Lethal Investments

20

‘So he left again, did he, without going in?’

Frank nodded and stopped the car at the crossroads between Karl Johans gate and Dronningens gate.

‘And you’re sure he took the bus back?’

Another nod.

It was evening. It was dark. They were keeping a watch on the pedestrian zone. There were shady figures hanging around on both sides. Most of them dropping comments and aiming disapproving glances at the car. Frank noticed the charmer with the crooked glasses and rotten teeth he’d seen from the tram earlier in the day. Now he was holding a short leash, at its end a Dobermann with restless legs and a pointed snout. At the same time he was chatting to a prostitute with swollen lips and thin thighs that strained to keep her upright. The woman was trying to light a cigarette. So far she had dropped three Marlboros on to the tarmac. They had slipped between her bony white fingers.

Gunnarstranda searched the inside pocket of his coat. ‘You had a useful outing,’ he continued. ‘But I think there’s little point doing any more undercover stuff. Except that the old chap worries me a bit.’

‘He doesn’t exactly seem dangerous.’

‘True,’ Gunnarstranda conceded, not totally reassured as he continued his search. ‘Nevertheless, there’s something funny going on there. Here it is!’

He passed Frølich a passport photo.

Frank stared at the picture of a man in his late forties. Pointed face, thick neck, mouth with a very narrow top lip and pronounced eyebrows. A thick comb-over from his left ear across the crown to hide a shiny bare patch. The man had set the stool too low in the photo booth. Resulting in him stretching his neck and making his eyes seem enlarged.

‘Who is it?’

‘Egil Svennebye. Marketing Manager for Software Partners. I was given the photo by his wife.’

‘Have you been there?’

‘Yes, she told me he was having a terrible time with his colleagues and he was fond of a drink. That is, he’s always been fond of a drink. So I’ve asked the boys to check the usual haunts.’

At that moment Glasses-man had to struggle to keep his dog under control. An unshaven rocker wearing jeans and a quilted sleeveless waistcoat came down Skippergata. Strolled towards the car. An Alsatian padded alongside him on a slack leash. It didn’t grace the Dobermann with a glance although it had barked up a storm, growling and baring its teeth. Frank rolled down the window.

But the man showed no sign of recognition as he bent down to the window. ‘Go to Bankplass,’ he said in a low voice, lowering his head to light a fag while talking.

‘Totally wrecked! He was chucked out of Original Pilsen an hour ago and now he’s sitting and drinking his own supplies on the steps of the old bank building.’

Message over. The man straightened up and strolled off without looking back. He could have asked the way, seen them or passed on a message. It had happened quickly. It is all a bit speculative when someone bends down to a police car, whether marked or not. You can always recognize the police. The Dobermann shut its mouth when the Alsatian was gone. But a nervous uneasiness had settled over the clientele, which was heightened when Frank switched on the ignition and started the car.

They stopped at the red lights. Frank turned to his side. Gunnarstranda’s bald head went red and green as the neon advertising changed colour. Green. The car moved away without a word being said. It was cold outside and the wind had picked up in Tollbugata. The prostitutes huddled in doorways and gateways to get away from the freezing snow. Just one solitary young girl with an open fur coat trudged straddle-legged down the right-hand side. Frank liked the roundness of her thighs between stocking tops and the short skirt. He waved to another undercover man eating a hot dog beside a patrol car. Two drunken men were pushing each other on the pavement in the blue light of a restaurant sign. They stood on either side of a man stretched out with his face in what might have been blood or vomit.

He steered the car into Bankplass, pulled in to the kerb and parked. A woman who had been standing in a doorway turned and slunk back when she saw what kind of car it was. A brief glimpse of silken skin above polished black leather boots could be made out before she merged into the shadows.

Frank cast his eyes around. There wasn’t much traffic, and the few cars cruising the street were soon flagged down by bystanders. A guy with blond hair and jeans stood pissing between the rusty railings outside the Museum for Contemporary Art. Beyond that, a mini-skirt sashayed over to a car. She bent down in time-honoured fashion and gave the customer a once-over before getting in. But there was no one on the steps.

His eyes wandered further afield. The officer had said by the steps. If the man had gone, he wouldn’t have got far.

‘There!’

A man was staggering across Kongens gata away from them. His coat hanging off him and what looked like a half-empty bottle of spirits dangling from his right hand. The man had to use the whole pavement and kept bumping into cars or signposts or other inconveniences.

They opened their car doors and followed him. The man stumbled on. Comb-over flapping. It had fallen the other way and was flying like a flag from his left temple. The two of them set off at speed and caught him up as he fell over a block of stone by the lawn.

‘Svennebye!’

Frank crouched down beside him.

The man raised his head. His eyes swimming. His coat and shirt soiled with vomit. Any similarity with the passport photo was minimal. It was the same person, but the face was bloated and this changed his appearance. His lips stuck out from his face like a handle. Two unusually listless eyes swam on either side of a pronounced, pointed nose.

‘Police,’ Frank stated with authority. Stupid thing to say. He could hear it himself.

The lower lip stuck out even further. Head crashed down. The man tried to rest a forearm on each thigh. Head drooping like a ripe pear between his shoulders. Frank stood up and let Gunnarstranda take his place.

The man put out an arm to move him away but as he did so a gush of white vomit surged from his mouth on to the pavement. The bottle slipped from his fingers and smashed on the ground.

A few chunks of carrot and some green peas enlivened a liquid mass of slime that stank of alcohol. Gunnarstranda had recoiled two paces so as not to get the next jet on his feet. Droopy-Head slowly raised his right hand to wipe away the snot that had collected under his nose. With the support on his thigh taken away he tipped over and fell into the sick, bottom uppermost. At the same time he supported himself on the tarmac and a shard of glass went into his hand, colouring it red with blood.

Gunnarstranda bent down and deftly tied his handkerchief around the bleeding hand that was now quite limp.

‘Svennebye!’ he said in a low, familiar voice.

The head dangled from side to side.

Gunnarstranda held the man’s forehead and pushed it backwards. The face was awash with puke and snot.

‘Svennebye!’

No reaction.

Gunnarstranda grabbed the lobe of his left ear and twisted. The head fell back further and his eyes rolled, so that you could see only the whites. The policeman let go, but the head stayed put. Mouth agape. Then suddenly his chest gurgled and another cascade spurted out of his mouth, upwards this time, like a fountain.

The two men stepped back. They let him finish being sick before Gunnarstranda leaned over.

‘Reidun,’ Gunnarstranda whispered, ever the optimist. ‘Reidun Rosendal!’

No reaction.

Frank could see that the vomit had soaked into the man’s trousers as he sat on the pavement, with legs apart like a child in a sandpit.

A middle-aged couple hurried past. She gave them a wide berth and both sent the police officers quizzical sidelong glances.

Svennebye tried to whistle. Only air came of the attempt. Then he hiccupped. Snivelled something or other. Twisted his mouth to the right. Things were about to happen.

Svennebye was making noises. Some coarse grunting sounds from down below. He shifted, fell on to his side. The man’s head banged into the wing of a parked car. Frank dragged him back into a sitting position. Now he was bleeding from his temple as well. Still grunting. Fiddling with his flies. Soon he was able to jiggle out his apparatus and gave a loud groan as the piss began to run across the tarmac. It didn’t get far. It collected in a puddle and was absorbed by his trousers.

They ambled back to the car.

Svennebye sat as before, in his own piss, vomiting with his legs spread out. His head dangling to and fro.

Frank left the radioing to Gunnarstranda.

Soon a vehicle arrived with a flashing blue light and skidded into the square. Two uniformed policemen grabbed the man under the shoulders and dragged him to the van and heaved him into the back where he landed upside down and stayed put, like a ball of dough you smack down on a kitchen worktop.

Gunnarstranda shouted to the nearest uniform:

‘Get a doctor to see to his hand!’

The uniform nodded and clambered in the police van with the Marketing Manager of Software Partners.