Death of the Demon: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel (9 page)

Before he conceived of any reasonable answer to his puzzle, he fell fast asleep. Even though it was still early afternoon, despite being more alone than ever before, and very, very scared.

 • • • 

I was amazed at the child welfare service. They had visited me, so I must be located somewhere in their enormous filing cabinets. When the doorbell rang now and again—a salesman perhaps, or more likely a gang of hooligans who disappeared in a shower of yelling and screeching when I finally showed my face—I was paralyzed with fear. Most preferably I would sit as quiet as a mouse, pretending I was not here. But I knew they had their methods anyway, so I might as well open the door. It was never the child welfare service.

When the kindergarten called me to a private meeting one
afternoon, I was nonetheless convinced. I wondered where I would go. That didn’t take much time: I didn’t have a single place to run to. My mother understood nothing, and all her fussing got on my nerves. Actually I believe she doesn’t even like the child, just like everybody else. I had hardly seen anyone other than her since the boy was born. That was five years ago.

But the child welfare service wasn’t present at the meeting either. It was only the director, and she had always treated me decently. Now she was serious and seemed angry that the boy was with me. But what on earth should I have done with him? I said nothing.

He had cut through the refrigerator cable that same day. It could have been dangerous for him. If it had been only the one time, then it might have been just a silly notion. A boyish prank. But she felt it was part of a destructive pattern, and he had become too demanding for them. He did not play with the other children. He spoiled everything for them. He knew no boundaries. He was hyperactive.

I said nothing. Inside my head was just a ghastly throbbing lump, and the only thing at all I managed to form a thought about was the fear of losing the kindergarten place. But I said nothing.

Perhaps she realized that, because suddenly she became friendlier. They had applied for support hours, she told me. Fifteen hours with an assistant per week. BUP and PPT and other abbreviations I had no idea about at that time, would be brought in. But she didn’t say a word about children’s services. Eventually I understood the most important point: my boy would be able to continue at kindergarten. My head cleared a little, and I began to breathe again. I felt a pain in my stomach.

The next day, at the social security office, I found a brochure. It was about MBD—minimal brain dysfunction. I was sitting beside the leaflets and flipped through them in boredom while trying not to make eye contact with the others sitting waiting there. But then something caught my eye. A checklist. A whole load of signs that
children were suffering from brain damage, without anyone being to blame.

Everything fell into place! The restlessness, the energetic activity, the poor language skills when it was obvious he wasn’t any more stupid than other children, the difficulties in playing with other children—it was as though I were reading about my own boy. There was something wrong with his brain. Something that nobody could have done anything about. Something that was nothing to do with me. I took three copies of the little leaflet with me and felt a glimmer of hope.

 • • • 

“It would obviously be a piece of cake to get past a sleepy night watchman sitting with his back turned, watching TV. Both up and down. As long as the door was open.”

“Or if the murderer had a key. But that doesn’t alter the fact of the person in question having to be familiar with the house. He or she must have known where the staff member on night duty was usually located, and also known the difference between all the similar doors on the first floor.”

Billy T. had accompanied her home. They were now sitting at either end of a deep American sofa, while the pine table facing them was strewn with big feet. The room was not large, and it did not help matters that bookshelves covered one entire wall.

“And what’s more,” Hanne added, taking a gulp of her tea and realizing it was still too hot. “What’s more, the person in question must have known that Agnes was there, on that very evening. She wasn’t on duty, you know.”

“No, but it’s not at all certain that the murderer was there to kill anyone. It could have been something else he was after, and the knife may have been a security measure.”

“What could anyone have been after in that office? The potted plant?”

“There were at least a few locked drawers, so there must have been something inside them. Though they hadn’t been forced open. That key, though, do you remember that?”

Frowning, Hanne Wilhelmsen tilted her head slightly to one side.

“Yes,” she exclaimed. “The key Maren Kalsvik said should be under the plant pot! She looked surprised when we didn’t find it. Do you know where it is?”

“The crime scene technician had taken it. It’s been examined for fingerprints. Nothing of any use.”

“Had it been cleaned?”

“Not necessarily. On such a tiny key it only takes a little friction, quite naturally, for there be to be nothing to lift off. So we don’t know anything about how far the murderer had ransacked the drawers. There were some papers there, several psychologists’ reports and also the woman’s own notes about totally trivial matters, purchases, memoranda, and so on.”

“But
if
anyone was looking for something in the drawers, then it must be someone who knew where the key was to be found.”

“Then we’re looking first and foremost for someone who knew the home well,” Billy T. concluded. “And who was at least prepared for Agnes to be there, and who either came to kill her or knew that he might have to do so in order to get hold of something in the director’s office.”

“That pretty much sums it up,” Hanne said thoughtfully, as her partner, a blonde, slight woman appeared at the door.

“Billy T.! So good to see you! Are you staying for dinner? You’re so taaaaned!”

Leaning over the man on the sofa, Cecilie Vibe kissed him on the cheek.

“Can’t say no to dinner with the city’s two nicest ladies, you know,” he replied, grinning.

He did not leave for home until almost midnight.

5

A
gnes Vestavik’s husband was born on May 8, 1945, the day Norwegians were liberated from occupation by Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, he did not look happy or particularly peaceful. Billy T. knew he would have great difficulty remembering his facial features: a middle-sized mouth under a middle-sized nose under midblue eyes. His rather hostile countenance could of course be blamed on the unfortunate situation; the man’s wife had been brutally murdered only two days previously, and now he was sitting here being questioned by the police. On the other hand, it could be a mannerism that had become fixed.

About five foot eleven, he obviously tolerated the family’s eating habits better than his wife had done, as the guy was almost skinny. He was dressed as befitted the manager of a men’s clothing store. Gray slacks in fine wool, a white shirt, and a discreet navy blue tie underneath a houndstooth suit jacket. His hairline was receding noticeably, but he still had an impressive head of hair.

“I understand this is distressing,” Billy T. embarked on a lesson learned by heart. “But as you undoubtedly appreciate, there are a number of things we need to clarify.”

His words had a strange resonance, the diction and phrasing contrasting sharply with the shorthaired, almost frightening figure dressed in flannel shirt and cowboy boots with spurs. However, the man appeared not to notice.

“I understand, I understand,” he muttered impatiently while
running a narrow hand with an even narrower wedding ring across his face. “Let’s get it over with.”

“How are the children coping?”

“Amanda doesn’t understand much of it. The youngest. The two older ones are naturally very upset.”

Now his eyes filled with tears. Perhaps it was for his own sake. Maybe it was at the thought of the grieving children. Opening his eyes wide in an effort to prevent his tears from spilling, he shook his head vigorously.

“I don’t understand . . .”

“No, these things are fairly incomprehensible when they first occur.”

Billy T. lifted his hands from the keyboard of the PC. At last the computer age had reached at least some parts of Oslo Police Station.

“We’ll start with the easiest questions,” he said, offering the man a cup of coffee. He refused politely.

“When did you meet?”

“I don’t really remember. I have a younger sister who was one of Agnes’s friends. But we didn’t start seeing each other until she was grown up. In that way, I mean.”

He looked slightly confused, but Billy T. smiled reassuringly.

“I understand. When did you get married?”

“In 1972. Agnes was twenty-two and had already started in child welfare services. She was already working with children. I was . . . twenty-seven. But we had been engaged for a while, a year. Then Petter was born in 1976, and Joachim in 1978. Amanda came along in February 1991.”

“A real afterthought, then!”

“Yes, but very planned.”

Now the man smiled for the first time, though faintly and without the smile reaching his eyes.

“Marriage problems?”

Billy T. felt uncomfortable but performed his duty efficiently. The man had obviously realized this would come up, because he sighed deeply and seemed to brace himself by sitting up straight in his chair.

“No more than other people, I would have thought. We’ve had our ups and downs. Everybody gets a bit fed up after a while, I think. But we had the children, we had the house and mutual friends and all that kind of thing. Recently it’s been quite . . . slightly strained. She had problems at work, I think, though I don’t know what they are. I suppose I haven’t been very good at paying attention. I don’t really know . . .”

Now the tears spilled over. Making a convulsive effort to pull himself together, his attempt forced out a sharp, almost snorting, sob. Billy T. allowed him time to produce a handkerchief: elegant, masculine, and freshly ironed. He blew his nose noisily and dried both eyes by pressing the handkerchief on them one at a time.

“We didn’t argue very much,” he finally continued. “It was more that we didn’t talk to each other. She became so distant, and dreadfully irritable. Some evenings it was so severe I thought she was going through menopause. Even though she was only forty-five.”

He darted a look at the police officer, begging for understanding, and received an appropriate answer.

“Women can be difficult,” Billy T. concurred sympathetically. “With or without menopause. Did she want a divorce?”

Something in the man’s facial expression closed down. Folding his handkerchief neatly, he stuffed it into his breast pocket and then cleared his throat, shifted his position on the seat, and looked the policeman in the eye. From being a passive, gray-clad widower, he now seemed almost aggressive.

“Who has claimed that?”

Billy T. raised his arms defensively. “No one. No one has claimed that. I’m only asking.”

“No, we weren’t going to divorce.”

“But was there talk of it? Did
she
talk about it?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Yes. No.”

“Did she never mention the possibility of divorce? She had never mentioned that possibility through more than twenty years of marriage with all its ups and downs?”

“No, she hadn’t.”

“Well.”

Billy T. gave up and opened a desk drawer. It had already managed to become fairly chaotic, but he quickly found a sheet of paper that he placed on the desktop in front of him and pushed across to the man.

His complexion had been ashen, but Billy T. could swear that he noticeably turned a paler shade of gray.

“Where did you get that?” he asked curtly, pushing the offending paper back after seeing what it was.

“But Vestavik, you must appreciate that this information is in the public domain. Company registers, population registers, there are all kinds of publicly accessible sources of information.”

He flung out his long arms.

“We are a public agency! We get hold of whatever we need.”

The sheet of paper showed that Gregusson Men’s Fashions, where Agnes Vestavik’s husband was the general manager, was a family-owned and extremely solid business. Family owned in reality meant it was entirely owned by Agnes Vestavik, née Gregusson. She had no siblings, and when her father died in 1989, all the shares were transferred to Agnes. Although her father, as a right-minded and religious man, had not placed any conditions on his will, after friendly advice from the family lawyer, Agnes had taken out sole ownership and separation of marital property on the entire estate. One never knew. The shop provided a healthy
annual dividend, but the salary of the general manager remained fixed for the past eight years, and it was not an impressive sum.

“Exactly. That there’s never been a secret,” Mr. Vestavik commented tersely. “My job’s secure regardless of whether we became divorced. We’ve got laws covering that sort of thing in this country.”

“Your job, yes,” Billy T. replied calmly. “But the house was also hers, of course. Her childhood home, isn’t that so?”

Silence descended on the room. Faint shouts and laughter could be heard from the corridor outside, and from the window the barely audible sounds of a newly released detainee slinging his curses at all and sundry, and uniformed police officers in particular. The subdued hum of the PC seemed to increase in volume.

“So you think I’m the one who murdered her?” the widower blurted out at last, pointing an indignant forefinger at Billy T. “For the sake of a house I would kill my wife of twenty-three years, the mother of my children. For the sake of a house!”

Furious, he leaned across the desk and smacked his fist on its surface. He appeared confused about whether he should stand up or remain seated, and the result was that he perched on the edge of the chair, as though about to pounce.

“I don’t think anything, Vestavik. I’m not alleging anything either. I’m only pointing out a number of circumstances that are sufficiently interesting that we can’t afford to let them lie. It’s not just the house. There’s quite a significant income from the shop, and that’s something Agnes had built up during the course of your marriage. The truth actually is that you don’t own as much as a nail in the wall. Or more correctly, you
didn’t
own a nail in the wall. I assume you now retain undivided possession of the estate. We don’t have any information about the existence of a will. Isn’t that the case?”