We Know You Remember (38)

A woman trying to hold it together, thought Eira, closing the door to the kitchen. Patrik Nydalen’s agitated voice was still faintly audible. He was in the living room with Bosse Ring. The two officers had split up so that the Nydalens couldn’t alter their stories, influence the other to keep quiet, or change their version of events. A glance might be enough, a sigh, a breath. Breaking the ties of loyalty was the biggest challenge when it came to families. They were deep rooted and unpredictable even for those involved, who could simultaneously love and hate one another, feel a desire to protect while also being willing to betray.

Sofi Nydalen was no longer in the house. She had left with her children that morning, shortly after the police turned up.

“Where did she go?” asked Eira.

“Back home, to Stockholm.” Mejan looked away, seemed to be studying one of the cabinet doors, hand-carved in pine. They were sitting at the kitchen table, a thermos of coffee in front of them. The woman didn’t seem to have any intention of producing a second cup for Eira. “It’s probably just as well,” she said. “You bundle the kids’ grandfather into a police car, right in front of them, and refuse to say why.”

“What do you know about your husband’s past?” asked Eira. “Back up north, before he moved down here?”

“Tryggve and I have no secrets from each other.”

“Does the name J?vredal mean anything to you?”

“So that’s what this is about.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want to know about that business with the girl up there,” said Mejan. “It was almost forty years ago, but in your databases a person is never free. You see it written down and think you know who a man is.”

“Was Tryggve keen to keep it a secret?” asked Eira. The fact that his wife knew about the assault only increased her curiosity. For a person to live with that kind of knowledge, to love.

“Is your friend with the crooked nose telling Patrik all this stuff now?” Mejan got up and took a few steps towards the door before turning back, as though she was considering marching out there. “I’m sorry, but he does look like a bit of a gangster.”

“So Patrik didn’t know about any of this?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m asking you.”

Mejan continued her pacing, five steps forward before she had to turn back in the cramped space, ducking beneath a beam.

“Patrik loves his kids more than anything else, and now his wife has taken them away. Sofi comes from a different world, I don’t know what it’s like. Somewhere where family doesn’t come first, where it’s more about yourself and what feels comfortable. Patrik decided to stay because he doesn’t want to leave me on my own. He’s loyal, both to me and his father.”

“How long have you known?”

“I don’t know why you’re dragging up all that old business. Tryggve served his time.”

“I’d appreciate it if you would answer my questions.”

Mejan paused, stiff and facing away from Eira, staring at an embroidered picture of wild pansies, the provincial flower, on the wall. Her hair had grayed elegantly, the way some women manage.

“He invited me for a picnic,” she said. “Six months after we first met, by Akershus Fortress in Oslo. You can see right across the water from there. I almost thought he was going to propose, he seemed so tense and wanted it to be so nice, with wine and everything. And then he broke up with me. Said he was taking a job on one of the oil rigs, that it wouldn’t work with him being away so much. Of course it will, I told him, it’ll be fine, I’ll wait for you. You have no idea how handsome he was back then, but he was also so cautious.”

Mejan turned around and looked Eira straight in the eye, unyielding.

“We’ve never had any secrets from each other. If anyone knows what kind of man he is, it’s me.”

Everyone has their secrets, thought Eira, particularly those who are constantly claiming not to have any.

“At first, I thought I must be the problem,” Mejan continued. “I never seriously thought I could be with someone so handsome, but it wasn’t about me, he told me that over and over again. I asked what the hell it was then, refused to give in, and eventually he told me the whole story. He thought I wouldn’t want him if I knew. That was how it was, that was why he wanted to run off to the middle of the North Sea.”

“But you did?”

“I was pregnant,” said Mejan. “I hadn’t dared tell him yet, was scared he wouldn’t want the baby, but I had no choice. ‘I can’t be anyone’s father,’ Tryggve told me. I started crying then, and I’m not the kind of person who cries easily. I said, ‘Of course you can, you’ll be the most wonderful father,’ and then I suggested we get married, so he wouldn’t have any more doubts.”

“What did he tell you?”

“It seems like you already know.”

“I’ve read the court’s version.”

Mejan’s version wasn’t quite the same. Eira wondered whether it was Tryggve’s interpretation or whether she had reframed things herself in an attempt to make them easier to live with.

“He treated a girl horribly once,” she said. “But Tryggve never meant to hurt her, he thought the girl was into it. He was drunk, of course.”