The Consorts of Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

  ‘Mm … he didn’t confide in you at all about any of these misdeeds, did he?’

  ‘No, but he complained a lot about what a bad father he had been to his son in Bergen. I don’t know if you remember I had some dealings with him, too?’

  ‘How can I forget that? That was how Hammersten got his alibi back in 1984.’

  ‘Yes, but you can just forget all that. Jan Egil has paid the penalty for the double murder, and now he’s got another damn murder on his hands …’

  ‘Are the police confident this time as well?’

  His brow darkened. ‘They found a bloodstained baseball bat in his room, Varg. And the boy has vanished into thin air. At first they didn’t know about his background. But then they made a few phone calls, to Førde and Bergen, and that was when all the alarm bells started ringing. I gave them Silje’s address. He wasn’t there, either. But they’ve got a full-scale search for him under way, and it can’t be long before they catch him, I hope.’

  ‘Silje’s address, can I have it, too? Is her name still Tveiten?’

  ‘Yes. I noted it down on his registration card when he moved in. It’s always good to have tabs on … relatives.’ He turned round, pulled out a drawer from the desk and lifted out a small grey card-index box. He flicked through to a card, checked it, leaned over and passed it to me.

  ‘Søren Jaabæks gate?’

  ‘Yes, it’s up in Iladalen. Right by the church.’

  ‘OK. I’ll find it.’

  ‘But what …?’

  ‘I only want to have a few words with her.’

  ‘I meant to ask you … What’s the point of this? Are you on some kind of investigation?’

  ‘No, this is more in the way of a preventive measure.’

  ‘Preventive?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t you say you had a key to the room … where the murder took place?’

  He looked at me, troubled. ‘Yes, I’ve got one. But theoretically it has been sealed off by the police.’

  ‘Properly sealed?’

  ‘No, just with plastic tape. But we can’t … I can’t let you do any more than stand at the doorway and peer in.’

  ‘It would be great just to have an impression of the room.’

  ‘But I still don’t understand … This is very much a police matter, Varg. There’s nothing you or I can do here.’

  ‘No, but you know what we’ve felt for the boy, right from the time he was Johnny boy to us.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Do you know if Jens Langeland is still his solicitor?’

  ‘No … I suppose he’s climbed a bit too high up the greasy pole for us mere mortals now. I guess you must have followed him in the press, too, haven’t you? The stellar barrister who goes from one momentous case to the next. Detached house on Holmenkollen ridge, chalet in the mountains, by the lake, you name it, he’s got it. Hats off to him. But you can seek an audience, if you’ve got some business to do.’

  ‘I might do that.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Well, shall we have a look at the flat?’

  ‘OK then … I’ve got the key here.’ He opened a drawer, took out a key and motioned to the door. ‘But I don’t know if I like this.’

  I didn’t, either. But I went with him up the two floors to the scene of the crime.

  48

  On the second floor we came to a halt in front of a door closed off with police tape. But there was no seal on the lock, and when Hans bent over the plastic ribbon and inserted the key, it was just a question of turning it, pressing down the handle and pushing the door, then we had standing room at the theatre where the drama had taken place.

  The door between the tiny hall and the room inside stood open, and through the doorway we could make out a spacious furnished sitting room. What caught my eye was the outline of a man on the floor, marked with white tape, and the big, dark stain on the wood where the head had been. There was a pattern of smaller spatter stains around the large one, and we could follow the trail of blood with our eyes to the hall where we were standing.

  ‘The murder weapon must have been dripping blood,’ Hans said. ‘That was the detective’s comment anyway.’

  ‘They should have every chance of finding bloodstains on his clothes too, by the look of it.’

  ‘Yes. He must have been literally spraying blood.’

  ‘Did anyone see him? Arriving at or leaving the crime scene?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘What about this Norvald Kristensen? Is it possible to grab a chat with him?’

  ‘If you can find him, that is. He went on the piss and hasn’t been seen since Monday.’

  ‘Another missing person, in other words?’

  ‘Norvald will turn up again, I reckon. All his things are here.’

  We stood staring at the large patch of blood for a while. I didn’t even need to close my eyes to visualise the massive blows or Terje Hammersten, who had collapsed after the first of them, and then the flurry of blows that followed as he lay there, lifeless on the floor, being beaten to an unrecognisable pulp by someone who must have hated him with a vehemence it was hard to imagine.

  ‘Hatred – or fear,’ I said to myself.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘The only thing that could make someone do something like this. Hatred or fear.’

  He nodded. ‘Have you seen enough now, do you think?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I turned away while he carefully closed and locked the door without touching the tape. We walked back down in silence.

  Hans accompanied me to the ground floor, stepped outside and cast a long look up and down the street before turning back to me. ‘And now your plan is to …?’

  ‘I’ll have to try Silje. We’re old friends, as you know.’

  He looked at me sternly, then shook my hand and said: ‘Well … if there’s anything else you want to discuss with an old colleague, you’ve got my number. Good luck!’

  ‘Same to you,’ I said, waving goodbye and leaving.

  Perhaps it was just the atmosphere of the scenario upstairs that was playing tricks on me, the unpleasant feeling of contemplating a crime scene, as if you were standing on the edge of something indefinably dark, the pull of a deep, apparently bottomless, precipice, but from the moment I left the house in Eiriks gate I had the oppressive sensation that I was being followed. I craned my neck round several times on the way from Tøyen to Grünerløkka, but I didn’t see anything remotely suspicious, neither on the pavements nor in the traffic. The vague sense of unease however didn’t leave me, and straightaway it was as if the town around me was changing character from being a medium-large, not particularly impressive capital city in a country with an overblown opinion of itself to something quite different and much more dangerous which it was difficult to put a name to …

  Søren Jaabæks gate lay at the top of Ildalen and the address I had been given had an entrance right next to a humble mustard-coloured brick church with a rectangular spire. Silje Tveiten lived on the basement floor, straight through the corridor and to the right. I stood at her door listening. Inside I could hear a child crying.

  I rang the bell. Immediately I heard movement, and the child’s crying came closer. After opening up, she stood there with the tiny tot in her arms. Its face was burning red, its mouth wide open, but the crying was beginning to shift into desperate sobbing, like a kind of realisation that there was no point anyway, there was no one who could provide solace and everyone was busy with their own whimpering soul.

  Silje’s eyes widened and she moved to slam the door shut in my face, but I wedged a foot in the crack and stopped her.

  ‘What d’you want?’

  ‘You remember me, Silje?’

  ‘Course I bloody recognise you! What d’you want, I asked!’

  ‘Just to talk to you. About Jan Egil.’

  ‘You’ve done enough harm to Jan Egil and me as it is! I don’t wanna listen to you.’

  ‘Yes,
I gather he … bears me a grudge.’

  Her face hardened. ‘You can bet on that!’

  ‘But let me in anyway! We can’t stand here … It’s not good for your child.’ I indicated the infant with my head. It suddenly went quiet as if it were listening to what was being said.

  She exploded with a small inarticulate outburst. Then she turned her back on me and retreated into the flat without a second glance. I closed the door behind me and followed.

  It wasn’t a large flat, a room with a kitchenette and a sleeping niche where a curtain was half drawn. Outside the curtain was a narrow cot, almost a camping model. On the bed there was a pile of toys; it must have been used as a playpen during the day. The furniture looked threadbare: a burgundy sofa with grey sides and worn edges, a well-used leather Ekornes chair, creased with wear, a coffee table with a maze of circles from glasses, bottles and beer cans thrust down at will. But the only things there now were an eggshell-coloured mug with a red pattern and a coffee stain round the rim, plus a child’s plastic mug with a lid and spout.

  ‘A boy?’

  She gave a surly nod.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Sølve.’

  ‘Nice name.’

  She grimaced. ‘You didn’t come here to chat, though, did you.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Can I sit down?’ I indicated the leather chair.

  She flourished an unoccupied arm and plumped down on the sofa while holding Sølve to her breast. He was beginning to roll his eyes and make a few small chugging sounds now. ‘He’s got colic,’ she explained, as if I was conducting an inspection for social services or some other public department.

  ‘He seems happy here,’ I said without much conviction in my voice.

  ‘Yes, fancy that – so he does!’ She flashed a defiant glare, as though used to being contradicted.

  ‘The last time we met was almost eleven years ago.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten, believe you me!’

  ‘No, I’m sure you haven’t.’

  I looked at her. She would have to be twenty-seven now, a grown-up woman. I recognised the girlish features I had only come face to face with a few times before, and perhaps I could see more of her mother in her now: that slightly aggressive, jumpy nature that can afflict people whose lives have been placed under council care. The ponytail was gone. Her hair had been cut short and given a sort of shape. It emphasised the narrowness of her face. Her mouth bore a disgruntled set, and her eyes flashed, blue and bitter. She did not seem very happy with her existence.

  ‘Would you tell me about Jan Egil and yourself?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  I leaned forward. ‘I’m here to help you, Silje.’

  ‘That’s what you said last time! But you lied, like all the others.’

  ‘I didn’t lie to anyone. I did what I could. But I’m afraid it wasn’t enough. The evidence was too strong, and there was nothing I could do about that.’

  ‘Jan Egil says you let him down. He should’ve shot you down while we were in Trodalen, he said. Then there would’ve been one less bastard in the world. It was your fault he was arrested.’

  I felt an unpleasant tingle between my shoulderblades. ‘Goodness me, he can’t blame me for that. Think of all the police there were. He would’ve been arrested whatever happened. He was the one who asked them to get me from Bergen.’

  ‘Yeah, precisely!’ Tears appeared in her eyes. ‘Because he trusted you from that time in Bergen when you’d been like … like a father to him.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘And then you – more than anyone else – let him down.’

  ‘But, my God …’

  ‘Yes, you’d better start praying if you believe him. I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes when Jan Egil finds you!’ Through the tears her mouth twisted into a taut grimace, a parody of a smile.

  ‘I’ve spoken to someone called Cecilie,’ I said. ‘She told me he had a kind of … that he told you who he was going to wreak his revenge on?’

  She studied me with her lips pursed and a glint of triumph in her eyes, as if relishing the hold she had over me. ‘Maybe,’ she whispered, so low that it was hard to catch.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Maybe, I said! You hard of hearing or what? He was gonna nail both you and that Terje Hammersten who was sleeping with his mother! And he didn’t have much time for the guy running the hospice, either.’

  ‘Hans Haavik.’

  ‘Yes, the one who buggered off with all the money that time, who inherited Libakk Farm.’

  ‘Right, do you mean … he was on his list, too?’

  ‘List?’

  ‘Yes, of the people he would take his revenge on.’

  ‘There was no list. They were just loose ends he had to tie up!’

  ‘He’s already dealt with Hammersten, I understand.’

  ‘So what. He’d killed others before, as far as I’m informed.’

  ‘You know about that?’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘My father in 1973. Jan Egil told me that.’

  ‘Listen, Silje. Tell me … what actually happened between you and Jan Egil? Why has he set out on this … this mission now of all times?’

  Her face was blank. ‘I don’t know anything about a mission. All I know is that when I was twenty I moved east to be close to where Jan Egil was. I knew he was in prison. When he started to get days out on probation, he came home to me, and we … we’ve always got on well, Jan Egil and me. We’re the same. Two of a kind. Nothing to hide.’ An expression of tenderness and wistfulness fell over her sad face. ‘Then … about two years ago I became pregnant. Sølve was born, and Jan Egil had yet another reason to behave properly, to get out and lead a normal existence, maybe for the first time in his wretched life. But it was not to be …’

  ‘Did you plan to live together?’

  She shook her head. She said quietly: ‘No. He didn’t, anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Ask him!’

  ‘But he was here, and he visited you, didn’t he?’

  ‘A few times. Not as often as I would’ve wished. I don’t know but … he seemed to be afraid. Afraid of being together with him, afraid of being in the same room as him.’

  ‘As … Sølve?’

  She nodded furiously. ‘Yes! As his own son!’

  ‘He might’ve been afraid of … he didn’t have the world’s greatest experience of fathers.’

  ‘And he was so restless! Fidgety. As though there was something he had to do – as if there was someone or something somewhere else. At any rate whatever it was, it wasn’t with me. In the end I was so tired of it that I was just glad if he went! I had been waiting for him here for so long, and when he finally got out he couldn’t settle to anything. He had to move on, somewhere else …’

  ‘So that was why he went to the hospice in Eiriks gate?’

  ‘Yes, he went there and met this Hammersten. You might not know this, but his mother had died. She died a year ago.’

  ‘Yes, I heard that. Did you have any contact with her?’

  ‘Not at all!’

  ‘But she lived up there, in the district, too. You must’ve bumped into her when you were visiting him?’

  ‘I saw her once. But when I asked him who it was, he just answered: Someone from the Red Cross. What was I s’posed to say to that? There was always someone from various organisations visiting the prisoners. It was only when she was dead that he told me who she was.’

  ‘I see. Let’s hang on to that thread for a moment. Hammersten. He met Hammersten again, you said. What did that lead to?’

  ‘You already know. He did him in – they say. They’ve been here too, the plods, of course.’ She gazed into the distance as if to recreate an image for her inner eye. ‘He came here late on Sunday night.’

  ‘Really, last Sunday?’

  She nodded. ‘I just wanted to talk to him, he said, completely out of his mind. Who? I asked. Hammersten! But he was dead and couldn�
��t tell me anything. I asked what had happened. And then he looked at me in despair: It wasn’t me, not this time either! But no one’ll believe me! – Yes, they will, Jan Egil! I said. No one! It’ll be just like last time, he answered. And that was when he suddenly changed tone: But I’ll kill them, every one of them! And then he reeled off the names of all the people he would get.’

  ‘And that was when he mentioned me?’

  ‘Yes, you and …’

  ‘Were there several on the list?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah … but right now I can only remember you.’

  ‘Jens Langeland, what about him?’

  ‘The solicitor?’

  ‘Yes, was he on the list?’

  ‘No, no, no. Course not! He’s still his solicitor and has always helped him.’

  ‘But he said that … it wasn’t him this time, either?’

  She nodded silently. I looked at her. The tiny boy had gone to sleep against her breast. For some reason a refrain from a Beatles song went through my head: Lady Madonna, children at your feet – wonder how you manage to make ends meet …

  Our eyes met. I said: ‘Tell me … where did he go after dropping in here?’

  ‘On Sunday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her eyes wandered off. ‘Dunno. He didn’t say anythin’ to me.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Silje … If he gets in touch, then …’ I took out one of my business cards, wrote my mobile phone number on the back and pushed it over the table to her. ‘Ask him to ring me on this number. I’ve got my mobile with me at all times. Say I have to talk to him. Tell him I can help him.’

  She studied the card with no interest. ‘Might do. Best to leave it like that, I think.’

  ‘Just ask him to get in touch. Say it’s important.’