The Consorts of Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

  According to what was passed down from Grethe’s ancestors, a romance sprang up between Maria and Mads that winter and the spring of 1839; and the winter up in Trodalen was long, the snow didn’t begin to clear until the end of April, even in June there were still great drifts left along the sunless mountainsides by the black mirror of Lake Trodalsvatn. There was something ominous and compelling about the lake, as though it, even at that time, concealed secrets it would not give up, memories of the past that were forever sunk beneath the depths. Mads often roamed in the mountains, hunting birds, deer or other game. He had set snares which he checked at regular intervals, and on not so few occasions during these wanderings he came to the mountain ridge at the end of the lake whence he could look down on Angedalen, at the farm where Jens and Maria had grown up. Sometimes they met there, he and Maria, and when May arrived and the sun began to warm, they embraced each other tenderly and vowed eternal fidelity …

  ‘…. My mother told me,’ Grethe said, still with her hand on the bible, as if the images were growing directly from the thin page where the family line had been drawn up.

  ‘Did she also tell you what happened on that June day when Ole Olsen Otternæs was killed up there?’

  ‘That’s precisely the point of all this, Varg, my love. Now listen to the valley drama …

  ‘When there is a confession it very soon becomes the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about past events. But in this case there was another version, hidden and clutched to the bosom of six generations of women, like a secret shame, kept alive by the family’s bad conscience about what really took place.

  ‘The second version of the Trodalen murder went as follows. On this particular Wednesday Maria Hansdottir had fled her life on the farm. Perhaps she was hoping to meet Mads again on this beautiful sunny summer’s day. The heat was making her blood pump extra hard through her veins, so much so that she could hardly bear being down on the farm, she just had to be up in the mountains where the person who was in her thoughts day and night was to be found. But ill luck was to have it that when she had climbed up to Trodalen and was on her way down to the lake, she bumped into Ole Otternæs, the dealer who only a short time before had taken his leave of Mads Andersen in Trodalsstrand. They stood and exchanged a few words, then she tried to move on. The dealer would not budge. Perhaps it was the summer heat that had gone to his head, too; perhaps it was the long period of abstinence that caused him to make a grab with lustful hands for the young girl. He was strong, strengthened from walking in the mountains. She struggled, screamed for help, the way the Arctic loon screeches at the steep faces of the mountains. But he would not let go. He burrowed up under her clothes with his strong hands until she screamed with fear and pain. Then she seized a rock lying on the ground and brought it down hard on the dealer’s head – once, twice, three times! His rough hands let go of her body and he began to slip to the ground. Once again she struck, in fear and fury, until Ole Olsen Otternæs lay lifeless before her.

  ‘Then she was gripped by a fear greater than anything she had ever felt before. She knew now that she had committed a deadly sin, and that the gates of hell would open and swallow her up as soon as her time had come. She was sentenced to eternal unrest, eternal fire, and the fear she felt now was so strong that she thought she would drop down dead on the path she was treading with such quaking feet. There was only one way to go she knew of: down to the water, down to a certain death.

  ‘However, Mads Andersen was coming to meet her. He had heard the cry of the Arctic loon, and he recognised the sound. Now he took her in his arms, held her tight, let her tears flow and ebb, and eventually followed her to where Ole Olsen lay, to see what wretched state he was in.

  ‘She stood at a distance watching Mads examine the lifeless body, and when he came back down to her, she realised from his posture that all hope was gone.

  ‘But then he gave her fresh hope, indeed he redeemed her, took her sin upon himself and said: Let me take care of this, Maria. Just go home. I’ll drop Ole Olsen Otternæs into the depths of the lake, and may he never return! Maria left him there and then, and that was the last time they spoke together. Later she was to see him only once, when after five days he was taken to the village by men from the neighbouring farm and from there to Førde with the bailiff and his assistants the following day.’

  ‘He confessed to the murder,’ I said. ‘For her sake.’

  Her eyes met mine. ‘Does that sound familiar?’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘The rest of the story is well-known. He had taken a few banknotes and valuables from Ole Olsen and they were found on him. He confessed and was given his punishment. Not until many years afterwards, in 1881, was he released from Akershus prison. By then Maria had been dead for twenty-two years. She died in 1859, unmarried and without any heirs, apart from her apparently fatherless daughter, Kristine, who herself had a daughter after what we today would call a gang-bang, in 1863. My great grandmother, who was given the name Margrethe.’

  ‘And Maria never came forward with what she knew about the Trodalen murder?’

  ‘Not to anyone’s knowledge. She confided it to this.’ She gently patted the opened book with her hand. ‘The truth follows our family down from woman to woman.’

  ‘And now to me …’

  ‘But you swore an oath!’

  ‘Yes … and I stand by it. So many years afterwards, Mads Andersen’s reputation doesn’t count for so much, so long as his only descendant …’ With a flourish of my hand I indicated her. ‘… is happy to leave it like that.’

  ‘But the upshot of this, Varg, did you catch it?’

  I nodded. ‘Never rely on what is said. A case is rarely what it seems at first glance.’

  ‘Then I’ve achieved what I set out to do,’ she said, closing the book with care and putting it on the bedside table. A fragrance arose from her body like mountain and sun, a scent of mothers past.

  ‘Is that everything?’

  She rolled onto her side and slid open her thighs. ‘But I could easily handle a repeat performance,’ she said with a pert smile, pulling me close.

  37

  The day after was a depressing contrast, one long unbroken decline from the hectic breakfast at Hornnes, after which Grethe had to drive me in all haste to the hotel because she herself was in danger of arriving late for the morning meeting at work.

  At the hotel the mood was one of leave-taking. A press conference had been set for twelve o’clock and the reporters who were still in Førde took the agenda as read. The next item would be the court case and the fixing of a date.

  ‘That’s bad,’ I concluded as soon as I had had my impression confirmed via a telephone conversation with Helge Haugen from Firda Tidend. The pathologist’s and the forensics report pointed very clearly in one direction, and Haugen said that a source of his at the police offices had ascertained that in the course of the day Jan Egil Skarnes would be charged with the double murder and held on remand until the case came to trial, incommunicado for the first four weeks.

  I thanked him for the information and looked at my watch. There was still an hour and a half until the press conference.

  In much the same way that Maria Hansdottir had her Trodalen Mads, Jan Egil had his Silje. It was the last loose thread. I decided to do a bit of unravelling and with the aid of the telephone directory found where Øygunn Bråtet had her office. She had her base in shared office space on the second floor of one of the commercial buildings to the south of the river, east of Lange Bridge.

  A reticent secretary told me that Bråtet was extremely busy this morning. I turned on the last remnants of charm I had and against all the odds got to speak to her in the front office.

  ‘How can I help you?’ she said in a measured tone.

  ‘I was thinking about Silje. She’s something of a key character in this case.’

  ‘Not any more she isn’t.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘She’s withdrawn her
confession.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘She admitted she’d done it to help Jan Egil.’

  ‘And what caused her to change her mind?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘A press conference has been called for twelve, Veum. All will be revealed then. You’ll have to turn up.’

  ‘Where’s Silje now?’

  ‘At home on the farm. But …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t try and visit her. She’s not talking to anyone.’

  ‘It was more her foster parents I fancied a couple of words with.’

  ‘For what reason, if I might ask?’

  ‘Well … there’s the question of inheritance hanging in the air. Fru Almelid is, to my knowledge, the only heir to Libakk.’

  ‘And what does that have to do with this case?’

  ‘And there are all the other aspects. The 1973 smuggling business, amongst others.’

  ‘And what was that supposed …?’ She broke off and shook her head. ‘Tell me … Who are you representing actually?’

  ‘For the time being, your colleague, Jens Langeland.’

  ‘Uhuh.’ She didn’t seem to appreciate that. ‘Well, if you’re considering visiting the Almelid family, it won’t be without me being present.’

  ‘OK, but … when?’

  ‘It can’t be before the press conference at any rate.’

  ‘You were thinking of going, too, in other words?’

  ‘I was, yes. So, if I can get on with the day’s business until then, I …’

  ‘See you there then.’

  ‘There will be no avoiding that.’

  She nodded and left me with the red-haired secretary, who had not become less reticent as a result of overhearing the conversation between Øygunn Bråtet and myself. I saluted a goodbye and went on my way.

  There was not much else I could do but wait for the said press conference. I bought some newspapers and had a cup of coffee at a café by Lange Bridge.

  The double murder had moved to the back pages now. Outcome Awaited ran one headline. Double Murder Solved ran another, without any question marks. No one had picked up on the connection with the murder of Ansgår Tveiten. Only Helge Haugen of Firda Tidend hinted at a connection with ‘the great smuggling ring that ravaged the district in 1973’, without going into any detail about what connections there could be.

  Nevertheless, the large meeting room at the police station where the press conference was to be held was fairly full. They had put three tables together for a panel presentation. All the chairs were occupied. I nodded to Helge Haugen who had taken one of the front seats and was sitting ready with his notebook open. Further away, at the table, sat Øygunn Bråtet. I stood by one of the windows, leaning against the frame with my back to the daylight. When Sergeant Standal, a police official and the KRIPOS detective responsible came in, a storm of flashes went off and everyone eyed the new arrivals with excitement.

  Standal seemed almost abashed. The police official looked as if he had won the pools. He was a young man with plain glasses and a well-trimmed beard, to all appearances a newly-fledged lawyer. The well-built KRIPOS detective regarded the whole thing as routine and didn’t allow himself to be affected.

  Right behind them came Jens Langeland. He quickly scanned the audience and then took up a discreet position by the door. Spotting me, he gave a brief nod and gestured that he would like to talk to me afterwards.

  Standal raised one hand in the air and the room fell silent. He had a typed statement on the table in front of him. Without raising his voice he read out the decision to charge Jan Egil Skarnes with the murder of his two foster parents and subsequently firing a shot at police officers. Reference was made to the relevant paragraphs and attention drawn to a meeting to be called later in the day to discuss remand. As a basis for the charges, reference was made to the investigation and to the reports, now available, after the pathologist’s and the forensic examination. The findings were so clear that the police considered it reasonable to draw up charges. However, Standal informed the gathering that the investigation would continue at full strength with the intention of collecting further evidence until the case came to trial. The KRIPOS detective nodded in approval.

  When the floor was opened to questions, Helge Haugen was quick to respond. ‘But there was also a hostage drama in Angedalen, wasn’t there?’

  Standal fumbled for words before saying: ‘Until further notice, he is not charged with taking this girl from the neighbouring farm prisoner. The evidence suggests that she went with him of her own free will.’

  ‘Isn’t there a chance then that she might be charged with being an accomplice?’

  ‘Not at the present time,’ Standal rebuffed. ‘But we are continuing our investigation, as I said.’

  The police official added: ‘At present there is no basis for any charges against this girl. Our preliminary conclusions are that she was unaware of what had transpired at Libakk Farm when she accompanied the accused up to Trodalen.’

  I looked at Jens Langeland. His expression gave away nothing, but I could actually see him boiling inside. I would have liked to put up my hand and ask: ‘But isn’t it the case that this young girl actually confessed to carrying out both of these murders?’ I would have liked to see the reactions of the press corps and the high-ranking gentlemen at the end of the table, if such a claim were to be made, but it didn’t take me long to repress my inclinations. There were still some people in the room with whom I envisaged friendly relations, and an initiative of that kind would have put an abrupt end to that.

  The questions from the floor soon dwindled and thereafter the press conference came to a close. Some radio and TV reporters wanted to ask the usual supplementary questions to the relevant police officials, but beyond that the gathering soon dispersed.

  Langeland was waiting for me in the vestibule. I drew him into a corner. ‘I have several snippets of information for you, Langeland.’

  ‘Already? My goodness. Come on then! Now I need everything I can get.’

  ‘A source told me yesterday that Klaus Libakk kept a large sum of money at the farm. The takings from the smuggling racket, which, naturally enough, cannot be paid into a normal bank account.’

  He viewed me with scepticism. ‘A sum of money from 1973? Which he has been able to eat into ever since? How much could have been left of it, do you think?’

  ‘Don’t know … But it could support the theory of a possible burglary, or at any rate an attempted burglary.’

  ‘Ye-es …’

  ‘But not only that, listen to this. The main person behind the contraband ring, according to the same source, was no other than Svein Skarnes!’

  He stared at me in disbelief. ‘Our Svein Skarnes, as it were?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I hastily retold all that Harald Dale had confided in me the previous evening, and with every turn the story took I could see his brain beginning to churn. Yet his excitement didn’t seem to be mounting, and when I came to Terje Hammersten’s role in the affair, I understood the reason.

  ‘Hell’s bells, Veum. If this is true then Vibecke really should have gone free that time! This is too terrible to contemplate. Now I definitely will have to have a serious talk with her as soon as I’m back in Oslo.’

  ‘Right, but that’s only one side of the matter. Now the police will be obliged to bring in Hammersten for questioning.’

  ‘Mm, I’ve told them! The problem is that they’re so fixated on the reports they now hold in their hands.’

  ‘Uhuh. Have you had access to them, too?’

  He looked at me gloomily. ‘Yes. And I’m afraid to say, even after a superficial perusal, things don’t look good.’

  ‘What! What do you mean by that?’

  ‘First of all, there are the fingerprints on the weapon. His and his alone. And there was a residue of gunpowder on his hands.’

  ‘Yes, but we know he fired the rifle when he ran away from the police.’

&
nbsp; ‘Yes, indeed, and we will have to pump that one for all it is worth. Of course. But to go on … there are his bootmarks at the crime scene, in the blood on the floor, and spores of the same blood under his boots. Both Klaus and Kari were killed with this weapon. There is no sign of a break-in. Quite the opposite. The spare key which hung in a cupboard in the hall was in place. Jan Egil had his own key on him. And then Silje retracted her confession. But!’ He thrust an upright finger in the air. ‘She is extremely vague in her statement about what happened there last weekend – and especially last Monday.’

  ‘What about the suggestions of abuse from Klaus Libakk’s side?’

  ‘Now she claims that that, too, was something she made up, in an attempt to justify what is now looking like a bogus confession. And the medical examination in fact supports her, even if she is not what in the profession is known as a virgo intacta.’

  ‘Yes, I’d been told about that. Her sexual debut was a fact.’

  ‘And to tell the truth I’m not sure it would’ve been to Jan Egil’s advantage if she had been abused by her uncle. If Silje and he were lovers, which there is every reason to assume they were, it simply gives him a strong motive for the killing.’

  ‘Yes, of course you’re right there. So … what do we do now?’

  ‘First off, I will insist that the police bring in Terje Hammersten for questioning. I will demand that his alibi for Sunday evening is checked, and the police will be able to do that a great deal more effectively than you or I, Veum. Then we can move on from there. Right now I don’t have any more ideas.’

  ‘When’s the review meeting?’

  ‘Half past three, I was told.’

  ‘Is it an open meeting – could I go?’

  ‘I haven’t been told it’s not open. But the press is not allowed to report on review meetings, so if you want to know how the case is being presented you should be there.’ He looked at his watch. ‘But now I have to go in to see Jan Egil. We’d better talk later.’

  We parted quickly, and he hurried back into the police offices. As I came out of the building, I saw Øygunn Bråtet on her way to Lange Bridge. I scurried after her and caught up with her by the pedestrian crossing on the other side of the river. When she saw me alongside her, she sent me a bittersweet little smile.