Death In Oslo

XXIV

The woman now hobbling down the long corridor in the cellar, swearing and muttering under her breath, jangling her keys to keep ghosts at bay, had once been Oslo’s oldest lady of the night. She was called Hairymary back then, and had miraculously managed to keep herself alive for more than half a century.

‘May all the good forces that be protect me,’ she muttered, dragging her bad leg behind her. She had to go right to the bottom of the endless corridor. ‘And all that is devilry be gone. Damn and doggy-do.’

From the moment that she was born on the back of a truck in war-torn Finnmark, one night in January 1945, Hairymary had defied Fate’s frequent and repeated attempts to break her. She had no parents, and had never settled with any of the foster families she was forced into. After a couple of years in a children’s home, she ran away to Oslo to fend for herself. She was twelve years old. With no education, the literacy of a six-year-old and an appearance that would frighten most, her career was a given. She had borne four children – a hazard of the job – and they had all been taken from her at birth.

But at the turn of the century, fortune had smiled on Hairymary for the first time.

She met Hanne Wilhelmsen.

Hairymary had been the key witness in a murder case, and for reasons that neither of them could later explain, she moved in with the detective inspector. She had not left the flat since. She started to use her real name and became a hard-working housekeeper and cook. And she wanted only three things in return: methadone, a clean bed and a pouch of tobacco every week. Nothing more, nothing less – until Nefis and Hanne had a daughter. Mary then stubbed out her last cigarette and demanded to have a stock of business cards instead of tobacco. They were gold cardboard, with napped edges, and they said:

Mary Olsen, Governess

She had chosen the font herself. No telephone number, no address. She didn’t need them either, as she never went out and never had visitors. The pile of business cards lay on her dressing table, and every evening she would pick up the top one, kiss it lightly and then close her eyes with the card pressed to her heart and say her evening prayer: ‘Thank you, God in Heaven. Thank you for Hanne and Nefis and my little princess, Ida. Someone has use for me. Thank you for that. Good night, God.’

Then she would sleep soundly for eight hours, always.

Mary was almost at the right storeroom now. She had the key ready.

‘Load of rubbish, eh,’ she told herself. ‘You’re an old bag, frightened of a stupid cellar, eh! Pathetic!’

She swung her thin arm out, as if to brush away her fear.

‘Now just you get into that storeroom,’ she said in a shrill voice. ‘And get out those duvets and things for Johanne. There’s nothing dangerous in there, is there, eh? Jesus and Joseph, Mary! You’ve seen worse things in your life than what you might see in there.’

She finally found the keyhole.

‘Has to be posh,’ Mary said and opened the door. ‘Couldn’t be just one of them ordinary storerooms here in the West End, could it! Oh no…’

She fumbled for the light switch.

‘Here they’ve got to have real rooms with proper doors and walls and things. None of that chicken wire and padlocks stuff here, no.’

The storeroom was no more than twenty metres square. It was rectangular, with shelves from floor to ceiling along one of the long walls. They were full of cardboard boxes, suitcases and multi coloured storage boxes from IKEA. Everything was carefully labelled. It was Mary who had systemised it all. Letters were not her strong point, whereas she always saw sense in numbers and logic. As she generally got confused by the alphabet, things were stored according to importance. The boxes of tinned food, jams and dry foodstuffs were by the door – in case of a nuclear war. Then came the winter clothes, packed away in boxes with big ventilation holes. Little Ida’s baby clothes were in a pink box with a teddy bear drawn on the top that smelt of lavender when Mary opened the lid and fingered the soft textiles.

‘Mary’s wee girl, eh. My little princess.’

She was whispering now. The smell of Ida’s outgrown clothes made her feel safe. She shuffled across the floor and stopped by the far wall, where Nefis’ skis were secured beside Ida’s sledge.

DUVAY FOR GESTS.

She took down the large box and opened the lid. The duvet was rolled up and tied with two red cords. Mary stuck it under her arm, put the lid back on the box and pushed back in place. Then she shuffled back to the door.

‘There now,’ she said, relieved. ‘Now we can go back up to the shelter of our warm nest.’

She was about to lock the door when she thought she heard a noise.

A rush of adrenalin made her hold her breath.

Nothing.

There it was again. A muffled bang or thump. In the distance, but she could hear it clearly now. Mary dropped the duvet and folded her hands in fright.

‘In the name of Our Father… Baby Jesus…’ she gabbled.

There it was again.

Tucked far away at the back of Mary’s mind were the remnants of the life she had led for nearly fifty-five years before her luck had turned and all was bright and rosy. As a skinny, ugly waif, she had survived against the odds because she was smart. The young, sharp-tongued Mary had coped with the Oslo streets that she walked in the sixties because she was canny. The old whore, Hairymary, had endured a life of humiliation and drugs for one reason, and one reason alone: she would not be broken.

Now she was so frightened that she thought her heart would come undone at the seams. The room was spinning. More than anything, she just wanted to sit down and let the Ghost get her, let the Devil take her, just as she, deep in her heart, believed she deserved.

‘No way. Not yet.’

She swallowed and gritted her teeth. Then she heard the noise again.

It sounded like someone was trying to knock on a door but couldn’t quite manage it. It was weak, with no rhythm, and there was nothing aggressive about it.

Mary picked the duvet up from the cement floor.

‘Just when I’d found happiness,’ she said to herself. ‘No one’s going to come here and frighten the life out of an old bag like me.’

She started to walk back to the stairs.

Thump. Thumpthump.

Mary was certain now. The noise was coming from a door just by where she was standing. It was painted red, unlike all the other standard white doors. A cardboard label was stuck on with faded tape at about head height. It was torn and the writing was almost illegible. At least for Mary.

She thought she could hear a voice, but it was very weak and maybe it was only her imagination.

Strangely enough, she wasn’t frightened any more. An angry defiance had banished her fear. This was her house and her cellar. She had chosen this isolated life in Krusesgate so she could keep her old demons at bay, and neither the living nor the dead was going to take that away from her.

Not now, not ever again.

‘Hello,’ she said loudly and knocked on the door with her thin, bony hand. ‘Hey, is there anyone in there?’

Silence. Then she heard something thumping back, and was so surprised that she took a step back.

The voice sounded like it came from miles away. It was impossible to make out the words.

‘Fancy that,’ Mary muttered. She scratched her chin, then put her ear to the door. ‘Got to be the strangest door in town.’

‘Unlock it,’ she shouted through the door. ‘Just turn the lock, that’s all!’

The thumping continued.

Mary peered at the lock. You needed a key to open it, like all the other storerooms. There would be a latch on the inside, so you didn’t get locked in. Or lock anyone else in.

The door had to be secured in some way. Mary no longer doubted that there was someone in there. From the recesses of her memory came an experience that she had tried to leave behind in the outside world, a world that she never missed or wanted to be part of ever again.

Being a street prostitute wasn’t just about being a whore. It was worse when you were off the streets. Mary closed her eyes to fend off images of bunkers and storerooms, dirty mattresses in alleys and woodsheds, quick blowjobs in dirty cars that stank of tobacco, greasy food and old pigs.

Mary didn’t keep count of all the times she had been raped. As she gradually sank lower and lower down the ranks of girls, she was forced from her corner. Punters were taken from her; she was spat on by the imported girls, those bloody Russians, mocked by young boys and abandoned by her peers. They died like flies around her, one by one, and by 1999, Hairymary was the living dead. She took the tricks that no one else wanted, not even the Lithuanian girls who had ruined the market by accepting fifty kroner for a fuck without a condom.

Hairymary remembered a cellar. She remembered a man.

‘I bloody well don’t want to remember anything,’ she screamed, and hammered on the red door. ‘I’ll get you out, love. Just you wait, Mary’ll help you!’

She shuffled back to her own storeroom, opened the door and grabbed the well-equipped tool box that Nefis was constantly adding new tools to, which no one knew how to use.

‘I’m coming,’ Mary shouted, pulling the tool box up to the red door. ‘I’m coming, love!’

Mary Olsen was skin and bones. But she was strong. And now she was furious as well. First she hacked at the door frame with a chisel and threw the broken woodwork on to the floor. Then she grabbed a hammer and swung it at the latch, as if she was settling accounts with her past.

It broke, but the door was still locked.

‘Damn,’ Mary snarled. She blew her nose on her fingers, then wiped them on her flowery skirt. ‘Something stronger’s needed here.’

She emptied the toolbox. The sound of metal clattering on the cement floor was deafening. When all was quiet again, she could hear a faint echo from the knocking on the inside of the door.

‘I’m coming,’ Mary said and took hold of a huge crowbar that had been lying at the bottom of the box.

With incredible strength, she forced the claw in behind the lock. She used a hammer to win a few extra millimetres’ leverage. Then she stood with her back to the stairwell, grabbed hold of the crowbar with both hands and pulled.

The woodwork split. But nothing happened.

‘And again,’ Mary wheezed.

The woodwork collapsed, but the door remained locked.

‘Maybe the other way,’ Mary said and did the same thing from the other side.

The lock broke. The door buckled. It was hanging at an angle and Mary forced the crowbar into the gap once more. The gap was wider now, so she got a firmer hold.

‘And puuull!’ she screamed. She was surprised to see an opening of about ten to fifteen centimetres appear.

She dropped the crowbar. The noise when it hit the floor made her ears ring. She took a firm hold of the door and pulled to make the opening bigger.

‘There now, there now,’ she said to the person sitting on the floor just inside the door, looking at her. ‘I know what it’s like. Now we’ll-’

‘Help,’ rasped a woman’s voice.

A Russian whore, Mary thought and shook her head.

‘I’ll help you, I will,’ she said and bent down to put her arm round the battered woman’s waist. ‘Men can’t just get their way, shouldn’t be allowed. This one bad, eh? And you’re all tied up and everything. Hang on…’

She found a sheath knife in amongst all the tools and cut through the plastic bindings that were tied round the woman’s wrists. With great effort, she managed to get her to her feet. The smell of piss and shit was overwhelming. She glanced over at the back of the door. The latch was not there.

‘Crafty buggers, men, eh?’ she mumbled in a comforting voice and stroked the woman on her bloody cheek. ‘Let’s get you a nice hot bath, eh, love? Come on now.’

The woman tried to walk, but her legs wouldn’t hold her.

‘You smell something terrible, girl. Come along with Mary, now.’

‘Help,’ whispered the woman. ‘Help me.’

‘There, there. That’s what I’m doing. You probably don’t understand what I’m saying. But I’ve been there too, you know, I’ve been where you are now and…’

Mary talked like this all the way to the stairs, where she had to half carry the woman up the five steps to the lift. When it came, Mary smiled and steered her in.

‘Hang on to this,’ she said, pointing to the steel rail. ‘We’ll be there in a jiffy now, love. What d’you look like, eh!’

It was only now, in the bright light from the neon tube on the ceiling, that Mary could take a proper look at the woman’s face. She had a great bump on one of her temples, bruising over half her face and one of her eyes was closed. The blood had dried and caked on her neck.

‘Nice clothes you got there, though,’ Mary said, with a hint of suspicion as she touched the red jacket. ‘That’s not from the Salvation Army, eh?’

The lift doors opened.

‘Now you be a good girl and put your arm round Auntie Mary.’

The woman stood without moving, with her mouth open. Her eyes showed no sign of life, and Mary held her gnarled hand up in front of her face and clicked her fingers.

‘Hello, you in there? Come on.’

With her left arm round the woman’s waist and her right hand under her arm, she managed to pull the woman over to the front door. She didn’t dare let go of her to look for the keys, so she rang the doorbell with her elbow instead.

Several seconds passed.

‘Help,’ groaned the woman.

‘There, there,’ Mary muttered impatiently and rang the doorbell again.

‘Mary,’ Johanne said gladly as she opened the door. ‘You were down there so long that-’

‘I found a whore in the cellar,’ Mary replied briskly. ‘Think she’s Russian or something like that, from round there, but she needs help all the same. Poor thing. Some jerk’s taken liberties with her.’

Johanne stood stock still.

‘Move out the way, then!’

‘Hanne,’ Johanne said quietly, without taking her eyes from the woman. ‘I think you should come here.’

‘Hanne’s not the sort to turn away a battered whore,’ Mary fumed. ‘Now get out the way. Now!’

‘Hanne,’ Johanne called again, louder this time. ‘Come here!’

The wheelchair appeared at the end of the hall, silhouetted against the glass wall where the trees cast long evening shadows into the flat.

Slowly she rolled towards them, the rubber wheels squeaking ever so slightly on the wooden floor.

‘This one needs a bath,’ Mary pleaded. ‘And something to eat, maybe. Be nice, Hanne, please. You’re a kind-hearted soul.’

Hanne Wilhelmsen rolled closer.

‘Madam President,’ she said and bowed her head before looking up again and holding her breath for a moment. ‘Come in, please. Let’s see what we can do to help you.’