‘With clothes or without?’
She bared her teeth, and I noticed how pointed her eye teeth seemed. ‘Without as well…’
‘But to come back to Jimmy’s, have you lot been to take a look around there?’
‘I’m too old and the wrong sex, in any case.’
‘But -?’
‘Sure, I do have younger colleagues with the right calibre between their legs.’ She looked at me provocatively as though to intimate that I perhaps didn’t match up to her standards in that department. ‘But it’s hard to put your finger on anything specific. From the outside it looks like a normal amusement arcade. Most of those playing the machines are boys, and, of course, we don’t rule out the possibility that there might be some – traffic there too, but… it looks as though girls are the speciality, especially teenagers. They probably recruit the grown-up girls from somewhere else.’
‘The bar at the Week End Hotel, for instance?’
‘That hotel’s also changed its name recently, so… yes.’
‘Oh really? Very recently?’
‘Somebody’s bought out the family.’
‘Somebody?’
‘And it’s not Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson either.’
‘I see. So what do they call the hotel now? The Secret Garden?’
‘Is it a while since you ate?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pastel.’
‘So they’ve painted it as well, have they?’
She nodded.
‘I’m going to throw up.’
‘That’s why I asked…’
‘Mm. Well…’ I threw up my hands. ‘In other words, you’re strongly suggesting that Jimmy’s operates as a sort of procuring joint?’
‘Yes, I am – unfortunately.’
‘And how does it all work?’
‘Via a phone call to whoever’s on duty behind the counter. He writes something on a pad, and after a while the message is discreetly passed to whichever of the girls is in line for an – assignment.’
‘Then some of them are fetched by car, while others meet at a prearranged rendezvous?’
‘Something like that.’
I leafed through the photos again, trying to read the expressions on the faces of the two young girls. You could see from their build that they were two different girls, but the photos were too indistinct to make out who they were.
I put aside one of the photos from the series ending at the hotel entrance. Then I pushed it over to her. ‘Could this be – Torild Skagestøl?’
She looked at me thoughtfully before picking up the picture and holding it away from her. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever set eyes on her… but some of the others could be…’ She glanced back at me. ‘Do you think there’s a direct link between this and the fact that she was killed?’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time a…’ I was reluctant to use the word. ‘That something like this has happened to a – prostitute, would it?’
‘No, you’re quite right there.’ She suddenly looked worried. ‘Ought I to inform the editorial board about this?’
‘For the sake of the girl’s reputation – and the parents – I’d rather we kept it between ourselves for the moment.’
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said, suddenly looking official.
I pointed at the picture of the front of the hotel. ‘Doesn’t this ring any other bells?’
‘Should it?’
‘Last Friday at the same hotel.’
She snapped her fingers. ‘Brandt!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Do you mean…?’
‘It was rumoured that he’d had a female visitor in his room, wasn’t it?’
‘And he did have, Varg, no doubt about it!’
‘Precisely.’
‘A municipal judge – and a man from the Christian People’s Party. It’s starting to add up to something…’
‘And it wasn’t exactly a book club meeting, was it?’
‘But… strictly speaking, this is a police matter, isn’t it?’
‘Sure, but then I haven’t said… I mean I was looking for Torild Skagestøl before she was found. I told the police what little I knew, but now you’ve got a lot more dynamite on Jimmy’s…’
She looked at me doubtfully. ‘But I’m not sure I want to publish all that yet. Besides, I’m sure the police checked out these activities long ago.’
‘Checked them out – and didn’t do anything?’
‘Are any of the girls under age?’
‘Well, no, not any of the ones I’ve spoken to.’
‘Exactly. So evidence has to be found that someone’s making money out of them.’
I thought for a moment. ‘Who knows most about prostitution in this city at the moment? I mean outside the police?’
‘In that case, I’d have a word with one of the people behind the most active Women’s Lib groups.’
‘Can you suggest anybody?’
‘Someone you could talk to and who also knows what she’s talking about professionally is Evy Berge.’
‘And who’s she?’
‘A nurse in A &E at Haukeland Hospital.’
‘Do you have any phone numbers?’
She turned to her computer and clicked the mouse. As the list of phone numbers came up on the screen, she said: ‘Some of these girls have had to go ex-directory… Evy too, actually. That means you have to keep it to yourself.’ She wrote down something on a yellow message pad. ‘Here’s the number of the department as well, in case she’s on duty. Actually…’ She started ferreting through the bundle of papers on the left-hand side of the desk. ‘Didn’t she give me…? Yes, here it is!’
She handed me a circular on which, under the title RECLAIM THE NIGHT!, a demonstration was announced for eleven p.m. the following Monday in C Sundts Street.
‘Will you be there?’ I asked.
‘No, I’m still keeping my distance from that, er – particular matter. But it might do you some good,’ she added with a pointed little smile.
‘Does this mean we’re onto the friendly part now? Is that it?’
She leaned forward and came a little closer, looking into my eyes with a rather ambiguous twinkle and said softly: ‘Still got any friendliness left, Varg? Is that a glimmer of belated love I see deep in there?’
The worst of it was that she almost made me blush. ‘Er – belated?’
‘Yes?’ She leaned a little closer still and took my hands.
We got no further. The door into the corridor flew open, and we heard the sound of hurried footsteps rushing into the room before a loud voice shouted: ‘I’m bloody well not having it! Buggered if I am!’
Through the shouting, I immediately recognised the voice. It was Holger Skagestøl.
Nineteen
LAILA MONGSTAD let go of my hands as though she’d scalded herself, and in unison we stood up and looked over the partition to the source of the racket.
Holger Skagestøl was herding a group of eight or nine colleagues into the room.
A man in his thirties with slightly dishevelled blonde hair, a short leather jacket and a large camera-bag over one shoulder was first, followed by a chap of the same age in a leather waistcoat and blue denim shirt. It was Bjørn Brevik, one of the journalists on the paper, who was doing his best to keep Skagestøl away from the photographer. Close behind Skagestøl followed Trond Furebø and a handful of others, a couple of them intent on pouring oil on troubled waters, the others there out of pure curiosity.
‘I want that film, do you hear?! I want it!’ yelled Holger Skagestøl so the whole editorial office reverberated.
‘Better take it up with the desk, then!’ replied the photographer.
‘Goddamn it, you lot can’t treat me like – like – like any Tom, Dick or Harry! I work on this paper, too, you know.’
‘So is that supposed to give us preferential treatment?’ Bjørn Brevik cut in.
‘Preferential treatment?’ Skagestøl seized Brevik by his lapels and pulled him close to his face. ‘I’m talking about normal protection of personal privacy! The “Be Fair” code for journalists. Ever heard of it, you little upstart? I’m damned if I’m going to have my private family affairs splashed all over the front page!’