Wolves in the Dark

by Gunnar Staalesen

  He shrugged. ‘That’s an unsubstantiated allegation. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘No, of course not. But you’ll have to explain yourself to the police later, you can be sure of that. There are many more than me with your name on their notepads. Just don’t imagine you’re going to get out of this.’ His skin went pink and his expression became even more dogged.

  His nostrils flared – another sign he was ready to defend himself, come what may.

  I glanced at Svendsbø. I could see he was following every word. I took a deep breath. ‘With regard to me personally: What made you contact me at the outset?’

  He made a vague gesture with his hand. ‘You were in the phone directory. I took advice. But you were hopeless.’

  ‘Not so hopeless that I don’t remember the job. You were being blackmailed, you said. You wanted to know who was behind it, and you wanted to find some proof against them. But you must have bloody known already. You were in league with them.’

  ‘I was not! There was no link.’

  ‘No? But you’d been in The Tower – that place in Solheimsviken.’

  ‘As a client, yes. And I paid for it. That’s why I went to you.’

  I scrutinised him. ‘But then you found out who they were anyway, without my help.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  He looked down in his glass. For the first time in the conversation he seemed to be tempted to have a taste. But he looked up again, without succumbing to the temptation. ‘That’s got nothing to do with you, Veum.’

  ‘Well … Now listen to something that really is to do with me. You made a woman, whose name we both know, serve me a drink laced with knockout drops, from a bar run by a guy called Johnny. While I was unconscious you and someone else carried me out and transported me to a place where you took some very compromising photos with an under-age girl. Photos which you put on my hard drives together with a load of other material of the same variety. Right?’

  ‘I put stuff on your computer?’

  ‘Svendsbø here can document how that’s done. He’s demonstrated it for me.’

  ‘Really?’ He glanced at Svendsbø before refocussing on me. There was a glint of jeering in his eyes. ‘I cannot fathom where you get these stories from, Veum.’

  ‘No? I’m wondering what made you put this filth on my computers. What the hell had I done to you?’

  ‘What you’d done? I wouldn’t be bloody here if it weren’t for you.’

  ‘Here? What do you mean?’

  ‘I explained the situation to you earlier today. I’m on the verge of bankruptcy. My wife kicked me out and turned off the taps to the money she’s sitting on. In a few days I’ll lose all of my customers, and my damned brother-in-law’s going to make sure I never get a customer from his circle again. And here I sit, on my uppers, in an old summer house, without a krone to my name in the bank! All because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. You blabbed to Karsten and his crowd who had put you on his trail, with the result that they sent my wife the awful photos.’ He was getting really steamed up. ‘All of this because you were such a damned inept private detective, Veum!’

  ‘Exactly. So it’s about money now as well, is it? You’ve made me the scapegoat for the fix you’ve got yourself into?’

  ‘If you’d found the people as I asked you to, I could’ve … taken countermeasures.’

  ‘Countermeasures?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I opened my palms. ‘So it’s my fault, is it? Doesn’t that sound absolutely absurd to you? Because I didn’t complete the job you gave me?’

  ‘Besides, I wasn’t the only person who bore you a grudge.’

  ‘No, exactly. As far as I can see, you’re no computer expert, either. Who was in it with you?’

  He just glared at me, without answering.

  ‘I’ve got a witness, Skarnes!’

  ‘A whore!’ he spat. ‘About as credible as a chimp.’

  ‘So you know what I’m talking about, do you? You know who it is?’

  He sent me a withering look. ‘I know as much as I want to know. But you can tell these stories to the marines.’

  ‘I’ll find out.’

  ‘Find out what exactly?’

  ‘Who the other man was.’

  ‘Well, good luck to you, I say. Was there anything else?’ He made a show of looking at his watch.

  Then we heard the sound of a car outside. Skarnes looked towards the window with a concerned expression on his face. ‘Now what the hell is that? If you’ve tipped off the police, it’ll be all the worse for you, Veum!’

  ‘I haven’t…’

  He stood up and walked to the window, opened a gap between the slats, like when we arrived, and leaned forwards. I stood up too. As did Svendsbø. Outside, car doors slammed – first one, then another. Skarnes let go of the slats, turned round and glanced suspiciously at both of us. Then he left the room, went through the hallway and opened the front door.

  I glanced at Svendsbø. He seemed uneasy. I said: ‘Relax. This’ll be fine.’ But my words didn’t seem to convince him.

  Now we could hear loud voices coming from the hall, until Skarnes was shoved firmly into the living room, and the two new guests followed him in. For one charged moment we stood there almost like on the stage: Skarnes, Svendsbø, me and the two new arrivals: Hjalmar Hope and Sturle Heimark.

  ‘Look what the cat’s brought in,’ I said. ‘A belated welcome, I suppose I should say.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, Veum!’ Heimark snapped.

  ‘That won’t be easy,’ I answered.

  58

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ Skarnes barked. ‘You can’t just force your way in like that!’

  ‘We do as we like,’ Heimark said.

  Hope eyeballed Svendsbø, who had taken a few steps to the side. ‘Don’t you try anything!’

  Skarnes followed his stare. ‘Do you two know each other?’

  ‘All too well, I’m afraid.’

  ‘They’re in the same line of work,’ I said.

  ‘I told you to keep your gob shut!’ Heimark yelled at me.

  I held my hands up in defence. ‘I told you it wouldn’t be easy.’

  Heimark looked around. Then he said brusquely: ‘Sit down, all of you.’

  No-one did as he said.

  ‘That means you as well, Veum.’

  ‘I’m fine as I am.’

  Heimark took two long strides over to Skarnes, placed two hands on his chest and shoved him backwards into the chair where he had been sitting. Svendsbø retreated until he had his back to the wall and couldn’t go any further. Hope followed him with an expression on his face suggesting it would be a pleasure to knock him down.

  Skarnes snarled from his chair: ‘Alright, the whole lot of you, what do you want?’

  Heimark glanced at me. ‘Looks like the party’s already started. Have you got a cognac for me?’

  Skarnes motioned towards the cabinet, where there were bottles and glasses. ‘Help yourself.’

  Heimark walked over. ‘Hjalmar’s driving, but … Veum?’

  ‘I am too.’

  ‘Sure?’

  He looked at Svendsbø. ‘And you?’

  Svendsbø shook his head, not taking his eyes off Hope for a second.

  Heimark selected a glass and, after studying the label with an expression of acknowledgement, poured himself a generous portion of the reddish-brown liquid. ‘One of my favourites, too,’ he mumbled.

  Hope said impatiently: ‘Shall we get to the point?’

  Heimark gave the impression of being in total control and having all the time in the world. ‘Perhaps we should hear what these guys have got on the agenda first.’

  ‘I have so much to discuss with you two,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Knut Kaspersen’s death, for example.’

  That hit home. Both Heimark and Hope focussed all their attention on me. Skarnes and Svendsbø followed suit.


  ‘I’ve been talking to Svein Olav, you see, and he had a very different version of events from the one you gave me. If he follows my advice he’ll be talking to the police tomorrow.’

  Heimark and Hope exchanged glances. Heimark said: ‘We can come back to this later.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Why? Now that we’re all gathered here.’

  ‘It has nothing to do with what we have to say to those two!’ He waved a hand at Skarnes and Svendsbø.

  Hope reached inside his jacket and pulled out the same piece of paper I had given Ruth Olsen a few hours earlier. ‘No, this is what this is about,’ he said, unfolding the print-out in front of Svendsbø, in his face. ‘Seen this girl before, have you?’

  Svendsbø opened his mouth, not to say something, but the way a fish gasps for air when it is tossed on land.

  Hope turned away, crossed the room, stood in front of Skarnes and showed him the same picture. ‘And you? Do you recognise this?’

  Skarnes retained his composure. He eyed the photo stiffly. ‘So? I’ve seen far worse.’

  ‘Yes, you probably have!’ growled Hope. ‘You and all your bloody paedo ring!’

  Skarnes pointed at me. ‘He’s the man in the photo!’

  Hope spun round to face me, then turned back to Skarnes. ‘I know.’

  I looked straight at Skarnes. ‘So you admit it, do you?’ I said. ‘In front of two witnesses. You set this up and put the filth onto my hard drives.’

  ‘He wasn’t alone,’ Hope said. ‘That asshole was in it with him.’

  I stared in the direction he was pointing, at Svendsbø. ‘You! What was your connection with Skarnes?’

  Svendsbø was all at sixes and sevens. ‘I … I hacked into the same system.’

  ‘The same system? Do you mean…?’

  ‘They knew each other. They belong to the same network,’ Hope said.

  ‘What network?’ I said.

  ‘I did not!’ Svendsbø said quickly.

  ‘Hjalmar…’ Heimark intervened.

  But Hope carried on: ‘The whole damned paedo ring!’ He turned back to Skarnes. ‘Don’t you realise we’re sitting on the register? We didn’t set up your system for nothing, you know. Anonymity was guaranteed.’

  ‘Guaranteed!’ Skarnes snorted. ‘What about those in prison?’

  ‘They didn’t pay! They’re up to their necks in their own shit. But we’ve got you registered, every single one of you bastards.’

  ‘You haven’t got me registered!’ said Svendsbø. ‘No bloody chance.’

  ‘Maybe not. You’re a smart arse. You know all the tricks. But don’t feel too cocky. Perhaps there’s a back door to your IP address as well. If we contact the police anonymously they’ll have so much to do there won’t be time for anything else from now to the New Year!’

  ‘Hjalmar,’ Heimark said. ‘We’ve got witnesses here, for Christ’s sake!’ He pointed to me.

  Hope eyed me. ‘I don’t give a shit. He’s one of them.’

  ‘I am not! I was doped! It’s not me you can see in the photo, I was unconscious, a dummy placed there. I know nothing about it.’

  ‘If so, that’s your problem.’

  ‘But now I know what you were arguing about in Fusa. You and Heimark were developing a computer system that would to a large extent anonymise people carrying out all sorts of cyber crime. I imagine that’s the job you had with Bruno Karsten & Co. And when Svein Olav’s uncle found out what you were up to and threatened to expose you, you called in Heimark from Spain to tidy up because you weren’t man enough to do it yourself.’

  Heimark approached me with his fists raised. ‘Now you just shut up, Veum!’

  I stepped back, but raised my arms and clenched my fists. ‘You just try it!’

  ‘Veum’s not the main culprit here, Sturle.’ Again Hope turned to Skarnes. He held the print-out in his face and pointed to it. ‘This is the daughter of a…’ his voice actually cracked ‘…close friend of ours.’

  ‘Really?’ Skarnes snapped, his head raised as if ready to strike from his chair. ‘Then you’d be better off talking to her father than me, wouldn’t you.’

  ‘The hell I would. Why do you think we’ve come here?’

  He turned away from Skarnes again, and we all followed his gaze. Pressed flat against the wall, with the expression of a hunted animal, Sigurd Svendsbø stared back at us. Siggen to friends. But he didn’t have many now. Not in this room anyway.

  59

  It was as if a flock of angels had passed through the room, at least one with a face averted in shame.

  I looked at Svendsbø. ‘So you’re Ruth’s ex-husband.’

  Hope left Skarnes and stood in front of Svendsbø once again. ‘Your own daughter. What the hell goes on in the heads of your sort?’

  ‘Your sort would never understand!’ retorted Svendsbø.

  ‘Accessibility is the key here,’ I mumbled.

  ‘I just can’t imagine what a lovely woman like Ruth could see in you,’ Hope went on, and for a moment I seemed to forget what Hope himself had been clearly exposed as. Not only did he profit from filth, but he had been an accessory to a murder to allow him to continue wallowing in that filth.

  Svendsbø looked at him with an expression of injury, as though he were the victim here and not one of the baddies.

  I raised my voice and said: ‘You’re all bloody involved in this.’

  All four locked their eyes on me. Skarnes still seemed the least concerned. Heimark was as aggressive as always. Svendsbø looked at me as though it had only occurred to him now that I was in the photo, as though it hadn’t been him who photographed his own daughter at the session. Hope was lurching between aggression and despair: the aggression directed at Svendsbø and me; the despair at the situation he was in. But what worried me most was how I would get out of this unscathed.

  I held up a hand and raised an index finger. ‘First of all. There’s a widespread international network that shares child porn, in which at least two of you are directly involved as consumers and suppliers of material.’ I pointed to Skarnes and Svendsbø. ‘And you two…’ I shifted my finger to Heimark and Hope. ‘…You two weren’t any better. You developed a system together, and as for you…’ Now I was pointing at Heimark. ‘…You knew your way around computers as well. And did you arrange the security as well? Were you the security regulator and the executioner? Did you see all this as a way of securing your old age?’

  ‘I was not a fucking executioner!’

  ‘You ex-colleagues will let you know about that. At any rate you contributed with useful expertise, whether it was you or Hope who performed the act.’

  Hope sent a reflex nod to Heimark, but without saying anything. There was an evil glint in Skarnes’s eyes. My gaze was focussed on Heimark. I considered him to be the most dangerous of the trio.

  ‘In a way, though, this is just the backdrop here. You’re all involved in extensive co-operation with what I would call organised crime, represented by herr Bruno Karsten and herr Bjorn Hårkløv, who is known to most simply as Bønni. You, Hope, supplied them with computer expertise – when not working at SH Data. I can’t rule out the possibility that Karsten and his network also had some interest in the distribution of child pornography. He and Hårkløv had a contact on the inside – at least one – of an asylum reception centre for child refugees, which regularly supplied children for this filth and out-and-out prostitution. And you, Skarnes, you and Svendsbø here, were punters – at the brothel in Solheimsviken, also known as The Tower, and of other services, such as the Gestapo role play we were talking about before these gentlemen turned up.’

  ‘I never went to The Tower!’ Svendsbø shouted angrily.

  ‘No? But you had no hesitation in taking your own daughter to at least one porn special. Didn’t you have any conscience? Didn’t you consider how she would feel? Or was she doped up, like me?’

  He looked down. ‘She was given a good dose of Valium. She remembers nothing.’

 
; ‘No? Not even on the hard drive at the back of her head? On her internal retina? You can be sure she does. She remembers alright, consciously or unconsciously.’

  ‘And it wasn’t like that! It was him; he forced me into it!’ He pointed at Skarnes.

  ‘Forced you to do what?’

  ‘To take her along. Herdis. When we were going to nail you. If I hadn’t, he would’ve told Ruth what I was doing and I’d have lost access.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have made any difference, would it? You’d taken photos of her before anyway. The ones online.’

  He was desperate. ‘Right, but he put them online. As far as I was concerned, they were only meant for him.’

  I shook my head. ‘I really don’t understand people like you. I’m damned if I do.’

  Hjalmar Hope stamped on the floor, a physical consequence of the impatience that was boiling over into desperation. ‘So what the fuck do we do? Are we going to stand around listening to this guy’s prattle, or are we going to do something?’

  ‘What precisely?’ said Ole Skarnes, with a gleam of sadistic expectation in his eyes.

  They exchanged glances, all equally at a loss, it seemed.

  But I was still alive and kicking. ‘Didn’t you come here to settle a score with Svendsbø, Hope? You’re Ruth’s shining knight, aren’t you?’

  Hope turned back to Svendsbø. ‘She got a real shock when she saw the photo, Siggen. She tried to ring you, but put the phone down before you answered.’

  Svendsbø reached inside his jacket. ’Yes, I saw she’d been trying.’

  ‘I said I’d talk to you. But when I got to Skytterveien you were already on your way … here.’

  ‘You followed us?’ I said.

  ‘For long enough to know where you were going anyway.’

  ‘And then you called Big Daddy because you didn’t dare come out here on your own.’

  Heimark approached me with his fists raised again. ‘Veum!’ he said in an admonitory tone.