the blame for finding himself in this situation at my door.
The next day the jury was ready with its verdict. Jan Egil Skarnes was found guilty on all counts of the indictment, and the judges retired to consider the sentence.
I exchanged a few words with Langeland in the corridor that day. I thanked him for his efforts and asked whether he had any opinion as to how long Jan Egil would be imprisoned. ‘Impossible to say, Veum. Anything from five to fifteen years, closer to the latter in all probability, I’m afraid.’ ‘Fifteen!’ ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ The high-flying lawyer had turned away with a downcast expression, as though this was such a terrible defeat for him personally that it was hard to bear.
Jan Egil chose not to appear when the jury announced their verdict. As the sentence was read out, he sat on his seat without raising his eyes once. Langeland bent down to him several times and spoke in a low voice, probably to explain what the often complicated legal formulations in fact meant. He was sentenced to twelve and a half years’ imprisonment, with his time on remand to be deducted. From Jan Egil’s blank face it was clear that he had not understood a word of what had been said, and when the court rose for the last time, as the panel of judges left the courtroom with a long final stare at the convicted felon, only a squeeze to his shoulder from his lawyer could rouse him from his chair.
During the trial at Gulating the case was reported comprehensively in the press with new photographs of the farm in Angedalen, artists’ impressions of what had happened in Klaus and Kari’s bedroom and anonymous-looking drawings of the accused. It was only when the High Court had taken its decision and stipulated the final sentence, in line with the previous court’s decision, that the convicted person was named in the media. In the wake of the judgement there was a great deal of discussion in the papers; many commentators considered the punishment much too mild, yet more evidence of the lenience with which today’s legal system treated serious lawbreakers.
Jens Langeland wrote a letter countering this, in which he stressed the tender age of the accused and the fact that in many people’s eyes, including his own, there was still substantial doubt about what had actually happened in Angedalen during that fateful night between the Sunday and the Monday of the penultimate week in October last year. Are we so sure that the guilty party or parties is not still walking around free? the letter concluded, sowing another dose of disquiet in my head; a disquiet which had never been extinguished, but had lain there smouldering, until it burst into flame again on that September day ten years later when Cecilie Strand phoned me at my office, asking me to meet her in Fjellveien.
45
Over all these years my thoughts had regularly returned to Jan Egil. I had never managed to reconcile myself with the claim that we had got to the bottom of the matter. A couple of times I had been on the point of ringing Jens Langeland, who I assumed was still his solicitor, but had then rejected the idea. ‘What’s the point?’ I had asked myself.
And now here she was, Cecilie, sitting on a bench in the sunshine by the sub-station in Fjellveien, looking at me through her round glasses and saying I was on his death list.
I sat looking at her. ‘Can we run through that one more time?’
She nodded. ‘By all means.’
‘Jan Egil is out?’
‘On probation. He was let out in May, after serving ten years.’
‘They waited a long time before letting him go. Were there problems?’
‘He wasn’t exactly a model prisoner. Several times he overstayed his home leave and his parole was delayed accordingly as a punishment.’
‘So, what’s he doing?’
‘Well, I suppose that’s part of the problem. The Probation and Aftercare Services found him a job, which he soon began skipping. At a car workshop. Later he had the occasional part-time job here and there, but I’m afraid it’s the same with him as most of the others who do time… The relationships they form behind locked doors pursue them on the outside, and I fear he already has contacts inside the semi-organised crime circle in Oslo.’
‘OK. Go on,’ I said with impatience.
‘He stayed in a hospice in Eiriks gate in Toyen. A kind of private social initiative, run on idealistic guidelines. In fact the person running the place is an old friend of ours, Hans Haavik.’
‘Hansie! So that’s what he did. He couldn’t quite hang up his profession, either.’
‘No, but let me get to the point. On Monday this week a man was found dead in this hospice. Killed over the weekend.’
‘Right, but what has that got to do with Jan Egil?’
‘One of the other inmates found the body and reported it to Hans, who in turn called the police. Just as a matter of routine the police officers went from room to room in the hospice, first of all to see if anyone had heard or seen anything recently. Jan Egil wasn’t in. But they found something else in his room…’ She hesitated before continuing: ‘A bloodstained baseball bat.’
‘That’s an unpleasant reminder of something I’ve heard before.’
She nodded gravely. ‘Furthermore, it was to transpire that the dead man was someone Jan Egil knew. In other words… all the signs are that he’s in a serious fix. For the moment they’re conducting internal enquiries, but it won’t be many more days before it’s in the papers.’
‘Well… alright. I’ll have to find out more. But what were you saying about a — death list?’
‘Right, death list. Perhaps it was a little drastic to call it that, but the woman he’s had a child with told me.’
‘A child! He’s had…’
‘Result of an earlier home leave. But the mother… well, they’re in care.’
‘Sounds familiar.’
‘As he was when he was a child, yes.’
‘This bloody vicious circle that is so difficult to break! This woman… is she reliable?’
‘It’s Silje.’
‘Silje! Not the same Silje who…?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Wow, she’s been loyal. I have to give her that. What did she have to say?’
‘She said Jan Egil had said several times that there were at least two people he had decided to do in. The two people who, more than anyone else, had made him into the person he was.’
‘Made him who he was! But, for Christ’s sake, I never…’
‘You were there when he was taken from his mother, weren’t you? The very first time?’
‘Yes, but I wasn’t the one who…’
‘So I suppose you’ve become a kind of symbol for the hated social services system, which once again has started to take control of his life because we were following the progress of his child with eagle eyes. Hans thought we should warn you, anyway.’
‘You said — two people.’
‘Yes. The other person was killed a couple of days ago. Clubbed with a baseball bat until he was…’ She shuddered in the sunshine. ‘Almost unrecognisable.’
‘But he was identified, I take it?’
‘Yes, he was.’
‘And who was it?’
For a moment her gaze wandered off to the fjord beneath us. Then it returned, accompanied by a determined expression around her mouth. ‘You know him, Varg.’
I could feel the alarm mounting in me. ‘Yes? Come on! Who was it? Not…?’
‘Terje Hammersten.’
