Lethal Investments

10

Lisa Stenersen’s face was smooth and girlish. Nevertheless, now that she was wearing her outdoor clothes, her age came clearly to the fore. She had thrown a padded cloak over her shoulders. That, and two flat, slipper-like shoes, made her look like a revue act. All that was missing was a flower in her hat. She seemed shy now. Glanced nervously at her watch as soon as he appeared. An anxious smile on her face as she fidgeted with a piece of paper.

‘Is this an inconvenient moment?’ he asked, to be obliging.

She blushed. ‘Not at all!’

Ran her eyes down her clothes, bewildered, down the cloak, and her face went even redder.

At that moment the telephone rang. She hurried over to one of the desks in the middle of the room. Grabbed the receiver while Frank sprawled on the sofa immediately behind her. Gazing at the window to study her reflection there.

‘No, I’m afraid he hasn’t been in today,’ she said formally and was about to ring off. But she didn’t get that far.

‘What’s that?’ she exclaimed in a loud falsetto voice, suddenly engaged, pacing up and down, ill at ease as there wasn’t a chair close by. ‘Yes, I see, yes, of course.’

At the start of the conversation the well-rehearsed phrases streamed out in a relatively sincere way. However, the sincerity waned as time passed. And the more she writhed, the clearer it became that she was having difficulty bringing the exchange to a close.

After finally cradling the receiver, still disconcerted, she stood biting a nail and convulsively clenching her other hand. It looked as if she had a problem.

‘You’re going to be late after all,’ Frank remarked.

She released the nail, and chewed her lower lip instead. ‘I suppose I will.’

‘Who were you talking to?’ he asked, feeling no shame at exhibiting his curiosity.

‘Egil Svennebye’s wife. He’s the Marketing Manager here.’

She perched stiffly on the edge of the seat some way from him.

‘She’s worried. It seems he didn’t go home last night. She claims he’s gone missing.’

Eyes downcast, she smiled. Frank Frølich waited for her to look at him. ‘Has she reported it to the police?’

Lisa shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t suppose she wants to get the police involved.’

‘But she did sound pretty alarmed, didn’t she?’

‘She was alarmed, yes,’ Lisa confirmed, lost in thought. ‘Perhaps you could talk to her?’

Frank met her eyes. ‘We can’t do much unless she wants us to.’

‘But it might calm her nerves,’ Lisa countered with optimism. The paper she had been fidgeting with was crushed into a tiny ball in one hand. ‘She seemed… frightened!’

Frank nodded. ‘Of course we would very much like a chat with her husband as he works here,’ he said reassuringly. ‘So I can pop by his house, can’t I.’

She brightened up a bit.

Frank hastened to change the topic. ‘You used to work with Reidun Rosendal, didn’t you?’

The woman threw a swift glance at her watch. ‘Not so much. Reidun was out a lot, visiting customers. I deal mostly with correspondence and so on.’

‘But you got to know her a little?’

‘Yes, I did.’

She shuddered. Pinched her eyes shut. ‘Was… was she tortured?’ she asked, full of apprehension.

Frank looked her in the face. ‘We don’t know.’

Lisa Stenersen folded her hands in her lap, mumbled something with her eyes closed. A gold crucifix hung from a chain against her throat.

‘She was great,’ she said in the end.

‘You mean attractive?’

‘Mm, lovely hair, nice figure…’

Frank lifted a finger and tapped his temple.

‘What about here?’

‘Don’t know.’ Lisa Stenersen smiled. ‘Doubt if she was lacking in that department either, but… she hid.’

The woman in the padded cloak stared at the floor. ‘There are some people you can never quite fathom, or so it seems!’

With more emotion: ‘Who look at you the way people on TV look at you. What they say is clear enough but you never know if it’s you they are addressing.’

Frank nodded slowly. Lisa Stenersen could have been a member of his mother’s sewing circle. So, it was easy to imagine how Reidun’s words had fallen on stony ground whenever she spoke to her.

He observed her big hair, registered the roll of women’s magazines beside the brown handbag on her desk. The wedding ring that had become buried in the flesh of her ruddy finger. Lisa Stenersen, a representative of the silent army that knows all about meringues, birthday cakes, England’s dismal royal family and how to grow Christmas begonias from cuttings. An age gap of at least thirty years from Reidun Rosendal. A gap that did not necessarily mean much in some cases, but did bear some significance here.

Lisa Stenersen squirmed under his gaze and looked away.

‘That would suggest she wasn’t that stupid,’ he ventured.

She paused.

‘Did she have lots of suitors?’

‘Don’t know. There was no talk of a steady boyfriend at any rate. She and Bregård used to josh around. But that was the tone with her, if you see what I mean. Reidun was probably used to a bit of all sorts, flirting and so on.’

The latter was followed by bashful laughter. She added: ‘There was always a frivolous atmosphere around her.’

‘You two were not very close then?’

‘No, we weren’t.’

‘Do you know who she was closest to here?’

‘Kristin Sommerstedt.’

‘She doesn’t work with us,’ she added with alacrity. ‘But I’m sure you saw her in reception.’

He remembered the receptionist with the birthmark under her lip.

‘I think they had a lot in common,’ she said and peeped at her watch again. ‘Do you think…?’

‘Yes, no problem at all,’ he assured her amiably. ‘That’s fine. We’ll be in contact if there is anything.’

‘I’m happy to go to the police station,’ she declared, grabbing the roll of magazines and her handbag from the desk. Glanced at her watch. ‘It’s just that I…’

‘No problem at all,’ Frank repeated patiently, accompanying her to the lift. ‘Aren’t you coming…?’ she asked, at sixes and sevens when he made no attempt to join her.

He didn’t answer. Just gave a reassuring smile and let the doors close behind her.