Where Roses Never Die (19 page)

The sun was going down when I parked outside Solstølen Co-op that Saturday evening a week before Palm Sunday. The red of the sunset between the scattered clouds lay like an open wound over the mountains on Sotra, with Mount Lyderhorn to the north-west like a tusk.

In the yard, where I was now a regular visitor, I took stock. There were lights on in all the houses, the distant sounds of a variety of activities, the impression as everyday as it could be, house fronts so normal you wouldn’t imagine anything secretive could be taking place behind them.

I had called in advance to give warning of my visit, and it wasn’t long after I had rung the bell that Maja Misvær opened up and let me in. She was clearly excited. I had said I had some news, but I didn’t say what.

She showed me into the sitting room. The television was on. She threw a quick glance at the screen, then turned to me and said morosely: ‘I always watch children’s TV at this time of day.’

‘I see…’

‘Yes, I know it’s stupid of me, but … I can’t stop myself. I sit here with a lump in my throat thinking: ‘Mette would have liked this. She would have laughed. Now she would have crawled into my arms because it was a bit scary. That kind of thing.’

I looked around. The photos were on the sideboard as before. Nothing had changed. She had set the table for two, with coffee cups, cutlery, plates and a dish of apple cake. In a little bowl I saw whipped cream.

Almost bashfully, she said: ‘Yes, I assumed you would want … something.’

‘Thank you. It looks good.’

She inclined her head towards a chair as a sign for me to sit down. After I had settled she poured the coffee, sat down on the sofa and pushed the apple cake towards me. I helped myself, placed the cream and spooned a bit to taste.

‘Mmm…’

‘Do you like it?’

‘Perfect.’

Her smile spread across her face. ‘Thank you…’ Then she helped herself.

For a while we sat eating in silence. She had turned down the volume, but the images on the screen flickered past. It was an animated film of some kind or other, animals jumping about in a setting that was definitely somewhere in the country, the romantic view that by and large only survives today in contexts such as TV and film: red barns, lush trees, happy domestic pets. No pollution, no rundown henhouses and no passing gunmen in action.

‘You had some news, you said.’

‘Yes. Last time I was here, two days ago, we talked about Tor Fylling.’

She nodded, and I saw her skin redden from her neck up to her cheeks.

‘Today he’s in Haukeland Hospital, badly injured.’

‘Oh, my goodness!’

‘When he gets out he will be charged with the murder of Nils Bringeland in Bryggen last December.’

Her eyes grew. ‘What! Was he the man who…?’

‘To cut a long story short … it was Tor Fylling – and some others – who carried out the raid on the jeweller’s and on their way out collided with Bringeland, who somehow recognised Fylling, said his name and was shot for that reason.’

She shook her head. ‘Tor shooting Nils because he … But … this had nothing to do with Mette…’

‘No, and there was no reason to believe it did, was there?’

She shook her head again. ‘No, no, of course not.’

‘Last time, I told you I’d found out Tor was involved in criminal activities, but you didn’t believe me.’

‘No, and I still think it’s odd.’

‘But now he’s in hospital, beaten up by some criminals – we might call it a showdown – and Einar…’

‘Einar!’ She had tears in her eyes. ‘Little Einar?’

‘Well, little Einar launched a brutal attack on me earlier today, and he’s no longer little. But he’s confessed that it was his father who fired the gun and he’s charged with robbery, along with his wife, Marita.’

‘This is just incredible, Varg! And you found this out as a result of … of…’

‘Yes, as a result of you asking me to find out what happened to Mette in 1977.’

She looked at me without saying a word.

‘But before Tor was taken to hospital he said something to me, which I would like you … to comment on.’

‘Oh, yes?’ She seemed frightened, but I could see in her eyes she had guessed what was coming.

‘He said … “Mette was mine”. That’s what he said. Only those three words: “Mette was mine”.’

Her whole upper body trembled. She lifted her hands to her face and hid her eyes behind them. She said, in such a low voice I could hardly hear: ‘Did he say that?’

‘Yes. Is it true?’

She still had her eyes hidden. Then she slowly took her hands away and looked at me as though she were down a tunnel and peering out at the sun. I nearly waved back to show her where I was. In the end she whispered: ‘Maybe.’

‘In other words … you and Tor Fylling were already having an affair when you lived in Landås?’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘No, no, no! Not an affair. It was a … one-off.’

‘You slept together … once? And you hit the bull’s eye, if I might put it like that?’

‘Bull’s…?’ Confused, she looked at me.

‘Yes. You became pregnant at the first attempt?’

Again she flushed from her neck upwards. ‘It wasn’t an attempt! It was … an accident.’

‘Alright. People call it so many things. But … Håkon was older. How can Tor Fylling be so sure he was Mette’s father? Had Truls and you stopped … your conjugal rights?’

‘No, but … we were having a break.’ She searched for the words. ‘It … it was terrible – embarrassing. Humiliating. Truls had a hernia operation at Christmas 1973. He wasn’t much in the mood for … you know … until it had healed properly, and that wasn’t until late February the year after. And the pregnancy with Mette passed without any problems. Everyone said afterwards I was well gone when we moved in here in October 1974, and she was born on the 25th. Simple arithmetic. It must have happened in January – or at the latest in early February. I tried to tell Truls it was the latter, and in the end he accepted it. I assured him there could be no other explanation. But he … I don’t think he ever believed me a hundred percent. The seeds of suspicion were always there.’

‘But did you tell Tor?’

‘No, but I think he was also counting on his fingers that autumn, and one day … Truls was away, I was fiddling around with some flowerbeds, Mette was asleep in her pram beside me. He came over, peeped into the pram and said:
She’s mine, isn’t she?

She had responded angrily. What could she say? Deep down, she knew, of course:

‘No, no, how could you believe such a thing?’

‘I can work it out too, even if I’m only a simple car mechanic … From January to October is nine months, and it was in January we … You told me yourself Truls hadn’t touched you for over a month and that was why you gave in so easily, but … anyway…’

He had walked over to the pram, rolled back the cover and looked inside.

‘So?’ she had said, breathless.

‘I can see … she reminds me of my sister when she was small.’

‘Your sister?’

‘Yes.’

She met my eyes again. ‘I never admitted it in so many words, but he could probably read me. She was as good as hairless when she was born, but … as her hair began to grow … they were the same fair curls that he had – back then anyway.’

‘So, in other words … even without a DNA test you’re sure he was right?’

She nodded and shrugged at the same time, still not completely ready to admit the connection.

‘So when you drew lots at the famous New Year’s Eve party and got each other, it was a kind of reprise?’

She looked at me and blinked, as if facing a gale-force storm. ‘Yes…’

‘Perhaps you talked about it too? When you were lying there … afterwards?’

He had sat up, resting on one elbow, stroked her body, down to her stomach, patted her gently and said: ‘Let’s make another one, Maja…’

She had met his eyes. ‘Not this time, Tor. I’m on the pill now.’

‘… Yes, I as good as admitted it then.’

‘And how did he react?’

‘Well…’

He had leaned forward, found her mouth and kissed her tenderly and long, and later they had made love again, the second time that night. She had later thought back to it so often, if for no other reason than to think about something else…

‘And what about … later? Did he return?’

Something suddenly happened to her face, something she could no longer restrain. It was as though her boundless fears came to the fore, first in her eyes, then round her mouth, only to spread across her face until it became a stiff mask, a plaster-cast mould of the unhappiest face I had ever seen, a face where her guilty conscience shone through, from an intense, internal fire, burning white and as difficult to look straight at as the sun. I turned my head away, looked to the side, pulled myself together, straightened up again and asked the question I couldn’t not ask: ‘Not … that day, Maja?’

She nodded. When she did finally say something it was in an almost inaudible voice: ‘Yes, that day…’

She had been standing in the kitchen watching him walk across the yard. She went to the front door and let him in. He looked at her and read her eyes. With a little smile he led her inside and there – behind the sitting-room door – he had kissed her passionately and taken her standing up, she with her back against the door and her gaze directed through the sitting-room window at the wide-open Saturday-still countryside … She had clung to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, pushed against him and given him all she had, suppressed emotions and allayed desire, sighs and groans and tender caresses…

Afterwards they had sunk to their knees on the floor as they gasped for breath, as if after a long run over rough terrain. They had looked at each other with a mixture of shame and pleasure. Then they had carefully disentangled themselves, got up, tidied their clothes, stroked each other’s cheeks and gazed deep into each other’s eyes before he had quickly walked through the hallway and out. She had gone to the kitchen window to watch him leaving. It was only when he had let himself into the house across the yard that her eyes had sought the sandpit. And that was when she saw. Mette wasn’t there any longer.

She leaned forward, banged her head several times on the table, as if it were a form of penitence. And then she started sobbing – such intense, racking sobs that I had to get up from my chair, move to her side of the table, take her in my arms and hold her tight, so tight that she couldn’t hurt herself, so tight that the sobbing finally subsided, as it always does if you wait for long enough.

At least what she had told me gave me the answer to one of the two open questions: Why Terje Torbeinsvik hadn’t found Tor Fylling when he was looking for him the day Mette went missing. Moreover, it was perhaps in Tor’s house that the phone had rung and rung and no one had answered it…

In the end she looked up at me, still with her guilty conscience shining through her face. ‘Can you understand how I’ve felt since then? Can you understand why it’s been an obsession for me … for all these years? While Tor and I were at it, someone came and took Mette … out of my hands so to speak. Can you understand that I blame myself for what happened? Truls never forgave me.’

‘But … did Truls find out? ‘

She looked at me in horror. ‘No, no! Are you out of your mind? I’ve never told anyone! The only person who knew was Tor, of course, and even he … We never talked about it, and – believe me, Varg – we were never together again, not in that way. That was definitely the last time.’

‘But then all that … We have to go back to the unintended pregnancy. Could that have anything to do with Mette’s disappearance? Could your husband’s suspicions have been so strong that he…’ I searched for words, to express what I wanted to say in the most considerate way possible.

She looked at me aghast. ‘What? Surely you don’t think…?’ She swallowed several times before she could continue. ‘Truls always had a slightly distanced relationship with Mette. Perhaps because he suspected … He had a very different relationship with Håkon … still has. But he could never have done anything to Mette. Not even if he’d known. Not even if I’d admitted it. And Tor … he … I saw how he was always watching her. When we had communal dos with the children, for example. Very often he chatted to Mette or helped her if it was something practical. On a couple of occasions I even remember … I happened to catch Truls’s eye … he was watching them and was … almost jealous.’

‘Truls was jealous of Tor?’

‘Yes … I don’t know, but … maybe.’

‘But not so much that he could have done something to Mette, even if he felt sure she wasn’t his and he might therefore not have such warm feelings for her…’

‘Of course not! And anyway, he was away the day it happened. At football training with Håkon. Have you forgotten?’

‘No, I haven’t. If I can contact Håkon I’ll go up to Ålesund in the next few days to talk to him.’

‘Yes, you were in Oslo. How did that go?’

‘Well … I met Truls. But he didn’t have much to add to the realities of the case. He said nothing about what we’ve talked about, for example.’

‘That’s good!’

‘But there’s another matter that’s come up and I’m afraid I’ll have to …ask you about it.’

‘There’s more?’ She was clearly nervous.

‘First of all, I’ll have to ask you … did you notice anything about Håkon after New Year’s Eve?’

‘Are we back there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Notice? What do you mean by that?’

‘Did he behave differently? Did he confront you – with what you’d both done?’

‘Confront? God, no. He was five. He had no idea what was going on? He was asleep in bed.’

‘You’re sure? Sure he was asleep, I mean.’

‘Yes. I’m sure he was.’ She looked absolutely terrified now, and I could see the questions I had asked churning round in her head. ‘Have you heard anything to the contrary?’

‘Yes, I suppose I have. Joachim, the neighbour’s son, who was three years older than Håkon, told his father that he and Håkon hadn’t gone to bed at all that night, but were in Joachim’s room and were doing something or other when they heard Randi, Joachim’s mother, and Terje Torbeinsvik come in. Well, they didn’t know it was Torbeinsvik, of course, but they crept down to watch…’

‘What? Did they see them?’

‘In full flight, you might say.’

‘Joachim and Håkon…’

‘Yes.’

‘But that means … Why would he …? Neither Truls nor I…’

‘No, the only other house they could get into was probably this one and it might well be – this is in fact one of the questions I have to ask Håkon – it might well be that they came back here and caught a glimpse of Tor and yourself.’

‘We were in the bedroom. We had the door shut.’

‘Sure?’

She stared into the distance.

‘Hundred percent positive?’

‘No…’

‘In other words, it’s a possibility.’

‘Could … could that be the reason he went with Truls when we split up three years later? I mean … in that case he only saw me, not … oh, my God! Just the idea of it.’ Her face was scarlet now and tears were rolling from her eyes.

‘My social welfare experience tells me it could well be the reason.’

‘Oh, God, no! I had never imagined this.’ She was sobbing aloud now, tears streaming down her face. But there wasn’t the same intensity
as the first outburst. Even for her there was a limit to how many tears could fall, and it seemed as if her guilty conscience had been a stronger trigger than the shame she felt now.

But at least Mette was asleep,
I told myself.
The sleep of the innocent.

While she had cried herself out I took a last swig of coffee. On the silent screen the children’s programme had changed to a film, obviously aimed at slightly older children. The voiceless heads were in a different world, far from ours, with a massive glass wall between them and us, preventing sound from escaping.

At length she took out a handkerchief, dried her eyes and looked shyly in my direction. ‘Sorry … that was just so overwhelming. The thought of it.’

I nodded sympathetically.

After a while she said: ‘Do you know … You must be the first guest I’ve had here for many years. At least on a Saturday night.’

‘Are you usually on your own?’

‘Alone with my thoughts, yes. You can probably understand how it’s been, from what you’ve found out.’ Her eyes went to the sideboard and the two photographs. Then she said, in a slightly stronger voice: ‘I haven’t had one … I haven’t been with anyone – after Truls moved out.’

‘Not … And we’re talking what here…?’

‘We’re talking about all the ways you can imagine, Varg. I’ve lived like a nun, in complete celibacy … and I haven’t missed it. Not for one second! I was weaned off it in the most brutal way you can imagine.’

‘Yes,’ I said neutrally, trying to imagine myself in her shoes, not entirely successfully. ‘Has it been … a very different life?’

‘I would have happily thrown away all those years if I could have had Mette back! If she’d been here with me … all the time. That’s all that counts. You’ll have to keep searching, Varg. Even if I have to spend all the savings I have. I can’t bear it any longer. I’ve got to have an answer!’

I didn’t delve any further and we had another piece of the apple cake and drank our coffee. Fifteen minutes later I left the house. She would probably spend this Saturday evening alone as well, in her chosen
celibacy, with no other guests at her door but her painful thoughts. And she would never be able to shut them out. They would always come visiting, bidden or unbidden.