Fallen Angels

by Gunnar Staalesen

  We discussed arrangements for the Christmas period. He would spend Christmas Eve with Beate. The following two days he would be with me.

  I dropped him off and looked up at the house. Beate was standing like a statue in the sitting-room window, framed by an enormous cone of light and somehow diminished by the large surface of glass. I flashed the headlamps and waved up at her, and she pressed her face to the window pane and waved wearily back as though to a boat that had long left the harbour.

  Slowly I reversed out onto the road and drove back to Sandviksveien to join the main arterial road to Åsane. The yellow street lamps drew me like magic lights through the tunnels and out again on the other side. Åsane lay waiting for me like Astrid Lindgren Land. Even in Christmas wrapping, this part of town was a Swedish province.

  I parked my car outside the block where Belinda Bruflåt lived. I looked up at her flat. There was light emanating from a Christmas star in the middle window of the sitting room. Against the wall I saw a shadow move, as transitory as a snowflake on your cheek. So at least someone was at home.

  But when I rang her doorbell no one responded.

  I rang again, once, twice, three times.

  No reply.

  I knocked harder, put my mouth to the crack of the door and shouted: ‘This is Veum. Let me in. If you don’t, I’ll be forced to call the police.’

  I knocked again. ‘Did you hear me?’

  I put my ear to the door again.

  Did I just hear a sound?

  Yes, I did.

  Metal scraped inside the door.

  Then I heard the lock. The door opened a fraction and Belinda Bruflåt peered out at me over the solid security chain.

  The previous time I had barely recognised her because she looked so very ordinary. This time it was because someone had taken my assertion that this was a Swedish province seriously and had hoisted the blue-and-yellow flag across her face.

  Her lips were swollen, her mouth crooked, her eyes gummed up and the whole of her face a battlefield of bruises. Her hair was wet and she was wearing a silvery-grey towelling robe.

  She squinted at me short-sightedly through the narrow slits of her eyes. I raised my palms to indicate that I had come in peace. ‘May I come in?’ I asked meekly.

  She stared at me, as if the words were taking a long time to reach her. Then she nodded, closed the door, unhooked the chain and opened the door again. But she didn’t open it fully this time either, as if she was afraid that I might have someone with me.

  In the combined hall and dining room I said: ‘I tried ringing, but no one answered.’

  She put a hand to her hair. ‘I was lying down … and about to go for a bath.’ As if she had spent the last few days in the bath.

  ‘What happened to you? Who did this?’ I brushed her face with my fingers as if even the slightest touch might cause her pain.

  Once more there was a long silence before she answered. ‘It … I … It was a misunderstanding.’

  ‘A misunderstanding? Not a small one then?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Have you reported it?’

  She shook her head, slowly.

  ‘Been to the doc?’

  ‘I can … look after myself. It’s not as bad as it looks.’

  ‘But who did it?’

  ‘Th-th-that’s private. It’s none of your business.’

  ‘No? Do you remember what happened to me the last time I was here? In the stairwell. Perhaps it is my business after all, Belinda.’

  She frowned. ‘Mmm … maybe.’

  ‘It must’ve happened after the funeral.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Did he accompany you home afterwards?’

  She twisted her head, in pain. Then she nodded.

  I felt a sudden heat spread through my stomach. ‘And then?’

  ‘Th-th-then he said … Johnny was d-d-dead and b-b-buried now.’

  I waited. ‘Yes? Buried.’

  ‘So I could give him … he could have what he thought Johnny had got … But I said…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘No way … Not even Johnny had got…’

  I nodded. ‘And he didn’t believe you?’

  ‘N-no.’

  Tentatively I said: ‘What did he do to you?’

  Her lips trembled. ‘Can’t you see?’

  ‘Yes, but … did he do any more?’

  Tears ran from her eyes and I heard a sound as if from a snorkel inside her battered nose. I saw her throat constrict and she gasped for air as if she were drowning.

  ‘Did he rape you? Belinda?’

  She stared at me with black sparks issuing from between her glued eyelids. Then she pulled her dressing gown tighter around her neck, as if afflicted by a sudden chill. She nodded.

  The heat in my stomach rose up my spine and turned to ice. ‘You have to report him, Belinda. What he’s done is punishable by law.’

  She said in a monotone: ‘And who’ll be my witnesses? The people who were in the audience watching my show? Everyone I’ve teased and played with, from up on the stage, always at a safe distance? He didn’t do anything different to what they’d all dreamed of doing. You, too, Veum…’

  ‘But not in this way. Not like this.’ I raised both hands to my face and grimaced with disgust. ‘This isn’t how it should be, Belinda.’

  ‘And if you don’t want to do it, what then?’ she said.

  We stood looking at each other.

  I let my eyes wander around the room. The yellow-and-green skerry picture looked like a scene from a bad dream, a colour-blind nightmare. ‘I’ll talk to him, Belinda. I have a score to settle with him anyway. I’m pretty sure it was him who hit me the last time I was here. The question is, was he the person who took Johnny’s life and expedited the other two?’

  She was stunned. ‘But why…? Why?’

  ‘Maybe … maybe the cause of all this wasn’t eleven years ago, in 1975. It’s here and now. I don’t know. Where does he live?’

  ‘Somewhere in Eidsvågsneset. You’ll find the exact address in the phone book.’

  ‘And we’re talking about the same man, are we?’

  ‘I-I think so.’

  ‘We’re talking about Stig Madsen?’

  She nodded with an anguished sob.

  ‘But … there’s another address you’ll have to give me, Belinda.’

  She raised her head slowly again. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Ruth Solheim’s.’

  Again she averted her face, but this time it wasn’t with pain. ‘I c-can’t.’

  ‘You can. She may have the key to everything. I have to talk to her.’

  ‘But I don’t have it.’

  ‘Yes, you do. I know you do. She told Roar in Lindås. You would put her up, she said.’ I looked around. ‘She’s not here, is she?’

  She shook her head. Then she stopped herself and held her temple, as if to show it hurt. ‘No, she … I have a little bed-sit which I rent out … in case I couldn’t afford to…’ She ran her eyes around her flat.

  ‘And it’s in…?’

  ‘Sandviken. Up in Hødden.’ She gave me the exact address and I jotted it down.

  ‘And I’ll find her there?’

  ‘She was there last time we spoke, anyway.’

  ‘Why did you help her?’

  ‘Because I got to know her there. My father…’

  ‘Yes, I heard. Did you know she was Johnny’s daughter?’

  ‘Not until … later.’

  I considered her answer. ‘When exactly?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  I nodded. ‘OK. Well, then I won’t … But before I go, I’d like to call the police and report this.’

  She raised a hand in protest. ‘I-I’ll do it. I promise. I must have a … bath first.’

  ‘You won’t try anything funny?’

  ‘No, no.’

  I watched her. Then I put my notebook in my inside pocket, thanked her and wished her luck, with everyt
hing.

  Once I was outside I heard her hurriedly slide the security chain across.

  I looked up the stairwell and ran up to the next landing to make sure there wouldn’t be a repeat performance of the previous incident.

  It was empty. The bird had flown. But I knew where it had its coop and I was headed there now.

  44

  Stig Madsen lived in a low-rise block in Lønborg, halfway between Eidsvågsneset and Helleneset. From here it looked like a small step to cross the fjord to Askøy. But it was further than one imagined and you would get your feet wet.

  He had a flat on the first floor, to the right, and there were no other names on the door plate than his.

  I leaned on the bell. I felt like Father Christmas, but the present I had for him wasn’t one he would enjoy.

  The door opened with a bang and Stig Madsen stood there with a rumpled moustache, thinning hair standing on end and an expression that said he had been awoken from a deep, deep sleep. Nothing could have pleased me more.

  I stuck a foot in the door, stepped forward two paces and slammed him hard against the wall.

  ‘What the…?’ He shook his head, still groggy from sleep.

  I kicked the door shut behind me. ‘…Hell!’ I completed the sentence for him, forced his left arm up under his chin, blocked any movement from his legs with a half-raised thigh and held his right hand to avoid potential punches.

  ‘Veum? What the fuck’s this supposed to mean?’ But it didn’t seem to me that he needed any explanation.

  ‘It means thanks for our previous encounter in the stairwell outside Belinda’s on Wednesday. And it means that’s where I’ve just come from.’

  ‘From…?’

  ‘Belinda’s.’

  ‘From Belinda’s?’ At first he went pale, then he woke up. ‘So? Let me go, for Christ’s sake. You’re hurting me.’

  ‘That’s the idea. How much do you think Belinda’s hurting right now?’

  ‘Agghhh!’ He grimaced. ‘The bloody tart. You saw yourself how she carries on, but she played hard to get with me.’

  ‘You raped her.’

  ‘She was asking for it.’

  ‘Tell that to—’

  ‘You can bet your life I will. To the cops and the jury and the whole shit-show if I have to. She was asking for it, Veum. Didn’t you see for yourself? After all, you were dancing with her, weren’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t rape her though, did I,’ I snarled.

  ‘No, but then you probably didn’t get the chance.’

  I pushed his arm up, forcing his head back against the wall.

  ‘You have no right to do this, Veum. You’ve no fucking…’ He tried to kick out, but I had his legs pegged back.

  Then he tried to punch his way free. One blow hit me in the ribs, the second in the stomach. But he was too slow and I had tensed my muscles in time.

  I pushed his head further back and slapped his face. ‘Keep still, Madsen, otherwise I’ll knock you senseless. D’you understand?’

  ‘Veum, you hypocritical bastard,’ he squeezed out between clenched teeth.

  ‘What about Johnny Solheim? Were you jealous because he seemed to be getting all the goodies? Was it you who stabbed him, hoping the way to the sweetie shop would be open afterwards? Were you disappointed?’

  He squirmed like a fish on a hook. ‘I had fuck all to do with Johnny’s death.’

  ‘What were you doing last Saturday? Did you go straight home? Or did you wait for Johnny in the street?’

  ‘I did nothing of the kind.’

  ‘Or perhaps you knew where … No…’ There were still too many loose threads. I couldn’t work it out.

  ‘What part did you play in Harry Kløve’s death?’

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Arild Hjellstad’s?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re…’

  ‘Do you send people threatening letters with pictures of angels?’

  ‘Angels? Are you cracked or what?’

  ‘And the one to Jakob Aasen?’

  He managed a kick with one leg. ‘Jakob should definitely keep his gob shut. He banged his own daughter.’

  He was hanging backwards from my left forearm like a rag doll from a hook. All of a sudden everything was quiet around us.

  I became aware of a radio droning away, or perhaps it was a television. The minimalist, masculine hallway stank of dust and ammonia. A few worn leather jackets hung from pegs, a Stetson and some other head gear were on a shelf, and some umbrellas with points snapped off stood in a waste-paper basket by one wall.

  ‘What did you say?’ I said.

  He blinked. ‘Wh-what?’

  ‘Jakob, what did he…?’

  ‘Fucked his own daughter. Johnny told me, laughing and gloating.’

  ‘Ma-Maria.’ I could see her in front of me, running down the long corridor.

  ‘Maria? Christ, no. Her name wasn’t Maria.’

  ‘What was it then?’

  ‘Ruth, I think. Her name was Ruth.’

  45

  I left him there, in the hallway. For as long as I could still see him, he remained leaning against the wall, without moving, as though I were still holding him.

  I couldn’t waste any more time on him. His day would come.

  I drove into town again, to the address Belinda Bruflåt had given me.

  I parked in a side street and quickly orientated myself. I was in an area of small timber houses with handkerchief-sized gardens around them. The Mul River had once flowed here, from Skredder valley to the outlet into the fjord, but the only gurgling sounds you heard nowadays were beer being drunk on light summer nights.

  There wasn’t a gurgle to be heard now. There was hardly anything to be heard. The snowdrifts on the roofs of houses and in gardens made everything look like a gigantic Christmas decoration. In the background Sandviksfjellet rose steeply, glittering with frost, up to the stars, while Mount Fløien rested under a cover of snow-heavy conifer trees on the ascents up the Tippe Tue hiking route.

  The light streaming out of windows was warm and alive. Many people had hung up their decorations and in several sitting-rooms Christmas trees were already lit.

  I opened the gate to the building I had the address for. In the garden some children had made angels in the snow. I felt like the angel Gabriel himself as the snow creaked under my feet on the way to the entrance.

  A man with unkempt hair, braces pulled too tightly and an open newspaper in one hand looked at me grumpily as he opened the door.

  ‘Ruth Solheim?’ I said. ‘Does she live here?’

  He gave a grunt not unlike his facial expression, mumbled something or other, pointed around the corner and closed the door in my face. I followed a trail of footprints around the corner and down to a basement entrance. To the right of the door there was a light glowing behind drawn orange curtains.

  I had a look around. There was no bell, so I knocked.

  As no one answered I banged on a pane instead.

  The curtain was drawn to one side and a face stared out. She had untidy, dark-blonde curls, kept back from falling over her forehead by a red ribbon. Her eyes were dark behind the window.

  She stared at me for a few seconds, then she was gone.

  A moment later she gingerly opened the door and eyed me.

  ‘Ruth Solheim?’

  She nodded.

  ‘My name’s Veum. Varg Veum. I know Belinda and your parents and … Roar. He says hi.’ Were there any more names I should say I knew? ‘I … Have you time for a little chat?’

  ‘What’s…’ Her voice was reedy, cracked and high-pitched. She cleared her throat. ‘…this about?’

  I said gently: ‘It’s about what’s happened. All these deaths.’

  She tried to hold my gaze, but looked away and stepped to the side. Resigned, she said: ‘You’d better come in then.’

  There was a short, cold basement corridor. The door to the right was open and I entered a little bed-sit.

>   There was an electric heater in the middle of the floor and the air was very damp. I felt like I was in a sauna and the room was about as spartanly furnished. An unmade bed along one wall. In front of the bed a table and on a spindle-back chair some clothes. On the table a couple of editions of Bergen’s Christian newspapers and a cheap edition of the Bible, open. There was a picture of Jesus, the kind you win as a prize when you go to Sunday school. On a hotplate there was a dented pan and beside it an open carton of skimmed milk. There was half a loaf of bread on some brown paper and beside it a small selection of packet soups.

  It wasn’t a sauna. It was a convent cell.

  I nodded to the table. ‘You’re reading?’

  She cleared the clothes from the chair and motioned for me to sit down. She remained on her feet by the bed as though afraid it might be misunderstood if she sat there.

  ‘You sit down too,’ I said.

  She obeyed. She wasn’t used to protesting.

  There was something perplexed and irreparable about her that reminded me of a cowed puppy.

  ‘You’re reading?’ I repeated.

  She nodded. ‘That’s what has saved me.’ She turned her head and indicated the picture of Jesus. ‘But for Him I’d be dead now.’

  ‘So you’re still clean?’

  She nodded.

  I studied her. Her hands were scratched and thin, the backs full of scars along the blood vessels. Her face was pale, almost blue, with no make-up, as if her skin had become so thin her blue veins shone through everywhere. Her lips were full and there was still a defiant curl to the top one, but her gaze was very distant, turned in on herself in a way that gave you the uneasy feeling that she saw you without seeing you at all.

  I tried to see which man she looked like, but I could find nothing that reminded me of any of the people I had met in the last eight or nine days.

  She was wearing stained, dark-grey jeans, a greyish-white cotton shirt and a blue-and-white patterned cardigan. On her feet she wore thick, beige woollen socks.

  Her hands trembled and her eyes wandered. She took a crumpled packet of cigarettes from her back pocket and lit up, as if to keep her hands occupied and her eyes focused.

  ‘I’ve been investigating … these deaths, as I said. I think you know why I’m here.’