by K. O. Dahl
Gunnarstranda smiled with one side of his mouth. 'That's one way of looking at it,' he conceded. 'But it's not necessarily a right way of looking at it. You don't know how she would have fared with her treatment elsewhere. You don't know if she would have succeeded just as well.'
'But can't you hear what I'm saying?' Annabeth almost screamed. 'Katrine had every chance to succeed here. We were the ones who cured her. We were the ones who laid the world at her feet!'
'It was while she was here that she was murdered,' Gunnarstranda interrupted with annoyance.
Annabeth shut her mouth and threw the hosepipe down on the baked-earth floor. They eyeballed each other in the silence that followed.
There was no point discussing investigative theory with this woman, the policeman thought. He had a feeling he knew what she was after. It wasn't the desire to save Katrine Bratterud that had driven this woman to keep her as a patient. It had been the chance to succeed that had driven her. That and the council subsidy that must have come with the girl. And in her hunt for success Annabeth had swallowed camels, or, to be more precise, she had shut her eyes to her own professional ethics. 'No one knows for the moment what happened that night,' he said in a milder tone. 'No one knows why Katrine had to be buried today. So we had better not make any allegations. Let us just state that you had a patient who perhaps should not have been treated here. Were there others apart from you who knew about your husband's previous… experiences with Katrine?'
'No.'
'How can you be so sure?'
'Because such rumours cannot be kept secret in a place like this.'
'Did you ever take up this matter with Katrine?'
'Never.'
'You never mentioned a thing about it?'
'No.'
'Did she ever take the matter up with you?'
Annabeth, eyes closed, shook her head. 'No, never.'
Never, mused Gunnarstranda. Katrine must have known she knew. And conversely, the certainty that her husband had exploited her patient's social needs must have coloured the atmosphere every single time Annabeth met Katrine. And the patient, on her side, must have felt it. Anything else would be inconceivable.
The water from the hose reached his shoes and ran down both sides of the flagstone path he was standing on. 'Shall we turn off the water?' he said, trudging back to the tap attached to the hosepipe. He turned it off, straightened his back and observed her. She had not moved from the spot. 'I know you don't like talking about this,' Gunnarstranda said. 'But I'm obliged to probe for motives. If for a moment we assume that Katrine was an unscrupulous woman one could imagine that this relationship - I mean the fact that your husband as chairman had received sexual favours from Katrine…' He paused for a few seconds when she closed both eyes. Then went on:'… we might imagine that this fact gave Katrine a hold over your husband. Would she have blackmailed your husband or tried to exploit this hold she had?'
'Never.'
'You seem very sure.'
Annabeth took off her gloves and strolled over to him. 'My good man, Katrine wanted to be cured. That was why I kept her as a patient. Katrine was perhaps the most motivated client I have ever met. Just the very idea of blackmailing Bjørn - that would never have occurred to her.'
'But what you're saying now you could be saying to cover up the fact that pressure was applied.'
'Why would I cover anything up if she had gone as far as blackmailing Bjørn?'
'Because blackmail would give Bjørn a motive for murdering her.'
'Ha,' Annabeth laughed haughtily. 'Now you're chasing shadows. Bjørn! Would Bjørn have killed Katrine?' She laughed again. 'Excuse me, but the thought is too ridiculous. Believe me, Gunnarstranda. Bjørn Gerhardsen can crunch numbers and he might sneak into some dingy place to vent his male sexuality. But other than that…? When we go fishing in Sorland in the summer it's me who has to kill the fish he catches. If there's a mouse in the trap in our mountain cabin, he can't even look at it. I have to clean up. The truth about Bjørn is that he's a good boy but as soft as marshmallow.'
Gunnarstranda didn't speak. He was thinking about what she had said while they were walking beside the potting tables and out into the fresh weather. Good boy, soft as marshmallow. She was demeaning her husband's masculinity.
They strolled by the vegetable plot towards the car park.
'Believe me, Gunnarstranda, your speculations are absurd. Katrine wanted to be rehabilitated. She chose us because we could help her.' v
The policeman stopped and looked into her eyes. 'Did you at any point leave the party you organized on that Saturday?'
She still had a faint smile on her face as she shook her head. 'Not for a minute. Bjørn left with Georg Beck and a few others. He's already told you, I understand. But he returned, as soft and affectionate as the little kitten he is when he's been away from Mummy for more than two hours.'
Gunnarstranda studied her for a while before asking, 'Do you remember what time it was when he left?'
'Around midnight. He came back alone a bit before four and helped me clear up.'
'Did anyone else leave the party in the course of the evening?'
'No, as a matter of fact they didn't. There was a sort of mass departure at half past two, but it was some time before everyone had been packed off happily in taxis. It took an hour, maybe more.'
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Stripper
The waiting room was packed with people. Frølich tried to find his bearings. An elderly man in a green buttoned-up parka and trousers that looked like pyjamas gave a hollow, gurgling cough. The policeman looked away. His gaze fell on another old man, grey and pale with thick stubble and greasy, unkempt hair. A boy was sitting on his mother's lap. An elderly woman sat beside them knitting. Beside her was another elderly woman wearing a headscarf. She had thick brown stockings on her legs and worn slippers on her feet. Frølich was reminded of Erik Haugom's reputation as a sexologist and for a brief instant wondered what sexual problems these patients were grappling with.
A woman dressed in white looked up from what she was doing. 'Please wait outside,' she said.
'Excuse me,' said the policeman.
'I asked if you would wait outside.'
'I have a question,' Frølich said politely.
'Then wait until it is your turn.' She marched around the counter, a figure of authority in white trousers and a white blouse. She took the policeman's arm and tried to escort him out. When he pulled his arm away, she pointed to a red light outside. 'It's red. Can you see that?' she asked in an annoyed tone. 'That's the colour that signifies stop on our traffic lights. The red man. That colour means stop here as well. When it's green you can come in - if it's your turn, provided you have booked an appointment. If you haven't, you can ring between eight and nine o'clock in the morning. Have you understood? Comprendo?'
Frølich forced a smile. 'Darling!' he cried. The woman was taken aback as he gently pushed her back through the door and closed it. He placed his police badge on the counter.
'What's that?' The young woman seemed resigned rather than irritated now. She clumped back around the counter in her white clogs. She picked up the telephone and punched in a number with the receiver under her chin. 'If you do not go of your own accord, we will have to get someone to throw you out,' she said, staring into space.
'My name is Frank Frølich. I have come to speak to Erik Haugom, the doctor here,' the policeman said.
'Wait your turn,' the woman said into space.
'We have tried to ring, but for some reason or other no one answers the phone. I have a suggestion to make,' Frølich said with calm. 'I suggest you knock on Haugom's door and ask him to set aside ten minutes. The alternative is that I call him in for questioning at the police station. He has a legal obligation to appear, which would mean his losing four hours, at least. You can put down the phone and ask him which he prefers. It's his choice - not mine.'
The woman closed her eyes and put do
wn the telephone. 'People are so bloody cheeky,' she said in a low mumble as she went into the room behind the counter.
Soon after she showed him the way through the same door. They walked through rooms smelling of medicine, rooms equipped with folding screens, recliners covered in paper towels and eye charts on the wall. A similar chart was hanging in Haugom's office.
Erik Haugom received him with an outstretched arm. A doctor with a ruddy complexion, the statutory white coat and a tuft of grey chest hair protruding at the top over the buttons. He ran his tongue round his teeth at the bottom of his mouth. His jaw resembled a filing cabinet drawer ©f. 'You must excuse our ladies,' he said. 'You know this is a clinic and some of the oddest fruitcakes can make an occasional appearance. Two months ago - Inger Marie, you've just met her, was on duty at the time - a man appeared out of nowhere in reception. It was impossible to get through to this person. Decent type, properly dressed, you know, suit and tie and so on. And he just stood there without moving. Without saying a single word. Quite the shop window dummy. What do you do? They all tried talking to him while he stood there rooted to the floor. I don't think he even blinked for twenty minutes. In the end the man started undressing. Can you imagine that? Without a qualm, one garment after the other, nicely folded over his arm. And there he was, standing in all his horrid nakedness, then he walked right out in the buff, through the waiting room, down the stairs and into the street. Can you imagine that? The world has not been the same since for Inger Marie. Take a seat,' he said, holding a chair out for the policeman. 'Your name's Frølich, isn't it? The poor woman managed to remember that anyway.'
'Mm,' Frølich said, taking a seat. 'I won't detain you for long. This is about the party at Annabeth s's place.'
Haugom sat down behind the desk and nodded.
'Did you also know Katrine Bratterud?' the policeman asked.
'Not very well.' Haugom smiled. It was a strained smile - his tongue was playing with his lower teeth - a sort of nervous twitch that had become fixed and for that reason would not melt away.
'Sigrid, my wife, talked about her,' the doctor went on as Frølich was silent. 'She talks a lot about her work. The way women do. Isn't that right? A woman's thing - talking about your job come what may? I have a friend who teaches at the high school. That is, we play bridge together - Sigrid and I with this couple. And the man, Mogren's his name, Mogren tells us about these nightmare colleagues of his, women who talk ad nauseam about their problems instead of doing their job. You're a policeman. I'm a doctor. How would it be if I talked about every bloody patient and every genital wart or gonorrhoea- infected penis or hypochondriac I meet on a daily basis, eh?'
'I am aware of the problem.'
'I should think you are. But I don't suppose it was our marital difficulties you wanted us to talk about?'
'So you didn't know Katrine Bratterud?'
'No… Yes, by sight. Attractive girl, breasts, long legs, attractive girl, wasn't she?' w
'My understanding is that you drove your wife to the party on the Saturday, and you picked her up later that night.'
'Indeed, that's correct. Wretched business this attractive girl getting murdered, isn't it!'
'When did you collect your wife?'
'Just after four o'clock in the morning.'
'That was very kind-hearted of you.'
'I'll tell you something, Frølich. I've done this job all through our marriage. I'm no modern man; I don't do anything in the kitchen and I don't darn my stockings. But I do what is expected of me as a husband. Which includes picking up Sigrid when she wants to come home.'
Frølich glanced up. What is expected of me as a husband, he thought. That was an ambitious objective. He looked down again.
'Did you sit up waiting for her to call?'
'Of course. I am her husband.'
The policeman took a deep breath. He could not quite come to terms with the transfixed grimace on Haugom's lips.
'How do you pass the time?' he asked.
'Here?'
'No, I mean while you're sitting up for your wife.'
'It's the sort of investment that pays dividends over time in a marriage,' the doctor said with a faint smile. 'In this field I can speak with a certain professional gravitas. There are many myths about the recipe for a successful relationship. The secret is the small investments that cost very little, for example patience and tolerance. Besides, I enjoy such moments. Night time is the best time, especially light summer nights. Just going for a walk, eh? The silence and the blue-grey light. Or sitting on the veranda and reading, smoking a good cigar. It takes over an hour; time slips away without your noticing. You should smoke cigars. I can see from your fingers you don't smoke much. Perhaps you belong to this hysterical generation that always has to do things right, stick needles in rather than take medicine, who think they can prevent cancer by eating wrinkled apples and unchewable black bread. Well, I don't know. Appearances can deceive. I'm sure you're a fine man, but you should smoke cigars. It gives your soul a more profound calm. Recommended by doctors, you might say. So that you don't have to suffer from an uneasy conscience.'
'When you arrived there,' Frølich asked, 'to pick up your wife, that is, were there many guests left?'
'None.'
'Just your wife?'
'Yes, she'd been helping to wash the ashtrays and clear away the bottles and so on.'
'Was Bjørn Gerhardsen there?'
'Yes, my understanding was that he had just returned from a little trip to town. Devil of a fellow. Goes to town and leaves his wife at home, eh? At another party, I wouldn't mind betting. He's a modern man, Gerhardsen is. But he knows how to enjoy the good things in life, even if he is modern.'
'Can you remember what the exact time was when you arrived?'
'Five minutes past four.'
'And did you have any idea of how long Gerhardsen had been there?'
'No, but it can't have been long.'
'Why do you say that?'
'I leaned on the bonnet of the car he had been driving, and the engine was still very hot.'
'Were they full of what had happened?'
'What had happened?'
'The business of Katrine's sickness during the evening.'
'I don't think so, no. It was the middle of the night after all. My goodness, they were as tired as hell, the three of them. It was already the day after.'
The policeman stood up. 'Thank you for taking the time to talk to me at such short notice,' he said. He went to the door, but turned as though he had remembered something.
'Yes?' Haugom said from his desk.
'Mm, I read your column now and then,' Frølich said after some hesitation.
'Which one?' Haugom asked, his chin in the air.
'Well, if only I knew,' Frølich said, lowering his eyes.
Haugom sent him an indulgent smile. 'You had a question perhaps?'
'It's gone from my head now,' Frølich said, grasping the door handle. 'I'll be in touch if I think of it.'
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Jewellery
Gunnarstranda was reading through Frølich’s report and smacked the sheet in annoyance. 'Is she stupid or what?' he said, looking across at Frølich who was sitting in the low armchair beneath the window. Frølich was weighing a green dart in his hand. He took aim and let his forearm rock backwards and forwards as if on a spring until he threw the dart at the board he had positioned between two box files on the shelf above his desk.
'She can't be,' Frølich answered from a different world. 'She has a job and an education.' He took another dart off the coffee table beside him.
Gunnarstranda looked up from the report with a grim expression on his face. 'She can be stupid even if she's educated.'
Frølich took aim again. But the dart missed and disappeared behind the box files. He swore.
'You're educated,' Gunnarstranda said caustically.
'Eh?'
'But you don't seem that brigh
t at this particular moment.' Gunnarstranda waved the papers in a fit of impatience.
Frølich got up from the armchair, drew a long breath and sighed. He crossed the room, sat at his own desk and pulled out the sliding keyboard on the shelf. He said, 'We know that either Merethe Fossum or Eidesen is lying. That much is obvious.'
Gunnarstranda nodded. He said, 'You and I put the squeeze on Eidesen that first night. He made up an unlikely banal story that left him without an alibi. If my memory is correct he claimed he went home expecting to find Katrine in his bed, but she wasn't there. Am I right?'
Frølich moved the mouse and found the file on the computer screen. He read, 'He said he came home between half past two and three.'
'And Katrine may still have been alive at that time,' Gunnarstranda said.
Frølich read: 'Eidesen said he rang Katrine but didn't get an answer.' Gunnarstranda nodded. 'And he went to bed. So he doesn't have an alibi…'
Frølich swung round on his chair. 'Whereas Merethe Fossum maintains she and Eidesen went back to her place and were in the same bed until late the next morning.'
'But why would Ole Eidesen lie his way out of a cast-iron alibi?'
'Well, to give a more appealing image of himself. After all, he was the dead girl's boyfriend, and it sounds a lot better if he was asleep in bed waiting for her while she was being killed. Better than saying he was in bed with another woman.'
'But if that's the case, he must have known we would see through a lie like that.'
'Of course,' Frølich persisted. 'But he was her boyfriend. He had no motive for bumping her off. And he has an alibi, but to avoid reproaches from others - remember Katrine was a popular girl - he waits before producing his alibi, Merethe Fossum. What will all her friends say to him letting Katrine go out into the night on her own, exposing her to all sorts of sexual offenders and predatory creatures, and bedding Merethe while Katrine was being murdered!'
Gunnarstranda: 'If Katrine's adventure with Henning Kramer made Eidesen jealous, he has a motive. Let's assume he was jealous. There are men who are suspicious of their girlfriends twenty-four hours a day. Let's assume he spied on her when she left the party and he saw her walking down the road, saw her getting into a rival's car… My goodness, there are many such murders committed every year in this country.'