‘The alibi was drinking pals, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but there are several… neighbours. The man who ran the grocery where they bought beer. A prostitute he’d been with.’
‘Easy enough to get if you lean hard on the right people. Or if you have some cash to wave around. But you didn’t manage to crack the alibis, I see.’
‘No, not that time. And now it’s definitely too late.’
I nodded. ‘What about the other case I asked you to dig up? That’s even older.’
‘Yes.’ He took out another file, considerably thinner, and opened it. ‘The case against David Pettersen and Mette Olsen, November 1966. He was given eight years, she was acquitted. He topped himself after the sentence was pronounced.’
‘Yes, I know. But… were they picked up at customs by chance, or were there grounds for suspecting them?’
He began to flick through.
‘She thought they’d been set up,’ I added.
He took out the documents from the case file and flicked through to the end. Then he nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. An anonymous telephone call, it says here. August 30th, 13.05. The same afternoon they were nabbed.’
‘A telephone call? Where from? From Copenhagen?’
‘Nope. From Bergen.’
‘From Bergen! Was any attempt ever made to trace the call?’
He nodded again. ‘It would certainly have helped the defence during the trial. But they never got any further than one of the telephone booths at the railway station.’
‘But who the hell would want to inform on them in Bergen? I assume the drugs were coming here?’
‘Here, and maybe travelling further. We’ll never know. But think back, Veum. This was in 1966, right at the beginning of the new drugs boom. It was still tied up with dope romanticism and hash heaven, sex ’n’ drugs ’n’ rock ’n’ roll. No one knew about the consequences, what tragedies and misery it would lead to for coming generations.’
‘What are you driving at?’
‘Well, I mean… there was big money to be made with hash at that time, and there were lots of dogs after the same bone.’
‘You mean… it could have been someone competing in the same market?’
‘Someone. Anyone. What do I know?’ He thrust out his arms. ‘Anyway, there was a telephone call, and the police rang customs. They were stopped at customs, and the rest we know.’
‘So what’s the common theme here, Vadheim?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘But can’t you see it? The theme is smuggling.’
‘Smuggling?’
‘Yes! From Mette Olsen and this David Pettersen, who are apprehended at Flesland airport, to Ansgar Tveiten, who is killed in Bygstad, to Svein Skarnes, who falls down the stairs in Bergen, and to the Libakk couple who are killed in Angedalen almost exactly a week ago.’
‘Aren’t you jumping to conclusions now, Veum? You can interpret all of this in a completely different way, too. The common theme for the first two cases is smuggling, that’s right. But the first one’s about narcotics, the second alcohol, which at that time were two very different markets. And as far as Svein Skarnes is concerned… he falls victim to a marital dispute in which the theme might just as easily have been abuse or infidelity.’ He looked to Cecilie Lyngmo for help and found it in the form of an affirmative nod. ‘This Angedalen double murder seems to have been triggered by sexual abuse, in other words, it’s a family affair. You could just as easily say that all of this goes off in a variety of directions. Hard to say what we can do, in my opinion.’
‘But Hammersten may have been involved in all of the cases.’
‘May have been? All we have is vague rumours about some connection with the Tveiten murder in 1973.’
‘And he lived with Mette Olsen!’
‘After she got into drugs, yes. But in 1966 she was with David Pettersen.’
I leaned forward. ‘At least do me one favour, Vadheim. As soon as he’s back in town… bring him in for a — talk. Have a chat with him.’
He viewed me with scepticism. ‘With Hammersten? On this evidence? Hardly, Veum. Hardly.’
‘Then I’ll have to do it myself.’
‘Would you take the risk?’
‘If no one else dares, then…’
43
Marianne Storetvedt received me at the same office as in 1974. Bryggen Museum and the new SAS hotel had been up a long time on the other side of the bay, but apart from that the view was the same. She hadn’t changed much, either. She still reminded me of a Hollywood star from the early fifties, glamorous and with the slightly old-fashioned, glossy hairstyle: Rita Hayworth in a role she filled to perfection, to everyone’s surprise. But her attire was not very provocative and the clear signs of wrinkles on her face would hardly have been accepted by Columbia Pictures.
She listened without interrupting while I told her about Jan Egil and all the other developments in the case since she had treated him in 1974. A couple of times she jotted something down in the notebook on her lap.
When I had finished, she nodded her head in acknowledgement as if I had passed an exam. ‘A classic tale, I’m afraid,’ she said.
‘In what sense?’
‘The art of creating a psychopath.’
‘You’re thinking about — Jan Egil?’
She lowered her head in affirmation. ‘I think we talked about this last time. He was already exhibiting clear signs then of early emotional damage, what we in the profession call a reactive attachment disorder. If parents only knew how important the first years of life are for their children, Varg!’
‘In this case, neither parent was even present. Well, one was, but not a hundred per cent. The mother was on drugs when he was born.’
‘Even more typical. Here it’s the frequent shifting of carers that creates the problem, on top of the primary carer — in this case the mother — not being stable enough, being on drugs, at least for long periods. A child like this will develop its own primary personality based on rejection. It becomes the fundamental emotion this child will feel most at home with, even when grown up — and then often with tragic consequences.’
‘I see. So if you were to be a character witness in the case against Jan Egil…’
She interrupted me. ‘I wouldn’t be able to do that, of course. I haven’t followed his development for the last ten years. I’m only giving my opinion in general terms, Varg. But, by and large, it’s not so unusual for children with this kind of background to perform criminal actions at a very young age. Often directed against adoptive or foster parents who in a way are there in loco parentis, ones who, voluntarily or involuntarily, failed them.’
‘But not in such a dramatic manner as this, I hope?’
‘No, but it could be hooliganism, it could be theft — of cars, for example — or other anti-social actions. Such as smashing up the foster father’s car. Sometimes with a fatal conclusion for them both, or anyone else they might meet on a joyride. If people only realised…’
‘Doesn’t sound like you’ll be invited to the witness box by his defence counsel, anyway. More likely by the prosecution, sad to say.’
‘We’ll have to see what the investigation turns up before we make our final judgement…’
‘For Jan Egil, of course, it’s a big problem that the murder weapon has no fresh prints on it other than his. Could it be that he wasn’t aware of the consequences of his actions?’
‘You mean if he wasn’t the murderer? That he might conceivably have come to the crime scene after the murders had taken place and picked up the weapon without thinking? Then taken it with him when escaping from the police, out of fear of being blamed?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Being governed by sudden impulses, and therefore capable of carrying out imprudent actions, would not clash at all with the picture of the personality I broadly sense here, no.’