Wolves at the Door

by Gunnar Staalesen

  So in a while it was. I tapped in his number at almost midnight. He hadn’t gone to bed, but his voice sounded a little slurred too.

  ‘Veum? Foyn here.’

  ‘Yes, I saw. I wasn’t able to ring back until now.’

  ‘That’s okay. The guy you asked me to check out, Karl Slåtthaug?’

  ‘Yes. Did you find anything?’

  ‘Any chance you can come over to Tønsberg tomorrow?’

  ‘I can try. What—?’

  ‘The police would like to talk to you.’

  ‘The police? But—’

  ‘Thing is, this Slåtthaug … has gone missing.’

  ‘Has he now?!’

  Sølvi heard from the intonation that something had happened and gave me an enquiring glance. I caressed her hair and she lowered her head again.

  ‘He’d told his office he was meeting a priest.’

  I sat up in bed so abruptly Sølvi fell off. ‘What! A priest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me just … I’ll go and check for flights straightaway. I’ll be on the first one tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I can pick you up from Torp.’

  ‘Deal.’

  Sølvi looked at me. ‘Another death?’

  ‘Hard to say, but…’

  She wriggled back up and kissed me on the mouth this time. ‘Do you have to go home then?’

  ‘I’ll have to check the flights first, but I’m hoping I can drive to Flesland straight from here.’

  She smiled gently. ‘Mmmmm. Sounds good.’

  On my return from looking for flights, she was asleep. I lay pondering for several hours before I fell asleep. Karl Slåtthaug. The next for the chop?

  28

  From the air I could already see that there was a great deal more snow in Vestfold than in the lowlands around Bergen. We landed to the north and, after turning, taxied towards what was called Torp Airport, Sandefjord, but which wasn’t very far from Tønsberg, either.

  Foyn, the lawyer, was waiting for me in the arrivals hall. We hadn’t met face to face before, but his forensic gaze examining the small crowd of passengers arriving from Bergen gave him away. When our eyes met, we nodded to each other as though we were old acquaintances. We shook hands.

  ‘Svend F-Foyn.’

  ‘Varg Veum.’

  ‘Th-th-thanks for your help, I should say.’

  ‘And the same to you. That case was a result too, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He was over one metre ninety tall, well built with a well-tended, reddish beard and longish hair. He was wearing a three-quarter length jacket over dark-brown cord trousers and solid winter boots.

  He nodded towards the carousel. ‘Any luggage?’

  ‘Just this.’ I showed him my light walking rucksack, which held little more than the toiletries I kept at the Saudalskleivane branch of my business.

  He motioned towards the exit. ‘My car’s outside.’

  I followed him out. In Bergen it had been eight or nine degrees when I left. Here, the temperature hovered above zero and you could feel it. There were great banks of snow along the edges of the car park and the ground underfoot was slippery. A high, icy-blue sky towered over Torp, like a frozen dome in space.

  The car Foyn was leading me towards was a red Jaguar. The characteristically long bonnet reminded me of an elegant beast of prey, perfectly fitting its name. It was considerably wider than my Toyota Corolla, but would also be easier to recognise in traffic. I would have chosen a different car for tailing jobs. ‘Wow! It’s a long time since I’ve seen one of these. Does it go too?’

  ‘Like a bell.’

  He unlocked the passenger’s door. A slightly odd smell met my nostrils, and when I looked over the back of the seat I saw a large, sleeping St Bernard. It opened one eye a fraction to welcome me. ‘And you’ve brought a guard with you?’

  ‘This is Hulda. As meek as a lamb.’

  ‘No barrel around her neck though.’

  ‘No, we’ll have to wait until later for some brandy.’

  We got in. Before he could start up, I asked: ‘Any news on Slåtthaug?’

  ‘Nothing. My man in the Tønsberg police force, Wilhelm M-Mørk, told me to take you there.’

  ‘To the police station?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You said last night that Slåtthaug had some arrangement with a priest. What did you mean by that?’

  He glanced in my direction. ‘What I said. It was the last thing he’d uttered when he went home on Wednesday. He was meeting a priest. Since then no one’s seen him.’

  ‘No more details?’

  ‘I think we’ll have to talk to the person I got this from: his colleague, Anne Kristine Kaldnes.’

  ‘Can we do that before going to the police?’

  ‘Of course we can. I didn’t fix a time with Mørk.’

  ‘Great.’

  On the way into Tønsberg we passed several copses of beech trees – bare now in January – and large fields, which reminded me that we were in an area where agriculture still played an important role. During the drive Foyn reported back on the research he had already done. He had made enquiries about the refugee reception centre in question. No one had said anything of significance about the director, Karl Slåtthaug, but the police had noticed that two refugee children had disappeared from the centre just before Christmas and had not reappeared. It was assumed they had escaped together because the date for a new assessment of their application for residence permits was approaching. Earlier that autumn there had been a couple of similar disappearances as well. ‘Entirely normal, according to the police,’ Foyn said.

  ‘The same happened in other institutions that had employed Slåtthaug.’

  ‘Really?’ He smiled wryly. ‘That’s why he was meeting a priest, you see. To confess his sins.’

  ‘Or to be led to perdition.’

  ‘Is that what priests do then?’

  ‘Some of them.’

  We were approaching Tønsberg, where Slottsfjellet Tower rose above us – a landmark, visible from a long distance. Then, as far as I could judge, Foyn crossed the town to the north of Slottsfjellet and drove west.

  The refugee reception centre was situated on top of a hill, surrounded by open fields. It was a large, yellow building with three floors, the first constructed with brick. A sign by the driveway said: Children’s Reception Centre, Tønsberg. Two tall trees towered over the car park. Opposite the main house there was a red farm building. Above the front door it said: ANNO 1933.

  He turned in towards this building and parked beside the main entrance. We got out and closed the doors behind us, me much more carefully than Foyn, afraid to damage this beautiful car. Hulda showed no signs of wanting to get out and went on snoozing serenely on the back seat.

  ‘Former domestic-science school,’ Foyn said. ‘Up until last year an upper secondary school. Classes were orientated towards agriculture, so they had cows and pigs here, at least when the domestic-science school was in use. They still grow potatoes, I’m sure, but the animals have gone.’

  The woman who came out onto the front step I recognised from the webpage I had found. She came down and addressed Foyn directly. ‘Any news?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. Not from your side either, I gather.’

  ‘No.’

  He introduced her to me and we shook hands briefly. She was wearing a big grey-and-white jumper and light-blue dungarees. Across her forehead and down to the back of her neck she wore a broad, red headband to keep her blonde hair together in a kind of ponytail.

  ‘Veum knows Slåtthaug from Bergen.’

  ‘Mhm.’ She looked at me enquiringly.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid something may have happened to him.’

  ‘Happened?’ She made a move towards the house. ‘Let’s go inside. It’s much too cold to stand out here.’

  We followed her into the building. A staircase led up to another floor. Two doors went off in
different directions. It was remarkably quiet.

  ‘The children have classes now,’ Anne Kristine said. ‘Generally they take place on the first floor.’ To me she said: ‘We’re trying to prepare them in such a way that they can integrate into the country. Those of them who are allowed to stay.’

  ‘And how many is that?’

  ‘Unfortunately it’s not us who decides. Some will be allowed to stay. Others will have to go.’

  ‘And how do they react?’

  ‘In different ways, understandably enough. Many are terribly upset. Some get panic attacks. Most have experienced things children in Norway cannot even begin to imagine: war, abuse, perilous escape routes; parents murdered or simply missing. I’m still shocked by what some of the children tell me. But then…’ she held a hand in the air and flicked her fingers silently ‘…at the stroke of a Foreign Office pen they’re sent out of the country, and if they refuse to go, the police come for them. Like in their home countries, where the police can be a lot more brutal than they are here, but they don’t know that. All they see is uniforms. We’ve witnessed some heart-breaking scenes here, even though we’re a new institution, barely six months old.’

  ‘But some children escape?’

  ‘Yes, they do. Let’s go into the lounge. Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  She led us through the door to the right. What she called a lounge was a large room with several seated areas, a billiard table in one corner, a bookcase with a selection of children’s books and reference works, and in the opposite corner a shelving unit with a combined radio and CD player, amplifier and speakers. The flowers on the low tables were artificial and covered with a layer of dust.

  I walked over to the windows on one side of the building. They looked out onto the back garden, which was surrounded by bushes, and a dip in the terrain and the outlying fields and, then, further away, a broad woodland area.

  Anne Kristina Kaldnes came up alongside me. ‘All of this is going to be developed. Soon we’ll have rows of houses around us.’

  ‘Town planners call that in-fill.’

  ‘Yes.’ She shrugged. ‘Well … I’ll get the coffee.’

  I turned to Foyn. ‘Enormous building.’

  He nodded. ‘I remember all too well when it was a domestic-science school,’ he said with a little smile, without going any deeper. ‘Tell me though. How well did you know this Slåtthaug?’

  ‘He wasn’t a close friend, if I can put it like that. We were both trained child-welfare workers, but he joined twenty years after me. He had to stop because there was some suspicion that he’d been too intimate with the girls in one institution, and I was tangentially involved in the matter. We met later once and I realised he bore me a grudge because of it. Then we ended up in the clink together, but that’s a longer story, which I’ll tell you some other time. And definitely not here.’

  I cast an explanatory glance at the door as Anne Kristine came in. She set down a tray bearing a pot of coffee, three cups and a small carton of cream onto a low table and motioned for us to sit there. We helped ourselves to coffee; she was the only one to take cream.

  For a while we sat quietly sipping. Eventually I broke the silence. ‘I’ve been told that there have been a few escapes.’

  She sighed deeply. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Four, to be precise. Two in October and there were two just before Christmas. The latter two were siblings waiting for a decision from the Foreign Office, but it was on an appeal – as they’d been turned down before; so it was easy enough to understand why they made off.’

  ‘And the ones in October?’

  ‘That was two separate incidents. One at the beginning of the month, one fairly late.’

  ‘Boys or girls?’

  ‘The two in October were girls. The others were siblings, as I said. A boy and a girl. He was seventeen; she was sixteen.’

  ‘I assume you informed the police?’

  ‘Of course. But … to no avail. If you knew how many missing cases there are from refugee centres up and down the country. These are not exactly priority cases, to put it mildly.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But why are you so interested in this?’

  I took a sip of coffee while considering how to phrase an answer. ‘Let me ask you a question. When you appointed Karl Slåtthaug … didn’t you ask the police for a background check?’

  ‘A background check? Would that…?’ She paused. ‘It wasn’t me who appointed him. The management board did, so you’ll have to ask them.’

  I dredged up a name from my memory. ‘Pål Vassbotn?’

  ‘He’s one of them. The chairman anyway.’

  ‘Was Slåtthaug in any way – how shall I put this? – around, when these children disappeared?’

  She blushed. ‘Around? What do you mean?’ After a short pause she added: ‘I’ll have to look at the duty roster, but right back to October … that’ll take a bit of time.’

  ‘So you don’t remember? I would’ve thought the police would question anyone who was around when the children went missing.’

  She snorted. ‘Not necessarily. There was one officer who popped by the first time … Jespersen, I think his name was. But he went through what happened extremely superficially and examined her room to see if there was anything there. Obviously there wasn’t, because we never heard another thing, even though we reminded them.’

  ‘Your faith in the local police is clearly not what it should be.’

  ‘In the police full stop. I can promise you that. I have many years’ experience in this kind of work, and I’ve banged my head against a wall so many times that the little faith I once had disappeared long ago.’

  ‘Back to Karl Slåtthaug.’

  ‘Yes?’ She sent me a somewhat hostile glance. ‘You still haven’t told me what you think may’ve happened.’

  ‘There’s some evidence to suggest he may be in danger. When Foyn rang me yesterday to say he’d gone missing I came over as fast as I could.’

  ‘Really?’ She looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Foyn told me you’d said something about a priest?’

  She glanced at Foyn, who confirmed with a nod.

  ‘Slåtthaug said he was meeting a priest?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, that’s correct. When he went home on Wednesday he grinned and said he was meeting someone that evening. A priest.’

  ‘Meeting someone? Did he mention anything else? A name or where he knew this priest from?’

  ‘No. I didn’t have the impression he knew him. He said they were meeting in town and would have a glass together. “Something stronger than altar wine, I hope”, he said.’

  ‘In town? Did he mention where?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And when did he go missing?’

  ‘That was the day after. When he didn’t turn up for work on Thursday and there’d been no contact, we were worried. I called his mobile, but there was no answer. Then we were even more worried. So I went there.’

  ‘There? To where he lived?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Guttegata, as we call it. Hertug Guttorms gata.’

  ‘Just under Slottsfjellet,’ Foyn added.

  ‘I rang the bell, but there was no answer, so then … I let myself in.’

  ‘You had a key?’

  ‘Yes, but … the flat was empty.’

  ‘Empty?’

  ‘Yes, I mean he wasn’t there.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I tried calling him again. When he didn’t answer this time either, I rang the police.’

  There was another silence.

  Foyn cleared his throat. ‘The fact that you had a key … Does that mean you were in a relationship with Slåtthaug?’

  ‘No, we … Yes, maybe.’

  I refrained from commenting. Karl Slåtthaug wasn’t someone I would have had a relationship with, but then I wasn’t a woman. I said: ‘Did he tell you anyth
ing about his background?’

  ‘He said he had the same background as me: social worker. He’d worked in child welfare and later he’d been an active member of organisations helping street children, in Europe and other parts of the world.’

  ‘And did he say he’d been to prison?’

  She blanched. ‘Prison? No. What for?’

  They were both staring at me now. ‘He was involved in the dissemination of child porn material on the net. He and several others were convicted and did time.’

  ‘How long?’ Foyn asked.

  ‘Not long enough, if you ask me. But you’re the lawyer, so you know yourself how important proof is.’

  Anne Kristine Kaldnes appeared to be stunned by this information. In a low voice she said: ‘Child pornography?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I asked about the background check. In my opinion, people like Karl Slåtthaug shouldn’t be allowed to work in places like this after the sentence he was given.’

  ‘No, I can understand that.’

  ‘We social workers ought to be agreed on that.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I’m also a trained social worker.’

  She looked at me, lost for words.

  Foyn took over. ‘Do you think there could be a connection between the conviction and his disappearance, Veum?’

  I nodded slowly. ‘This sort of thing’s happened before, hasn’t it?’

  ‘It has. If the worst has happened, there’s an obvious place to search for motives here.’

  I shifted my gaze back to Anne Kristine. ‘The key to his flat – have you still got it?’

  Foyn sent me an admonitory look. ‘Veum … we have to meet Mørk after leaving here.’

  ‘Yes? Have you never…?’

  ‘Yes, I probably have, but…’

  She interrupted us. ‘I haven’t got it any more.’

  We turned our attention back to her. ‘You haven’t?’

  ‘The police took it. Inspector Hole.’

  Foyn rolled his eyes. ‘The holy Inspector Hole…’

  ‘A priestly sort as well?’

  ‘As righteous as a traffic warden.’

  ‘Even to Jaguar drivers?’

  ‘Especially to us.’

  Anne Kristine looked from Foyn to me and back again. ‘What are you two talking about?’