Lethal Investments

33

It was Friday morning. The car was fixed. But there would not be a trip to the cabin this weekend, either. Nor next weekend probably. Nor the weekend after that, probably. It didn’t bear thinking about. He just got irritated. Somewhere further east, over Sweden, there was grey cloud cover. It would bring rain in the course of the day, according to the weather forecast on the news last night. On the desk lay Marketing Manager Svennebye’s statement. The man who didn’t know what his employer was selling. The man who didn’t know how the company could sell anything at all. Because his superior had not done any business deals when they should have done.

Gunnarstranda was smoking. The ash fluttered down on to a glitzy brochure from the same company. The brochure in which an ex-bully boy, convicted for having beaten up a businessman in Hovseter, was enticing potential investors with large capital returns. Trust Software Partners, it said, pay with ready cash. Money in the bank for whom? A group of unknown shareholders? Or Terje Engelsviken? The bankruptcy king with a hungry wallet and a dubious reputation?

The inspector had lots of questions he would like to ask the solicitor with the brass name plate in Kampen. But he wasn’t ready yet. And he may not be the right man to ask them. This might be better left to someone else.

Gunnarstranda blew the ash off Bregård’s face, crushed the cigarette in the ashtray, picked up the phone and dialled a number.

‘Davestuen,’ a voice said, chewing something.

‘Gunnarstranda.’

‘Ah, right,’ the voice continued to chew. Gunnarstranda was irked, gave a measured cough. ‘Software Partners.’

‘Guessed as much.’

Davestuen was still chewing. Slow, wet mastication, like a child playing in mud.

‘Got anything?’

‘Well…’

Gunnarstranda put the receiver under his chin to hunt for another cigarette. ‘You’re having breakfast, are you?’ he asked in calibrated courteous tones.

‘Nope,’ Reier said, smacking his lips. ‘I’m coming to terms with withdrawal symptoms. We’ve got a pretty thick file on this Engelsviken.’ He munched on, unruffled.

Gunnarstranda nodded. Wondered about the withdrawal symptoms but let the subject go.

‘Dropped cases,’ Reier slurped. ‘Creditors who have reported the guy for fraud. They reckon that before and during the bankruptcy he was trading with the money owned by companies he headed up.’

Gunnarstranda grunted. ‘What have you got in your gob?’

‘Nicotine.’

The frown on Gunnarstranda’s forehead deepened. Hoping the man would stop. But Davestuen chewed on:

‘Engelsviken emptied the coffers before the bankruptcy, you see? All the cases were dropped for lack of evidence. Everything ended up in a row over dates. Engelsviken could vouch for things having been sold well before legally set deadlines. There’s a pattern here that reeks of hanky-panky, if you want my opinion.’

Gunnarstranda grunted again. He had finally found the cigarette he had been hunting for.

‘But this case is different. Now his firm, which he has called Software Partners, wants to increase the share capital.’

Davestuen went quiet. Gunnarstranda could hear his big hands fumbling with the receiver. The sound of squelching sludge returned.

‘But, you know, this solicitor of theirs, this Brick, has devised a new trick to raise capital. And this is actually a trifle complicated.’

‘How can you eat nicotine?’

‘In chewing gum. Flat bugger. Pretty hard and it does not taste good.’ Davestuen chuckled. ‘Modern chewing tobacco. You remember the old fellas cycling up Markveien with half a bottle of vodka in their back pockets and two slimy rivulets of tobacco dribbling down their chins?’

Gunnarstranda nodded. ‘Yes,’ he mumbled, disorientated, scanning the desk for his lighter.

Davestuen cleared his throat. ‘Now they make chewing gum instead, supposed to satisfy the craving for nicotine. We’re thinking about the environment here, you know.’

‘Right…’

‘Protecting the environment!’

‘Yes, yes, but we were talking about the tricks Engelsviken and Co. are getting up to!’

‘OK. Instead of borrowing money, Software Partners go out and ask small businesses to become co-owners, thus increasing their share capital, which in itself ought to be fine. However, it happens in a rather odd way.’

‘Oh?’

Gunnarstranda registered the mounting silence.

‘Great,’ Davestuen burst out. ‘Finished chewing that crap. Anyway, this financing is distinctly fishy.’

He explained: ‘The way Software Partners acquires capital is not strictly legal. The shares are sold in tranches with a minimum cash investment of something like a hundred thousand and no one sanctions the arrangement. Furthermore, the new owners do not have the usual say in the company because the shares they have bought are B-shares, which provide limited rights. All they receive is a dividend and a kind of entitlement to sell the company’s products.’

Gunnarstranda listened patiently. Familiar ground. The shop-owner Frølich had spoken to in Rådhusgata had banged on about a minimum investment. He had seen some advantages to being able to sell Software Partner products. Gunnarstranda lit up.

‘Legally speaking a grey area,’ his colleague went on. ‘Since parts of this arrangement are not covered in law. This solicitor, Brick, maintains therefore that the potentially obstructive regulations stipulated by the securities law are no longer valid.’

Davestuen paused for a while, coughed again, emitted a sneeze accompanied by tiny chewing sounds. ‘On the other hand, there could be big money in this, as the minimum investment is a hundred thousand. Ten takers would give you a million. Think what fifty would mean, or for that matter a hundred!’

He coughed louder. ‘And it’s this financial side that I think could be the most interesting for us.’

‘Oh?’

The voice in the receiver was lost in a paroxysm of coughing. ‘Christ, this nicotine shit does something to your throat!’

Gunnarstranda stared at the receiver. Bloody hell, there was no end to this man’s physical noises. He blew the ash off the cigarette glow. Took another puff and patiently burned a ring of black scorch marks on the paper around the photograph of ex-bully boy Bregård to pass the time.

Davestuen was back. ‘You see, the money isn’t paid into Software Partners but to a finance company called Partner Finance.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ asked Gunnarstranda.

‘The problem is that no one can say who owns Partner Finance. So no one knows what happens to the money that has been paid in. What’s even more peculiar is that it transpires that this company has given its address as Guernsey, a so-called tax haven.’

The faint smell of scorched paper merged with the aroma of tobacco in Gunnarstranda’s nostrils. Bregård’s halo of burn marks was half-finished. ‘But this is probably not illegal, is it,’ he said.

‘No, it isn’t,’ Davestuen agreed and explained. The point was that no one he had contacted in the finance market knew about Partner Finance. It was peculiar, to put it mildly. Alarm bells were ringing. The bells that presaged fraud. But to establish whether something illegal had really taken place, more investigation was required.

Gunnarstranda chewed his cheek.

‘For the moment someone is acquiring capital for a firm,’ Reier continued. ‘The new co-owners can sell a new product and everything looks hunky-dory.’

Gunnarstranda let Davestuen finish what he was saying. He added a few more scorch marks. Blew the glow until it was red and clear before breathing in. ‘These new sellers,’ he said and paused to catch Davestuen’s attention.

Davestuen didn’t answer. There weren’t even mastication sounds in the receiver.

‘Are you there?’

‘Yep.’

‘I was just wondering,’ Gunnarstranda proceeded. ‘What would these new sellers be selling?’

‘How do you mean selling?’

‘Well, they pay a sum of money, more than a hundred thousand in readies, to buy the right to sell something, don’t they? What do they sell?’

‘I haven’t found out yet.’

‘Isn’t that odd?’

‘Well…’

‘The point is,’ Gunnarstranda interrupted with emotion. ‘The Marketing Manager doesn’t even know what they’re selling.’

‘Oh?’

‘He really doesn’t. His name’s Svennebye. He did the prospectus, the brochures, all the paperwork that we and these speculators have been burdened with. But he hasn’t a clue what he’s selling. Of course he knows it’s about computer software, but why it would be attractive for people in the industry to have an agreement with Software Partners, he doesn’t know. Simply because he doubts very much whether Software Partners have anything new or exciting to sell at all.’

‘What!’

‘It’s true.’ Gunnarstranda smiled. ‘You heard correctly. What’s more, I can tell you that this Marketing Manager has decided to resign. He thinks Engelsviken and Co. are working a scam, and he wants to jump ship before the rats.’

He inhaled and blew out a cloud of blue smoke. Let the information sink in.

‘Hmm,’ Davestuen said at length.

‘Food for thought, eh?’

He poked at Bregård’s head, which still hadn’t quite come away yet.

Davestuen gave a little cough. ‘If that’s the case and Software Partners don’t have any money,’ he summarized, ‘and if at the same time money is coming into the company from the market, then the money’s disappearing somewhere.’

‘Exactly.’

‘If the money’s disappearing somewhere,’ Davestuen concluded, ‘it’s a crime.’

Gunnarstranda gave a nod of satisfaction. He liked the edge that had crept into the voice in the receiver.

‘Since Software Partners have not submitted their accounts to the public register as the law requires,’ Reier argued, ‘nothing can be checked in the usual way.’

Gunnarstranda said nothing. He smoked quietly and allowed his colleague to set the pace.

‘That means it’s time for a bit of action.’

Gunnarstranda still said nothing, letting his colleague think aloud.

‘Right,’ decided Davestuen. ‘But we’ll have to talk to this Marketing Manager of yours first. Svennebye, wasn’t it?’

‘Mhm.’

‘By the way, do you know what the worst thing about giving up fags is?’

‘No,’ answered Gunnarstranda, who couldn’t care less.

‘You miss lighting a cigarette when the telephone rings. Taking a piece of chewing gum is not quite the same.’

‘Mm, I can believe that,’ Gunnarstranda answered politely.

‘I take it you still smoke, Gunnarstranda?’

Gunnarstranda chuckled at the tone in Davestuen’s voice.

‘That I do,’ he answered softly and said goodbye. Sat drumming his fingers before repeatedly pressing the cigarette-end in the overflowing ashtray. ‘That I do,’ he reiterated to himself under his breath, and threw away Bregård’s head, which had now come loose from the paper.