Fallen Angels

by Gunnar Staalesen

  Soon afterwards she was breathing regularly, sound asleep.

  In the corridor outside, the clatter of crockery and metal containers was getting louder and louder.

  I looked at Ingeborg Kløve sadly. Once, at the start of the century she had been a small girl running over cobblestones in a lace-collared dress, plaits dancing behind her back, happily bounding up the steps to home, muscles still developing, fat that would come at some point. Once, between the great wars, she had been a young woman in peak bloom, full breasts, alluring hips, sensual kisses and passionate embraces. Later, proudly, she carried her son, first in her womb, then at her bosom and in her arms, until he became too heavy for her, grew up, outgrew her, and she had to take his arm in hers to have any contact when they were out on a Sunday walk in Fjellveien or wherever they might have gone, Harry Kløve and his mother.

  Young girl and old woman, infant and adult, daughter and mother, she had been all of these, only to be left standing alone at the gates, without parents, with a husband who died too young, and not even accompanied by her son. With her this small family died out. In Strangehagen the young bride had been shown the door, the sewing machine thrown on the rubbish heap and no one remembered Ingeborg Kløve anymore.

  I got up and left without saying goodbye to the pike woman who caught the bus to the hospital and back, every afternoon, all year round. I sneaked down the corridor, away from the marching-band man, away from the vacant eyes, to the accompaniment of the most pitiable screams, which did not find any consolation in the enduringly monotonous: ‘Jesus – Jesus – Jesus…’

  That is how we leave them, the things we have used. We keep the games we have grown out of in such rooms as these, the lives that were ours before we became mature enough to understand this, the fates that await us too in years to come. We turn our backs on spring and steer towards autumn, every one of us. We just don’t know how soon it will be upon us.

  29

  Downstairs at the reception desk I asked for a telephone directory, flicked through to the Øygården section and began to search. Sure enough there was a Halldis Heggøy with a telephone and an address.

  I looked at my watch. I didn’t feel like ringing and announcing my arrival in advance. On the other hand, a wasted trip to Øygården would delay the second visit I had planned to make today.

  I postponed the Øygården trip for a few hours, cut through Løvstakk tunnel back to town, but turned off at Puddefjord bridge and followed Carl Konows gate and Kringsjåveien across Laksevåg again. I parked down from the house where I had met Bente Solheim a couple of days previously, before the sudden death I had witnessed. Before getting out of the car I discreetly recced the area. No undercover cops hunkered down in car seats with newspapers in front of their faces. No sudden reflections from the lenses of camouflaged binoculars. No suspicious-looking walkers on a morning stroll through the district. I scanned the block of flats: no uniformed guards outside.

  I got out of the car, walked up to the building, round the corner to the main entrance and into the hall.

  I continued up the staircase to the first floor and rang the bell next to the door with frosted wire-mesh panes.

  There were no children’s voices inside this time, and Bente Solheim wasted no time opening the door, almost as though she had been expecting me.

  But she didn’t appear to recognise me. Her face was – if possible – even thinner than the last time I had seen her. She wore no make-up and the big bruise had faded considerably, but not so much that you wouldn’t notice it. She was wearing grey jeans, a grey jumper and red shoes, and her eyes suggested she was as doped as an Olympics powerlifting champion.

  ‘Varg Veum,’ I said charily. ‘I popped by here on Saturday. May I come in?’

  She stepped to the side without a word and led me into the flat. She took small, tripping steps, like a ballet dancer surrounded by fragile scenery.

  The sitting room was impersonal and bland: a light-brown parquet floor, dark-brown panels on the walls, beige tassel rugs and a reddish-brown leather three-piece suite. On the walls hung cheap landscapes with Japanese motifs (Mount Fuji and cherry blossom). The only feature that stood out was a large portrait of Elvis Presley, surrounded by the usual family photographs on an oblong bureau with glass doors.

  There was total silence in the building.

  Bente Solheim looked at me blankly. ‘The kids are at my mother’s. I just need to be on my own for a few days.’

  I said tentatively: ‘Yes, it must’ve been quite a shock.’

  She nodded.

  ‘How long had you been married?’

  ‘Since 1978. Eight years in November.’

  ‘And you have how many children?’

  ‘Three. The smallest is only two years old. Olaf Martin.’

  ‘Of course I knew Johnny well years ago. Was he as he’d always been?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, he’d had a difficult upbringing. Did he have any contact with his mother?’

  ‘If he did, he would’ve had supernatural powers. His mother died the same winter we got married. In January. Johnny always said she died of relief.’ She smiled wanly. ‘Relief that he’d finally got himself a decent wife.’

  ‘She hadn’t liked his previous wife then?’

  ‘No, she … She told me in confidence’ – again the fleeting smile – ‘that they’d had to get married. She’d never forgiven Anita for that. It was her fault of course. Not Johnny’s.’ After a pause she added, thoughtfully. ‘Naturally, it was much worse to have to get married in 1962 than it is today.’

  ‘Nowadays the concept has disappeared from the language, hasn’t it? People have children and live together and split up, almost, before they marry. If they have a Saturday free. And they can otherwise fit it in.’

  ‘Yes. At any rate, we didn’t have to. We didn’t have Leif until the October afterwards. He goes to school now. He’s in the first class.’

  ‘What about Johnny’s father? Did he ever hear from him?’

  ‘Never. He didn’t talk about him either. Not a word. Do you know what…?’

  ‘I only remember him vaguely, from when we were small. He was in the habit of beating his wife and children when the mood took him. Johnny had a tough time in that respect.’

  She nodded, unable to refrain from touching her cheek and the faint bruising there.

  I didn’t pursue the matter. It wasn’t necessary.

  ‘On Saturday … you were out on the town too, weren’t you?’

  She sent me a sharp look, her cheeks aflame. ‘What do you mean?’

  I smiled disarmingly. ‘I saw you. I was there too. The wig suited you.’

  Her face was still as taut. ‘You mustn’t think that I … The police have probably … I had nothing to do with that.’

  ‘No, no. I didn’t think that…’

  ‘It was just an arrangement that Johnny and I had. He was away so many weekends, doing all sorts of gigs, and it was only right that I could go out when I felt like it. As long as I didn’t … as long as nothing happened.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound unreasonable. But you have to admit it was an odd – not to mention tragic – coincidence. You were dancing and so on while Johnny was … well … outside.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Were you expecting him?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘The man you were dancing with – who was he?’

  She shrugged her lean shoulders. ‘Just someone I met there. Nice guy. Dentist.’

  ‘Yes, there are nice guys. So he didn’t want to go home with you to examine your fillings?’

  She blushed again. ‘He accompanied me to a taxi. That was all.’

  ‘And you’d never seen him before?’

  ‘No, I’ve already told you.’

  ‘And he didn’t talk about Johnny? As though he knew him?’

  ‘Not at all. We didn’t talk about that kind of thing.’

  ‘And which of you took the firs
t step?’

  She looked past me. ‘He asked me if I wanted to dance.’

  I nodded. ‘OK. Tell me: in the last few days, the last week before this happened, was there anything unusual? Anything that might be construed as a kind of warning?’

  ‘Warning? No, I … The only thing…’ She got up and went over to the bureau. Behind the doors there were rows of glasses of various sizes. She stretched a hand past one of the rows and pulled out an envelope. ‘This came in the post last Monday.’

  She passed me the envelope. There was no sender’s address, the postmark was Bergen, and Johnny’s name and address were written in big, deliberately clumsy letters.

  ‘Johnny just threw it in the bin. He couldn’t make head or tail of it, he said. But yesterday I remembered it. So I went down to the cellar, searched the bin and found it. Have a look. It stinks and it’s screwed up, but … I wondered. Do you think I should show it to the police?’

  I opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper. I straightened it out and it hit me like a punch in the gut.

  It was a standard piece of stationery someone or other had glued four angel stickers to: Rubens-style chubby-faced cherubs, resting their arms on light-blue clouds and smiling affably at me like small children. Above each of their heads there was a black crucifix, made with a felt-tipped pen. Two of the heads were crossed out in blood red and the third was circled.

  ‘Have you any idea what this’s supposed to mean?’ Bente Solheim asked, her tone strangely detached.

  ‘I definitely think you should show this to the police,’ I said. ‘In fact, you must show it to them. There could be fingerprints or other clues on it.’

  ‘But … but what does it mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, holding the unfolded sheet in my hand.

  It was a lie. I was just not sure what it meant. This anonymous salutation was the first incontrovertible sign that there was a connection between the three deaths – or at the very least between Harry Kløve’s and Johnny Solheim’s. Ingeborg Kløve had just informed me that Harry received a picture of an angel in the post – and then died. Now it turned out that Johnny had received a picture of an angel in the post – and had then died.

  And that wasn’t all. They had called themselves The Harpers; later Harpegjengen. There had been four of them. When Johnny received this letter, two of them had already been crossed off and the third – circled in red – was the next in line.

  And now – now there was only one left.

  30

  I left Bente Solheim after telling her to call Vegard Vadheim at once and inform him about the anonymous letter.

  Down in the street, my car was waiting. No one had placed any secret messages under a windscreen wiper and the street looked as deserted and abandoned as before.

  I had a feeling of numbed nerves in my stomach, as though I could discern a pattern of behaviour I had no control over because almost everything had already happened and the next move lay in the invisible adversary’s hand. It was like playing simultaneous chess blindfold when you were barely the local Ludo champion.

  I drove down to the closest telephone box, inserted the requisite coins and waited impatiently for Jakob to answer.

  When I heard Petter’s voice I felt a sinking in my stomach. ‘Th-this is V-veum. Isn’t your father at home?’

  ‘Yes, he is. Just a moment,’ he said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. My senses were reeling. I lowered my shoulders and slowly breathed out.

  Then Jakob was there. ‘Hello? Varg? What’s up?’

  ‘Listen, Jakob. I have a serious question.’

  ‘Yes?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Are you there?’ He sounded impatient.

  ‘Yes, sorry. I had a frog in my throat.’ I coughed. ‘Tell me, have you received any strange letters recently?’

  ‘Strange letters? No. What sort?’

  ‘An anonymous letter with angel stickers on.’

  ‘Angel stickers? What do you mean?’

  ‘You know, those small stickers with angel motifs that kids put in albums, the ones you get at Sunday school if you’ve been a good boy.’

  ‘No, Varg.’ He didn’t appear to be taking me very seriously. ‘I haven’t. Actually, it’s quite a long time since I went to Sunday school.’

  ‘Good. If you do receive anything like that, contact the police at once. Or me. At any rate, do something.’

  ‘But … you sound so nervous, Varg. Has something happened? Has anyone else received this kind of letter?’

  ‘Yes, but … I’ll explain later. And Jakob, don’t laugh, but whenever you go out, and wherever you go, keep your eyes peeled. You know what happened to Johnny.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, but that was Johnny and not me. What could … Who would have any interest in killing me?’

  ‘There might be a connection, Jakob. We can chat later. I have work to do.’

  ‘Wait, Varg. What do you mean? What connection could there be?’

  I reflected. Then I went for the jugular. ‘What happened in 1975, Jakob, to The Harpers? Just give it some thought before we meet again. See you.’

  I put down the telephone before he had a chance to object.

  Sweat was running down my back, but my legs were frozen where the cold December air blew in through the silver grille at the bottom of the telephone box.

  I left and walked back to my car.

  I pulled a map from the side pocket of the door and looked up Øygården to be sure. But it wasn’t really necessary. You just had to follow the smell of the sea.

  It was bridge country. The archipelago of islands, big and small, was connected by the multi-jointed bones of a finger. The last bridge, over Ronge sound, had been opened as recently as eight months earlier, in April.

  Now you could drive from Sotra to Hellesøy on the new road to the north. If you climbed the highest crags there, you could see over to Hernar in all kinds of weather and up to Fedje and Hellesøy lighthouse in clear conditions. On shimmering summer days or on winter days when the light was as sharp as honed knives you could see as far as Ytre Sogn and the television mast in Gulen.

  In the middle of Sotra bridge I felt the first gust of wind catch the car, set its back against the bonnet and force me to accelerate to maintain my speed.

  To the left, facing the sea, were the steep mountainsides on the southern side of Sotra. To the right, Askøylandet lay like an ink stain on the canvas-like December sea. Behind Askøy, Øygården pointed towards the North Pole and the empty space beyond.

  In many ways this was Vestland at its wildest. Here you felt you were scraping your stomach against Norwegian bedrock, which, unyielding and obstinate, had resisted passing glaciers, the stranglehold of autumn storms and the eternal chafing of the sea. There was something scoured and grey and smooth about the whole landscape, the islands like the bald pates of ancient dwarfs barely protruding from the water and sombrely surveying life. Few places were as bare as these islands, abandoned to the caprices of the sea, some of the most wind-blown outposts of the Norwegian kingdom.

  I turned off by Kolltveit and drove slowly in the fifty km/h zone through a green valley oasis, as fertile as a biblical revelation, a response to all the prayers in the chapel.

  This district, too, was in a transitional phase. Fishing had as good as died out, agriculture was an activity you pursued in your free time, the new bridges had moved a large number of workplaces to the mainland and the oil industry had long made its incursion into the region.

  I passed the oil industry’s supply base in Ågotnes and the Texan-style hotel there. Then I followed the new road north, blasted into the rock in as straight a line as possible. From Sotra you crossed onto the sparsely populated island of Toftøy, which had previously been the missing link, with no bridges in any directions. To the east stretched the Vestland massif, like a tapestry of untold dimensions in the Norwegian National Romantic style. The mountains surrounding Bergen manifested themselves from new sid
es, blue ridge upon blue ridge leading into the interior, and the three plateau glaciers of Folgefonna towering above everything like a majestic white duvet.

  The bridge over Ronge sound was one of the most eye-catching in the country, its west-facing shoulder raised as a shelter against the wind, an engineering feat that created a curve that reminded me of how it felt to dance a slow waltz with a girl who actually wanted to be with someone else. Then I was onto the next island and it was time to start searching.

  Once again a fertile valley appeared, with a neatly laid-out avenue and a small village containing a school and post office, bank and supermarket.

  I stopped and went into the post office and asked a male official with bulging eyes and a middle parting where I would have to go to find Halldis Heggøy. He was kindness in person, accompanied me to the front doorstep and gave me precise directions, as if he were the area’s tourism manager and Halldis the greatest attraction they had to offer.

  I followed his instructions, left the main road along a gravel track, passed two cattle grids and had to open a gate before I was over the backbone of the island and had the sea in my face and an unsafe cattle track beneath the wheels of the car.

  It was half past two, the sun was weak and pallid, and twilight had already made its first cautious eraser strokes across the sky. Beyond the island was the sea, beating against the rocky shore, angry sheets of water flashing white against the sharpest rocks. Once again I felt the wind grip the car with its invisible fingers and hold it tight as I pressed harder on the accelerator.

  Down in a bay, sheltered from the worst of the wind by a headland with a curved spine like a fossilised dragon, lay a nondescript smallholding. According to the post-office employee this was where I should go.