The Writing on the Wall

Forty-seven

ONLY WHEN I was alone with her did it seem to dawn on me what had happened.

I stood there with a feeling of paralysis, impotence and rage, as if slowly filling up with filthy brackish water, a dark and disgusting liquid I would never manage to wash myself clean of.

She lay head on one side, her reading glasses on the desk, staring glassy-eyed, still wearing a look of disbelief. From this angle you could see a lightly camouflaged crown on the back of her head from which her hair grew in a kind of whorl, and the hint of silvery grey at the roots showed she would probably have been going to the hairdresser’s again soon.

It was impossible to say whether she had been jumped from behind while working or had been murdered as a result of an argument. But it was not very likely in those empty offices that someone had crept up on her without her hearing something and turning round to see who it was. That is, unless she had been so engrossed in what she was doing that…

I leaned forward and read the file name on the screen: BJELLAND.DOC

‘Oh Jesus wept,’ I said to myself.

Trond Furebø came back. ‘They’re on their way,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ve informed the editor too.’

‘So long as you haven’t tipped off the other papers…’

He looked at me in disgust.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it – like that.’

‘Did you know her, Veum?’

‘Yes, we were – old friends.’

The door leading into the editorial offices flew open, and Holger Skagestøl came in. ‘I can’t believe what I’ve just heard! It can’t be true!’

We didn’t reply, but watched him as he saw the evidence with his own eyes. He stood there in front of Laila Mongstad with an expression that mirrored some of my own emotions: fury, impotence and dull shock. ‘It can’t be true!’ He looked round helplessly. ‘In here? Here in these offices?’ He turned towards me. ‘What’s it all about, Veum? Did it have something to do with – Torild?’

‘I don’t know. I looked at Trond Furebø. ‘What case was she working on? I mean, earlier today.’

‘A child welfare case. It was her pet subject. If she ever got wind of a child in distress, she went to work like one possessed and wouldn’t rest till she’d got at the truth.’ He looked down at her, shame-faced, as though feeling he had said something wrong. ‘What… what d’you think can have happened?’

‘Somebody’s been a bit too rough on her,’ I said grimly. ‘Maybe she didn’t see eye-to-eye with the desk about splashing it all over the front page?’

‘Veum!’ exclaimed Holger Skagestøl, and Trond Furebø followed him with: ‘I don’t think I like your tone of voice.’

‘No, there’s something about sudden death that makes me put my foot in it and say silly things. Just can’t help it.’

Skagestøl looked down at Laila Mongstad’s short neck. ‘She was a first-class reporter. Never let go until she’d got to the bottom of a case, and the copy she handed in was unbelievably well researched.’

Hearing loud voices out in the corridor, we all looked up at the door to see Atle Helleve, Peder Isachsen and a uniformed officer coming in.

Helleve said a curt hello to me. ‘I’ve let Muus know. He’s on his bike.’

‘That must be a sight for sore eyes.’ Oops, I’d done it again. Isachsen looked at me angrily. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure this time?’

I ignored him and turned to Helleve. ‘Laila Mongstad. A reporter. I talked to her on the phone only a short time ago. When I got here, there was no reply when the man on reception paged her. Furebø accompanied me up here, and we – found her like this.’

Trond Furebø nodded in confirmation.

‘And what did you talk to her about, Veum?’

I pointed to the computer screen. ‘About that man there.’

He scratched his beard and leaned forward. Then nodded grimly.

Isachsen was reading over his shoulder. ‘Who? Birger Bjelland?’

‘Think there could be any connection?’ asked Helleve.

‘I wouldn’t rule it out.’

Helleve glanced at Furebø. ‘Any chance of a printout of the file?’

‘Yes, sure. I can -’

‘But preferably from one of the other computers,’ said Helleve, interrupting him. ‘We need to have this one examined for prints first.’

‘That should be OK,’ said Furebø, glancing at Skagestøl.

‘But officially we ought to wait till the editor gets here – and let him make the decision.’

Helleve nodded.

‘Check the Delete key first,’ I said.

‘You mean whoever did it may have tried to wipe something?’

‘Yes.’

‘Helleve!’ came a sudden shout from the door. It was another uniformed officer who had appeared. ‘One of the windows leading to the courtyard at the back is wide open, and there are footprints in the snow!’

Helleve walked over to the nearest window. ‘How would you get out of there?’

Furebø looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Through our own back gate, but it’s very secure and protected against people climbing over it, as well. Then there’s the University’s Social Science building and St Paul’s School.’

‘The footprints lead that way,’ said the officer, pointing north.

‘Then it looks like St Paul’s,’ said Skagestøl. ‘If you’re agile, it’s possible to get up to the yard from there.’

‘Up to?’I asked.

‘Yes. I mean, it’s harder to get into this place in the evening than it is to get out of it!’

Helleve butted in again. ‘So you think whoever did it may have got in that way too?’

Skagestøl looked at him, puzzled. ‘Oh? Look, I’ve no idea!’

The inspector turned back to the constable. ‘Did you have a close look at the footprints?’

‘It looked as though there was only one person. One set leading in, and one back out.’

Helleve looked at Skagestøl, who muttered: ‘Yes, that’s more or less what I meant.’

The detective beckoned to the other officer to come over. ‘Can you tell the patrol cars to keep a lookout for anything that moves in this neighbourhood? Mainly up towards Nygårdshøyden, I think. It’s easier to give people the slip there,’ he added, as if one of us had asked him to justify himself.

Then he turned back to the first officer. ‘Go down and secure the window and the area around it until we’ve carried out the necessary technical investigations.’

The officer nodded, turned and set off towards the door, where Isachsen had his work cut out trying to keep the editorial staff on shift at a suitable distance. ‘We must thoroughly investigate the scene of the crime before we let unauthorised persons anywhere near.’

‘Unauthorised!’ boomed Bjørn Brevik’s voice. ‘This is a news case, and it happened within this paper’s very walls. Here we say what goes!’

‘Over my dead body,’ snapped Isachsen.

‘Just wait till Muus gets here,’ muttered Helleve. ‘He’ll eat him alive.’

Trond Furebø cleared his throat. ‘I’ll have a word with him.’

‘Do you need me any more?’ asked Holger Skagestøl.

‘No,’ said Helleve curtly. ‘But don’t leave the premises until we’ve registered who was here when it happened.’

‘But is there really any need…?’ Skagestøl glanced at the window and the back courtyard.

‘Yes,’ said Helleve even more curtly.

Holger Skagestøl glowered in my direction before he went, as if to suggest that everything was surely my fault.

‘Well, he certainly didn’t do it personally,’ I said.

Helleve looked at me. ‘Who?’

‘Bjelland! He always gets somebody to do his dirty work. But if you lot find out who did it, you can nail him good and proper this time.’

He stood there, notebook in hand. ‘Want to wait till Muus gets here, or have you said all you have to say for now, Veum?’

‘Have you got it all down?’

‘Yep.’

I glanced at the window. I could hear the distant beat of war drums. Mother headache was coming on. ‘In that case, I think I’ll go home. You know where to find me if anything crops up.’

‘OK. Dismissed,’ said Helleve and turned back to Laila Mongstad.

I took a last long look at her. But that wasn’t how I wanted to remember her. I wanted to remember her as the promise I’d once held in my arms, the warm eyes, the big smile, the soft lips. I wanted to remember her as she was when alive, not as an empty shell. I wanted to remember her.

But I didn’t get off scot-free, after all.

I met Muus in the corridor with the police doctor at his heels.

‘Veum,’ he growled from a few yards away.

‘Why don’t you slow down a bit? Wait till I’ve retired, for God’s sake! Don’t find us any more of them! How many times do I have to ask you?’

‘This is something I’d rather not have found, Muus.’

‘Give this man a shot of embalming fluid,’ he said to the doctor as they passed.

‘Is it any good for headaches?’ I asked, but neither of them bothered to answer.

I took the lift down, handed in my visitor’s badge at reception and was duly checked out under the beady eye of a zealous officer.

Once outside I stood and filled my lungs with one deep breath after another.

It had stopped snowing. On the other side of the road, the Grieg Concert Hall looked more than ever like a ship that had run aground. Behind the Concert Hall, Fløifjellet, Vidden and Ulriken rose up like peaks of meringue dusted with icing sugar. The television mast up on Ulriken belonged to the same family as the Concert Hall: a rocket that had never been launched, a monument to a space programme no one could afford to carry through.

New snow with fresh tracks.

I wondered…

But not long enough to stop me walking up the hill, getting into the car, swallowing two headache tablets and driving home.

I parked on the steepest part of Blekeveien, lucky to have found a space between two other vehicles.

Outside the main entrance I stood fumbling a bit with the keys. Perhaps that was why I didn’t notice them until they were right behind me. Kenneth Persen grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back in a police grip. Fred held something sharp and cold against my neck, growling: ‘Bit bloody late aren’t you, Veum? We were starting to think you wouldn’t turn up.’

‘What do you want?’

‘To invite you for a drive,’ said Fred.

‘Your last trip,’ Kenneth Persen added, giving my arm an extra twist for luck and making me wince with pain.