Hell Is Open (Tommy Bergmann Series Book 2)

by Gard Sveen

  Bergmann decided on the stairs, but it was already too late. He trotted over to the reception desk and had the new receptionist call Alexander Thorstensen.

  Damn, thought Bergmann. Where the hell has he gone?

  “I’m just getting voice mail. He’s gone off shift, so—”

  Bergmann nodded silently.

  He took a taxi to Skolegata, where Alexander lived in an old Swiss chalet. All the windows were dark; not even the Christmas lights were on. He rang the doorbell several times, then took a walk around the house. His shoes filled with snow, and he cursed Alexander and everyone he’d ever known. He tried to see in through the windows, but to no avail.

  No one’s home, he thought. Unless they’re hiding on the second floor. He walked backward through the snow until he was standing in the middle of the yard. There were no shadows visible in the windows, though it was hard to see from that distance. He stood there motionless for a few minutes, but no faces appeared behind the windowpanes.

  His phone pinged with a text message.

  Susanne.

  Found the girl. Edle Maria, killed in Nordreisa October 1962. But won’t be any wiser until I find the case.

  Oh well, he thought. And then, Damn. That didn’t get them much closer to the truth. They had to find the case. And I didn’t even get to ask Alexander Thorstensen about Edle Maria.

  But he had to get back to Oslo. He had to talk to Morten Høgda again. The best thing to do would be to get him indicted, if for nothing else than for not reporting what he witnessed to the police.

  He cursed himself in the taxi out to Langnes. He’d gone all the damned way up to Tromsø for nothing.

  At the airport he bought some new socks. He walked over to the departure hall in stocking feet and enjoyed the funny looks he got.

  As he sat napping in one of the chairs at the gate, his phone rang.

  “Think the old lady cracked it,” said Fredrik Reuter.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hell open, have you forgotten about that?”

  The truth was that he’d almost forgotten about the letter.

  “Not really.”

  “The only thing she could think of was Fröding. Majored in Nordic languages, can you believe that, she’s half-autistic besides. Never play Scrabble with her.”

  “Fröding. What the hell is that?”

  “You mean who is that? Or who was that, rather.”

  “Well?”

  “Gustaf Fröding, Swedish poet, a real lunatic, spent most of his life in a mental hospital. He once wrote a poem called A Vision. One of the lines is ‘Hell I saw open standing.’ That is, ‘Hell open standing.’ Do you understand?”

  Bergmann sighed.

  “No,” he said. “A bit esoteric for me.”

  “I’m siding with the old lady,” said Reuter. “She’s smarter than me. And if she’s smarter than me, then she’s definitely smarter than you.”

  “We’ll discuss it when I get back.”

  “Listen,” said Reuter. “What I’m about to tell you, keep your mouth shut about it for now. It’ll be released in an hour or two.”

  “I’ll be on the plane then.”

  “A thirteen-year-old has been reported missing in Kolbotn,” said Reuter. “One Amanda Viksveen.”

  “She’s probably just on her way home.”

  “She was coming home from the Sofiemyr gym, Tommy.”

  “How long has she been gone?”

  “Two hours.”

  “Two hours, age thirteen. Please. Are they panicking in Follo?”

  “No doubt a well-behaved girl. Credible parents. They had an agreement that she should come straight home.”

  “Well-behaved girls are always the worst.”

  “The parents want to file a missing-person report. They were going to take her to the mall to go shopping. She’s disappeared without a trace, Tommy. Was just going to take the shortcut through the woods.”

  Damn, thought Bergmann. He’d been in those woods a thousand times. It was pitch black there in the winter. There was one spot between the gym and the soccer field that was like being in a black hole.

  “I’m an optimist.”

  Reuter hung up. He was not an optimist.

  Bergmann was just thinking that the thirteen-year-old Amanda would surely show up sometime over the course of the evening when he became aware of something happening somewhere to his right. It was an argument over by security.

  Bergmann thought he heard someone say his name.

  No. He closed his eyes. Fröding, he thought. What could that possibly mean?

  “Bergmann, can Tommy Bergmann report to security?” came through the loudspeaker. It took him a minute to realize they were calling his name.

  Alexander Thorstensen was standing like a dog on too tight a leash on the other side of security.

  “You have to believe me,” he said.

  Bergmann looked at his watch. Then he looked at Alexander Thorstensen again. The security guard by his side appeared eager to put the young surgeon in cuffs at any moment.

  He was going to miss his flight, but there was another one in an hour.

  “Meet me downstairs,” he said to Alexander.

  He was standing outside the doors by the arrival hall when Bergmann walked up. They walked in silence toward a bench.

  “You have to believe me. I didn’t do anything with Kristiane. I was alone all evening until I went to the party in Nordstrand.” He drew his hands over his face, then ran his fingers through his hair.

  “But she was in love with you?”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me the truth.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why would your mother tell me such a thing? Do you think she really believed it? That she found strands of Kristiane’s hair in your bed?”

  “Maybe Kristiane slept there sometime when I wasn’t home. I have no idea.” He opened his mouth to say something more, but changed his mind.

  “Well?”

  “Mom was obsessed with incest. It was like she was actually encouraging me. ‘You can get married,’ she said to me once, and then smiled in a way that frightened me. ‘You would have such good-looking children,’ she added. She said things like that to me all the time when we were alone. ‘You’re so beautiful, Alex.’ Sometimes I was almost afraid that I’d find my own mom lying in my bed. Do you understand?”

  Bergmann shook his head.

  “Not really.”

  “She still needs help, Bergmann. Why do you think I came all the way up here? I wanted to get away from her. And away from Morten too. I think he’s almost as crazy as she is.”

  “Your mother was at Frensby, right? I think I met her there once myself, actually. When I was a kid.”

  “Frensby? I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh?” said Bergmann. “Didn’t she ever tell you where she was?”

  Alexander just stared at him. Bergmann felt the recognition slowly wash over him.

  Somewhere along the way, he had made a trivial error.

  “I have to go,” said Alexander.

  Bergmann shuffled after him.

  They went their separate ways at the exit. Bergmann headed straight to the SAS counter and said he needed to borrow their computer. He flashed his police identification in the face of the young woman behind the counter, and she let him in. He opened the browser to Dagbladet. Anders Rask had been shot by a police patrol in Trondheim. It must have just happened.

  Sure enough. His phone started vibrating. Reuter. Bergmann ignored it and entered “Gustaf Fröding” in the browser’s search field.

  A series of black-and-white pictures came up. And sure enough, the bald man with the big beard looked like he was a haunted soul.

  But it didn’t actually ring any bells. He clicked on the most striking picture, a yellowed black-and-white photograph. Something was written in white script in the lower left-hand corner. Bergmann read it, but was none the wi
ser.

  What the hell kind of guy is this?

  And why couldn’t Susanne finish the job he’d asked her to do?

  He looked at the clock. He could have gone down to Nordlys himself, but he had to get home this evening.

  Frank Krokhol, he thought. I’ll owe him a big favor.

  The old Dagbladet doyen answered his phone almost immediately.

  “I told you. It’s not Rask, you know. Old Anders has driven into the police barricades in Trondheim, and a girl disappears over three hundred miles away in Kolbotn. I told you that, didn’t I?”

  “How do you know that?” Bergmann blurted out. He should have known better.

  “Dear friend,” said Krokhol. “I had better sources before you were born than you’ll ever have.”

  “So do me a favor. You’re from Tromsø, aren’t you?”

  Krokhol didn’t reply.

  “That case. Edle Maria. Do you remember I asked you about that?”

  “Sorry, Tommy. There’s been too much lately.”

  “Get me the obituaries from Nordlys. October 1962. Mainly that one.”

  “I grew up with that paper.”

  “In that case you remember it well.”

  “I’m not that damned old.”

  “Pull a few strings. Quickly. I need everything they have on the case. Who, what, where, do you understand?”

  “Good Lord, I thought you had a certain sense of order, Tommy. Let me escape to a warmer country before Christmas, huh?”

  “Just do it. You’ll get the scoop first, you know that.”

  Bergmann could hear Krokhol tapping his cigarette on the other end of the line.

  “Edle Maria. October 1962. What the hell will you do with the obituary?”

  I don’t know, thought Bergmann. I don’t know if I can bear to find that out.

  55

  Should she feel guilty about letting Torvald pick Mathea up at daycare? Yes. Definitely.

  Susanne Bech sat with the phone receiver squeezed against her ear while she entered names in the census registry. She’d been at it since four thirty and was just finished with the inhabitants of the first apartment building. This was no doubt a completely idiotic way to proceed, but it was all she had right now. And she had to hurry and finish before Bergmann got back from Tromsø. If she didn’t get any results, she was through. He might well believe that she was coming unglued.

  She studied her own reflection in the window while Mathea’s voice filled her head.

  “So you and Torvald are having a good time?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you watching on TV?”

  “Something about old things.”

  “Old things?”

  Torvald spoke up in the background. “Some antiques show or other. Mathea’s the one who wanted to watch it,” he said.

  Like I believe that, thought Susanne.

  “Torvald makes better pancakes than you,” said Mathea.

  “I have no doubt about that.” Susanne looked at the clock. Her daughter should have been in bed long ago.

  “But aren’t you tired?”

  Susanne printed out the information on the ex-husband of Randi Gjerulfsen, who lived on the third floor of the first building. Rolf Gjerulfsen had two convictions for assault.

  Good Lord, she thought. This is madness.

  Torvald took the phone.

  “Listen,” he whispered, “if you were to ever die, God forbid, I’ll take her, just so that’s clear. Do we have a deal?”

  Susanne breathed heavily.

  “Then you’ll have to move in with Nico.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Put her to bed, please. If she doesn’t want to brush her teeth, don’t worry about it. As for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m very fond of you, do you know that?”

  “Hugs and kisses.”

  The dial tone filled her ear. She hid her face in her hands and thought that she mustn’t cry. She was just so worn out. But she had to do this. Bergmann didn’t like her much, she was sure of that. But if she could do this, if she found a decisive lead, he would have no choice but to give her a permanent position, or at least extend her temporary position. Or so she hoped.

  She heard Fredrik Reuter’s voice down the hall and straightened up.

  Pull yourself together, she thought. You’re blubbering worse than an old lady. Worse than when Line died.

  “I thought you had your daughter today?” said Reuter, waltzing into her office.

  She mumbled something unintelligible.

  “Jensrud is dead from gunshot wounds,” he said. “Keep that to yourself for the time being.”

  “And Rask?”

  “Hopefully he’ll die in the course of the night.”

  “But they didn’t kill Furuberget and his wife,” said Susanne. “And then we haven’t made much headway.”

  Reuter refrained from commenting. Instead he took a toothpick out of the chest pocket of his shirt. Susanne shuddered. He used the same one all day until it splintered. She had nothing against Reuter, but that toothpick alone was enough to make her think, Not if you were the last man on earth, Fredrik Reuter.

  “And you’re working on what?”

  “Skøyen,” she said, continuing to enter names into the registry, then into an Excel spreadsheet, and finally, cross-check them against all the registers.

  “Exactly,” said Reuter, poking thoroughly between his molars. “Tell me,” he said finally. “Have you ever heard of Gustaf Fröding?”

  “Fröding? No, why is that?”

  “Just a question. And check the news sites in an hour. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I think Christmas is shot for all of us.”

  He disappeared from her office. She closed her eyes and knew exactly what he was thinking: Susanne Bech was a silly brunette who wasted the taxpayers’ money, spent her years as the parent of a small child getting divorced, and entered stupid names into a stupid form.

  She was just getting ready to leave at 10:00 p.m. when Bergmann called. It was surprisingly comforting to hear his voice. She told him about the Edle Maria search at the National Library and took the opportunity to say that she was still working on the Skøyen lead.

  She took the fact that he didn’t bawl her out as a compliment. That said, he didn’t seem particularly interested either.

  “Did you check the obituary?” he said.

  “The obituary?”

  “Edle Maria. There may have been an obituary in the paper after she died. Worth seeing that before we find the case.”

  You could have spent the night in Tromsø and gone to Nordlys first thing in the morning, she thought, but kept her mouth shut.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said, and hung up.

  The hell I will, thought Susanne. She checked the clock and turned the computer back on.

  She picked a random name from the third apartment building and entered it in the search field in the census registry.

  Anne-Britt Torgersen, born in 1947.

  Susanne clicked on the details.

  A child, born in 1985.

  It took a few seconds for her brain to register that she’d seen the name of the child’s father before. She fumbled with the mouse for a few seconds. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Did he live there then?

  In a moment of clarity she remembered a fragment of the brief report Bergmann had written. She went into the folder labeled “Kristiane reopening” and read, “Ex-wife called. He said he’d given his ex the apartment. Very close to here. Worth a fortune today.”

  A quick search made her stomach sink. Her fingers stiffened against the keyboard. He’d reported moving away from Nedre Skøyen Vei in 1990.

  That couldn’t be right.

  Suddenly Reuter’s words popped up in her mind: “Check the news sites in an hour.”

  She went to Dagbladet.

  Amanda (13) Missing in Kolbotn

  Oh God, she thought. It can’t be him.

  She
flipped back through her notepad and found his telephone number. She looked at the page in the census registry. He’d lived in Skøyen in 1988. He really had. She entered the first four digits of his number, then changed her mind.

  She went down the corridor to see if Reuter was still in his office, but no. The lights were off. She looked at her watch. Who worked this late in the evening without extra pay?

  But I must, she thought. She entered Bergmann’s number into her phone. She closed her eyes when she got voice mail.

  She had to tell Bergmann.

  Was that really what had happened?

  56

  Susanne ran out into Grønlandsleiret without looking, and a bus going by barely managed to brake for her. She remained standing on the sidewalk for a while afterward, trying to register that she’d almost been run over. That she’d just had a narrow escape.

  Like I did out there?

  She supported herself against the window of a Thai restaurant. The gaudy Christmas lights strung along the window frame momentarily confused her. Was it already Christmas?

  She’d been alone with him. But it simply couldn’t be true.

  The slush reached over the tops of her short boots as she turned onto Mandalls Gate toward home. Those poor parents in Kolbotn. She hadn’t been able to read past the introduction; that alone had almost made her throw up.

  On her way down in the elevator at police headquarters, she had once again been overpowered by a feeling that something dreadful had happened. That Torvald had been killed in the apartment, that Mathea was not dead yet, but dragging herself bleeding toward the door while screaming, “Mommy, Mommy.”

  Her hands shook as she unlocked the front door of the building. She slammed the door behind her and ran halfway through the courtyard before she stopped.

  The Christmas lights strung from the kitchen windows on the floors above her made her feel more secure. It was Christmas. It really was Christmas. It couldn’t be that bad. Or could it?

  The stairs in the entry made her think of the building in Frognerveien. She hadn’t been there herself, thank God, but she’d seen the pictures. And she’d seen the pictures from Kristiane’s autopsy and knew that she would never be able to erase them from her mind.