said we could convert the sofa into a bed when I was ready. I nodded thanks and he hurried off to university, on his bike in the wonderful autumn weather.
As soon as I was alone, I called Hans Haavik.
‘Varg! So you decided to pop over… did Cecilie contact you?’
‘Yes. Once again it’s about Jan Egil.’
‘The eternal problem child, Johnny boy.’
‘I hear you’re in the same business?’
‘Yes, but this is on a private basis now, Varg, and with no other ambition than to help with the little I can. It was tough getting over all the things that happened then, up in Sunnfjord.’
‘And it’s not finished yet, it seems.’
‘You’re referring to…’
‘Yes, the murder. Jan Egil. And it happened at your hospice, I gather?’
‘Yes, it’s terrible.’
‘Do you mind if I come round?’
‘To the hospice? Not at all. No problem.’
‘Have you got access to the room where it happened?’
‘Not in principle.’
‘In principle?’
‘Yes, no one has taken the key off me. But we can talk about that when you’re here. Have you got the address?’
‘Yes, Cecilie gave me your card.’
‘Right. Well, see you there then… at one o’clock. Is that OK?’
‘Should be alright.’
We said goodbye and rang off. I took the spare key with me and left the flat.
47
I took what I had worked out to be the shortest route to Toyen. From Ullervalsveien I went up Akersbakken to Gamle Aker church and from there down Telthusbakken with all its wooden houses. In the allotments by Maridalsveien there were some Oslo-ers of foreign extraction preparing their herb beds for winter. I crossed the River Akerselva on the footbridge by Kuba and made my way through the Grunerlokka area. At the terrace restaurant by Olaf Ryes plass the tables were packed with a motley bunch of people, some with half-full beer glasses in front of them, others with infants on their laps and a coffee cup at an arm’s length. In Hallen’s dress shop on the corner of Thorvald Meyers gate it was as if time had stood still since 1950. They displayed dresses for mature women in an interior so worthy of preservation that the Central Office for Historical Monuments must have been a regular customer there.
I crossed up to Jens Bjelkes gate and stayed in that street, passing the Grabein flats, named after their tight-fisted builder, and the Botanical Gardens. After passing Sorli plass and the sad remains after the clearance of what had once been Enerhaugen I was at my journey’s end, Eiriks gate.
The straight stretch between Jens Bjelkes gate and Akerbergveien consisted of four-storey apartment buildings painted rust-red and off-yellow, many of them embellished with exquisite details on the facade, arches over the windows and classic columns under the roof overhang. At the end of the street was the Police HQ in Gronland, like a massive barrier facing Bjorvika, with so many windows that it gave me the acute sensation that I was under surveillance. And I was not at all sure that this was a good sensation.
It was now five minutes past one. Spotting me from a black Mercedes parked on the opposite side of the street, Hans got out. He crossed and gave me a firm handshake and a broad, good-natured smile by way of a welcome. ‘Nice to see you, Varg. You haven’t bloody changed an ounce.’
‘Mm,’ I said, running my hand through my grizzled hair. ‘Nor you.’
‘Oh no? Not a bit bigger maybe?’
He might have been right. Hans had always been a well-built fellow. Now he had added a few extra kilos and was on the verge of appearing overweight. His hair was thinner, but the smile was as broad as it always had been, and the bitter purse of his lips I thought I could remember from Forde had been erased. Now there was an expression of real concern on his face as soon as the initial polite formalities had been exchanged.
‘It’s a helluva story, Varg! The boy must’ve been born under an unlucky star.’
‘Have you kept in regular touch with him? While he was inside, I mean.’
‘No, no. Not at all. But I’ve got a notice on the Salvation wall, and some time in May he suddenly showed up here to ask if I had a room for him. I think he was just as surprised as I was when he saw me in reception.’ He turned towards the house. It was one of the yellow ones, and relatively recently decorated. ‘I have a little office here on the ground floor where I administer the whole thing. Porter, bookkeeper, spiritual adviser — just like in the old days.’
I looked up at the house front. ‘But you own it?’
‘I do.’
‘You must have come into some money.’
All of a sudden he seemed almost ashamed. ‘It was the… inheritance, you know.’
‘You inherited it?’
‘No, no… My God, Varg! The damned farm in Angedalen… It turned out Kari and Klaus had left it in their will, to me of all people!’
‘To you?’
‘To me who never had the least interest in becoming a bloody farmer! I’m sure it was done to pull a flanker on her sister and husband. You remember — the people at Almelid. They were dyed-in-the-wool Christians, and Klaus was pretty much the opposite. Klara was the closest heir of course, and anyway the farm had to be run as a going concern, so… it all culminated in them buying me out. I used the money I was paid to buy this block here and a bit later a few others, from the security on this. That’s what you do in big towns.’ He grinned, but soon reverted to being serious. ‘But to be quite frank… the whole business left me with such a bad taste in my mouth that to offset it I decided… I would at least try to help someone. That was why I started this hospice, with the lowest possible rent for people being rehabilitated into society. Alcoholics on the wagon, ex-cons, drug addicts on rehab, you name it, I’ve had it. Anyway, it provides an old social worker with a sort of meaning to his existence.’
‘You could’ve done the same in Bergen?’
‘Yes, of course. But I had so much baggage there. I needed to get away. A long way away!’
‘And your definition of a long way is over the mountains to Oslo?’
‘This is far enough, anyway. I had all too many bad memories of Bergen.’
‘So do I.’
‘Then I suppose we’re different, you and me, Varg.’
I shrugged and twisted my mouth into a smile. ‘I suppose we must be…’
Before going into the building, he took a good look around. It struck me immediately that it was not just the look of concern that characterised him. It was more like a form of fear, as if he were on Jan Egil’s death list, too.
We went through the gateway. The front door was to the right. He held the door open for me, and I stepped inside. There was a smell of fresh paint. A broad staircase led up to the higher floors. On the right hand side, KONTOR had been painted on a door into what looked as if it had once been a shop, but was his office. He unlocked and led the way. We came into a small room with a desk in one corner, a sofa and chairs in the other and on the wall opposite shelves full of files, local reference books and a volume of Norwegian Law bound in red leather. On the windowsill there was a large green plant with its dusty leaves stretching towards the sunlight outside. Above the desk hung a calendar advertising a local car dealer and a collage showing a representative selection of Mercedes models from 1926 through to today.
‘You can’t live off this, can you?’ I said, flopping onto the sofa.
‘Not without a government subsidy, no. It’s the income from the other properties which finances this
