I looked at her expectantly. ‘The info did the trick?’
‘The info? A shot in the dark I would call it.’
‘But …’
‘Yes, you fusspot. I found one Margrethe Monsen with a Minde address, born on 14 April 1970. Falsens vei, if that means anything to you.’
‘Vaguely.’
‘Parallel to Inndalsveien. A friend of mine lived there once years ago.’
‘Right. Is that her present address?’
‘She hasn’t officially moved at any rate.’
‘No address in Nordnes?’
‘Not officially, as I said.’
‘And her parents?’
‘Frank and Else Monsen, née Nybø. But her father’s dead, died four years ago. An older sister, Siv, born in 1968, and a brother, Karl Gunnar, born in 1972.’
‘Addresses?’
‘The mother has the same address as Margrethe. Falsens vei. Siv lives in Landås, in Kristofer Jansons vei, and the brother’s in prison.’
‘What?’
‘At any rate he has an address at Bergen Prison, and that’s what it tends to mean.’ She passed me the sheet across the table. ‘You’ll find everything there.’
‘Thank you very much. If I didn’t have you I don’t know what I would do.’
‘Find something else to do maybe.’
‘Yes, perhaps.’
The food arrived, and we dug in. She had ordered pork fillet, I chose salted beef. I told her about the little I had to go on, so far. She listened attentively, with a sad expression on her face. I knew why. She was thinking about Siren. We were both thinking about Siren, Karin’s sister who had taken the same route as Margrethe and died of it, ten or eleven years ago.
‘I hope you find her, Varg.’
‘I hope so, too.’
‘Alive.’
‘Yes …’
After the meal we drank coffee, and at length she said: ‘Are you coming back to my place?’
I caressed her hand. ‘If you could let the offer stand for a few hours.’
‘By which you mean?’
‘I have to drive to the red light district first.’
She arched her eyebrows. ‘What have they got that I haven’t?’
‘That’s what I intend to find out. But I’m interested in the information, nothing else.’
‘And you think you’ll get it for nothing?’
‘Doubt it.’
She sighed. ‘Well, well. I suppose it’s a kind of job, too.’
‘But the offer’s still open?’
‘Till midnight, if you’re still interested.’
I paid the bill, and we parted by the sixteenth-century building known as Muren. She walked down Strandkaien to catch the bus. I headed for C. Sundts gate to see if I could get a nibble. To each his own, said the proverbial fox, and in Norway he ended up skinned.
6
THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT in Bergen had moved over the years. In olden times it was around Øvregaten where seamen, monks, members of the Hanseatic League and the town’s own citizens had beaten a path up the back stairs to the first floor of the local taverns and hostelries. In the nineteenth century most of the goings-on were to be found in Nøstet until the very last brothel was closed by the police during a major raid in 1875.
In the 1950s and 60s the most obvious signs of street activity were in Strandgaten. After the number of cars increased and the circle of clients became more mobile, business moved out further to Nordnes, to C. Sundts gate, where there is still an abundance of freelance working girls to be seen, from early afternoon to late at night.
For someone who had frequented this area more often than most, though for strictly professional purposes, there was nothing glamorous about this industry. The number of young girls I had found there was not small, from my time in child welfare to the years as a private investigator. For some of them, things had worked out fine. A depressingly high number had been immune to help. So as to get money for the daily dose of drugs they did whatever had to be done with whomever, often for a lower price when competition became too fierce. Market forces held sway in this business as well.
The furthest end of C. Sundts gate was Bergen’s answer to Ålesund – or vice versa. The area from Muren to Holbergsallmenning burned down in 1901, Ålesund in 1904, and several of the same architects were involved in the reconstruction. Art nouveau-style dominated. The construction work did not start until after the Second World War as the explosion of a Dutch ship in April 1944 had flattened the whole area.
A solitary man driving at a snail’s pace down C. Sundts gate one windy night in January aroused the fullest attention on all sides. No sooner had I opened the window than I had the day’s hottest offers raining down around my ears, in loud falsetto to drown the competitors.
The women gathering round my car were plastered with make-up, wore skirts so short they were damaging to their health and were aged from seventeen to thirty-something, as far as I was able to judge. The youngest was the most modest in self-promotion; the others cackled like a coven of witches on their way to the Midsummer Eve celebrations on Mt Lyderhorn.
‘I’m looking for Tanya,’ I said.
‘Tanya! The Russian slut!’
‘What the hell d’you think she’s got …’
‘… that we haven’t.’
On that point they were in total harmony, the whole bunch of them. But their hasty looks further up the street betrayed them. On the quay outside Nykirken Church there was a girl standing on her own, thin with very red dyed hair.
‘Thank you for the offers,’ I mumbled, rolling up the window to the accompaniment of displeased rejoinders and slighted bangs on the car roof.
I accelerated and pulled into the kerb by her. I rolled down the window on the opposite side. She bent forward and peered in. Her eyes were nervous. Even though she had not stinted with make-up there were clear marks of punches to her face, round her eyes and on her chin, still swollen from the beating.
‘Tanya?’
‘What d’you want?’ She spoke Norwegian with a slight accent and clear influence of Finnmark dialect.
‘Hege said I should talk to you.’
‘Talk?’ She opened her mouth and ran her tongue lingeringly over her lips in a way that made it clear she was ready for a lot more than talking.
‘I’ll pay the full price.’
‘Full price for what?’
I sent a silent prayer to my contact at the City Treasury who would be assessing my claim. ‘A trick.’
‘Wow! Have you won the lottery?’
‘Are you coming?’
She measured me with her eyes for a few more seconds. Then she changed her intonation. ‘I’m comin’! Course I’m comin’!’
She opened the door, pulled her short skirt so far up that I could have checked whether she still had an appendix, and spread her legs. I glimpsed black panties with dark red lace and a slit with a dark red border.
‘Seat belt. Safety comes first,’ I said.
‘Not with me it doesn’t,’ she said, revealing a row of tiny teeth with brown edges.
I shrugged and put my foot down. She grasped my thigh, high up. As I went to move her hand she resisted. ‘Gotta have something to hold onto!’
‘Yes, but not the gearstick, alright?’
‘Bastard!’
I didn’t drive far. At the top of Nordnesbakken I turned right into what once had been the terminus for the Nordnes bus. The square was dark, lit by a few scattered streetlamps. In the summer, benches were put out here so that people could sit with a view across Byfjorden. Now it was winter, dark and cold, and the sole view there was the smashed diadem above Askøy bridge and the distant lights.
She looked as if she had been there before. ‘Where do you want to take me? On the back seat?’
I unfastened my seat belt. ‘I’d like to talk, I said.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t bloody believe that! Talk!’ She closed her legs at once, made a vain attempt to pull he
r skirt down and glowered at me. ‘’Bout what?’
‘About the trick you had last Friday. The trick Maggi refused.’
She was out of the door almost before I could think, but I grabbed her arm, yanked her back in and held on tight.
‘What the hell do you want? You a cop or what?’
‘No. Calm down! I’m not going … to do anything to you.’
She wriggled like a wild cat in my arms, detached one hand and struck out at my face with sharp nails. I grabbed her wrist and twisted it round. The horn went off, and I pressed her head against the car door, locked her in a half nelson and forced her down. Despite this she continued to fight. ‘I’ll scream! I will!’
‘I said I’d pay you for Christ’s sake! Full tariff! What I need is some information.’
‘I’m not saying nothin’. I want double!’
‘OK, OK! I’ll pay you double!’ The tax collector will rub his hands with glee when he reads my expense claims.
She calmed down. Slowly I released my grip, and she sat up. She glared at me and held out a palm. ‘I wanna see the cash!’
I gave her what she demanded, thereby emptying my wallet.
‘Can we make a start?’
‘How do you want to take me, I asked. On the rear seat?’ But this time there was a scornful glint in her eye.
‘You’re fine where you’re sitting, aren’t you?’
‘So so.’ She pulled up the edge of her skirt so that I could see what I was missing.
‘The trick. You remember it, I gathered.’
She nodded. Her mouth tightened.
‘Maggi refused it. Have you any idea why?’
She shrugged demonstratively and thrust out her arms. ‘What do I know! I told her. If the boys hear she’s got so uppity she turns down a trick she’s in serious hot water!’
‘The boys?’
There was another contemptuous glint in her eyes. ‘I think you know what I mean!’
I nodded, and she went on: ‘But she stuck to her guns, and then she said she wouldn’t be here long. She was slinging her hook, she said.’
‘Uhuh! Did she say anything else?’
‘Nope. Just you wait and see, she said.’
‘And maybe she was right, quicker than anyone imagined.’
Again she shrugged. ‘What do I know?’
‘But the trick … Tell me about it.’
Once more her mouth tightened, and her face seemed to darken, as if a shadow had fallen over it. She sat hushed, staring down.
With some circumspection, I said: ‘Are you … afraid?’
She glanced up at me. ‘Afraid? Me?’
‘Listen, Tanya. Even today you’re still carrying the marks of your ordeal. I know you were beaten up. It’s important you tell me what happened. Who were they?’
Another shrug of the shoulders, but not quite as energetic this time. ‘Two guys.’ After a brief pause she added: ‘But only one did me. The other one waited, round the next corner. When I found out I tried to get away, but the one in the front seat held me down, and the one who got in the back slipped a rope round my neck and threatened to tighten it!’
I could feel myself beginning to boil with anger. ‘Were they Norwegians?’
‘As Norwegian as Satan himself!’
‘How old?’
‘Mm … Two old fellas. Way over fifty.’
‘Thank you …’
‘But not criminals, not as such. No competitors for the boy. No, these were two fine old gents out on the town to beat up a tart because they can’t do it to her indoors.’
‘Where did they take you?’
‘Not far. Down to where the Hurtigruten cruises go, one of the quays there. The one at the back tightened the rope while the one at the front pulled up my skirt, tore my panties off and raped me, with his fist. “You need a real whammer, you do,” he said. “What? Can’t you get it up?” I said, but I should never have said that because that was when he started on me. He hit me again and again, while the one at the back breathed into my ear. I think he was getting off on it from bloody watching. Afterwards they dragged me out and shoved me onto the back seat, face down, and one of them took me from behind. I thought I was going to tear. Because a girl’s a prostitute they shouldn’t bloody treat you like shit, should they? Eh?’
‘Not at all. But this isn’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last. You know that.’
I thought of Hege, who had been in the same class as Thomas. I thought about Siren whom I had known once, and Eva-Beate. The number of women who had been subjected to the sort of treatment Tanya had described was not small. They were in the grey area between law and law-breaking and as such easy game for brutes of all kinds, from notorious criminals to top civil servants with an unfulfilled need to make their mark.
‘The one that took you … like that, was that the person in the front of the car?’
‘I think so. Because I had to give the other one a blowjob in the end, and he was a real limpdick, I’m tellin’ you. Not much bloody life in ’im.’
‘And then …?’
‘Well, in the end they closed up my eyes with a few punches and said if I breathed a word to anyone they’d be back to kill me, I could be damn sure of that! I was scared out of my wits. For a while I thought they were gonna do it there and then, but then they gave up, kicked me out of the car and screeched off. I ambled back down the street, but I didn’t take any more soddin’ tricks that night, I went home and took a massive dose of pills so that I could sleep.’
I looked at her battered face. She didn’t look so cocky now, after being reminded of her terrible experience.
‘But … did you ask Maggi who they were? Could she have had the same done to her before?’
‘I haven’t seen ’er since, have I! She took off like a rabbit!’
‘Right … What about the car they were driving? Would you recognise it?’
She rolled her shoulders. ‘It was black. That’s all I remember. Oh, and the three first numbers.’
‘Ri-ight! And they were …?’
‘There was an SP first, followed by 523. I remember that because the last two add up to the first number, if you know what I mean. I’m not a hundred per cent sure about them, though.’
I noted down the numbers on my pad. ‘Tell me, Tanya. These boys you were talking about, are they the same ones that take care of Hege and Maggi?’
She tossed her head; that was her response.
‘Kjell and Rolf?’
I could see in her eyes that I had hit the bullseye, but she didn’t answer.
‘If so, have you told them what happened?’
She hesitated. ‘That Rolf came and asked. They’d heard a rumour, and he could see the state I was in.’
‘OK. How did he react?’
‘Well, a bit like you. Asked questions, did some digging, about who they could have been and what car they drove. Said if they came again I should refuse to go, but take their number and they would deal with them.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Yes!’ She almost looked indignant. ‘They’re s’posed to be looking after us! It’s their job!’
‘What a job!’
‘Tell me about it. Who are you anyway? What have you got to do with all this?’
‘Name’s Veum, and I’m a private investigator.’
‘Private investigator!’
I took out a card and gave it to her. ‘I’m looking for Maggi.’
‘So she has gone missing?’
‘Looks like it. When she told you she was going away … did she mention where?’
‘No. I thought she was just dreamin’, the way we all do from time to time.’
‘Mm.’ I fastened the seat belt again and pointed to the card in her hand. ‘Should you remember something later, you can find me there.’
She glanced at the card and nodded.
‘I’ll drive you back then. If that’s where you want to go.’
‘Yes, unless you wa
nt … after all you’ve paid!’
‘Not tonight, thank you,’ I said with a crooked smile.
As we were driving back I asked: ‘How long have you been in Norway?’
‘I’ve got a work permit, if that’s what you’re wonderin’!’
‘Oh yes? In the fish filleting industry?’
‘Exactly!’
‘You speak good Norwegian anyway!’
‘Thank you. I picked it up using the natural method, as they say.’
‘Yes, it’s supposed to be the best.’
I dropped her off at Tollbodallmenningen. I remained in the car and watched her until she disappeared round the corner towards C. Sundts gate. I didn’t like the thought of what she was going back to, but there was nothing I could do, not tonight. It was a free country, for most of us. Freedom had a price, though. Some paid the highest rates, and it was seldom those who could best afford them.
Then I put the car into gear and drove to Fløenbakken, where Karin was waiting for me with hot tea and a little something extra. But I was not in the mood. Not for that either. I had an uneasy feeling inside, an icicle in my heart.
Before we went to bed, I borrowed her telephone directory. I couldn’t find Else Monsen. There was an entry for Siv Monsen at the address Karin had found. I rang the number, but no one answered. I left a message on her answer phone, without saying what my call was about, but she didn’t ring back.
I let it go at that, but I was impatient to get started. I knew from bitter experience that time was a thief. When you arrived where you wanted to go it was often too late. The following morning I got up with Karin and was in my office before eight o’clock.
7
THE FIRST THING I DID was to ring Siv Monsen again. This time she answered, out of breath, as though she had been running. ‘Yes, hello. Siv here.’
‘My name’s Veum. I tried to get hold of you last night, but …’
‘Yes, I got the message, but it was too late to ring back. What’s this about?’
‘Your sister, Margrethe.’
Silence for a few seconds. ‘Yes? Is there anything the matter?’
‘I hope not. You haven’t heard from her?’
‘… not for a few days, no. What … What was your name, did you say?’
Cold Hearts Page 4