Lethal Investments (12 page)

‘So this is where you are,’ Frølich said.

Gunnarstranda studied the façade.
Oslo West
, he thought. And mumbled: ‘This building is no more than five years old, max.’

‘And not fully occupied,’ Frølich added. He pointed to a row of empty windows on one wing.

‘The rent must cost an arm and a leg,’ Gunnarstranda remarked and went in first.

Kristin Sommerstedt nodded with a blank expression. ‘No one up there,’ she informed them.

‘But the Finance Manager’s in the fitness room, I suppose,’ she hastened to say when she saw Gunnarstranda’s look. ‘That’s what he said anyway as he dashed past half an hour ago.’

The policeman, taken aback, glanced at the clock. It was half past twelve.

The fitness room was in the cellar. Down there you were spared the luxury with which the rest of the building appeared to be saturated. The corridor walls were not painted and the concrete floor was untreated. They had to pass through some large steel doors that rumbled and a hollow echo reverberated along the bare walls. From somewhere deeper in the bowels they could hear the sounds of someone doing weight-training.

Gunnarstranda first stepped over the high threshold. Bregård was lying on an exercise bench forcing up a bar with a considerable number of weights attached. He was in the middle of a routine and showed no signs of stopping. The man was panting like a hippo. His face was red and dripping with sweat, and the mouth with the impressive moustache inflated like a frog’s every time he sucked in air for the next press.

At last. With a huge clang the man dropped the bar and sat up on the bench. The veins in his temples were bulging. His pectoral muscles were clearly outlined under his T-shirt.

‘That looked hard,’ Frølich said. ‘Nice to see you again, by the way.’

Gunnarstranda, though, was looking for somewhere to sit.

Bregård puffed, ignoring Frølich’s small talk. Gunnarstranda glanced at them. Both big men. Bregård was most concerned with the palms of his hands.

The room was sparsely furnished. The police inspector clambered up on to the seat of an ergometer bike. Smiled, did a couple of circuits on the pedals and leaned forward over the handlebars.

‘Probably harder steering the finances of A/S Software Partners, isn’t it,’ he stated in a measured tone.

Bregård got up and stretched both arms back.

‘You’re unknown to the Company Register,’ Gunnarstranda went on.

Bregård placed his right hand against the wall and did a long stretch with his upper arm. First right, then left. His heavy breathing was all there was to hear in the small fitness room. The man immediately started a new round of stretching, first right, then left.

Frølich, who had found some barbells to play with, whistled a tune.

The athlete bent down to pick up his towel from the floor.

‘The Brønnøysund Register Centre is always late,’ he panted into his towel.

‘But Brønnøysund didn’t register anything last year, either.’

Bregård turned to Gunnarstranda while drying his neck. The police officer smiled.

Frølich was whistling.

The Finance Manager raised his voice imperceptibly. ‘We only set up the business last year.’

Continued drying himself. ‘So we’ll be sending our first year’s accounts this year.’

‘So you haven’t sent them yet?’

‘No!’

‘Well, then you can’t blame the Centre for not being up to date!’

Bregård was annoyed. ‘I’m not blaming them for anything!’

‘But you just gave us to understand that all the accounts had been sent and that Brønnøysund was not up to date.’

Gunnarstranda pedalled round three times, stopped and waited for an answer.

Bregård sat down with a rigid grin.

‘Fine,’ he said and raised his hands in defence. ‘Come upstairs with me! Nothing in this business is secret. Our accounts are quite public.’

‘All accounts are public,’ Gunnarstranda corrected him.

‘Why is there no one upstairs?’

Bregård craned his head in annoyance towards the man who was whistling, then sent Gunnarstranda another bad-tempered glower, but said nothing.

The latter dismounted from the bike and walked towards Bregård. Stopped in front of him. ‘How come you can lie down here grunting in the middle of a working day?’

Bregård put on a resigned smile. Keeping it there was a strain.

‘Why don’t Software Partners want to pay their rent?’

An attempt was made to convert the smile into an aloof grin but it failed. ‘Don’t want to pay,’ he mimicked with a grimace. ‘If you’ve got any questions about that, you’ll have to talk to my boss.’

‘Aren’t you responsible for the company’s finances?’

‘Yes, indeed I am.’

Bregård’s eyes flashed again, and again the blood vessels in his temples were visible.

‘Then answer me!’

The man’s mouth was contorted and sullen beneath the moustache. ‘Will you shut up!’ he screamed at the officer who was still whistling.

Frølich shut up.

There was a heavy silence.

Bregård grabbed the towel hanging over his shoulder and dried his neck angrily.

‘You’ve already dried that bit,’ Frølich informed him.

Bregård spun round. But Gunnarstranda darted between them. ‘How come your boss is never available?’

‘How should I know?’

A metallic timbre had coated his voice. His face was redder than before.

‘He’s never here when we come!’

‘No one survives in this industry by sitting on their ass in the office eight hours a day!’

‘But there ought to be someone in the office! If you were intending to survive! Where’s Engelsviken?’

‘I don’t know, I told you!’

Bregård’s voice cracked with fury. His knuckles around the towel were white.

‘You’ve already dried your hands, too!’

This came from Frølich, leaning against the brick wall, with a smile. But Gunnarstranda didn’t let Bregård answer. ‘Why is there no one in this business who can answer anything,’ he hissed close to the man’s face. ‘Why do you hide behind your boss?’

‘I haven’t been bloody hiding!’

‘So tell me why you won’t stump up the rent!’

For a moment Gunnarstranda thought that Bregård was going to throttle him. Time for a smile, he thought.

All at sea, Bregård stared at his hands.

Gunnarstranda went a step closer. ‘Your sole success in the finance industry,’ he whispered, ‘is that you almost killed a man who couldn’t pay his rent.’

Bregård scowled.

‘So how come you, of all people, pop up here as the Finance Manager of a company that is going to conquer half the kingdom?’

‘I’ve mended my ways,’ Bregård said unconvincingly.

‘Doubtless.’

‘I’ve paid my debt to society!’

‘Of course you have.’

Gunnarstranda signalled to Frølich. Girded himself to go, then addressed the gentleman with the moustache one last time: ‘But you know as much about financial management as I know about fox-hunting in England!’

He smiled again. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

With that, he turned his back on Bregård and took Frølich along with him.

‘How’s Svennebye getting on in the drunk cell?’ Frølich asked as they got back into their car.

‘He’s probably sleeping,’ the inspector mumbled, disorientated, and the squeal of his pager made him start. He fumbled around trying to switch it off and grabbed his mobile phone. ‘We’ll talk to him afterwards,’ he said in a low voice with his hand over the speaker before bending down to hear the message.

‘Well?’

Gunnarstranda wondered whether to tell him right away. Decided to wait. Groped around for a roll-up.

‘Drive to Torshov,’ he said and could hear the agitation in his voice.

The two detectives had to enter where the staircase went round and round in long corkscrew spirals. It was tight. A uniformed policeman stood with his hands on his hips on the second-floor landing. He was trying to appear unruffled but was not succeeding. The Adam’s apple over the blue collar was bobbing up and down nervously. By the feet of his incredibly long thin legs lay a body beneath a stiff plastic sheet that bore the signs of having been used before. It was full of holes and dirty. A powerful floodlight cast sharply delineated shadows and emphasized all the brutal details. The streaks of blood on the wall turned black in the white light.

Gunnarstranda peered up at the uniformed officer. ‘Nausea?’ he asked.

The man with the Adam’s apple had placed his hands behind his back and focused his gaze somewhere ahead of him. The thin, pale face appeared unusually small under the cap. His answer was lost in the clatter of people on the stairs.

‘Who found him?’

‘Elise Engebregtsen, a pensioner, first floor.’

This time he had taken a run at it. His voice thundered and echoed off the walls. Everyone stopped, turned round and stared at him. His Adam’s apple accelerated. His nervous eyes, bird-like and small, looked to the right.

‘Any murder weapon?’

‘Sharp object. Not accounted for at the crime scene.’

The photographer who had wedged himself further up the stairs sniggered. Gunnarstranda glowered at him, turned back to the body. He sighed, nodding to himself. Peered up the stairs. Blood on the wall and steps. Like a fine spray, here and there a broad stripe as well, where a thicker jet had splashed.

He bent down, pulled a plastic glove off the roll standing upright on one of the steps, walked over to a pool of blood and lifted the plastic to look closer. It wasn’t easy. He had to hitch up his coat so as not to get it soiled while lifting the blood-stained plastic.

He cursed. Removed his coat. ‘Hold this, will you,’ he said to the uniformed officer who avoided looking at the floor. Gunnarstranda folded the sheet over to one side.

The face of Sigurd Klavestad was whiter than it had ever been. His eyes looked up, vacant and glassy. They were like marbles, Gunnarstranda thought as he met the gaze. He could hear loud gulps from the tin soldier behind him as he felt his stomach go queasy at the sight of the clean, deep cut that had almost beheaded the victim. Slowly he let go of the head and let it roll back to where it had been.

For a moment he surveyed the dead body. Bare feet. Bare arms. The dead man had put on light clothing in a hurry. The long pony tail was rigid and sticky.

He turned back to the tin soldier with the Adam’s apple. Collected his coat.

‘You can run along,’ he said under his breath. ‘Tell the boys to get the names of everyone who is in the block, or who was here from yesterday afternoon until now.’

Gunnarstranda stood still. Tried to absorb the atmosphere that was no longer there. Strode towards the floodlight and switched it off. Those who had been working busily until now stopped. No one said a word. Slowly their eyes got used to the new light. A yellowish-grey glimmer from a bare bulb on the staircase wall.

He had fallen here. Frightened.

Gunnarstranda closed his eyes. Opened them. The others had not moved. Just stared at him. Unrolled the plastic glove. Dropped it on to the floor. Put the roll under his arm. Buried both hands in his coat pockets and took a deep breath before walking past Frølich and leaving.

On the ground floor they were met by Bernt Kampenhaug, the Unit leader. Actually quite a likeable musician, Bernt was. Someone who played the squeezebox three nights a week for the whole of November and December and, not only that, he had a collection of vintage automobiles. Three old police saloon cars. Nice bloke provided that he was not at work. And that you weren’t discussing anything that resembled politics. Bernt was a man with strong opinions regarding stricter uniform regulations and weapons. Now he had slotted his sunglasses into his hair and was chewing gum, one hundred per cent tourist, and seemed happy with the fit of his overalls. A radio with a short aerial crackled in his hand. For the occasion the man had requisitioned a handgun that made his backside even broader than usual. Gunnarstranda could feel the sight of him beginning to get under his skin.

Kampenhaug stuffed the radio under his arm and accompanied them out with one hand on his belt. In the sun, he flicked the sunglasses on to his nose, nudged them into position with a finger, got the radio to crackle and tried to look his best for the press photographers outside the cordons.

One journalist shouted something to Gunnarstranda, who ignored him.

‘The body was found by an old dear on the first floor,’ Kampenhaug drawled, pointing with a thumb. ‘She seems pretty dazed.’

Then he was off to give a journalist who had strayed across the cordon an earful. Came strutting back with the sun on his face.

‘The old boiler was wittering on about the wrong person having been killed because the right one wasn’t there. Senile if you ask me! He lives on the floor above her. The door’s open!’

‘Great,’ said the police inspector.

The tin soldier with the bird-eyes crossed the rope.

‘You’re a police officer, man!’ Kampenhaug screamed as if he were in the army. ‘Wipe that vomit off your face before you talk to people!’

Gunnarstranda established that Sigurd Klavestad’s flat told him no more than he already knew. Two rooms, a kitchen and a combined toilet and shower with a door to the hall. Loads of mirrors in the hall. Funny ones. One made your nose look like a swede and another distorted your face into a figure eight, making it look like something from a cartoon.

Chaos. Comics, shoes and a variety of clothes, jackets and jumpers lay scattered across the floor. The man was not acquainted with the shelving principle, it struck Gunnarstranda. Or at least tidying up. He left the hall of mirrors to his intelligent colleague and studied the two posters on the wall. One a copy of a French poster from the nineteenth century. A can-can dancer with flapping clothes, a painting. The other was a bird’s-eye view of a short-sighted Marilyn Monroe. She lay reclined over a curtain, gloss lips slightly apart.

He continued into the bathroom and pulled up inside the door. The white washstand was spattered with blood on the inside. The floor was wet. Without a word, he stepped back into the sitting room.

Put on two thin plastic gloves from the roll he had in his pocket. Opened a window and called down to Klampenhaug.

There was something that bothered him about Klavestad’s death. He ransacked his brain. Realized it wasn’t Klavestad’s passage to the beyond that annoyed him but the new perspective. Something was niggling him at the back of his mind. A nagging doubt. The fear of having to change hypothesis.

Two cue words for the moment. Knife and night. He liked that. But he didn’t like the cut. The slash to the victim’s neck. He didn’t like that at all. What a damned nuisance that the man had been killed!

The murder would bring the stuffed shirts out of the woodwork, the schooled suits and ties who still felt a need to say aloud what everyone else was thinking. Hassle was brewing. Demands for statements and perhaps the odd press conference. Formalities. They irked him. But there was one positive side. He could feel himself getting angry. A good omen, he confirmed to himself and turned. Stood inspecting the stove. A slightly dusty tiled corner stove with a marble top and a nickel-plate handle. The old type.

Imbued with a sudden inspiration, he crouched down in front of it. Ran his hand warily along the iron. Stroked it again without the plastic glove this time. Hm. Possible.

Cautiously, so cautiously, he coaxed open the stove door. ‘Frølich,’ he called quietly.

Frølich came in from the hall. ‘I suppose he was in bed sleeping,’ he said. ‘The reading lamp was on and the bed unmade.’

‘Look here,’ Gunnarstranda whispered.

Frølich stooped down and peered into the smoking ashes. ‘He must have been heating the room,’ he commented lightly.

‘Not him,’ Gunnarstranda said thoughtfully. ‘Not him. And this is not wood. It’s smouldering. This is material. Clothing! If there’s anything left.’