She grimaced and tossed her head, without saying a word.
‘Let me start with what’s probably of most concern to you. I have informed the police that you’re having problems with Bjørn Hårkløv.’
Her eyes widened, and her face took on a horrified expression. ‘What?’ she said in a hoarse voice. ‘The police? But…’
‘In addition, I’ve spoken to him.’
‘Him?’
‘Bjørn Hårkløv. You might know him as only Bønni. I said they should forget the debt.’
She stared at me in disbelief. ‘And you think they will? Then you don’t know those people.’
‘Who is there apart from Hårkløv?’
She shrugged. ‘Drug dealers. Lots of them. But the people behind them are the same, of course.’
‘And who’s that?’
‘I don’t know! It’s Bønni who collects the money. He’s done it for years.’
I sighed. ‘Yes, I know actually. It’s just odd that they can never get anything on him.’
‘The cops? They don’t give a shit about his sort. It’s us they’re after. It’s us they like to torment.’
‘Surely that can’t be right.’
‘Isn’t it? Ask all the others on the street. Take a trip round the park and listen. Everyone will say the same.’
‘I suppose you talk about where your stuff comes from, too?’
‘We know where it comes from. Abroad, of course. More often than not via Oslo, but sometimes direct. How much do you think comes from Copenhagen, either by plane or ferry? Or by car over the Swedish border and straight over the Hardanger Plain. You can only speculate.’
‘Well…’ I opened my palms. ‘At least they’re warned now.’
‘Hah! Warned.’ She didn’t believe me for a second, and in a way I was afraid she was right.
‘The other thing I wanted to talk to you about—’
Her phone vibrated. She took it, checked the display, grimaced again and placed it on the table in front of her, face down.
‘Are you still on drugs?’
‘And where would I get them? Don’t you think the word has spread?’
‘Aren’t there others trying to get in with their offers? Always cheap at the start, isn’t it.’
‘Always cheap at the start,’ she imitated. ‘You sound like a bloody social worker.’
‘Mm.’
‘But does it give me peace? Eh? Does it?’
‘What I wanted to talk to you about…’
‘So it wasn’t that?’ She was brimming with a mixture of sarcasm and despair.
‘Well, when your brother and I were outside here on Tuesday you made some fairly strong allegations against him.’
‘Yes?’ She glared at me defiantly. ‘So?’
‘What—?’
‘They weren’t allegations. It was true.’
‘That you’d seen some photos of Knut’s children that he’d sent to your ex-husband, Bjarne?’
‘Yes! I saw them.’ She looked round the room, as though there was something there that might help her to explain what she was talking about. She gasped for breath. ‘It was as terrible as … as when my father…’ She stared hard at me. ‘They were photos of his girls, Toril and Elisabeth, and they looked as if they were asleep, but … they were completely naked and beside them stood … I couldn’t see who it was because you couldn’t see the head, but it was a man and he stood there…’ She made some explicit hand gestures. ‘With no clothes on.’
Then the air seemed to go out of her. She slumped even deeper into the chair and bent forwards as though she were looking for the foetal position she had been in before birth. It was as though I could hear the voice of singer Jan Eggum in my head: Mum, I want to go back…
She whispered to herself: ‘It’s so terrible. I can barely talk about it.’
Convulsive tremors racked her body. I felt like extending a hand, stroking her shoulder comfortingly, but something inside me held me back. The best thing was to let her get it out. I leaned back in my chair and breathed slowly in and out. There was no question that this was having an effect on me, too.
‘Poor Knut,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Knut?’ I said gently.
She straightened up and regarded me with tears in her eyes. ‘Don’t you understand? He was abused, too.’
‘Yes, you mentioned that last time we met, but … By your father, from what you said.’
She gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘I remember … We were in the same room. I remember being woken by him crying in bed. When I sat up my father was there and said … I should just go back to sleep. Knut was only … a little sad.’ She seemed to be having difficulty breathing. ‘When I asked him the day afterwards – when I asked Knut, he just turned his face to the wall and refused to answer.’ There was something stony and ugly about her as she continued: ‘What he did to me – and Marthe – happened during the day, at the weekend, when he was alone with us. What he did to Knut was always at night, when it was dark, as though he … As though it was something he wouldn’t admit, that it made no difference to him … whether it was girls or boys he abused.’
When she paused, I said: ‘Apparently it’s not unusual for abused children to become abusers themselves.’
‘Yes, so I’ve heard.’ She had begun to unwind from the foetal position. ‘But someone must stop the devilry, mustn’t they. Surely it can’t be original sin, can it?’
‘Preferably not.’
‘Perhaps my father was abused as a child himself. Does that excuse what he himself did later in life, when he was an adult? Does it excuse what Knut’s been doing?’
‘But … Do you know any more about it, other than the photos you saw with your husband? Have you confronted him about it?’
She stared into the distance and answered as if she hadn’t heard my question. ‘Once when we were … I was maybe twelve, he was fourteen. We talked about it and we shook hands … We swore to each other that as soon as we were grown up enough, we would leave home and never return. And we did! When I was eighteen I moved out and I never saw my mother and father again until … the courtroom, sixteen or seventeen years later. Knut did the same.’
I repeated my question. ‘But when you saw the photos Knut had sent to your husband, did you confront him?’
She looked at me as if I was just a stupid social worker who understood nothing of what she was up against. ‘Confront him? I spewed. I lay in bed throwing up for a day afterwards. And then I left that home, too. I never went back to Bjarne and I couldn’t bear even the thought of talking to Knut. When he was here on Thursday and wanted to come in … I became desperate. I couldn’t control myself. I’ve lost my faith in all men. And that applies to you too! Don’t think you can come here and help with anything. As soon as you’ve gone, the bloody debt collectors will be at the door again, and if I can’t pay them in the end they’ll kill me.’ She tossed her head, like a fish caught in a net. ‘And perhaps that’s the best when it comes down to it. Just have done with the whole shit, like Marthe did.’
‘You’ve got a sister-in-law – Vibeke. The mother of Toril and Elisabeth. You could contact her.’
She looked at me vacantly. ‘Vibeke? She pretended she hadn’t seen anything, either. Mothers!’ She almost spat the word out. ‘Bitches! We’re the ones who suffered. The children.’
‘Yes.’
I could visualise the distant woman in the window in Nystuveien, hear her unsympathetic voice in the intercom by the door. A bitch, as Laila called her, or a lioness?
I felt unwell and ill at ease. With every conversation I had in this case, which barely deserved the term ‘investigation’, it was as though I was moving further and further into a dark web of evil crimes, unmentionable acts, lives built on an insecure childhood, in which fathers rose like monstrous shadows over their children, mothers closed their eyes, and childhood memories became traumas and nightmares that led to breakdowns, dependence on medication and drugs, and rootl
ess existence.
Laila had talked about stopping the devilry, as she called it. She wasn’t the only person who thought like this. Was there, somewhere out in the darkness, an invisible avenger, an angel who had come down to earth from God, sword of fire in hand, to separate the pure from the impure, the guilty from the innocent? But if that were so, how clear-thinking was the angel? Could they distinguish between wolves and sheep? It was a question that remained unanswered. It was a question that had consequences for me personally.
38
Before I drove any further I rang Sølvi to ask how things were going.
‘Fine, but Helene’s bored of course. She’d rather be at school.’
‘I’ve spoken to the police. They’re working on the case.’
‘I really hope they are. Talk later.’
‘OK. Take care.’
‘Take care.’
She rang off, and I sat with the phone in my hand. What now? I had a gut instinct there was someone I should talk more to: Bjarne Bratteli. He was still at work. In a kindergarten. I could of course pay him a call there, but if I was going to get anything out of him it would be simpler if I could visit him at home. And who did I meet the last time I was there? Knut Haugen. I should talk to him anyway, after the conversation with his sister. I could see him at work, if I could get past his receptionist-cum-guard, that is.
I drove back to town, parked the car in Markeveien and popped into the office to check that there were no other emails for me apart from an offer to inherit a million dollars in Nigeria. Apparently there was a distant relative of mine there whose name I had never come across, but who had left this sum to me personally. Now he had died in a car accident and the sum could be transferred, against a tiny commission of sixty percent. I saved the offer for a rainy day when I needed cheering up.
Then I crossed the market square. It was deserted on this Monday in January. Not so much as a delayed tourist from Transylvania to be seen. When I arrived at BI-IT I was met by the same young lady in reception. She even appeared to recognise me.
‘Knut Haugen,’ I said. ‘You can tell him it’s Veum this time as well.’
She nodded, turned aside and spoke into the phone with her back to me. I had seen worse backs, and far worse above and below. She turned to me and met my wandering eyes with silence. You are unlikely to see anything more withering on a Monday. ‘Knut said you’d better come in, otherwise there’d only be trouble.’
‘Trouble? Me?’ I grinned and passed close enough to her to smell the fragrance of ice roses or whatever perfume it was she liked to wear.
Knut Haugen received me in the corridor with a sullen face, held open the door to his office and then closed it firmly behind me. He nodded to the chair that had a view of Vågen and sat down behind his desk, so that the light fell on me. But it wasn’t so bright that I couldn’t see the beads of sweat on his brow beneath the short fringe.
‘What is it this time, Veum?’ he said, then changed the topic. ‘By the way, I heard you were outside my wife’s door before the weekend. If that happens again, we’ll call the police.’
‘To tell them what exactly?’
‘That you’re harassing us. My wife has nothing to do with any of this.’
‘And by “this” you’re referring to … your father?’
‘Vibeke never met my father. I’m referring to Laila. All the commotion there. However, I can inform you I’ve solved that case myself now.’
‘Solved … which case?’
‘I made a call to this herr Hårkløv and was told what she owed them. I’ve transferred the outstanding amount.’
‘Really? When did you do that?’
He looked at his watch; the same expensive Rolex. ‘An hour ago.’
‘I spoke to herr Hårkløv myself two hours ago and he wasn’t remotely relaxed then.’
‘As I said, you can drop that case now.’
I observed him. ‘Really? So you think I should drop all the other stuff in the case too, do you?’
He automatically tensed his mouth before answering. ‘Yes, everything. Just drop all of it.’
‘All the abuse Laila hurled at you when we were there on Thursday and which she’s elaborated on this morning?’
‘This…? Have you been talking to Laila today?’
‘I’ve just come from hers now. And she hadn’t been informed that you’d paid her debt.’
‘Well, no bloody surprise there. She doesn’t answer the phone, does she.’
‘No, perhaps you’ll have to go via the neighbour as well then.’
‘The neighbour? That…?’
‘Save the swear words for a more appropriate occasion. Yes, I’m talking about Ghulam Mohammad and his wife, Fatima. The only people who seem to have bothered about Laila recently. But we shouldn’t be talking about them now. We should be talking about…’ I leaned forwards slightly to emphasise that what I said was confidential. ‘I know you had a difficult childhood, both Laila and you. She wasn’t alone in being abused. The same happened to you. Your father had catholic tastes, if I can put it like that.’
His face turned waxen in front of me. It was as though a mask had been pulled down over his head, a faithful copy of himself, but with all his facial features distorted and askew, like a grotesque caricature of himself, a reflection of a pain so bitter and sad that he was unable to hide it.
He moistened his lips, looked to the side and searched for the right words. When he did finally say something it was in a voice that had become hoarse from the tension that had arisen in his larynx. ‘This is … history, Veum. We’ve put it behind us, at least I have. And it wasn’t that serious. It didn’t happen that often.’
‘No? But the experience of it was definitely so intense that you and Laila shook hands and swore to each other you would leave home as soon as you were old enough; and you did too, from what I’ve been told.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘But then we come to the next chapter.’
He looked at me with despondent eyes. He shook his head, as though already denying what I was going to say.
‘On Wednesday evening I visited your brother-in-law, Bjarne Bratteli. You were there. If I’m to believe Laila, you two had mutual interests, and … There’s a bit of birds of a feather in all this, isn’t there? You shared the titbits. You got something from him. He got something from you. Where did he get the photos from? The kindergarten? And you … Well, actually Laila saw them with her own eyes. From your own home. Your own daughters, Toril and Elisabeth.’
He watched me, his face grey now. There was no resistance left in him. He didn’t deny anything. It was as though I was talking to a wax figure, an abandoned display dummy in a closed-down gentleman’s outfitters.
‘Does your wife know about these photos, Haugen? Does she know who you are, behind the façade?’
He gave a start, as though I had stirred him from a dream. ‘What? Vibeke! Of course not. What do you take me for?’
‘What I think or don’t think is of no significance. We’re talking about what you’ve done here.’
Again his body slumped. He held his trembling hands in front of him, opening them and looking down at his palms, which were moist with sweat. He was speaking in such a low voice that I had to lean closer to catch his words. ‘My sort, we don’t have a right to live. We should be erased from the face of the earth. As my father, and the other man, were. We carry all the sins of the world upon our shoulders, although we can’t help it!’ He raised his head and looked at me, his eyes shiny. ‘I shouldn’t be like this, either. He made me what I am; and I couldn’t resist, I couldn’t refrain.’
No. I could have been brutal and said: You’ve always had a choice, Knut. You’re a free man, you make your own decisions, and in the end it is you and you alone who has to stand to account for the decisions you took. But I didn’t. I said: ‘I have to repeat my question. Does your wife know about your tendencies – what you’re like?’
He shook his head. ‘
No one knows!’
‘Yes, they do. Your brother-in-law knows. Your sister knows. Now I know. Have you ever tried to get some help? To resist. Professional help.’
Large tears were running down his cheeks. I felt suddenly ill at ease, as though I had put him under too much pressure. What if one of his colleagues walked in on us?
‘It started … I noticed it early on. Long before I met Vibeke. I used to … I used to hang around outside nurseries, schools, not to do anything, just to catch a glimpse of them – the small children.’ He gasped for breath. ‘When I got to know Vibeke and … fell in love … I hoped she would liberate me from this – these obsessive thoughts. And she did. She did! For a while. We had some good years together, at the beginning. But then, when we had our own children, and I no longer needed to go to nurseries and schools, but had them inside our own walls, then…’ Again his voice sank so low that I had difficulty hearing. ‘Then it came back. Then…’ He gestured helplessly, half turned and looked at the sky over Askøy, as though there were some form of consolation to be found there. But that was unlikely. The sky never gave an answer; I knew that from my own experience.
‘How did you find out that your brother-in-law had the same leanings?’
He raised his voice a notch. ‘Bjarne? He … No comment. You’ll have to speak to him yourself.’
‘But you admit you exchanged photos?’
He repeated: ‘You’d better talk to him about that. I have no comment to make.’
‘Back to you then. At least you admit you were attracted by … your own daughters?’
He gazed down, without answering.
‘What about actual abuse?’
He rose halfway out of his chair, once again with despair in his eyes. ‘It’s never happened! Not in my home at any rate.’
I waited.
‘It hasn’t!’
‘Laila told me about a photo she’d seen on Bjarne’s computer screen. She recognised both Toril and Elisabeth. They looked as if they were asleep, actually, but above them stood a naked man and he…’ I made the same unambiguous gestures with my right hand that Laila had done when she told me.
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