Lethal Investments

by Kjell Ola Dahl

  ‘Money in the bank?’

  ‘Zero. As I said, this is a bit unclear, but we have located the account her wages were paid into, and it’s empty.’

  ‘Good,’ mumbled Gunnarstranda under his breath. Frølich had managed to dig up a fair bit. Placed the woman in a sort of frame, so that now she appeared as more than a dead body. But the picture was blurred, lacked detail. ‘No one has seen or heard a thing,’ Gunnarstranda added. ‘Not even objects falling, or fighting.’

  He lit a cigarette. Frølich slowly rolled down the window.

  ‘We have the couple that came home from the party on Sunday morning.’

  Gunnarstranda nodded towards the hippie couple up the street. ‘Those two. They claimed that there was a bloke with a blood-stained face and a pony tail hanging round the gate when they arrived. And neither can remember if they had locked the gate or the door after them.’

  Frølich nodded. ‘We could put them together with an artist and ask them to give a description.’

  ‘They’re a waste of space,’ Gunnarstranda opined. ‘They were so doped up it took them a quarter of an hour to remember the bloke had a pony tail. No, that wouldn’t be any use.’

  He sat smoking for a while in silence. ‘She was covered with stab wounds. That suggests a fury at the moment of death.’

  The cigarette was burning unevenly. Gunnarstranda blew on the glow to try to redress the imbalance. ‘But then there’s the terrible mess, which makes me wonder. Drawers turned upside down and all the junk on the floor. That suggests someone wanted to relieve the young lady of her valuables.’

  ‘Nothing stolen though,’ Frølich parried in a neutral tone. He read from the report, ‘Stereo untouched, TV and money intact.’

  ‘She might just have put up a fight,’ Gunnarstranda muttered. ‘But I don’t like the fact that the door isn’t damaged. On the other hand, it wasn’t locked when Mia Bjerke found the body.’

  ‘Bolt lock,’ Frølich said with his nose in the stack of papers again. ‘Which does not click shut.’

  He stroked his beard, leaned back against the head rest. ‘She might have forgotten to lock the door at night or she may have opened up for the perp and let him in.’

  Gunnarstranda looked into the street. ‘No one climbed in through the window,’ he declared. Eyeballed his partner. ‘Think this is a rape case? I mean, she was only wearing a dressing gown.’

  Frølich’s dark eyes seemed to turn inwards. ‘Of course we don’t know when at night this happened,’ he mumbled. ‘But if she was sleeping and a guy rang . . .’

  He paused, searching for words. Gunnarstranda leaned forward and stubbed out the glow of cigarette in the ashtray. Held on to the butt.

  ‘If she flung on a dressing gown,’ Frølich continued, ‘and opened the door to a guy, who raped her, someone must have heard something.’

  Gunnarstranda thought of the Bjerke family. The bedroom that was above the deceased girl’s bed-sit. ‘No one heard a thing,’ he repeated grimly. ‘In fact, none of the neighbours has told us anything, except that she was a good-looking girl. But we already knew that. None of them knew her and it seems no one had any kind of contact with her.’

  Frølich nodded. ‘That’s how it is. I’ve lived in my flat for four years. But I’ve got no bloody idea how many people live on the same floor.’

  ‘Not everyone’s as dopey as you!’

  ‘The point is that people don’t know one another even though they live side by side.’

  ‘No, they don’t know one another, but they do keep their eyes open! They’re inquisitive!’

  They said nothing.

  ‘What if she had a boyfriend?’ Frølich asked after a while.

  Gunnarstranda slowly rolled down the window. Flicked the crumpled cigarette on to the road. ‘Jealousy? A row?’

  He angled his head. ‘That might square with the loose dressing gown around her body. But I still don’t like the door being open. The boyfriend would have locked up after him.’

  ‘Maybe he fled in panic?’ Frølich suggested. ‘Or he didn’t have a key?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Gunnarstranda recalled the sight of the dead woman’s chest. ‘You saw the way she looked, didn’t you?’

  ‘Indeed I did.’

  Gunnarstranda fumbled with the door. ‘Could a boyfriend do that?’ he wondered aloud. Didn’t bother to wait for an answer. Opened the door. ‘Come on, Frankie,’ he mumbled. ‘To work!’

  5

  Frank Frølich was left sitting with his lips twisted into a small ironic smile. It sounded odd to hear his boss calling him Frankie. It was what most people called him, though. Boys in the street had soon realized that Frankie was cooler than Frank and sounded best when apple scrumping or at football training. The nickname had followed him ever since. But Gunnarstranda was slow to pick up on things like that. ‘Right, Frølich?’ was more the tone. ‘What do you reckon, Frølich?’

  With a feigned cough and fidgety fingers. It almost sounded a bit comical. Hearing this aloof old hothead with the gimlet eyes call him Frankie.

  He packed away the papers and followed Gunnarstranda, who had stridden off across the road, stopped and was gazing upwards. Then he turned and crossed the street quickly again. Studying the façade of the building.

  Frank squinted up as well. Was taken by surprise, as always, at the beauty of the cornices and sculptures on these old apartment buildings. One was newer than the others. Square window panes with no ornamentation.

  ‘There,’ Gunnarstranda pointed. ‘That block has the right view. Let’s go to the top floor.’

  Upon reaching the top floor at last, they were both panting. On the landing outside the front doors the light had gone, so the name plates were barely legible. Two flats, but only one was occupied. The second door was partially concealed by cardboard boxes and rubbish piled up against the wall. Frank stooped and read the name engraved in the blackened brass:

  ‘Arvid Johansen.’

  ‘Cops?’ mumbled the old man who opened up. ‘Thought it wouldn’t be long before you lot were on my back!’

  They entered a cramped and poorly ventilated flat. A heavy stench of smoke, dust and something reminiscent of stale fish offal met their nostrils. Large dust balls had collected in the corner of the hallway. A variety of stains adorned the lino floor, which was unwashed and sticky underfoot.

  The well-built old grunter, once a hulk of a man, had an erect bearing, but his legs were stiff and his breathing crackled with asthma. His hair was grey, short and thick. Beneath his eyes and chin hung deep bags of wrinkled skin. His reddened right eye gleamed at them; a blood vessel must have burst.

  He shuffled ahead into the little sitting room and sat down on a worn, grey wing chair by the window. At the other end of the room there was a small TV and a video recorder.

  The TV picture showed a woman sucking dick while emitting moaning noises. It took Frank a while for his brain to cut in and inform him what was going on.

  By then Johansen had already raised the remote control and frozen the picture on the screen, put down the remote and grabbed a roll-up from the ashtray on the table. The cigarette had not gone out, so he puffed it into life and took a drag, which was followed by a lengthy bout of coughing. His throat gurgled. After the fit had finally subsided he spat into a handkerchief and stared up expectantly at Gunnarstranda, who had ensconced himself by the window. Frank looked around the room. Bare walls. Floor heaving with porn magazines. Glossy paper strewn with nude women. Faces of tarts with their tongues sticking out. Such as there, on the sitting room table, a large centrefold of a naked girl with a Father Christmas cap on her head and a yellow banana up her crotch. Two strong masculine hands forcing her legs apart.

  ‘That’d be something to keep out the winter cold!’

  Johansen had followed Frank’s gaze. His mouth laughed behind a clenched fist. The laughter degenerated into coughing.

  Gunnarstranda stared out of the window until the man was breathing normall
y again. ‘Come here, Johansen,’ he ordered without turning. The man in the chair obeyed. Gunnarstranda’s little head reached up to the middle of his chest.

  ‘The flat down there, at an angle to us, in the pink block with the curtains drawn.’

  ‘That’s where she lived, that is.’

  Johansen had sat down again. ‘Our young filly.’ He winked at Frank. ‘Pert pear-shaped tits, the type that bounce around!’

  He illustrated with his hands. ‘High buttocks. Rounded, and ginger pussy hair.’

  The hand with the cigarette shook. The man wheezed, got up and, standing next to Gunnarstranda, pointed. ‘That’s where she lived,’ he pointed with rasping breath. ‘That’s the very one.’

  The grunter started to pace to and fro, stiff-legged, across the floor.

  Frank tried to avoid looking at the bloodshot eye. It flashed like a brake light every time the old man turned on his heel.

  ‘You’ve got to find a young bloke,’ the man gasped, ‘mid-twenties, no special characteristics, but long, black hair which he keeps in a pony tail. They like that, girls do.’

  He stared up at the ceiling before sitting back down. His cigarette was out, but he lit it with an ancient, peeling lighter. It wouldn’t light at first. The two policemen watched him struggling to retain control of his fingers with every flick. At last it caught. He blew out smoke and went on:

  ‘I watched ’em all night. The nitty-gritty.’

  Frank looked up. Met Gunnarstranda’s eyes.

  ‘She was a little rose, you know, she knew what we old boys like.’

  He gave a moist grin. Winked at Gunnarstranda.

  ‘What did you see?’ Gunnarstranda asked.

  ‘What did I see?’

  The old boy’s breathing crackled. ‘What d’you think I saw?’

  He raised his right hand and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. Then he began to poke his left forefinger in and out of the hole. An amusing sight. The old man laughed, got into difficulties and had to hold his fist in front of his mouth to curb the asthmatic fit of laughter that exploded into the room.

  Frank drifted over to the window as well, and opened it an inch or two. Put his face in the current of air that entered. For a moment all was quiet. The noise of traffic outside mixed with the sounds of Johansen’s asthmatic rattle.

  ‘They had all the lights on,’ the crackling voice continued. ‘Curtains were open, so I just sat here enjoying myself while she lay on her back down there waggling her tits!’

  It went quiet again. All that could be heard was the old man in the chair leaning forward and stubbing out his cigarette.

  ‘Gratis and for nothing.’

  A dark expression had formed between the man’s wrinkles. ‘Buggered if I can understand why he . . .’ came a new tone from the chair.

  Frank stared at him. The muggy offal smell was not so strong now and a pained air was visible on the man’s drawn face. He was searching for words. Hidden behind his hands. ‘I can’t get my head round why he had to croak her afterwards!’

  The skin on his hands was coarse and lined.

  ‘How did he kill her?’

  Gunnarstranda’s voice cut through the silence even though the intonation was friendly, no more than curious.

  Johansen twitched. ‘How? I don’t care so long as you get ’im.’

  The little pain there had been in his voice was gone. His eyes were cold, like when he opened his front door.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question! How did he kill her?’

  ‘He stabbed her, for fuck’s sake!’

  The silence in the room became palpable.

  ‘Who did this crazy thing, me or him?’

  Gunnarstranda went up close. ‘How?’ he repeated in a low voice.

  Johansen didn’t answer. He just glared back at the gimlet eyes of the short, balding detective in front of him.

  Frank tried to read the expression on Johansen’s face. Was it fear or just defiance?

  Then Gunnarstranda went round the table, apparently having backed down. Sat on the sofa and began to study the magazines without another word. ‘What taste you have, Johansen!’

  The derision in his intonation was unmistakable.

  The old man didn’t turn, hadn’t even stirred in his chair. His eyes looked straight ahead, were fixed on a point on the wall.

  ‘Look here!’

  Gunnarstranda held up a magazine. ‘Look here, you,’ he mumbled. ‘You, Johansen!’

  He turned. The inspector laid the magazine on the table in front of him. Frank peered over his shoulder, curious to see. It was a magazine with no text. The photographs were in black and white, a series of pictures, amateur judging by the quality, peculiar angles, bad lighting, blurred. Gunnarstranda thumbed through, slowly, page by page. The series illustrated the fate of a blonde woman. Bound to a chair at first, tied with rope and chains that dug into her skin. Helpless, undressed, with a cloth forced into her mouth. Frightened eyes, round as plates, swollen blood vessels down her neck, as if something was hurting a lot, Frank thought. He caught himself wondering what it was that could hurt so much. In the next picture she was hanging upside down, still chained, still undressed and still with this silent scream of pain etched into her face and neck. Then one man’s rough hand held her hair while another held a dagger against the skin of her throat stretched to the limit. Frank wondered if the black stain on the blade was the woman’s blood. Probably, he concluded.

  Gunnarstranda peered up from the magazine. ‘Was this how it happened perhaps?’

  Johansen didn’t answer.

  Gunnarstranda turned over the page. Another woman. More rope. Black rope taut across her breasts, rope holding up her legs in an unnatural position. Two hands this time. Two hands trying to choke the woman with a rope tied tightly around her neck.

  ‘You like seeing women with rope around their necks, you do, don’t you, Johansen,’ Gunnarstranda whispered. ‘Perhaps you dream about pulling the rope yourself, perhaps that was what you were dreaming when you sat up here with your dick in your hand that night, about going down to the nice little girl and slowly putting the rope around her neck and pulling and pulling and feeling her tremble helplessly in your arms?’

  Johansen’s eyes were dulled. Passive and expressionless. They stared at the little man, who had got up and gone back around the table.

  ‘You know better than that, you evil bastard,’ the old man spat with hatred at the vulpine head now only five centimetres from his own.

  ‘If it’s so damned obvious, Johansen, tell me, at your leisure, how the hell you saw anything at all in the flat if the curtains were drawn?’

  ‘She drew them afterwards. She drew them after he’d gone. She let me see everything until he left, then she drew them. She waved to me and drew the curtains!’

  This last piece of information came in the same pained voice as before.

  Frank frowned. Waved, did she indeed, he wondered.

  Gunnarstranda had straightened up. The distance between him and the old man was about half a metre. ‘So he left, did he? Without killing anyone?’

  ‘He waited, waited until she had drawn the curtains, then he croaked her.’

  ‘You’re making this up as you go along!’

  ‘It’s obvious to anyone with any nous.’

  Johansen’s normal complexion was back. The threatening tone was gone. His hand clutched at the pouch of tobacco.

  Gunnarstranda walked over to the window and leaned back against the glass. ‘I want to know what you saw in precise detail,’ he explained calmly and he, too, lit a cigarette. ‘Nothing else, not what you imagine, not what you believe, simply what you could see.’

  Johansen got to his feet. ‘I’ll give it to you straight then,’ he said suddenly. Upright, he towered over the policeman, even though he was resting his palms against the window sill and had not drawn himself up to his full height.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ he mumbled with a haughty cackle and a triumph
ant smile around tight lips. Frank straightened up with excitement.

  Johansen pointed downwards. ‘Can you see the wooden fence by the demolition site?’

  The man pointed to a gaping hole at the front beside the murder victim’s block of flats. A tall wooden fence blocked off the demolition site.

  ‘That’s where he got out,’ Johansen said in a hoarse whisper. ‘After he’d killed my little rose.’

  The old boy’s eyes were dimmed and turned inwards. For the most part he was speaking to someone who wasn’t there, to himself.

  ‘He couldn’t fool me because I saw ’im. I suppose he didn’t want to be seen, so he kept away from the gate and the main door, he sneaked out, over the fence. I saw ’im climbing over the fence. With blood all over his face! And when he got there at least a quarter of an hour had passed since she’d drawn the curtains!’

  Gunnarstranda stared out of the window, lost in thought. Johansen gave a faint chuckle and his asthmatic coughing started again.

  ‘A quarter of an hour,’ he coughed behind his fist and sat down with the same triumphant expression on his face.

  Gunnarstranda, doubtful, frowned. ‘You think first of all he went into the yard, climbed from there into the demolition site, then jumped over the wooden fence when he could have strolled through the gate into the street, do you?’

  ‘Christ knows how he got into the demo site, but I saw ’im climb over the fence!’

  ‘It didn’t occur to you that this was a hell of a lot of hassle to get to the street?’

  Johansen sneered. ‘He’d have to expect a bit of hassle if he was going to kill ’er!’

  Gunnarstranda stood mulling this over, then spun round. ‘What time was it when they arrived that night?’

  Johansen shrugged.

  ‘What was it that attracted your attention? Noise in the street or what?’

  ‘No,’ mumbled Johansen, getting up again. ‘I just saw there was a light in her window. She had switched on the light. Must have been about one at night. I’d just been to the loo, saw there was a light down there, and well, since she had this guy with ’er then . . .’