The Consorts of Death Read Free

Cecilie and I were the ones given the task.
    At that time I still had my old Mini and we squeezed into the front seats, me at the wheel, Cecilie beside me. Driving a Mini felt like trundling round in a tiny bathtub, with such small wheels that you felt your backside was touching the road as you sped over Bergen’s cobblestone streets. You were so perilously low over the tarmac that any head-on collision would put you well in the running for the flat-as-a-pancake award. On the other hand, you could almost always tuck yourself into a parking gap however tight it looked and petrol consumption was not a lot more than for a medium-sized cigarette lighter.
    The crime scene was in Wergelandsåsen, a hillside dotted with large detached houses lying like a buffer zone between Landås and Minde, Landås with its fifties and sixties blocks of flats, Minde with its sedate twenties residences. The house we were called to was brown and had a wintry grey garden with faded rosebushes, patches of snow in the shrubbery beds, apple trees with long-established mushroom-like growths in the bark and rhododendrons in their hibernation phase, with hanging leaves and brownish-green winter buds.
    Several cars were parked outside the garden gate. The front door was open and a handful of people had gathered on the steps. I recognised many of them from Bergen Police HQ as they stood there drawing their very first conclusions over thin roll-ups. We opened the gate and stepped inside.
    Cecilie had briefed me about the case on our way there. A six-year-old boy had been at home with his father. On her return, the mother had discovered the boy crying in the hallway and when she shouted to her husband, there was no answer. She started to look and found him at the bottom of the cellar stairs. His neck was broken. The man was dead. She had managed to ring for help before breaking down. For the time being she was being held at Haukeland hospital, heavily sedated and with a female police officer at her bedside in case she needed someone to talk to when she came round. ‘What are their names?’ I had asked. ‘Skarnes. Svein and Vibecke Skarnes.’ ‘Background?’ ‘That’s all I know, Varg.’
    We entered the house, where Inspector Dankert Muus gave us a grim welcome nod. Muus was a tall man with grey skin, a small hat screwed down on his head and the burning stump of a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, like an amputated limb. I hadn’t said more than hello to him before, but he clearly recognised us. He pointed towards a door on the left of the cosy white hallway. ‘He’s in there.’
    We went into a simply furnished modern living room with dark bookshelves, a TV cabinet alongside the shortest wall, potted plants in the windows and light, shiny curtains. A policewoman, a round-faced Bergen-blonde, was sitting on a sofa with a little boy in her arms. In her hands she was holding a blue transformer with a red button, while on the floor in front of them a small Märklin train was running round an ellipsoid track carefully laid between the rest of the furniture. The boy sat watching the train without any visible signs of pleasure. He resembled a doll rather than a small boy.
    The constable smiled with relief and stood up. ‘Hi! Are you from social services?’
    ‘Yes.’
    As she put down the transformer, the train came to a halt. The boy sat watching. There was no indication that he wanted to take over the transformer.
    We introduced ourselves. Her name was Tora Persen. Her accent revealed roots in Hardanger, maybe Kvinnherad. ‘And this is Johnny boy,’ she added, lightly placing her hand on the back of the tiny boy’s head.
    ‘Hello,’ we chorused.
    Johnny boy ?
    The boy just looked at us.
    Where had I heard the name before ?
    Cecilie squatted down in front of him. ‘You’re going to be with us. We have a lovely room for you which will be all yours. You’ll meet some nice people there and some children you can play with if you want.’
    Then