‘Let’s go for a beer,’ Lena said. ‘I’ll pay for my own.’
After she hung up, the phone rang again at once. It was a secretary from the Pathology Institute.
6
Gunnarstranda was given a yellow hi-vis jacket and a blue helmet with a head torch by Torleif Mork, a man with a white beard and eyes that twinkled under his helmet.
‘When the train comes we stand back against the tunnel wall and look up at the driver,’ Mork said, then added: ‘If we’re lucky, he sees us and slows down and then the suction isn’t so bad.’
They strolled down the platform for trains leaving from Tøyen to the city centre. Mork rang the ops room. Soon the lights came on in the tunnel.
They climbed stiffly down the metal ladder onto the gravel beside the track. Mork pointed to the yellow electric rail about thirty centimetres above the ground. ‘That’s got enough power to supply all our trains with speeds of fifty to sixty kph at any one time, so please don’t touch it.’
There was silence in the tunnel. They walked on a flagstone path that reverberated with a hollow echo with every step they took. Mork explained that the flagstones also functioned as lids for the cable trunking alongside the tracks. Their monotonous footsteps were short-lived. What came next started as metal scraping against metal, but grew in volume. Gunnarstranda regretted not bringing ear defenders with him. This had to be worse than being in a church tower when the bells rang, he thought, pressing back against the wall. The train that came rushing around the bend seemed incredibly big. Carriage after carriage thundered past. Gunnarstranda saw Mork moving his lips, but could hear nothing over the din of the train and screeching metal.
‘What was that you said?’ Gunnarstranda yelled when the last carriage was finally gone.
‘I said we’ll soon be below sea level,’ Mork grinned.
They walked on and passed a niche carved into the wall. The opening was closed off with an iron gate secured with a solid padlock. They continued onwards, shining their torches into all the cavities as they passed.
‘No one can hide in these niches unless they destroy the padlock first,’ Mork said. ‘All the padlocks are intact and every niche was inspected with a torch.’
A few seconds later they had to squeeze back against the wall again. They had reached the middle of the bend now. The train leaned towards them and Gunnarstranda imagined he felt metal against the tip of his nose. This train went faster and was longer than the last. He counted six carriages.
They walked on. The tunnel was changing character. This part was concrete and the ceiling was supported by immense pillars.
‘There,’ said Mork, pointing. ‘That’s where she was standing until she threw herself forwards. It’s a fairly standard method, by the way.’
They looked at the pillars between the railway tracks. Another train raced in, from the opposite direction. It was so fast you couldn’t distinguish the faces of the passengers behind the windows. Gunnarstranda shuddered as he thought about the woman being chopped to pieces.
There was silence again.
‘Let’s go on,’ Gunnarstranda said.
The tunnel widened. A staircase ascended to a side tunnel, which rose steeply.
Gunnarstranda found it liberating not to have to stand back as the next train thundered past.
They went up the stairs and on through a narrow, gently rising tunnel until they reached a double door with a panic handle in the middle.
‘Same type of door as in the cinema,’ Mork said. ‘You just have to push to get out. This is an emergency exit of course.’
‘And it was this alarm that went off?’
‘Yes. The person leaving the tunnel after the incident came out here.’ Mork pointed upwards. ‘The sensor. The alarm’s triggered when the door opens.’
Mork rang the ops room. ‘When the alarm goes off, it’s just me, Torleif Mork,’ he said, and hung up.
They opened the door and walked into Åkerbergveien, directly behind Police HQ.
Gunnarstranda turned and ambled back. One thing he was able to confirm: in this side tunnel leading to the emergency exit there was nowhere to hide.
Where could the two of them have hidden?
They walked back to the railway tracks. Apparently there was a lull in the train traffic. The silence was total.
‘Are there any other emergency exits?’ Gunnarstranda asked.
Mork raised an arm and pointed. ‘There,’ he said.
Gunnarstranda turned. It was like an image from a horror film. A broad, dusty, pitch-black staircase leading to an even darker grotto. Gunnarstranda felt his stomach constrict at the sight. It was possible to hide here.
Here there was a gap in the electric rail, which made it possible to cross the tracks. Gunnarstranda went over first.
‘There should be a light here somewhere,’ Mork said as they went up the stairs. ‘Hm…’
The staircase led into a long corridor. The beams from their head torches cut diagonal lines across the wall and revealed an old graffiti tag.
They came to a double metal door, which was open.
‘This is an old bomb shelter,’ Mork said. His voice echoed through the large room. ‘You know, the Metro was built in the 1960s and there was a very different climate then than now. Politically, I mean.’
Gunnarstranda shone his head torch across the walls. There were some doors that opened into narrow corridors and rooms. An immense ventilation pipe rose into a shaft to the right. ‘What’s the ventilation for?’
‘It belongs to a multi-storey car park above us, I think.’
‘Someone could’ve hidden in here,’ Gunnarstranda stated with conviction.
They went on. The floor was wet.
They pushed open some double doors with the panic handle. Behind them was another long, dark grotto.
‘Once these doors have closed you can’t get back without special keys,’ Mork said. He took a breeze block from beside the grotto wall and placed it in the doorway to stop the door closing. They went on. And came to another double door. Gunnarstranda pushed it open. The sunlight blinded them. They were in Grønlandsleiret.
‘Are these emergency exits covered by CCTV?’ he asked.
Mork shook his head.
They walked back. The doors locked behind them. The transition from light to darkness was stupefying. Gunnarstranda stood still to allow his eyes to get used to the darkness again.
Mork bent down to put the breeze block back. The beam from his head torch swept across the concrete floor.
‘Wait,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘Don’t move.’
‘What is it?’
Gunnarstranda removed his helmet and pointed the beam of light at the floor just inside the door. ‘That’s blood,’ he stated. ‘That is, without any doubt, blood.’
The two men stood still, silent. Their torches shone on a pool of blood the size of a drain cover, smeared at the edges. ‘Someone has been bleeding here,’ Gunnarstranda said at length. ‘A lot. Someone has been lying here bleeding and was later dragged backwards into the bomb shelter.’
Mork raised his head and let the torch sweep around them. ‘What shall we do now?’ His voice was dry, metallic.
A train rumbled past in the tunnel.
‘We have to do some looking,’ Gunnarstranda said when he could hear himself think.
‘Look for what?’
‘The hiding place.’
It took them five minutes. In one of the side rooms of the old bomb shelter there was a broad ventilation pipe running from the floor to the ceiling with a ninety-degree angle in it. Where the pipe ended there was an equally broad pipe running horizontally. From wall to wall. A ladder lay in front of this pipe. Why was it there? Gunnarstranda went down on his knees and shone his torch under the pipe. There, the opening between the floor and the pipe was narrow, but not too narrow. Under and behind the pipe there was just enough room to hide someone.
‘Here,’ Gunnarstranda said, shining his torch on the concrete floo
r. The line of blood was unmistakeable.
‘It shouldn’t be possible to hide here.’
‘If there’s no light in here, it’s possible,’ Gunnarstranda said.
‘Who was lying there bleeding?’ Mork asked.
‘It was either the man who ran through the emergency exit or it was the woman who threw herself in front of the train.’
‘But if someone was bleeding our people must have heard them! If you’re in pain you make a noise.’
Gunnarstranda refrained from commenting.
‘What do you think?’
‘I’d like to keep that to myself for the time being,’ Gunnarstranda said quietly. ‘In fact, I think I’ve seen enough now,’ he said, and pointed. ‘Shall we go?’
Mork nodded.
Gunnarstranda felt something brush against his face. He grabbed it.
‘What’s that?’ Mork asked, almost bumping into him.
‘A cable,’ Gunnarstranda said, showing him the lead that hung from the neon tube on the ceiling. ‘Someone has deliberately shorted the light in here.’
7
‘Sveinung Adler was absolutely sober,’ Schwenke said, leafing through the thin pile of papers in his hands. He straightened his glasses. ‘Zero alcohol level. He could’ve driven a car.’
The pathologist turned and opened the door to the lab. The smell of formalin and butchery rushed towards them. Schwenke led the way to the corpse.
‘When did he die?’ Lena asked.
‘Hard to say. We don’t know when he ate or when he fell into the sea. The food was well digested. Lutefisk, pork and potatoes. Incidentally it was the third stomach I’ve opened up this week that didn’t have mushy peas with the lutefisk. Do you think we’re witnessing a trend?’
No one could tell when Schwenke was joking or serious. Lena looked away and thought to herself: Adeler had been sober. Would a man with no alcohol in his body fall from a harbour into the water?
‘What do you think the cause of death was?’ Lena asked. She tried not to look at the body on the zinc trolley with the stomach sewn up.
‘He drowned. There’s no question about that,’ Schwenke said. ‘But there’s another little thing I asked you to come and see, as you’re trying to clarify the circumstances.’
‘Oh, yes?’
Schwenke bent down and picked up a carrier bag. From this he took a damp white shirt. ‘He was wearing this. Look,’ Schwenke said, showing her the collar, which was ragged and torn. ‘Three tears.’
‘When could that have happened?’
‘I’ll show you something else,’ the pathologist said, walking around the table.
Schwenke lifted the dead man’s head. Carefully he twisted it to the side. He pointed with his fingertips. There were clear wounds in the neck behind the ear, just under the hairline at the back of the head. ‘Cuts,’ Schwenke said. ‘Grazes and cuts where the shirt is torn as well.’
Lena didn’t know what to make of this. She asked him straight out: ‘What do you think it means?’
‘The first question is whether the wounds were inflicted before or after he fell into the sea. When I first saw the injuries I assumed he must’ve received them when he fell from the harbour. We don’t know how he came to fall, of course – whether he fell forwards or slipped backwards or hit something on the way down. But then I examined the shirt and found the tears. Then I examined the jacket. But it doesn’t have any tears. So the question is how he could hit himself on the way down and tear the shirt but not the jacket? He was wearing both items of clothing when he was found. This made me re-read the SOC officer’s report.’
‘And?’ Lena said, still as bewildered as before.
Schwenke grimaced, as though he found it difficult to say what he had to say. ‘As the shirt is damaged, but not the jacket, the cuts may have been caused by an object that came between jacket and shirt. At first I thought the tears in the shirt and the injuries sustained were caused by some kind of tool – a boathook or another hook of some kind that someone had attached to his clothes.’
Lena tried to imagine it: Sveinung Adeler splashing in the water and someone hooking him by his shirt collar.
‘To fish him out of the water?’ she asked.
‘Or to force him down,’ Schwenke said.
They exchanged glances. Lena didn’t follow this line of thought. ‘I just can’t imagine him falling from a boat,’ she said.
‘I don’t think he fell from a boat, either. I’d like you to see this,’ Schwenke said, and showed her the SOC officer’s report. ‘I searched for a boathook. But I found this.’
Lena read: ‘“Two hundred and fifty-four centimetre spruce lath, three-quarters, four”.’ She looked up. ‘What’s that?’
‘A plank two and a half metres long,’ Schwenke said drily. ‘Three-quarters of an inch thick and four inches wide. The piece of wood was on City Hall Quay 1. That’s the pier closest to the fortress. The SOC officers think that’s where he fell. And they noted that the lath was there.’
Lena had to articulate the emerging conclusion. ‘So you think someone tried to force the man under the water with the plank and it was responsible for the tears in his shirt and injuries to his neck?’
Schwenke didn’t answer. As always when confronted with weighty conclusions, he ruminated.
‘I’m going to put in my report that he drowned. However, the tears in his shirt and the injuries to his neck were most probably inflicted after he fell into the water and before his heart stopped beating. That’s all. If I were you I’d ask the lab to examine the lath with great care and compare it with the shirt. There may be shirt fibres lodged in the wood, assuming my theory is correct. If this turns out to be the case, you have proof that there was someone on the quay while the man drowned. The temperature of the water would have meant he lost consciousness within a minute. In these circumstances someone was forcing him down so hard that his shirt tore. As to the intention of this person? I wouldn’t like to comment, but someone was definitely there. Someone was holding the lath.’
Lena closed her eyes and opened them. She looked straight at the white body.
In a flash she saw herself lying on a similar zinc trolley. A body, a carcass this cynical pathologist cut up with relish. A kidney for the highest bidder – or what about the liver? Used but in good condition, thirty-three years old, well treated by the owner, not much abuse beyond quarter-bottles of champagne and a couple of paracetamols for high temperatures; some discount available in view of the strong radiation…
‘Someone was holding the lath,’ Schwenke repeated.
‘I hear what you say,’ Lena said. ‘It’s all up to the lab now, then.’
8
There was a pixie on the bar. Woollen tunic, corduroy breeches, red stockings and clogs on his feet. It had no beard – so it wasn’t a model of the man who lived at the North Pole, but a Norwegian farm pixie. He had his left arm raised and was opening his mouth, which was hinged like an Ivo Caprino puppet. He had his head twisted to the left and was saying ‘ho ho ho’ as his hinged mouth opened and shut. The staring eyes gave the pixie a wild and, to Lena’s mind, slightly frightening expression.
The barwoman pushed a glass of beer towards her. The pixie lowered his arm and almost knocked over the glass. Lena pushed the glass back and out of danger. But the barwoman slid the glass in her direction again.
‘It isn’t mine. I didn’t order one.’
‘It’s on me,’ shouted a voice from the right.
She turned round slowly. Steffen Gjerstad had taken off his winter coat and was posing in a tight suit jacket and neat faded jeans – Hugo Boss, she thought, or Dolce & Gabbana. Slim, long-legged and self-confident, he was propping up the bar. He had folded his hands and was watching her. Was she nervous? Maybe a bit. But also wary. They exchanged glances. Lena felt something in her stomach and looked down.
Steffen was an attractive man. Her body had acknowledged it. And Lena was terrified that her reaction would show. So she didn’t dare
look up straightaway, but took the glass, lifted it in a toast, her eyes still cast down, and drank.
It was a dark ale, which tasted slightly bitter, though not bad at all. Anyway, as she was swallowing it, she felt that this was something she should keep away from.
No, she told herself. Don’t think illness. Not now.
Steffen Gjerstad said something, but his words were drowned out by the music.
She raised her head. ‘What did you say?’ she shouted and went closer.
‘Why did it take you so long to ring?’
She shrugged her shoulders a second time.
He didn’t change his stance, leaning sideways against the bar. It was her turn to say something.
‘Why should I ring you? You aren’t even a crime correspondent.’
He laughed out loud. ‘You googled me!’
She smiled back instinctively. Relaxed, she leaned back against the bar and scanned the room. Though her concentration wandered. She needed serenity, harmony. She would have preferred to go home, run the bath and calm herself down.
A table by the window became free. He reacted before she did, nodded towards the table and said: ‘Are you up for it?’
They sat down facing each other. ‘The tip-off you gave Axel Rise doesn’t hold water,’ she said, ‘but I was stupid enough to follow it up.’
‘How so?’
‘Aud Helen Vestgård. I asked her if she’d been with Adeler on Wednesday evening. But she didn’t understand what I was talking about.’
‘She’s lying.’
The response came with surprising speed and confidence.
‘Before you tell me why I should believe you and not her, I should inform you that I’ve already been reprimanded for inappropriate behaviour.’
He whistled.
‘Admit it,’ she said. ‘You don’t have a clue what Adeler was doing on Wednesday evening, least of all who he was with.’
Steffen, who had been sitting forwards with his chin resting in his hands, straightened up and regarded her pensively in silence.
‘Why did you tip off Axel Rise and not me?’
The Ice Swimmer Page 6