‘Aaah … Well, if you’ll come with me? … The family is still at middag. I’m sure they won’t be long.’
Our time had been specified, five forty-five, and we had arrived on the dot. The thought occurred to both of us that we had been intended to arrive during the family’s middag to be kept waiting until they had finished it. We did not expect any explanation to be offered.
‘I used to know police chiefs like this,’ whispered Svein to me as we waited in a little anteroom. ‘They’d give you an appointment for ten minutes before there was any chance of seeing you. Make sure you were sweating before the session even started.’
It was in fact twenty minutes before the manservant came back and invited us into the dining room to take coffee with the family. He once more gave me an old-fashioned look, but I was beginning to get the idea that he was finding the situation rather humorous. When we got into the large, light, airy room Svein pointed to a position by the door, from which I could take in the whole situation.
We were definitely mixing with our betters. The dining table was long and elegant, though only three people were eating at it. The three places had had removed all but the wine glasses and coffee cups, but those things and the central vase sparkled, sat elegantly, told the spectator how recherché and expensive everything was. Seated there, dressed formally, was a man in his early forties, a woman probably answering to mid-thirties, and a girl of about twelve.
‘Ah, Herr … er … urm. Will you take coffee?’
He made it very clear that inviting Svein to partake of anything with the family, even so usual a thing as a cup of coffee, involved stooping. He introduced himself, his wife and his daughter, and they all sat down.
So here we were, among the nearest thing the Norwegian nation has to an aristocracy: Hans-Egil Fjørtoft, ship-owner, his wife Anne-Marie, and his daughter Ingrid. All three made a gesture towards making us welcome by quick, tight smiles. The daughter probably knew no better, poor thing. She would never have known anything else.
When Svein had been helped to coffee and had taken his suicidal amount of sugar in it, Herr Fjørtoft cleared his throat and began a clearly well-prepared introductory speech.
‘You’ll be wondering why I called you. It is not without a great deal of thought that I’ve done so, but the truth is I need help of your particular kind.’ (He made it sound like drain clearance.) ‘You may not know that I – and before me my father – have built up a collection of Norwegian art over the years—’ He broke off to wave a hand in the direction of a picture on the wall.
‘Harriet Backer,’ said Svein.
Herr Fjørtoft was clearly impressed. He didn’t know Svein had seen it on the cover of a ‘Classics of the Hardangerfiddle’ CD.
‘That’s my latest acquisition, bought last month. But, on my father’s initiative, we’ve specialised in Munch. In particular we have a very rich collection of the many variations he made of his most famous picture.’
No doubt thinking to be amusing, Svein, who one can’t take anywhere, opened his mouth, spread out his hands, and let out a peculiar noise. I gained the idea that the picture was called The Howl.
‘Very comical,’ said Fjørtoft, tight-lipped. ‘Yes, that picture. The number of preliminary studies and later variations on the components of that picture go into three figures.’ (The man obviously thought in the number of figures any deal involved – pathetic.) ‘We have forty-seven studies. We regard our collection as something held in trust for the Norwegian people.’
Oh yes? I thought. And how many sweaty, jeans-clad, haversack-carrying ordinary Norwegians have been asked into the house to view the collection that you are holding in trust for them? ‘When someone says they’re doing something for your benefit,’ said the revolutionary dog thinker Che (fl. Hammerfest 1960s), ‘go and curl up in a corner and get out your reproachful expression.’
Before Svein had finished the syrupy coffee he so enjoyed, Herr Fjørtoft stood up.
‘Perhaps we should go and see the collection,’ he said, in his lemon-sorbet sort of voice. We all began trooping out into the hall, but Frau Fjørtoft said off-handedly ‘I think I’ll give this a miss,’ and started up the stairs. Her husband did not react, and unlocked a door in a far corner of the hallway. We went into a small but light room, whose walls were full of engravings, lithographs, ink drawings and smallish colour pictures. All were versions of a weird-looking woman in a night landscape, her mouth open in a howl.
‘As you will see,’ he said in his passionless voice, ‘there are watercolour versions, lithographs, and so on, all variations either of the central woman of the picture, or of other elements in it. And we are always on the look-out for others,’ he went on, still curiously uninterested in his manner of talking. ‘There are still many such images in private hands.’
‘Isn’t it exciting?’ said Ingrid, in her breathless, schoolgirl way. ‘Daddy says it’s one of the dominating images of the twentieth century.’
‘And one day it will be yours,’ he said without emotion.
So much for it being in trust for the Norwegian people. Since he could hardly be much more than in his early forties, that left him with thirty or forty years in control of the collection, with a like number for Ingrid later. Svein nodded, not commenting. And then he said:
‘Are there any of these of especial value?’
‘No. All are quite valuable, but their real worth is as a collection. Of course we let Munch scholars see them, if suitable arrangements can be made and watertight references are given.’
‘I see. Now I think I should meet your staff, and see also the reason you have become uneasy.’
Fjørtoft nodded, and led the way back to the hall. Here, though, he held back and let Ingrid take the lead, ushering us into a large kitchen, relic of the early twentieth-century lavishness favoured by Norwegian ship-owners who did well out of the Great War that their homeland did not participate in. The staff were seated round the table, eating their meal after preparing and serving the family meal. There were seven of them.
‘I suppose you met Mats,’ said Ingrid, girlish still, but trying to be grown up. ‘He’s our butler, or major-domo, or general head man. And this is Chris Farraday, my governess and companion.’ She had indicated a young woman in her twenties – dark-haired, self-contained and intelligent. ‘She eats here because she’s trying to learn Norwegian.’ When Svein looked surprised, she added: ‘We don’t talk much at dinner … We’re not good talkers at all … And this is Vidar, our gardener, who has help from the village.’ Of course Vidar was in his forties, silent, capable-looking, and he nodded acknowledgement. ‘This is Wenche, our cook.’ The same age, stout, quiet, but with an incipiently satirical expression. ‘And there are Siri, Bente and Gry, who are sort of maids – they’d normally be gone by this time, but Daddy asked them to stay since you were coming.’
Svein nodded. ‘He was right. Because I need to make clear to you that what seems to be going on here is the work of a gang of art thieves – local, national, international.’ He was becoming expansive, but to my ears his tone was gaining that unconvincing edge that told me he was telling porkies, or something a lot less than the whole truth. He had been told something by Hans-Egil when he was first called in that suggested to him an inside job. ‘So you’re not under suspicion or observation, but what I need from you is that you go about your everyday tasks, your comings and goings, in the way you’ve always gone about them. What you do may influence when the thieves decide to strike.’ He turned to the maids. ‘So today is an exception. In future you come and go in the regular way, understood?’
They nodded the glum assent of wage slaves who can’t wait to get away to Bergen, Hamburg or Soho. We went back to the hall where Fjørtoft was waiting for us uneasily. I guessed he never went into the servants’ quarters. He led the way through the front door and round the house to the windows of the Munch room. He said, tight-lipped:
‘I mentioned on the phone the two pictures which had been mispl
aced.’ He spoke with contained fury, like a Spanish Inquisitor speaking of an arcane blasphemy. ‘Then there was this.’
Svein examined the wood around the area where, inside, there was a latch. There were a series of random knife-cuts.
‘Ah yes. There seems to have been an attempt at a break-in,’ he said, his voice now unmistakably his lying one. What we had there was not an attempt at a break-in but an attempt to suggest a break-in. ‘They would of course have set off the security alarms if they had succeeded.’
‘Of course,’ said Fjørtoft. ‘One can only enter the room through the door from the hall that we used earlier, and then one must turn off the security switch just inside the door within two seconds of entering.’
‘How many keys are there to that door?’
‘One, mine. Oh, and one in my strongbox at Bergens Privatbank. In case of an accident, or something happening when I am abroad.’
‘That seems satisfactory. And now, if you will allow us, Loyd and I will walk around the grounds to see all possible means of access to the property.’
‘Is that necessary? Fredshavn is extremely secure.’
‘So was the National Gallery in Oslo,’ said Svein. Fjørtoft looked taken aback, but he departed bad-temperedly.
‘Ha! Got him there, didn’t I, old boy? That was where the oil painting of The Scream was stolen from in the 1990s.’
So it was The Scream, was it? I preferred my version. More canine, more desperate. As we walked around, Svein talked, as usual.
‘Cold old house, isn’t it? Cold old household too. It’s like going for a stroll in the Antarctic. You hear the ice floes crack and the icebergs collide. Not much fun growing up in a place like that. Or being the wife either, come to that. It’s like Frau Fjørtoft had had a general anaesthetic or two, and not completely come out of them. Funny lot. Not really of this world. They think we accept that it’s an outside job, but we don’t, do we, old boy? Of course the obvious one to suspect is Hans-Egil himself. Staging a robbery to collect the insurance. Nobody goes by ship these days, do they, apart from cruises. Maybe the firm is on the rocks … Hello, what’s that?’
I had seen him already and nudged Svein’s ankles. It was a young man, maybe twenty, who was cutting away ruthlessly at a young tree. Svein turned on his heels and walked back to the house. He poked his head through the windows of the large kitchen and beckoned to Mats the butler.
‘Who’s that boy I saw working over towards the east corner?’
Mats scratched his head.
‘Boy? Oh, that will be Semyon. One of these asylum people. Come from Chechnya or some such place. Works in one of the Bergen parks, and as a part-timer with us. Sleeps in the old stables.’
‘Why didn’t you mention him?’
‘Didn’t cross my mind, to tell you the truth. He can’t speak Norwegian or English, so he doesn’t communicate with any of us. Just comes and collects whatever’s going to eat, and takes it back to the stables.’
‘Right … Well, we’re off to find out what we can about recent art thefts.’
Svein raised his hand and turned towards the car.
‘Poor young Semyon,’ he muttered. ‘Oliver Twistsky. And even Oliver had a few mates to talk to.’
We’d seen the TV version. I thought Bill Sykes’s dog was a bit of a prat. Fancy throwing yourself off a roof for a man! We got into the car and drove to the gates, which opened for us. Svein drove about a quarter of a mile on the road towards Bergen, then drove the car into the shelter of a coppice and we trudged back towards the gates of Fredshavn, and a collection of hillocks and minor plateaus on the other side of the road. Svein selected one nicely shielded with trees, and we settled down with a pair of binoculars and kept our attention fixed on the distant white wooden house – not cosy and welcoming, as most of them are, but cold and antiseptic.
‘One room lit up at one end of the first floor, another room lit up at the other end of the same floor. Bedrooms? I rather fancy they could be suites – plenty of space for two rooms each side … Ah, there’s Hans-Egil, if he’ll allow the familiarity … Damn. Can’t see him, but I’d be willing to bet I know what he’s doing … Yes, see how he’s holding his arm. Crooked with the hand a bit below nipple level … Yes, that’s definitely a glass he’s holding. And it is now precisely seven forty-five.’
Svein was enjoying himself. Ten minutes later the fragrant but near-silent Anne-Marie was similarly to be seen at the other end of the first floor, fetching herself liquid refreshment. We watched for two hours, and she renewed her glass three times, her husband four. We both left for home, well satisfied with our night’s work.
Over the next few days we reported back regularly to Fredshavn. We seldom saw Anne-Marie Fjørtoft, but if the master of the house was about his shipping business we left messages (but not about things of any importance) with Mats, Ingrid or the governess. Around Bergen we made enquiries, Svein using his old police connections, about art thieves, the fallout from the Oslo Munch theft, and, very discreetly, about the Fjørtoft fortune, which, disappointingly, seemed to be doing very nicely thanks all the same. From time to time we saw Semyon, the asylum seeker from Chechnya, working in one or other of the parks.
‘Time to keep an eye on him,’ said Svein, when a fortnight had gone by and we felt things were returning to normal at Fredshavn, after the disruption of our appearance there.
Keeping an eye on him was very easy. He did his work, talked to no one except his supervisor, ate from a packet presumably prepared at Fredshavn, and, after four-thirty, caught the bus back there. We were disappointed, and bored, after the first two days of watching him. The third day, Wednesday, however, was obviously his half day. After work he walked to a photocopying shop in Kong Oscarsgate, went in, and stayed there for over an hour. He was carrying a small bag, such as he had with him every day, and when he came out we couldn’t detect by his walk that it was significantly lighter or heavier. He went to the bus station and caught an early-afternoon bus back to Fredshavn.
‘It’s odd, the whole situation,’ said Svein. ‘I wouldn’t have thought the Fjørtofts were the sort of charitable people with a soft spot for asylum seekers. Cheap labour is why they employ him, I would have thought. Always unwise for rich people to do that.’
Every day, at different times, we made sure we were seen around Fredshavn, but not too conspicuously. We went to the Munch room, with Hans-Egil’s key, inspected the security, noticed no change in the prized contents. I still thought she was howling (‘Bitches howl before you’ve even got a good bite in’ – the masculinist dog Hemingway, Stavanger 1960s). We swapped words with all the servants, indoor and out, with Ingrid and her governess-companion. That last, with the discretion of her kind, told us the Fjørtofts had been ‘very kind’ to her. We didn’t seek interviews with the ridiculously buttoned-up Hans-Egil, but we left him a report every couple of days. Anne-Marie seldom appeared. Either she was participating in a social round, or she was ‘indisposed’. In bed with a bottle that meant, most likely. I must admit I don’t really get alcohol. Svein says it has the same effect as catnip on felines, but I never notice them totally insensible and gone to the world for hours at a time. More’s the pity!
Svein was just forming an action plan, which would probably have failed dismally, when we were suddenly handed a missing piece in the jigsaw – though Svein, inevitably, was too slow on the uptake to take advantage of it. We were driving through Lille Lundegårdsvann, slowly following Semyon on his way to the bus station, when emerging from the art gallery called the Rasmus I saw Meyer Samling, a leggy blonde with hair stretching down to her shoulders in gorgeous profusion, wearing a sleeveless, above-the-knee frock that showed off her fashionable slimline figure. I blinked … I knew … surely I knew … I blinked again.
I was in the back seat at the time. I put out my right paw and scratched, scratched, scratched Svein’s back.
‘What’s up, boy? Not feeding time yet.’
Of course it’s not bloody feeding
time yet! I went to extreme measures, brought both paws into play and bang bang banged them both into his back and gazed intently through the window.
‘What is it, Loyd? Yes, she is a smasher.’ (Svein’s slang is very dated). ‘Bit out of my league. You know I’m past all that.’
Oh, I knew it. And so did his ex-wife, and her bus-driver lover. I gazed through the window, whined, and let out a tremendous howl.
‘Yes, you like her too.’ She was now only a few yards away from the car. ‘Wait a minute … That face rings a bell … But it can’t be!’ I barked applause. ‘That’s Ingrid Fjørtoft!’
She turned off into a one-way street, and it wasn’t our one way. We drove round in a square to pick up her traces, and coasted round the area for over twenty minutes. Well done, Svein! You really are quick on the uptake!
So we’d established that things in the Fjørtoft household were not quite what they seemed. I did rather fear that Svein was going to misunderstand seriously the matter of young Ingrid, but I had to admit that he made a sensible decision: to clear up the subsidiary matter of the monkey before going seriously all-out to catch the organ grinder. He rang the central office of the Fjørtoft shipping line, asked for a meeting with Hans-Egil the next day, and was told that he was always in Oslo throughout Wednesday, sometimes into Thursday morning. So Semyon’s half-day coincided with Fjørtoft’s day in the Oslo office, freezing the computers into meltdown and the firm’s secretaries into chastity. Maybe a coincidence, but maybe organised by Semyon in whatever language (sign, perhaps) he used to communicate to his bosses in Bergen.
The next day was Wednesday, and it was a doddle. Everything went as in the previous week, except that after Semyon, again clutching a small bag, had been in the premises in Kong Oscarsgate for ten minutes, Svein and I followed him. He was not in the outer office, but Svein marched straight through to the inner one (Bergen people are not used to crime or its detection, so he did it with only a minor squawk of protest from the girl on the desk), and there all the elements were: Semyon, a drably-dressed Russian-speaking operative, a large but impressively businesslike machine, and – still in its frame – an ink and colour version of several of the faces from Munch’s pictures: top-hatted men and bonnetted women from his picture of Karl Johansgate, within the swirling landscape of The Scream.
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