The Consorts of Death

45

Over all these years my thoughts had regularly returned to Jan Egil. I had never managed to reconcile myself with the claim that we had got to the bottom of the matter. A couple of times I had been on the point of ringing Jens Langeland, who I assumed was still his solicitor, but had then rejected the idea. ‘What’s the point?’ I had asked myself.

And now here she was, Cecilie, sitting on a bench in the sunshine by the sub-station in Fjellveien, looking at me through her round glasses and saying I was on his death list.

I sat looking at her. ‘Can we run through that one more time?’

She nodded. ‘By all means.’

‘Jan Egil is out?’

‘On probation. He was let out in May, after serving ten years.’

‘They waited a long time before letting him go. Were there problems?’

‘He wasn’t exactly a model prisoner. Several times he overstayed his home leave and his parole was delayed accordingly as a punishment.’

‘So, what’s he doing?’

‘Well, I suppose that’s part of the problem. The Probation and Aftercare Services found him a job, which he soon began skipping. At a car workshop. Later he had the occasional part-time job here and there, but I’m afraid it’s the same with him as most of the others who do time… The relationships they form behind locked doors pursue them on the outside, and I fear he already has contacts inside the semi-organised crime circle in Oslo.’

‘OK. Go on,’ I said with impatience.

‘He stayed in a hospice in Eiriks gate in Toyen. A kind of private social initiative, run on idealistic guidelines. In fact the person running the place is an old friend of ours, Hans Haavik.’

‘Hansie! So that’s what he did. He couldn’t quite hang up his profession, either.’

‘No, but let me get to the point. On Monday this week a man was found dead in this hospice. Killed over the weekend.’

‘Right, but what has that got to do with Jan Egil?’

‘One of the other inmates found the body and reported it to Hans, who in turn called the police. Just as a matter of routine the police officers went from room to room in the hospice, first of all to see if anyone had heard or seen anything recently. Jan Egil wasn’t in. But they found something else in his room…’ She hesitated before continuing: ‘A bloodstained baseball bat.’

‘That’s an unpleasant reminder of something I’ve heard before.’

She nodded gravely. ‘Furthermore, it was to transpire that the dead man was someone Jan Egil knew. In other words… all the signs are that he’s in a serious fix. For the moment they’re conducting internal enquiries, but it won’t be many more days before it’s in the papers.’

‘Well… alright. I’ll have to find out more. But what were you saying about a — death list?’

‘Right, death list. Perhaps it was a little drastic to call it that, but the woman he’s had a child with told me.’

‘A child! He’s had…’

‘Result of an earlier home leave. But the mother… well, they’re in care.’

‘Sounds familiar.’

‘As he was when he was a child, yes.’

‘This bloody vicious circle that is so difficult to break! This woman… is she reliable?’

‘It’s Silje.’

‘Silje! Not the same Silje who…?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Wow, she’s been loyal. I have to give her that. What did she have to say?’

‘She said Jan Egil had said several times that there were at least two people he had decided to do in. The two people who, more than anyone else, had made him into the person he was.’

‘Made him who he was! But, for Christ’s sake, I never…’

‘You were there when he was taken from his mother, weren’t you? The very first time?’

‘Yes, but I wasn’t the one who…’

‘So I suppose you’ve become a kind of symbol for the hated social services system, which once again has started to take control of his life because we were following the progress of his child with eagle eyes. Hans thought we should warn you, anyway.’

‘You said — two people.’

‘Yes. The other person was killed a couple of days ago. Clubbed with a baseball bat until he was…’ She shuddered in the sunshine. ‘Almost unrecognisable.’

‘But he was identified, I take it?’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘And who was it?’

For a moment her gaze wandered off to the fjord beneath us. Then it returned, accompanied by a determined expression around her mouth. ‘You know him, Varg.’

I could feel the alarm mounting in me. ‘Yes? Come on! Who was it? Not…?’

‘Terje Hammersten.’