The Writing on the Wall

by Gunnar Staalesen

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

"A Norwegian Chandler" JO NESBO
"In the best tradition of sleuthery" The Times
"One of the finest Nordic novelists in the tradition of Henning Mankell" BARRY FORSHAW, Independent

Bergen, Norway. Teenaged girls, many from privileged backgrounds, are being drawn into drugs and prostitution at an astonishing rate. When the local magistrate is discovered dead in a luxury hotel, clad only in women's lingerie, the mystery deepens.

Called in by anxious parents to search for a missing girl, private investigator Varg Veum uncovers clues that lead him deep into Bergen's criminal underworld.

As Veum begins to lift the thin veneer of normality that hides a society on the brink of collapse, it becomes clear that this time he may not escape with his life.

Translated from the Norwegian by Hal Sutcliffe

Release date: May 14, 2014

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 204

Sample

WHEN ONE FRIDAY AFTERNOON in February Judge HC Brandt, age seventy, was found dead in one of the better hotels in town, wearing nothing but flimsy women’s underwear, rumours soon began to spread.

Each fresh revelation brought bursts of raucous laughter from the press tables at Wesselsttien Pub, and there was no shortage of details embroidered beyond all measure. I too received my fair share of speculations from my old school friend, Paul Finckel, also a reporter, over a quiet beer and a sandwich at the Exchange a few days later.

The fact that the judge had been found in women’s underwear was bad enough in itself. There was no shortage of suggestions as to what colour the flimsy garments might have been. Pink and red were the firm favourites, although quite a few people stubbornly backed lime green. Yet in the end, the general consensus was that they were most likely black.

Who might have been with him in the hotel room was also the subject of intense speculation. Not a soul believed he’d been there alone.

One faction was convinced it must have been a man, since it was the judge himself who had been wearing women’s clothes. But as nobody had ever heard the judge’s name linked to the gay community, and as he was also married and a grandfather, if he did turn out to be gay, his cover as a closet queen was blown wide apart and no mistake. And who could say for certain that his putative partner didn’t belong to the same group? If he did, the press tables weren’t short of hunches as to who it might be but lacked any concrete proof.

Some were adamant that the judge had been having an affair for years with one of his female colleagues, and a whisper of hushed scandal ran through those present when the name was mentioned.

At tables with only male reporters a few women’s names from their own inner circles were mentioned, among them a prominent journalist from one of the Oslo dailies and another, not quite so well known, from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s Today programme.

Others merely shrugged their shoulders, suggesting that the judge had simply been there with a prostitute, male or female, who cared? Another half pint, please.

No one speculated any further as to the actual cause of death.

Most of them probably assumed it was heart-related.

SHE WAS SITTING in the waiting room when I got back from the funeral.

It was one of those days in February of which there are far too many, even though it’s the shortest month. February is a parenthesis in the year. The tax return has been handed in, the tourist season hasn’t yet started, and there’s nothing going on. Damp frost lay oppressively over snow-clad Bergen, pressing down so heavily that you could only just walk upright under the force of the depression. Greyish-brown slush lay in the gutters, and the mountains surrounding the city were barely visible through a bank of fog so stubborn that it did not disperse even after gale warnings were forecast. Like the brass buttons on the waistcoat of an abandoned snowman, you could just make out the lights of the funicular railway running up the mountainside, and the street-lamps were lit even at midday.

The funeral hadn’t exactly been a floorshow either. No one had danced on the coffin of Lasse Wiik, even though, at some of the darkest hours in my life, I could have imagined myself doing just that. But rather too many years had passed since Beate and I had parted company for the death of her new husband to make any deep impression on me now. And he wasn’t all that new anyway. They’d been married since 1975, and she’d stuck it out a good deal longer with him than she had with me.

I stood right at the back of the queue of people offering their condolences after the burial. When I had given her a formal embrace and mumbled an apology, we stood there for a moment avoiding each other’s eyes. – At least it was quick, I said. – He’d been on sick leave for almost a year, she countered.

Her face was the same, yet perhaps a little more pointed around the chin than before, almost like a caricature. – What were you thinking of doing now? I asked. Her eyes glanced past me down towards the lake, Store Lungegårdsvann, and the jagged silhouette of the tower blocks at Nedre Nygård. The large motorway intersection, completed in 1989, looked like some kind of vast instrument inadvertently left behind by a giant dentist. – I’m not really sure, actually . . . maybe just go back home. – Home? You mean . . . to Stavanger? – Yes . . .

I sidled up to Thomas and Mari, standing on the edge of a group of people I didn’t know. – When are you two going back? I asked. – We’re catching the night train this evening. There’s a seminar I have to be at tomorrow, said Thomas. – Will the two of you have time to pop in for a minute before you leave? – His eyes flitted to his girlfriend. – That might be nice, actually. What are you going to do now? – I think there’s going to be a little get-together for the immediate family. . .

February is a miserable month, the light as feeble as the will to do anything. Lasse Wiik had certainly chosen the right port to put to sea from. Winter still lay like a film over the fjord. Spring was only a distant hint of a life he, as a heart patient, couldn’t fully participate in anyway. For a moment I almost envied him.

Then I’d formally taken leave of the mourners in their black clothes and strolled down to Møllendalsveien, where the car stood waiting for me, cold and chilly in keeping with the month. I drove into town, parked just around the corner from where I lived and walked down to the office. If I needed the car, it wouldn’t take me more than ten minutes to walk back up again, and given the way the traffic patterns had developed in town over the last few years, it was in any case the best place to start from if you were driving anywhere.

I bought a couple of newspapers and almost dropped them in shock at finding someone sitting in my waiting room. Most people contacted me by phone, and those who came when I was out of the office rarely chanced waiting. The only conclusion was that it was something urgent.

As I came in, she quickly put aside the glossy magazine from 1974 and stood up. Seeing the magazine made me think I should perhaps consider paying a visit to the nearest antique bookseller and taking the whole lot with me. It might at least pay for some magazines from the nineties instead.

‘Hello. The name’s Veum,’ I said, introducing myself. ‘Were you waiting for me?’

‘Well, I was hoping so. I mean, that you’d turn up.’ She looked at me enquiringly but with a certain remoteness in her eyes. ‘I’m Mrs Skagestøl.’

We shook hands, I opened the door to my office and ushered her inside. Her perfume smelled of lemons. She’d opted for a scent with an autumnal touch: a landscape you looked at from a distance in clear weather but never went walking in.

On entering my office she glanced quickly around. I motioned her towards the visitor’s chair, asking whether I should put the kettle on for a cup of coffee.

‘No thanks, that’s – not necessary.’

I walked around the desk, sat down, opened the top drawer and took out a notebook and something to write with. For a few seconds we sat there looking at each other like two political opponents in a face-to-face encounter on TV thirty seconds before going on air.

She was in her early forties, fair-haired and wearing a waist-length brown and beige sports jacket, newly washed faded jeans and black ankle boots. She had a russet-coloured bag over her shoulder. Her face was distinctive, with arched light eyebrows, high cheekbones and a mouth that had lost the easy smile it once had, judging by the lines around her eyes. She was wearing discreet make-up and a simple gold chain around her thin neck.

She plaited her fingers and stretched out her arms, palms towards me: a fairly clear sign that she had no real desire to begin.

I pushed the notepad aside as though to give her a bit more confidence. ‘I didn’t catch . . . your first name . . . ’

‘Sidsel. With a “d”.’

‘And what can I do for you?’

Again her eyes had that hint of remoteness as she looked at me. ‘I . . . I never thought I’d find myself in a situation where I’d need to resort to the services of, er – somebody like yourself.’

‘Let’s call a spade a spade – you mean a private investigator.’ I placed my hand on the left side of my chest and leaned back with a little smile. ‘But in my heart of hearts I’m a sociologist.’

‘Really? Is that your background?’

I nodded.

‘I haven’t told my husband that I . . . In any case . . . we’re separated.’

‘I see.’

‘I don’t really think he would . . . Perhaps you’ve heard of him. Holger Skagestøl.’

‘The journalist?’

‘Yes, now he’s – on the editorial board.’

‘Oh, I see. Yes, I do know the name and who he is, but I don’t think I’ve ever met him.’

‘No, well . . . ’ She opened her handbag and fumbled for something before glancing round enquiringly. ‘May I smoke?’

I opened the second drawer down and took out a little pottery ashtray Thomas had once made at school. ‘Of course.’

‘You don’t smoke yourself, then?’

‘No, I stick to the other vices.’

She gave a faint smile, put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it herself. ‘I don’t smoke much either. But . . . ’

‘It wasn’t to tell me this that you came, though, was it?’

She glanced at me surprised. ‘No.’

Reassuringly, I nodded at her to continue.

‘We have three children. Torild’s sixteen, Vibeke fifteen and Stian’s ten.’

‘Mm. Is it about one of them perhaps?’

‘Yes. Torild. That’s with a “d”.’

‘A family tradition?’

She didn’t even attempt a smile. ‘Yes, you could say so.’

‘And what’s happened to her?’

She dragged nervously on her cigarette and exhaled as though intent on fumigating the room. ‘She’s disappeared. Hasn’t been home for – nearly a week!’

‘Oh?’

The fact that the cat was finally out of the bag also seemed to have loosened her tongue. ‘I couldn’t help noticing after we, well, after the separation, that she hasn’t been, well, content, so to speak, but it’s never, no, she has sometimes been a bit late home, but I’ve never waited up for her, till she came home, but last Thursday, I never went to bed at all, because she didn’t come home!’

‘Oh? Where was she?’

‘Well, you see I thought that, but she hadn’t been to school either, it turned out that she’d often been absent lately, without my knowledge. I . . . Obviously, I thought she was at a friend’s house, so I rang round, but she wasn’t at any of those places either, not at any of them, so I thought, well, she’ll come home when she’s hungry, then it was evening, then night, and she just didn’t come.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Well, that Friday she wasn’t supposed to be at school, in any case. It was an inset day. Then I called Holger.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘Well, obviously he started to ask me the same questions, whether I’d called this person or that, and why I hadn’t let him know that she’d been in a bit of a strop, and that she might have a boyfriend . . . ’

‘And might she?’

‘Have a boyfriend?’ She looked as though she scarcely knew what the word meant. ‘Not a steady boyfriend. Not that I know of. But now I see that, well, then there are the others to look after as well, and it’s not so easy, with all that happened with Holger and everything, it wasn’t my fault that things went wrong!’

‘No, I realise that.’

‘Oh, how do you mean?’

‘Well, I . . . But there is no boyfriend, is there?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Have you asked her girlfriends about it too? They often know more than – ’

‘None of them has said anything at least!’

‘Has she ever had anything to do with . . . Well . . . Drugs, alcohol, the police?’

‘No, she . . . ’ She glanced away momentarily. ‘Well, of course, actually, there have been times when she’s come home smelling of beer and it’s a long time since she started to smoke.’ She looked at her own cigarette with distaste; there was already only about half of it left.

‘But I really can’t say that she’s ever been, well, drunk . . . ’

‘It doesn’t sound all that unusual, alas. She’s sixteen, you said?’

‘Yes, her birthday was in January.’

‘So she’s in Class 9?’

‘Yes. At Nattland School. We live in Furudalen, this side of Natland Mountain.’

‘I see.’ I had started taking notes.

She watched me write. ‘The form teacher’s name is Sandal. Helene Sandal.’

‘Got it. Any particularly close girlfriends?’

‘Well . . . Åsa.’

‘Mm?’

She glanced at my notebook. ‘Åsa Furebø. She and . . . her parents, they were friends of ours – of Holger and mine before . . . But it was Holger and Trond who were friends to begin with, so after . . . But I’ve met Randi in town, for a coffee, we talk to one another, she and I do, I mean.’

‘And where do they live?’

‘Down in . . . Birkelundsbakken. Not far from where the stave church was, before it was burnt down . . . ’

‘But you’ve talked to her, have you? To Åsa?’

‘She was the first person I called.’

‘And she didn’t know anything either?’

‘No, she wasn’t at their place.’

‘But . . . Thursday, Friday . . . That’s nearly a week now.’

‘Yes, I . . . At first I thought, well, the weekend, she’ll surely come at the weekend, but then I thought, OK, school starts again on Monday, but . . . ’

‘Look, to be frank, a girl who’s never been away like this before – or has she?’

‘Torild? Been away? No, not like this.’

‘Not – like this?’

‘No, she’s just come back late sometimes.’

‘How late?’

‘In the morning, but that’s been from parties and I, well, she was grounded the first time but the next time, I mean, you can’t lock young people in either, can you?’

‘No, I don’t suppose you can. Where had she been those times? Did the two of you talk about it?’

‘No, I mean, yes, at discos and things, in town, and now and then at parties.’

‘Recently – or before?’

‘Er . . . Over the last year, in any case.’

‘When she was still fifteen, in other words?’

‘Yes!’ There was a hint of irritation in her eyes now. ‘You see, Holger wasn’t often home till past midnight, that is, after he became responsible at work, as he so nicely put it, but who he was responsible for, search me, and in any case, I had the other two to think about, Vibeke’s a completely different sort, much more homely in a way, and Stian, well, he’s still little, and you just want to do the best you can for your children, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course we do.’

‘Do you – have . . . ?’

‘Yes, a son. But he’s grown up now.’

‘And is he making out all right?’

‘Yes. He’s a student in Oslo.’

‘Do you think you might be able to find her?’

‘Er, I . . . But there’s one thing I must ask you about . . . You have been in contact with the police, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, we . . . I mean . . . I got, Holger called from the office, every day, to find out whether anything had happened, you know, the way people do.’

‘Yes, I understand, but – no proper investigation, then?’

‘No, in the circumstances, Holger thought she was bound to turn up.’

‘So you haven’t talked to them?’

‘To the police? – No.’

‘But if your husband didn’t want the police involved, how do you think he would react if I . . . ’

‘But you don’t need to talk to him, do you?’

‘Perhaps not to begin with, but . . . I can’t guarantee it.’

‘Just so long as you find her . . . Between Holger and me things are – well, whatever. It’s not important.’

‘I’ll do my best, of course. After all, I do have a fair amount of training, especially in matters of this sort.’

She opened her handbag again. ‘How much will it . . . ’

‘The bill? Er . . . Look, you haven’t said anything about yourself. Do you have a job?’

‘No, not any more. But I’m a kindergarten teacher by training, so I mean, I should know, shouldn’t !?’

‘About children, you mean?’

‘Mm.’ She nodded.

‘But you never do, do you? Children are like adults, just even less predictable, that’s all.’

She took out a chequebook. ‘How much shall I put?’

‘If it takes a few days, it’ll soon mount up to five or six thousand kroner.’

I noticed her eyes widen ever so slightly. ‘But look . . . Just put two thousand, as an advance. If we’re lucky, that may cover it.’

She started writing out the cheque, tore it off and pushed it across the table to me, accompanied by a cheque card. I looked at the photo. Her hair had been longer then, and her cheekbones not quite so pronounced. But I made no comment.

I gave the card back to her. ‘You don’t have a photo of her, do you?’

‘Yes, of course, I brought . . . ’ She produced a page torn out of a newspaper and gave it to me with a slightly apologetic look. ‘It was Stian who sent it in.’

I looked at the page. It was one of those congratulations columns which most newspapers have had for the past few years now, where you send in a photo of the person to whom you want to wish many happy returns, often with couplets that would make even the humblest occasional poet seem like a literary genius.

In this case the text was fairly sober: Many Happy Returns on her Sixteenth Birthday to our big sister TORILD, from the little trolls Vibeke and Stian. The photo showed a stern-faced girl looking straight at the camera in a photo booth.

‘This is the most recent one we have,’ said Sidsel Skagestøl apologetically.

‘What colour is her hair?’

‘Fair. But darker than mine.’

‘And what’s she like, otherwise?’

‘She’s rather slim, but . . . ’ She blushed slightly, ‘but quite shapely.’

After she’d gone, I remained sitting there for a while, looking at the little picture in the newspaper. There was no hint of shapely curves here, yet her look was confident enough, as if nobody was going to tell her how the pyramids were built, who Vasco da Gama was or the formula for ferrous sulphate.

I glanced out of the window. It was already getting dark. It struck me that February was a dangerous month to be wandering about alone, especially when you were barely sixteen and nobody was going to tell you what to do.

Just as I was on my way out of the door the telephone rang.

I went back to my desk, lifted the receiver and said: ‘Yes. Hello?’

There was no reply.

‘Hello? Veum speaking.’

Still no answer. But very faintly, almost like background interference, I could just make out . . . What was it? A sort of digital organ music?

‘Hello?’ I said again irritably.

And the tune . . . There was something familiar about it . . .

It was . . . ‘Abide With Me’ . . . Like at a funeral.

‘Hello?’ I said, a bit more cautiously this time as though the call was coming direct from the chapel. ‘Is anyone there?’

But there was still no reply. Then the connection was cut off.

THE FUREBØ FAMILY lived in a semi-detached house in that part of Birkelundsbakken where you never know what gear to be in when you’re driving there. The woman who opened the front door was thickset, about five foot ten, with dark, short-cropped hair. Her face was round, her eyes brown, and she had worry lines at the corners of her mouth.

‘Yes? We don’t want any, if that’s –’

‘Mrs Furebø?’

She nodded. She was wearing a brown skirt, a light-green blouse and a reddish-brown, loose suede waistcoat. Behind her, I could see into a bright hall with yellow walls.

‘The name’s Veum. I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired by Sidsel Skagestøl to try and find her daughter, Torild, and in connection with that, I’d like to have a word with – Åsa.’

‘You mean she hasn’t turned up yet? Sidsel called me . . . It was . . . ’

‘Last Thursday, I think.’

‘Yes.’ She looked at me sceptically. ‘Do you have any identification?’

I gave her my driving licence. She fingered it as though it was a counterfeit note. ‘Doesn’t say anything here about a – private investigator.’

‘No. But I can give you some numbers you can ring for references.’

She handed my driving licence back to me. ‘No, I’m sure it’s OK. But Åsa’s not at home just now.’

I glanced at the clock. It was twenty past four. ‘But . . . she’s not still at school?’

‘No. Trond, my husband, collected her from school. They – had an errand to do together.’

‘When are you expecting them back, then?’

‘Well, er . . . ’

She didn’t reply. A white Mercedes swung into the drive and parked on the far side of the small lawn. The ignition was switched off, and a young girl opened the door and emerged from the passenger side. At the wheel I glimpsed a thin face beneath a silver-grey yet boyish quiff of hair.

The girl was very pretty with dark silky hair and naturally red lips. She was slim, wearing jeans and a very expensive burgundy leather jacket. Over her shoulder she had a light-brown satchel and was wearing white trainers. Yet she didn’t move like a sporty type, more like a jaded office girl. Her blue eyes registered the fact that I was there but with no hint of curiosity.

‘But . . . ’ I heard Randi Furebø mutter just behind me.

The other door slammed. A thin wiry man came towards us. He was wearing grey flannels, a brightly coloured pullover and an open beige windcheater. The youthfulness of the face was emphasised by prematurely greying hair as though he had once experienced the shock of a deep loss. The look he gave me was a good deal more inquisitive than the girl’s.

‘Here they come,’ said Randi Furebø.

The girl walked straight past us and into the hail with nothing but a curt Hi to her mother, who followed her with a rather unfathomable look before glancing at me with a hint of resignation: Teenagers . . .

The man stopped in front of me.

She said: ‘Trond, this is Veum, he’s a sort of private investigator, and –’

His face turned beetroot. ‘What?! But we’ve just been down there now! Everything’s sorted. All over and done with.’

‘I don’t quite follow,’ I started to say.

‘We’ve taken the leather jacket back, and I’ve bought her a new one myself!’

‘Yes, I noticed,’ said Randi Furebo.

‘The manageress said she was more than happy with that solution. So she said there was no reason to contact the police.’

‘But that’s not why he’s here, Trond!’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘It’s about Torild! She still hasn’t come back . . . ’

‘Oh?’ He relaxed visibly.

‘Look Veum,’ she said, ‘this was something quite different; certainly just a misunder –’

‘No need to go into the details,’ Furebø interrupted, ‘if that’s not what it was about.’

He turned back to me. ‘Sidsel’s already talked to Åsa before. I doubt if there’s anything else we can tell you.’

‘But your daughter and Torild were best friends, weren’t they?’

‘Best friends . . . They’ve gone to the same school since the first form, and her parents and us have met socially for many years, her father and I are colleagues, but maybe you ought to ask –’ His words tailed off.

‘That’s just what I was thinking.’

He glanced at his wife again.

‘We must help him, Trond! Poor Sidsel, she must be going out of her mind. And when I didn’t even . . . ’

‘Yes, yes . . . ’ He turned to look at me. ‘But not unless we’re there too.’

‘Oh, I see.’

I clearly didn’t seem over-keen, as he quickly added: ‘It’s up to you. Either you talk to her with us present or not at all!’

‘OK, thanks for the offer.’ I glanced in the direction of the door. ‘Well, perhaps we can . . . ’

‘Yes.’

Randi Furebø held the door open, and he walked in ahead of me.

‘Can you fetch her? We can talk to him down here.’ He ushered me into a door on the right. I entered a little TV room with a worn leather suite, family pictures on the walls, a bookshelf with a rather random collection of books and a small fireplace with a log basket and a pile of newspapers beside it. It felt cool and airless, with a slight hint of whitewash.

After hanging up his jacket out in the hall Furebø followed me in.

I turned to face him. ‘So does that mean you’re a journalist as well?’

‘No, I work in graphics. In other words, I’m involved in how the newspaper looks.’

‘I see. You’re the one who makes conflicts into wars and collisions into catastrophes, at least where the presentation’s concerned?’

His look suggested he’d heard this one a thousand times before. ‘Wrong,’ he said sharply. What he reminded me of most was a football trainer meeting the press in the dressing room just after his team has lost the cup. ‘Those choices are made a few rungs higher up the ladder.’

‘By people like Holger Skagestøl perhaps?’

‘For example.’

Someone cleared their throat at the door, and Randi Furebø pushed her daughter in front of her into the room. ‘Here we are – this is the man who’d like to talk to you, Ås. . .