The Writing on the Wall

Thirty-two

THE OFFICES of Birger Bjelland & Co. were located in the old warehouses facing the sea in Sandviken, and someone, Birger Bjelland perhaps, had forked out the cash to get them tarted up. Between the smell of seaweed and tar on one side and exhaust fumes and oil on the other, stood the whitewashed warehouse like a kind of barrier between the traffic in Sjøgaten and the gulls bobbing up and down on the water in Skuteviken.

The name of the firm was painted in large black letters on the front of the building, but the green door downstairs was locked, and there was nothing but a nameless bell and an intercom to suggest someone might conceivably say ‘Come in.’

I rang the bell.

A woman’s voice answered. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m looking for Birger Bjelland.’

‘And you are?’

‘Veum. Varg Veum.’

Silence.

After a while the intercom crackled again. ‘That’s fine. Second floor.’

The lock buzzed, and I went in.

You can never get rid of the smell of dried fish. Despite the fact that the timberwork in the ceiling looked new, that all the internal walls were freshly painted and the floor covering on the stairs still had no signs of wear, the odour of the warehouse’s original purpose still hung there. In a way, Birger Bjelland had chosen the right surroundings for the official side of his business activities. This was the smell of old Bergen’s trade links as a bridgehead between north Norway and Europe, Brønnøysund and Rostock.

Two floors up, the stairs ended in a door belonging to quite a different period. Its rough surface stained a mahogany colour and the gilt nameplate bearing the words BIRGER BJELLA ND & CO. engraved in black might have been the entrance to any agent’s in the mid-sixties.

I opened the door and entered a sort of antechamber, low-ceilinged and with dim lighting everywhere, except above the diminutive desk where a strong fluorescent light pinpointed the woman I had spoken to on the intercom. She was in her early sixties and so neat and trim that she might easily have been a bookkeeper for the Salvation Army, and no one would ever have dreamt of putting a hand either on her or in the till.

The look she gave me was the sort she reserved for someone who owed money, and she nodded towards the next door. ‘You can go straight in. He’s expecting you.’

I knocked all the same and waited for a few seconds before opening the door.

Birger Bjelland’s office looked out over Byfjorden. The old warehouse was so positioned that, if he opened the window, he could cast a line and catch a bite for supper, unless he objected to the high mercury content, of course.

Now he sat behind his desk with one hand concealed beneath it like some arch villain in a James Bond film waiting to press the concealed button that opens the trapdoor and propels the unwelcome guest straight down to the alligators in the basement.

He was not alone. Over by a window, as though he’d actually just been admiring the view, stood one of the hunks Bjelland practically always had in tow. In other contexts they would have been called bodyguards. Not without a certain self-irony, Bjelland called them his ‘office managers’. At any rate, this specimen looked as though he’d opened more bottles of anabolic steroids than account books in his time.

Birger Bjelland himself looked slightly like a fish out of water. His small mouth was half-open, and his strikingly pale eyes had an expressionless glassy look. He had a neat little moustache, mousy hair with a high hairline and something I assumed was a wig on top. Even though he was quite slim, there was something rounded and streamlined about him, which betrayed the fact that he was probably more at home in the backseat of a taxi than on an exercise bike.

His refined Stavanger preacher’s voice had come back to haunt me in some of my worst nightmares since the first time I’d heard it almost six years before. I’d met him face-to-face in Travparken one day last October when we’d had a few choice exchanges. The next time I met him I’d have been happier to feel I had the upper hand.

‘Take a seat, Veum,’ said Birger Bjelland, pointing with his empty hand to the large scarlet leather chair that towered throne-like on the client’s side of the desk.

As I was sitting down, I glanced over at his office manager. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘No, no. Fred and I were just sitting here chatting. It’s nearly time to be going home.’

Fred… I felt my palms moisten with sweat.

The man he referred to as Fred had the same type of moustache as his boss, although his hair was shaven right down to the scalp, and his nose looked as though someone had head-butted it a few times. When I met his eyes this time, it was with a sense of mutual understanding that we both knew where we stood, but that I would never be able to produce any evidence as to who it was who’d paid me a visit in my office the time they’d filled me half full of drink when my system was already awash with Antabuse, and all I could recall afterwards was the tone of Birger Bjelland’s accent and the name of his companion: Fred.

I looked demonstratively at the clock. ‘Yes, I have an appointment too… at five o’clock.’

Birger Bjelland gave me a look of sour anticipation. ‘No need to spin it out, then, eh?’

‘No.’ I tried to lean back in the chair as though I’d only dropped in for a casual chat. ‘I’ve been told,’ I began, ‘that you’re the owner of an amusement arcade in the centre of town called Jimmy’s…’

He threw up his hands. ‘That’s no secret, Veum.’

‘Do you know what goes on there, I wonder?’

He leaned slightly forward. ‘No-o. What did you have in mind?’

‘Well, both myself – and others – have noticed that young girls are recruited for certain assignments… you can guess the sort I’m talking about… at certain hotels in the vicinity. And that they’re recruited at Jimmy’s.’

‘And how is this supposed to happen?’

‘Apparently by phoning the manager – Kalle Persen,’ I added to show how well informed I was.

Birger Bjelland clenched his fingers and looked disinterestedly at his nails. ‘No comment, Veum. How my staff run the establishments I have a stake in doesn’t concern me in principle, provided they don’t make a loss.’

‘You’ve also bought the former Week End Hotel, haven’t you?’

‘No reason to deny it. In any case, it was in the papers.’

‘The same type of thing goes on there too, centred on the bar and with the hotel rooms even more readily to hand, I imagine.’

He frowned as though something had just occurred to him.

‘So you’re not bothered what sort of reputation your hotels have either, are you?’

‘Reputations can take many different forms, Veum.’

‘Precisely. Was Judge Brandt one of the clients, I wonder?’

‘I do business with so many people,’ he said neutrally, ‘but that particular name is one I can’t say I…’

‘No? You must surely have read the articles in the papers about that girl who was found dead, up on Fanafjell… Torild Skagestøl. Does the name mean anything to you?’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘Well, no. Perhaps not the name itself, but as an item of revenue in your accounts?’

‘You’ll have to talk to -’

‘Your accountant perhaps?’ I glanced quickly at Fred.

‘Yes, he’s a man of many parts.’

‘I’m sure he is. Helge Hagavik was a regular at Jimmy’s. Do you remember him?’

With the patience of a saint Birger Bjelland replied: ‘I so rarely visit the places I own, Veum, and when I do, it’s always to talk to the staff, rarely to any of the customers. What are your sources for all these assertions?’

‘Press contacts – and representatives of a Women’s Lib group called Ottar, although why I’m not exactly sure.’

He puckered his mouth as though there was a nasty smell under his nose. ‘Women’s Libbers?’

‘Something like that.’

‘They’re the worst of the lot, Veum. They paint the devil on a chapel wall if the spirit moves them.’

‘For absolutely no reason?’

‘For absolutely no reason, Veum!’

I hesitated a moment. Then I said: ‘Tell me, something I’ve always wondered about, what’s the main activity of this company of yours, Bjelland?’

He scarcely raised his eyelids. ‘Finance, investments of one kind and another, and loans of all types and sizes… You’re not after a small loan yourself, are you? Interest rates are low just now…’

‘One kneecap instead of two?’

‘That wasn’t funny, Veum. We run a completely legal business, within the precise limits laid down by the law. Our accounts are impeccable, can’t be faulted and our relations with the tax authorities couldn’t be more cordial.’ As though it was the New Jerusalem he was welcoming me to, he threw up his arms and said in an unctuous, sermonising voice: ‘I’m the whitest lamb on God’s earth, Veum. There isn’t a stain on my reputation. My businesses are run on the highest moral principles.’

‘Amen. Hallelujah,’ I said.

‘Don’t be blasphemous,’ said Birger Bjelland with a rather dopey smile.

I half stood up. ‘So how come your name constantly pops up in connection with all kinds of unsavoury business? How come nine out of ten investments you put your money in are connected with prostitution and illegal sales of alcohol, gambling and other fine arts? How do you explain that?’

‘Can you show me the way to Sodom and Gomorrah, Veum?’

I glanced round. ‘I thought that’s where we were.’

‘The ways of the Lord are inscrutable.’

‘And which Sunday school did you go to? Agnostics Anonymous?’

He raised his hand indolently. ‘Veum, let me give you a word of friendly advice.’

‘Please do,’ I muttered.

‘Don’t push your luck, old boy. Don’t think that you’re somehow untouchable. There’s nothing sadder than watching good wine turn bad, as it were.’

‘Thus spake the wife of Canaan, too.’

He sighed audibly, looked over at Fred and said: ‘Mrs Helgesen’s almost certainly gone home by now. Can you see Veum out, right out?’

I stood up and walked towards the door.

‘And don’t forget what I said,’ he directed at my back.

Fred already had his hand on the doorknob when I turned back towards Birger Bjelland. ‘Don’t forget to watch your back too. Be careful, little foot, where you step. Didn’t they teach you that hymn at Sunday School as well?’

He made no effort to answer; merely smiled that indolent smile of his, which made me think of a shark waiting to attack.

Fred accompanied me out. Right out. And didn’t even say ‘Au revoir.’