The Consorts of Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

  ‘Naturally.’

  She looked at me, with insistent eyes now. ‘Could that be what happened, this time as well?’

  I met her gaze. Her eyes had a shimmer of green in the blue, like an ice wall in a glacier. ‘To be quite frank, frøken Borge, I don’t know. But, yes, it’s certainly a possibility.’

  She gave a faint nod, as if she had had her worst fears confirmed.

  ‘But tell me … He never mentioned anything about … Did you have any impression of what the relationship was like, between him and Vibecke?’

  Her face wavered between professionalism and personal feelings. The impeccable shell cracked and the teenage girl she had once been burst through. ‘Not so good, I think,’ she let slip with a tiny sob.

  ‘And what do you base that on?’

  ‘The evening in Førde I mentioned just now.’

  ‘The anniversary dinner?’

  ‘Yes. We sat in the bar talking, it was more personal than it had ever … Svein and I.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘It was after Harald had disappeared with, er, well … a woman he met at the bar. And that was precisely why … I mean Harald lives with a really sweet girl, and that was the reason that Svein and I sat talking about … that sort of thing. How some people can never control themselves, and how mortifying it must feel to be … the one who is left on their own after it’s all over, or the one who may have a suspicion that everything is not all as it ought to be …’

  I coated my voice with velvet. ‘And that may have been the situation with Svein and Vibecke, too?’

  ‘Yes. And it … really got to him.’ Instantly there were tears in her eyes, as if this was about her.

  ‘And his own house was spick and span?’

  She glowered at him. ‘What do you mean? Of course it was!’ Her cheeks flared up.

  ‘Yes, by all means, but … he was away a lot travelling. You said that yourself. And women are in bars everywhere, not only in Førde, aren’t they.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true, but the way he put it to me … at that time … he was genuinely upset, Veum. He wasn’t like that. Not Svein. I would’ve … noticed.’ Again the distant look in her eyes, and the small, almost unnoticeable stiffening of the neck, as though she was unconsciously studying herself in a mirror no one else saw.

  ‘So she had someone else? Was that what he was trying to say?’

  ‘Trying! He … well …’ All of a sudden her professional superego had taken control again. ‘I can’t see that this has anything to do at all with social services! They were tied to each other through their common responsibility for Jan, and that may have been what bothered him most of all, what would happen to Jan, if Vibecke … left him.’

  ‘Well, he was a man in his best years. There may have been others who would have proffered a helping hand?’

  Mirror-woman made one last appearance, and for a second she sat with closed eyes, as though to keep out all the brutality of the world. On re-opening them, she was a hundred per cent in the here and now. ‘Was there anything else I could help you with, herr Veum?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Not for the moment.’

  I had a question on the tip of my tongue, but I let it lie. I had no right to ask it. The question of how far her consolation had gone that anniversary night in Førde last autumn …

  16

  The time had come. I couldn’t find any more excuses, neither to myself nor to others. There was nothing else to do but eat humble pie and call on the Muus that roared, in the lion’s den, the new Bergen Police Headquarters, built in 1965.

  From the telephone box outside the police station I rang Hans Haavik and received confirmation of what I already assumed would happen. He and Marianne Storetvedt had agreed that hospitalisation was the only solution, and Marianne and one of the assistants out there had driven Jan to the Children’s Psychiatric Centre in Haukeland.

  ‘But how are you, Varg? Can you feel anything after the fall?’

  ‘Yes, I can but … I’m fine. I’m just a little bruised.’

  ‘Right, well, hope you’re better soon.’

  I thanked him and rang off.

  The duty officer informed me that Inspector Muus was in, and I took the lift up to his office, which was on the third floor overlooking Domkirkgate, where the cathedral was situated, and very little else. Muus himself towered up behind his desk, as fierce as a matron at the annual meeting of the missionary society. When I showed my face through the crack of the door, he seemed to be refusing to believe that this could be true. ‘Yes?’ he said brusquely. ‘What is it you require?’

  I sent him a disarming smile. ‘I have a confession to make.’

  ‘You, too?’

  ‘Yes? Are there more?’

  He swept this aside. ‘Spit it out!’

  ‘The day before yesterday, when we were driving Jan to Haukedalen, he said something to us.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘He said: “Mummy did it.”’

  He didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘I see. And?’

  ‘Well … I thought you might like to know.’

  ‘And that thought took about forty-eight hours to reach base?’

  ‘There was no one on duty, if I can put it like that,’ I ventured, but it didn’t meet with approval.

  ‘And what’s the reason for your coming here now with this?’

  ‘Mm … she’s at large, isn’t she?’

  ‘You have some idea of where she might be staying?’

  For a second my eyes relinquished their hold on his. ‘No, that …’

  ‘But there’s something you’ve missed, Veum.’ He sent me a triumphant look.

  ‘Really? And that is …’

  ‘She’s come forward.’

  ‘Come forward! Fru Skarnes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘Early today, on the recommendation of her solicitor, herr Langeland.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I knew,’ I mumbled.

  ‘She’s being questioned now, by Inspector Lyngmo.’

  ‘Questioned? So you …’

  ‘No, we haven’t, Veum. And you haven’t brought anything new to the case. In fact, she has confessed.’

  I found it difficult to understand what he meant. ‘Confessed?’

  He raised his voice a fraction. ‘Yes, she’s confessed. Something wrong with your hearing? She admitted she’d pushed her husband down the cellar stairs that day during a marital row. The defence will, of course, plead involuntary manslaughter and that it happened in self-defence. But we’ll see. We’re making further investigations, naturally, but in essence the case is as good as solved. I doubt that comes as much of a surprise to you either, in light of the information you’ve just brought us. Mummy did it. Wasn’t that how it went?’

  ‘Yes, it … And if she’s really confessed, then … I suppose it no longer has anything to do with me.’

  He raised his eyebrows sardonically, the clearest indication of a facial expression since I had arrived. ‘No, I suppose, strictly speaking, indeed it does not.’

  ‘But you’re aware he has another mother, aren’t you? He was adopted.’

  He looked at me without enthusiasm. ‘And this mother …’

  ‘Mette Olsen. Living with an old acquaintance of yours. Terje Hammersten.’

  ‘Hammersten? But –’

  ‘If I were you, I would …’

  His voice rose a notch. ‘What I was trying to say, Veum, before you interrupted me … This mother, has she also confessed?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Exactly.’ He stood up behind his desk. ‘Do you know what you remind me of? You remind me of those bloody private eyes that swan around in American films thinking they’re so much bloody better than the police.’

  ‘Uhuh?’

  ‘Yes. So now, would you be so kind as to hop it? We have more useful things to do here than exchange views with representatives of the social services.’

  �
��Perhaps social services has more useful things to do as well.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. Have a good life, Veum. I hope I never see you again.’

  He was mistaken, sad to say. Sad to say for us both. Later I often wondered if it was then that the idea was first sown in me: if all else failed … start up on my own. But I never reminded him. That would have been taking the joke too far.

  At nine that night there was a ring at my door. I went to open. Cecilie was standing outside, made up to the nines and wearing a slim dark coat I had never seen her in before. She held out a net bag. ‘I’ve brought a couple of bottles of red wine. Can I come in?’

  17

  Twenty-one years later she asked me with a slight blush, on the bench in Fjellveien: ‘Do you remember that we had a – fling at that time, Varg?’

  I gave a wry grin. ‘Is that so?’

  Yes, I remembered we had had what she called a fling. I remembered the iron tang of the red wine she brought with her that Thursday night in 1974, with the case apparently solved and Jan in specialist care; I remembered her lips tasting of the same, and the compact little body that she could never quite keep still, but wriggling and squirming whether on top or underneath, so lively that I slipped in and out of her like an inexperienced plumber on his very first solo call-out. She had kissed me, hard and firm, and there had never been any doubt about what she wanted. Afterwards we were agreed that it had been our way of celebrating the end of the case. Later we repeated the celebrations on two or three occasions before the whole thing, for reasons I had never quite been able to articulate, just petered out, becoming fleeting memories, a quick raid on my recall faculties when later in my life I was served a red wine with a similar flavour.

  Yes, I did remember. I had not forgotten. But there were so many other things that happened that year, far too many other agonising incidents.

  The investigation ended with Vibecke Skarnes being charged with involuntary manslaughter. The case went straight to court where she was defended with great passion by Jens Langeland.

  I was myself sitting on one of the court benches for several of the days and I was impressed by Langeland’s performance. He used Vibecke Skarnes’s confession to maximum effect, and in court a far more negative impression was given of Svein Skarnes than I had received from Randi Borge. Langeland presented the awkward home situation, with a very unstable adopted child requiring a lot of attention. Vibecke Skarnes claimed that her husband had made unjustified accusations of infidelity against her, accompanied with violence, and just such a row had ended with the fatal fall down the cellar stairs, a fall caused by her pushing her husband away so that she would not be beaten up in, what Langeland called in his final summing up, nothing less than self-defence. She also claimed that Skarnes, on several occasions, had shown unnecessary brutality towards their tiny adopted son.

  These claims were rejected by the opposing side in no uncertain terms. I remembered one day in particular when one character witness after the other testified what a decent fellow Svein Skarnes had been, and that they had never seen a hint of maltreatment towards his wife or had any reason to suspect that anything of the kind had taken place. Randi Borge took her stand, even more attractively dressed than when I visited her in the office, and gave Skarnes the best possible character reference; it was so convincing that Jens Langeland had squeezed in a couple of well camouflaged but nonetheless quite defamatory insinuations about the kind of relationship there might have been between this magnificent boss and his secretary. He was soon called to order, but I could see that the jury had taken the point.

  However, the court was never entirely convinced that the tumble down the stairs was a pure accident in an impassioned situation. Despite what was referred to as mitigating circumstances, Vibecke Skarnes was convicted. She was sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment for involuntary manslaughter, and the subsequent High Court appeal from both sides did nothing to change the judgement. I was present at the court’s final pronouncement, and it was with a feeling of sadness that I left the courtroom that day with a cursory nod to Vibecke Skarnes.

  After emergency hospitalisation in Haukeland, Jan was given treatment for what Marianne Storetvedt termed reactive attachment disorders and placed in Haukedalen. In the autumn of 1974, on the initiative of Hans Haavik, he was transferred to a foster home in Sunnfjord, where the combination of a smaller community and life on a farm working at full capacity was assumed to be a good way to lead him back onto the right path, to make him a benefit to society.

  Both Cecilie and I had kept tabs on him as well as we could during the six months he was in therapy. We went for walks with him on Geitanuken or other mountains in Åsane and around Bergen. We went out on the fjord with boat-savvy social workers and taught him how to fish. One June day in 1974 we went to Vollane to swim, and I can remember – yes, I remembered Cecilie in a very small bikini, white with green dots, and nipples that went erect after a cold dive. That was another of the times when we rounded off the day with a very private party in Telthussmauet. But it was a grey, rainy summer, and there were not many swimming trips.

  We were like a little family, a bit maladjusted and dysfunctional, as families with such children often are. I also remembered the afternoon in September that year when Hans called us into his office after we had taken Jan on a trip to Akvariet, the sea centre in Bergen. He told us he had found a foster home for him in Sunnfjord and that he himself would travel up with him the day after. I could hardly look at Cecilie. In a way it was as if our own little child was being taken away from us, our own difficult little sprog. And perhaps that was the real reason it never came to more than the two or three celebrations between us: the separation we both felt when Jan was sent to Sunnfjord that September.

  I remembered him the way he had been in those six months. From the apathetic tiny boy we had seen in the first days he had developed into an active and vigorous boy, a bit too vigorous at times. He didn’t know where to draw the line and sometimes he seemed to be deliberately provoking us, to make trouble, to create an unpleasant atmosphere and evoke rejection. ‘Extremely characteristic of children with early emotional damage,’ Marianne informed us in a conversation we had with her. ‘So what can we do?’ I had asked, and she had looked at us with a tiny resigned smile: ‘Hope the therapy helps, hope that he gets clear signals from the adult world and that someone sets new boundaries for the life he has to teach himself to live.’ We had nodded in agreement, but after leaving her we felt as despondent as we had when we arrived.

  ‘What are the people he’s living with like?’ I had asked Hans that September day. ‘Decent folk. I know them personally. Klaus and Kari Libakk. Klaus is a cousin of mine. They run a farm in Angedalen, north-east of Førde,’ ‘Does he have local support?’ ‘Of course. Social services in Sunnfjord has put one of their own on the case …’ He flicked through a few papers. ‘Grethe Millingen. That name mean anything to you?’ ‘No,’ I said and Cecilie just shook her head sadly.

  In the car back to town we had little to say to each other. We both sat enclosed in our own worlds, and when we parted neither of us saw any reason to celebrate anything.

  It was a miserable year in general. The period of separation came to an end and the divorce from Beate was executed without mercy. We negotiated a visiting agreement for Thomas and it wasn’t long before it came to my ears that she had got herself a new friend, some teacher, Wiik, whom Thomas called Lasse. In my welfare work I regularly became frustrated and there were a number of episodes that indicated that perhaps I was not the right man to tackle all the challenges I confronted. The whole thing came to an end the year after when, under strong pressure from above, I was requested to look around for something else to do.

  I had a distressing feeling that life was passing me by before my very eyes, outside my windows, and that feeling was not exactly diminished when in August of that year I turned Muus’s nightmare into reality and started my own little firm as a private investigator in Stran
dkaien, a street fronting the harbour and a block away from Marianne Storetvedt.

  Nine years later, I received a phone call from Førde.

  18

  A private investigator’s office can be a depressing place. It’s not a lot better when the rains beat against the windowpanes, the floods start and there is only a limited number of tickets left for the ark. The call from Førde did nothing to improve my mood. Quite the opposite, it took the ground away from beneath me.

  Her voice was both hoarse and pleasant, in an extremely sensual way. ‘Veum? Varg Veum?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Grethe Mellingen here. From social services in Sogn and Fjordane. I’m based in Førde.’

  I had an unpleasant sensation in my abdominal region. ‘Right! How can I help you?’

  ‘It’s about a client of ours. One Jan Egil Skarnes, seventeen years old.’

  ‘Yes, I know who you’re talking about. But …’

  ‘It’s just terrible. I don’t know if you heard the two o’clock news, did you?’

  ‘No, I haven’t …’

  ‘There’s been a double murder here. In Angedalen. Both of Jan Egil’s foster parents.’

  ‘What was that?’ The glaring ceiling lamp seemed to have grown, filling the whole of my head with intense light, an interrogator’s lamp from my unconscious.

  ‘Yes and … I’m afraid there is every reason to believe that Jan Egil did it, because he’s holed up in a neighbouring valley and refuses to speak to anyone except – you.’

  ‘Me? But I haven’t had anything to do with him since …’

  ‘And he’s not alone. He has someone with him. A girl from the neighbouring farm.’

  ‘As a hostage or what?’

  ‘We don’t know. They’re about the same age, anyway. But the police have contact with him via a loud-hailer and he’s told them he won’t talk to anyone except … you.’