Cold Hearts (16 page)

IT WAS TIME FOR AN EXPEDITION
to Minde. On my way to Skansen to pick up my car I dropped by my flat.

‘Hello?’ I called out loudly as I unlocked the front door.

I was not rewarded with an answer, and walking around I was soon able to confirm that she had gone. She had even made the bed and rinsed the glasses before leaving. As far as I could see, nothing was missing. So, the end of the world wouldn’t be this year, either.

I opened the top drawer of the dresser in the bedroom and took out the small photo album I had found in Margrethe’s flat. I quickly thumbed through to the photo of the cabin, with the three children and the five adults. Even though they were a great deal younger here I still had no difficulty
recognising
Lill Mobekk, Alf Torvaldsen and Markus Rødberg in the picture. The other woman was most likely Wenche Torvaldsen. The third man was Carsten Mobekk.

I thumbed back through the album and stopped by the photographs I suspected must have been taken in Børs Café. I recognised him at once. One of them sitting with a raised beer glass and toasting the photographer was Lars Mikalsen. In one of the pictures he was sitting with his arms around
Margrethe’s
shoulders and saying something to her. I studied the other faces, though without any luck. I may well have seen a couple of them during my visits to the self-same café, and that of course might have been why I had felt I had also seen Lars
Mikalsen before, but this made me wonder whether I should have another chat with him before the police – or anyone else – beat me to it.

Before leaving I tapped in Hege’s number on my mobile. No answer. Not that it necessarily meant anything, but it did give me a tiny feeling of unease in my stomach. In Øvre Blekevei I got behind the wheel of my new Corolla. I drove past Skansen fire station, through Proms gate and Brattlien towards Leitet and Kalfarlien, keeping the town centre – situated in a hollow and enveloped in January mist – to my right, a quilt of old and new, a jigsaw puzzle that had never been finished because the last piece was always missing, a medieval town waiting for the great infarct, once all the arteries had been blocked. It was safer to hug the hillsides in an elongated arc towards Årstad and Minde.

I parked in more or less the same spot as last time, by the playground in Jacob Aalls vei. As I turned into Falsens vei, I saw Lill Mobekk coming out of the garden gate in front of her house, wearing the same olive-green coat she wore when she arrived two days ago. We met by the gate to the remnants of the Torvaldsen and Monsen families, one person on each floor.

We stopped, and she looked at me with puzzlement. ‘Yes?’ I could see that she was struggling to recognise me.

‘I’m Veum. I was here on Thursday when your husband … was found.’

‘Oh, yes. Now I remember you.’ She scrunched up her face in a blink, as if to hold back the tears. ‘Thank you for helping.’

‘It was no more than … How are you?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m still in shock. I’m not sure I’ve taken in what happened. I’m glad I have … Alf.’ She looked at
the house in front of us. ‘He’s offered to help me with all the practical details. He and Carsten were best friends for so many years.’

‘Yes, so I understand. I’m going to see
fru
Monsen. You know her as well, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course. Known her for years.’

She walked ahead of me to the house.

‘Ring Torvaldsen’s bell,’ I said. ‘That seems to be the most effective way.’

Without another word, we waited. When the door opened Torvaldsen sent Lill Mobekk a bright smile, which faded the second he spotted me. ‘Veum? What …?’

‘I’m going to see
fru
Monsen again.’

‘Right. Any news on Margrethe?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Margrethe?’ Lill Mobekk queried.

‘Yes, she’s gone missing,’ Torvaldsen answered, then added pointedly: ‘Her and … Karl Gunnar.’

‘Really?’ I watched her receive the information with unease.

‘The day before yesterday you omitted to mention,’ I said to Torvaldsen, ‘that you, your wife,
fru
Mobekk here and her husband were on a sort of a committee set up to take care of the Monsen family, the children first and foremost.’

‘No, I did not. Why would I? I mean … Who are you? A kind of private investigator, I was told.’

‘I cannot deny that.’

Lill Mobekk faced me again. ‘A … detective?’

I nodded. ‘Yes. If you should ever need one, then …’

‘Alright, alright,’ Torvaldsen said. ‘I think we’ll leave this case to the police. Are you coming, Lill?’

‘Yes.’ He held the door open for her. ‘Thank you.’

I followed them into the stairwell, unbidden. ‘I’ll do the same as last time,’ I said, motioning upwards.

Neither answered. Torvaldsen let Lill Mobekk into his flat, then closed the door firmly behind him. I went up to the first floor and knocked on the door.

Else Monsen hadn’t changed her outfit since Tuesday, and the cigarette butt in the corner of her mouth seemed to be a permanent fixture. Her gaze was just as dead, just as lifeless, as she regarded me from the doorway.

‘Hello,’ I said with a gentle smile. ‘I was here a couple of days ago. Veum.’

She looked at me expectantly, although she didn’t make a move to invite me in.

‘I was wondering whether I could have a couple of words with you.’

She stepped aside to let me through, but without uttering a sound. I entered the hall and allowed her to lead the way to the same dismal sitting room as on my previous visit. The parish journal and the magazines lay untouched in the same positions. The portable radio and the TV were as lifeless as before. The ashtray was, if possible, even fuller. The tiny
cigarette
ends formed a white sugary mound in the middle of the coffee table, a burial mound over dead hours.

She placed another stone on the mound, took another
cigarette
from a freshly opened pack and lit it without a look in my direction. I coughed, as if to draw to her attention that I was still present. She raised her eyes to my chest, but no higher.

‘
Fru
Monsen … I asked you the other day whether you’d heard from any of your children. Have any of them contacted you since then?’

‘Since when?’ she asked my shirt front.

‘Tuesday, two days ago,’ I sighed.

After a long rumination she concluded the answer was no.

‘Tell me … Don’t you have any photos of your children?’

‘As adults? No.’

‘Not even as children?’

She turned round at her own pace and her gaze traversed the bare walls, as if there should have been something there, but it had been removed. ‘We did have some.’

‘And where are they now?’

She struggled to her feet and shuffled out of the room, the smoke trailing behind her like a bridal veil. I sat and waited. After a couple of minutes she returned with a small cardboard box in her hands. She set the box down on the table and pushed it in my direction without a comment.

I opened the top flaps and peered inside. It was a little box of surprises: a small jewellery casket, some old newspapers, among which I recognised an article about the Gimle case, a few picture postcards of other parts of the country, some
documents
including the children’s birth certificates and a handful of framed photographs.

I picked them up one by one. Else Monsen concentrated on the cigarette, but I noticed her casting sharp glances in my direction each time I picked up a photo, as if to make sure I wouldn’t run off with any of them.

Several were photographs of babies. For someone who had not seen any of them before, it was difficult to distinguish one from the other.

I assumed three were confirmation photos, judging by the clothes and age. I recognised Siv without a problem and
Margrethe
from the small photo album. Karl Gunnar stood erect
in a smart, dark jacket with a white shirt, pink tie and hair in the typical mullet cut of the 80s.

Their expressions varied. Siv was the only person smiling, a rather stiff smile probably at the exhortation of the
photographer
more than from any inner conviction. Margrethe and Karl Gunnar had distant looks on their faces, as though they were not fully present, neither then nor now.

‘Good-looking kids,’ I said.

She gave a minimal nod and took a huge drag on her cigarette.

‘I understand you were given some assistance by a
committee
for a while?’

Her mouth tightened a fraction, but still she had nothing to say.

‘Why was that?’

‘… The parish thought they could help us. We were … my husband wasn’t a well man.’

‘No? What was wrong with him?’

‘… It was … his nerves. They had troubled him all his life. He could … Now and then he wasn’t quite himself.’

‘I see. He died in an accident, didn’t he?’

‘… Yeah.’ She glanced at the door, as if fearing someone would come in and deny it. ‘He fell down the stairs. Out there.’

‘In a drunken state, wasn’t he?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, probably. I didn’t see it happen myself.’

‘You weren’t at home?’

‘Yes, I was, but … I was in here. I thought he was going to the loo.’

‘Perhaps both of you had been drinking?’

‘… Yes, I suppose we had.’

‘And then he fell?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you find him?’

‘No,
fru
Torvaldsen did. People underneath. All of a sudden she was outside ringing the bell, and afterwards it was just a mess.’

‘Just a mess?’

‘Yes. Ambulance and police and priest and all at the same time.’

‘Police?’

‘Yes, but nothing else happened. Frank had fallen down the stairs, under his own steam, so to speak.’

‘Were any of the children at home?’

‘No, no. They’d moved out. There was just Frank and me here at that time.’

‘Margrethe still gives this address as her fixed abode.’

‘Oh?’ She regarded me with puzzlement. ‘But it’s … she moved out ages ago.’

‘Does post still come for her? Here, I mean.’

‘Post?’ She looked as if she did not understand the word. ‘Bills. And advertising brochures. Loads of ads.’

‘For Margrethe too?’

‘For Margrethe? No, for me!’ She heaved a deep sigh, flicked ash and put the cigarette between her lips again without missing much more than one drag.

‘Well … but when your husband died … you said … Siv was the only one to go to the funeral, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I suppose she was.’

‘You’re not sure?’

‘Yes, I am …’

Cigarette smoke hung like a cloud of mist over her part of the room. I held out the photo of Karl Gunnar. ‘Could I borrow this one?’

She hesitated. ‘Just that one?’

‘Yes, I’ve met Siv, and I’ve got better photos of Margrethe.’

For the first time I detected some emotion in her voice. ‘I want it back again though!’

‘Yeah, yeah, no problem. If you’d had a photo of him as an adult I …’

‘That’s the only one I’ve got.’

‘I promise you,
fru
Monsen, you’ll get it back.’

‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘Tell me, have the police been here?’

‘… Yes, there was a woman.’

‘Mm, but you know that Margrethe and Karl Gunnar are missing? The whole police force is out looking for them. That is, for Karl Gunnar. He’s escaped from prison. Margrethe has disappeared.’

‘Disappeared? Margrethe? She hasn’t been here for years and years.’

‘No.’ I was unable to refrain from releasing a little sigh. ‘You don’t have any idea where she could have gone? There’s no … family?’

‘… All we had was the committee.’

‘You mean I should talk to them?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s too late. Everything’s too late.’

She had finished the cigarette. She stubbed it out firmly against the edge of the ashtray, pushed into the heap, got another one from the packet and lit it, all automatic actions, as though she were standing by an assembly line and thinking about something else.

I decided that the cigarette would have to live and die without any attempts on my part to save it from the fate for which it was destined. I took my leave, went down to
Torvaldsen’s
and rang the bell.

TORVALDSEN ANSWERED HIMSELF.
He did not look very thrilled. ‘Veum? What’s this about now? Couldn’t you get in upstairs?’

‘Yes, I did. I spoke to
fru
Monsen. I’d very much like to have a word with you as well.’

‘With me? What about, if I might venture to ask?’

‘Changed circumstances.’

‘Changed circumstances? At this particular moment I’m busy.’

‘Yes, so I understood. But it concerns
fru
Mobekk, too. The whole committee.’

‘Hm, the … Well, alright. You’d better come in.’

He stepped aside and ushered me in. I smelled the faint but enticing aroma of coffee. As I followed him into the sitting room the aroma became stronger.

They were no longer alone. Markus Rødberg had joined the gathering. He rose to his feet as I entered. Lill Mobekk remained seated, with a cup raised to her mouth, as if caught in a freeze-frame.

‘Hm, the whole committee is assembled,’ I said airily, before correcting myself: ‘Well, not quite.
Frøken
Vefring’s missing.’

Rødberg held out his hand. ‘Nice to see you again, Veum.’

‘Is she coming as well?’

‘Who?’

‘
Frøken
Vefring.’

Rødberg looked at the others, confused. ‘I can’t imagine she will be.’

Torvaldsen came alongside me. ‘You’ll have to find yourself a chair, Veum, and I’ll get you a cup, if you want one.’

‘Yes, please.’

I sat down in the free chair by the coffee table and took stock. The impression here was so far from the one on the floor above you could scarcely credit it was the same house. The
furniture
was comfortable, practical and stylish, without
appearing
ostentatious. The walls were covered with bookshelves and pictures, many of which were in enormous gilt frames. There was a rug with a Persian pattern on the floor, and the TV set in the corner was a solid Finnish brand from the early 1980s, one of the best around. A radio cabinet containing a record player, a CD player and a selection of LPs and CDs was positioned along one wall, and facing the rear window there was a dark brown dining table with six chairs.

Lill Mobekk completed the movement she had begun, swallowed the sip of coffee and carefully set the cup down, as though afraid it would break. She was dressed in black: blouse and smart trousers. Around her neck she had a simple pearl necklace, with no other jewellery apart from her wedding ring.

Torvaldsen came in from the kitchen. After putting a cup and plate on the table he served coffee from a tall, white flask and pushed the cup towards me.

The suite was brown with red upholstery. Lill Mobekk was sitting on the sofa.

Torvaldsen occupied the free chair at the end of the table. ‘Markus has told us about your visit, Veum. We understand that you’re here regarding Margrethe and Karl Gunnar. Both have vanished apparently.’

‘Without trace so far.’ I didn’t mention anything about the fingerprints in the stolen car. That was up to the police to inform them, to the extent that it was deemed necessary.

‘Well … How can we help you?’ He threw out his arms.

‘In fact I was thinking of asking you to tell me a bit about Frank Monsen’s death.’

All three of them looked at me in surprise. Torvaldsen answered: ‘But what has that … got to do with all this?’

‘It was your wife who found him, wasn’t it?’

‘Who said that?’

I pointed to the ceiling. ‘His wife.’

‘Well, I can’t see how that has anything to do with
anything
at all. It was a tragic accident. The man fell down the stairs drunk and broke his neck. The conclusion to a sorry life. Both Wenche and I were out when it happened, but Wenche came home first and it was she who found him. By the time I arrived, straight afterwards, she had already rung for an
ambulance,
but it was too late.’

‘He was dead when your wife found him?’

‘I don’t know. He was unconscious, but then he had so much alcohol in his blood he was way beyond normal communication.’

‘And you never suspected it could be more than an accident?’

Lill Mobekk drew in her breath sharply, but said nothing. Markus Rødberg glanced at her with concern.

‘No. Could be more? You don’t mean that … Else?’

‘For example.’

‘Ridiculous, Veum. In that case she would have done it years before. She had good reason.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes.’ He pursed his lips and scanned the assembly with a stern look, as though to warn them not to object.

‘Leading us to the second item, which might be worth dwelling on.’

‘And that would be …?’

Again I pointed to the ceiling as though I were a preacher in a Christian Youth Club, indicating every so often the way to lofty celestial chambers. ‘Conditions at home. With the Monsen family.’

‘Conditions at …?’

‘You work for public services, don’t you, Torvaldsen?’

‘I’m a manager at the county council, yes.’

‘Off today?’

‘Time in lieu.’

‘But you understand
Nynorsk
and
Bokmål?
What were
conditions
like upstairs?’

Rødberg coughed. ‘I told you the other day, Veum.’

I turned to face him. ‘Yes, you did.’

I looked at Lill Mobekk. ‘You all have a right to speak on this matter.’

At length I directed my attention back towards Torvaldsen. ‘After all, you lived in the same house. You must have noticed if there was anything unusual.’

‘The unusual feature about the Monsen family,’ Torvaldsen said, ‘was that neither of the parents was capable of performing their duties … in full. They needed external help.’

‘A dysfunctional family, as it’s called in technical terminology.’

‘Indeed. I can hear you’ve got the jargon.’

‘In fact I am a trained social worker with five years’
practice
from … well … Has it ever struck you that if social
services
had got their way back in 1978 the whole of the Monsen family might have been better off, from Frank through to Karl Gunnar?’

Torvaldsen looked as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘Better off?’

‘Yes, I don’t suppose you can say that the results suggest a resounding success, can you? Frank Monsen continued to drink and lost his life while drunk. Else is a shadow of a human, barely on the level of her own ashtray. KG, Karl Gunnar, was in prison for murder until almost a week ago. Margrethe … well, you all know where she ended up, don’t you.’

Everyone nodded in confirmation, with varying degrees of regret in their eyes.

‘And Siv … she appears to have coped well, but …’

‘Appears?’ queried Markus Rødberg.

‘Yes. The façade seems fine, but does anyone know what lies smouldering beneath, just below the surface?’

‘Now you’re speaking in riddles, Veum,’ Torvaldsen snapped.

‘The point is this. One of the children is a prostitute, one reacted with such violence to a sexual approach that he became a murderer, the third … well, let’s keep her out of this until later. But my experience from years in social services …’

Torvaldsen interrupted me and sent the other two an
eloquent
look. ‘There we have it! Now that cat’s out of the bag. So that’s where your sympathies lie, Veum, with the social
services.
Now I understand better.’

I raised my voice. ‘All my experience tells me that there are clear signs here of sexual abuse at a young age, and most often this happens within the four walls of home. Did any of you ever have a suspicion that something like that may have been going on?’ For the third time I pointed heavenwards.

They exchanged looks. It was difficult to interpret them, but I had an unpleasant feeling that this did not come as a huge surprise to any of them.

Rødberg spoke up. ‘I told you the other day, Veum. This was a task we embraced for one hundred per cent philanthropic reasons. If we’d had the slightest inkling that something of that nature was on the cards we would never have opposed the social services’ expression of concern. I beg God for
forgiveness
that this went awry, but in this event it was without our knowledge or intention.’

‘This went awry?’

‘The outcome. What we are left with today. The lives of these unfortunates.’

‘Torvaldsen?’

‘Markus is right. We took this task on together, although with different backgrounds. I don’t have the religious
affiliation
that Markus has. Furthermore, Wenche was the driving force here. She knew the children from school, of course. She and Hulda Vefring were utterly committed, along with Markus and Carsten, who both knew Frank Monsen from childhood.’

‘Carsten and Frank were in the same
folkeskole
class,’ Lill Mobekk said. ‘Carsten tried to help his childhood friend as best he could. Got him a job as an electrician, to cut a long story short …’ She burst into tears.

‘Lill …’ Markus Rødberg laid a consoling hand on her shoulder.

There was a flash of obvious annoyance in Torvaldsen’s eyes, but this time it was not directed at me. Was there already a tug of war going on between the two men for the recently bereaved widow’s favour – or to see who could show the
greatest
sympathy?

Tearfully, she said: ‘I’m sorry … This is too much. Excuse me a moment.’ Her shoulders shaking, she went into the hall,
and we heard the door to what I assumed to be the bathroom being opened and then closed behind her.

Torvaldsen sent me an accusatory look. ‘See what you’ve done, Veum! This is not the right day to drag all of this up, for Christ’s sake!’

‘My apologies, Torvaldsen, but I have a job to do as well. And I don’t have any days off in lieu, if I may say so.’

He glared at me. Then he leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Now that Lill’s out … Markus told me you had
suggested
that Karl Gunnar may have … attacked Carsten. Were you being serious?’

‘So that’s why you got together today? To assess whether more of you might be in danger?’

‘Danger? What the hell are you talking about? Karl Gunnar had no reason to kill Carsten! And you saw yourself the state of his office. Someone had been searching for something. My theory is that it was either a standard burglary … or else it was connected with the work he was doing.’

‘There were no signs of a burglary. He must have let the perpetrator in himself.’

‘So … a business connection! Perhaps he was threatened with a weapon, what do I know? There are lots of rotten eggs in the industry where he works.’

‘Yes, you must know all about that, being in public
administration
.’ Out of the blue, I asked: ‘So why isn’t
frøken
Vefring here?’

‘Hulda? Why should she be?’

‘The whole committee’s here. Those still alive, so to speak. Except her.’

Torvaldsen sent me a long-suffering look. ‘This is no
committee
meeting, Veum!’

‘No? What is it then?’ Now it was my turn to lean forward. ‘Let me tell you something, Torvaldsen. I spoke to
frøken
Vefring yesterday, after I’d been to Rødberg. She said that at the end of the 80s there had been an atmosphere on the
committee.
Between Rødberg on the one hand and the two couples on the other …’

I glanced at Rødberg, and there was no denying the
triumphant
expression on his face for Torvaldsen, a classic
Bergensian
I-told-you-so
look. When I turned back to Torvaldsen the bitterness in his eyes had grown into massive loathing.

‘The old biddy! So she couldn’t keep her bloody mouth shut again.’

‘What she said was right, then?’

‘What’s right, Veum, is that this has got bugger-all to do with you. Well …’ He looked at Rødberg, as if to encourage him to chime in. ‘What happened was … There was a minor dispute, but it was about … religion. Markus was the contact with the priest and the parish. The rest of us were more … personally committed. As individuals. In other words, there was a minor disagreement about faith, wasn’t there, Markus.’

Markus Rødberg reciprocated his stare, gasped for breath and moved his lips silently as though searching for the right words.

The door in the hall opened. Torvaldsen found the words: ‘But let’s not talk about this any more. Not now.’

‘No?’ I queried.

‘No,’ he said firmly.

Markus Rødberg’s face had undergone a deep flush, as if he was sitting and holding his breath.

Lill Mobekk came to the door. Her eyes were shiny and tinged with red, and her voice trembled as she said: ‘I’m sorry. It just came over me. I couldn’t help it.’

Then she became aware of the tense atmosphere in the room. She glanced from me to Torvaldsen and in the end to Rødberg. ‘What have you …? Has something happened?’

Both Rødberg and Torvaldsen got up and moved towards her.

‘No, no, no,’ Torvaldsen said.

Rødberg coughed. ‘It was Veum who … But he’s leaving.’

Torvaldsen stopped, halfway towards Lill Mobekk. Then he turned to me. ‘Yes. He’s on his way out. Talking time is over.’

I rose from my chair. ‘For this round maybe.’ I turned to Rødberg. ‘But we have more to talk about, all of us. Of that I am convinced.’

Rødberg nodded, almost on autopilot.

‘I find that hard to imagine,’ Torvaldsen reacted, in a loud voice, as if to strangle any signs of compliance. With a
lingering
stare he watched Lill Mobekk as she passed, before Rødberg led her to the sofa and pushed a chair aside so that she could slip through. Again I had the feeling I was
witnessing
a strange duel, and the next thought struck me: Wonder if she’s a wealthy widow? How much had Carsten Mobekk left her?

‘Allow me to accompany you out, Veum,’ Torvaldsen said against his will, unhappy with the idea of leaving the other two alone inside.

‘I can find my own way out, thank you,’ I said, to relieve him of the dilemma.

But he stuck to his guns and escorted me out.

By the front door, I stopped. ‘What happened that year,
Torvaldsen?
The winter of 1988–89, according to
frøken
Vefring?’