by K. O. Dahl
'The meeting's going to last a long time,' the young man said with a grin.
Frølich thought: Men like you should be in the fields and woods. He said: 'So your boss thinks he can psyche me out, does he?' He went back to the chair and sat down.
The young man stood there with his arms hanging down by his sides. What was it Eva-Britt always said? I think men in dinner jackets can be quite sexy, but James Bond should understand once and for all that he should not run around in that kind of clothing. Frølich leaned forwards and eyed the young man. Young men in suits shouldn't stand so erect with their arms down by their sides, he thought. It makes them look like standard lamps. 'Let there be light,' he said with a smile.
At that moment his mobile telephone rang.
* * *
Chapter Forty-Six
Getting Warmer
The easy part was that the man was a patient. He looked down at his legs. Soft, light brown shoes and loose trousers. His legs were quite normal, his stride relaxed. The important thing is how it looks from the outside, not how it feels on the inside. The feeling of heaviness is sheer imagination.
He turned left again and at an accelerated pace headed for the nursing home. The lobby was deserted and quite still. A taxi was parked in front of the entrance. The taxi driver was waiting, so he was collecting, not delivering. He walked past the taxi and took the last few steps to the front entrance. As soon as he opened the door, the familiar smell hit him: the smell of old people, a pungent odour consisting of elements such as urine, dirt, dust, stale air and rotten organic material. It smelled like an open grave. The irony of this image made him smile. A young woman in a garish yellow sweater was sitting behind a low glass partition arid speaking on the telephone. He went to the door and knocked politely against the door frame.
'Reidar Bueng?' he asked, leaning against the wall.
She put down the receiver with a startled expression. 'I'm on placement here, so I don't know my way around so well…'
'A student?' he smiled. 'Isn't there a list you can consult?'
'Yes, there is.' She put the receiver on the desk and searched through the paperwork. She was nervous she wouldn't find what she was looking for. Finally she looked up. 'Room 104.'
'Thank you,' he said and continued at a composed tempo down the corridor. He passed room 104 without stopping, just a brief glance to see where he was in the corridor. Through the windows he could see white clover flowers in the lawn. An old man with a beret, white legs in enormous shorts and a spanner in his hand was standing over a dismantled lawnmower.
He went on and found a toilet further down the corridor. He entered, locked the door behind him and laid the briefcase on the toilet lid. At the bottom of the briefcase, each in their own compartment, were plastic gloves, a hypodermic needle and the serum. He put on the gloves and quickly assembled the syringe. Then he pressed down the plunger and sucked up one phial, then a second. He released two drops into the toilet. Ready for use. Goodness me, he thought. Someone has been given the wrong medication today. He hid the weapon in his jacket pocket. Then he inspected the pocket in the mirror. It looked as it should. He put his sunglasses back on and breathed in before opening the toilet door and walking slowly down the corridor.
Not a soul around, neither to the left nor the right. Think about her. Feel her fury. Think how she would crush you! He proceeded without hurrying to room 104. His breathing was regular: out, in, out, in; he knocked twice. Not a sound from inside. Time to complete the job, he thought, grasping the door handle.
'You're worried about me,' Sigrid Haugom confirmed after they had got into the car. 'You think I'm psychotic. Maybe you think I might harm myself?'
'I'm only doing my job,' Gunnarstranda said, donning his jacket, starting the engine and driving off.
'Is it part of your job to watch women sitting on the loo and having a pee?'
'I didn't watch you. It's my job to stay on the heels of arrestees. You are not the first in that regard.'
'You're a bad liar, Gunnarstranda.'
He looked across at her and said with a wry smile on his thin lips, 'You have to remember I've listened to lots of liars, all too many.'
'Strange,' she sighed.
'What's strange?'
'This moment.'
She went on: 'All the times I've tried to imagine what it would be like to be arrested. Thousands.' She glanced out of the car when he braked for a car coming from the right. 'Talk about an anti-climax.'
'I'm beginning to get used to it, too,' Gunnarstranda said drily.
They fell silent.
'I think…,' he began after a while.
'Are you frightened I'll throw myself out of the car?' she interrupted.
'I think Henning Kramer discovered something,' Gunnarstranda persevered.
She sighed. 'God, now you're being tiresome.'
'I think he discovered something your husband had missed, something which made Kramer dangerous in his eyes. I want you to think. What could Kramer have discovered?'
She angled her head. 'I think that's pretty obvious, don't you?'
Gunnarstranda sent her an uneasy glance.
She was looking ahead with a scornful smile on her lips. 'It's staring you in the face. My God, if the rest of the police force is as stupid as you it's not surprising I got away that time in '77. Can't you see it? How could it never have occurred to you!'
Gunnarstranda kept his eyes on the road and stopped to let a car through from the right.
All of a sudden she became serious. 'It's my fault, too,' she said. 'I wanted to help Katrine that night at the party when she fell ill. So I rang Erik. I thought he could drive us home. I wanted to escape and I needed to talk to Katrine face to face. Erik didn't turn up. Henning came to collect Katrine, but Erik didn't turn up.'
Gunnarstranda nodded to himself. The picture was beginning to take shape.
'I waited for Erik at the party. When I saw Katrine leaving…'
'You saw her leaving?'
'Yes, I was on the veranda and saw her go out through the door, close it and walk to the garden gate. I saw her in the light from the street lamp outside the gate. I saw her walking down the road. I thought about shouting to her, but didn't. Instead I went inside and tried to ring Erik to tell him not to pick me up after all. He didn't answer the phone.'
'He was already on the way?'
Sigrid ignored the question. She said: 'That Monday you came to the rehab centre Henning was walking around in a trance. We talked about what had happened, all of us, about the party and about Katrine. Henning kept hassling us. We had to tell him again and again what had happened that night. All the time I could feel Henning's eyes on me. There is only one explanation for that. Henning saw Erik that night. He drove past Erik on his way up to Annabeth's at around midnight. He had Erik on his tail when he drove to collect Katrine. But everyone knew I wasn't picked up until four in the morning. It was repeated again and again at the meetings on Monday morning.'
She paused. The policeman said nothing.
She smiled at him. 'I'm beginning to like you, Gunnarstranda. You know how to be quiet in the right places.' She coughed. 'Henning called us the evening after the funeral. He demanded to speak to Erik.'
'What did they talk about?'
'I think Henning threatened to go to you with his suspicions and his sightings of Erik that night.' 'And your husband asked him not to,' Gunnarstranda completed.
She laughed a hollow laugh. 'It would never occur to him to ask anyone for anything.'
She looked out of the car window. 'No,' she said. 'Erik agreed to meet him so that they could talk it out, man to man.'
* * *
Chapter Forty-Seven
The Last Fix
Elvis Presley's low, metallic voice blared out from the radio's loudspeaker on the bedside table. But the room was empty.
He couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. Once more he went into the bathroom, into the kitchen and into the small alcove. Not a soul a
nywhere. He looked down at himself. A man wearing yellow gloves. They would have to come off. He peeled off the gloves and put them in his pocket. No, that wouldn't do. He took the gloves from his pocket and deposited them in the briefcase instead. Where to get rid of them? He sat in the armchair by the window and slowly ran his eyes across the room. He peered through the open door to the bathroom - at a dirty laundry basket. That was where. He slipped into the bathroom and dropped the briefcase into the half-full laundry basket.
'Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should have….' Elvis sang.
He switched off the radio and stood listening. Not a sound to be heard. No mumbling, no rushing sounds in the pipes. For what must have been the hundredth time he checked the bulge in his jacket pocket. He was ready. More than ready and no one was at home.
It was very strange. He hastened back to the window and looked outside. The same lawnmower he had seen through a corridor window on the lawn, abandoned. Why had it been abandoned? Why was it so quiet?
He was getting hot and ran to the door. Stopped. He didn't want to go, not yet, not so close to the conclusion. There's something wrong. Best to get out now! He grabbed the door handle. Changed his mind yet again. Locked the door from the inside. Reached the window in two quick strides. He took the latch and pushed open the window. It had hinges on both sides, a window it should be possible to tilt open. A safety catch had been added. It wasn't possible to open the window wide. He tried again. The window wouldn't move. A meagre twenty centimetres of air was all the window was capable of supplying.
The blood froze in his veins as someone was pressing the door handle behind him. It could not be Bueng. It was someone else. Thank God the door was locked. He looked at the brown door - and turned back to the window. He thought: Smash the window. Now!
The person on the outside tried again. Jerked the handle downwards. Knocked.
How the hell were you supposed to open this window? He pushed at the frame. It gave way on the left-hand side. There. A little bolt you had to flick up. Two seconds later his left foot sank into a tangle of thorns. That didn't help. The rose bush snagged his leg. He was out. He closed the window behind him. Struggled out. The thorns tore at his clothes. He was sweating. But didn't stop to look around. He strode towards the gravel path dividing the lawn into two rectangles. The area was completely deserted. You should have known. You should have known something was wrong when it was so quiet!
Well, what had happened? A young woman in reception. That was all. And what had she seen? A man with sunglasses asking after a patient. That was all.
He stopped on the corner and cautiously looked around the house. A police patrol car was parked in the drive. It was empty.
Now! he thought. Now! The car's empty. So there's only one or two of them. A couple of second-raters answering a call. They're investigating a call someone has made. No one is after you! Skedaddle!
He set off towards the police car and walked past it and out. He turned left and kept walking, straight ahead. Every single muscle in his back was knotted. Every second he expected to hear a shout behind him. But nothing happened. He was twenty-five metres away now, forty. Five metres to the first crossroads. He forced himself not to walk fast. One metre to go. He turned left without looking behind him. He kept going, hidden now by a large block of flats. Five metres, ten metres. He breathed out. All was well. No one had seen anything.
The thought of the empty police car bothered him. Why had the car appeared? Had it been called because of him? That was very unlikely. If the police knew anything at all they would not have sent a single patrol car. It must have been called out for some other reason. But why had someone yanked at the door? He tried to consider the matter. He hadn't heard any shouting. That was a good sign. A policeman would have shouted if he was standing outside a locked door trying to contact someone inside. It couldn't have been a policeman trying to get in. So why had he panicked? Something must have gone wrong. But what? It was impossible to know. But if something had gone wrong what proof did they have against him? Nothing. The police were tapping in the dark. The question was: Had it been a blunder to go there, to the nursing home? No! It hadn't been a blunder. Reidar Bueng was the only connection with Sigrid's case. The only person who knew anything at all. The only link of any significance.
He stopped. He was crossing Bentse Bridge.
Just a feeling…
He turned round. No. No one stopped, no one following. He looked down into the river and pretended to go through his pockets, and turned round again. Nothing. Nevertheless, he was aware of a prickling sensation. On he walked, taking his time, up Bentsebruagata to Vogts gate and the tram stop. He stopped here and turned round again. Nothing to be seen, just some youth shuffling along the pavement, a young woman locking her car and an elderly lady pulling a shopping trolley. The tram rounded the hill to the left by Sandaker. When it finally slid to a halt in front of him he went through one of the double doors in the middle. He was the only person to board. He smiled, began to work his way forward and approached the driver to pay. The tram came to a sudden standstill and he looked out, but there were no cars or pedestrians in the way. And then a door slammed behind him. His blood froze to ice. Turn round. See who it is before the tram sets off!
He slowly twisted his head to the right. Nothing. No uniforms, just people sitting, leaning against the steel poles, chewing gum, talking to each other in low voices. Nothing. Searching for coins in his pocket, he nodded absentmindedly to a bearded Sikh who had adorned his head with a dark red turban.
He found an unoccupied seat on the left. And went over the great fiasco in his mind. Either something had gone disastrously wrong or no damage had been done. But he had to find out which. A boy with long, black hair and a spotty face was talking about the relationship between language and understanding. 'If you're taking the piss, I want you to say you're taking the piss,' he said to his companion, a plump girl with a lot of sub-cutaneous fat on her thighs.
He craned his neck round and looked back. Nothing. Nevertheless a tingling sensation in his back. Between his shoulder blades he could feel an itch that was not of a physiological nature. Someone was there. There had to be. He was sweating. He rubbed his forehead with his fingers. Damp. He fought to stop himself turning round.
A mobile telephone rang. The man who answered spoke very good English. A Vietnamese-looking boy was playing some kind of game on his mobile telephone. It was hard to concentrate in these surroundings. The hardest thing of all, though, was not letting yourself turn around.
Well, what could have happened? Nothing. He glanced up. A woman was staring at him. What was she staring at? He couldn't stand it any longer. He had to turn. He gave a start. For a few fleeting moments he thought it was her. But it was not. Even though the woman sitting in the seat right behind him was very similar. The blonde passenger lowered and averted her gaze.
He faced the front again. He must not behave like this. He had to be calm. Under control. Better go home, meditate and work out when to strike again. He alighted from the tram in Aker Brygge. Lots of passengers got off there. Lots of casually dressed people without a care, laughing. A few boys were doing BMX tricks on a ramp. A large crane had been positioned in front of the entrance to Aker Brygge. Three fit young men were offering bungee jumps.
He slowed down, trying to be the last in the group. He soon saw how hopeless that was. The whole of the City Hall square was teeming with people. He stopped by the large crane as an elderly lady was being strapped into position. She hung, dangled, over the tarmac like a cross between a slaughtered animal and Astrid Lindgren's Karlsson-on-the-Roof. She was really enjoying herself as she was hoisted upwards.
He tore himself away. A little boy shading his eyes as he squinted into the sky shouted: 'Grandma! Grandma!'
He proceeded along the wharf promenade with quickened steps. The itching in his back was still there. There was someone behind him. Someone.
He veered to the right towards the square, stop
ped and looked behind him. People. Throngs of people.
He walked close by the fountain and went into the multi-storey car park. He was alone in the lift. The doors closed. He leaned against the glass wall and registered a movement to his left.
Frank Frølich and Erik Haugom looked each other in the eye for what seemed like an eternity. Haugom had positioned himself at the back of the glass lift. They held eye contact as the lift moved downwards. Frank, on the staircase, was in no hurry. He ambled down with his legs akimbo. On the bends they exchanged glances. Every time Frank rounded the corner Haugom turned his head; it was lower at every bend. When Haugom's head was on a level with the policeman's knee, Frank brought his foot back and kicked the glass with all his might. Haugom's body jerked backwards. But his eyes gave nothing away. His face was closed, two vacant eyes above a tightly clenched mouth. Frank noticed that the doctor had birthmarks on his scalp. There were still a couple of bends left when he heard the metal door leading to the parked cars bang. Frank reached the door ten seconds later. Inside there was the sound of running feet. He stood still and smelt the heavy, exhaust-infested air. He tried to see the closed face from the glass lift, the expression on the man's face as he ran throwing hasty glances over his shoulder. But he could not. Still he stood without moving, trying to hear where the sound of running feet was coming from. But it seemed to be impossible. The parking area resounded with a slight echo from all parts at once - it came in waves across rows and rows of empty, darkened car interiors - an illuminated sign on the ceiling, yellow stripes over the concrete floor. Frølich lumbered along the central aisle, the broad driving lanes, with cars on both sides. On hearing the sound of an engine starting, he stopped. It sounded more like a scream than an engine starting. Haugom was becoming nervous. Frank gave a smile of satisfaction and wondered how stupid this man really was. Soon after there was a squeal of braking tyres. The man must be living on his nerves. The engine screamed again. Frank concentrated. He ran his eyes along the walls. Not a movement anywhere. Again the howl of an engine. The sound was coming closer. He just managed to throw himself to the side at the last moment. The coke-grey Mercedes raced past only one millimetre away from his foot. He caught a glimpse of an elderly man bent over the steering wheel. That was probably the most pathetic thing about this person, Frank thought, struggling on to his knees - the ill-placed single-mindedness and pugnacity this sad guy could mobilize. When it comes down to it, all villains are just as bad as each other, but there's no doubt some villains look better on film, as Eva-Britt always said.