The Last Fix (29 page)

    She
glanced up and gave a quick nod. Hot energy poured out of her. The heat was
absorbed by his jumper; that was what was making him sweat, he thought.

    'And
Ole,' she said with some reluctance.

    'Ole
Eidesen?'

    'Yes,
I didn't talk much to her; she left early on. But Ole is fantastic.'

    In Frølich’s
mind her points tally sank from 99 to 89. He pretended to be studying his
notes, but stole furtive glances as she raised her coffee cup and waved to a
colleague.

    'To
what did you owe your invitation?' he asked, clearing his throat again. 'I mean
why were you invited?'

    'I
had a few hours there, of teaching at the rehab centre. Most of them in the
winter.'

    'You're
a teacher?'

    'My
major was in literary science. That's what I would really like to do.' She
embraced the room with her glance. 'Began here in March, but I had a few hours
of Norwegian, English and Social Studies at Vinterhagen in the winter.' She
smiled.

    'Did
you teach Katrine?'

    'No,
she was working, of course, in the last phase. I had only seen her on the odd
occasion before, from a distance. Don't think she knew me.'

    The
silence came between them.

    'Nice
canteen,' he said in panic, looking around.

    'I
don't like it,' she laughed. 'But I love the coffee.' Frølich took
another ten points off for her remark about the coffee, but put her up fifteen
points for beautiful teeth in an enigmatic smile. He loosened his tie, breathed
in and braced himself to meet her sparkling blue eyes. She was holding a slice
of bread between her slim fingers. For a few seconds she looked around for her
colleagues who had gone to the back of the room. Then she turned back to the
policeman and raised the sandwich to her mouth. Frølich looked up the
second she opened her mouth and crushed the slice of bread into a lump of
dough, and grey mutton sausage and green gherkin oozed to the side. She didn't
take a bite, she stuffed the whole lot in and chewed it so that saliva and
breadcrumbs seeped out between her lips. This was soon slurped back in, and the
moment their eyes met she began to speak with her mouth full of food. She
talked about Annabeth s and her house, about what wonderful people she and
Gerhardsen were, and then she began to talk about the weather, the rain and how
dreadful it was when your legs were sodden. Frølich’s eyes hung on her
broad mouth. His hands were trembling, but he couldn't quite tear his eyes away
from the wet, open mouth. Her right cheek stretched like elastic. She had
another open sandwich ready; she folded it like the previous one, stuffed it in
and kept talking. Something about an umbrella, yes, it must have been something
to do with an umbrella. Her slim fingers kneaded more bread; she shoved it in,
to join the rest of the food creating a bulge in her cheek. She took a drink.
Slurped the coffee. And then it was over. She folded up the greaseproof paper
and licked her fingers clean. Frølich breathed out, through his nose. He
didn't quite know what he had been through, he just knew that it was over - and
he did not want to go through it a second time.

    'You
left the party early,' he said quickly.

    'Who?'

    'You
and some others.'

    'Yes,
we went to the city centre.'

    'Who?'

    'Ole
and I.'

    'Any
others?'

    'Yes,
there were five of us in the car. But the two gay men wanted to go to a gay
place, and neither Bjørn nor Ole wanted to go there. I think that's
fine, I do - gay bars and all that sort of thing. All the gay men I know are
super.'

    'So
there were you, Ole, Bjørn Gerhardsen and two other men?'

    'Yes,
Goggen and Lasse. They're an item.'

    'So
what happened?'

    'We
went to Smuget. That is, Ole and I did.'

    'Gerhardsen?'

    'I
have no idea.'

    'Didn't
he go into Smuget with you?'

    'I'm
sure he did. But I was with Ole and it was packed in there. I didn't see anyone
I knew.'

    'But
you're not sure if Gerhardsen went in with you?' 'Why wouldn't he have done?'

    'We-e-ell,'
Frølich said. 'What happened then?'

    'We
left a bit later. Went back to my place.' She winked. 'Don't tell anyone. I
promised I would keep my mouth shut.'

    'You
and Eidesen went back to your place, and he stayed with you?'

    'Yes.'

    Frølich
stared and could feel his cheeks burning. Merethe Fossum picked her teeth with
the nail of one of her slim fingers. She didn't manage to get hold of what she
was looking for straightaway. So she opened her mouth and buried her finger in
the recesses of her mouth, stretching her lips into a grotesque grimace.

    'At what
time?'

    She
shrugged and broke off from her excavations so that she could speak. 'It was
light anyway. Maybe four o'clock.'

    'Are
you sure of the time?'

    'No.'
She sent him a vacant grin and, when she saw the policeman's face, added: 'I'm
sorry. I don't know.'

    'Do
you know what time it was when you got to your flat?'

    'A
bit later. I'm so sorry, but I didn't look at my watch at all.' 'How long did
he stay at yours?'

    Merethe
Fossum peered at a chunk of food on one of her red nails. She licked it off.
'Until eleven, or twelve, in the morning. Don't remember. Is it important?'

    Frølich
jotted down words, hardly knowing what to write, and made a private mental note
of minus a hundred points.

    He
looked up. 'This is pretty important,' he said. 'Ole Eidesen was with you from
midnight until eleven o'clock the next morning. Have I understood you
correctly?'

    She
nodded.

    'And
he didn't leave the flat during that time?'

    'I
would have noticed.' She spoke with a faint, dreamy smile.

    'He
says you did not spend the night together.'

    'Oh,
God, poor boy.'

    'I
beg your pardon.'

    She
laughed. 'I suppose he's sticking to our agreement. We agreed we would keep it
a secret. Well, now she can't find out anything anyway. She's dead, isn't she.
The poor thing. It's a terrible business. But you have to think of those left
behind. Ole has not had an easy time, either, has he? When the person you're
with ends up like that.'

    That's
true.'

    'Indeed
it is!'

    'Have
you kept in touch since?'

    'Dear
God,' Merethe sighed.

    'Sorry?'

    She
was grinning, but caught herself.'… I mean, do I look like a one-night stand?'

    Frølich
regarded her in silence.

    'I
have talked to him, once. Forgive me if it is wrong to do that, but this is not
so easy…'

    'Have
you at any time, in any form or manner, discussed with Die what you should say
to the police about your movements that night?'

    Frølich
made a note before she answered. 'No,' she said. 'Not at all.'

    'Well,
that's a bit strange.'

    'Why
is it strange?'

    'His
girlfriend has been murdered, the police are investigating, what on earth did
you talk about if this case did not feature in your conversations?'

    She
stared at Frølich with big eyes. 'Is that wrong too? To invite a guy to
the cinema?'

    Strolling
past the uniformed receptionist a little later Frølich checked his
jacket pocket for his mobile. It wasn't there. He stopped. Could he have left
it in the canteen? Either there or in the car. He turned and looked at the
stairs. In the car, he thought. It could be in the car and, if it is, I won't
have to go down there again. He winked at the guard and left.

    After
the telephone call from Frølich, Gunnarstranda sat in the car looking
out of the window. He was thinking about the funeral ceremony, the faces of
those who had passed him on their way into the church. He thought about
Gerhardsen and his energetic spouse. The clock on the wall above the door was
reflected in the window. A few hours had passed now. It was time to visit
Vinterhagen again.

    On
locking his car door half an hour later and gazing across the gravelled car
park he wondered whether his idea would be a waste of time after all. A dense
stillness hung over the large area. Everyone must have taken the day off
because of the funeral. He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and walked
along the same path he and Frølich had walked a few days, earlier, but
now he didn't meet a single person. He rounded the corner of the yellow
accommodation hall and saw the dark, lifeless windows of the office building.
He pulled up and decided to use the opportunity to have a look around. He
searched for a cigarette end from his pocket, lit up and strolled around the
vegetable patch by the greenhouse. The potatoes had been earthed up at some
point. It had obviously been done with a small fork or a spade. Someone had
been very thorough. Other rows had been earthed up so badly that the yield
would be poor. The leeks and onions were pale, thin and straggly. They needed
more nitrogen. The carrots were looking good. He walked on to the greenhouse and
tried the door. It wasn't locked. He flicked the cigarette into a pile of sand
and entered.

    He
stood avidly breathing in the warm, heavy, moist air of the greenhouse.
Cucumbers and lettuces were being grown. Overhead, on the ridge, there were
ventilation grilles which let in a fresh breath of cooler air that brushed his
head. He walked down between two lines of potting tables and saw someone at the
back, by the far wall. It was Annabeth s. She had changed out of her dark
funeral clothes into a green overall, a flannel shirt and high green boots. She
was watering plants, walking along the potting tables with a hose pipe to which
a shower head had been attached. He coughed, but she didn't hear. He coughed
again.

    'Oh,'
she gasped as she turned round. 'You gave me a start!'

    'I
didn't think the funeral was the right place to bother you,' Gunnarstranda
said.

    'I
know why you've come,' Annabeth said, resigned, and continued her watering. 'My
God, Bjørn and I have had this showdown so many times I had an inkling
it would re-appear. Let me make it quite clear so that we can avoid all the
pomposity and the embarrassing pauses. Bjørn, my husband, is a big boy.
Yes, he did confess to me that he had used her in a moment of weakness. If I
hadn't already been working at getting the poor girl on to an even keel, I
would have dumped her in another institution. I'm telling you that straight. It
is no secret.'

    'But
why didn't you do that?' Gunnarstranda asked, cleaning the dry leaves of some
of the plants on the table.

    'You
might well ask. It's always easy to ask when it's all over. Don't you think I
wanted to do that? Don't you think I considered the problem? But she liked it
with us. She trusted us. She could function here, Gunnarstranda. Believe me, it
wasn't easy.'

    Annabeth
lifted the hose pipe and dragged it along with her.

    'I am
quite sure it wasn't easy,' Gunnarstranda broke in again. 'But it can't have
been right, either. The decision to keep Katrine as a patient when your husband
was having a relationship with her could never have been right.'

    'See!'
Annabeth waved the hose pipe about angrily. 'There you go with your
accusations. Why do you do that?' She sent the policeman a fierce look and
continued in an aggressive tone. 'You say that because she was murdered. If
this hadn't happened no one would have been any the wiser. She wasn't suffering
any extra pressure. She was completely rehabilitated. The treatment was a
success. So it hadn't been wrong to keep her.'

    Gunnarstranda
went quiet. She had a point. She glared at him from the other side of the
potting table.