Wolves in the Dark

by Gunnar Staalesen

  ‘Mine then.’

  ‘Just turned fifty, in other words?’

  She tossed her fair hair. ‘Varg, I’ve grown out of flattery. I definitely wouldn’t say “just turned”.’

  ‘Well…’

  Cathrine opened the door, and we entered what had been the hall of the old summer house, with open doors into several day-rooms and a broad staircase up to the first floor and whatever was there. We heard some people talking somewhere, but couldn’t see anyone. From a half-open door to the right came the clink of cutlery and crockery. We smelt something that might have been the meal of the day, although I wasn’t quite able to identify what was on the menu. A sign on a door to the left told us where the office was. Cathrine knocked, waited for a moment, opened and went in.

  What they called the office, containing a sofa and three armchairs, also might have functioned as a practical little meeting room. On the walls there were shelves of various case-files and books, primarily legal, many different bilingual dictionaries and some more general reference works, including the Bergen Lexicon and the Vestland Atlas. The only picture had a classic Sunday-school motif: two children playing on the edge of a precipice and an angel making sure they didn’t fall. The picture also had a title: ‘No-one in danger is so safe’.

  Along one wall, with the light coming in from the west-facing window, there was a little desk, and the woman sitting at it had turned to us as we entered. She recognised Cathrine, rose to her feet and gave a stiff smile. When she spoke I could hear a slight accent. ‘Oh, hi, have you come to visit me?’

  Cathrine nodded. The woman looked at me. Her hair was dark, and it was combed back into a short ponytail at her neck, so tightly that her face seemed to be stretched taut over her pronounced cheekbones and sharp nose. Only the full, sensual lips stood out.

  ‘This is … a colleague of mine,’ Cathrine said, not giving too much away.

  I held out my hand. ‘Varg Veum.’

  ‘Maria Nystøl.’

  She met my gaze, unable, quite, to hide what she was feeling. It was as though a visible quiver was running through her, and her hand trembled as she grasped mine. We had met before, but neither of us betrayed the fact with so much as a single word.

  She turned to Cathrine and sighed. ‘How can I help you?’

  Cathrine glanced at me, and Maria Nystøl was forced to look at me again.

  ‘This concerns a very serious case.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Were you here when Karl Slåtthaug was taken on?’

  She eyed Cathrine. ‘Goodness me, won’t we ever be rid of this?’ To me she said: ‘Yes, I was here then, but I wasn’t the director. That … was someone else. But he had to go as well when the business with Karl happened.’

  ‘And what did happen?’

  ‘Nothing that I know of!’

  ‘No?’

  Cathrine said: ‘Nothing was documented, no.’

  Maria Nystøl’s cheeks flushed up. ‘But Child Welfare took their decision and had him moved!’

  ‘We can’t take any risks with children.’

  ‘And today he’s in prison, accused with some others in a big child-porn case,’ I said.

  Maria Nystøl gawped at me, open-mouthed. ‘What! There are others?’

  I could feel Cathrine’s ironic gaze on me, as if to say: And here’s another of them. But I said: ‘Yes, I don’t know any more than that. At any rate, he’s locked up while the investigation is ongoing.’

  She had turned pale, but still there was a flush of irritation high on her cheeks. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘No? Did you know him well, Slåtthaug?’

  ‘Well, it depends what you mean. We were colleagues. We both worked at the same level then. We had similar shifts; those of us who were here during the day were responsible for keeping the children busy – organising teaching for those who needed it. And then there were occasional night shifts.’

  ‘There must have been several of you?’

  ‘No, we usually work alone. But some of the others are on call and can be rung if need be. It’s very rare anything happens.’

  ‘No children that just disappear?’

  ‘Just disappear! What do you mean?’

  ‘Actually, it’s a well-known phenomenon. Cathrine and I were talking about it on the way here. About how many children disappear from institutions like this every single year, many of them without trace and without ever reappearing.’

  ‘We register all the children who live here! No-one disappears without us … knowing.’

  ‘Knowing? What do you mean by that?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘By that I mean they are picked up by the authorities and transferred to other institutions, or the parents turn up so the family can be reunited. And some of them are sent abroad when they reach sixteen, to the country that first received them.’

  ‘No other unexpected disappearances?’

  She almost spat the answer at me. ‘No! Never.’

  I glanced at Cathrine. ‘And proper controls are in place here?’

  She shrugged. ‘To the extent that we’re sent the paperwork, yes.’

  The two women stared at each other and I had a strong sense of mutual mistrust.

  Then we were interrupted by the main door bursting open and the hall being filled with loud wails. Maria Nystøl glared at us and hurried out. We followed and stood in the doorway watching.

  It was the girl we had seen on the swing, who must have fallen off. She was holding one arm and howling at the top of her voice, while the two girls who had pushed her were both talking at once, in falsetto, tears streaming from their eyes as well. Maria pulled the injured girl to her and held her tight, then released her and felt her arm. More screams.

  Maria demonstrated with her own arm. ‘Do this. Stretch it out.’

  The girl stretched out her arm, still sobbing uncontrollably.

  Maria spread out her fingers. ‘Let me see. You do the same.’

  The girl did the same and her sobbing slowly began to subside.

  Maria hugged her again. ‘There’s nothing broken. It was just painful, Yasmin. Come…’ She stood up, took her hand and smiled at the other two girls. ‘Let’s go and visit Margit in the kitchen and see if she has something nice for us.’

  They went to the door across the hall. The scene was drawing to a close. Only Yasmin was emitting the occasional sob, but she willingly followed Maria to the kitchen.

  Immediately afterwards Maria Nystøl returned. ‘Sorry. This happens all the time. There’s something every single day.’ She looked through her office door to the window. ‘Mostly on the football pitch. Or climbing trees or some such activity.’

  We stood in the hall.

  ‘Was there anything else you wanted?’

  Cathrine and I exchanged glances.

  I turned back to Maria Nystøl, and caught her eye. ‘Did you have any contact with Slåtthaug after he finished here?’

  ‘No. Never. We were just colleagues, as I said.’

  ‘Yes, but you must have a life outside this?’

  Again I sensed electricity go through her. For a second or two she looked away. Then her eye contact was back. ‘Yes; so? Don’t we all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Then silence.

  In the end Cathrine cleared her throat. ‘Right, I think we’ll be off.’ She smiled wanly at Maria Nystøl. ‘It looks like everything’s in order here. You know where you can find us if there is anything.’

  Maria wore a vinegary smile. ‘Yes, I know.’

  We nodded goodbye. As I was about to close the front door behind us I turned and looked back into the hall. Maria was standing where we had left her. When I met her eyes this time, she was unable to hold her emotions in check any longer. I saw the tears and her mouth spreading in what might have been a form of pain-filled ecstasy, as I seemed to remember I had seen once before.

  I had kissed that mouth and we had gone to bed together. But her hair had been down and loose, her
dress tight and short, and she had been beyond intoxication and fear. ‘You can call me Magdalena,’ she had said then. ‘The chosen one.’

  38

  It was almost five o’clock when I dropped off Cathrine in Jonas Lie vei in Kronstad, where she lived with her husband, their children having grown up and moved out. I thanked her for helping me.

  On the way back I had asked her if she knew any more about this Maria Nystøl, but she had said no. ‘It’s a private institution, Varg, so we haven’t been colleagues, both working for the state.’

  ‘So you have no idea about her background? Family and so on?’

  ‘No.’

  From Jonas Lie vei I continued towards Haukeland Hospital and from there down to Årstadveien and back to the centre. It struck me that I wasn’t far from another unpleasant memory with computer connections. Coming out of Kalvedalsveien I turned into Kalfarlien and parked by the kerb in front of the white house where I had observed Åsne Clausen nearly two years ago. When I had attended her funeral her husband had threatened to destroy me, and the look I had received from her son, Severin, was still seared on my memory. But the name Severin had also been on the contact list in Hjalmar Hope’s phone, and that alone was enough reason for me to attempt to have a few words with him.

  There was a light on in the upstairs windows, and through one of them I could see a person who resembled his father, Nicolai Clausen, moving back and forth in what I had previously assumed was the kitchen. Yet there was something that made me hesitate. He was moving slowly and with a stoop, like an old man.

  It was drizzling as I got out of the car, still wearing the cap pulled well down over my face, almost like a protective mask. I opened the gate, went up the steps and followed the gravel path to the house. The similarity with the magnificent summer residence that had been taken over by OIB struck me, although this building was considerably more modest in size.

  The front door was on the north of the building. I pressed the doorbell and heard it ring indoors somewhere. After a while I heard the pad of footsteps, the door was opened a fraction and what had once been Nicolai Clausen stared out at me, dull-eyed. Gradually he seemed to recognise me, and a quiet glow grew in his eyes that hadn’t been there from the outset.

  ‘V-Veum?’ he said in a way that suggested it was a name he had difficulty swallowing.

  I nodded. ‘May I come in?’

  He stared at me in disbelief. ‘In here?’

  ‘In fact, I have to insist.’

  At once he stepped back and opened the door a fraction more, as a signal that I could enter. There was no resistance left in him. I followed him into the house with a sense of entering a mausoleum, where all signs of life had long since been purged.

  Nicolai Clausen had become an old man in the course of the two years that had passed since we last met. His dark hair had gone grey, or else he had stopped dyeing it, and it lay flat on his scalp with no hint of a wave. Deep furrows were scored in his face, but what made the greatest impression was the matt sheen in his eyes and the stoop, as though he were carrying something very heavy no-one else could see. The man who had earlier radiated aggressive masculinity was reduced to a cardboard cut-out it would be easy to blow over.

  I followed him into the kitchen, where he was preparing what looked like a very basic dinner: a ready-made meal to put into the oven. The table was set for two and on the worktop there was a jug of water and two glasses.

  Nicolai Clausen went to the other end of the room, turned and leaned back against the worktop. He was unable to raise his eyes higher than my chin when he said: ‘Åsne’s death deprived me of the will to live.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, it came as a shock to me too.’

  He didn’t answer, just stared morosely into space.

  ‘You blamed me then.’

  He moved his gaze upwards and in some way took in the whole of my face, then dropped his head again. ‘Yes, but … I was to blame. I was guilty … of the betrayal.’ He gulped several times before carrying on. ‘She betrayed me, too, though.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you commissioned me to find out, however unwilling I was to take the job. But I never reached that conclusion.’

  ‘No, but I did.’

  ‘On the other hand … she did show me a pile of photos – taken in London, she said – of you and a selection of women on the town. And at least one of the photos was … quite intimate.’

  He sent me a bitter look. ‘She showed them to me too, of course. She’d got someone to tail me many times when I was in London. And that was the result. All I had to offer in return were my suspicions.’

  I felt my mouth go dry. ‘Oh? But why did she decide … to take her life?’

  For an instant it was as though I saw the man I had seen two years previously. He straightened up and a gleam of light and beauty shone through him. ‘Åsne was a very special woman. She was talented, gifted … but also extremely sensitive.’

  ‘I see. I had a different impression of her, though. She appeared to be both determined and dynamic – which showing us the photos emphasised. She seemed as far from being a suicide candidate as you could imagine.’

  He turned pensive. ‘She had two sides perhaps. What you saw was the genes from her father and his family.’

  ‘Kåre Kronstad?’

  ‘Yes, but I … I saw the other side too. And when this conflict arose – me with my suspicions, her with these photos – everything seemed to collapse around us and a chasm grew between us, so big and deep that … for Åsne it was too much to bear.’

  ‘Oh? Did she admit anything?’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Yes, that she’d had a relationship.’

  He started to shrink again. ‘Yes … she must have had a relationship. But she wouldn’t admit it. She didn’t deny it either, she just changed the subject. To me and my affairs.’

  ‘What I don’t understand, Clausen, is this: If you had such a beautiful, sensitive wife, whom you describe in such positive terms, how come you betrayed her … not just once, but many times? And with, from what I could gather from the photos, what were classic escort women, perhaps a better class of prostitute. There was nothing to suggest any kind of romantic relationship. Or … am I wrong?’

  ‘No,’ he mumbled, and looked down. ‘It was a flaw in my character. I couldn’t bear the thought of going out alone. When the conferences were over and the last evening flight had left, I rang one of the phone numbers you find online all over the world and booked – yes, you’re right – an escort. They were great girls, to look at and talk to, and sometimes that was all we did. Had a few drinks, chatted and I found her a taxi. But on other occasions … there was a little more.’

  ‘Mhm. And Åsne obviously suspected this, as she hired a private investigator and had these shots taken.’

  Again his eyes moved upwards. ‘But I wasn’t mistaken either! She had someone else. In the end, she admitted it.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘And once she had these photos … she decided to leave me.’

  I had started to get an unpleasant feeling about where this was going. ‘Oh, yes,’ I repeated, with even more force this time. ‘And why didn’t she?’

  ‘She did, Veum! She left us all.’

  ‘Who was the man?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why didn’t she just go to him?’

  He didn’t answer.

  I stood watching him. What wasn’t he telling me? ‘Please, Clausen. How did Åsne actually commit suicide?’

  He stared at the window, where our reflections had become even clearer, as night was falling now. Something halfway between a sigh and a sob escaped him. ‘She … she hanged herself.’ He looked at the ceiling. ‘Here. On the first floor.’

  Involuntarily I followed his gaze, as though the mirror image of a hanged woman would be visible on the white ceiling.

  ‘And there was never any doubt?’

  ‘Doubt?’

  ‘The police didn’t inve
stigate further?’

  He looked at me blankly, as though he didn’t understand what I was asking.

  Impatiently, I said: ‘Who found her?’

  Suddenly the front door opened and there was the sound of footsteps outside. A youthful voice said: ‘Hello?’

  Neither of us answered, but seconds later he was in the doorway. For the second time in my life I was standing face to face with Severin Clausen, and when he made eye contact and saw who I was, he didn’t seem to have changed his opinion about me from when we had last met.

  39

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he snapped, then turned to his father and repeated the question. ‘What the hell’s he doing here?’

  Nicolai Clausen made a vague gesture with his hand. ‘He wanted … to talk.’

  ‘Talk! And you let him in?’

  He turned back to me. Severin Clausen was as gangly as the last time I had seen him and wore large glasses a good way down his narrow nose. His hair was blond and reminded me of his mother’s; his face was long and dotted with pimples. He seemed older than his seventeen years, but his clothes were youthful enough: a red T-shirt and blue jeans. ‘You just get out! We have nothing to talk to you about.’

  I tried to look as sympathetic as I could, and at first that wasn’t so very difficult. ‘I know you’re distraught about what happened, Severin, but…’

  He interrupted me. ‘Distraught!’ His whole body was convulsed with anger, and he came towards me. ‘I found her!’ He pointed to the ceiling. ‘Up there! Found my own mother hanging from a beam. And it was your fault!’

  ‘No, it wasn’t, now you listen to me … I had a job to do for your father, but it was finished. I had nothing to do with later events.’

  ‘You took the photos in London, didn’t you?’

  ‘Eh? No, no, no!’ I half turned to Nicolai Clausen. ‘Your father can corroborate that! I had nothing to do with that.’

  Severin followed my eyes.

  Nicolai Clausen looked as undecided as he had when I arrived. ‘No, I can’t.’ Then, all of a sudden his expression changed and he regarded me with a new gravity. ‘What! Was it you who took those photos?’