The large room fell quiet. Vibecke stared at me. ‘What was that you said? I didn’t quite catch…’
‘I said to your husband that, after all, Jan was his son,’ I said in a low neutral voice, as though telling her the weather forecast for the following day. ‘In a way that explains his commitment to this case, as I said, from the time Jan was born!’
She turned to Langeland with a face like one large, open wound. Again we could barely hear what she whispered: ‘Is this true, Jens? Are there any other things you haven’t told me?’
‘Vibecke, I…’ All his eloquence was gone now, all his defence mechanisms destroyed. All I could read in Langeland’s face was deep, bottomless despair. ‘I couldn’t… tell… couldn’t tell anyone! I’ve never told…’ He swung round to me again. ‘How this fellow worked it out… I just can’t fathom!’
I studied him. ‘I remember,’ I started, ‘seeing you together in court, during the review meeting in Forde and later in Bergen… it struck me how similar you were. The same gangling stance, the same toss of the head. You can never completely disguise genetic traces, not a hundred per cent.’
He brandished an arm, as if to reject everything, but I was past the point where I would let myself be stopped. ‘I seem to remember… the description you gave of Mette Olsen the first time I visited your Bergen office… young and sweet, you called her, and there was a sort of elation about the way you said it. But there was more. What really put me on the trail was the time aspect.’
‘The time aspect?’
‘When I visited Mette Olsen in Jolster in 1984, I committed the folly of believing that the man she was arrested with in Flesland, David Pettersen… was Jan’s father. But Jan was born in July 1967, and David and Mette were arrested in Flesland on August 30th the year before. Unless they had an unguarded moment at court, which I consider highly unlikely, it is simply impossible for him to be the boy’s father.’
I let this sink in before carrying on: ‘So which other men was she keeping company with at that time? And don’t forget that she was in remand right through till November when the case was brought before the court. But she must have met her solicitors, I suppose, without police supervision even, if I’m not mistaken…’
He looked at me with an expression of blank resignation on his face. Vibecke had stopped crying. Her eyes flitted from me to him and back again.
His voice was now almost as hushed as hers had been. ‘I couldn’t… first of all, I had infringed the solicitors’ code of conduct, and this was one of my very first cases, Veum. I wasn’t even… Bakke had the case. Bakke was a barrister, my superior. But when she became pregnant… it didn’t come out until she had been released. I tried to persuade her… but she insisted on keeping the child. I said to her: ‘But there can never be anything serious between us two.’
‘Why not?’ Vibecke snapped, like the crack of a whip.
‘Because… she wasn’t the right one. She didn’t have the right…’
‘Status, shall we call it perhaps?’ I said. ‘A little hippie girl on her way home from Copenhagen in very unseemly company. And God knows who she might have been with over there… or how many… was that how your mind was working?’
He half-stood up. ‘Anyway, that’s how things stayed. We made a deal. I was never registered as the child’s father. In recompense I’ve helped her and Jan, as far as I’ve been able all the years since.’
‘Have you now?’
‘As well as I’ve been able, I said,’ he mumbled despondently, almost to himself.
‘And she kept her mouth shut all these years… Mette, I mean?’
He looked up again. ‘Well, did she?’
‘She never banged on the door asking for money?’
‘No, she did not!’
‘I can understand her,’ Vibecke broke in with a bitter timbre to her voice. ‘At least she had retained her pride!’
‘And what help have you been exactly?’ I persisted. ‘You didn’t manage to prevent his foster mother doing time for a murder she had not committed. You didn’t manage to prevent Jan being convicted for a double murder it is highly questionable that he committed.’
He eyed me with increasing desperation. ‘So who did commit them?’
I met his eyes with defiance. ‘Yes, who did? Who the hell do you think? Terje Hammersten?’
‘Hammersten’s dead. You told me that yourself.’
‘Now, yes.’
My mobile phone suddenly rang. Vibecke gave a start, Langeland looked around, confused, and I made a grab for my inside pocket as if I was having a heart attack.
I got up and walked over to the window. It had grown dark outside. The sun had long gone down, but the lights from Ullerntoppen and the gleam of the floodlights round Oscarshall Palace orientated me as to where I was, high above the peasantry. I lifted the mobile to my ear and said my name.
His voice came in fits and starts, as if he too was having problems finding the right words. ‘I’ve spoken to Silje. You said you wanted to meet me.’
It was Jan Egil.
52
‘Where are you?’ I asked.
‘In town. Where are you?’
‘With your solicitor, Jens Langeland.’
There was a silence.
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes… Ask Langeland if you can borrow his car.’
Langeland and Vibecke were following the conversation closely. I lowered the phone and said: ‘It’s Jan Egil… he’s asking whether I can borrow your car.’
‘My car!’ Langeland held out his hand. ‘Let me talk to him.’
I raised the phone to my mouth. ‘Langeland’s coming.’
Langeland took the phone and said: ‘Jan Egil! What’s going on?… But why haven’t you contacted me? It’s at times like this you need a solicitor!.. Yes… No… But what do you want with him?… In that case I’ll come, too… Why not?… But, I’m already involved. I’m your solicitor, for Pete’s sake! I have been for all these years.’
I looked at Vibecke while Langeland was speaking. The answers we guessed he was getting from Jan Egil seemed to be reflected in her face, like rapidly changing cloud cover.
‘OK then! But I don’t like the sound of that! I repeat with the uttermost clarity: I do not like this. I don’t even bloody know if the man has a licence…’ He cast a sidelong glance at me, and I responded instantly with a nod: Oh, yes, that much I did have. He glowered in return. ‘OK, Jan Egil… I’ll put him on. Take care.’
I was given back my mobile and raised it to my ear. ‘Me again.’
He wasted no time. ‘D’you know where Ulleval Stadium is?’
‘Yes, more or less. I’ll find my way there, anyway.’
‘Across the street there’s a Mercedes showroom. Park in front and get out of the car. I’ll be there as soon as I’m sure you’re alone.’
‘When?’
‘Soon as poss.’
‘I’ll give you a call back.’
‘Just come, Varg. That’s the main thing.’ With that he rang off.
I looked at Langeland again. ‘Did he say anything else to you?’
‘Just that he had something very important to discuss with you personally. You heard me insisting I came along too, but he said…’ He threw his arms in the air, desperate. ‘He told me not to get involved. But I’m already involved, I said.’
‘Yes, we heard that.’
‘Does he know?’ Vibecke asked in a clear voice.
We both glanced in her direction. ‘Know what?’ Langeland said.
Her eyes widened a fraction. ‘That you’re his father!’
‘No! No one knew… until now.’
‘Except for Mette Olsen,’ I said. ‘And she died a year ago. Could she have told anyone?’ As neither of them answered, I went on: ‘Terje Hammersten, for example?’
He stiffened. ‘Not as far as I know. No one has ever confronted me with it before today.’
‘And your superior at that time, Bakke, did he get to hear of anything?’
He shook his head.
‘Well… then I’ll have to take my chances and meet him face to face.’ I felt my nerves jangle inside me as I spoke. ‘If I can borrow your car, that is.’
He threw up his arms. ‘I agreed to that. Goodness me! The boy is wanted by the police and here I am, knowingly letting…’