Fallen Angels

by Gunnar Staalesen

  ‘Mhm?’

  I leaned forward and stared into his face. ‘Did something happen in 1975, Jakob? Why did you split up exactly?’

  He met my stare with a wall of defiance. Then his eyes flitted around the room. ‘I’ve told you before, Varg, it was because we’d gradually grown apart.’

  ‘OK, but I’ve heard that after 1973 you weren’t doing a lot gig-wise. You were back with the golden oldies and the “remember-this-one?” stuff for the thirty-year-olds. Why 1975?’

  ‘I can’t give you an answer, Varg.’

  ‘Because you don’t want to?’

  ‘Because I can’t tell you any more than I already have!’

  ‘So nothing of any importance happened?’

  ‘Of any importance? Like what?’

  ‘Something that led to a break-up? Such as something between you and Johnny?’

  ‘Between…?’

  ‘It couldn’t be that 1975 was the first time he had a fling with Rebecca, for example?’

  ‘1975? Surely you don’t think…?’

  ‘That he got his revenge in 1975 for what you once did to him when you and Anita … well, there was something between you and Anita, wasn’t there?’

  ‘Between…? Yes, there was, but, goodness me, that was a hundred years ago. That was even before I got together with Rebecca…’

  ‘But not before Johnny and Anita got together, eh?’

  Jakob lowered his gaze. ‘No, it wasn’t … But it didn’t last long. It was just a respite for us both. For me a period of rootlessness. For her a relationship that had already started to weigh her down.’

  ‘Right, and when was that? 1960?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘1961?’

  He gave a slight nod.

  ‘1962?’

  ‘It was over by then.’

  ‘And how long did Anita and Johnny stay married after that?’

  ‘A long time. Several years.’

  ‘So he didn’t know what happened?’

  ‘No idea. You’ll have to ask Anita.’

  ‘Perhaps I will, Jakob. That wasn’t what happened in 1975 then? That Johnny finally found out?’

  ‘No, no, no. Nothing happened in 1975, Varg. Not a bloody thing. That was precisely the problem. There was nothing that gave us any reason to stay together.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Who initiated the break-up?’

  He sent me a desperate look. ‘No one … directly. It just happened.’

  ‘It just happened. Nothing … and then it just happened. 1975 was an eventful year. I stopped working at social services that year, by the way. Set up my office in Strandkaien. For me 1975 was an important year. But for you it wasn’t.’

  ‘Correct. Have we finished now, Varg? Are you happy? Where are you actually going with all these questions?’

  I felt my shoulders droop. I splayed my hands. ‘I don’t know, Jakob. As I said, three men are dead, and they all played in the same band as you. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that if I were you.’

  ‘OK. What do we do now?’

  I got up from my chair. ‘Well, what do we do now? You try to come to terms with this new situation in your life. I’m going to follow the few leads I have.’

  ‘Leads?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t like it when people get killed after I’ve contacted them for the first time in years. The police don’t like it, either. On that point we’re one hundred per cent in agreement. So I’ll mooch around asking questions. Nothing important, just a few random questions about what happened many years ago.’

  ‘Just don’t mess things up, Varg.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean this is really a job for the police, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it always is.’

  We stood looking at each other.

  ‘When will I see you again, Varg? It’d be a shame if…’

  ‘I’ll get in touch, Jakob. If not, we’ll meet at Johnny’s funeral, I assume?’

  He smiled sadly. ‘Are you saying we’ve reached the age when we only meet at funerals?’

  ‘Not quite yet, Jakob. Though it might seem like that right now.’

  Then I left him to the ravages of the washing machine. The spin phase had already started, and a heart attack was on the way unless someone restored its equilibrium.

  I also felt a bit out of balance as I left.

  26

  I walked past the officer in the hall and, behaving as if I had a passe-partout, took the lift to Kripos and knocked on the closed door of Vegard Vadheim’s office.

  An indefinable sound from within reached my ears, and after a moment I knocked again.

  ‘Come in,’ I heard this time, loud and clear.

  I opened the door.

  Vadheim was alone. He was sitting at the desk, partly obscured by a formidable pile of documents, writing furiously. I had seen him like this before: head down, arms pumping, in long-distance races.

  He barely had time to look up, but when he saw who it was, he straightened his back, put down his biro and said, not without a certain tartness in his tone: ‘Come in, Veum. I hadn’t expected to see you again so soon.’

  I closed the door behind me.

  He consulted his watch. ‘Not for a couple of hours anyway,’ he continued. He arched his eyebrows and leaned across his desk with a devilish but not unfriendly expression on his face.

  There was something eternal and constant about Vegård Vadheim. He was one of life’s indefatigable marathon runners, keeping up an even pace, according to a timetable he had set down in detail long before the race had started. At the tape he would have left all of us behind.

  I mumbled, ‘There was something I forgot to mention the last time I was here.’

  ‘You don’t say. Something you omitted to … mention. And what would that be?’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re aware,’ I started, with a tiny strategic evasion, ‘but of the four musicians who constituted The Harpers, there’s only one left. Jakob Aasen. The other three are dead, and none of them had what one might call a … natural death.’

  He crossed his arms. ‘Really? Let me hear what you have to say about that.’

  ‘You know … These are kind of my childhood pals. Well, not really, I suppose, but Jakob Aasen was. And Johnny Solheim lived in the same street as I did. The other two were in the class below us and lived in Verftet, but I knew who they were. Because of Jakob I followed The Harpers closely for a few years.’

  He leaned forward again with his forearms on the desk. ‘Interesting, Veum. That’s handy to know.’

  ‘You know yourself how Johnny died.’

  ‘Yes, Veum, I do.’

  The irony bounced off me like talk of relegation on an FC Brann fan. ‘Listen, the other two: the first, Harry Kløve, the bass guitarist, was killed on a zebra crossing when the pedestrian lights were on red in autumn last year.’

  He angled his head and nodded. ‘I see. A traffic accident, in other words?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. If you take the full context. I mean traffic accidents are not always how they appear. If you’re waiting to cross the road and there are lots of people around you … then along comes a bus and as it reaches the pedestrian crossing someone thumps you in the back and you involuntarily step forward. That’s not impossible, is it?’

  He sent me a stern look. ‘No, it isn’t, Veum. Nothing’s impossible. Bit imaginative maybe, but … fine.’

  ‘And then there’s the drummer. Arild Hjellestad. He drank himself to death, it was said. In January this year. He was plastered and fell asleep outdoors, in the snow, and was frozen to death. That kind of thing can be arranged too, can’t it?’

  ‘Yeeees,’ he drawled.

  ‘We know nothing about who he was drinking with, for example. In those fraternities they seldom drink alone.’

  ‘In which fraternities?’

  ‘Among alcoholics. Things went downhill pretty smartly for Hjellestad
after 1975.’

  ‘1975?’

  ‘The year they split up, The Harpers.’

  He made a note. ‘OK. So, in other words, you think there may’ve been no less than three criminal acts here. If you’re right, three murders in fact. Hjellestad’s case is the least convincing. It could hardly have been anything more than unthinking … Nevertheless. Alright.’ He gesticulated in Mediterranean fashion, eyebrows raised quizzically. ‘But why, Veum? And how are we going to prove it? You know as well as I do that the safest way to commit murder is to disguise it as an accident. Statisticians say a long line of murders pass unnoticed every single year. That’s the definition of a perfect murder, Veum. The accident…’

  I nodded twice, the first in affirmation, the second towards all the paperwork covering his desk. ‘So there’s nothing about the deaths here? Not one of them was considered … suspicious?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. So I’m glad you came to tell me, Veum. It may save us a lot of extra work. At least it means I must have a very thorough conversation with your old school chum, Jakob Aasen.’

  I nodded. ‘There was one other matter I was wondering about…’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘The murder weapon.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There was nothing about it in the papers. And I saw nothing but blood. Was there a weapon at the crime scene?’

  His eyes lingered on me. ‘No, there wasn’t, Veum. That’s one of the things we’re … You’re not walking around with it on you, are you?’

  I smiled wanly. ‘No, I put it in my safety-deposit box.’

  ‘Because when we find that,’ he said resolutely, ‘we’ll have the murderer as well.’

  I wafted a hand in his direction. ‘If you should find anything…’

  ‘If we do, you can be sure I won’t tell you, Veum.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t have expected you to.’

  I left him then and there with two new deaths to investigate, suspicious or not, accidental or premeditated. At any rate, both Hjellestad and Kløve were dead.

  Before I clocked off I went to the National Registration Office and tried to meet my special friend, Karin Bjørge. But there wasn’t so much as a switchboard operator left in the public service department.

  So I went home and rang her from there. She didn’t sound particularly cheerful when I asked if I could treat her to the meal I had promised.

  ‘Wasn’t it me who owed you, Varg?’

  ‘In which case, I owe you from ages ago.’

  ‘Besides I’ve already put the potatoes on…’

  ‘Put them in the fridge for tomorrow.’

  For some reason she allowed herself to be persuaded. Perhaps she had less resistance than before. Or perhaps the great panic had seized her: the knowledge that she had reached the age when if she said ‘no’ once or twice there wouldn’t be anyone else who would ask her.

  I picked her up and enjoyed a peck on the cheek, the smell of apple flowers in my nostrils and a very relaxed evening into the bargain. We went to a Chinese restaurant which served generous portions for an affordable price. As I was driving I left it to her to drink wine. That made it easier for us both to keep the conversation going, and after I had paid the bill she wasn’t even offended to be given a note on which I had written: Anita, married to Solheim (Johnny), 1962–1975. Mother of Harry Kløve, born 1943, moved to care home probably in 1984–85 (perhaps before). Addresses now? She just glanced at it, smiled ironically, put the note in her handbag and said: ‘Call me early tomorrow and I’ll do it as soon as I’m at work.’

  Afterwards I drove her home. Winter lay like a watchful beast around us, ready to pounce. But the prey wasn’t close enough yet.

  In the car I gazed at her. Her short, ascetic hair brought out the stern contours of her face, and even the December darkness couldn’t hide the sad, almost bitter, expression on her mouth and the narrow yet sensitive lips. ‘You’re staring at me, Varg.’

  I nodded. I leaned forward carefully and kissed her lightly on the mouth.

  For a moment she hesitated. Then she kissed me back, as gently as if I were Chinese porcelain.

  But she didn’t ask me up. Her sister had died recently, and it was too short a time after the funeral for that.

  I sat in the car until she had let herself in. Then I drove back up Fløenbakken, took a left to Årstadsvollen and followed the side streets across the mountain to Skansen.

  I walked home, changed into a track suit and went for a long, slow run to the Powder House in Isdalen and back, then got into bed with Isabel Allende, or rather, a book by her.

  I held the other women up in front of me, as a kind of shield. But it wasn’t enough. I had felt the sensual attraction to Laila Mongstad; I had kissed Karin Bjørge. But that night, inevitably, I dreamed about Rebecca.

  27

  Next morning came like a bailiff on a white horse, bearing a gift.

  I rang Karin Bjørge and got the two addresses.

  ‘No problems?’ I asked.

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Will we see each other again?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  And that was that. It could be so easy if you cultivated your connections.

  The rest of the day’s programme didn’t look insuperable either. Anita Solheim, who still used the same name, lived conspicuously close to her late ex-husband, in one of the side streets off the old Fyllingsveien above Melkeplassen square. From there I could drive over to Fyllingsdalen and try to locate Harry Kløve’s mother, Ingeborg, at the nursing home.

  In the car to Laksevåg I tried to create a mental picture of Anita Solheim, the way I remembered her when she had been a hazy silhouette behind a roller blind across the alleyway where I grew up.

  I turned off Carl Konows gate and followed Fyllingsveien’s steep upward climb. The night frost had left a protective layer of frozen plastic over the tarmac, but fortunately the day’s first buses had driven over it and the remnants lay on the roadside like wrinkled animal skin. But for the buses, this could have been a difficult hill to climb, even with front-wheel drive and aggressive winter tyres.

  I reached the top, passed Damsgård school and pulled into a side street where the plastic hadn’t cracked and it was a lot more difficult to steer the car.

  Anita Solheim lived in a somewhat newer build than her ex-husband had. This was from the early sixties with high, whitewashed basement walls, stained wooden cladding and black, glazed roof tiles.

  I parked by the gate, surveyed the front of the house and then walked through the little front garden, where the autumn apples hung from the frail trees like forgotten trophies.

  As I lifted my hand to press the bell, the door was torn open and a girl of about fifteen stormed out, her dark hair flying. She was wearing tight blue jeans and a big puffer jacket in light-green and pink, and was carrying a light-brown leather rucksack over one shoulder. She had strikingly delicate facial features, which had the strange effect of making her seem a lot further away than she was. Shooting me a bemused glance, she loped off, her knees turned inwards in a style that revealed a lack of acquaintance with sports centres.

  I stood watching her until she had gone. Then I rang the doorbell.

  It made a terrible noise inside. The door was torn open again and an angry voice hissed: ‘What have you forgotten now?’

  We stared at each other, her defensively, me still with a sense that I had been hit by an express train.

  ‘I … kids nowadays,’ she said wearily. ‘She should’ve been at school an hour ago … But they know how to roam the streets till late at night, don’t they.’

  I had been wrong. I did recognise her. It was Anita Solheim, but she hadn’t developed as I’d imagined. She was a fallen star.

  The proportions between her upper arms were still considerable, but her figure had filled out now, right down to the hem of her dress and her chubby legs. Her hair was unkempt, and there were untreated streaks of grey; her face was pallid and
ravaged, with heavy bags under her eyes and only a perfunctory layer of make-up. She looked older than she was, in her mid-forties.

  With sardonic distance, a greyish-brown, muscular Siamese cat rubbed against her calves, demonstrating a disdainful composure Anita could never have dreamed of attaining. Its hostile green eyes squinted up at me.

  She flapped a hand nervously. ‘Who do I have…?’

  ‘Hi, Anita. I don’t know if you remember me. I was a childhood friend of Johnny’s and I worked as a roadie for The Harpers a few times. And I also lived in the same alley as you once.’ I leaned forward and smiled pleasantly. ‘I remember you anyway.’

  She smiled back, a little embarrassed, absolutely aware that, if so, she was no longer as I remembered her. ‘I don’t think I…’ she mumbled.

  ‘Varg Veum. In the green house across the alleyway.’

  She still couldn’t recall me, but that probably wasn’t so unusual. Her roller blind had been down most of the time. In the street I was a pup, two years younger than her, and when she and Johnny moved to Paddemyren, some regarded this as tantamount to cradle-snatching.

  ‘Have you got a few minutes?’

  She smiled acidly. ‘If this is supposed to be a visit to express your condolences, then you might not be aware that Johnny and I’ve been divorced for more than ten years.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, in fact I was aware.’

  She stared at me. The cat meowed a warning: Don’t listen to him. ‘Mm, now you mention it, there is something familiar about you. The green house, did you say? There was someone on the first floor who became a priest?’

  I nodded enthusiastically. ‘Exactly. But we lived on the ground floor.’

  She stepped to the side. ‘You’d better come in. It’s not very tidy, but…’

  We went into a small hallway. The cat slunk away, keeping close to the wall, but not letting us out of its sight for a moment.

  A staircase led up to the first floor, but she opened a door to the right and said: ‘We can go in here. It’s a room we don’t…’