Cold Hearts Page 2

  ‘Has anything special happened of late that gives you cause for concern?’

  ‘Yes, that’s just it. It was Friday evening. She turned down a trick.’ Then, as though I might not have understood the jargon, she added, ‘Refused a customer.’

  ‘I see. That must happen from time to time, I would imagine, mustn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it does, but her reaction was so violent. And then Tanya said she would take him instead.’

  ‘Tanya?’

  ‘Yes, one of the others … out there.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Well, she went with him and came back a few hours later, in floods of tears, battered and beaten. She had bruises everywhere and looked absolutely terrible! She said she would report him, not to the police but to … well, you know, and if either of them showed their face out there another time she would kill them herself, if she got the chance.’

  ‘Them? She said them?’

  She nodded.

  ‘How did Maggi react to this?’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t there. Not then. She must have had a trick of her own. I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since!’

  ‘You haven’t seen her since this Tanya returned from her trick. Have I understood you correctly?’

  ‘Yes, you have understood me correctly!’ she exclaimed with impatience, as though she were talking to someone hard of hearing.

  ‘OK, have you considered going to the police?’

  ‘The cops?’ She looked at me with contempt. ‘Well, you know how they treat cases like this when it’s about people like me and Maggi. Why d’you think I’ve come to you?’

  ‘Did you know it was me? Thomas’s father?’

  She nodded, and for a moment or two a glimpse of childhood innocence seemed to flit across her face. ‘He … We were walking along Strandkaien once and he pointed up to one of these windows, and then he said: “My father’s got his office up there. He’s a private detective.”’

  I felt a stab of melancholy in my abdomen, a sudden yearning for the son who had walked past underneath with a school friend and had pointed up to my window, but who dropped by all too seldom.

  ‘Haven’t we met at some point?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I never went to your house. And I remember his mother better than I remember … you.’

  ‘Well … not so strange perhaps. But … back to the case. If she has in fact gone missing the police have quite a different set-up from mine.’

  ‘Really? Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Yes, I do, indeed I do. But … it hasn’t been that long, has it. There may be a natural explanation for the whole thing. She didn’t have any plans for the weekend, did she, for example?’

  ‘No, imagine that. No, she did not! If she had she’d have told me beforehand.’ She pushed back the chair as though intending to get up. ‘Now tell me, are you going to take the job or not?’

  I cast a glance at the expensive screen and reminded myself that there were still a few instalments to pay.

  ‘Yes, I am. I can always try. But then I’ll need some more information.’

  ‘OK, shoot!’

  ‘I need the precise address in Strandgaten. You wouldn’t have a key for her flat, would you?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s the reason I know she isn’t there. We kept each other’s house keys, in case something like this happened. That one of us might go missing.’

  ‘Let’s take a look afterwards then.’

  ‘Us?’ She threw me a quizzical glance.

  ‘Yes, or I’ll go alone.’

  ‘That wasn’t because … I was thinking more about you and … your reputation.’

  ‘It’s pretty tarnished already. One migratory bird more or less won’t make much difference. What about her family, do you know them?’

  She heaved a sigh of despair. ‘You know girls like us don’t exactly receive family visits at our workplace, and if we did it would spell trouble.’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘No. In fact, brothers, fathers and uncles do show up out there to buy services, and then they bump into a little sister or a daughter or a niece. And that’s not the half of it. When one of them comes to return their little darling to the nest there’s a real rumpus.’

  ‘But Maggi’s family …’

  ‘We talked about the hells we have come from now and again. What she came from was nothing to boast about, either. The father drank and the mother whinged. One brother’s in the clink, and she said only the big sister has sort of coped.’

  ‘Which part of town did she come from?’

  She hesitated. ‘From somewhere in Minde, I think. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Is she on drugs?’

  ‘What do you think? Why the hell do you think we’re on the game? Because it’s such great fun being fucked up the arse?’

  I held my hands up in defence. ‘Alright! But I do have to ask, don’t I. You’ve given me a job to do, haven’t you?!’

  ‘Oh, yes? So you’re taking it, are you? Positive?’

  ‘I’ll do my best anyway.’ I made a few more notes. ‘So that’s the address, drugs, family … How do you go about it? To be blunt … I suppose you’ve got a pimp, have you?’

  She eyed me with the same distance as when we started the conversation. ‘We have someone who takes care of us, yes.’

  ‘That was what you had in mind when Tanya threatened to report what had happened, someone different from the police.’

  ‘They protect us when it’s necessary, yes. There can be other groups who try to muscle in on our patches. Or crazy folk. They’re queuing up out there, I can tell you that. Everything from drivers of trucks as big as mountains to embarrassed office workers in their tiny Starlets, so cramped it’s tough to do a blowjob inside. And you never know who you’ll meet, you never know who they are when they remove their masks.’

  ‘These people who protect you, have they got names?’

  Her eyes widened a fraction. ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. You’ll have to accept that.’

  ‘Are they Norwegian?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I ruminated. ‘These people Maggi turned down but Tanya agreed to go with … Do you know any more about them? Did she say anything? Tanya, that is.’

  ‘Nothing in particular.’

  ‘The name suggests … Is she Russian?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you put me in touch with her?’

  Suddenly she grinned. ‘I’m sure she’ll turn you a trick if that’s what you’re after …’

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m … How will I recognise her?’

  ‘She’s very red-haired, let me put it like that.’

  ‘Dyed?’

  She responded with arched eyebrows.

  ‘Of course I’ll pay her for the time it takes. While I’m on the subject …’ I listened to the hum of the expensive hard disk under the desk. ‘How will you pay?’

  A fresh attempt at a smile, but stiffer this time. ‘In kind?’

  Her cynicism hit me harder than I had anticipated. I could have been her father. She had been in the same class as my son. Nonetheless she was willing to open the goodie bag, however well-used, even for me.

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer cash payments. Or I can fill in a banker’s draft for you.’ It would give my bank a minor shock if they noted some movement in the account, which had been drained down to rock bottom over the last few months, but I took the risk.

  She nodded. ‘Just fill it in and you’ll get the money.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for a small advance.’

  ‘That’s what we do, too. Afterwards you can never be sure.’

  ‘Sounds like our professions aren’t so far removed from each other.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  She opened her handbag and produced a few thousandkrone notes. I took them and gave her a receipt. Afterwards she gave me the key to Marg
rethe Monsen’s flat in Strandgaten. ‘You’ll see M. Monsen on the door.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll start there. How can I find you?’

  She looked past me, towards Bryggen. ‘Round and about.’ She took out a mobile phone. ‘You can have my number.’

  I tapped it into mine.

  ‘And here’s mine.’ I gave her a business card.

  She read it and stuffed it in her bag. After a short pause she asked, somewhat hesitantly: ‘How’s Thomas?’

  ‘He lives in Oslo. Goes to university there. They’re planning to get married this summer. He and his girlfriend.’

  Her mouth contorted, half smile, half grimace. ‘Did you know we dated for a while?’

  ‘No, I …’ I rolled my chair back half a metre and gave a laconic smile. ‘I could have been your father-in-law, in other words?’

  ‘If a lot of things had been different, yes.’

  ‘Why did it end?’

  ‘Well …’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose these things happen.’

  For a moment we sat in silence. We finished our coffee. Then she sighed and got up. ‘So we’ve got a deal?’

  ‘We have.’

  I accompanied her to the door. Hege Jensen from Nye Sandviksvei. A migratory bird that had flown off course, much too early in her life, and way, way off course.

  I met her gaze one more time. Then she walked towards the lift while I returned to my office, skimmed the few notes I had made, put my computer into hibernation, grabbed the notes and went out into the gloomy January daylight without any great hopes of success.

  3

  STRANDGATEN IS ONE OF Bergen’s oldest streets. From one century to the next, it has wound its way from Torgallmenningen to Nordnes, followed buildings across the peninsula and been shaped by fires and other catastrophes.

  The apartment block where Margrethe Monsen lived was in one of the quarters that had lain in ruins after the great explosions of 20 April 1944. I had grown up a few stone throws from there, and if my memory served me well, these blocks were built towards the latter end of the 1950s. At least there was an unmistakable 1950s feel to the entrance: black slate tiles on the floor, locked covers to the refuse shaft on each floor and blue doors with a narrow vertical window in matt wire glass. The front door was locked, but the flat key worked on this door as well.

  I found the M.Monsen sign on the third floor. I could have taken the lift, but preferred the stairs. I rang the bell several times and stood waiting for a response. Nothing.

  I heard someone come into the downstairs entrance and the lift machinery buzz into action straight afterwards. The lift stopped on the third floor, the door opened and a young woman with long, blonde hair pushed a little turbo-pram carrying an eighteen-month-old child in through the door.

  She glanced at me, curious.

  ‘I’ve just rung my sister-in-law’s bell.’ I nodded to the door. ‘But she doesn’t seem to be in.’

  ‘No, it’s a while since I’ve seen her.’ She opened her bag and took out her key to the door on the opposite side.

  ‘Mm, do you have any contact with her?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ she said without drawing breath. ‘Besides we’ve only been here for a few months. And as you can see, we’ve got a tiny tot here to concentrate on.’

  Tiny Tot responded at once with a few impatient grunts and movements, suggesting that he wanted to be out of the pram as soon as possible and to get started on the daily razing of the flat.

  ‘I see.’ I took out the key. ‘I’ll let myself in then to make sure everything is as it should be.’

  She looked at me with a combination of suspicion and anxiety.

  ‘My wife always keeps a spare key in case of emergency.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that would be wise.’ She opened her door, pushed the pram in, nodded quickly and closed the door behind her. At once I heard the shrill howls of pleasure from indoors. The tiny tot was free: Run!

  I inserted the key in the lock, twisted and stepped inside. For a moment I stood sniffing the air, but I couldn’t smell anything suspicious and closed the door quietly after me.

  I was in a very small hall, furnished with an old dresser. Above it hung an oval mirror and as I flicked on the light switch a flattering reddish glow descended over the room.

  I opened the door to the right of me. It led into an oblong bathroom with a shower cabinet, toilet, sink, a medicine cupboard with a mirror at the front and a plastic basket for dirty laundry. I peered down. There were a few things there: panties, bras and a couple of blouses. At the back in one corner was a combined washing machine and drier. The door was open, and there was nothing inside.

  I opened the medicine cupboard. Shampoo, ointment, hair lacquer, various boxes of painkillers, none of them prescriptions, nail varnish and varnish remover, mascara and lipstick. I found a box of propolis granules and opened it. The contents might appear to look like tiny concentrated lumps of hash, but when I gingerly tasted one of them I soon recognised the sharp flavour of the real McCoy. Beyond that there was nothing unusual present, more the opposite.

  I went back into the hall. The next room I came to was the kitchen. It was small and narrow without space for much more than a unit, sink, fridge and dishwasher. Attached to the wall by the window was a small table, the kind that can be flipped up and secured with a bolt. There was a folding chair by the wall, but neither the chair nor the table seemed to have been used of late.

  I opened the fridge. Not much of interest there, either. A few jars of jam, an unopened packet of sheep sausage, a dried-up bit of brown cheese. I closed the door at once. This was not where she put her heart and soul.

  Through the hall I entered the sitting room. It was like most sitting rooms. The sound system was not as dominant as if there had been a man living here, and the TV was not the latest model. She had a few shelves of CDs and cassettes, but no books. There were some weekly magazines and a couple of newspapers strewn over the floor beyond the shabby coffee table, and the chairs looked as if they had been collected from the Sally Army shop, Fretex, one rainy day fifteen years ago. But the stains were more likely to be from beer and spirits than rain, I feared.

  It struck me that there was not a single picture hanging on the walls. There were a few plants in the window, but when I went over to inspect them I saw that they were artificial and covered with a thin layer of dust.

  Out of habit I cast a glance behind the threadbare sofa. Someone had stuffed a blue Fjord Line bag there. I bent over, picked it up and peered inside. It contained some scrunched-up plastic bags, the type you get in supermarkets. SuperBrugsen ones, not that I was any the wiser, all I knew was that at some point she had caught a ferry to Denmark and had been shopping. Perhaps she had even been working on it, an activity that was far from unusual, according to what I had been told. In the bar on the Danish ferry morals were free and wallets even freer. If you were the diligent kind you could fit a handful of cabin visits into a journey.

  The door to the adjacent room was ajar. I opened it wide and paused in the doorway.

  This was the room where she had invested most of herself. The bed was broad and large. There was a soft carpet on the floor, and the walls were covered in red velvet wallpaper with a silk lily pattern. In the corner of the room was a tall, dark brown wardrobe. I walked over and turned the key. Two doors unfolded. There was a tall mirror on the inside of each one, and from the poles hung a variety of outfits, most black, imaginatively designed and with a selection of openings, all according to your taste.

  I went to the bed and folded the quilt to one side. The linen looked nice and fresh. But even here there were no pictures on the walls. To me this seemed more like a workplace than a home. The first thing I had to find out was whether she had another address.

  There did not seem to be any personal effects in any part of the flat, unless …

  I went back to the hall and opened the drawers in the dresser, one by one. The top ones contained nothing more than a couple of headscarves
and some handkerchiefs. The bottom one contained what I was looking for: several large envelopes, a small photo album, a pile of prescriptions, certificates and other papers.

  I riffled through the papers. I was unable to find a driving licence, if she had one, a passport or any other kind of ID. Most were old invoices, prescriptions for a selection of medicines, some of them names I knew, others I didn’t. Most seemed to be sedatives and sleeping tablets of various strengths.

  I opened the small photo album. It had a dark red plastic cover and an old Tourist Office photo of Bryggen, the German wharf area of Bergen, on the outside. With a text: Greetings from Bergen.

  Most of the photographs were black-and-white, some newer ones were colour. The same woman appeared in the majority of them. As a young girl she had been photographed in a street I could not immediately place, but seemed to be somewhere in Bergen. Further in, there were a few photos taken in booths and a handful of very shaky pictures of her sitting in festive company in what must have been Børs Café. A couple of beach holiday snaps from somewhere in Southern Europe, with her sitting at a little table in front of an umbrella cocktail, smirking at the photographer.

  In some of the early pictures there were other children, but whether they were brothers and sisters or friends was hard to say. Many of the photos were taken on a slope with a white building in the background. If I was not mistaken it was Lea Park with Lea Hall in the background, or Solhaug School, as it was called in my days. In which case Hege was right when she thought Margrethe came from the Minde district of Bergen.

  The solitary photograph showing adults was a summery shot taken somewhere in the country, in front of a cabin and with high mountains in the background. It could have been anywhere in Vestland from Ryfylke, south of Bergen, to Nordfjord, north of Bergen. The small girl I assumed to be Margrethe was sitting with two other children, a boy and a girl, at a long wooden table, with five adults, three men and two women, all in their late thirties. It was a fair assumption that two of them were her parents, the others perhaps uncles and aunts, and the two children were her brother and sister. Everyone was smiling for the photographer, and there was a relaxed atmosphere of sun and summer about the small photo, snapped at a time when everything appeared to be better and no one was looking fifteen to twenty years ahead.