Yours Until Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

  I interrupted. ‘OK. I believe you. We believe you. Is he married?’

  ‘Richard? Yes, But I don’t think they’re especially happy. I think they stay together for the children’s sake.’

  ‘So he’s got children?’

  ‘Three. Two boys and a girl. I believe they’re teenagers now.’

  ‘Tuesday. When you phoned me at the office and asked me to talk with Jonas …’

  ‘Did you talk to him?’

  ‘I talked with him, yes. But then when you phoned, I asked if I could come by that evening. But you said it wasn’t convenient. That you were busy.’

  Now she wasn’t looking at my shirt. Now she was looking at her defence lawyer Paulus Smith. As if she wanted him to stop me. As if I were hounding her.

  ‘Where did you go that night?’ I said.

  She looked at me so suddenly it shook me. ‘Out!’ she said. ‘I went out.’

  ‘Alone? Or with …?’

  ‘With Richard. He’d asked me. He’d been promising me a really good dinner for a long time. It was convenient that night. And he took me out, to a restaurant.’ As if to excuse herself she said, ‘If you only knew how long it’s been – since I’ve eaten in a restaurant. And danced.’

  ‘You danced?’

  ‘Something wrong? We danced. And when the restaurant closed he drove me home. Said goodnight at the door. That’s all that happened.’

  ‘And Roar? Who …?’

  ‘One of the girls in the building babysat him.’

  I looked at her. Tuesday night. It seemed as if half an eternity had passed since then. Not about sixty hours. And while I’d been sitting at Bryggestuen listening to Jonas Andresen, she’d been dining and dancing with Richard Ljosne.

  ‘Has he ever made advances towards you?’

  ‘Who? Richard? Never. And can’t we stop talking about him? I don’t see what he’s got to do with this. Richard isn’t the one who’s dead, is he?’

  ‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘Richard’s not the one who’s dead.’

  I stood and stared down. The floor was grey cement and since this wasn’t a real drunk tank, only an imitation, there was a multi-coloured runner on it. A dirty rainbow. But a rainbow just the same. Then I looked at her. She was so tired. Drawn. She sat there with her shoulders tensed. As if she’d jump out of her chair at any moment. But she had no place to jump to.

  ‘Just one more thing, Wenche,’ I said. ‘This – Solveig Manger. Have you met her?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was cold. ‘I’ve met her. What about her?’

  ‘She was –’

  Her voice cracked like the thinnest porcelain. ‘I know who she is. What she is. She’s a whore. Jonas’s little whore.’

  ‘Well …’

  She looked at me. Challenging. ‘She is! She is a whore, Varg. Women who steal other women’s husbands are whores. No matter what kind of excuses they come up with.’

  ‘I think you’re being too harsh, Wenche,’ I said. ‘But OK. I understand. You’re hurt. You –’

  ‘But when I met her she was as sweet as sugar. Always pleasant. Nice. I’ll tell you something. She didn’t know I knew about her. She didn’t realise I knew what she was the first time I saw her. One of these …’

  ‘Richard Ljosne’s married but you went out with him. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. And so what? I went out with him. But I didn’t sleep with him. And that’s the difference! You know everything, Varg. Don’t you know that?’

  ‘Is that the difference?’ I said. ‘You could have fooled me. And no, I don’t know everything.’

  ‘No. You don’t. You really know very little about anything, Varg. Very – little – about – anything …’ She’d found her tears. It was just that they took a long time surfacing.

  She wept and we watched her face turn red and wither like an old apple. She hid behind her hands. She sobbed against her palms, her wrists. She sobbed with her shoulders, back, thighs, her whole body. All of her.

  ‘I think we’ve talked long enough, Veum,’ Paulus Smith said. ‘It’s time we left Fru Andresen in peace.’ He gripped my arm and glared at me. ‘Keep this up,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and she won’t be fit to say anything in court.’ He paused. Thoughtful. ‘But maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.’

  I nodded. Said to Wenche Andresen, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re right. I don’t know much about anything.’

  She raised her huge eyes from her hands and nodded as if she agreed. Or else accepted my apology.

  ‘We’re leaving now, Fru Andresen,’ Smith said. ‘But we’ll be seeing you again. Try to take it easy. It’s going to work out.’

  ‘Before we go,’ I said, ‘can I have a few words with Wenche – Fru Andresen – alone?’

  Smith looked searchingly at me. ‘No games now, Veum. Remember what I said.’

  ‘I’ll remember.’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait outside.’ He knocked on the cell door and the officer let him out. He told her to close the door but that she needn’t lock it. She looked suspiciously at me with a refusal on the tip of her tongue but her respect for Smith won out.

  I turned toward Wenche Andresen. She stood up, and I felt her tear-stained face against my throat. Thought: now my shirt’s going to get wet. And Smith who doesn’t miss anything …

  ‘Oh, Varg,’ she said. ‘Varg.’

  I held her away from me. Saw that red, swollen face, the eyes which weren’t about to calm down but which flicked from my mouth to my eyes, and back and forth again. ‘Just tell me one thing, Wenche,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I couldn’t ask you while Smith was here. But if you want me to help you, you mustn’t get angry. And you’ve got to answer a couple of questions honestly.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Do you have any idea of who else might – do you know anybody who’d want to kill Jonas?’

  ‘No, I … No, Varg.’

  I’d asked so as to lead up to the other question. The one I had to ask. I took her in my arms. ‘Just tell me. You didn’t kill him, did you?’

  Her eyes turned from black to blue and the pupils raced from large to small, from small to large to small.

  ‘I didn’t kill him, Varg. I didn’t. I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. Stroked her cheek. ‘That’s all. Take care of yourself. We’ll talk again soon.’ Then I quickly let her go and knocked on the cell door. Gave her one last look and tried to smile encouragingly. But I don’t know if I managed it. I didn’t feel very encouraging.

  Of course I could have kissed her. But I didn’t want to. Not there. Not then. I’d save the kisses until she was out of that cell. Until I could hold her and say, ‘You’re free, Wenche!’ And then I’d kiss her. But not before.

  Paulus Smith was waiting. ‘Well? What did you want to ask her without me there?’

  ‘I asked her point-blank if she’d killed Jonas Andresen.’

  ‘You did, did you? And what did she say?’

  ‘She said no. She said she didn’t kill him.’

  He exhaled slowly between clenched teeth. Then he said, ‘God knows, Veum. God knows.’

  ‘If He does, He does,’ I said.

  We trudged up to the main entrance. It felt as if we were emerging from the land of the dead.

  ‘Keep me informed as to what you find, Veum,’ he said when we were out in front of the station. He’d become formal again.

  ‘I will,’ I said.

  We said goodbye. The lawyer walked springily back to his offices and his paragraphs while the detective set off on the longest road of them all. The road to the truth.

  33

  I found an empty telephone booth in the post office and called the Pallas Advertising Agency. Recognised the voice but didn’t react. Said, ‘Hello. Is Solveig Manger there?’

  A little pause. Then: ‘No. Fru Manger’s ill today. May I give you someone else?’

  ‘What about
giving me you?’

  A new, longer pause. Then icily: ‘May I help you?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘Not today. Try tomorrow.’ And I hung up. Not very funny but I wasn’t feeling funny. Not today.

  My car was parked up on Tårnplass. It was still raining but not as hard as it had been. The drops were farther apart now. A good slalom skier could make it dry-shouldered over Torgalmenningen if he went at a good dip. It was foggy up on the mountains, and you couldn’t see more than a metre or so up beyond Fjellveien.

  As I was unlocking the car, a noisy wedding party came down the City Hall’s wide steps. The bride in a dark blue dress printed with tiny flowers, the groom in a grey suit. The wedding party wore everything from dark suits to jeans and leather jackets. A man in dark trousers and a grey jacket backed into the street, stood in a puddle of slush and with an Instamatic camera immortalised the happy couple. They held hands, beaming at one another and the world. With roses in their cheeks, and wind and rain in their hair. A new couple on the way to the slaughterhouse.

  As I drove off, I thought of all the weddings I’d been a part of. Of all the speeches I’d heard, of all the sloshed, happy wedding guests I’d sat with, of all the happy couples I’d seen.

  You rarely think of what’s ahead when you celebrate at a wedding. You laugh and drink toasts and you don’t think about tears, or loneliness. Or jealousy. The newlyweds are going to waltz through life and marriage as happily as they dance their first dance together. You don’t picture them at the lawyer’s. Each in his own chair. Looking straight ahead and as little as possible at the other. Or lying in the same bed forty years later, back to back. As far apart as possible. Nothing more to say to one another, nothing more to do with one another. After forty years of long grey days without funny moments. Or Sundays. Oh, yes. New couples constantly on their way to the slaughterhouse …

  But now I had to plan my strategy. First I had to find out what happened at the actual time of the murder. First of all I needed to talk to Solfrid Brede. I’d seen her leaving the lift as I was running up the stairs. Only to find Jonas Andresen – and Wenche Andresen standing over him with that knife in her hand.

  I parked in front of the high-rise. Looked up at it as a climber looks at a mountain he’s done a hundred times before but is going to tackle again.

  Gunnar Våge, bent against the rain, trudged by in the distance, his green windbreaker turned up at the collar, a knitted cap pulled down over his forehead. I think he saw me because he slowed down, but then hurried on as if he didn’t want to talk. OK, not right now, I thought. But your turn’ll come. Just wait. Just you wait, Gunnar.

  I walked towards the lifts. There would be too many buildings and too many stairs. I’d better use the lift when I could.

  Got out at the seventh floor and walked out on to the balcony, read the names on all the doors. Wrong balcony. Went back past the lifts to the other balcony. S. Brede was written on the second door I came to.

  I looked in her kitchen window. I had no idea if she was at home. She was probably at work. But on the other hand, she didn’t look as if she worked. The kitchen window told me nothing. The printed curtains were pulled back. Dark inside. Neat.

  I rang. Heard the sound of high heels clicking quickly towards me. Then the door opened and Solfrid Brede looked out.

  She wasn’t wearing her fur coat. Her body looked twenty years younger than her face. It was a good firm body. Big breasts. She was wearing a beige mohair sweater and a brown tweed skirt.

  In the daylight you could see the beige tinge in her brown eyes and the furrows in her face. The bags under her eyes were even more obvious now. She looked as if there’d been more winters than summers in her life. She reminded me of a woman I’d met the other night. Except that Solfrid Brede looked a lot nicer. Friendlier.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘My name’s Veum. I don’t know if you remember me.’

  She nodded slowly and looked at me questioningly. Neutral.

  ‘I’m helping the defence lawyer in connection with Wednesday’s crime. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve already told the police everything I know,’ she said. ‘But of course …’

  She stepped aside and held the door. It was impossible to pass without brushing against her breasts. She smelled of lilies of the valley. Like a teenager.

  I knew these flats by now and went straight to the living room. It was a snug warm room. It suited her. Over-furnished with two sofas and a lot of roomy old-fashioned armchairs you could curl up and doze in. A rocking chair in one corner. Rag rugs fanned out on the floor as if a pack of cards had fallen there. Too many rugs for this floor and they partly overlapped. The walls were papered in dark brown with a pattern of lilies and there were plants everywhere. In the windows. Sitting on shelves. Hanging from wall brackets. It was like a botanical garden. I should have brought my machete.

  I headed for the nearest armchair. Then I waited.

  ‘May I offer you something?’ Solfrid Brede said. ‘A liqueur? Beer? Whisky?’

  I was about to say no, but on the other hand, it was going to be a long day. I could use a little reinforcement. ‘What about a very very weak one?’ I said.

  She smiled. ‘Finally! A man after my own heart. What kind of very very weak one? Whisky? Brandy?’

  I remembered the taste of old newspaper ashes. ‘Brandy and soda sounds fine.’

  She opened a little cabinet-bar on one of the shelves, poured me a very very weak one and several fingers for herself. Then she sat on the sofa and crossed her knees. There was no way her skirt could have been shorter. We lifted our glasses. Skål!

  ‘We are on a first-name basis, aren’t we?’ she said.

  ‘How could we be anything else after being stuck in a lift together?’

  ‘God, yes. That was awful. But … Well. Tell me.’

  ‘No. You tell me. What did the police ask you?’

  She looked at me sideways. ‘What did they ask?’ She hung on to her smile. ‘They asked me where I had been that day. When I left the lift. When the murder happened. I said I’d been here. Then they asked if I’d been alone and I told them yes. He was rather sweet. That policeman. Hamre I think it was. Polite. But I couldn’t tell them a lot, as a matter of fact.’

  I was disappointed. She couldn’t add anything new. ‘And did you hear anything? Did you see Andresen?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Did you know the Andresens?’

  ‘In this building? It’s like living in Laksevåg and maybe knowing people all the way out in Landås. I mean, it would be just as improbable. Of course I’ve seen them. But they belonged to another – circle.’

  ‘Are there really circles? Here in this building?’

  ‘Why ask?’ she said.

  ‘I just wondered. Just trying to get some idea of what kind of place this is.’

  ‘What kind of a place? You could say it’s like a refrigerator. The milk on the lowest shelf doesn’t talk to the ice cubes, and the cheese doesn’t ever speak to the food on the shelf above it. It’s a place to live in. A place to bring your friends to, or chase your partners out of. But it’s not a place to make new friends. Or meet new partners either, for that matter. I should know. I’ve had a few. Husbands, I mean.’ She smiled wryly.

  ‘All that many?’ I asked.

  ‘Depends on what you mean by many.’ She counted on her fingers. ‘One, two, three, four. And I divorced them all. Never killed one of them. Not a single one. The idea was that each one should be richer than the last. Then your standard of living doesn’t go downhill. My last husband loved me so much I never had to work again.’

  That explained her face. Say what you like about divorces, they don’t make you look younger. Each one marks your face. And places nobody can see.

  I smiled. ‘Are you so impossible as a wife?’

  ‘No worse than most.’ She rolled her glass between long, white, red-tipped fingers. ‘I don’t believe marriage is s
omething for ever, and wonderful. If you know what I mean. Personally, I think … I don’t believe in these new fashions. Living in collectives. That kind of thing. It’s hard enough living with one person, never mind a mob. Each one with his own needs and special quirks. Quirks can be charming in the beginning but they lead to a war of nerves after years of togetherness. When the little details stop being the spice in a marriage and start grating on you.

  ‘I mean, an absent-minded guy is a real joy when you first fall in love. But an absent-minded guy’s hell in a couple of years. No. I believe in our Western system of two by two, but I can’t kid myself that it’s good for your whole life. Ten years maximum. That’s a reasonably happy marriage. If we forget the few lucky exceptions. But otherwise? It gets to be routine. Boring! It either blows up or else you end up in Dreamland for the rest of your life. And do you find peace when you’re dead? No! No, no, no. They bury the two of you together.’

  She put down her glass, and lifted her hands so she could examine her fingernails. ‘I think I can say I’ve been honest anyway. When the marriages stopped working, I left the table. I think we should all be like that. It can be hard when you’re going through it, but you come out of it with your self-respect. You land on your feet.’

  She drank. ‘It can be lonely sometimes. Of course. Especially when you’re not so young any more. But, on the other hand …’

  She looked at me over the edge of her glass. ‘There’s a lot a mature woman can do for a man, with a man, that a young girl can’t even imagine. A teenager has a better-looking body maybe, but she’s like a baby with an electric train. She hasn’t a clue as to what to do with it. But a mature woman knows. Isn’t that right, Veum?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘How old are you?’ She looked at me curiously.

  ‘What do you think?’

  She looked me over. Paused at my chest which is neither broader nor narrower than most people’s. Then at my stomach which is about average. Studied my face. ‘I’d bet,’ she said, ‘I’d bet mid-thirties or a well-preserved forty.’

  ‘Thirty-six,’ I said.

  She smiled and raised her glass to me. ‘The prime of life for a man. Old enough to know the ropes but not so old he’ll fall through them. And not so young he’ll crack up in the doorway.’