The Last Fix

by K. O. Dahl

  Skau said nothing.

  Gunnarstranda observed him for a few seconds in silence before continuing. 'That's why it's important for me to find out what happened after you left the travel agency. It was one o'clock in the afternoon when you left Katrine's workplace. It closed at two because it was a Saturday. Let me hypothesize what might have happened.'

  'Save your breath,' Skau hissed.

  'You hid,' Gunnarstranda ventured. 'You knew the shop closed early because it was a Saturday. That was why you waited for her. You sat on a bench not too far away and waited until you saw her come out. Then you followed her home to the block in Hovseterveien. You waited there until she reappeared. But she came out with her boyfriend, so you hesitated, then followed them anyway.'

  'Why don't you give it a rest,' Skau said, tired. 'You're talking shite and you know you are.'

  Gunnarstranda checked his watch. 'We've got plenty of time,' he mumbled. 'This is just a hypothesis, but let's say it happened. You followed the couple. You followed the taxi that picked them up. The taxi went to Voksenеsen and dropped the pair of them outside a house in Voksenkollveien. Now it was just a question of waiting for the party to finish. Let's assume you did that. Or let's assume that night you had a little recce around where the two of them lived, in Holmlia or the area around Hovseter so that you could waylay her. That would be quite logical. You're under a lot of pressure. Katrine owes you money. Why wouldn't you wait for her that night? You're desperate. Between three and four o'clock she walked up the road to Holmlia on her own. An hour later she was dead. Her body must have been lifted into a car. The killer drove a little way, stopped and threw her body over the barrier, where it remained. The car went on, stopping only to get rid of a bag containing her clothes. And three days later our people found her jewellery in your flat. Goodness me, Raymond. Can't you see that you're in a bit of a tight spot?'

  'I'm always in a tight spot in this place.'

  'Everything points to you. You owe money to everyone and his brother. You had x thousand kroner owed to you by Katrine. We know you threatened her that Saturday. The jewellery in your flat is conclusive evidence that you had been in touch with her that night…'

  'I have no idea where the jewellery came from!'

  Gunnarstranda ignored him. 'You didn't get the money that night either, so you took her jewellery. Whether it covered your debts or not, I don't know, but your desperation was real enough. You were so frantic for cash that you robbed Sagene Video for the till takings. We know what your temperament's like and can just imagine what happened as she walked towards you without any money that night.'

  'I didn't see her that night.'

  'You shut up and listen now,' Gunnarstranda barked. 'If you didn't do this you'll have to understand one thing and that is that we, or rather I…' Gunnarstranda pointed to his chest with a bony, nicotine-stained finger. 'I am the one person who can do the legwork to establish that you didn't do it. And if you want me to take the heat off you, off the petty crime you're sitting up to your neck in, then you have to give me something, even if it's all you have, at least give me something, a straw, anything - just something that suggests it wasn't you who killed Katrine.' He took a pile of papers from his bag on the floor, banged it on the table and said, 'Here! This is your first statement. You are unable to account for your movements all Saturday night and Sunday.'

  'I was asleep.'

  'Where?'

  'At home.'

  'And again you're giving me circumstantial evidence that you put the parcel of jewellery in your own postbox.'

  'How do you work that out?'

  'If you say you were sleeping on Saturday night you're admitting you were at home. You had strangled Katrine and taken her jewellery. You were at home, but you couldn't keep the jewellery in your house. You were seen attacking Katrine at the travel agency and you knew we could come visiting at any time at all.'

  'Are you hard of hearing or something? It wasn't me!'

  'Shut up, will you!' The policeman's spittle was white. 'You killed her and robbed her. You had to know we would be knocking at your door and with the jewellery in the house your position would not look good. At the same time, however, you needed" something of value in case a debt collector came round. That's why you put the jewellery in your postbox, because you thought we wouldn't think to look there. You could easily have done that in the time between killing her and being arrested on Sunday night.'

  'Use your head. Why would I put jewellery in my own postbox, so near to my own flat?'

  'You needed quick access if one of your creditors came to the door. You were planning a robbery. In fact you were arrested for a robbery that same afternoon.' v

  'What the fuck do you want me to say?'

  'Tell me why you visited Katrine on Saturday.'

  'She owed me money.'

  'What for?'

  'Old debts.'

  'But what for?'

  'For a name.'

  Gunnarstranda sat down with a deep frown imbedded in his forehead. 'A name?'

  Raymond Skau nodded.

  The inspector waved his fingers at him in irritation, to move him on.

  'Tormod Stamnes.'

  Gunnarstranda was waving his fingers like a man obsessed.

  'Tormod Stamnes was working for child welfare in the Nedre Eiker district when Katrine was assigned new parents. He was responsible for her case.'

  'And Katrine was interested in this?'

  'She wasn't interested in anything else. That was all she had in her head. Finding out about her past.'

  'And what did this man say?'

  'No idea.'

  Gunnarstranda was sceptical. 'You have no idea?'

  'I never asked him about things like that. I found out quite by chance…Skau glared across the table. 'What will you give me?'

  'I don't understand what you mean.'

  'You just said you would do me for sex with a minor. What will you give me in exchange for what I can tell you?'

  Gunnarstranda stared at him.

  'What about dropping the charge against me?'

  Gunnarstranda's eyes darkened. 'Don't play games with me, boy. I'm giving you your only chance. Tell me what you know!'

  Skau looked up through his fine eyebrows. He was thinking. Thinking and swallowing. At last he took a decision. 'I used to drink with an old dipso who's been on the social for ever.'

  'Who?'

  'His name's Arne and he's in a wheelchair. He told me who was working at the office when Katrine was placed with Beate and Fredrik Bratterud at the age of two.'

  'Where does this Arne come from?'

  'Krokstadelva.'

  'But how do you know it was this Stamnes who dealt with the case?'

  'Arne told me that child welfare and social security were under the same roof in those days. And in those days Tormod Stamnes did everything, but he's pretty old now. He stopped work several years ago. What happened was that, out of the blue, my pal Arne remembered his name. And, eventually, I found out where he lived. He said he remembered the case when I spoke to him about it.'

  And how much did Katrine pay you for the name?'

  'She owed me ten thousand.'

  'Ten thousand?'

  'Ten thousand spondulicks isn't much to find out the truth about yourself, is it?'

  Gunnarstranda rose and walked towards the door.

  'You can't leave me sitting here until the morning,' Skau yelled.

  The policeman closed the door behind him without another word.

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Traffic Menace

  Frølich went on foot because it turned out that Tormod Stamnes lived close by in Uranienborgveien, a four-storey brick-built block with fine balconies and a secure front door. He rang down below but without attracting a reaction of any kind, no buzz and no one on the stairs. In the reflection of the glass door he glimpsed a thin, young woman in her mid- twenties walking across the road. She was accompanied by two thin houn
ds. All three had the same bouncing gait. Frølich moved to the side. The woman unlocked the door and threw him an appraising glance before letting in her two dogs, which skipped in through the narrow opening without a sound. The woman followed and made sure the door was locked properly.

  Frølich took a decision, turned round and ambled down Uranienborgveien. An electric wheelchair was moving down the middle of the road driven at a crawl by a man wearing a hat. Cars were queuing behind the vehicle, which had yellow blinkers and indicated left at the crossing with Parkveien. It was strange to see the erect back of the man in the chair turning left. He seemed to be leaning backwards against a whole procession of cars and holding them up.

  Frølich turned left, too. It was drizzling and there was a chill in the wind. The streets were empty, hemmed in by shiny, hostile, impenetrable windows. An occasional black-clad silhouette drifted out of sight between the tree trunks in the park behind the palace. It was morning in Oslo. Frølich wandered aimlessly up Parkveien passing an opulent art gallery and finding himself outside the old Lorry restaurant. Frølich sniffed. His nose for beer had led him to the source. He cast around, went up the staircase to the front door in two strides and grabbed the door handle. It was open.

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The Ashtray

  Henning Kramer's mother lived in a semi-detached house in Stasjonsveien. There were beautiful shrubs in the garden, with a trim sibiraea hedge growing alongside the fence and preventing passing motorists from prying. The nameplate on the door was made of copper and had turned green. Kramer was engraved in the same Gothic type as the logo of the Aftenposten newspaper. Police Inspector Gunnarstranda rang the bell beside the sign. From deep inside he heard a hollow ring. A shadow behind the kitchen curtain window told him he was being watched. He stood with his back to the door and observed the traffic.

  There was a rattling of chains on the inside and he slowly turned around.

  'Your son,' Inspector Gunnarstranda started when both were standing in the small but very tidy kitchen with the window facing the road. As he eyed up the woman opposite him, he considered what he would say. She was around sixty years old with a face that was worn and now marked with grief. Her eyes were red-tinged and her cheeks bloated. She pulled a tiny grimace. Her quivering lips and a twitch revealed that she was fighting to control her feelings. She returned his gaze with vacant eyes, neither friendly nor unfriendly, nor curious, eyes that kept going despite the pain and the stoical suffering. He cleared his throat. 'Your son didn't leave a letter.'

  She continued to gaze with the same empty eyes, full of apathy. 'What letter?' she asked after a while, bewildered.

  'Most suicide victims leave a letter,' the detective explained in a neutral tone, his eyes fixed on hers. He sensed a storm brewing inside her and was on his guard.

  She grabbed the oven handle of the ceramic stove. Apart from that one movement, she didn't react.

  'Letter,' Gunnarstranda repeated with a slight nod.

  There was no storm. Even though she wound herself up to speak, her intonation was flat and languid. 'I can see that you might make mistakes,' she said. 'It's easy to make mistakes when you judge someone you don't know. If you had known Henning, you wouldn't think as you do.'

  She was breathing through an open mouth, as though it had cost her a great effort to say these words.

  'What do you think?' Gunnarstranda asked at length.

  'About what? What do you want me to think about?' Her temper seemed to flare up. 'I don't feel as if I'm here. I know he's dead, but I still expect to see him coming through the door. I thought it was Henning when you rang just now.'

  The policeman stood on the same spot with his jacket open and his hands buried deep in his trouser pockets, keeping his eyes fixed on her. She was taller than he was. She had tears in her eyes, and was leaning against the stove now, which made them the same height.

  He said: 'What do you think about the way he died?'

  'I don't think he killed himself, if that's what you're asking.'

  'You mean that this was a… murder?' He dragged the question out so that the last word fell after a longish pause.

  She straightened up in reaction to his choice of words and the way he said them. She sensed the unspoken, quivering in the air now. She turned and looked out of the window through which they both glimpsed the odd car passing the opening where the wrought-iron gate had been left open.

  'You'll have to find out, won't you,' she declared.

  Gunnarstranda nodded. 'That's one of the reasons I'm standing here asking about a letter. From what I understand Henning was not very communicative… about depression or other troubles that may have afflicted him in recent months.'

  'No, he wasn't.'

  'Nor his feelings about Katrine Bratterud's death?'

  'He grieved of course, but he didn't confide in me.'

  'Did he talk about his relationship with her at all?'

  'Not very much.' She faced him again, assessing her words, their meaning and regarding him with renewed interest. Gunnarstranda, for his part, could see his outline in the kitchen window, a thin figure with a round, almost bald head and protruding eyes that appeared double in the reflection.

  'I knew she meant an awful lot to Henning. He was in love with her.' She coughed and repeated with a sigh: 'Love - Henning struggled with that sort of concept. He always had to scrutinize everything from all sides. He made fun of words like love; after all, love is based on spontaneous emotion and I suppose he was frightened of that - talking about feelings. Henning was the intellectual type.'

  Gunnarstranda nodded.

  'But she was on his mind a lot of the time. He thought she was important for him and he for her. I was never introduced, though.'

  'So in the last few days he wasn't down or different from normal?'

  Her eyes filled with water. Her mouth trembled. 'He was grieving, but he would never let the grief stop him. That was just the way he was, the way he thought. If he was in love, I mean… if he experienced pain or pleasure because of a feeling like that - jealousy, too, for that matter - he would regard it as a deception, something that would pass. Goodness, it's impossible to explain. As I said, taking his own life for love - you're talking about someone else.'

  'But how do you see the case?' she asked tentatively as Gunnarstranda was still silent.

  'It depends on the particular circumstances,' he answered in a toneless voice.

  Disconcerted, she raised her eyebrows.

  'I would have liked to find a letter that told us why he chose to take his own life,' the policeman started to explain and at last moved away from the spot where he had been standing. 'If I can put it like that,' he mumbled and headed for the small kitchen table under the window, drew out a chair and sat down. With great care he crossed one skinny leg over the other and fidgeted with a cigarette. 'What would you think if it was proved beyond any doubt that Henning died by his own hand?'

  The woman's shoulders slumped and she let go of the oven handle. She sat down, too. The detective put a cigarette behind his ear while studying her at the same time. She didn't give the appearance of crying. All the same, tears were running in two fine lines down her cheeks. The dour expression on her face was chiselled into her features, as though the trickle of tears was part of her facial repertoire that had always been there. Her breathing was normal; her expression and the stream of tears were all that revealed her internal state. Gunnarstranda realized this was the first time in this case that he had met undisguised, unforced grieving. And he realized that his last question had been put too soon.

  'Let me put it in another way,' Gunnarstranda said in a low voice, leaning across the table. 'Whether Henning was responsible for his own death or not - there are two working hypotheses I have to have validated or invalidated. The reason I am working on this at all is because your son had a close relationship with the woman who was murdered.'

  'So there is a link between Katrine's death and
Henning's death?'

  'I consider that highly probable irrespective of whether he killed himself or not.' Gunnarstranda didn't say any more. She was no longer crying. Her complexion seemed paler, but the significance of what he had said had sunk in and was now being internalized.

  'You agree with me,' she whispered. 'Henning was murdered.'

  'Stop right there.' Gunnarstranda stood up and walked to the window. 'I didn't say that.'

  He looked outside without finding anything of interest on which to settle his gaze but, still contemplating the street, he asked, 'What was your impression of Katrine Bratterud?'

  'I didn't have one…' she said.

  'Because,' the policeman added, 'you only know her through what your son said about her. You've already said that. But, like it or not, he was having a relationship with her, and he did mention her to you, so you must have formed some kind of impression, some concept of the kind of woman she was, at least for your son.'

  'Yes, I did,' she nodded. 'Henning was twenty-five years old, he lived at home and didn't seem to have it in him to do much more than immerse himself in his own interests. He was doing his military service at the drug rehab place. He thrived on that and liked her. She was a patient there, I understand, trying to get off drugs. She was one of the ones who were successful, I understand…'

  'What was Henning interested in?'

  'As I said, Henning had to get to the bottom of everything, like with love. What is it? What is it, in fact? That's what he was like from when he was a little boy.' She gave an embarrassed smile.

  'And his interests?'