Frank Frølich pretended he hadn’t heard the veiled reference to himself and said: ‘There’s a lot of footwork in a case like this. Are you going to go around asking questions?’
‘I told you the Jonny Faremo case is in the hands of Kripos. Didn’ t I?’
‘I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to them. A young lad – Lystad.’
‘He’s good.’
‘What conclusion did he come to – murder or accident?’
‘No idea.’ Gunnarstranda took the cigarette out of his mouth and stared at it grimly. ‘Do you know that this mess between you and the Faremo woman has made me smoke more than I should?’
‘So, what are you doing here?’
‘It’s Sunday,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘I’m free.’
Frølich grinned. ‘And you can stand there and threaten to report me? It’s not in your jurisdiction.’
‘Anyway, it’s not a good idea for you to wander around asking people questions. It’s better if you ring me. I’m always kept up to date.’
‘The area of interest is a stretch of river about a kilometre in length,’ Frølich said, unruffled. ‘And Faremo is certain to have come here by car. If he didn’t fall off the promontory over there, Faremo or the murderer must have taken the right-hand turning just before Askim. On my map there are two narrow gravelled paths or cart tracks leading to the river. And I’ll give you odds of nine to one that there are witnesses. At any rate, someone must have noticed the car.’
They ambled slowly back. Gunnarstranda cleared his throat and said: ‘As a matter of form, Frølich …’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you putting in a report, perhaps? Describing the last few days, what you’ve done and who can confirm it, etc?’
‘So I haven’t been cleared of suspicion of murder?’
‘Which murder?’
They looked each other in the eye. Frølich had never been able to read what went on in the other man’s head. And he didn’t want to try now, either.
‘Strange business, this, Frølich. There’s only a tip-off connecting Jonny Faremo to the murder of the security man in Loenga, and let’s be honest, that tip-off isn’t worth a lot.’
Frølich squinted up at the sky. The day wasn’t many hours old, yet the sun had already set up a flamboyant farewell spectacle behind the mountain ridge. Vermilion tongues of cloud licked between ochre-yellow flames above the azure-blue aura over the trees. He asked: ‘How little is the tip-off actually worth?’
Gunnarstranda took his time to answer. ‘Private initiatives from you are likely to be misunderstood. If you don’t take it easy, you’ll be suspended.’
‘Tell me about the tip-off,’ Frølich persisted obstinately.
‘A woman, twenty-nine years old, a freelance model who gets most of her jobs working as a waitress in a so-called Go-Go bar.’
‘Prostitute?’
‘Doubt it. She calls herself a model and appears in
Aftenposten
in lingerie adverts and that sort of thing. On top of that, she’s the girlfriend of one of the boys in the gang we banged up.’
‘Whose girlfriend?’
Gunnarstranda hesitated.
‘Which one of them?’ Frølich repeated.
‘Jonny Faremo.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Forget it, Frølich.’
‘The only thing I’m interested in is her name. It’s ridiculous that you won’t tell me.’
‘Merethe Sandmo.’
‘Is she a suspect?’
‘No idea. This case is being dealt with by Kripos, not me.’
‘Why would Faremo’s woman blow the whistle on him?’
‘No idea. But the relationship must have been stormy. The tip-off reeks of revenge, which makes her statement worth very little. It wouldn’t take much to break the link between these boys and the murdered security man. If it does break, we’ll have to look elsewhere for someone with a score to settle with Faremo. And, obviously, one of those people is you.’
‘The woman whose name you just mentioned, who shopped them, she could have given him a shove from behind.’ Frølich stood admiring the sky.
‘By the way …’ he said finally.
‘By the way what?’
‘Do you think I’m a few bricks short of a load?’
‘I don’t think you’re a few bricks short of a load, no. But I don’t think anything about anyone in an investigation. And you know that very well.’
‘But that means you would bust me if there was enough evidence to support such a hypothesis?’
Gunnarstranda smiled mirthlessly. ‘Would you blame me?’
Frølich sighed. ‘Probably not.’
‘Why do you want me to talk to this academic, Reidun Vestli?’ Gunnarstranda said in a gentler tone.
‘Because, for some reason or other, Elisabeth Faremo has gone into hiding. Lying low. She must have panicked. At any rate, she packed a rucksack on the same day her brother and his pals were set free at the hearing. I haven’t a clue where she went or why she disappeared. She hasn’t turned up again now that her brother is dead and that’s a little strange, isn’t it? On top of that, Reidun Vestli went off sick at the same time as Elisabeth packed her rucksack and went on the run. And Reidun Vestli wasn’t at home when I rang her a few hours later. She was driving somewhere. When I did eventually get hold of her, I was left with the impression she knew where Elisabeth was. I somehow feel the two of them are complicit.’
‘Perhaps Elisabeth Faremo has run away from you?’
Now it was Frølich’s turn to sigh heavily. ‘Her brother’s dead. She’s still in hiding.’
The silence hung in the air between them. Gunnarstranda broke it: ‘Why would Elisabeth Faremo ally herself with Reidun Vestli?’
‘She and Elisabeth are, or have been, an item. This Reidun Vestli sees me as a masculine avenger from the heterosexual world. And the woman can’t see anything wrong with Elisabeth disappearing, despite the fact that Elisabeth has a key role in this murder case and her brother is dead. The woman cannot connect her relationship with reality. I feel she’s Elisabeth’s willing collaborator right now.’
‘What would your interest in this be – if I talk to Vestli?’
‘Mine?’ Frølich shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you can see, I’m in a bit of a cleft stick. Obviously, it would be fascinating to know what Reidun Vestli has to say when you flash your police badge and take a hard line with her.’
After Gunnarstranda had got into his car and driven off, Frank Frølich waited for a while and looked at the weather. He thought about physical intimacy on dark autumn evenings, when car head-lamps struggle to penetrate the mist, when frost quivers like a circular rainbow for a brief instant in the light of street lamps. He thought about knitted gloves and intertwined fingers.
He tore himself away, went back to his car and drove until he came to the afore-mentioned side road just before Askim. There he turned and followed the winding gravel road, searching for a tractor track leading to the river and imagining how natural it would have been to park. In the end, he gave up and pulled over onto the gravel verge just before a copse. On the right-hand side of the road, there was a large field with straw stubble in neat rows protruding through the hoar frost. The field ended in a dark hillside overlooking the river. He wandered across the field. The frost crunched beneath his shoes. He reached the trees and stopped in front of a birch. The branches were covered with tiny ice-thorns; each bough resembled a carefully designed decoration. He looked down and ran his shoe along a branch of a raspberry bush; the ice-thorns came off with a dry rasping sound. The ice covering the spruce trees transformed the mountain ridge into a matt light-green surface. Further into the wood, there was the same formation of ice on withered stems, dead fern leaves and cranberry heath. Every cranberry leaf was wreathed in small ball-shaped ice crystals. A birch caught by the sun had been forced to relinquish its ice costume, which lay like granular snow on the forest floor.
He went on, across the blueberry heath and moss blanket, down towards the river. Soon he could hear the water. The noise increased in volume and became an impenetrable roar. He walked out onto a crag and stared down into the foaming water. This had to be the horizontal waterfall Gunnarstranda had been talking about. The water in the ravine coiled into a green-grey spume, smashed against the mountainside with enormous power, was hurled back and thundered on. Further down, the heavy mass of water pitched around like the backbone of a ferocious animal, laying bare fierce, capricious back eddies, which flowed away and swept lazily along a river bank of rocks and protruding branches snagged on ice-encased, tangled roots. He could see that a body would not stand a chance in this inferno. He felt giddy and sat down on the roots of a fallen tree. The rock ledge, which was a protection against the ravages of the water, was covered with ice and seemed perilously smooth. Anyone could slip on this if they were unlucky. But that begged the question: what would anyone be doing on this icy river bank on a cold November day?
He sat on a tree trunk in the dusk thinking that Elisabeth would be sitting somewhere too, and if she wasn’t terribly busy, perhaps she was thinking about him. Once again Frølich took his mobile phone and called her number. The signal didn’t get through. No ring tone, nothing. Pathetic creature, he thought contemptuously about himself. It was beginning to get dark. He rose and went back to his car.
When Gunnarstranda drove into Oslo, he turned off as usual at the raised intersection known as the Traffic Machine, continued up to Bispelokket to cross the bridge over Grønland and then took Maridalsveien, heading for Tåsen. Waiting for green at the traffic lights in Hausmannsgate, he caught sight of a familiar figure in the doorway to Café Sara. Vidar Ballo was holding the door open for a young woman – he recognized her too: their tip-off. Merethe Sandmo.
Gunnarstranda pulled over, half onto the pavement. He sat watching them. They crossed Hausmannsgate and headed for Ankerbrua. Walking side by side. There was a peaceful quality about the couple: the suspect and the woman who had betrayed him. Gunnarstranda mused on the significance of Merethe Sandmo and Vidar Ballo looking like a pair of lovers on a shopping trip.
He got out of his car and followed them at a brisk pace towards Ankerbrua. They heard his rapid footsteps and stopped. Ballo put down the large travelling bag he had been carrying over his shoulder.
‘Going somewhere?’ the policeman asked, out of breath.
‘What do you want?’ Vidar Ballo said.
Gunnarstranda observed Merethe Sandmo. She was slightly taller than Ballo, slim, almost skinny, with unusually beautiful chestnut-brown hair reaching down to the middle of her back. Gunnarstranda had always wondered what made unappealing louts among the criminal fraternity attractive to a certain type of bimbo. Merethe Sandmo was a woman who tried to enhance her sensuality through her choice of clothes, heels and meticulously applied make-up – probably, he thought, to draw attention away from the frown lines around her mouth. The last time they had spoken he had promised her complete anonymity. He decided to keep his promise. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met,’ he said and offered his hand to the attractive woman. They held eye contact until she understood the pretence and took his hand.
‘Merethe,’ she said and curtseyed like a little girl.
‘What do you want?’ Ballo repeated brusquely.
‘To find out what you were doing last night and the night before that,’ Gunnarstranda said without taking his eyes off the woman. ‘What’s your other name, Merethe?’ he asked in a friendly tone.
‘Sandmo.’
‘Then we already know each other.’
Something died in Merethe Sandmo’s eyes.
Ballo sensed it immediately. ‘You two know each other?’
Gunnarstranda turned to Ballo and said: ‘Perhaps you were forgetting you were at the court hearing?’
‘Are you still going on about that business?’
‘A twenty-two-year-old student, doing part-time security work at the harbour to earn a bit on the side, was murdered. He’s sorely missed by his parents, a sister, a girlfriend and others. He was beaten to death with a baseball bat. Something tells me you have something to do with it. Perhaps you should take it easy?’
‘You seem to be the one who has forgotten what happened,’ Ballo answered with a measured tone. ‘The judge ruled that you were mistaken.’
He took the woman’s hand and said: ‘Shall we go?’
Gunnarstranda said: ‘You don’t know, then?’
Ballo straightened up. The woman let go of his hand and cast concerned glances at both of them.
Ballo, expectant: ‘Know what?’
‘Jonny Faremo is no longer with us.’
Merethe Sandmo blanched. She supported herself on the wall. Ballo stared at Gunnarstranda through blurred eyes. The silence lingered. Merethe Sandmo fidgeted until she found something to hold onto. She ended up playing with a lock of her long hair.
‘I said Jonny …’
‘We heard what you said!’
Gunnarstranda caught Merethe Sandmo’s hand and prevented her from falling. ‘May I offer my condolences?’ he said and when he saw how pale she was, went on: ‘Shall we find somewhere you can sit down for a few moments?’
Ballo gave him the sort of look he would have given a maggot. ‘You reckon you’re invulnerable working for the bloody police, don’t you?’ he mumbled.
Gunnarstranda turned away from the woman and focused on Ballo again. ‘And you aren’t curious enough to ask me how he died?’
‘You could do me the favour and tell me.’
‘There are a couple of formalities first. What were you doing the night before last?’
‘He was with me!’ It was the woman who answered. Ballo hadn’t changed expression or moved a muscle.
‘Have I misunderstood?’ Gunnarstranda asked hesitantly. ‘A little bird told me you and Jonny were an item?’
‘That was a long time ago,’ she stammered.
‘Who finished it?’ Gunnarstranda asked gently.
Merethe Sandmo started crying.
‘You’re a fucking gent, you are,’ Ballo muttered.
‘Answer the question,’ Gunnarstranda said to her before turning to face Ballo: ‘Where were you the night before last?’
‘You heard. I was with her.’
‘When?’
‘Night before last and last night.’
‘When did you go there and when did you leave?’
‘Merethe lives in Etterstad and I haven’t the faintest what time it was. I don’t look at my watch when I visit people.’
Gunnarstranda glanced over at the woman, who was nodding. ‘Do you remember when he arrived?’
‘Four o‘clock in the morning. He picked me up from work and then we drove back to my place.’ She added: ‘I finished with Jonny.’
‘Where do you work?’
The policeman already knew the answer. Nevertheless, the question was still worth asking so that the woman would realize he wouldn’t tell anyone it was her who had tipped them off about the murder of the security man. Merethe Sandmo did realize. She lowered her eyes as if embarrassed at playing this little comedy in front of her boyfriend. She said:
‘Bliss.’
‘The club, Bliss?’
She nodded again.
He looked across to Ballo. ‘Funny you couldn’t remember that.’
‘Lots of funny things in the world.’
‘But you drove there? Drove your own car when you picked … Merethe, you said your name was?’
The woman nodded, reassured.
Ballo said: ‘Yes.’
‘Do you remember where you’d been before picking Merethe up at this club?’
‘I was at home. I had stayed up and watched a couple of films.’
‘Anyone able to confirm that?’
‘No one comes to mind off the top of my head.’
‘But I’m sure you wouldn’t object to us asking the neighbours?’
‘
I
don’t.
They
might. The police have been around asking quite a lot of questions already.’
Gunnarstranda smiled. ‘Then they’ll be used to us. And you’ll be dealing with other people.’
‘Thank Old Nick for that.’
‘You’ll have to wait to thank him,’ Gunnarstranda said jovially. ‘At least until you know what you’re thanking him for.’
‘And what do you mean by that?’
‘There’s bound to be another round in court. I’m still investigating the murder of Arnfinn Haga, in case you’ve forgotten. The death of your good friend Jonny is thought to be suspicious at best and the Follo police will be investigating it with help from Kripos. We’ll be all over you, Ballo. The devil’s little messengers. Best wait for a while before you send us a thank-you letter.’
Ballo was keen to go.
‘You wanted to know how Jonny died, didn’t you?’
He had their attention.
‘I‘ll expect to see you tomorrow at the police station,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘You’re required to be there at nine sharp to confirm your statements. Then we’ll talk a bit more about Jonny.’
‘Come on,’ Vidar Ballo said to the woman and dragged her away.
Gunnarstranda stood watching them. Eventually, he turned and walked back to his car.
As he was getting in, his mobile phone rang.
It was Yttergjerde.
‘Jonny Faremo had a woman friend, didn’t he?’ Gunnarstranda asked.
‘Merethe Sandmo,’ Yttergjerde said.
‘That’s what I thought. Just checking,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘Now she’s Ballo’s woman friend.’
‘What?’
‘The king is dead; long live the king,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘Why did you ring?’
Yttergjerde said: ‘We’ve got a witness.’
‘To what?’
‘The murder of the security man – Arnfinn Haga.’