The Fourth Man

by K. O. Dahl

  The phrasing in Reidun Vestli’s suicide letter bit into his consciousness: Fear of pain. I couldn’t hold out.

  Was this the key these terrible people were after? If so, who was looking for the key? And why?

  He gave a start as the telephone rang. It was Gunnarstranda. Without any preamble, he said: ‘Positive DNA.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The fire – Reidun Vestli’s chalet. It was Elisabeth Faremo who was burned. My condolences, Frølich. You’ll be getting another visit from Kripos soon.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Frølich said.

  ‘Relax,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘Take more time off or apply for a week’s holiday so you can ride the storm.’

  ‘I have to talk to you.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘A key I’ve found.’

  ‘Is it very important?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come over this evening – after eleven.’

  Perhaps he just wanted to kill time. Or something else in him had triggered the initiative. But he went back to Merethe Sandmo’s exworkplace. It was almost eleven o’clock. The place was filling up. The gathering was a motley group of individuals, several of them belonging to a stag party. One man – presumably the bridegroom-to-be – was dressed in a bunny outfit. He was in such a drunken state he needed three chairs to sit on. Two young whippersnappers wearing dinner suits were giggling and trying to dip his hand in a bowl filled with water. An older guest with a waxed moustache and a chimpanzee jaw cast furtive glances while rolling a schnapps glass between his hands.

  On the stage a buxom woman with chocolate-brown skin was rotating her breasts to the sound of Tom Jones’s ‘She’s a Lady’ booming out of the loudspeakers. Frølich went to the bar and ordered a large beer from a pimply youth in a dinner suit. Frølich took his beer, reflecting that he had always considered dinner suits ridiculous. Item in his favour: I have never worn a dinner suit. Item no longer in his favour: I have never seen a striptease. The woman with the rotating breasts had finished. Eyes followed her as she ran off the stage and the lights were lowered. Frølich manoeuvred his way to a table right in front of the stage.

  He scanned the audience. Stag party or not, these men were serious. Welcome to men’s country, he thought, and looked up at the ceiling where he discovered a flashing disco ball the like of which he had not seen outside seventies John Travolta films. He looked at the faces in the room. Yes, he was in the arena of shadows, the hour of the rats, the wedding procession of the cockroaches: in this light, all the faces were lent the same blue and yellow hue. This was a place where it didn’t matter whether you were sick, healthy, Aryan, Indian, Chinese or just uncomfortable. This was the place where there was no room for reflection or appraisal, where lonely souls would reap pangs of guilt, bitterness or self-contempt the following day — or another time, later anyway — for everyone here can deceive themselves for a few seconds that welfare is a fruit that grows out of your own wallet. The password of the void here was: ‘Another drink, please.’

  And here I am sitting in the front row! he thought, raising his tankard and drinking while the next number was being announced. The glass at his mouth, he met the gaze of the woman making her entrance on the stage. She had covered her face with a mask moulded into the shape of a face. Nevertheless, he recognized the hourglass figure and the dreadlocks. She danced to Percy Sledge’s ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’. The lady knew her audience. Even the hecklers in the stag party quietened down. She was wearing long tight gloves over her arms, but the most striking effect was the contrast between the cold, lifeless porcelain of the mask and the living skin, of which she was gradually revealing more and more. After a while she let go of the firemen’s pole and glided off the stage. With her eyes behind the mask fixed on his, she released her top. A couple of the guys in the room couldn’t stand the pressure and roared rutting cries. A young man sporting a grey suit and a formidable fringe threw a hundred-kroner note folded into a paper aeroplane. The note hit her in the stomach. She took no notice; but in one gliding movement she was back on the stage. The eyes behind the mask were still fixed on him. She held eye contact even while she was taking off her gloves. Not until she had spun round and run off stage did she relinquish his eyes. The music was drowned by whistles and applause. Only the bridegroom in the bunny outfit had missed the finale. He was on all fours under a table throwing up.

  Frølich was fascinated by the fact that she hadn’t taken off the mask.

  He went to the bar.

  He had almost finished his next beer when she was beside him, dressed, without a mask, and transformed into a completely different woman from the one who had left the stage without a stitch. He asked what she wanted to drink.

  ‘Just water,’ she shouted through the din.

  ‘Well, I must say,’ he said, aware that he had no idea how to compliment in situations like these, ‘you’re good.’

  She said: ‘I’ve been keeping an eye open for you for a few evenings now.’

  ‘I didn’t think the invitation was still valid.’

  ‘And I didn’t know who you were.’

  ‘But you do now?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Do you know Elisabeth?’

  She nodded. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘Give me your hand.’

  He shook her hand. ‘That’s my phone number,’ she said and let go. ‘I mustn’t be seen with you.’

  He put the slip of paper in his pocket and asked: ‘Who are you frightened of?’ She was drinking water and could not answer. When she had put down the glass, she slid off the barstool.

  ‘When they ask you what I said,’ Frølich yelled, ‘tell them I have a message. I have the key.’

  She wanted to go.

  He held her back.

  She sent him a wounded look. ‘I have to go, I mean it.’

  ‘I have the key,’ Frølich repeated.

  She squeezed his wrist lightly and was gone, the heavily made-up, fake-tanned babe from the working classes who stripped to earn money in this grotty place. What am I doing? He was dismayed to meet an echo of his earlier thoughts, and put down the glass with trembling hands. He walked away from the bar, up the stairs and out. Outside, he stood breathing in the air, which was cold and refreshing. He jumped into the first taxi. It was just gone eleven.

  It was an odd feeling to be trudging up these particular stairs, noticing the smell, passing door after door with peepholes, in a stairwell that he felt such an affiliation with, but had never entered. He stopped and studied the battered door, the brass nameplate, the aluminium newspaper flap. He lifted his finger to the white doorbell and pressed it. The bell rang like a sixties telephone. The echo hung in the quiet stairwell until he could hear his boss coughing on the inside shortly before the door was opened.

  Gunnarstranda stared coolly up at him without any expression.

  ‘Now it’s my turn,’ Frølich said, embarrassed.

  Gunnarstranda held open the door. ‘Would you like a whisky?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Which brand do you prefer?’

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘All of them.’

  Frank Frølich raised his eyebrows.

  ‘At any rate, the ones you know.’

  ‘An Islay,’ Frank Frølich said, watching Gunnarstranda going off to a worn old trunk on which it was still possible to read the faded label of MS Stavangerfjord. He opened the lid; the brown bottles were tightly packed in.

  ‘Bowmore?’

  ‘OK.’

  Frølich had a look around. Almost every square centimetre of wall space in the living room was covered with books. Specialist literature, encyclopaedias, ballistics, botany. He read the titles: Alpine Flowers in the North, Flowers of the Alps, Flowers in Iceland, Flowers of the Faroese Islands. The only break in the rows of books was a glass bowl in which a red fringetail was belching water. He stood up and looked at the fish through the glass.

  ‘Here you are,’ Gunnarstranda sai
d, passing him the glass.

  Frølich took it.

  ‘They cost thirty-five kroner,’ Gunnarstranda said.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Fish like that one. Cheap, isn’t it?’

  ‘Looks a bit listless.’

  Gunnarstranda didn’t answer.

  ‘You don’t have a lot of fiction,’ Frølich noticed.

  ‘Fiction?’

  ‘Yes, novels, poems …’

  ‘Arts?’ Gunnarstranda shook his head and smiled. ‘I don’t like the arts.’ He raised his glass. ‘Skal.’

  They sipped their whisky.

  Frølich swallowed his with relish.

  ‘That doesn’t tally with your ability to quote literature.’

  Gunnarstranda shrugged, put down his glass and said: ‘Have you got the key?’

  Frølich buried his hand in his pocket and then passed it to him.

  They were sitting in two deep chairs which must have dated from at least the first EU referendum in 1972.

  Gunnarstranda studied the key. ‘A bank safety-deposit box,’ he said.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because it’s exactly the same as the key for my own safety-deposit box.’ Gunnarstranda passed him back the key. Frølich sat pondering it in his hand. ‘No name of bank, no number of box.’

  ‘That’s how it usually is.’

  ‘So we’ve got a few thousand banks to choose from and a few hundred thousand safety-deposit boxes,’ Frølich burst out dejectedly.

  Gunnarstranda nodded. ‘It’s not meant to be simple.’

  ‘But why don’t the banks mark their keys?’

  Gunnarstranda shrugged. ‘I assume because having a safety-deposit box is a fairly solemn business. When I acquired one all those years ago I was provided with two keys and informed that the bank didn’t have any copies. If I wanted to authorize someone to open the box, it would have to be registered in the bank’s own authorization register.’

  ‘But what the hell am I supposed to do with the key if it’s not possible to find out which bank or safety-deposit box it belongs to?’

  Gunnarstranda smirked and said: ‘Where has the key come from?’

  ‘She left it at my place.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Elisabeth.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘A hundred per cent.’

  ‘The odds are that the key was issued to either Elisabeth Faremo or someone in her circle — Jonny Faremo, for example. Perhaps to both of them. The only snag you might encounter is that there is no central register of holders of safety-deposit boxes — something you would definitely be glad of in other situations.’

  Frølich sipped his whisky while the other detective brooded.

  ‘You said you found a tattoo parlour in Askim where someone had decorated Elisabeth Faremo’s hips?’

  Frølich nodded.

  ‘Did you find that out on your own?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What made you search there – in Askim?’

  ‘Because Jonny Faremo was found dead in Askim.’

  ‘Would you be interested to know that Ilijaz Zupac once lived there?’

  ‘Where?

  ‘In Askim.’ When Gunnarstranda saw the bewilderment in the other’s eyes, he added: ‘I took the trouble to do a little digging around Ilijaz Zupac. He went to the FE College in Askim and took the basic mechanics course. In the seventies his father was working at the rubber-goods factory in Askim. There must have been a whole colony of Yugoslav immigrants there.’

  ‘Yugoslav?’

  ‘This was before Tito’s death and the Balkan wars. These Yugoslavs are now Croats, Bosnians, Serbs and Montenegrins. Where Zupac’s parents came from, only he knows. They’re both dead. However, he has Norwegian nationality and he did the basic and the advanced course at this college from 1989 to 1991. He’s a qualified panel-beater and was working in that capacity at the garage where you arrested him.’

  Gunnarstranda motioned towards the key. ‘I have a safety-deposit box in Den norske Bank NOR in Grefsen. As I said, the keys are very similar.’

  ‘You mean we should go to Grefsen and try all the safety-deposit boxes there?’

  Gunnarstranda shook his head. He said: ‘Faremo was killed in Askim, his sister got a tattoo in Askim, her ex-lover has lived in Askim. And I happen to know there is a branch of DnB there.’

  They both lapsed into silence. Frølich was still holding the key in his outstretched hand. ‘It’s worth a stab,’ he said.

  ‘But it has to be done officially.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I’ll have to use the case I’m investigating. I’ll call in Jim Rognstad and Vidar Ballo for more questioning about the Arnfinn Haga murder – and about the death of Elisabeth Faremo. I have a strong suspicion that neither of the two will turn up. If they don’t, there’s nothing to stop me –’ Gunnarstranda was tapping his chest with his forefinger ‘– from confronting the employees of the Askim branch of DnB –’ he leaned forward and snatched the key out of Frølich’s hand ‘– with this key.’ He put it in his pocket. ‘From now on you and I are playing in the same team on this case,’ he concluded. ‘I assume you’ll be making it into work tomorrow.’

  Frølich deliberated. He didn’t like the direction Gunnarstranda’s outline of events was taking. He said: ‘What if the key doesn’t fit?’

  ‘Then you’ve got something to work on in the days to come.’

  Frølich stood up. He put out his hand.

  Gunnarstranda glanced up. ‘What is it now?’

  ‘The key. If this is supposed to be official, it will have to be official. I’ll hand it in tomorrow.’

  After leaving Gunnarstranda, he decided to go from Bjølsen to the city centre on foot. He strolled along the pavement by the timber houses in Maridalsveien and took a left turn down by the old mill on the Akerselva. The bridge over the waterfall was illuminated now in the dark. He wandered over the bridge past the Hønse-Lovisa house and on to Grünerløkka. He had to think. Gunnarstranda’s snatching the key out of his hand had irritated him. But what did this emotion signify? Was it a kind of ingrown allergy to being given orders? To handing over the key and being obliged to go to work tomorrow, clean-shaven and properly breakfasted, ready to conform religiously to all the rules and regulations? Perhaps that was the cause of his irritation: the fact that he was disqualified by his personal involvement and this would make further work on the case difficult. So perhaps he wasn’t ready to go to work yet. The key weighed heavily in his trouser pocket. It had been left in his flat by her. This key was his. And this pressure from Gunnarstranda to go to work, to perform his function in the orchestra and allow himself to be conducted, he wasn’t ready for that. Not now. Not yet.

  Autumn chose this night to demonstrate its damp side. The streetlamps in Birkelunden had an orange aura in the mist. A man wearing a parka and pyjama trousers was taking his dog for a walk. A dark car drove slowly past. Frank Frølich quickened his step, heading for Grønland Metro station.

  He caught the last train. It was about one o’clock at night. He still wasn’t sure whether to go to work or not. For one thing, he would have to be up in a few hours. And for another he would have to tolerate the looks, the silence and the unspoken — not just for a whole day but every single day from now on. Would he ever be able to get back into the swing of police work?

  He got off at Ryen station and walked slowly down Havreveien. The weather had become even milder. It was drizzling. He stopped – held the palm of his hand out to feel the drops falling. But he didn’t feel anything.

  He heard the motorbike, but didn’t see it. He only felt himself flying through the air. Then the cold, wet, hard tarmac as his hands broke his fall. He didn’t feel the crack on his head either. But he heard it and it stunned him. As the air was knocked out of his lungs, he saw the rear lights of the motorbike. The powerful figure in the leathers and helmet rested the bike on its side-stand. He had been run over. The air ha
d rushed against his face as he flew. The man had run into him deliberately. He tried to get up, but was too slow. A kick and he was down again. The man with the motorbike helmet was holding something in his hand. A voice in his head screamed: Get to your feet! Run! But his legs crumbled. He held his hands over his head as the man struck. Everything went black and he could feel hands groping his body. He lay there with his eyes closed and everything was still. He blinked but couldn’t see. He dabbed his face with his hand. Wet. Blood. You have to get help! He dragged himself up on all fours, but passed out and collapsed in a heap. He ran his hand over his face again, caught a brief glimpse of the street and the parked cars. The motorbike started up. The red rear light and the exhaust. The outline of a rider who didn’t look back. He managed to crawl. Slowly he clambered up onto the pavement as the sound of the motorbike faded into the distance. His clothes were soaked. He leaned back against a parked car. He felt his scalp with his fingers, found the wound and took his fingers away. He patted his pockets. The wallet was there. What had he stolen? He knew the answer and didn’t bother to check his pocket. Instead he searched for his mobile phone. No one would have seen anything here between the blocks of flats. He would have to call emergency services himself.

  It wasn’t yet five o’clock in the morning. Gunnarstranda hadn’t eaten, hadn’t had a cup of coffee. He was irritated and irascible. Not even the sight of his sorry-looking colleague sitting beside him in the car could lift him. Frølich had been bandaged up with all the expertise at the disposal of Oslo Accident and Emergency Department, but was still in shock from the attack and stank of beer and vomit.

  ‘Didn’t you even catch a glimpse of his registration number?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No idea who it was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You said it was just one man. Are you sure there weren’t more?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I think there was only one man.’

  ‘And he took the key. That was bloody clever of you to take it with you.’

  Frølich didn’t reply.