The Consorts of Death (35 page)

‘And you’re happy doing that?’

‘Yes, but wasn’t it Jan Egil we were going to talk about, not me?’

‘Yeah, yeah. We got distracted. He’s become a father, I’ve heard.’

‘Cecilie did a good job of getting you up to speed, I can hear.’ As I reacted with no more than a nod, he went on: ‘Yes, he has, and with this Silje, whom I’m sure you remember from 1984.’

‘Goes without saying.’

‘Yes, I don’t know much more than that. They have a little boy whom social services are keeping a bit of an eye on.’

‘Have you met her?’

‘No. She’s never been here. Neither her nor the boy.’

‘And if that wasn’t enough, you had Terje Hammersten living in the house, of all people, as well.’

‘Yeah. Jan Egil showing up was a coincidence, but Terje came because he had heard I was running this place.’

‘Terje? You were on first name terms?’

He smiled in a good-natured way. ‘That’s probably
something
you don’t know, Varg, but … Terje Hammersten had been converted.’

‘Converted? What to?’

‘He had found Jesus, as he put it.’ ‘

Christ! Who would have thought that? Whenever I met him, he generally threatened to beat me to pulp.’

‘You know … there was a powerful personal reason. He lost his wife. Mette. I’m sure you can remember …’

‘Did they get married? Mette Olsen and him? Jan Egil’s mother?’

‘Yes, but then she died. She had cancer of the womb and it spread so fast it was impossible to operate. They treated her with cytotoxin, but she was already so weakened that the end was a foregone conclusion. It was while she was ill that he found Jesus. That was how he explained it.’

‘And they also lived in Oslo?’

‘No, in Kløfta. Jan Egil was banged up in Ullersmo, and I suppose this ran through her life like a leitmotif. Wherever Jan Egil went, she followed. And up there she was given permission to visit. I think she was the only person he had left. His foster mother had been out of his life for a long time, and the foster parents had been killed – by him, if we’re to believe the court.’

‘Vibecke Skarnes lives here too – I seem to remember. At any rate she moved here after leaving prison.’

‘That’s possible but … I’ve never heard that there was any contact. But there was a relationship between Jan Egil and his real mother for the first time in their lives. It was worse with Terje. I don’t think Jan Egil could ever accept that Terje and his mother had become a couple, and even worse, when he was finally given parole, that only Terje was left. And that the mother he had got so used to as his very own was also suddenly gone. For good.’

‘When did she die?’

‘Last autumn. She was buried up there. In Ullensaker. The end of a long and tragic life. Another homeless soul,’ he said with a heavy sigh, half standing, half sitting on the edge of the desk.

‘So how did he react when he came here and found that
Hammersten
was living here, too?’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I realised I would have to take the bull by the horns, so I told him straight out, in case he would prefer to live somewhere else. But he didn’t, and afterwards I introduced them to each other, made them shake hands and swear to be good neighbours. Of course I could feel there were no warm feelings between them, but I would never have guessed it would go this far!’

‘Can you tell me what happened?’

‘Not in any detail. After all, I wasn’t here when it happened. It must have been some time over the weekend. One of the other residents found him.’

‘Mm?’

‘Norvald Kristensen’s his name. He realised he hadn’t seen Terje since the Saturday. He knocked and listened at his door, which was unlocked. And when he opened … well, I can assure you, Varg, it was not a pretty sight. Norvald rang me and I drove down immediately, but I knew straightaway that I would have to call the police. There was no hope for Terje Hammersten.’

‘How …?’

‘He was lying on his back. Someone had battered his face to mush. If I hadn’t recognised his clothing and his torso, it would have been impossible to say who it was. Blood was spattered all over the floor, and next to him lay his Bible, open but face down.’ When he saw my quizzical look, he added: ‘You never saw Terje without the Bible in his hand. Every single time I dropped by to talk to him he was sitting and flicking through it. Absolutely had to read out to me a new bit of the scriptures he had found, some words, like manna, that would give him comfort and forgiveness for all the misdeeds he had committed over a long life of sin.’

‘Mm … he didn’t confide in you at all about any of these
misdeeds
, did he?’

‘No, but he complained a lot about what a bad father he had been to his son in Bergen. I don’t know if you remember I had some dealings with him, too?’

‘How can I forget that? That was how Hammersten got his alibi back in 1984.’

‘Yes, but you can just forget all that. Jan Egil has paid the penalty for the double murder, and now he’s got another damn murder on his hands …’

‘Are the police confident this time as well?’

His brow darkened. ‘They found a bloodstained baseball bat in his room, Varg. And the boy has vanished into thin air. At first they didn’t know about his background. But then they made a few phone calls, to Førde and Bergen, and that was when all the alarm bells started ringing. I gave them Silje’s address. He wasn’t there, either. But they’ve got a full-scale search for him under way, and it can’t be long before they catch him, I hope.’

‘Silje’s address, can I have it, too? Is her name still Tveiten?’

‘Yes. I noted it down on his registration card when he moved in. It’s always good to have tabs on … relatives.’ He turned round, pulled out a drawer from the desk and lifted out a small grey
card-index
box. He flicked through to a card, checked it, leaned over and passed it to me.

‘Søren Jaabæks gate?’

‘Yes, it’s up in Iladalen. Right by the church.’

‘OK. I’ll find it.’

‘But what …?’

‘I only want to have a few words with her.’

‘I meant to ask you … What’s the point of this? Are you on some kind of investigation?’

‘No, this is more in the way of a preventive measure.’

‘Preventive?’

‘Yes. Didn’t you say you had a key to the room … where the murder took place?’

He looked at me, troubled. ‘Yes, I’ve got one. But theoretically it has been sealed off by the police.’

‘Properly sealed?’

‘No, just with plastic tape. But we can’t … I can’t let you do any more than stand at the doorway and peer in.’

‘It would be great just to have an impression of the room.’

‘But I still don’t understand … This is very much a police matter, Varg. There’s nothing you or I can do here.’

‘No, but you know what we’ve felt for the boy, right from the time he was Johnny boy to us.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Do you know if Jens Langeland is still his solicitor?’

‘No … I suppose he’s climbed a bit too high up the greasy pole for us mere mortals now. I guess you must have followed him in the press, too, haven’t you? The stellar barrister who goes from one momentous case to the next. Detached house on Holmenkollen ridge, chalet in the mountains, by the lake, you name it, he’s got it. Hats off to him. But you can seek an audience, if you’ve got some business to do.’

‘I might do that.’

‘Good luck.’

‘Well, shall we have a look at the flat?’

‘OK then … I’ve got the key here.’ He opened a drawer, took out a key and motioned to the door. ‘But I don’t know if I like this.’

I didn’t, either. But I went with him up the two floors to the scene of the crime.

On the second floor we came to a halt in front of a door closed off with police tape. But there was no seal on the lock, and when Hans bent over the plastic ribbon and inserted the key, it was just a question of turning it, pressing down the handle and pushing the door, then we had standing room at the theatre where the drama had taken place.

The door between the tiny hall and the room inside stood open, and through the doorway we could make out a spacious furnished sitting room. What caught my eye was the outline of a man on the floor, marked with white tape, and the big, dark stain on the wood where the head had been. There was a pattern of smaller spatter stains around the large one, and we could follow the trail of blood with our eyes to the hall where we were standing.

‘The murder weapon must have been dripping blood,’ Hans said. ‘That was the detective’s comment anyway.’

‘They should have every chance of finding bloodstains on his clothes too, by the look of it.’

‘Yes. He must have been literally spraying blood.’

‘Did anyone see him? Arriving at or leaving the crime scene?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘What about this Norvald Kristensen? Is it possible to grab a chat with him?’

‘If you can find him, that is. He went on the piss and hasn’t been seen since Monday.’

‘Another missing person, in other words?’

‘Norvald will turn up again, I reckon. All his things are here.’

We stood staring at the large patch of blood for a while. I didn’t even need to close my eyes to visualise the massive blows or Terje Hammersten, who had collapsed after the first of them, and then the flurry of blows that followed as he lay there, lifeless on the floor, being beaten to an unrecognisable pulp by someone who must have hated him with a vehemence it was hard to imagine.

‘Hatred – or fear,’ I said to myself.

‘What did you say?’

‘The only thing that could make someone do something like this. Hatred or fear.’

He nodded. ‘Have you seen enough now, do you think?’

‘Yes.’

I turned away while he carefully closed and locked the door without touching the tape. We walked back down in silence.

Hans accompanied me to the ground floor, stepped outside and cast a long look up and down the street before turning back to me. ‘And now your plan is to …?’

‘I’ll have to try Silje. We’re old friends, as you know.’

He looked at me sternly, then shook my hand and said: ‘Well … if there’s anything else you want to discuss with an old colleague, you’ve got my number. Good luck!’

‘Same to you,’ I said, waving goodbye and leaving.

Perhaps it was just the atmosphere of the scenario upstairs that was playing tricks on me, the unpleasant feeling of contemplating a crime scene, as if you were standing on the edge of something indefinably dark, the pull of a deep, apparently bottomless,
precipice
, but from the moment I left the house in Eiriks gate I had the oppressive sensation that I was being followed. I craned my neck round several times on the way from Tøyen to Grünerløkka, but I didn’t see anything remotely suspicious, neither on the
pavements
nor in the traffic. The vague sense of unease however didn’t leave me, and straightaway it was as if the town around me was changing character from being a medium-large, not particularly impressive capital city in a country with an overblown opinion of itself to something quite different and much more dangerous which it was difficult to put a name to …

Søren Jaabæks gate lay at the top of Ildalen and the address I had been given had an entrance right next to a humble
mustard-coloured
brick church with a rectangular spire. Silje Tveiten lived on the basement floor, straight through the corridor and to the right. I stood at her door listening. Inside I could hear a child crying.

I rang the bell. Immediately I heard movement, and the child’s crying came closer. After opening up, she stood there with the tiny tot in her arms. Its face was burning red, its mouth wide open, but the crying was beginning to shift into desperate sobbing, like a kind of realisation that there was no point anyway, there was no one who could provide solace and everyone was busy with their own whimpering soul.

Silje’s eyes widened and she moved to slam the door shut in my face, but I wedged a foot in the crack and stopped her.

‘What d’you want?’

‘You remember me, Silje?’

‘Course I bloody recognise you! What d’you want, I asked!’

‘Just to talk to you. About Jan Egil.’

‘You’ve done enough harm to Jan Egil and me as it is! I don’t wanna listen to you.’

‘Yes, I gather he … bears me a grudge.’

Her face hardened. ‘You can bet on that!’

‘But let me in anyway! We can’t stand here … It’s not good for your child.’ I indicated the infant with my head. It suddenly went quiet as if it were listening to what was being said.

She exploded with a small inarticulate outburst. Then she turned her back on me and retreated into the flat without a second glance. I closed the door behind me and followed.

It wasn’t a large flat, a room with a kitchenette and a sleeping niche where a curtain was half drawn. Outside the curtain was a narrow cot, almost a camping model. On the bed there was a pile of toys; it must have been used as a playpen during the day. The furniture looked threadbare: a burgundy sofa with grey sides and worn edges, a well-used leather Ekornes chair, creased with wear, a coffee table with a maze of circles from glasses, bottles and beer cans thrust down at will. But the only things there now were an eggshell-coloured mug with a red pattern and a coffee stain round the rim, plus a child’s plastic mug with a lid and spout.

‘A boy?’

She gave a surly nod.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Sølve.’

‘Nice name.’

She grimaced. ‘You didn’t come here to chat, though, did you.’

‘No, I didn’t. Can I sit down?’ I indicated the leather chair.

She flourished an unoccupied arm and plumped down on the sofa while holding Sølve to her breast. He was beginning to roll his eyes and make a few small chugging sounds now. ‘He’s got colic,’ she explained, as if I was conducting an inspection for social
services
or some other public department.

‘He seems happy here,’ I said without much conviction in my voice.

‘Yes, fancy that – so he does!’ She flashed a defiant glare, as though used to being contradicted.