The Last Fix (48 page)

    'It
can't have been Skau,' Frølich said after the two policemen were on
their own. 'How the hell would he have got access to a computer in custody?'

    'Absolutely.
Sounds unlikely.'

    'But
why didn't you say anything? Why should we leave here with that man's
conclusions?' Frølich asked, tossing his head in the direction of the
public prosecutor's door.

    'I
had my reasons,' the policeman said in a cutting tone. 'What I'm wondering
about is what kept you last night.'

    'I
went back to sleep after you rang. Sorry.'

    'Did
you go back to bed after I had dragged you out of it?'

    Frølich
gave a sleepy smile. 'I had my reasons.'

    'But
if you leave me to do the dirty work on my own, don't stick your nose in my
business, as you tried to do here,' Gunnarstranda chided, annoyed.

    Gunnarstranda
went down the stairs with Frølich in his wake. He already had a
cigarette out. 'Fristad wants a simple, easy-to-follow case to plead. For that
he needs evidence. He's relying on you and me to know what we are doing. And he
wants more than half the glory. At the moment he thinks he's helped us on our
way. So we have a free hand for a while yet.'

    'A
free hand to do what?'

    'To
find evidence, of course.'

    'What
evidence?'

    'My
dear colleague,' Gunnarstranda said in a patronizing voice. 'Hasn't it occurred
to you that the DNA sample they found under Katrine's nails may not belong to
either Kramer or Skau?'

    'Have
you been told that?' Frølich quizzed.

    'I
haven't been told anything, but I intend to find out.'

    Bente
Kramer trudged up the hill the police station bestrode like a castle at the end
of a footpath. A man wearing a cowboy hat was taking his dog for a walk on the
green grass stretching across to Oslo prison. A group of homeless tramps were
having a meeting on a bench under one of the trees. Bente Kramer stopped to
collect her breath. A uniformed woman with a contented face and blonde hair in
a pony-tail under a police cap came striding down the hill. Bente nodded to
her. The policewoman nodded back, and puckered her brow in a questioning frown.
Bente put on a tired expression and battled on. Having come this far, she would
manage the last bit.

    Inside
the heavy doors, she stopped and watched the hectic activity around the
reception desk.

    'I
would like to speak to Police Inspector Gunnarstranda,' she said to the
kindest-looking of the men.

    'Have
you got an appointment?'

    Bente
Kramer shook her head.

    The
police officer picked up a telephone and called. A tired-looking man smelling
of stale beer and garlic pushed to the front and shouted something across the
desk. The man with the telephone ignored him and, with the receiver under his
chin, asked: 'What's it about?'

    Bente
cleared her throat. 'It's about a ring,' she said. 'Tell him it's Bente Kramer
with a ring that belonged to Katrine Bratterud.'

    The
scratch marks down his chest and side had faded; now they were mere pale,
almost invisible red lines, not unlike the marks after a hot night with the
woman you love. Beneath the nipple on his right hand side her nail had dug into
him leaving a cut which was also healing now. With his eyes closed, he could
still conjure up the sensation of her fingers scratching him, freezing, as
death finally came to his rescue in the grass and took her into shadowland as
violent jerks shook the young body for five seconds. Her final, but presumably
her greatest climax ever. A gift - delivered after a few tender moments of
doubt from his side. She had thought he was going to mount her. She had felt
the pressure from his stiff member against her body and assumed he wanted to
take her. She had relaxed in the hope she would be allowed to live. He had read
that in her blue eyes. Eyes that now - at this very second - caused him to bend
his head in pain and doze as the sweat broke out over his entire body - still -
so long afterwards.
just do it,
said the blue eyes.
Do what you want.
Just let me live.
She had almost succeeded in bewitching him - forestalling
her own destiny. But only almost. Even now he could still feel the same fury
rising inside him. As the fury rose the memory of her eyes could cause him to
pull up short at any moment, to immerse himself in profound thoughts, a memory
that thus became the best way to maintain his aggression, to think about how
she had just been asking for it - by spreading her legs and opening them wide
to let him in. That was when he no longer had any choice. The hardness she felt
was no precursor of sensual pleasure; it was a precursor of death.

    
There
would never be such eyes again.
He put on a white shirt and quickly tied
his tie. Inspected himself in the mirror and threw his suit jacket across his
shoulders.
Think of her. You're doing it for her. Think of her. Get it over
with.

    'Hamlet,'
Frølich said with a grin. 'Quite convincing, too. You should go on the
stage.'

    'At
least I don't fall asleep,' Gunnarstranda answered, weighing the ring in his
hand. Frølich was supporting his chin on his hand and said, 'What's the
question?'

    'The
question is: If Henning Kramer posted Katrine's jewellery to Raymond Skau, why
didn't he send this one?' Gunnarstranda held the ring between thumb and first
finger while squinting through the hole at Frølich.

    'Because
he never posted anything.' Frølich mused on what he had said and at
length asked, 'Do we know if she was wearing this ring on the night of the
murder?'

    'Eidesen
noticed this ring was missing when we found her jewellery. We can prove it
belonged to Katrine.'

    'If
Kramer had wanted to point the finger of blame at someone else I don't think he
would have left a ring in his room that clearly belonged to her… so the logical
explanation must be that Kramer never posted any jewellery anywhere.'

    'You're
getting warm, Frølich. Kramer didn't send any jewellery. All he had was
this ring. Someone else must have posted the jewellery to Skau, and if there is
a someone else, it must be a person who first killed Katrine Bratterud and then
Henning Kramer. And then,' Gunnarstranda grunted, 'we're facing a problem I do
not understand at all.'

    'What's
that?'

    'I
don't understand why Kramer had to die.'

    'He
must have known something.'

    Gunnarstranda
chewed on that. 'Possible,' he said. 'If you're right, Kramer must have invited
the murderer over the night he was killed. That may also explain why he lied to
you about what happened the night Katrine was killed. He may have suspected
some people, or a particular person. And called him.'

    'Why
would he have called the killer?' a sceptical Frølich frowned.

    'Because
he was killed at home in his brother's flat, not in his room. Henning Kramer
was quite unpredictable as regards where he spent the night…' Gunnarstranda
mumbled with closed eyes. 'Well, that's how it must have been. Kramer asked to
meet up and that resulted in his death. Afterwards the suicide letter was written.
Since Kramer is dead, to all outward appearance by his own hand, it's easier to
point suspicions in his direction than Skau's, who is alive and can still issue
denials. For all the killer knows, Skau has an alibi. Looking at the facts,
what do we know so far?'

    'We
know the killer was not a random assailant. He must have been in her circle of
acquaintances.'

    Gunnarstranda
nodded.

    'We
know the killer must have known about the connection between Katrine and Skau.'

    Gunnarstranda
grinned. 'You're the one who's so keen on the theatre. What would Holberg's
Erasmus Montanus have said?'

    'A
stone cannot fly. Mother Nille cannot fly. Ergo… is mother Nille a stone…?' Frølich
ventured.

    Gunnarstranda
shook his head. 'We know that Katrine rang friends and acquaintances before
going to the party. We know Katrine made at least five calls and later that
night she was murdered. Ergo,' he mumbled, 'it's possible the motive is to be
found in the phone calls.'

    'We've
established that she had a strained relationship with Bjørn Gerhardsen,'
Frølich said. 'We know that Annabeth s must have hated her, that Katrine
couldn't choose between Ole Eidesen and Henning Kramer, and that she was hiding
from her past while trying to clear up a period in her very earliest past - she
owed ten thousand kroner to a violent pimp. We've established that on the day
before the murder she visited the social worker who knew about her adoption.'

    'The
last one,' Gunnarstranda smiled. 'It means Katrine knew who she was. She didn't
tell Ole Eidesen. Why not? Because she hasn't come to terms with the matter
yet. She knows the name of her biological mother and she has had a shock. The
circumstances around the adoption must have struck deep. Remember she had
far-fetched fantasies about her biological parents dying in plane crashes and
all that sort of thing. Now she has discovered the actual truth. What does she
do then?'

    'So
you think the phone calls prove she was continuing to dig up her past?'

    'Not
necessarily. She may have simply revealed the news to some other person.
Although she may also have rung someone who was in the know.'

    'But
how does that help us?'

    'We
know she made four or five calls, at least.'

    'And
we would never get a warrant to check the telephone line. Wait a minute,' Frølich
said, excited. 'Gerhardsen,' he went on. 'Gerhardsen has money. He's loaded.
Katrine might have called him to ask for a favour. She needed money to pay off
Skau. Wow, this is a straight business deal for the two of them. Both Katrine
and Gerhardsen have been in this situation before. She asked him for money.
That explains why he treated her like a whore at the party afterwards. That
explains why she was ill at the party. Suppose he had given her money and
wanted repayment in kind - in the form of sexual favours?'

    'You
may be right. But why would he throttle her?'

    Frølich
considered the options. 'Because she didn't want to play along,' he concluded.
'And Gerhardsen doesn't have an alibi. He claims he went to Smuget, but no one
has corroborated that, neither those who went with him nor the other two in the
taxi. Neither Ole Eidesen nor Merethe Fossum remembers him entering. Neither of
them can remember having seen the guy inside. But Katrine and Henning must have
been five hundred metres away from his taxi outside Smuget. My God, his car in
Munkedamsveien, everything fits. He has to cross the City Hall square to fetch
the car. If he had gone for it right after the taxi dropped them off he would
have seen Katrine and Henning. They were putting on their show on the wharf.'

    Gunnarstranda
regarded his younger colleague with a smile. 'You'd like to bang up Gerhardsen,
wouldn't you.'

    'Naturally.'

    'Have
you got something against him?'

    'All
the same, it's worth bringing him in for questioning again,' Frølich
said.

    They
were interrupted by the telephone, and Gunnarstranda's face split into a huge
smile after delivering his arrogant one-liner.

    He
coughed. 'Of course I remember you,' he said, standing up and fidgeting.

    Frølich
stood up as well.

    'Just
a moment,' Gunnarstranda said, holding his hand over the mouthpiece of the
receiver. 'Yes, Frølich?'

    The
reserved expression caused his colleague to burst into a grin. 'A woman, is
it?' He beamed.

    Gunnarstranda,
unmoved, coughed. 'What's the matter, Frølich?' he repeated in
unapproachable mode.