Lethal Investments

17

The stream of people leaving the train and making for Egertorget in the city centre was broad and impenetrable. At the foot of the escalator it became narrower and denser. Commuters with dull eyes. The morning look. Low energy that dissipates into nothing around the head, passengers who don’t look around much. Frank Frølich could see that Sigurd Klavestad was not used to taking the Metro. Country boy in town. The man stood on the left up the escalator blocking the way for those in a hurry to catch a bus. The crowd pushed from behind. A blunt fellow with a hat jostled the clod to the right. Klavestad courteously let people pass and then resumed his old position. Idiot, thought Frank Frølich.

Once outside, Sigurd stopped and looked around. In the end, he began to walk, taking long paces, down Karl Johans gate. A bouncing gait with a stiff back. A freak’s walk. The policeman could not help comparing him with Finance Manager Bregård. The monkfish with thighs like logs. The Finance Manager next to Sigurd Klavestad. Moustache versus pony tail and black stubble. Frank noticed the girls turning their heads as they passed the man with the pony tail. Sigurd had an effect on women. No doubt about it. Sensitive type. Women notice that kind of thing, he supposed. The guy had trotted off to Reidun’s workplace to have someone to talk to. Had sat interlacing fingers with frøken Sommerstedt over a glass of red wine, shed a few tears. Tender soul. Probably talked about his Oedipus complex the way others talk about getting a dose of flu.

Frank Frølich imagined Bregård padding through the forests on a Sunday morning. The Finance Manager on Lake Bjørnsøen. Sitting on a collapsible chair by a borehole in slushy ice, fishing for small trout for hour after hour. Cap with loose ear flaps, then shuffle, shuffle, off to the next hole to pull up a perch or a trout. No. The guy with the thighs was not the type. Was probably a hunter. Yes, that was it, a hunter. That matched the moustache.

And these two totally different men had gained access to the same woman. The woman who blended in everywhere. A chameleon? One day dressed like a schoolgirl, Bregård had said, another like a jailbird’s dream. Sheesh, where did the man get that image from? The way he said it, perhaps this particular fish had been caught once himself?

Sigurd stopped by a bench in front of the winter-dry fountain in the ornamental lake known as Spikersuppa. Sat down. Frank bought a copy of Dagbladet and a Kvikk Lunsj chocolate bar at the corner of Rosenkrantz’ gate. Stood leaning against a tree while Sigurd sat happily blowing small clouds of smoke into the ozone layer.

Frank recalled the woman’s mutilated upper body and reflected on the lack of a personal touch in her flat. One solitary shelf of Book Club publications. Unread, the paper still stiff. Blue, handmade ceramic wine goblets, placed to decorate the shelf. Nothing on the walls, apart from two broad-brimmed ladies’ hats covered with a thick layer of dust. A mirror with a stylish frame. A few records. Divergent taste. House music beside Pavarotti, Randy Crawford and Norwegian folk musician Lillebjørn Nilsen. Probably couldn’t call it taste. What would give you a sense of her personality?

Clothes, he wondered. Clothes and sketch pad. They had found it in her bag. A sketch pad full of drawings and patterns. Clothes too, jackets and skirts, rough charcoal outlines, skinny bodies. But at least it was hers. Meant nothing to him, but it was human.

He checked his watch. Klavestad hadn’t moved for over an hour. He could feel that the chocolate had not filled his stomach. Hunger was making him uneasy. So he joined a group of people setting up banners in Eidsvolls plass.

At last the head appeared over the hedge. Frank bade farewell to the activists and happily followed in the direction of a McDonald’s.

Sharp neon lights, garish colours and happy people behind the counter. Few customers. He refrained from looking at himself in the mirror. Instead took a risk and queued behind Klavestad.

In fact, Sigurd ought to have been at work. His workplace wasn’t far away, either. A printing house. Obviously the stable type. Not today though. Nervous predisposition. The man’s wallet was shaking as he tried to pay. Long, lean, trembling, white fingers. Frølich stared with sympathy at the stiff digits feverishly searching for money. You’ll never tie any flies, he thought.

It was almost eleven when he set off on the trail again. He followed about seventy metres behind. The Big Mac in his stomach had sated his needs for the time being.

Up towards the tram lines. They stood waiting for a tram. Which turned out to be a number 11.

The tram wound its way through Storgata at a snail’s pace, but soon headed for Thorvald Meyers gate. The bogies creaked and squealed. Frank had taken a seat at the back of the last carriage. Tried to look anonymous. The tram swayed from side to side in rhythm with the irregularity of the rails. The rocking transferred itself to passengers’ heads. They swayed gently in rhythm. Same beat. The swaying transferred itself to the loops hanging from the metal poles in the centre of the ceiling. The loops swayed, the heads swayed. Sitting without a ticket in a conductor-less carriage was undisputed evidence that tailing was not his strong suit. He would be teased mercilessly for the rest of his life if he lost the chump because of a ticket inspection.

Klavestad had found a seat at the front. Sat sunken and small in a low single seat. Pony tail hanging down limply over the edge of the seat-rest. It swayed, too.

At last Sigurd raised his arm and pressed the button to get off at the next stop. Got up. Frank didn’t move. Glanced out of the window as casually as he could while Sigurd stared back pensively, straight at him. Two men staggered out of a gateway. They were so stoned they were almost walking sideways, both of them. One had had his nose flattened at some time in the past; it was almost level with his cheeks. A hare lip completed the desperado look to perfection. The second was taller, thinner, with glasses perched at an angle. The man’s brown teeth revealed a phobia of dentists.

The tram clanked to a halt. Klavestad got out. Frank followed. Colliding with one of the dope-heads, who grunted and spat a gobbet of phlegm on to a parked car.

Familiar territory. The route was in the direction of Reidun Rosendal’s address.

Frank hung back, fifty metres behind. Risky turf. Quiet district. To the right a playground before the iron fence of Dælenenga Stadium. Klavestad suddenly stopped. Staring at the ground. Frank had to keep going. Dangerous silence. Some distance ahead, an elderly lady in a grey woollen coat and matching hat weighed down by a carrier bag. He passed Klavestad on the other side of the road and made for a blue door advertising a lottery on the outside. A newsagent’s.

What was the guy thinking about? He looked like a poseur in a commercial. Hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, open jacket hanging becomingly loose.

Frank went in the door and almost bumped into Arvid Johansen. The old fellow was in his own world, exiting the shop the way old folk do when they think the ground is slippery. Using his stick for support. He swore like a trooper when Frank almost knocked into him. But he couldn’t be bothered to check out who it was. His eyes were fixed on the ground and he muttered imprecations to himself, unable to interrupt his sidling manoeuvre down the steps.

Inside the newsagent’s the peeping tom had left a stench of stale fish offal. The police officer tried to see out. But the window in the blue door was made of wired glass and opaque. Between the shelves of men’s magazines he could make out the old boy stomping down the street. Wearing a thick winter overcoat from the fifties, and a broad-brimmed hat which bounced up and down out of rhythm, like a marionette in a puppet theatre.

A Pakistani woman with black hair, a red shop apron and a smile asked Frank what he would like.

‘Pools coupons,’ he said, and she pointed to a shelf at chest height two metres away. Notepaper and biros lay to hand. Front stall seat. Almost. He had to bend, shield his eyes from several glossy and generously equipped nude models to catch a glimpse. The lady behind him probably considered him mad. He grabbed a stack of coupons from a holder on the shelf.

Outside, the distance between them was narrowing. The grunter was closing up on Klavestad. Actually, he wasn’t that stiff, the old boy. Didn’t need to support himself on the stick.

The old man stopped. What was going on? The seconds ticked. Suddenly Sigurd recoiled. What the hell! The man had lifted his stick. Sigurd backed away. Walked quickly, as though fleeing, craned his head. Sped round the corner.

The old boy stared after him for a moment. But then followed in pursuit. Back to the corner as well. Now his legs were moving faster. And the stick was turning like a crankshaft. His face was hard and closed.

Frank stuffed the coupons in his pocket, chucked a few coins on the counter, grabbed a newspaper and was off.