Where Roses Never Die (12 page)

Gimle School stood in what seemed to be the Catholic part of Bergen, as all the streets were named after saints. The classic 1960s building with three floors and a flat roof was in St Olavs vei. I found my way to the staff room, where I was informed that Synnøve Stangeland was already teaching, but if I didn’t mind waiting, I was welcome to do so. I replied that I would prefer to go for a walk and return in the next break.

Hence I had an additional half-hour to speculate about the choice of street names. In the closest vicinity I found St Halvards vei, St Torfinns vei and St Sunnivas vei. In Norse mythology Gimle was the name of the golden-roofed hall where righteous men would spend eternity in the company of Odin. Thus, the area was a bizarre mix of Norse faith in gods and Catholic worship of saints. A committee with an immense sense of irony must have been behind this project.

South of the school was a sports arena, Haukelandshallen, and Brann Football Stadium with its training facilities. There, naturally enough, the symbolism changed, streets were named after sports and such heroic polar explorers as Amundsen and Nansen and their ships, Fram and Gjøa. I wasn’t going to either the South or the North Pole though, but back to Gimle, where I would spend a break with Synnøve Stangeland in the school playground with a view of Mount Ulriken, on which you could see the last snow around the TV mast at the top, like a cake decoration.

She had insisted we should talk outside. She had looked at me with sceptical eyes behind her narrow glasses when I referred to the brief meeting with her husband two days ago. ‘Yes, that’s right. You were a…’

‘Jehovah’s Witness, your husband said. But I’m afraid that’s not true.
I’m a private investigator and I’m taking a closer look at the Mette Case, which you might remember.’

She asked me to wait while she fetched her coat. On our way down the steps she said: ‘Of course I remember it! But why did he say you were…?’

I shrugged. ‘You’d best ask him that.’

‘But … I have nothing to tell you – as Svein’s already said.’

‘But you didn’t hear what he said.’

‘No, I didn’t. So?’

‘Well, I was only thinking … you might have something to add.’

‘And what might that be? It was a terrible tragedy. I still think about it regularly. How painful it must be to lose a child, and in this case … Not even knowing what happened to her, where she … is. Even worse.’

‘You were at home that day, weren’t you?’

‘No, we…’ For a moment she looked away. ‘We were … at the cabin.’

I tried to catch her eye, but she was evasive. Around us, youngsters watched with curiosity written on their faces. Who was I? they wondered. Why was I talking to Fru Stangeland?

‘Or weren’t you?’

‘Yes, we … we all went there, but Svein … had something to do in town, so he went back.’

I felt a muscle tauten in my neck. ‘Oh, yes? But you didn’t tell the police this?’

‘Yes, we did … I think.’ Still she couldn’t look me in the eye.

‘What was it your husband had to do?’

‘Well … you’d best ask him that.’

For a second or two I thought of the telephone Randi Hagenberg had heard ringing – from the other side of the yard. But if it had been in their house, he hadn’t been there either…

‘Did you try to ring him that day? At home, I mean.’

Now I had eye contact, at last. But I read irritation there, as though I had given her what she had been expecting: a reason to react.

‘Mm … there was someone who heard a phone ringing and ringing that day – which no one answered.’

‘Then it must have been in another house.’

‘Yes. Probably.’

I waited, in case she wanted to add something. She pulled her coat tighter around her, as though she were cold. Under it she was wearing a loose, flowery tunic that hung over her dark-blue jeans and covered most of what she must have had beneath, so as not to overstimulate the imaginations of the hormonal male adolescents she taught. Not far from us some children were playing with a dark, skin-coloured basketball while a huddle of pale-faced kids admired their shooting skills. I wouldn’t deny that I envied them a little too. My own shooting skills were far from impressive at the moment.

As she didn’t say any more I continued carefully: ‘A cousin of yours, Jesper Janevik, was in the frame for a while…’

Her neck flared up and her eyes glinted as she answered: ‘And he was released! But … it destroyed our relationship for ever. I’ve hardly seen him since that time except for at … a couple of funerals. My parents’ funerals. His parents died before. So at least they were spared it.’

‘It?’

‘Yes, there had been a few incidents … long ago.’

‘And you’re sure he didn’t have anything to do with this?’

‘Jesper wouldn’t hurt a fly. The way he took care of his sister and his daughter, when she was alone, tells you everything. The cases he came under the spotlight for were … rumours and exaggeration. I know myself how kids of that age can fantasise about something that is completely innocent at the outset. And he was drawn into the Mette Case because he’d visited us a few times! No wonder he didn’t want to set foot in our house afterwards!’

‘But … couldn’t you visit him?’

‘It just felt unnatural. He didn’t want anything to do with us. In a way, he blamed us.’

‘For being drawn in?’

‘Because we invited him up, yes. Otherwise, obviously, nothing would have happened. I mean … otherwise he wouldn’t have come … under suspicion.’

‘He lives on Askøy, I understand.’

‘He lives in Janevik, which he has done ever since he was born.’

‘In his childhood home?’

‘Yes, in his childhood home.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got a lesson in a couple of minutes. Was there anything else?’

I thought quickly. ‘No, not today. But maybe an—’

She interrupted me. ‘I’ve got nothing more to say!’

‘Not even “good luck”?’

‘Good luck?’

‘Yes, because, after so many years, you want the case cleared up too, don’t you?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ But as she concluded the conversation her eyes betrayed her innermost thoughts: she didn’t think I was up to it. With that she turned on her heel and walked with determined step back to her classes.

I strolled back to my car. There was a strong argument for me heading west for the next part of the investigation. First to Sotra and Fylling Bil Dekk & Karosseri, then to Askøy. Perhaps a trip to Haakonsvern and Svein Stangeland too.

As I pulled away from the kerb I noticed a dark-grey Audi A3 do the same a few cars behind. The Audi followed me up Ibsens gate and down towards Danmarks plass, and when I crossed over Sotra Bridge a quarter of an hour later, it was still in my wake, with a couple of vehicles between us. When I turned north from Ågotnes, it was still there. But when I braked to drive into Fylling Bil Dekk & Karosseri, it carried on and was soon out of view. The reflection from the car windows made it impossible to see who was inside or how many of them there were, but it made me wonder anyway: what I was doing wasn’t
that
interesting – or was it? And if so, for whom?

There was a sense of paint-peeling decline about the garage hiding beneath the sign
Fylling Bil Dek & Karosseri
. Typically, the second ‘k’ in
Dekk
– tyres – was missing.

Around the two-storey building, in which the first-floor windows had curtains and flowers on the window sills, stood ten or so old cars with price tags behind the windscreens, and they weren’t very high either. Sherlock Holmes-style, I deduced that someone was living on the floor above the garage and that the establishment also offered second-hand cars at a price that was unlikely to appeal to anyone except this year’s school-leavers. Such low prices presaged trouble from the very first drive.

I parked my Corolla beside a rusty 1980s VW, which, to judge from its appearance, should have been cremated long ago, after a brief ceremony. As I stepped out I checked the price: ten thousand kroner.

A garage door opened. A man in his fifties with a well-rounded taxi-driver’s paunch, curly hair, greying around the ears, and a professional smile on full lips appeared beside me. ‘Interested?’

‘I’ve got a car.’

‘Yes, I can see,’ he mumbled with a side-glance at the Corolla. ‘But perhaps you need one for madame?’

‘And you think she’d like driving around in this?’ I said, motioning towards the jalopy in front of us.

‘Well, there are all sorts of women,’ he said, with a chummy wink.

‘Tor Fylling?’

His eyes instantly became more circumspect. ‘Yes … and you are?’

‘Varg Veum, private investigator.’

I let it sink in before continuing. I noticed his eyes quickly check the
less-than-impressive array of cars. Were there some he hadn’t registered perhaps?

‘You’re not from the tax authorities, are you?’

‘No, nor from the Ministry of Transport. I’m investigating the circumstances surrounding Mette Misvær’s disappearance in 1977.’

His eyes opened wide. ‘Right! After so many years?’

‘Yes. Her mother … You know her, don’t you?’

His eyelids flickered a couple of times, as if to remove any sudden dust he had there. ‘Maja.’

‘Yes.’

I couldn’t help thinking that these two had ended up together during what they called the New Year games of 1976. A somewhat odd couple, if you asked me, however … they had already known each other, they were neighbours in Mannsverk. What had they done that New Year’s Eve? Sat chatting, like Nils Bringeland and Helle Fylling, or gone for it without ceremony, as Terje Torbeinsvik had done with Randi Hagenberg? Would any of them answer if I asked straight out?

‘I’m not sure I can help, but … come in. We can’t stand here getting cold.’

He led me into the garage through a door that could hardly have been washed for the last twenty years. Inside, there was a strong smell of oil and turpentine. From down in the service pit under a car at the front came the banging of metal on metal. In a glass cage at the back of the garage a woman sat looking at us: brown hair with strong, heavy-ish facial features, not that dissimilar to a female gorilla in a zoo. Crackly pop music from a not particularly discriminating radio station blared through the open door.

‘Marita! Have you got two cups of coffee?’ Tor Fylling shouted.

The woman nodded, got up from her seat and stood with her back to us for a few moments. The banging under the car in the middle of the floor stopped and a man in his early thirties, wearing oil-stained overalls and carrying a spanner, crawled up. His hair was darker than Fylling’s, but otherwise he looked identical. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing to do with you, Einar. Just someone who wants a chat with me.’

Einar Fylling looked suspiciously from his father to me and cast a glance at the glass box, where Marita had finished with the coffee machine and was on her way out with two mugs of steaming black coffee. The logo on the mug advertised a well-known car make.

Fylling nodded to her. ‘Marita, my daughter-in-law. She takes care of the paperwork here.’

She nodded.

‘And this is Varg Veum. He’s a private investigator, he says. Working on a cold case. Nothing to do with us.’

Again I had a feeling that, early in the financial year, he was glad this wasn’t a surprise morning visit from the tax authorities. I guessed their book-keeping was as rusty as the cars on the forecourt and with even more hidden blemishes.

I glanced at the young man. ‘And this is your son, then?’

‘This is Einar, yes.’

Einar nodded briefly, as if to confirm identification.

The father raised his voice. ‘And he’s busy!’ He motioned to the car and Einar followed his gaze.

‘I was just wondering if you needed any help,’ he muttered, before slowly manoeuvring his way back into the pit.

‘With what?’ his father mumbled. ‘The business doesn’t run itself any longer and we have to hold on to the customers we have. But I’m glad Einar and Marita work here. I mean … they’re the ones who will take over one day. They even live in the flat above, so they’re all set up.’

Einar went back under the car with an unhappy expression on his face, and Marita didn’t look that enthusiastic at the thought either. After handing over the mugs of coffee she withdrew to her glass box. The banging from the pit resumed.

Tor Fylling ushered me to a couple of chairs by a battered work table under a rear window. In the middle of the table was a tin ashtray with
Cinzano
written on it and so full of cigarette ends that it was like the cornucopia from hell, the Cancer Foundation’s horror movie.

‘As I said, I have no idea how I can help you. It was a terrible business, but it’s quite a few years ago now. If Mette had been allowed to grow up
she’d have been the age of … well…’ He nodded towards the glass box. ‘Marita, for example.’

‘You were at home when it happened, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, I can remember it as if it were yesterday, literally. Maja came to the door and asked if I’d seen Mette. But I hadn’t. Not then at any rate, and so she carried on looking. Later it became a huge operation and I joined in the search for her, but, as you know, without success.’

‘Yes. Neither your wife nor your child was at home that day?’

‘No, they were in town and couldn’t help either.’

‘Why weren’t you with them?’

‘Well, I … I had something to do in the house, there was a pipe that needed fixing, and anyway … shopping in town has always bored me, even when the kids were small.’ He smiled wanly, as though he was really a little embarrassed about this.

‘You knew Truls and Maja Misvær from…?’

‘Yes, we were neighbours in Landås, and as far as I remember Mette was born right after they moved in there. I think Maja was well gone when they were moving. I helped Truls to sort things out. He wasn’t much of a handyman.’

I nodded. ‘How well did you know Maja?’

He frowned and looked at me in surprise. ‘How well did I know … What do you mean?’

‘Erm … I was thinking about the New Year games in 1976.’

He flushed a dark red. ‘You’re thinking about … Who the hell told you that? It can’t have been Maja.’

‘No, she didn’t say anything. But several of the others did.’

‘About Maja and me?’

‘Well … What would they say about you two?’

‘Nothing! I mean … nothing but … Tell me, did they really tell you about what went on that night? What an idea!’

‘You’re referring to what you called the New Year games?’

‘We didn’t call it that … Terje called it that! It was his idea.’

‘And the result was…?’

‘You must have heard that too? We each went off arm-in-arm with a
new woman, happy and content. Except for one of the couples, that is. They went home before … lots were drawn.’

‘Yes, I heard that.’

‘I got Maja.’

‘And how was that?’

He banged his mug down on the table so hard the ashtray jumped. ‘None of your fuckin’ business, Veum! That’s a private matter. And anyway … what the hell’s this got to do with Mette?’

‘No? Could it have had something to do with her, do you think?’

‘I haven’t got a clue! But … it was obvious who … I told some of the lads at the time. Shall we go out to Askøy and knock the living shit out of him until he tells us what he did with her?’

‘So you were sure it was him?’

‘Who else could it have been? He had previous.’

‘Did he?’

‘That’s what the word was.’

‘I see. But you didn’t do anything?’

‘No, we … came to our senses. After all, it’s the police’s job to deal with all that sort of thing, and if it’d been him they’d have nailed him. No one knows what happened now.’

‘Well, someone, or some people, know.’

He eyed me thoughtfully. ‘Yes, you’re probably right. Someone knows.’

‘You and your wife got divorced some years afterwards…’

‘Yes, and so what? Is that also s’posed to have something to do with…?’

‘Perhaps with the New Year games anyway. You weren’t the only couple to split up.’

‘No, but let me tell you something, Veum. Helle and me had been on the slippery slope long before New Year – in fact, that was probably why neither of us went home when the suggestion came up. I mean … we no longer had anything to lose, emotionally like.’

I nodded without making any further comment. ‘Mm … may I ask if you’ve seen Maja – or any of the others for that matter – since?’

He sent me a surprised look. ‘Well, I lived there for a year after … a year and a half. But then I moved out, and since then I haven’t set foot there, apart from … well, there was Einar’s confirmation; that must have been in 1984. It was held in the communal … the Function Room we called it.’

‘Not once since then?’

‘No. I’ve got more than enough to do here to keep the wheels turning, literally.’ He scanned the wretched state of the workshop. Marita was sitting in the glass box with a mug of coffee to her lips as well now. The work didn’t seem to be piling up there either.

As I left it struck me that, incredibly enough, there were perhaps businesses going even worse than my own. Most people had a car. But most people had worries too and they weren’t beating down my door. Perhaps most people managed well enough on their own, as far as cars and worries were concerned.

As I came out to the forecourt a clapped-out, old Volvo drove to the garage. The car parked and a little squirt of a man jumped out; under his nose he had an unsymmetrical moustache resembling an oil stain. He was in his work gear and glanced at me with minimal interest as he ran into the building.

I got into my car, started up and turned right onto the main road. At Ågotnes I did a U-turn and faced the town again. I had seen what I wanted to see. The dark Audi was parked by the kerb thirty or forty metres down from Fylling Bil Dekk & Karosseri. I considered my options for a few seconds, then I pulled in behind it.

I sat behind the wheel looking at the Audi. Through the darkened glass I could see the silhouettes of two people at the front. They turned and looked back.

I opened the car door and got out. In my hand I had my notebook and I made it obvious I was writing down their registration number. Then both doors opened. Two guys came out, a kind of second-millennium version of Laurel and Hardy, but neither of them made me laugh.

The bigger one was the beefcake type, pumped up on anabolic steroids from his mother’s milk, from what I could tell. He was wearing a
black beanie over an apparently shaven skull; the look he shot me was heavy and unambiguous. He wore a kind of shiny red track suit, which was tight and revealed his bulging muscles, from his biceps down to his thighs.

The smaller of the two looked even more dangerous, it was the eyes that did it. I had seen eyes like his before, restless and irascible and always on the move. It was as though his whole body quivered with sublimated aggression, and I knew because of his size he was bound to have a knife or two up his sleeve to compensate for his muscular deficiencies. He was dressed for the occasion too, jeans and a light jacket, which allowed him maximum freedom of movement if he had to draw a knife. His face was pinched, his hair dark and slicked back, and his ears protruded conspicuously.

Laurel spoke up. ‘And what the fuck d’you think you’re doing?’

I looked at him. ‘Me? I’ve always collected car registration numbers. Ever since I was a boy.’

His eyes narrowed, and he came a few steps closer. His friend on the other side of the car did the same, as if controlled by invisible threads.

‘And what the fuck you gonna do with it?’

‘Didn’t you hear? I collect them.’

Two steps forward. I kept an eye on his hands. His right hand was in his pocket, the other one he held at his side, like a gunslinger in a Western before the last duel in Tombstone.

‘Or maybe I should ask … why the fuck are you following me?’

He didn’t answer. Hardy opened his mouth to say something – or he was drawing breath before launching himself into action.

‘I’ve been watching you, all the way from St Olavs vei, and it’s no coincidence you’re parked here. Or have you two got something going?’

Hardy went a deep red, Laurel a corresponding white. I could see the muscles in his jaw bunching. ‘Veum…’

‘So you know my name as well. Is it so strange I’ve taken your number?’

‘Now you just listen here … We know who you are, we know where you live, we know where your office is.’

‘I keep office hours. Why don’t you visit me there if you have something on your minds I can help you with?’

He continued undeterred: ‘We know who you are, where you live, we know where you…’

‘I got all that the first time round! Tell me what you want.’

He held out his left hand. ‘I want you to give me the number.’

I pointed to his car. ‘Have you forgotten it? It’s there.’

‘Thor…’

At first I didn’t understand what he meant. Then I realised it was an order. Hardy, whom he called Thor, lumbered towards me. Laurel did the same, in a mirror-image arc, and, out of nowhere, there was his knife. Clenched in his right hand, ready for use.

I took a step to the side, threw myself through the open car door, put the engine in reverse and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The car skidded backwards, just in time to prevent them reaching me. On the tarmac I spun round and almost ended up in the ditch on the opposite side. Then I straightened the car, changed gear, kept to the far side of the opposite carriageway and put my foot down.