Nothing was as it had once been. You used to be able to walk straight into the police station in Allehelgens gate, take the lift up and find the officers you were looking for, with little resistance, apart from the sceptical glares from people who knew who you were and those who didn’t. Those who knew me were often more sceptical.
Now you had to report to reception, where the man or woman behind the counter would phone up to determine whether the person you wished to see was in the building. In this case it was a him, but Helleve had to come down by lift and fetch me himself – or send someone else.
This time it was Solheim who appeared. Despite the fact that he was getting on for forty, Inspector Bjarne Solheim’s hair was still charmingly untidy, even if it was cut short enough around his ears and down his neck. His boyish smile was quick on most occasions, and it wasn’t far away today either. ‘Helleve asked me to take care of you,’ he explained. ‘As you’re taking the case.’
We caught the lift up to the third floor, and Solheim held the department door open for me before leading me down the corridor to one of the offices with a window looking out onto Nygaten. It had started to rain and through the wet panes we glimpsed the line of houses opposite and the slanting rooftops of the old wooden houses in Marken.
Inspector Atle Helleve stood in the doorway of the adjacent office. He stroked his well-tended, grey-speckled beard and regarded me with curiosity. ‘Can you tell us anything about the robbery in Bryggen, Veum?’
‘Tell might be putting it a little strongly. But I do have a couple of questions.’
He smiled wryly. ‘And why am I not surprised? However, Bjarne has this case. Talk to him.’
‘Actually my assignment is for the Mette Case.’
‘The Mette Case. Isn’t it time-barred?’
‘Not yet. It was 1977. Do you remember it?’
‘Just hearsay. It was way before my time.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re going to crack it twenty-five years later?’ The sarcastic tone was palpable.
I shrugged. ‘Well, I’m going to have a look at it anyway.’
‘And what on earth has it got to do with the Bryggen robbery?’
‘Nothing, except that the man shot in Bryggen was one of Mette’s neighbours.’
‘Aha.’ He didn’t seem very impressed. ‘Well … you’ll have to see what time Bjarne has for you.’ He was on his way back into his office when he half-turned. ‘Veum…’
‘Yes?’
‘If you stumble on anything we can use, you will tell us, won’t you?’
‘Naturally.’
‘How are things going otherwise?’
‘Muddling through. Some days are better than others.’
‘Alright … see you.’
We nodded to each other and I followed Solheim into his office.
He shoved some files to the side of his desk, sat down behind it and indicated the vacant chair nearby. On his computer next to the desk some dancing circles revealed a screensaver. If you sat looking at them for too long you went dizzy.
‘You mentioned that the guy who was shot had something to do with an old case?’
‘Yes. That is…’ I briefly explained what I knew of the Mette Case, the co-op in Solstøvegen and how Nils Bringeland’s name had come up. ‘I was wondering … My plan is to do the rounds and try and contact the majority of the people who were living out there when Mette went
missing. I can’t speak to Bringeland, so the question is: how far have you got with the murder … and the whole case?’
‘You were thinking…’
‘Yes … I assume his shooting was an accident?’
‘There’s no reason to believe anything else. He has … he had an office at the end of Bryggen and was on his way there when, according to an eye-witness, he collided with one of the robbers, a few words were exchanged, and Bringeland was shot before the robber ran off after the others.’
‘A few words were exchanged?’
‘Yes, that’s what the eye-witness said. But obviously … he was sitting in a car in Bryggen, so the details…’ He waggled his head from side to side to emphasise how shaky the statement was.
‘Did he hear any of the words?’
‘No, unfortunately not.’
‘As far as I remember, there were some customers in the shop.’
‘That’s right. A mother and a daughter. We spoke to the daughter. The mother seemed a bit out of it.’
‘Did they hear anything?’
‘Of what was said outside? No.’
‘How much did the robbers get away with actually?’
He smiled wryly. ‘I’m not authorised to say, but … it was a pretty good hourly pay rate, considering the length of time and their getaway.’
‘Yes, how long did it take?’
‘Five to six minutes all in all, we estimate.’
‘But the owner was covered by insurance?’
‘He’s given us a list of the items and their prices. I can’t pass it on, though.’
‘I understand. Well … it’s not so important. They got away in a boat, did they?’
‘Yes, but it’s never been identified. It was seen as it rounded the Nordnes point and that’s the last definite sighting we have.’
‘There are not that many places it could hide, are there?’
‘No. It’s probably moored on either the Nordnes side or Laksevåg,
or it might have been sunk before they continued by car. All of this is speculation though. There’s nothing based on actual sightings.’
‘Strange.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘It would take time to sink a boat.’
‘Well, all you do is pull the plug, so it wouldn’t take that long. Besides, we weren’t exactly on the spot immediately afterwards. It took several days to check all the places they could have landed.’
‘Mm … often robbers come from an organised crime background. Was there anything about their MO that was reminiscent of other robberies?’
‘Thing is, Veum, generally speaking, in our neck of the woods we’ve been spared the great wave of robberies, simply because, geographically, it’s hard to make your getaway. There aren’t enough escape routes – on land or water. We’ve had our share of burglaries, safe-breaking and so on, often carried out by gangs doing the rounds, but robberies of this type are more the domain of Østland, or along the Swedish border, or in a radius of ten to twenty kilometres around Oslo. That’s where the main groupings tend to be. There are additional gangs coming from abroad, Sweden or Eastern Europe predominantly. And from more distant countries, such as China. However, as I said, this came as an immense surprise to us, and locally there are no obvious crime hotspots that we can target. So we’re at an early stage in our enquiries and this is new ground.’
‘They were wearing shell suits, I understand.’
He smirked. ‘Yes, and what’s that supposed to tell us? They were a gang of pensioners out to replenish their bank accounts?’
‘No, but amateurs maybe?’
‘Hardly, Veum. Not when this was carried out so professionally, with guns and so on. No, there was a precise plan behind this.’
‘What about bikers?’
He wasn’t convinced. ‘Well … there are not many of them around here either, and it’s the drugs rings we suspect will be heading our way. The drugs trade more than robberies of this kind. However, Veum … I still don’t understand what this has to do with your case.’
‘No, nor me. I wanted to find out about Nils Bringeland. To see whether there could be any reason why he, of all people, was killed during the robbery. But … clearly there wasn’t.’
‘Not as far as I can see. Unless you had anything else on your…’ He turned to the computer as though the circles were enticing him back with their bewitching movements.
‘No, I’d better … drop by later, if anything springs to mind.’
‘You do that, Veum.’ He got up. ‘I’ll show you the way out.’
‘I can find my way.’
‘I’m sure you can, but…’
‘I know. The new regulations.’
‘Nothing is as it was, Veum.’
‘No, I was thinking the same myself. And it’s never going to be, either.’
He accompanied me all the way down and stood waiting until I was out on the paved terrace outside the building, as if to ensure I didn’t commit some offence he could not fail to mention to his superiors, whoever they might be. Jakob E. Hamre would be one, I assumed. Another of those officers who used to heave a deep sigh at the mere sight of me. I headed for Bryggen and Nils Bringeland’s office in Bredsgården.
Bredsgården was the longest street in the part of Bryggen that was left after the fire of 4th July 1955.
I could remember that summer evening myself; I was twelve years old, standing in Klosterhaugen with my parents and looking down across Vågen to the burning houses, the terrible cloud of sparks and smoke that drifted and drifted and finally lay like a bluish-grey haze above large tracts of Bergen. Not far from us stood a girl from a parallel class with her mother, looking in the same direction. I was head-over-heels in love with her, but she never knew it. Many years later I met her at a party, and late in the evening, after several glasses of wine, she confided to me with a sardonic smile: If only you knew how in love with you I was then … What could you say to that? Nothing, only return the same sardonic smile.
Throughout history many have wanted to demolish the timber buildings in Bryggen; plans were presented again after the great explosion of April 1944 and then after the fire of 1955. But the plans were never realised. Now Bryggen was on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, heavy traffic was routed via tunnels through Fløyen, and walking along the quayside one rainy day in March, a month or two before the great tourist invasion of the town, was like walking past a memorial to the glories of yore, a row of façades painted in classical colours: red, yellow and white.
The company Nils Bringeland had run was up two floors, off the enclosed veranda and with an office facing the street. There was still an unmistakeable smell of dried fish in the woodwork, an odour not even the hundreds of years of Bergen rain that had fallen since the last dried fish had been transported from the area had managed to expunge. The
sign beside the door told me this was where Bringeland Papir & Kontor resided. I knocked, waited a few seconds, then opened the door and stepped inside.
The room confirmed the description: It was an office, and there was a lot of paper. Along all the walls there were shelves of goods testifying to the fact that this was indeed a paper business: boxes of envelopes in various sizes, packets of photocopy paper in various colours and of various qualities, and a wide selection of other office equipment. Not enough to sell directly, most probably they were examples of the range they had to offer potential bulk buyers.
Behind a desk dominated by a computer sat a woman. The screen was placed in such a way that she could see on to the street. The two windows were covered by two half-drawn blinds, which completely shut out the sunlight when it was too intrusive, seldom the case in Bergen. Now, in reaction to my entrance, she swivelled her chair round to the door.
She was fifty or thereabouts, had short, greying hair, a slightly sad expression and was elegantly dressed in a black skirt and white blouse; a delicate blue-and-red cardigan from Oleana hung from the back of her chair in case it got cold.
Her voice was clear and well modulated. ‘How can I help you?’
‘My name’s Veum. Varg Veum. Private investigator. I was wondering if you were a colleague of Nils Bringeland?’
She half-rose from her chair. ‘What do you mean – private investigator?’
‘Erm, I’m here about an old case.’
‘Not the murder, then?’
‘No. That is … no.’
‘Well…’ She pointed to a vacant chair. ‘I doubt I can help you with anything, but … I’ll try of course. What old case is this?’
‘The Mette Case. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘No, not immediately.’
‘A small girl who disappeared from her house in Nordås about twenty-five years ago.’
‘I see. I’m not sure … I was young then and probably had other things in my head.’
‘Nils Bringeland was one of her neighbours.’
‘Oh … from when he lived there.’
‘Did you know him back then?’
‘Yes, I … but not that far back. I’ve been employed here for almost twenty years. But you don’t mean to say that Nils had anything to do with that case, do you?’
‘No, no. Not at all. I’m just feeling my way. He and his then wife got divorced. I don’t know when.’
‘Well, I can…’ She coughed. ‘There’s something I should make clear to you right now, so that there won’t be any misunderstandings.’
‘Oh, yes?’
She pursed her lips, as though this was not going to be pleasant, then continued: ‘My name is Sølvi Hegge. It was me … I was … I lived with Nils for fifteen years afterwards.’
‘Ah, I see! Sorry for bothering you with this then.’
She pursed her lips again. ‘It’s … fine. I’m over the initial shock now.’
‘How—?’
She interrupted me. ‘It was a shock. I’d been expecting him back in the office from meeting a customer in the town centre so that we could drive home together. We lived between Morvik and Mjølkeråen in Åsane, so if we travelled together we could get home faster and start cooking.’
I nodded.
‘He didn’t come … After a while I became restless. I tried to phone him on his mobile, but couldn’t get through, and then … It must have been about five, suddenly there was a policeman at the door asking – a bit like you just now – if this was where Nils Bringeland worked. I said yes, you can see it is, and pointed to the sign outside. He nodded and coughed and finally came out with: There’s been an accident. We’d like to contact his closest family. That’s me, I said. And then he told me the whole story. He’d been passing by the jeweller’s in Bryggen and had been shot in the melee. How serious is it? I asked, and then he told me that he was…’ Her voice cracked. ‘Dead.’
She sat staring into space. From Bryggen we heard the sound of a passing bus. ‘It was incomprehensible. Dead. One minute happy and on his way back from a hopefully successful meeting. The next, dead. No warning. No sick bed, no symptoms we could draw conclusions from. Just because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ She shifted her gaze back to me. ‘You have to admit it has no meaning.’
‘Of course. I can well understand how you feel.’ Better than she imagined, in fact. ‘And I come here bothering you with … quite different matters.’
‘Yes.’ She looked at me, almost aggrieved.
‘I can talk to other people.’
She raised a hand in defence. ‘No, I’ll answer whatever questions you have, but as I said … I don’t think I can help you.’
‘No. But … You said Nils Bringeland and you had lived together for fifteen years?’
She nodded.
‘And you’ve been employed here for around twenty?’
‘Yes.’ She quickly added: ‘There’s no denying it. We met here. I was taken on in 1982, and we got to know each other well, of course. It was just us here, plus customers and delivery men now and again. But mostly just us. So, occasionally, when things were quiet, we sat chatting, naturally enough. We went out and had a meal together sometimes, when it was convenient. We knew each other pretty well before … well, starting a relationship, which ended in us moving in together in 1987.’
‘And that was when his previous relationship finished, of course.’
She glared at me. ‘Of course. Although … I have to be honest and admit … we started the relationship before Randi and he had finished, but the relationship between them had been ice-cold for years and he had never stopped to think why. He was extremely loyal.’
‘To Randi?’
‘Yes. He never went into any detail about what had gone wrong. Didn’t want to talk about it. He just said … something had happened and nothing was ever the same again.’
‘Something had happened?’
‘Yes.’
‘And there were no details?’
‘None.’
‘Hm.’ I reflected on that for a while. ‘Did he have any contact with Randi … later?’
‘Yes, of course. They had two children, Joachim and Janne. And they had to be looked after, between them. Joachim was eighteen when Nils and I moved in together, Janne was thirteen. In principle, they lived with Randi, but there were problems with Joachim, and Janne wasn’t getting along too well, either.’
‘Perhaps they’d been affected by what happened to the girl, Mette?’
‘Well … now you say that. I had no idea … it was never discussed.’
‘What was the problem with Joachim?’
‘Already then he was mixing with … dubious types. Today you’ll find him in Nygårdsparken, with the veterans.’
‘Drugs, I take it?’
‘Up to his ears! A human wreck, if you ask me. Nils was absolutely desperate, but what could he do? The guy was an adult, he had no influence over him, and you know how much help you get from the state. As good as nothing. In this country you have the state’s blessing to go to hell in a handcart, just behave nicely in the park and don’t go robbing old ladies or turn to prostitution.’
‘Well … there are some state institutions.’
‘But not enough!’
‘I cannot disagree. And the daughter?’
‘Janne lives in England. She went there as an au pair, met a guy and never came back. You’ll have to ask Randi about her.’
‘OK … she doesn’t live in Nordås any more, is that right?’
‘No, she moved to Bergen after Nils left. I had a little contact with her regarding the funeral in December.’ She nodded to the window. ‘She lives over there, in Nordnes. In a sixties block.’
‘What does she do?’
‘She’s a sales assistant in one of the shops in Kløverhuset. Ladies’ clothing for teens of all ages.’
‘Were they at the funeral? All of them?’
‘Oh, yes. Joachim and Janne and her English husband. In fact, he was bad-tempered and stroppy and not unlike a football player after he’s been given a red card. None of them spoke afterwards. Nor did Randi. Not a single one of them.’
I couldn’t help myself, but I had developed a bit of a soft spot for Sølvi Hegge. I liked the way she expressed herself, her commitment, frankness and the sober way she tackled her grief. And her smile was sardonic and a little despondent; it was the way my old school friend from Nordnes had smiled, when we met so many years later.
‘Did you and Nils have children?’
She sighed, and her eyes glazed over. ‘Helene. She’s ten. Of course, she doesn’t understand anything. It’s impossible to explain … why such things happen, as you know. You can become an atheist for much less.’
‘Yes.’
I would have liked to stay there longer, but there was nothing to suggest she had anything to tell me about Mette, and she hadn’t offered me a cup of coffee, surprisingly enough for a morning visit to a Norwegian office.
‘Well, perhaps…’ I got to my feet. ‘If you happen to think of anything that might have some significance for the case, then…’ I passed her my card and she stood up to take it. She was ten centimetres shorter than me and a waft of something reminded me of funerals: king lily and chrysanthemum.
Her eyes were steely grey as she looked up at me. ‘Why has the case come up now, after so many years?’
‘Another mother wondering what actually happened.’
She nodded slowly. ‘It’s not always that easy to explain.’
‘Not for any of us.’
With those words we parted, for ever, to all appearances. But you can never be sure of anything. Perhaps we would meet again, at a party in some years’ time, and sit smiling philosophically at each other.