by K. O. Dahl
'Hang on,' Frølich said as his boss rang off. Too late. The engaged tone. He stood contemplating the phone. In the end it was his brain that reacted. He yawned. Oh well, he thought, scratching his stomach. He stood in the doorway to the bedroom and looked straight ahead. Inside, Eva-Britt had kicked off the duvet again. She was lying on her side with her face turned to his pillow, her body in the shape of an elegant Z. Fascinated, he observed how her feet beautifully rounded off and completed her body's imitation of a letter of the alphabet.
He had absolutely no wish to leave this woman. Not now at any rate. Not tonight. Now and then Gunnarstranda was prone to winding himself up into a stressed, hysterical condition. Of course the suicide letter would require the present stage of the investigation to be summarized and evaluated. But why did that have to be tonight? The man is obsessed, he thought. No, he's not obsessed. He doesn't have enough people around him. He doesn't have enough to think about. After working with the sourpuss for so long now, Frølich bore most of the man's whims with great composure. Of course I could go to work now, he thought. I could plunge into the darkness and sit and read reports. I could spend the rest of the night with a headache and the taste of lead in my mouth and reduce everything to a conclusion about how far it would have been possible for Kramer to hang himself or not. Or I could lie down next to the beauty in the bed, listen to her breathing, then think about Kramer, hope to sleep a bit and dream about Kramer - until I wake up with her. He grinned at the thought of how furious Gunnarstranda would be when he failed to turn up. He crept into the bedroom, lay down with as little noise as he could and stretched out in bed. Eva-Britt's regular breathing caressed his ear.
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Nine
To and Fro
Fristad, the public prosecutor, sat with his legs crossed and both hands folded over his plump stomach. He was a man who cultivated his boyish image by letting his hair grow into a thick fringe down to two finely formed eyebrows. He signalled his intellectual side with a pair of thick horn-rimmed glasses, to which he had attached a black cord and which hung around his neck to ensure they didn't go missing. His glasses sat astride the tip of his large nose while the cord formed decorative loops on each of the clean-shaven cheeks. The public prosecutor tried to prevent his glasses from falling off by stretching his mouth sideways as far as he could. This grimace inflated both cheeks in such a way that they pushed the glasses back a millimetre, only to slide forward two millimetres. He continued like this until his glasses fell on to his chest, which caused him to sigh aloud, then retrieve and re-position them.
Frølich looked from him to Gunnarstranda, whose nocturnal exertions had left their mark. The detective inspector had dark coffee stains on his lips, his lean fingers trembled as he held the papers and the narrow rimless reading glasses - doubtless bought by mail order - were unable to camouflage the dark shadows under his eyes.
Gunnarstranda cleared his throat. 'The body was found on the Sunday morning in a ditch alongside Ljansbrukveien, just by the bathing area in Hvervenbukta. Presumably dumped from a car. There had been no attempt to hide the body, which was found by a pensioner out walking. His name is Jan Vegard Ellingsen and he has been eliminated from our enquiries. There is some reason to believe that the body was transported by car to where it was found. The victim had been stripped and had very few external injuries apart from strangulation marks and the odd graze or cut to the skin which, in the pathologist's view, were consistent with the approximately two-metre fall down the slope - before the body came to rest.'
He picked up the photographs of Katrine Bratterud's distorted and lifeless naked body with the staring eyes.
The public prosecutor lost his glasses and put them back. He peered at one of the photographs.
Fristad pointed to the picture. 'What's that around her navel?'
'A tattoo,' Frølich intervened. 'A kind of flower.'
The public prosecutor studied the photograph. 'Reminds me of Norwegian rose painting.'
Gunnarstranda coughed. 'Apart from the scratches, which must have been caused by the fall, you can see…' He placed another photograph on the table - a close-up of the head and shoulders. '… You can see the bruising to her neck which appeared after the strangling, a wound where the cord -I presume it was the curtain cord that was also found by the body - cut into the tissue during strangulation.'
'We've got that, have we?' Fristad asked. 'The cord?'
Gunnarstranda nodded. 'The victim had particles of skin under her nails, perhaps occurring during the fight with the assailant. The DNA analyses confirm that the semen found in the vagina of the victim belongs to Henning Kramer. Kramer himself admitted to having sex with the girl before she was murdered. In his first statement Kramer falsely stated what happened in the car after the victim left the party in Voksenkollveien.'
'Just a moment,' the public prosecutor interrupted: 'What about the particles of skin under the nails?'
Gunnarstranda: 'I'll come back to that.' He cleared his throat.
'The clothes?' the public prosecutor asked.
'A bag was found in the ditch down by Ljansbrukveien by Lake Gjer. It must have been thrown out of a car. It was found… well, I can start somewhere else first… we know for certain that the victim left the party at the house of Gerhardsen and As of her own free will. She was picked up by Henning Kramer close by, in all probability, at around midnight. The two of them were seen in Aker Brygge by several witnesses at some point between midnight and half past. They seemed to be having fun and, according to Kramer, they drove to Lake Gjer to talk about the stars and to… to…'
'… have a romantic interlude?' the public prosecutor rounded off with raised eyebrows.
'Yes… at a car park by Lake Gjer between Tyrigrava and the amusement park… what's it called?'
'Tusenfryd,' Frølich answered.
'That's it.' Gunnarstranda fumbled around with the paper. 'The woman's clothing, that is, most of her clothing - a shoe we haven't been able to trace is still missing - was found between the car park and the victim's body. This might suggest she was killed close to the car park where she and Kramer had sex and that the killer got rid of the clothes before the body. But I'll come back to that, too…' He searched through the pile of papers. Frølich and the public prosecutor said nothing while the police inspector flicked through his paperwork.
'There we are,' Gunnarstranda muttered. 'Lots of paper. And you've got to read through the whole bloody lot yourself…
'… Henning Kramer's version of events was that the two of them had a romantic interlude in the car park, they drove off and he dropped the victim at the roundabout over the El8 in Mastemyr at around three in the morning because she had expressed a wish to walk to her boyfriend's flat at Holmlia senter vei 13.'
'Boyfriend?' exclaimed the public prosecutor, grimacing.
The detective inspector looked at him in silence. The silence persisted and the public prosecutor pulled another grimace.
'Ole Eidesen,' Frølich interposed. 'Katrine Bratterud left her boyfriend Ole Eidesen at the party.'
Fristad's glasses fell on to his chest.
Gunnarstranda coughed. 'All right?' he asked.
Fristad nodded and put his glasses back.
Gunnarstranda: 'Later we had reason to doubt Kramer's statement. A reliable witness had seen the car Kramer was driving - it was a bit special, an Audi cabriolet - in the same car park by Lake Gjer more than three hours after Kramer claimed he had driven off. The sighting was made early in the morning at a time when Katrine was in all probability already dead. We never managed to confront Kramer with this witness's statement because Kramer died. However, in the course of our enquiries we interviewed Kramer's mother. Kramer lived with his mother, but spent occasional nights at his brother's flat when his brother was on his travels. Kramer's mother told us that Henning came home at half past three on the Sunday morning. He woke her up and was very perturbed. He told her he and Katrine had been for a ride in the car, they
had fallen asleep and when he woke up - at about half past two - she had vanished without a trace.'
'He'd been very perturbed?' the public prosecutor queried. 'There could be many reasons for him to be perturbed. He may have been lying to his mother.'
'Of course. But according to his mother Kramer is supposed to have said he had been looking for Katrine, and afterwards he began to drive around to find her but without success. In the end he drove home and told his mother everything.'
'Has the time of death been established?'
'It's difficult to determine the exact time. All we have to go on is the contents of her stomach, a verified meal bought from McDonald's in Aker Brygge at around midnight, the semen in her vagina and the state of rigor mortis. The pathologist believes death occurred at somewhere between two and five o'clock in the morning.'
'And this Kramer went back to the car park. Is that right?'
'According to the mother, he did, yes. She says he left home just before six that morning to resume his search for Katrine and he returned at eight.
'On the assumption that Kramer killed her he could have driven home to his mother first - with the corpse in the car - and then panicked. He could have told his mother some twaddle. She told him to go back and search and then he drove back. He could have stopped in Hvervenbukta and tipped the body over the crash barrier. Then he could have driven on a bit and thrown away her clothes.
'We therefore examined the car Kramer was driving and found some hair, some stains which could have been semen and a variety of textile fibres. But for the time being these things have only been recorded. The best evidence we have against Kramer is the semen. But, according to Kramer's mother, he was having a relationship with Katrine. So Kramer may well have been telling the truth when he said they had consensual sex in the car that night.'
'But it has not been proved that Kramer did not rape Katrine,' Fristad interjected in inquisitorial manner, without a grimace.
Gunnarstranda: 'There is, of course, a chance that Kramer did commit rape and then murder. That's what he claims in the suicide note.'
'But you don't believe the letter is genuine?'
'Not on the face of it.'
'What do the pathologists say about Kramer's body?' Fristad asked.
'They are holding both options open. But the strongest indication that he died by his own hand is that he was found strangled with the noose around his neck.' Gunnarstranda rummaged through the pile of photographs and found one of Kramer with the cord around his neck. 'In addition, we have the suicide note in which Kramer writes that he took Katrine's jewellery, posted it to Raymond Skau, thus laying a false trail to cast suspicion of Katrine's murder on to him.' v
'But is that improbable?'
'Not at all. Kramer and Katrine were on very intimate terms. Kramer must have known a lot about Katrine's past and Raymond Skau constituted a large chunk of that past. Kramer could have had many motives for damaging Skau, about which we know nothing.'
'Ahhh…,' Fristad said, lost in thought. He sat studying the photographs.
No one said anything. At length the public prosecutor raised his eyes. 'And?' he asked with a sideways grimace.
'The problem is the particles of skin under Katrine's nails. First of all, we didn't find any indication on Kramer's body that would confirm that he had been scratched. In addition, the DNA analysis shows that the skin did not belong to Kramer.'
Fristad was quiet. Everyone went quiet.
Gunnarstranda sorted his papers into piles.
'Does that mean she scratched someone else?' Fristad asked at last.
Gunnarstranda put down the papers. 'It's possible. But we don't know. It's feasible that she might have scratched someone else during the course of the evening. She might have bumped into someone at the party or someone in the queue at McDonald's in
Aker Brygge. Nevertheless, if Kramer had lived, and he had been charged, this evidence would have given the defence very strong cards.'
'But the case seems pretty clear, doesn't it?' Fristad said in a loud voice. 'We have Kramer's confession. He says he killed her and he planted the jewellery on Skau because he knew she owed him money and all that other stuff about trying to shift the blame on to someone else. Then he committed suicide. Seems very tempting to drop the whole thing.'
'Except that the accused should be given the benefit of the doubt.'
'But the accused is bloody dead.'
'He should still be given the benefit of the doubt,' Gunnarstranda asserted with obduracy. 'If the particles of skin under Katrine Bratterud's nails belong to someone else, a person with a motive, then we have to ask ourselves why Kramer would make a false confession in a suicide note.'
'And?'
'If Katrine was killed by someone else, not Kramer, I don't understand why he would confess.'
Fristad pulled a wry face. 'Now you're making the case unnecessarily complicated, Gunnarstranda. We're talking about an ex-tart, aren't we? A bloody junkie. Why should a case like this be so damned complicated - and contain so many conspiratorial motives that involve- premeditated murder and so on, and so on?'
'I'm not complicating the case,' Gunnarstranda yelled back angrily. 'I just expect it to be tied up in a correct manner! The only thing I want is for us to wait before we prioritize other work until all those involved have been checked out and we have completed the essential investigation.'
'What's so fishy about Kramer's death?' Fristad asked.
'Traces of sedatives were found in Kramer's body. If he killed himself he might have taken them to dull his senses. However, the problem with Kramer taking sedatives before dying is that we couldn't find a box of tablets or a prescription anywhere in the flat. The point is that, if he had taken sedatives, it doesn't make sense to me that we cannot find any traces of said sedatives in his flat.'
'But he was working at a drugs rehab clinic. He did a bit of hash and cocaine himself, I've read. Kramer must have had innumerable contacts, and getting hold of illegal drugs on the street is as easy as wink.'
Gunnarstranda glanced up at Fristad, who was nodding and grimacing. 'I'm just saying it's odd,' the policeman said. 'It's also strange that the suicide letter was not found where he died. There are no fingerprints on the paper or the envelope. It seems bizarre that it should turn up in a pigeonhole at the police station. And the letter was not signed. It was printed on a laser printer and written with a computer. But Kramer did not have his own computer. There was a computer in his brother's flat and there is no sign of this letter on his machine. He might have written the letter at work, at the Vinterhagen centre, but so far we haven't been able to trace the machine on which it was written.'
'The bit about the fingerprints sounds particularly odd,' the public prosecutor said as his glasses fell on to his chest.
'Agreed,' Gunnarstranda said. 'It is odd. But it's also odd that the suicide letter isn't signed and was not where he died. If he had to confess why not confess properly so that all doubts would be dispelled? Why a letter addressed to Frølich at Police HQ? Why not to his mother or to his brother? After all, he rang his brother to talk about the mysteries of life before he died. It's strange that he doesn't send his mother and his brother a final word.' Gunnarstranda waved the letter in the air. 'This is just a confession. It's not a suicide letter as I know them.'
'He might have sent it to Frølich to be sure it was found.'
'Of course,' Gunnarstranda conceded. 'But the oddest thing of all is that he actually admitted to having sex with the girl in his first statement. It seems crazy that he would kill to cover up a rape, and then he admits to having sex with her as soon as the police show up.'
'You've got a point,' Fristad said, losing his glasses again.
'It's also funny that he would go to a postbox, post a suicide letter, then go home, take sedatives and hang himself.'
The public prosecutor nodded, interlacing his fingers in front of him and banging his thumbs against each other. He thought aloud: 'The perpetr
ator rapes the girl, kills her, removes her clothes and other possessions to hide the evidence. But the motive must be the same whoever strangled her'
'The jewellery,' Gunnarstranda said with emphasis. 'The jewellery turning up at Skau's place complicates the matter. We have established that Katrine was wearing jewellery that night and it turned up later in Skau's flat. Skau may, as we have said, have bumped into her that night. He may have killed her and taken her jewellery. The problem is that Skau's girlfriend, Linda Ros, maintains the jewellery came in the post. The posting of the jewellery tallies with what Kramer wrote in the letter.'
'What did the police officers who found the jewellery in Skau's flat say?'
'They said that everything was in a handbag on the table, which tallies with what the girl said. She said the handbag was in the postbox on Wednesday afternoon. But she didn't take in the post on the Tuesday or the Monday. We don't know when it was put in the box.'
'Could Skau have put it in the postbox himself?'
'He could have done it on the Sunday. From Sunday evening, the day after Katrine was murdered, he was in custody and he's in custody now.'
'But leaving the matter of the jewellery aside,' the public prosecutor said, 'I understood that Skau attacked Katrine at work. If he had met her in the night and attacked her again… then he could have killed her. Afterwards Skau could have forged the suicide letter - couldn't he?'
'That's a possibility,' Gunnarstranda admitted.
'Kramer's death could still be suicide even if the letter is forged,' Fristad said.
Frølich studied the police inspector. He thought he could discern the contours of a smile forming around the man's thin lips. The public prosecutor didn't notice. He was sitting with his eyes closed and a rigid expression on his face - proof that he was thinking. 'Let's imagine the following,' Fristad now declared. 'Katrine Bratterud left Henning in the car that night to get some fresh air. Her lover was asleep and she was awake. She went for a walk. She may have wanted to go to the toilet or smoke a cigarette or stretch her legs. She bumped into Raymond Skau. He killed her, stripped her and stole her jewellery. Are you with me?'