The Consorts of Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

Genres: International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

'The Norwegian Chandler' Jo Nesbø
'One of my very favourite Scandinavian authors' Ian Rankin
'Staalesen's most striking novel' Independent
MORE THAN FIVE MILLION BOOKS SOLD WORLDWIDE

September 1995. A phone call takes Verg Veum back 25 years to a case from when he was a working as a child protection officer in the summer of 1970. A small boy was separated from his mother under tragic circumstances, but it didn't end there.

In 1974, the same boy surfaced in connection with a sudden death at his new home; and once again, ten years later, after a dramatic double murder in Sunnfjord. The boy is now an adult, on the run in Oslo and determined to take revenge on those responsible for destroying his life - among them Veum, now a private investigator.

A chilling series of complex motives, puzzling links and deeply dysfunctional relationships are cleverly drawn together in a stunning plot that will leave you gripped to the final page. The Consorts of Death shows Staalesen at his most thrilling, thought-provoking best.

Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

Release date: April 1, 2011

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 209

Sample

A phone call from the past. ‘Cecilie speaking,’ she said, and when I didn’t react, she added: ‘Cecilie Strand.’

‘Cecilie! Been a long time. How are you?’

‘Could be worse.’

‘Are you still in social services?’

‘Some of us are still hanging in there, yes.’

‘Must be at least ten years since we last saw each other, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I crossed the mountains. Went to Oslo five years ago. Summer of 1990.’

‘You’re not ringing from Oslo now then?’

‘No, I’m in Bergen. Visiting my old mum in Munkebotn. Don’t know if you remember her?’

‘No, I …’

‘Well, that’s not so strange, but … I’ve got something important I need to talk to you about.’

‘OK.’

‘If you’ve got time.’

‘Time is what I have most of, as I usually say.’

‘Could we meet?’

‘Of course. Any suggestions where?’

‘What about in Fjellveien?’

I looked out of the window. The rain this morning had not exactly been a foretaste of autumn. Now the September sun was drifting like liquid honey over the town. Mount Fløien looked green and inviting, with Fjellveien as the equator and not a storm warning in sight. ‘Whereabouts?’

‘Shall we just see where we bump into each other? I’ll be leaving here in under half an hour.’

I checked my watch. ‘Great. Let’s do that then.’

Five minutes later I had put the answerphone on, locked the office door and set off. I crossed the Fish Market, passed the Meat Bazar at the bottom of Vetrlidsallmeningen and took the steps up towards the district of Skansen and the old, white fire station there. The first yellow leaves had appeared, but there were not many of them yet; green leaves still dominated. From the nursery in Skansen Park came the excited shouts of children banging mud cakes out of their plastic buckets. The last pair of magpies of the summer screeched shrilly from a chestnut tree still bearing its fruit. Finally, I cut up the tiny side street to Hesten and found myself in Fjellveien, where we had arranged to meet.

Fjellveien was Bergen’s number one street for promenading. Generations upon generations of people had taken their Sunday walks up there, enjoyed the view over their beloved town, pointed to the house where they lived and said, as if confiding a state secret: ‘That’s where we live.’ Hesten [The Horse] is the local name for the sign reading Husk at hesten trenger kvile [Remember the horse needs rest] which had been erected next to the drinking fountain, where there had once been a water trough, on the occasion of the Fjellveien centenary celebrations.

I started walking. A male pensioner with knee breeches, an anorak and a spring in his stride was on his way up to the mountains. A school class was jogging past the forester’s house with a sporty PE teacher at their head. The young children bobbed towards me, a slow wave-like motion, like the ripples on the sea of life they still were, a comfortable distance from the height of the storms even now. I moved to the side as they passed, not to be dragged into a futile dream of youth, into yearnings for long past lap times and the smell of perfumed T-shirts.

I looked at the clock on Mon Plaisir, the old temple-shaped summer house that backs onto Fjellveien and faces the sea. She should have been here by now. There was only the last bit of Fjellveien to go, by Wilhelmineborg and Christineborg, names that conjured up a time when every man was free to chisel his wife’s name into the landscape, if he could afford to. Here Sandviksfjell’s steep slopes rose to the arrow on top of the mountain telling you which direction the wind was coming from, if your eyes were sharp enough to see that far. Here the trees were tall and erect with trunks like brown columns, and the tree stumps and scree were testimony to the wind and landslide hazards.

I met her by the green telecommunications station directly up from a street called Sandvikslien. She was walking towards me wearing a denim jacket and jeans, with sunshine in her hair and a shoulder bag hanging down by her side. On seeing me, she stopped to wait, squinting through her oval glasses to make sure it was really me. Her hair was short and dark blonde with a veneer of grey that had not been there last time I saw her.

We hugged quickly and looked at each other in mild surprise, the way old friends do when the tattoos of time, carved with a sharp knife into your face and other places, cannot be denied.

She smiled fleetingly. ‘I’m sorry I’m a bit late. My mother … now and again it takes time.’

‘We’re still in Fjellveien. No problem.’

She pointed to a bench. ‘Perhaps we could sit down? It’s lovely in the sun.’

‘Why not?’

‘I suppose you’re wondering why I phoned?’

‘After so many years, yes.’

‘Well, it’s only ten.’

‘A lot has happened in my life in those ten years.’

‘Really?’

She looked at me, waiting, but I didn’t follow it up.

‘You had something important to talk to me about, you said.’

‘Yes.’ She paused as we sat down. ‘Do you remember Johnny boy?’

That gave me a jolt. ‘How can you ask me that?’

‘Well … it was actually a rhetorical question.’

‘For six months it was like he was … ours.’

That made her blush, but that was not why I’d said it. It had been like that.

Johnny boy. At six, at seventeen and now …?

‘Tell me what’s happened.’

She gave a faint sigh. ‘He’s done a runner. In Oslo. Wanted for murder.’

‘Oh Christ. Again? How do you know?’

‘Yes, Varg. Again. And that’s not all.’

‘No?’

‘He left behind him a kind of death list.’

‘A what?’

‘Or … well, he’s made it known there are a few people he’s going to take out.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘And one of them is … you.’

‘What! Me?’

‘Yes.’

I sat in silence. Slowly my eyes wandered down to Byfjord and back a quarter of a century. I felt the sun weakly warming my face, but inside I felt frost, the frost that had somehow always been there and had never let go. The frost from the missing spring.

The first time I had met Johnny boy was one hot, sultry July day in 1970. Elsa Dragesund and I had been sent on a home visit to a flat on the Rothaugen estate, the massive grey blocks of flats near Rothaugen School. Some neighbours had reported the matter to the council and the social security people had passed it on to us.

Out of the two of us, Elsa was the one with the most social services experience. She was a sharp but good-natured woman, just turned forty at this point, with carrot-coloured hair and a tendency to dress in colours that were a bit too bright. I was completely new to the job.

The stairway was dark and damp even on a day like this; it was almost twenty-five degrees in the shade. There was no sign of any kind on the brown first-floor door. Through the matt glass panes we could hear the sound of loud music. We had to press the doorbell several times before shuffling steps could be heard inside; the door was opened a little way and a sallow face stared at us.

‘What d’you want?’ came the response, in broad local dialect.

Elsa put on a pleasant smile and said: ‘Mette Olsen. Is that you?’

The woman in the doorway gave us a vacant look. She was blonde, but her hair was greasy and unkempt. She was wearing a T-shirt with holes and threadbare jeans that had not been washed for the last month at least. She was thin, haggard and stooped, as though trying to dull chronic abdominal pains. Her lips were dry and cracked, and under the thin material of the T-shirt sprouted two small breasts, like children’s buns, flat and uneven.

‘We’re from social services,’ Elsa said. ‘Can we come in?’

For a second or two, a sudden fear flared up in her eyes. Then the channel closed, she stepped aside docilely and held the door open for us.

The smell that hit us when we entered the narrow unlit hallway was a delicate blend of acrid cigarette smoke, refuse and alcohol. On top of that, there was a smell of untended toddlers – something I would become depressingly used to during the years I was employed by the welfare authorities.

Without waiting for our host we followed the sound of the loud music into the sitting room, where a portable radio cassette player was playing a hissing cassette at full volume. I couldn’t place the music; it was rock with a heavy bass line which made the walls vibrate. Elsa resolutely strode in, saw the radio and pressed the right button.

The silence was deafening. Mette Olsen had trudged after us. She was gesticulating with her arms. Her eyes were blank and glassy. The explanation was not hard to find. On the worn coffee table and floor was a glorious selection of empty bottles, mostly beer bottles, but also wine and spirits, and the characteristic plastic containers used by homebrew suppliers. On a small chest of drawers were several empty boxes of pills, upside down and without lids, seemingly discarded after a last desperate search.

‘Where’s your little boy?’ Elsa asked.

Mette Olsen gazed around helplessly, then nodded towards a half-open door at the other end of the room. We stood listening for a moment, but not a sound reached us. Carefully, we walked towards the door, Elsa first, and pushed it slowly open.

A broad unmade bed filled one wall. A wooden drying rack had been shoved into one corner, loaded down with laundry. Clothes were scattered across the entire room, with no apparent system or pattern. There was a cot beside the bed, and in it was sitting a small boy, two and a half to three years old as far as I could judge, in a stained vest that had once been white and a swollen, soaking wet paper nappy under a plastic liner. He hardly reacted when we entered the room, just looked at us with blank, apathetic eyes. His mouth was half-open and dribbling, and in one hand he held a sandwich with what looked like chocolate in the middle. But worst of all was the silence. Not a sound came from him.

Elsa took a few steps forward before turning on her heel and staring at Mette Olsen – thin, shadowless and with an aggrieved expression on her face – in the doorway behind us.

‘Is this your child?’ Elsa asked with an audible tremor from her vocal cords.

Mette Olsen nodded and swallowed.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Jan.’

‘Jan?’

‘Jan Elvis.’

‘How long is it since you changed his nappy?’

She sent us a blurred look and waved her arms around. ‘Yesterday? I don’t remember.’

Elsa sighed loudly. ‘You’re aware that this is unsatisfactory? That we will – have to do something about it?’

The young woman looked at us with sadness in her eyes, but she did not react, giving us the impression that she had barely understood what had been said.

Elsa looked at me. ‘Classic case of clause five. Mother needs treatment, the child acute referral.’

The front door slammed and a coarse local voice resounded round the flat. ‘Meeette! You there?’

No one answered, and shortly afterwards we heard loud cursing and the sound of bottles rolling around the room behind us.

‘Where the fuck’ve you hidden yourself?’

We turned to the doorway, from which Mette had nervously retreated towards us.

‘What the fuck are you all doin’ here? Who are you? What are you doin’ here?’

The man was big and strong, closer to forty than thirty, with tattoos over both forearms. He was wearing a dark brown polo shirt and light trousers; the blood vessels in his forehead were visibly swollen.

‘We’re from social services,’ Elsa said coolly. ‘Are you the child’s father perhaps?’

‘That’s got fuck-all to do with you!’ he snapped and stepped into the room.

Elsa stood her ground. I moved forward a pace, between them. That made him turn on me.

He clenched his fists and glowered at me. ‘What was it you wanted? Wanna bit of this, do you?’

‘Terje,’ sobbed Mette Olsen. ‘Don’t …’

‘What the fuck is it to do with you whether I’m the father of her kid or not? We’re old enough to vote, aren’t we.’

I shrugged. ‘Social security asked us …’

‘Social security can go to hell. Piss off, the pair of you!’

I looked at Elsa. She was the one with most experience. She summoned up all her authority and said: ‘This child is in a critical situation, herr …’ She sent him a quizzical glance, but when he reacted with no more than a snort, she continued: ‘He requires emergency treatment and we’re going to have to take him with us. Your wife … She also needs help, as far as I can see. Should you have any objections, may I ask you to contact us through the appropriate official channels and then we will confer on the matter.’

He opened his mouth wide. ‘Tell me, do you understand all the words that come out of that slippery gob of yours? If you and that prick with you are not out of here this minute, you’ll get a taste of this.’ He brandished a clenched fist in front of her. ‘Have you got that?’

I could feel I was beginning to simmer inside. ‘Look, big mouth … I may not have as many tattoos as you, but I went to sea for long enough to learn a few tricks, so if you were thinking of attacking anyone, then …’

He focused his attention on me again, his eyes a little less secure now. He cast a quick eye over my physique.

Elsa broke in. ‘I assume that you are – herr Olsen?’

‘My name’s not fuckin’ Olsen! Hers is, and she’s not my missus, either. My name’s Hammersten. Remember that!’ he said with a menacing look.

‘If you don’t let us take the child, we’ll be obliged to call the police,’ Elsa said.

‘Terje,’ Mette Olsen appealed again. ‘Don’t!’

‘But first we’ll have to put a dry nappy on him,’ Elsa said, looking at Mette. ‘If you have any?’

She nodded. ‘In the bathroom.’

‘Then I’ll go and get them.’

Elsa walked right past Terje Hammersten and out. The rest of us stayed where we were. I could feel the tension in my body and was ready for anything. Then he gave a snort of contempt, kicked at the air and left the room. I followed to make sure that he didn’t attack Elsa, but nothing happened. She returned with a bag of unused nappies and directly afterwards we heard the door slam shut.

‘So you’re not married?’ Elsa asked.

Mette Olsen shook her head.

‘But he’s the father of the child?’

She shrugged her shoulders.

Elsa sighed. ‘Oh, well … We’ll have to deal with this one bit by bit, it seems.’

The same evening Johnny boy, or Jan Elvis Olsen, which was his official name, was placed in a home for infants in Kalfarveien. The mother, however, was placed in a rehab clinic in Kong Oscars gate where they did their damnedest to get her to agree to a full course of treatment.

When I went home to Møhlenpris that evening, Beate glanced up ironically over the edge of the book she was reading. ‘Food’s in the fridge,’ she said.

‘Yes, I’m sorry it took such a long time. If you could only imagine how some people treated their children …’

‘Don’t you think I know?’

‘Yes, of course …’ I bent forward and kissed her. ‘Had a good day?’

‘So so.’

In October I heard that Johnny boy had been placed in a foster home. He had suffered terrible emotional damage, I was told, and it was difficult to communicate with him. According to the reports, the mother was not too good, either, and Terje Hammersten was up in court on a GBH charge. He was found guilty: six months’ unconditional imprisonment. Life on the outside went on as before. I didn’t expect to see any of them again. Which just goes to show how wrong you can be.

The next time I met Jan, he was six years old. It was early 1974. I had just separated from Beate and had had far better periods in my life. We had been called to a crime scene, to see to a little child, we were informed, and Cecilie and I were the ones given the task.

At that time I still had my old Mini and we squeezed into the front seats, me at the wheel, Cecilie beside me. Driving a Mini felt like trundling round in a tiny bathtub, with such small wheels that you felt your backside was touching the road as you sped over Bergen’s cobblestone streets. You were so perilously low over the tarmac that any head-on collision would put you well in the running for the flat-as-a-pancake award. On the other hand, you could almost always tuck yourself into a parking gap however tight it looked and petrol consumption was not a lot more than for a medium-sized cigarette lighter.

The crime scene was in Wergelandsåsen, a hillside dotted with large detached houses lying like a buffer zone between Landås and Minde, Landås with its fifties and sixties blocks of flats, Minde with its sedate twenties residences. The house we were called to was brown and had a wintry grey garden with faded rosebushes, patches of snow in the shrubbery beds, apple trees with long-established mushroom-like growths in the bark and rhododendrons in their hibernation phase, with hanging leaves and brownish-green winter buds.

Several cars were parked outside the garden gate. The front door was open and a handful of people had gathered on the steps. I recognised many of them from Bergen Police HQ as they stood there drawing their very first conclusions over thin roll-ups. We opened the gate and stepped inside.

Cecilie had briefed me about the case on our way there. A six-year-old boy had been at home with his father. On her return, the mother had discovered the boy crying in the hallway and when she shouted to her husband, there was no answer. She started to look and found him at the bottom of the cellar stairs. His neck was broken. The man was dead. She had managed to ring for help before breaking down. For the time being she was being held at Haukeland hospital, heavily sedated and with a female police officer at her bedside in case she needed someone to talk to when she came round. ‘What are their names?’ I had asked. ‘Skarnes. Svein and Vibecke Skarnes.’ ‘Background?’ ‘That’s all I know, Varg.’

We entered the house, where Inspector Dankert Muus gave us a grim welcome nod. Muus was a tall man with grey skin, a small hat screwed down on his head and the burning stump of a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, like an amputated limb. I hadn’t said more than hello to him before, but he clearly recognised us. He pointed towards a door on the left of the cosy white hallway. ‘He’s in there.’

We went into a simply furnished modern living room with dark bookshelves, a TV cabinet alongside the shortest wall, potted plants in the windows and light, shiny curtains. A policewoman, a round-faced Bergen-blonde, was sitting on a sofa with a little boy in her arms. In her hands she was holding a blue transformer with a red button, while on the floor in front of them a small Märklin train was running round an ellipsoid track carefully laid between the rest of the furniture. The boy sat watching the train without any visible signs of pleasure. He resembled a doll rather than a small boy.

The constable smiled with relief and stood up. ‘Hi! Are you from social services?’

‘Yes.’

As she put down the transformer, the train came to a halt. The boy sat watching. There was no indication that he wanted to take over the transformer.

We introduced ourselves. Her name was Tora Persen. Her accent revealed roots in Hardanger, maybe Kvinnherad. ‘And this is Johnny boy,’ she added, lightly placing her hand on the back of the tiny boy’s head.

‘Hello,’ we chorused.

Johnny boy?

The boy just looked at us.

Where had I heard the name before?

Cecilie squatted down in front of him. ‘You’re going to be with us. We have a lovely room for you which will be all yours. You’ll meet some nice people there and some children you can play with if you want.’

Then it struck me: But it couldn’t be … that would be too grotesque.

The scepticism in his eyes remained. His lips were clenched together and his gaze was big and blue, as if frozen in a cry, in a terror that still had not released its grip.

‘Is there anything you would like?’ I asked.

He shook his head.

I glanced at Tore Persen. ‘Has he been like this the whole time?’

She nodded, half-turned away from him and whispered: ‘We haven’t had a word out of him. It must be – the shock.’

‘He was with his mother when you arrived?’

‘Yes. A grisly situation of course.’

The boy did not move. He sat staring at the electric train as though waiting for it to start of its own accord. There was nothing to suggest that he had heard a word of what we had been discussing. There was not the slightest hint of a reaction.

I felt myself wince inside. It had been exactly the same with the other boy, whose name was also Johnny boy.

But it couldn’t be …

I looked at Cecilie. ‘What do you think? Should we bring in Marianne for this one?’

‘Yes. Could you ring her?’

‘OK.’

I went back to the hallway. A constable was standing by the entrance to the cellar.

‘Was this where it happened?’

The constable nodded. ‘They found him down there.’

‘Is he still there?’

‘No, no. He’s been moved.’

‘When did it happen?’

‘About midday.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘We received the report at two thirty.’

I looked around. ‘Is there a telephone we could use?’

He sent me a sceptical look. ‘I think you’ll have to go outside and use one of the car phones. We haven’t examined the telephone here yet. For fingerprints.’

‘I see.’

The front door was still open. I walked over to the parked cars and asked the plainclothes officer in one of the cars whether I could use his phone.

He put on a surly expression. ‘And who’s asking?’

‘Varg Veum. Social services.’

‘Veum?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. I’ll get you a clear line.’

He tapped some numbers into the dialling pad and passed the phone to me through the door. ‘You can dial the number there,’ he explained.

In the meantime, I had found the number for Dr Marianne Storetvedt, the psychologist, in my address book. I called.

After a few rings, she picked up. ‘Dr Storetvedt.’

‘Marianne? Varg here.’

‘Hi, Varg. How can I help you?’

‘We have an acute situation here.’ I gave her a brief summary.

‘And the mother?’

‘Has been taken to Haukeland. Nervous breakdown.’

She sighed. ‘Well … what are you planning to do with him?’

‘We were going to take him to Haukedalen. To one of the emergency rooms there.’

‘Sounds wise. But do pop by here first. How soon could you be here?’

‘Barring anything unforeseen cropping up … in a half an hour’s time?’

‘That’s great. I’ll be waiting. I don’t have any more patients today, so that’s fine.’

We finished the conversation and I passed back the phone to the officer in the car, who switched it off for me. Then I returned to the house. In the hallway I stopped by a slender bureau. On top was a framed photograph. It was a family picture of three people. I recognised Jan in the middle. The other two must have been his parents. Svein Skarnes looked older than I had assumed. He was almost bald with a narrow, slightly distant face. His wife had dark hair and a nice, regular smile, an everyday beauty, the type you see six to a dozen. Jan looked a little helpless sitting between them, with an expression of pent-up defiance on his face.

In the living room the situation had not changed. Cecilie had taken a seat on the sofa with Jan. Now she had the transformer and the train ran in fits and starts; she wasn’t used to this kind of activity. The policewoman stood to the side with a pained air.

‘All done,’ I said. ‘We can go to Marianne’s right away.’

‘And she is?’ asked Tora Persen.

‘A psychologist we consult whenever necessary. Marianne Stortvedt.’

‘I suppose we ought to check with Inspector Muus first. To make sure it’s alright that we’re taking him, I mean.’

‘Of course.’

She disappeared.

I looked at Jan. Six years old. I had a boy of two and a half, Thomas, living with his mother now, after things had gone wrong for Beate and me six months ago. For the moment we were separated, but the outcome of the waiting period was a foregone conclusion. I had tried to change her mind, but she had given me a look of despair and said: ‘I don’t think you understand what’s behind this, Varg. I don’t think you understand anything.’ And she was right. I didn’t understand at all.

I gazed at the vacant, apathetic look on his face and tried to summon up the photograph of the tiny boy on the Rothaugen estate from three or four years ago. But my first impression had been too hazy. I remembered the awkward atmosphere in the small flat, the loudmouth who had burst in, the mother’s despairing eyes; and I remembered the tiny boy in his cot. But his face … it still had not taken shape; had hardly done that now.

I crouched down beside the sofa where they were sitting, to be on the same level as him. I put one hand on his knee and said: ‘Would you like to come in my car, Johnny boy?’

For the first time a glint appeared in his eyes. But he said nothing.

‘Then we can go have a chat with a nice lady.’

He didn’t answer.

I took his hand. It was limp, lifeless, and he didn’t respond. ‘Come on!’

Cecilie rose to her feet, carefully took him under the arms and warily lifted him onto the floor. He stood upright, and as I led him to the door he offered no resistance. He tentatively placed his feet in front of him as if he were setting out across a frozen pond, unsure it would bear his weight.

Then we were brought to a halt, all of us. Inspector Muus filled the doorway. Behind him I glimpsed Tora Persen. The tall policeman stared down at the boy in a surly manner. ‘Has he started talking?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Well,’ he growled. ‘And where had you been thinking of taking him?’

‘First of all to a psychologist we use, then to an emergency shelter organisation in Åsane.’

He nodded. ‘Just let us know its whereabouts. I suppose it’s not impossible that some of us might have to interview him.’

‘Interview!’ exclaimed Cecilie.

‘He’s the only witness,’ Muus said, sending her a measured glare.

‘I’ll keep you posted,’ I said. ‘But now we have to think about Jan. Could we pass?’

‘Less haste, young man. What name did you say?’

‘Veum. But I didn’t say.’

‘Veum. I’ll make a note of it,’ he said with a faint smile from the corner of his mouth. ‘We could have an amusing time together, we two could.’

‘But not today. Can we go now?’

He nodded and stepped aside. Cecilie and I led Jan into the hallway and headed briskly for the door. From the corner of my eye I saw Muus turn quickly and return to the cellar staircase while Tora Persen remained in the hallway, looking as abandoned as a passing headlight on an ice-bound road.

Outside on the steps I took Jan in my arms and carried him the last part of the way. He didn’t object; I might just as well have been carrying a sack of potatoes. By the car I said to Cecilie: ‘I think you’ll have to sit at the back with him.’

She nodded. I sat Jan down and pushed the right-hand seat forward so that they could get in. Cecilie clambered in and eased herself into the seat behind the driver. I lifted Jan up and she held out her hands to take him. Suddenly he turned his head round and looked me straight in the eye for the first time. ‘Mummy did it,’ he said.

Dr Marianne Storetvedt was a somewhat old-fashioned-looking beauty, around forty years old. Her hair fell in loose cascades over her shoulders. She had an attractive, narrow face with high cheekbones. Her sharp eyes were softened by the adjacent laughter lines. She was dressed simply, a bright twin set and a brown skirt with a pearl necklace.

Her office was at the far end of Strandkaien and looked over the docks, Rosenkrantz Tower and Haakon’s Hall or towards Skansen and Mount Fløien, if she cast her gaze in that direction. I would not have minded an office there myself, had anyone offered me one.

The Åsane-bound line of traffic in Bryggen had come to a standstill, as usual at this time of the day, and on the archaeological dig site after the 1955 fire, the new museum building on the slope down from St Mary’s Church was beginning to take shape.

Marianne Storetvedt was in the waiting room to greet us. She had immediate eye contact with Jan, who, after the statement he made while being lifted into the car, had been as silent as a trapeze. . .