The Man in the Window (17 page)

    Gunnarstranda said nothing and waited.

    'But I wasn't - against it, that is. I can open a shop in my living room if I want. My goodness, I have the contacts…'

    He sat and reflected.

    'So you didn't object to the sale of the shop?'

    'Not at all. But when my father went on the attack as he did. This was late at night. We were sitting with a cognac, I was telling him about these engraved glasses, the uniform complete with medals and ribbons, and he just scowled and said - as if he were pouring a bucket of water over my head:
I've torpedoed the sale of the shop. Do you want to ring Arvid and console him?
It was almost comical…' 'Were those the words he used?'

    'Yes. He knew Arvid had been talking to me about these matters. He said those actual words, and that he was angry with me. He must have thought I had gone behind his back or something like that.'

    'But what did you say?'

    'Not very much. In fact, he was the one who should have informed me about these negotiations, not Arvid. My father had known about the process the whole time. Until then he hadn't objected. So I said that for me it didn't matter whether the shop was sold or not, which was the truth. If he and Emmanuel and Arvid sold up, I would manage anyway - and in the end I told him that Arvid had sounded me out about any objections I might have had about the sale. And I said that I had told Arvid what I had just told him. Finally I said it was strange that Arvid should be the person to inform me. After that we didn't talk about the matter any more.'

    'You finished your conversation?'

    'No, we talked, but not a word about Arvid or Emmanuel or the sale.'

    Gunnarstranda nodded.

    'How was he that evening? Different in any way?'

    'No, he was his usual grumpy self.' Karsten gave a faint smile. 'By and large he tended to be bad-tempered.'

    'Why was that?'

    'Hm?'

    'He wasn't ill? I mean he may have been bad-tempered because he was ill.'

    Jespersen smiled. 'My father was not often ill.'

    Gunnarstranda nodded. 'In fact he was ill,' he said.

    'Your father had tumours on the kidneys. The pathologist's verdict is that he had malignant cancer. The chances are he didn't know himself.' Gunnarstranda coughed. 'So the question is whether he talked to you about any illness?'

    'Never.' Jespersen stared into space. 'Cancer?' he echoed in a hollow voice.

    Gunnarstranda cleared his throat. 'Well, back to the evening before he was killed. Did he talk on the phone while you were there?'

    'He might have received the odd call, but he didn't make any himself.'

    'Do you know who he talked to?'

    'No, no idea. My mind was on other things. The children were beginning to get tired… Imagine him having cancer!'

    From his inside pocket Gunnarstranda took the old photograph he had found under the pad on Reidar Jespersen's desk. 'Do you know her?' he asked.

    Jespersen held the picture, studied it and shrugged his shoulders. 'No idea,' he said and handed back the photograph.

    'Never seen this person?'

    'Never.'

    'I found it in your father's papers. Thought it might be your mother.'

    'My mother?' Jespersen shook his head and smiled. 'No. My mother was blonde - quite different from this woman.'

    Jespersen got to his feet and wandered over to the wall between the loudspeakers. He took down a picture in a glass frame. He held the photograph in one hand and the frame in the other. 'See for yourself,' he said, passing both to the Inspector.

    Jespersen's mother was a woman with short, blonde hair. He thought he could recognize Karsten Jespersen's chin and eyes. The picture had been taken in Bygdøy. She was sitting on a chair in a café. The Fram museum building towered up behind. Gunnarstranda suddenly regretted not having shown the photograph around before. 'I thought it would be your mother,' he reflected. 'It occurred to me that I hadn't seen pictures of her - your mother.'

    Jespersen coughed. 'It's not that strange that you haven't seen pictures of her. I don't think Ingrid would have approved of a picture of my mother on the wall. Ingrid is great, but she drew the line there. There are lots of photos of my mother in the flat, but in albums.'

    Karsten Jespersen put the photograph of his mother back on the wall.

Chapter 22

The Inheritance

    'What have you had in this? Tar?' Frølich was trying to rinse their cups in the sink before serving coffee from the machine. Gunnarstranda's china cup, purloined from a canteen a long time ago, was almost dark brown on the inside from coffee tannin. His own cup was a green, arty ceramics number which he had been given for Christmas by the same Anna who was recording all the objects at the crime scene. Frølich stood thinking about Anna and the night they had shared after the Christmas dinner almost four weeks ago. Frank Frølich had not often been unfaithful to Eva-Britt. When it had happened on the odd occasion, he was full of remorse and abject fear of sexual diseases or an unwanted pregnancy. But he didn't have this feeling after the night with Anna. As the water from the tap swirled round Gunnarstranda's filthy cup, without making it any cleaner than it had been five minutes earlier, he was thinking he might give her a call to chase up the inventory of items in Reidar Folke Jespersen's shop. He looked at his reflection. 'But why?' he asked himself. 'Why would you want to do that?'

    'Eh?' Gunnarstranda said from his chair. He was leafing through the evening edition of
Aftenposten.

    'What?' Frølich asked.

    'You were the one who spoke,' Gunnarstranda answered with his nose in the paper.

    Frølich straightened up and knew why he wanted to meet her. She had not hinted at their joint escapade one single time. Although there had been that little glint in her eyes when they had met in Jespersen's antiques shop. He poured coffee into both of their cups. 'I was saying Jonny Stokmo's telephone is dead,' he told Gunnarstranda and placed the full cup of coffee in front of him. 'Stokmo's disappeared, vanished off the face of the earth.'

    'All the more reason to check him out.'

    'We can start with his son - this scrapdealer in Torshov,' Frølich said, pulling a face as he sipped the black coffee. 'You or me?' he asked.

    'Me,' Gunnarstranda said, looking up. 'What do you reckon about the brothers? Have they got a motive?' He folded the newspaper.

    Frølich, who was still thinking about Anna and how her hair had tickled his nose one night four weeks ago, tried to repress the thought and instead put on a concentrated expression for Gunnarstranda, who looked up at him from an angle.

    'What's up?'

    'Reidar and Ingrid owned everything in joint names,' a composed Frølich reasoned. 'No one has objected to that. The Marriage Settlement Office in Brannaysund has not registered any separate property either for her or for her late husband. The will has been revoked. In practice, if Ingrid Jespersen can sit tight on the old boy's possessions…' He left the rest of his reasoning in the air.

    'She can't. Karsten Jespersen has a right to his inheritance,' Gunnarstranda said. 'He is not her child. He has a right to part of the settlement.'

    'But suppose we imagine that Ingrid has free rein over the old boy's share of the business,' Frølich said. 'She has actually admitted that she wants to get rid of it. In other words, now Reidar is dead the sale should go through without a hitch.'

    'Do you mean that gives the two brothers a motive?'

    'I mean it would be stupid to overlook that motive,' Frølich said. 'The man who stood in the way of the sale is now off the scene. The two brothers each own a third. Furthermore, everyone insists that Karsten is not interested in the shop. However…' said Frølich, 'we don't know who will take over the shop. There's bound to be some discussion between Karsten and the widow - and the two of them seem to get on like a house on fire. From an inheritance point of view, Karsten has a right to a percentage of the assets, and its size is calculated on the basis of Reidar's half of the joint property. Inasmuch as Ingrid and Reidar had joint ownership, it will be Ingrid rather than Karsten who benefits from Reidar's death.'

    'We don't know anything about Karsten's late mother,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'What?'

    'Karsten also has a right to part of the inheritance through her. We don't know if that baton changeover has been effected. Looking at all the things we
don't
know, I think the distribution of the deceased's estate seems so complicated that I doubt…'

    Gunnarstranda paused.

    'What do you doubt?'

    Gunnarstranda shook his head. 'I don't know. At any rate it's difficult to see a motive based on the inheritance issue alone.'

    'Perhaps we should chase up the shop inventory,' Frølich said upon reflection.

    'Why's that?'

    Frølich stared into the distance, in a dream. 'Well, I can take care of that at some point.'

    'I can't imagine the brothers would bump off Reidar because he delayed the sale of the shop,' Gunnarstranda said sceptically.

    'Delayed?'

    'Yes. The two brothers were in the majority. Reidar would have been outvoted.'

    'But now you're ignoring the dynamics of their relationship,' Frølich interrupted. 'This is a closed circle of family members,' he continued. 'These three brothers know each other inside out. Reidar is the leading light, the man who always calls the shots, who has always called the shots, and who bullies the others into doing what he commands. An offer flutters in through the door. Result: the other two brothers see the chance of a fat pension - and Reidar opposes it. The other two are used to giving in to Reidar. Isn't it a little conspicuous that the eldest brother is killed?'

    'Everything is conspicuous, given the right circumstances,' Gunnarstranda replied.

    'And in the middle of all this we have the son, Karsten - he's sick of working for a pittance under his father…'

    'We know nothing about that!'

    'But Karsten has grown up in the shadow of a macho man. Think about that. That boy has never been allowed to be afraid. I'm sure that when he was afraid of shadows behind the door as a small boy he…'

    Gunnarstranda leaned back and waited for the continuation. It didn't come.

    'Yes?' enquired Gunnarstranda.

    'You've seen him with your own eyes. Karsten is a wreck!'

    'So what?'

    'The two brothers know that only Reidar stands between them and the sale. Neither Karsten nor Ingrid will oppose the sale. For the two brothers…'

    'All they needed to do was raise their hands at a board meeting,' Gunnarstranda said. 'They were in the majority, weren't they!'

    'But we know that Reidar let the murderer into the shop,' Frølich persisted.

    'But he could have let lots of other people into the shop, and not necessarily the brothers.' Gunnarstranda peered up at his tall colleague: 'There's another thing you're forgetting. You told me about Arvid's dog - Silvie. Doesn't that suggest the man is too soft?'

    'No, if we take the dog into account, it would reinforce Arvid's motivation. After all Reidar tried to kick it to death.'

    'I don't think so. The dog was one of those poofie types, wasn't it?'

    Frølich knitted both eyebrows.

    Gunnarstranda threw his arms into the air and searched for words: 'Yes, it was… a little rat with fur. Only ageing prostitutes and homosexuals own dogs like that, don't they?'

    Frølich eyeballed his boss, speechless. 'My grandmother had a dog like that,' he stammered.

    'All right,' Gunnarstranda said, in retreat, pursing his lips and creasing his face into an indescribable expression. 'I'm sure Arvid is a perfectly normal fellow, but I don't think we should get hung up on Reidar Folke Jespersen's inheritance. The only point of interest for us is that the man revoked what seemed an undistinguished will just before he was bumped off.' He coughed and gazed ahead of him for a few moments. 'In any case, it is too early to focus too much attention on the brothers. The one I met - Emmanuel - might perhaps be credited with scribbling a riddle on the body, but he is no fighting man. He could only just raise his body to reach for the ashtray.'

    He stole another glance at Frølich. 'Afraid of shadows behind the door?' he asked.

    'All children are frightened of the dark.'

    'What shadows behind the door?'

    'Shadows, things you're afraid of.'

    'But behind the door? Can you see shadows through a closed door?'

    Frølich stared at him. 'Under the bed - is that better?'

    Gunnarstranda threw up his arms in resignation: 'By all means.' He cleared his throat and stood up. 'Well, have to make tracks,' he mumbled and grabbed his coat.