ‘As long as you need. I have all the time in the world.’

  ‘Thank you,’ the young man sniffled, then grew quiet again.

  ‘I don’t really know where to start,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s quite horrible.’

  ‘What’s horrible?’

  ‘Talking about it. About my brother. I feel that I’m letting him down after all these years, but I can’t go on. Do you understand, Father?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Where should I begin?’

  ‘Where do you think you ought to begin?’

  Another silence behind the wooden lattice while the stranger steeled himself.

  ‘The fire, perhaps,’ the voice said.

  ‘Go on?’ Father Malley said, and felt his heart beat a little faster under his cassock.

  ‘Or perhaps the deer,’ the young man said tentatively. ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Take as long as you need, my son. What fire are we talking about?’

  ‘We all died that day, but some of us are still alive. Can I trust you, Father? Can I tell you everything?’

  ‘Of course, my son.’

  And he shifted yet closer to the lattice.

  Chapter 46

  First he was at home. Then he wasn’t at home after all. First the girl with the green baseball cap was there. Then she turned into … a monkey? Erik Rønning switched off the TV, only he wasn’t holding the remote control, but a … banana? The girl in the green baseball cap had turned into a monkey and she was giving him a banana. The walls around him suddenly changed colour. His flat became a glitter ball. No, that was wrong. He wasn’t at home. He was somewhere else. Yes, he was at home, but it wasn’t his home now. It had been his home a long time ago. It was 1999. He was only fourteen years old. There was a Backstreet Boys poster on the wall. Nick, Kevin, AJ, Howie and Brian. His lungs hurt. He must be ill. The girl with the green baseball cap was gone. She had left his flat waving her magic wand, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. Abracadabra. Was his mum in? Was it his mum making that noise in the kitchen? Was it his mum sitting with a balaclava over her head at the end of his bed? With a scout’s knife? The one Uncle Tore had given him? Quit playing games with my heart. It was club night down at the youth centre in Asker this Friday. Dancing. Why did he feel so nervous? Why was everything around him so blurred, like a movie playing at a crazy speed and turning everything upside down? Was that why his mum had tied him up? So he wouldn’t fall off? Because his bed was on the ceiling? He tried to speak, but the big sailboat from the jetty below the house where he would often dive into the water was taped to his mouth.

  Erik Rønning opened his eyes.

  A man wearing a balaclava was sitting at the foot of his bed.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  ‘What?’ Rønning said, but no sound came out.

  Tape covering his mouth.

  He didn’t realize it at first.

  What was going on?

  Which explained why he wasn’t scared.

  But then … it came.

  ‘Are yo
u awake?’ the man in the balaclava said again and poked something into the sole of his foot.

  Oh, God …

  He could barely cope with the pain.

  He was using all his energy to keep his panic at bay.

  Shit …

  Oh, please God, no …

  Someone had tied him to his bed. Bound his hands and feet. He was naked except for his boxer shorts. Tape covered his mouth. The soles of his feet were facing a man in a balaclava who had a big knife in one hand.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ the dark eyes wanted to know, pricking his foot again.

  The agony …

  He howled so loudly that his head almost burst, but still not a sound came out of his mouth.

  ‘Are you awake now?’ A third time.

  Rønning nodded.

  ‘Good,’ the eyes said, the voice calm. ‘So you like talking, do you? You like attention?’

  The man made a small puppet with his hand and chatted away to it.

  ‘Look at me. I’m on TV. I know secrets. I think I’m special.’

  He was in deep shit now.

  ‘Do you know what we used to do in Afghanistan? To people who liked chatting?’

  Rønning felt the tip of the knife against the sole of his foot again. His body jerked as the room started spinning.

  Arrgghh.

  He must have blacked out for a moment, because when he opened his eyes the man in a balaclava was bent over him.

  He recognized the smell.

  Of the glove that had slapped him so hard that he woke up.

  And something acidic.

  ‘Now don’t you go disappearing from me, OK?’

  The balaclava was back at the foot of the bed.

  Dark eyes through the holes.

  ‘Nod if you understand me.’

  Rønning nodded again.

  As if his life depended on it.

  ‘Good. You’re not going to doze off again, are you?’

  Rønning shook his head frantically.

  ‘Good. You’re a little bitch, aren’t you? You swan around in fancy clothes on TV and steal all the attention?’

  Rønning nodded eagerly.

  He could feel his own stench.

  His fear turned into the smell under his armpits.

  Oh, please God.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  ‘Good.’ The man in the balaclava nodded. ‘But you’re my bitch now. I can improvise, you know. I like planning, that’s my strength, but I can improvise when I want to, do you understand?’

  Rønning didn’t know if he was meant to answer the last part of the question, but he nodded all the same. The light from the ceiling lamp stung his eyes. He was experiencing a level of physical sensitivity he’d never had before. He thought he could still feel the cold blade against his foot, although he could clearly see that the man was holding the knife up in the air.

  ‘Are you my bitch?’

  Rønning nodded desperately as his own smell grew stronger, making him nauseous.

  ‘Good,’ the eyes said. ‘Normally, I would just have killed you, but then I thought perhaps I can use this bitch for something. I can improvise. Clever, isn’t it?’

  Something that resembled a smile formed in the hole at the bottom of the balaclava.

  Rønning nodded for dear life.

  ‘I know,’ the man said. ‘I’m clever. They thought they would get away with it, didn’t they? Well, it doesn’t look like that now, does it?’

  Rønning’s brain was working overtime, but it was like wading through treacle.

  Afghanistan?

  Get away?

  With what?

  He shook his head, just to be on the safe side.

  ‘Lashkar Gah,’ the voice said quietly. ‘Do you know where that is?’

  Rønning shook his head feverishly.

  ‘No, you don’t, do you?’ the man in the balaclava said with a light shrug. ‘You sacrifice your life for your country, and what thanks do you get? Am I on the news, with medals on my chest? Have you seen any parades? Children waving flags and brass bands? No. I guess they were hoping everyone would forget. I mean, they hid me away in a basement. They pretended nothing had happened.’

  The man narrowed his eyes again and spat demonstratively on the floor.

  ‘No. It’s my time now.’

  He stuck his gloved hand into the pocket of an army jacket and held up a piece of paper.

  ‘Do you see this?’

  Rønning couldn’t see what it said, but he nodded all the same.

  ‘You’ll give them this from me, OK? And I don’t mean the people you work for. The top brass. Go right to the top. Do you understand?’

  Rønning nodded again and felt that yesterday’s alcohol intake was on its way up from his stomach now.

  ‘Good.’ The mouth grinned in the hole and the man stood up.

  He turned quickly to the wall and rammed his knife through the piece of paper.

  Erik Rønning could see the handle quiver against the wallpaper. The man in the balaclava came towards him and untied one arm from the bed. Rønning’s ears just about registered that his front door slammed shut somewhere far away before he ripped the tape from his mouth with trembling fingers, leaned over the edge of his bed.

  And threw up all over the floor.

  Chapter 47

  Gabriel was sitting in the incident room with Ylva and Ludvig, impressed at how much information the old investigator had managed to put up on the walls in such a short space of time. Lots of photographs, each with a name underneath and arranged to highlight their connection to one another. And therein lay the problem, the problem they had been working to solve since yesterday afternoon without getting very far.

  The connections.

  There just didn’t seem to be any.

  ‘It has to be random.’ Ylva sighed and took off her glasses.

  She rubbed her eyes and suppressed a yawn.

  ‘I’m tempted to agree with you,’ Grønlie said, and looked once more at the colourful wall. ‘And that’s the only connection we’ve been able to find, isn’t it?’

  He pointed to the red line connecting Vivian Berg to Raymond Greger.

  ‘Remind me who the people around Kurt Wang are again?’ Ylva said.

  ‘His band,’ Grønlie said. ‘The vocalist, Nina Wilkins. And the drummer, a Portuguese man named Danilo Costa.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Ylva rubbed her eyes again. ‘I’ve been staring at this so long my brain feels as if it’s full of dust.’

  None of them had been home. Ylva had been napping in her chair in front of her computer. Gabriel had dozed briefly on the sofa in the break room. He wouldn’t call it sleep. Just dreamy, restless thoughts, photographs and incidents that refused to make sense.

  Munch entered with a cup of coffee; his hair was tousled and he didn’t look as if he had had very much sleep either.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he said, and flopped onto one of the office chairs. ‘Any connections? Anywhere? Anything?’

  ‘We’re still looking,’ Grønlie said, chewing his lip, ‘but nothing has come up.’

  ‘OK,’ Munch said, scratching his beard. ‘Talk me through what you have so far.’

  ‘Victims, crime scenes, anyone with a relationship to the victims,’ Grønlie pointed. ‘Then we have a timeline over there. Here, on this wall, we have everyone’s electronic footprints. Mobiles, computers, places we can prove they have been.’

  ‘By the way, has anyone seen Mia?’ Munch yawned. ‘Or Curry?’

  ‘Not since yesterday,’ Grønlie said.

  ‘Sorry for the interruption. Please go on,’ Munch said, taking a sip of his coffee.

  ‘Nothing on their mobiles or social media.’ Ylva pointed. ‘We found all Vivian Berg’s devices in her home, so no signals from them since the afternoon she left her flat. Kurt Wang’s mobile pinged off masts in Grünerløkka and down to Gamlebyen. The times correspond to when he disappeared until he was found.’

  ‘He went missing from
a rehearsal, isn’t that right?’ Munch said, stifling another yawn.

  Ylva nodded.

  ‘But of no use to us?’

  ‘No, nothing from when he was last seen.’

  ‘What about Iversen?’

  ‘CCTV from Storo shopping centre tells us that he wasn’t there, or at least he isn’t on the footage we’ve viewed so far. His text messages confirm that he was planning a sleepover with his friend. He went missing on the way there.’

  ‘And do we know where?’ Munch asked.

  Grønlie walked up to the big map near the door.

  ‘The last time his phone was picked up he was here. Grefsen.’

  ‘So not very far from home?’

  ‘His house is here. His friend lives there. I can’t remember his name.’

  ‘Martin,’ Gabriel said.

  ‘OK, so our theory stands up?’

  ‘Yes, as far as we can see.’ Ludvig nodded. ‘It looks like he really was heading out for a sleepover – we have him on his moped at this Statoil petrol station – but yes, after that it looks like someone waylaid him on the way there.’

  ‘We don’t have any cameras?’

  ‘It’s a residential area,’ Grønlie said, shaking his head. ‘I doubt we’ll find anything.’

  ‘So Berg was picked up at her home. Wang was picked up during a break at a rehearsal. Iversen was stopped and picked up on the street. No similarities. No connections.’

  ‘No.’ Ludvig sighed.

  This was the conclusion they had reached some time ago, but Munch didn’t seem willing to accept it yet. Gabriel hadn’t been with the special unit very long, but even he could work out why. Random victims? It was every investigator’s worst nightmare.

  ‘Social media? Still nothing?’ Munch took another sip of his coffee.

  ‘Vivian Berg, fairly low profile,’ Gabriel said. ‘Few friends. Posted very little. Kurt Wang was slightly more active. He runs a Facebook page for the band, which has quite a few followers.’