The Last Fix

by K. O. Dahl

'No, I took a taxi with some of the others after Katrine left.'

  'Who was that?'

  'The guy who lived there, Bjørn, and a gay man called Goggen with his partner - a guy whose name I don't remember - and a woman called Merethe Fossum.'

  'When was this?'

  'Around midnight.'

  'But you had just told your girlfriend that you didn't want to leave the party?'

  'Yes, but there was this group of people in party mood. Goggen, he's such a funny man, and Bjørn was all right.'

  'The lady?'

  'Yes, she was all right, too.'

  'Did you already know Merethe Fossum?'

  'No.'

  'You met her there for the first time? At the party?'

  'That's correct.'

  'Where did you go?'

  'To the city centre, to Smuget, a restaurant.'

  'The taxi dropped you off outside the restaurant?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then?'

  'We paid and went in.' - 'Everyone?'

  Eidesen thought about this. 'I think so. I mean three of us did. The two gay men wanted to go to another place. We three went into Smuget.'

  'You and the lady and Gerhardsen?' 'There was a bit of a queue outside. I stayed with Merethe. Gerhardsen went off on his own, but I would guess he paid and went in.'

  Gunnarstranda glanced at Frølich. 'Do you often go to restaurants where you have to pay to go in?'

  Frølich: 'Smuget is not a restaurant in its normal sense; it's more a club with dance floors and stages for live music…'

  Gunnarstranda turned back to Eidesen.

  'Did you see any of the others as you went in?'

  'I saw Merethe mostly.'

  'What did you do?'

  'We danced a little, listened to music, had a few beers… and…'

  'And Gerhardsen?'

  'I have no idea.'

  'You didn't see him in there?'

  'We were together in the queue, but after that…' Eidesen shook his head.

  'What time did you return home?'

  'I didn't look at my watch, but it was late. It was light and I was worried. Katrine was not here and we usually spent the weekend together - the nights. So I had somehow expected to find her here.'

  'Did you see any signs that suggested she had been here?' 'She may have been, but I don't think so.'

  'Why not?'

  Eidesen rolled his shoulders. 'How could she have been here? I mean no one had made any food, no one had touched anything. If she had been here I would have noticed.'

  'So you came back, but she wasn't here. What did you do then?'

  'I rang her place.'

  'In the middle of the night?'

  'Of course. It was crazy that she wasn't here, with her being unwell and all that.'

  Gunnarstranda got up and walked to the window. 'But suppose you had been ill,' he said. 'Suppose you had felt nauseous and had thrown up and hadn't felt like being with other people, wouldn't it have been natural to go back to your own place, go to bed and hope you woke up fit and well the next day?'

  'Yes, it would, but I would have left a message on the answer machine of the person waiting for me.'

  'And there weren't any messages on the machine?' Gunnarstranda lifted up a black object beside the white telephone on the window sill. 'On this?'

  'There wasn't a message, no.'

  'And she usually left you messages?'

  'Yes.'

  Gunnarstranda nodded. 'Did she pick up the phone when you called?'

  'No.'

  'What did you do?'

  'I went to sleep.'

  'Yes, and then?'

  'Well, I slept.'

  'I thought you ran into the forest and got scratched by thorns. Wasn't that what you said?'

  'No, that was last night. I couldn't sleep after I heard what had happened.'

  'But that night you slept?'

  'Yes, like a log.'

  'Even though she had vanished without a trace?'

  'She hadn't.'

  'Hadn't?'

  'I mean I wasn't aware she had vanished. I thought she was asleep.'

  'But she didn't answer the phone.'

  'No, but she had been ill and had gone home. I assumed she was sleeping.'

  Gunnarstranda nodded slowly. 'Can anyone confirm that you did not have the cuts on your face on Sunday?'

  Eidesen shrugged. Silent. 'Maybe.'

  'Name?' 'If you like I'll write down the names of the people I met on Sunday.'

  'Fine. You slept. How long did you sleep?'

  'Until nine, more or less.'

  'Did you try to get in contact with her?'

  'Yes, several times. On the phone.'

  'What were you thinking?'

  'How do you mean?'

  Gunnarstranda, irritated: 'Well, you were anxious. What were you thinking? What hypotheses had you formed in your mind after your girlfriend had stayed away all night and was ill?'

  'None.'

  'None?' the policeman gasped.

  Eidesen stood up and walked around the table. He was two heads taller than the short, lean policeman with the comb-over and the anthropoid jaw. 'I don't know how you are supposed to behave in cases like this,' he said in a tremulous voice.

  Frølich didn't move as his boss still seemed to be in control.

  Eidesen: 'I'm no expert at reactions and feelings, but I have just lost a person of whom I was fond and if you had any respect left in…'

  'Are you thinking these thoughts now or did you fear these things on that morning, too?' the small policeman barked, moving two steps closer to the athlete who involuntarily retreated. The policeman repeated, 'Did it occur to you on that morning that something might have happened to Katrine? That she might have been hurt?'

  'No.'

  'And why not?'

  'Because… ' Eidesen was quiet, thinking, it appeared.

  'Why?' Gunnarstranda barked.

  Eidesen sat down on the sofa with a deep sigh.

  Gunnarstranda sat down too, took out his packet of roll-ups and found a cigarette for nervous fingers to fidget with.

  Eidesen seemed drained, but said nothing.

  'Did you think she was with someone else?'

  Eidesen stared out of the window.

  'Come on,' Gunnarstranda said. 'Your girl stayed out all night. She may have been sick or unwell and you do nothing, not even check out the people you must have known were closest to her. You don't report her missing. Even when the news on Sunday is full of stories about a dead young woman found in Mastemyr, it doesn't ring a bell with you. It's so obvious why you didn't do anything. You must have thought she was with someone else, unless you killed her.'

  'What did you say?' Eidesen's reaction was perhaps divided between shock at the question and annoyance at Gunnarstranda's aggression.

  'I'm not saying anything,' the policeman explained, unruffled. 'I'm weighing the options. Either you were at ease that morning because you knew how things stood - that she was dead - or you were unconcerned because you had a good reason to assume nothing had happened. In which case, if you assumed everything was fine with Katrine, you must have assumed she was elsewhere. Both options are possible. You look as if you have been fighting with someone with claws…'

  'An accident,' Eidesen interrupted.

  'Indeed. And, off the top of your head, you cannot tell me the names of anyone who could confirm your assertions. But let us suppose you had nothing to do with the murder. Well, you say you were not concerned about Katrine that morning. So my question is: Where was she? Or to be more precise: Where did you think she was?'

  Eidesen stood there with his head hanging. He was considering the situation. That much was obvious. When he finally straightened up he did so with a worn, somewhat resigned expression on his face. 'Henning Kramer,' he mumbled.

  Frølich coughed and took notes.

  Gunnarstranda: 'Why did you think she was with the conscientious objector?'

  'She spent a lot of time
with him.'

  'A boyfriend?'

  'According to Katrine they were… ' Eidesen curled both index fingers,'… just good friends.'

  'But you didn't believe that?'

  'Are you starting again?' Eidesen looked tired.

  Gunnarstranda shook his head. 'I would like to know your opinion. What kind of relationship did the two of them have? It makes me especially curious when you assume she has spent the night with the man. What kind of person is Henning?'

  'What kind of person?' Eidesen shrugged. 'A skinny guy, long hair, bit of fluff on the end of his chin, grins a lot, obsessed by philosophy.'

  'Philosophy?'

  'Yes, philosophical questions, sitting and thinking, writing poems, likes cooking, obsessed with Buddhist tosh - every woman's dream guy.'

  'Can I take it that you neither like cooking, writing poems nor debating philosophical questions?'

  'You can take whatever you like. But I do not like and have never liked Henning Kramer. That's no secret.' v.

  'But you believe he and Katrine were having a relationship.'

  Eidesen took his time. 'Relationship,' he mumbled. 'I would guess they were very good friends, as they say. In any case Katrine claimed Henning was a friend and not a lover. Nevertheless, now and then I did wonder. They seemed to know each other so well.'

  'Explain.'

  'They were very intimate with each other, the way married people can be. They did have something private going between them.'

  'And you thought she was with Henning that night?'

  'Yes.'

  'You must have thought there was something going on between them.'

  'She claimed Henning was like a girlfriend.'

  'A girlfriend? Is he gay?'

  'Don't think so, but they were friends.'

  'She didn't have any girlfriends?'

  'No.'

  'None at all?'

  'None that I know of.'

  'Isn't that strange?'

  'Maybe, I didn't think about it. She may have had female friends, but I don't know of anyone close anyway.'

  Gunnarstranda looked down. 'All right,' he mumbled, then homed in on the young man's eyes again. 'Were you jealous of Henning?'

  'I have been.'

  'Were you that night?'

  'No.'

  'Why not?'

  'No idea.'

  'But you come home at night expecting to find your girlfriend there. She isn't and you conclude as a matter of course that she is with another man. Yet you are not jealous?'

  'I wasn't jealous.'

  'And I find that a little hard to believe!'

  'Fine,' snapped Eidesen. 'You want me to be jealous so what the hell does it matter? If you want, I can say I was. If that makes you feel better. Yes, I can say I was jealous. Are you happy now?'

  'No!'

  'And why not?' Eidesen stood up and screamed the word into the face of the policeman, who calmly said, 'Sit down.'

  Eidesen sat down and Gunnarstranda cleared his throat in a formal-sounding manner. 'I want to know what happened,' he said in a quiet voice. 'As I mentioned before, I don't bluff and I don't tell lies. I am a civil servant, that is all, and have nothing to gain by either bluffing or lying. I only want to do my job, which is to discover the truth. You have confronted me with two possible hypotheses. Either you were jealous or you were not jealous. Let's imagine you were jealous that night. She was found murdered two to three kilometres from here. Let's say she was on her way here that night. What are the consequences of this hypothesis? Suppose we say you met outside or that maybe you went out - restless because she was not here waiting for you. It was beginning to get light and you met her on the way here. Perhaps you asked where she had been. Perhaps she admitted what you suspected, that she had been with Kramer. Perhaps that started a row with a fatal conclusion. That fits the facts of the case very well - the killer must have been furious with the victim. If the victim had cheated on or deceived the killer you can understand the fury. Do you understand? Was that how it happened'

  'No,' Eidesen said in a resigned tone.

  'She could have come here,' the policeman continued. 'For all I know, you may have killed her here, in this chair.'

  Gunnarstranda sat watching Eidesen running two fingers down the sides of his nose. The silence persisted.

  Frølich could feel that he was hungry. As if on cue his stomach rumbled. Both Eidesen and Gunnarstranda glared at him. Frølich cleared his throat and changed sitting position.

  'Why did you let her leave the party so early on her own?' Gunnarstranda asked at length.

  'The party? She felt unwell and I was enjoying myself.'

  'But you were a stranger there, weren't you?'

  'No more of a stranger than Katrine was.'

  'A bit more of a stranger than Katrine was. She knew the hosts. You knew no one in the house.'

  'I was a guest like everyone else and it was a good party.'

  'Good in what way?'

  'There were some good stories told. They were good people.'

  'You left with, amongst others, this woman, Merethe Fossum. She's about your age, isn't she?'

  'A bit younger.' Eidesen's eyes were now those of someone who was concentrating on not looking away. v 'You had a good time. I mean it was just you two, wasn't it?'

  'It was packed with people, but we danced a little, chatted a little.'

  'We? So you were a couple?'

  'We were not a couple. I was with Katrine!'

  'But you and this Merethe got on well, had good chemistry even before Katrine left the party, didn't you?'

  'No.'

  'That wasn't why Katrine left, was it? Because you were coming on to other women?'

  'I did not come on to anyone.'

  'But you danced with her. And you admitted you had a row with Katrine.'

  'We didn't argue about things like that.'

  'Where does she live?'

  'Who?'

  'Merethe Fossum.'

  'In Gagleberg, on the bend at the start of the road up to Ryenberget, Vеlerenga.'

  'How do you know?'

  'We split the fare home. She got out there.'

  Gunnarstranda motioned to Frølich, who stood up and went to the door. But then he remembered something. 'One last thing,' Frølich said as his colleague unbuttoned his jacket and rolled himself a cigarette.

  Eidesen raised a weary head. 'Yes?'

  'We know the clothes she was wearing, but this was a party. What jewellery was she wearing?'

  'Jewellery…' Eidesen mused. 'A thin gold chain around her neck. Maybe a couple of bracelets. She had an incredible eye for bracelets. Always wore some round here.' He illustrated by holding his wrist. 'They jangled. She thought it was cool if they jangled.'

  'Any more?'

  'Nothing stands out.'

  'No rings?'

  'Yes, of course, she always wore a lot of gold.'

  'And in her ears?'

  'Yes. I bought them myself. A present. Two cannabis leaves - in gold, one for each ear.'

  'I thought she was clean.'

  'She was.'

  'But cannabis leaves…?'

  'Yes, what about it?'

  Frølich waved him away. 'Nothing,' he mumbled, waiting for Gunnarstranda, who shouldered his way past the much taller and stronger Ole Eidesen. 'You are instructed to attend the Institute of Forensics within the next twenty-four hours,' said Inspector Gunnarstranda, putting a cigarette in his mouth. 'There you need to give a DNA sample. You have twenty-four hours. Good evening.'

  * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  Discussions in the Rain

  The rain was attempting to wash away a small, narrow biro mark on Frølich’s left thumb. A raindrop struck the line about every third second. He hardly felt it; he was about as wet as it was possible to be. The material of his rain jacket was as stiff as cardboard, and the water trickled down his sleeves and dripped off both hands. The blue line contrasted with the summer-brown skin of his
hand.

  He went into a crouch and checked around the area of the trodden-down raspberry bushes. He examined the ground and tried to trample as little vegetation as possible. Whether the flattened edge of the ditch had been a crime scene or not was of less importance now as the pouring rain was washing away any clues there might have been. His green jacket hung down to his hips. On his legs he was wearing dark jeans and high green waders. He had tried to fold the stiff rain jacket at the bottom so that not too much rain would trickle down on to his thighs. But it was no use. Both his trouser legs were dark blue with the rain, and every time he moved he had the unpleasant sensation of his trousers sticking to his skin. His hood fell forwards like a helmet and obstructed his vision on both sides. Every time he turned his head, he had to pull back the hood with his right arm in order to be able to see anything apart from the inside material. Frølich stood up and headed for the other crime scene investigators.

  'I don't know,' he said.

  He didn't need to say any more. The others understood what he meant. Someone may have committed a murder in this place, but it could equally well have been deer moving around and trampling scrub and thicket.

  'No clothes anyway,' said Yttergjerde, the oldest policeman in the group, a bow-legged man with a powerful, almost barrel-shaped upper torso, long upper arms and a stooping posture.

  'Have you been on leave yet, Frankie?'

  Frank shook his head inside the hood.

  'You haven't been out to catch the great pike?'

  Frank, who knew of Yttergjerde's passion for pike fishing, said, as was the truth, 'I tend to concentrate on trout.'

  'Pike have never turned you on?'

  'No,' said Frølich, staring into the rain. 'Fly fishing is an art form all its own - finding out what's in the area, making up the right fly and holding on when you have a bite.'

  'Pikes are toughies,' said Yttergjerde. 'On Sunday I caught one weighing four kilos.'

  'I'm never allowed to go away at the weekends,' Frølich responded. 'My partner isn't at all interested in fishing.'

  'Four kilos,' Yttergjerde repeated. 'I had to kill it with a hammer axe, bang away at the head until it cracked, and afterwards I put the pike in a black bin bag at the bottom of the boat while I tried for a couple of hours to catch a few more. When I arrived home the missus wasn't in, so I put the pike in the utility sink and wrote a message to Mum to scrape it and make fishcakes for supper! That evening the missus came home and went looking for a knife. The pike flapped its tail and jumped into the air. Yup, it had been lying there, drying out and breathing air for half a day, but down on the floor it wriggled over towards my missus snapping its jaws like a hungry croc!'