Lethal Investments

25

‘So this is where you are,’ Frølich said.

Gunnarstranda studied the façade. Oslo West, he thought. And mumbled: ‘This building is no more than five years old, max.’

‘And not fully occupied,’ Frølich added. He pointed to a row of empty windows on one wing.

‘The rent must cost an arm and a leg,’ Gunnarstranda remarked and went in first.

Kristin Sommerstedt nodded with a blank expression. ‘No one up there,’ she informed them.

‘But the Finance Manager’s in the fitness room, I suppose,’ she hastened to say when she saw Gunnarstranda’s look. ‘That’s what he said anyway as he dashed past half an hour ago.’

The policeman, taken aback, glanced at the clock. It was half past twelve.

The fitness room was in the cellar. Down there you were spared the luxury with which the rest of the building appeared to be saturated. The corridor walls were not painted and the concrete floor was untreated. They had to pass through some large steel doors that rumbled and a hollow echo reverberated along the bare walls. From somewhere deeper in the bowels they could hear the sounds of someone doing weight-training.

Gunnarstranda first stepped over the high threshold. Bregård was lying on an exercise bench forcing up a bar with a considerable number of weights attached. He was in the middle of a routine and showed no signs of stopping. The man was panting like a hippo. His face was red and dripping with sweat, and the mouth with the impressive moustache inflated like a frog’s every time he sucked in air for the next press.

At last. With a huge clang the man dropped the bar and sat up on the bench. The veins in his temples were bulging. His pectoral muscles were clearly outlined under his T-shirt.

‘That looked hard,’ Frølich said. ‘Nice to see you again, by the way.’

Gunnarstranda, though, was looking for somewhere to sit.

Bregård puffed, ignoring Frølich’s small talk. Gunnarstranda glanced at them. Both big men. Bregård was most concerned with the palms of his hands.

The room was sparsely furnished. The police inspector clambered up on to the seat of an ergometer bike. Smiled, did a couple of circuits on the pedals and leaned forward over the handlebars.

‘Probably harder steering the finances of A/S Software Partners, isn’t it,’ he stated in a measured tone.

Bregård got up and stretched both arms back.

‘You’re unknown to the Company Register,’ Gunnarstranda went on.

Bregård placed his right hand against the wall and did a long stretch with his upper arm. First right, then left. His heavy breathing was all there was to hear in the small fitness room. The man immediately started a new round of stretching, first right, then left.

Frølich, who had found some barbells to play with, whistled a tune.

The athlete bent down to pick up his towel from the floor.

‘The Brønnøysund Register Centre is always late,’ he panted into his towel.

‘But Brønnøysund didn’t register anything last year, either.’

Bregård turned to Gunnarstranda while drying his neck. The police officer smiled.

Frølich was whistling.

The Finance Manager raised his voice imperceptibly. ‘We only set up the business last year.’

Continued drying himself. ‘So we’ll be sending our first year’s accounts this year.’

‘So you haven’t sent them yet?’

‘No!’

‘Well, then you can’t blame the Centre for not being up to date!’

Bregård was annoyed. ‘I’m not blaming them for anything!’

‘But you just gave us to understand that all the accounts had been sent and that Brønnøysund was not up to date.’

Gunnarstranda pedalled round three times, stopped and waited for an answer.

Bregård sat down with a rigid grin.

‘Fine,’ he said and raised his hands in defence. ‘Come upstairs with me! Nothing in this business is secret. Our accounts are quite public.’

‘All accounts are public,’ Gunnarstranda corrected him.

‘Why is there no one upstairs?’

Bregård craned his head in annoyance towards the man who was whistling, then sent Gunnarstranda another bad-tempered glower, but said nothing.

The latter dismounted from the bike and walked towards Bregård. Stopped in front of him. ‘How come you can lie down here grunting in the middle of a working day?’

Bregård put on a resigned smile. Keeping it there was a strain.

‘Why don’t Software Partners want to pay their rent?’

An attempt was made to convert the smile into an aloof grin but it failed. ‘Don’t want to pay,’ he mimicked with a grimace. ‘If you’ve got any questions about that, you’ll have to talk to my boss.’

‘Aren’t you responsible for the company’s finances?’

‘Yes, indeed I am.’

Bregård’s eyes flashed again, and again the blood vessels in his temples were visible.

‘Then answer me!’

The man’s mouth was contorted and sullen beneath the moustache. ‘Will you shut up!’ he screamed at the officer who was still whistling.

Frølich shut up.

There was a heavy silence.

Bregård grabbed the towel hanging over his shoulder and dried his neck angrily.

‘You’ve already dried that bit,’ Frølich informed him.

Bregård spun round. But Gunnarstranda darted between them. ‘How come your boss is never available?’

‘How should I know?’

A metallic timbre had coated his voice. His face was redder than before.

‘He’s never here when we come!’

‘No one survives in this industry by sitting on their ass in the office eight hours a day!’

‘But there ought to be someone in the office! If you were intending to survive! Where’s Engelsviken?’

‘I don’t know, I told you!’

Bregård’s voice cracked with fury. His knuckles around the towel were white.

‘You’ve already dried your hands, too!’

This came from Frølich, leaning against the brick wall, with a smile. But Gunnarstranda didn’t let Bregård answer. ‘Why is there no one in this business who can answer anything,’ he hissed close to the man’s face. ‘Why do you hide behind your boss?’

‘I haven’t been bloody hiding!’

‘So tell me why you won’t stump up the rent!’

For a moment Gunnarstranda thought that Bregård was going to throttle him. Time for a smile, he thought.

All at sea, Bregård stared at his hands.

Gunnarstranda went a step closer. ‘Your sole success in the finance industry,’ he whispered, ‘is that you almost killed a man who couldn’t pay his rent.’

Bregård scowled.

‘So how come you, of all people, pop up here as the Finance Manager of a company that is going to conquer half the kingdom?’

‘I’ve mended my ways,’ Bregård said unconvincingly.

‘Doubtless.’

‘I’ve paid my debt to society!’

‘Of course you have.’

Gunnarstranda signalled to Frølich. Girded himself to go, then addressed the gentleman with the moustache one last time: ‘But you know as much about financial management as I know about fox-hunting in England!’

He smiled again. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

With that, he turned his back on Bregård and took Frølich along with him.

‘How’s Svennebye getting on in the drunk cell?’ Frølich asked as they got back into their car.

‘He’s probably sleeping,’ the inspector mumbled, disorientated, and the squeal of his pager made him start. He fumbled around trying to switch it off and grabbed his mobile phone. ‘We’ll talk to him afterwards,’ he said in a low voice with his hand over the speaker before bending down to hear the message.

‘Well?’

Gunnarstranda wondered whether to tell him right away. Decided to wait. Groped around for a roll-up.

‘Drive to Torshov,’ he said and could hear the agitation in his voice.