Cold Hearts (12 page)

He sneered at me. ‘Can you imagine that? No, it’s not Maggi! It’s a decent girl. Someone who would finally get me back on an even keel. The one I had been waiting for all my life.’

I had my own thoughts on this. He was not yet thirty years old, and some of us had been waiting a good deal longer than that.

‘And what’s her name?’

In a burst of passion he said: ‘Not even if you beat me up, like the others did, will you find out! I’m still living in hope that everything will be alright.’

‘Tell me … have you told her what you were doing?’

‘I had to justify why I was leaving, didn’t I. To explain that this was the last job, and I was stopping for her.’

‘I’m sure she’ll forgive you.’

‘And what use will it be? I’m sitting here, to all intents and purposes, one and a half million kroner in debt. And the debt becomes due sooner than you imagine. If you can’t pay, the interest soars from one day to the next. What the hell can I do?’ Again the look of naked desperation on his face. ‘Can you tell me that, eh?’

I sat looking at him. ‘There is no simple solution, but … are you willing to go to court with any of this?’

He frantically massaged his brow. ‘Court? Are you out of your mind? First of all I would get a hefty sentence myself, and then I would drag the others down with me. I would be dead before the month was out, even if I was locked up in solitary on Bjørnøya Island!’

‘Would you rather rot in an attic room in Møhlenpris?’

He looked around him. ‘At least I’m alive here! For as long it lasts. Think about that, whatever your bloody name is.’

‘Veum.’ I passed him my business card. ‘Here you are. Should you change your mind about spilling the beans. If you ask me, it’s the one chance you’ve got.’

He read the card with slow, meticulous care, then nodded. Whether that was because he had managed to read what was there or whether it meant he might contact me I would perhaps never know.

‘You said … poor Maggi if she was the one who gave you away. How bad would the outcome be for her? Is it conceivable that they would kill her?’

He looked at me darkly. ‘It’s not impossible. Look what they did to me. They’re desperate to get the drugs back.’

‘KG, do you know him?’

‘KG? He’s in prison, isn’t he?’

I nodded. ‘Maggi’s brother. But I suppose you knew.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s disappeared as well. Escaped, they say.’

‘Really?!’ The friendly attitude was about to evaporate. Anger was taking control again.

‘Would he be able to protect her?’

‘Against those guys. Not a snowball’s chance in hell. But what’s that got to do with me?’

‘Well, nothing except that you said you knew Maggi.’

‘So why do you ask such bloody stupid questions?’

‘Let’s put it like this. It’s my job to ask questions. Not all of them are equally popular, but very few of them are unfounded.’

He glowered at me. Then he shook his head, as if to emphasise that there was no understanding me, my opinions or what I wanted from him. His eyes focused on the two banknotes I still held in my hand. He nodded in their direction. ‘You promised me …’

I looked down. ‘Yes, I might have done at that. Buggered if I know whether you deserve them, but … OK. Here you are.’

I gave them both to him. He looked as if he needed them, or what he could get for them. Nothing to punch the air about, perhaps, but enough to get him through the night and all its problems, a situation which for that matter he shared with most of us, in one way or another.

For me, though, it was not night yet. First of all I had to go to Landås to try another shot in the dark.

ACCORDING TO MY INFORMATION
, Siv Monsen lived in Kristofer Jansons vei, which winds its way between Natlandsveien and Slettebakken. Together with the parallel street Adolph Bergs vei it constituted the area known, way back in the 1960s, as Chicago, not entirely without justification.

The number I had found in the directory was for one of the typical star buildings, the blocks that had been designed in a kind of star formation, with three wings leading off a central entrance. There were three of them up towards Natlandsveien and six in Kristofer Jansons vei. Siv Monsen lived in one of the middle ones, and I found an unmarked parking spot by the small common on the opposite side of the street.

The front door was open. I went in the entrance and took the stairs up until I saw Siv Monsen’s name on one of three doors on the second floor. I rang the doorbell and stood waiting.

‘Veum?’ Her face above the security chain in the narrow crack between door and frame was pale. Her short hair was wet and untidy, as though she had just washed it, and she had a towel hanging round her neck. She was wearing faded jeans and a loose checked shirt with long sleeves. ‘What do you want?’

I motioned towards the security chain. ‘Someone you’re frightened of?’

‘No … force of habit.’

‘Are you going to let me in?’

‘What do you want, I asked?’

‘I’m still looking for your sister, and your brother hasn’t shown up, either.’

‘Yes, but …’ She rolled her eyes and made a show of sighing; however, she did close the door again so that she could unhitch the chain and let me in. ‘I haven’t got an awful lot of time.’

I followed her into the hall. ‘This won’t take long.’

‘You can hang it there.’ She pointed to a wardrobe to the left of the hall. ‘The sitting room’s in here.’

I hung up my coat and followed her.

She had two views, one down towards Lake Tveitevannet and another where a door led to a balcony, west, over the Birkeveien intersection. The room was furnished with simple taste. The walls were white, the furniture modern with a combination of chromium-plated steel tubes and cushions. There was a large glass coffee table, and in the middle a bunch of winter-grown tulips in a slim crystal vase. Along the wall was a plain shelving system. Holding predominantly teaching material for banking and insurance. A couple of gaudy novels were the extent of the literature section. The TV and the hi-fi, however, looked to be top quality and well above the lowest price range, judging by the brands.

She looked at her watch. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got any time to offer you anything, but … take a seat.’

I obeyed and chose one of the chairs by the glass table. She remained on her feet as if to stress how pressed she was.

I indicated one of the other chairs with an upturned palm. ‘Won’t you …’

With an impatient gesture she sat down, on the edge of the chair. ‘I can’t see how I could have any more to tell you. I told you everything I know yesterday.’

‘Sure of that?’

‘Course I’m sure!’

‘In the meantime, however, Carsten Mobekk has been found murdered in his flat in Falsens vei.’

She eyed me, ashen. ‘So it was him? Well, I thought it was his house. In the newspaper.’

‘You knew Mobekk, didn’t you?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘He was on the committee that was supposed to help you when you were growing up.’

Her eyes did not deviate for an instant, but they seemed to be veiled by a shiny membrane. ‘The committee? Who’s …?’ She broke off.

‘No, you didn’t tell me a thing, did you, when we spoke yesterday. Not a single thing.’

‘These are all private matters, Veum. I don’t understand what you’re digging for. Margrethe and Kalle have gone missing, you say, but what has that got to do with anyone else?’

‘Haven’t the police been in touch?’

‘The police? Why should they?’

‘If for nothing else because both your brother and your sister have disappeared. Your brother used to give your address as his place of abode when he had a pass, and you were in regular contact with Margrethe, so … You’ll get a visit from them, that’s for definite.’ I cast an eye over the room. ‘Neither of them has been here recently, have they? Margrethe or Kalle, I mean.’

‘Does it look like it?’

‘No, it looks … I assume you don’t want to show me the other rooms …’

‘You can bet your life I don’t.’

‘When the police come they’ll ask you.’

‘Then I’ll show them. The police are different after all … from your kind.’

I made a mental note of that. ‘But this committee, let’s return to that.’

‘And why should we?’

‘You didn’t have an easy upbringing, I’ve been told.’

She measured me with her eyes, showing no willingness to answer.

‘But you get good references from the committee and those who taught you at school.’

Her voice trembled as she said: ‘I have to say you’ve got around a bit since we last met! What sort of investigations are these?’

I leaned forward a smidgeon. ‘What I’m doing is searching for your sister, Siv. Others are sure to be searching for your brother. There has been a shocking death. Things are coming out of the woodwork, as it were. Some claim it was you who held the façade together to the outside world, that it was you who made sure your brother and sister got up in the morning and went to school, had packed lunches, did their homework …’

‘So what did we need the committee for then, eh?’ she said with barely concealed sarcasm.

‘You were too young for that kind of responsibility, Siv! You were ten years old when social services received the first report expressing concern.’

She pinched her lips, as if holding back all she wanted to say.

‘I can’t remember if I told you yesterday, Siv, but I worked for social services at one point. I’ve done a few home visits. Very often social services get some support when they raise a
matter. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of anyone forming a committee to help. Close family, yes. Grandparents, uncles, aunts. There are many safety nets of that kind. But a committee of neighbours with parish council support …’ I tried to give this a positive spin. ‘That says volumes about the enormous concern there was for you all, doesn’t it.’

She sent me defiant, silent glares, like a small child refusing to obey.

‘Yet things still didn’t go well. At least, not for your brother and sister.’

Again she looked at her watch, but said nothing. She stirred uneasily.

‘Why were you the only one to attend your father’s funeral, Siv?’

She gasped. ‘What the … who told you that?’

‘I spoke to your mother.’

Her mouth twisted with bitterness. ‘I see.’

‘That was in 1993, and since then not one of you has visited her, she said.’

‘No.’

‘Quite dramatic, don’t you think? Have you broken all ties with her?’

She glanced across at me. ‘What business is that of yours? Has this got anything to do with your assignment?’ As I didn’t answer she added: ‘Will it help you to find Margrethe?’

‘Not in any direct way.’

‘Well! Have we finished now?’

‘Just a couple more questions. Have you any idea where she could be hiding? Are there any old girlfriends? Any places where you spent your summer holidays?’

‘Summer holidays?’ She snorted. ‘At holiday camps or in
the street at home. Sometimes we had to go to Torvaldsen’s cabin, that was the closest it got. The photo you showed me yesterday.’

‘Right, and
fru
Torvaldsen helped you with your homework, didn’t she?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe she did. I don’t remember.’

‘You might have repressed it.’

Another twist of the mouth.

‘Have you repressed a lot? Can you remember the details surrounding what happened to your brother … at Gimle?’

‘Details? Nothing apart from what was in the papers. He never told us anything. And when it had happened,
it
, then he ended up on remand and later in the clink.’

‘I suppose you must have visited him though?’

‘Ye-es …’

‘And later he stayed here, on weekend passes?’

‘A few times over the last couple of years. He wasn’t exactly on leave every weekend.’

‘But you must have spoken about …’

‘No, we did not. We never spoke about it. Never!’

‘Karl Gunnar had a childhood friend, I’ve been told. Rolf Terje Dalby.’

For the first time this evening she showed me the shadow of a smile. ‘Rolf Terje, yes. That was weird. He hadn’t had such a good home life, himself.’

‘Really?’

‘His father was at school, and Rolf Terje still went round spouting a load of strange expressions we didn’t understand a word of.’ She imitated him. ‘
Cattle dies, kith dies
… Ugh, ugh!’

‘
The Håvamål.
’

‘The what?’

‘Good advice from old Norse times, in a manner of speaking. And later?’

‘Later?’

‘Did you see him in later years, after you moved from Minde?’

‘Rolf Terje? Not that I can recall.’

‘He’s got a photo of you at home.’

‘A photo! Rolf Terje?’

‘Taken some time in the 1980s from what I saw. You and another girl in the sun in Minde.’

She made a show of rolling her shoulders. ‘Funny. Must have been Anne-Lise, I suppose.’

‘Anne-Lise?’

‘She was in my class at the time.’

‘But you had no idea he had that photo of you?’

‘No, I told you!’

‘OK, OK. He was secretly in love with you. Perhaps he kept it, as a souvenir.’

‘Perhaps! He was five years younger than me, so … Have we finished now?’

‘Almost. What I wanted to ask was … did Karl Gunnar and Rolf Terje stay in touch? Could Rolf Terje have helped Karl Gunnar go underground?’

‘And how would I know? I haven’t seen him for ages, as I said.’

‘He’s kept in touch with Margrethe.’

‘Has he?’ Her expression betrayed uncertainty.

‘He’s one of those men who … protects her, if I can put it like that.’

The doorbell rang. She jumped up: ‘I told you, didn’t I! I had no time for this!’ She grabbed the towel and feverishly dried her hair as though I had prevented her from finishing.

I got up. ‘OK, OK. Of course. Please don’t let me disturb you.’

She scowled at me and headed for the front door, slinging the towel in a room as she went by and trying to smooth her hair. I was putting on my jacket when she opened the door. A half-strangled cry escaped her lips, as though she was just as surprised as me to see the person standing in the doorway.

For a moment we stood staring at each other. He seemed no less surprised. ‘Varg?’

‘Nils? A little collegial visit of an evening?’

‘A collegial conversation,’ he mumbled, apparently the first thing that occurred to him, without succeeding in making it sound very convincing.

‘Veum’s on his way out,’ said Siv Monsen, blushing.

‘Uhuh,’ Nils Åkre mumbled, no less embarrassed. ‘We’ll catch up another time,’ he said to me as he passed.

‘Have fun,’ I said, as she closed the door hard behind me. But I didn’t hear her slide the security chain. She had nothing to be frightened of any more.