Death in a Cold Climate

by Robert Barnard

  ‘What sort of things did he tell you about? Was it mostly about his work?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. He had worked there, definitely. Something to do with oil, I think. I remember the names you see in garages. Yes–I’m sure he had worked a lot with oil.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  The hand went over her forehead again. ‘No. I mean I didn’t really understand . . . And of course we talked about other things as well –’

  ‘I suppose things got more–personal, did they?’ Fagermo hated doing it, but he had to know the sort of terms the two ended on.

  She flushed up, and the twitch on the side of her face, which had stopped working and distorting her china good looks, began again with redoubled intensity. ‘I know what you mean. I know what you’re implying. Well, why not? I’m not ashamed.’

  ‘I’m not trying to suggest that you should be.’

  ‘What is a woman to do when her husband–goes off his head? Just settle down calmly and forget all about–that sort of thing? Nobody does these days!’

  ‘I know,’ said Fagermo. ‘Please put it out of your head that I’m trying to put you on trial. It’s not even something I’m particularly interested in.’

  Her face was crimson now, and her eyes were full. ‘So long as it’s understood that I’m not ashamed.’

  ‘Absolutely. But before things got more . . . down to earth, did he tell you anything about his personal life?’

  ‘Not much. He was quite reserved, in a way, at that stage. He said he’d been living with a girl in Trondheim.’

  ‘That’s true. Did he say anything about his life before that?’

  ‘No–we didn’t go that far back. As a matter of fact, that wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. Not about his personal life.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, you don’t, do you? Not when you’re with another woman.’

  Fagermo took her point. ‘But you must have got some impression, through all this talk, of what sort of a boy–man–he was. What he was like.’

  She pondered, the flush hardly diminished, and her face seemed to be suppressing memories of some bitterness. She said in a low voice: ‘Very self-contained. Very confident. Not very . . . giving.’ Then suddenly she looked at him straight, her eyes full of tears, and almost cried out: ‘You know the sort of person! Who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but themselves! I’ve had enough of people like that!’

  Fagermo looked unhappily at his knees, she seemed so utterly to fit the category she described. ‘You think that’s the sort of person he was, do you?’

  She almost wailed: ‘I know it! I know it! All I wanted was a little tenderness!’

  ‘And you didn’t get it?’

  ‘Get it? He wasn’t capable of it! It wasn’t in him! He just used me!’ Now she was working herself up with remembered rage, the nerve in her face going double time at the thought of her humiliation. ‘Do you know what I was to him? I was a pick-up. An easy lay. He did what he wanted, and that was an end to it. The only difference was he didn’t have to pay, and that was the sort of thing he thought about, believe me. He had saved money. There wasn’t an ounce of feeling in it. He didn’t know I was a person. I’ll tell you what he was: he was a machine! A beautifully maintained machine!’

  ‘Is that why you . . . got rid of him? That is what happened, isn’t it?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I got rid of him. I don’t know if I can make you understand. After all, I know how men think. I expect you’re saying “Well, she picked him up, didn’t she? That’s what she wanted. What’s she complaining about?” Oh, you can’t tell me anything about men!’ But suddenly she seemed to forget her grievance and speak honestly. ‘He made me feel dirty. Filthy. It was the way he talked . . . ’

  ‘Talked?’

  ‘All the time in here. And then in bed, after . . . The way he talked. It sort of built up. He was so . . . full of himself. How smart he was. How he was up to everybody’s tricks, and knew tricks worth two of theirs. Silly jargon like that. Then he kept talking about the ways he had of “making a quick buck”. He had some other expression, what was it? “An easy kill”.’ She stopped in her tracks. ‘Funny when you think about it, isn’t it? But what I hated . . . what was so insulting that I couldn’t stand it any longer was why he spoke to me like that –’

  ‘Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose he talked like that to everyone. In fact, early on he was quite–as I said–quite self-contained. But then he decided I was nobody. Something he’d picked up off the streets. He found out who my parents were–nobody important–he knew I had no connections any longer with my husband. So I didn’t matter, I couldn’t harm him. After we–in bed, it got worse. It was like I was his whore, and he paid me to listen to him talking, as well . . . He just swelled with his own cleverness. He was going places. The world was still open to a smart operator, it was still possible to “do an Onassis” as he called it–get rich quick. He knew a thing or two that nobody else knew. He just lay there, talking on and on. About how damned smart he was. About his plans. His big plans. He’d made me feel dirty before. Now I felt like some rotten accomplice.’

  ‘What sort of plans was this he was talking about? Did he go into any details?’

  ‘I didn’t listen very much. I was getting–worked up, I suppose. Angry, I mean. Just lying there, feeling ignored. I’d served my purpose, and now he could get back to thinking about himself and his great prospects. His shining future. How he was going to do down this person, double-cross that.’

  ‘Do down? Double-cross? Can’t you remember any details? It’s very important! Think!’

  ‘Oh, does it matter, does it matter?’ She drew her hand across her wet eyes. She felt nothing about the boy’s murder, that was clear. If anything, glad. Seeing Fagermo watching her, she seemed to pull herself together and try to think. ‘It was to do with information. Facts. Data. I don’t know what you’d call it. I remember he lay there, with his hands behind his head looking so . . . complacent. And he said something like: “So many people want it. Everyone’s interested. That’s why I went into this business. It’s a sure-fire thing. If you play your cards right you can sell the same info over and over again.” Those aren’t his exact words. Does it make sense?’

  ‘Yes, it could.’

  ‘And he said: “And then, you see, if you channel the info cleverly, that gives you a hold on the middleman. Once you’ve done shady business with someone, he’s yours–if he’s respectable and you’ve nothing to lose. If you play your cards right, you can squeeze him, too.” I didn’t understand what he meant.’

  ‘I think I do. Anything else?’

  ‘Oh, I expect so. Plenty more. I just lay there, feeling ignored, and it just washed over me. And it was all very vague–he wanted me to admire his cleverness, but he wouldn’t give too much away. He just went on and on, and I lay there, listening to him, and getting sicker and sicker–with him.’ She stopped and added emphatically: ‘With him, not with myself.’

  ‘And then what happened? He didn’t just go.’

  She smiled, a smile of strange self-satisfaction, giving Fagermo the idea that what had happened that night was a clash of two overweening egotisms. ‘I threw him out. I listened and listened, and finally I couldn’t stand it any more, and I got up and threw his clothes at him, and screamed and screamed: “Get out, get out, get out.” ’

  ‘And he did?’

  ‘Yes, he did. He just got up and dressed, with me screaming at him, and him looking at me . . . sort of, not understanding . . . supercilious. As if he was saying “Stupid woman”.’ For a moment she looked uncertain, but then she put a confident front on it: ‘Then he slunk from the house.’ She smiled complacently. ‘I don’t think he really understood.’

  That, Fagermo thought, was probably the problem with Martin Forsyth. He never really understood.

  CHAPTER 15

  BLOOD IN THE VINDFANG

  In the course of the next mornin
g Fagermo began to feel the mist imperceptibly rising. That it did so was not the result of any of the international enquiries he had set in motion. Very little had come out of the series of questions he had sent to Interpol. The situation in Iran was such that Westerners were fleeing the country like migrating birds, so concerned to escape the firing-squad, the whip or the bastinado that they even tactfully refrained from enquiring about duty-free grog at the airport. In such circumstances of chaos and panic, little was to be expected from officials of the major oil companies. Feeling helpless, Fagermo decided it was time to turn his attentions to those companies’ head offices in Britain and the States, and made contacts with Scotland Yard and the FBI with this in view.

  But the first really valuable piece of jigsaw to turn itself up in the box that morning came in the shape of the fair-haired Mormon who enquired for him in the outer office, and was shuffled by Hyland straight up to Fagermo.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Fagermo. ‘Where’s Tweedledee?’

  ‘I’ve just seen him off at the airport,’ said the young man. His going seemed to have made a difference to his companion: he still wore his suit, probably his only gear, but underneath his tie was discarded, and his hair was in a ruffled state and generally far from Madison Avenue. The boy seemed to feel the need to explain his state of liberation. ‘He’ll be back in Salt Lake City by tomorrow, turning in his suit. Gee, I envy him. I’ve got six months to do. But his replacement doesn’t arrive until tonight.’

  ‘You must feel lost on your own,’ said Fagermo. ‘Tell me, do you always go around in twos?’

  ‘Well, mostly. It prevents unfortunate happenings. There was a young Mormon chap in Britain recently –’

  ‘Ah yes, I remember,’ said Fagermo, who sometimes bought an English Sunday paper when the seamy side of Tromsø life was beginning to seem uninventive. ‘I can see that you have to take care. Well, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve remembered where I saw this chap–the boy who was murdered. Is that any help?’

  ‘Could well be. Depends on how definite you can be.’

  ‘Pretty definite, as it happens. You see, the fact is, we have a pretty set routine: we do certain areas at certain times–I mean the going round and knocking on doors and giving our spiel, you know. We have it all planned out well in advance and written down: on such and such a day we do these streets in Håpet; on such and such one we do those in Kroken, and so on.’

  ‘Just like salesmen.’

  ‘I reckon. So the fact is, if I can remember where I saw him, that also tells me when I saw him. Right?’

  ‘I see. Sounds just what we need.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Now, I’ll tell you where I saw him: we were coming down from Nordselvei into Anton Jakobsensvei. It’s mostly naval wives around there, and they’re often lonely and ask us in just for a chat, especially those that’ve been to the States. I’ve had–well, never mind. Anyway, we tend to knock off round about two, because people start cooking their middags then. So it was around that time–couldn’t be more definite than that. Anyway, he was coming along Anton Jakobsensvei from the town end, as if he’d walked over the bridge. I just about recognized him through the gloom, and I was going to stop and talk to him.’

  ‘Why were you going to do that? I thought he hadn’t expressed any great interest in your line.’

  ‘Hell, no, but nobody much is interested, except students writing papers on us and things like that. But we like to keep tabs on the English-speakers in town, just for someone to talk to.’

  ‘And did you talk to him?’

  ‘No, we didn’t, because he turned off: before we got down to where the road forks he’d turned off down into Isbjørnvei.’

  ‘And kept on going down there?’

  ‘I guess so. We didn’t follow him, because we were on our way home. But in any case, you can’t really go anywhere down that road–only Isbjørnvei and Binnavei just above. Binnavei’s full of university people, and so’s the first part of Isbjørnvei: they shut the door on us like we were the curse of Dracula. Must have something to hide, I guess. Then along Isbjørnvei there are some more naval people–they’re OK. Then round the loop in the road there are some people employed in the Town Council offices. Real snooty, some of that lot. But anyways, I guess this guy must have had a date with someone or other in those three groups down there.’

  ‘That,’ said Fagermo, ‘is what I’d guess too. Now–when was this? Can you be absolutely exact?’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ said the Mormon boy, taking out his diary for the previous year. ‘Every month we enter up the area to be canvassed each day, and we only depart from it if something very special or unexpected turns up. In other words, virtually never. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Fagermo, impressed in spite of himself by the Big Company efficiency of the whole futile operation.

  ‘In my eighteen months here I only remember us changing schedule once–about a year ago, because of Easter: the holiday was longer than we’d calculated. Right? So this is a regular record–’ ‘tapping the diary–‘of where we were, and when. And it says we did the far end of Anton Jakobsensvei and up to Nordselvei on December twenty-first. So it was coming down from there, some time I’d guess between one-thirty and two-fifteen, that we saw this boy.’

  He leaned back in his chair with a self-congratulatory smile on his fair, open face.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ said Fagermo. ‘Tell me one thing, though. You’ve told me how you can be sure when it was you saw him, but how come you’re so sure where it was? People don’t remember so exactly as a rule.’

  For a moment the young man looked embarrassed. ‘Well, hell, we’re trained in that kind of thing–cultivating the memory–it goes with the job . . . But, well, if you want to know, something had just happened that made everything stand out in my mind that day. I’d–well, I’d just met a girl –’

  ‘Really? I thought Tweedledee was there to protect you against things of that kind.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s the idea. And he did his best, by Chr-George he did. But sometimes it happens you can-sort of–get a message across without talking. Right?’

  Mindful of Fru Nicolaisen, Fagermo began to wonder why the human race had ever taken to speech. ‘So I believe.’

  ‘And well, I let him talk to the parents, and let him get all bogged down with his diagrams–we have a lot of diagrams, but Joseph, he wasn’t too hot with them–and, well, while all that was going on I sort of-well, I suppose you could say I made eyes at the daughter. Or we made them at each other. And I managed a date before we got out of the door. So you see, I was all keyed up when I saw this boy, and I suppose that’s why I remember exactly where.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Fagermo, ‘it all sounds practically Shakespearean. I didn’t know such things happened these days. I trust the course of true love has run smooth?’

  ‘Pretty much so, but it’s getting time alone that’s the problem. Joseph was pretty hot on the rules.’ He got up. ‘So I’ll be getting along, OK? She’s got the day off gymnas today. Sick. We’ve got till eleven-fifteen tonight, when I have to meet the plane. See you around, OK?’

  ‘I expect so,’ said Fagermo. ‘Oh, just one more question: do you ever actually make any converts?’

  The boy paused in the doorway and scratched his chin: ‘Well, no. Not what you’d call converts. Lots of people are interested, but they don’t actually–come over. We’re really just sort of showing the flag. What you might call maintaining a presence in the area!’

  And he breezed out. So that was it. They were the spiritual equivalent of a NATO base. Fagermo meditated on this idea for some time, then shrugged it from him, regretfully.

  • • •

  Moving house is always a business, and Norwegians like to do things thoroughly. No good Norwegian housewife would want to move into a house that was not, from the beginning, spotlessly clean. Fru Dagny Andersen was a very good Norwegian housewife, and she had made it clear to the removers, h
er husband, her friends back in Bergen and anyone else who would listen (for she was a thoroughly tedious woman) that she needed three solid days’ cleaning in this new house before the family could be moved from Bergen to Tromsø, where her busband was taking up a Professorship in Reindeer Husbandry.

  So there she was, with a sleeping-bag and lots of plastic buckets, with a rigidly classified collection of cloths and mops, giving the house a thorough going over from ceiling to basement before the removal men could be permitted to unload their household effects into it. She scrubbed, scoured, washed and polished, her whole body sweating in the spring sunshine, her mind almost blank but for the topics of rival cleaning fluids, and washing powders, and a dreadful generalized feeling of self-righteousness.

  ‘They said it was done,’ she said with a smug smile to Fru Vibe, her neighbour, as she passed on her way to the shop, ‘but it never is, is it? Not properly. I wouldn’t have wanted to bring my family into this. Not the state this place was in. I like to know a place is really clean.’

  And Fru Vibe kept her end up by agreeing wholeheartedly, and with lots of housewifely detail about corners and bottom cupboards, though in her heart of hearts she did have a slight sense that cleanliness could be carried too far.

  But now Fru Andersen was coming to the end of her tasks. The hall had been done, and the downstairs bedroom and the store cupboards, and now, with the front door open to let in the afternoon sun she was beginning on the vindfang, the little square place just inside the front door, designed to keep draughts out and protect the blessed greenhouse quality of the Norwegian home. Even a vindfang should be clean, and be seen to be clean, she said to herself complacently.

  But when Fru Vibe came home from the shop an hour or so later she found Fru Andersen still on the floor, still at it, and in far from happy mood.

  ‘They said it had been done,’ she said, stopping her scrubbing and poising herself on her haunches. ‘But look at that.’ She pointed to a brown mark on the skirting-board near the floor. ‘It’s not mud, I know that. I’ve been at it for nearly half an hour, and I can’t get it out. I think it must be blood.’