Waagenes leaned towards me and said in a low voice, ‘The first thing we must have one hundred percent clear is the following: Can you, hand on heart, assure me you know nothing about this case?’
‘I’ll put my hand wherever you want, Vidar, but I can assure you, this came like a bolt from the blue, straight through the roof, in fact, for me too. Someone has gained access to my computers, either directly or externally, if that’s possible. I have to admit I know nothing about these things at all. About how you do it. But someone has put this filth on my computers, in which case it must’ve been intentional. How did the police find it? Did someone tip them off?’
Waagenes nodded. ‘I’ll try to find out. And you have no idea who this might have been?’
I shrugged. ‘Lots of people have borne me some resentment over the years. Not just resentment but deep grudges. But would any of them have the technological expertise to do this? It’s just as likely to be a fifteen-year-old as someone of my age. More likely in fact.’
He looked at me sharply. ‘Oh? Have you someone in mind?’
‘No. That was just an example.’
‘Let me try to draw up a list of possibilities here. How has business been for you in recent years?’
I ran a hand through my hair and squirmed. The bench was hard and uncomfortable to sit on, but that wasn’t what was making me squirm. I said: ‘Earlier this year I solved a cold case, almost twenty-five years old.’
He nodded. ‘Yes? Carry on.’
‘But it was also the first proper case I’d investigated for … some years.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘I…’ Talking about it was still torture. ‘I lost my partner in connection with a case nearly four years ago. The time since then has been … complicated.’
He nodded sympathetically and waited for me to continue.
‘It all … became too much for me. Too many … too much drinking.’
‘Mhm. But you carried on professionally?’
‘Yes, but I wasn’t very sober.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘In other words, what you remember from those days is hazy?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
‘Well … that doesn’t make the situation any easier. Let me ask you the following question: Could your fitful memory of these years mean that you might – unbeknown to yourself – have been on some of these websites that the charming frøken Bauge informed us about upstairs?’
I looked at him with a feeling somewhat redolent of a bad conscience. ‘I’d have remembered, Vidar! I wasn’t that far gone.’
‘Sure?’
‘…Yes.’
I closed my eyes. I visualised some situations, some people, some women I’d encountered during the dark days of my past. Very few of these women were under fifty. If they were, they charged a fee. And I was never sat behind a computer screen; unless I was trying to coax the last drop from my internet bank before the next bill was due. Otherwise the screen remained dark and all the lights were out – at home and in my office.
‘Hmm.’ Vidar Waagenes looked pensive. ‘We have the hearing in a few hours. I’ll go and buy you some clothes. You can’t appear … like that.’ His eyes wandered eloquently over my outfit. ‘In the meantime I think you should consider your situation and see if you can remember anything at all that might help us in court. I’ll see if I can lay my hands on a few more facts – any documentation the folks upstairs might be willing to release. Then I’ll come back for you. If you had this week’s winning lottery ticket it would be crawling with press outside, but this hearing will be behind closed doors, I can promise you that.’
Resigned, I nodded and watched him being let out of the cell. After he had gone I took out my notepad and my lethal biro. Before starting to write, I slumped back against the wall, closed my eyes and probed the past.
6
The first three years after Karin died had been like a peregrination through a Salvador Dalί landscape, seen through the bottom of an aquavit bottle.
The detail was strange, often terrible, and again and again I saw her lying there on the windblown island coast with her head twisted, for no reason, surrounded by long-disconnected clock faces, humanoid figures with grotesque facial expressions, no bodies but enormous legs, like gigantic spiders. Inside a room, there was pounding music, a decibel level beyond anything imaginable, men smashing bottles against glass with such power, like cymbals in a symphony orchestra, and semi-naked women leaning back, pulling up their skirts, spreading their legs and revealing a sunset so murky that the most polluted intersection in Europe – Danmarksplass in Bergen on a cold February day – seemed like paradise by comparison. And outside the wolves howled. When I put my face to the window pane I saw fantasy animals of the most incredible kind: insect legs; a sheep’s skin and elephant trunks; dogs with fangs like sabre-toothed tigers; cats with claws like sword points, dripping with blood; and monkeys performing the rudest movements, dancing on an altar in front of a screen filled to the margins with pornographic images, images so savage I could wake in the middle of the night bathed in sweat and convinced I would never be able to close my eyes again, for fear of experiencing more of the same.
I had staggered in and out of this landscape, with either a bottle or a glass in hand. I remembered trying to cling to my office, where I sat staring at the phone, as if waiting for Karin to ring – or at least a client. I had watched the pile of bills grow ever higher until I could have played Happy Families with them and won every round; nothing was easier than finding four of the same. But recently reminders had been replaced by debt-recovery letters, and it seemed as if I would never win. Creditors queued outside my office door, and on the rare occasion a client did appear they often left frustrated because I had been too drunk to understand what the job involved.
It had been the darkest period of my life, and I had experienced total blackouts, which now meant that I shuddered at the thought: Could I have done what Hamre insisted I did do during one of these? Wasn’t I basically guilty?
I opened my eyes and stared at the pale, dirty wall on the opposite side of the room. Once again I could feel my respiratory system malfunctioning, as though my lungs wouldn’t take the air I inhaled; instead it wrapped itself around my chest like tape, so strong that I didn’t have the strength to tear it in half.
I forced myself to sit properly. I opened my notepad, gripped the biro tightly, stared down at the blank paper and tried to conjure up some images, some names, some moments, from the bleak years.
Slowly the mist lifted and gradually shapes emerged – a few. I jotted down words.
7
When I heard from Nils Åkre, my old friend in the insurance business, one crisp February day in the very first year of the new millennium, it came as a surprise. After an embarrassing and unpleasant case a few years earlier, all communication between us had ceased, with fatal consequences for my finances, business and private. After we finished talking, I sat staring through the office window. The low sun emphasised the saw-tooth roofline of Bryggen’s Hanseatic houses on the other side of Vågen bay against the buildings behind, and the silhouette of Mount Fløyfjell was as sharp as a Japanese paper cut-out – greyish-black against the light-blue sky.
As I was already several centilitres down the day’s first bottle of aquavit I was obliged to walk to Olav Kyrres gate in order to catch a bus to Nils’s office in Fyllingsdalen. Around three-quarters of an hour later I was standing in the reception area at the insurance company, having a visitor’s badge stuck to my lapel and the way to his office explained by a woman who was so new there she had never seen me before. I mumbled something about knowing where his office was, and she smiled back in a nice, cultivated way, like a loyal representative of the customer-friendly institution they were known to be – at least until you needed them.
Nils Åkre found it difficult to meet my gaze, but whether that was because he still had a guilty conscience about what had happened the previous time we saw each other or because my
eyes were swimming, I couldn’t be sure. We exchanged glances like two shy teenagers on their very first date, and then, with a broad flourish, he waved me to the customer chair while he sat down behind the desk.
I wondered whether he had been comfort-eating since our last meeting, because he had definitely swollen up, to the hundred-kilo mark, it looked like, and it wasn’t increased muscle mass. He was squeezed into a suit that looked as if the seams might burst at any moment, but had lashed an immense knot in his tie, perhaps to moor himself to life. The tie was the same light-blue as the sky, but there wasn’t much sunshine in his eyes, which flitted around, not settling for an instant.
He ignored the opportunity for a chat and got straight down to business. ‘As I said on the phone, Varg, I’ve got a job for you.’ I didn’t make a comment, and he carried on talking: ‘The reason we’ve come to you regarding this matter is because we have no-one else to turn to.’
It was one of the most dubious compliments I’d had for many years, yet I still refrained from commenting.
He peered out of the window as though the answer to life’s mysteries lay somewhere there. ‘You might’ve been wondering why you haven’t heard from us for some years…’
Well, actually I hadn’t been, considering his Parthian shot the last time we met.
‘But in fact we’ve become as good as self-reliant in what I’d call … your field.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Crime investigation,’ he added, as though I didn’t understand what he was talking about. ‘More and more police officers find employment with us, even before they reach retirement age, and afterwards, of course.’
I nodded. I was aware the market was not on my side any more. Nor did I have early retirement to fall back on. There was no such package for private investigators, I knew that.
‘But now one of these is causing us problems.’
‘A police officer?’
‘A trivial matter, actually, but … we can’t sack old colleagues here, we have to turn to others.’
‘And of the heavies you know, I was first in line?’
‘Heavies?’
‘Yes, I assume this is about some outstanding debts? I know all about them, not to put too fine a point on it.’
‘Well … yes, it is about something like that. So many bills are due and so little money has been recovered that the bailiff has given up. But we’re responsible for car insurance here.’
‘All you have to do is confiscate his assets, don’t you? Car, house, cabin?’
‘That’s the problem. He has nothing left – of that kind of asset, anyway. Not even the car in question. Which he didn’t pay for in the final years he had it.’
‘Nice for some,’ I said, envious.
‘He’s claiming his pension, and that’s it. But we suspect he has something up his sleeve.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘If I can put it like that. He’s got a girlfriend he lives with, in Fusa. This woman has a house and a car, and even more. She has a property in Spain and they spend most of the winter there. In short, there’s nothing wrong with their finances.’
‘He married wisely?’
‘They’re not married. A girlfriend, I said. No common property, so nothing we can confiscate from her house.’
‘How did she get all the money?’
‘Fish farm, which was sold when her husband died.’
‘Lucrative business, so I’ve heard.’
‘Not bad.’
‘And what do you want me to do about this?’
He leaned towards the edge of the desk, as far as his stomach would permit. ‘I want you to pay them a visit and try to get a picture of the possessions they have. See if there’s anything that could be said to be his alone. By which I mean anything from expensive fishing equipment to a wristwatch or other valuable items.’
‘But you said … It’s winter now. They’d be in Spain, wouldn’t they?’
‘They’re back home for … I think it was a funeral. If you’re lucky you can catch them before they return.’
‘Not close family, I hope.’
‘No, it was a neighbour, as far as I’ve been led to believe.’
My shoulder twitched, which I interpreted as a sign of stress. This was not a case I was looking forward to. ‘Let me repeat your words, Nils. This is a trivial matter.’
He clenched his lips and eyed me thoughtfully before continuing. ‘We live off trivial matters, Varg. The big cases we take to court.’ As I said nothing, he added: ‘Don’t tell me you don’t need the money!’
I didn’t tell him I didn’t need the money. We agreed that I would take the job. I noted down the name and the address of the people I was to investigate. The police officer, who had served in Bergen, was called Sturle Heimark and, according to Åkre, he was divorced and had no children. His girlfriend in Fusa was called Nora Nedstrand. Heimark was in his early sixties, his girlfriend around fifty. We signed the requisite papers, and I arranged for Åkre to transfer an advance to my bank account, which at the moment was emptier than a football stand on Christmas Day. I stuffed the papers in my inside pocket, thanked Nils, went downstairs, outside and over to the closest bus stop to wait for the next bus back into town.
I tried not to think about it, but the answer was remorseless. If I was going to Fusa the following day I would have to get off the booze as quickly as I jumped on the bus when it appeared.
8
A Toyota Corolla is a patient friend. Even if the owner has barely been in a state to drive more than a couple of times over the last six months, she waits patiently by the kerb in Øvre Blekevei. As soon as I get in and twist the key she starts without a murmur – not so much as a sigh of relief at finally getting some exercise.
The day after my visit to Nils Åkre the clouds had drawn in from the west, the way salmon return to the river of their youth after being away for months. But the thermometer showed around five degrees, so any precipitation would be rain and not snow, which was a plus because I hadn’t had any winter tyres put on since my last outing.
The shortest route to Fusa was via Os and the ferry between Hatvik and Venjaneset – a trip that took around twelve minutes; just enough to stretch your legs, go to the toilet or have a quick cup of coffee if you were at the front of the queue. I stayed in my car, examining the notes I had made after meeting Nils Åkre. I noticed I was out of practice and unsure how to tackle the matter. But the advance brought with it obligations, even if in the course of the morning it had disappeared into the payment market of the sky, and I would never see it again. By the time I drove ashore in Venjaneset and passed the large industrial plant by the quay I wasn’t much the wiser. And it had started raining.
At the first crossing I drove left to Strandvik, turned into the car park by the local supermarket and took out the road atlas. After studying it I set off again, along Fusa Fjord. On the opposite side I looked across to Osøyro and the stretch of coast between Solstrand and Hatvik, where Mount Møsnuken towered above all the other mountains. According to my notes, Nora Nedstrand had a 1980s detached house. The landmark I had to keep an eye open for was the closest neighbour – a largish building that had previously belonged to a fishing equipment company, now disused and taken over by a local firm importing computer products.
I was there in no time. For some reason I had what was unpleasantly reminiscent of heart palpitations, and my mouth was so dry I cursed myself for not buying a bottle of water at least. I drove as far along the kerb as I could and sat pondering my next move.
The large building had been white twenty years ago. Now the paint was peeling and revealed the greyish-brown woodwork beneath, scarred by the ravages of time, like a stuffed animal. The half-erased name of the original business was still legible at the front: NEDSTRAND FISHING EQUIPMENT A/S. There was a big, blue van parked by the entrance, and a couple of young men were carrying piles of cardboard boxes from the vehicle. They stopped and looked suspiciously in my direction. In town you could pul
l into the pavement and sit in your car without anyone batting an eyelid. In the country, you stood out like a snail on a racecourse, and not many would risk a bet on you.
I got out of my car, locked it, pretended I hadn’t seen them and headed for the green post box that signalled the entrance to the neighbouring building – a grey timber house with a white plinth and a well-established white-cedar hedge to discourage prying passersby. From the corner of my eye I saw the young men by the blue van exchange a few words before continuing to unload.
I checked the name on the post box. The only word there was ‘Nedstrand’, but that definitely indicated I was in the right place. I looked towards the house. There were lights on in several of the windows. So I shrugged and ambled up the gravel drive lined by rhododendrons and other bushes, speculating which approach I should adopt: the smart one or the stupid one.
To the right of the house there was a garage with the door open, and I saw the front of a popular 4x4 there, a dark-grey Mitsubishi Outlander. The registration number tallied with the number I had been given by Nils Åkre.
The woman who opened the door when I rang the bell was one of the fairly large kind, with generous curves from the neck down, attractively arranged and camouflaged behind a flowery dress with a dark-blue base, slightly flared at the knee in a way that seemed a tiny bit old-fashioned. Unless it was this year’s fashion; I had long given up following trends. She had thick, red hair, combed back and held in place on both sides with dark-green slides before cascading in curls halfway down to her shoulders. ‘Yes?’ she said, looking at me enquiringly.
‘My name’s Veum.’ I shot a glance over her shoulder, but all I could see was a dimly lit hall and half a wardrobe mirror. ‘I was wondering … Are you Nora Nedstrand?’
‘Yes?’
I indicated the neighbouring building. ‘Do you have anything to do with Nedstrand Fishing Equipment?’
She looked at me blankly. ‘It was closed down many years ago.’
Wolves in the Dark Page 3
