The Man in the Window (26 page)

    'Was he crucified?' Tove asked with somewhat slurred speech.

    'Jesus?'

    'No, the antiquarian!'

    'He was an antiques dealer, not an antiquarian. No, Folke Jespersen was not crucified,' Gunnarstranda mumbled fastidiously. 'There were no wounds on the hands or feet - so it must be the exhibiting of him and the quotation which are important. The method of death is irrelevant. The situation, the quotation and the humiliation must be the relevant points. But if Pilate said the line it is as though he is begging for Jesus; he seems to be imploring the crowds to come to their senses: Look - now he has been humiliated, show mercy! But if Jesus said the words, then the line contains a great many levels. After all he claims to be the son of God, immortal and all that, and he is saying: 'See me, see the man!'

    Tove stifled an outburst of laughter.

    'What?' Gunnarstranda asked, disorientated.

    'I hope you won't be damaged by this,' she giggled. 'I hope you won't become religious.' She laughed out loud.

    Bewildered, Gunnarstranda stared at her. 'Oooh, dear me,' she said, recovering. 'That must be the whisky. It's just so good. I think I might have one more.'

    'But it may be something to do with guilt,' Gunnarstranda reasoned as Tove poured them both another. 'This incident - where Pilate does not want to execute Jesus and offers to release him, but the crowd chooses the other one… what's his name?'

    'Barabbas,' Tove said, lowering her face over the goldfish. 'Bar a bass,' she said, changing the stress. 'Bass is a type of fish, isn't it?'

    'That's it, Barrabas, and Pilate, who washes his hands of the whole business. It might all be tied up with - guilt.'

    Tove leered. 'What's his name?'

    'Who are you talking about?'

    'The fish.'

    'The fourth wise man.'

    'The fourth?'

    'There are three wise men in the Bible. This is the fourth.'

    'Your fish?' Tove's face was one big question mark. 'Oh, my God, I can already feel the whisky,' she grinned.

    'Kalfatrus,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'Pardon?'

    Gunnarstranda smiled.

    'There you are, you see,' she said. 'You
can
laugh!' They grinned, both of them.

    'Sorry,' she said. 'I'm stopping you thinking.' She took two unsteady steps towards the bottle. 'You think; I'll take care of this.'

    'Where was I?'

    'You were talking about guilt.'

    'Yes, Pilate says the man is innocent. It's confusing…' Gunnarstranda furrowed his brow. 'The sentence in the Bible may be a reference to the discussion surrounding the Jesus figure. Is he really the son of God, a God or a man? As a king he is mocked. The concept of king - you know, the Jews' idea of a Messiah was a kind of all-powerful emperor who smashes the enemy and proclaims himself king, but then this Jesus figure comes along with his "king" metaphors and uses the concept in a sort of spiritual sense. So the sentence is to do with the relationship between the concepts of king, God, man and father. But the question is whether the fact that he is exhibited in the shop window is significant or whether it is the issue of guilt itself - after all, the section with Pilate is a legal procedure…'

    
'Skal
,' Tove said.

    Gunnarstranda took a sip. 'What about if all the elements are involved here: law, guilt, public humiliation, God's image.'

    'Patricide,' Tove said.

    Gunnarstranda looked up. She was holding the bottle between thumb and first finger and dangling it in the air. 'Empty,' she said.

    'What did you say?' he asked.

    'Empty,' she said.

    'Before that.'

    'You're not that drunk.'

    He grinned. 'Find yourself another bottle.'

    'Excellent,' she said, bending down to take another bottle from the travel chest. 'What was I saying?'

    'You mentioned the word
patricide.
But what would motivate Karsten Jespersen to bump his father off?'

    'Revenge,' Tove said, opening a new bottle. She raised it and studied the label. 'Glenlivet. That's sure to be expensive, and good.'

    'What sort of revenge?'

    'You're the policeman.'

    Gunnarstranda drained his glass and rubbed his face in his hands.

    Tove fell back onto the sofa. She kicked off her shoes and placed a slim, nylon-clad leg on the table. 'My God, I'm glad you've finished with that Bible stuff,' she sighed and sat watching him with a grin on her face. 'You live here, so I suppose it's best to ask.' She put the bottle and the glass on the table and started rummaging through her bag. 'Do you mind if I smoke?'

Chapter 34

Two-Step

    That night Frank Frølich dreamed about Linn although it had to be at least fifteen years since he had last seen her. In the dream they were in her chalet. Outside the window twittering birds were frenetically busy. He was lying on his side in bed and could feel the sun warming his feet. A sweet smell of summer wafted in through the half-open window. Linn had rolled over. He lay admiring her taut stomach muscles. The sun cast a clearly defined shadow from the crosspieces in the window across the bed. Her hair cascaded over the pillow. A tendril from an ivy plant stretched down towards the floor and touched a pile of underclothes. And then he was no longer in the chalet, he was in a spinney and it was autumn. The air was keen. They had a view of a small lake and the beech leaves on the far side had turned yellow with an orange glow; the reflection in the dark water was so detailed that the reflected image seemed sharper than reality. Now it wasn't Linn he was with, but Eva-Britt. She stole a glance at him with a lock of hair in her mouth as she threw an armful of birch leaves at him. They were dry. Instead of falling to the ground they were picked up by a gust of wind and rose in the air; they became smaller and smaller until they were fine specks in the sky and disappeared. He turned away from her and saw a bookshelf. He couldn't read the titles on the spines. The shelf was too far away. Instead he caught sight of a picture of a motor cycle on the door, a Harley- Davidson Fat Boy ridden by a dark-haired woman with bare breasts and long legs in tight jeans. It was Anna. He woke up and found himself lying in his own bed. No Linn, no Eva-Britt. Just a pile of his clothes lying on the floor. On the cupboard door hung the old poster of the Harley-Davidson Fat Boy - without Anna.

    In the end he swung a leg down onto the floor and sat looking at his sorry figure in the mirror. Thank God no one nags me in the morning.

    An hour later he opened the front door and left. It had turned milder, around zero degrees, and it had snowed in the night. The snow ploughs had packed all the parked cars into a cloak of wet snow. The rhythmic stroke of a spade at work told him that a determined office worker was set on using his car to go to the office. But when the engine started, the tone was muffled. The air was like wool. Sounds had to drag themselves through the deadening layer of thick falling snow. Frank wished it were summer and that he could wake up one morning with the sun warming his feet.

      On arriving at the bar in the Hotel Continental, he found himself a seat on one of the leather sofas at the back of the room. By and large the customers in the bar were men who worked in industry and took off Hugo Boss overcoats. However, ferociously made-up, fur- coated mothers also frequented the place, dragging along ungainly teenage daughters sporting large breasts, sulky lower lips and well-rehearsed doe-eyed glances aimed at the most affluent-looking men. Frank ordered coffee. It was served in a pot. Soon afterwards a man in a red jacket bounced into the hotel foyer. One of the women behind the counter pointed to Frank Frølich, who stood up and shook hands. Hermann Kirkenær had short, curly hair that was beginning to thin on top. He was unshaven and had a ring in his left ear. Once seated, he was served a glass of Coke by the woman who had pointed out the policeman.

    Kirkenær said that he and his wife lived in Tønsberg, but they stayed at the Continental when they had business in town, like today, when they had three viewings.

    'You're going to move to Oslo, I believe?'

    'Yes,' Kirkenær said, looking over Frølich's shoulder. A tall woman with long hair and watchful eyes stood waiting beside the policeman.

    'Iselin,' Kirkenær said. 'Meet Frank Frølich.'

    Her hand was dry and warm; she had long fingers. She was wearing a short jacket and a skirt which covered her knees.

    She took a seat on the sofa beside Kirkenær. Her broad mouth was marred by a nasty sore on her lower lip. Frølich lowered his eyes when she transfixed him with a deep stare.

    'Inspector Frølich is investigating Reidar Folke Jespersen's murder,' Kirkenær explained.

    'It was so brutal,' Iselin Varås said with sympathy.

    'Iselin's reactions are always open-hearted,' Kirkenær said, his sarcasm barely concealed, before going on to address the woman with intonation that lay somewhere in the jarring range between spiteful and arrogant: 'It is a very sweet characteristic, but what the police want to know in fact is whether we had any contact with Reidar before Arvid's meeting on Friday the 13th.'

    Iselin Varås was holding a stick of lip salve in her hand. She pressed it cautiously against her cold sore.

    'We must have exchanged a few words,' she said. 'You had met Reidar, hadn't you? I hadn't seen him before.'

    'The thing was we communicate with Arvid - his brother,' Kirkenær said. 'We wrote to many - I mean several shops. At first we addressed ourselves to Reidar, but it was Arvid - the brother - who contacted us, who reacted to the letter, if I can put it like that.'

    If the letter went to Reidar, the brothers must have talked about it, Frølich concluded, and leaned back as the waitress came to the table with a bottle of Ferris mineral water and leisurely poured it into Iselin's glass. Iselin watched the water foam in the glass and said: 'Reidar is the official owner.' When the waitress had gone, she raised her glass to toast with Frølich. He inclined his coffee cup out of politeness.

    'In fact, they've been very positive, all three of them. Arvid even said he was very happy we had approached them,' she said and put down the glass. She took hold of her hair with both hands and swiftly formed a thick ponytail which she held in place with an elastic band.

    'They haven't said no yet,' Kirkenær continued. 'And of course one can…'

    'Hermann,' she interrupted with a maternal tone.

    'What?'

    'The man's dead, Hermann,' she said, glaring reprovingly at him. Then she dabbed the lip-salve on her sore again.

    The man didn't like being brushed aside like this.

    She went on, undaunted: 'We'll leave it up to them to re-establish contact. It's news to us that Reidar Folke Jespersen was against the sale. We thought all three of them were agreed, but with the situation being as it is…'

    'All that was missing was the signatures on the contract,' Kirkenær interrupted, sending her a furious look.

    'When you met the brothers, you didn't pick up a hint of discord between them?'

    Both shook their heads.

    'I'm positive about that,' she emphasized, rolling the lip-salve between her fingers. 'And I'm certain he didn't say anything while we were there.' She smiled and shared a look with her husband, perhaps a mutual experience of something amusing. 'Arvid may well have said something.'

    'Old Arvid is besotted with Iselin,' Hermann Kirkenær said brightly, and continued in a way calculated to ensure she would also catch his drift: 'You see, I'm married to a woman who flourishes in the company of older men.'

    'Nothing wrong with a woman enjoying feeling attractive, is there?' she said, with a tentative dab to her cold sore with her first finger.

    'Providing that she doesn't offer herself.'

    The comment was direct and personal. Frølich studied the paintings on the walls. He thought of Eva-Britt and how she could on occasion annoy him. The thought of what that annoyance could lead to in others' company brought him out in a sweat.

    Iselin Varås spoke with a voice she was clearly struggling to control: 'I've been told Hermann can be so nice.'

    The silence that followed was unpleasant. Iselin concentrated on her glass of mineral water.

    'You're into antiques, I understand,' Frølich said to ease the atmosphere.

    Kirkenær didn't speak.

    She raised her eyes and nodded.

    'Why this shop in particular?'

    Iselin cleared her throat. 'A general evaluation based on the current state of the industry.'

    'Many businesses are unprofessional,' Kirkenær added.

    'Hence the difficulty of starting from rock bottom,' she said, and it was obvious the cold sore bothered her. She had taken off the top of the lip-salve again. 'We're on the lookout for an established business in one of the town's more prestigious districts,' she went on. 'You know, you buy the reputation as well.'

    'Have you had your feelers out anywhere else?'

    Kirkenær nodded.

    'What sort of reputation are you buying off the Folke Jespersen brothers?'

    The two of them looked at each other. 'You answer,' she said.

    He flung out his arms. 'They sell good things,' he said.

    'Good taste,' she added. 'They have good taste.'

    Frølich lifted up his coffee cup. It was empty. He put it down.

    'Why risk everything on this?' he asked.

    At a loss to know what to say, they stared at him.

    'What did you do before?' Frølich asked.

    'Teacher,' she said. 'I'm a qualified language and art history teacher.' She looked across at her husband with a smile. 'Your turn.'

    'Guess,' he said to Frølich, who shrugged.

    Kirkenær provided the answer himself. 'Cars.'

    'Car salesman, shall we say,' she amended, with light irony. 'Hermann is of the firm conviction that salesmanship is what it's all about, not the sale item. A standpoint which means he doesn't have to call himself a car salesman.'

    'She's a kind of expert on the subject,' he interceded. 'An art historian.'

    'What sort of cars?' Frølich asked.

    'Expensive ones. Mercedes, BMW, the biggest and the most expensive.'

    'OK,' Frølich said, becoming irritated by the mud- slinging that was going on. 'There's one thing I was wondering about: this meeting at Arvid's flat, why was it held at all?'

    They exchanged glances. 'You tell me,' Kirkenær said.

    'We had to conclude the deal,' she said. 'The arrangement was that all three brothers would meet us, hear our ideas and be convinced.'

    'So the price wasn't a relevant topic of conversation at the meeting?'

    'No,' Kirkenær said. 'The price had been agreed.'

    'Reidar already knew about the plans for the sale then and knew what your offer was…'

    Both nodded. 'Neither the meeting nor its purpose would have come as a surprise to anyone,' Kirkenær said. 'And I cannot recall a negative response from any of them, either,' he added.

    'You didn't propose any new conditions, anything which might have caused Reidar Folke Jespersen to change his attitude?'

    'Not at all,' said Kirkenær.

    'Might the two brothers have held anything back from you?'

    Husband and wife exchanged looks. Iselin slowly hunched her shoulders. Kirkenær answered: 'It's possible, in theory. But you'll have to ask them. To me…' He glanced at the woman nodding in assent. 'To us it didn't seem as if he felt anything surprising or unfamiliar had come up at the meeting.'

    'If he was intent on rejecting a deal, he must have reached that conclusion before he appeared,' Iselin added.

    'Did you get in touch with any of the brothers after the meeting?'

    'We talked to Arvid,' she said, still playing with the cold sore.

    'When?'

    'We rang Arvid the same afternoon, didn't we? And he said we should let things settle for a day or two and then everything would fall into place.'

    'He didn't say anything to you about Reidar being against the sale?'

    'No.'

    'Can you remember what he said word for word?'

    
Iselin coughed. 'That is what he said verbatim:
I think we should let things settle for a few days and then everything will fall into place.'

    'What did you think?'

    She shrugged. 'I was a little… how shall I put it?… I began to get cold feet. So I asked if anything was the matter. Arvid said a small cloud had appeared on the horizon, but it would be gone before the day was over.'

    Frølich scrutinized her. 'A cloud which would be gone before the day was over?'

    'That's what he said.'

    'And when was this?'

    'It was the same day we met. It must have been about four in the afternoon, I imagine.'

    'And afterwards? Have you talked since?'

    'He rang the day after, before we knew anything about the murder. It was in the morning. He told me that his brother Reidar was dead. So they would have to sort out legal formalities amongst themselves before there could be any talk of concluding a deal. And he asked me if we had the patience to wait.'

    Both were now staring at Frølich. 'Did you?' he asked.

    Kirkenær, puzzled, said: 'Did you what?'

    'Have the patience to wait?'