slake my thirst had not abated. I had to find something to do.
I looked at my watch. It was almost six o’clock. Dusk was advancing on the town. Perhaps there was time for another trip to Solstølen, now that most people would be home from work. And what could be better than a visit from a dogged PI coming to remind them not only of the bad old days but, for some, the worst days of all?
15
In the pitch darkness, with lights illuminating the houses, Solstølen looked even cosier than earlier in the day. All the kitchen windows shone; in some of them I could see people moving around. From the house where Randi Hagenberg and Nils Bringeland had lived came the sound of children crying; from the Torbeinsvik family’s house something redolent of music.
There was a workaday, reassuring quality about the whole situation that filled me with an acute longing for the times thirty years ago when Beate, Thomas and I had constituted a little family. Beate had played with Thomas in the sitting room while I knocked up a simple meal in the kitchen: Thomas, still not capable of forming words correctly, let out whoops of enthusiasm, Beate laughed, the steam from the pans settled on the window pane like dew, the radio was on low in the background … moments like these would never return. Thomas and Mari lived in Oslo and were expecting their first child in a few months, Beate was living the merry widow’s life in Stavanger, and I was wandering restlessly through life’s back streets, where it was always dark and those who were out seldom had good intentions.
Once again I saw the sandpit where Mette had been playing on that fateful Saturday in September 1977. When Thomas had been six and lived with Beate and her new husband in Sandviken. I had been making my living as a PI for two years already, without impressive results to show for it. I had stumbled on my first corpse, and Dankert Muus had long had me on his hate list. And Mette – what had happened to her?
So far no one had found the answer and from where I was standing, looking around the yard, I was not at all sure the answer was to be found here. But it was worth a try. I didn’t have much else to do.
The house where a new family had moved in was of no interest. I had already talked to the architect. That left two houses. I chose the one on the far left. A simple door-sign told me this was where Synnøve and Svein Stangeland lived. They had been living there when Mette disappeared, they had children of approximately the same age and they were the only couple that hadn’t split up. Furthermore, they had a relative who had been on the police’s radar in 1977. The latter point was not uninteresting.
I pressed the doorbell. It wasn’t long before the door opened and a somewhat chunky little man stood in the doorway. He had thin, dark hair, which was combed forward into a fringe and lay flat on his scalp, pale skin and a suggestion of a rash on his chin, neck and at the corners of his mouth. He stared at me inhospitably. ‘Yes?’
‘Svein Stangeland?’
‘Yes.’
‘The name’s Veum. I’m a private investigator.’
He arched his eyebrows. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘Maja Misvær has asked me to examine the details surrounding the disappearance of her daughter, Mette.’
A twitch seemed to go through him. Then he came out onto the step, pulling the door to behind him and said gruffly: ‘Yes?’
I nodded towards the door. ‘Could we have a little chat?’
‘We have nothing to say. We were at the cabin the day it happened and we were unable to help. Not then and not later.’
‘But you had children yourselves. You must have been alarmed by what you heard?’
‘Of course we were alarmed. Everyone was. But I just told you we have nothing to say about the matter.’
‘Yes. I heard you. You were a close acquaintance of Nils Bringeland’s, I understand.’
‘Yes. What has that got to do with anything?’
‘You must have heard he was killed during the jewellery robbery
I looked at my watch. It was almost six o’clock. Dusk was advancing on the town. Perhaps there was time for another trip to Solstølen, now that most people would be home from work. And what could be better than a visit from a dogged PI coming to remind them not only of the bad old days but, for some, the worst days of all?
15
In the pitch darkness, with lights illuminating the houses, Solstølen looked even cosier than earlier in the day. All the kitchen windows shone; in some of them I could see people moving around. From the house where Randi Hagenberg and Nils Bringeland had lived came the sound of children crying; from the Torbeinsvik family’s house something redolent of music.
There was a workaday, reassuring quality about the whole situation that filled me with an acute longing for the times thirty years ago when Beate, Thomas and I had constituted a little family. Beate had played with Thomas in the sitting room while I knocked up a simple meal in the kitchen: Thomas, still not capable of forming words correctly, let out whoops of enthusiasm, Beate laughed, the steam from the pans settled on the window pane like dew, the radio was on low in the background … moments like these would never return. Thomas and Mari lived in Oslo and were expecting their first child in a few months, Beate was living the merry widow’s life in Stavanger, and I was wandering restlessly through life’s back streets, where it was always dark and those who were out seldom had good intentions.
Once again I saw the sandpit where Mette had been playing on that fateful Saturday in September 1977. When Thomas had been six and lived with Beate and her new husband in Sandviken. I had been making my living as a PI for two years already, without impressive results to show for it. I had stumbled on my first corpse, and Dankert Muus had long had me on his hate list. And Mette – what had happened to her?
So far no one had found the answer and from where I was standing, looking around the yard, I was not at all sure the answer was to be found here. But it was worth a try. I didn’t have much else to do.
The house where a new family had moved in was of no interest. I had already talked to the architect. That left two houses. I chose the one on the far left. A simple door-sign told me this was where Synnøve and Svein Stangeland lived. They had been living there when Mette disappeared, they had children of approximately the same age and they were the only couple that hadn’t split up. Furthermore, they had a relative who had been on the police’s radar in 1977. The latter point was not uninteresting.
I pressed the doorbell. It wasn’t long before the door opened and a somewhat chunky little man stood in the doorway. He had thin, dark hair, which was combed forward into a fringe and lay flat on his scalp, pale skin and a suggestion of a rash on his chin, neck and at the corners of his mouth. He stared at me inhospitably. ‘Yes?’
‘Svein Stangeland?’
‘Yes.’
‘The name’s Veum. I’m a private investigator.’
He arched his eyebrows. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘Maja Misvær has asked me to examine the details surrounding the disappearance of her daughter, Mette.’
A twitch seemed to go through him. Then he came out onto the step, pulling the door to behind him and said gruffly: ‘Yes?’
I nodded towards the door. ‘Could we have a little chat?’
‘We have nothing to say. We were at the cabin the day it happened and we were unable to help. Not then and not later.’
‘But you had children yourselves. You must have been alarmed by what you heard?’
‘Of course we were alarmed. Everyone was. But I just told you we have nothing to say about the matter.’
‘Yes. I heard you. You were a close acquaintance of Nils Bringeland’s, I understand.’
‘Yes. What has that got to do with anything?’
‘You must have heard he was killed during the jewellery robbery
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