The Consorts of Death (2 page)

Mette Olsen nodded and swallowed.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Jan.’

‘Jan?’

‘Jan Elvis.’

‘How long is it since you changed his nappy?’

She sent us a blurred look and waved her arms around. ‘
Yesterday
? I don’t remember.’

Elsa sighed loudly. ‘You’re aware that this is unsatisfactory? That we will – have to do something about it?’

The young woman looked at us with sadness in her eyes, but she did not react, giving us the impression that she had barely understood what had been said.

Elsa looked at me. ‘Classic case of clause five. Mother needs treatment, the child acute referral.’

The front door slammed and a coarse local voice resounded round the flat. ‘Meeette! You there?’

No one answered, and shortly afterwards we heard loud cursing and the sound of bottles rolling around the room behind us.

‘Where the fuck’ve you hidden yourself?’

We turned to the doorway, from which Mette had nervously retreated towards us.

‘What the fuck are you all doin’ here? Who are you? What are you doin’ here?’

The man was big and strong, closer to forty than thirty, with tattoos over both forearms. He was wearing a dark brown polo shirt and light trousers; the blood vessels in his forehead were visibly swollen.

‘We’re from social services,’ Elsa said coolly. ‘Are you the child’s father perhaps?’

‘That’s got fuck-all to do with you!’ he snapped and stepped into the room.

Elsa stood her ground. I moved forward a pace, between them. That made him turn on me.

He clenched his fists and glowered at me. ‘What was it you wanted? Wanna bit of this, do you?’

‘Terje,’ sobbed Mette Olsen. ‘Don’t …’

‘What the fuck is it to do with you whether I’m the father of her kid or not? We’re old enough to vote, aren’t we.’

I shrugged. ‘Social security asked us …’

‘Social security can go to hell. Piss off, the pair of you!’

I looked at Elsa. She was the one with most experience. She
summoned
up all her authority and said: ‘This child is in a critical
situation
,
herr
…’ She sent him a quizzical glance, but when he reacted with no more than a snort, she continued: ‘He requires emergency treatment and we’re going to have to take him with us. Your wife … She also needs help, as far as I can see. Should you have any
objections
, may I ask you to contact us through the appropriate official channels and then we will confer on the matter.’

He opened his mouth wide. ‘Tell me, do you understand all the words that come out of that slippery gob of yours? If you and that prick with you are not out of here this minute, you’ll get a taste of this.’ He brandished a clenched fist in front of her. ‘Have you got that?’

I could feel I was beginning to simmer inside. ‘Look, big mouth … I may not have as many tattoos as you, but I went to sea for long enough to learn a few tricks, so if you were thinking of attacking anyone, then …’

He focused his attention on me again, his eyes a little less secure now. He cast a quick eye over my physique.

Elsa broke in. ‘I assume that you are –
herr
Olsen?’

‘My name’s not fuckin’ Olsen! Hers is, and she’s not my missus, either. My name’s Hammersten. Remember that!’ he said with a menacing look.

‘If you don’t let us take the child, we’ll be obliged to call the police,’ Elsa said.

‘Terje,’ Mette Olsen appealed again. ‘Don’t!’

‘But first we’ll have to put a dry nappy on him,’ Elsa said, looking at Mette. ‘If you have any?’

She nodded. ‘In the bathroom.’

‘Then I’ll go and get them.’

Elsa walked right past Terje Hammersten and out. The rest of us stayed where we were. I could feel the tension in my body and was ready for anything. Then he gave a snort of contempt, kicked at the air and left the room. I followed to make sure that he didn’t attack Elsa, but nothing happened. She returned with a bag of unused nappies and directly afterwards we heard the door slam shut.

‘So you’re not married?’ Elsa asked.

Mette Olsen shook her head.

‘But he’s the father of the child?’

She shrugged her shoulders.

Elsa sighed. ‘Oh, well … We’ll have to deal with this one bit by bit, it seems.’

The same evening Johnny boy, or Jan Elvis Olsen, which was his official name, was placed in a home for infants in Kalfarveien. The mother, however, was placed in a rehab clinic in Kong Oscars gate where they did their damnedest to get her to agree to a full course of treatment.

When I went home to Møhlenpris that evening, Beate glanced up ironically over the edge of the book she was reading. ‘Food’s in the fridge,’ she said.

‘Yes, I’m sorry it took such a long time. If you could only imagine how some people treated their children …’

‘Don’t you think I know?’

‘Yes, of course …’ I bent forward and kissed her. ‘Had a good day?’

‘So so.’

In October I heard that Johnny boy had been placed in a foster home. He had suffered terrible emotional damage, I was told, and it was difficult to communicate with him. According to the reports, the mother was not too good, either, and Terje
Hammersten
was up in court on a GBH charge. He was found guilty: six months’ unconditional imprisonment. Life on the outside went on as before. I didn’t expect to see any of them again. Which just goes to show how wrong you can be.

The next time I met Jan, he was six years old. It was early 1974. I had just separated from Beate and had had far better periods in my life. We had been called to a crime scene, to see to a little child, we were informed, and Cecilie and I were the ones given the task.

At that time I still had my old Mini and we squeezed into the front seats, me at the wheel, Cecilie beside me. Driving a Mini felt like trundling round in a tiny bathtub, with such small wheels that you felt your backside was touching the road as you sped over Bergen’s cobblestone streets. You were so perilously low over the tarmac that any head-on collision would put you well in the running for the flat-as-a-pancake award. On the other hand, you could almost always tuck yourself into a parking gap however tight it looked and petrol consumption was not a lot more than for a medium-sized cigarette lighter.

The crime scene was in Wergelandsåsen, a hillside dotted with large detached houses lying like a buffer zone between Landås and Minde, Landås with its fifties and sixties blocks of flats, Minde with its sedate twenties residences. The house we were called to was brown and had a wintry grey garden with faded rosebushes, patches of snow in the shrubbery beds, apple trees with
long-established
mushroom-like growths in the bark and rhododendrons in their hibernation phase, with hanging leaves and brownish-green winter buds.

Several cars were parked outside the garden gate. The front door was open and a handful of people had gathered on the steps. I recognised many of them from Bergen Police HQ as they stood there drawing their very first conclusions over thin roll-ups. We opened the gate and stepped inside.

Cecilie had briefed me about the case on our way there. A
six-year-old
boy had been at home with his father. On her return, the mother had discovered the boy crying in the hallway and when she shouted to her husband, there was no answer. She started to look and found him at the bottom of the cellar stairs. His neck was broken. The man was dead. She had managed to ring for help before breaking down. For the time being she was being held at Haukeland hospital, heavily sedated and with a female police officer at her bedside in case she needed someone to talk to when she came round. ‘What are their names?’ I had asked. ‘Skarnes. Svein and Vibecke Skarnes.’ ‘Background?’ ‘That’s all I know, Varg.’

We entered the house, where Inspector Dankert Muus gave us a grim welcome nod. Muus was a tall man with grey skin, a small hat screwed down on his head and the burning stump of a
cigarette
in the corner of his mouth, like an amputated limb. I hadn’t said more than hello to him before, but he clearly recognised us. He pointed towards a door on the left of the cosy white hallway. ‘He’s in there.’

We went into a simply furnished modern living room with dark bookshelves, a TV cabinet alongside the shortest wall, potted plants in the windows and light, shiny curtains. A policewoman, a round-faced Bergen-blonde, was sitting on a sofa with a little boy in her arms. In her hands she was holding a blue transformer with a red button, while on the floor in front of them a small Märklin train was running round an ellipsoid track carefully laid between the rest of the furniture. The boy sat watching the train without any visible signs of pleasure. He resembled a doll rather than a small boy.

The constable smiled with relief and stood up. ‘Hi! Are you from social services?’

‘Yes.’

As she put down the transformer, the train came to a halt. The boy sat watching. There was no indication that he wanted to take over the transformer.

We introduced ourselves. Her name was Tora Persen. Her accent revealed roots in Hardanger, maybe Kvinnherad. ‘And this is Johnny boy,’ she added, lightly placing her hand on the back of the tiny boy’s head.

‘Hello,’ we chorused.

Johnny boy
?

The boy just looked at us.

Where had I heard the name before
?

Cecilie squatted down in front of him. ‘You’re going to be with us. We have a lovely room for you which will be all yours. You’ll meet some nice people there and some children you can play with if you want.’

Then it struck me:
But it couldn’t be … that would be too grotesque
.

The scepticism in his eyes remained. His lips were clenched together and his gaze was big and blue, as if frozen in a cry, in a terror that still had not released its grip.

‘Is there anything you would like?’ I asked.

He shook his head.

I glanced at Tore Persen. ‘Has he been like this the whole time?’

She nodded, half-turned away from him and whispered: ‘We haven’t had a word out of him. It must be – the shock.’

‘He was with his mother when you arrived?’

‘Yes. A grisly situation of course.’

The boy did not move. He sat staring at the electric train as though waiting for it to start of its own accord. There was nothing to suggest that he had heard a word of what we had been
discussing
. There was not the slightest hint of a reaction.

I felt myself wince inside. It had been exactly the same with the other boy, whose name was also Johnny boy.

But it couldn’t be
…

I looked at Cecilie. ‘What do you think? Should we bring in Marianne for this one?’

‘Yes. Could you ring her?’

‘OK.’

I went back to the hallway. A constable was standing by the entrance to the cellar.

‘Was this where it happened?’

The constable nodded. ‘They found him down there.’

‘Is he still there?’

‘No, no. He’s been moved.’

‘When did it happen?’

‘About midday.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘We received the report at two thirty.’

I looked around. ‘Is there a telephone we could use?’

He sent me a sceptical look. ‘I think you’ll have to go outside and use one of the car phones. We haven’t examined the telephone here yet. For fingerprints.’

‘I see.’

The front door was still open. I walked over to the parked cars and asked the plainclothes officer in one of the cars whether I could use his phone.

He put on a surly expression. ‘And who’s asking?’

‘Varg Veum. Social services.’

‘Veum?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. I’ll get you a clear line.’

He tapped some numbers into the dialling pad and passed the phone to me through the door. ‘You can dial the number there,’ he explained.

In the meantime, I had found the number for Dr Marianne Storetvedt, the psychologist, in my address book. I called.

After a few rings, she picked up. ‘Dr Storetvedt.’

‘Marianne? Varg here.’

‘Hi, Varg. How can I help you?’

‘We have an acute situation here.’ I gave her a brief summary.

‘And the mother?’

‘Has been taken to Haukeland. Nervous breakdown.’

She sighed. ‘Well … what are you planning to do with him?’

‘We were going to take him to Haukedalen. To one of the
emergency
rooms there.’

‘Sounds wise. But do pop by here first. How soon could you be here?’

‘Barring anything unforeseen cropping up … in a half an hour’s time?’

‘That’s great. I’ll be waiting. I don’t have any more patients today, so that’s fine.’

We finished the conversation and I passed back the phone to the officer in the car, who switched it off for me. Then I returned to the house. In the hallway I stopped by a slender bureau. On top was a framed photograph. It was a family picture of three people. I recognised Jan in the middle. The other two must have been his parents. Svein Skarnes looked older than I had assumed. He was almost bald with a narrow, slightly distant face. His wife had dark hair and a nice, regular smile, an everyday beauty, the type you see six to a dozen. Jan looked a little helpless sitting between them, with an expression of pent-up defiance on his face.

In the living room the situation had not changed. Cecilie had taken a seat on the sofa with Jan. Now she had the transformer and the train ran in fits and starts; she wasn’t used to this kind of activity. The policewoman stood to the side with a pained air.

‘All done,’ I said. ‘We can go to Marianne’s right away.’

‘And she is?’ asked Tora Persen.

‘A psychologist we consult whenever necessary. Marianne Stortvedt.’

‘I suppose we ought to check with Inspector Muus first. To make sure it’s alright that we’re taking him, I mean.’

‘Of course.’

She disappeared.

I looked at Jan. Six years old. I had a boy of two and a half, Thomas, living with his mother now, after things had gone wrong for Beate and me six months ago. For the moment we were separated, but the outcome of the waiting period was a foregone conclusion. I had tried to change her mind, but she had given me a look of despair and said: ‘I don’t think you understand what’s behind this, Varg. I don’t think you understand anything.’ And she was right. I didn’t understand at all.