The Consorts of Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

  She grabbed the underside of my arm, more for support than anything else, and led me with a solemn countenance into the bedroom, where the unmade bed and all the clothes scattered to the winds made its first indelible impression. I left the door behind us ajar so as not to feed any unwanted reactions. Behind us the volume of voices resumed and someone put on another record, although they may just have returned the stylus to the first track.

  Inside the bedroom, she let go of my arm and flopped down on the edge of the bed. The look she sent me was of indeterminate character, on the frontier between fear and loathing. ‘Wozzup with Johnny boy?’

  I adopted a serious expression. ‘When did you see him last, Mette?’

  Tears filled her eyes. Large, red flushes appeared on the side of her neck. ‘You ask me when I saw him last? You were the one who took him from me! I’ve never seen him since – since the day you came to my house …’

  ‘Not at all?’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘But you know he was placed in a foster home?’

  She closed her eyes as if thinking. Her face quivered. ‘I know, yes. Some snooty sods who couldn’t have kids of their own. Foster home! Right. They stole him from me! That’s what they did. Stole him! Terje said I should sue them, but that was no help, and Jens advised me not to. He said it would be my ruin. As if I had anything left to ruin …’

  ‘Jens?’

  ‘Jens Langeland! The solicitor. I’d had him before …’

  ‘Langeland?’

  ‘Yes. The first time I was charged with … but that’s a long time ago now. I was pretending to be a hippie and played with the bad boys. But he was so young then, straight out of school. Just a stripling. Well, mm …’ She blinked again.

  ‘So you haven’t had any contact with Jan or the foster parents since 1970?’

  ‘That is … I should’ve had visiting rights. I was s’posed to visit him at the weekend, and if I’d recovered I’d’ve been able to take him home. But he was in the foster home for such a long time and … well … I didn’t recover. Things went downhill! I was so bad I couldn’t even visit him. It wouldn’t’ve done him any good, they said. Jens had me admitted – to Hjellestad for rehab. But what help was that? We had dope smuggled in there, too. Dealers were in the forest outside our windows throwing ropes up to us. We tied them to the window catches and then we hauled up the goods. We just had to promise on our word of honour that … well, you know, when we got out again … If not, we’d’ve been beaten up. And I must say they kept precise records. I was on my back being screwed by anything that moved for six months without getting much more than pocket money. Then I had to keep going for even longer to earn what I needed every day. I’m tellin’ you, I didn’t even have time to think about him … about Johnny boy, I mean.’

  From the next room came a familiar siren. ‘Meeeette!’ But it wasn’t the doorman this time. It was Terje Hammersten.

  ‘She’s in there, Terje,’ a voice said.

  ‘They’re screwing!’ It was one of the women, who burst into hysterical laughter afterwards.

  ‘What?! I’ll bloody …’

  The bedroom door opened with a bang. Hammersten stood in the doorway, and he did not look well pleased. He was ready for trouble, and I was not left in any doubt that I was the trouble, and this time there was no escape.

  9

  One of the first things you learn in social services is to blather your way out of even the trickiest predicaments. Often children are present and they must be spared head-to-head confrontations between parents and other adults.

  But this time there were no children around, and Terje did not let me get a word in before he went for me.

  ‘Tryin’ it on with my girl, are you?’ He rushed towards me at great speed with one fist raised. I jumped back, careered around the bed and started to speak. But he wasn’t listening. He leapt up onto the bed, the base gave way with a crack, and Mette tumbled forward screaming. He staggered in my direction and this time he got close. The first punch hit me in the shoulder and I felt as if I had been struck by a sledgehammer; when I saw the left hand swinging towards me I levered myself off the wall and hurled myself in the opposite direction.

  ‘Hammersten!’ I yelled. ‘You’re impeding a civil servant in the performance of his duty!’

  That stalled him for a moment. Like a heavyweight boxer he stood with both fists raised, half on tiptoes. ‘D’you know who I am?’

  ‘I know who you are, and I’ve met you before. I’m from social services, and if you hit me one more time, you will be reported and end up in clink again. If you stop now, I’ll forget …’

  He scowled at me, unconvinced. ‘Then you won’t report me?’

  ‘No. You have my word on it.’

  ‘I could crush you with these hands. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be too sure. I can take quite a bit of punishment, if I have to.’

  For a second he gauged me with his eyes. My hands hung down by my sides, ready for action if he launched another attack. But I seemed to have taken the edge off his fury.

  He looked down at Mette, who was sitting on the floor beside the bed, while she stared vacantly up at us both. ‘What d’you reckon, Mette? Did he touch you?’

  She slowly shook her head. ‘We were just – talking. He had some news, about Johnny boy.’

  ‘Some news? What?’

  ‘We didn’t get that far.’

  ‘There was no news,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to find out if you had seen him recently.’

  ‘And that’s what you were asking her? I call that harassment!’ Again the fury in him rose. ‘You were the one who took ’im from her.’

  ‘You think this would be the right surroundings for him to grow up in, do you.’

  ‘You …!’ He took two steps forward and raised his fists again.

  I held up both my hands, palms outwards.

  ‘Hammersten! Remember what we agreed!’

  ‘Terje! Don’t …’ whimpered Mette from behind him. ‘I can’t take any more. I’ve lost him for ever. I know I have …’ She slowly dissolved into tears.

  Hammersten took another step closer. ‘D’you know what I’m gonna do? Tomorrow I’m gonna go with her to her solicitor, Langeland, if you know who that is, and ask him to complain to the local council about you, whoever you bloody are and whatever your bloody name is!’

  ‘Veum is my name, and I can save you the bother. I’m going to have a chat with Langeland myself, I reckon.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘It’s none of your … It’s absolutely no concern of yours.’

  He glowered at me while obviously fighting with himself. One moment he was going to knock me senseless, the next he was shaking like a leaf, angst-ridden and dying for a drink.

  ‘Veum …’ It was Mette mumbling my name.

  ‘Yes?’ We both turned towards her.

  ‘When you meet Jan, could you say hello from me and …’ She began to sob. ‘I still love him! I miss him so much! Oh, Jan my boy … my Jan … Johnn …’ Her words were smothered by sobs.

  ‘I promise you, Mette. I’ll say hello from you.’

  Terje Hammersten gave me a look of contempt. I turned on my heel and left the wretched bedroom with the two dysfunctional individuals.

  In the sitting room hardly anyone noticed me pass through. Outside on the landing the neighbour had gone. I was glad. On returning to my office, I phoned Paul Finckel, the journalist, an old classmate from Nordnes.

  ‘Hi Paul … guy called Terje Hammersten. Does that name ring any bells?’

  ‘Loads! Have they let him loose again?’

  ‘What was he in for?’

  ‘GBH. If I were you, I’d keep well away from him, if I could.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice. Got any more info?’

  ‘Cost you a beer.’

  ‘So long as it isn’t too many.’

  ‘I said one, didn’t I. I’d better bring you some photocopies, so you know w
ho you’re dealing with.’

  ‘Is he dangerous?’

  ‘Dangerous doesn’t begin to cover it.’

  ‘But he hasn’t killed anyone?’

  ‘Not officially at least.’

  ‘Not … What do you mean?’

  ‘We can discuss this over a beer …’

  ‘Usual place?’

  ‘Usual place.’

  10

  The clientele of Børs Café varied according to the time of the day. In the morning, the majority were ageing alkies, seamen on home leave and pensioned-off harbour sweats. In the evening, you could meet anyone from petty criminals to Business School students with a penchant for field studies. At lunchtimes, when Paul and I met on this occasion, most customers were single men who valued the cooking at Børs over their own culinary skills. There had never been many women. Those that dropped in, however, became the centre of enthusiastic attention. No one took any notice of Paul and me raising our midday glasses of foaming beer.

  Paul looked at me inquisitorially. ‘What’s going on, Varg? Have you started playing detective or what?’

  ‘No, no. It’s just this case we’ve been drawn into. We have to take care of a little boy. The mother kind of lives with Terje Hammersten, and that’s why I was interested in his background.’

  ‘My God. Living together? Poor woman.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s only one thing you can say about the guy. He hits like a hammer and he’s hard as stone.’

  ‘So I gather. When we got involved with these people three or four years ago, he was being taken in on some GBH charge.’

  ‘That sounds about right. He has a dangerous temper, as I said.’

  ‘But you were suggesting that …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘On the phone. Off the record, you said.’

  ‘Yes, it’s the kind of rumour we newspaper people have to grapple with all the time, you know. We’re never sure how much faith we can put in it. It was all to do with the great alcohol smuggling affair in Sunnfjord a year ago. I suppose it must have been early 1973. A boat was boarded by customs officials in one of the inlets between Verlandet and Atløy. Full to the gunnels with foreign goods ready for national distribution, so to speak, further down the fjord. A few days later one of the gang was found beaten to death with a baseball bat or something equally hard. Rumour has it that he was the snitch and that Hammersten was summoned from Bergen to deal with the matter. Pure Chicago, as I’m sure you appreciate.’

  ‘Why didn’t they do the job themselves, the people behind it?’

  ‘I suppose they were in prison already, most of them. A message must have been passed out via alternative channels. Pretty clear message, let’s put it like that. Blood had to be shed. But the odd thing was …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, the person who was killed …’ Paul tossed his notebook onto the table and opened it. ‘A certain Ansgår Tveiten … was his brother-in-law.’

  ‘Hammersten’s brother-in-law?’

  ‘Yep. Married to his sister, Trude.’

  ‘Uhuh. And what did she have to say to that?’

  He grinned. ‘Nothing about that in the story. But he was never arrested for the crime.’

  ‘I’ll have to ask him face to face then, next time I bump into him.’

  ‘You do that and in the meantime I’ll order the flowers for your funeral.’

  ‘Does he belong to any other gangs in town, this Hammersten?’

  Paul took a quick scan around. ‘You see the guys in the corner over there? Sort of semi-organised thieves. In Birger Bjelland’s network, the new Mr Big, a fence from Stavanger. The buzz is he’s building up quite an organisation, and Hammersten fits in there somewhere, I would guess.’

  ‘Birger Bjelland?’

  ‘Yes. Unknown quantity round here, but in Stavanger he’s pulled off some impressive jobs, my colleagues there tell me, using false companies and false accounts, if you understand what I mean.’

  ‘Not quite. But I get the gist. And where does Hammersten fit into this picture?’

  ‘A sort of errand boy, to put it euphemistically. Send Terje Hammersten to the creditors’ door and they beg you to be allowed to pay, the sooner the better.’

  ‘I hope he never comes to mine.’

  ‘Let’s hope so for your sake, Varg.’

  We raised our glasses and finished our beer. Afterwards it was not far to Langeland’s.

  11

  Jens Langeland had his office in Tårnplass, across the street from the Law Courts. When they rang the bell for the first sitting, he could glance at his watch, stroll downstairs, cross the square and take his place on the bench before the judge had raised his eyelids to declare the court in session.

  It was nearing the end of the working day and, as I stepped into the anteroom on the second floor, which he shared with two colleagues and a secretary, the secretary was on her way out, dressed as if she were on a charter trip to Eastern Mongolia: under the furlined anorak hood I could only just make out that she was blonde.

  ‘Is herr Langeland in?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re closed,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Yes, but I think it would be to his advantage to hear what I have to tell him.’

  She examined me with a sceptical gaze. ‘He’s busy with a client.’

  ‘You couldn’t buzz through and tell him I would like a word with him, could you? It would be very quick, tell him. It’s about – Johnny boy.’

  ‘OK …’ Reluctantly she went to her desk and tapped in a number on the telephone. ‘There’s a man here who wants to talk to you. About someone called Johnny boy. – Yes. – No. – I’ll ask him.’ She looked at me. ‘What was the name?’

  ‘Veum. From social services.’

  She passed on the information, listened in silence to what Langeland had to say and then shifted her gaze back to me. ‘He’s coming out.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  She sent me a cool stare. ‘Not at all.’

  The door to one of the offices opened. Jens Langeland came out, closing the door behind him. He was wearing a dark tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and dark brown trousers.

  The secretary was quick off the mark. ‘Can I be off now? I’d like to catch the half past four bus.’

  ‘Of course, Brigitte. Have a good evening. See you tomorrow.’

  She nodded briefly to me in passing and was gone.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Langeland asked. ‘As I’m sure you were informed, I’m busy with a client.’

  ‘Yes, I … Not Mette Olsen, I trust.’

  ‘Mette Olsen! What makes you ask about her?’

  ‘Well, her partner – a certain Terje Hammersten – suggested that he might contact you.’

  ‘Well, I definitely haven’t heard from either of them.’

  ‘I’ve come about Johnny boy.’

  ‘So I understood.’

  ‘You didn’t mention yesterday that you were his mother’s solicitor as well. The real mother, I mean.’

  ‘No, and why should I? What’s this supposed to be anyway? Don’t tell me that social services have taken up criminal investigation as well! You have a strictly delineated sphere of influence, let me remind you. Social services, that’s your remit.’

  ‘Have you contacted Haukedalen?’

  ‘I have spoken to Hans, yes,’ he said, tight-lipped. ‘Your colleague – something or other Strand – was there keeping a close eye on things, but progress was slow, he said. I assume you will put him in professional hands before very long.’

  ‘We already have a psychologist in the team. Dr Storetvedt.’

  ‘I see. But you wanted to talk to me, my secretary informed me.’

  ‘Yes. This is about Mette Olsen.’

  ‘Uhuh?’

  ‘She said you recommended her not to proceed when she wanted to try to hold onto Jan.’

  His eyes glazed over. ‘Mm … I suppose that is a correct interpr
etation, as far as it goes. But I’m not at liberty to discuss client issues, Veum. I’m sure you appreciate that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why didn’t I recommend her to proceed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Poor odds. That much I can say. And I also had the child’s welfare to consider. The child was better off where he was.’

  ‘You’d been her solicitor before, she said.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, but only as a solicitor’s clerk. A matter she got involved in during the mid sixties.’

  ‘You were fresh out of school, she said.’

  ‘We-ell, school … She was also a very different person then. Young, sweet and mixed up in something that had suddenly gone sour on her.’

  ‘And that was …?’

  ‘They’d been arrested at Flesland airport, she and one other person. Charged with trying to smuggle in a hefty stash of dope. But we managed to have her acquitted.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘But as you have discovered, it didn’t end there. She drifted into the habit and when the Jan business blew up, she contacted us again. Then I was given the case on my own. But it was hard going and, as I mentioned previously, I had to prioritise his interests over hers, even though I was her solicitor.’

  ‘But at the same time you were acting on behalf of Svein and Vibecke Skarnes.’

  ‘No, no, no! Not at all. That came later.’

  ‘Uhuh?’

  ‘A coincidence. I knew both Vibecke and Svein from university. Svein contacted us – that is, the partnership here – in connection with a compensation matter, and the case landed on my desk.’

  ‘What was his line of business?’

  ‘Photocopiers. Not the big brands, but they were very competitive in the local market, in Bergen and south-west Norway generally.’

  ‘But the fact that you’d been Mette Olsen’s solicitor first, didn’t that disqualify you from acting for Skarnes?’

  ‘No, why should it? This was a business matter. And today … today the situation is quite different, for everyone. Now I have to assess what is best for Jan once again. But I don’t have time for this, Veum. I have to get back to …’ He faced the office door.