‘… All we had was the committee.’
‘You mean I should talk to them?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s too late. Everything’s too late.’
She had finished the cigarette. She stubbed it out firmly against the edge of the ashtray, pushed into the heap, got another one from the packet and lit it, all automatic actions, as though she were standing by an assembly line and thinking about something else.
I decided that the cigarette would have to live and die without any attempts on my part to save it from the fate for which it was destined. I took my leave, went down to Torvaldsen’s and rang the bell.
28
TORVALDSEN ANSWERED HIMSELF. He did not look very thrilled. ‘Veum? What’s this about now? Couldn’t you get in upstairs?’
‘Yes, I did. I spoke to fru Monsen. I’d very much like to have a word with you as well.’
‘With me? What about, if I might venture to ask?’
‘Changed circumstances.’
‘Changed circumstances? At this particular moment I’m busy.’
‘Yes, so I understood. But it concerns fru Mobekk, too. The whole committee.’
‘Hm, the … Well, alright. You’d better come in.’
He stepped aside and ushered me in. I smelled the faint but enticing aroma of coffee. As I followed him into the sitting room the aroma became stronger.
They were no longer alone. Markus Rødberg had joined the gathering. He rose to his feet as I entered. Lill Mobekk remained seated, with a cup raised to her mouth, as if caught in a freeze-frame.
‘Hm, the whole committee is assembled,’ I said airily, before correcting myself: ‘Well, not quite. Frøken Vefring’s missing.’
Rødberg held out his hand. ‘Nice to see you again, Veum.’
‘Is she coming as well?’
‘Who?’
‘Frøken Vefring.’
Rødberg looked at the others, confused. ‘I can’t imagine she will be.’
Torvaldsen came alongside me. ‘You’ll have to find yourself a chair, Veum, and I’ll get you a cup, if you want one.’
‘Yes, please.’
I sat down in the free chair by the coffee table and took stock. The impression here was so far from the one on the floor above you could scarcely credit it was the same house. The furniture was comfortable, practical and stylish, without appearing ostentatious. The walls were covered with bookshelves and pictures, many of which were in enormous gilt frames. There was a rug with a Persian pattern on the floor, and the TV set in the corner was a solid Finnish brand from the early 1980s, one of the best around. A radio cabinet containing a record player, a CD player and a selection of LPs and CDs was positioned along one wall, and facing the rear window there was a dark brown dining table with six chairs.
Lill Mobekk completed the movement she had begun, swallowed the sip of coffee and carefully set the cup down, as though afraid it would break. She was dressed in black: blouse and smart trousers. Around her neck she had a simple pearl necklace, with no other jewellery apart from her wedding ring.
Torvaldsen came in from the kitchen. After putting a cup and plate on the table he served coffee from a tall, white flask and pushed the cup towards me.
The suite was brown with red upholstery. Lill Mobekk was sitting on the sofa.
Torvaldsen occupied the free chair at the end of the table. ‘Markus has told us about your visit, Veum. We understand that you’re here regarding Margrethe and Karl Gunnar. Both have vanished apparently.’
‘Without trace so far.’ I didn’t mention anything about the fingerprints in the stolen car. That was up to the police to inform them, to the extent that it was deemed necessary.
‘Well … How can we help you?’ He threw out his arms.
‘In fact I was thinking of asking you to tell me a bit about Frank Monsen’s death.’
All three of them looked at me in surprise. Torvaldsen answered: ‘But what has that … got to do with all this?’
‘It was your wife who found him, wasn’t it?’
‘Who said that?’
I pointed to the ceiling. ‘His wife.’
‘Well, I can’t see how that has anything to do with anything at all. It was a tragic accident. The man fell down the stairs drunk and broke his neck. The conclusion to a sorry life. Both Wenche and I were out when it happened, but Wenche came home first and it was she who found him. By the time I arrived, straight afterwards, she had already rung for an ambulance, but it was too late.’
‘He was dead when your wife found him?’
‘I don’t know. He was unconscious, but then he had so much alcohol in his blood he was way beyond normal communication.’
‘And you never suspected it could be more than an accident?’
Lill Mobekk drew in her breath sharply, but said nothing. Markus Rødberg glanced at her with concern.
‘No. Could be more? You don’t mean that … Else?’
‘For example.’
‘Ridiculous, Veum. In that case she would have done it years before. She had good reason.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes.’ He pursed his lips and scanned the assembly with a stern look, as though to warn them not to object.
‘Leading us to the second item, which might be worth dwelling on.’
‘And that would be …?’
Again I pointed to the ceiling as though I were a preacher in a Christian Youth Club, indicating every so often the way to lofty celestial chambers. ‘Conditions at home. With the Monsen family.’
‘Conditions at …?’
‘You work for public services, don’t you, Torvaldsen?’
‘I’m a manager at the county council, yes.’
‘Off today?’
‘Time in lieu.’
‘But you understand Nynorsk and Bokmål? What were conditions like upstairs?’
Rødberg coughed. ‘I told you the other day, Veum.’
I turned to face him. ‘Yes, you did.’
I looked at Lill Mobekk. ‘You all have a right to speak on this matter.’
At length I directed my attention back towards Torvaldsen. ‘After all, you lived in the same house. You must have noticed if there was anything unusual.’
‘The unusual feature about the Monsen family,’ Torvaldsen said, ‘was that neither of the parents was capable of performing their duties … in full. They needed external help.’
‘A dysfunctional family, as it’s called in technical terminology.’
‘Indeed. I can hear you’ve got the jargon.’
‘In fact I am a trained social worker with five years’ practice from … well … Has it ever struck you that if social services had got their way back in 1978 the whole of the Monsen family might have been better off, from Frank through to Karl Gunnar?’
Torvaldsen looked as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘Better off?’
‘Yes, I don’t suppose you can say that the results suggest a resounding success, can you? Frank Monsen continued to drink and lost his life while drunk. Else is a shadow of a human, barely on the level of her own ashtray. KG, Karl Gunnar, was in prison for murder until almost a week ago. Margrethe … well, you all know where she ended up, don’t you.’
Everyone nodded in confirmation, with varying degrees of regret in their eyes.
‘And Siv … she appears to have coped well, but …’
‘Appears?’ queried Markus Rødberg.
‘Yes. The façade seems fine, but does anyone know what lies smouldering beneath, just below the surface?’
‘Now you’re speaking in riddles, Veum,’ Torvaldsen snapped.
‘The point is this. One of the children is a prostitute, one reacted with such violence to a sexual approach that he became a murderer, the third … well, let’s keep her out of this until later. But my experience from years in social services …’
Torvaldsen interrupted me and sent the other two an eloquent look. ‘There we have it! Now that cat’s out of the bag. So that’s where your sy
mpathies lie, Veum, with the social services. Now I understand better.’
I raised my voice. ‘All my experience tells me that there are clear signs here of sexual abuse at a young age, and most often this happens within the four walls of home. Did any of you ever have a suspicion that something like that may have been going on?’ For the third time I pointed heavenwards.
They exchanged looks. It was difficult to interpret them, but I had an unpleasant feeling that this did not come as a huge surprise to any of them.
Rødberg spoke up. ‘I told you the other day, Veum. This was a task we embraced for one hundred per cent philanthropic reasons. If we’d had the slightest inkling that something of that nature was on the cards we would never have opposed the social services’ expression of concern. I beg God for forgiveness that this went awry, but in this event it was without our knowledge or intention.’
‘This went awry?’
‘The outcome. What we are left with today. The lives of these unfortunates.’
‘Torvaldsen?’
‘Markus is right. We took this task on together, although with different backgrounds. I don’t have the religious affiliation that Markus has. Furthermore, Wenche was the driving force here. She knew the children from school, of course. She and Hulda Vefring were utterly committed, along with Markus and Carsten, who both knew Frank Monsen from childhood.’
‘Carsten and Frank were in the same folkeskole class,’ Lill Mobekk said. ‘Carsten tried to help his childhood friend as best he could. Got him a job as an electrician, to cut a long story short …’ She burst into tears.
‘Lill …’ Markus Rødberg laid a consoling hand on her shoulder.
There was a flash of obvious annoyance in Torvaldsen’s eyes, but this time it was not directed at me. Was there already a tug of war going on between the two men for the recently bereaved widow’s favour – or to see who could show the greatest sympathy?
Tearfully, she said: ‘I’m sorry … This is too much. Excuse me a moment.’ Her shoulders shaking, she went into the hall, and we heard the door to what I assumed to be the bathroom being opened and then closed behind her.
Torvaldsen sent me an accusatory look. ‘See what you’ve done, Veum! This is not the right day to drag all of this up, for Christ’s sake!’
‘My apologies, Torvaldsen, but I have a job to do as well. And I don’t have any days off in lieu, if I may say so.’
He glared at me. Then he leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Now that Lill’s out … Markus told me you had suggested that Karl Gunnar may have … attacked Carsten. Were you being serious?’
‘So that’s why you got together today? To assess whether more of you might be in danger?’
‘Danger? What the hell are you talking about? Karl Gunnar had no reason to kill Carsten! And you saw yourself the state of his office. Someone had been searching for something. My theory is that it was either a standard burglary … or else it was connected with the work he was doing.’
‘There were no signs of a burglary. He must have let the perpetrator in himself.’
‘So … a business connection! Perhaps he was threatened with a weapon, what do I know? There are lots of rotten eggs in the industry where he works.’
‘Yes, you must know all about that, being in public administration.’ Out of the blue, I asked: ‘So why isn’t frøken Vefring here?’
‘Hulda? Why should she be?’
‘The whole committee’s here. Those still alive, so to speak. Except her.’
Torvaldsen sent me a long-suffering look. ‘This is no committee meeting, Veum!’
‘No? What is it then?’ Now it was my turn to lean forward. ‘Let me tell you something, Torvaldsen. I spoke to frøken Vefring yesterday, after I’d been to Rødberg. She said that at the end of the 80s there had been an atmosphere on the committee. Between Rødberg on the one hand and the two couples on the other …’
I glanced at Rødberg, and there was no denying the triumphant expression on his face for Torvaldsen, a classic Bergensian I-told-you-so look. When I turned back to Torvaldsen the bitterness in his eyes had grown into massive loathing.
‘The old biddy! So she couldn’t keep her bloody mouth shut again.’
‘What she said was right, then?’
‘What’s right, Veum, is that this has got bugger-all to do with you. Well …’ He looked at Rødberg, as if to encourage him to chime in. ‘What happened was … There was a minor dispute, but it was about … religion. Markus was the contact with the priest and the parish. The rest of us were more … personally committed. As individuals. In other words, there was a minor disagreement about faith, wasn’t there, Markus.’
Markus Rødberg reciprocated his stare, gasped for breath and moved his lips silently as though searching for the right words.
The door in the hall opened. Torvaldsen found the words: ‘But let’s not talk about this any more. Not now.’
‘No?’ I queried.
‘No,’ he said firmly.
Markus Rødberg’s face had undergone a deep flush, as if he was sitting and holding his breath.
Lill Mobekk came to the door. Her eyes were shiny and tinged with red, and her voice trembled as she said: ‘I’m sorry. It just came over me. I couldn’t help it.’
Then she became aware of the tense atmosphere in the room. She glanced from me to Torvaldsen and in the end to Rødberg. ‘What have you …? Has something happened?’
Both Rødberg and Torvaldsen got up and moved towards her.
‘No, no, no,’ Torvaldsen said.
Rødberg coughed. ‘It was Veum who … But he’s leaving.’
Torvaldsen stopped, halfway towards Lill Mobekk. Then he turned to me. ‘Yes. He’s on his way out. Talking time is over.’
I rose from my chair. ‘For this round maybe.’ I turned to Rødberg. ‘But we have more to talk about, all of us. Of that I am convinced.’
Rødberg nodded, almost on autopilot.
‘I find that hard to imagine,’ Torvaldsen reacted, in a loud voice, as if to strangle any signs of compliance. With a lingering stare he watched Lill Mobekk as she passed, before Rødberg led her to the sofa and pushed a chair aside so that she could slip through. Again I had the feeling I was witnessing a strange duel, and the next thought struck me: Wonder if she’s a wealthy widow? How much had Carsten Mobekk left her?
‘Allow me to accompany you out, Veum,’ Torvaldsen said against his will, unhappy with the idea of leaving the other two alone inside.
‘I can find my own way out, thank you,’ I said, to relieve him of the dilemma.
But he stuck to his guns and escorted me out.
By the front door, I stopped. ‘What happened that year, Torvaldsen? The winter of 1988–89, according to frøken Vefring?’
‘Nothing happened. Frøken Vefring imagined all sorts of things. She was beginning to go soft in the head.’
‘What sort of things? She didn’t seem soft in the head when I spoke to her.’
‘Veum! I’m warning you …’
‘About what?’
He gave me a look of desperation. Then pushed me through the door, with very little resistance on my part.
‘I’ll find out soon enough,’ I said, to give him another little something to think about.
He shot me a final withering glance. Then slammed the door.
I strolled towards the gate. On the frozen lawn lay the dark green petals of autumn’s last roses. They reminded me of hearts. Fallen, stunted hearts, on the road to death and decay
29
FROM MINDE I DROVE TO MØHLENPRIS. I found a place to park in Professor Hansteens gate and walked from there up to the house in Konsul Børs gate. I slogged up all the floors to Lars Mikalsen’s tiny shoebox in the loft, but no matter how hard I knocked no one came to answer this time.
Forewarned by previous experience, I felt the door. It was locked. Perhaps he had already been taken in by the police for further questioning. The alternative was a less attractive thought.
>
I went back down to the car. From Møhlenpris I turned up towards Puddelfjord Bridge and drove through Fyllingsdalen tunnel. I parked in such a way that I could keep an eye on the entrance to the insurance company. Then I rang Siv Monsen’s number.
She was quick to answer. ‘Yes? Siv Monsen.’
‘Veum here.’
The reaction did not come quite as quick. ‘I see.’
‘Will you be at work much longer?’
‘What do you mean? I have …’
‘I’m sitting in my car outside. I was wondering if I could drive you home.’
‘How presumptuous.’
‘I think we may have a bit to discuss. It might be practical for both of us if we did it in the car.’
‘Right! Where are you?’
‘In the car park on the left, first row.’
‘It’ll take me at least half an hour to finish what I’m doing.’
‘That’s OK. I’m used to waiting.’
I made myself comfortable, searched the radio for a station that had anything more than inane music and recycled news, but ended up with one of my CDs instead, Miles Davis’s immortal A Kind of Blue. That was close to how I felt, a bit blue.
In the middle of Coltrane’s solo on Freddie Freeloader my mobile rang. It was Atle Helleve. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to keep the key to Margrethe Monsen’s flat for a while longer, Varg.’
‘OK. Did you find anything?’
‘Yes. If it’s her prints on a tumbler and in several other places we’ve got a match with one we found on a wine glass at Mobekk’s.’
‘Great! That’s a big step forward.’
‘Definitely.’
‘So she’s been to the crime scene at any rate, if not when the murder was committed, then at least some time while fru Mobekk was out.’
‘That’s one obvious conclusion we can draw,’ he said, not without some sarcasm in his voice. ‘And if that weren’t enough, we found her prints on the door handle of the stolen car up there as well.’
‘Great! A picture’s beginning to emerge, isn’t it?’
‘At least we can see the outlines of one, yes.’
‘I assume then there’ll be a full-scale search for her as well?’
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