She didn’t answer and inhaled the smoke as if her life depended on it.
‘I’m beginning to see the picture quite clearly now. There are only a few pieces missing and then the puzzle’s finished.’
She stared ahead, apparently not listening at all.
‘Harry Kløve,’ I said.
No reaction.
‘Arild Hjellestad.’
She took the cigarette out of her mouth, studied it and put it back in.
I hesitated.
‘Jan Petter Olsen.’
She inhaled again, as though she was going to fill every cavity in her body.
‘Your father, Johnny Solheim.’
Her eyes lighted on mine, quickly, briefly.
‘Dead, all of them, in the last fifteen months. And not one of them died naturally. They were all murdered.’
That reached her eyes. She was listening. Her gaze lighted on my face again, but focused on my mouth, where the words were coming from.
‘There’s only one name left on the list, isn’t there.’
Silence.
‘The man who’s received the last letter containing the angels.’
A shiver went through her, as if she were cold.
‘Jakob Aasen,’ I said, wearily.
She compressed her lips around the cigarette and still said nothing.
‘The Harpers,’ I continued. ‘They called themselves the Harpegjengen as well. Apart from Jan Petter Olsen, who just happened to be there on the night no one wants to talk about. And that’s precisely why the date is so important. The sixteenth of October 1975. That’s right, isn’t it.’ I leaned forward. ‘Tell me the story, Ruth. Tell me about everything. It will do you good.’
She squeezed the cigarette flat between her lips, so hard was she pressing.
‘Or would you like me to?’
Her eyes said nothing, didn’t want to know.
I swallowed. ‘They came to see you girls. In your room. Who was it? All of them at once? Or one after the other? It was … Harry Kløve, Arild Hjellestad, Jan Petter Olsen and Jakob Aasen, your father…’
‘He wasn’t…’ Her eyes opened wide and she took a breath, like a deep sob.
‘No. But…?’
She removed the cigarette from her mouth, held it between two fingers, rolled it between them while concentrating on it.
She chewed her lips. ‘Pappa … I still call him that even if he … That’s his name, you see … Pappa.’
Now it was my turn to stay quiet. I nodded encouragingly. Sympathetically.
‘Pappa had done … this … had come in to see me since … forever. For as long as I can remember.’
Her voice fell to a whisper and I had to move even closer to hear what she was saying. ‘I was so small … that… at first, at first I thought that was how it was, everyone did it, the other girls in the street, everyone. Later I realised that … it was special. But then I thought it was me who was … that it was my fault I was … Then I got used to closing my eyes. Just lying there quite still. As if it wasn’t me it was happening to. Or as if it was something I was dreaming. That I was somewhere else, with other people … that I didn’t know about what was happening to … my body. But he’d never brought others with him before. It was supposed to be a secret. Something only he and I knew about. So then – afterwards – I was able to tell Mamma, because he was the one who had broken the agreement.’
She paused, and I said as gently as I could: ‘And that night when all of them visited you…?’
She nodded. ‘They came back home. It was late. Mamma was out. I was in bed. I heard the racket, the clinking of bottles, the music on full volume. But that was quite normal. It had happened before. I remember thinking: So at least he’s got that tonight. So he won’t come to me. I remember hoping they had women with them, but I didn’t hear any female voices. Then … suddenly he came in, stood in the half-light and said my name. I could hear from his voice what he wanted. So I didn’t answer. I pretended to be asleep. Hoping he would go away. But he didn’t. He just lay on top of me, pulled back the duvet, pulled down my pyjama bottoms and … just…’
The cigarette had gone out, but she took a few, long, cold draughts on it anyway. Two narrow lines of tears trickled from her eyes. ‘Afterwards he went away and I lay there in the dark with the same cold feeling between my legs. But then…’
She cast around, found her matches, lit the cigarette and drew the smoke deep into her body. Her hands were trembling, her eyes fixed on a spot on the floor between us. ‘Then he was back again. But this time he wasn’t alone. There was someone with him. And I heard him – Pappa – mumble something, tear the duvet off me again, felt hands on my thighs … on my … I wanted to scream, but then I remembered Sissel, who was lying in the bed beside mine – four years old. I couldn’t … She would’ve been scared out of her wits. I tried to resist, but he – Pappa – was standing behind the headboard and holding my arms while the other man – the one called Harry, the dopey bass player – lay on top of me, tried to kiss me, stank of beer, squeezed my breasts, took me … forced his way into me, and was finished in ten seconds. Afterwards the same again, Arild Hjellestad – the one I thought was so funny – and I lay still, just crying, thinking about other things, but couldn’t stop myself … There was something new this time. It wasn’t only Pappa. He stood beside the bed watching, and when they left I heard him, Pappa, that is, say: “Anyone else want some?” I heard loud voices, but after a while they came, two more, first of all the one I didn’t know, but who, I found out later, was called Olsen … and in the end, in the end…’
‘Jakob Aasen.’
She nodded. ‘But do you know what was the worst of all this?’
I shook my head.
‘When it was all over and I could finally sit up in bed, straighten my pyjamas, the duvet, I saw Sissel’s face in the bed beside me. Her head between the bars of her cot, the staring eyes … I had no idea how long she’d been awake, but if she’d seen all that! She couldn’t understand it. She was too small to understand anything. The expression on her face that night has haunted me all my life. I’ve seen it every day. I think that was when I really decided to tell Mamma.’
‘And how did she react?’
‘Of course she was shocked. But afterwards she said we should just forget it, we shouldn’t do anything about it.’
‘So you didn’t go to the police or any other authorities?’
‘We … she left Pappa that day. We moved out, first into a hotel, later a variety of flats. And then she said he wasn’t my real father, he had no hold over me, I should just forget he existed.’
‘Did she say who your real father was?’
‘Not then. Only a long time afterwards.’ She winced and said quietly: ‘Even … him! As if it was predestined that I would be … chosen to be sullied in that way.’ With sudden composure she added: ‘It destroyed my life. I never recovered. I could never feel anything. The memory of it just numbed me. All the other stuff – drugs, misery – stems from that. Do you know…? Since then I’ve never slept with anyone.’
I looked at her.
‘Yes, you’re surprised? All the junkie years. But it’s true. I never slept with anyone and I never went on the game. I stole instead. Sometimes I pretended I wanted to … I teased punters … and robbed them. Either on my own or with others.’
Sternly, I said: ‘So that was what you did with Arild Hjellestad, too? You lured him out into the cold, got him drunk, pretended you wanted to … until he was so plastered he fell asleep?’
She tossed her head, her eyes roaming wildly and she shrugged. In a low voice she said: ‘Maybe that was how it happened. Maybe not.’
‘And Harry Kløve? It couldn’t’ve been easier. Stand behind him at a pedestrian crossing, watch the bus approach and push him … into its path?’
‘Easy? Do you think that’s easy?’
I went on: ‘And Jan Petter Olsen? Go into the building site in the afternoon gloom? Not many pe
ople about. Just before work ends for the day and the weekend. What did you do?’
She pressed her lips together.
‘Shove him through the gap in the wall? Where there was meant to be a balcony door? As easy as wink.’
‘All … I did was … send them the letters.’
‘You do admit that then?’
There was a sudden flash in her eyes. ‘Yes, I do admit that. I admit everything. Just tell me what I’ve done and I’ll admit everything.’
I looked at her. ‘Your own father…’
‘He was not—’
‘No, OK. Johnny Solheim. For him you needed something more violent. It wasn’t enough to…’
Her eyes hung on my words, like a hypnotised field-mouse facing a snake.
‘You knew where he was performing that night. You waited outside until he left. You followed him. When you finally reached a bit of the street where no one could see you…’ I nodded encouragement.
She picked up the thread with a strange remoteness in her voice, as though she saw everything from a great distance. ‘I shouted to him. He turned round. At first he didn’t recognise me, then he said: “Ruth?” That was when I pushed the knife into him. As far as I could, while staring him straight in the face. He … fell down some basement stairs. That … felt good.’
‘And now there was only your real father left. Why, oh why, did you send these letters?’
‘So that they knew, so that they understood someone was after them, that something might happen, that f-fate could catch up with them too.’
‘And Jakob. How had you planned to kill him?’
She stared at my legs, down by my ankles, without replying.
‘You won’t have any need for a plan now, Ruth.’
Then her eyes were on my face, as black as lumps of coal. ‘I’ll get out again … one day.’
I sighed heavily. ‘Why are you lying to me?’
She glanced at me. The cigarette had been smoked down to the end now. She stubbed it out in a matchbox, took another and lit it. ‘Lying? What do you mean?’
‘You didn’t commit all these murders, Ruth. At least, not all of them. When Jan Petter Olsen was killed you were still in Lindås. You saw the death notice, read about it in the newspaper and then … left for Bergen.’
She eyed me with a wilting expression on her face. Her tears had dried up; the glow of her cigarette was colouring her wan cheeks red. ‘Oh, yes?’ she said, in a sarcastic tone.
‘Who are you protecting, Ruth? Your real father?’
She stared at me wildly. Eyes walkabout. The cigarette bobbed up and down and she clutched at her throat.
She wanted to say something, but there was a bang on the window, so hard that we both jumped.
She flashed me a frightened look.
I stood up and turned out the light. Then I went over to the window and peered out.
Vegard Vadheim and Eva Jensen were outside, steely-faced. Two paces behind them was the landlord, wearing heavy boots and holding a bunch of keys in one hand.
I made a sign, drew the curtains, switched on the light and went out to open the door.
Vegard Vadheim’s sent me an eloquent look and it was not a pretty speech he gave as Eva marched in ahead of him and spoke in a low, friendly voice to Ruth, who had immediately jumped to her feet.
As Vadheim and I came into the room she looked from one to the other. Then she raised her hands to her face and said: ‘I confess everything. I did it. All of it. It was me who killed them…’
Vegard Vadheim glanced at me.
I shrugged and mumbled: ‘She admits everything, but don’t believe everything she says.’
‘You’d better come with us to the station, Veum. I think we’ll have to get to the bottom of this.’
‘Don’t listen to him. He’s lying,’ Ruth burst out, pointing to me.
Vegard Vadheim nodded reassuringly to her. ‘We’re used to that. We’ve known him for years.
46
I spent the night at the police station. Most of it I was waiting while Vadheim and Jensen interviewed Ruth.
I was allowed to lie on a sofa bed in an unused room and sleep, persecuted by restless dreams.
In the morning Vadheim came in and woke me. I sat up as he sank back wearily in the closest chair. He looked tired – more tired than I had ever seen him. A marathon runner passing the tape for the very last time.
He stroked his face as though wiping away an invisible spider’s web, heaved a deep sigh and said: ‘She’s sticking with her confession. It’s a mind-numbing tragedy behind all of this. Whatever happened … I’ve experienced a few cases like this one, but it never ceases to amaze me how people can do such things to their own children. It’s just appalling.’
I nodded.
‘So you don’t think she did it?’
‘No. Of course you’ll have to investigate it yourself. But based on the information I was given when I was in Lindås to speak to her, that was where she was when Jan Petter Olsen was killed. So she definitely couldn’t have committed that one.’
Vadheim leaned forward. ‘But, as you know, that’s the only murder – if indeed it was a murder – of someone outside the circle, someone who wasn’t in The Harpers.’
I wanted to say something, but he interrupted me. ‘In other words, Olsen’s death really could’ve been an accident, as it’s always appeared, but it might’ve aroused the old lust for revenge in Ruth Solheim. It might’ve reminded her that she still had scores to settle in Bergen.’
I nodded slowly. ‘It may have been like that. I just don’t think it was.’
His face twitched. ‘The problem is that even if she does confess, these deaths are of such a character that they’re as good as impossible to prove. Any lawyer could tear our claims to shreds. All we could perhaps catch her on is the murder of her father, Johnny Solheim. That one’s still so recent that we may be able to present forensic evidence. The others…’ He raised both arms. ‘No chance.’
We sat in reflective silence. We were the dragoons of death and Cain’s cannibals. We lived off other people’s misery and death and our accounts were long overdrawn. We should draw our wages in hell and collect our bonuses down there. In heaven they barely knew our names.
‘And you?’ Vadheim said at length. ‘Have you any other suggestions? Have you got any other solutions to hand?’
I shook my head. Not yet. I would have to talk to him myself first.
47
I deferred it for as long as I could.
After Vadheim released me, I went home and caught up on my sleep.
Then I had a reasonable lunch in a freshly cleaned café on the way to my office. I skimmed through the day’s newspapers, flicked through my post and listened to the answer-machine’s weekend messages: emptiness, silence and lost illusions.
It was five o’clock before I manned up, drove to St John’s church, parked in front of the old Sydneshaugen school, which twenty years ago had been painted yellow and bequeathed to the University of Bergen, and strolled, as slowly as I could, to the house where Jakob Aasen lived.
I mounted the stairs to the first floor as light-heartedly as if I had been on my way to the scaffold and when I rang the bell I pressed only one side so that the ring would be as whole-hearted as an embarrassed cough during a chamber concert.
On the other side of the door I heard the patter of a child’s feet, the door lock open, with some difficulty, and saw little Grete staring up at me, dressed in green tights and a yellow jumper, and with rosy cheeks and tangled hair. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi. Do you remember me?’
She shook her head, indifferent.
Behind her, Jakob appeared, but it was a different Jakob from the one I had been expecting. There was something high-spirited and enthusiastic about him that surprised me, and the way he smiled when he welcomed me gave me the indefinable feeling that I was walking into a trap.
The sitting-room door was half open and Grete ran in. I heard a Lego bri
ck being kicked across the floor, accompanied by a news programme on the radio.
‘Hang up your coat, Varg,’ Jakob said. ‘Come in.’
I smiled uneasily at him. ‘Has … something happened?’
His smile was unrelenting and he led me into the sitting room.
Rebecca was sitting in the large wing chair with some knitting in her hands, her legs tucked beneath her, looking as if she had never been away. In another chair sat Maria. She had headphones on, listening to a Walkman, and was holding a girl’s magazine in her hands. On the floor in front of her mother Grete was building a house with Lego bricks.
Rebecca looked up as I walked in and our eyes met. I could feel my smile stiffen and turn into a grimace, and I had a sinking feeling inside me, as if I was standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down.
‘Hi, Varg,’ she said, in a tone suggesting I was simply an old friend of the family who had happened to drop by.
‘Hi,’ I said and had to clear my throat. I shifted my gaze from her to Jakob. He looked as if he had won the lottery, and in a way he had.
‘I’d like to have a few words with you,’ I said to him. ‘Alone.’
He nodded. ‘We can go into—’
But Rebecca interrupted him. ‘No, you stay here. I’ve promised the kids we’re going to do some Christmas baking, so we can go to the kitchen.’
Grete jumped into the air with joy, and Maria looked up from her magazine, saw me, blushed becomingly and nodded.
‘Petter’ll be here soon too,’ Rebecca said, setting down her knitting and standing up.
She strolled past me with a nondescript smile. Grete ran after her while Maria brought up the rear at a far more sedate pace.
‘Are you going to close the door after you?’ Jakob asked.
She nodded.
He turned to me and gestured his delight. ‘Isn’t it brilliant, Varg? She’s come back. And this time it’s for good.’
‘Yes … brilliant,’ I muttered.
‘We’ve talked everything through.’
I was sceptical. ‘Everything? Really?’
‘Yes.’ He picked up on my intonation and came back down to earth with a tiny question mark on his face. ‘What?’
Fallen Angels Page 31
