Mirror image, p.24
Mirror Image, page 24
‘Jesus,’ Bergesen exclaimed.
‘Hm,’ Hamre said.
I said nothing.
For a moment we straightened up and looked sombrely at each other. This was confirmation of what we had feared.
A pale face stared up at us. The eyes were dulled. Most of the upper body was visible. There was a large, open wound in the man’s chest, where the gun had discharged its shot. Some of it was lodged in splintered bones, like black boils in the flesh-coloured lacerations. The water was turbid. The hair of the deceased floated on the surface.
Realisation went through me like a shock wave. This was neither Bodil Breheim nor Fernando Garrido. This was someone I had spoken to myself, only a few days before. But he would never play the saxophone again.
Hamre read the expression on my face. ‘Is this Garrido, Veum?’
‘No, this is Hallvard Hagenes. His uncle died here thirty-six years ago.’
‘Thirty-six?’
‘And does that death have any connection with this?’ Bergesen asked, with disbelief in her voice.
‘Not that I can see,’ I answered.
42
Dead men don’t play the saxophone. Dead men lie supine, eyes vacant, listening to music we others cannot hear. And they have taken its secrets with them.
I could feel their eyes on my face, as though they were waiting for a more exhaustive explanation. Instead, I thought aloud. ‘He and Bodil Breheim, it might appear, were having a relationship.’
Bergesen nodded. ‘In other words, what we see here might be the result of a classic love triangle.’
‘What was the bit about the uncle, Veum?’ Hamre asked.
‘His uncle and Bodil Breheim’s mother definitely did have a relationship in 1957. They were caught in the act, quite literally, up here by her husband and one other person. I can go into detail later. The way I’ve had it explained to me, Johan Hagenes and Tordis Breheim were forced to drive their car into the sea from Hjellestad quay. They both died.’
Hamre raised his eyebrows. ‘Forced?’
‘With the help of a shotgun hanging on the cabin wall as recently as the previous time I was here.’
‘The same one?’
‘Well, I can’t be precise about that, Hamre. But there was definitely a shotgun on the wall, and now there isn’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I looked through the window after I rang you.’
‘Hm.’ He observed me, deep in contemplation. ‘And this Breheim was charged, was he?’
‘No, the case was never cleared up. In fact, it was never a case. It was pronounced a suicide. A death pact, if you understand what I mean, between two unhappy lovers. It’s only now that … Actually, it was me who got to the bottom of this.’
‘Master Detective VV strikes again,’ Hamre quipped. ‘And true to form,’ he said to his colleague, ‘always too late. In this case, a mere thirty-six years.’
Bergesen nodded, her face concentrated. ‘But that, as far as I can discern, has nothing at all to do with this.’ She indicated the corpse in the well. Then she looked at me.
I shrugged. ‘Not unless a tendency to act in this way is hereditary.’
‘Perhaps we’d better send someone to check Hjellestad quay, do you think?’ Hamre suggested.
I didn’t answer.
‘Is there any more you can tell us about this Hagenes?’ she asked.
I told them all I knew, but I could hear with my own ears that it wasn’t much.
In the meantime, more police had arrived. Hamre told one of the officers to call an ambulance so that the dead body could be taken away. Then he turned back to me. ‘When did you last see him, Veum?’
I made a quick calculation. ‘It must’ve been on Tuesday.’
‘A week tomorrow, in other words.’ He shifted his gaze to Bergesen. ‘But he obviously hasn’t been here that long.’
‘No chance,’ she said. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say this happened quite recently. Probably the weekend just gone.’
Hamre summed up. ‘So we have a body in a well, with a fatal shot to the chest. We don’t have the assumed murder weapon, probably a shotgun our main witness, herr Veum, saw on the wall in the cabin. We have a named couple who have been missing from home since Easter. There’s a lot that’s still unclear, but all the evidence suggests we’re dealing with a classic crime of passion.’
I felt my forehead tighten. ‘Perhaps your suggestion, Hamre, wasn’t so stupid after all.’
‘Which one?’
‘To check Hjellestad quay.’
He eyed me, frowning. ‘Are you serious?’
Bergesen was more open to the idea. ‘Can you imagine someone simply copying the events of 1957?’
I nodded. ‘Not down to the very last detail perhaps, but … yes.’
Hamre stroked his brow. ‘If I understand you correctly, Veum, you’re saying that if we search the sea near Hjellestad, we may find the Garrido couple?’
‘But my understanding,’ Bergesen said, ‘was that there were no dead bodies up here in 1957.’
‘No, there weren’t,’ I replied, ‘and that may be the big difference.’
‘So, the scene is different anyway?’
‘Yes … It’s a kind of mirror image, if you get what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t think I do, quite.’
I looked at Hamre. ‘Well? What’s it to be?’
He glanced from me to his colleague with an expression of resignation. ‘Can you be bothered to go with him? If you two see any evidence to suggest there’s something in what he’s saying, then call a crane by all means. This could be a long day – a very long day.’
Annemette Bergesen and I exchanged looks. Her eyes were blue, bottomless, her lips full, the contours of her face angular. Around her neck she wore a turquoise silk scarf, loosely knotted.
‘And there was you thinking you’d come to a peaceful town,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘This is actually my profession, you know.’
‘Dead people.’
‘Most are alive, luckily.’
‘Guilty and innocent.’
‘More or less, yes.’ She turned back to Hamre. ‘Perhaps you should come with us? In case we find something.’
Hamre frowned at her. ‘Don’t you start.’
‘You never know.’
‘Oh, alright then.’
It ended up with all three of us walking down to the road and driving to Hjellestad quay, with Bergesen at the wheel. Summer was in full bloom. The sun was beating down from a cloudless sky, and the thermometer outside the shop said twenty-two degrees. I wouldn’t have minded jumping into the sea myself.
To the east of the quay, a concrete boat ramp sloped down into the sea. We got out on the quay. From the ramp, we could see the seabed, dotted with seaweed, then it suddenly descended into the depths, where the water was darker.
And just there…
Of course, it could have been a sunken boat that no one had bothered to raise. It could have been junk someone had dumped, the way that some people have a habit of doing. Or it could have been the reflection of the rear window in a car, parked for good – or until someone considered it worthwhile checking whether the parking meter had run out.
I don’t know which of us saw it first. But it was Bergesen who made the first tentative observations. ‘Goodness… ’ She pointed. ‘Down there … It really does look like … Doesn’t it?’
Hamre nodded dolefully.
‘Anyone feel like a swim?’ I asked.
Hamre was already on his way back to the car to ring the central switchboard at the police station. Bergesen shook her head. ‘It’s too late anyway. Besides, I left my swimming costume at home.’
‘Swimming costume?’ I said, loosening the buckle on my belt. But I let it go. She was right. It was too late.
It was going to be a long wait. If we had needed to, we could have become close friends during that day; at least got to know each other better. Hamre came back with the message that a frogman unit was on its way. We heard the vehicle long before we saw it; it arrived with the sirens wailing. The two divers greeted Hamre and were given their instructions. While they dived down, we stood on the quay watching. Bubbles told us where they were, forming an arbitrary pattern in the greyish-green water; bubbles rising and bursting, like shattered dreams. If we strained our eyes, we could catch a glimpse of them as they moved around the car below, like carrion-eating fish around their prey.
They didn’t re-emerge until ten minutes later. One of them pulled off his mask and beckoned to Hamre. The rest of us followed him. The diver looked up at us.
‘It’s a taxi.’
‘Right,’ Hamre said.
‘There’s a woman behind the wheel. Buckled in. No one else. And one more thing. There’s a shotgun on the backseat.’
‘No saxophone?’ I asked.
Taken aback by the question, he looked up at me. ‘No, a shotgun. You know, bang, bang.’
Hamre heaved a huge sigh. ‘Good. The crane’s on the way. Can you check the car again thoroughly to see if you can find anything of significance?’
‘And check the rear doors are shut properly,’ I said.
The diver looked at Hamre with raised eyebrows. Hamre nodded.
More waiting; more topsy-turvy thoughts. Suddenly everything seemed to explode in front of my eyes. What had initially been just a somewhat suspicious disappearance, a case that had been difficult to get a proper perspective on, had in the course of a few hours developed into a drama of unexpected proportions, not only with the body in the well up by the cabin, but now with an even stronger allusion to the events of 1957: a dead woman in a car that had driven into the sea off Hjellestad quay.
‘If, in fact, it is Bodil Breheim sitting in the car,’ Hamre said while we were waiting for the crane, ‘then we have at least two possibilities. Maybe she killed Hagenes. Afterwards she took the murder weapon with her, got into the car and drove into the sea of her own free will. That’s happened before.’
‘And the second?’ I said.
‘If we take what you told us about the events of 1957 as the basis, it would be as follows: Fernando is the guilty party. After shooting Hagenes, he forced his wife at gun point to repeat her mother’s actions and he – as you claim Breheim did originally – jumped out of the car at the last moment. In which case, we’ll have to find him.’
‘And the third?’ I insisted.
‘Is there a third possibility?’
I looked at Bergesen, expecting her to come up with a suggestion, then continued, addressing Hamre again. ‘The problem is that both Bodil Breheim and her husband have been missing for more than two weeks. I’ve met Hallvard Hagenes in the meantime. Twice. The scenario of him and Bodil Breheim coming up here for a frolic, only then to be surprised by Garrido, simply makes no sense.’
‘It doesn’t fit with what happened in 1957, you mean?’ Hamre grinned.
‘It doesn’t fit with anything.’
The crane truck arrived, and the last phase of the wait began, the last and the most difficult. We didn’t have any more ideas to exchange. All we did was watch the process of the car being hauled ashore.
The truck backed as far down the boat ramp as it could. The two divers carried the hook down into the deep. After a while one came up to the surface and signalled that the car was securely attached. Afterwards the black Mercedes was pulled backward, up from the sea. The truck drove up the ramp and dragged Hallvard Hagenes’s car with it. As the water was still gushing and trickling out of it, we went over, leaned forward and peered in at the woman sitting behind the wheel, pale and wet and as dead as you can be.
For the second time today, I suffered a huge shock, and not for a second did I think about who I was going to send the bill for my services. Because it wasn’t Bodil Breheim in the car. It was her sister.
43
Another recent acquaintance was being laid in a body bag today and transported to Gades Institute for an autopsy. The shotgun was taken from the back seat and carefully wrapped up as well. I stood on the quay, idly watching. No one came to wrap me up, and I was fine with that. I was still alive.
Annemette Bergesen sauntered over, not exactly to comfort me though. ‘How should we interpret this, Veum? Have you got a view on it?’
I shrugged. ‘They knew each other. Once, a long time ago.’
‘In which way?’
‘They’d been close friends when they were very young. In 1972 to’73. But her sister came between them.’
‘Oh?’
‘They formed a kind of love triangle even then. Berit lost Hallvard to her sister, if you know what I mean.’
‘She took him from her?’
‘Mmm. I wouldn’t like to say who took whom from whom. And it was twenty years ago.’
‘They didn’t have any contact later?’
‘Yes, they probably did. I know for certain he was in Bodil’s house as late as February this year.’
She seemed interested. ‘Really?’
‘According to him, it was perfectly innocent, but … he may’ve been lying to me, of course. In this profession that’s what you learn. People lie all the time. Besides, he half admitted it himself, that he’d met Berit again, at a later date. But from there to… ’
‘Neither of them was married?’
‘He wasn’t. She had been.’
‘Who to?’
‘Don’t know. Someone or other. It wasn’t her I was investigating. It was her sister.’
‘So Bodil Breheim and Hallvard Hagenes had been…?’ She gazed across the sea. ‘Where do you think they are now?’
‘Bodil?’ I shrugged and splayed my hands. ‘I have no idea. Right now, I feel like a terrible failure. When the bodies that turn up are not those you’d expected, it’s like everything’s been turned on its head, nothing is as it appears, or as the people I was speaking to made it appear.’
‘Do you mean she was lying to you?’
‘Berit Breheim?’
‘Yes.’
‘Looks like it now. But what reasons would she have for wanting to do that?’
‘Mm, well, what indeed? To hide another crime maybe?’
‘It doesn’t make any sense. What’s more, we still haven’t found anything to indicate a crime with regard to her sister and husband.’
‘No – more the opposite perhaps. At this point, however, they have to be our main suspects.’
I stared at her blindly. ‘So you don’t think…?’
‘Think what?’
‘Well, the most likely explanation is still that Berit Breheim drove into the sea herself, after shooting Hallvard Hagenes in the cabin.’
‘And why would she do that?’
‘As I said – they were part of a love triangle twenty years ago. Perhaps later as well. What if this triangle was recreated later, so to speak.’
She pursed her lips. ‘Do you think so?’
‘I don’t think anything anymore. And my client’s dead. From that point of view, and from mine, the case is over.’
‘Good.’ She nodded firmly. ‘Then I suggest you go home, Veum. If you get any brainwaves about what might lie behind this, I’d urge you to tell us, straight away. As you yourself say, from your point of view this case is over.’
We nodded to each other, wearily, like after a long joust in court, where neither of us was very pleased with the outcome. I ambled back to my car. She stayed in the quay area.
I hadn’t made any promises to her. Which was just as well. I hadn’t even reached the road to the airport before I turned off, took out my phone and tapped in the number I had been ringing regularly over the last ten days. Then I got the third shock of the day. For the first time, someone answered.
‘Fernando,’ a man’s sonorous voice said, with hardly any accent. I was so taken aback I lost my ability to speak. ‘Hello, is anyone there?’ he repeated irritably, with a more obvious accent now. I still didn’t know what to say and before I had a chance to articulate a few sensible words, he cursed in his own language, with no accent at all, and rang off.
That didn’t matter. Now I knew where I was going. But on the way to Morvik I couldn’t stop thinking that this was an odd time to reappear, wherever they had been in the meantime.
44
It was early afternoon when I drove past the sign saying PRIVATE ROAD, down the steep hill and into the car park behind the white box-shaped house. The snowdrops had flowered since my last visit and the daffodils had shot up. The garage door was open and I could see the glistening bonnet of a blue car. It was a BMW 520. I automatically glanced up at the neighbour’s house. All I could see was a reflection in the large window panes.
I got out of my car, walked over and rang the bell. Shortly afterwards, I heard quickening footsteps inside. The door opened, and for the first time I came face to face with Fernando Garrido. I recognised him from the wedding photograph. He had regular facial features, pronounced eyebrows and a golden-brown tan. His teeth were gleaming white and his eyes brown, but the styled hair, which had been black in the photograph, had a silver patina. He eyed me with suspicion. ‘Yes?’
‘My name’s Veum. Is Bodil Breheim at home?’
‘That’s my wife. Yes, she is. What’s this about?’
‘It’s about her sister.’
‘Berit?’
‘Yes, could I come inside?’
He shrugged, opened the door and let me in. The hallway was as big and empty as last time, but melodious guitar music flowed out of the sitting-room sound system and there was a faint aroma of food. All of a sudden, the house was inhabited.
He led the way and I followed him into the sitting room. Candles were lit and someone had placed cut flowers in a vase. ‘You’ve been away?’ I asked casually.
‘Yes,’ he said. Without any further comment he motioned me to one of the elegant chairs. ‘Take a seat and I’ll fetch my wife.’
I stood by the window. Down in the fjord a hobby yachtsman was running before the wind – a privileged person in this beautiful weather. Over on Askøy a large yellow crane was swinging a jib across a building site. Not everyone was on holiday. Hearing footsteps behind me, I turned in her direction.
