He was close to Badir’s shop again and bought a frankfurter from one of the kiosks in Osterhaus gate — more out of habit than hunger. Continuing towards Torggata, he stopped in front of the steps leading up to the building which housed the Torggata baths. He stood there thinking about Narvesen, who would have to explain away a cash withdrawal of five million kroner, who was making a statement about the money at this very minute. Perhaps Frølich himself was in the process of losing his job at this very minute. He raised his head and sensed the idea forming in his mind.
It doesn’t matter.
He smiled to himself and chewed at his sausage, watching the flickering movements of dark figures on their way towards Storgata.
On the positive side: I don’t care. On the negative: I don’t care. What is important then? Finding out who killed Elisabeth and why.
But is Narvesen likely to talk about the painting at all?
If he does, he’ll also have to explain how he came into possession of the painting in the first place. So he’s hardly likely to say anything — if he doesn’t have to — to avert suspicion from something else: murder. And if I lose my job in the cause of truth, it’s worth it.
He eyed Badir’s shop and thought about Elisabeth and Narvesen. The shop was still shut — all of a sudden he had to jump out of the way of an irate cyclist who was unable to accept that he, a pedestrian, was standing in the cycle lane in Torggata. He took another bite, watched the woman on the bike and almost choked on the sausage. He had seen her before. No, not her — someone else. The image returned. The day they staked out Badir’s shop: he was walking down the steps to the former Torggata baths to await the signal. Then he had seen her – not this woman — but the image of a woman on a bike with her head down over the handlebars pedalling along Torggata. He had had one foot in the cycle lane, heard a bicycle bell ring and was forced to take a step back, out of the cycle lane. The radio crackled and he had taken up a position further along the street opposite Badir’s shop.
That was where she had come from
. She had passed Badir’s shop, kept cycling, so she was going somewhere else. Then she had passed him on his way down the steps. But could that have been Elisabeth?
Frank Frølich was objective now: it could have been her. He had been focused on the action; he hadn’t taken any notice of her face. But she might have noticed his. She could have seen him: a face she knew from Ilijaz Zupac’s trial. She might even have got off her bike without him seeing, she might have doubled back, stood looking at him for a moment, made up her mind and cycled back, pushed her bike through the cordon they were setting up. Afterwards she might have shoved her bike into his field of vision, outside Badir’s shop. And then everything came back: the shriek of the cycle stand. Her entering the shop and his running across the road after her.
But what did this sudden inspiration mean?
He knew what it meant.
Gunnarstranda’s words were still resounding between his ears:
Frølich! Stop being so bloody naïve! There’s something not quite kosher about this bit of skirt. It doesn’t matter which way you look at every single bit of what you’ve told me, it all boils down to a con!’
The old fox had been right the whole time, as always — and now suddenly Frank Frølich was in a hurry.
He rang Gunnarstranda on his mobile.
‘I thought you wanted to get out and reflect,’ Gunnarstranda drawled.
Frølich said: ‘That’s why I’m ringing. Has Narvesen confessed?’
‘Not yet, but we’ve reached an interesting phase of the questioning. Let’s put it like that. It concerns Narvesen’s private house, a destroyed veranda door and a certain policeman on leave.’
‘Has he talked about art?’
‘Art? No. Why would he?’
Frølich’s brain raced.
‘Why would he?’ repeated Gunnarstranda impatiently.
‘ … it was just something that occurred to me – but now to something important. The bank manager in Askim said Ilijaz Zupac had been in to pick up something from the safety-deposit box, didn’t he?’
‘You know that.’
‘It just occurred to me that Ilijaz is quite an exotic name,’ Frank Frølich said slowly.
‘We’re not working on that case any more, Frølich. Not until our investigations have come up with a result.’
‘Are you happy with that?’
‘This isn’t about whether I’m happy or not.’
‘If Lystad wants to arrest Inge Narvesen for Elisabeth’s murder, he needs a motive. Such a motive has to have some connection with the 1998 break-in. And that case is linked to the safety-deposit box. So it wouldn’t hurt to ring the bank, would it?’
‘One snag — what would I say to the bank staff?’
‘Ask which gender the person pretending to be Ilijaz was.’
Silence at the other end.
‘Gunnarstranda,’ Frølich said, condescendingly. ‘Please be brief.’
‘I reckon you’ve got a point, Frølich, about gender. What put you onto that?’
‘Couple of things. One of which was what you told me about Ballo’s death. And it wouldn’t be much hassle for you, would it? To ring the bank and ask for a description of the person using Ilijaz’s name?’
Gunnarstranda considered it. ‘I could check that, as a favour,’ he conceded finally. ‘The question is: what could you give me in return?
‘Evidence.’
‘What sort of evidence?’
‘Evidence which would rule out all the suspicion against Narvesen. And then no one will bother about a smashed veranda door.’
‘Come on, what sort of evidence?’
‘A strand of hair,’ said Frank Frølich.
The heat hit him the moment he got off the plane.
The policeman who met him in the arrivals hall was called Manuel Komnenos.
‘After the emperor,’ he explained with a little smile. He stood outside the customs queue with a white cardboard sign in his hand. The man had spelt his name wrong. The sign read: F-Ö-R-L-I-C-H.
Frølich shook hands and had to confess he had no idea which emperor he was talking about.
‘Good,’ Manuel said with a grin. He was wearing a creased grey suit and a white T-shirt. There was a big gap between his front teeth. He continued: ‘Every time you hear the name Manuel you’ll think: Which emperor?’
Frølich took to him from the very first second. They walked out of the arrivals hall together towards the car park. The wheels of Frølich’s suitcase rumbled over the tarmac. Manuel stood behind a sloppily parked Toyota Corolla and opened the boot. Frølich put the suitcase in and said he had the same car at home. ‘Well, almost – an Avensis.’
They waited behind the car. An aeroplane was hurtling down the runway in a crescendo of noise. Manuel lit a cigarette and waited for the din to subside. The aeroplane took off and rose like a hungry shark moving towards the light.
Manuel told him that Merethe Sandmo had hired a car from Hertz on 1 December. ‘A Toyota.’ He closed the boot lid. ‘At least she knows a thing or two about cars.’
They both grinned.
Frølich looked north. An aeroplane was coming in to land. Far up in the blue he could glimpse aeroplane number two, also on its way down.
‘She drove north and handed in the car at an office in Patras,’ Manuel went on to say.
‘She didn’t hire another car?’
‘No.’
‘Just disappeared?’
Manuel nodded. ‘Didn’t check in at a hotel.’
‘But what about the other woman?’
Manuel grinned again and took a deep breath. ‘She appeared.’
‘Where?’
‘On the ferry quay. Bought a ticket to Bari.’
‘Bari? That’s Italy.’
Manuel waved the car keys. ‘Still interested in the car?’
Frølich nodded and took the keys. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I know where I’m going.’
The beach wound round the blue-green bay like a goldenwhite new moon. Heavy, leisurely waves unfurled onto the shore, stretched out, washed inland, lapped their way up the sand before retreating into a rolling wall to smash the next wave to pieces. There was a rhythm to it, first a lapping surge, then the next wave is shattered by the previous one, over and over again. Frank Frølich observed the spectacle, musing that if you stood there long enough you could eventually believe it would never end.
No one had ventured into the water. Bodies lay scattered across the sandy beach on sunbeds. Some sat up and looked around through sunglasses or rubbed sun cream over their sunburned arms. Some fat men in shorts with sun visors shading their eyes strolled along the water’s edge where the sand was firmer and cooled by the sea. A woman was walking. She was wearing a skyblue, baggy, sleeveless dress which flapped in the wind. Also an alice band in matching blue. He realized he had never told her – blue suited her.
He stood still and waited for her to discover his presence. It pleased him that she didn’t falter, but continued at the same sedate pace as the waves washed over her feet and ankles.
When she was one and a half metres away, she stopped. They looked into each other’s eyes.
‘I’m actually on my way for a swim,’ she said. ‘Would you like to join me?’
An appraising gaze. Calm. He shook his head. ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said, passing her the folded piece of paper – Reidun Vestli’s suicide note.
She took the letter. Her head dropped as she read. In the end she folded the paper and tore it into small pieces while focusing on a point in the distance. The white scraps of paper fluttered in the wind and disappeared in the froth of the waves.
‘How touching to see the impression it made.’
‘I’m unable to concentrate.’
Frank Frølich followed her gaze, to the two uniformed men looking down on them, each with a foot on the stone wall by the road.
‘Are they with you?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
Her eyes, scrutinizing. ‘Why?’
He didn’t answer. The wind caught hold of her hair. She had to stroke it away with her hand. ‘I found her,’ he said eventually. ‘She had taken tablets. Sent me the letter through the post. She asks you for forgiveness, but why?’
‘No idea. Now and then Reidun was difficult to fathom.’
‘You need to be able to concentrate to love,’ he said.
She looked at him side-on. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘What for?’
‘For how you feel. It doesn’t have to be like this between us.’
He had to examine her more closely before he answered. ‘What there was between us was ground to dust a long time ago.’
‘I don’t believe that. You’ve come here, to me.’
‘The Elisabeth I knew is dead,’ he said gently. ‘She was burned, but I have recovered.’
‘Don’t talk like that.’
‘I apologize,’ he answered. ‘I know it was Merethe Sandmo who physically died in the fire, and the knowledge of that is only one of the many things I cannot ignore with regard to us.’
‘I’ve found out a little about you since I saw you last,’ he continued, his mind focused. ‘I know, for example, that you met Inge Narvesen when you were working at Ferner Jacobsen six years ago. I know you started a relationship and went with him on a romantic holiday to Mauritius. That was more than you and I managed in the time we had together. But then I have less money to splash around.’
‘Keep Inge Narvesen out of our relationship. Inge and I – it was just stupid. It was nothing.’
‘Ilijaz wasn’t very happy either, was he?’
She clammed up. Her blue eyes were inscrutable.
‘I visited Ilijaz at Ullersmo.’
‘He wasn’t like that before.’
‘How was he before?’
‘Strong, amusing, a man who took the world for granted.’ She searched for words. He waited. She faced into the wind and added: ‘Who took me for granted.’ She was lost in thought for a few moments. ‘But Ilijaz needed to be reminded that I could be hurt, that I had feelings.’
They began to walk along the beach. The waves washed over their feet. Frank Frølich stopped and rolled up his trousers. Her feet and legs were bronzed by the sun. She had painted her nails red-brown. For a fraction of a second he imagined the scene: she was sitting in the sun with her knees raised, concentrating on varnishing her toe nails.
Her flapping dress stuck to her body, her legs clearly outlined with every step she took. She walked with her head erect, the wind tossing her black hair.
He said: ‘Perhaps you went with Inge Narvesen to punish Ilijaz, but I don’t think Narvesen realized. Not even when you told Ilijaz about the safe with the painting in it.’
‘Ilijaz is one of God’s lost sheep,’ she said. ‘Completely lost.’
‘At that time Ilijaz was in total possession of his faculties and had to take responsibility for his actions. He shot a man dead – he didn’t have to do that.’
‘He’s destroyed. You’ve met him and you know he has completely snapped. How does it feel to work for a system which does something like that to people?’
‘There’s only one person to blame for Ilijaz being sent to prison – and that’s Ilijaz. He didn’t need to steal the safe. He didn’t need to shoot anyone.’
‘Prison is there to deprive people of their freedom, not to cause them to rot from the inside.’
‘I know you feel a need to vent your feelings of guilt, but elevating your status to a kind of avenging angel is sick.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about you.’
‘Are you accusing me of converting emotions into actions?’
‘Actions
are
your problem, Elisabeth, because people die.’
‘I can’t take responsibility for anyone except myself.’
He stopped and laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Your pompous nonsense.’ He imitated her: ‘“I can’t take responsibility for anyone except myself.”
You
, the person who asked Ilijaz and your brother to steal the painting so that you could sell it back to Narvesen afterwards.
You,
who started off all this business,
you
cannot take responsibility for anyone except yourself?’
She didn’t answer; she just glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. They resumed their walk in silence, side by side. Frank Frølich broke the silence: ‘I know you postponed selling the painting back when Ilijaz was imprisoned, but for some reason you planned to sell it back without the others knowing. Why?’
Again she didn’t answer.
‘I’ve understood that you joined forces with Merethe Sandmo — against the men – that night in November when she went with the gang as a driver, when your brother and she were witnesses to murder.’
She stopped.
He said: ‘I woke up when you were talking to Merethe. And I realize she must have been very depressed when she told you about the guard who was knocked to the ground, but how did you get her to tip off the police?’
‘You’re wrong,’ she snapped. ‘What must you think of me?’ Her blue eyes flashed. ‘Merethe was a stupid cow. Why would I ask her to squeal on my own brother? When Merethe rang, she’d already talked to the police. She rang me to talk about it, to be comforted. That just tells you how downright simple-minded this woman was. She had begged again and again to take part in one of the jobs; she wanted the kicks. When she finally got her way she came face to face with reality. And then the daft bitch chose to ring the cops and tell them what had happened!’
‘Perhaps she wanted someone to help the man who was dying?’ Frank Frølich objected meekly. ‘He was lying in a pool of blood.’
‘If that was the idea, she wouldn’t have needed to give names, but she told the cops who was on the job – she named everyone except herself. So I was forced to stand up for my brother. You know that — don’t you?’
The sapphire eyes were soft again. Three shades of blue, he thought. The sky, the dress and her eyes.
They suddenly came closer. ‘When I left you that night,’ she whispered, ‘it was because I had to help Jonny. But I didn’t want to get you involved, do you understand? I couldn’t know you were going to work on that very case, could I?’
Frølich was staring at her hand. Her long, slim fingers were stroking his forearm.
‘I see it a little differently,’ he answered in a whisper.
Her fingers stopped caressing him.
‘You left the key to the safety-deposit box at my place.’
‘It was secure there.’
‘Very practical as well. When the men were banged up, you got hold of the second key. When they were released, you were on your way to Askim with one key in your pocket and the other in safekeeping at my flat. You drove to Askim after giving your testimony at the hearing. You identified yourself as Ilijaz Zupac at the bank. You took the painting from the vault.’
She was gazing at the horizon, silent.
‘Didn’t Jonny know what you were planning?’ he asked.
She didn’t answer.
‘So he did know,’ he concluded.
‘Have you ever thought that when a plane is moving down the runway to take off,’ she said, ‘it’s something absolute, final. Acceleration increases, it goes faster and faster. But the runway is so short that when it has reached sufficient speed it would be impossible for it to stop. Putting on the brakes would cause a disaster. There’s only one solution, to keep going, to get the plane off the ground.’
‘Jonny met you there, in the bank, didn’t he?’
‘What do you actually want?’ she said, irritated. ‘Have you come here to tell me how smart you are?’
‘For me personally, it’s important to have the facts out in the open.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, basically, this is about you, about me, about us.’
They looked into each other’s eyes again. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked softly.
‘I know Jonny drove to Askim while you were there. I know he was seen with another person on a tractor track leading down to the Glomma. I know your brother either slipped and fell into the river or he was pushed by the person he was with. Would you help me to complete the picture?’
‘What do you mean, this is about us?’ she asked again.
‘Jonny was in Askim,’ he persisted. ‘You were there too.’
She turned to him. Her blue eyes observed him from a distance, dreamily. ‘I don’t believe you. For you, this is not about us. It’s just about you.’