The Writing on the Wall (15 page)

ONCE BACK IN THE OFFICE
, I tried to call Evy Berge again. But she was in a meeting, they said, for the rest of the day.

I made a note to remind myself to try and call her at home a little later.

My answerphone was in hibernation. No one had tried to call me, not even to record some melodious funeral music.

I opened the drawer containing the homemade death notice. Again I turned the envelope over and looked at the back as though the sender’s name had been written in invisible ink and might only become legible a day or two later.

The postmark was Bergen and the date February 17th. If I took it along to the police station and asked them to put it under the microscope, they might find some prints on it: mine, the
postman
’s and those of the person or persons who had handled the letter in the postal service. Whether they would also find a further, hitherto unknown, fingerprint I was not at all sure.

With a shrug I put the letter back in the desk.

The bottle was in the drawer below.

I took it out, unscrewed the cork, held the neck of the bottle to my nose and breathed in that incomparable smell of aniseed and caraway.

I couldn’t resist the temptation but stood up, went over to the sink to fetch the beaker, came back and poured myself a couple of fingers of aquavit, the water of life.

– Does the condemned prisoner have a last wish?

– One last glass, Mr Executioner. Granted. (Glugglug)

– I raise my glass to all who are still alive here on earth; I raise my glass to the children whose lives are before them and to the adults who have stuck it out so long. I raise my glass to priests and firemen, presidents and plumbers; to all those who –’

– It was supposed to be a glass, not a lecture.

– Oh, I’m sorry… (Glugglug)

The rest is cunning. Blessed are the simple, for on earth they are fleeced. Victorious are the unscrupulous.

I banged my glass down on the desk. As hard as Sidsel
Skagestøl
had slammed the door to the rest of her life on me. As hard as someone had torn their daughter from the soil she had been planted in and hung her up like a hunting trophy, somewhere on the dark side of a star where you can search for her till kingdom come and never find her. As hard as they stamp a misdirected letter:
Return to sender.
Address unknown
.

I talked to Karin on the phone.

‘Got anything lined up for this evening?’ she asked.

‘Have to go to a demo at eleven o’clock – people who use
prostitutes
.’ As she didn’t immediately say anything, I added: ‘A
demonstration
against them, of course …’

‘I got that.’

‘I’m meeting a lady who probably has some information on the case I’m – well, doing some background work on at the moment … Want to come?’

‘Do you mean it?’

‘You know I don’t like involving you in the practical side of the way I earn my living, but … They might find it easier to talk to me if you were there.’

‘Shall we have dinner first, then?’

I pushed my glass away firmly. ‘Sure. When can I meet you?’

We fixed a time.

Before I left the office Sigrun Søvik rang. Her voice was hesitant and nervous, as if she was not sure she was doing the right thing.

‘If you’re trying to recruit me into the Scouts, you’re a bit late,’ I said, trying to strike a lighter note.

It fell flat. In a hollow voice she said: ‘It’s about the two girls.’

‘Oh? Torild and Asa?’

‘Yes, it’s something I thought of that perhaps – that you ought perhaps to know, but I don’t want to rub salt into the wounds … of the family, I mean, so …’

‘Do you want to tell me now over the phone, or – ?’

‘Could we meet tomorrow sometime, over a cup of coffee?’ she said quickly.

‘Sure, why not?’

We agreed a time and place, she hung up, and I made a note of the details.

Be prepared
: wasn’t that their motto? But for what? Maybe that was the question.
To be or not to be – prepared?

I shook off these speculations and carefully locked the door as I left for dinner with my lady friend from the Population Register Department.

THE EAST SIDE OF NORDNES
is not exactly the warmest place you can spend a Monday evening in what is already a chilly February.

A handful of demonstrators had gathered on
Sunnhordlandskes
Quay and were huddled close together, as if guarding their banner, but probably just trying to keep warm.

They viewed us with suspicion to begin with. But when they saw we were walking hand-in-hand, and as there were also a few people I was on nodding terms with from my Child Welfare days, they became friendlier and admitted us to the circle.

The banners they were carrying bore such obvious slogans as:
NO TO PORN! RECLAIM THE NIGHT!, END SEX AND BODY TRADE – ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
and
PORN = THEORY – RAPE = PRACTICE.

A couple of girls with spiky punk hair and rings in their noses and various other places were holding banners with the much more eye-catching slogan,
FREE BLOWJOBS!
, which no one appeared to take offence at.

There were very few men. I counted three besides myself. One of them looked a bit like a hired bodyguard. The other two looked as if they’d been tamed in the early seventies and were only allowed out alone on very special occasions.

The women covered the whole spectrum. Some would not have had so much as a finger laid on them even if they’d turned up stark naked at a Hell’s Angels midnight mass in deepest Norway. Others would have been lucky to get away from a morning meeting of the Priests’ Association without being groped. The ages ranged from secondary school kids to grandmothers. Yet all of them stood out by their burning commitment to the cause of their sex, with an absence of make-up bordering on self-effacement.

In the cold north wind they shook clenched fists at the
occasional
cars driving down C Sundts Street, heart of the red light district, that Monday evening, chanting ‘
No
to whoremongers!
No
to the sale of women’s bodies!
No
to whoremongers!
No
to the sale of women’s bodies!’

Evy Berge turned out to be a large woman, an inch or two taller than me, with broad, almost Slavic features and short-cropped fair hair. She was in her late thirties, and the look she directed at me was steely blue, with a hint of violet.

‘Laila Mongstad suggested I should contact you. I’ve tried to get hold of you all day.’

‘We’re terribly short-staffed in our department. There’s never a break.’ She nodded at Karin as though they were fellow
conspirators
. ‘The lot of women’s professions, right?’

Karin nodded. ‘You can say that again.’

‘I know you can. Just take a look around you! Who’s under ever-growing pressure with ever-shrinking budgets? Nurses, teachers, postal workers –’

‘The police,’ I interjected.

‘OK, but that’s the only one! And who do you think it is who spends Monday evenings driving about in cars rounding up prostitutes?’

‘Nurses, teachers and postal workers?!’ I said.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Karin started to say.

‘Directors …’

‘It’s just the way he –’

‘Shop managers and heads of departments …’

‘– talks.’

‘Chief surgeons and politicians.
Male
…’

I nodded. ‘I know.’

‘In other words, the power apparatus! The people who occupy positions of power in society at large also have to be in a position of power when they buy sex too. They have to feel secure and feel they’re on top, literally, so they won’t be challenged just where they feel most vulnerable, if you get my drift.’

‘You speak with exemplary clarity. No room for
misunderstanding
there. That’s exactly why I need to talk to you.’

She glanced round. ‘Here? Now?’

‘There’s not much going on, is there? It’ll pass the time.’

‘OK, I suppose so.’ She shrugged her shoulders, and we went a few yards away from the others, like a little breakaway group of three who perhaps didn’t do it for nothing, after all.

‘What is it you’re after, actually?’

‘To come straight to the point: I’ve worked in Child Welfare, and I’ve also been a private investigator for nearly twenty years now. So I have a fair idea of the traditional profile of
prostitution
in this city. But I’ve just been working on a case that has updated it again … The girl who was found murdered up on Fanafjell …’

She nodded. ‘I see.’

‘So I’m trying to find out whether there are any new elements in this business, new places where people meet and violins are not exactly playing, yet somebody rakes in money from it. For example, I’ve come across a place called Jimmy’s …’

‘The amusement arcade?’

‘Yes. And Laila Mongstad is looking into it as the basis of a major newspaper report.’

She smiled. ‘Great! Brilliant!’ She lowered her voice. ‘Of course, we don’t find out much ourselves on our own. But people contact us, some of the prostitutes themselves, actually.’

‘So, what’s the market like at the moment?’

‘Well, you obviously know why we’re out here this particular evening, don’t you?’

I nodded. ‘It’s common knowledge. The street prostitution of the fifties that has now moved over here from Strandkaien. The girls from Ole Bulls Plass who have now moved over here.’

‘Up to a point, yes. What’s new, of course, is the recruitment from among drug addicts, often really young girls, operating in completely new places. The area round the central station, for instance, and sometimes in the middle of Torgalmenningen Square, in summer at least.’

‘The school holidays?’

‘A tough time for a lot of kids.’

A van with a large company name emblazoned on the side drove slowly past the group, whose numbers had now swelled to about thirty. The driver leaned over and aggressively gave us two fingers.

The voices rose in a slow, ragged chant: ‘
Kerb
crawlers!
Kerb
crawlers!’

He put his foot down, sending out a cloud of exhaust fumes from his rusty rear end, screeched his back tyres and vanished in the direction of the next block without so much as a backward glance.

‘That’s the crudest form of prostitution, of course – and the most visible one. Folk who take an hour longer to get home from work, or just “pop out for a little drive” while the kids watch
Children
’s TV.’

‘As early as
that
?’ asked Karin, surprised.

‘Oh yes. Business is brisk on the girlie market at that time in the evening, dear,’ said Evy Berge. ‘A quick drive out to
Tollbodkaien
and the car parks round there, the quick relief of a hand-job,’ she made a few telling gestures ‘or …’ she raised her hand to her mouth, ‘maybe even a quick one in the back seat, if they really want to push the boat out.’ She pulled a disgusted face as she looked at me. ‘Men!’

‘Not all of them,’ I said.

‘Course not, sweetheart. Not all of them!’

Karin looked as though she was about to say something, but I beat her to it. ‘OK, but the girls who are hired in other places often end up in a hotel room, right?’

She looked suddenly tired. Then she held her hand out and, in the teacherly style that was no doubt typical of her, counted on her fingers. ‘There are the following main types of prostitution in

this city.
One
: The sort that goes on out here.
Two
: The sort that operates through contact ads in newspapers, magazines and
Internet
chat rooms. For example:
Shapely blonde, 24, seeks well-to-do gentleman for morning meeting. Complete discretion required and guaranteed.
They’re girls who live alone, have beautifully
furnished
flats and finance their studies or leisure activities by
prostitution
. These are the ones who appear in newspaper interviews where they claim they have a professional attitude towards what they do, that they do it of their own free will and have no scruples about it. They are, as they see themselves, the good Samaritans of other people’s love lives, and are going to retire early too.’

‘Perhaps they’re just that.’

‘And perhaps we live in a depraved society! A society in which everything is for sale, including love.’

‘We’re talking about what some people call the oldest profession in the world, aren’t we?’

‘Men are older, if you ask me, and a rotten bunch they are too!’

‘Yes, I suppose so, if you’re a fundamentalist as regards the story of creation.’

She overlooked this observation and continued with her list. ‘
Three
: Hotel prostitution. This is the hardest one to stamp out. Who can tell the difference between acquaintanceships that are
really
struck up on the dance floor or in a hotel bar and those that are just part of supply and demand? Who can really control what goes on in hotel rooms at night without resorting to closed circuit TV in every corner?’

‘No, that’s true.’  

And lastly,
four
: What shall we call it? Institutionalised
prostitution
– the one that’s concealed behind other forms of economic activity. The much-discussed massage parlours, of which there are some examples here too. They change addresses about once every six months, but it’s the same people who run them, and the same people who’re behind them, putting up the money. I can give you the addresses of at least two regular brothels in town.’

‘But what about the pimps in all this? This is something the police could deal with.’

She looked at Karin as she replied. ‘I can guarantee that, in nearly all cases, men are behind it or at least are pulling the strings. The girls in this district all have their so-called protectors. And if they haven’t, they soon get one. If not, they’re hounded out. Simple as that.’ After a short pause she added: ‘The worst thing is that they almost all need it. Some of their clients are real swine, and in that case it can pay to have somebody nearby to call on for help.’

‘Oh my God!’ said Karin with feeling.

‘Some of the ones who operate from hotels also have their – backers. Sometimes just the owners of the hotels.’

I raised my hand. ‘Oh? Anyone who’s making a name for himself on that score just now?’

‘Remember the Week End Hotel?’

‘The one now called Pastel.’

‘It had been quite decent for a few years under the new owners. But last year the hotel was sold again, and now … Now it’s back to its old ways again. All that’s new is the name – and the bartender.’

‘The bartender?’

‘One of our taxi driver contacts tells us that a popular phone number at the moment is a direct line to the bar at the Pastel. You just have to remember to ask for Robert.’

‘Robert, I’ll remember that! You can count on it …’

Suddenly everything fell silent round us. Evy Berge looked up. She sniffed the air with her nostrils like an animal trying to catch the scent. ‘Talk of cockroaches, and they crawl out from under your boots! There’s just the sort I mean.’

I followed her eyes. Karin immediately took a few steps back, and I felt her hand grip my arm.

Two chaps came shuffling across the street. One of them had his hair in kiss curls I’d hardly seen since the fifties. The white shirt, the pale blue jeans and the black shoes protruding from beneath the long black wool overcoat placed him firmly in the same decade. He was heavy and powerfully built, not the type that spends the whole morning exercising at the fitness centre so he can beat the hell out of you: rather the type who lifts his belly up and drops it on your head, which is just as effective. The other seemed older in a way. He was smaller and walked more stiffly, with a slight limp as though he had once injured himself. His face was slightly podgy and he had a white goatee. His blue knitted cap was pulled well down, and the collar of his check lumber jacket turned up as though he didn’t really want to be seen.

The demonstrators closed ranks, their faces showing anxiety, irritation and sheer anger. The largest man in the group had moved to the front, seconded by one of the trusties and a couple of new arrivals who looked like students. Evy Berge shouldered her way to the front too.

I was following in her wake when Karin held me back. ‘Hang on, Varg, it might be …’

‘I’ve been out on a February evening before, love.’

‘Just wait and see what happens.’

‘OK.’

The big chap in the winter overcoat spoke with a surprisingly educated Bergen accent, as if he’d been conceived under a
rhododendron
bush in Kalfaret, the city’s poshest district. ‘May I ask if you have police authorisation for this demonstration?’

Evy Berge took a letter from her pocket and waved it under his nose. ‘Stamped and signed! See here!’

His eyes flashed with anger as he looked at her. ‘And how long were you lot planning on keeping us residents awake?’

‘Keeping us awake. Get him!’ piped up a voice from somewhere a good way back in the group, setting off a ripple of ironic laughter through the others.

‘We’ve got permission to carry on till midnight,’ said Evy Berge.

‘Why don’t you just go home and watch a porn film?’ called out one of the girls who claimed to give free blowjobs.

The man stood on his toes and looked over the heads of the people at the front. ‘Who said that?’

The girl stood on tiptoe herself. ‘Me.’

He glanced from her to her banner. ‘Is that an offer?’

‘Just come here, and I’ll bite it right off!’

He started to push his way towards the back. ‘Come here you little cuntlicker, I’ll show you …’

The man who looked like a hired bodyguard barred his way. ‘Let’s just take it easy, now.’

‘And what the fuck are you? A eunuch?’

‘An off-duty bailiff, if it’s all the same to you.’

The two men stood there glowering at each other. They were the same size and looked as though both knew a thing or two. I was itching to give somebody a piece of my mind too. Karin gripped my arm even more tightly.