Cold Hearts

by Gunnar Staalesen

  ‘… Yes.’

  ‘Anything special about the boathouse?’

  ‘The path leads to it, but it looks ancient. It hasn’t been painted for years.’

  ‘I’ll be there as fast as I can. Don’t go anywhere.’

  ‘Where could we go?’ she said with a hollow laugh and terminated the conversation.

  I swung my legs onto the floor and padded into the bathroom. The one question remaining was this: should I treat myself to a hurried breakfast before leaving or just jump in the car?

  The answer was a halfway house. With two bananas in my stomach, an apple in my hand and a sports bottle filled with tap water on the seat beside me I was on my way to Bergen Airport twenty minutes later, the official name for what most called Flesland airfield. But I wasn’t going anywhere, not by plane at least. For that matter, I wasn’t going to the airfield either, but to what was originally farming country behind it. I could feel the excitement mounting in my body with every kilometre I covered.

  32

  FROM BOYHOOD DAYS I remembered so well that one of the most exciting things you could do on a spring Sunday was to cycle to Flesland. There, we climbed up the rocks by the high barbed wire fence, took out packed lunches and sat down to wait. We had brown cheese and sheep sausage on our bread and a bottle, with a screw top, of homemade red juice. If we were lucky we got to see a plane land or take off. If not, we could at least see a couple of them parked by the runway before cycling the long distance back to Nordnes.

  Now a road led to the original Flesland south of the airfield, from the Blomsterdalen exit. I passed the entrance to Lønningstrand campsite, where the old holiday camp had been. I had never been to a holiday camp myself. Most summer holidays we were at my grandmother’s in Ryfylke, but when school began in August classmates always regaled us with dramatic adventures that had taken place in holiday camps, not to mention the strict discipline and forced feeding of porridge, which not unusually was the cause of successful, or less successful, attempts to flee the camp. Some managed to make it all the way home in fact, whether it was from Ferstad by Os or Brattholmen on the island of Sotra. The legendary escapes from Alcatraz paled in comparison. Punishment could be severe if children were caught by the authorities, unless a soft-hearted mother allowed her conscience to dictate and kept them at home for the rest of the holiday.

  I followed the instructions I had received over the phone, left Fleslandsveien at what I thought was the correct place and parked where she had said. There were no other cars in the tiny area by the road. I followed the road, between tall, dark spruce trees, so sombre now in January’s dim light. I found the squashed postbox in which there was not even room for a belated tax return.

  I scanned the horizon. There were many houses that were lived in all year, discreetly withdrawn between the trees and bearing visible signs of a variety of security companies. A couple of them had a car parked in front. To the east a large passenger plane was about to land in Flesland. It was near enough for me to make out faces behind the windows in the fuselage.

  With caution, I began to make my way down the path. It was narrow and overgrown, and no one had bothered to cut back the buckthorn in recent years. I came to a ridge, and from there the path descended in a steep slope to the sea and the tumbledown boathouse below. Again I stopped. I cast a wary eye over the grey, ramshackle structure. There were two small windows and a door at the rear, but curtains were drawn and the door was shut. Not a sign of life.

  I clambered down towards the boathouse. The nearer I came, the stronger the fresh sea smell from Raune fjord. Across the island of Tyssøy I could see the typical mountain formation of Liatårnet, the highest point on Sotra, and a ferry in the fjord heading for Sunnhordland or Stavanger.

  Everything was as it should be in this the busiest of all worlds. Some arrived by plane, others by express ferry. I was on my way down to a boathouse and a rendezvous with two people who had been in hiding for almost a week.

  But who were they hiding from? Malthus & Co? The police? Others? And who had told them I had been asking after them?

  I felt a deep and intuitive scepticism as I approached the sea-smoothed rocks at the rear of the boathouse. I scoured the area for anything I could use as a weapon. The closest approximation I could find was a large stone. I picked it up and stood weighing it in my hand. Then I threw it away. It seemed silly.

  There was no evidence of any electricity leading to the boathouse. It had to be freezing inside. I walked to the nearest window and tried to peer in, but it was impossible to see anything at all through the drawn curtains.

  A gull screamed above the sea. A plane took off from Flesland. A small freighter was on its way north along the coastal route. I leaned over and knocked on the door. No reaction.

  I retreated a pace and gazed up at the faded exterior. ‘Hello? Anyone there?’

  Only the gull answered, and now it had been joined by many more. The gulls were embroiled in a free-for-all above Raune fjord: shoals of winter herring had been seen west of Marsteinen.

  ‘Margrethe? Karl Gunnar?’

  Not a sound.

  I took out my mobile phone, tapped in the number she had used and rang back. Somewhere inside the boathouse I heard a ringing tone, but no one answered. Then it stopped, and a woman’s voice told me that the number I was trying to reach was busy now, but I could leave a message.

  ‘Better go in,’ I said to myself and switched off. If nothing else, at least there was a mobile phone inside.

  I studied the door. It didn’t seem to be locked. I tried the handle and pushed it in a fraction. It was dark inside.

  Again I bent down and picked up a heavy stone. This time I didn’t throw it away. I nudged the door wide open with my foot and followed quickly – in and to the side, with my back to the door. A smell of sea and gutted fish met my nostrils.

  ‘Hello! Anyone there?’

  In the dim light from outside I looked around. I was in a medium-sized room. On a table to the left there was an old fishing float, a broken crab pot and the remains of a fishing net. That was all. Two doors led out of the room, one evidently to the boathouse itself, the other to a further room.

  I took out my mobile and dialled her number again. There was a ring from inside the adjacent room.

  I followed it. By the door, I shouted: ‘Hello! Margrethe? You can come out now.’ But no one emerged.

  I placed my hand on the handle, pressed it down and pushed open the door. A rabbit chop struck my arm above the wrist. Then I was dragged into the room, and before I had a chance to do anything with the stone, which fell from my hands unused, both arms were twisted around my back, I felt a knee in my spine and I fell to the floor, where my face was brutally smacked against the wooden boards, causing clouds of dust to rise.

  ‘Hold him and I’ll …’

  I knew the voice, but it was not the office version he was using today. Now he was hunting prey.

  My arms were forced together, and I could feel them being trussed with strong tape. When they had finished, they did the same with my feet, round the ankles. Then they turned me over. Rolf Terje Dalby raised me into a sitting position and thrust me hard into the wall. Kjell Malthus switched on a halogen torch and shone the beam into my face.

  ‘Took you a bloody long time to come in, Veum,’ Malthus grumbled.

  ‘Were you scared perhaps?’ Dalby taunted with an irksome grin.

  ‘Close the door, Rolf.’ Malthus motioned with his head. ‘We don’t want anyone to hear what we’re doing. In case he starts screaming.’

  I tried to look around, but the torch had blinded me. ‘Where’s … Margrethe?’

  ‘Maggi?’ Malthus mocked. ‘We sent her back home. She’s got to work, so to speak.’

  Now it dawned on me. ‘It wasn’t bloody her, was it! It was one of your other girls.’

  ‘Oh, how smart detectives are nowadays. Just a shame you didn’t realise earlier.’

  ‘And what the hell do you think you can ac
hieve with this?’

  Malthus put the torch down on a worktop and strode forward. He was wearing blue jeans, a hip-length dark jacket and sturdy black shoes. He bent over, grabbed me by the jacket and lifted me up the wall until my face was at chest height. We were so close I could smell the heavy aroma of the sweetish aftershave he used, and my eyes met his in a way that made it difficult to have contact.

  ‘Now listen here, Veum. We’re after something that belongs to us.’

  I smirked. ‘I know. Worth one and a half million, I’ve been told.’

  His eyes narrowed, and he pushed his knuckles up under my chin. ‘You’re well informed, I see.’

  ‘The whole town knows, Malthus. You were robbed of one and a half million when someone welcomed your mule on Skoltegrunn Quay last Saturday. Apparently two bully boys from Østland.’

  ‘The blabbermouth!’ He half-turned to Dalby. ‘I told him to keep his trap shut! But does anyone listen to me?’

  ‘Poor you,’ I mumbled. ‘But right now he’s talking to the police. That could be worse.’

  He devoted his full attention to me again. ‘What? The cops? Have they hauled him in again?’

  ‘At my request. Everything you do hangs on one very thin thread, Malthus, from drug trafficking to the women on C.Sundts gate.’

  ‘And by the way, what the fuck have you done with Hege? Eh?’

  ‘So you admit it now, do you? She was in your stable, like Maggi and Tanya. One gone missing, one dead. You’re bad news for your tenants, Malthus …’

  He bared his teeth in a callous smile. ‘What I admit or do not admit is neither here nor there any more, Veum. You won’t be leaving this boathouse alive anyway.’

  ‘Oh, no?’ I felt my desperation growing. ‘A great many people know where I am!’

  ‘Where the fuck’s Hege, I asked you!’

  ‘Have you done any ringing round? The first call could go to Haukeland Hospital.’

  ‘Hospital? What’s she doing there?’

  ‘She was drugged up to the eyeballs, and that charmer there …’ I nodded to Dalby. ‘He’d been so kind as to break her arm.’

  ‘What!’ Malthus half twisted round. ‘Rolf?’

  ‘I told you, for fuck’s sake. She didn’t obey. I told her I would have to punish her …’

  ‘Yes, but shit. A broken arm and she’s out of circulation as well.’

  ‘So you circulate your tenants, do you?’ I said.

  He forced his fist up under my chin. ‘And I told you to shut it!’

  ‘On foreign ground keep your head and hold your tongue,’ Dalby said behind him.

  ‘And you, too!’ Malthus barked, dropping me on the floor with a bang. And he drew himself up to his full height.

  ‘ … and it will befall you no ill,’ Dalby completed sulkily, as if it was impossible to stop the tape once it had started.

  ‘Sometimes I think I’m surrounded by idiots,’ Malthus said.

  ‘In itself …’ I started but was forced to break off by a vicious kick in the chest. ‘Ooof!’

  ‘Shut it!’

  There was a charged, angry atmosphere in the dark room illuminated only by the sharp light of the torch. Malthus and Dalby stood scowling at each other. I sat against the wall in some discomfort, with legs and arms bound with the strong tape and a dull pain in my chest where his foot had struck me.

  Malthus held his arm out in the beam and looked at his watch. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Oh?’ Dalby queried.

  ‘I have an appointment I can’t …’

  ‘But, shit, Kjell! What am I supposed to do with …?’

  ‘Tommy has to go to the doctor’s. Kristine’s at work. I have to pick him up from the nursery.’

  ‘Now I’m getting a lump in my throat,’ I mumbled.

  ‘As for him,’ Dalby concluded, with a nod in my direction.

  Malthus turned to me with a surly expression ‘Pack him up in a sack, wait till it’s dark and chuck him in the sea. Make sure he doesn’t surface!’

  ‘Malthus!’ I shouted. ‘Loads of people know where I am! You’ll never get away with this!’

  He swivelled round towards me, looking as if he was going to give me another kicking. ‘Loads of people? Who for example?’

  ‘I’ll …’

  As if in answer to his question my mobile rang. He bent forward, took it from my inside pocket, slung it on the floor and stamped on it so hard it would never give another ring tone.

  The subsequent silence was deadly.

  ‘What about … What about if I know who did a runner with the package?’

  He regarded me with derision in his eyes. ‘Don’t you think we know? Why the fuck do you think we’ve moved heaven and earth to get our hands on them? Maggi and KG. They went behind our backs, and they’ll burn slowly in hell when I find them. Trust me!’

  ‘And how did they manage that?’

  ‘Maggi and Lars knew each other. He must have been sloppy.’

  ‘So you think she and KG have upped sticks with the whole lot? To Oslo?’

  ‘Or somewhere else. Haugesund, Stavanger, how should I bloody know?’

  ‘I can help you to find them.’

  ‘Yes, we can see how good you are at that.’ He looked around and imitated my voice: ‘Hello! Anyone there? Forget it. You’re done for, Veum. You’ve done your last job, and you failed.’ He looked at Dalby. ‘If he tries anything, smash his jaw. Use the knife, if necessary.’

  Dalby glanced dismally from Malthus to me, without answering.

  ‘Run out of words of wisdom, Dalby?’ I muttered.

  ‘Do you understand?’ Malthus checked.

  Dalby gave a sullen nod. Malthus sniffed and went on his way without a backward glance. But he made sure he closed the door behind him. With a click.

  33

  I WAS STILL SITTING with my back against the wall. I tried to move, to get into a more comfortable position.

  Ill at ease, Dalby watched me. ‘Don’t you try anything!’

  After Malthus had gone he paced up and down. He took out the flick knife and kept opening and closing it, again and again, endlessly. Now and then he glanced in my direction, as though he was looking forward to sticking it in me.

  ‘What was that supposed to be? I can barely move.’

  ‘One is never recompensed by evil men for the good one does.’

  I followed him with my eyes. He was a weirdo. I tried to imagine him in his younger years, a small screwball going round quoting Odin’s wisdoms at all times of the day. He must have been the perfect victim for bullying.

  ‘You and KG were best mates, I understand.’

  ‘When we were kids, yes!’ he snarled. ‘I haven’t seen him since he was sent to the slammer.’

  ‘But he came out on weekend passes, didn’t he?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him, I told you! Are you hard of hearing?’

  ‘Since you’ve decided to do away with me, surely you can answer my questions,’ I said, and added, not without a faint tremolo in my voice: ‘A last wish?’

  ‘I can only bloody say it how it is! I haven’t seen him, I’m telling you!’

  ‘Well, that’s that then.’

  ‘Yes, that’s that.’

  ‘What about Siv?’

  ‘Siv?’

  ‘His sister. The oldest Monsen. Why have you got a photo of her in your drawer?’

  His face reddened. ‘Have you been snouting in my drawers? That’s fucking … Did you break in?’

  ‘You can always report me to the police.’

  ‘Won’t be necessary. Tomorrow you’ll be at the bottom of the sea.’

  ‘Were you in love with her perhaps?’

  He advanced on me. ‘That’s none of your business! Get me? Or do you want me to chop you up into tiny chunks before I sling you into the sea?’

  I felt the sweat breaking out on my forehead, but had to go on. ‘Did you ever go to their house?’

  ‘To KG’s house? Never!’

 
I was about to say something, but he broke in. ‘If anyone grew up in a living hell it was KG and his sisters.’

  ‘Uhuh?’

  ‘Yes. On the outside it was all supposed to look great, with fru Torvaldsen and the others looking after them. But there was a bit of everything going on in that family behind closed doors, I can tell you!’

  ‘Yes, so I’ve been told. The father was abusing both of his daughters.’

  ‘He wasn’t bloody alone.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’ He whipped out his flick knife again. Made slashing movements with it in front of my face. ‘Don’t you bloody think you can talk your way out of what’s in store for you!’

  ‘Not alone, you said?’

  He made a sudden lunge with the knife, catching my cheek and causing a sharp, stinging pain.

  I recoiled as far back as I could. ‘Rolf! Think about what you’re doing!’

  ‘I’m doing what I’ve been told,’ he snarled.

  ‘And who do you think will be blamed? If you carry out orders and get caught – and that’s a certainty – Malthus will be free while you’re behind bars. It’s your word against his. All the evidence will point to you. Forensic evidence from this crime scene, for example.’ I looked around. ‘The potential murder weapon you have in your hand.’ I nodded to the knife. ‘And all the other clues you’ve left behind.’

  ‘Shut up! Wisdom and silence become the son of a king. Happy and brave to his dying day.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t understand, Rolf. You come from a good home.’

  ‘What do you know about that?’

  ‘At least you’ve got solid literary ballast on board. There are not many who can quote the Håvåmål fluently, as you do.’

  ‘And perhaps that is the precise reason it wasn’t such a good idea!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My father was a terrible sadist. He was so pissed off with my results, from the first class upwards. To discipline me he forced me to learn all the verses – by heart.’

  ‘By heart?’

  All of a sudden it was as if he were no longer present in the boathouse, but somewhere else, far back in time. ‘He had his office at home where he sat correcting Norwegian essays and so on. Every bloody day I had to go to him and prove that I had learned another verse by heart. I had to lay my hand on the desk, and he sat with a ruler in his hand and whenever I made a mistake he whacked me over the fingers. Not that hard at first, but he hit me harder and harder for every mistake I made. Witless man who strays among men is safest silent. But even keeping quiet didn’t help me.’