Wolves in the Dark

by Gunnar Staalesen

  His mouth fell open as if he were swimming and needed extra oxygen to continue. ‘How safe can any small child feel in a world populated by wolves? There are children out there being abused by their own parents, Veum! By uncles and aunts, not to mention grandfathers! Some are abused by siblings, others by close friends of the family, even by girls babysitting for them. There seem to be no limits!’

  The room had gone quiet. Hamre’s face was a blotchy red and I could feel my cheeks were flushed too.

  He held up one hand and counted on his fingers. ‘Someone is supplying these children, unless they’re already there inside the house’s four walls. Someone is organising this abuse; someone is participating actively; and there is someone, often a spouse, turning a blind eye and pretending not to know. Various categories deserving of various degrees of punishment. Any legal practitioner can tell you that.’ He glared at Waagenes and then Bauge, both the representatives of the law in the room.

  Then he fixed his eyes on me again. ‘And which category do you belong to, Veum?’

  I returned his gaze, without giving an inch. ‘I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again: none of them! I haven’t even opened a webpage with that kind of content!’

  ‘No? But we know better.’

  ‘Vidar … Waagenes and I have just come from a meeting with a computer expert who’s told us that this kind of material can be sent to any computer with no-one any the wiser!’

  ‘I can imagine.’ His scar glistened angrily. ‘But not in this case, Veum. We have stronger evidence than that.’

  ‘Oh, yes. And what is that, might I ask?’

  ‘You’ll find out, and pretty quickly.’

  Hamre opened the briefcase and took out five A4 sheets, which he placed in front of him face down. ‘Let me show you some print-outs we have from your computers, Veum. There are identical copies to the one you had at home and the one in your office. And so as to be absolutely clear: this is only a small selection. There are many more where these come from.’

  He flicked the pieces of paper over so that the picture was face up, cast a revulsion-filled glance at them and pushed them across the table, where they lay like an unusually bad hand of poker on the table in front of me.

  Technically they were poor pictures, but the content was clear enough to see, and it didn’t take me long to glance through them.

  The girl was the same in all the photos. I guessed her age would be around eight to ten. We were both naked. In one of the pictures I was lying with an ecstatic expression on my face and my head between her legs. In another I was kneeling before her while her mouth hung open. In a third I was spread across her with my arms out like a fallen angel. But what created the greatest impact was the despair shining from her face as she stared at the photographer and begged for help.

  I sat gawping, feeling myself freeze on the inside. For the first time since I had been arrested I could feel I was on shaky ground. A new feeling seized me, a fear that I had repressed these acts, that I had in fact performed them, but my brain refused to register them.

  None of the others said a word. The triumph I read in Beatrice Bauge’s eyes was unbearable. Hamre and Solheim stared, jaws set. Waagenes didn’t look as shocked as I felt.

  Suddenly my stomach turned, I uttered something like a grunt and got up from my chair holding my mouth. ‘I’m going to be sick!’

  Hamre jumped up. ‘Not here. Bjarne! Take him out!’

  Sick rose in my throat in sour-tasting spasms. Solheim grabbed me under the shoulder, led me out of the room, some way down the corridor and into a men’s toilet with a urinal and two cubicles. The vomit was already squeezing between my fingers, and when I fell to my knees in front of the porcelain bowl it was like a deluge breaking free, and I spewed in long, convulsed retches, as though my body were being torn apart.

  In the end I staggered to my feet again, my stomach and solar plexus still in cramp, but already empty of the little food I had eaten over the last few days. What came up now was acrid, acidic gastric juice, straight from the source.

  Far away I heard the ringing of a mobile phone and Solheim answering. ‘What? Just a minute. I can’t hear…’ The door slammed behind him.

  I stumbled out of the cubicle and looked at myself in the mirror above the sink. A ghostly face stared back. I turned on the cold-water tap, held my hands under it and rinsed my face, then rubbed it as hard as I could.

  I pulled a paper towel from a dispenser and dried my face. Then I stood motionless. Solheim still hadn’t returned.

  I opened the door a fraction. Now I could hear his voice through an open door from one of the nearby offices.

  Without a second thought I stepped into the corridor, walked in the opposite direction of the interview room, past at least two more office doors, opened the stairwell door, crossed the landing and ran down the steps. The civilian employee in reception barely looked up as I passed.

  On the terrace outside the police station I glanced left and right. The sudden daylight blinded me and in shock I realised that outside everything was as before, as though nothing had happened. Over there was what for some years had been the Nye Folkets Hus – the community centre. Over there was the sixteenth-century Rådstuen, where the town council held its meetings; and over there, Småstrandgaten with the malls, shops, buses and cars.

  I walked down from the terrace, turned into Domkirkegaten and headed towards the corner of Østre Skostredet. It was only after I had rounded it that I broke into a run.

  27

  Of one thing I was certain. Within a few minutes every single police officer in Bergen would be on the lookout for me, and as, by and large, the police patrol in cars nowadays, not on foot, the safest place to go was where it was difficult to drive a vehicle.

  From Østre Skostredet I turned up Skostredet towards Kong Oscars gate. Between Lille Øvregate and Skansen there was a network of alleyways and narrow streets, and I walked briskly – so as not to attract too much attention in an area that invited petty crime from junkies and other strays on the streets – taking the shortest route. Around one of the corners in Nedre Fjellsmug, invisible to passers-by in Lille Øvergate, I stood panting as I weighed up my situation.

  My escape had been spontaneous and without any form of a plan. Now I was on the street wearing the clothes I stood up in – trousers, shirt and jacket, but without a coat. I had no phone, no money and no bank card. Almost sixty years old, I had no close friends. The ones I’d had were either dead or had cut me off years ago. Thomas, Mari and little Jakob lived in Oslo and had more than enough to cope with; Beate, if she was bothered, was in Stavanger with her new partner, Regine. The only person I had was Sølvi.

  After her husband was killed coming up to a year ago now, Sølvi had run their business from the office in Bredsgården, where she was to be found for most of the working week. My sole hope was to get in touch with her, but I wasn’t certain if the police had latched onto the relationship between us. Vidar Waagenes knew about it, but how had he reacted to my sudden exit? Would he have handed over the information he had to the police or would he have maintained the oath of confidentiality in this case as well? I had to trust him, and if I knew him well, he wouldn’t have said a word.

  Accordingly, I would have to get from Nedre Fjellsmug to Bredsgården without being seen; and as it was broad daylight, September and a long time before darkness fell I would have to take some risks. Yet I couldn’t move too far up Telthussmuget, because they would certainly have a lookout there: Moses Meland or some other experienced undercover officer.

  I flitted through the alleys, past Det Lille Kaffekompaniet, where the scent of freshly ground coffee made my nostrils quiver. I quickly crossed Vetrlidsallmenningen and nipped into Langeveien. There I hugged the wall on the right while keeping an eye on Fjellgaten opposite, where Telthussmuget culminated. No-one spoke to me, no-one shouted out. I turned down Forstandersmuget, glanced right and left before crossing Nikolaikirkeallmenningen, where the church had once sto
od, and not long afterwards I was at the top of Wesenbergsmuget, which arched round in an attractive curve to Øvregaten, right behind Bryggen.

  I still felt I was on very shaky ground. Fear of the consequences of what I had done lay like a rock in my chest, blocking my breathing and making me gasp for air, even when I was standing still.

  I followed the long alley down. It tapered gradually to the narrow opening onto Øvregaten. I poked my head out and discreetly observed both sides before scurrying across, running down the steps and taking the cobbled path to the right of the old potato warehouse at the top of Bredsgården. Now it was only a short way to the narrow passageway with the classic wooden floor leading right down to the pavement on the outside of Bryggen. Halfway down, I ran up to the staircase to the walkway off the first floor, followed it down to the building facing the street, knocked on the door bearing their sign, Bringeland Papir & Kontor, opened it and darted in.

  She swivelled round on her chair with a frightened expression in her eyes before she saw who it was. Then she got up and her expression changed from surprise to a nervous smile and thence to one large question mark. ‘Varg! Have they let you go?’

  She came over, embraced me and held me close.

  I hugged her, put my mouth in her hair by her ear and mumbled: ‘No, I did a runner.’

  For a moment it was as though she hadn’t understood what I was saying. Then I felt her stiffen in my arms. She pulled away from me and searched my face. ‘What! You escaped?’

  I nodded, and gulped. ‘I couldn’t stick … It was just too awful. Do you know what they’re accusing me of?’

  She nodded, and her eyes had something hesitant, almost wary in them. ‘I couldn’t believe it when … your solicitor rang.’ She carefully extricated herself from my arms. ‘I think … I’ve known you for only six months. How well can you know another person?’

  I eyed her in disbelief. ‘But you can’t believe … after all, you’ve seen me with Helene. I’ve been on my own with her.’ I could hear as I said this I was getting deeper into something that might work against my intentions. ‘I could never … You must believe me, Sølvi. With my background in Child Welfare. If there’s one thing that is holy for me – holier than parental rights, holier than laws and rules and regulations – it is the inviolability of children. The abuse of children, that’s the most disgusting crime imaginable.’

  I gripped her shoulders and pulled her to me. She didn’t resist. ‘I’m innocent, Sølvi! Someone has dumped a load of filth on my computer and the police are convinced it’s me…’

  ‘But who would … who could do such a thing to another person?’

  ‘In a line of work like mine … you inevitably acquire enemies.’

  ‘But you have to tell the police!’

  ‘I have done.’

  ‘But you can’t just run off like this. They must be out looking for you!’

  ‘You can be sure of that. They didn’t contact you while I was inside, did they?’

  ‘No. Waagenes asked if he could give my name to them, but I told him not to. He said there was a possibility he might use me in your defence, and I said go ahead, if it was necessary. I talked about Helene and how well you got on together and how I had no cause for suspicion whatsoever. He said fine, he would contact me later, he was only ringing to send me your love after visiting you … in prison.’

  I walked to the window and looked out. The traffic along Bryggen was moving as it always had done for the last fifty years. Just more slowly because of the heavy-goods vehicles after the Fløyfjell Tunnel was opened in 1988. On the other side of Vågen lay the domain of children and families, Nordnes, where even the rebuilt areas after the war were beginning to represent the ‘old days’, as if they had always been like that.

  ‘What are you going to do, Varg?’ she asked from behind me.

  I tore myself away from the window and turned to her again. ‘I need help.’

  She agreed. ‘I’ll do what I can, but … I don’t think you can stay with us, can you?’

  ‘No, no. That would be much too unsafe, and furthermore impractical, bearing in mind that I have to find out what happened.’

  ‘You don’t mean investigate, do you?’

  ‘What else? I can’t sit on my hands until the police find me. And they will do, in the end. And I don’t want to leave the country.’

  ‘Listen … I’m looking after a flat for a friend, up in Hans Hauges gate. You can have her key.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘She’s in Italy for at least two more weeks.’

  ‘But I need…’ I stirred uneasily. ‘I’ll give you back whatever you lend me as soon as I … But first and foremost I need a phone. Buy me a cheap one in your name and a stack of phone cards.’

  She nodded.

  ‘And then … if you could help me … could you rent a car?’

  She viewed me with scepticism. ‘You could borrow mine, but I really need it myself, living as far out as I do, and with Helene…’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘But that’s fine. I’ve got money in the bank, so I can lend you whatever you need.’ For the first time in the conversation she put on a wry smile. ‘You’re not one of these con men we hear about in Swedish pop songs, are you, Varg?’

  ‘If I were, I would’ve run off with your money before.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so sure I would’ve been fooled so easily.’

  Suddenly the phone rang on her desk. We exchanged glances. I motioned for her to answer it. Before she lifted the receiver I said: ‘If anyone asks after me…’ I gestured silence.

  ‘Bringeland Papir & Kontor. You’re talking to Sølvi.’

  She listened to the speaker and mouthed to me: ‘Waagenes.’

  I repeated my gesture, first with a finger to my mouth, then a flat hand: Not a word.

  She kept a straight face and pretended to be horrified when he told her I had run off. ‘What! But where? Surely the police will be looking for him?’ After his answer she sent me an affirmative nod, not that it came as any surprise to me. ‘No, no, not a word. I assume he hasn’t got a phone anyway?’ He said a little more. ‘Yes, I can imagine … Yes, if he gets in contact of course I’ll … Yes, yes. But keep me informed if you hear anything … Yes. Thank you. Bye.’

  She rang off. ‘There’s been one heck of a rumpus.’

  For the first time I grinned, although my lips felt a bit stiff. In my mind’s eye I could visualise the bollocking Solheim must have got when he returned to the interview room with the news that the bird had flown. They won’t have spared his feelings when they found out, neither Hamre nor Bauge, I thought.

  ‘What are you going to do, Varg? I have to pick up Helene from school, but I can pop back this evening. I just have to ring for someone to babysit Helene. You can have Lisbeth’s flat key. I’ll tell you how to … Oh, there is one thing, by the way. She’s got a cat.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s why I’ve got the key. It’s an indoor cat, but naturally she needs food and care, so I drop by at least once a day. You’re not allergic, are you?’

  ‘Not to cats or anything else, to my knowledge.’

  ‘I think she’s friendly. You’ve just got to let her get used to you and then…’

  I sighed. ‘That is the least of my problems right now, Sølvi.’

  ‘Her name’s Madonna, if you feel like a chat.’

  ‘Let’s see how chatty she is.’

  She gave me the key and explained to me where the house was in Hans Hauges gate and which floor the flat was on.

  ‘See you this evening. I’ll try to get hold of a phone, but I’m afraid the car will have to wait until tomorrow.’

  I thanked her and cast a final glance around, as though the shelves on the walls with envelopes of varying sizes, packets of photocopy paper and other office equipment represented a form of everyday life I could only dream of returning to, in the near future at any rate. Then I opened the door and cautiously stepped b
ack into reality.

  28

  They hadn’t used his middle name when they christened the street in 1911, but it was called after the lay preacher, Hans Nielsen Hauge. The street was like an inspired sermon – rising in pitch at both ends – and the buildings on it were what Bergensians called ‘chimney houses’ because they burned down so quickly if they caught fire. But at the southern end of the street new blocks of flats had been erected, as late as the end of the 1980s, when the Salvation Army also took up residence there.

  The flat Sølvi’s friend owned was on the northern part of the street, in a classic ‘chimney house’. I unlocked the main entrance, then the door to the flat on the first floor. Once inside I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t seen any police cars on the way up from Bryggen. The manning of the police station on an ordinary Monday, just before shifts changed, can’t have been at its most impressive.

  I inhaled the unfamiliar smell of a flat containing an animal. A grey-and-black striped cat slunk through a half-open door at the end of the hall. In the doorway she stood weighing me up with her green eyes until she decided this wasn’t very interesting and turned round, back to whence she had come, with all the innate arrogance cats possess.

  I followed and entered what transpired was the sitting room. It was pleasantly furnished with what some might call feminine taste, dominated by light colours, a large number of cushions on the corner sofa and a wide selection of potted plants – above all orchids – on the broad window sills. The pictures on the walls were within the same colour spectrum, some of them sun-drenched fields of flowers, others more abstract, though less inviting. The corner sofa consisted of a three-seater and a two-seater in a rust-red hue with lighter diagonal stripes, like light June drizzle. The shorter wall was dominated by a large bookcase with an unsystematised mixture of dog-eared paperbacks and leather-bound classics, the spines so creased that they had either been read many times or bought from an antiquarian bookshop. A modest stereo and a small portable TV suggested she preferred books to music and television, and I understood why she and Sølvi were such good friends that Sølvi was her first choice to look after her pet while she was away.