The Last Fix

by K. O. Dahl

  Gunnarstranda stared dumbstruck at the vet with the cleaver. Yttergjerde was crouched down examining the corpse as though it concealed profound secrets about his life. It was impossible to find eye contact with anyone in the room. No one was at ease. They don't like my tone of voice, thought Gunnarstranda. They're afraid of what I might do. They think I'm going to crush this poor man. He's in shock. Take it easy, Gunnarstranda told himself. The man's in shock.

  There was a clunk as the man in the kitchen doorway dropped the cleaver. His hands were shaking; his jaw was quivering. He was obviously on the verge of a breakdown. The policeman, who was relieved that the man had dropped the cleaver, turned to the window and pointed to the weary, grey cactus leaning against the glass. 'Can you see the cactus?' he asked.

  'I don't understand what you mean,' the man in the doorway said, stroking his forehead, exhausted.

  'It's growing.'

  'So what?'

  'The window sill isn't growing.' 'Hm?'

  'You can't make wood grow again however much you water it.' v

  The veterinary doctor stared at the cactus in bewilderment. He spun round to face the body on the floor.

  'But he's my brother,' he cried.

  Gunnarstranda took his arm. He's about to snap, he thought, and looked into the man's eyes. 'May I offer my condolences?'

  'Don't you understand that I don't want to lose my brother?'

  'Stand still,' Gunnarstranda ordered as the man bent down for the cleaver. In a gentler tone he continued: 'I'm sure you're a good vet and a good researcher, and you've had lots of success with the rats you work with, but you must not forget that this body was a man once. Even if his heart did beat again after you opened his chest, you have to remember that blood has not circulated through his brain for a long time. He would have to lie in a respirator with brain damage until someone was kind enough to switch it off.'

  'You're right,' the man said quietly. 'I hadn't thought about that.'

  Gunnarstranda pointed to the cleaver on the floor. 'Where did you find it?'

  'What,' the man said, in a distant world.

  'Where did you find the cleaver?'

  'In the kitchen.'

  'So it belongs to the flat?'

  'Of course.'

  'And you're the brother?'

  'Yes.'

  The others in the room breathed out and began to move again. Gunnarstranda could feel their eyes on him. There was a body on the floor and he was standing with the dead man's brother in his arms. He could not question him here.

  Gunnarstranda looked around the flat. It was full of bookshelves up and down the walls. The room was attractive, decorated with taste. A few African masks and art posters hung from places where there was no shelving.

  'So this is your flat?' Gunnarstranda had another look around. His gaze fell on a small wood-carving of a horseman balancing precariously on the bookshelf. Just inside the door was a suitcase with a British Airways label still hanging from the handle and a bag of duty-free goods beside it. 'Been travelling?'

  The vet followed the policeman's gaze and nodded.

  'For long?'

  'Ten days or so.'

  'Quite a welcome home,' Frølich interjected.

  The vet slumped into a chair and stared into the distance with a blank expression on his face. 'I'm worn out,' he said, shaking his head dejectedly. 'I haven't slept for over a day. My body is riddled with jet lag. And I come here and find Henning hanging from the lighting fixture. It's too much. I can't cope.'

  'What did…?' Gunnarstranda started to say, but Frølich stopped him and hunkered down in front of the vet whose eyes were still glazed. 'You have our full sympathy,' Frølich said in a gentle tone. 'We understand that this must be a terrible strain, but we are nevertheless obliged to clear up a few matters, even though this is your flat. If you wouldn't mind coming with me, I'll book you a hotel room until tomorrow.'

  'This is my flat,' the man in the chair stated from faraway.

  'Of course it's your flat.'

  'So why don't you leave? Why can't I be alone?'

  'We have to take your dead brother with us,' Frølich said. 'And we have to let a few forensic technicians go through the flat to ascertain how this happened.'

  'But it's obvious how it happened.'

  'Herr Kramer,' Frølich insisted, taking the suitcase into the hall. 'Could you come with me, please?'

  Gunnarstranda watched through the window until they appeared in the street. Frølich, large and broad with a rolling gait; the other man grey, almost a smudge, with hair whirled up by the wind revealing a bald patch as they strolled towards the police car. With a little twitch of the mouth, Gunnarstranda involuntarily raised a hand and patted his comb- over.

  At that moment two ambulance men came in through the door. They were carrying a stretcher and a body bag. Gunnarstranda looked down at the deceased Henning Kramer.

  'We need some technical assistance here,' he said tersely. 'After that I'm off for the weekend.'

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Palace

  It was Friday afternoon and the summer traffic in Drammensveien was desperately slow. But as soon as Frølich turned off to take the old Lier hills route, the traffic eased. In Hurumlandet there were almost no other cars to be seen, especially after leaving the main road and taking the winding track linking the farms. Here and there the road went through a farmyard where an idle elkhound or a St Bernard lay with its head between its front paws, opening an indolent bloodshot eye to follow the car. Then he passed through an area with fields and meadows on either side. He slowed down as the road narrowed for a bridge over an old dyke and passed some mountain crags where some hardy fellow passing himself off as a farmer had released a few cows that either grazed between mounds of rock or waited with listless, hanging heads by a shelter made with round poles.

  Frank Frølich was never very sure of the way after the tarmac came to an end and the road entered the forest. The tyres rumbled and the stony track was dry - it hadn't rained for a few hours - as the dust was swirled upwards causing Frank to close all valves and vents. The sunshine cut through the foliage at the side of the road and still he was passing lines of green postboxes for outlying properties, or crossroads where the track split and a tractor's tyre marks or cattle trails led into the wild. Frank never remembered where he should stop; he wouldn't remember until he saw Gunnarstranda's red Bцlanz ride-on mower. If he could locate the mower he would have his bearings again. It was always like this, and every time he thought the way seemed longer than on the previous journey. He passed a small farmyard where graceful horses with shiny coats were strutting around a well-trodden paddock. He passed another farmyard where more graceful horses jerked nervously as the car went by. He drove past cabins with barred windows, past cabins with colourful postboxes, but he didn't slow down until he spotted a green rubbish skip for cabin owners. Five hundred metres up the mountainside he saw Gunnarstranda's mower parked higgledy-piggledy under some pine trees. He parked beside the mower, opened the boot and took out a sleeping bag, a parcel of meat for the barbecue, a six-pack and a bottle of Ballantine's whisky. He locked the car and ambled down the narrow path between the trees leading to Gunnarstranda's holy of holies: the cabin he called the Palace.

  He found his boss on the veranda. In a track suit. He looked like he had been rolled in dough, but the baking operation had been abandoned. On a chair sat something white with a head protruding from the top, two arms at the side and two clumpy, almost unused trainers resting on the balustrade. The man's fingers were rolling a supply of cigarettes.

  Frølich started by delivering his report on Henning Kramer's brother. 'The brother's the one who owns the car - the Audi. Henning was allowed to make use of the car when his brother wasn't there. His brother had been away for ten days; he says Henning was living with his mother, but he kept an eye on the brother's flat, too. He may have slept there - on the odd occasion. They had no special agreement this tim
e, except that Henning was to pop by and water a few plants. That cactus, among others.'

  Gunnarstranda lowered his feet, stood up and threw more charcoal on the brick grill in the corner where the fire was blazing with dry, cracking noises.

  'Get some glasses,' he said and started unpacking the marinated meat from the carrier bags.

  Frølich went in through the broad glass doors straight to a shelving system that separated the sitting room from the kitchen. Here he found two large beer tankards which he took outside.

  'I've made some salad,' Gunnarstranda mumbled and gave a nod of acknowledgement as Frølich poured beer into the glasses.

  'The brother says Henning often used his flat. He also says he spoke to Henning on the phone. Henning rang him on Thursday.'

  'What time of day was that?' Gunnarstranda asked.

  'Eight o'clock in the evening, Norwegian time, and as it was Henning who called, the brother sees that as evidence that he was making sure he wouldn't be disturbed while he hung himself.'

  'How so?'

  'First of all, because it was three in the morning - in the Philippines. Henning respected his brother and would never have rung him unless it was for something special - his brother thinks. The conversation boiled down to a question about when the brother was coming home. Henning had never called his brother when he was abroad before.'

  'Thursday evening. Wonder what I was doing then,' the police inspector mumbled to himself.

  'I was in the cinema anyway,' Frølich said.

  'You waste your time going to the cinema, do you?'

  'I wasn't alone. I had a lady with me. Besides it was one of the most violent films I've ever seen. It was the film that Katrine Bratterud saw the evening before she was bumped off, The Matrix. By the way, one of the characters had the same beard as Kramer. In fact, he looked very much like him.'

  'You don't say. Was he a hero or a villain?'

  'Villain,' Frølich said with a grin.

  'What did they talk about?'

  'Who?'

  'Henning and his brother.'

  'Life, the meaning of life, whether things were predetermined or you had control over your own life… destiny.'

  'That doesn't have to be depressing,' Gunnarstranda said. 'You can do that with a sense of wonder.'

  'In that case he could have waited until his brother came home.'

  'He may have had other motives for ringing. He may have been trying to articulate something - after all, the man did have a philosophical bent.'

  'But if he takes his own life afterwards…'

  'We don't know that he took his own life,' Gunnarstranda interrupted. 'Have you never wondered who you are and where you come from?'

  'It's pretty obvious…'

  'I mean, seeing yourself as a mortal and wondering what the meaning of life is, whether there is a purpose.'

  Frølich smirked into his beard, but stopped the moment he felt he was being observed. He shrugged. 'Not that often.'

  The older policeman regarded Frølich with irritation. 'Sooner or later you will. Everyone does. Perhaps Kramer was just quick off the mark. Did his brother have any idea where Henning might have concealed a letter?'

  'No.'

  Frølich peered down into his tankard. The remaining froth formed a spider pattern on his glass. White bubbles rose in the brown liquid. Frank raised his glass to his mouth and drank with great gusto.

  Gunnarstranda walked through the wide veranda doors into the kitchen where he rummaged around. Frank turned and gazed across the forest that ended in fields, which in their turn led to the mouth of the blue Drammen fjord. In the distance there was a cluster of yachts bunched together, presumably sailing in a regatta around the marker buoy.

  Gunnarstranda came out with plates and salad on a white wooden tray. He set the table and put the meat on the grill, which soon began to smoke and spit.

  'Would you have hanged yourself in your brother's flat?' Gunnarstranda asked, raising the whisky bottle, twisting off the cap and smelling.

  'I don't have a brother.'

  After receiving a stern look from Gunnarstranda, and taking a seat, Frølich amended his flippant remark: 'I wouldn't have hanged myself - not in a relative's house, nor anywhere else.'

  'That's the point,' Gunnarstranda said, pouring whisky into the cap, sampling it and, with closed eyes, contorting his face. He went on: 'The typical suicide victim tries several times, isolates himself socially, feels sorry for himself and drops hints to everyone and everything about how awful life is, but Henning Kramer didn't do that.'

  'Yes, the brother was in total shock, but you saw that, didn't you. I dropped the man off at his mother's. He's going to stay there a few days. There's just the two of them now that Henning's dead. The father died some years ago. Car accident.'

  'Henning Kramer was not a typical suicide victim,' the police inspector asserted with conviction. 'The process of suicide is like an upturned funnel. It starts with small signals that can go in several directions, but as the psychosis develops suicide becomes a kind of obsession.'

  'We know nothing about him of that nature. Although he may have been going for regular psychiatric treatment.'

  'Very unlikely. Anyone employed at the rehab centre has to go through a thorough examination. A psychiatric patient would never have passed the test.'

  'The tests can't be that bloody good,' Frølich grinned. 'Kramer smoked home-grown marijuana. His window sill at his mother's house was like a greenhouse.'

  Gunnarstranda gave a sigh of desperation.

  'But he may have been pretty depressed,' Frølich went on. 'If he killed her - Katrine.'

  'That's the point!' The two of them stood staring into a void, rapt in thought.

  'He may have done it,' Frølich repeated, meekly folding his hands. 'He may have killed her.'

  Gunnarstranda: 'How did her jewellery get into Skau's hands?'

  'No idea.'

  'Raymond Skau will have to come up with something very good to explain away the jewellery.'

  The younger policeman was not finished with Henning Kramer. 'From the evidence of this taxi driver I spoke to, Kramer was lying through his teeth about what happened that night.'

  'But why would he kill himself?'

  'He couldn't stand it any longer.'

  They both grinned at the empty rhetoric.

  The older policeman went to the grill and turned over the meat. Frølich drank more beer and enjoyed the view.

  At last Frølich spoke. 'We have some hard facts: the girl was killed and Henning Kramer lied about what he was doing that night. So far we only know for certain that Henning had a specific opportunity to take her jewellery. For all I know he could have sold it to Skau.' He pointed to clouds gathering in the south. 'Look,' he said. 'Storm clouds brewing again.'

  Gunnarstranda peered at the sky for a few seconds, then produced a cigarette, lit up and held it covered in his hand. 'It's the same clouds you always see over Nesodden when we're in Oslo. It won't rain here; it follows the water - the fjord.'

  He lifted a piece of meat to examine it before putting it back on the grill. 'The question comes down to why Kramer would remove her jewellery,' he said at length. 'Why would he remove her clothes and jewellery after killing her?'

  'To remove clues,' Frølich said, but on seeing his colleague's critical glare continued on the defensive: 'I have no idea what he was thinking, not an inkling, but the fact of the matter is that he… I mean the person who killed her… must have removed the jewellery. And why? Maybe he wanted a souvenir, or perhaps he thought it would come in handy.'

  'Or perhaps the person in question simply robbed her,' Gunnarstranda said in a quiet voice. A coughing fit was on its way up his creased neck.

  While Gunnarstranda wrestled with the paroxysm, Frank began to pick at the salad. 'Would Kramer rob Katrine?' he wondered.

  'Not Henning. If robbery was the motive it must have been Skau.'

  Frølich didn't think that was likely. He wrinkled h
is nose.

  Gunnarstranda had his breath back and was thinking aloud. 'Raymond Skau is the perfect perpetrator,' he decided. 'He's the brutal assailant we've been searching for, the man who bumps into a semi-clad babe in the middle of the night, a girl with whom he once had an intense relationship and whom he beat up in a bout of jealousy. The fact that he is in possession of the jewellery makes perfect sense. But then - our basic premises are no longer solid. The picture crumbles because Kramer lied. Hell!' Gunnarstranda banged his fist on the table.

  'At any rate, we have to find Skau,' Frølich said, composed. 'And now I assume Gerhardsen is beyond suspicion.'

  'No one is beyond suspicion,' Gunnarstranda barked with irritation.

  Frølich sighed. 'All we know for certain is that Henning drove to this car park by the lake. Observations of the car tally with what he told us.'

  'So?'

  'Suppose Henning killed her,' Frølich reasoned calmly. 'Henning knew Katrine. He may have known about Raymond Skau. He may have known about her problems with the guy, and he may have known that Skau visited her at work earlier in the day. After all, Katrine made a lot of phone calls and one of them may have been to Henning. Imagine the two of them in the car. Her, a tasty looker, semi-naked, happy. Him, aroused, turned on by her. Suppose they were not on the same wavelength. He was lusting for sex; she was thinking about quality of life. He put his arms around her. She tried to brush him off with a joke, but he wouldn't relent. He lost control, raped Katrine and strangled her. According to criminal logic, the natural thing for him to do would be to remove all her clothes and jewellery, to hide any clues, but at the same time he knew the police would find semen in the body. He's read about DNA testing. Henning must have known that the semen would lead the trail back to him. So he devised a plan. He sold us a line about the two of them having consensual sex in the car and he kept her jewellery. Perhaps he sold it on afterwards.'

  'That's a bit thin,' Gunnarstranda said.

  'OK, you suggest something better.'

  'I suggest we eat,' Gunnarstranda said, grabbing a plate and marching towards the barbecue.