The Writing on the Wall

by Gunnar Staalesen

  The girl with the hat said something, and the other one nodded. They linked arms, and as the traffic paused for a breather, they crossed the street.

  A quick decision was needed.

  I decided to let Astrid Nikolaisen paddle her own canoe for now, waited until the two girls had disappeared from view round the corner of a block of houses then followed them, at a safe distance.

  There was no need for caution in fact. They didn’t seem to have the least suspicion that anyone could possibly be following them.

  Five minutes later they suddenly stopped. They put their heads together again, looking as though they were studying the front of the large lit-up building on the opposite side of the street. The girl with the hat suddenly seemed different, more keyed up, and her friend looked around carefully as she spoke.

  As for me, I remained glued to the spot in front of a shop window, pretending to read the front pages of the day’s three tabloids, two from Oslo and one local one, not that there was much to distinguish them, apart from the colours.

  Now the two girls split up. The girl with the hat crossed the street, while her friend stayed put, following her with her eyes for a moment; abruptly, she turned on her heel and shot off in my direction.

  I scrutinised the banner headlines about yesterday’s trivial events even more intensely. A national politician railed against unfair treatment on the Today programme, and a skating star had hit top form one Wednesday in February. Haukeland Hospital was in crisis, and there had been a traffic accident in Lindås. So what else was new?

  The girl sailed past me without so much as a glance. I breathed freely, relieved that she was still at an age where she barely noticed people over twenty. Then I set off quickly in the opposite direction.

  Her friend was just rounding the next corner, so I stepped on it.

  As I turned the corner myself, I caught sight of her back disappearing through the main entrance of a classy hotel.

  I went after her. Through the huge glass panels facing the street I could follow her every movement as she went straight through reception and into an open lift without so much as a glance at the reception staff.

  The lift doors slid shut behind her and I watched the floor numbers as they lit up on the panel beside the lift: fourth, fifth, sixth floor.

  I looked at the clock. It was five-twenty p.m.

  I cast an involuntary glance up over the building as though I half expected her to appear at one of the windows and wave down at me.

  The name of the hotel was displayed in large neon letters above the entrance.

  For the second time that day I caught myself thinking of Judge Brandt. This was the hotel he had met his death in barely a week ago.

  Last Friday, wasn’t it?

  But it was on Thursday that Torild Skagestøl had gone missing, at least from home.

  My head brimming with sudden thoughts, I set off back to the office.

  I opened the letter box in the entrance and flipped quickly through the pile. A brochure, another three mail-shots, two bills and a completely plain white envelope with my name printed outside.

  I binned the junk mail, stuffed the bills into my inside pocket and inspected the back of the envelope as I waited for the lift.

  No sender’s name, but a Bergen postmark.

  On the third floor I emerged from the lift, went along the corridor and let myself into the office.

  The answerphone was blinking. Somebody had actually taken the trouble to leave a message.

  I hung up my coat, sat down at the desk, grabbed a letter-opener and slit open the white envelope.

  It contained a single folded sheet.

  I opened it out.

  Someone had made a simple standard death notice on a computer:

  I almost fell off my chair with the shock, automatically glancing at the clock. Today was February 18th. The 24th was next Wednesday.

  Then came the delayed reaction. My whole body started to tremble, and the hand holding the sheet of white paper began to shake involuntarily as though I was an elderly patient in a senile dementia ward. I was overcome with a feeling of intense nausea, and the letters danced in front of my eyes before, by sheer force of will, I managed to focus again.

  I took deep breaths: one, two, three …

  It was obviously a joke. A macabre one but a joke nonetheless. Or also …

  A warning?

  But in that case, from who?

  And why?

  Hardly able to summon the energy, I rewound the tape on the answerphone to hear what glad tidings might be lying in wait there.

  There was only one message: the same digital-sounding organ music as the previous time. ‘Abide With Me’… And now I suspected I knew whose funeral they had in mind.

  Eleven

  BEFORE LEAVING THE OFFICE I called Karin Bjørge, my long-standing girlfriend at the Population Register Department, and asked her whether she had any plans for the evening.

  She had. ‘I promised Eva … She had two tickets for a concert at the Grieg Concert Hall, and I … I think she needs some company.’

  ‘I see.’

  She caught the undertone in my voice and quickly added: ‘But I can certainly change it, if you …’

  ‘No, no, course not. Heavens above!’

  She hesitated. ‘We can meet up tomorrow, can’t we?’

  ‘Course we can! Is it the usual wind orchestra recital?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, hope you enjoy it!’

  ‘Thanks.’

  So I went back home by myself after all.

  I checked the front door carefully before letting myself in, went cautiously from room to room, opening the doors fully and turning the lights on before stepping in.

  The flat was as empty as a Scout’s promise twenty years on.

  I rustled up a Veum special: leeks fried with chopped tomatoes, beaten eggs poured over it to make a sort of omelette, a bit ragged at the edges, but it went down a treat

  I made a cup of proper filter coffee and sat watching a TV debate that was about as meaningful as a free number on the Reeperbahn. Then I poured myself a glass of aquavit, put on a Ben Webster CD and went to fetch a book from the pile waiting to be read on my bedside table.

  But I couldn’t concentrate.

  I sat there with a kind of bad conscience, the feeling I’d been so accustomed to during the years I’d worked in Child Welfare. In fact, I should not have been sitting here taking it easy. I ought to have been out on the streets looking for Torild.

  The old boy on the floor below was as quiet as a mouse. He’d been widowed a few years before and since then, all I ever heard from below was now and then the tinkle of a bottle cap when he opened a beer or the sound of the radio on the rare occasions he put it on a bit too loud at six a.m.

  At eleven-thirty there was suddenly a ring at the front door downstairs.

  I went over to the window, opened it carefully and looked out. It was Karin.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, smiling up at me in the darkness. ‘Can I come in?’

  I went down and unlocked the door. She came in and gave me a quick hug. ‘You sounded as though you could do with some company.’

  We went upstairs and she hung up her dark coat in the hall. Underneath, she was wearing smooth black corduroy slacks, a white blouse and a dark-brown suede jacket that emphasised her slim waist. ‘I’ve brought my toothbrush,’ she said with a little smile.

  I kissed her tenderly. ‘A toothbrush and good spirits. That’ll do for anybody.’ A slight hint of red wine lingered over her. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’

  Beaming at me, she returned my kiss full on the mouth. ‘Yes …’

  In the bedroom we slowly undressed one another. I lay her back across the bed, ran my tongue in a gentle line gently down over her belly, carefully parted her labia and kissed her again passionately. She sighed, opened her thighs even wider and devoured me in great mouthfuls as though after a long fast.

  Afterwards she said
: ‘Eva and I went out for a glass of wine after the concert. Her husband’s left her for a girl who could easily be their daughter.’

  ‘A cleverer man than me once said: When you get older, and if you’re reasonable, the women you fall for will grow older as you do.’

  She snuggled in under my armpit, kissed me below my ear and said: ‘So that’s why things are so good between us, is it …?’

  ‘Mm.’

  The next morning she kissed me again, and we went into town together. That’s why I didn’t see the front page of the paper until I was back at the office, and then the main headline hit me smack between the eyes:

  GIRL FOUND DEAD ON FANAFJELL

  Twelve

  SIDSEL SKAGESTØL answered the telephone at the first ring as though she’d been sitting there waiting. Her voice was strained and shrill: ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s Veum.’

  ‘Oh.’ The change in her tone was so obvious it was almost palpable. ‘Er … I thought it was Holger.’ Then it quickly altered again. ‘Is there anything new?’

  ‘No, alas. I haven’t found her, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, I … Holger’s down there now.’

  ‘With the police?’

  ‘Yes. He …’ Her voice tailed off.

  ‘I saw the headline in the paper.’

  ‘But it’s not certain it’s her!’

  ‘Course it isn’t. She … The girl has to be identified first, in any case.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘Not now.’ Weakly she added: ‘Have you found out anything about her at all? About where she might – be?’

  ‘No, but I’m working on it.’

  ‘I think I’m going to have to ring off, Veum, so the phone won’t be engaged when he rings.’

  ‘If anything at all crops up, don’t be afraid to get in touch with me. If the case has already been – cleared up, then I’ll actually owe you some money. I’ll write out an itemised –’

  ‘That’s all right, Veum. We’ll keep in touch.’ With no further formalities she hung up.

  I carefully replaced the receiver and sat there looking out of the window.

  A few sparse snowflakes were falling over the city, like ash from a giant campfire somewhere high above. The layer of cloud above the mountains was ashen grey too, without a hint of a glow even though it was already after sunrise.

  I picked up the paper and read the short notice again.

  A young, so far unidentified, woman was found in a road-fill roughly midway between Fanaseter and Nordvik, on the eastern slope of Fanafjell Mountain. She was partly undressed, and there were clear signs of violence. However, it was still too early to say whether she had also been the victim of a sexual assault. The cause of death had not been established either. The person leading the investigation, Detective Inspector Dankert Muus, stated that, for the moment, the police were concentrating on establishing the young woman’s identity and also securing the scene of the crime and combing it for evidence.

  I got up, went over to the sink, filled a glass of water straight from the tap, drank it, went back to the desk, sat down, cleared away some piles of papers in front of me and counted slowly to ten before lifting the receiver, dialling the number of the police station and asking to speak to Dankert Muus.

  He was out.

  I hesitated slightly. ‘It’s about the body found up on Fanafjell. Could you put me through to someone else?’

  Yes, she could. I was put through to Eva Jensen after about twenty seconds.

  ‘It’s Veum.’

  ‘Oh, hello …’

  ‘It’s about that girl you’ve found. Has she been identified?’

  ‘Er. No. Muus is down at forensic at the moment, with a man who –’

  ‘– could be the father. Holger Skagestøl, right?’

  ‘That’s something I can’t –’

  ‘OK. The fact is that – I’ve been working on a case. A girl who’s been missing about a week, Torild Skagestøl. So far I’ve found very little trace of her, so when a girl suddenly turns up dead, I’m – worried, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘We haven’t many details either yet, Veum.’

  ‘When Muus is back, could you ask him to give me a call?’

  ‘By all means, Veum.’

  After our conversation, I sat there staring vacantly ahead.

  It was dead time, literally speaking. On the sheet of paper I wrote out the names I’d noted down in connection with Torild Skagestøl’s disappearing act:

  Åsa Furebø (Trond, Randi)

  Astrid Nikolaisen (Gerd, Kenneth?)

  Helene Sandal, Nattland School

  Sigrun Søvik, Guides leader

  Jimmy’s: Kalle? (Ronny)

  What about the hotel I’d tailed the two girls to from Jimmy’s? Almost without thinking, I added a new name to the list:

  Judge Brandt

  Then I called Paul Finckel.

  His voice was gravelly as though he’d got up early – or already started his weekend.

  He beat me to it. ‘Varg? Don’t tell me! You don’t have something to do with this killing as well, do you?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Know anything about it?’

  ‘She still hasn’t been identified.’

  ‘I know. But do you have any – particulars? Anything about her condition?’ I could hear him leafing through some papers. ‘Was it delicate, d’you mean? Not guilty, your honour.’

  I waited.

  ‘A good laugh makes you live longer, Varg. Haven’t you heard that?’

  ‘Yes, I have. But my days are long enough as they are.’

  ‘Here, let’s see … She was found yesterday evening. At about ten o’clock. It was a jogger who, er, had to answer a call of nature and scrambled down from the road up there. God knows whether he’ll ever go jogging again.’

  ‘Joggers don’t give up the ghost that easily.’

  ‘In any case, he came across something lying there, under some bushes, went to take a closer look and, well, you know the rest.’

  ‘No more than what’s in the papers.’

  ‘And there isn’t much more than that to tell either. Her clothes were in a mess, but the police are still unable to say whether she’d been raped or was the victim of some other kind of sexual assault, as the expression goes.’

  ‘Cause of death?’

  ‘Nothing so far. Do you know anything else?’

  ‘Not yet. But I’ve been on the trail of a girl for a couple of days and still not found her …’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Er … But if it’s not her …’

  ‘A hundred per cent on the QT, Varg.’ His voice took on a harder note. ‘One good turn deserves another. Next time you ring, you might find I’m busy.’

  ‘Strictly between us, then, Paul. Her name’s Torild Skagestøl.’

  I trotted out with her surname quickly and casually, but he immediately seized the connection. ‘A relative of Holger?’

  ‘His daughter.’

  ‘Exactly.’ I heard him making a note of it. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not yet. But if I receive confirmation that it is her, I may come back to you with more information.’

  ‘Can’t we deal with it now?’

  ‘Have to check it myself first, Paul. To be quite frank, I’ve hardly found out anything.’

  ‘Starting to feel your age, are you, Varg?’

  ‘No more than you, I hope. Anyway, thanks a lot.’

  ‘Same here, old wolf.’

  I hung up and shifted a few piles of paper about again. One page floated down to the floor. As I bent down to pick it up, the phone rang.

  I grabbed the page, placed it in front of me, lifted the receiver and answered: ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s Muus. I heard you’d rung.’

  ‘Yes, I … Has she been identified?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘I think you should get down here, Veum.’

/>   ‘When?’

  ‘I’m already expecting you.’

  ‘Be there in five minutes.’

  As I hung up, my eyes fell on the sheet of paper in front of me.

  I jumped. In all the fuss, I’d almost forgotten.

  What I was looking at was my own death notice, dated five days hence.

  Thirteen

  WE HAD SO CONSISTENTLY AVOIDED each other the past few years that when I met Dankert Muus that day I was struck by how much older he looked.

  Not only had he put on a fair amount of weight, he’d also become greyer, and his hair was thinning. The grim set of his mouth was more pronounced; on the other hand, a kind of peace seemed to have settled over him. No longer did it look as though he might leap over the desk and grind you to a pulp if you contradicted him; on occasion, he could even throw his typewriter after you.

  Through the open door he signalled a rather heavy handshake. ‘Come in, Veum. Have a seat.’

  I did as he said and shot a quick glance round me. The office bore clear signs of the fact that, in a year’s time, the whole department would be moving into the new wing now going up on the corner of Allehelgens Street and Nygaten. It hadn’t had a lick of paint in the last five or six years, at any rate. And in a way Dankert Muus looked a bit like that too.

  He looked at me dispiritedly. ‘Jensen said you’d been trying to find this girl?’

  ‘I have been looking for a particular girl, yes, that’s right.’

  He breathed in deeply then slowly exhaled. ‘I’m afraid I can confirm it’s the same person … if the name Jensen had noted was correct.’

  I felt numb, as if I’d stayed too long in the water after a dip too early in spring. ‘Torild Skagestøl.’

  He nodded. ‘Her father’s just identified her. I went up with him to the Institute of Forensic Medicine, and we got a provisional statement from him before he had to go back home to – his wife.’

  In a flash I saw before me Sidsel Skagestøl in the large east-facing sitting room. That view would lose something of its charm for her now and for a good many weeks to come. Indeed, it might well never regain it.