The Writing on the Wall

Forty-eight

‘WELCOME TO The Short Stay Hotel, Veum,’ I heard Birger Bjelland’s voice say, as his two henchmen released their grip on me and sent me flying headlong onto the dusty concrete floor. The bright torch he had pointed straight in my face had blinded me so it was impossible to see anything more than his silhouette.

I turned partway round.

Fred and Kenneth Persen shone their own torches into my eyes. One was standing on either side behind me, so that I found myself in the middle of something like an equilateral triangle. There was no doubt about who was in control of the situation.

They had put me on the floor in the back of the car, but we hadn’t driven far, and when they led me from the car over to the derelict factory building, I’d seen where we were. We were on an industrial site in Sandviken, right on the edge of the sea, behind a tall wire fence and on something that looked like a building site, apart from the rusty remains of pulleys, cranes and signal towers. The ground-floor windows of the large, greyish-white building were securely boarded up. Higher up, dark holes gaped where the windows had been smashed.

‘Have you checked whether he’s wired?’ asked Birger Bjelland. ‘No bugs anywhere?’

‘No,’ Fred muttered behind me.

‘Get to it, then!’

Kenneth Persen kept his distance, while Fred searched me with a zeal that suggested it turned him on.

‘Pack it in,’ I mumbled ‘You’ve no chance with me, you know.’

‘Shut it or I’ll pull it right off!’ he hissed back. Aloud, he said: ‘He’s clean, Birger!’ Then he moved away.

The adrenaline pumping through my veins was like a tidal flow inside, a kind of dizziness, exhilaration almost. I felt the slight aftertaste of the headache tablets mingle with something new and sour, straight from the stomach.

I turned my face slowly in the direction of Birger Bjelland. ‘What is it you want?’

‘I thought you were interested in hearing about my plans, Veum.’ Although still sounding as sanctimonious as ever, this was nevertheless the voice of someone about to either excommunicate me or banish me straight to hell.

‘Which plans?’

He swung the torch around. The beam swept over the walls, the concrete staircase leading up the building and the marks left on the floor by dismantled machinery, before ending up on my face again.

‘My hotel plans. I thought you’d heard about them. “Hotel Seaside” I thought we might call it, and it’s going to be quite some hotel, I promise you. A view over Byfjorden, an indoor swimming pool on the top floor with sliding glass doors that can open out to form a classy sun terrace when the weather’s right…’

‘Just for a day?’

‘Deluxe suites and ordinary tourist rooms, a restaurant with a dance floor and gourmet corner, a gambling area in the basement, all within the law of course…’

‘Of course.’

‘But we’re not going to start work until we’ve got the finance sorted out, an alcohol licence and full backing from all the local bodies.’

‘No problem for you when you can pay under the counter.’

‘It’s getting harder and harder with your sort going round town every blessed day, spreading shit about me!’

‘Oh, so that’s what you wanted to talk about.’

The cone of light bobbed about again. ‘Every single day this godforsaken dump stands empty I lose money on it!’

‘Most people make duff investments now and again. Some more than others, of course.’

He moved closer, and the light became harsher. ‘Each time you badmouth me to the law, it makes it that bit harder for them to recommend issuing an alcohol licence; and I do get to know when you’ve been down there, Veum, don’t worry!’

‘Isn’t Isachsen one of your poker gang?’

‘Each time there’s some shit about me in the papers, it becomes harder to get credit from government loan bodies.’

‘But you can get rid of reporters, can’t you?’ When there was no reaction from him, I added: ‘Anyway, I thought you were into loans yourself, with an interest rate well above the knees you’ve capped when the loans aren’t paid back.’

‘Go on, talk away, Veum, nobody’s going to hear any more from you, anyway.’

‘Oh no? Don’t be too sure about that! You’ve heard of letters, haven’t you?’

After a little pause, he said: ‘And who’ve you written to? His Majesty?’

‘One thing you can count on is that it’ll go to the right places, if anything happens to me.’

‘If anything happens to you? I can’t accept responsibility for what might happen when you’re out for a stroll some dark winter’s evening.’

‘To put it another way, Bjelland, you do have responsibility now. Because whatever the hell happens, and whoever the hell actually does it, they’ll lay the blame at your door. So you ought actually to look after me from now on.’

There was a clear hint of uncertainty in his voice now. ‘So what’s supposed to be in this letter, Veum?’

‘A detailed report, from A to Z. Want to hear the short version?’

No reply. I took it as a ‘yes’.

‘For example, it deals with the operation you’ve built up round Jimmy’s and the Pastel Hotel. How you recruit the girls, how they operate, who the clients are…’

‘You know damn all about it, Veum!’

‘Sure about that, are you? I know quite a lot. I know all about the safe list. You were on the phone yourself when I was talking to Dr Evensen, I’ve talked to Robert at the Pastel Hotel, Kalle Persen at Jimmy’s – but more important than all that, there are girls who are willing to talk. Girls who’ve had enough. Not least because of what you did to Torild Skagestøl. You put the fear of God into them.’

‘I… we didn’t do a damn thing to Torild Skagestøl.’

‘Oh no? Sure about that?’

He spontaneously lowered his voice. ‘Why the hell do you think we went to such lengths to camouflage the death?’

‘Yes, and as chauffeur you chose a beginner who cracked long before anybody had even thought of checking up on him!’

‘That bloody dope won’t get much older.’

‘Oh no? You’ll take care of it, will you?’

Again he chose to remain silent.

‘So who did it? A client? You must all know who she was with that day?’

Still no answer.

‘Or was it that one of your trusties, such as one of the two supermen behind me, was the client, killed the girl – and left others to clear up the mess? Who do you trust most? Fred with no surname? Or others? A hired gunman from Oslo perhaps? A normal favour between colleagues?’

‘Why on earth would I want her dead? If what you say is true, she was a source of income for me!’

‘Because she was HIV-positive, yet still on the safe list, a potential source of infection and a cursed nuisance to the whole organisation.’

‘That’s just bollocks, Veum. If this is all the ammo you’ve got in this so-called letter of yours, then…’

‘Oh no, there’s a lot more than this, Bjelland. Want to hear?’

No reply.

‘The problem with you, as regards the police and the press too in a way, is that they’ve never found anything they can put their fingers on. You buy and sell, go bust and start up again, hotels and bars, amusement arcades and so on. Everybody knows that you’re right at the top of the dirty money market in this city, with interest rates you could write to His Majesty about; but nobody’s so far managed to dig up any real dirt on you. Till now.’

The silence was more ominous now. You could hear his soles shuffling about, the crunching gravel under them sounding like teeth shattered against a midnight pavement during an evening on the town.

‘Regards from your mother, Bjelland, by the way. And from your sister. And maybe from a few other people I talked to down there.’

‘Have you been in – Stavanger?’ he said as though it was like climbing Mount Everest.

‘It doesn’t take very long,’ I said. ‘Half an hour in the air, and you’re there.’

‘So what the hell did you get out of mother?’

‘Obviously you knew she was an eyewitness.’

‘Eyewitness? What to?’ In his confusion he reverted to a Stavanger lilt.

‘Or didn’t she ever tell you that?’

He pulled himself together, and the Stavanger lilt disappeared. ‘To what, I said?!’

‘To what you did to Roger Hansen, that time at Mosvatnet Lake, or have you forgotten about that?’

The silence lay between us like a fuse. All it needed was a spark to ignite it.

When he spoke next his voice was so low that it was barely audible. ‘It was a mishap – an accident – and even if it wasn’t, that case is so old it’s got hairs on it…’

‘Maybe so. But it’s still an aggravating factor. And what about Ragnar Hillevåg and the stray bullet at Evjemoen Military Camp? That case has got hairs on it too, I suppose?’

He continued to speak in the same low voice with a growling undertone. ‘You’ve been very thorough, I see.’

‘I could have written a whole book about you, Bjelland. But I left it at a four or five-page report. On top of those other things…’

‘What other things? I had nothing to do with Torild Skagestøl, I said!’

‘And what about Brandt?’

‘The judge? Oh, him…’

‘Yes? He died while he was with one of your girls, didn’t he? Or did your lot give him the push as well, because he was the source of the HIV infection?’

‘Brandt? Don’t make me laugh!’

‘And last of all, there’s Lalla Mongstad, who was maybe on the edge of a breakthrough in the investigation she and her paper had been carrying out into your activities for months…’

‘That reporter slag? What about her?’

‘As you say, what about her, Bjelland? Was that really necessary?’

‘I haven’t come here to solve riddles, Veum!’

‘No, so you said. But now I’ve seen it, this hotel of yours. You’ve told me about your plans, and I’ve told you a few things too.’ A cold gust of wind funnelled down my neck. ‘So – what now?’

He shifted his weight, but the beam from the powerful flashlight remained full on my face. His voice was grating. ‘Like I said, Veum, I can’t take responsibility for what happens when you’re out for an evening stroll.’

‘But the letter, Bjelland, you’re forgetting the letter!’

‘I’ve ridden out so many storms. My lawyer’ll sort this one out as well.’

The beam now came from beside me. I stood pinned in the middle of the floor by the light.

I could try jumping to one side, of course. But I was blinded. It would be a piece of cake for them to catch me again.

They were moving towards the door now. I turned slowly round following the light.

I felt unsure of myself. What were they planning to do?

The door opened, and a gust of fresh air blew in. Despite the fact that the sharp beams of light were still being shone in my face, I saw them now: three silhouettes in the doorway.

‘Feeling lonely, Veum?’ Birger Bjelland shouted.

Now it was my turn not to answer.

‘Don’t worry. One of us is staying behind. Somebody who’s dying to meet you again. So much so that he’s actually announced it, he says!’

A cackle of raucous laughter followed them out. The door slammed shut, and I heard the heavy bolt being shot on the outside.

Suddenly the light was out of my eyes. Blinded, I took a few steps sideways. Somewhere near me I heard a sound.