The Consorts of Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

  As I arrived, a uniformed policeman announced that there would be a short press conference at eleven and another in the afternoon after national KRIPOS representatives had come and been allowed to make their first assessments of the case. The press took note without much enthusiasm. Some stayed in the room, others wandered off in the direction of the nearest cafés.

  I had picked up a couple of newspapers on my way from the hotel. None of the Oslo papers had come to Førde yet, but Firda Tidend, Bergens Tidende and Bergensavisen had big front page spreads on what they called the ‘Double Killing in Angedalen’. There were large photographs of the Libakk farm, deserted and abandoned with the exception of a couple of parked cars in the farmyard, and a few smaller, somewhat fuzzy shots of the police cars carrying Silje, Jan Egil and the rest of us as we passed the press ranks on our way down from Trodalen. In the press reports, the gruesome murders were portrayed in detail, based doubtless on sources within the police force. Jan Egil was described as a ‘member of the family’ who after a ‘hostage situation’ in Trodalen had given himself up to the police and for the moment was being ‘questioned’ at the local police offices in Førde. Kari and Klaus Libakk were described as ‘decent folk’ about whom no one had anything negative to say, and it was stressed that the tragedy had spread ‘unease and horror’ in the tiny rural community of Angedalen. In Firda Tidend Helge Haugen had concentrated on the Trodalen murder and I did indeed recognise several of the phrases he had entertained me with almost an hour earlier. In Bergens Tidende they had written a small parallel article about ‘murders in the fjord county’ in which they summarised the cases of Trodalen Mads, Hetle, the ‘contraband murder’ of 1973 and many others. Bergensavisen’s coverage was coloured by the fact that they didn’t have a provincial correspondent and it was based mainly on the Norwegian News Agency’s sober account of events. There would be enough other articles to digest when the Oslo tabloids caught up, I imagined. But I was pleased that none of them had named Jan Egil so far.

  I elbowed my way through the throng of press reps and reported in at the desk, where I introduced myself and said that the sergeant had summoned me to appear.

  ‘Really?’ The officer behind the counter looked at me in bewilderment.

  ‘He would certainly like to know what I had to say about the case.’

  ‘A witness then, I think we’ll say,’ mumbled the officer. His hair was thin and his skin pale, and there wasn’t a trace of enthusiasm in the way he spoke. But at least he opened the gate in the counter, let me in and showed me to a kind of waiting room further into the office area. ‘I’ll tell the sergeant you’ve come. The name was Veum, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was.’

  I took a seat in the lounge area and spread out one of the newspapers I had brought with me. I had a suspicion I was unlikely to be the first person in the queue, and I was right. I didn’t see anything of the sergeant until he walked past, pursued by several other officers, on his way to the eleven o’clock press conference. He was almost surprised to see me but gave a quick nod and made a sign to say that we would talk when he was back.

  Nevertheless I strung along with the others to the reception area to attend the brief, somewhat off-the-cuff press conference held there. I saw Helge Haugen and a couple of familiar faces from Bergen in the audience.

  There was not much new to report, apart from what was already in the papers. The couple, Kari and Klaus Libakk, had been found shot and killed in their own home. There were no signs of a break-in. A close relative of theirs was in the interview room at this moment, and two KRIPOS officers were expected on the morning flight from Oslo to assist the local constabulary with the investigation.

  ‘Has the person in question been charged?’ one of the pressmen wanted to know.

  ‘No,’ said the sergeant before adding, almost involuntarily: ‘Not yet.’

  ‘But he will be?’

  ‘At this moment in time I am unable to say.’

  ‘Is it true that he took a girl from the neighbouring farm with him as a hostage?’

  ‘I don’t wish to comment on that.’

  ‘Are there any theories as to what the motive might have been?’

  ‘I don’t wish to comment on that, either.’

  They didn’t get much more out of him, and Sergeant Standal concluded the conference by hoping they would return later that day, either at four or at eight o’clock. More details would be announced as soon as the timing was decided.

  With that the conference was over. Some of the journalists tried, unsuccessfully, to set a trap for the local police boss with a few additional questions. The only ones to get a few words with him were a couple of radio reporters, who asked the same questions and were given the same answers as during the conference.

  When he was safely on the inside of the counter again, Standal motioned to me to follow. ‘Come with me, Veum. We’ll take it in my office.’

  The sergeant’s office had a view straight across the wetlands to the tall cranes in the shipyards and the narrow landing strip. Standal indicated a chair, took a seat himself behind the desk and rested his pale blue eyes, with a slight squint, on me. ‘Now tell me all you know about this Jan Egil Skarnes which, I am informed, is his real name. You knew him from before, I’m led to understand?’

  ‘Barely, in fact.’ In brief outline I told him about Jan Egil’s unhappy life, from the first meeting I had had with him on the Rothaugen estate during the summer of 1970, while he still had Elvis as a middle name, until the tragic events of 1974.

  The sergeant bent forward, eager to hear. ‘So he was involved in a suspicious death then, too?’

  ‘Involved?! He was six and a half years old. And the foster mother soon confessed that she had caused the accident.’

  ‘I see.’ He had jotted down the names of Vibecke and Svein Skarnes long ago. ‘Any more?’

  ‘No, nothing … We in social services followed his case for six months afterwards, before he was transferred to a foster home up here, with Kari and Klaus Libakk, and that is, in fact, the last I’d heard of him until I was told yesterday to get here asap.’

  ‘So you know nothing about how his life had turned out in Angedalen?’

  ‘No. I thought you would be able to fill me in on that.’

  He looked at me blankly. ‘And why?’

  ‘Well, don’t you have any records on him? Hasn’t he been in the police spotlight before?’

  ‘Not at all. Like you … to be precise, I’d never heard of him until yesterday.’

  ‘But you knew about the Libakks?’

  He trod water. ‘I knew who Klaus was. This isn’t a big region.’ For a second he seemed to be in two minds. ‘But nothing of specific importance to this case.’

  I leaned forward a fraction. ‘So he’s never been involved in any indecency cases?’

  His mouth tightened. ‘Indecency cases?’

  ‘Yes, we all heard what she said last night. Silje. He was an old pig, she said. And she called him Uncle Klaus. Was he her uncle?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘She comes from a farm further down the valley. Almelid. Her mother is Klaus’s sister.’

  ‘Has she been questioned, too?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Where is she then?’

  ‘She was given permission to go home.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Her parents collected her.’

  ‘But … she confessed!’

  He seemed to project his lips forward, forming a kind of funnel, supposedly perhaps to signal profound scepticism. ‘I wasn’t very convinced by that, Veum.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well …’ He thrust a hand between us. From one finger to the next he counted his points. ‘First of all, it was Jan Egil holding the weapon when the constable observed them on the way up the mountainside. Secondly, the murders were executed in such a brutal fashion it is difficult to believe that they were committed by a sixteen-year-old girl. Thirdly, it was Jan Egil who spoke up during the w
hole dialogue with the police, if we can call it that, and fourthly, there was nothing at all to suggest that anyone else was responsible for what had happened until she burst out with this, er, statement. Sort of hysteria, if you ask me.’

  ‘She said the same thing to me earlier when I was negotiating with them up in the scree.’

  ‘Nevertheless. It seems totally unfounded.’

  ‘Even though we’re assuming that this Uncle Klaus had abused her?’

  ‘We know nothing about that, Veum. And why would she take Kari’s life as well?’

  I threw out my arms. ‘She was in a frenzy. If you’ve shot one person … I assume you haven’t released her for good?’

  He gave me a condescending look and checked his watch. ‘She’s on her way now. We’re going to have a long chat with her, Veum. And she’ll be examined by a doctor.’

  ‘Has she got herself a solicitor, too?’

  ‘One of the local ones, Øygunn Bråtet. Furthermore, fru Mellingen from social services spent the night up there, in the same house as her.’

  There was a knock at the door, and Reidar Ruset opened. He nodded to me before turning to Standal. ‘The solicitor says Jan Egil is ready again.’

  The sergeant acknowledged the information. ‘Good, let’s get going.’

  ‘What shall I do?’ I said.

  He eyed me as if he wasn’t quite sure. ‘I can’t see that we have an urgent need for your services right now, Veum. But if you’re not too busy it would be nice if you’d stay in Førde for at least a couple more days.’

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘You’ll have to do what you can to kill time.’

  I nodded slowly. Fine by me. But I was not at all sure he would like the way I would do it.

  ‘At any rate, I’ll have to pick up my car. Can I pass you the taxi bill?’

  ‘As long as you don’t take the scenic route, yes. That’s fine.’

  Five minutes later I was sitting in the back seat of a taxi past Førdehus, the culture house, towards Angedalen. Halfway up, we passed a car with several passengers. For a second or two I met Grethe’s eyes through one of the side windows, it was so quick that the smiles we sent missed each other.

  24

  I paid for the taxi and walked to my car. The contrast with the evening before was striking. Now the abandoned Mini was the only vehicle left, like a boat that had hit a reef and no one had managed to free yet. I patted the bonnet with encouragement to tell it the waiting time was over; soon we would be on the road again.

  Angedalen showed itself from a different side now that it was bathed in daylight, although it was still enshrouded by the low-lying greyish-white cloud between the mountains. The very end of the long valley had been wide and open. Here the valley narrowed between Sandfjellet and Skruklefjellet to the north, and Tindefjellet to the south, according to the map I kept in the car. The first snow of the year lay up here, white stains, that is, if it wasn’t from the previous winter which had not yet let go.

  Farms lay dotted about, some of them right down at the bottom of the valley, others further up. In front of what I recognised from newspaper photos as Libakk Farm, I saw several parked cars, among them a police patrol car, and I saw two people in the forensic department’s white overalls carrying a cardboard box from the farmhouse to the car before returning. It was impossible to say which farm was called Almelid, but I assumed the farm on the slope opposite Libakk must have been Lia.

  There was a strange calm hanging over the whole valley, as if everything was as it should be and nothing dramatic had happened. Nonetheless, I sensed a tension, as if nature were holding its breath before the next eruption, and I guessed I was not the only person following the activity around the police car at Libakk; inside every house in Angedalen I was sure someone was walking to the window at regular intervals to check if the car was still there.

  But there was not a great deal I could do here today without upsetting the apple cart. Instead I got into my car, reversed down the slope, turned round and drove back down the straight road to Førde.

  I rang Cecilie from a telephone box in Bergen. She had already had an unpleasant feeling in her bones when she read the full page spread in the papers that morning, but it still came as a shock to have her suspicions confirmed. ‘Thank you for ringing and telling me, though, Varg.’

  ‘But … there was one thing I was wondering if you could check on for me.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Could you try and find out where Jan’s mother is staying, and how she is? I suppose someone has had the gumption to tell her.’

  She hesitated for a second. ‘Mette Olsen, you mean?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘And one more thing. You don’t have Hans Haavik’s number handy, do you?’

  ‘Just a mo.’ I heard her flicking through a telephone book, and straight after I got the number, which I jotted down in my notebook.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll ring you back in an hour or so to find out if you’ve tracked her down.’

  We finished the conversation and I rustled together some more coins to phone Hans Haavik. He was still at the child reception centre in Åsane, but when I got through he wasn’t available. ‘He’s in Førde,’ a colleague of his told me. ‘He left as soon as he was told.’

  ‘Told what?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can say.’

  ‘Never mind. I know what it’s about. I’m in Førde myself. You don’t know where he’s staying, do you?’

  ‘He must be in one of the hotels there.’

  ‘OK. I’ll find him then. Bye.’

  I came out of the telephone box. The low-lying cloud seemed to have advanced even closer. I was in the semi-dark in the middle of the day. It looked as if it wouldn’t be long before it rained again.

  I went back to the police offices and asked if Grethe Mellingen was there. The officer behind the counter could confirm that she was, and after a little to-ing and fro-ing I was allowed inside.

  Grethe got up off a chair and smiled. ‘Varg …’ She came towards me and put her arms around my neck. ‘Good to see you.’

  ‘You, too. How’s it going?’

  She stood close to me, so close that I had problems focusing my eyes. ‘She’s being questioned now, accompanied by her solicitor.’

  ‘Yes, I heard someone had been appointed for her. Is she sticking to her statement?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And her parents?’

  ‘They’re being interviewed in a different office.’

  ‘All systems go, I can see. Tell me … how was the night?’

  ‘The little that was left, you mean?’

  She pulled an ironic smile. Her face was drawn and pale. She hadn’t put on any make-up, and her eyebrows looked light and blonde. Her lips were dry with narrow cracks in them, her hair still tangled after the rain.

  ‘Well, I was given a sofa and a rug at Almelid Farm. The sergeant insisted I stayed with her, in case of any crises. But there wasn’t anything. I dozed off for about half an hour, or that was how it felt anyway, but we had a tough job getting Silje out of bed. She refused point-blank. That was why we were so late arriving here.’

  ‘And her parents? How did they take it?’

  ‘They’re in shock, pretty much. You can imagine. As if it wasn’t bad enough hearing that Klaus Libakk and his wife had been brutally murdered, then they had to hear what Silje had said … They didn’t seem to take it in, they seemed to be in denial.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘And there’s one more thing you should know, Varg.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Silje is not their daughter by birth. She’s adopted, too.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded several times, as if underlining what she had said.

  ‘So … she and Jan Egil are in the same boat, in a way.’

  ‘In more ways than one, I’m afraid.’

  I studied her, waiting. ‘In which ways then?’
/>
  ‘Her real father was killed … it must have been ten or eleven years ago. A row connected with some contraband case. Alcohol.’

  A memory stirred faintly. ‘And his name was?’

  ‘Ansgår Tveiten.’

  25

  She met my gaze. ‘Does the name ring a bell?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so. It certainly complicates the picture a bit further.’

  ‘Do you remember the case?’

  ‘No, but I was told about it, in the briefest of outlines, ten years ago.’

  ‘In what connection?’

  ‘Believe it or not, it was in fact to do with Jan Egil.’

  Now her jaw was the one to drop. ‘What! Tell me …’

  I had to ransack my brain. ‘If I remember correctly, it was something to do with Ansgår Tveiten being killed somewhere round here.’

  She nodded. ‘It was near Bygstad, at the far end of Dals fjord. He was found by the water’s edge, half-dragged under an old boat-house.’

  ‘In 1973, I think it was.’

  ‘Could well be right. But the case was never solved. It was obviously quickly written off as the settling of a score inside the province’s criminal fraternity.’

  ‘Right. The main suspect, however, was supposed to have been a hard nut from Bergen. Someone by the name of Terje Hammersten. The name mean anything to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was Tveiten’s brother-in-law.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Tveiten was married to his sister. I don’t recall her name, but I can find out.’

  ‘Trude,’ she said. ‘Silje’s mother.’

  ‘My God! Are there any other connections? Where is this Trude now?’

  ‘I believe she lives in Dale. That was the last I heard of her. She’s supposed to have recovered, so they say, but there was never any talk of Silje going back … there.’