‘To tell the truth I’m not entirely sure if that’s a compliment.’
‘Nor me.’
I strolled down to reception, handed in my visitor’s badge and out to the car. I sat leafing through my notepad before I made a decision. Next stop would have to be Else Monsen in Falsens vei in Minde. Terra incognita for a Nordnes boy.
9
MINDE WAS A PART OF TOWN I had never really got to know, for a variety of reasons. It may have been due to a traumatic childhood experience, of course. In November 1954, when we were twelve years old, Pelle and I, in our capacity as the detective bureau Marlowe & Spade tailed Sylvelin – a girl we were both wild about – from Nordnes to Minde, where, under cover of autumn darkness we had seen her being kissed by a tall, gangly boy at least two years older than us, and from then on neither Pelle nor I suggested undertaking any more excursions to Minde or surrounding areas. I never even went to Fanahallen cinema until I was grown up. We could see the films on show at the Eldorado, without having to fork out for an additional tram ticket. The closest we came to that part of town was when we were at Brann football stadium, but then the stadium was closer to Fridalen than what we considered to be Minde, and Brann FC gave us enough traumatic experiences to repress any further thoughts of Sylvelin. Pelle later moved to Frederikstad, and on the whole I had nothing to do with Minde, for no other reason than the serendipity of Fate.
I turned up the heavily trafficked Inndalsveien and thence to Falsens vei, the much more peaceful parallel street, bordered by small houses of a somewhat British design with small gardens at the front. I parked by the playground at the crossing with Jacob Aallsvei and glanced up at the park around Solhaug School. I could just make out the old white timber building that used to be called Lea Hall after the then owner, Erik Grant Lea. In the playground were a handful of children engaged in loud games, suitably dressed for the rainy weather, while two mothers stood huddled in one corner, each under her own umbrella, each with a cigarette in the centre of her mouth, as if to keep warm.
The Falsens vei address pertained to one of the houses roughly midway in the row. I opened the gate and crossed the handkerchief of a garden. The front door was locked and there were two doorbells, the top one for Monsen, written in blue biro and rather childish letters on a label behind a small glass plate. Someone called Torvaldsen lived on the floor below.
I rang the top bell and stood waiting. Nothing happened. I walked back a few paces and gazed up at the house. There was a dim light behind one window at the top. The other was dark. On the floor below, both windows were lit.
While I was waiting a taxi stopped outside the gate of the neighbouring house. A woman alighted, together with the driver who opened the boot and removed two suitcases, which he placed in front of the gate. They exchanged a couple of words, the woman opened the gate and the driver carried the cases across the lawn to her front door. She thanked him for his help, and the driver returned to his car, got in and drove off as the woman rang the doorbell. For a moment we stood looking at each other. She nodded a cautious hello, and I reciprocated. As far as I could see, she was in her fifties with shiny, blonde hair, but the large padded olive green coat obscured any further impressions of her appearance.
She turned to the door, annoyed. No answer there, either, I could see. I pressed the first-floor doorbell once again. While waiting I noticed her take out a bunch of keys and unlock the door.
I waited a bit longer; then I rang the ground floor instead.
Soon I heard footsteps inside. The door was opened, and a well-built man of medium height, sixty-ish at first glance, stood in the doorway. He had greying hair, pronounced eyebrows and an oblong face. The look he gave me was neutral, though not unfriendly. ‘Yes?’
‘My name’s Veum. I apologise for the disturbance, but I’ve been trying to ring the first floor and there’s no answer.’
He automatically peered up the inside stairs. ‘At Else’s? Yes, she seldom does. Answer the bell, I mean.’
‘But there’s a light on.’
‘Yup. I’ve heard her upstairs. I can hear her padding around. After my wife died it’s so quiet in the house that even the tiniest noise resounds.’
As an immediate comment on this we were interrupted by a protracted howl, like the cry of a wounded animal caught in a trap it could not escape. However, it did not come from upstairs but the house next door.
I turned towards the noise, and the man I assumed was Torvaldsen stepped onto the front doorstep and looked in the same direction.
‘What’s going on? Lill?’
The woman I had seen arrive had come back out. She was tearing at her blonde hair while staring around wildly and continuing the long, incoherent scream.
Torvaldsen raised his voice. ‘Lill! What’s up?’ He dashed past me and through the gate towards her. I followed, thinking only that I might be able to help.
The scream died. Now she was sobbing. Long, whimpering sounds while sending Torvaldsen and me incomprehensible stares and clinging to the gate, as though she had no idea how to open it.
‘What’s up, Lill?’
She studied Torvaldsen. ‘Alf?’
‘What’s happened? Has something …?’
Her gaze was pure apathy. ‘I-it’s Carsten. He’s in there. I think he’s dead.’
‘Dead!’ Torvaldsen opened the gate and looked towards the front door. ‘But have you informed …?’
‘No one! I haven’t informed anyone.’
He turned to me. ‘You … ring for an ambulance. Report a possible death.’ Then he turned back to the distressed woman. ‘Come on, Lill!’
‘No! I can’t. It’s a terrible sight.’
He glanced at her in astonishment. ‘Stay here with …’ He groped for my name.
‘Veum.’
‘… for the moment.’
She sent me an uncomprehending look. I smiled in as reassuring a way as I could muster and called A&E. I got through directly, and even though I was unable to supply any more detail than that there was a possible death, they noted down the address and decided to treat it as an emergency.
I rang off, stepped inside the gate, approached the woman warily and patted her back in consolation, a gesture which led her to throw herself around my neck and shake with profound, despairing sobs.
Torvaldsen came to the door, his face ashen grey. ‘I’m afraid we don’t need an ambulance, Veum. We might just as well ring the police straightaway.’
10
‘AMBULANCE’S ON THE WAY,’ I said. ‘We can leave that part to them.’
When he joined us, I said: ‘You take care of her and I’ll have a peep inside.’
‘Really?’ He sent me a bemused look, but did not resist. I carefully moved the woman he had called Lill from my embrace to his, gave him an encouraging nod and left them there, inside the gate.
I crossed the garden path. The tiny garden was well tended, but now in January there was nothing but the withered remains of roses. On a couple of the rhododendron bushes buds protruded between the evergreen leaves, and there were new, fire-red shoots on a leafless Japanese quince.
I went into the porch. Unlike the adjacent house, this looked as if it had been converted to a house for one family. Even in the entrance there was a homely feel with pictures on the walls and green plants in corners. The stairs to the first floor were covered with pieces of red carpet that had been fitted and secured with large brass nails.
From the porch the door was open to what had been the original hall on the ground floor, now an extended cloakroom. On a coat hanger hung the large, olive-green coat. One suitcase stood on the floor; the other she had carried indoors.
I entered the sitting room. Standard furniture, and not very tidy. There were several unwashed coffee cups and glasses, and piles of magazines, newspapers and mountains of advertising brochures. An unpleasant stench hung in the air, as though it had been a very long time since anyone had done any cleaning.
As I moved closer to the open
door of the neighbouring room the smell became stronger. I stopped on the threshold. Now I understood her reaction. It was not a pretty sight. I could feel the nausea rising in my chest, and recoiled a couple of paces. I had to clench my teeth not to vomit and stood breathing slowly in and out through my nose.
The man lying on the floor in front of the big desk had his face turned to one side, his mouth hung open and his eyes stared as far as it was feasible for any human to see. The face was swollen and huge, the skin wan with large, bluish bruises. At the side of his head, beside his left ear, there was a long, open wound, black with dried blood and dotted with something greyish-green that I assumed, from previous experience, was cerebral matter. I couldn’t see a murder weapon anywhere.
The room was a kind of office-cum-library. Someone had ransacked the shelves. A swathe of books was strewn across the floor, many lay open, spine up. The door to the big cupboard in a corner of the room was open, and I saw heaps of papers scattered across the floor in front.
Outside, I heard the sound of sirens, which were switched off suddenly. I waited for the two paramedics to come in. There was a man and a woman, both in their late twenties, dressed in Red Cross uniforms.
‘He’s in there,’ I said, pointing.
The man, who had short red hair, looked at me with suspicion. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’ll wait outside. We can deal with all that afterwards. You’ll have to phone the police anyway.’
The dark-haired young woman had already walked past me. Behind me I heard her reaction. ‘Oo-er!’
I nodded to her companion. ‘I couldn’t have expressed it better myself.’
Then I joined Torvaldsen and Lill to await events.
There was not much conversation. Lill had stopped sobbing. Torvaldsen looked pale and shaken.
The two paramedics came back. The man nodded to us. ‘We’ve called the police.’
The woman went over to Lill. ‘Is this …?’
Torvaldsen nodded. ‘His wife. Lill Mobekk. The man inside’s Carsten.’
‘Carsten Mobekk?’ asked the paramedic.
‘Yes.’
‘And you are?’
‘Alf Torvaldsen. I live next door.’
He turned to me. ‘And you?’
‘Veum.’
He waited, expecting more, but I said nothing else. There would be enough to talk about when the police arrived.
They arrived in two cars, a white patrol vehicle and a civilian Volvo 850. A group of curious onlookers had gathered by the parked ambulance outside the fence. Schoolchildren were on their way home. I had noticed one of the young women at the playground, now with a child in a small buggy. There were a few older men and women, some of them obviously married couples. Several had their heads together. Squinted at Lill Mobekk and Alf Torvaldsen and commented in, for the most part, low voices.
I sighed with relief when I saw the good-natured Inspector from Voss, Atle Helleve, shifting his considerable body out of the Volvo, while Bjarne Solheim, the young officer with hair permanently standing to attention, got out on the opposite side. They were met by two uniformed officers from the patrol car, exchanged a few words and then came in our direction, all four of them.
Helleve ran a hand through his thick beard when he caught sight of me. ‘Veum?’ he exclaimed, almost resigned.
‘Yes, but today I happened to be passing by.’
Solheim smirked.
Helleve sent me a sceptical glower. ‘We’ll soon see.’ He turned to the ambulance driver. ‘Where’s the deceased?’
‘Inside.’
The woman said: ‘This is his wife.’
Helleve imparted a gentle look in Lill Mobekk’s direction. ‘I see. Would you like to come in with us? Then you can sit down.’
I coughed in admonition. ‘Not sure if that’s wise.’
Helleve sneered. ‘Oh no? You’ve already examined the crime scene, I assume.’
‘I did pop inside, yes. The whole house needs to be checked out.’
He met my eyes with a kind of dejection. ‘Yes, it is possible we may have to assess circumstances first.’ He motioned to one constable. ‘Pedersen. Stay here with these.’ Meaning: ‘Don’t let any of them leave the scene.’ ‘Stavang and Bjarne, you come with me. You wait here.’
Solheim nodded, and the other three went into the house.
I glanced at Torvaldsen. ‘Did you know each other well?’
‘God, yes! I’ve known Carsten since we were in the military together, and we’ve been neighbours for nigh on thirty years. It was Carsten and Lill who brought this unoccupied flat to our attention.’
‘Carsten grew up here,’ Lill Mobekk drawled, as though forcing the words out. It was only now I noticed she was from Østland, eastern Norway.
‘We went hunting together every autumn. Sometimes we went on holiday together.’ He shook his head, as though to emphasise how inconceivable the situation was for him.
‘Hunting? What for?’
‘Deer. We’ve got a deal with a landowner in the Gulen area.’
‘Dalsøyra, to be precise,’ Lill said.
Torvaldsen met my eyes and nodded. ‘Carsten and Lill have got a cabin, not so far from the sea. We used to stay there when we went hunting in the mountains.’
‘When did you last see him?’
He sent Lill Mobekk a fleeting glance and half-turned to the side. ‘Just before the weekend,’ he said in a low voice. ‘We had a long, cosy evening together last Friday. After Wenche, my wife, died last autumn … She had a protracted, painful death and was rendered pretty lethargic by the medicine she was taking. It was cancer. She couldn’t do much during the last six months before she found peace. At this time Carsten and I became closer again. I talked and he listened. Or vice versa.’
‘A long, cosy evening you say.’
‘Yeah.’ He smiled wryly. ‘We had a few drinks. Lill was away, had been for more than a week, he said.’
I turned my gaze to her. She had somewhat pointed features, which gave her face a V shape. Her eyebrows were plucked, but her tears must have removed the make-up she had been wearing. There were streaks of mascara down her cheeks and at the corners of her eyes, and her half-open mouth sagged, reflecting the shock she must have experienced on finding her husband in such a state.
I would have liked to ask her when she had last spoken to him, but I knew that was a question I should leave to the police.
Again I focused on Torvaldsen. ‘In other words, when did you see him last?’
‘Friday night as he left to go home.’
‘So you were in your flat?’
‘Yes. I was away at the weekend. I get very restless at weekends. I took the car and went for a drive, up to Sandane and back. Wenche loved trips like that, at any time of the year. Doing things we did together brings back memories.’
I nodded.
‘I came back Sunday night, but I didn’t talk to him. Nor yesterday.’
‘I wish I’d come home a bit earlier!’ Lill blurted.
He looked at her with melancholy eyes and tilted his head, without saying a word.
Then Helleve and Solheim re-emerged, affected by what they had witnessed. Helleve said: ‘In fact, I agree with Veum. In principle the whole house has to be considered a crime scene. Solheim will stay here until the SOC officers arrive. As soon as we have some snaps of him and we’ve marked the position he’ll be removed. He shouldn’t be there much longer now.’
‘H-how long has he been there?’ Lill asked in a faint voice.
Helleve sighed. ‘In fact that’s what we’d like to talk to you about.’
‘But I haven’t a clue! I was away for more than a week, and I wasn’t in touch with him from the moment I left. When I rang yesterday to say I was coming home today there was no reply.’
He nodded, and I could see he was formulating his own ideas. He shifted his gaze to Torvaldsen. ‘Could we perhaps adjourn to yours since we can’t stay here?’
‘Naturally. No prob
lem at all. Come with me.’ He opened the gate and went into the street. Helleve and Lill Mobekk followed. I brought up the rear.
Helleve eyed me doubtfully. ‘Er, Veum … We can talk later, can’t we?’
‘I’m sure we can, but … The reason I’m here at all is that I have to see someone in Torvaldsen’s house.’
‘Uhuh?’
‘There’s a woman on the floor above with whom I’d like a little chat.’
‘Fine, fine … But you’re not with us.’
‘No, no, I understand that.’
We had reached the gate, which had been left open after Torvaldsen and me. I went into the entrance and while Torvaldsen was finding the key I started up the stairs to the first floor. Torvaldsen looked up at me. ‘Knock on the door. She’ll open.’
‘OK. Thank you.’
‘Get in touch tomorrow, Veum,’ Helleve said. ‘I don’t want to miss hearing your version of this story. If nothing else, consider yourself a witness.’
‘I’ll give you a buzz.’
‘Good.’
Torvaldsen and Helleve disappeared into the ground-floor flat. I stopped in front of the door on the first floor and knocked. Some time passed before I heard faint, shuffling steps inside. Then the door opened, slowly and hesitantly.
11
THE WOMAN IN THE DOORWAY was about fifty years old and drained of all colour. Bluish-grey smoke rose from an almost burned-out cigarette in the corner of her mouth. Her skin was pale bordering on transparent, her eyes watery blue, her hair grey and dishevelled, and she was wearing a beige jumper over a pair of un-chic brown trousers. There wasn’t a trace of make-up on her and she had a flat-chested, sunken posture that made her seem almost genderless. The look she sent me was vacant, blank, and she stood watching me, as though leaving the entire initiative to me.
I grabbed it. ‘Else Monsen?’
She nodded in silence.
‘The name’s Veum. Can I come in?’
‘What’s this about?’
‘Your children.’
She blinked a couple of times. Then she retreated indoors, but left the door ajar as a sign that I could follow.
Cold Hearts Page 6