Lethal Investments

3

Inspector Gunnarstranda was taken aback by the sight of the figure opening the door. But not by her reaction, neither the look she gave him nor the one she cast afterwards at his ID. He knew this look, and was inured to it. For no natural authority emanated from his short, thin body. He was one metre sixty in his stockinged feet. All of his fifty-seven years had left their marks. His face was wrinkled and his pate shiny, almost bald. There was just a dishevelled clump of hair clinging on. He combed a few frugal wisps into position every morning, over from one ear to the other.

Gunnarstranda was conscious of his sad outward appearance. For this reason he was tolerant of her askance look, from top to bottom, as if he were an insect she had espied under the mat.

He unleashed his whitest smile by way of a response. Watched her confusion grow. Few people expected such a toothpaste-white row of teeth from such a short-arse in a threadbare coat, with nicotine-stained fingers and scorch marks on his shirt. Then there was all the dental work. A kind of porcelain. The finery that Edel had once paid for with her lottery winnings. ‘Finally we’re going to get your ugly mouth sorted out,’ she had said with her glasses well trained on the list of prizes. She must have been heartily sick of the cactus landscape in his cake-hole. He didn’t know. If that was why, she would never have said. So he had never asked. Edel always got her own way whatever happened. And now it was too late to ask. Four years too late.

The smile helped him on this occasion, as indeed it always did. The smile that obliterated the impression of scruffiness. The smile that caused people to fumble rather than punch him in the face. The rascally smile.

The woman returned his smile, and they were friends. She blinked, and consciousness returned. Moved to the side and held the door open, told him to make himself comfortable while she saw to her child in the kitchen.

He stood at his ease looking around the large, airy living room. A newly decorated flat. White jute wallpaper. Varnished parquet flooring without cracks or flaws. Curtains in light pastels hanging lightly over large windows. Simple expensive furniture, linen and dyed leather. On the floor some children’s games, even though a coffee table in thick, tinted glass and a glass display case suggested disciplined behaviour indoors.

On the walls were three originals by a modernist painter Gunnarstranda neither knew nor could name. But his seasoned eye soon detected the touch of class in a genuine signed oil canvas.

He found himself in a flat that distinguished itself by its youthful affluence.

Surprising.

In itself it was no strange thing to be in a pleasantly furnished flat in an apartment building in upper Grünerløkka. It was the elegance that caught his eye. Oil paintings and the style of the dignified woman he had made up his mind to like. She seemed dependable, despite her Oslo West-accented Norwegian. ‘Would you mind waiting in the living room,’ she had said. In the living room! Her pronunciation of the words made him pay attention to her choice of clothes. The jewellery around her neck. The manner with which she tackled the conflict between the child in the kitchen and his unspoken demands from the door.

On the sly, Gunnarstranda had studied her languorous gait from the hallway to the kitchen. The natural rotation of her hips. A lithe and well-proportioned woman of around thirty. Finished with her studies, he imagined. So, the sensible type. Job first, then children.

He stood by the window, looking down on to the street. Thought about the old days, skating in Dælenenga, the brewery horses, the sub-zero outside privies and the utility sink in the kitchen where you pissed at night.

And nowadays high society put down genuine parquet flooring over the old boards. Bizarre, he thought, posh folk tripping around in slippers so as not to scratch the floor. Here, in this old block.

A few years ago, it had been acceptable for snobs to live in lower Grünerløkka too, in Markveien and Thorvald Meyers gate. But most had shipped out now. Shipped up. Now he could confirm that the upper reaches of Grünerløkka were holding their own. And this was rather surprising. Because the woman in the flat shoes in the kitchen was, socially speaking, different compared with the Pakistani next door, who walked around in seventies clothing. His flat was furnished with flimsy, wobbly furniture from the Salvation Army shop. An unusually polite, plump man with fleshy cheeks and a toothbrush moustache. The type that shooed his wife straight into the kitchen the moment she shuffled in through the door. The man had been like a wind-up doll. Hands against his back and a rictus smile on his face. Hadn’t heard or seen a thing. Never did, and definitely not last weekend. Nevertheless the man did fit in here. Him and the two dilettantes on the floor above. Two tall, skinny hippies dressed in garish clothes, who were trying to grow marijuana on the window sill. The man fortyish and unemployed. The woman, barefoot in flares embroidered with flowers. Two living fossils from the sixties wading through piles of newspapers and half-empty wine bottles. Both were far too concerned to point out how little they knew of the world outside, above all on a Sunday morning when they were on their way back from a party.

It was different here, in this flat. What did she think about, this wealthy woman? A girl murdered downstairs. Did she think that this wickedness would implicate them, her and her family? And if they wanted to move, where would they move to? Lots of money had been invested in this flat. These were people who undoubtedly had the means to take the final step. To move to Bærum, or to Nordstrand. Without stopping a few hundred metres further up, in Valdresgata, where the blocks were newer and there were still enough journalists and union bosses for high society not to feel comfortable.

He leaned his forehead against the window pane and stared down on to the street, patiently waiting until she was finished and had returned from the kitchen.

‘You’ve been lucky with this flat,’ he exclaimed with his back to her. ‘And you’ve done the place up nicely. Imagine, when I was growing up, there wasn’t even a toilet in the corridor. And at that time it was as cold inside the block as it was outside.’

He turned and pointed to the sun beaming down through the pane. ‘You’ve got the sun here, too. Not many people have that here in Grünerløkka.’

She nodded politely, a bit apprehensive.

‘I grew up here, I did,’ he said, pointing out of the window. ‘In Seilduksgata, down from Dælenenga, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I haven’t hung out in this place at one time or another.’

The latter accompanied with a broad smile.

He strode across the floor and took a seat on the curved pink leather sofa.

The little boy clung to his mother’s trouser legs. Staring at Gunnarstranda with large eyes. Her bright blue eyes glinted nervously above a small strained smile that told him he should not reminisce about old times any more than was necessary. He squinted at her across the table, ignoring the boy. Children did not particularly interest him.

‘Are you a policeman?’ the boy wanted to know.

‘My father worked at Freia, the chocolate factory,’ Gunnarstranda continued, rapt in thought. ‘Got a good pension as well. He was famous for it, company director Throne-Holst was! Gave his workers a pension before the idea had even occurred to anyone else. Yes, you’ve heard of Throne-Holst, I suppose?’

The woman shook her head, wary.

He leaned over to her in confidence. ‘Please excuse me,’ he broke off, bursting with curiosity. ‘But for someone like me who grew up in these parts I have to say an incredible amount of work has been lavished on this flat. It can’t have been cheap.’

Her smile changed at the compliment and Gunnarstranda inferred she had played an active role in the redecoration. But the smile vanished. She was serious again.

‘Well, that is the issue, isn’t it?’ she answered. ‘Now that she has been killed downstairs. Joachim and I are worried the prices are going to plummet, and then we would lose loads of money on this.’

‘Are you going to move already then?’

Gunnarstranda essayed a little smile with the boy as well. ‘So, you’ve started work as an estate agent, have you?’

She smiled. ‘Joachim is my husband. This is Joachim Junior.’

She patted the boy on the head.

Joachim Junior, Gunnarstranda repeated to himself. Took a deep breath. ‘The murdered…’

Met her eyes. ‘How well did you know each other?’

She hesitated for a moment, considering the question.

‘Depends what you call well.’ She took her time. ‘I said hello to her quite a few times, of course. She seemed… well… quite nice. Seemed the easy-going type to me… and to Joachim.’ She hesitated again. ‘I don’t think he knew her any better than I did. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it,’ she laughed with a slight undertone.

Gunnarstranda wasted no time. ‘How do you mean?’

She looked down. ‘It was a joke,’ she said with a strained smile. ‘As you know, she was a very attractive woman.’

The words were spoken with a face that said she was the kind to keep an eye on her husband.

‘So he did talk to her once in a while?’

Gunnarstranda detected some irritation at his question.

‘We were neighbours in a way, weren’t we, and yes… no!’

She threw out her arms.

‘You didn’t have much to do with her then, you didn’t have mutual friends?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know if she hung around with a particular group? Was there anyone who visited her a lot?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there,’ she said firmly. But continued when the inspector said nothing.

‘Yes, she lived below us, and the times I met her she was on her own by and large. I suppose I must have seen her with other people, men and women, as you would expect. She was just a normal girl living alone and we, well, we’ve hardly been here six months, not even that.’

‘Are you at home all day?’

‘Half of it, yes.’

The boy grew restless hanging from his mother’s arm, and she was being distracted.

‘Would you recognize any of these people, from a photograph?’

‘Which people? Stop it now, Joachim!’

She grabbed the wriggling boy’s hand to restrain him.

Gunnarstranda stared at her patiently. ‘The ones you’ve seen her with.’

‘Excuse me,’ she said, and got up. Bent down to the boy and talked softly to him while looking him in the eye.

‘Mummy has to talk to the man. Now you go and find something to do. Play with your bricks.’

‘No!’

The child was not in a co-operative mood. In a huff, he eyed the policeman, who took out his tobacco pouch and started to roll a cigarette. The lad was intrigued by the roller and turned to watch Gunnarstranda making a stockpile of filter roll-ups on the glass table.

Mummy had time to think. ‘To be honest, I don’t believe I noticed any of them she was with, don’t think so anyway.’

The inspector didn’t glance up. ‘But you’ve been living here six months! And there hasn’t exactly been a stampede on the staircase, has there.’

She didn’t answer.

‘And she was quite a good-looking woman,’ he continued. ‘The sort your husband would have cast an appreciative eye over!’

He met her eyes and noted the confusion there. But he didn’t give more than a glimmer of a smile. He could see she was of a mind to interpret the question in the best spirit. ‘To be honest, I don’t think I would recognize anyone in a photo after a brief encounter on the stairs. No, I don’t think I would.’

Gunnarstranda gathered all the roll-ups together. Got to his feet. At that moment they heard someone come through the front door. The boy ran towards it with his mother behind him. He lit a cigarette. Went over to the window and opened it a crack while she welcomed her husband. He could hear the father indulging in horseplay with his child and the couple whispering.

So as not to offend anyone, he tried to blow as much of the smoke as he could through the window.

Soon they were in the living room. ‘Feel free to smoke,’ she assured him, flustered. ‘I’ll find you an ashtray. This is the gentleman from the police.’

The latter was said to her husband, who trooped in behind her.

They greeted each other.

The man was getting on for forty, but had stopped somewhere along the way. Clammy hands, maybe as a result of wearing gloves. His hair was thick and bristly and fell in front of his eyes as he made a very formal bow. At the back of his head his hair had been cut in a straight line around his neck. His frenetic eyes emphasized a repellent energy in his nature.

‘We’re investigating the murder of a young woman on the lower floor,’ Gunnarstranda said gently.

‘Yes, well, it’s about time!’

Gunnarstranda looked the man in the eye as he flicked the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray the child’s mother had provided.

Sensitive mouth. Suggestion of a grimace around the lips.

The police officer elected the direct approach. ‘Have you ever been in her flat?’

A hesitant silence cast a shadow over the other man’s self-assurance for a second. It was a shadow of cold calculation. For Gunnarstranda this was enough.

‘Yes.’

Gunnarstranda felt the woman’s eyes burning into his right shoulder.

‘How many times?’

This time the silence was longer. ‘I gave her a hand, didn’t I, Mia?… Helped her start her car with jump leads in the winter, there was also… well, after all, she was one of our neighbours.’

The man spread his hands as if to crave understanding.

Gunnarstranda gave a pensive nod. ‘Her flat is much smaller than this one. Would you mind if I had a little look around?’

‘I most certainly would!’

Joachim Senior’s top lip was visibly curled. Gunnarstranda took another drag of his cigarette. He looked the other man straight in the eye. ‘You are interested in having this murder cleared up, are you?’

The man glared back and snarled. ‘First of all, you kept yourselves to yourselves all yesterday morning, banging around, people and cars everywhere. Then we waited all afternoon for you. I cancelled two important appointments. At that speed you’ll have the murder cleared up some time in the next century!’

‘What’s your job?’ the policeman asked.

‘Financial consultant, auditor.’

Gunnarstranda nodded. ‘Private?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you have a business card?’

With a resigned expression, the man took out his wallet and passed over a card with the stamp of his company and a colour photo. Gunnarstranda flicked it backwards and forwards between his fingers. ‘Well, herr Bjerke,’ he said, focusing on the other man’s eyes. ‘Since this flat is so private, perhaps you could tell me which of these rooms is closest to Reidun Rosendal’s?’

‘The bedroom.’

This answer came from Mia, still holding the child on her arm, with a nervous glance at her husband. ‘Our bedroom’s right above her flat, more or less,’ she continued, with a strained smile. ‘The bedroom is where you realize the walls are very thin in these old blocks.’

Gunnarstranda turned to her. ‘Saturday night, did you hear anything in particular then?’

‘No, we went to bed early, we generally do, Joachim Junior wakes up at an unearthly hour, you know, and we like to go walking on Sundays, and…’

‘Her flat was in a terrible mess, as you probably noticed,’ Gunnarstranda interrupted. ‘Perhaps it was a burglary. That kind of burglary does not necessarily make a lot of noise; on the other hand, a scuffle between the intruder and her would have made quite a racket.’

Her husband stirred with impatience. He burst out:

‘No one breaks into a house early on a Sunday morning when people are sleeping!’

Gunnarstranda turned to him. ‘It’s happened before,’ he answered, ice-cold. ‘It’s also happened that single women have been attacked and molested in their own homes, while asleep, on Sunday mornings.’

He had intended to say more. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he kept his mouth shut. Instead he addressed her. ‘And neither of you heard her coming in on Saturday night?’

‘No, it was all the same as usual.’

She spread her hands outwards.

‘And on Sunday morning?’

‘I got up at eight,’ she answered, contemplative. ‘And by then Joachim was in the shower, because you’d been out jogging, hadn’t you.’ She smiled at her husband. ‘We had breakfast and did normal things, you know what Sunday mornings are like, and… yes, we went for a walk by the river, just a little morning stroll.’

‘You said the door to the crime scene was open and banging before you found the body. Did you notice if it was banging when you went out for a walk?’

Joachim shook his head. Mia sat thinking. ‘I’m simply not sure,’ she concluded at length. ‘What I do remember is that I noticed it at once when I was washing the stairs afterwards, but perhaps that’s because Junior was standing there and it stuck in my mind for that reason, but I’m not sure.’

‘And you, herr Bjerke?’

Gunnarstranda addressed her husband. Stressed the formal tone. ‘You came back from your jog before eight?’

The man nodded, but his expression was surly.

‘How long had you been jogging?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I usually go before breakfast. After waking up. It’s a health thing.’

He cast a sidelong glance at Gunnarstranda’s ashtray on the table. ‘In contrast to certain other habits people have.’

The policeman ignored the barbed remark. ‘Did you see anyone?’

‘If I did, I don’t remember who.’

‘Was the front door locked when you left in the morning?’

‘No.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes, quite sure.’

‘Is that normal?’

The man shrugged again. ‘Sometimes it’s locked, sometimes it isn’t. I suppose it depends on who comes in.’

‘The gate outside, was that locked?’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘Is that usual or not?’

‘Both. That depends, too.’

Gunnarstranda rested his chin in his hands and stared at him in silence. Since that failed to have any effect, he concentrated on Mia. ‘You didn’t hear Joachim leave the flat or return?’

She glanced uncertainly from her husband to the policeman and back again. This question was uncomfortable for her.

He addressed the husband again. ‘Did you observe anyone outside the block or in the vicinity as you left the entrance?’

‘No.’

‘Or when you returned?’

‘There might have been a taxi, or a car in the street, a tram, who knows. I didn’t notice anything in particular. I was out for a run.’

‘And the door to the crime scene, was it open and banging?’

‘I’ve already answered that question.’

‘But you passed close by the door on three separate occasions in the course of the morning.’

‘Yes, that is correct.’

‘Did you go into her flat on Sunday morning?’

‘No, of course not!’

‘And did either of you hear any sounds coming from her flat Saturday night or Sunday morning?’ Gunnarstranda looked at both of them, but it was Mia who answered.

‘No.’

‘Have you ever been in her flat?’ He spoke directly to her.

Joachim answered for her. ‘No, she hasn’t.’

Gunnarstranda looked up at him from the corner of his eye. Knew instinctively his reaction was too abrupt, he could feel the anger burning in his cheeks. ‘Your wife is over eighteen years old and legally responsible for her actions. She can either speak for herself, without your help, in her own home, or in the more formal surroundings of my office where she will not be interrupted by you!’

Joachim Senior fell silent. Gunnarstranda turned back to Mia. Took a deep breath and treated her to a white smile. ‘Have you ever been in her flat?’

Even before he had finished the question she had shaken her head several times.

The inspector got to his feet and took the notebook from the table. ‘That’ll be all at this time,’ he concluded. ‘The methods employed in this case will be no different from those of others. We spread a wide net at the start of a case. For that reason we will return and focus on detailed statements later in the investigation. We are therefore dependent on the goodwill of all witnesses. It’s one of the premises of our procedure.’

He didn’t need to say any more. Neither was interested. He left. Neither of them accompanied him to the door.