The Consorts of Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

‘Yes, and we’d rather not have any of that! We’ve got a murder case to solve.’

  I waited for a while. Then I said: ‘Do you have any idea where he is, more or less?’

  ‘Yes, it was light when we came up here earlier today. Follow the path for forty to fifty metres until you see an uprooted tree. Then go straight up the scree from there. He’s holed up behind a promontory of large rocks.’

  ‘Have they got any food? Drink?’

  ‘Haven’t the foggiest.’

  Again he raised the megaphone. ‘Johnny boy!’

  ‘Stop calling me that!’

  ‘Jan Egil!’

  No answer.

  ‘Have you got any food up there? Anything to drink?’

  ‘We’ve got enough to be getting on with!’

  A short pause. I wasn’t sure, but I had the feeling I’d heard a higher-pitched voice up there.

  Then it came. ‘You can bring a bit with you!’

  I sent Standal a contented nod. ‘There you go … He won’t shoot me until he’s had something to eat anyway. What have you got?’

  ‘We have some iron rations.’

  ‘Spam?’

  ‘No, some nutrition bars and that sort of thing. Energy-rich dried foods. And we’ve probably got some Coke back there, haven’t we, boys?’

  ‘If you mean Coca-Cola, then …’

  Chuckles broke out around us.

  ‘Be careful, Varg!’ Grethe grabbed my arm.

  I nodded dolefully. ‘Well, at least something will happen now. I could imagine a lot more tempting places to spend the night rather than up here.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ she whispered, with a sudden glint in her eye.

  ‘Mm,’ I answered, turning back to the sergeant.

  Standal had found a plastic bag. In it he had put a few emergency rations and a big bottle of Coke. ‘I still don’t know if I like this, Veum. On your own head be it.’

  A voice from the dark said: ‘Perhaps he ought to take a handgun with him?’

  Standal fixed his eyes on me. ‘Have you had any weapon training?’

  ‘No, but I wouldn’t have brought anything with me whatever. You don’t solve conflicts like this with guns.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  I unhitched the amplifier and passed it to Flekke. But before switching it off I raised the megaphone and sent a last message: ‘I’m on my way now, Jan Egil! Give me a shout when you can see me. It’s as black as hell up here!’

  He didn’t answer. I shrugged and handed over the megaphone.

  Grethe gave me a quick squeeze and whispered in my ear: ‘Take care …’

  Standal and the other officers nodded as I passed. Slowly I began to proceed along the narrow path. I could hardly see half a metre ahead of me, and I had no idea what awaited me. In my chest I had a kind of vacuum, a burial hole dug ready for someone to move in soon.

  Once again I felt an unpleasant chill go down my spine. It was my brain sending warning signals up and down, forwards and backwards, without getting the answer it was waiting for.

  20

  Now I was alone in the black night. The only sounds I heard were the trickle of rain and the gurgle of streams.

  I grabbed hold of branches hanging heavily over the path for support, put one foot in front of the other with care, moving one step at a time. Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the darkness. The contours of the countryside emerged, and a few stone’s throws beneath me I could distinguish the vast black surface of Lake Trodalsvatn.

  I peered ahead. I still couldn’t see the uprooted tree.

  There was a sudden movement in the undergrowth in front of me. I gave a start, but seconds later I heard the wings of a large bird flapping, driven from its repose by this unwelcome intrusion.

  I breathed out and continued on my way. Wet branches slapped into my face, and I repeatedly had to swerve to the side or back to get past. Then I came to a clearing in the forest. Down to the left there was a little creek where the greyish white water foamed against the shore. Just ahead of me I could make out an uprooted tree, and against the slope there were more huge rocks, the remains of an earlier landslide. I allowed my eyes to wander upwards, but all I saw was a grey-black amorphous nothingness. There was no sign of movement, nothing that might reveal where they were hiding.

  I stood hesitating for a second or two before taking the first step forward and entering the clearing. Consoling myself that if I couldn’t see him, he could hardly see me, either. Swiftly I crossed the open area, stumbled forward against the fallen tree and, keeping my shoulders down, found shelter there.

  Then I poked up my head and shouted into the scree: ‘Jan Egil! Am I in the right place?!’

  A second passed. Then came the answer. ‘Come on! But slowly! And with your hands in the air!’

  ‘All I’ve got in the bag is food – and a drink!’

  ‘Come on!’

  I walked around the tree and peered in the direction the voice had come from. I still couldn’t see anything.

  With my hands in the air, I started climbing. A few times I had to reach out with my arms to regain my balance on the wet rocks, and once I tripped and had to go right down on my knees and grope my way forward with my hands. He didn’t react.

  I stared upwards with such intensity that it strained my eye muscles. Now I could distinguish a raised edge, two or three larger rocks forming a kind of redoubt at the top of the scree. And there, just above one of the rocks, I saw the first sign of life: a head, a shoulder and the faint glimmer of something that could have been a weapon.

  ‘Jan Egil?’ I said, my voice at normal volume now.

  ‘Move forward slowly!’ he replied. ‘I’ve got you in my sights.’

  That gave me a shock. It wasn’t the first time by any means. During the nine years I had worked as a private investigator I had found myself on at least two occasions in this same situation: on the wrong side of a gun. And I had survived both experiences unscathed. However, on the other hand … at the back of my head I had the grim story Grethe had told me on the way into the long valley, the image of his foster parents, shot and murdered in their own bedroom. What if … if it really was him who had done it? How far would he go?

  My mouth had gone dry once again, and a shudder went through me. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Jan Egil. I’m here to help you.’

  ‘Do what I tell you!’

  ‘Of course.’ I couldn’t see his face yet, but he seemed tall for a seventeen-year-old. The girl who was supposed to be with him was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Approach slowly until I say stop!’

  Nature seemed to be holding its breath as I trudged up the last bit. It wasn’t raining quite as hard any more. For some reason that made me feel even colder, as if the temperature had plummeted in the wake of the great quantities of precipitation.

  I fixed my eyes stiffly on the silhouette above. Gradually he emerged from the darkness, but he had his anorak hood pulled down over his forehead, and all I could see of his face, when I was finally close enough, was the broad nose, the taut mouth and the drops of rain that had settled in the down over his top lip. It was impossible to recognise tiny Johnny boy from this angle.

  I could see the weapon. It was a big Mauser. No longer pointing at me, it was down by his side, as if to indicate that if I behaved myself, I wouldn’t come to any harm.

  Now I could see her, too: a little cowering creature, also with her head covered by a weatherproof hood, a face with an open round mouth, like a fish in an aquarium, unable to escape through the glass, to get out and away.

  I held up the plastic bag. ‘Here’s the food.’

  He motioned with the rifle barrel. ‘Throw it here!’

  ‘There’s a bottle of Coke inside.’

  ‘Then bring it here!’ he commanded impatiently.

  I went closer. Now I saw that the skin around his mouth was pimply and uneven. When I had advanced far enough, he said: ‘Stop!’

  I did as instructed. Then I passed over the b
ag.

  He removed the hand that had been resting on the trigger. As he held it out, our eyes met for the first time, and immediately I recognised him. Set far back in the oblong, pimply adolescent face, there was Johnny boy’s wronged, defiant expression that we had grown to recognise in the period after Vibecke Skarnes’s arrest, when the responsibility for him had been ours for six months. The round, not yet fully formed facial features of the small boy were gone, replaced by new, craggy contours, but the look and that particular set of the mouth were the same.

  He grabbed the bag and took it. He cast a look inside. Then he threw it over to the girl who snatched at it greedily, opened the bottle of Coke and took a long draught before feverishly tearing the paper off the energy bars. Once the bars were out, she passed one to Jan who started eating without letting me out of his sight for a moment. Then he extended his hand for the bottle, raised it to his mouth and took a long, deep swig.

  I could have rushed him then. I could have thrown myself on him, grabbed the rifle and tried to wrestle it from his hands. But I didn’t. The risk of something going wrong was too great.

  It was as if I could sense the presence and intensity among the police officers down in the woods. I knew that those with night sights on their rifles were keeping an eye on us. But I didn’t want to give them the slightest reason for going into action.

  I felt a strange calm seeping into me. The two young persons stuffing themselves with emergency rations in front of my eyes reminded me of starving whelps. This seemed to be what they had actually holed themselves up for: a last, desperate meal before they had to face reality head-on again.

  While they were eating I saw that Jan Egil was paying less and less attention to the weapon. It was no longer pointing in my direction; it just hung loosely under one arm, hitched over a shoulder with a military-coloured strap, but out of action for no longer than the second it took to lift it.

  ‘Do you remember what a great time we had in Bergen … Jan?’

  ‘My name’s Jan Egil!’

  ‘Jan Egil,’ I corrected. ‘The fishing trips we went on, the walks in the mountains with Cecilie and …’

  ‘Barely,’ he sulked.

  ‘But you must have had a reason to ask me to come all this way here?’

  With an involuntary toss of the head, he fixed his gaze on me and his eyes were shiny, filled with tears. He swallowed and nodded. After a while he said in a strangulated voice: ‘You were kind.’

  I nodded. ‘We liked you, you know.’ As he didn’t react, I went on: ‘You had experienced terrible things, and we wanted you to have a good time. That was why Hans got you this home here, too. Everyone wanted the best for you.’

  His lips trembled, and I saw him pursing them tight.

  I chose my words with care now. ‘But … something happened here, too, I understand.’

  He gave a brief nod. A single tear ran from one eye, down the side of his nose, resting under one nostril as a teardrop.

  ‘But whatever has happened … there’s no sense in hiding up here with … what’s your girlfriend’s name?’

  I watched him fight to speak. I turned to face her. ‘You … can you answer me? What’s your name?’

  ‘Silje,’ came the reedy response.

  ‘You want to go home, don’t you?’

  As she didn’t reply, I addressed Jan Egil again. ‘This is horrendous weather, and the night’s going to be long and cold. You can’t seriously mean that you’re going to stay out here all night?’

  As he didn’t reply either, I went on: ‘I can promise you one thing, Jan Egil. You’ll be given a hundred per cent fair treatment.’

  He snorted with contempt.

  ‘You will! I’ll guarantee it. Perhaps you don’t know, but since we got to know each other ten years ago, I have stopped working for social services. Now I’m a private investigator. A detective. I promise you that if there’s anything at all doubtful in this case that you’ve got involved in, then I … I won’t leave a stone unturned until I know everything. Together we’ll find out what actually happened here, and you’ll get all the help you need. It won’t cost you a bean!’

  I thought I could hear my creditors cheering in unison in the background, but I could see the message had got through. The word detective had been the key to make him listen, and it was also the first word he said, in that same slightly dumbstruck intonation most people adopted after being told: ‘D-d-detective?’

  ‘Yes,’ I smiled. ‘Varg Veum, private investigator, with an office in Strandkaien, just by the fish market. Next time you’re in town, you’ll have to pop in!’

  ‘But the police …’

  ‘The police have their job to do. But now that you’ve turned seventeen, social services don’t have much say any more. You’ll get some help from a solicitor as well, of course. You can be sure of that. No one down there is after you, Jan Egil! Everyone wants to help you.’

  It had almost stopped raining now. I celebrated by pulling back my hood so that he could see all of my face. ‘What do you say?’ I carefully stretched out my hand. ‘Give me the rifle, Jan Egil. Then it’s all over. We can go down to the village, have a roof over our heads, put on dry clothes and get something nice and hot down us. Eh? Doesn’t that sound good?’

  I could see how his emotions were pulling him in all directions. But I knew that I had got through to him, that the thought of spending the whole night up in the valley, soaked, cold, without any food, other than what they had already made short work of, as compared with what I had promised him – dry clothes, roof over your head, hot food – was too much to resist.

  He looked down at Silje. She nodded back enthusiastically.

  Then he held out his hand, holding the rifle.

  I grasped the barrel firmly and took it. Then I hurriedly examined the side for the safety catch. With some surprise I noticed that it was on. I stepped away in case he should change his mind.

  I half-turned, looked down towards the trees, formed my hands into a loud-hailer and called: ‘Veum here! Everything’s fine. We’re coming down.’

  It took a bit of time for an answer to come. I heard the sergeant’s voice, metallic in the speaker they had brought with them. ‘That’s great! We’ll be waiting here!’

  ‘Will I have to wear … handcuffs?’ asked Jan Egil in a thin voice behind me.

  I turned back to him. ‘No, no. That shouldn’t be necessary.’

  ‘No,’ said Silje. ‘Because it was me who did it.’

  21

  ‘Wha…’ I started.

  ‘Shuddup, Silje!’ Jan Egil shouted.

  ‘But I …’

  ‘Shuddup, I said!’

  I took a couple of steps away from them. ‘Now I think we should do what I said, OK? Go down to the village, put some dry clothes on, and then we can talk all this through properly in somewhat more comfortable surroundings than these, right?’

  ‘I just wanted to say that,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Shuddup!’

  ‘Now, now,’ I said. ‘Let’s calm down a bit, shall we?’

  They looked at me, both of them. For a moment it was as if they had united against me, a strict father, an angry teacher or an exacting confirmation priest. I was happy now that I had taken the rifle off them.

  I thrust out my hand, smiled and motioned towards the bottom of the valley. ‘Let’s get moving. I’m freezing my arse off!’

  They neither laughed nor smiled, but both nodded, and soon we were on our way down. I stepped to the side and let them pass. ‘I’ll bring up the rear,’ I determined, without saying why. Neither of them objected.

  Like a quiet, gloomy procession we stumbled our way down the scree, to the uprooted tree and from there into the forest. As we approached the others, I called out again: ‘We’re coming! Silje and Jan first, me at the rear!’

  ‘Fine, Veum!’ Standal answered, without the loud-hailer this time.

  With which they were upon us. I heard the muffled sounds of a brief scuffle in fro
nt of us as Silje was shoved aside and three to four policemen overpowered Jan Egil, then the click of handcuffs.

  ‘Vaaaaarg!’ Jan howled desperately as he kicked out in the dark. ‘You said I wouldn’t be handcuffed!’

  I charged through the undergrowth. ‘Nor should you be! I’ve got the rifle here!’

  ‘Are you or the police in charge here, Veum?’ the sergeant snapped. ‘We obviously have to ensure that there are no further attempts to escape.’

  ‘But for Christ’s sake! He’s only a child.’

  ‘He’s seventeen years old and responsible for his actions.’

  ‘But I promised him!’

  ‘And who gave you the authority to promise anything at all?’

  ‘Bloody knuckleheads!’

  At once his face was there, right in mine. ‘Mind your step now, Veum – or we’ll handcuff you, too.’

  I looked around. We were standing in a tight clump in the forest. Silje had sought shelter in Grethe’s arms, and I met her eyes over Silje’s shoulders. She warned me with a glare and shook her head as a sign that I shouldn’t attempt any further provocation. Around us stood police officers, tired and irritable. Jan Egil had given up. He was almost hanging from the arms of two officers, attached to one by handcuffs.

  Silje suddenly turned round. ‘But I’m the one who did it!’

  Everyone focused on her. Standal barked: ‘What?! What did you say?’

  ‘I’m the one who did it!’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘Shot ’em!’

  ‘What did you say? Are you telling us the truth? Do you mean that?’

  ‘D’you think I’m lying?’ Her face was red with repressed fury. ‘About something so serious?’

  ‘No, no – I sincerely hope not,’ Standal mumbled, caught off guard and perplexed.

  ‘He was an old pig!’

  Standal regarded her with a flinty look.

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘Uncle Klaus!’

  ‘Silje!’ Grethe reproved.

  An excited mumble spread through the officers around us. ‘There’s the motive!’ I heard one of them say, looking around triumphantly. ‘Isn’t that what I …?’