Cold Hearts (6 page)

THE WOMAN IN THE DOORWAY
was about fifty years old and drained of all colour. Bluish-grey smoke rose from an almost burned-out cigarette in the corner of her mouth. Her skin was pale bordering on transparent, her eyes watery blue, her hair grey and dishevelled, and she was wearing a beige jumper over a pair of un-chic brown trousers. There wasn’t a trace of make-up on her and she had a flat-chested, sunken posture that made her seem almost genderless. The look she sent me was vacant, blank, and she stood watching me, as though leaving the entire initiative to me.

I grabbed it. ‘Else Monsen?’

She nodded in silence.

‘The name’s Veum. Can I come in?’

‘What’s this about?’

‘Your children.’

She blinked a couple of times. Then she retreated indoors, but left the door ajar as a sign that I could follow.

The air in the dark hallway was heavy and stale. The clothes hanging on a stand smelled of mould. She gestured with an arm towards a door leading into the sitting room. I followed her.

There was something empty and lifeless about this room, too. It was deafeningly quiet. There was a TV in one corner and an old-fashioned portable radio on a worn, brown varnished dresser, but both were switched off. The only sound we
could hear was the distant shouting of children in the playground by Jacob Aallsvei.

There was a parish bulletin and a couple of magazines on the low coffee table, and visible rings left by bottles, cups and glasses on the wood. Along the wall there was a sofa and by the table two chairs. None matched, and they looked tatty and uncomfortable. In the middle of the table was an ashtray piled with cigarette ends. Before she sat down on the sofa she stubbed out her cigarette, took another from a packet she had in her pocket and lit it with a cheap plastic lighter. She made a vague motion towards the two chairs.

I chose the one closest to the door and let my gaze drift across the faded, nicotine-brown walls. No family photgraphs. No gypsy ladies. No elks in the sunset.

Else Monsen watched me expectantly. She appeared to be someone who was used to anything and everything from public services, and all the signs suggested that was where she had pigeonholed me.

I took out my notepad and a pen to appear more official. ‘As I said, this is about your children. That is, two of them.’ I paused for dramatic effect, but she did not show any signs of wanting to say anything. ‘How long is it since you last saw Margrethe?’

She frowned, to demonstrate that she was giving the matter some thought. Then she shrugged. ‘Don’t remember. Several years.’

‘Really?’

‘I never see any of them.’

‘You don’t?’

She gently shook her head.

‘So that applies to Karl Gunnar as well?’

‘Our Kalle? But he’s in prison.’

‘Yes, but he gets out on a pass now and then. He’s almost served his sentence.’

‘Mm?’ She didn’t sound very interested.

‘He hasn’t been here then, I take it.’

She didn’t respond, except with a vacant look.

‘Not even in the last few weeks?’

‘I haven’t seen him since … we were in court.’

‘And no one else has been here asking after him? The police, for example?’

‘The police? He’s in prison, I told you.’

‘Yes, he is.’ I paused before continuing. ‘But Siv … you’ve had some contact with her, haven’t you?’

In her eyes she was miles away. ‘No.’ After some thought, she added: ‘But she went to Frank’s funeral. Frank’s my husband.’

‘Yes, but surely they were all there, weren’t they?’

‘No. Just her.’

‘Siv was the only one at the funeral?’

‘Yes. In the chapel.’

‘So you didn’t have a get-together to celebrate his memory?’

‘Yes. In the chapel. At Møllendal.’

‘But afterwards. Nothing private?’

‘No.’ She sucked the smoke down deep and coughed it up again, a thin, fragile sound.

‘And that was three to four years ago, wasn’t it?’

‘1993.’

‘Does that mean … have I understood you correctly … you haven’t seen your children since 1993?’

She shrugged.

‘You’re not sure.’

‘No.’

‘And you haven’t got a telephone, I’ve been told.’

‘I cope fine without. No one rings me anyway.’

‘No, if you haven’t got a phone, then … but that could of course be … Alright. How do you make time pass then?’

‘Well, I sit here thinking.’

‘What about?’

‘Well, everything and nothing.’

In a strange way, it was as if she wasn’t reacting to why I was asking her all these questions. I just asked, and she just answered. That was how it was, today.

All of a sudden, I felt deeply depressed, as though Else Monsen’s stagnant life and meaningless existence had infected me as well. I let out a heavy sigh, and said: ‘So you know nothing about what your children are doing? What professions they have chosen?’

She shook her head.

‘Have you any idea why two of them didn’t turn up for their father’s funeral?’

‘Couldn’t be bothered, I suppose. I don’t even know if they were told. We didn’t have a death notice until … afterwards.’

‘But Siv went, didn’t she. She must have spoken to the others about it?’

‘Yes, perhaps.’

‘OK. I don’t know if I …’ I got up from the chair and looked around. A side door led into another room that must have been her bedroom. We had passed the kitchen door in the hall. ‘Are these the only rooms?’

‘Yes, and the loft.’

‘The loft?’

‘Yes, we had a room for the children up there when they were small.’

‘I see. Is it used now?’

‘No.’

‘May I have a look?’

She looked at me in the same passive, subservient way she had done the whole time. Then she nodded. ‘I can show you.’

I followed her through the hall and up the stairs. We came into a drying loft beneath a slanting roof. The light angled down from two windows. In a recess there was an old-fashioned mangle. In a corner there were some suitcases. At the opposite end there was a wall with two doors, as if to two storerooms. One was padlocked. The other was ajar. Beside the half-open door was a large wardrobe.

Else Monsen went straight there, opened the door wide and stepped aside so that I could see in.

It was a cramped children’s bedroom, with two bunk beds along one wall, a single bed along the other. There was a dormer window that looked out onto Falsens vei, and on the sill some old, faded girls’ magazines. A green dresser, and on a chair some forgotten clothes they had outgrown. On the floor there was a pile of comics, as far as I could judge from the 80s. The room left me with the impression that this was a hastily vacated childhood, a period of life no one had bothered to tidy up after.

‘So they grew up here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not much room.’

‘That was all we had.’

‘But where did they do their homework?’

‘They didn’t have so much … homework.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ After a pause she added: ‘But when they did, they sat in the kitchen. Or else they did it at school.’

Again I felt the depression taking a firm grip around my
heart. Once again it was as if I were being inexorably transported back to my time at social services and the frequent dispiriting home visits I had made in those days.

I turned away. ‘That door …’

‘No, that’s Torvaldsen’s storeroom.
Fru
Torvaldsen helped them with their homework now and then. She was a teacher at their school.’

‘Fridalen School?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, well, well … then I won’t disturb you any further.’

‘You’re not disturbing me.’

‘No, I …’

In fact I did understand. It had been a long time since anyone had disturbed Else Monsen. Much too long from what I could glean.

I trudged back downstairs. We said goodbye, and she closed the door without waiting for me to leave the building. For a moment I stood outside Torvaldsen’s door, undecided whether I should intervene in the conversation between him and Helleve, but I concluded it was safest to keep out of it. Anyway, I had arranged to ring Helleve the day after. Furthermore, I had my own investigation to conduct.

I closed the front door quietly behind me and walked into Falsens vei. If nothing else, it had stopped raining. The police had cordoned off the front part of the neighbour’s house with red and white tape. There were still some small groups of inquisitive onlookers watching what was happening. The door was closed, but inside the windows we could see SOC officers in their characteristic white overalls inching their way forward.

There was not a lot for me to do here. I walked back to where I had parked my car, got in and drove back to the town
centre. It was time to get myself something to eat. I found a parking spot in Markeveien and ambled down to Børs Café. I ordered a steak, medium done, the safest option on the menu if they didn’t have potato dumplings. The waiter raised his eyebrows in scorn when I ordered a Clausthaler instead of a pils, but he did not make a comment.

However, the tall, ungainly guy who appeared from nowhere in front of my table with a freshly pulled, foaming half-litre in hand, did. ‘On the wagon, Varg?’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’ I met his eyes. ‘Take a pew, Lasse. Long time, eh?’

LITTLE LASSE
we had called him for as long as I could remember, despite the fact that he measured one metre eighty and was not so little with respect to age either. I seemed to recall that Ludvigsen was his real surname. With his shoulder-length, grizzled hair he looked like an ageing hippie, but in all probability that was down to the fact that the money he saved at the hairdresser’s he was able to use on more pressing needs.

I met him first when I was working in the social services, and he was not so many years younger than me. Somehow or other, he had managed to temper his drug addiction enough to survive. Regular consumption of beer had been one of the methods. He belonged without any doubt to the veterans of Nygård Park. At Børs Café he was part of the wallpaper.

For many years it had been the case that if I needed to know anything on the shady side of the law – west of Pecos, as it were – I had, on not so few occasions, been given useful information by Little Lasse. In total confidence, it goes without saying; otherwise he would not have been upright and entering his third decade since 1968.

Lasse sat down and drained half of his glass in one swig. His nose was narrow and pointed, as it had always been, but his cheeks looked thinner, and his neck had a network of wrinkles I had not noticed before. His teeth were yellowish-brown and stunted. It had been a long time since he had seen a dentist.

The waiter came with the Clausthaler, placed the glass on the table, poured from the bottle and said acidly: ‘There you are, a driver’s pils. Enjoy.’ Not long afterwards the steak arrived, blackened at the edges and served with fried potatoes in gravy, a droopy leaf of lettuce and a sliced tomato that should not have left the greenhouse this side of Easter.

Lasse stared at the dish hungrily, and I offered to treat him to a portion.

He beamed with gratitude. ‘Would you, Veum?’

‘Anything for old pals.’ I signalled to the waiter and gave him the order. ‘And another half-litre,’ I said. ‘For my friend here.’

Lasse grinned. ‘Have you won the lottery, or what?’

‘I’ll never win. What about you?’

He ran one hand across his forehead. ‘Got LOSER written here in big letters, haven’t I!’

I shrugged. ‘You’re not alone, if so. Anything happening in your neck of the woods?’

He leaned forward, looked left and right and whispered: ‘Are you after what I’m after…?’

‘After what you’re …?’ I said, furrowing my brow.

‘Half the town is, that’s my impression.’ He leaned back and took another large swig of his beer. Soon there was nothing but foam left.

‘I don’t think I’m quite with you.’

‘No?’ He winked at me as though he didn’t quite believe what I had said. ‘Have you stopped reading newspapers?’

‘No. Which article?’

‘No, that’s not the point. There was nothing about what really mattered in the paper. But I can guarantee you, Veum … it has not gone unnoticed in the right quarters.’

‘I think you’re going to have to spell it out, Lasse.’

He nodded, but went quiet when the waiter came with his steak and the accompanying beer. Thereafter he launched himself at the food as if he hadn’t consumed any since the New Year. Only when the final bite had been devoured, and there wasn’t so much as a scrap of meat left on the plate, did he raise his eyes and look at me again. ‘You may have read in the paper about the man who was beaten up in Skuteviken?’

‘Yes, I did … an old police acquaintance, wasn’t it?’

‘You can say that again. And he got quite a pasting later, I can assure you. A double dose, as they say at the chemist. The whole town is after those who did it.’

‘I may be a bit slow on the uptake today, but I’m still not with you.’

He shook his head condescendingly, as if talking to a little child. ‘No? How big do you want the letters?’

‘As big as the ones you reckon are on your forehead.’

‘Thank you for that!’

‘And I’ll buy you another beer if this is something I can use.’

‘I’m not sure they’re giving a reward.’

‘What for?’

He leaned closer and lowered his voice a couple of notches. ‘Listen here, Veum. There’s a banana boat coming, that’s what we used to say in the old days, but today there’s a boat coming from Denmark, and it’s not just bananas they have on board. The customs in Skolten have never been the most meticulous, so with a bit of cunning you can soon pass through the eye of the needle with this ’n’ that.’

I nodded to show that I was with him.

‘This guy, his name’s Lars Mikalsen, he’s probably some kind of eternal student. Anyway, he’s never taken any exams, but
he’s still got a student card. Now and then he does odd jobs for folk with needs. A little package on the Danish ferry, well disguised, so to speak, and Lars Mikalsen has earned enough to live on for another month or two. Like so many others, that’s how he covers his own needs. But this time it went wrong.’

I got the picture. ‘He was robbed?’

‘Indeed he was. Someone no one knows, but who will meet a sticky end when they find out, welcomed him when he came ashore, took him to Skuteviken – or wherever it was it happened – pounced on him and stole what was in his bag.’

‘And that was?’

‘I don’t know exactly, but there is talk of a hefty lump of H, with a street value of up to one and a half million.’

‘One and a half!’

‘Yup.’

‘I can begin to understand why he didn’t want to report the assault. He would have got up to ten years behind bars himself for a cargo like that …’

‘Not far off it, that’s for sure.’

‘And no one suspects who could be behind it?’

He shrugged. ‘There’s always gossip about competitors in the same branch. Somebody who wants to elbow their way in. But, if so, they have to be armed to the teeth, I can promise you that.’

‘Who sent the package?’

He looked at me askance. ‘I doubt you would want to know, Veum. It would not be good for your health, let me put it like that. And, as I said, I don’t think a reward has been offered.’

‘But this Lars Mikalsen, didn’t he see who robbed him?’

‘He hasn’t given a name at any rate, I do know that. That
was why he was beaten up a second time, by those waiting for the goods. To knock it out of him. But it doesn’t seem like it helped.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Who? Lars Mikalsen? Surely you’re not thinking of calling on him?’

I shrugged. ‘Might be useful to know.’

He gave me the heavy look. Then he slowly shook his head. ‘You’ve never been very bright, have you, Veum?’ As I didn’t answer he told me the address: Konsul Børs gate in Møhlenpris. ‘Right under the roof, a kind of attic flat. But I’m warning you. It would not be wise to do any digging in this case.’

‘Right … but now you’re here, Lasse. Someone who calls himself KG, do you know anything about him?’

‘KG as in Karl Gunnar Monsen?’

I nodded.

‘The Gimle case.’ He gave a nod of confirmation. ‘Well, I know of him, that’s all. He’s still banged up, isn’t he?’

‘He’s supposed to have escaped.’

‘Well …’ He grimaced. ‘The days can get quite long out there in Åsane Prison. You can’t blame anyone for wanting some fresh air now and then.’

‘Not such a smart idea when he’s approaching the end of his stretch perhaps.’

‘No. Perhaps not. But this KG has never been known for being very smart, has he.’

‘Don’t ask me. I’d barely heard of him until yesterday. I’m searching for his sister. One of the women working C. Sundts gate.’

‘And what’s in it for you? A complimentary dip of the wick? Free season ticket for the winter?’

I raised my alcohol-free beer in a last
skål
. ‘Usual rates, Lasse. Enough for another beer or two if I can find her.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you. What’s her name?’

‘Margrethe. But out there she’s called Maggi.’

He knitted his brows. ‘As you know, I am subject to other vices, so it’s rare I bump into that milieu, but should she come by the park I’ll give you a buzz.’

‘That would be great.’ I unhooked my jacket from the chair, signalled to the waiter and stood up. ‘Thanks for the help.’

I paid and went on my way to the car. Before driving home I took a detour to C. Sundts gate. I kept my eyes sharpened for both of them, but found neither Hege nor Tanya at either end of the street. Perhaps they were both on a trick at the moment.

There was no shortage of propositions during this drive either, and it struck me that I should not let detours here become a habit. If I drove by too often I risked being targeted by female activists and having WHOREMONGER sprayed on my car.