Where Roses Never Die (21 page)

They had put me in one of my own chairs, bound my arms behind my back, and tied a rope round my ankles and the chair legs and up the back in such a way that I couldn’t move a muscle.

Thor the Hammer stood by the door staring at me. Flash Gordon had his face so close to mine that I could smell the strong throat pastilles in his mouth, mixed with nicotine. There was a small brown stripe round the corners of his mouth, and when he spoke droplets of saliva landed on my face.

‘You should have boarded up your back door, Veum,’ he hissed.

‘Or got yourself a burglar alarm,’ Thor said, grinning like a security company salesman who had just received a commission.

‘What the hell do you want?’

‘To get rid of a dangerous witness, since you ask so nicely.’

‘And how will that help you? The police have had your names and numbers for ages. It’s just a question of time before they haul you in.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘That’ll be after your time, Veum. We’ve been given orders by the highest authority, and there’ll be cash in an account when we’re out.’

‘You…’

‘And we always get out again!’ he guffawed. ‘Always!’

I could feel unease spreading through my body. Was this the plan? Was one last night of bliss what fate had dealt me? Was it already time to pay for the sweetness with pain?

I scanned the room. ‘And who said I didn’t have a burglar alarm?’

Flash Gordon smiled condescendingly. ‘Veum, we came here last night. It hasn’t gone off yet. Perhaps you haven’t paid for it yet?’

‘We’re being filmed.’

For an instant, I saw a shadow of uncertainty sweep across his face. He quickly looked around, searched the corners of the ceiling, the book shelves, the windowsill. Then he turned his attention back to me. ‘Good try, Veum. But I can’t see anything. And they should have been here by now, shouldn’t they?’

‘Listen, Gordon … You and Man Thursday over there. You’ve got enough lives on your consciences. Fylling has too. Schmidt as well, if you carry out his orders. Think about it. Premeditated murder. That’s twenty-one years, with no concessions because of the records you have. And it’s you who will pay the price. Schmidt will get off with a far shorter sentence, you can bet your bottom dollar on that.’

I glanced at Thor the Hammer. I detected some uncertainty there too and gave him another jab in the same direction. ‘What do you think, Thor? Sick of living here among us normal people? Feel like a spell in Åsane until FC Brann have yo-yo-ed between divisions a few more times? Goodbye to all of life’s pleasures, big and small?’

Flash Gordon made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘Shut up, Veum! You saw the state Fylling was in. Do you fancy a bit of the same treatment?’

‘He’s got a point, Gordon,’ Thor mumbled from the doorway.

Flash Gordon turned on his heel and snapped: ‘And you shut up too! Have you got that?’

‘Right,’ Thor mumbled quietly, but not that amenably, judging by his face.

‘What you can do, Thor, is go up to Skansen and get the car. Drive as near to the front door as you can make it so that no one will see the container when we move away.

‘OK,’ Thor replied, without stirring a muscle.

‘It’s quiet now. Let’s put him in a sack, take him away and find a suitable place to drop him in a lake. Remember we get paid for this job.’

‘The rest of your lives!’ I shouted.

Flash Gordon slapped me so hard that my head was knocked sideways and my skull sang.

‘I warned you, Veum.’

Thor the Hammer was still in the doorway, uncertain what to do. Flash Gordon ran across the floor to him and held out his hand. ‘Give me your phone. You won’t need it while you’re out getting the car.’

They stood glaring at each other. For a moment I had hoped Thor would use his superior strength, fold Flash Gordon up, put him in his pocket and remove him from my life. But it didn’t happen. Flash Gordon’s eyes were too strong for him. He dug into his jeans pocket and handed it over to Flash Gordon while gazing at it longingly, as though he were reluctantly parting with an amputated body part.

Flash Gordon stuffed the phone in his pocket without a second look and nodded to the door. Thor the Hammer turned obediently and left. Flash Gordon came back to me with pinched lips and an ominous look in his eyes.

‘That leaves just us two, Veum.’

From his inside pocket he took a small case. He opened it and removed a syringe. From the same case he lifted an ampoule filled with a clear, faintly yellow liquid. I stared stiffly at the medicine. Again I felt fear burn through my body, like a wild animal from another reality.

He looked at me with a little smile playing on his lips and held the syringe in the air while tapping it in an affected professional way. ‘Just relax. You won’t feel a thing. All that will happen is that you will fall into a deep sleep – and never wake up again.’

‘Gordon! You’re going to regret this.’

His eyes glittered malevolently. ‘If you’re worried about your neighbours, you can be reassured. You won’t be left to pollute the neighbourhood. We’ll find a suitable place to drop you into the sea.’

He put the syringe down on the table and came towards me again. I stirred uneasily, tensed the muscles I could in the hope I could loosen the ropes they had used, but there wasn’t enough time and my muscles were too weak; it was no use. He went behind me. ‘I just need to find a suitable vein, then…’ He leaned over and I could feel his fingers fumbling around my wrists to fold up my shirt sleeve.

I clenched my teeth and felt my eyes fill with tears. My vision blurred
and I focussed on the door, as though to force it open and get the world outside to come in.

Miraculously, it worked, with a loud slam, which made Flash Gordon jump in the air and snatch at the back of the chair. I was sent flying backwards across the room and lay staring up at the ceiling as a swift and orderly assault continued above me, around me and on all sides. I heard shouts, roars, groans, and only when strong hands grabbed the chair, put it back in a vertical position and cut the ropes binding me to it did I have any kind of perspective of what was going on.

I recognised two of the guys from the police raid in Sotra the day before. They had Flash Gordon in their control now, although he fought against it, cursing and swearing in a way that a full-blooded Satanist would have envied, his eyes positively snarling as handcuffs were clicked in place behind his back.

I had never seen the man who cut me free before. He was wearing a black leather jacket, a brown T-shirt and dark-blue jeans. His face was symmetrical and anonymous, he had dark-blond, shoulder-length hair, blue eyes and three-day stubble, and after he had released me, he held out his hand, shook mine and said: ‘Moses Meland, undercover cop.’

‘Moses?’ I said.

‘Your parents must have been equally imaginative,’ he grinned.

‘But we’ve never met…’

‘No, we undercover guys prefer to stay in the background. But we have our uses, as you can see.’

‘You were keeping my flat under surveillance?’

‘Since the incident on Friday night, yes. And it paid dividends. Even though they fooled us by going in the back way. We saw you come home and when Thor Hansen burst out of the block an hour later we knew something was up. But there are others here who can tell you more than me. Come down to the station with us and we can take it from there.’

We followed the two uniformed policemen out of the house and up to Øvre Blekevei. Thor the Hammer sat in handcuffs in the back seat of the car, with an apparently relieved expression on his face. When they
shoved Flash Gordon in beside him he couldn’t hold his tongue. ‘Idiot!’ he hissed into Thor’s face.

‘Same to you,’ Thor mumbled back.

Moses Meland grinned beside me and nodded to a Toyota Corolla as anonymous as my own. ‘Let’s go in mine to avoid the aggro.’

A quarter of an hour later I was in Atle Helleve’s office.

He smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry about the bother, Varg, but …’

‘You could at least have told me you had my flat under surveillance.’

‘We didn’t want to make you even more worried.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘I mean it. But now everything’s under control. The whole case is wrapped up. Schmidt’s in one of the interview rooms talking to Bjarne. Doesn’t seem to be a very cosy atmosphere in there. And now that we’ve got Gordon Bakke and Thor Hansen nicely installed on the lower floor, it won’t be long before we have a complete overview of that bit of the op. I would guess everything that was stolen in December is back in place. Otherwise we’d hardly have found Schmidt in his shop late on a Saturday evening. Now we’re waiting to have a search warrant signed and we can order him to open his safe.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘Marita’s spilling the beans. She’s giving us everything and you heard yourself what she said when she came in yesterday. Today she’s gone into detail. Now that side of the case is probably too old, but we could have charged him with sexual abuse of minors, if we’d known a few years ago. Some of his actions could be defined as rape. But the most interesting thing she told us about was one evening after opening hours when the jeweller had invited her into the back room to show her something.’

‘Which was…?’

‘He’d opened the safe and taken out a tray containing eight diamond-studded watches, each one of which, according to her, was worth around half a million kroner. And that was then. Eight times half a million – that makes four by my reckoning and a pretty good profit for a quick shift in the afternoon, plus what they earned in the shop. What do you think?’

‘Well…’ I was still dazed after the latest events of the day, both away in Åsane and home in Telthussmauet, and had difficulty concentrating.

‘He’d put one of the watches around her wrist and said – still her words, Varg – she could have it if she would … erm, perform certain acts on him.’

‘And she said…?’

‘She says she refused, but she blushes to her roots when she talks about it, naturally enough.’

‘She didn’t get a watch then?’

‘Hardly. She wouldn’t have wanted to wreak revenge for no reason. At any rate she was the one who suggested the idea to her husband and father-in-law when they first started talking about where they could get some quick money.’

‘And did she tell you how they made their getaway?’

‘Not in detail, but it was more or less as we thought. We’ve got the name of the boat owner as well. A guy who worked at their garage.’

‘Yes, I think I know who it is.’ I pictured the little guy with the asymmetrical moustache who had arrived as I was leaving the garage the first time I was there.

‘He was waiting in the boat with the engine running while they crossed Bryggen and jumped in. They landed on the Laksevåg side where they had a car ready – probably one of the wrecks in their garage. That night they went back to collect the boat, which was probably moored at a mole somewhere on Sotra – we haven’t got that far yet and she wasn’t very precise with regard to places.’

‘So, in principle, the case has been solved? Thanks to…’

‘Thanks to a coincidence, yes. We’ll mention your name to the insurance company. Don’t be surprised if you get a little mark of their appreciation.’

‘Thank you very much.’

We sat looking at each other. He seemed restless, as though he couldn’t wait to have Flash Gordon and Thor the Hammer in his interview room as well. ‘And what else have you got on? Are you still working on the other case?’

‘Yes. Tomorrow I’m off to Ålesund.’

He got up quickly. ‘I won’t detain you any longer, then. You’ve probably got a bit to tidy up at home too.’

‘Afraid so, yes.’

‘Would you like us to get someone to drive you?’

‘It’s just as quick walking. Thanks for the offer anyway.’

Back home in Telthussmauet, I tidied up the sitting room. They hadn’t made much of a mess. Most of it was caused by the police. I made a futile attempt at fixing the lock on the back door, where they had broken in. I ended up shoving a heavy dresser against it and decided to postpone the repair until I could afford it.

As happy as pig in clover, I filled a kitchen beaker full of aquavit, sat down in the good chair and slowly sipped it. This was all I could do. Medicine for unsettled red-wine tummies. I wondered if I should give Sølvi Heggi a buzz and tell her about the warm welcome waiting for me at home, but I decided against it. She had enough on her mind as it was. Instead I put on a Ben Webster CD and sat in the chair, as busy as an owl during the daytime, while Ben looped and swooped through
They Can’t Take That Away From Me
in a way that brought me straight back to Saudalskleivane and the previous evening with no transport costs of any kind.

I caught the morning flight to Ålesund, landed on the island of Vigra in a gale, and took a taxi straight from the airport to Kråmyra Stadium via the two tunnels under the sea that, since 1987, had joined Vigra to the mainland.

The FC Aalesund ground was up the south-eastern side of Mount Aksla. For a stadium of a team aspiring to first-division football this appeared to be relatively modest, but was in fact an acknowledged Sunnmøre principle. You didn’t throw money around for no reason. If you wanted to see a football match you had to stand outside in the westerly wind and rain.

There was a red clubhouse on the long side to the north. From there you could see across the fjord to Langevåg and Sula. At the top of the stand a man in dark-blue overalls bearing the club’s logo and name in orange was scraping away the last traces of the winter with a robust snow shovel. As I approached I recognised Håkon Misvær from the confirmation photo I had seen in his mother’s house.

He looked up and rested on the shovel while he waited for me to reach him. He had a blue-and-orange woollen cap on his head, pulled well down over his ears, leaving only unruly tufts of blond hair sticking out at the back. His thick eyebrows were arched, which made him look surprised more or less all of the time. His mouth was sullen, surrounded by a two-or-three-day growth of stubble.

‘Håkon Misvær?’

He nodded.

I held out my hand. ‘Varg Veum.’

He shook my hand limply.

‘Is there anywhere we can go?’

‘We can do it here.’

‘Right.’ I shrugged, unhitched my shoulder bag containing the little baggage I had and took out my notebook. ‘As I said on the phone … your mother gave me this assignment.’

He nodded.

At the end of the stadium a group of young men in track suits were running up and down the concrete steps. I pointed. ‘This year’s team?’

Again he made an affirmative movement with his head.

‘Aiming for promotion, I see from the papers.’

He observed me without speaking.

‘You played here yourself, after leaving Brann, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, Bård Wiggen brought me up here. In Brann I was mostly on the bench. Or in the stand. Had a few run-outs.’ He added bitterly: ‘Fifteen games, zero goals. My club stats for Brann.’

‘And up here?’

‘Started ten games, came on as a sub twenty-odd times. Thirty-two games, one goal – against HamKam. Geir Hansen also took me on. But then it was over. Now Ivar Morten Normark is the manager. You can see him over there. Blond hair, on the side line.’

‘But you still work here?’

He shrugged and looked around. ‘Ground staff. I do odd jobs inside and out. Never do away trips. Spend my time in Kråmyra.’ Then he looked down across the fjord. ‘In a few years though we’ll have a new stadium, down there. Perhaps conditions for us foot-soldiers will be a bit more endurable too.’

He was beginning to thaw now. Football has that effect, at least among those for whom it is their overriding interest in life. ‘So what do you remember about the day your sister went missing, Håkon?’

We were quickly back into everyday life. He sent me a surly look, as though I had asked him an unpleasant question, and indeed it was. ‘What do you think? I was six years old. That’s very young.’

‘You and your father were at football training?’

‘Yes, there was a training pitch near Fana Stadium. A guy came running over and said there was a call for Dad in the clubhouse. I stayed
on the pitch while he dashed off, but soon afterwards he came running back, took me out of training and dragged me up to the car. Then he drove as fast as he could home. And all he said was: ‘It’s Mette. She’s gone missing.’ Afterwards everything was chaos.’

He went quiet again.

‘Anything else you remember?’

‘Such as? It was a terrible mess, that year and the year afterwards. Mum was completely hysterical. All she talked about was Mette, Mette. Dad was … calmer. If there was anything, I would ask him, and the following autumn I started school. He took me and stayed with me during the first few days.’

‘Your parents split up in 1979.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you moved out with your dad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I told you! Mum was … out of her mind. Dad, at least was normal, and after a few years he met Gudrun and we almost became a normal family again.’

‘Did they have children?’

Sullenly, he said: ‘Yes. I’ve got two half-sisters.’

A silence grew between us. At the end of the stadium the players had stopped the step-ups. Now it looked as if they were getting ready for a run. Håkon watched with wistful eyes. He would have much rather been there than in the stands with me.

‘You had a friend, then, called Joachim.’

Suddenly there was something new and wary about him. ‘Yes?’

‘I’ve been told that on New Year’s Eve 1976 Joachim and you saw something you shouldn’t have.’

He paled visibly, and his voice vibrated as he said: ‘Oh, yes?’

‘It’s not something that can be swept under the carpet. Many of us know about it.’

His face revealed some noticeably fiery-red patches. ‘Joachim talked, did he?’

I made a gesture with my hand that could have been interpreted as ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

He pressed his lips together, as if to show he was refusing to say anything.

Both Joachim and he had their bedrooms at the rear of the houses. Sometimes they opened their windows, stretched out and chatted, even after they had gone to bed. On that freezing-cold night Joachim had said:
They’ve all gone to the architect’s house! Come over here and we’ll find something to do
.

Håkon thought it was a great idea, had dressed and crept over to the adjacent house, where Joachim stood in the doorway waiting for him. Then they had gone up to his room, read comics – Joachim could already read, he couldn’t! Afterwards they had played a board game:
The Missing Diamond
.

‘Let’s tiptoe downstairs and have a look,’ Joachim suggested.

He had nodded.

Joachim carefully opened the door. They slowly crept down the stairs to the ground floor. There was no one in the sitting room, and it was pitch-black, but the door of Joachim’s parents’ bedroom was ajar, and they heard some strange banging noises – and someone trying to say something but not quite managing it.

Håkon had been frightened. What was going on? He looked at Joachim, who was two years older than him. His friend stared into the bedroom with mouth agape and eyes wide open. When Joachim tiptoed over to the door crack he followed automatically as if tied to him by an invisible rope – or possibly because he was too frightened to be left on his own in the darkness.

Joachim pressed his face to the door. After watching for a little while he waved to Håkon, who squeezed his head up against Joachim’s to see.

Again he was frightened. He wanted to scream, but Joachim held a finger to his mouth to tell him to be quiet. He didn’t quite understand what was going on inside. A woman he eventually identified as Joachim’s mother was lying on the floor by the bed with a man on top
of her. The man had pulled her dress right up and his trousers down to his knees. His white backside bobbed up and down while he held a hand over her mouth so that what she was trying to say only came out as half-stifled, muffled sounds. Only after they had watched for a while did he notice the hair of the man lying on top of her. It was … the architect man. Torbeinsvik.

His bum was going faster and faster, up and down, up and down, but suddenly Joachim pushed Håkon away and pointed to the door before dragging Håkon after him. Close to the door he whispered: ‘Come on! Let’s get going before he sees us!’

‘Him?’

‘Yes!’

Before he knew what was happening they were outside on the stairs. It was freezing cold and they weren’t wearing any outdoor clothes. Joachim pointed. ‘Let’s go to your house!’

Håkon nodded and together they ran over to the house. He felt the handle: the door was unlocked as he had left it.

‘Did you see that?’ Joachim said excitedly.

He nodded.

‘They were doing it! Mum and … that architect!’

‘Were they?’

‘Yes, but you saw it, didn’t you? They were screwing!’

‘They were scr—?’ He didn’t understand.

‘Your mum and dad have done it too.’

He shook his head vehemently. ‘Noo! Never!’

‘So how do you think Mette and you got here? Did they buy you in a shop? Were you delivered to the door?’

‘No, mum said … something about a stork.’

‘A stork! They’re screwing, but they won’t admit it. Because that’s how it is…’ He waggled his bottom, the way they had seen the architect’s bum going up and down. ‘In and out! In and out!’

‘But she didn’t seem to like it, your mother didn’t.’

‘No…’ For a moment Joachim looked pensive. ‘It wasn’t Dad…’

They froze. From the house they heard noises like the ones they
had heard at Joachim’s. They looked at each other. Joachim nodded. ‘Listen!’ But Håkon just shook his head. ‘Not here! Never!’

Joachim led the way into the sitting room. One of the lamps was on, and on a table there were two wine glasses, one with a drop left at the bottom, the other half-full.

Joachim pointed to the bedroom door. But this one was closed. They stood outside with their ears to the door and listened to the sounds coming out. It was a kind of groaning. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ But it wasn’t as muffled as at Joachim’s, and they could clearly hear there were two of them, one voice higher-pitched than the other, and then the bed creaked, like when he and Mette had been jumping on it, early one Sunday morning while their parents had been lying half-asleep beside them.

Just like at Joachim’s they speeded up, the groaning became louder and louder, until it culminated in what sounded like a half-strangulated scream, and then everything went quiet, only a faint mumble reached their ears.

They quickly tiptoed away from the door, as though they suspected someone was about to come out. They stood there bewildered. What should they do? There were no more houses they could go to, and they couldn’t hide at Håkon’s, not safely anyway. ‘I’m going home,’ Joachim said, making for the door. Håkon didn’t protest. Straight afterwards he was alone.

But he didn’t go to bed. He trudged up the stairs to the first floor. There he sat in the darkness, resting his head against the wall while keeping an eye on what was happening downstairs.

He had been sitting there half-asleep when he gave a start. What was that? Where was he? Suddenly he realised. He heard a rush of water in the pipes after someone had been to the toilet. Then he heard voices down below and recognised his mother’s. It was too far away for him to hear what they were saying, but then they came into the hall, his mother only in her dressing gown and – that was … the father of Asbjørg and Einar, fully clothed. For a moment they stood together, close, by the door to the porch. He saw Asbjørg and Einar’s father stick his hand up
mum’s nice dressing gown, which she had been given for Christmas a week ago, put his arms around her waist, pull her to him and then – they kissed! For a long time. He had sat upstairs, perfectly still, scared to death they would notice him.

But no one saw him. His mother said goodbye to Asbjørn and Einar’s father; then she quickly came back in and went into the sitting room. Håkon got up and went into his own room, clambered up into bed, stared at the dark wall and slowly subsided into such a deep sleep that when he awoke he was no longer sure whether what he had seen was a dream or not. And he definitely didn’t dare ask!

It wasn’t until six months afterwards that he and Joachim spoke about it again, but that was because Joachim wanted to take Janne and Mette into the woods and try it themselves, Håkon with Janne, Joachim with Mette…