Wolves in the Dark

by Gunnar Staalesen

  ‘I’ll risk it then. Thanks.’

  ‘Good luck, Varg. And do be careful.’

  We rang off, I put my phone in my inside pocket and walked with wary step up to Haugeveien, got into the car after a quick recce, sat down and started the engine. No-one jumped out of the bushes like a jack-in-a-box and, much relieved, I drove down Haugeveien and crossed Klosteret.

  In my head I already had a plan for the day. I had spoken to Cathrine Leivestad and she had said she was willing to accompany me to the institution in Olsvik where Karl Slåtthaug had worked. We’d do this after ‘my worst meeting’ was over, from two o’clock onwards.

  The initial visit on my agenda was probably the most dangerous. I hoped it would be less so early in the day, bearing in mind their activities, than in the evening.

  As far as I could remember, I had been to The Tower twice before – taken the first time by a man they called Bønni, the second by Karl Slåtthaug. I hadn’t driven there either time, but I knew to a fairly high degree of accuracy where it was. I didn’t have much trouble finding it: along the stretch between Puddefjord Bridge and Solsheimviken and right down to the sea. The heralded renovation of the buildings along Damgårdsveien still hadn’t materialised properly. The six-storey-high, once white, now dirty-grey, industrial edifice stood like a last outpost to modernisation, totally dark and without any signs of life.

  I sat parked at a reasonable distance from the old entrance, surveying it. From the nearby building site came the sounds of excavators, jackhammers and noisy generators. From the abandoned building there wasn’t so much as a groan.

  At length I got out of the car and walked over. The entrance was closed, locked. The combination lock beside the door had been removed. Bits of cable hung from a hole in the wall. All the signs were that the business had either collapsed or moved to another locality.

  A gate in the fencing beside the building stood ajar. I opened it and went inside. A disused quayside no-one had bothered to keep tidy was covered with all manner of scrap, everything from toilet bowls to what looked like snowploughs, in sharp contrast to the sleek buildings of the Hi-Tech Centre on the opposite side of the narrow arm of the fjord.

  At the back of the building there was a fire escape all the way up to the fourth floor. I walked over and shook it to see how stable it was. It was dark brown with rust, but there was nothing to suggest that it couldn’t bear weight. Without a moment’s hesitation, I climbed up.

  The door to the fire escape on the fourth floor was locked. I peeped into the crack. The lock mechanism was not so advanced that it would resist a multi-tool penknife. I was glad I had found one in the kitchen drawer in Hans Hauges gate and had been prescient enough to bring it along. I took the knife from my pocket and tried my luck. The lock gave way with a little click. I moved backwards and pulled the door towards me. I swiftly stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

  I was in a rear corridor, where an internal staircase led up to the fifth floor. I opened the door ahead and came into what from the previous time I had been here I remembered as the bar. Now the room had been stripped of everything that could be removed in terms of the interior and furniture. All that was left was a worn floor covering and the same dark-red silk wallpaper, which seemed even more forlorn now that the rest of room was a ruin.

  I crossed the room and entered what had been Bruno Karsten’s office. All that was left here was the view of Møhlenpris and Nygårdsparken. All the equipment had been removed; all the furniture was gone. The rats had left the sinking ship, and from the look of the place it would take a forensics officer to find a clue of any use in there.

  I walked back to the bar and up the spiral staircase to the floor above. At the top they hadn’t been quite so thorough. What once had been a kind of loft was divided into cubicles, five on each side. Some of them had been stripped bare, but in a couple there were stinking mattresses left on the floor like abandoned life rafts after a shipwreck. Open gaps in the walls revealed where two-way mirrors had been mounted. I went from cubicle to cubicle and let my eye wander high and low in the hope of finding anything that could lead me further in the hunt for Bruno Karsten and Bønni. All I found were a couple of telephone numbers scratched into the wall with no names beside them. I noted the numbers and went back down to the fifth floor.

  In the abandoned office I stood gazing across the fjord to Nygårdsparken. Many of my most secure contacts in the town’s underworld had their fixed abodes there, at least when they were broke. On the other hand, the police were often there too, in uniform and plain clothes. It was a risk, but I didn’t have a lot of options. There was every reason to suggest this was where I had to go this time as well, in the hunt for the birds that had flown The Tower.

  36

  There weren’t many trees left in Allégaten. Only the name was a memento of the legendary Nygårdsallee, laid in the 1700s. The very last linden trees had been pulled up by the roots when the big Natural Science building was erected in the 1970s, an edifice that had gone down in the town’s history as a fundamental error of judgement.

  I parked the car in the shadow of this and cut up to Nygårdsparken via the steps at the top of Stromgaten. On Flagghaugen, Flag Hill, it wasn’t long before Little Lasse appeared from the bushes, nervously smoking a rollie that contained more ingredients than tobacco.

  ‘What the fuck, Veum? I hardly recognised you under that.’ He pointed to the cap, which I had pulled down well over my forehead again.

  ‘My new disguise, Lasse.’

  ‘Haven’t I told you not to visit me here?’

  ‘You’re never at home.’

  ‘I don’t have a home any more,’ he grimaced.

  ‘Exactly.’ I slipped a hand inside my jacket. ‘But I have a private donation for you if we could go for a little stroll and chat.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, turning all 1.85 metres of his lanky frame in the direction of the lower parts of the park, down towards Thormøhlens gate and the bird pond there.

  I noticed that he made no comment about my being on the run. Which meant, I presumed, that the news of my serious charge and the fact that I was being looked for by the police hadn’t yet reached Nygårdsparken. Actually that was not so surprising. People who dabbled in child pornography online were mainly lone wolves who sat masturbating in front of their computers, with no direct link to professional criminals such as those Little Lasse obviously consorted with, because of his drug addiction.

  We passed Dawn Breaking, Sophus Madsen’s sensual female figure in bronze surrounded by abundant rhododendrons. She was hiding her face in shame as if she had been caught red-handed behaving inappropriately, hardly something she would have been alone doing in these parts. I pointed across the fjord to The Tower, which could just be glimpsed behind Mjellem & Karlsen’s shipyard, the quarter’s cornerstone industry, which barely a month ago was declared bankrupt by the new owner – the financial scandal of the year in Bergen.

  I glanced at Little Lasse: ‘Do you know what was going on there?’

  ‘In Laksevåg?’

  ‘Can you see the tall building to the right of Mjellem? With big windows facing the fjord on the fourth floor.’

  ‘Oh, yes. That one. Nope. No idea.’

  ‘Does the name Bruno Karsten mean anything to you?’

  We had reached the bottom of the hill now and turned towards the first of the small, arched bridges over the pond.

  ‘Bruno? Nope. But I’ve heard of someone called Karsten.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Originally German, but with a Norwegian mother, apparently. Classic Mr Big. Finances everything from drug deliveries to the likes of us…’ He tossed his head in the direction of Flagghaugen to illustrate what he meant. ‘And takes most of the profit himself. Probably runs loads of other dodgy stuff too. I’ve never met him. No idea what he looks like.’

  ‘And Karsten’s the surname?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Have you any idea where I can find h
im?’

  ‘Nope. As far as I know, he lives in Germany. He only comes up here on business. When something has to be sorted.’

  ‘Where in Germany?’

  ‘Hamburg, I heard. It’s a seafaring town like Bergen used to be. Lots of steady contacts from those times, in all areas of life. From die Reeperbahn to das Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, if I can put it like that.’

  ‘Wow. I’m impressed, Lasse. You can speak German, too.’

  ‘I went to sea for some years in my youth as well, when it was the thing to do. We only saw the best hotels in Hamburg from the outside, but we went window shopping in the Reeperbahn, didn’t we.’

  Some glimpses of my youth as a deck boy on MS Bolero in the early 60s appeared in my head, but I forced them back down. ‘Who are his contacts in town then?’

  He rolled his shoulders. ‘He’s got a network, I s’pose; but as I said … I’ve never been in contact with it, apart from indirectly perhaps.’ Again he eyed Flagghaugen longingly.

  ‘What about prostitution? Trafficking?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Child porn?’

  His eyes glinted. ‘Aha! Is that where you’re going? The case that was in the news last week?’

  ‘For example.’

  ‘Nope. Not my sphere of interest.’ He clenched his right fist and held it in the air in front of us. ‘If I caught one of the men dealing in that kind of thing, I’d flatten him. I can promise you that … They don’t have such a nice time when they end up behind bars. They’re the lowest of the low, worse than rapists. Children are sacred, Veum! Even for the likes of us.’

  I nodded, a bit stiffly. ‘I think most of us would react like that.’ I waited before feeding him the next name. ‘Do you know if anyone from the circle around Karsten is called Bønni?’

  He repeated almost verbatim what Siggen had told me the day before. ‘We’ve all known a Bønni or two in our younger days, haven’t we, Varg?’

  ‘True…’

  ‘But I wonder. A strong guy. A thug, is he the sort you’re after?’

  ‘That could be him, yes.’

  ‘I think I’ve heard him talked about in connection with the German. Collects debts, punishes welches, you know…’

  ‘Bingo; that sounds like him. Do you know what his name is?’

  ‘Hårkløv. Bjørn Hårkløv. Comes from a gangster background in Fyllingsdalen, in the 1980s. Ask your pals in the police. They must have him on their records.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Do you think he still lives there?’

  ‘In Fyllingsdalen?’

  We had walked all the way around the pond now, and he pointed to Puddefjord again. ‘Through the tunnel, on the other side.’

  ‘I know where Fyllingsdalen is, Lasse.’

  He grinned. ‘Just wanted to be sure.’ He discreetly held out a hand. ‘You mentioned a donation.’

  I took out a few hundred-kroner notes and gave them to him. And who was going to pay the bill this time, other than good old Veum? I just had to close my eyes and hope there was light at the end of the tunnel, and it hadn’t been walled up because it hadn’t been used for many years. And that someone was standing there, handing out alms for the deserving needy, among them fallen private investigators from Bergen.

  I accompanied Lasse back up to the brow of the hill. Now he had enough money to fill his hash pipe for the night or whatever he was on at the moment. I strolled back to the car, got in and took out my phone.

  While waiting for two o’clock and Cathrine Leivestad to arrive I examined the list of telephone numbers I had written beside the name of Bruno Karsten. I rang them one after the other, from the top of the list down. With a couple of them there was an answerphone message saying the company no longer existed. With a couple of others there was an engaged signal, even after repeated attempts. Only one produced a living person – a cool, neutral woman’s voice speaking Swedish. But when I asked for Bruno Karsten, she just answered: ‘Who?’ I repeated the name, and she said: ‘We don’t have anyone here by that name. And we never have had … What did you say his name was?’ ‘Bruno Karsten.’ ‘Not here.’ ‘Really?’ ‘No. Goodbye.’

  Then I took out the telephone numbers I had found etched in the walls of the abandoned rooms in Damgårdsveien. I rang both of them. The first was an answerphone message asking me to leave my number and saying they would call back. I didn’t. The second was a woman’s voice, in very broken Norwegian, but I gathered that she was offering original Thai massage in cosy surroundings. I noted the address and said I would think about it. If nothing else, it was conveniently close, not so far from Hans Hauges gate. Besides … if she had oriental features and a blonde wig, I might well have a chat with her anyway. She was on the list.

  It occurred to me that there was another number I had promised to ring. I dialled the number of Nora Nedstrand. When she answered I told her I had found out where Sturle Heimark lived and, in addition, I had his telephone number. She thanked me curtly, but before she had a chance to hang up I raised my voice: ‘But Nora … fru Nedstrand! Perhaps it would be safer if we called on him together?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If he really did do what you fear, then … it’s better if there are two of us.’

  ‘I see. I’ll ring him first and make an arrangement.’

  ‘Fine, but for God’s sake … don’t say I’ll be with you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘That simply wouldn’t be smart.’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ she said in a tone that sounded disgruntled. ‘I’ll ring you when I’ve arranged something with him.’

  ‘Fine.’

  There were no more on the list, for the time being. When it was two o’clock I called Cathrine. We agreed I would pick her up at the southern end of Nygårdsgaten, directly behind Sankt Jakob Kirke in Lars Hilles gate. Twenty minutes later we were on our way to Olsvik.

  37

  Cathrine Leivestad had been in Child Welfare for what used to qualify as half a lifetime. With the ages people lived to now it hardly constituted more than a third, but despite that, it was enough to give her a long row of gold stars in my Sunday-school book. She was your classic battler, who had stood up for children and their rights throughout her career, and this was reflected in her lean features, the bitter, compressed lips and the disillusioned eyes with which she confronted her work. In the society around her people were more interested in building motorways and shopping malls than talking about the proper care of children from difficult backgrounds or children in general.

  When we passed an oncoming police car she noticed I pulled my cap down further over my forehead and seemed to duck behind the wheel. ‘Tell me, Varg. Have the police got a bone to pick with you at the moment?’

  I flashed her a sidelong glance. ‘You won’t want to hear, Cathrine.’

  ‘Try me.’

  I explained the situation to her and while I was talking I noticed her staring intensely at me from the passenger seat, her mouth agape, but she didn’t say anything.

  At length she commented: ‘And you’re moving around like this in broad daylight, taking a risk?’

  ‘I have to clear my name! And the car’s rented to someone else.’

  ‘And Karl Slåtthaug’s inside for … for the same?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I’d like to go and see the institution that gave him the boot. You know yourself how vulnerable children are in reception centres for asylum seekers and similar places.’

  ‘Yes, sadly. It’s a problem no-one seems to take seriously enough – neither the police nor politicians. On this issue you could say most people prefer to turn a blind eye. See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, or at least nothing that can affect the image of the idyll.’

  We were out of Lyderhorn Tunnel and soon afterwards branched off for Olsvik. Gradually we gained height and had a view of Askøy Island, then, following Cathrine’s instructions, I turned off.

  Olsvik International Children’s Home, kn
own to Norwegian professionals as OIB, resided in a magnificent white timber building down by the sea; originally a summer house belonging to a prominent Bergen family who had roots in Olsvik. The house and estate were bequeathed in the early 1980s, and the OIB was established there in 1989, after a substantial rebuild. The purpose was to offer aid to refugee orphans, in close co-operation with Child Welfare and other authorities. But whenever they had free capacity they also helped the local Social Services with places for Norwegian children, and it was one of these that led to Karl Slåtthaug’s fall in the 1990s.

  We parked alongside the fence around the estate, opened the gate and followed the gravel path to the house. The family’s old tennis court to the east had been converted into a shale pitch for ball games, parts of the garden were covered with climbing frames, swings and other recreational equipment, but the stately old front entrance – up a staircase and through a green double-door of manor proportions – had been retained.

  On the pitch five or six boys aged twelve to thirteen were playing football. On one of the swings sat a dark-skinned girl barely more than seven or eight, being pushed by a couple of other girls maybe a year or so older.

  None of them took any notice of Cathrine and me when we arrived, but I was aware they were following us from the corners of their eyes, never quite sure what a visit from outside might forebode.

  ‘Did you warn them we were coming?’

  ‘No, no. As I said on the phone earlier today, they’re used to random checks. For them this is routine.’

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’

  ‘The director for the last few years has been someone called Maria Nystøl, a well-organised woman of … our age.’

  I smiled wryly. ‘Your age or mine?’