The Consorts of Death

40

Hans Haavik and I walked back to the hotel together. Neither of us said anything. We were equally depressed.

‘Now I have to have something to drink,’ he said as we entered the reception area. ‘I have a bottle in my room. Will you join me?’

‘Why not? Let me just find out if…’

But there weren’t any messages for me in reception. I wondered whether I should try and ring her, but Hans was so impatient, shifting from one foot to the other, that I didn’t have the heart to keep him waiting any longer.

His room was identical to mine. There was an open suitcase on the luggage bench. A used shirt hung over the only chair. He took the shirt, slung it in the suitcase and picked up a bottle of Tullamore Dew from which so far only a quarter had been drunk. He went to the bathroom and returned with two plastic beakers. ‘You have the chair,’ he said, placing the beakers on the table and pouring almost to the rim. I didn’t complain.

He took one of the glasses himself, raised it for a toast and we drank. Then he flopped down on the edge of the bed with the drink in his hand. The wooden frame creaked under the weight of his large body.

‘Now and then you can just get so damnably bloody depressed, Varg!’

I nodded. ‘I know the feeling.’

‘Things are so bad you have to ask yourself the question: what the hell are we doing? Are we any use to anyone?’

‘You must have seen some positive results over the years?’

‘Yes, we have… some.’ Despite his massive presence, it was as if he had shrunk while sitting on the bed. Most of his height was in his legs of course, but the way he held his shoulders, like a mother bird protecting a newly hatched chick, made his powerful upper body narrower and smaller. ‘Take a case like this one, though. Jan Egil Skarnes… Johnny boy whom we’ve followed almost since he was born.’

‘You, too?’

‘Yes, don’t forget that I studied with Jens Langeland. By the way, he had brilliant exam results, unlike others I can mention.’ He grinned. ‘As soon as his studies were over, he got a job as a solicitor’s clerk at one of Oslo’s prestigious law offices, Bakke amp; Lundekvam. In the autumn of 1966 — it must have been — he assisted on his first case. A drugs case, a young couple were arrested at Flesland Airport with a huge packet of hash in their bag. That is, the man was carrying it all, and Bakke managed to get the girl off because she’d been unaware of what the journey involved. But this girl… it was Mette Olsen in fact. And I knew all too well who she was.’

‘Mm?’

‘They called her the Princess in Copenhagen.’

‘Yes, actually I’d heard that, but…’

He gave a flourish with his arm as if to dismiss what I had been going to ask. ‘You know what it was like in those years, Varg. Hell, there were lots of us who flirted with hash and other hallucinogenics. My own passage through was not entirely without incident. Was yours?’

I smiled with embarrassment. ‘No, I suppose I’d had a few puffs, but…’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, my problem was that I’d never smoked. Just inhaling was a challenge for me.’

‘Right… Later, when I started at social services, I met her again of course. Jan was no more than six-seven months old the first time we had her in for an assessment. He was sent for a short stay at an infants home while she was drying out, and then we gave her another chance, a chance she wasted a year or two later.’

‘1970,’ I said. ‘I went with Elsa Dragesund to Rothaugen to fetch him.’

‘You see, you’re just as bloody involved in his life as I am. You’re like me and all the others.’

‘All the others?’

‘Or no one, if you understand what I mean.’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Well, listen here…’ He studied his glass in amazement. It was already empty. He leaned forward and re-filled it to the brim. At the same time he re-filled mine. I didn’t complain this time, either. It was a good Irish whiskey, a rounded taste with a golden colour.

‘This boy was brought onto this earth by a mother who was so doped up that she hardly registered it. Right from the very beginning he had poor odds. The first thing that should have been done was to take him away from her for good. Then neither you nor I would be sitting here today, Varg. I’m convinced about that. The injuries a child suffers in the first years of its life can be fatal. You and I know that and so does everyone else who works in this business of ours.’

‘True. But there are exceptions. And there are some who travel in the opposite direction, born with a silver spoon in their mouths and take it down the swannee with them.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. But then he reappears — how many years is it? — six years later?’

‘Three and a half after Elsa and I picked him up from Rothaugen.’

‘Yes, but six and a half years old. And he was unlucky with the hand he was dealt yet again.’

‘Unlucky, maybe. You knew Vibecke Skarnes from university, didn’t you? Was she bad luck?’

‘No, but her husband probably was. He had far too many pokers in the fire, and he never gave Jan the stability and tranquility at home he would have needed.’

‘Mm. You were pals I remember you saying once, weren’t you?’

‘For a while. But it came to an abrupt end when he and Vibecke got together.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Well,’ he shrugged. ‘That’s the way it goes sometimes.’

‘Do you know what I found out yesterday? An apparently reliable source told me that Svein Skarnes had played a very central role in the big booze smuggling ring that I think we talked about the other evening in the bar.’

‘Yes, but we were talking about Klaus Libakk.’

‘Right. But Libakk was only responsible for distribution here. Locally. Skarnes was the main man behind the whole racket.’

‘Svein?’

‘Yes. He was the one who had the contact with the German distributors, he was the one who brought home the deals with the boats supplying the goods, when they were transferred to smaller boats, fishing cutters and the like, and then they were brought down the fjords, from Sognfest to Selje. But that’s not all…’

He reached for his glass. ‘No?’

I gave him a quick shakedown of the case, including the murder of Ansgar Tveiten, the connection with the double murder in Angedalen and the conversations I had had over recent days with Mette Olsen, Trude Tveiten and Terje Hammersten.

He leaned forward. ‘I know Hammersten. A brutal bastard.’

‘That’s my impression, too.’

‘He’s got a son who’s been in and out of our Asane home. Fourteen years old.’

‘A son? Who with?’

‘I don’t know if I… Yes, I do, to hell with it. This will have to be the day for openness. The mother is a streetwalker. The father is Terje Hammersten. The boy flits from one foster home to another, and Hammersten is such a pain. The last time was Monday morning — I had hardly got back home from Angedalen — and there he was at my door ready to give me a mouthful.’

I sat watching him. ‘What did you just say? Was Hammersten at your place in Bergen on Monday morning this week?’

‘Ye-es?’ he said, with questioning eyes.

‘But then… oh shit, Hansie, you’ve given him an alibi. Bloody hell.’

‘Alibi. You don’t mean that… Has there been some suspicion that Hammersten…?’

‘Would that be so improbable?’

‘He’s the type, right enough. But what did he have to do with Klaus and Kari Libakk?’

‘He was in on the booze-running at any rate, and according to my source he made threatening phone calls to Svein Skarnes in 1973.’

‘Threatening? On whose behalf?’

‘Well…’ I threw my hands in the air. ‘The big wheels in Germany? What do I know? But… you’ll have to tell the police this, Hans.’

He looked at me with crestfallen eyes. ‘Another nail in Jan Egil’s coffin?’

‘I’m afraid so. Shit! Now and then you could wish…’

‘Yes, you could, couldn’t you. If you only knew how I blame myself, Varg! What feelings of guilt I am plagued by…’

‘My God, Hansie! Who could have guessed that all this would happen?’

‘True, but we should perhaps have been a bit more thorough.’ He took a big swig from the beaker and shook his head with vehemence, as if to spread the alcohol to all the brain cells that might have been open a crack and waiting. ‘It’s enough to make you despair. We work our bollocks off to help these young kids. And what the hell do we end up with? Double murderers!’

‘Now, now. Go easy on the pessimism…’

We took a break and filled our glasses again. I was starting to feel the alcohol. The lighting had begun to glare a bit and the room had changed character, becoming longer and narrower. Hans was out of the room, peeing. When he returned, I could see he was swaying, too. This time he sat down on the bed so hard it almost broke in half.

‘I’m going to tell you something you don’t know, Varg…’ He sat forward with his hands cupped around the glass. Suddenly he made a theatrical gesture with his hand, then gripped the glass again. ‘The Story of my Life, as told by the one and only Hans Haavik Pedersen,’ he said in English.

‘Pedersen?’

‘Yes, didn’t you know? My mother was called Haavik. I took her name when I was sixteen. I had nothing to thank my father for. Nothing at all!’

‘You don’t need to…’

‘Yes, I do! Now listen to this. My father, Karl Oskar Pedersen, was a notorious alcoholic. I can only just remember him. He died when I was four years old. What I remember best is the repressed sobs, the strangulated screams of my mother, when he came home from drinking and started beating her up. I was so young that I don’t remember if he ever laid a hand on me. But she was made to suffer, night after night, day after day. That was why I grew up with a mother who was a living corpse, a human wreck who took increasingly large doses of medicine, was admitted to hospital every so often and was hardly in a state to take care of a child. We were also very poor. Terribly poor. As poor as it was possible to be in Norway in the first years after the war, before they had got the welfare state properly going.’

‘What did your father die of?’

‘Booze. He was forty-nine years old, much older than my mother. I suppose that was part of the problem. He was so jealous, she told me in confidence, on one of the few times I had ever got her to talk about those times. She died herself in 1954, only thirty-eight years old, worn down after all the psychological downers. I was fifteen, and I swore I would never be the same when I was older. I would never be poor, never be so drunk…’ He glanced down at the glass he was holding in his hand. ‘Never be so cruel to those with whom I had chosen to live my life.’

‘Well, I don’t think I’ve ever… but you have a family?’

‘Family!’ He smiled sadly. ‘No, I’ve managed to avoid that. When it didn’t come to anything with Vibecke either, then… yeah, well.’ He waved his hand to dismiss it. ‘Jens was the one she chose — and later others. She never looked in my direction, Varg. Believe me. I was part of the furniture.’

‘Well, well… but you can hear for yourself. You come from a difficult background, but you came out on top. You even chose to devote your life to helping… children in similar situations. That shows there’s hope for everyone. Also for Jan Egil.’

‘For Johnny boy?’ He stared ahead, perturbed.

‘Who helped you when your mother died?’

‘There were so many episodes, even before then. But I had my family around me, on my mother’s side, that is. After she died I was allowed to live with an uncle and aunt of mine until I finished school, started university and could move into digs. Afterwards I managed by myself, with a study loan, doing part-time work in the evenings and living off other sources of income.’

‘That’s what I’m saying… You came out on top.’

‘Hmm, on top, I don’t know. It feels pretty skewed right now, I’m telling you.’ He grabbed the bottle and poured himself another full glass. He offered me some, but this time I succeeded in saying ‘No, thanks’. Perhaps he should have rammed the cork in, too. His eyes were beginning to glaze over. ‘I’ll tell you something, Varg. When I get back to Bergen… I’m going to hand in my notice.’ He was swinging his arm around helplessly. ‘Hand in my resignation.’

‘What? You don’t mean that. That’s just something you’re saying because you’re drunk.’

‘Drunk? I’m not bloody drunk!’

‘Of course not, that’s why you’re falling off the bed.’

‘I mean it! This case… this failure of all the things we’re doing

… it has persuaded me. I’m stopping. I’m getting out. I’ll find myself something else to do…’

‘What?’

‘Don’t know, but I’ll find myself something…’ He leaned closer as though to tell me a secret confidence. ‘You know, Varg… all these government regulations, all these laws and rules… it would be bloody great not to take any notice of them for a few years. Tell it as it is. Call a spade a spade and…’ He laughed at his own comment, but it was a low, mirthless laugh.

‘You’re tired and upset now, Hans. You won’t think like this when you get home, I’m sure of that. You can’t exist without what you’ve worked for over so many years. You have to be positive. Think of all those you’ve helped, all of those who send you a Christmas card every year…’

‘Ha! You’ve put your finger on it. Shall I show you how many of the people I’ve helped, as you call it, who send me Christmas cards? Eh?’ He held up his right hand and formed a zero with his thumb and index finger. ‘That’s how many, Varg. That’s how many.’

‘I don’t get many more if that’s any consolation.’

‘Thank you. Bloody great consolation.’

He sat rocking his head. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he resembled a huge teddy bear, an overgrown cuddly toy, one a child who was now well into adulthood had left behind at his institution, abandoned by someone who no longer needed that sort of thing. He was immensely drunk, and I noticed his eyes were beginning to blink.

I slowly got to my feet. ‘I think I’ll move on,’ I said, with a furry tongue.

His eyes floated in my direction. ‘OK. Thank you for keeping me company, Varg. I think I’ll try and have a snooze.’

‘Do that, Hansie. See you tomorrow — or at the next crossroads.’

He waved one arm. ‘G’bye!’ he slurred.

‘Goodbye,’ I replied, still able to express myself in full syllables.

He stood up, not to show me the way out, but to stagger into the toilet. Before I had closed the door behind me, I could hear him vomiting. That didn’t improve my mood.

When I came down to reception, there was a message waiting for me: Ring me when you get in. Grethe.