Cold Hearts (19 page)

AT BERGEN A&E
they were used to most things. A person, obviously drugged up, with a broken arm was not the most sensational visitor they’d had in the building. Nonetheless, they treated her with decency and respect, as if she were a CEO’s wife from the swish district of Fana, who had been so unfortunate as to twist her foot on the marble steps up from the swimming pool.

I sat outside and waited while she had her arm attended to. The colourful community of casualty department patients passing me would have made Noah pull up the gangplank long before departure time. Most also came in pairs. Small boys and girls who had broken arms or legs practising indoor sports were accompanied by their fathers or mothers. Two young brawlers were each escorted by a uniformed officer, one with a broken nose, the other so unruly that he was led past the queue in handcuffs. An elderly, down-at-heel woman was accompanied by another woman who might have been her daughter, but equally well could have been a home help. There was a touch of merriment when two gentlemen, somewhat inebriated and advanced in years, who could not agree on who required
treatment
first, had to account for what ailed them.

I was beginning to feel in need of a bit of emergency
psychiatric
treatment myself after waiting for an hour before Hege was led out again by a nurse with straight, blonde hair and red roses in her cheeks. I got up and went over to them.

Hege still had problems standing on her feet without help, and the nurse regarded me with concern. ‘Are you a relative?’

‘No.’

‘She shouldn’t be left alone. The doctor considered she was still under the strong influence of drugs. Where …?’ She searched for the right word.

‘She was in a flat I visited as part of an investigation.’

‘Oh? You’re from the police, are you?’

‘No. Private investigator.’

‘Really?’

‘Don’t you hospitalise patients in situations like this?’

‘There’s an acute assessment unit in Haukeland for such cases.’ Before I could spit out the word ambulance she had anticipated my thinking. ‘I can ring them and tell them you’re on your way, if you can drive her.’

‘No problem. My car’s outside.’

She left Hege with me. I offered her my arm, and she hung on it like a drowning woman clings to a branch by the
riverbank
. We stumbled towards the car. I leaned over and opened the door, a complicated manoeuvre while keeping her upright at the same time, and coaxed her into position on the front seat.

I leaned across her to fasten the seat belt. She laid her face against my shoulder and breathed into my neck. This was not a sign of affection; she was falling asleep.

I suddenly thought of Thomas and how lucky we had been, Beate and I, despite everything, we had not had this problem on our plate. I tried to imagine them, Thomas and Hege, when they were in the same class. I could remember Thomas with such clarity it hurt. Hege was more blurred, but I did have a vague memory of her, a sweet girl with a somewhat bitter
smile even then, not altogether unlike the smile Siv had given me earlier in the day. But what was it that caused lives to veer off in different directions? Was it possible to predict, or was it simply woven into your destiny from a very young age? Such fragile boundaries, so easy to take the life-saving step across the precipice … or plunge down headlong into it …

I got in behind the wheel, reversed out of the car park and turned into Vestre Strømkaien. For a short while I was on the motorway from the spaghetti junction by Nygårdstangen to Danmarks plass. At the beginning of Fjøsangerveien I moved into the left lane to take Ibsens gate towards Haukeland. I arrived at the back of the main hospital building, by the entrance to the acute assessment unit, and had no sooner got out of the car than two nurses appeared and helped me to carry Hege from the car and into reception, where she was seated in a wheelchair.

I went to reception to see if there was anything else they needed from me, but they already had personal information from A&E. ‘The only detail we lack is next-of-kin.’

‘Mm, I don’t have a name to give you there, but ring
Cathrine
Leivestad at the Outreach Centre. She’s bound to be able to help you find the right person.’

The woman in reception nodded and made a note. ‘And your name is?’

‘Veum. Varg Veum.’ I gave her my telephone number as well, but refrained from inviting her to dinner.

The woman smiled professionally, thanked me for my help, and then Hege was whisked off for another examination.

I departed with haste. Emergency departments have that effect on me, as though they were a kind of flesh-eating plant that sucked in everything that came within range, whether bumble bee, wasp or private investigator.

It was pitch black by the time I returned home to
Telthussmauet
. I put my unfinished meal in the fridge and cut myself four thick slices of bread instead, spread peanut butter on two of them, put sliced fresh tomatoes and sheep sausage on the others. With this late supper I had a glass of milk, in case I had to be up early and drive the next day. It was too late to do anything now anyway. I had a quick shower, went to bed and switched off the light before I could count to twenty.

My mobile woke me. I turned over in bed and groped across the bedside table until I found it. With the other hand I found my watch. A quarter to nine.

‘Hello?’

‘Is that Veum?’ It was a woman’s voice, young and tentative.

‘Yes. How can I help?’

‘Er … Have you been asking after me?’

‘That depends on …’ Then I was wide wake. ‘Who am I talking to?’

‘This is … Margrethe Monsen.’

‘Margrethe! Where are you?’

‘It …’

‘Is your brother there, too? Karl Gunnar?’

‘… Yes, we …’

‘Where are you?’

‘We’re keeping low. There are people after us.’

‘I know. But listen … Where can I meet you?’

Silence.

‘Hello! Are you there?’

‘…Yes, I just had to consult … my brother.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘You’re a … private detective, aren’t you? You won’t arrest him, will you?’

‘I’m not allowed to arrest anyone, Margrethe. His escape is not my concern. All I want is to talk to you both.’

‘We’re in a boathouse, up by Flesland.’

‘I see. Can you give me any more precise directions?’

‘My brother was driving, but … You drive past that ex-
holiday
camp.’

‘Lønningen.’

‘Yes, that must be it. And then down to the sea and up the hill until you come to a side road.’ As she spoke I could hear in the background, almost as proof that she was telling the truth, the sound of a plane taking off. She raised her voice. ‘There are planes overhead all the time!’

She explained where to go and where to park, and I jotted down notes on the pad I always kept by my bed for occasions such as these.

‘When you’ve parked, continue until you come to a postbox. It’s been squashed flat. From there it’s only five minutes through the forest and down to the sea. You’ll see some rooms at the back of the boathouse.’

‘And I’ll find you there?’

‘… Yes.’

‘Anything special about the boathouse?’

‘The path leads to it, but it looks ancient. It hasn’t been painted for years.’

‘I’ll be there as fast as I can. Don’t go anywhere.’

‘Where could we go?’ she said with a hollow laugh and
terminated
the conversation.

I swung my legs onto the floor and padded into the
bathroom
. The one question remaining was this: should I treat myself to a hurried breakfast before leaving or just jump in the car?

The answer was a halfway house. With two bananas in my stomach, an apple in my hand and a sports bottle filled with tap water on the seat beside me I was on my way to Bergen Airport twenty minutes later, the official name for what most called Flesland airfield. But I wasn’t going anywhere, not by plane at least. For that matter, I wasn’t going to the airfield either, but to what was originally farming country behind it. I could feel the excitement mounting in my body with every kilometre I covered.

FROM BOYHOOD DAYS
I remembered so well that one of the most exciting things you could do on a spring Sunday was to cycle to Flesland. There, we climbed up the rocks by the high barbed wire fence, took out packed lunches and sat down to wait. We had brown cheese and sheep sausage on our bread and a bottle, with a screw top, of homemade red juice. If we were lucky we got to see a plane land or take off. If not, we could at least see a couple of them parked by the runway before cycling the long distance back to Nordnes.

Now a road led to the original Flesland south of the airfield, from the Blomsterdalen exit. I passed the entrance to
Lønningstrand
campsite, where the old holiday camp had been. I had never been to a holiday camp myself. Most summer holidays we were at my grandmother’s in Ryfylke, but when school began in August classmates always regaled us with
dramatic
adventures that had taken place in holiday camps, not to mention the strict discipline and forced feeding of porridge, which not unusually was the cause of successful, or less
successful
, attempts to flee the camp. Some managed to make it all the way home in fact, whether it was from Ferstad by Os or
Brattholmen
on the island of Sotra. The legendary escapes from Alcatraz paled in comparison. Punishment could be severe if children were caught by the authorities, unless a soft-hearted mother allowed her conscience to dictate and kept them at home for the rest of the holiday.

I followed the instructions I had received over the phone, left Fleslandsveien at what I thought was the correct place and parked where she had said. There were no other cars in the tiny area by the road. I followed the road, between tall, dark spruce trees, so sombre now in January’s dim light. I found the squashed postbox in which there was not even room for a belated tax return.

I scanned the horizon. There were many houses that were lived in all year, discreetly withdrawn between the trees and bearing visible signs of a variety of security companies. A couple of them had a car parked in front. To the east a large passenger plane was about to land in Flesland. It was near enough for me to make out faces behind the windows in the fuselage.

With caution, I began to make my way down the path. It was narrow and overgrown, and no one had bothered to cut back the buckthorn in recent years. I came to a ridge, and from there the path descended in a steep slope to the sea and the tumbledown boathouse below. Again I stopped. I cast a wary eye over the grey, ramshackle structure. There were two small windows and a door at the rear, but curtains were drawn and the door was shut. Not a sign of life.

I clambered down towards the boathouse. The nearer I came, the stronger the fresh sea smell from Raune fjord. Across the island of Tyssøy I could see the typical mountain formation of Liatårnet, the highest point on Sotra, and a ferry in the fjord heading for Sunnhordland or Stavanger.

Everything was as it should be in this the busiest of all worlds. Some arrived by plane, others by express ferry. I was on my way down to a boathouse and a rendezvous with two people who had been in hiding for almost a week.

But who were they hiding from? Malthus & Co? The
police? Others? And who had told them I had been asking after them?

I felt a deep and intuitive scepticism as I approached the sea-smoothed rocks at the rear of the boathouse. I scoured the area for anything I could use as a weapon. The closest
approximation
I could find was a large stone. I picked it up and stood weighing it in my hand. Then I threw it away. It seemed silly.

There was no evidence of any electricity leading to the
boathouse
. It had to be freezing inside. I walked to the nearest window and tried to peer in, but it was impossible to see
anything
at all through the drawn curtains.

A gull screamed above the sea. A plane took off from
Flesland.
A small freighter was on its way north along the coastal route. I leaned over and knocked on the door. No reaction.

I retreated a pace and gazed up at the faded exterior. ‘Hello? Anyone there?’

Only the gull answered, and now it had been joined by many more. The gulls were embroiled in a free-for-all above Raune fjord: shoals of winter herring had been seen west of Marsteinen.

‘Margrethe? Karl Gunnar?’

Not a sound.

I took out my mobile phone, tapped in the number she had used and rang back. Somewhere inside the boathouse I heard a ringing tone, but no one answered. Then it stopped, and a woman’s voice told me that the number I was trying to reach was busy now, but I could leave a message.

‘Better go in,’ I said to myself and switched off. If nothing else, at least there was a mobile phone inside.

I studied the door. It didn’t seem to be locked. I tried the handle and pushed it in a fraction. It was dark inside.

Again I bent down and picked up a heavy stone. This time I didn’t throw it away. I nudged the door wide open with my foot and followed quickly – in and to the side, with my back to the door. A smell of sea and gutted fish met my nostrils.

‘Hello! Anyone there?’

In the dim light from outside I looked around. I was in a medium-sized room. On a table to the left there was an old fishing float, a broken crab pot and the remains of a fishing net. That was all. Two doors led out of the room, one evidently to the boathouse itself, the other to a further room.

I took out my mobile and dialled her number again. There was a ring from inside the adjacent room.

I followed it. By the door, I shouted: ‘Hello! Margrethe? You can come out now.’ But no one emerged.

I placed my hand on the handle, pressed it down and pushed open the door. A rabbit chop struck my arm above the wrist. Then I was dragged into the room, and before I had a chance to do anything with the stone, which fell from my hands unused, both arms were twisted around my back, I felt a knee in my spine and I fell to the floor, where my face was brutally smacked against the wooden boards, causing clouds of dust to rise.

‘Hold him and I’ll …’

I knew the voice, but it was not the office version he was using today. Now he was hunting prey.

My arms were forced together, and I could feel them being trussed with strong tape. When they had finished, they did the same with my feet, round the ankles. Then they turned me over. Rolf Terje Dalby raised me into a sitting position and thrust me hard into the wall. Kjell Malthus switched on a halogen torch and shone the beam into my face.

‘Took you a bloody long time to come in, Veum,’ Malthus grumbled.

‘Were you scared perhaps?’ Dalby taunted with an irksome grin.

‘Close the door, Rolf.’ Malthus motioned with his head. ‘We don’t want anyone to hear what we’re doing. In case he starts screaming.’

I tried to look around, but the torch had blinded me. ‘Where’s … Margrethe?’

‘Maggi?’ Malthus mocked. ‘We sent her back home. She’s got to work, so to speak.’

Now it dawned on me. ‘It wasn’t bloody her, was it! It was one of your other girls.’

‘Oh, how smart detectives are nowadays. Just a shame you didn’t realise earlier.’

‘And what the hell do you think you can achieve with this?’

Malthus put the torch down on a worktop and strode forward. He was wearing blue jeans, a hip-length dark jacket and sturdy black shoes. He bent over, grabbed me by the jacket and lifted me up the wall until my face was at chest height. We were so close I could smell the heavy aroma of the sweetish aftershave he used, and my eyes met his in a way that made it difficult to have contact.

‘Now listen here, Veum. We’re after something that belongs to us.’

I smirked. ‘I know. Worth one and a half million, I’ve been told.’

His eyes narrowed, and he pushed his knuckles up under my chin. ‘You’re well informed, I see.’

‘The whole town knows, Malthus. You were robbed of one and a half million when someone welcomed your mule on
Skoltegrunn Quay last Saturday. Apparently two bully boys from Østland.’

‘The blabbermouth!’ He half-turned to Dalby. ‘I told him to keep his trap shut! But does anyone listen to me?’

‘Poor you,’ I mumbled. ‘But right now he’s talking to the police. That could be worse.’

He devoted his full attention to me again. ‘What? The cops? Have they hauled him in again?’

‘At my request. Everything you do hangs on one very thin thread, Malthus, from drug trafficking to the women on C.Sundts gate.’

‘And by the way, what the fuck have you done with Hege? Eh?’

‘So you admit it now, do you? She was in your stable, like Maggi and Tanya. One gone missing, one dead. You’re bad news for your tenants, Malthus …’

He bared his teeth in a callous smile. ‘What I admit or do not admit is neither here nor there any more, Veum. You won’t be leaving this boathouse alive anyway.’

‘Oh, no?’ I felt my desperation growing. ‘A great many people know where I am!’

‘Where the fuck’s Hege, I asked you!’

‘Have you done any ringing round? The first call could go to Haukeland Hospital.’

‘Hospital? What’s she doing there?’

‘She was drugged up to the eyeballs, and that charmer there …’ I nodded to Dalby. ‘He’d been so kind as to break her arm.’

‘What!’ Malthus half twisted round. ‘Rolf?’

‘I told you, for fuck’s sake. She didn’t obey. I told her I would have to punish her …’

‘Yes, but shit. A broken arm and she’s out of circulation as well.’

‘So you circulate your tenants, do you?’ I said.

He forced his fist up under my chin. ‘And I told you to shut it!’

‘
On foreign ground keep your head and hold your tongue,’
Dalby said behind him.

‘And you, too!’ Malthus barked, dropping me on the floor with a bang. And he drew himself up to his full height.

‘ …
and it will befall you no ill,
’ Dalby completed sulkily, as if it was impossible to stop the tape once it had started.

‘Sometimes I think I’m surrounded by idiots,’ Malthus said.

‘In itself …’ I started but was forced to break off by a vicious kick in the chest. ‘Ooof!’

‘Shut it!’

There was a charged, angry atmosphere in the dark room illuminated only by the sharp light of the torch. Malthus and Dalby stood scowling at each other. I sat against the wall in some discomfort, with legs and arms bound with the strong tape and a dull pain in my chest where his foot had struck me.

Malthus held his arm out in the beam and looked at his watch. ‘I have to go.’

‘Oh?’ Dalby queried.

‘I have an appointment I can’t …’

‘But, shit, Kjell! What am I supposed to do with …?’

‘Tommy has to go to the doctor’s. Kristine’s at work. I have to pick him up from the nursery.’

‘Now I’m getting a lump in my throat,’ I mumbled.

‘As for him,’ Dalby concluded, with a nod in my direction.

Malthus turned to me with a surly expression ‘Pack him up in a sack, wait till it’s dark and chuck him in the sea. Make sure he doesn’t surface!’

‘Malthus!’ I shouted. ‘Loads of people know where I am! You’ll never get away with this!’

He swivelled round towards me, looking as if he was going to give me another kicking. ‘Loads of people? Who for example?’

‘I’ll …’

As if in answer to his question my mobile rang. He bent forward, took it from my inside pocket, slung it on the floor and stamped on it so hard it would never give another ring tone.

The subsequent silence was deadly.

‘What about … What about if I know who did a runner with the package?’

He regarded me with derision in his eyes. ‘Don’t you think we know? Why the fuck do you think we’ve moved heaven and earth to get our hands on them? Maggi and KG. They went behind our backs, and they’ll burn slowly in hell when I find them. Trust me!’

‘And how did they manage that?’

‘Maggi and Lars knew each other. He must have been sloppy.’

‘So you think she and KG have upped sticks with the whole lot? To Oslo?’

‘Or somewhere else. Haugesund, Stavanger, how should I bloody know?’

‘I can help you to find them.’

‘Yes, we can see how good you are at that.’ He looked around and imitated my voice: ‘
Hello! Anyone there?
Forget it. You’re done for, Veum. You’ve done your last job, and you failed.’ He looked at Dalby. ‘If he tries anything, smash his jaw. Use the knife, if necessary.’

Dalby glanced dismally from Malthus to me, without answering.

‘Run out of words of wisdom, Dalby?’ I muttered.

‘Do you understand?’ Malthus checked.

Dalby gave a sullen nod. Malthus sniffed and went on his way without a backward glance. But he made sure he closed the door behind him. With a click.