Free The Consorts of Death by Gunnar Staalesen

word out of Jan.
    ‘Come on over, Varg,’ Hans said and uttered the timely words: ‘We can even offer you some leftovers.’
    I didn’t protest. I walked straight to Skansen, got into my car and was on my way.

13
     
     
    The row of windows in Haukedalen Children’s Centre glowed with warmth as I got out of my car, locked up and walked to the entrance. It had started to snow again, slightly heavier snowflakes now, and a treacherous promise of a late winter and renewed life on the ski runs around the town. A few degrees higher, though, and it would tip over into rain.
    Hans Haavik met me in the vestibule. He seemed concerned. ‘Not a lot to tell you, Varg. I’m afraid we may have to recommend hospitalisation.’
    I nodded. ‘Is Cecilie still here?’
    He pointed towards the refectory. ‘They’re sitting in there.’
    Some youths passed us in the company of a male care-worker. They scowled at me with suspicion before disappearing into the lounge. I followed Hans into the refectory.
    The light inside was garish and sharp. Cecilie and Jan were sitting at the same table as the night before. On the table in front of them there were bowls and pans with the evening meal: boiled potatoes, a mixture of greens, half a head of cauliflower, rissoles and gravy. And a jug of water to wash it all down.
    Cecilie was eating. Jan was sitting passively on his chair, his hands on his lap, not a movement.
    I went over to them. ‘Hiya, Johnny. How’s it going?’
    His eyes glinted, his head quivered warily and, without turning, he looked in my direction. His eyelids trembled, as though in some discreet way he was semaphoring a distress call to the outside world: Help! I’m being kept prisoner! I want to get out …
    I glanced at his untouched plate. ‘You have to eat, you know! It’s snowing and when you’ve eaten we can go outside and – have a snowball fight or something like that.’
    He moved his lips soundlessly, like a fish on land. I swallowed hard. At once I felt sympathy for this tiny mite who had had such an aberrant start to his life.
    I sat at the place set for me. ‘Well, I’m definitely as hungry as a wolf!’ I began to load my plate. Cecilie and Hans watched, like two public officials checking the composition of my diet. ‘I’m going to wolf this down. My first name, Varg, means wolf, you know. So perhaps I ought to say I’m going to varg it down, eh?’
    I had his attention now. He looked at me from a closer distance than before.
    ‘And you … You’re going to jan it down, you are. I’m sure of that. As hungry as a varg and as hungry as a jan – that’s about the same. Don’t you think?’
    He nodded.
    Cecilie flashed a sudden smile and Hans sent me a nod of acknowledgement.
    ‘So I think I’ll swap your food around. Watch … back in the pan with this and a hot rissole in its place. There we are. Hot sauce. And then we shovel a potato onto there. Nothing better for small famished vargs and jans than a bit of gravy and potatoes, eh? And what a big boy you are. You definitely don’t have any problems using a knife and a fork, do you. When you’re even bigger you’ll be driving a car, and if you drive a car you’ve got be able to lick the easy things, like eating with your knife and fork …’
    With careful movements, he grabbed first the knife, then the fork. Slowly he pushed a bit of potato through the gravy onto the fork and, like a gourmet chef ready to sample, lifted the fork to his mouth, opened up and took the first tiny mouthful.
    In silence, he continued to eat. He cut up the rissole into small pieces, and when the first one had been eaten, I put another on his plate. ‘Jan-hungry boys always eat two rissoles,’ I said. ‘Minimum.’
    I was almost fainting with hunger myself, so I used the opportunity, while he was eating, to stuff down two or three rissoles . Hans, happy now, took a seat at the neighbouring table and poured himself a cup of coffee from a flask.
    Cecilie eyed me across