Free Where Roses Never Die by Gunnar Staalesen Page A

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