Lethal Investments (23 page)

Gunnarstranda stared out of the window for a moment. ‘Great,’ he answered at length. ‘What the suits call a safe pair of hands.’

‘And now?’

‘I assured them that he was not under suspicion.’

‘How can you be so bloody sure of that?’ Frank’s tone was sharp.

‘Because Bjerke didn’t kill her.’

‘Who did then?’

‘That’s what I’m waiting to hear.’

Frank fell silent.

‘I’m waiting for a phone call. Then we’ll know the answer.’

He looked to the right. Large, red figures on the wall told them how deep they were.

‘Which we won’t get down here,’ he said tersely.

‘Yes, Davestuen’s on the case,’ Gunnarstranda mumbled as they drove towards the rental building. Four dark cars parked in a line in front of the entrance to Rent-An-Office. Four cars that were unmistakable. Dark blue, exactly the same model, same shade, consecutive registration numbers. You could smell police from a mile off. There wasn’t a lot of room. Frank had to wait and let out a small blue Honda with a ski box on the roof before he manoeuvred the car into the space. ‘Did you see that?’ he gasped.

‘What?’

‘Sonja Hager at the wheel with a ski box on the roof.’

Gunnarstranda gave a start. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, that was her. Strange that Davestuen would let her go.’

Frank waved a ‘hi’ to the uniformed officer leaning against the first car.

Gunnarstranda had a frown on his face. ‘I don’t like Davestuen letting her go,’ he mumbled, tapping his knuckles against his porcelain teeth.

‘Shall we go up?’

Gunnarstranda didn’t answer at once. ‘I have to think,’ he whispered at length. ‘And I must have that telephone call.’

Frank reversed the car between two others. They sat looking at a high supporting wall of moulded concrete. The silence was tangible. Gunnarstranda’s lighter clicked. Frank could see the inspector’s hands shaking as he inhaled.

‘Has it ever struck you how little atmosphere constructions like this have?’ asked Gunnarstranda, indicating the wall with his cigarette.

‘No.’

‘People don’t think of the big picture any more. In the old days stonemasons were skilled artisans who did more than make gravestones. They even made granite piers for bridges. Dry blocks of granite which are still standing there today!’

Frank hesitated. He could hear how dry and hollow his boss’s voice was. The conversation felt affected. ‘Until they were knocked down,’ he answered.

‘But granite has a structure, a colour, a pattern depending on how the blocks interact. There’s no structure in concrete, it’s a grey surface. Look at that wall!’

Gunnarstranda pointed.

Frank turned to face his boss wondering what the hell he was drivelling on about. ‘But no one looks at a wall like that, do they?’

‘Indeed they do! It is seen,’ the inspector objected. ‘The wall is obviously half the landscape. Take note of the dry branches hanging over the wall.
Stephanandra
, a deciduous shrub. The point is that the gardener has chosen that plant because it’s bred to hang over walls. But the people who built the buttress didn’t give it enough thought. They’ve just moulded a grey surface which is bound to crack after the first winter falls below minus thirty. Because the ground frost will be so deep that the ice will raise the wall in spring, break it, crack it, because concrete is inflexible. Then the wall will fall to pieces year by year. That could have been avoided if they had considered the whole picture, seen the wall for what it was, part of the landscape. And used granite blocks and made it beautiful, flexible and enduring.’

Frank sent him another annoyed glance. ‘Get to the point. Who killed her?’

‘It’s all about the big picture, as I said. We mustn’t make a blunder here and forget to think holistically.’

Frank smacked the steering wheel. ‘Yes, right,’ he said in desperation, and growled under his breath: ‘Holistically.’

‘My brain is telling me to focus on the little blue car with the ski box on the roof,’ Gunnarstranda continued with the same dry, affected voice. ‘I don’t like Sonja Hager suddenly driving a car with a ski box on the roof. In fact Sonja Hager drives a silver-grey Mercedes. And I have heard someone mention the ski box contains a double-barrelled rifle. There’s something not right here. Sonja Hager’s in charge of the keys to the filing cabinet up there. I can’t imagine Davestuen would let her go.’

‘No one ran after her.’

They both stared at the entrance to the temple where Software Partners had their offices. No activity at all.

‘At home in Bergensgata,’ Gunnarstranda said, out of the blue. ‘Across the street from me, lives a man who for all these years has had a relationship with a widow down in Sagene.’

Frank didn’t reply. Just turned and stared at him without detecting the slightest indication of amusement in his little face.

‘The man sees the widow about once a week. His wife kicks up one hell of a fuss every time. At least, so the rumours say.’

Gunnarstranda smiled, exhausted. ‘Every time. And when he comes home the wife sheds a few tears, then has a bit of slap and tickle with her old man.’

Slap and tickle, mused Frank, and said politely: ‘Really?’

‘Sometimes I think about them,’ the inspector continued. ‘About her putting up with that, I mean. She must know people talk about them.’

He took a deep breath. ‘She could have killed the man years ago.’

Frank nodded sympathetically. For a moment he had thought his boss had gone over the edge, but was reassured when the story ended on the usual note, frustration with criminal behaviour.

‘Then it suddenly struck me that of course the woman would never wish upon herself the death of her husband!’

Frank jerked. ‘Where are you going with this?’ he asked, annoyed.

Gunnarstranda looked at him.

‘Suppose it were Engelsviken, or his wife, who killed Reidun,’ he said, for the sake of argument.

‘Yes?’

‘Then there’s someone we’ve left out of the big picture.’

‘Who?’

‘The maid.’

Frank visualized her. The blouse that was buttoned up wrongly and then wasn’t. He could feel the sweat breaking out on his back. He could see Sonja’s bloodless lips when she was talking about good and bad days.

‘Shall I go up?’ he asked, nervous now, nodding to the front door.

Gunnarstranda ignored the question. Stubbed out his cigarette. ‘By the way, I was in Johansen’s flat yesterday,’ he informed Frølich.

‘When?’

‘After talking to herr and fru Bjerke.’

‘Why?’

‘To find the registration number of the car.’

Frølich was quiet.

‘Bjerke was rung up by a mobile phone,’ Gunnarstranda reiterated. ‘The caller wanted him to make a mess of Reidun’s flat and leave fingerprints to lead suspicions away from the real murderer. Bjerke was willing to swear it was a mobile phone. So this caller was in a car. Quite simply, that means the car was parked outside and Johansen saw both the car and the murderer! The old-timer was receiving money from someone who wanted to know who Klavestad was and where he lived. So Johansen sold Klavestad’s address for a handful of silver, fifty thousand kroner. The only question was: how could he contact the driver of the car?’

Frølich’s spine froze. The only question? What the hell did he mean by saying it was the only question?

‘Johansen jotted down the car number and traced the owner. I was up in his flat for one and a half hours. Searching for the number. He had to have it written down somewhere, but where? And do you know what?’

‘What?’

Frølich’s mouth had gone dry.

‘All the time I’d been sitting on a huge pile of porn mags! Then I had a brainwave. I started flicking through them. Studied more pussies than I’ve got plants in my herbarium. Do you remember by the way that I got ten pools numbers right that Saturday?’

‘Which Saturday?’

‘The Saturday Reidun was murdered. That is, she was murdered on the Sunday morning. But I got ten numbers right.’

‘No, I don’t remember. But what the hell’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Well, on this woman’s tits in the magazine there was a line of pools numbers. Twelve, as there should be. Ten of them were mine.’

‘So?’

‘Beside them there was a car number.’

Frølich nodded.

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean it was the number of the murderer’s car,’ Gunnarstranda pointed out.

‘Of course not,’ Frank agreed, excited now. Could sense the sweat on his back.

‘But Johansen may have had that magazine in front of him on the table that very Saturday. Noting down the winning twelve results. He may have done all sorts afterwards. Perhaps he fell asleep. After all, he had been up the whole night watching Reidun and Sigurd. At any rate there is a limited possibility that the number I found is that of the murderer’s car. Of course, it would never stick in court!’

‘For Christ’s sake, tell me whose it is!’

‘I don’t know. Fatty from the temping agency was supposed to be finding out for me.’

‘Fatty?’

Frank didn’t have time to ask any more. They were interrupted. At last the phone had rung. The inspector leaned forward and took notes. Rang off. Showed his colleague without a word.

Frank read:
Mercedes 280, 1990 model. Owner: Sonja Brynhild Hager
.

Frank sighed, already having twisted the key in the ignition.

‘Brynhild,’ he mumbled, tasting the name on his tongue and revving the engine. Didn’t like her name being Brynhild. Recalled her head sticking up behind the wheel of the little Honda with the ski box on the roof.

Gunnarstranda had gone pale. He removed the blue lamp from the glove compartment. ‘Drive like the clappers,’ he breathed, ‘but get this bloody thing working first!’

Inspector Gunnarstranda had the microphone in his hand and was speaking into it with unusual intensity. The woman taking the message answered calmly like a tram driver before the doors are closed. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was tense. Her tone of voice was just that bit too polite. No giggles, no witticisms. This was serious.

Frank thought about a maid with a badly buttoned-up blouse.

The inspector put down the microphone.

‘That was why the maid was so frightened,’ Frank declared and switched off the siren as they approached Hoffsjef Løvenskiolds vei. ‘She must have known everything.’

Grim-faced, Gunnarstranda nodded.

‘Sonja picked up her sozzled husband outside Scarlet at half past three. The owner said Engelsviken was totally out of it. I suppose the maid must have been woken up when they came home.’

‘And Sonja Hager must have listened to so much shit on the way home that it was the last straw,’ whispered Gunnarstranda. ‘She drove back to town after off-loading her husband. The maid must have heard her come back, perhaps they had a chat, Sonja with blood on her clothes. Bloody hell, how could we have forgotten the maid?’

Frank didn’t answer. He was dreading the scene to follow, the boys with the military helmets crawling through the grass and all the drama.

‘So, along come Davestuen and his boys today,’ he continued. ‘She happens to be there. With Bregård. She must have twigged the raid had something to do with us.’

Frank said nothing. So she made a quick exit to finish off the job, he was thinking.

There.

A small blue Honda had skidded to a halt in front of the large garage. Ski box open. Car door left open. Frank parked. Strange that Macho Man Bregård should have such a small car, he thought. Jumped out.

A car radio was blaring out at full volume. ‘Fishin’ in the Dark!’

He lifted the lid of the ski box. Empty. Bent down and looked inside the vehicle. Open case of cartridges. Eley Grand Prix 12 bore. Half full. As he guessed. A rifle as macho as its owner. Gunnarstranda followed. Frank showed him the half-empty case of cartridges and closed the door. The music was muted. Far away there was the sound of sirens coming closer. Now they would have something to talk about in this suburb, too, he thought. Remembered the maid with the blouse again. Thought about Clint Eastwood. Cigar in his mouth and a Magnum .44. Chewing!
Drop it angel, or I’ll make you fly!
No explanations. Dirty Harry never had to explain anything. Certainly not why he walked around with a Magnum in his belt. And Dirty Harry was never suspended from duty. Dirty Harry wouldn’t lose his job if he broke the regulations on important missions. Frank opened the car door again and switched off the radio. Silence settled over the ridge. Shit, weren’t there any kids living here? He noticed that Gunnarstranda had gone back to the car and sat inside. Busy with the microphone. The sirens were coming closer.

Frank stared up at the house and thought about her. Among the circle of lunatics in this case Sonja Hager was one of the few who had spoken about genuine feelings. For some a vow is serious, she had said. After taking a life.

He looked from the house to the police car and back again. Uncertain. Wondering what was going through her head. If she was afraid. She was definitely under emotional strain. And probably pretty screwed up since she had managed to mobilize so much hatred to protect herself.

Behaviour, rational to a certain degree. She had systematically removed all the witnesses. Possibly in action again now. If the job had not already been done.

Was she in full possession of her faculties? Yes, but still not of a mind to accept her punishment. So actually anything at all could happen, he thought, slowly making his way to the house.

He stood staring at the brown front door. The silence lay like a suffocating blanket over the whole area. Soon the sirens would be switched off. Thereafter, only the sound of 4x4 diesel engines snarling their way up the road. Stopped. Doors banging. Silence.

He thought of Reidun. She had opened the door and let Sonja in. Tired, so tired. Had probably told Sonja to go to hell. She would talk about her marriage when she was in a better frame of mind.

Until she lay on the floor with a knife in her chest.

After that Sonja Hager had sliced up Sigurd Klavestad and in all probability despatched Arvid Johansen in the end. She had dealt with them one by one. All those who could have brought her down. The maid must have heard her that night. The last witness. Was she dead already?

The silence roared. Frank remembered Sonja Hager’s unbecoming smile that was not a smile. What could it have been? Shock? Because Frølich had told her that Bregård had had a relationship with a woman she had just killed? Or had she just realized the gravity of what she had done? Had she realized that this meeting with the police meant that moves were under way to arrest her, have her charged?

He went up the stairs. Felt the door. It was open. At that moment he heard running footsteps. He turned. Kampenhaug and two others in full regalia. Who else but Kampenhaug. Mug painted green. Machine guns and helmets. They stopped.

‘Frølich!’

Kampenhaug’s voice.

Open mouth and moist sheen to the green cheek. Jesus, Kampenhaug standing at the back of the queue. No public to watch him scratching his bollocks here then?

Frank calmly smiled down at them and walked through the unlocked door. Stared across towards Nesodden. The large window in the living room was a picture postcard of Oslo fjord. The islands lay brown in the glittering water.

Kampenhaug’s team took up positions in the room. One of them opened the large veranda door and showed himself to the others. Machine gun raised in the air. Helmet, not a balaclava. The scene was like a snapshot of the Olympic Games in Munich.

Frank looked around. Heavy English-style leather furniture. A natural stone fireplace that threatened to capsize the room. Bookcase with metres of red books behind the glass. Oil on unframed canvas and quite a large aquarium with some unusually well grown fringetails that pressed their flat fish mouths against the pleasingly clean glass.

The bubbles from the aquarium were the only sound in the room. The air bubbling up and the tiny taps against the glass as the fish ate something on the inside. Frølich turned to the soldiers. Impressed that they could be so quiet.

The floor creaked as he set off, crossing the room to a partly open door.

‘Frølich!’

Kampenhaug again.

Frank stopped, turned and met the man’s eyes. Kampenhaug with one hand on the door frame to the veranda. The other on his gun. Silent, breathing through an open mouth. Frølich smiled. What was there to say? Was the woman dangerous? Of course she was. She is desperate and she has nothing to lose. So don’t bloody ask me how this is going to end!

Best not to speak. Don’t burden this ape with such complicated matters.
Your arms are too hairy for you to be able to understand anything
, he thought calmly, turned and carefully nudged the door open and peeped, before opening it wide.

Engelsviken was on the floor. Naked. Quite a plump man. But the fat was around his stomach and chest. The legs were unusually thin. He was strangely well-endowed in the groin area. The man had been shot in the head and was as dead as a doornail.

She, on the other hand, was alive. Sitting in bed. No badly buttoned blouse this time. No clothes at all. As naked as the sin she had been committing with her employer. Knees hunched up against her body, right in the corner, she had no sense of anything around her; she didn’t see him. The intense eyes were directed towards the door. But she was alive. Two pink nipples peered out from behind her knees.

Frank stood still in the doorway. Sonja must have caught them in the act.

He raised his arm and indicated to the nearest soldier standing behind him with machine gun at the ready. Frank went into the room. Stepped over the dead man and knelt in front of her squeezed up in a corner of the bed.

Her oriental face was transfixed into a grimace he was unable to read. Two brown eyes stared into the air above a weeping mouth. Looking past him, still at the bloody door; she must have been in shock.

‘Where is she?’ he asked.

No reaction.

‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ he whispered and stroked her cheek. Her skin was cold. She was like a wax doll, in another world.

‘Where is she?’ he tried in English.

‘Here!’

The moment he heard her voice he became conscious he was sitting with his back to the door. A fraction of a second passed.

He didn’t have time to yell. Only time to turn his head and see her. Then to close his eyes to protect himself. An image burned on his retina. Sonja Hager’s insane marble eyes. The rifle barrels swung upwards. The mouth open, above the double muzzle; the fingers that fired both barrels at once.

At that moment, or perhaps it was straight afterwards, at any rate the shots echoed and Frølich felt lots of tiny, tiny bits of something or other stinging his face.