local policeman and reported her own son, and that she had suspected what had happened the moment she returned from Naustdal. Others claim she gave clear hints during the conversation with the men from Indrebo on June 24th, while others maintain that she never cast any suspicion on her son. Anyway, later that day Mads was paying for a skin he had bought from one of the Angedalen men. On the note he paid with there were some red stains. There’s blood on the note! the man from Indrebo exclaimed. Yes, Mads answered, and not long afterwards he confessed his misdeed.’
‘So easy?’
‘It was said he was a bit simple-minded, this Trodalen Mads, as he came to be called in local gossip. Others insisted that he was a hardened criminal, that he had stolen before and that people had heard him say that he would kill again, if he survived this murder.’
‘And he did?’
‘In a sense. He was over eighty before he died, but he spent many years in prison in Kristiania, the old name for Oslo. Originally he was sentenced to death, to having his back broken on the wheel, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment, and he did his term in Akershus for forty-two whole years. The reason he had to serve such a long term was that he threatened he would kill his parents when he got out again. But even after they were both dead, he was kept inside. He wasn’t released and allowed to return home until 1881. Not to Trodalen of course. He lived in Angedalen where he earned his bread by making spoons from the horns he collected from valley farms. The young ones were scared of him, but older people considered him harmless after so many years of prison drudgery.’
‘He did confess, though?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve read the court records of the time myself. He confessed to the men from Indrebo that evening, later to the sergeant and finally in open court. He had accompanied Ole Olsen part of the way with the intention of robbing him. At a suitable spot he had hit him over the head with a rock, and he had continued hitting the dealer until he lay dead in the scree.’
‘In the scree?’
‘Yes, perhaps towards the end of the lake. Afterwards he had taken his money and a few other objects of value, then had dragged him off the path and hidden him behind some rocks. The next morning he had gone back, carried him to the lake, put him in the boat and dropped him into the deep.’
‘I heard yesterday the body was never found?’
‘That’s right. And there were no bloodstains found where the murder was supposed to have taken place…’
‘In other words…’
‘Well.’ Helge Haugen studied me with a sardonic glint in his eye. ‘A matter for a private investigator perhaps? Now it is said that the bottom of Lake Trodalsvatn can be tricky. A lot of big rocks from old landslides are supposed to cover the bottom, and perhaps it wouldn’t take much for a body to be snagged down there. But it is a bit strange nonetheless. Most usually float to the surface when the body is filled with enough gas… There may have been some hungry pike down in the deep of course…’
‘But the man was sentenced anyway, I understand.’
‘It’s a historical fact. No one can change that. And I assume Jan Egil Libakk will become one too when the case has been investigated.’
‘Libakk? Did he use that surname?’
‘As far as I am aware. However, I haven’t had that confirmed. It’s just that they were his foster parents, I believe.’
I nodded, distracted. ‘Do you know anything about these people?’
‘Klaus and Kari? Nothing special, yet. I’m working on the case, if I might put it like that. That’s why, among other reasons, I came to see you.’
‘Right… I’d hardly heard their names before yesterday.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing.’ I sent him a disarming smile. ‘If you’re expecting something in return for the story about Trodalen Mads, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.’
He bent forward in a sudden movement. ‘We could make a deal, Veum.’
‘Mm?’
‘We can keep each other posted. If I dig up anything of interest regarding… circumstances in Angedalen, I’ll share it with you. And vice versa. You won’t regret it. I have lots of feelers out, in all sorts of areas.’
I nodded slowly. ‘OK. It’s a deal, on a non-committal basis. If I come across anything of interest, I’ll pass it on… and vice versa. Where can I get hold of you?’
He handed me a business card. ‘Here you’ve got my telephone numbers, home and office. But Forde is not a big place. I would guess we will bump into each other several times before the day is done. Where have you decided to start?’
‘Start? The present situation is that the sergeant has summoned me to his office to talk through what happened yesterday.’
‘Not a bad start, Veum.’ He stood up. ‘So we’ve got a deal?’
‘Kind of.’
He seemed satisfied with that. He left the dining room with a cheery goodbye. I took the last cold mouthful of coffee, then stood up and followed.
23
At the police HQ in the Red Cross building, the atmosphere was sombre with a thin veil of control. The police rooms were on the second floor, with a view of the wetland area at the back of the hotel. The area by the reception desk was swarming with reporters. An impatient photographer stood with his camera slung over his shoulder, ready to snap away if anything were to happen.
As I arrived, a uniformed policeman announced that there would be a short press conference at eleven and another in the afternoon after national KRIPOS representatives had come and been allowed to make their first assessments of the case. The press took note without much enthusiasm. Some stayed in the room, others wandered off in the direction of the nearest cafes.
I had picked up a couple of newspapers on my way from the hotel. None of the Oslo papers had come to Forde yet, but Firda Tidend, Bergens Tidende and Bergensavisen had big front page spreads on what they called the ‘Double Killing in Angedalen’. There were large photographs of the Libakk farm, deserted and abandoned with the exception of a couple of parked cars in the farmyard, and a few smaller, somewhat fuzzy shots of the police cars carrying Silje, Jan Egil and the rest of us as we passed the press ranks on our way down from Trodalen. In the press reports, the gruesome murders were portrayed in detail, based doubtless on sources within the police force. Jan Egil was described as a ‘member of the family’ who after a ‘hostage situation’ in Trodalen had given himself up to the police and for the moment was being ‘questioned’ at the local police offices in Forde. Kari and Klaus Libakk were described as ‘decent folk’ about whom no one had anything negative to say, and it was stressed that the tragedy had spread ‘unease and horror’ in the tiny rural community of Angedalen. In Firda Tidend Helge Haugen had concentrated on the Trodalen murder and I did indeed recognise several of the phrases he had entertained me with almost an hour earlier. In Bergens Tidende they had written a small parallel article about ‘murders in the fjord county’ in which they summarised the cases of Trodalen Mads, Hetle, the ‘contraband murder’ of 1973 and many others. Bergensavisen ’s coverage was coloured by the fact that they didn’t have a provincial correspondent and it was based mainly on the Norwegian News Agency’s sober account of events. There would be enough other articles to digest when the Oslo tabloids caught up, I imagined. But I was pleased that none of them had named Jan Egil so far.
I elbowed my way through the throng of press reps and reported in at the desk, where I introduced myself and said that the sergeant had summoned me to appear.
‘Really?’ The officer behind the counter looked at me in bewilderment.
‘He would certainly like to know what I had to say about the case.’
