Angedalen. Halfway up, we passed a car with several passengers. For a second or two I met Grethe’s eyes through one of the side windows, it was so quick that the smiles we sent missed each other.
24
I paid for the taxi and walked to my car. The contrast with the evening before was striking. Now the abandoned Mini was the only vehicle left, like a boat that had hit a reef and no one had managed to free yet. I patted the bonnet with encouragement to tell it the waiting time was over; soon we would be on the road again.
Angedalen showed itself from a different side now that it was bathed in daylight, although it was still enshrouded by the low-lying greyish-white cloud between the mountains. The very end of the long valley had been wide and open. Here the valley narrowed between Sandfjellet and Skruklefjellet to the north, and Tindefjellet to the south, according to the map I kept in the car. The first snow of the year lay up here, white stains, that is, if it wasn’t from the previous winter which had not yet let go.
Farms lay dotted about, some of them right down at the bottom of the valley, others further up. In front of what I recognised from newspaper photos as Libakk Farm, I saw several parked cars, among them a police patrol car, and I saw two people in the forensic department’s white overalls carrying a cardboard box from the farmhouse to the car before returning. It was impossible to say which farm was called Almelid, but I assumed the farm on the slope opposite Libakk must have been Lia.
There was a strange calm hanging over the whole valley, as if everything was as it should be and nothing dramatic had happened. Nonetheless, I sensed a tension, as if nature were holding its breath before the next eruption, and I guessed I was not the only person following the activity around the police car at Libakk; inside every house in Angedalen I was sure someone was walking to the window at regular intervals to check if the car was still there.
But there was not a great deal I could do here today without upsetting the apple cart. Instead I got into my car, reversed down the slope, turned round and drove back down the straight road to Forde.
I rang Cecilie from a telephone box in Bergen. She had already had an unpleasant feeling in her bones when she read the full page spread in the papers that morning, but it still came as a shock to have her suspicions confirmed. ‘Thank you for ringing and telling me, though, Varg.’
‘But… there was one thing I was wondering if you could check on for me.’
‘Mm?’
‘Could you try and find out where Jan’s mother is staying, and how she is? I suppose someone has had the gumption to tell her.’
She hesitated for a second. ‘Mette Olsen, you mean?’
‘Yep.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘And one more thing. You don’t have Hans Haavik’s number handy, do you?’
‘Just a mo.’ I heard her flicking through a telephone book, and straight after I got the number, which I jotted down in my notebook.
‘Thanks. I’ll ring you back in an hour or so to find out if you’ve tracked her down.’
We finished the conversation and I rustled together some more coins to phone Hans Haavik. He was still at the child reception centre in Asane, but when I got through he wasn’t available. ‘He’s in Forde,’ a colleague of his told me. ‘He left as soon as he was told.’
‘Told what?’
‘I’m not sure I can say.’
‘Never mind. I know what it’s about. I’m in Forde myself. You don’t know where he’s staying, do you?’
‘He must be in one of the hotels there.’
‘OK. I’ll find him then. Bye.’
I came out of the telephone box. The low-lying cloud seemed to have advanced even closer. I was in the semi-dark in the middle of the day. It looked as if it wouldn’t be long before it rained again.
I went back to the police offices and asked if Grethe Mellingen was there. The officer behind the counter could confirm that she was, and after a little to-ing and fro-ing I was allowed inside.
Grethe got up off a chair and smiled. ‘Varg…’ She came towards me and put her arms around my neck. ‘Good to see you.’
‘You, too. How’s it going?’
She stood close to me, so close that I had problems focusing my eyes. ‘She’s being questioned now, accompanied by her solicitor.’
‘Yes, I heard someone had been appointed for her. Is she sticking to her statement?’
‘I think so.’
‘And her parents?’
‘They’re being interviewed in a different office.’
‘All systems go, I can see. Tell me… how was the night?’
‘The little that was left, you mean?’
She pulled an ironic smile. Her face was drawn and pale. She hadn’t put on any make-up, and her eyebrows looked light and blonde. Her lips were dry with narrow cracks in them, her hair still tangled after the rain.
‘Well, I was given a sofa and a rug at Almelid Farm. The sergeant insisted I stayed with her, in case of any crises. But there wasn’t anything. I dozed off for about half an hour, or that was how it felt anyway, but we had a tough job getting Silje out of bed. She refused point-blank. That was why we were so late arriving here.’
‘And her parents? How did they take it?’
‘They’re in shock, pretty much. You can imagine. As if it wasn’t bad enough hearing that Klaus Libakk and his wife had been brutally murdered, then they had to hear what Silje had said… They didn’t seem to take it in, they seemed to be in denial.’
‘But…’
‘And there’s one more thing you should know, Varg.’
‘Mm?’
‘Silje is not their daughter by birth. She’s adopted, too.’
‘What!’
‘Yes.’ She nodded several times, as if underlining what she had said.
‘So… she and Jan Egil are in the same boat, in a way.’
‘In more ways than one, I’m afraid.’
I studied her, waiting. ‘In which ways then?’
‘Her real father was killed… it must have been ten or eleven years ago. A row connected with some contraband case. Alcohol.’
A memory stirred faintly. ‘And his name was?’
‘Ansgar Tveiten.’
25
She met my gaze. ‘Does the name ring a bell?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid so. It certainly complicates the picture a bit further.’
‘Do you remember the case?’
‘No, but I was told about it, in the briefest of outlines, ten years ago.’
‘In what connection?’
‘Believe it or not, it was in fact to do with Jan Egil.’
Now her jaw was the one to drop. ‘What! Tell me…’
