I stopped by the beautiful blonde, who looked up at me over the top of her large, black glasses and said in a friendly voice: ‘I’ve already told Hjalmar he has a visitor. Have you been here before?’
‘No.’
I scanned the desks and at some distance I saw Hjalmar Hope coming towards us, at a slower pace when he realised who his visitor was.
I smiled at the receptionist and walked towards him. I met Hjalmar Hope about midway in the central aisle. ‘Hi, Hjalmar. I remembered there were a couple of things I hadn’t discussed with you last time we met. We were interrupted suddenly, as you may recall. Have you got a room where we can talk undisturbed, or should we do it here in full view, child porn and all?’
He raised a finger to tell me to keep my voice down. After looking around, he tossed his head backwards. ‘We can find a little room behind here. But I haven’t got much time for this, Veum.’
‘Very stupid of Sturle Heimark to set the police on me, by the way.’
He didn’t answer; he stopped in front of a door to a glass box, where I supposed everyone could see in, but no-one could hear anything. We entered, he closed the door and showed me to a table in an interior that was so simple it could have served as an interview room at a police station. We both sat down warily as though neither of us had any great desire to have this conversation.
‘We’ve nothing left to discuss, Veum. I’ve spoken to Sturle. The police are after you, and I’m already tempted to call them now.’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Hope. Then you’ll have to tell them about your connections with Bruno Karsten while you’re at it.’
His face stiffened. ‘I explained to you last time we met. I was helping them with an operating system.’
‘We’re talking about organised crime here, Hope. You have a problem there, I can promise you that. And what about the fatal accident in Fusa two and a half years ago?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Eh? What the hell are you talking about?’
‘It’s now documented that your good friend and partner, Sturle Heimark, was in Norway the weekend Knut Kaspersen died, even if he kept claiming he was in Spain.’
‘Fine! So what?’
‘You told me last time that you were working on a project together. Perhaps you were at that time as well?’
‘And if we were, what would that have to do with the death of some salmon farmer?’
‘Do you like women, Hope?’
He seemed to lose his temper. ‘Do I like women? What the hell do you mean by that?’
I held his eyes. ‘What I said. Do you like women or are you a bit…?’ After a short pause I added: ‘Like Uncle Knut?’
‘Uncle Knut?’
‘Kaspersen.’
His face was flushed. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Can we put an end to this nonsense now?’
There were two ways to make people open up. One was to gain their trust. That wouldn’t work in this scenario. The other was to carpet-bomb them with questions from all sides of the case, in the hope that confusion would cause them to give something away. I attacked from a new angle. ‘You must have received an invitation to The Tower as well, didn’t you, like all Bruno Karsten’s collaborators.’
‘The Tower?’
‘Bar, club and brothel in Solheimsviken. Don’t pretend you don’t know it. Bønni and Karsten talked about you when I was there.’
‘When you…’ He deliberated. ‘OK. No, I’ve never been there, Veum, neither as a guest nor anything else.’
‘Because there were only girls?’
‘Are you starting on that again? I didn’t go there because I didn’t want to. I don’t do … that sort of thing.’
‘No? Tell that to the police when you explain to them why you helped Bruno Karsten with their computers.’
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling with a despairing expression. ‘That was a job, Veum!’
I pointed through the glass wall to the room outside. ‘Are you registered officially here?’
‘…Well, no.’ Then he hastened to add: ‘Sometimes I offer my services on a private basis too.’
‘Of course. A combination of “on a private basis” and organised crime, that’s exactly the kind of case the police love to investigate.’
‘Get to the point, Veum! What do you actually want?’
‘I want an answer to two questions, Hope. The first is this: What sort of project was it you and Heimark were working on?’
‘That’s none of your business. That’s between Heimark and me.’
‘That doesn’t wash. If what Heimark says is correct, he came expressly to Norway the weekend that Knut Kaspersen died. Expressly because of the project you were working on, I would hazard a guess. Were Data Protection getting too close? Did you need help from an experienced policeman to cover your traces? And what was the project to do with? Fraud? Child porn? Something else? And why did you have to kill Knut Kaspersen?’
He threw up his arms in frustration and stared at the ceiling as though someone were there he could appeal to. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? We did not kill Knut Kaspersen!’
‘No … but someone did?’
‘Ask Svein Olav. Maybe you’ll get an answer then.’
‘I’ve asked him.’
‘And what did he say?’
I decided on a bold manoeuvre, one not in the Highway Code. ‘He said it was you two.’
‘Us!’ He stood up and shouted so loudly that some people outside the glass box looked in our direction. ‘The bloody idiot! Is he trying to blame us? Who gained from the death?’
‘Well … I suppose he did, perhaps.’
‘Not just perhaps. He was so keen he would’ve given his right hand to be part of the project Sturle and I had going. Keeping his uncle under water until he drowned would have been child’s play by comparison. He came to us and wanted to be in on the project. That would be his investment, if you like. A loan with the salmon farm as security. But I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.’
‘And why not?’
‘First, he didn’t have a clue about what we were doing. Sturle and I were the computer experts. Besides, what we were doing in the old factory went completely belly up, and whose fault was that, I wonder?’ He glared at me. ‘Then we had the police at the door, but even then he couldn’t contain himself. He sent a couple of his pals to town to beat you up. As if that would do any good.’
‘It didn’t.’
‘After that I refused to have anything more to do with him. Sturle and I took the whole project with us and went back to Bergen, leaving him there with that salmon farm of his.’
I was making a mental note of everything he said. ‘In other words … Svein Olav killed his uncle to inherit the salmon farm and join in what you and Heimark had set up; and he did this the same weekend Heimark was on a lightning visit from Spain…?’
Hope gestured furiously. ‘The guy was a complete fool to do this the same weekend as Sturle was in Norway … to help me.’
‘And he knew that before?’
Hope looked away. ‘No. But he was told in no uncertain terms when we found out.’
‘He told you he’d done it?’
‘We saw through him. He wasn’t hard to figure out.’
‘He managed to keep it concealed from the police anyway.’
‘Sturle gave him some tips.’
‘You feel very secure about all of this, I can see, from the way you’re talking so freely. You’ve just implicated yourself as an accessory to murder, Hope.’
‘Accessory? I’m no bloody accessory. We saw through him, I’m telling you. And that’s a very different matter.’
‘Not in my book.’
‘Prove it, Veum. Aren’t you in enough trouble as it is? This will be my word against yours. I understand they have cast-iron proof against you.’
‘So you know that, do you? That’s the second question I wanted to ask you. Was it you two who put that filth on my compute
rs?’
He leaned back with an expression that reminded me of the one Sturle Heimark had been wearing when Nora and I left him a little more than an hour ago. ‘No, Veum. I didn’t have that pleasure, however much I would’ve liked to assist. And you can get every IT expert in the world to search as thoroughly as you like. Sturle told me all about it.’ He grinned. ‘You’re in a real fix, Veum.’ He took a phone from his inside pocket and held it up.
‘You’ve got a new one, I see.’
His face clouded over. ‘Yes, you owe me one. Can I have it now – this minute? If not, I’ll report you for theft as well, now that I’m going to talk to the police anyway.’
I got up. ‘You won’t talk to anyone, Hope. You’re in a fix yourself, as I’ve already tried to explain to you. You’d better keep a bloody low profile now, and if you come anywhere near this case I’m investigating one more time, it’ll be me calling them…’ I pointed to his phone. ‘Deal?’
He flipped the lid of the phone shut and put it in his inside pocket. ‘I’ll think about it. But I’m making no promises.’ After a slight pause he added: ‘Are you going now?’
‘Not quite. Åsne Clausen, how well did you know her?’
‘Åsne?’ Suddenly he became serious. ‘Well, what can I say? We were colleagues, as far as that went. I’d just started here when she … Well, you know, of course, as you’re asking.’
‘You’d just started?’
‘Yes, a few months before.’
‘So you weren’t especially … close?’
He arched his eyebrows, ironically. ‘Close? My understanding was you don’t think I’m particularly interested in women.’
‘So you are?’
‘Åsne was a competent colleague, but she was well and truly married, and I didn’t have a competitive tender, if I can put it like that.’
‘You helped her son, I understand.’
‘Severin – yes, I did.’ He nodded. ‘He’s a real talent. He presented an idea he had for a computer game, which really does have something going for it. It’s ambitious too. An ecological game, in fact. Climate change. How to stop the polar icecap melting and prevent the sea from rising. It might not sound very sexy, but it has broad global appeal, I think.’
‘And your contribution?’
‘Well…’ He shrugged. ‘I can help him adapt it, set it up commercially, for example.’
‘But through Severin you must have had some contact with Åsne as well?’
‘No, no. This was, broadly speaking, after … she passed on. But it was through her we got to know each other, I’ll admit that.’
‘And would you say he’s good with computers?’
‘Good? Fantastic, I would say, bearing in mind his age. But … well, he is the coming generation. Soon we’ll be obsolete, those of us over thirty as well.’ He looked at the clock impatiently. ‘Have we finished now?’
I nodded, and we left the little glass box with me feeling I had achieved not much more than a possible clarification of the Fusa mystery.
He didn’t accompany me to the exit and we left each other in the middle of the room without so much as a nod. However, I didn’t actually leave. I stopped by the smiling receptionist and asked: ‘Tell me … is there a Ruth Olsen who works here?’
‘Yes, there is.’
‘Would it be possible to have a little chat with her too perhaps?’
‘I’ll find out,’ she said, reaching for the telephone.
45
Ruth Olsen turned out to be a stocky little woman, elegantly dressed in black trousers and a red blouse that matched the bright red of her glasses. She moved in a rather lissom, sensual way, which immediately made quite an impression on me. I could feel myself reacting spontaneously, at the corners of my mouth and in a couple of other places.
She looked at me standing by the reception desk with raised eyebrows. ‘Yes? I’m Ruth Olsen.’
‘Varg Veum,’ I said, not raising my voice any more than necessary. ‘I was wondering if you had the time to answer a couple of questions.’
‘What about?’
I lowered my voice a further notch. ‘I’m, erm, a private investigator. It’s about Åsne Clausen.’
The little smile playing on her mouth vanished, and she regarded me with visible scepticism. ‘I don’t know if I…’
‘It won’t take long.’
She clenched her lips together.
‘It was her son, Severin, who gave me your name.’
‘Severin?’ She looked surprised. ‘Well, then … you’d better come with me.’
Her workstation was by a computer in a corner of the room, with a view of the copse at the back of the building. Her desk was tidy and organised. There were a few writing implements in a holder, and facing her chair there was a little frame with a photo of what I assumed from a quick glimpse was her child. Beside the screen lay a writing pad, on which she had made some notes.
She pulled an extra chair over to the desk and motioned me to sit there, as she took a seat behind the desk.
She observed me. ‘Private investigator? What does that mean?’
‘I investigate criminal cases.’
‘Yes, I understand that much, but … it’ll soon be two years ago since Åsne … passed away. Who has any interest in investigating that case now?’
‘I’m not able to say. But Severin said you and Åsne had been colleagues.’
‘Well, we shared this corner.’ She pointed to the adjacent desk, which was obviously occupied by someone else who wasn’t present now. ‘But we were no more than colleagues.’
‘No?’
‘No. So if you’re after something from her private life you’ve come to the wrong person.’
‘I see. But … you must’ve had some sense of – what shall I say? – her personality. Did it come as a surprise to you that she took her own life?’
Her mouth quivered. ‘Yes, of course. Don’t such things always come as a shock?’
‘Not always. She showed no signs of … depression? Annoyance, something tormenting her?’
‘If she had a bad conscience about anything, she hid it well.’
I was a little taken aback by the way she expressed that. ‘Bad conscience? Have you anything in mind?’
‘No, no! I just … Forget it. I didn’t … express myself very well.’
‘So you never met outside work?’
‘No.’ She paused, then added: ‘We did meet outside under the auspices of work, of course, but that was the whole gang of us.’
‘Her husband, did you ever meet him?’
‘Only on that kind of occasion. Sometimes partners came, and I said hello to him. Not that he made much of an impression.’
‘But you often met Severin?’
‘Yes.’ Her face softened. ‘He’s an unusually gifted boy, especially in what we do: IT; programming. He has a great career ahead of him, of that I am sure.’
‘Really?’
‘He came to work sometimes with Åsne, and if she was busy I showed him the odd thing or two. Not that it was necessary actually. He was very quick to pick everything up, and since then he’s gone stratospheric, literally. Put the youngster in front of a screen and he’s in another world for the rest of the day.’
‘You’ve got children yourself, I can hear.’
‘Yes.’ She spontaneously reached out and turned the photo round so that I could see better. ‘Two girls.’
I cast another glance. The smaller of the two girls had a beaming smile, the other was far more cautious.
For a moment I seemed to go giddy, and I was struck by a feeling so strong that I feared I might pass out where I was sitting. I had to force myself to look away.
‘Herdis and Bente,’ I heard her voice say, as through cotton, from a great distance.
But it didn’t help, regardless of how far away I turned. The face of the older girl was seared into the hard drive of my brain, and I had no difficulty recognising her. It was the face of the child who was sta
ring at the photographer with such despair while I lay on top of her in one of the photos Hamre had shown me and which Sølvi had received through the post.
46
Afterwards I barely remembered how I had found my way out. I hadn’t been in a position to ask a single question about the two girls. All I had managed to stammer was that there was something else I had to research and could I contact her later? She had been nonplussed and repeated what she had already said, that she had never known Åsne Clausen well enough to have anything to say, but at least she gave me her phone number so that I could ring her at any time, if need be.
‘You don’t need to accompany me home,’ I burbled finally.
‘Home?’
‘Out, I mean.’
‘Well, you can see where you have to go from here, so…’
The look she sent me as we parted told me it wasn’t very likely she would be giving me any investigative jobs, if she ever needed one. I was on the interior balcony before I was able to collect myself enough to check my phone to see if any messages had come in while I had been in SH Data.
There weren’t any. But there was one more visit I had to make in the building.
Still quite agitated, I walked down the stairs to the main floor and stood by the information board. I hadn’t been seeing things. Bjørna Fjord Accountancy was on the first floor.
Before I went up again I stood deep in thought, still observed by the Securitas guard in the glass box. So as not to attract too much attention I looked at my watch and pretended I was checking my diary before I slowly walked back towards the stairs.
In my mind there was no doubt. It was Ruth Olsen’s daughter who had been in the photograph. And Ruth had been a colleague of Åsne Clausen, who took her own life – if she hadn’t been killed, that is – almost two years before. Ruth and Åsne had both been colleagues of Hjalmar Hope, who was still my main suspect with regard to a possible hacking of my hard drives. But what had Siggen said? These photos could be dated back to the end of November 2001, so less than a year ago? Hadn’t he mentioned a specific date as well? 27th November?
Wolves in the Dark Page 22