Gunnar Staalesen - The Consorts of Death

A phone call from the past. Cecilie speaking, she said, and when I didnt 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, isnt it?

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

Youre not ringing from Oslo now then?

No, Im in Bergen. Visiting my old mum in Munkebotn. Dont know if you remember her?

No, I

Well, thats not so strange, but Ive got something important I need to talk to you about.

OK.

If youve 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 Flien 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? Ill be leaving here in under half an hour.

I checked my watch. Great. Lets 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 Bergens 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: Thats 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 foresters 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 wifes name into the landscape, if he could afford to. Here Sandviksfjells 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. Im sorry Im a bit late. My mother now and again it takes time.

Were still in Fjellveien. No problem.

She pointed to a bench. Perhaps we could sit down? Its lovely in the sun.

Why not?

I suppose youre wondering why I phoned?

After so many years, yes.

Well, its only ten.

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

Really?

She looked at me, waiting, but I didnt 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 Id said it. It had been like that.

Johnny boy. At six, at seventeen and now ?

Tell me whats happened.

She gave a faint sigh. Hes done a runner. In Oslo. Wanted for murder.

Oh Christ. Again? How do you know?

Yes, Varg. Again. And thats not all.

No?

He left behind him a kind of death list.

A what?

Or well, hes made it known there are a few people hes 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 dyou 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 childrens buns, flat and uneven.

Were 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.