The accident.
It’s in every muscle, every bone in your body, burned deep into your soul.
And nobody believes you.
That was the worst part of it. Jasmin undressed. The pale scar left by her stitches stood out against her skin. It had only been a few months ago but the scar already looked much, much older. The impact had driven part of the dashboard into her side – it had been close, very close.
But you’re alive.
You’re alive – while that man . . .
She suppressed the thought, pushing it aside like an ugly, heavy box that blocked her path, and got into the shower. The water was hot and the pressure strong, a blessing after her tiring day. She closed her eyes and listened to the quiet patter of the water and the gurgle of the plughole, which mingled with the soft rustling of the wind outside. A shutter clattered noisily against the side of the house as the spray massaged her tense shoulders.
The light had taken on a blood-red colour, as if to reflect how she felt. It was as though her left side was filled with hot coals – a pain that radiated up to her temples and down to her calves. They had told her afterwards she’d kept shouting for her husband and son every time she woke up, panicking, terrified – and that hadn’t been the only thing she’d yelled either. ‘Out of the way, get out of the way!’ she’d cried, as if trying to warn somebody.
The man she saw leaning over her when she woke up, his familiar face emerging from the blurred, foggy darkness of her unconsciousness, was not Jørgen. She was looking not at her husband, but at the Nordic blue eyes of Sven Birkeland; at the cool, appraising gaze of the specialist registrar at the Oslo University Hospital, Ullevål – the man at whose side she normally stood every day in the operating theatre.
Jasmin opened her mouth and felt the dried-out skin on the corners of her lips crack painfully. She was thirsty; her throat was parched, as if she’d just walked through a desert. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Easy, Jasmin. Take it easy.’ He touched her hand and looked at her half-affectionately, half-worriedly. His concern alarmed her more than the pain – but not as much as the blank space in her memory. And this dull ache, where did it come from?
‘What happened?’ Jasmin cleared her throat, sending a new wave of pain coursing through her body. Somebody must have sawn your head open and jabbed shards of glass behind your forehead – there’s no other way to explain this agony. ‘It – it hurts so much.’
Sven glanced to one side and Jasmin noticed the drip attached to her arm. The rest of her body was hidden under a white blanket. She could smell the astringent odour of disinfectant. It felt as familiar to her as Jørgen’s touch.
You’re in Ullevål. But you’re not at work. You . . .
‘Jasmin, you’ve had an accident. We’re looking after you. Everything is OK, you’ll be back on your feet soon enough.’
Jasmin grasped at his fingers. ‘Tell me the truth!’
‘It was a car accident. You hit an animal.’
‘What? An animal?’ This doesn’t make sense, an inner voice told her. Something doesn’t add up here . . .
‘That’s right, sweetheart. A deer, and a pretty big one at that. You’re hurt, but it’s nothing we can’t fix. You know what we always tell our patients . . .’ He smiled, and the gesture consoled her somewhat.
‘We do this all the time,’ she said, finishing his sentence.
‘Look at it this way: now you get to experience all the advantages of this hospital from a different point of view. Isn’t that great?’
Jasmin awkwardly lifted her hand and pointed at the drip and the morphine pump below it. ‘Give me more. Everything hurts.’
‘Sure thing.’
‘What about Paul? And Jørgen?’
‘They’re fine.’ Sven hesitated, though it was such a brief, barely perceptible pause that Jasmin didn’t quite register it in her hazy state of mind. ‘They’ve been waiting outside the whole time. But I think you should try and get some more sleep now, don’t you?’
Jasmin closed her eyes. Even this short conversation had cost her an unbelievable effort. She felt an irresistible urge to drift off to sleep, the pain that radiated from her side gradually dwindling into a dull, insignificant background buzz with each passing second.
‘That sounds good. Tell Jørgen I’ll . . . I’ll be back on my feet soon.’
‘That’s right, Jasmin. You definitely will be.’
Chapter 4
A rain-slicked road. Headlights illuminating the white lines as they rushed past. The wipers sliding back and forth over the windscreen as if in never-ending mutual pursuit – two foes unable to ever quite catch up with each other. And all the while, the rain hammering down relentlessly over everything, obscuring her view.
Jasmin peered through the windscreen. She’d taken her foot off the accelerator and was driving just below the speed limit. The last road sign now lay behind them, and the trees that lined both sides of this narrow country road were drawing ever nearer – huge, ancient giants with thick trunks.
A long way from civilisation, she thought. And from any mobile phone coverage.
Eyes glittered in the headlights along the sides of the road. There were a lot of animals about tonight. At one point Jasmin saw a wolf calmly turn its sleek head in her direction, the rain dripping from its grey fur.
Then she saw the headlights in the rear-view mirror.
Two huge, brilliant white flares, like a pair of eyes. ‘That moron is still on full beam,’ she said to herself. ‘Hasn’t he realised? No, of course he hasn’t, as he wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.’
The headlights came nearer and nearer – a big four-by-four whose driver was evidently in a hurry. ‘Overtake me, you lunatic!’ Jasmin slowed down even further and steered her small car closer to the verge in order to make space on the narrow road. ‘Overtake, there’s nobody coming! And then get out of my hair.’
But the Jeep made no attempt to overtake. Instead, it drove up close to her bumper, forcing Jasmin to pull the anti-dazzle lever on her rear-view mirror. She glanced over at the passenger seat where she’d left her handbag. Do you have your phone with you? Or did you leave it at home? What exactly is going on here? Why are you so flustered?
The Jeep drew even closer. Jasmin tried to see who the driver was, but she could only make out a silhouette and it was impossible to say if it belonged to a man or a woman. One thing was clear though: this person wasn’t going to give up.
Sweat beaded on her forehead; droplets trickled down between her shoulder blades.
‘What do you want from me?’
Her stomach lurched as she realised her car couldn’t possibly withstand the weight of the Jeep, and it would only take one little bump for her to veer off the road, judder over the rumble strip and career down the verge.
Jasmin knew what the outcome of that kind of accident could be. She’d seen the victims – had stood in theatre on countless occasions and monitored their vital signs and dosages in her job as an anaesthetist.
Suddenly, the Jeep swerved into the other lane, accelerated sharply and overtook her. Jasmin glanced across at it, but all she could make out was a pair of hands gripping a large steering wheel. Moments later, she could see only the Jeep’s tail lights ahead of her, which quickly vanished into the darkness. Jasmin exhaled in relief.