‘Give it a little while yet, anyway.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In my car on my way to Røa. Have to talk to a guy, find out more.’
‘Where?’
‘It might take a bit.’
‘I can wait. I’ll go there.’
‘Porfyrveien 7b. Can you find it?’
‘Yes, I’m on my way now.’
‘You’ll see my car. Call me if you get bored waiting.’
25
The posh West End of Oslo was not only posh. Rolf Myhre lived in a sleepy area at the foot of the Ullernåsen hills, in a three-storey block of flats beside a road that led down to a river valley that gave the area an attractive, child-friendly quality. The greyish-white concrete blocks stood in a line along the road and on the slope above, all with pointed roofs, and verandas that protruded from the facades like pouting lower lips. 7b turned out to be the lowest block of the three along the road. Myhre lived in the corner flat on the ground floor and opened up after three rings of the bell. He was a stocky, elderly man with a muscular face, a big nose and a broad mouth. He had combed his grey hair back in a way that was reminiscent of the sixties and the regulars at Dovrehallen. This was also true of his shoes, which were black, pointed and shiny.
‘Myhre?’
‘Rolf,’ Myhre said, holding the door open. ‘Tick-Tock Rolf,’ he said, extending his hands as if he wanted to be clapped in irons. His shirt sleeves rode up. He had a formidable watch around each wrist. ‘I’m known as just Tick-Tock Rolf. Because I’m unusually interested in timepieces. If you’re after a Rolex, you’ll have to ring and book an appointment.’
‘I’m a private investigator,’ Frølich said, and explained that he was searching for a person called Ole Berg and a reliable source had told him that Rolf Myhre knew him.
Tick-Tock Rolf’s mouth fell open.
Frølich explained that he had been hired by a relative of Fredrik Andersen’s after he died.
The name Fredrik Andersen seemed to function like a password.
‘Is Fredrik dead?’
‘There’s something about it on the net. A man killed in Holtet last night.’
Tick-Tock Rolf stared at him in amazement.
‘I’ve spoken to the policeman responsible for the investigation. The victim is the writer Fredrik Andersen. There’s no doubt about it.’
‘Come in,’ Rolf said, and walked into the flat. He stopped in the living room, in front of a low leather suite and a glass table.
They stood here while Tick-Tock Rolf talked about his business with an absent-minded expression on his face. He bought and sold second-hand wristwatches, principally valuable Swiss items he acquired on eBay and the like. These watches he sold on to vain Norwegian men. Once he’d organised a sale in Bygdøy allé, but after being robbed three times in a week and five times in a month, he moved his stock to a secret address and operated his business from his flat while displaying his goods on social media.
‘Bloody Norwegian police. Can’t trust them. No bloody use at all. But with my business at home, clients have to ring in advance and make an appointment. If you’d been considering robbing me now, good luck to you; you won’t find any watches here. I can’t take this in though. Fredrik Andersen dead! He was the salt of the earth. And not even fifty years old. He had a fancy IWC by the way.’
‘A what?’
‘A wristwatch. One he’d inherited from his father.’
The walls of Myhre’s flat were dominated by pictures of sea-going craft. The biggest was of a white three-masted warship being towed by a paddle-wheeled tugboat.
‘That’s the Temeraire,’ Myhre said. ‘She’s being taken to be broken up. By a steamboat. Symbolic stuff. I used to be a seaman, you know.’
The kitchen was furnished in a modern style. The window looked out on the river valley. They perched on two bar stools by a window sill. Myhre fetched two porcelain cups with a golden border around the rim. He made espresso by putting small green capsules in a machine that groaned away while a thin, brown liquid trickled into the cups.
‘I didn’t know Andersen that well,’ Tick-Tock Rolf said as he passed Frank a cup and wriggled up onto the stool. ‘But murder. That’s mind-boggling.’
‘The police say they’re keeping all lines of enquiry open. That means the murder may have some connection with the book he wrote.’
‘The one about the Sea Breeze?’
‘Yes.’
‘I worked on the Sea Breeze, as first mate.’
‘Do you know anything about a man on board called Ole Berg?’
‘A passenger?’
‘Don’t know. But what I’ve been told suggests that he was crew.’
The man shook his head. ‘I would’ve known.’
‘Ole Berg’s supposed to be an alias. It’s what Andersen called him. This Ole Berg’s supposed to have information about the missing lifeboat.’
‘A missing lifeboat?’
‘A lifeboat with two men on board. Two officers who left the burning vessel for land without taking anyone with them.’
Tick-Tock Rolf shook his head. ‘Absolute rubbish. I’ve heard a similar rumour, but it just shows how far from reality such speculation can take you. Remember: I was on board. The ship was on fire, wasn’t it. People were running for their lives and boarded lifeboats higgledy-piggledy. And two men were supposed to have taken a lifeboat and shoved off without taking anyone else? It’s nonsense.’
‘What happened?’
Tick-Tock Rolf sipped his coffee. ‘We left Oslo four hours late. It was a Friday, an Easter exodus, and absolute chaos packing vehicles on the car deck. That was my responsibility, by the way. Organising the vehicles. But everyone was new on the boat. She had only come into operation five days earlier. The shipowners had chartered an Italian ship for a few months as a stopgap, and when that boat had to go back to Sardinia, the Sea Breeze was commissioned at once. It was a lovely ferry, nice to manoeuvre, but passenger accommodation was a total nightmare. They had been booked into cabins on the Italian boat, of course. So people were allotted cabins that didn’t exist and the chaos was complete. Fortunately, this was nothing to do with me. I was first mate, wasn’t I. We slipped our moorings at around ten in the evening. We’d passed Færder lighthouse and were on our way into the Skagerrak. I was on mid-to-four watch and alone on the bridge. The captain had gone to his cabin. Then a seaman ran into the wheelhouse shouting that a fire had broken out in a cabin on deck four. The man said it had been put out. I called the captain. He arrived in seconds and took the helm. I belted down to find out what was going on. It turned out there’d been a fire in some linen on the corridor floor, on the port side of deck four. It’d been put out by a passenger. But there was a bit of a to-do outside the cabin. The passengers were het up, and no wonder. They’d just put out a fire. In some linen on the floor, right. It had to be the work of an arsonist. It took me all my time to calm them down, then I had to run to the wheelhouse and report back to the captain. I didn’t get a chance because when I opened the door to the bridge all hell had broken loose. A second fire – on the deck beneath the first one – had caught hold of the walls. The paint on the bulkheads was burning like petrol. On the bridge we saw the control panel light up, so we had no choice but to set off the alarms and activate the fire doors. But the fire spread faster than we could close the doors. In very few minutes every bloody cabin corridor was alight.’
Tick-Tock Rolf sat immersed in thought before continuing:
‘The captain sent a Mayday message and we started evacuating the boat. That, too, was chaotic. The passengers who made it to the open air survived. Many of the poor devils who had retired to their beds died. Families with children, right. Children had crawled under the beds to get air. Mothers with children had fled into the shower rooms. They died hugging each other on the floor.’
Tick-Tock Rolf rubbed his face. It was obvious that he got no pleasure from recalling that night. He sighed and cursed.
�
��Are you still in touch with anyone from the boat?’
‘No.’
The answer came back like a whip. He looked at his watch demonstratively.
‘Any idea who it was Fredrik referred to as Ole Berg?’
‘Nope.’
Tick-Tock had his eyes closed. ‘You come here and pursue the Sea Breeze tragedy as if it were a footnote in a humorous book you’ve read. But those of us who went through that living hell never forget. However we try. Every bloody day we try. You don’t understand. You’re obsessed by some trivial detail I can’t help you with. A lifeboat? A missing lifeboat? It’s just rubbish. Andersen must’ve known there was nothing to his story. I presume he found time to talk to this person you call Ole Berg because he was wondering if the man had other, more far-reaching information up his sleeve. Fredrik was like that. He knew the Sea Breeze tragedy was big, so immense that the police were never even close to finding out what really happened. But a lifeboat that goes missing? That’s plain ridiculous.’
He cast a fleeting glance at the watch on his left wrist. ‘And now I have stuff to do. I’m sorry.’
‘I can drive you.’
‘Drive?’
‘If you want to go somewhere.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. Goodbye.’
26
Frank almost collided with a young boy on his bike as he came out of the building. He jinked to the side and walked back to the car.
Rolf Myhre was upset. But no more than that. The outcome for Frank was that he hadn’t got any closer to solving the riddle of Ole Berg.
He sat behind the wheel unsure what to do next. Then the passenger door opened. Matilde got in with a serious look on her face. She brought with her a waft of fresh citrus and summer.
‘What’s new?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. I’ve just been speaking to a guy in connection with an assignment, and I don’t quite know where to start.’
‘I must’ve rung Guri eleven times. She doesn’t pick up. That’s never happened before.’
‘Perhaps she’s found a man.’
Matilde didn’t answer. Instead she stroked his neck.
A front door slammed.
‘Him,’ he said.
It was Tick-Tock Rolf on his way out. The man had changed into green Bermudas and a red-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt. He was still wearing black, pointed shoes and white ankle socks.
Matilde whistled softly.
‘What is that?’
‘I like his style.’
They watched him. He walked with a heavy gait and a stoop. His destination turned out to be a cycle rack. He bent over the front wheel of a bike to open the lock.
Perhaps Tick-Tock was only going to the shops. Perhaps he was going to visit his sick mother. But Frank’s visit had upset him. And this could be a sort of reaction. And Frank had no pressing engagements.
‘Feel like helping me?’
‘Of course,’ she said.
27
When Rolf trundled past on his modern mountain bike Matilde was already out of the car. Frank sat watching the first mate cycle past.
He twisted the ignition key and drove after him at a leisurely speed, but stopped now and then to keep a suitable distance between them.
Rolf sat back in the saddle. He held the handlebars with straight arms while pedalling slowly and calmly up the incline. It soon became obvious the man was making for the metro station. They passed a three-storey brick building that turned out to be Huseby School. Here, Rolf turned left onto a path. Frank had to continue along the road and therefore lost sight of the bike, but at the lights he saw Rolf locking up his bike outside Hovseter station. The man checked the lock with a quick tug, then went down to the platform.
Frank made for a Co-op on the other side of the rails. Found a spot in the customers’ car park, got out of his car and locked it. The train was just pulling in. He headed for the station and hoped Rolf wouldn’t spot him among the people on the platform. The odds of being seen were high as it was a quieter time of day.
He waited until Rolf was on the train. Then he made a move, got into the next carriage and found a seat right at the back. Through the windows between the cars he could see Rolf’s colourful shirt.
But Matilde was nowhere to be seen.
The man in the Hawaiian shirt sat still all the way to Nationaltheatret station. Then he stood up and got off.
The man walked without a backward look, past the peacock fountain and on under the trees by Spikersuppa pool. He disappeared into the Paleet shopping arcade and took the escalator up to the first floor.
Matilde rang as Frank was doing a round of the shops to see where Rolf had gone.
‘Where are you?’
‘Behind you.’
He turned, but couldn’t see her. ‘You’re good, you are. Carry on like this and I’ll hire you.’
He caught a glimpse of a Hawaiian shirt in a clothes shop. Soon the man was out again and descending to the ground floor and back onto the street. They walked along Karl Johans gate. Frank stayed fifty metres behind. They crossed Egertorget square. A silver living statue stood on a plinth beside a guitar-strumming street singer on a chair, accompanied by a rhythm box. Once again Rolf went into a shop.
Frank walked past the store, and nipped into the greengrocer’s in Kirkeristen to wait. Soon Rolf came out again, still empty-handed. Now the man was making a beeline for the greengrocer’s.
Frank grabbed a Verdens Gang from the display stand as Rolf approached.
‘My goodness, you here too,’ Rolf said and came up close to him. ‘What a bloody small world it is.’
‘Indeed it is,’ Frank said, feeling a complete fool.
‘Why don’t you just ask where I’m going instead of buggering about like this?’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To meet some pals. Were you ever in the police?’
Frank nodded.
‘Thought so. Ever since the Sea Breeze I’ve wondered what it is with people like you. You ring doorbells. Ask questions. Get answers. But for some reason that’s not good enough. You traipse after me – as if I’ve got a better answer in the back of my pants. You’re just like the fools who investigated the Sea Breeze case. They stick their noses in everywhere and what do they find out? Sweet F.A. I hope this is the last time I see you. Bye,’ Rolf said and walked on.
Frank stood watching the broad figure disappearing into the distance. He looked around for Matilde, but couldn’t see her.
He turned and trudged back to the metro to recover his car.
28
Later that afternoon, as Frank let himself into Brugata 1, he saw a small padded envelope in the post rack. He turned it over. No sender’s name. The envelope contained a memory stick, but there was no accompanying letter. He took the stairs to his office. Once inside he fired up his laptop. Put the stick into a USB. The stick was full of PDF files, which turned out to be police documents: the interviews with survivors after the lethal fire on board MS Sea Breeze.
Who would feed him information about this case? And anonymously.
Never mind. He could investigate the donor’s motive later.
He treated himself to a ten-minute read, after which he felt like he had been shipwrecked on the open sea. The survivors described what they had experienced, what they had seen and what they had done. All of them, one after the other. But the stick was also full of technical documents, drawings of the ship and an overview of the security systems. He had no idea what to do with this material. Furthermore, he realised that to gain a perspective on all this information, to be able to differentiate between what was important and what wasn’t, would be an almost impossible task.
He searched the files for the name Ole Berg. No hits.
Then his phone rang.
‘Hello, this is Nicolai Smith Falck.’
‘Hi,’ Frank said. He remembered the guy. However, he wasn’t sure how enthusiastic he was about being called by this particular journalist.
‘It’s Frølich, isn’t it, the ex-policeman?’
‘It is.’
‘I’m covering the murder of Fredrik Andersen.’
‘For which newspaper?’
‘I’m a freelancer. But this is for Verdens Gang. My understanding is that you had contact with Andersen just before he was found dead.’
‘I think you’ve called the wrong person. Have a nice day.’
‘Wait.’
‘Mhm?’
‘I’ve interviewed you once before,’ Falck said. ‘A couple of years ago, regarding some aggravated rapes.’
‘No, you haven’t. The interview was about an alleged suicide in Bygdøy. A woman was killed by a juggernaut going round the Bygdøy roundabout. Turned out that she hadn’t jumped of her own volition.’
‘Ah, yes, that was the one.’
‘Have a nice day.’
Frank rang off and wondered how the journalist had been tipped off. It could have been anyone. But he doubted it was Gunnarstranda.
He pounded away on his laptop again. Went online. Googled Nicolai Smith Falck. There were news items, recent and older articles in Verdens Gang, Dagbladet, Nettavisen and a local Østfold paper. Falck lived in Grünerløkka. He was thirty-seven years old.
A number of photographs of Falck came up. The journalist looked as he remembered him, the spitting image of Alfred E. Neumann, the MAD magazine mascot, a guy with a round head, protruding ears, a fringe above sleepy eyes and a scampish smile. But he knew for certain that in his case appearances deceived. Nicolai Smith Falck had a poison pen if he was in the mood.
Frank scrolled down the screen. The Sea Breeze came up. A lot. Article after article after article. They had been written about a year ago. Dagbladet had run a long series about the catastrophe. All the articles were signed by Nicolai Smith Falck.
Perhaps I was too dismissive with this journalist, Frank mused. Falck knew the case well. So there was a good chance he had also known Fredrik Andersen.
He looked up as the door opened.
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