The Consorts of Death (30 page)

He reached for his glass. ‘No?’

I gave him a quick shakedown of the case, including the murder of Ansgår Tveiten, the connection with the double murder in Angedalen and the conversations I had had over recent days with Mette Olsen, Trude Tveiten and Terje Hammersten.

He leaned forward. ‘I know Hammersten. A brutal bastard.’

‘That’s my impression, too.’

‘He’s got a son who’s been in and out of our Åsane home.
Fourteen
years old.’

‘A son? Who with?’

‘I don’t know if I … Yes, I do, to hell with it. This will have to be the day for openness. The mother is a streetwalker. The father is Terje Hammersten. The boy flits from one foster home to another, and Hammersten is such a pain. The last time was Monday morning – I had hardly got back home from Angedalen – and there he was at my door ready to give me a mouthful.’

I sat watching him. ‘What did you just say? Was Hammersten at your place in Bergen on Monday morning this week?’

‘Ye-es?’ he said, with questioning eyes.

‘But then … oh shit, Hansie, you’ve given him an alibi. Bloody hell.’

‘Alibi. You don’t mean that … Has there been some suspicion that Hammersten …?’

‘Would that be so improbable?’

‘He’s the type, right enough. But what did he have to do with Klaus and Kari Libakk?’

‘He was in on the booze-running at any rate, and according to my source he made threatening phone calls to Svein Skarnes in 1973.’

‘Threatening? On whose behalf?’

‘Well …’ I threw my hands in the air. ‘The big wheels in Germany? What do I know? But … you’ll have to tell the police this, Hans.’

He looked at me with crestfallen eyes. ‘Another nail in Jan Egil’s coffin?’

‘I’m afraid so. Shit! Now and then you could wish …’

‘Yes, you could, couldn’t you. If you only knew how I blame myself, Varg! What feelings of guilt I am plagued by …’

‘My God, Hansie! Who could have guessed that all this would happen?’

‘True, but we should perhaps have been a bit more thorough.’ He took a big swig from the beaker and shook his head with
vehemence
, as if to spread the alcohol to all the brain cells that might have been open a crack and waiting. ‘It’s enough to make you despair. We work our bollocks off to help these young kids. And what the hell do we end up with? Double murderers!’

‘Now, now. Go easy on the pessimism …’

We took a break and filled our glasses again. I was starting to feel the alcohol. The lighting had begun to glare a bit and the room had changed character, becoming longer and narrower. Hans was out of the room, peeing. When he returned, I could see he was swaying, too. This time he sat down on the bed so hard it almost broke in half.

‘I’m going to tell you something you don’t know, Varg …’ He sat forward with his hands cupped around the glass. Suddenly he made a theatrical gesture with his hand, then gripped the glass again. ‘The Story of my Life, as told by the one and only Hans Haavik Pedersen,’ he said in English.

‘Pedersen?’

‘Yes, didn’t you know? My mother was called Haavik. I took her name when I was sixteen. I had nothing to thank my father for. Nothing at all!’

‘You don’t need to …’

‘Yes, I do! Now listen to this. My father, Karl Oskar Pedersen, was a notorious alcoholic. I can only just remember him. He died when I was four years old. What I remember best is the repressed sobs, the strangulated screams of my mother, when he came home from drinking and started beating her up. I was so young that I don’t remember if he ever laid a hand on me. But she was made to suffer, night after night, day after day. That was why I grew up with a mother who was a living corpse, a human wreck who took increasingly large doses of medicine, was admitted to hospital every so often and was hardly in a state to take care of a child. We were also very poor. Terribly poor. As poor as it was possible to be in Norway in the first years after the war, before they had got the welfare state properly going.’

‘What did your father die of?’

‘Booze. He was forty-nine years old, much older than my mother. I suppose that was part of the problem. He was so jealous, she told me in confidence, on one of the few times I had ever got her to talk about those times. She died herself in 1954, only
thirty-eight
years old, worn down after all the psychological downers. I was fifteen, and I swore I would never be the same when I was older. I would never be poor, never be so drunk …’ He glanced down at the glass he was holding in his hand. ‘Never be so cruel to those with whom I had chosen to live my life.’

‘Well, I don’t think I’ve ever … but you have a family?’

‘Family!’ He smiled sadly. ‘No, I’ve managed to avoid that. When it didn’t come to anything with Vibecke either, then … yeah, well.’ He waved his hand to dismiss it. ‘Jens was the one she chose – and later others. She never looked in my direction, Varg. Believe me. I was part of the furniture.’

‘Well, well … but you can hear for yourself. You come from a difficult background, but you came out on top. You even chose to devote your life to helping … children in similar situations. That shows there’s hope for everyone. Also for Jan Egil.’

‘For Johnny boy?’ He stared ahead, perturbed.

‘Who helped you when your mother died?’

‘There were so many episodes, even before then. But I had my family around me, on my mother’s side, that is. After she died I was allowed to live with an uncle and aunt of mine until I finished school, started university and could move into digs. Afterwards I managed by myself, with a study loan, doing part-time work in the evenings and living off other sources of income.’

‘That’s what I’m saying … You came out on top.’

‘Hmm, on top, I don’t know. It feels pretty skewed right now, I’m telling you.’ He grabbed the bottle and poured himself another full glass. He offered me some, but this time I succeeded in saying ‘No, thanks’. Perhaps he should have rammed the cork in, too. His eyes were beginning to glaze over. ‘I’ll tell you something, Varg. When I get back to Bergen … I’m going to hand in my notice.’ He was swinging his arm around helplessly. ‘Hand in my resignation.’

‘What? You don’t mean that. That’s just something you’re saying because you’re drunk.’

‘Drunk? I’m not bloody drunk!’

‘Of course not, that’s why you’re falling off the bed.’

‘I mean it! This case … this failure of all the things we’re doing … it has persuaded me. I’m stopping. I’m getting out. I’ll find myself something else to do …’

‘What?’

‘Don’t know, but I’ll find myself something …’ He leaned closer as though to tell me a secret confidence. ‘You know, Varg … all these government regulations, all these laws and rules … it would be bloody great not to take any notice of them for a few years. Tell it as it is. Call a spade a spade and …’ He laughed at his own comment, but it was a low, mirthless laugh.

‘You’re tired and upset now, Hans. You won’t think like this when you get home, I’m sure of that. You can’t exist without what you’ve worked for over so many years. You have to be positive. Think of all those you’ve helped, all of those who send you a Christmas card every year …’

‘Ha! You’ve put your finger on it. Shall I show you how many of the people I’ve helped, as you call it, who send me Christmas cards? Eh?’ He held up his right hand and formed a zero with his thumb and index finger. ‘That’s how many, Varg. That’s how many.’

‘I don’t get many more if that’s any consolation.’

‘Thank you. Bloody great consolation.’

He sat rocking his head. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he
resembled
a huge teddy bear, an overgrown cuddly toy, one a child who was now well into adulthood had left behind at his institution, abandoned by someone who no longer needed that sort of thing. He was immensely drunk, and I noticed his eyes were beginning to blink.

I slowly got to my feet. ‘I think I’ll move on,’ I said, with a furry tongue.

His eyes floated in my direction. ‘OK. Thank you for keeping me company, Varg. I think I’ll try and have a snooze.’

‘Do that, Hansie. See you tomorrow – or at the next crossroads.’

He waved one arm. ‘G’bye!’ he slurred.

‘Goodbye,’ I replied, still able to express myself in full syllables.

He stood up, not to show me the way out, but to stagger into the toilet. Before I had closed the door behind me, I could hear him vomiting. That didn’t improve my mood.

When I came down to reception, there was a message waiting for me:
Ring me when you get in. Grethe
.

I did more than ring. After exchanging a few words with her, I arranged to drop by, ordered a taxi and went outside into the cold night air. I leaned backwards and stared up at the sky. High above me in the black heavenly vault some pale stars had taken up
position
for a few fleeting moments, as rare guests to Sunnfjord as the sun I had glimpsed the previous day.

In Hornnes I was forced to concede that my body was not in perfect equilibrium as I pushed on up the steep slope to her house. She had seen me from the window and was standing in the doorway waiting, but I had hardly said anything before, with a glare, she asked me: ‘Tell me, have you been drinking?’

I rolled my head and tried to find something funny to say. But inside it was empty. Empty and dark. Hans Haavik had turned off the light when he left.

I don’t think I won any gold medals that night. I remember quoting Emil Zátopek’s wise words: ‘If you want to win medals, run a hundred metres. If you want to learn about life, run the marathon.’

She replied: ‘If you want to run the marathon you’ll have to be in better shape than this, Varg.’ She had already given up.

The following day arrived with a throbbing head, farewells and departure. She was friendly enough, yet I sensed a sudden
distance
; or else she was stricken with the same collective feeling of guilt, the same depression that had driven both Hans and me into the dingiest mental back streets the day before.

She drove me to the hotel. After parking outside, she turned to me and said: ‘Are you going home?’

‘Yes. There’s nothing more for me to do here. Not for me. And no one’s paying for my stay now.’

For a second or two I entertained the thought: You could invite me to stay with you perhaps … but either she didn’t have the same thought herself, or she didn’t like it, for all she did was lean forward and kiss me on the cheek and say: ‘Maybe we’ll see each other another time then, Varg …’

I stole into her line of vision, still with my tail between my legs. ‘I hope so, Grethe …’

But it didn’t turn out like that.

In reception I asked after Jens Langeland, but he had gone back to Oslo, I was informed. I tried to ring him at his office, but an answering machine replied. It asked me to ring back during office hours from Monday to Friday. I called directory enquiries and was given his home number. No one answered there, either.

I packed the little luggage I had, settled my account at
reception
, got into my car and left. On one of the highest bends on
Halbrendslia
I stopped the car for a moment and sat looking across. From there I could see right up to the furthest end of Angedalen valley. I saw Førde lying in the morning mist between the high mountains. I saw the residential quarter in Hornnes, the huge dockyard beyond the tiny airstrip, the new industrial buildings and businesses. I saw the old white church, sighed and thought to myself: Everything is changing. Nothing stays the same as before. What’s the purpose of it all, of all the things we do? Then I pinched myself and said: ‘No, none of that, now you sound like bloody Hansie Haavik. Pull yourself together, man! There are still things to do …’

I rammed the car into gear and drove to Bergen without
stopping
anywhere apart from those places nature intended, by the ferries in Lavik and Knarvik.

Two images fought for a place in my head during the drive: Grethe Mellingen who so brazenly gave herself to me a day and a half ago, and Jan Egil who glared at me like a wounded animal as he was led out of the courtroom.

After the narrow, restricted space of Førde, Bergen seemed like open countryside. The fjord wound gently through the town towards Askøy and the light rain drizzled on the surrounding mountains forming a veil of glistening silver. I drove straight home, took a long, hot shower, went down to the harbour and bought myself a decent lunch, walked back, lay down for a nap and slept like a log until the next day, which was Sunday.

In the afternoon I strolled down to my office and checked the answering machine. There were the usual sighs and snorts before someone slammed down the receiver, annoyed that I was not sitting and gawking at the telephone, waiting only for them to ring. There was a woman who, in broken Norwegian, had sent a long and partly comprehensible message about a partner who had run off, and she very much wanted me to bring him back to the fold. And there was Marianne Storetvedt who wanted to talk to me. I called her private number, but she was busy with a family meal. We agreed I would go to her office after work the next day.

Then I tried Jens Langeland again. This time he was at home.

‘Veum … I tried to contact you at the hotel, but they couldn’t find you.’

‘No, I was … probably sitting in Hans Haavik’s room drinking.’

He chuckled quietly. ‘Really? Did you take it so badly?’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘No, no. I hadn’t expected anything but an extended period of remand. The big battle will be in court. First of all, I’d very much like you to find out everything you can about this Terje
Hammersten
and his movements.’

‘That’s just it, I’m afraid I have bad news on that front.’

‘Oh, yes?’

I told him what Hans Haavik had told me about his
confrontation
with Hammersten in Bergen on Monday morning.

‘At his place? In Bergen?’

‘Yes.

‘That’s a sod.’