Wolves at the Door

by Gunnar Staalesen

  ‘They were asleep! I didn’t touch them! Ever.’

  I sat watching him. ‘A lot depends on how this case develops, but it’s very likely that it’ll reach a point where a doctor will have to examine your children.’

  ‘Why? You mustn’t … Vibeke must never know about this.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘She’d go wild. She’d kill me!’

  ‘You said a little while ago that your sort doesn’t have a right to live, that they should be erased from the face of the earth.’

  ‘Yes, but … not me. I didn’t mean it like that. It would ruin our lives, the girls’, Vibeke’s…’

  We stared at each other. I didn’t have any more questions and in a way I felt for him. He was himself a damaged child and perhaps not the worst of his kind.

  I said: ‘How do you think Laila felt? When she discovered the pictures on Bjarne’s screen? When she saw herself surrounded by sex offenders? Her father, brother and husband. Is it any wonder she broke down? Starting drinking? Going onto stronger stuff?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘It’s fine that you’ve paid her debts, this time. However, that’s peanuts compared with what you all owe her. Your late father, your brother-in-law and you yourself. And you shouldn’t ignore the possibility that she’ll need more help later – financial help, at any rate.’

  ‘I can’t help her if you go to the police with this.’

  ‘Oh, you’re in no danger of receiving a sentence of any length, judging by standard legal practices. But of course there might be someone standing outside the prison gates waiting for you when you get out.’

  ‘Someone … Who?’

  ‘Well, that’s in the stars.’

  I left it at that. He had more than enough to worry about with his previous life. And, truth to say, so did I.

  39

  I was halfway across the market square to my office when my phone rang. I studied the display. It was a number I hadn’t saved.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Solheim here. Can you meet me in my office within the next half-hour?’

  ‘I can be there in five minutes. Anything—?’

  ‘See you here in five then.’

  Without another word, he rang off. I changed course and headed for the police station. I didn’t have much choice.

  Melvær met me downstairs and accompanied me up to the third floor. When we reached the office, Solheim showed me to a chair on the other side of his desk, while Melvær posted himself in the doorway as though they wanted to make sure I didn’t try to make a run for it.

  I sat down. ‘And how can I help you boys?’

  Solheim met my gaze. ‘It’s more how we can help you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well.’ I shrugged. ‘Earlier today you said I’d be called in if you had some questions. So I assume that’s why I’m here.’ He eyed me pensively. ‘Let’s just say we’ve got a step further with the case. We’ve got a name from the car-rental company.’

  ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘It’s Stein Sløvåg.’

  ‘Right!’

  ‘Does it mean anything to you?’

  ‘Yes and no. Did he give an address?’

  ‘Kind of. He gave us two.’

  ‘And they are…?’

  ‘One is the Grand Hotel Terminus, in Bergen. The other’s in Germany. But we called Terminus and they had no registered guests under that name. The address in Germany is also temporary accommodation, but he checked out ages ago.’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct. I knew that.’

  ‘So you know who he is?’

  ‘No. It’s a false name. There’s no one with that name in the whole of Norway.’

  He looked at me condescendingly. ‘We found that out for ourselves. Have you anything else to offer?’

  ‘Your colleagues in Tønsberg are working on this case. You can contact them. Inspector Mørk. See if he knows any more.’

  ‘The Tønsberg police?’

  ‘It was you yourself who told me that Karl Slåtthaug had settled in Tønsberg. When I went there to talk to him, we found him in the sea, drowned.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Well, your colleagues. He’d been reported missing the day before.’

  ‘And what had happened?’

  ‘No one knows, like the two other deaths I told you about almost precisely a week ago. It’s a remarkable coincidence, don’t you think?’

  He angled his head, then straightened it again. ‘Yes…’

  ‘Inspector Mørk informed me that Slåtthaug had been in telephone contact with this Stein Sløvåg.’

  ‘Informed you?’

  ‘Yes, when he asked me the same question you’ve just asked: did the name mean anything to me? But it didn’t then, either.’

  ‘Telephone contact … So they’ve got his phone number?’

  ‘Sort of. But it was a German number and the account had been closed. Didn’t he have to leave a phone number at the car-rental place here?’

  ‘Yes, he did. We’ve checked it. But it’s not registered and the phone was obviously a pay-as-you-go.’

  ‘As usual in criminal circles.’

  He nodded. ‘But…’

  ‘When did he rent the car and for how long?’

  ‘Three or four days ago. The advance payment covered two weeks and he still has the car. But that brings us back to your case, Veum.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If we’re to take you and your partner at your word – and there’s no reason not to, is there?’ He fixed his eyes on me questioningly for a second or two, but when I didn’t answer, he carried on: ‘Why would a man calling himself Stein Sløvåg attempt to run you down first, and then a week later your partner? What could his motive be?’

  ‘Obviously to get at me. And, furthermore, the connection with Karl Slåtthaug indicates that it has something to do with the same case as the other two deaths. Not least because Slåtthaug also ended up a corpse.’

  ‘What do the Tønsberg police think about the death?’

  I looked at him wryly. ‘If you believe what’s in Tønsbergs Blad it was accidental drowning. But I think you should talk to Mørk yourself.’

  ‘You can be sure I will. What about you? Do you have any ideas about who this Stein Sløvåg could be?’

  I reflected for a moment. How far should I go? I decided to go the whole hog. ‘Then I might have to stretch your perception of my credibility a touch further.’

  ‘You’ve done that so many times. Once more will hardly make any difference.’

  ‘When I spoke to Hamre and you a week ago we touched on a person who disappeared in Bjørna fjord one September day in 2002, when all the machinations against me were revealed. Are you with me?’

  ‘I’m with you: your crown witness who went missing and never reappeared.’

  ‘Not only a crown witness, but someone guilty of a murder as well – and quite probably a long series of sexual offences against children.’

  ‘Well…’ He still looked just as puzzled.

  ‘What if he didn’t die in Bjørna fjord, but somehow managed to reach land? He was part of Bruno Karsten’s criminal network and could probably have got some help from him to leave the country and establish a new identity. He was a useful man for Karsten, with his computer know-how.’

  ‘And this man’s name is…?’

  ‘Sigurd Svendsbø. Two S’s, as in Stein Sløvåg.’

  ‘A man with a feel for alliteration, anyway?’

  ‘Or perhaps he did it for sentimental reasons. What do I know?’

  ‘Yes, what do you actually know … aside from making a wild stab in the dark?’

  ‘At least it’s something.’ But to myself I had to admit that the reasoning behind this conjecture was weak. ‘I contacted his ex-wife earlier today.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Had she heard from him after he drowned?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘I think we’ll shelve this hypothesis until we have something concrete. And the most con
crete lead we have is the Golf and the registration number.’ He looked at Melvær. ‘Check the switchboard to see if there’s anything new on that.’

  ‘Will do.’ Melvær nodded and went out.

  Solheim leaned back in his chair. ‘One thing you can be sure of, Veum. We’re taking this case seriously.’ He smirked. ‘When he tried to run you down that was his business, but when he tried the same on your partner and her daughter, then it’s all systems go. In our profession you have to be careful about offering any guarantees. But I promise you one thing: if he hasn’t dumped the car in the sea we’ll find it in a day or two, max. Patrols are out all over the country and in Sweden and Denmark too, so we’ll find it. Whether Stein Sløvåg will still be behind the wheel is harder to guarantee.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best to find it, too.’

  ‘You? You sit back and take it easy, Veum, and look twice before you cross the road. I advise you to look after your partner and her daughter, and leave the rest to us. Have you got the message?’

  ‘Loud and clear,’ I said. Clear, but not loud enough, I said to myself.

  Melvær reappeared. ‘No, nothing new yet,’ he reported.

  ‘OK. I’ve explained to Veum that we’re well on top of this case now. I’ve promised him we’ll find the car, so we just have to keep up the good work. Could you accompany Veum out so that he doesn’t get lost in our corridors?’

  Melvær did as he had been bidden. He accompanied me all the way out of the front door, where the January sun waited for me with a chilly gaze, so chilly that a chill ran down my spine. No comfort here, either. No comfort to be found anywhere, it seemed.

  40

  I walked back to the office, flipped open my notepad and embarked on a mental clear-out. I would leave tracking down Stein Sløvåg to the police for the moment. So what was I left with?

  If Knut Haugen really had paid off Laila’s debt, I could perhaps strike a line through Bjørn Hårkløv and the pressure he had exerted on her. But I still had him on the list of potential lines of communication to Bruno Karsten and Germany – and thus also ‘Stein Sløvåg’. Was ‘Sløvåg’ working on behalf of Karsten perhaps? A remote-controlled operator in a VW Golf; a kind of tit for tat for all the problems I had also caused Karsten about a year and a half ago?

  As for the three deaths in this case, I didn’t have much to go on, either. Knut Haugen had said himself his sort didn’t have any right to live. Could he have decided to attack others with the same leanings and started on his father and those accused with him? And what about the uncommunicative Vibeke? Could she be the unknown woman who had visited Per Haugen the day before he died? But was it likely that she had attacked Mikael Midtbø and Karl Slåtthaug afterwards? Hardly. There were still too many loose ends in these cases, and, when it came down to it, there might not be any connection at all. Perhaps they were just three random accidents that had a common multiple, turning the whole thing into an arithmetic calculation – for those of us with antennae for hidden interconnections, at least. And then there was this pastor. I hadn’t made any progress on him or her either.

  Knut Haugen had an extremely complicated relationship with his father. It made me think of the unopened envelope from the Public Health Institute I had in my desk drawer. The person I thought of as my biological father, tram conductor Anders Veum from Fjaler in Sunnfjord, had at least not been a sexual predator. I could barely remember him laying a finger on me. He went to work at the crack of dawn when he was on the early shift, and around lunchtime when he was on the evening shift. Accordingly he came home either for lunch or so late I had long gone to bed. Sometimes he came into my bedroom to see if I was asleep. If I was awake he would ask me a few questions about how school had been that day, whether I had got some tests back or if I had any new homework. The only thing that made his face light up was if I said we had some Norwegian history homework, preferably from saga times. Otherwise he maintained the distant and somewhat pensive expression he always wore. The clearest image I had of him was when he was sitting in the special chair by the tatty coffee table, immersed in a book about Norse mythology. If I asked him a question about it he would brighten up and suddenly be very chatty for a few minutes, then gradually become distant again, turn over a page and depart this world. I would withdraw into one of my comic magazines, about Batman, Superman or one of the other heroes.

  Then one day, in 1956, when I was fourteen, his heart stopped beating. He was heading for Valhalla, which was what he wanted, I think. But whether tram conductors who died of a heart attack were allowed in, I had no idea. My mother and I stayed down here. Many years later I heard something that made me wonder whether he had been my father at all. Perhaps that was why he always looked at me with such a distant gaze, the way he would have regarded the child of another person – someone he might not even have met, such as a saxophonist called Leif Pedersen.

  The answer to this question probably lay in the unopened envelope in my drawer. It was out of respect for the tram conductor, who perhaps had not been allowed to enter Valhalla, that even after so many months I hadn’t opened it. And I wasn’t going to today, either. But I had no unresolved issues with Anders Veum; nor for that matter with Leif Pedersen. But during the week I had worked on these cases there were enough father figures I wouldn’t have given a rotten fig to get to know. Indeed, they were extremely unpleasant acquaintances, every single one of them.

  Although Solheim had as good as banned me from continuing with my investigations, I found it difficult to stay inactive. I was still keen to know whether they had discovered anything in Tønsberg.

  I dialled Foyn’s number. He had clearly slotted me into his system because he answered cheerfully: ‘Hi, Varg. Still imp-patient?’

  ‘Well … I’m sitting here musing. I was wondering if you’d heard from Mørk.’

  ‘I have, in fact. I was just about to give you a ring myself. It must be telepathy, eh?’

  ‘Possibly. I’d be more interested to know what Mørk had to say.’

  He chuckled. ‘Alright, alright. I understand. I know myself how hard it is when you feel a case is stuck in a rut. Although I’m not sure I can help you much. I do have some information for you, though.’

  ‘I’m all ears, as the bishop said to the actress.’

  ‘Mørk’s colleagues in Oslo have actually arrested the siblings who ran off from here: Isaac and Hirute. They told the police that Karl Slåtthaug had taken Hirute to one side and said he could get her an au pair job in Oslo, which would secure her Norwegian residence. This frightened them, because he’d promised the two girls, Moira and Amina, the same back in October. They’d never told anyone, but they’d received texts from Moira telling them it wasn’t an au pair job at all – she was locked in a flat where men came and had sex with her for money. A few weeks later she wrote that Amina was there, too. If they protested they were beaten and if they’d managed to escape … well, Varg, they have absolutely no faith in the police, these young people.’

  ‘But now the police know, surely they’ll do something?’

  ‘But they don’t know where to look. This was in October. The last text came at the beginning of November. The police had no idea what had happened to them afterwards. And the person who might’ve given them an address, Slåtthaug, is dead.’

  ‘Not without reason probably. This fits so well into the pattern I’m trying to establish, Svend. But of the three deaths I’ve investigated so far, Slåtthaug’s is the one linked most closely to organised crime in this area, which his contact with Germany will probably bear out. There’s a system behind this that’s cynically exploiting young people in extreme distress. Child refugees or Norwegian children in vulnerable situations. I can hardly imagine anything more despicable. And what are the politicians doing about it? Generally speaking, sitting on the fence, and if you try to draw their attention to the issue, they turn their backs and pretend they can’t hear. It’s easy to understand why someone can become so desperate that they take the law
into their own hands.’

  ‘Indeed. I’ve come across cases like this, both as a lawyer and … well, in my capacity as a kind of freelance investigator.’

  ‘Talking of which, do you know if Mørk and his colleagues have come to any conclusions regarding what happened to Slåtthaug?’

  ‘The cause of death is in all probability drowning, as I told you earlier today. But the report says Slåtthaug had a very high level of alcohol in his blood. More than two point eight. At that level you’d actually be dead drunk.’

  ‘Wow, he really knocked it back. But he might’ve been an old soak. I seem to remember he liked a tot when I met him.’

  ‘They made enquiries at all the watering holes around Ollebukta and up towards the market square, but found nothing. The problem is, of course, that Slåtthaug was relatively new in town. He wasn’t a known face in such places.’

  ‘Mm, I can understand that.’

  ‘But Mørk said he was going to contact you. They’ve got copies of the passenger lists of all the Widerøe flights between Bergen and Torp on the days before and after the Wednesday in question. He said he was going to send them to you, in case you recognised any of the names.’

  ‘Sounds good. Did he say when?’

  ‘Today some time.’

  ‘I’ll expect them then. Should anything new come up, give me a call.’

  ‘At the moment I’m heavily involved in another case, Varg, but of course if I hear anything, I’ll let you know.’

  After the conversation I once again sat flicking through my notes. I was interrupted by the phone ringing, a long number with a German code.

  ‘Veum here,’ I said in English.

  It was Schultz. ‘Good afternoon Mr Veum,’ he said, as formally as only Germans can be. Nevertheless, he got straight to the point. ‘I have something for you.’

  ‘Right. Go ahead.’

  ‘I visited the address you gave me. It was a kind of boarding house. Herr Stein Sløvåg’ – he pronounced the name ‘Schtein Slövak’ – ‘he’d shown his passport and the landlady had taken a photocopy, as usual.’ I could feel my interest growing. ‘For a couple of hundred-euro notes she was willing to let me have a copy of the copy. I have it here in my hand, so if you give me your email address, Mr Veum, I can send it to you directly.’