‘Not as a foster child. Not without being mentioned in a will. He might have been, though, of course. Then, on the other hand… if he’s convicted of killing them, I’m afraid it will be declared invalid. In any case, legal proceedings are bound to be instituted.’
‘By whom?’
‘Well, that’s it. Klaus Libakk and Klara Almelid were brother and sister.’
‘Yes, that’s right. Silje called him Uncle Klaus.’
‘Yes.’
‘She called him an old pig, too. Did I ask you about that?’
The food arrived on the table and he waited until the waiter had gone before answering. ‘Yes, I heard from Jens that there had been some such suggestion. But it seems quite improbable to me. Did she say straight out that he’d tried it on her?’
‘Tried it on her or had his way. The whole thing is extremely unclear. She definitely called him an old pig.’
‘Hmm.’ He ate.
‘Now you know yourself from all your years in social services that this type of thing tends to happen behind very closed doors, Hans. Behind the most decorative Christian facades unmentionable things can happen with small children and young people.’
‘Mm, yes, yes.’ He swallowed and stretched a hand out for a glass of water. ‘I’ll buy that. But then it’s often with a member of the family. Silje, after all, came from a different farm, which immediately made it a riskier venture.’
‘But she was, well, if she wasn’t his niece by family, then in a way she was. He’d known her from the time she was small. She visited their farm, was with them in the cowshed, that sort of thing. Trusted them. Trusted him, in this case.’
‘So you don’t hold Kari liable, I take it?’ he said sarcastically.
‘I…’
‘She was killed too, you know. What about…?’ He sent me an inquisitorial look. ‘If we’re letting our imaginations run wild, I mean.’
‘Yes? It’s not at all unusual for the partner to know but to keep quiet, not to intervene, thus making themselves an accessory to the crime. We’ve experienced that several times, haven’t we.’
He shook his head in disbelief.
‘You don’t believe this, I can see.’
‘Not for one second, Varg.’
‘So who do you think did it?’
A sad look crossed his face. ‘I wish there were another explanation. That there were some tramps who happened by this farm. I mean… That sort of thing goes on all the time. But generally with people older than Klaus and Kari. On the other hand… it took place at night, didn’t it? Burglars? I don’t know.’
‘That’s what Jan Egil claims.’
‘However,’ he said with emphasis. ‘I’m afraid that isn’t good enough. I’m afraid the whole business is the way it appears. That it was Jan Egil who did it. But the motive… Look, it may have something to do with Silje, if we assume that your speculation in this regard is correct. It’s difficult to see any other motive, though.’
‘In other words, that he killed Klaus and Kari because of what Klaus might have done to Silje?’
He stared down at his plate with an expression that suggested that all of a sudden he had lost his appetite. ‘Something like that.’
I drained the last dregs of wine. ‘But… back to the inheritance. Klara is the nearest heir then?’
He peered up. ‘Yes, that’s not beyond the realms of possibility. There was another brother, but he died young. Lost at sea while herring fishing one year.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘So perhaps we should jog the sergeant’s memory. Tell him to have a chat with Klara, too?’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time someone has killed to gain benefits from the will, anyway.’
‘But I doubt with such brutality, eh? Klara Almelid with a smoking rifle, standing like Calamity Jane over the body of her brother and sister-in-law? I can’t exactly see that… Besides Kari must have some family, I would assume.’
‘Yes, of course. Well, I think I’m going to have a coffee with a little something in the bar. See you there?’
‘Maybe. Have to see.’
I went into the bar. The number of press people was much reduced from the evening before, probably because the case in the eyes of most was so clear cut that it no longer held their attention.
I ordered the same as the previous evening, coffee and Line aquavit, and found myself an unoccupied table. I had hardly sat down when I noticed the Bergensian from the day before, still as drunk and with his eyes fixed on the base of my neck, as if imagining a tie he could grab onto so as to steady himself. He floated across the room, stood swaying in front of my table and said: ‘Could I join you for a bit? I think we have mutual friends.’
I frowned with scepticism. ‘And who might they be?’
Without answering, he flopped down on the chair.
The bartender had followed him with a glass of beer on a tray. He placed the beer on the table and looked at me, abashed. ‘I hope he isn’t bothering you?’
‘Let’s see how things develop. As far as I can see, he must have had enough several days ago.’
‘He won’t get anything stronger than this, either,’ the bartender mumbled, pointing to the beer glass. ‘And that’s the last,’ he added, eyeing my new acquaintance with severity.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ he replied, reaching for the glass. His hair was dark, bristly, combed to make it stand up. His face bore the signs of many years of over-indulgence, and he was struggling to focus. On eventually locating me, he held out his hand and introduced himself. ‘Harald Dale,’ he said, as if that explained everything.
I shook his hand and said my own name.
‘I couldn’t help hearing what you and the others were talking about in here last night.’
‘I kind of noticed. But you said something about… mutual friends.’
‘Yes, perhaps not friends, more…’
‘More…?’
‘I heard you talking about this double murder. About Klaus Libakk and the smuggling and all that stuff.’
My ears pricked up. ‘Right. Did you know Libakk?’
He put on a foolish grin. ‘If I knew Libakk? Are you asking me if I knew Libakk? I was his contact person for Christ’s sake. The missing link…’
‘The missing link between…?’
‘Between Libakk and Skarnes, of course!’
That seared through me like an electric shock. ‘What did you just say? Not Svein Skarnes?’
‘Yes! That’s what I said.’ Again he held out his hand. ‘Harald Dale. Ex-technician for Skarnes Import. I often came here for work reasons — and others.’
The penny dropped. ‘Yes, now I remember… you even had a kind of celebration dinner here…’ I looked around. ‘Here at the hotel, wasn’t it?’
‘Yep!’ he said with a broad grin. ‘That was when I met Solfrid. She checked me out here in the bar. Well, after we’d eaten. And she and I, we certainly had mutual friends…’
‘Solfrid…?’
‘The missus. We got married two years afterwards, and I moved up here. Tveiten, her name was then.’
‘Tveiten!’
‘Yes, sister to someone called Ansgar who was killed when the whole shebang disintegrated.’
‘Right. Little Silje’s aunt in Angedalen when…’
‘Yeah, yeah. Something like that. But they don’t have any contact. Not a lot anyway. So much has happened in that family.’ He was grinning so much his loose lips were almost flapping in the air. ‘Yes, we don’t have much contact any more, either, Solfrid and I, so to speak.’
‘Well, I can almost… You’re divorced?’
‘Se-par-ated,’ he said, with difficulty. ‘Sepa… yeah. After I lost my job, there was too much… joy juice.’
‘I see. But I’d like to go back to… You mentioned Svein Skarnes. Was he involved, too? In the
