The Fourth Man

6

‘We have a customer.’

‘Murder?’

‘A man. Cold and stiff as a Christmas anchovy,’ Gunnarstranda went on. ‘In Loenga.’

The line was cut. There was nothing to discuss. There was never anything to discuss. Frank Frølich turned over in bed. ‘I have to be off,’ he whispered with a croak and stopped short.

She wasn’t there. The duvet she had wrapped herself in a few hours ago was half on the floor. He sat up in bed, massaged his cheeks and cautiously called out: ‘Elisabeth?’

Not a sound.

He looked at his watch. It was half past four. It was night. He got up and sauntered into the living room. Dark and quiet. The kitchen – dark. The bathroom – dark and empty. He switched on the light, splashed water over his face and met his tired eyes in the mirror. Why does she do this? Why does she run away? When did she go? Why?

Exactly six minutes later, he was sitting in his car and driving down Ryenberg mountain. It had turned colder. A sliver of a moon shone in a starry sky. The temperature gauge in the car showed – 5 ° C. And he thought about Elisabeth in her skin-tight skirt and skimpy underwear walking down the road in this cold. Out of bed, out of the house, gone. Inside the car, he was so cold that he was hunched over the wheel, holding it with both hands. The studded tyres made a metallic sound on the tarmac and the bends in the road were frozen. Mist steamed over the water in the harbour basin. The right atmosphere for a murder, he thought, as he swung into Gamlebyen.

A patrol car stood outside the fence with its blue light flashing. Gunnarstranda’s Skoda Octavia was parked across the pavement. And behind the wire fence a small circle of people was standing around a shape on the ground.

Frølich closed the car door behind him and went through the gate with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. He was frozen and pangs of hunger for breakfast were stabbing at his stomach. The figure of Gunnarstranda came towards him. With the shirt under his autumn coat buttoned up wrong. An unlit cigarette bobbed up and down in his mouth.

‘Guard for Securitas. Found at 3.43 by a workmate. Obvious signs of an attempt to break into containers.’ Gunnarstranda pointed. The doors of a green metal container gaped wide open. ‘The container is owned by something called A. S. Jupro. It’s not clear what they took – but presumably it was some kind of electronic equipment.’

From a distance the dead man resembled an unconscious slalom skier. He was lying in a so-called stable lateral position. Wearing a boiler suit. Frank Frølich winced when he saw the man’s disfigured head and all the blood.

‘Pathologists call it “injuries inflicted by a blunt weapon”,’ Gunnarstranda said formally. ‘The back of his head has been stoved in. Finding the cause of death shouldn’t be the most difficult task on earth for the boys. Most probably that’s the murder weapon.’ He pointed towards a blood-stained plastic bag beside the corpse. ‘Baseball bat, aluminium.’

A sudden crackle came from one of the uniformed policemen’s short-wave radios. The man passed it to Gunnarstranda, who barked formally into it.

Frølich was unable to decode the message which came crackling back. But a grinning Gunnarstranda could. ‘Lock them up.’

He turned and checked his watch. ‘We’ve got them and now we can grab a bit more shut-eye. Sorry to wake you at such an ungodly hour, but that’s the job, isn’t it? No two cases are the same. I’ll catch another couple of hours myself,’ Gunnarstranda added. ‘Then we’ll do the interrogation at a more godly time. It’ll be wonderful to hit the sack.’

‘Who have we got?’ Frølich asked, bewildered.

‘A gang of bruisers,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘A tip-off. Not worth a great deal perhaps, but on the other hand there is a clear sequence of events.’ He pointed to the open container. ‘These boys were breaking in when the security guard arrived in his car.’ He pointed to a small Ford van a few metres away. The security company’s logo was printed on the side. ‘The guard saw something, stopped and went to check.’ Gunnarstranda pointed to an object next to the open container. ‘His torch – a Maglite – is over there. The men were caught red-handed, and a struggle ensued. One of them has a baseball bat and wallop. The guard falls there. Unfortunately for these three, he’s dead now.’

‘And we know who did it?’ Frank Frølich said with a yawn.

Gunnarstranda nodded. ‘As I said, a tip-off, and I would be very surprised if it wasn’t spot on.’ Gunnarstranda took a scrap of paper out of his coat pocket and read aloud: ‘Jim Rognstad, Vidar Ballo and…’ Gunnarstranda held the scrap up to the light. ‘Sometimes I can’t read my own writing… Jim Rognstad, Vidar Ballo and… can you read the name of the third man?’ he asked, straightening his glasses.

Frølich read it first to himself before reading out aloud: ‘It says Jonny Faremo.’

7

Frølich had felt the beast gnawing at his stomach all morning and decided to find out what had happened at the court hearing. However, as he was running down the steps between the court and Kafé Gabler he felt a growing reluctance to go on. So he retreated to Kristian Augusts gate to stand and wait on the pavement. Soon a group of people gathered in front of the court entrance. A little later the door opened. Elisabeth came out. He followed her movements. She left alone, taking small quick steps, without looking to the left or the right. He stood watching her slender back until she had rounded the corner and was gone.

The moment Gunnarstranda came through the wide doors, Frølich showed himself and stepped out onto the tramlines to cross the street. Gunnarstranda detached himself from the crowd on the steps, strode down to the pavement and also crossed the tramlines. Frølich joined him.

Gunnarstranda, uncommunicative, continued along the pavement at a brisk pace.

Frølich cleared his throat: ‘How did it go?’

‘How did what go?’

‘The hearing.’

‘Shit.’

‘Which means?’

Gunnarstranda stopped, let his glasses glide down over the bridge of his nose and scowled sharply over the top. ‘Are you wondering whether her brother will have to go to prison? Or whether all of them will have to go? Or are you wondering about your own future prospects?’

‘Just say how it went.’

‘Elvis has left the building.’

‘Eh?’

‘Jonny Faremo gave me the finger and walked out a free man. Because his sister, the little bit of fluff you’ve fallen for, alleges she was with her brother and the others in the flat at the time Arnfinn Haga was killed.’ The last word was delivered with a yell to drown the tram as it rumbled past.

Frølich waited for the din to subside. ‘She said she was in the flat with her brother and two others – after she was with me?’

‘Yes.’

‘She sneaks out of my flat while I’m asleep, wanders off in the middle of the night, to her place where her brother, Rognstad and this Ballo are, then they party until dawn?’

‘Don’t you two talk to each other, Frølich?’

Frølich didn’t know what to say.

Gunnarstranda continued: ‘Jonny Faremo, Jim Rognstad and Vidar Ballo and your… sweetheart… were playing poker in their flat. She also mentioned your name.’

Frølich felt his face go numb. ‘Me?’

‘She went into juicy detail about her night with you – prior to this round of poker.’

Frølich could still hear an echo in his head of his pathetic ‘Me?’

The silence between them grew. People passed them in both directions. A taxi trundled slowly by. The driver looked up at them questioningly.

Frølich said: ‘You don’t buy the story about the poker game?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Why wasn’t I called in as a witness?’

‘Would you have been able to say when she left?’ Gunnarstranda’s tone was acid.

‘Listen,’ Frølich said, annoyed. ‘I don’t like this any more than you do.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘I don’t understand why the judge accepted her testimony. It seems bloody unlikely.’

‘Could you have refuted it?’

‘No.’

‘So why should I have called you as a witness? I have no idea whether the judge believed her. The point is that her testimony denies us a reasonable cause for suspicion and hence their release is a clear sign to me: before the next round, produce more evidence against the Faremo gang or undermine Elisabeth Faremo’s testimony.’

‘What time of night are we actually talking about?’

Gunnarstranda took a deep breath.

‘What’s up?’

‘Pull yourself together, Frølich.’

‘Eh?’

‘You’re the one having a relationship with this woman! You’re the one who has been to bed with her. And you stand there like a donkey asking me about times. I don’t recognize you. Have a break. Go on holiday, take time off. You’ve been – excuse my French – humping the sister of a hardened criminal… for how long? For weeks? As far as I know, it might be all love and sweet music, but you’re a policeman for Christ’s sake. It might be a set-up. If you can’t see that, it’s my job to point out the possibility. Soon the whole force will see it. And then you’ll be suspended. And you can imagine how they will formulate the suspension, can’t you? That route is no good for you or me or the force. So, move out of the way of the elephants coming thundering around the bend. If you don’t move, you’ll be trampled underfoot. And whatever happens, you could do with a holiday. You’re a fucking shadow of yourself, man!’

Frank Frølich looked the other man in the eye. ‘What are you talking about? A set-up?’

‘The woman must have had something going right from the off.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘You told me you protected her – in Badir’s shop – got her out of the way when the police went into action?’

‘No one knew about the operation. Her going into the shop was a glitch. Chance.’

‘Fine, she entered the shop quite by chance. But then – during the shooting and while the crazy guys were being nicked – you say she was stuffing cigarettes into her rucksack? She must have been doing that to get you interested.’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea why she was doing that.’

‘Remember, she doesn’t have a record. But when the bullets fly and she is lying underneath a cop on the shop floor, she starts pinching stuff – isn’t that a bit odd?’

Frølich was sweating. ‘It might be odd, I don’t know.’

‘Just use your head. You’re in deep shit.’

‘But if this is all calculated and planned, I don’t understand why. Was she supposed to go around selling her body for months, making the wildest plans with me, in order to give her brother an alibi for killing a security guard in the harbour? My God, Arnfinn Haga, a twenty-two-year-old student working as a guard to earn some money on the side. Can’t you see that a conspiracy theory is completely absurd!’

‘So you think she’s in love with you and the business with her brother is pure chance, do you?’

‘Yes, in fact I do.’

‘Frølich, how long have we worked together now?’

‘A lot too long.’

‘Yes, probably, but we’ve muddled our way through quite a few cases. And even if no two cases are alike, a number of things about this one stink.’

‘Right!’ Frølich cut in. ‘But it’s also possible!’

‘What’s possible?’

‘It’s possible she had honourable intentions!’

‘Frølich! Stop being so bloody naive! There’s something not quite kosher about this bit of skirt. It doesn’t matter which way you look at every single bit of what you’ve told me, it all boils down to a con.’

Gunnarstranda moved off. He strode briskly along the pavement. Frølich caught up with him and said, ‘OK, let’s say you’re right. She did have something going. If you’re so damned sure, what was she after, then? What was she planning on the shop floor? If this is not about the murder of the Securitas guard, what is it about then? Is it about getting me into deep water? There must be easier ways of causing me trouble than to start killing people. You must be able to see that. The only thing she has achieved is to put me in a spot of bother with some colleagues who are wondering now about my judgement – and what would be the point of that? Well? Can you tell me?’

‘No.’

‘So, why the hassle?’

Gunnarstranda stopped again. He glared at the other man with ice-cold eyes. ‘I’m not hassling anyone. I never do. You’re the one following me. You’re the one doing the hassling. We both know that the main suspects left court free men and your name was used in the trial to achieve that outcome. That means – if you have to have it spelt out for you – you cannot continue with this investigation. I’ll investigate the murder of Arnfinn Haga now without your help. If I were you, I would do two things: first, take a week off to avoid a blemish on your record. Next, I would have a chat with the girl. You owe that to yourself and your future, and not least the girl herself – if she really does have honourable intentions. And now you’ll have to excuse me. I have a job to do.’

Frank Frølich watched him go. Gunnarstranda’s open coat flapped like a cape in his wake.

Time off? Suspension? The words ricocheted through his brain. The blood in his ears pounded. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a mobile phone.

He rang Elisabeth Faremo’s number. There was no answer.

He stood looking at the phone. Nothing. Because she didn’t answer. That had never happened before. He tried again. Again no answer. He tried a third time. Her phone was switched off.

8

Three hours later he had treated himself to a week off and was sitting in his car on the road up to Ekeberg Ridge. He drove onto the roof which formed the car park for the flats beneath. A staircase led downwards, beside the building complex. One landing for every floor. Every landing led to two entrances. He found the door to Jonny and Elisabeth Faremo’s flat. Rang the bell but nothing happened. He listened. No padding feet could be heard behind the door. Everything was dead, dark and still. The only thing to be heard was the engine of a crane which barely drowned the usual drone of traffic in the streets below. The icy air, which until now had wrapped itself around his body like a cool skin, suddenly penetrated his clothes and made him shiver.

He rang again. The skin on his forefinger went white as he pressed the bell.

He stamped his feet to keep warm, went to the side to find a window to look through.

‘Are you looking for someone?’

An elderly man with a stoop, stick and beret was standing on the staircase landing staring at him.

‘Faremo,’ Frølich said.

The man took out a bunch of keys and tried to find the correct one. ‘Him or the lady?’

‘Both actually.’

The man put the key in the lock of the neighbouring flat. ‘She went off about half an hour ago. Probably going on holiday. Had a rucksack and suitcase with her. I haven’t seen Jonny for several days.’ The man opened the door.

‘Did she take a taxi?’

‘No, she just went down there.’ The man pointed with his stick. ‘Took the bus, I suppose.’

‘Did you see her get on the bus?’

‘No. Why are you so interested?’

Frølich was about to show his ID, but refrained. ‘We were meant to meet,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘Pretty important. That was half an hour ago.’

‘Oh yes,’ the man said, moving to go indoors.

Frølich waited.

The man kept mumbling, ‘Oh yes, oh yes,’ then finally closed the door.

Frølich plodded slowly back up the stairs to his car. As he was about to get in, a silver-grey Saab 95 rolled up and parked in one of the reserved spaces. He put the key in his pocket and observed the other car. The driver was taking his time. Finally the door opened. A man got out: white, about 1 metre 90 tall, strong – either from intensive training or anabolic steroids – wearing green military trousers, Gore-Tex mountain climbing boots, a short leather jacket, brown leather gloves, sunglasses and a black cap. Frølich had never seen him in real life, but he knew instantly who he was and walked over towards him.

They were the same height, but Frølich probably couldn’t lift as much in the bench press as this action-hero clone. Nevertheless, when Faremo took off his sunglasses he immediately recognized Elisabeth’s features: the nose, the forehead and the eyes.

He said: ‘I’m looking for your sister.’ He thought: Big mistake. I should have introduced myself, been coldly courteous, not brazen like a little kid.

The man took off his gloves with an effort and stretched out his hand. ‘Jonny.’

‘Frank.’

‘So you’re a friend of Elisabeth’s?’

‘Yes. Earlier today you were in court and got off because your sister talked about a man called Frank. You may remember?’

Faremo grinned. ‘Elisabeth and I have occasionally discussed the fact that you were a policeman.’

Frølich could feel the words sinking in: Elisabeth and I have occasionally discussed…

Faremo went on: ‘She has always maintained that you weren’t an asshole, that you were…’ Jonny Faremo gave a cool, ironic smile as he prepared for the sarcasm: ‘… that you were different.’

Frølich controlled himself and refrained from giving a riposte. ‘Do you know where she is now?’

‘No.’

‘A neighbour claims she left half an hour ago with a rucksack and another bag.’

‘Then she must have done.’

‘But you must know if she was going anywhere.’

‘Why’s that?’

Frølich thought: Because she’s your alibi, asshole! He said: ‘So you don’t know?’

‘You should drop the Gestapo style when talking to members of her family.’

‘I apologize if I’ve been offensive, but it’s important for me to get into contact with her.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really. Is that so strange?’

‘A little.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘From what I have understood from my sister, she was the one who had to take the initiative in your relationship.’ Faremo smacked a glove against his palm. ‘But now I’m in trouble, you’ve turned into a bloodhound and come running round here.’

Frølich said: ‘If you see her, please ask her to ring me.’ He turned to go. The packed snow on the concrete roof was slippery. He almost fell, but he didn’t look back. She has told her brother everything. That was the only thing he thought. Jonny Faremo knew God-knows-what all the time he had been asking her about her brother. She had been sitting and shielding her cards like a child caught cheating.

When he joined the main road Faremo was still standing in the same place, watching him closely.

Frølich glanced at his watch. It was lunchtime, but he couldn’t swallow a bite. He pulled into the verge and stopped before he had driven fifty metres. What would be the best course of action? Find out where Elisabeth had gone or focus on the brother? How would he find out where she had gone? He hardly knew anything about her.

He wove his hands round the wheel. Perhaps do nothing? Go home and sleep maybe? After all, he was off work.

He didn’t have long to think. Faremo’s Saab drove past. Frølich switched on the ignition and followed him.

9

It was late afternoon when he parked alongside a picket fence near the tram stop at Forskningsparken. From here he made his way to the part of the university complex housing the history and philosophy faculty. The thought of this visit was distasteful. The thought of searching for the Elisabeth he didn’t know was distasteful. However, the distaste he felt for this side of her seemed less important as long as he was unable to get in touch with her, to find her. He wanted to hear what she said about the poker game, the alibi – all the things he couldn’t grasp. So he ignored the beast gnawing at his stomach, went into the Niels Treschow building and took the lift up the tall structure. He haphazardly roamed the corridors, took the stairs and wandered further afield as he read the names on the doors. The door to Reidun Vestli’s office was ajar. He knocked and pushed the door open. A young woman with blonde hair and an unusually powerful jaw looked up from the computer. ‘Sorry,’ Frank Frølich said. ‘I’m looking for Reidun Vestli.’

‘She’s gone home.’ The young woman looked at her wristwatch. ‘A couple of hours ago.’

‘Home?’

‘She wasn’t well. So she went home.’ The powerful jaw split into a big white smile. ‘On the Master’s course we’re allowed to use her office. She’s great like that.’

‘Was it serious?’

‘Haven’t a clue. No, I don’t think so. Reidun is rarely ill.’

Reidun Vestli had packed up and gone off a couple of hours ago. Elisabeth packed up and went off a couple of hours ago.

Frølich said: ‘I really need to talk to her. We had an appointment.’

Reidun Vestli’s office was tidy; the only object to disturb the impression of meticulous order was the quilted anorak the student had slung over the table in the corner. The woman behind the computer looked as if she belonged to the office.

‘You can try her home phone number, if it’s important.’

‘Yes, of course. You don’t have the number by any chance?’

The student had a ponder. ‘Reidun is one of the few professors who has a business card,’ she said, pulling out a drawer in the desk. ‘I know she usually has a few lying around. Here we are.’ The powerful chin broke into another smile as she passed him the card.

He studied the business card on the way down in the lift. Reidun Vestli lived in Lysejordet.

He called her home number as soon as he was back in his car. It rang five times. No one answered. Then the little pause which indicated that you were being transferred. So she wasn’t at home. It rang twice more before she answered.

‘This is Reidun.’ The voice was clear; in the background, a low whistle. Frølich knew what that meant. It meant that she was in a car.

‘This is Frank Frølich. I would like to talk to you.’

Silence.

‘It’s about Elisabeth Faremo.’

The conversation was broken off.

He stared down at the display. This was a conversation he had dreaded, but for Reidun Vestli it must have been worse. The panic-stricken refusal to speak made him ring again, instantly. The number rang and rang. Then the answer service took over.

He was fed up. Pissed off. Right now the situation seemed totally ridiculous. He could hear Gunnarstranda’s voice in his head as he drove home. A set-up! Of course it is, Frølich!

He had opted to take a whole load of accumulated time off because… why had he, actually? Because Elisabeth Faremo was covering up for her brother? Or was he doing it to hide, to bury his head in shame?

A young man had been killed. But Elisabeth could have been telling the truth. Why couldn’t what she said have been true? Elisabeth had always sneaked out of his flat at night. What might have happened was this: Elisabeth had gone home. She had sat up for a few hours with her brother and then all of a sudden the police ring at her door. Except for the tip-off. The problem was that he knew nothing about the tip-off. Who had tipped off the police and what was their motive?

He automatically steered a course homewards. It was a dark winter afternoon and rush hour. He had taken time off. Nothing to do. What does a Norwegian man do when he has nothing to do? He has a drink – or five. Frank Frølich headed for the shopping centre in Manglerud.

10

He set out on his pub crawl. Had a couple of lagers at a bar registered under the name of Olympen Restaurant and known locally as the Lompa, the Rose of Grønland. The place was half full. Most of the customers were of the jaded variety, who lived nearby and went to the Lompa to have profound conversations with their beer glasses. Frank Frølich sat alone at a table watching the people around him. Lean men, most so rigid from years of hard drinking that they looked as if they were balancing on stilts when they walked into the toilet. When he moved on, it was to find a bar to prop himself up on. He went to Oslo main station, to platform two in the old Østbanehalle. The place was packed. Travellers. Commuters on their way home waiting for the next train. Men and women from Moss and Ski with their suitcases, warming up with a beer before catching the ferry to Denmark. The loudspeakers were playing the Hollies’ ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’ and a group of women dressed in track suits were singing along. Frølich studied himself in the mirror and felt like a Martian on Pluto. He drank his third and fourth beers while witnessing two old acquaintances of the police selling dope to some teenage girls. Frølich raised his glass. He was off duty for fuck’s sake. None of his business. But old acquaintances are as alert as wild mink. They immediately sensed Frølich’s passive state and were ready to misinterpret it. Frølich drank his beer and moved on, up Karl Johans gate. He paused at the intersection with Dronningensgate and the row of obscure bars. But then another old acquaintance limped out of the shadows by Kirkeristen: ‘Frankie, fancy a beer?’

Frølich shook his head and walked back towards Jernbanetorget. Is it possible to sink any lower than being bought a beer by someone you have arrested countless times? He thought: the safest place to go on a bender seems to be further west. He caught the first tram, hung onto the strap as the tram swayed up Prinsens gate, got off at the lower end of Kontraskjæret, crossed to Fridtjof Nansens plass and decided to start on the corner and work his way along all the watering holes around the City Hall. It was a strenuous job. But he didn’t feel drunk; he just needed to keep emptying his bladder. A couple of hours later he wobbled into the lounge of the Hotel Continental. This was the place where original Munch paintings used to hang on the wall, where the male guests are the type of men who look forward to the weekend to try out their new golfing trousers and where the wallflowers are cultivated women with a nose for port wine. This was where an unshaven, furloughed cop could walk around incognito too, he thought, and fell over a sofa in the middle of the room. He ordered a whisky. After drinking another, knocking over a glass of beer and attempting to wipe up the mess with the table cloth from the neighbouring table, he was politely asked to leave. Things are improving, he thought. If I play my cards right now I will be taken to the drunk cells before the night is out. ‘I’m not drunk,’ he said to the girl who had been given the unenviable task. ‘I’m just suffering from a few synchronization problems.’ He stood up, impressed that he had managed to pronounce such a long, tricky word.

He tottered out and almost collided with Emil Yttergjerde. Yttergjerde must have been in the middle of his own pub crawl because there was a red, almost purple, glow to his face and he had to hold onto the lamppost as they stood contemplating each other. Together, they staggered around the corner and into Universitetsgata. Several bars there. And he still had some money left.

It was evening, maybe night, at any rate many hours later, when he and Yttergjerde were sitting at a table in Café Fiasco. No, he concluded, it had to be night. He was drinking his beer and struggling not to slide off his stool while concentrating on Yttergjerde’s mouth. The music was hammering away and he was shouting to be heard through the din.

‘She was from Argentina,’ Yttergjerde bellowed.

Frølich put his half-litre down on the table, wishing Yttergjerde would shut up and stop his awful shouting.

‘But I didn’t find that out until later,’ Yttergjerde shouted.

‘What was that?’ Frølich shouted back.

‘The woman from Argentina. She was broke, you see, and I kept her going with cigarettes and some food. I was arseholed when I got into this bus, it was four in the morning and I was going to Milan. Anyway, I sat down in the bus and then she came and sat down beside me. She’d spent all her money on rented cars and expensive hotels in Paris and Rome. She needed somewhere to live because there were still two weeks to go before her return flight left from Paris to cross the Atlantic.’

Yttergjerde paused for breath and took a drink from his glass of beer.

‘What are you talking about?’ Frølich asked.

‘My holiday,’ Yttergjerde said. ‘Keep up, will you?’

Frølich raised his head. It was impossible to hear yourself think. There was a break in the music. But not for long. Someone put on some Springsteen. One chord, one riff: ‘Born in the USA’.

Frølich was about to say something. Just to prove that he wasn’t going to collapse. Instead he had to battle not to fall off his stool. He clung to his beer glass and said: ‘I guess I’ll have to be off now.’

Yttergjerde didn’t hear. He put down his glass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and roared through the music: ‘I couldn’t talk to her about Swedes, you see. This woman had been with a Swede and he’d been knocking her about for a long time. And she was whingeing and nagging me – that was probably why it finished – always asking me if I was all right and telling me in the morning I looked extremely aggressive. I have no idea what I look like in the morning actually, but I was sick of the nagging, really sick of it. I mean, I’ve never heard that I look aggressive before. Anyway, in the end, I lost my temper and told her in my Oxford English I wasn’t angry. But, I said, if you don’t stop asking me if I’m angry, I’ll lose my temper. Perhaps I was a bit rough. I mean, it’s not so easy to catch the nuances using Oxford English. Anyway, she legged it and that was the last I saw of her. Just as well maybe. I mean, it was a hopeless business. I was on holiday. I put the woman up and kept her in cigarettes for four days – while she was doing the best she could to pay in kind. That’s no healthy basis for a lasting relationship.’

Frølich stood up. The room swayed. He was plastered. He said it out loud: ‘I’m plastered.’

‘What I mean to say is,’ Yttergjerde unflaggingly pointed out, ‘the world is full of women, Frankie. I mean people like me, divorced, can relax. What about people like you who have never worn the ball and chain? I’ve got a pal, thirty-something, he’s up to his eyeballs in women. Single mothers, Frankie, trips on the ferry to Denmark, dances. You don’t have to get fucking depressed because of this woman.’

‘I know you mean well,’ Frank Frølich said. ‘But the only thing I need now is a taxi and a bed to lie in.’

‘Yeah, go on home, Frankie. Sleep it off, have a lie-in, forget the bloody woman. Last time I felt like that I went to the whorehouse in Munkedamsveien, I mean, just to release some of the pressure. But the one who got the job was one of those sneaky pusses. I’m sure she was married or engaged, and what’s the point of being a whore then, eh? If you think the whole thing is revolting. Eh? She was a looker but she refused to do anything but missionary, so I got angry, didn’t I? I don’t mean to be difficult, I said to the madame in reception, but I’m paying a lot of wonga, so these women of yours should be able to manage a bit of customer service, shouldn’t they, I said, and then I was given a voucher. What about that, Frankie?’ Yttergjerde sobbed with laughter. ‘You know, that’s how it should be in marriage too. You just get vouchers!’

11

When the telephone rang, he tried to lie still, not to disturb his comatose body. Judging by the light, it was afternoon. He had been sleeping like a sunken log on the sofa for several hours, stiff, heavy and torpid. He turned his head and contemplated the phone. The movement brought on a headache, dizziness and nausea. The pain from his liver stabbed at his side like a fakir’s bed of nails – from the inside. My liver is a ball of pain, he thought, and the air a nail, no, the ring tone is like a drill pounding against my temples. He sat up and felt dizzy again. Stood up, dizzy, holding onto the doorframe and grasping the telephone receiver.

‘So you’re at home.’

‘What did you imagine?’

‘You never know.’

Frank Frølich sank back on the sofa. When I die, he thought, the angel coming to collect me will have the same voice as Gunnarstranda. The man is a spook. The spikes continued to attack his liver. He was incapable of thinking; he said: ‘So you’re ringing. Is it anything to do with the job or are you just missing me?’

‘Jonny Faremo is dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘Yes, dead. Drowned.’

Frank Frølich had never felt a greater need for a glass of water. The words constricted themselves in his throat, his head. He managed to say: ‘Where?’

‘Some kilometres outside the city boundary, in Askim. He drowned in the Glomma and was picked up by some people working at the Vamma power station. His body was caught in a net.’

‘A net?’

‘Does that mean you know where the Vamma power station is?’

Shit. The intonation. ‘No idea. Where is Vamma power station?’

‘I told you, didn’t I? Fifty kilometres east of the city boundary.’

‘Oh.’

‘Power stations are susceptible to getting logs and other junk caught in the turbines. That’s why they have a net to pick up the stuff. It picked up Faremo last night.’

‘Accident?’

‘If it was an accident we ought to have a heap of circumstantial evidence. In this case we don’t have anything.’

‘Suicide?’

‘Well, he certainly drowned.’

‘What’s your view?’

Gunnarstranda chuckled into the receiver. ‘My view? I had a call from Krimpolitisentralen, Kripos, about ten minutes ago. But, well, I suppose I did run the man in and I did have him appear at a hearing on suspicion of killing the security man in Loenga. He gets off – on an alibi as thin as a pussy hair. Two days go by and then he’s found floating with his lungs full of water in the dam by a power station. Perhaps he was depressed and threw himself in? But why should he be depressed? Because you’d taken up with his sister? And if he was and drove off to kill himself, where’s the car? Where’s the suicide note?’

‘He drives a silver-grey Saab 95.’

‘How do you know that?’

The intonation, the suspicion. ‘I have, as you yourself pointed out, some knowledge of the family.’

‘If he was thrown into the river, he wouldn’t have had much of a chance. It’s late autumn. There’s a strong current. Water temperature, maximum four to five degrees.’

‘Faremo’s well built. All muscle.’

‘The body was in a bad way. The doctor who wrote the death certificate has, it seems, used a local phenomenon to explain why. There’s a place called Vrangfoss just above the power station. It’s a narrow ravine and right there the river bends. This means that a few hundred metres above the power station all the water flowing serenely along in the Glomma is compressed and channelled through the ravine. A horizontal waterfall in other words, a kind of inferno of water and currents. If Faremo ended up in the river above the ravine his body would have been whirled around and thrown against the cliff face for a good long time before he emerged a few hundred metres further down. Most of the bones in Faremo’s body were simply smashed to pulp.’

Frank Frølich saw in his mind’s eye the man of 1 metre 90, dressed like a commando with the same expression as his sister.

‘Is it known where he fell?’

‘Fell, you say?’

‘Or was shoved. Do you know anything about the crime scene?’

‘This power station – Vamma – is the last of three power stations in a row. The highest one is called Solbergfoss, a little lower down there is one called Kykkelsrud and right at the bottom Vamma, where Faremo was fished out of a kind of collecting net. So you can imagine. He was found in front of the last dam. The stretch between Kykkelsrud power station and Vamma is the interesting bit. Frølich?’

‘Yes?’

‘Aren’t you wondering why I’m ringing?’

‘Haven’t thought that far ahead.’

‘It’s not my case. Follo police district is dealing with it, helped by Kripos. You will have to be able to account for your movements over the last twenty-four hours.’

Finally the cat is out of the bag. ‘And why’s that?’

‘You know why.’

‘No, Gunnarstranda, I don’t know why!’

‘You don’t need to take that tone with me. We both know that Faremo may have died as the result of an accident. He could have been arguing with someone who pushed him in – maybe with premeditation, maybe in the heat of the moment. And you’ve already been seen in what was termed a heated discussion outside his home.’

‘Are you having me followed?’

‘No, but I am investigating a murder. You have a lot of good friends here, Frølich, but no one can or will disguise the facts. Until last night Jonny Faremo was among the group of men suspected of murdering Arnfinn Haga. We’ve been watching Faremo’s place. Your discussion with Faremo in the car park has been duly documented.’

‘OK, but will you believe me if I say it cannot have been me who threw Faremo in the river?’

‘Try me.’

‘What you say is correct. I was outside their flat. When Faremo and his gang were released after the hearing, I did as you said. I took a week off. Then I went straight to the Faremo flat. I talked to him, but my voice was never raised and there was no heated discussion.’

‘The question is: what did you do afterwards?’

Frank Frølich stared vacantly at the wall. He had been outside Faremo’s flat last night – for some reason he had taken a taxi up there and puked in a ditch. Why did I go there? What the hell was I trying to do?

‘Are you there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Others, apart from me, are going to ask you, Frølich. I’m just giving you a little head start.’

He didn’t feel nauseous any more, just thirsty. Lethargically, he got onto his feet and staggered into the kitchen. Nothing in the fridge apart from two cans of lager. No. He closed the door and drank water straight from the tap.

He lurched towards the bathroom. In the shower, he soaped himself down thinking about Elisabeth and how she had testified on behalf of her brother and two others. He could see her in front of him as she strode out of the court towards Grensen without a look to either side. Why didn’t I stop her? Why didn’t I talk to her?

He scalded his body with hot water while conjuring up the sight of her hurrying home as fast as her legs could carry her. That delicate frame of hers nervously rushing around her flat, opening drawers, slamming them shut, throwing clothes and other things into a rucksack and bag. A phone to her ear. She had done a runner, but where – and why?

His brain churned slowly, all too slowly. When he got to her flat, she had already disappeared. Then her brother came. Had she done a runner from her brother? And if so, why? She had already given him an alibi for the murder.

He remembered his own trembling fingers as he tapped in Reidun Vestli’s phone number: the clear sound of being transferred, the muffled sound of a mobile phone. The conversation that was broken off as soon as he introduced himself.

Suddenly it became important to ring Elisabeth. Everything that has happened is the result of a silly misunderstanding. If I ring now, she will pick up the phone and give me a convincing explanation of the whole thing. He turned off the water and walked into the living room without drying himself. His feet left big damp patches on the lino. Found his mobile phone and rang Elisabeth. But her phone was switched off. He rang Reidun Vestli. No answer. He stood naked, looking at his reflection. Never seen anything so pathetic.

At that moment the doorbell rang.

He staggered into the bedroom, found a clean pair of trousers and a T-shirt and went to open the door.

A man stood on the mat. Frølich had never seen him before: lean, 1 metre 80, light brown hair and brown eyes.

The man said: ‘Frank Frølich?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Sten Inge Lystad, Kripos.’

The man’s face was dominated by a crooked mouth which lent it a twisted appearance. The slanting smile divided his face into two in a peculiar, but engaging, way. Lystad’s face was one you remembered. Frølich ransacked his memory. Lystad… the name was familiar, but not the face.

‘It’s about Jonny Faremo.’

Frank Frølich nodded. ‘Tragic.’

‘So you know about it already?’

Another nod.

‘Who told you?’

‘As I’m sure you know, I work for the police. We’re colleagues.’

‘But who told you?’

‘Gunnarstranda.’

Lystad smiled coyly.

Frank Frølich thought: He doesn’t like this turn of events. The conversation hasn’t taken the direction he anticipated.

The ensuing silence was a clear sign that Lystad wanted to be invited in. But Frank Frølich didn’t want anyone in and so observed Lystad in silence.

‘Have you been to Faremo’s house recently?’

On the positive side: no beating about the bush. Negative: his method is to keep a distance, be cool.

‘You mean Jonny Faremo?’

‘Yes, I mean Jonny Faremo.’

‘I’ve been there, that is to say, outside. I rang the doorbell, a couple of days ago, the same day he was released from custody. I was supposed to meet his sister, Elisabeth. I don’t know if you know the background here?’

‘I’d prefer to know as little as possible, apart from what happened between you and Jonny Faremo when you saw him last.’

‘OK,’ Frank Frølich said, thinking: high arsehole factor.

‘Was his sister at home when you rang?’

‘Elisabeth? Does the question mean that your interest goes beyond my dealings with her brother after all?’

A shadow crossed Lystad’s face.

He doesn’t like the direction the conversation is taking – positive.

‘Frølich, listen.’

‘No, you listen. I’ve been a policeman for many years. I can see you’re aware you’re making a mess of this. I’m also the first person to understand that you don’t like the job, but you don’t need to kick people in the balls even if they’re standing conveniently close by. You say the background doesn’t concern you. Well, it concerns me to a very considerable extent. I’ve taken a load of time off because of the background. That’s what has led to this conversation between you and me. Well, if the background doesn’t concern you, don’t ask about it. Either you don’t care or you do.’

Lystad didn’t say anything and Frølich continued.

‘My version is that I started a relationship with a lady who has the wrong connections. The same lady’s brother is dead now. But be absolutely clear about one thing: I’ve never ever been interested in Jonny Faremo, neither when I met him two days ago, nor at any other time. When I showed up at his place – after Faremo was released from custody – that was the first time I’d ever met the guy. I’d never seen him before. But I went there to meet her, to talk to her, and I did that because a situation had arisen in our relationship: she had used my name in her testimony to give her brother an alibi at the hearing.’

Lystad nodded gravely. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘When I got there, I parked in the visitors’ car park. There are stairs leading from there to the flats. I went down and rang the doorbell. I assume your witness is an elderly man – the neighbour with whom I spoke when no one answered the door. I exchanged a few words with the man. Then I went back to the car and was about to drive off when Jonny Faremo appeared. He was driving a silver Saab. I’d never seen the man before, but I realized who he was and I approached him to ask where his sister was. He didn’t know. At least he claimed he didn’t know. Then I got back into my car and left.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Two hundred metres further down Ekebergveien.’

‘Why did you stop there?’

‘To think.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Jonny Faremo came down the hill in his car.’

Lystad stared at him with interest.

Frølich made him wait.

‘What happened?’

‘I followed him in my car.’

Lystad had to wait again.

‘It was lunchtime. It was half past one.’

‘But what happened?’

‘He must have spotted me. I lost him ten minutes later. Somewhere between Gamlebyen and the main station. The whole idea was stupid, so I wasn’t particularly bothered when he disappeared.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I drove home and had a bite to eat.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I drove to Blindern University where I tried to meet a lady who works there. Reidun Vestli.’

‘Why was that?’

‘She has a close relationship with Elisabeth.’ Frølich searched for words before continuing: ‘They have, or have had, a relationship. I assumed this woman might be able to tell me where Elisabeth is.’

‘And could she?’

‘I didn’t meet her. She’s off sick.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I tried to ring the lady at home, but only got the answer machine. Then I drove home.’

They stood looking at each other. Lystad cleared his throat. ‘Anyone able to confirm you were at Blindern?’

‘I would presume so.’

‘Presume?’

‘There was a student. I was trying to find Reidun Vestli’s office. She was an MA student, borrowing Reidun Vestli’s office, and it was she who told me Vestli was off sick.’

‘And what did you do when you got home?’

‘Watched a film, looked at the walls, had a few beers.’

‘And the day after?’

‘Nothing. Looked at the walls. Got sick of that and went on the town in the evening.’

‘And can anyone confirm that?’

‘Yes.’

‘When did you get home last night?’

‘Don’t remember.’

‘What time did you get to Blindern the day before yesterday?’

‘I don’t remember, but it was in the afternoon.’

‘Well, Frølich…’

The same smile, a touch patronizing, sympathetic.

‘I’ll find out and let you know.’

‘Were you in Ekebergveien last night?’

‘Possibly. I have no idea.’

‘And what do you think I’m supposed to make of that answer?’

‘I don’t think anything.’

‘You were seen in Ekebergveien last night.’

‘Well, then, I must have been there.’

Lystad waited for more.

Frank Frølich breathed in. ‘I was drunk. It wasn’t meant to happen, but I became sentimental. The last thing I can remember is that I was talking to a colleague in Café Fiasco. It’s by the main station – they sell cheap beer. Met a colleague there, Emil Yttergjerde. He and I stayed there drinking and chatting about this and that. At some point in the night I got into a taxi. The cabs are, as you know, parked just around the corner between Oslo Spektrum and Radisson Hotel. I don’t remember much about the drive, but I didn’t go all the way home because I was feeling ill. I got off in Gamlebyen because I had drunk too much and needed to throw up. And I began to walk to freshen up a little. I walked up and down the streets all night. I got into my own bed at eight o’clock this morning. I’d been wandering the streets for several hours, along Ekebergveien too, I’m sure.’

‘Did you try to get in touch with Faremo or his sister during the night?’

‘No.’

‘And you’re absolutely positive?’

‘Yes.’

‘One of Faremo’s neighbours thought he saw a powerfully built man sneaking around outside their door.’

‘I don’t sneak.’

‘What time was it when you got home?’

‘As I said, at eight. Came right in and straight to bed.’

Lystad shoved his hands in his pockets and gave a crooked smile. ‘We’ll have to come back to this story, Frølich.’

‘I wouldn’t have expected anything else.’

The silence hung in the air for a few seconds. The lift shaft hummed.

Then stopped. The door opened. A woman with a stoop came out. She peered up at them. ‘Hello,’ Frølich said.

The woman stared at him, then at Lystad, then turned her back on them and rang the neighbour’s bell.

Lystad said: ‘You haven’t seen anything of his sister – since she vanished?’

‘No.’

‘If you see her, tell her to get into contact with us.’

Frank Frølich nodded. The antipathy he had felt towards Lystad was gradually dissipating.

After closing the door he stood motionless staring, first at the door, then at the floor. His mind was a blank. Finally he went to the fridge. His liver should have something to do, but only a little bit. A tiny little bit.

12

Next morning it was cold, but there was no frost. It was a day for the last yellow leaves to exhibit themselves, another attempt to clothe the grey-green countryside in colour. Reidun Vestli’s house lay to the west, on the slope over the river Lysaker, roughly midway between Røa and the Kolsås Metro bridge – an affluent, modern estate. Here there are lines of terraced houses between apartment buildings, each house with its own patch of lawn, each drive its own BMW. Frank Frølich passed a man wearing suit trousers and rubber boots washing his car with a small high-pressure cleaner. He passed two more drives, two more BMWs and one more man in suit trousers, rubber boots and a high-pressure sprinkler over the roof of his car. A clone, he thought, or maybe just a déjà-vu experience. Anyway, neither of the two men had seen him. No one sees anything, no one remembers anything. Only in police interviews do they see and remember much more than you could imagine.

Her doorplate was made of brass. He stood in front of the door and rang. Above the brass plate was a bronze lion’s head with the doorknocker hanging from its jaws. He banged the doorknocker. One single knock. The door was opened.

He hardly recognized the woman at the door. That time, in the lecture hall, she had given the impression of being strong. Then, she would have typified the profile of the terraced house, fitted the row of house fronts – decorated in cleverly devised earthen colours, brown and dark red shades which matched her skin, her hair with the henna tint and her brown eyes. The Reidun Vestli standing in the doorway now was a shadow of herself. Her face was harrowed through lack of sleep; her lower lip had unhealthy coffee stains. She was wearing an unbecoming track suit, which emphasized the impression of decline. The smell of unventilated smoke wafted through the front door. ‘You,’ she said in a rusty voice. ‘I know who you are.’

He cleared his throat. ‘May I come in?’

‘Why?’

Frølich didn’t answer.

Finally she took a decision and stepped aside.

The room smelt of smoke and full ashtrays. Reidun Vestli stood in front of an enormous coffee table overflowing with loose sheets of paper and old newspapers. There were a few unframed canvases hanging on the walls.

Frølich guessed one had been painted by Kjell Nupen, another, a darker motif, by Ørnulf Opdal. He didn’t dare hazard a guess at the last. But there was something clean and tidy about the two walls. They reminded him of her meticulously tidy office and dominated the room like immovable pillars. On the floor, empty wine bottles and crisp packets, a half-open pizza carton and empty packets of cigarettes. A mini stereo balanced precariously on a mass of loose cables beside a makeshift unmade bed which looked like a divan. A large number of CDs were scattered around the floor. A dusty, greasy, rusty tea maker had pride of place on the window sill, surrounded by dead flies.

This is what Elisabeth was drawn to! He took care not to step on any CDs. To this woman with metallic-coloured teeth from the previous day’s red wine, smelling of nicotine, coffee, lack of sleep and dust. Her longings brought her here.

The woman lit a cigarette from the stub of the one she’d just finished. Her hand shook. When she stood like that, concentrated and bent forwards, she also revealed the pouches of fat on her hips and thighs, a network of wrinkles between cheek and chin, a head wreathed by lifeless, unwashed hair, in turn wreathed by blue cigarette smoke. She was the crowning glory of a total work of art: the materialized essence of litter, blaring radio, mess and an aura of liberated indifference. The hoarse voice said: ‘What do you want?’

‘I rang you a couple of days ago. But you broke off the conversation and switched off your phone.’

‘Have you come here to have that confirmed?’

‘You were driving a car.’

‘You really are a detective. No wonder you work for the police.’

‘You were suddenly taken ill.’

‘The detective is correct. I’m still ill.’

‘It happened at the same time as Elisabeth chose to disappear.’

‘Really? Has she disappeared?’

‘You know very well she has.’

‘Your imagination is running away with you. You should stick to the facts, Sherlock.’

‘Tell me them.’

‘What would you like to know?’

‘Everything.’

‘Everything?’ She went closer and pulled her lips into a venomous grimace.

Frølich sensed a feeling growing inside him: irritation at everything she stood for, the snobbish arrogance, academia, all the mess in this room, all the secrets she had hoarded in this nest of hers. ‘Everything,’ he repeated in a thick voice.

Reidun Vestli went in closer. ‘But can you take it?’

‘Take what?’

‘The truth.’

‘I think I can, so long as you spare me bullshit like this.’

He ran his eye along a row of books against the wall and stopped when he saw titles like The Story of O and Catherine M – erotica, the term used in academic circles for what others call pornography.

‘Are you capable of understanding that someone can develop a deeper insight into, for instance…?’ Reidun Vestli hesitated as Frølich took the top book from the pile and held it up.

‘What, for instance?’

She looked at the book he was holding in his hands. ‘My God, don’t be so banal.’

They exchanged looks and he turned away. ‘You disappoint me,’ she said.

‘Banal?’ he asked.

‘You’re just so damned predictable and tedious.’ She put the cigarette between her sore lips and inhaled deeply. Her fingers were still trembling. ‘I really thought you were a rather interesting person,’ she said. ‘According to Elisabeth, you are.’

‘Perhaps she’s mistaken,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I’m completely predictable and tedious, but I didn’t come here to talk about me. I want you to tell me where she is.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Now it’s you who disappoint me,’ he said, toe-punting a book. ‘I knew Elisabeth was studying. Is she into books like this?’

‘Don’t you know? I had expected you to know, you being a detective and all that.’

‘I just want to find her.’

‘Why?’

‘That has nothing to do with you.’

‘What will you do if you find her?’

‘That has nothing to do with you, either.’

‘Well, I know how men and women spend their time. You don’t need to give me your version.’ She pulled a scornful face. ‘Not surprising you’re jealous, you poor thing. Of course you know nothing about her mind. Has she never told you?’

‘About what? About you?’

Reidun Vestli smiled disdainfully. ‘Not about me,’ she whispered. ‘Not a single word about me, while I know most things about you. So she hasn’t talked to you about what she and I have in common? Does that make you a little jealous?’

Jealous. Am I? And if this obsessive unease I feel is jealousy, what triggered this jealousy? Elisabeth’s and Reidun’s physical or intellectual intimacy? Or both? Or the fear of being kept as an onlooker to whatever it is they share?

‘What should I be jealous of?’

‘For instance, our common sense of wonder.’

‘Wonder.’ He articulated the word with derision.

‘Yes,’ she went on. ‘Elisabeth is, for example, captivated by language. She even has her own theory about the power inherent in words, where there is no place for emotions, how words can fill out and add extra dimensions when perceptions and the physical stop short.’

Frank Frølich watched her mouth. She enjoyed saying these things. She enjoyed telling him she had a nearness with Elisabeth which he had never had. She had pronounced the word physical with disgust. This is what you are, he thought: you’re an ageing lesbo who cannot stand the thought that I entered and satisfied the woman you desire. You cannot bear the thought that as a man I am capable of giving her something you cannot. He whispered: ‘You should be able to accept…’

‘You going to bed together?’ Reidun Vestli interrupted with a malicious smile. ‘What do you think of me, actually – or of her? Do you imagine I would get involved with another person if it wasn’t about emotion? Do you think you’re something special or unique because you’ve got a dick?’

The aggression that came with the words was numbing. He managed to force out: ‘Vulgarity doesn’t become you.’

‘I’m not vulgar. I’m defending myself against you. You think you can come here and enter my home, driven by a pathetic longing to possess and dominate the woman I love. You enter this house asserting that your gender gives you extenuating characteristics which are supposed to make you special in my eyes. You don’t have an inkling about Elisabeth; you don’t know who she is. You know nothing about a single thought or dream she and I have shared. Have you and Elisabeth ever talked? Have you discussed anything? Have you and Elisabeth ever taken your minds off your genitalia to explore whether you can share the pleasure of anything intellectual?’

It was his turn to jeer at her. ‘Share the pleasure of something intellectual, my arse!’

She drew in her breath sharply. ‘Quite honestly, I cannot fathom what she sees in you at all. In addition to being simple, you’re not even particularly good-looking.’ She looked away and added casually: ‘Has it ever occurred to you she’s trying to escape from you?’

‘That idea is totally irrational.’

She sent him an oblique glance. ‘Are you frightened I know something you don’t?’

Her facial expression, the malicious glee following the question caused him to swallow hard.

She noticed and laughed. It was a bright resonant laugh, a spiteful laugh. ‘You pathetic little man, what do you take me for? I love her and she loves me. Apart from sharing a bed, we share something else, something with a soul, a mind and self-respect!’

Frølich was sweating. This intense creature who crushed him with her words, the tense atmosphere in this stuffy flat, the unmade bed where she and Elisabeth had made love. ‘The great love affair of yours seems to have faded,’ he said deliberately. ‘Or perhaps you’re ill for other reasons?’

Reidun Vestli lit another cigarette, folded her arms across her chest and smoked with trembling hands.

‘Say what you want or get out.’

‘Did I touch a sore point perhaps?’

‘As I said, get out if you have…’

‘I want to know where she is.’

‘I have no idea where she is!’

‘I think you’re lying.’

‘Your word against mine.’

He stood up. ‘It would be to Elisabeth’s benefit if you told the truth.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Not at all. In my pathetic masculine way I’m taking care of her. I’m searching for her because I wish her well. I respect her decision to be with you, or on her own or with someone else. But I happen to know that she is in hiding and because I work for the police, I know she’s being stupid to hide in this way – after all, a murder has been committed. Whether she likes it or not, she’s part of this case. You may be able to satisfy her physically and intellectually, and your high-flown intellectual love may be worth more than mine, but I know one thing you cannot distort with your prattle: hiding will do her no good.’

‘You don’t know everything.’

‘If she’s hiding, I assume she’s afraid of something. And this is where she’s made a miscalculation.’

‘You don’t understand that it’s you she’s hiding from?’

‘I think Elisabeth intended to go on her travels when she supplied the alibi for her brother and his gang at the hearing. I think she contacted you to help her find somewhere to hide. I think your so-called illness started when she contacted you. And I think you and she were together in the car when I phoned you a few days ago. I’m certain you know where she is.’

Reidun Vestli slowly raised her head. The look she gave him was red-rimmed, but thoughtful at the same time.

Frølich was unsure whether he should tell her or not, but decided he would. He said: ‘Elisabeth’s brother is dead, in all probability murdered.’

Her eyes clouded over now, still thoughtful though, almost calculating.

‘It’s important you tell us where she is!’

‘Do you imagine I’m completely stupid?’ Reidun Vestli hissed. ‘Do you imagine you can come here with no other authority than your physical bulk and order me about? Will you leave! Off you go! Out!’ She shoved him towards the door. ‘Out!’ she repeated.

He sighed heavily and obeyed. She slammed the door with a bang. He stood on the step, heard her steps dying away. Reidun Vestli’s reaction told him he was right. But so what? He hadn’t got anywhere.

He stood listening. Silence at first. Afterwards the sound of a voice. Reidun Vestli was talking to someone on the phone. Who else could it be but Elisabeth?

He was gaping at the door, but collected himself, turned and walked back slowly, past the car-washer clones, the BMWs, the fence posts and the spiraea hedges. Had he known, he would have spared himself this confrontation. On the other hand, some things had been confirmed. She knew. He was sure.

13

That evening he sat at home with a cold beer in front of the television. But he couldn’t concentrate. He zapped. A man and a woman were under a duvet murmuring into each other’s ears. Reality TV. He continued to zap. A cheetah running in slow motion. The animal was an explosion of muscular power and concentration. The cheetah’s eyes and body seemed to be living separate lives. Two lives merged into one, an engine which ran automatically. A body hinged at the hip joint. The cheetah launched itself at a Thomson’s gazelle, forced the poor beast to the ground and killed it with one bite to the throat. Afterwards the cheetah guarded its prey, breathless. The TV voice delivered its spiel about how this was the most critical moment for the cheetah. It was too tired to eat, but if it didn’t start soon, a lion or a hyena would come along and steal its prey. The commentator had hardly finished speaking when an extraordinarily ugly-looking hunched creature roared and frightened off the cheetah. The hyena bolted down the food while the poor exhausted cheetah sat some distance away watching its own lunch disappear. Several more hyenas arrived. They sank their jaws in the gazelle’s stomach, peered up and bared their blood-stained teeth.

He switched off the television.

Hesitantly, he reached for the telephone. He dialled Gunnarstranda’s number and for some strange reason felt guilty about doing it. It wasn’t quite ten o‘clock in the evening. Most probably the old codger was in the office. But he wasn’t: Gunnarstranda’s hoarse voice carried into the room: ‘Please be brief.’

‘I’ve been talking to Reidun Vestli,’ Frølich said, promptly regretting he had called.

‘And who is Reidun Vestli?’

‘Elisabeth Faremo’s lover.’

Silence on the line.

‘I suspect she knows where Elisabeth Faremo is.’

‘And?’

‘Just a tip. You could perhaps have a chat with her.’

‘Thank you for that.’

Frølich didn’t know what to say.

Gunnarstranda cleared his throat. ‘I take it you spoke to her in a private capacity.’

‘Naturally.’

‘My advice to you is to stop doing this too. You’re on leave, Frølich. Keep out of it, go on holiday.’

With that, the line went dead.

He sat there with the receiver in his hand. If he hadn’t felt stupid before, he did now. On top of that, Gunnarstranda’s coldness. But it was part of him. The problem was that he had never felt it before, not in this way.

That night he had confused dreams about Elisabeth and her brother. The two of them had the same look. One moment black with desire, the next mortally afraid. But which were her brother’s eyes and which were hers?

During the night all the clouds had dispersed and once again the cold had slipped in – setting the scene for a freezing cold late November morning. The air was as keen as a razor blade. The sub-zero temperatures had glued the night mist to the ice on the tarmac. He got into the car, drove out of town and headed east. Transparent mist steamed off the black ploughed fields as he approached Hobøl and Elvestad. Beyond the margins of the forest, in the distance, the globe of the sun resembled the red-hot bald dome of a creator poking his head over the crest to release a little more light for the people in the north. Soon the rays were so bright that Frank Frølich had to flip down the sun shield.

He paid at the toll gate in Fossum, turned into the Shell garage by Fossum bridge and filled the tank. The Glomma was flowing quietly but robustly under the bridge. He thought about Jonny Faremo. About swimming against the current in icy water.

After paying he got back in his car and studied the map. He was lower than Solbergfoss power station, but still above Kykkelsrud power station.

He sat thinking for a while before starting the engine and then drove behind the petrol station. There was a narrow, winding side road leading to a footbridge further along. He parked, got out and leaned against the stone barrier by the river. The water coiled as it followed the slow-moving current.

He stood watching the eddies in the brown-black water. If he fell in here his body would be carried far away in seconds. The cold water would paralyse him. His wet clothes would make it difficult to move. They would become heavy and sap his strength as he was dragged under. The river bank was inhospitable, only slippery rocks. To crawl ashore would be almost impossible. The strong current and the cold would make time a vital factor. How long could he survive?

He strolled along the path by the river. From here paths ran up to the ridge, between the old wartime bunkers. The picnic area on the opposite side of the river was less protected from prying eyes, but you could get rid of a body here relatively easily as well. Nevertheless, there was one fact that suggested that Jonny Faremo had not been thrown in here: the river was closed off further down by Kykkelsrud power station. Faremo had been found in a net further down.

He thought: Perhaps it’s wisest to start there – in Kykkelsrud.

Frank Frølich crossed the footbridge. On the other side there was a commemorative monument – ‘The Battle of Fossum Bridge’. Here the Germans had met determined Norwegian resistance before their safe passage through to Oslo in April 1940. The full names of the fallen Norwegians were carved in stone.

Frølich went back to his car and drove on, over Fossum bridge, up the hills towards Askim. He passed a couple of automatic radar traps at such a slow speed that they didn’t flash.

A road sign indicated the turn-off to the next power station. He took it. They were building a new motorway here; he passed a few of the roadworks and machines. He accelerated down towards the local waterworks and bore left, towards the power station. The car continued downwards, approaching the river again.

He passed a few isolated old-style wooden houses – probably the homes of the power-station workers. Another turning. Shortly afterwards, a road sign: HAFSLUND ENERGI. The stone building was modern with large windows. Behind it the bank of the river towered up on the opposite side of the reservoir. He let the car roll down towards the power station and the dam.

There was a bleached, though still blue, parking sign by some fenced-in sheds to the left of the road. A relatively new Skoda Octavia estate was parked there. He recognized the car and was not at all pleased, but he parked next to it.

This wasn’t a good moment to meet Gunnarstranda. Frølich didn’t have a plausible explanation for why he was here. But did he have to have one? Did every step he took have to have a rational motivation? He scanned the area. Gunnarstranda was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t see anyone. There was no discernible activity from the houses scattered across the mountainside. Even the Hafslund Energi offices appeared dead. The frost made the tarmac smooth and slippery. He walked cautiously, stiff-legged, towards the dam. On his way down to the power station he passed three enormous discarded turbines which had been left for viewing on the frosty grass. To the right lay the reservoir, dammed up and black like a huge troll’s mirror. A tiny island close to shore stood out. The trees on the mountain slopes in front of the power station were reflected in the black surface of the water. The rate of discharge was low and revealed the whole stone construction forming the dam. On the left-hand side there was a fifty-metre-long dry concrete structure – a sluiceway without any water. It was a long way down to the bottom of the sluice. He felt an attack of vertigo as he peered down over the edge. Between the dam and the far sluice wall there were two large brick grids. A clammy stench of stagnant water came from an undisturbed muddy bed below. He walked out onto the dam and passed over what must have been the water inlet. The dam trembled slightly – a huge grumbling pulse. Water streamed down beneath him. And to the right, up to the wall, the surface water coiled slowly into eddies and currents. Here water was at work. In front, the waterfall was stemmed by a wall consisting of three large sluice gates.

He could positively feel the force of the water pressing against the wall as he stared at the course of the river a few hundred metres lower down. At that moment the sweet smell of a freshly lit Petterøe prickled his nose. Without turning his head, he said, ‘Gunnarstranda, are you still smoking?’

‘I’ve smoked for over forty years,’ Gunnarstranda said and went over to him. Gunnarstranda had his hands in his pockets as his cheeks greedily sucked the smoke into his mouth and down into his lungs.

‘But you really should give it up. You’re ill.’

‘I had thought about stopping, but then the doctor wanted me to chew gum with nicotine in. But that’s still nicotine, isn’t it? What’s the difference then? May as well continue smoking.’

Frølich smiled to himself.

‘What are you laughing at?’ Gunnarstranda asked grumpily.

‘I heard this joke about a man who was intent on giving up smoking. He met a friend who had succeeded. “How did you manage to stop smoking?” the man asked. “Well,” said the other man. “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. You buy a packet of cigarettes as usual, but whenever you want to light up, you first of all stick a cigarette up your arse.”

‘“Up your arse?” asked his friend. “Yes, up your arse. There’s no better way to tell yourself smoking is shit. You would never dream of putting the cigarette you had up your arse in your mouth afterwards,” the man said.

‘Well, the two men met a couple of months later. “Hi,” his friend shouts. “How did it go? Did you manage to stop smoking?”

‘“Of course,” the first man says. “Giving up smoking was easy. But actually it didn’t help very much.”

‘“It didn’t help very much?”

‘“The problem now is I can’t stop sticking cigarettes up my arse!”’ Frølich slapped his thighs and gasped with laughter.

Gunnarstranda glowered at him just as grumpily as before. ‘And there was me thinking the rumours about you were just bollocks,’ he said.

Frølich assumed a serious face again. ‘I was looking for you after I saw your car,’ he said.

‘You’re beginning to get on my nerves,’ Gunnarstranda said.

‘Oh?’

‘Just the fact that you come out here when you’re off work. At some point, if you continue to get under my feet, I’ll be forced to report you.’

‘And?’

‘Perhaps you can’t see your own stupidity, but everyone else can.’

‘Relax,’ Frølich said. ‘You won’t have to report me. Do you reckon Faremo was thrown in here?’

‘No, there isn’t enough water in the river.’ Gunnarstranda nodded in the direction of the exposed rocks in the river bed beneath them. ‘The waterfall is almost dry. It must have happened further down.’ He pointed. ‘On the promontory down there, perhaps. Perfect place for a crime. There’s a gravel path down to the river from it. Unfortunately, however, there’s a barrier closing it off. Padlocked.’

‘Has anyone got a spare key?’

‘Hardly. A man I met in there.’ Gunnarstranda tossed his head towards the turbine building. ‘He told me he lives in one of the houses on the slope. Reckons he would have noticed if anyone had passed through the barrier.’

They looked across the wide river valley in silence.

‘This station is not being used,’ Gunnarstranda said finally. ‘I was given a long introduction into energy and its history over there. Vamma, further down, and Solbergfoss, higher up, are the ones which produce the energy. This power station is only used when the water level in the Glomma is particularly high.’

‘But what do you think happened to Faremo? Was he pushed in? Or did he lose his footing on a slippery rock?’

‘Hard to say.’

‘They may not have driven down to the river. It could have been one person, or two, going for a walk.’

‘Could have been. And if there have been any sightings, I’ll soon find out.’

Frølich interpreted Gunnarstranda’s answer as an indication that this topic of conversation was not taboo. He said: ‘It’s absolutely crazy that Faremo should have died right now, isn’t it?’

‘Not everyone is permitted to choose the time of their death, Frølich.’

‘I’ve had a look at the map. There’s a road nearer to Askim looping down towards the river. From a logical point of view, a murderer could have driven along the road, got as close as possible to the river and found somewhere to offload Faremo. And he doesn’t need to be familiar with the locality.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, if he had been local he would have known about Vamma power station; he would have known that the river is closed off with a net which sifts the water and picks up debris. If he had driven a bit further and thrown Faremo in the river under Vamma, the body could have drifted several kilometres before it turned up in Sarpsborg – it’s quite a distance from Vamma to the net before Sarp waterfall.

‘Sounds logical – apart from one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You’re talking as if Faremo was killed first. But he had water in his lungs. He drowned. If it was murder, and the murder was not premeditated, Faremo may have ended up in the river as a result of a row, a fight, and that is the most likely scenario. So most of the investigation will be taken up with searching for someone with a score to settle with Faremo.’

Frank Frølich pretended he hadn’t heard the veiled reference to himself and said: ‘There’s a lot of footwork in a case like this. Are you going to go around asking questions?’

‘I told you the Jonny Faremo case is in the hands of Kripos. Didn’ t I?’

‘I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to them. A young lad – Lystad.’

‘He’s good.’

‘What conclusion did he come to – murder or accident?’

‘No idea.’ Gunnarstranda took the cigarette out of his mouth and stared at it grimly. ‘Do you know that this mess between you and the Faremo woman has made me smoke more than I should?’

‘So, what are you doing here?’

‘It’s Sunday,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘I’m free.’

Frølich grinned. ‘And you can stand there and threaten to report me? It’s not in your jurisdiction.’

‘Anyway, it’s not a good idea for you to wander around asking people questions. It’s better if you ring me. I’m always kept up to date.’

‘The area of interest is a stretch of river about a kilometre in length,’ Frølich said, unruffled. ‘And Faremo is certain to have come here by car. If he didn’t fall off the promontory over there, Faremo or the murderer must have taken the right-hand turning just before Askim. On my map there are two narrow gravelled paths or cart tracks leading to the river. And I’ll give you odds of nine to one that there are witnesses. At any rate, someone must have noticed the car.’

They ambled slowly back. Gunnarstranda cleared his throat and said: ‘As a matter of form, Frølich…’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you putting in a report, perhaps? Describing the last few days, what you’ve done and who can confirm it, etc?’

‘So I haven’t been cleared of suspicion of murder?’

‘Which murder?’

They looked each other in the eye. Frølich had never been able to read what went on in the other man’s head. And he didn’t want to try now, either.

‘Strange business, this, Frølich. There’s only a tip-off connecting Jonny Faremo to the murder of the security man in Loenga, and let’s be honest, that tip-off isn’t worth a lot.’

Frølich squinted up at the sky. The day wasn’t many hours old, yet the sun had already set up a flamboyant farewell spectacle behind the mountain ridge. Vermilion tongues of cloud licked between ochre-yellow flames above the azure-blue aura over the trees. He asked: ‘How little is the tip-off actually worth?’

Gunnarstranda took his time to answer. ‘Private initiatives from you are likely to be misunderstood. If you don’t take it easy, you’ll be suspended.’

‘Tell me about the tip-off,’ Frølich persisted obstinately.

‘A woman, twenty-nine years old, a freelance model who gets most of her jobs working as a waitress in a so-called Go-Go bar.’

‘Prostitute?’

‘Doubt it. She calls herself a model and appears in Aftenposten in lingerie adverts and that sort of thing. On top of that, she’s the girlfriend of one of the boys in the gang we banged up.’

‘Whose girlfriend?’

Gunnarstranda hesitated.

‘Which one of them?’ Frølich repeated.

‘Jonny Faremo.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Forget it, Frølich.’

‘The only thing I’m interested in is her name. It’s ridiculous that you won’t tell me.’

‘Merethe Sandmo.’

‘Is she a suspect?’

‘No idea. This case is being dealt with by Kripos, not me.’

‘Why would Faremo’s woman blow the whistle on him?’

‘No idea. But the relationship must have been stormy. The tip-off reeks of revenge, which makes her statement worth very little. It wouldn’t take much to break the link between these boys and the murdered security man. If it does break, we’ll have to look elsewhere for someone with a score to settle with Faremo. And, obviously, one of those people is you.’

‘The woman whose name you just mentioned, who shopped them, she could have given him a shove from behind.’ Frølich stood admiring the sky.

‘By the way…’ he said finally.

‘By the way what?’

‘Do you think I’m a few bricks short of a load?’

‘I don’t think you’re a few bricks short of a load, no. But I don’t think anything about anyone in an investigation. And you know that very well.’

‘But that means you would bust me if there was enough evidence to support such a hypothesis?’

Gunnarstranda smiled mirthlessly. ‘Would you blame me?’

Frølich sighed. ‘Probably not.’

‘Why do you want me to talk to this academic, Reidun Vestli?’ Gunnarstranda said in a gentler tone.

‘Because, for some reason or other, Elisabeth Faremo has gone into hiding. Lying low. She must have panicked. At any rate, she packed a rucksack on the same day her brother and his pals were set free at the hearing. I haven’t a clue where she went or why she disappeared. She hasn’t turned up again now that her brother is dead and that’s a little strange, isn’t it? On top of that, Reidun Vestli went off sick at the same time as Elisabeth packed her rucksack and went on the run. And Reidun Vestli wasn’t at home when I rang her a few hours later. She was driving somewhere. When I did eventually get hold of her, I was left with the impression she knew where Elisabeth was. I somehow feel the two of them are complicit.’

‘Perhaps Elisabeth Faremo has run away from you?’

Now it was Frølich’s turn to sigh heavily. ‘Her brother’s dead. She’s still in hiding.’

The silence hung in the air between them. Gunnarstranda broke it: ‘Why would Elisabeth Faremo ally herself with Reidun Vestli?’

‘She and Elisabeth are, or have been, an item. This Reidun Vestli sees me as a masculine avenger from the heterosexual world. And the woman can’t see anything wrong with Elisabeth disappearing, despite the fact that Elisabeth has a key role in this murder case and her brother is dead. The woman cannot connect her relationship with reality. I feel she’s Elisabeth’s willing collaborator right now.’

‘What would your interest in this be – if I talk to Vestli?’

‘Mine?’ Frølich shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you can see, I’m in a bit of a cleft stick. Obviously, it would be fascinating to know what Reidun Vestli has to say when you flash your police badge and take a hard line with her.’

14

After Gunnarstranda had got into his car and driven off, Frank Frølich waited for a while and looked at the weather. He thought about physical intimacy on dark autumn evenings, when car head-lamps struggle to penetrate the mist, when frost quivers like a circular rainbow for a brief instant in the light of street lamps. He thought about knitted gloves and intertwined fingers.

He tore himself away, went back to his car and drove until he came to the afore-mentioned side road just before Askim. There he turned and followed the winding gravel road, searching for a tractor track leading to the river and imagining how natural it would have been to park. In the end, he gave up and pulled over onto the gravel verge just before a copse. On the right-hand side of the road, there was a large field with straw stubble in neat rows protruding through the hoar frost. The field ended in a dark hillside overlooking the river. He wandered across the field. The frost crunched beneath his shoes. He reached the trees and stopped in front of a birch. The branches were covered with tiny ice-thorns; each bough resembled a carefully designed decoration. He looked down and ran his shoe along a branch of a raspberry bush; the ice-thorns came off with a dry rasping sound. The ice covering the spruce trees transformed the mountain ridge into a matt light-green surface. Further into the wood, there was the same formation of ice on withered stems, dead fern leaves and cranberry heath. Every cranberry leaf was wreathed in small ball-shaped ice crystals. A birch caught by the sun had been forced to relinquish its ice costume, which lay like granular snow on the forest floor.

He went on, across the blueberry heath and moss blanket, down towards the river. Soon he could hear the water. The noise increased in volume and became an impenetrable roar. He walked out onto a crag and stared down into the foaming water. This had to be the horizontal waterfall Gunnarstranda had been talking about. The water in the ravine coiled into a green-grey spume, smashed against the mountainside with enormous power, was hurled back and thundered on. Further down, the heavy mass of water pitched around like the backbone of a ferocious animal, laying bare fierce, capricious back eddies, which flowed away and swept lazily along a river bank of rocks and protruding branches snagged on ice-encased, tangled roots. He could see that a body would not stand a chance in this inferno. He felt giddy and sat down on the roots of a fallen tree. The rock ledge, which was a protection against the ravages of the water, was covered with ice and seemed perilously smooth. Anyone could slip on this if they were unlucky. But that begged the question: what would anyone be doing on this icy river bank on a cold November day?

He sat on a tree trunk in the dusk thinking that Elisabeth would be sitting somewhere too, and if she wasn’t terribly busy, perhaps she was thinking about him. Once again Frølich took his mobile phone and called her number. The signal didn’t get through. No ring tone, nothing. Pathetic creature, he thought contemptuously about himself. It was beginning to get dark. He rose and went back to his car.

15

When Gunnarstranda drove into Oslo, he turned off as usual at the raised intersection known as the Traffic Machine, continued up to Bispelokket to cross the bridge over Grønland and then took Maridalsveien, heading for Tåsen. Waiting for green at the traffic lights in Hausmannsgate, he caught sight of a familiar figure in the doorway to Café Sara. Vidar Ballo was holding the door open for a young woman – he recognized her too: their tip-off. Merethe Sandmo.

Gunnarstranda pulled over, half onto the pavement. He sat watching them. They crossed Hausmannsgate and headed for Ankerbrua. Walking side by side. There was a peaceful quality about the couple: the suspect and the woman who had betrayed him. Gunnarstranda mused on the significance of Merethe Sandmo and Vidar Ballo looking like a pair of lovers on a shopping trip.

He got out of his car and followed them at a brisk pace towards Ankerbrua. They heard his rapid footsteps and stopped. Ballo put down the large travelling bag he had been carrying over his shoulder.

‘Going somewhere?’ the policeman asked, out of breath.

‘What do you want?’ Vidar Ballo said.

Gunnarstranda observed Merethe Sandmo. She was slightly taller than Ballo, slim, almost skinny, with unusually beautiful chestnut-brown hair reaching down to the middle of her back. Gunnarstranda had always wondered what made unappealing louts among the criminal fraternity attractive to a certain type of bimbo. Merethe Sandmo was a woman who tried to enhance her sensuality through her choice of clothes, heels and meticulously applied make-up – probably, he thought, to draw attention away from the frown lines around her mouth. The last time they had spoken he had promised her complete anonymity. He decided to keep his promise. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met,’ he said and offered his hand to the attractive woman. They held eye contact until she understood the pretence and took his hand.

‘Merethe,’ she said and curtseyed like a little girl.

‘What do you want?’ Ballo repeated brusquely.

‘To find out what you were doing last night and the night before that,’ Gunnarstranda said without taking his eyes off the woman. ‘What’s your other name, Merethe?’ he asked in a friendly tone.

‘Sandmo.’

‘Then we already know each other.’

Something died in Merethe Sandmo’s eyes.

Ballo sensed it immediately. ‘You two know each other?’

Gunnarstranda turned to Ballo and said: ‘Perhaps you were forgetting you were at the court hearing?’

‘Are you still going on about that business?’

‘A twenty-two-year-old student, doing part-time security work at the harbour to earn a bit on the side, was murdered. He’s sorely missed by his parents, a sister, a girlfriend and others. He was beaten to death with a baseball bat. Something tells me you have something to do with it. Perhaps you should take it easy?’

‘You seem to be the one who has forgotten what happened,’ Ballo answered with a measured tone. ‘The judge ruled that you were mistaken.’

He took the woman’s hand and said: ‘Shall we go?’

Gunnarstranda said: ‘You don’t know, then?’

Ballo straightened up. The woman let go of his hand and cast concerned glances at both of them.

Ballo, expectant: ‘Know what?’

‘Jonny Faremo is no longer with us.’

Merethe Sandmo blanched. She supported herself on the wall. Ballo stared at Gunnarstranda through blurred eyes. The silence lingered. Merethe Sandmo fidgeted until she found something to hold onto. She ended up playing with a lock of her long hair.

‘I said Jonny…’

‘We heard what you said!’

Gunnarstranda caught Merethe Sandmo’s hand and prevented her from falling. ‘May I offer my condolences?’ he said and when he saw how pale she was, went on: ‘Shall we find somewhere you can sit down for a few moments?’

Ballo gave him the sort of look he would have given a maggot. ‘You reckon you’re invulnerable working for the bloody police, don’t you?’ he mumbled.

Gunnarstranda turned away from the woman and focused on Ballo again. ‘And you aren’t curious enough to ask me how he died?’

‘You could do me the favour and tell me.’

‘There are a couple of formalities first. What were you doing the night before last?’

‘He was with me!’ It was the woman who answered. Ballo hadn’t changed expression or moved a muscle.

‘Have I misunderstood?’ Gunnarstranda asked hesitantly. ‘A little bird told me you and Jonny were an item?’

‘That was a long time ago,’ she stammered.

‘Who finished it?’ Gunnarstranda asked gently.

Merethe Sandmo started crying.

‘You’re a fucking gent, you are,’ Ballo muttered.

‘Answer the question,’ Gunnarstranda said to her before turning to face Ballo: ‘Where were you the night before last?’

‘You heard. I was with her.’

‘When?’

‘Night before last and last night.’

‘When did you go there and when did you leave?’

‘Merethe lives in Etterstad and I haven’t the faintest what time it was. I don’t look at my watch when I visit people.’

Gunnarstranda glanced over at the woman, who was nodding. ‘Do you remember when he arrived?’

‘Four o‘clock in the morning. He picked me up from work and then we drove back to my place.’ She added: ‘I finished with Jonny.’

‘Where do you work?’

The policeman already knew the answer. Nevertheless, the question was still worth asking so that the woman would realize he wouldn’t tell anyone it was her who had tipped them off about the murder of the security man. Merethe Sandmo did realize. She lowered her eyes as if embarrassed at playing this little comedy in front of her boyfriend. She said:

‘Bliss.’

‘The club, Bliss?’

She nodded again.

He looked across to Ballo. ‘Funny you couldn’t remember that.’

‘Lots of funny things in the world.’

‘But you drove there? Drove your own car when you picked… Merethe, you said your name was?’

The woman nodded, reassured.

Ballo said: ‘Yes.’

‘Do you remember where you’d been before picking Merethe up at this club?’

‘I was at home. I had stayed up and watched a couple of films.’

‘Anyone able to confirm that?’

‘No one comes to mind off the top of my head.’

‘But I’m sure you wouldn’t object to us asking the neighbours?’

‘I don’t. They might. The police have been around asking quite a lot of questions already.’

Gunnarstranda smiled. ‘Then they’ll be used to us. And you’ll be dealing with other people.’

‘Thank Old Nick for that.’

‘You’ll have to wait to thank him,’ Gunnarstranda said jovially. ‘At least until you know what you’re thanking him for.’

‘And what do you mean by that?’

‘There’s bound to be another round in court. I’m still investigating the murder of Arnfinn Haga, in case you’ve forgotten. The death of your good friend Jonny is thought to be suspicious at best and the Follo police will be investigating it with help from Kripos. We’ll be all over you, Ballo. The devil’s little messengers. Best wait for a while before you send us a thank-you letter.’

Ballo was keen to go.

‘You wanted to know how Jonny died, didn’t you?’

He had their attention.

‘I‘ll expect to see you tomorrow at the police station,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘You’re required to be there at nine sharp to confirm your statements. Then we’ll talk a bit more about Jonny.’

‘Come on,’ Vidar Ballo said to the woman and dragged her away.

Gunnarstranda stood watching them. Eventually, he turned and walked back to his car.

As he was getting in, his mobile phone rang.

It was Yttergjerde.

‘Jonny Faremo had a woman friend, didn’t he?’ Gunnarstranda asked.

‘Merethe Sandmo,’ Yttergjerde said.

‘That’s what I thought. Just checking,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘Now she’s Ballo’s woman friend.’

‘What?’

‘The king is dead; long live the king,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘Why did you ring?’

Yttergjerde said: ‘We’ve got a witness.’

‘To what?’

‘The murder of the security man – Arnfinn Haga.’

16

He was sitting in his armchair, staring apathetically at the chaos in his flat when there was a ring at the door. Frølich got up with some difficulty and shuffled into the hall. He pulled open the door with surprising energy.

Who had he been expecting? Elisabeth?

The person on the doormat was as far from this fantasy as you could imagine. Police Inspector Gunnarstranda was standing there with both hands in his coat pockets, regarding him with a look he had only seen his boss give suspected criminals.

‘You’ve never been here before,’ Frølich said and felt silly saying it.

Gunnarstranda shook his head.

‘And we’ve worked together for over ten years.’

‘Shall we chat inside or should I invite you out for a beer down town?’

‘Come in.’ For some unknown reason Frølich was embarrassed. He kicked a pair of worn shoes to the side and started tidying the table on their way in.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘Don’t do anything, and you don’t need to offer me anything either.’

‘I’ve only got beer.’

‘Then I’ll have a beer.’

Frølich hurried off into the kitchen. Damn. No clean glasses. He took a couple of tumblers from the dishwasher and rinsed them in tap water. ‘Why have you come?’ he shouted through the living-room door.

‘Because work has finished for today.’

Frølich carried in two bottles and two glasses.

‘And because those I have to work with are not very talkative.’ Gunnarstranda cleared the table, produced a map and spread it out. Large scale. The Glomma snaked its way across the map like a twist of blue wool. ‘I’ve had meetings with Kripos, amongst others, and I thought I could share some of the information with you – off the record.’

Frølich, who was filling the glasses, glanced up.

‘You can’t go too far wrong, then.’

‘That was a generous thought.’

The response and the intonation, both were ignored.

‘Faremo was found here – in Lake Vamma.’ The blue line on the map expanded into a bubble: the water behind the dam was called Lake Vamma. Gunnarstranda ran his finger tip across until it indicated a small square beside the river. ‘This is Oraug farm.’ His index finger stopped at the square beside it. ‘And this is Skjolden farm. Kripos have a witness who says there was a car parked right next to this farm. A car stops on the gravel road. Two people – in all probability the same two as were sitting in the car – had strolled down a tractor track to the river.’ Gunnarstranda’s finger moved to a red line on the map. ‘This tractor track. The two of them had been walking, no signs of an argument. It was afternoon, the sun was low – the witness was out taking photographs. You know, autumn afternoon, good time for colours. Red maple leaves, yellow-brown birch leaves, all that sort of thing. The man claims the air was almost orange and perfect for photos – so the sun must have been very low. Kripos reckons it must have been three in the afternoon, maybe half past. I remember the day myself. It was a beautiful sky with hazy clouds gleaning colour from the sunset.’

‘Two people – what gender?’

Gunnarstranda nodded. ‘Not clear. But we assume they were men.’

‘Did he take any pictures of them?’

‘No. But he says they didn’t seem like the usual walkers.’

‘What did he mean by that?’

‘No idea. He says they seemed rather too urban.’

‘And Jonny Faremo was one of the two?’

‘It might have been Faremo. One of them had been wearing a black cap. Faremo wore a black cap to the hearing.’

‘And he was wearing one when I met him in the car park a little later.’

‘And that’s the only sighting we have. The tractor track leads down to the river between Kykkelsrud and Vamma power stations. And the time could be about right. This is most probably the last time anyone, apart from the murderer, saw Jonny Faremo alive.’

‘When was this?’

‘The same afternoon Faremo walked out of court a free man.’

‘Two people walking, no arguing or fighting?’

‘Right.’

‘Did anyone see the car start up again and leave?’

‘No one, as yet.’

‘But the car?’

‘Gone.’

‘Why would two people go for a stroll in such a godforsaken place down by the Glomma on a frosty November day?’

‘Why do Norwegians go walking in general?’

‘To get some exercise, fight the flab…’

‘There’s one reason you haven’t mentioned.’

‘What?’

‘When my wife was alive and we went on walks, it was always to talk about things.’

‘Clearing the air – a dialogue, face to face, ending in a row and

‘That would be a hypothesis.’

‘Who did Faremo need to have a chat with – if it wasn’t the woman, Merethe Sandmo?’

‘Vidar Ballo. He’s the one occupying Merethe Sandmo’s bed now. But there’s one thing that suggests it wasn’t Ballo.’

‘What’s that?’

‘These three, Faremo, Rognstad and Ballo, are best friends and partners. They’ve done several jobs together and shared the loot without falling out. It’s nigh-on inconceivable that Jim Rognstad or Vidar Ballo would have any motive whatsoever to kill Faremo. The only thing we have is that Merethe Sandmo possibly swapped beds and bed-pals – from Jonny Faremo to Vidar Ballo.’

‘Possibly?’

‘Looks like that. But we don’t know for certain. On the other hand, these boys have swapped women before – without any spats. So, Merethe Sandmo’s pussy is not necessarily a motive here.’

‘Are you positive Merethe Sandmo and Vidar Ballo are a couple?’

‘If they aren’t, they certainly give the impression they are.’ Gunnarstranda took a swig of his beer.

‘Nevertheless. Merethe Sandmo – she’s the one who tipped us off about the Loenga murder, isn’t she? If Jonny Faremo was murdered, he was – statistically speaking – murdered by someone close to him. Here we have a woman who swaps beds. Next she rings the police. Finally, the first bed-pal is found dead.’

‘Of course you’ve got a point,’ Gunnarstranda said, putting down his glass.

‘At least it’s more likely than an accident.’

Gunnarstranda shook his head. ‘We’re dealing with a gang under pressure. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest the gang was going separate ways. However, one of the mysteries remains: why did Merethe turn snitch?’

They sit looking at each other.

Gunnarstranda pulled out his tobacco and his roll-up machine: ‘Vidar Ballo and Merethe Sandmo have flown.’

‘How do you know?’

Gunnarstranda picked at the superfluous flakes of tobacco on his roll-up. ‘I’ve had men out to bring them in. You see, I bumped into Ballo and Merethe Sandmo yesterday and instructed them to come in for questioning today. They didn’t show up.’

‘But could it be so obvious? Faremo on his own against Ballo and the ex?’

‘Maybe.’

‘It’s happened all the way through history. The French have their own term for it: cherchez la femme…’

Gunnarstranda pulled a sceptical face. ‘I would go for that hypothesis if I knew of other conflicts between Ballo and Faremo. With both of them in a fix, thanks to her tip-off, I don’t understand how the woman was intending to play them off against each other.’

‘Assuming she isn’t the object of attraction they’re both competing for. That’s more than enough material for conflict.’

Gunnarstranda reflected for a moment, then said: ‘Then there’s your role in all this. Someone will ask you if you were walking by the Glomma with Faremo.’

‘It wasn’t me.’

They looked each other in the eye.

‘Someone will ask you what you were doing during these hours. You’ve already admitted you were trying to tail Faremo – a few hours before the witness’s sighting.’

‘But I was driving my car to Blindern. I was searching for Reidun Vestli when this happened.’

‘Lystad told Kripos that was what you said, but he also said the timing was blurred. You might have been in Askim during daylight, then you drove like fuck to Blindern to give yourself an alibi.’

Frank Frølich sighed heavily. ‘That’s ridiculous of course.’

Gunnarstranda lit his roll-up. ‘Have you got an ashtray?’

Frank Frølich motioned with his head towards an empty peanut bowl on the table. ‘Use that.’ He straightened up and looked at the map again. He cleared his throat and said: ‘What make was the car parked in Skjoldenveien?’

‘We don’t know. Lystad says it was a saloon, silver-grey. Could be anything from a Saab to any Japanese car. But we know that Faremo had a silver-grey Saab.’

‘And I have a silver-grey Toyota Avensis – saloon.’

‘Exactly,’ Gunnarstranda said laconically. ‘And when we were up at Kykkelsrud power station you talked all the time about this road here.’ He tapped the map with his finger.

‘And, naturally, you said that to Lystad?’

‘Naturally.’

Frank Frølich gave a wry smile and said: ‘This Vrangfoss place is quite special. There’s a spit protruding into the river so the water has to flow around it in an extremely narrow channel.’

‘You seem to know the place well.’

‘I went there after we’d talked by the dam.’

‘OK.’

‘What’s the real reason you came here?’ Frølich suddenly asked.

Gunnarstranda raised his head, a crooked smile playing around his lips. He coughed. ‘A witness has turned up in the Loenga case.’

Frank Frølich raised his eyebrows interrogatively.

‘He didn’t come forward willingly. He’s one of the bums in the square by the station and was brought in because two undercover men had heard rumours that he knew something about the murder in Loenga,’ Gunnarstranda went on. ‘The man’s name is Steinar Astrup. On the night in question he was sleeping in cardboard boxes. What he says is very interesting. He says he was awoken by the sounds of someone breaking into the container nearby. There were three men.’

‘Very promising. Any results with the rogues’ gallery?’

‘They were all wearing balaclavas. Outside the wire fence there was a car, a BMW estate. The three men had started to cram the loot into black plastic sacks. Then they ran to the fence and threw over the sacks. And now get this: the witness maintains a fourth person was sitting behind the wheel of the car. This person had left the driver’s seat and lifted the sacks into the boot of the car twice. That means the men ran over to the fence twice. But suddenly the three inside the perimeter hid behind a pile of pallets. Because the security man, Arnfinn Haga, drew up in his little Ford. He slowed down as he passed the BMW even though the two cars were on opposite sides of the fence. The Ford stopped, then reversed. The guard got out of the car with a powerful torch and shone it through the fence at the person sitting in the BMW on the other side. But then something even stranger happened.’ Gunnarstranda paused for effect before continuing.

‘The person behind the steering wheel in the BMW got out – hands in the air.’

‘Hands in the air? These guards aren’t armed, are they? The car was on the other side of the fence and the man could have just driven off.’

‘I haven’t finished. Though you’ve got a point. According to Astrup, the guard asked the person what they were doing. Then there was a bang.’

‘Bang?’

‘Yes, one of the men wearing a balaclava had charged out and smacked the guard over the head with a baseball bat.’

‘And then?’

‘What he says about the baseball bat is important. It means the witness is telling the truth. No one knows about the murder weapon – except for trusted members of the force.’

‘And he talks about four people. That suggests we might be barking up the wrong tree.’

Gunnarstranda shook his head. ‘Then the three of them climbed over the fence and jumped into the BMW, which shot off,’ he concluded.

‘Four people?’

Silence settled over the room. Frølich could hear ticking. It was Gunnarstranda’s Swatch. He coughed. ‘What do you make of that?’

‘Not sure,’ Gunnarstranda murmured. ‘Either it was those four: Faremo, Rognstad and Ballo plus an unknown fourth man who committed the robbery and murder – or the whole line of enquiry involving Faremo, Rognstad and Ballo is simply a wild goose chase.’

‘What about if the three were using a driver for this particular job?’

‘A container at the harbour? There’s no reason for the three of them to recruit a fourth man for this job. The trio are well known for sticking together, for not taking on anyone else.’

‘When were they arrested?’

‘Ballo and Faremo were picked up at the Faremo flat just before five in the morning. Rognstad was collared outside the Hell’s Angels clubhouse in Alnabru. In their statement they said all three of them had been playing poker in Jonny and Elisabeth Faremo’s flat, accompanied by Elisabeth from two o‘clock onwards until they were arrested. And the clincher for the judge was that Elisabeth Faremo was in the flat when the police arrived.’

‘What about Rognstad?’

‘His explanation was that he left the flat ten minutes before the arrests. He went on his motorbike to Alnabru and that matches witnesses’ testimonies in Alnabru.’

‘No one saw them arrive during the night?’

Gunnarstranda shook his head.

‘What about the car, the BMW?’

‘A stolen BMW, which might have been the car used in the robbery, was found in Sæther the day after. There had been an attempt to set it alight.’

‘What’s your take on this then?’

‘The only thing connecting these three men to the murder of Arnfinn Haga is Merethe Sandmo’s tip-off. If Sandmo and Ballo are lovers, the chances are she’ll withdraw her statement and then we’ll have nothing.’

‘But what do you think? Did these three kill the guard?’

Gunnarstranda stood up. ‘Right now I don’t believe anything.’ He went towards the door. ‘What bothers me is another mystery,’ he mumbled.

‘What’s that?’

‘If four men broke into the container that night, why did Merethe Sandmo only mention three names?’

Frank Frølich shrugged his shoulders.

‘You agree it’s a little odd?’

‘Yes.’

‘There are three possibilities. Either she didn’t know about the fourth man or she’s keeping stumm about him or the tip-off was a fabrication.’

‘Maybe Astrup is pulling a fast one? And there were only three men?’

‘Doubt it. His statement clarifies the course of events, gives a motive for the murder and the explanation fits in with the burned rubber on the road outside the fence.’

‘So there were four men.’

Gunnarstranda nodded. ‘If you succeed in finding her – Elisabeth Faremo – try to coax a couple of relevant names out of her.’

‘Belonging to whom?’

‘The fourth robber.’

17

Inspector Gunnarstranda drove along Drammensveien and turned off at Lysaker. He was going to see Reidun Vestli and wasn’t happy about it. Why was he going? he wondered. Was it to do Frølich a favour? No. Even though he was aware of the value of Frølich’s instincts. The problem was that initiatives to do with Reidun Vestli didn’t fall within the jurisdiction of his investigation.

That was why he had decided to justify this initiative by telling himself it was important to establish Elisabeth Faremo’s trustworthiness. Reidun Vestli might be able to give them more information so that they could assess the defence’s main witness. He parked alongside a red picket fence and strolled up the drive to her house. It was cold. The sun, almost colourless and cold, shimmered between two roofs covered with hoar frost. He stopped in front of the brown teak door with the lion’s-head door knocker and reflected for a moment before he rang. Nothing happened. There wasn’t a sound to be heard. He grabbed the handle in the lion’s jaws, brought it down hard and discovered that the front door was unlocked and ajar. He listened. There was a small bang, like something, an object, falling onto the floor. He looked around him. Everywhere lifeless windows reflected back at him. The light breeze caused the front door to close with a clunk against the bolt. He knocked again. Again there was that thud.

Gunnarstranda made up his mind, pushed the door half open and shouted: ‘Hello!’

But then he hesitated. Tomatoes lay strewn across the floor. He stared. There was a bunch of grapes in a transparent plastic bag in front of the tomatoes. A banana had been trodden flat in the doorway to the next room; in front of the door a shattered bottle lying in a large pool of wine – some still in the carrier bag.

Should he go in?

‘Hey you. Man.’

Gunnarstranda turned round. A small boy in a ski suit with snot running from his nose peered up at him.

‘Are you looking for the old dear?’

‘The lady who lives here, yes.’

‘She’th gone in an ambulanth.’

Frølich had got into his car and was on his way down the Ryenberg slopes towards the city centre when Gunnarstranda rang.

‘I shouldn’t contact you like this – it might give the wrong signals,’ Gunnarstranda said.

‘Didn’t know you were a moralist,’ Frølich said, his eyes peeled for a place to stop.

‘It’s my job to moralize. What kind of cop would I be if I weren’t sceptical about people’s morality? Our profession, Frølich, is based on the same authority as speed cameras at the side of the road: if we don’t see people doing something wrong we think they’re doing something wrong anyway.’

It occurred to Frølich that the man was being unusually garrulous. He pulled into the first bus lay-by and stopped so that he could speak. He didn’t know where this corny line about speed cameras was going, so he replied: ‘I don’t agree. It’s unethical to pre-suppose as yet uncommitted breaches of the law. Speed cameras are an entirely different matter. After all, they prevent traffic accidents.’

‘Brilliant, Frølich. You’ve seen through the state’s legal rhetoric. They call installing speed cameras a precautionary measure. As long as it’s done under this label, it doesn’t make any difference if the photograph is used as evidence in the consequent prosecution. You and I and the rest of the civil servants are paid for doubting the nation’s morality. But that isn’t my main purpose in ringing.’

‘That’s what I suspected.’

‘I’m wondering about the real reason why you wanted me to contact Reidun Vestli.’

‘I told you.’

‘But I don’t exactly buy it.’

‘Better tell me what’s happened,’ Frølich said wearily.

‘The lady may not survive.’

A couple of hours later he found somewhere to park in Skovveien. He crossed Bygdøy allé and continued towards the Norsk Hydro buildings and the Hydro Park. When Frank Frølich had been small, he had visited his uncle here; he had worked in the purchasing department of Norsk Hydro.

The security men in reception seemed to be bored. They were throwing playful punches at each other until he knocked on the plastic window. He asked to see Langås. The older of the two men picked up the telephone and called. The younger man hid behind a tabloid, Verdens Gang. The guard on the telephone cupped the receiver with his hand and asked who he should say was there. Frank Frølich introduced himself. The man held his hand over the receiver again. ‘Langås says he isn’t familiar with the name.’

Frank Frølich said: ‘Tell him I want to meet now. I’d much rather discuss things with him personally than with you.’

Shortly afterwards the entrance gate flashed green. Frølich went in and crossed to the lift. The lift door opened and he looked straight into the face of a man in his fifties. He had a central parting in long grey hair tied into a ponytail at the back. His beard was clipped short, and a conspicuous crown in his top row of teeth lent charm to a crooked smile. The man’s ex-hippie image combined with an expensive suit. Frølich, who could feel his prejudices rising, immediately took against him.

‘You wanted to talk to me?’

Frank Frølich introduced himself.

‘So what’s this about? I have a tough agenda and not very much time to spare.’

‘It’s about your ex-wife, Reidun Vestli.’

‘And who are you?’

‘I’m a policeman, on leave.’

They faced each other for a few seconds without speaking. ‘All right,’ Langås said finally. ‘I’ll look for a free room.’

Frølich trailed Langås down the corridor, passing office doors and a room with a flashing photocopier. A man and a woman were talking in a glass cage, both fidgeting with their paper cups.

Langås showed the way to a small room where they sat down on either side of a neglected, withered potted plant in the middle of a table.

Frølich went straight to the point. ‘She’s in hospital,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘She was attacked in her own house.’

‘I know that too.’

‘I have reason to believe the attack is connected with a case I’m working on.’

‘While you’re on leave?’

Frølich didn’t answer. They sat weighing each other up. Langås tilted his head. Not in any ironic way, more an appraisal.

Frank Frølich broke the silence: ‘The attack is being investigated by others. I have reason to believe that…’

‘Actually, I have nothing to say,’ Langås interrupted. ‘The policeman who rang me about Reidun indicated that there had been a break-in. I can tell you what I told him: Reidun and I’ve been divorced for years. I know as much about her daily routine as I know about our TUC chairman’s next-door neighbour.’

‘Although she’s named you as her closest relative.’

‘The word relative is a technical term on this occasion. And I didn’t ask for this role. It is Reidun’s choice, which I respect but fail to understand.’

‘So you and Reidun do talk now and then?’

‘Now and then sounds more frequent than is the case with us. But listen, Reidun and I…’

‘Has she ever mentioned the name Elisabeth Faremo?’ Frølich broke in.

‘Not that I can remember. But listen to me. I don’t want to be involved in your private matters, especially not via my ex-wife.’

‘Have you seen this woman?’

Frølich pushed a photograph of Elisabeth Faremo across the table.

Langås craned his head to look, wordless.

‘I take your silence to mean that you’ve seen this woman before.’

Langås nodded.

‘Where and when?’

‘At Easter. She went to the weekend chalet with Reidun.’

‘Where’s the chalet?’

‘In Valdres, Vestre Slidre.’

Frølich held back in the hope that he would be more forthcoming. Langås leaned forwards and said: ‘Is this your woman? Did she leave you for Reidun? Are you jealous? How am I to know it wasn’t you who broke in and beat her up?’

‘It wasn’t me. But yes, I have occasionally been jealous of your ex-wife. She was having a relationship with Elisabeth at the same time as I was. That isn’t why I came here though. The fact is I’m fond of this woman and have reason to believe she’s in serious trouble. For that reason she has gone to ground. I think the serious trouble has something to do with your ex-wife being taken to Ullevål hospital.’

Langås rolled his wrist and squinted at his watch – a macho job: classic diver watch meets James Bond.

Frølich pointed to the photograph. ‘My motive for talking to you is to find this woman, and help her out of her predicament. I’ve tried to talk to your ex-wife. Other policemen have also tried. She refuses to answer any questions. That means that your ex may also have got caught up in the mess. I’m only asking you to…’

‘I have to go,’ Langås said. ‘Whatever Reidun is caught up in, it has nothing to do with me. I’m happily married, Frølich. And I’ll be quite open with you. In fact, one of the reasons we got divorced when we did was Reidun’s predilections. We married too young. We grew apart, intellectually and… well… in other areas. That meant that Reidun and I have almost nothing in common, not even children. And we were miles apart when we divided all our possessions. In fact, one of the things at the time that created bad blood between us was the chalet I was talking about. It’s been in my family for two generations and was built by my grandfather. But she was downright dishonest and grabbed it when we got divorced. I was very depressed at that point and incapable of standing up for myself. For sentimental reasons, I’ve bought another chalet not so far from the one she cheated me out of. This is where I most often meet her. We occasionally bump into each other when we go skiing at Easter.’ He tapped a finger on Elisabeth Faremo’s picture. ‘I saw this woman when I was out skiing. They were resting alongside the piste on a slope and I chatted to them for maybe three minutes perhaps, maybe five – to be polite. Not long enough to ask her name. I assumed she was having problems because she was young, probably half Reidun’s age. That’s all I know, all I can say. If you would excuse me now?’ He stood up, flipped open the clasp of his fancy watch and closed it again, like a secondary schoolteacher rattling his keys.

‘Thank you,’ Frølich said, realizing why Langås was fidgeting with his watch: he wanted to avoid shaking hands.

18

She was ensconced in a chair by the window. Staring out. Her back appeared narrow and lonely in the white dressing gown. Her brown hair was brushed. In the window Gunnarstranda saw his own reflection – and the profile of her face.

He stood like that without saying anything.

‘I know who you are,’ she said. The voice was quiet and concentrated.

He met her eyes in the transparent mirror. ‘May I buy you a cup of coffee?’ he asked and added: ‘If you’re strong enough to go down to the café.’

Finally, she turned round. ‘Do you think this face is fit for a café?’

He didn’t answer.

‘What do you want?’ She was forced to talk out of the corner of her mouth. The skin around her eyes was covered with red and blue contusions.

‘I wanted to know how you were. It looked pretty bad… in your house,’ he hastened to add. ‘Can you remember any of what happened?’

‘I remember the ambulance. Just a vague recollection.’

‘Have you any idea how much time passed between the ambulance coming and…?’

‘No.’

Gunnarstranda involuntarily put out a hand as she stood up. He wanted to support her, but she rejected his approach and hobbled off towards one of the low coffee tables by the wall. He sat down at the other side.

‘It looks worse than it is,’ she said.

‘Did you see him?’

The question disconcerted her for a second. She lowered her gaze.

He waited.

‘Who?’ she asked finally.

‘I won’t force you to answer. Instead, I’ll say how I interpret your silence and your attitude. Either you saw your attacker and you’re frightened of reprisals if you describe him to me or you saw him but you don’t wish to see him punished.’

She was silent.

A nurse in a white uniform appeared at the door. She came into the room and asked if everything was all right.

Gunnarstranda gestured towards Reidun Vestli. ‘You’ll have to ask her.’

Reidun Vestli regarded the nurse with a distant look. ‘Yes, everything’s fine. Could I have something to drink, though?’

They sat in silence watching the nurse go to the unit in the corner, take out a bottle of mineral water, thoroughly rinse a glass in cold water and then return with light steps. She handed a glass with a straw to Reidun Vestli. They watched the nurse cross the room and leave.

‘How did he get in?’

‘Through the door. How else?’

‘He rang the doorbell?’

She was silent.

‘Or was he waiting for you when you came back from shopping?’

She was still silent.

‘Do you want to report him?’

She shook her head slowly.

‘Why not?’

No reaction.

Gunnarstranda leaned forwards. ‘Who hit you?’ he asked doggedly.

Reidun Vestli didn’t answer.

‘Can you describe the person?’

She put down her glass on the table. She made rings with the bottom of the glass. The silence persisted. A large clock on the wall clicked as the minute hand moved on.

‘I think,’ Gunnarstranda said finally, ‘that the person who did this to you is extremely desperate. If you don’t wish to say who he is, or describe him, I’d like you to tell me what he wanted – apart from causing you injury. It’s imperative that we have this man under lock and key, imperative for us, for you and particularly for Elisabeth Faremo.’

The name threw a switch in Reidun Vestli’s consciousness. She slowly raised her head; her eyes were focused on something far away. ‘I want you to go,’ she said.

Gunnarstranda produced a photograph of Vidar Ballo. ‘Was this the man who gave you the beating?’

Reidun Vestli looked at the picture without saying a word.

Gunnarstranda took out another picture. This time it was Jim Rognstad, a prison photograph, a front and a profile.

Reidun Vestli was quiet.

Gunnarstranda showed her a photograph of Frølich.

No discernible twitch on Reidun Vestli’s face.

The policeman pulled out a newspaper cutting about her ex-husband – Langås the investor.

No reaction this time, either.

‘Anyone else?’ the policeman asked softly.

Reidun Vestli peered up.

Gunnarstranda leaned back in the chair and said: ‘Was it someone you didn’t see a photo of?’

Reidun shouted in a hoarse voice: ‘Nurse, sister, hello! I can’t take any more.’

Gunnarstranda stood up. ‘Just one minor thing before I go,’ he said before putting back the pictures in his inside jacket pocket. ‘You and your husband both had an interest in a chalet in Valdres, but who is actually the owner?’

The door opened. A nurse came in. ‘I’m going now,’ Gunnarstranda said to reassure her.

‘Wait!’ Reidun Vestli looked at him with a troubled expression on her face.

The nurse left, closing the door behind her.

Reidun Vestli was breathing heavily. ‘Why do you want to know?’

Gunnarstranda thought this over. Eventually he said: ‘For several reasons actually, but let’s start with the insurance premium. I’m wondering who gets the payout if anything should happen – something unforeseen.’

‘What are you trying to say?’ she whispered.

‘You’re going to be discharged today, aren’t you?’ Gunnarstranda asked. ‘Shall I drive you home so we can talk about it?’

She nodded slowly.

‘We can call the nurse then,’ Gunnarstranda said.

19

When Gunnarstranda came into the office, he just managed to nod to Yttergjerde and wrestle off his coat before the telephone began to ring. He picked up the receiver and barked into it as usual: ‘Please be brief.’

‘Frølich here.’

‘Good morning. Up early and no weeping?’

‘I talked to Langås yesterday, Reidun Vestli’s ex-husband.’

‘You’re not letting go, then?’

‘He said something about a chalet. Elisabeth had stayed with Reidun Vestli in a chalet in Valdres.’

‘So?’

‘I thought I was supposed to play with an open hand, as you requested. I intend to go there now and find out whether Elisabeth is hiding in the chalet. She might be. I think…’

‘I know about the chalet,’ Gunnarstranda said, immediately regretting his interruption. The line went quiet and he knew he would have to bring the silence to an end. He said: ‘It was in Vestre Slidre.’

‘It was?’

‘It burned down a few days ago.’

‘Burned?’

‘I happened to be in the area by chance.’

‘And which chance was that?’

Gunnarstranda stretched back in his chair. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and stuck it between his lips. He was silent.

‘Hello,’ Frølich yelled impatiently. ‘Are you there?’

‘Frank Frølich, have you got a chair to hand?’

‘Out with it! Tell me!’

‘Perhaps you’d better sit down. I received a report yesterday, addressed to the Institute of Forensic Medicine, and I wouldn’t have taken any notice, had it not been for the land registry document. A property burned to the ground, a chalet belonging to Reidun Vestli. The Nord-Aural police report talks about finding long bones in the ashes of the chalet.’

Silence again.

‘Long bones, Frølich. Do you know what that means?’

‘It doesn’t have to be her.’

‘Of course not.’

Silence again.

‘But Reidun Vestli’s chalet burned down a few days ago. What is special about this is that someone was in the chalet at the time of the fire. If Reidun Vestli hadn’t lent the chalet to Elisabeth Faremo, it might have been a thief who broke in, went to sleep with a fag in his mouth and caused the fire. But that’s not what we thought, is it? We both thought there was a chance she might have let Elisabeth use the chalet, didn’t we?’

Frølich’s voice, clearly strained: ‘How are you going to approach this case?’

‘Standard procedure. Look for DNA to establish the identity of the remains.’

‘How?’

‘We’ve been to the Faremo flat.’

‘Find anything?’

‘A hairbrush. On her bed. I’ve requested a DNA profile and I’ll match it with that of the bones in the chalet.’

This time there was a longer pause before Frølich’s question: ‘When are you expecting an answer?’

‘Any time now.’

After Gunnarstranda had put down the receiver he sat looking glumly at the telephone. Yttergjerde turned to him. ‘How did he take it?’

Gunnarstranda lounged back and said: ‘How do you think he took it?’

20

That night Frank Frølich didn’t sleep. The duvet was drenched with sweat, as if he’d had a fever. When he tried to get out of bed, his legs almost gave way. His head was buzzing. He was thinking: I have to go there, have to find the chalet. He had no idea where it was, no idea where he should start searching. Yet he couldn’t just lie there doing nothing.

He had to find out where the chalet was. There was only one person he could ask.

So he got dressed and left the house. It was freezing, although he didn’t feel the cold. The ice on the car windscreen was as hard as the road surface. He found a scraper, but it had no purchase. He banged on the ice with his fist, hammered away, but that didn’t help. In no time at all he was out of breath and tired, to no effect. He got into the car, started it up and put the defroster on full. He waited apathetically behind the wheel until the ice had melted. Then he drove off. He went through the city to Vækerø and took a right turning into Vækerøveien.

He parked alongside one of the many picket fences. Oslo West lay in the dark, apart from the odd lamp posts casting yellow-grey cones of light between the terraced houses. After getting out of his car, he went over to Reidun Vestli’s house. It was night, but he couldn’t care less. He regarded his hands for a few seconds. They were shaking. Would it be right or wrong to talk to her now? He had no idea and continued on his way, passing a couple of cars with iced-up windows. Shortly afterwards he banged the door knocker. Nothing happened. He listened, but couldn’t hear any sounds inside. Went back down the steps and walked slowly around the house. The night frost had scattered crystals of ice over the soil in the flower beds. He retreated and stood back a few metres, studying the house. It was the last in the row. He walked back onto the frozen lawn, leaving clear footprints in the hoar frost. He went to the veranda – it was poorly maintained, a kind of decking made with pressure-impregnated wood. The railing had been put together with stained slats which were going rotten. A couple of withered potted plants had been shoved into the corner. In the centre of the veranda there was a green pot half full of sand and old cigarette ends. Long bones in the ashes. He walked to the window and spied through a crack between the curtains. Came face to face with two white feet sticking up in the air. The nail of one big toe was varnished. He knocked on the door. No reaction. The feet didn’t move. He tried the veranda door. It was unlocked.

She was lying on her back with her mouth in a rigid grimace, her eyes staring up and behind her as if trying to catch eye contact with someone residing in the wall. She was dead. He didn’t need any doctor or forensic scientist to confirm that side of the matter. But he did feel tired all of a sudden. Who will mourn you? he thought and felt the nausea rising. Long bones in the ashes of the fire. Sleeping pills scattered around the upturned glass on the bedside table. Some had fallen on the floor; some were in the pool of vomit on the pillow. Cause of death: poisoning or suffocation as a result of vomit produced by the body’s reaction to poisoning. The odds? 1: 2. He guessed suffocation. However, the nausea he felt could not be attributed to her, to the stench of the dead body, the stench of dried vomit or the stench of stale air and old cigarettes. Nausea was his body’s reaction to this universe of death, of mutilation; the absence of grief, the absence of normality. Where was Elisabeth’s grief when she lost her brother? He sank back against the wall. Who will grieve over you? he thought again, contemplating the pitiful feet protruding from under the blanket. Your ex-husband? Who will presumably hate you more now that the chalet you quarrelled over has burned down.

He wanted to be sick. Long bones. He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. Breathed in deeply. Where was the suicide note? No envelope, no shaky writing on a piece of paper, no indication of any leave-taking in the immediate vicinity. He cast a glance at the computer. It was switched off. But Gunnarstranda was bound to seize it. Nausea was rising in him again, but this time it was a reaction to himself. His own pitiful condition. Long bones. Here he was, next to a corpse and fearing for the life of another. And what if it was Elisabeth who had died in the fire? Could that explain why Reidun Vestli would kill herself? He swallowed his queasiness, stood up, went out onto the veranda and gulped lungfuls of fresh air. Supporting himself on the rotten railing, he sat down on the edge of the veranda and phoned Gunnarstranda.