The Consorts of Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

  ‘But that was taken into account during the trial, wasn’t it?’

  ‘To a certain extent. But one character witness after another spoke up for the husband. The Counsel for the Prosecution had done a very good job there.’

  ‘Sounds to me as if you’d have preferred to work with the defence.’

  She said drily: ‘Now and then it can be like that, when you’ve seen all the nuances. We investigators are victims of the case; we’re much closer to the case than the lawyers. And among other victims of the case I include the accused just as much as the real victims.’

  ‘Yes, I can remember several of the witnesses myself. I was in court for a couple of the days.’

  Vadheim cleared his throat, to join the conversation. ‘You said something on the phone about new information, Veum.’

  ‘Yes, listen to this.’ In broad outline, I told them what I had heard about Svein Skarnes and the smuggling racket.

  They listened attentively. In the end, Vadheim said: ‘But all you have is allegations made by this Dale, an ex-employee of Skarnes. No concrete evidence, no documentation.’

  ‘Would he have any reason to lie though?’

  ‘Maybe not. But you never know. An ex-employee, conflicts in the workplace, chance to get back at …’

  ‘Yes, but Skarnes has been dead for ten years. How can you get back at someone who’s been in his grave since 1974?’

  ‘No, you’re right, of course.’

  I turned back to Cecilie Lyngmo. ‘When you questioned Vibecke Skarnes long ago … what sort of impression did you have of the marriage?’

  ‘As I’ve already said, and the main point of the defence’s plea was that Vibecke Skarnes was an abused housewife who happened to push her husband down the stairs and accidentally kill him. She painted a very credible picture of a tragic marriage. They didn’t have children, either, until they adopted one. And he was a pretty restless chap. She had little to be happy about and received minimal understanding from her husband. On top of that, she hinted that he had committed a number of infidelities without covering up any more than he was absolutely duty-bound to do. I remember she was very suspicious of his secretary.’

  ‘A classic affair, in that case. I met her by the way. The secretary. Fru, or was it frøken? Berge or Borge, I think.’

  ‘Well, all this is history now. She was sentenced, and the appeal was unsuccessful. Now she’s out. So what use would any new information be?’

  I shrugged. ‘Justice is a word in my dictionary,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but what’s the point? The husband’s dead, as you said. The wife’s served her sentence. The son …’

  ‘Exactly. The son, or the adopted son, to be accurate. He’s alive, and right now he’s locked up, charged with a double murder in Angedalen.’

  She glanced at Vadheim. ‘Yes, you mentioned something about that.’ Then she turned back to me. ‘And this is the same boy?’

  ‘One of the many parallels between these cases.’ I went through the case for them, including the connection between Klaus Libakk, Svein Skarnes and the smuggling ring. ‘And one more thing,’ I concluded. ‘When I was talking to Jan Egil, we eventually touched on what happened in 1974. And then he said something which never came out at the time, neither during the police questioning nor at the trial.’

  I had their undivided attention.

  ‘He claimed that while he was sitting in the lounge playing with his toys he heard the doorbell ring. Then someone arguing with his father.’

  ‘Yes, the mother,’ Vadheim said.

  ‘But she didn’t need to ring. She had a key.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but if she knew her husband was at home anyway.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t make sense. At least there’s an element of doubt here. Someone might have visited Svein Skarnes that day. It could’ve been Terje Hammersten, for example.’

  ‘Hammersten! So that’s why you wanted to know what we had on him.’

  ‘At any rate, this Harald Dale claims that Hammersten physically threatened Skarnes several times in 1973 in connection with the debt he was left with, after the smuggling business fell apart in Sogn and Fjordane earlier that year.’

  ‘But why didn’t all of this come out at the time?’

  ‘Because Dale was too scared to risk his own skin, of course. And, if we are to believe the rumours, Hammersten had shown what he was capable of when he did Ansgår Tveiten in. But, as you said on the phone earlier today, Vadheim: It’s never been easy to pin anything on him.’

  ‘And the same applies now. As long as all this is pure speculation. Here at the station we need tangible proof.’

  ‘I know. So what have you got on him from the past?’

  Vadheim sighed and held out a thick file. ‘Look. This is our friend Terje Hammersten’s record. Fat, heavy and not very delectable. Most of it’s trivial stuff, frequent use of violence in connection with threats. He’s what they used to call a torpedo in America, a heavy.’

  I opened my palms. ‘There you go!’

  ‘But never anything big. Just minor matters. He’s had a few relatively short prison terms.’

  ‘Yes, I can remember he got one in 1970.’

  He nodded, distracted. ‘The longest stretch he had was two years.’ He flicked through the pile of papers. ‘From 1976 to ’78. I see there’s a lot of material about the Bygstad killing, too, but he had a cast-iron alibi in Bergen, so nothing there.’

  ‘The alibi was drinking pals, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but there are several … neighbours. The man who ran the grocery where they bought beer. A prostitute he’d been with.’

  ‘Easy enough to get if you lean hard on the right people. Or if you have some cash to wave around. But you didn’t manage to crack the alibis, I see.’

  ‘No, not that time. And now it’s definitely too late.’

  I nodded. ‘What about the other case I asked you to dig up? That’s even older.’

  ‘Yes.’ He took out another file, considerably thinner, and opened it. ‘The case against David Pettersen and Mette Olsen, November 1966. He was given eight years, she was acquitted. He topped himself after the sentence was pronounced.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But … were they picked up at customs by chance, or were there grounds for suspecting them?’

  He began to flick through.

  ‘She thought they’d been set up,’ I added.

  He took out the documents from the case file and flicked through to the end. Then he nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. An anonymous telephone call, it says here. August 30th, 13.05. The same afternoon they were nabbed.’

  ‘A telephone call? Where from? From Copenhagen?’

  ‘Nope. From Bergen.’

  ‘From Bergen! Was any attempt ever made to trace the call?’

  He nodded again. ‘It would certainly have helped the defence during the trial. But they never got any further than one of the telephone booths at the railway station.’

  ‘But who the hell would want to inform on them in Bergen? I assume the drugs were coming here?’

  ‘Here, and maybe travelling further. We’ll never know. But think back, Veum. This was in 1966, right at the beginning of the new drugs boom. It was still tied up with dope romanticism and hash heaven, sex ’n’ drugs ’n’ rock ’n’ roll. No one knew about the consequences, what tragedies and misery it would lead to for coming generations.’

  ‘What are you driving at?’

  ‘Well, I mean … there was big money to be made with hash at that time, and there were lots of dogs after the same bone.’

  ‘You mean … it could have been someone competing in the same market?’

  ‘Someone. Anyone. What do I know?’ He thrust out his arms. ‘Anyway, there was a telephone call, and the police rang customs. They were stopped at customs, and the rest we know.’

  ‘So what’s the common theme here, Vadheim?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘But can’t you see it? The theme is s
muggling.’

  ‘Smuggling?’

  ‘Yes! From Mette Olsen and this David Pettersen, who are apprehended at Flesland airport, to Ansgår Tveiten, who is killed in Bygstad, to Svein Skarnes, who falls down the stairs in Bergen, and to the Libakk couple who are killed in Angedalen almost exactly a week ago.’

  ‘Aren’t you jumping to conclusions now, Veum? You can interpret all of this in a completely different way, too. The common theme for the first two cases is smuggling, that’s right. But the first one’s about narcotics, the second alcohol, which at that time were two very different markets. And as far as Svein Skarnes is concerned … he falls victim to a marital dispute in which the theme might just as easily have been abuse or infidelity.’ He looked to Cecilie Lyngmo for help and found it in the form of an affirmative nod. ‘This Angedalen double murder seems to have been triggered by sexual abuse, in other words, it’s a family affair. You could just as easily say that all of this goes off in a variety of directions. Hard to say what we can do, in my opinion.’

  ‘But Hammersten may have been involved in all of the cases.’

  ‘May have been? All we have is vague rumours about some connection with the Tveiten murder in 1973.’

  ‘And he lived with Mette Olsen!’

  ‘After she got into drugs, yes. But in 1966 she was with David Pettersen.’

  I leaned forward. ‘At least do me one favour, Vadheim. As soon as he’s back in town … bring him in for a – talk. Have a chat with him.’

  He viewed me with scepticism. ‘With Hammersten? On this evidence? Hardly, Veum. Hardly.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to do it myself.’

  ‘Would you take the risk?’

  ‘If no one else dares, then …’

  43

  Marianne Storetvedt received me at the same office as in 1974. Bryggen Museum and the new SAS hotel had been up a long time on the other side of the bay, but apart from that the view was the same. She hadn’t changed much, either. She still reminded me of a Hollywood star from the early fifties, glamorous and with the slightly old-fashioned, glossy hairstyle: Rita Hayworth in a role she filled to perfection, to everyone’s surprise. But her attire was not very provocative and the clear signs of wrinkles on her face would hardly have been accepted by Columbia Pictures.

  She listened without interrupting while I told her about Jan Egil and all the other developments in the case since she had treated him in 1974. A couple of times she jotted something down in the notebook on her lap.

  When I had finished, she nodded her head in acknowledgement as if I had passed an exam. ‘A classic tale, I’m afraid,’ she said.

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘The art of creating a psychopath.’

  ‘You’re thinking about – Jan Egil?’

  She lowered her head in affirmation. ‘I think we talked about this last time. He was already exhibiting clear signs then of early emotional damage, what we in the profession call a reactive attachment disorder. If parents only knew how important the first years of life are for their children, Varg!’

  ‘In this case, neither parent was even present. Well, one was, but not a hundred per cent. The mother was on drugs when he was born.’

  ‘Even more typical. Here it’s the frequent shifting of carers that creates the problem, on top of the primary carer – in this case the mother – not being stable enough, being on drugs, at least for long periods. A child like this will develop its own primary personality based on rejection. It becomes the fundamental emotion this child will feel most at home with, even when grown up – and then often with tragic consequences.’

  ‘I see. So if you were to be a character witness in the case against Jan Egil …’

  She interrupted me. ‘I wouldn’t be able to do that, of course. I haven’t followed his development for the last ten years. I’m only giving my opinion in general terms, Varg. But, by and large, it’s not so unusual for children with this kind of background to perform criminal actions at a very young age. Often directed against adoptive or foster parents who in a way are there in loco parentis, ones who, voluntarily or involuntarily, failed them.’

  ‘But not in such a dramatic manner as this, I hope?’

  ‘No, but it could be hooliganism, it could be theft – of cars, for example – or other anti-social actions. Such as smashing up the foster father’s car. Sometimes with a fatal conclusion for them both, or anyone else they might meet on a joyride. If people only realised …’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like you’ll be invited to the witness box by his defence counsel, anyway. More likely by the prosecution, sad to say.’

  ‘We’ll have to see what the investigation turns up before we make our final judgement…’

  ‘For Jan Egil, of course, it’s a big problem that the murder weapon has no fresh prints on it other than his. Could it be that he wasn’t aware of the consequences of his actions?’

  ‘You mean if he wasn’t the murderer? That he might conceivably have come to the crime scene after the murders had taken place and picked up the weapon without thinking? Then taken it with him when escaping from the police, out of fear of being blamed?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Being governed by sudden impulses, and therefore capable of carrying out imprudent actions, would not clash at all with the picture of the personality I broadly sense here, no.’

  ‘Right. Well, at least there’s some light in the tunnel, if I can call it that.’

  We sat for a while in a somewhat uneasy silence. I noticed her scrutinising me. ‘You look troubled. Is there something bothering you?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing apart from the fact that I have a son myself, thirteen years old, who I might not have been a hundred per cent present for in the first years of his life. I don’t know if you remember, but we … split up when he was two years old.’

  She smiled gently. ‘Have you had any problems with him?’

  ‘Not that I’ve been aware of, no.’

  ‘So why the concern? My God, with all the divorces we have nowadays … and all the children of divorced parents! We would’ve had an avalanche of psychopaths if they’d all had reactive attachment disorders. I’m talking about relatively few unhappy souls, Varg, and we must not forget that some of this is genetically determined.’ She laid her hand on mine and patted it comfortingly. ‘So you can relax. Your son will be absolutely fine.’

  ‘But I’m not only concerned about him. I can’t get Jan Egil out of my mind, either. I’ve met him at three stages of his life. As a helpless little child, as an apathetic and aggressive six-year-old, and now as an unbalanced and somewhat complicated teenager. The period in 1974 when Cecilie, Hans and I looked after him like … well, like a married couple and an uncle, we were all of the same opinion … that he could have been our own child, Marianne! Our common foster child.’

  ‘But then remember what I said. The reactive disorders emerge during the first years of life. An adopted child you know nothing about can be a time bomb. We see this most clearly with foreign adoptions, children from slum areas or – even worse – a war zone. But then you know the child’s background and you know it’s bad news. If the mother was on drugs during the pregnancy, it means he will be born with withdrawal symptoms, if I can phrase it like that. Suddenly he no longer has access to what the tiny body was used to in the mother’s womb. There is no father at hand, and he has a mother who either isn’t there – because he’s in a clinic for infants – or when she is there, she’s barely capable of looking after him properly.’ She leaned forward and locked her intense eyes on mine. ‘Neither Cecilie, Hans nor you could have done anything for Jan Egil, Varg!’

  ‘That is a terribly defeatist view of life, Marianne.’

  She looked at me sadly. ‘I’m afraid not. It’s statistics. And experience.’

  ‘Hans feels the same way. He told me … I don’t want to be indiscreet, but he’s decided to give up. He can no longer face all these failures, all these never-ending projects, all thi
s work that appears to be in vain.’

  ‘But there are lots of successful treatments, too.’

  ‘That’s what I said. But he’s given up, as I said. He wants a total break.’

  ‘Well …’ She threw up her hands. ‘We all feel like that at some point. How’s your business going, by the way?’

  ‘As a private eye?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m into my tenth year now. And I haven’t gone bust yet, even though it’s been a close thing a couple of times.’

  She smiled again and nodded with sympathy. Then she stood up. ‘Should you need me again, you know where to find me.’

  We gave each other a friendly hug, and I left. On the way downstairs I wondered how she was, actually. But that was probably one more of those questions I would never find an answer to.

  44

  We were getting nowhere.

  For a week or two I played detective at the state’s expense. I paid a call on the grocer who had given Hammersten the alibi in 1973. He had become a pensioner in the meantime and pretended he didn’t remember a thing, neither about Hammersten, nor about what he had said or hadn’t said eleven years ago. I tried to trace the prostitute who had also given him an alibi, but she had vanished off the face of the earth a few years afterwards, without anyone worrying too much on her account. ‘One of those deaths that receive scant scrutiny and are then shelved,’ Vadheim confided. ‘Christ, Vadheim! She was one of the key witnesses in the Hammersten investigation.’ ‘I doubt if anyone made the connection in 1976, Veum …’ Finding the drinking pals from that time proved to be just as fruitless. Some of them were dead; others had decimated their remaining brain cells with persistent over-indulgence over a long, wasted life. The only one I managed to get to speak to me, a dried-out alcoholic by the name of Peder Jansen, was so frightened when I mentioned Terje Hammersten’s name that he sat trembling for the rest of the conversation, as if afflicted by unbearable withdrawal symptoms. Casting doubt on his alibi at this time proved, not unsurprisingly, to be impossible.