The Man in the Window (38 page)

Chapter 50

The Boy, the Dog and the Wasps

    He was running. The car went into a skid. Past him. The boy couldn't stop, couldn't turn round. The car skidded round and blocked his way. The driver's door was thrust open. Out jumped a young soldier with a grin. In his hands he was holding a machine gun. He smiled as he took aim. He smiled as he fired. The boy heard the bullets a hundredth of a second before the salvo rang out. By then he had thrown himself to the side. He rolled down the slope. Knowing he hadn't been hit. Sharp stones tore open his anorak and made his back bleed. Behind him he heard the soldier, and a dog was barking. He crawled through a thorn thicket. It hurt as the thorns scratched his face and hands. He lay on his stomach behind and under an almost impenetrable mesh of thorny branches. His heart was pounding. He could hear the pounding inside his ears. The dog came down the slope wagging its tail. It was an Alsatian. It was sniffing and whining. And running round in circles. It started digging with its front paws. Then suddenly it jerked back and let out a loud whimper. It growled and made snapping movements in the air. The leaves rustled. Gravel and pebbles rolled down the slope. The outline of the soldier filled out behind the thicket. The boy held his breath. The dog went on its knees with a plaintive squeal. The man with the machine gun turned and stared right at the place where the boy was hiding. The dog fell on to its side. The soldier raised his gun and took aim. The gun barrel moved slowly from right to left. The soldier shouted at the dog, which was emitting low whimpers. The soldier spun round, ran over to the dog and cursed. A swarm of insects was buzzing around the dog. They were pouring out of a hole in the ground like a gush of water from an underground spring. At that moment the boy felt the first wasp sting on his face. The pain was intense and it burned. He clenched his teeth so that he didn't make a sound. The soldier took three steps back from the dog and swore. He pointed the machine gun at the dog and fired. The volley was deafening. The dog's body shook. The boy felt sick. The wasps were crawling over his face. Light, ticklish wasp feet walking over his lips, his eyelids. He opened his eyes for an instant. A horde of wasps was stinging him again and again through his anorak sleeve. The soldier with the machine gun waved his free arm to chase the wasps away.

    Another wasp stung the boy on the neck. The pain was so great that he let out a half-stifled sound from his mouth. The soldier immediately froze - and listened. The boy breathed through his open mouth. He breathed in a wasp and crushed it between his teeth. The gun barrel went from bush to bush. Suddenly the soldier cursed out loud and grabbed his cheek. The wasps were attacking the soldier, who let off another volley into the air, then retreated up the slope. The boy instantly crawled out. He brushed the wasps off him and again was stung in the neck. He gasped with the pain. Wasps were all over his bare hands. They stung him. He cut himself on the sharp stones. His whole body ached. He wriggled his way under the branches and away, out of danger from the insects. But the soldier was still standing up there somewhere. He and the others. They were longing to get back to their bunks. The sooner they shot him, the sooner they would be able to get some sleep, food and cigarettes. They hated him. No. They didn't hate him. But he annoyed them. His being alive made them angry.

    Karsten Jespersen paused in the story. It was a natural place to pause. Benjamin was looking at him with big eyes. He had both arms round his little giraffe and all of its neck in his mouth. Benjamin was waiting for the next part. But at this point in the story most of the excitement was over and Karsten was not sure how to go on.

    He wondered why, and formulated an answer in his mind. His story was about
the boy,
with no specific characteristics, but the boy had been a young man. In fact the story had been about his father - Reidar Folke Jespersen.

    What really happened was that the young man had escaped from the soldiers and run across bogs and heathland until he came across a smallholding surrounded by trees, a smallholding where there lived a young logger of his age who helped Reidar to get safely across the border into Sweden. It was easy enough to make the escape exciting, but Karsten was more interested in allowing himself a few literary liberties. He was planning to add another part about desperate refugees being led across the border by Harry Stokmo. A group of wretched figures between trees listening to twigs cracking, and creeping under cover while trying to prevent their children from coughing or tiny sobs from escaping - and then it would turn out that it wasn't a patrol cracking twigs underfoot but the little boy crawling out from under the brush.

    Karsten thought that with a small child as the protagonist the story would be timeless and universal. It would catch Benjamin's imagination, he thought. The story didn't need to be about the 1940-45 war in Norway, it could just as easily be a modern war, in Kosovo for example.

    Karsten hoped that Benjamin would identify with the boy in the bushes - as Karsten had done when he was first told the story, imagining himself behind the bushes with the Alsatian sniffing around a few metres from him. It was now, at this very moment, while reflecting on the first action in the story that Karsten became a little unsure of himself. He remembered that he had been told the story by his father, as a first-person narrative. But he also remembered how he had identified with it. This fact, that he had enjoyed the story to the full even though it had been a first-person narrative, told by his father, rendered him pensive, distant. At this moment, while his gentle fatherly eyes rested on Benjamin's engrossed, impatient features, he realized that his edited story was not just unnecessary, it was also a little suspect. There had to be a deeper psychological
motive
for him to edit the story, he began to think. And he had palpably concealed his father's role. At some point in Benjamin's life he would be bound to realize that the protagonist of the story was his own grandfather. Then the natural response would be to ask himself why his own father would conceal this fact from him. Benjamin would wonder about his father's, Karsten's, motives in concealing the truth. And it wouldn't be long before he found an answer. He might not find the correct answer, the one Karsten considered to be correct, that the story had been edited
to give it a literary lift.
Benjamin might find other answers - for example that Karsten changed the story in order to sweep the truth under the carpet. Perhaps Benjamin would think that Karsten begrudged his father the hero's role. At this moment while Benjamin was waiting with bated breath for him to go on, Karsten had felt ashamed and fallen into a trance. And he didn't snap out of it until little Benjamin started shifting in his bed with unease. Karsten found himself sitting beside him with a distorted expression on his face.

    'Daddy,' Benjamin said, impatiently waiting for him to go on. 'More.'

    Karsten gave a start. 'It's late,' he said and got up. The curtain in front of the window was illuminated by a car coming up the drive. He went to the window and looked out. The headlamps blinded him, like two evil eyes, he thought, as the car parked a few metres from him and the lights were switched off. The evil gaze of two eyes hung on his retina as he watched the car doors open. The letters on the car door were unmistakeable. He read POLITI and it was like a deja-vu experience. It reminded him of something he had dreamed.
They're coming,
he thought. He listened to Benjamin's congested breathing and watched two dark silhouettes coming towards the window.
They're coming to take me away.

Chapter 51

Divide and Rule

    After Frølich had parked the car, they sat looking up at the windows in Ingrid Jespersen's flat. 'Third from the left,' Frølich said. 'There's a hole in the glass.'

    'I can't see anything,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'A single shot,' Frølich said. 'A round hole in the pane. Those boys are pretty good.'

    'And her?'

    'They had to sew up her hand. Five stitches.'

    Gunnarstranda nodded towards the building on the other side of the street. 'There they are.'

    Ingrid Folke Jespersen and Eyolf Strømsted walked out of the front door. They went over to a brown Opel Omega parked on the opposite side. Ingrid started the car while Eyolf waited in the passenger seat. Ingrid got out and scraped the ice off the windscreen when the engine was running. She scraped with her left hand. The other one was swathed in a bandage.

    The two detectives stepped out.

    'Oh, hello,' Ingrid said on catching sight of them.

    'Have you got five minutes?' Frølich asked.

    She looked at her watch with a frown.

    'It'll be very quick,' Frølich said.

    The passenger door opened and Eyolf Strømsted showed his curly head.

    'Just stay inside,' Gunnarstranda said quickly. 'We need to have a few words with fru Jespersen.'

    'Here?' she asked.

    Frølich motioned towards the police car.

    Gunnarstranda opened the rear door for her to take a seat and he sat next to her. Frølich took a seat behind the steering wheel. Some people on the pavement were huddled together. The engine of the Opel opposite them was running. Eyolf Strømsted was sitting with his head facing the front.

    'That wasn't very nice,' she said.

    'What's that?' Gunnarstranda asked.

    'Being bundled into a police car like that. Look at the neighbours.' She pointed to two middle-aged women who had stopped to stare at the police car. 'I hope you know what you're doing.'

    'Have you any reason to doubt us?'

    'No…'

    'There are a couple of untidy details,' Gunnarstranda said. 'About the course of events on the night your husband was killed.'

    'I have nothing to add,' she said coolly.

    'We haven't managed to get a statement from Hermann Kirkenær yet.'

    'I suppose not.'

    'He's in a coma.'

    'So I understand.'

    'Did he say anything to you about the night your husband was killed?'

    'Nothing at all. I'd rather not…'

    'We've spoken to his wife, Iselin Varås,' Gunnar- stranda interrupted. 'She says Kirkenær left the Hotel Continental between one and half past one in the morning. He returned to the hotel at the latest at three with a uniform packed in a box, which proves that he had been to the shop to pick it up.'

    He paused to let the words sink in.

    'Is that enough proof?' she asked after a while.

    'There are a couple of things we can't quite get to add up,' Gunnarstranda said, and turned to Frølich: 'Could you start the engine and get the heating going?'

    Frølich obeyed. He stepped hard on the accelerator.

    The curly head in the Opel opposite peered nervously in the direction of the police car.

    'What things?' Ingrid asked stiffly.

    'Well, Kirkenær returning home with the uniform in a box.'

    'Mm. And what's strange about that?'

    'Well, we were working on the theory that Kirkenær killed your husband and got his clothes covered in blood. Since he couldn't go out onto the streets with bloodstained clothing, we thought he had put on the uniform which he had conveniently sent to the shop beforehand. Afterwards he had packed his own clothes in the box where the uniform had been. But that doesn't tally with Kirkenær returning home with clean clothes and a clean uniform in a box.'

    'Why do you believe everything the woman says? It's obvious she would protect her husband.'

    'Of course, except that she knows nothing about her husband's real and much closer relationship with your late husband. But you can rely on us. We have seized the box, the uniform and the clothes. No one would have been happier than me if we had found blood on these items. The next problem is this damned medal.'

    'What medal?'

    'The medal that Kirkenær was trying to get off you the night he was shot by the police.'

    'Was he looking for a medal?'

    'Yes.'

    'I didn't understand what he meant. Anyway, he didn't find a medal in my flat.'

    'No, he didn't. Because I've got it,' Gunnarstranda said, retrieving a little plastic case containing a bronze medal from his inside pocket. 'Karsten's son, Benjamin, was playing with it on the same morning as your husband was found dead.'

    'How do you know?'

    'Because we - Karsten, Frølich and I - saw him doing it. He even showed it to us.'

    Silence in the car.

    'Frølich,' Gunnarstranda said.

    With difficulty, Frølich turned round.

    'Could you go and take a statement from our friend in the other car?'

    'Of course,' Frølich said, getting out and closing the door behind him.

    The two of them on the back seat contemplated his large body towering over the car while he waited for two cars to pass. Then they watched Frølich cross the street and open the door for Strømsted to get out. The engine was left running. They saw Frølich order Strømsted into the rear and follow him in.

    'Really,' said Ingrid Jespersen.

    'It'll be interesting to read what he says later,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'It's cramped in here,' Eyold Strømsted said with apprehension. He bent forward and stared past Frølich, towards the rear of the police car where Ingrid Jespersen's profile could dimly be seen. The defroster and the heater were on full. An oval patch on the front windscreen had opened up. 'What are you two up to?' Strømsted asked.

    'We're taking a new statement from you,' Frølich answered laconically.

    'Why's that?'

    'Full name?'

    'Eyolf Strømsted.'

    'Born?'

    'Fourth of the fourth, nineteen-fifty-six.'

    'Marital status?'

    'What are the categories?'

    'Married, single, cohabitee.'

    'Cohabitee.'

    'Address?'

    'Jacob Aalls gate 11B.'

    'Is it true that you share a property with Sjur Flateby, born on the eleventh of the ninth, nineteen-forty-eight?'

    'It is.' Strømsted looked across at the police car from which Ingrid Jespersen was watching them with a pallid face.

    'Sjur Flateby has withdrawn his original statement.'

    'What?'

    Frølich searched through his inside pocket for some folded A4 sheets, which he passed to the other man. 'This is your partner's new statement. Would you be so kind as to read through it?'

    Strømsted took the papers. He seemed bewildered.

    'Bottom of page two,' Frølich said. He turned over the page and pointed. 'This is the bit that differs from his earlier statement. Sjur Flateby swears that you went out on the evening of Friday 13th January and didn't return until after five in the morning.' Frølich gave the man with the alluring curls a long, hard stare. 'Before,' he continued with a cough. 'Before, you both claimed you were snug at home in front of the TV until one o'clock at night, after which you went to bed and kept each other awake until half past five. What do you say now that you no longer have an alibi?'

     'Back to the medal that Kirkenær was searching for,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'What about it?'

    'Look at it.'

    Gunnarstranda passed the medal to Ingrid Jespersen.

    'Nazi treasure,' she said, examining it.

    'Guess where the boy found it,' the detective said.

    She shook her head.

    Gunnarstranda pointed to the window of the antiques shop. 'He found it in the shop. Benjamin found it while his father was working in the shop on Friday the 13th. You might remember. In your statement you said you and Karsten were drinking coffee in the office that morning from ten until just past eleven. During this time the boy was drawing and playing on the floor. He told me last night that he had been rummaging through a box containing a uniform. He had pinched this off the uniform.'

    They looked at each other. 'So?' Ingrid said at last.

    'There were no keys in Reidar's clothes when he was found dead,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'Is that so?'

    'We thought it strange because he must have let himself in that night.'

    'Sounds reasonable,' she said.

    'We know that Kirkenær came to the shop on Friday the 13th to meet Reidar. Our theory was that your husband let him in. Then Kirkenær killed him. We thought he wore the uniform so that his blood-stained clothes would not attract attention. We thought he took Reidar's keys after killing him.'

    'Didn't he?'

    'Oh yes, he took the keys.'

    'So, what's the problem?'

    'The problem is that stealing the keys is totally illogical.'

    Ingrid stared at the policeman. 'Are you claiming…?' she said in a stiff tone, and repeated herself: 'Are you claiming the man who broke into my flat in the middle of the night and slashed my hand was sane, logical and in possession of his right mind?' She raised her bandaged hand.

    'We assumed,' Gunnarstranda said, undeterred, 'that Kirkenær took the keys from Reidar after killing him, went into your flat, possibly leaving snow on the floor; and dropped the medal from the uniform. However, since Reidar's grandchild found the medal before Reidar was killed, Kirkenær can't have dropped the medal in your flat. Do you agree?'

    Ingrid gave him a stern look.

    'There are two logical questions which have to be answered here. If Kirkenær didn't drop anything in the flat why did he go back later to look for something? And why did he take Reidar's keys if he didn't need them? There is only one logical answer to the first question. Kirkenær took the uniform with him to remove any traces that might indicate his personal connection with this man. He didn't realize that the medal was missing until long after. But when he did, he knew the medal would be traced back to the war and to him. So it was handy for him to have your husband's keys. He could use the keys to get into the shop and look for the medal. But the answer to the second question is still problematic. Why did he take the keys when he couldn't know that he would need them? Can you recall that the seal we had put on the shop door was broken?' Gunnarstranda asked. He went on: 'The seal had disappeared but the door hadn't been opened. I went into the shop and found some fragments of a broken wine glass. But our officers had this glass down in the records as intact after the murder. So someone must have removed the seal after the murder and gone into the shop, then smashed the glass by accident. I think it was Kirkenær. He had your husband's keys and searched for the medal in two stages. First of all he unlocked the shop and searched it without success. In his confusion he knocked a glass off the desk. The next night he returned. And he broke into your flat. But why would he do that? He couldn't have guessed that the medal was there. The medal could have been at the bottom of the harbour as far as he knew. It could have been anywhere.'

    He paused. She was looking away.

    Neither of them said anything. On the other side of the street Frølich and Strømsted were involved in a discussion of the heated variety. Strømsted was gesticulating.

    'Don't you think he was looking for the medal?'

    'Yes, I do. But I believe he was after something else, something more important than finding the medal. I think he had a very special reason for stealing the keys off your husband. The medal was a secondary matter.'

    She coughed. 'He was unhinged,' she said. 'He wanted to kill me.'

    'Correct,' Gunnarstranda said brightly.

    'Correct? What do you mean?'

    The detective smiled. 'Haven't you guessed? The only logical explanation for Kirkenær stealing the keys from Reidar's clothes was to take his revenge. He wanted to hurt or kill the person who was close to Reidar. He wanted to hurt or kill you. And for that reason he wanted access to your flat. That was why he stole the keys.'

    'At least we both agree on that,' she said nervously, peeking at the Opel. 'The man's unhinged.'

    'No, he isn't,' Gunnarstranda said with a smile.