‘Yes, it’s up in Iladalen. Right by the church.’
‘OK. I’ll find it.’
‘But what…?’
‘I only want to have a few words with her.’
‘I meant to ask you… What’s the point of this? Are you on some kind of investigation?’
‘No, this is more in the way of a preventive measure.’
‘Preventive?’
‘Yes. Didn’t you say you had a key to the room… where the murder took place?’
He looked at me, troubled. ‘Yes, I’ve got one. But theoretically it has been sealed off by the police.’
‘Properly sealed?’
‘No, just with plastic tape. But we can’t… I can’t let you do any more than stand at the doorway and peer in.’
‘It would be great just to have an impression of the room.’
‘But I still don’t understand… This is very much a police matter, Varg. There’s nothing you or I can do here.’
‘No, but you know what we’ve felt for the boy, right from the time he was Johnny boy to us.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Do you know if Jens Langeland is still his solicitor?’
‘No… I suppose he’s climbed a bit too high up the greasy pole for us mere mortals now. I guess you must have followed him in the press, too, haven’t you? The stellar barrister who goes from one momentous case to the next. Detached house on Holmenkollen ridge, chalet in the mountains, by the lake, you name it, he’s got it. Hats off to him. But you can seek an audience, if you’ve got some business to do.’
‘I might do that.’
‘Good luck.’
‘Well, shall we have a look at the flat?’
‘OK then… I’ve got the key here.’ He opened a drawer, took out a key and motioned to the door. ‘But I don’t know if I like this.’
I didn’t, either. But I went with him up the two floors to the scene of the crime.
48
On the second floor we came to a halt in front of a door closed off with police tape. But there was no seal on the lock, and when Hans bent over the plastic ribbon and inserted the key, it was just a question of turning it, pressing down the handle and pushing the door, then we had standing room at the theatre where the drama had taken place.
The door between the tiny hall and the room inside stood open, and through the doorway we could make out a spacious furnished sitting room. What caught my eye was the outline of a man on the floor, marked with white tape, and the big, dark stain on the wood where the head had been. There was a pattern of smaller spatter stains around the large one, and we could follow the trail of blood with our eyes to the hall where we were standing.
‘The murder weapon must have been dripping blood,’ Hans said. ‘That was the detective’s comment anyway.’
‘They should have every chance of finding bloodstains on his clothes too, by the look of it.’
‘Yes. He must have been literally spraying blood.’
‘Did anyone see him? Arriving at or leaving the crime scene?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘What about this Norvald Kristensen? Is it possible to grab a chat with him?’
‘If you can find him, that is. He went on the piss and hasn’t been seen since Monday.’
‘Another missing person, in other words?’
‘Norvald will turn up again, I reckon. All his things are here.’
We stood staring at the large patch of blood for a while. I didn’t even need to close my eyes to visualise the massive blows or Terje Hammersten, who had collapsed after the first of them, and then the flurry of blows that followed as he lay there, lifeless on the floor, being beaten to an unrecognisable pulp by someone who must have hated him with a vehemence it was hard to imagine.
‘Hatred — or fear,’ I said to myself.
‘What did you say?’
‘The only thing that could make someone do something like this. Hatred or fear.’
He nodded. ‘Have you seen enough now, do you think?’
‘Yes.’
I turned away while he carefully closed and locked the door without touching the tape. We walked back down in silence.
Hans accompanied me to the ground floor, stepped outside and cast a long look up and down the street before turning back to me. ‘And now your plan is to…?’
‘I’ll have to try Silje. We’re old friends, as you know.’
He looked at me sternly, then shook my hand and said: ‘Well… if there’s anything else you want to discuss with an old colleague, you’ve got my number. Good luck!’
‘Same to you,’ I said, waving goodbye and leaving.
Perhaps it was just the atmosphere of the scenario upstairs that was playing tricks on me, the unpleasant feeling of contemplating a crime scene, as if you were standing on the edge of something indefinably dark, the pull of a deep, apparently bottomless, precipice, but from the moment I left the house in Eiriks gate I had the oppressive sensation that I was being followed. I craned my neck round several times on the way from Toyen to Grunerlokka, but I didn’t see anything remotely suspicious, neither on the pavements nor in the traffic. The vague sense of unease however didn’t leave me, and straightaway it was as if the town around me was changing character from being a medium-large, not particularly impressive capital city in a country with an overblown opinion of itself to something quite different and much more dangerous which it was difficult to put a name to…
Soren Jaab?ks gate lay at the top of Ildalen and the address I had been given had an entrance right next to a humble mustard-coloured brick church with a rectangular spire. Silje Tveiten lived on the basement floor, straight through the corridor and to the right. I stood at her door listening. Inside I could hear a child crying.
I rang the bell. Immediately I heard movement, and the child’s crying came closer. After opening up, she stood there with the tiny tot in her arms. Its face was burning red, its mouth wide open, but the crying was beginning to shift into desperate sobbing, like a kind of realisation that there was no point anyway, there was no one who could provide solace and everyone was busy with their own whimpering soul.
Silje’s eyes widened and she moved to slam the door shut in my face, but I wedged a foot in the crack and stopped her.
‘What d’you want?’
‘You remember me, Silje?’
‘Course I bloody recognise you! What d’you want, I asked!’
‘Just to talk to you. About Jan Egil.’
‘You’ve done enough harm to Jan Egil and me as it is! I don’t wanna listen to you.’
‘Yes, I gather he… bears me a grudge.’
Her face hardened. ‘You can bet on that!’
‘But let me in anyway! We can’t stand here… It’s not good for your child.’ I indicated the infant with my head. It suddenly went quiet as if it were listening to what was being said.
She exploded with a small inarticulate outburst. Then she turned her back on me and retreated into the flat without a second glance. I closed the door behind me and followed.
It wasn’t a large flat, a room with a kitchenette and a sleeping niche where a curtain was half drawn. Outside the curtain was a narrow cot, almost a camping model. On the bed there was a pile of toys; it must have been used
