The Last Fix (52 page)

    'Why
didn't you move out?'

    'How
can you ask!'

    Gunnarstranda
flung out his arms. 'Did he threaten to expose you? Did he threaten to go to
the police with what he knew about the murder of Helene Lockert?'

    'You're
getting there, you clever little policeman.'

    'Do
you mean to say he killed that poor girl to…' Gunnarstranda searched for
words.'… To keep the lid on the secret?'

    'He
killed Katrine so that no one would know who killed her mother. If everyone
knew who killed Helene, he wouldn't have had a hold over me any longer. He
could not have stopped me talking about what he has done to me.'

    'Help
me to catch him,' urged the police inspector.

    She
shook her head. 'You won't coax me into doing anything,' she said quietly.
'Let's be honest with each other now, Gunnarstranda. As far as evidence goes,
you haven't got a leg to stand on.'

    'That's
true,' the policeman agreed. 'I have no evidence. Unless you help me.'

    She
laughed. 'Heavens above! Why would I help you?'

    Gunnarstranda
paused. Sigrid Haugom regarded him with a contemptuous glare.

    'Because
this cannot go on,' the detective replied at length.

    She
laughed again. A cold, harsh laugh. 'Can it not go on?' She mimicked him with a
pursed mouth:
'Cannot go on!'
She took another step down the stairs. 'Have
you considered,' she spat, 'that I've been living with blood on my hands for
more than twenty years? Have you considered that what I have dreamt about for
twenty years has been realized? Finally I know something and I have a hold over
him! Finally, finally, finally, I am the one with the power!'

    'But
is that really what you want?'

    'There's
nothing in this world I want more!' Sigrid shouted.

    The
policeman observed her standing on the stairs, bent forwards, panting, her hair
dishevelled, her face, in which hatred and fury had formed deep furrows, bare.
A frothing drop of saliva bubbled on her lower lip. 'Then do it for someone
else instead,' he pleaded. 'Do it for her sake* Look upon it as a chance to
make amends. That was what you dreamt about, wasn't it? Making amends to
Katrine?'

    She
took a deep breath as though to restrain another outburst. She stood there with
her eyes closed until she made up her mind and signalled her decision with a
shake of the head.

    'OK,
no,' he said. 'But you'll have to come with me all the same.'

    When
she did at last open her eyes they were shiny with tears. 'The case against me
is time-sensitive,' she said, spinning round and continuing up the stairs with
the policeman in tow.

    'We'll
see,' Gunnarstranda said to her back. 'Fortunately it is not my job to
determine whether the case against Helene Lockert's murderer is covered by the
statute of limitations or not.'

    She
came to a sudden halt.

    Gunnarstranda
continued speaking. 'I'm a policeman, not a judge. But I hope you won't resist
arrest. It would just be embarrassing for us both.' He gave a wry smile.

    'No,
of course not,' she said, bewildered, running her hands down her dress as
though wiping off something unpleasant. 'We are both adults.' She grabbed a
door handle. 'I must change my clothes. What was it you wanted me to do?'

    'Just
ring him and tell him you were there, at the nursing home on Sunday.'

    'Tell
him I was with Reidar, that I visited him?'

    'Yes.'

    'Nothing
else?'

    The
policeman coughed when he peered up at her now smiling face. 'What is it?'

    'I've
already done it,' she said. 'Funny.'

    'You've
told him? When?' Gunnarstranda's lean figure jerked. He ran over to her. His
sensitive lips were trembling. 'No more bluffing. When did you tell him?'

    'Early
this morning.'

    'You're
lying.'

    She
shook her head. 'I've been lying to myself too much to do it any more.'

    'But
why today of all days?'

    'Because
today I…' She breathed in and closed her eyes again.'… Today… when I woke up…'
She paused.

    'What
about today?' Gunnarstranda was staring at her. 'What do you mean?'

    With
a distant smile, she said: 'What makes you think you would understand me if I
were to answer that question honestly?'

    The
policeman had his mobile out. He watched her with a concerned frown on his
forehead, then turned away from her with the phone against his ear. 'Don't go
anywhere,' he said in a low voice while impatiently waiting for an answer from Frølich.
And added in an even lower voice, 'Surely you must understand what an insane
thing to do it was to tell him you'd visited Bueng?'

    'I
don't understand anything any more.'

    'I
hope it's not too late,' Gunnarstranda said and swore. 'Where do you keep your
toothbrush and toiletries? In the bathroom? Well, go and get them.'

    He
followed her down the corridor with the mobile to his ear. He trailed her every
step. Something told him this woman should not be left alone for a single
second.

    A
young man with an oversized head, big hair and a strangely frail body squeezed
into a blue suit rounded the corner for the third time and looked at Frank Frølich,
who jumped to his feet in his eagerness. 'Is Gerhardsen in or not?' Frølich
asked, annoyed. He had been sitting and waiting for an audience for three
quarters of an hour. The young man had protruding eyes and a swollen red pimple
on his cheek.

    'He's
in a meeting,' came the answer. The young man didn't move.

    'Did
you tell him I was waiting?'

    The
young man nodded. He was wearing a dark blue shirt, which was the same colour
as the wall-to- wall carpet on the floor. Around his neck he wore a brown silk
tie. The knot was much too loose.
Young men with an irritating appearance
should not be employed,
thought Frølich, and, impatient, shifted his
weight from one foot to the other.

    'The
meeting's going to last a long time,' the young man said with a grin.

    Frølich
thought:
Men like you should be in the fields and woods.
He said: 'So
your boss thinks he can psyche me out, does he?' He went back to the chair and
sat down.

    
The
young man stood there with his arms hanging down by his sides. What was it
Eva-Britt always said? I think men in dinner jackets can be quite sexy, but
James Bond should understand once and for all that he should not run around in
that kind of clothing
.
Frølich leaned forwards and eyed the young
man.
Young men in suits shouldn't stand so erect with their arms down by
their sides, he thought. It makes them look like standard lamps
.
'Let
there be light,' he said with a smile.

    At
that moment his mobile telephone rang.

    The
easy part was that the man was a patient. He looked down at his legs. Soft,
light brown shoes and loose trousers. His legs were quite normal, his stride
relaxed. The important thing is how it looks from the outside, not how it feels
on the inside. The feeling of heaviness is sheer imagination.

    He
turned left again and at an accelerated pace headed for the nursing home. The
lobby was deserted and quite still. A taxi was parked in front of the entrance.
The taxi driver was waiting, so he was collecting, not delivering. He walked
past the taxi and took the last few steps to the front entrance. As soon as he
opened the door, the familiar smell hit him: the smell of old people, a pungent
odour consisting of elements such as urine, dirt, dust, stale air and rotten
organic material. It smelled like an open grave. The irony of this image made
him smile. A young woman in a garish yellow sweater was sitting behind a low
glass partition arid speaking on the telephone. He went to the door and knocked
politely against the door frame.

    'Reidar
Bueng?' he asked, leaning against the wall.

    She
put down the receiver with a startled expression. 'I'm on placement here, so I
don't know my way around so well…'

    'A
student?' he smiled. 'Isn't there a list you can consult?'

    'Yes,
there is.' She put the receiver on the desk and searched through the paperwork.
She was nervous she wouldn't find what she was looking for. Finally she looked
up. 'Room 104.'

    'Thank
you,' he said and continued at a composed tempo down the corridor. He passed
room 104 without stopping, just a brief glance to see where he was in the
corridor. Through the windows he could see white clover flowers in the lawn. An
old man with a beret, white legs in enormous shorts and a spanner in his hand
was standing over a dismantled lawnmower.

    He
went on and found a toilet further down the corridor. He entered, locked the
door behind him and laid the briefcase on the toilet lid. At the bottom of the
briefcase, each in their own compartment, were plastic gloves, a hypodermic
needle and the serum. He put on the gloves and quickly assembled the syringe.
Then he pressed down the plunger and sucked up one phial, then a second. He
released two drops into the toilet. Ready for use.
Goodness me,
he
thought.
Someone has been given the wrong medication today.
He hid the
weapon in his jacket pocket. Then he inspected the pocket in the mirror. It
looked as it should. He put his sunglasses back on and breathed in before
opening the toilet door and walking slowly down the corridor.

    Not a
soul around, neither to the left nor the right.
Think about her. Feel her
fury. Think how she would crush you!
He proceeded without hurrying to room
104. His breathing was regular: out, in, out, in; he knocked twice. Not a sound
from inside. Time to complete the job, he thought, grasping the door handle.

    'You're
worried about me,' Sigrid Haugom confirmed after they had got into the car.
'You think I'm psychotic. Maybe you think I might harm myself?'

    'I'm
only doing my job,' Gunnarstranda said, donning his jacket, starting the engine
and driving off.

    'Is
it part of your job to watch women sitting on the loo and having a pee?'

    'I
didn't watch you. It's my job to stay on the heels of arrestees. You are not the
first in that regard.'

    'You're
a bad liar, Gunnarstranda.'

    He
looked across at her and said with a wry smile on his thin lips, 'You have to
remember I've listened to lots of liars, all too many.'

    'Strange,'
she sighed.

    'What's
strange?'

    'This
moment.'

    She
went on: 'All the times I've tried to imagine what it would be like to be
arrested. Thousands.' She glanced out of the car when he braked for a car
coming from the right. 'Talk about an anti-climax.'

    'I'm
beginning to get used to it, too,' Gunnarstranda said drily.

    They
fell silent.

    'I
think…,' he began after a while.

    'Are
you frightened I'll throw myself out of the car?' she interrupted.

    'I
think Henning Kramer discovered something,' Gunnarstranda persevered.

    She
sighed. 'God, now you're being tiresome.'

    'I
think he discovered something your husband had missed, something which made
Kramer dangerous in his eyes. I want you to think. What could Kramer have
discovered?'

    She
angled her head. 'I think that's pretty obvious, don't you?'

    Gunnarstranda
sent her an uneasy glance.