The Writing on the Wall (18 page)

THE OFFICES
of Birger Bjelland & Co. were located in the old warehouses facing the sea in Sandviken, and someone, Birger Bjelland perhaps, had forked out the cash to get them tarted up. Between the smell of seaweed and tar on one side and exhaust fumes and oil on the other, stood the whitewashed warehouse like a kind of barrier between the traffic in Sjøgaten and the gulls bobbing up and down on the water in Skuteviken.

The name of the firm was painted in large black letters on the front of the building, but the green door downstairs was locked, and there was nothing but a nameless bell and an intercom to suggest someone might conceivably say ‘Come in.’

I rang the bell.

A woman’s voice answered. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m looking for Birger Bjelland.’

‘And you are?’

‘Veum. Varg Veum.’

Silence.

After a while the intercom crackled again. ‘That’s fine. Second floor.’

The lock buzzed, and I went in.

You can never get rid of the smell of dried fish. Despite the fact that the timberwork in the ceiling looked new, that all the
internal
walls were freshly painted and the floor covering on the stairs still had no signs of wear, the odour of the warehouse’s original purpose still hung there. In a way, Birger Bjelland had chosen the right surroundings for the official side of his business
activities
. This was the smell of old Bergen’s trade links as a bridgehead between north Norway and Europe, Brønnøysund and Rostock.

Two floors up, the stairs ended in a door belonging to quite a different period. Its rough surface stained a mahogany colour and the gilt nameplate bearing the words BIRGER BJELLA ND & CO. engraved in black might have been the entrance to any agent’s in the mid-sixties.

I opened the door and entered a sort of antechamber, low-ceilinged and with dim lighting everywhere, except above the diminutive desk where a strong fluorescent light pinpointed the woman I had spoken to on the intercom. She was in her early sixties and so neat and trim that she might easily have been a bookkeeper for the Salvation Army, and no one would ever have dreamt of putting a hand either on her or in the till.

The look she gave me was the sort she reserved for someone who owed money, and she nodded towards the next door. ‘You can go straight in. He’s expecting you.’

I knocked all the same and waited for a few seconds before opening the door.

Birger Bjelland’s office looked out over Byfjorden. The old warehouse was so positioned that, if he opened the window, he could cast a line and catch a bite for supper, unless he objected to the high mercury content, of course.

Now he sat behind his desk with one hand concealed beneath it like some arch villain in a James Bond film waiting to press the concealed button that opens the trapdoor and propels the
unwelcome
guest straight down to the alligators in the basement.

He was not alone. Over by a window, as though he’d actually just been admiring the view, stood one of the hunks Bjelland practically always had in tow. In other contexts they would have been called bodyguards. Not without a certain self-irony,
Bjelland
called them his ‘office managers’. At any rate, this specimen looked as though he’d opened more bottles of anabolic steroids than account books in his time.

Birger Bjelland himself looked slightly like a fish out of water. His small mouth was half-open, and his strikingly pale eyes had an expressionless glassy look. He had a neat little moustache, mousy hair with a high hairline and something I assumed was a wig on top. Even though he was quite slim, there was something rounded and streamlined about him, which betrayed the fact that he was probably more at home in the backseat of a taxi than on an exercise bike.

His refined Stavanger preacher’s voice had come back to haunt me in some of my worst nightmares since the first time I’d heard it almost six years before. I’d met him face-to-face in Travparken one day last October when we’d had a few choice exchanges. The next time I met him I’d have been happier to feel I had the upper hand.

‘Take a seat, Veum,’ said Birger Bjelland, pointing with his empty hand to the large scarlet leather chair that towered throne-like on the client’s side of the desk.

As I was sitting down, I glanced over at his office manager. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘No, no. Fred and I were just sitting here chatting. It’s nearly time to be going home.’

Fred
… I felt my palms moisten with sweat.

The man he referred to as Fred had the same type of
moustache
as his boss, although his hair was shaven right down to the scalp, and his nose looked as though someone had head-butted it a few times. When I met his eyes this time, it was with a sense of mutual understanding that we both knew where we stood, but that I would never be able to produce any evidence as to who it was who’d paid me a visit in my office the time they’d filled me half full of drink when my system was already awash with Antabuse, and all I could recall afterwards was the tone of Birger Bjelland’s accent and the name of his companion:
Fred
.

I looked demonstratively at the clock. ‘Yes, I have an
appointment
too … at five o’clock.’

Birger Bjelland gave me a look of sour anticipation. ‘No need to spin it out, then, eh?’

‘No.’ I tried to lean back in the chair as though I’d only dropped in for a casual chat. ‘I’ve been told,’ I began, ‘that you’re the owner of an amusement arcade in the centre of town called Jimmy’s …’

He threw up his hands. ‘That’s no secret, Veum.’

‘Do you know what goes on there, I wonder?’

He leaned slightly forward. ‘No-o. What did you have in mind?’

‘Well, both myself – and others – have noticed that young girls are recruited for certain assignments … you can guess the sort I’m talking about … at certain hotels in the vicinity. And that they’re recruited at Jimmy’s.’

‘And how is this supposed to happen?’

‘Apparently by phoning the manager – Kalle Persen,’ I added to show how well informed I was.

Birger Bjelland clenched his fingers and looked disinterestedly at his nails. ‘No comment, Veum. How my staff run the
establishments
I have a stake in doesn’t concern me in principle, provided they don’t make a loss.’

‘You’ve also bought the former Week End Hotel, haven’t you?’

‘No reason to deny it. In any case, it was in the papers.’

‘The same type of thing goes on there too, centred on the bar and with the hotel rooms even more readily to hand, I imagine.’

He frowned as though something had just occurred to him.

‘So you’re not bothered what sort of reputation your hotels have either, are you?’

‘Reputations can take many different forms, Veum.’

‘Precisely. Was Judge Brandt one of the clients, I wonder?’

‘I do business with so many people,’ he said neutrally, ‘but that particular name is one I can’t say I …’

‘No? You must surely have read the articles in the papers about that girl who was found dead, up on Fanafjell … Torild Skagestøl. Does the name mean anything to you?’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘Well, no. Perhaps not the name itself, but as an item of revenue in your accounts?’

‘You’ll have to talk to –’

‘Your accountant perhaps?’ I glanced quickly at Fred.

‘Yes, he’s a man of many parts.’

‘I’m sure he is. Helge Hagavik was a regular at Jimmy’s. Do you remember him?’

With the patience of a saint Birger Bjelland replied: ‘I so rarely visit the places I own, Veum, and when I do, it’s always to talk to the staff, rarely to any of the customers. What are your sources for all these assertions?’

‘Press contacts – and representatives of a Women’s Lib group called Ottar, although why I’m not exactly sure.’

He puckered his mouth as though there was a nasty smell under his nose. ‘Women’s Libbers?’

‘Something like that.’

‘They’re the worst of the lot, Veum. They paint the devil on a chapel wall if the spirit moves them.’

‘For absolutely no reason?’

‘For absolutely no reason, Veum!’

I hesitated a moment. Then I said: ‘Tell me, something I’ve always wondered about, what’s the main activity of this company of yours, Bjelland?’

He scarcely raised his eyelids. ‘Finance, investments of one kind and another, and loans of all types and sizes … You’re not after a small loan yourself, are you? Interest rates are low just now …’

‘One kneecap instead of two?’

‘That wasn’t funny, Veum. We run a completely legal business, within the precise limits laid down by the law. Our accounts are impeccable, can’t be faulted and our relations with the tax
authorities
couldn’t be more cordial.’ As though it was the New
Jerusalem
he was welcoming me to, he threw up his arms and said in an unctuous, sermonising voice: ‘I’m the whitest lamb on God’s earth, Veum. There isn’t a stain on my reputation. My businesses are run on the highest moral principles.’

‘Amen. Hallelujah,’ I said.

‘Don’t be blasphemous,’ said Birger Bjelland with a rather dopey smile.

I half stood up. ‘So how come your name constantly pops up in connection with all kinds of unsavoury business? How come nine out of ten investments you put your money in are connected with prostitution and illegal sales of alcohol, gambling and other fine arts? How do you explain that?’

‘Can you show me the way to Sodom and Gomorrah, Veum?’

I glanced round. ‘I thought that’s where we were.’

‘The ways of the Lord are inscrutable.’

‘And which Sunday school did you go to? Agnostics Anonymous?’

He raised his hand indolently. ‘Veum, let me give you a word of friendly advice.’

‘Please do,’ I muttered.

‘Don’t push your luck, old boy. Don’t think that you’re somehow untouchable. There’s nothing sadder than watching good wine turn bad, as it were.’

‘Thus spake the wife of Canaan, too.’

He sighed audibly, looked over at Fred and said: ‘Mrs Helgesen’s almost certainly gone home by now. Can you see Veum out, right out?’

I stood up and walked towards the door.

‘And don’t forget what I said,’ he directed at my back.

Fred already had his hand on the doorknob when I turned back towards Birger Bjelland. ‘Don’t forget to watch your back too. Be careful, little foot, where you step. Didn’t they teach you
that
hymn at Sunday School as well?’

He made no effort to answer; merely smiled that indolent smile of his, which made me think of a shark waiting to attack.

Fred accompanied me out. Right out. And didn’t even say ‘
Au revoir
.’

I CALLED KARIN
well before five o’clock and assured her that everything was all right. There was nobody behind me in the
telephone
booth pointing a sawn-off shotgun at my head, and no one had invited me to go for a drive I couldn’t refuse.

‘Are you coming up here?’

‘There’s still something I have to do. But if the offer can remain open till about midnight, then …’

‘But no later than that,’ she said, in a resigned tone.

‘Absolutely no later,’ I said.

♦

The Pastel Hotel stuck out from the other buildings in the block like a front tooth painted pink.

The Week End Hotel had been one of those anonymous bed and breakfast hotels with a bar, dancing in the evening and a rear courtyard I had the most unpleasant memories of. The new owners had stripped off all the previous ornamental façade, not that anything had been lost by doing so. On the other hand, they had painted it in a nondescript pale pink colour that fitted the new name like a glove.

It was nearly half-past seven when, fresh from the shower and wearing a casually knotted Tuesday tie, I walked through
reception
into the bar, where there were not many other people besides a couple of middle-aged men and a not quite so middle-aged lady.

I ambled up to the bar counter, hoisted myself onto one of the stools and ordered a Clausthaler and aquavit. ‘Riding the lame horse today, are we?’ said the bartender with a crooked smile.

I took a quick look at him. The moustache was apparently the club emblem, even if it looked a bit pricklier than Birger Bjelland’s.

‘Are you Robert?’ I asked when he came back.

He put down the schnapps glass, poured the alcohol-free lager directly into another glass before placing it beside the first, took a cloth and wiped away an invisible spot from the bar counter between us. ‘Who’s asking?’

I pushed the money over to him. ‘Wilhelmsen.’

He looked at the money as though it was counterfeit. ‘And why?’

‘Your name was recommended …’

He looked at me suspiciously.

‘As somebody who could tell me where to find some decent entertainment on an evening off.’

‘Stripping and stuff? You’ll have to go somewhere else for that.’

‘What I was thinking of was … more private entertainment, to put it that way.’

He looked at me with contempt. ‘I know you’re not the law, and your name’s not Wilhelmsen. What the hell are you, then?
Journalist
? Social worker? From the Church Relief Fund?’

I turned partway round and looked out over the room. ‘Keep your voice down, Robert. My wife doesn’t know I’m here.’

He walked a few yards away, fetched a couple of glasses and started to wash them demonstratively.

I raised my voice. ‘Bit quiet here tonight, isn’t it?’

He didn’t reply.

‘It quietens down in the evenings, eh?’

He moved back in my direction. ‘Look, Wilhelmsen or
whatever
your name is, drink up what you’ve paid for and go stick your fillings in somewhere else, OK?’

‘Loud and clear. Message received. Over and out.’

A woman in her late thirties came into the room, cast an expert eye around her, decided there wasn’t much choice and therefore placed herself strategically two stools away from where I was sitting.

With a wave to the bartender, she ordered
the usual
.

I caught her eye in the mirror above the bar, and she didn’t look away, as keen not to let go as a child clutching treasured marbles.

The bartender came over with
the usual
, which appeared to be just whisky on the rocks. As he placed the glass in front of her, he said something I didn’t catch, and after a suitable pause, she cast another, seemingly casual, glance in my direction.

‘Your good health!’ I said, raising my glass of aquavit to her. After returning my gesture, she got down from the bar stool and came over to me. ‘Lonely?’

‘I wouldn’t say no to a bit of company.’ I nodded towards a table with a few chairs some distance from the bar counter. ‘Shall we sit over there, where it’s more comfortable?’

The bartender’s eyes followed us as we walked across the floor.

There was silence for a moment, as we both tried to decide where the situation was heading. She was wearing a little black evening dress that looked slightly crumpled, perhaps from
previous
visits. Her face was thin, her hair dyed blonde, and close to, I definitely put her at nearer forty. The phone in the bar rang. The bartender answered it and turned his back to us. ‘Did he say
anything
about me?’ I asked.

She smiled faintly. ‘That I should watch my step with you. That he thought you were the law. Are you?’

I shook my head slowly. ‘No.’

‘Not that it matters, if you’re here off-duty, I’ve – met lots of nice policemen here in town.’

‘I’m sure you have.’

The bartender turned and glanced in our direction, the phone still in his hand. It looked to me as if he was trying to describe my appearance, which gave me an unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach.

‘So what do you do?’

‘I’m in insurance,’ I said, which was not a lie in fact. At some times in the year I was. ‘And you?’

She sipped her drink. ‘I started out as a guide, at the Old Bergen Hotel among other places. But recently I’ve moved into – escort services and things like that.’

I looked at her askance. ‘Escort services and – things like that?’

‘Mm,’ she said brightly.

The bartender hung up, but a few seconds later the phone rang again. He answered, listened and surveyed the room. Then he covered the receiver with his hand, looked straight at me and said: ‘Veum? Somebody asking to speak to you.’

‘I … You obviously didn’t hear … The name’s Wilhelmsen! It must be for somebody else …’

The bartender met my eyes, gave a crooked smile, said
something
else into the telephone and hung up.

She looked at me. ‘What else are you called besides Wilhelmsen?’

‘Svein Vegard. What about you?’

‘My friends call me Molly.’

‘Oh really? I’ve heard about you.’

She suddenly looked alarmed. ‘Oh?’

‘
Good golly, Miss Molly
,’ I hummed. ‘
Sure likes to ball
. Isn’t that how it goes?’

‘And would
you
like to dance?’ she asked, glancing at the tiny dance floor.

‘I scarcely think we’ll be bumping into anybody,’ I said, getting up.

She clasped me tight, her belly pushed forward and with no visible shyness in the way she moved. I could feel the contours of her body more clearly now. Her shoulder blades were like the stumps of severed wings, and there wasn’t much flight in her thin upper arms either.

The music came from somewhere in the ceiling, dance muzak where it was the rhythm that counted, not precision.

‘What branch of insurance are you in, Svein?’

‘I work for myself. Often it’s car collisions. And sometimes life as well.’

‘So, are you a sort of freelancer too?’

‘You could say that. Do you come here a lot?’

She looked around. ‘Yes. It’s usually quite nice here, a bit later in the evening. Good service.’

‘What sort of age group usually comes here, then?’

‘A bit older than the usual rowdy discos. And not quite as sophisticated as in most large hotels. It’s just right for me, actually. Sort of an in-between atmosphere, if you see what I mean.’

‘No young girls then?’

She stepped back a few inches and stared up at my face. ‘Is that what you’re looking for?’

‘No, no. I was just –’

‘Or
are
you working?’

I muttered something that was supposed to sound like a denial and pulled her closer.

For a while we danced in silence. It seemed as though she’d calmed down again. Her hair was tickling my cheek, and her breathing was gentle and close to my neck. Then as though by accident one of her hands placed itself on my neck, where she gently began to caress me with her long cool fingers.

‘If you like …’ she said softly.

‘What?’

‘There’s a room I can use on the third floor …’

I glanced at the bar. The bartender was no longer alone. He’d been joined by two other fellows. They stood there, leaning
discreetly
against the bar counter and looking in our direction.

One of them I didn’t know. The other was Kenneth Persen.