by K. O. Dahl
'Indeed,' said Gunnarstranda.
'You can tell a woman's nature from the way she kisses,' Bueng said.
'You must have been much older than her… than Helene I mean?'
'I was more than twenty years older, yes, but age is not important in love.' 'Did she have a daughter?'
'Yes. She's dead now, you said.'
'Helene Lockert's daughter, did you see much of her?'
'I don't remember her very well. It was the mother I was interested in.'
'And she was killed, of course.'
'Yes, that was a sad story. We didn't get married. And I never got married later, either. I had never imagined I would grow old alone.'
'Have you ever received a visit from Helene Lockert's daughter?'
Bueng twisted his upper body round. His head shook as he regarded the policeman. 'What do you mean by a question like that?'
'We have reason to believe that she knew the identity of her biological mother…'
'But my dear man, who doesn't know the identity of their mother?'
'This case is complicated, Bueng. Please answer the question. Have you ever received a visit from Helene Lockert's daughter?'
'Never.' Bueng stared into the distance again. A puff of wind brushed a lock of white hair across his forehead. 'Never,' he repeated to himself.
'It will be my destiny to die alone…' Bueng continued in a louder voice. 'And I would never have imagined…'
'So you gave up the idea of marriage after Helene?' the policeman asked.
'Helene knew it wasn't always easy.'
'She knew about her rivals?'
'They were not rivals in fact. There was only Helene.'
'However, one of the police's theories was that one of her rivals…'
'I didn't agree with the police.'
'Did you have any suspicions as to who might have killed her?'
'I think it must have been one of Helene's ex-lovers who killed her.'
'But witnesses - many witnesses - said they had seen a woman walking down the street where she lived, a woman behaving in a strange manner, at roughly the time Helene was killed.'
'Yes indeed, but the only man they checked was the girl's father and he had an alibi. But Helene was a good-looking woman…'
'But the witnesses…'
'… so he must have dressed up, I reckon. Men wearing women's clothing is nothing new.'
'The years have drifted by now,' Gunnarstranda said with a sigh. 'You've thought about this case for many years now. Are you sure that…?'
'You mentioned Connie,' Bueng interrupted. 'And you mentioned Oda Beate…'
'Grete Ronning,' the policeman read from his list, 'Birgit Stenmoe…'
'Yes?' Bueng said, waiting.
Gunnarstranda said nothing.
'Yes?'
The policeman cleared his throat. 'There are no more names.'
Bueng turned his head and they exchanged glances.
'I have to go now,' Bueng said and staggered to his feet. 'I'm tired.'
Gunnarstranda watched him go. The figure tottered down the gravel into the building. There was no doubt that he did not look like a murderer. But appearances can deceive. He had discovered that before.
The policeman took a cigarette from his jacket pocket, lit up and inhaled deep. He crossed his legs and wondered whether he ought to be annoyed. He had no idea. A moment later something made him turn his head. The woman with the long skirt and the shawl was standing by the entrance. She made an embarrassed movement with her arms when she realized she had been seen. Stuffing some papers under her arm, she advanced at a measured pace. She stopped by the bench. Gunnarstranda stood up and gave an involuntary smile upon realizing they were the same height.
'Do you know Bueng well?' she asked after they had sat down.
He sighed and shook his head. 'I'm a policeman.'
She was quiet and waited for him to go on.
'It's about an old case.'
'He almost never has visitors,' she said.
Gunnarstranda managed a faint smile. 'He didn't want a visit from me, either' He glanced over at her. Read her name on the badge fixed to her shawl: Tove Granaas. She assumed a serious face until it softened with her captivating, slanting smile. 'He usually loves talking to people.'
'But then I suppose he doesn't talk about himself,' Gunnarstranda said.
'That's true,' she grinned and fell silent.
Gunnarstranda wanted to extend the conversation. 'Lovely garden,' he said. 'Lovely begonia semperflorens.'
'Yes,' she said, pointing to the ugly rose in the lawn in front of them. 'But we can't do much for that one.'
'Roses are pruned from the rootstock,' Gunnarstranda said with a nod towards the protruding, pale green, thorny spear. 'When that happens, it means the root has decided to grow on its own.'
'You don't say?' She seemed impressed. 'Fancy me meeting someone who knew what the problem was. A policeman who knows about flowers.'
'It's just an interest, a hobby.'
'So you must have a beautiful garden, I suppose.'
'No.' He added, 'I have a mountain cabin,' when he saw her tilt her head to show interest. 'What does he like talking about?'
'Hm?'
'Bueng, what does he like talking about?'
'Would you like to try again?' Tove asked.
'No, I'm not sure it's worth the effort.' He put the cigarette in the matchbox and closed it with care. 'He's a witness from an old case, over twenty years ago. I don't even know if he can remember that far back.'
'We call him Elvis,' she said.
'Why's that?'
'He sings like Elvis. Perhaps he looks a bit like Elvis.' She chuckled. 'Although he doesn't quite have the leg work.'
Gunnarstranda nodded. 'Parkinson's, isn't it?'
'Yes.'
They sat staring ahead. She seemed to be thinking. 'You don't have any kind of ID, I suppose?' she asked all of a sudden. Gunnarstranda was charmed by the look accompanying the question. The purpose. He took out his wallet with the police badge and showed her. 'Nice name,' she said.
'There are not many of us,' Gunnarstranda replied.
'He's a bit of a charmer,' she said. 'Elvis… Bueng.'
'I can believe that.'
'And that means he never talks about himself.'
The policeman nodded. 'Has he had any recent visitors?'
'Oh, he seldom has any visitors,' she sighed. 'That was why it was nice that you visited him today. It was a bit of excitement.'
'When did he last have a visitor?'
'No idea, but it must have been a long time ago.'
'Are you absolutely sure he hasn't had a visitor in the last two weeks?'
'I doubt it.'
'But you're sure?'
'No, I don't work here every day - round the clock.'
'Could you find out…?' Because then I could phone you, he had thought of adding, but paused not to appear ridiculous in her eyes.
She smiled. 'That should be possible.'
They stood up. 'Is there hope?' she asked.
He didn't understand what she meant.
'For the rose.' She motioned towards the strange growth in the lawn.
The policeman shrugged. 'Cut off the pale green shoot coming out of the ground. If it comes up again you can dig up the plant and chuck it away.'
'There was something there, Kalfatrus. I saw it,' Gunnarstranda mumbled as he cleaned the inside of the goldfish bowl with a wad of cotton wool. He looked down at the fish. It lay quite still in five centimetres of water. 'And I must buy some equipment so that this bloody bowl doesn't get so mucky,' he went on, pushing his glasses up his nose. He stood musing and muttering to the fish: 'Either the old goat noticed a name was missing off the list I read out or he was giving me a hint. Anyway, I don't think he's the killer. He seemed too frail and fragile for that. But suppose he gave me a hint. What would the purpose of that have been?'
He put the cotton wool on the shelf and went for more. He shouted to Ka
lfatrus, 'That would be too improbable, wouldn't it? Kripos work on that case for months and then twenty years later I go to a nursing home and the old Casanova suddenly remembers salient facts?'
He searched for something to put water in, thinking. 'It might have been something else, a detail. It doesn't have to be a person.'
He found a litre measuring jug, filled it with water and reached for a thermometer. 'In any case,' he muttered, 'if I stumbled over something of any significance to help solve the Lockert case, so what? It happened more than twenty years ago and there is no link between the two cases. Katrine Bratterud grew up somewhere else, several hundred kilometres from Lillehammer…'
He poured hot and cold water in the jug until the temperature was right. With great care he poured the tempered water over Kalfatrus, who reacted with wild flicks of the tail. Gunnarstranda observed the fish. 'You're happy now, aren't you,' he mumbled. 'You like to have water around you; you like the surroundings you know. Just imagine if you had landed on the floor, or in salt water. You would have ended up like poor Katrine. Asphyxiated and dead.'
He stood thinking. After a while he said to the fish: 'Perhaps that was what happened, eh? She wasn't in her natural habitat. But then what was her natural habitat? Or what was the wrong habitat?'
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Empty Chair
They were sitting in her kitchen, in the spacious dining alcove. They were alone. As Julie was with her father, the chair at the end of the table was empty. Eva-Britt was resting her head on her hands. She had finished eating a long time ago. She poured herself a little more red wine. Her mouth broadened into a smile and her eyes sparkled as he took another helping.
'You think you've won, don't you,' he said.
'Me?'
'I know I'm fat,' he said, taking more sauce.
She grinned. 'I didn't say that.'
He scraped the frying pan. 'But you were thinking about saying it,' he said, putting the pan down on the table and taking another potato. 'You're fat, Frankie, you were thinking of saying, just like now you're thinking about saying: Be careful. I put lots of cream in the sauce!
'Well, you're wrong there,' she said. 'I like it that you're well padded.' She gave another faint smile and pressed her hand against his shirt front. 'I like men who are well padded.'
'You like me,' Frank said. 'And you say you like men who are well padded because I'm fat. If you ask a psychologist…'
'I go to see a psychologist every week, and you don't ask psychologists anything; they ask you.'
'Well, when you're there next time you can discuss the quality of our relationship…'
'What do you think I talk about? I don't talk about anything else.'
'… You can ask him how it is you can stand me, someone who refuses to move in with anyone. He'll…'
'It's a she…'
'She'll say that your subconscious is tricking you into liking me because you have formed bonds with me - psychological bonds - just like a duckling follows a goat if there is a goat standing by the egg when it is hatched - you and I have been together for years and now you have formed a psychological bond with me. That's why your subconscious is trying to make you believe that I'm the right one for you.'
'You talk such rubbish Frankie,' Eva-Britt said, clearing away her plate.
'And in the end you say I'm a coward because it's the one hundred and fifty-five thousandth time we have slept together and I don't like you talking about living together…'
'I refuse to listen to your drivel!' She crossed her arms and stared at the reflection in the large windows to their right.
'Fine by me,' Frank said in a sour tone. 'We've been through this ritual a million times, too.'
'That's what I'm saying,' she grinned. 'We might just as well be married.'
'Well, I agree.'
'You agree?'
'Of course I agree!'
'But why do you protest every time we talk about these things?'
'That's where you're wrong,' Frank smiled. 'Had it been up to me we would have got married long ago…
'Yes, we would,' he continued as she made to interrupt. 'And you can take that one up with your psychologist because now I'm going to say the whole truth out loud. I'm going to state openly what we both know deep down, that you are the one who does not want to get married. You don't want to live with me. You always make out that it is me who doesn't want to, but the main reason we live separately is that you don't want to and then you make out the entire thing is my fault. This is basic psychology, just like the fact that people in the society for the protection of animals are really perverts who fantasize about setting fire to kittens - and that all skinheads and neo-Nazis deep down are closet homos who dress up in women's panties and net stockings when they're alone in the bathroom.'
Eva-Britt shook her head.
'We can put it to the test,' Frank said. 'My thoughts and your thoughts. What am I thinking about?'
'I'm not interested.'
'But I definitely know what you're thinking.'
'Oh yes?' she said.
'You're thinking about Julie. For the first time we have been discussing cohabitation without bringing Julie into the discussion.'
'That's true.' She smiled. 'At least that's positive.'
Frølich stretched across the table and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. They sat looking at each other.
'She's fond of you Frankie,' Eva-Britt said. 'You're as important to her as I am.'
He said nothing.
'You know that, don't you?'
He nodded and watched her from beneath lowered eyelids.
She took his hand. 'If we're going to live together, we have to learn to cope with silence.' She looked down. 'We mustn't compare hands,' she said in a distant voice, holding his forearm instead. 'My grandma always said it brought bad luck.'
He gave a silent nod. She looked up. 'What shall we do when we have no more to say to each other?'
'We do what they do in American films,' Frank said in a low voice.
She sent him a tender smile. They rose together. She put her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe. The kiss lasted a long time. He ran his fingers down her spine, first once, then again. As she gently loosened her hold he enjoyed the sight of her supple body and her swaying hips move towards the window. They exchanged glances in the reflection. As she reached up for the string to close the blinds her muscles undulated beneath her dress.
Frølich awoke and gazed into the air. It sounded like a bad version of Mozart's 40th Symphony being played on a barrel organ. The telephone was ringing - his mobile on the floor. He bent down and pressed the right button. 'Hi,' he mumbled sleepily.
'Guess who this is,' Gunnarstranda said.
'Just a moment,' Frølich said with a glance over at Eva-Britt lying naked on her back in bed. She opened her eyes slowly and looked at him from deep inside a dream. With the mobile under his chin he lifted the duvet and covered her. Bit by bit her eyes closed again. He took the phone and tiptoed into the kitchen, with his trousers and jumper in hand. 'Now,' he said. 'Now I can speak louder.'
'You've got post,' Gunnarstranda said.
'Now, in the middle of the night?'
'It's half past twelve.'
'I'd just gone to sleep.'
'You go to bed too early and the letter's important.'
Frølich yawned. 'But why can't I read the letter tomorrow?'
'Because it was sent by Henning Kramer.'
'Oh, shit,' Frølich said.
The sound of paper being torn carried over the phone. 'As your superior officer I assume you entrust me with the task of breaking the seal?'
'Break away.'
'That's not so easy,' the police inspector mumbled.
'Have you tried opening a letter with two pairs of tweezers and a knife?'
'How come you only discovered the letter now?'
'Because it was in your pigeonhole. When did you last empty it?'
/>
'Yesterday morning -1 think, anyway.'
'Thought so,' mumbled Gunnarstranda. 'Are you ready?'
'As ready as I usually am after half an hour's sleep. Bet you ten kroner it's the suicide note.'
'The odds were low, but you won. So that's it,' the inspector muttered. 'We'll have to wait until tomorrow to have it confirmed, but it looks like the case is closed.'
Frank Frølich yawned.
'Our reasoning is written here in its entirety. He raped the girl, killed her, stole her jewellery and sent it in the post to Raymond Skau. Fair old confession.'
'Do you believe it?'
'I have my doubts.' Gunnarstranda whinnied.
'Why's that?' Frank asked.
'Listen to this last sentence: I can't go on. Hm?' Gunnarstranda seemed piqued. 'Would you have used such insipid language if you were going to kill yourself?'
'No idea.' 'Bloody hell, this man was deep, thoughtful. Surely he wouldn't express himself like that?'
'I have no idea. Let a psychologist have a look at it.'
'Irritating,' Gunnarstranda sighed from a distance.
'Does the note mean we're off the case?'
'Not for the time being. Kramer's autopsy report has come in. It says Kramer was doped up when he died.'
'That's not very surprising, is it?'
'I don't know. It wasn't speed. According to the pathologist he was full of sleeping tablets.'
'What shall we do?'
'Do you really want to go back to bed?'
'But what can we do?'
'Every single word in the letter has been typed. There's no signature.'
Frølich pondered.
'Do we believe in our heart of hearts that Henning Kramer wrote all this crap?' the voice on the phone asked.
'It's possible.'
'Is it likely?'
Frølich pondered once more. 'It's possible,' he concluded.
'Great help it was ringing you up, young man.'
'We have to do something!'
'I've arranged a briefing with the public prosecutor about the whole of this case for tomorrow. And unless this is going to end with a downgrading or a closing of the case, we have to find proof that Kramer did not take his own life.'