Lethal Investments

by Kjell Ola Dahl

  ‘Was it gruesome?’ he asked, with a thumb.

  ‘Too early to say anything.’

  Kampenhaug had a look around. ‘Someone had dragged the body half on to the bank, and when we came there was just a dog here.’

  He angled the radio aerial towards the dead dog. It had been shot. A long, pink tongue hung like a tie from the half-open jaws. The shiny coat was disfigured by a red wound in the stomach. A civilian with a bobble hat was kneeling over it.

  Frank stared back at the corpse on the river bank. Two black reinforced plastic overshoes pointed heavenwards.

  ‘Wondered perhaps if he was the witness we were after,’ he mumbled. ‘Arvid Johansen. A pensioner.’

  ‘So I heard. Well, it’s not easy to recognize that face!’

  Kampenhaug bent down and pulled back a corner of the sheet. Frank turned away. Kampenhaug grinned. Replaced the sheet and straightened up. ‘The dog was obstructing the investigation,’ he sniggered. Addressed the civilian and called in a louder voice. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Then marched the few metres over to the man and kicked him in the back. ‘Next time you buy a dog make sure you keep it on a lead.’

  The man turned his head. A tear-streaked face looked up at them. Glasses, dull eyes and terrible teeth. Frank had seen the face before. But couldn’t put his finger on where. A junkie. Doped up. Eyes that swam beneath his fringe. The junkie grunted. ‘Bastard pigs.’

  Kampenhaug stooped down. The doped-up face was reflected against a green background in his mirror glasses. Kampenhaug smiled and his hand twitched. The man fell in a heap. Blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Frank said nothing, spun round and stared at the path and the slope to the river. Not more than a kilometre away from Arvid Johansen’s home, probably a lot less. Ten-minute walk. Again he looked at the barely moving water. Tried to imagine someone falling in here. Faced the crowd to locate the woman for whom Kampenhaug was playing tough.

  Macho Man’s overalls rustled as he stood up. He stretched his legs to allow the material to slip back into place, joined Frank and stood scratching his groin.

  ‘Take a size bigger,’ Frank said. ‘You’re too old to impress women.’

  ‘Quartermaster hasn’t got any bigger ones.’

  The radio crackled and Macho Man bent down in a macho way. Frank spotted her. Red hair, tired face, green eye make-up. Bare feet in high-heeled shoes. Pointed tits beneath a tight-fitting acrylic roll-neck sweater.

  Bernt came back. ‘A milcher,’ he whispered. ‘Finest Norwegian Ayrshire.’

  His teeth flashed white under the green sunglasses. Lots of small red marks bedecked his chin and neck.

  ‘You’ll have to change the blades in your razor,’ Frank replied, but on seeing this sudden change of topic was too much for him, added: ‘Ask for her name and address. You can say you’ll be back for a statement.’

  ‘Too right,’ Kampenhaug whispered. Adjusted his bollocks in his ardour.

  Idiot, thought Frank. Left him, stepped over the barrier and slowly ambled up the footpath. Impossible to say whether the dead man had fallen in. The path stretched upwards like an idyll. Nevertheless, he must have fallen in close to here.

  Despite the injuries to the old man’s face, Frank was convinced it was Johansen. The overshoes, the coat, though they weren’t what did it. He just knew. Johansen was dead. Provided that the dead man’s fingerprints were readable, Professor Schwenke would be able to compare them with those on file. If not, they would use other medical data and ultimately establish the man’s identity. But in reality it was no more than a formality. Gunnarstranda would receive a report saying that Arvid Johansen had drowned. There would be a bit about injuries to the head that could have been caused by a fall or a third party with intent.

  He stared back at the bridge. Kampenhaug had clambered over the barrier and was talking to the milkmaid who was running her hand through her red hair and shifting weight from one high heel to the other.

  ‘Hello, Frølich.’

  Ivar Bøgerud. The emissary of the tabloid press. Noted that the guy called him by his surname. That was new.

  Frank shrugged. ‘You’ll have to take a risk and talk to the boss himself,’ he said, nodding towards Kampenhaug. ‘I don’t know anything.’

  Bøgerud smoked. ‘Informed sources’, he puffed, ‘tell me that the cops have shot an old man taking a dog for a walk.’

  ‘When did you ever start checking a good story?’

  ‘Sunday newspaper, Frølich. Since we’re competing with the church we have to bang on the tables with cold facts.’

  Ivar Bøgerud’s expression was devoid of humour. He had pulled out an old notebook. ‘What was the message on the radio?’

  ‘Old man dead in water.’

  Frank stared down at Kampenhaug, who had now left the redhead in peace. The man was drifting around with the radio by his face and his sleeves rolled up.

  Bøgerud flicked his cigarette in an arc and took notes.

  ‘The man could have fallen in by accident, but so early in the process you can’t rule out a criminal act.’

  They strolled up the road. Round the school.

  ‘Of course the police are interested in contacting anyone who might have seen or heard anything unusual along the river banks from Beier bridge to Foss in the last few days.’

  ‘The shot?’

  Bøgerud had stopped writing.

  ‘Rumours as with every police call-out.’

  ‘There was a dead dog lying there, Frølich!’

  ‘The story’s covered under the Press’s Code of Ethics. You know, role of the press and all that shit.’

  ‘Was the dog shot by the police?’

  ‘Talk to Kampenhaug.’

  Bøgerud nodded. ‘Informed sources tell me you’ve arrested a suspect.’

  Frank considered. ‘We are in contact with a dog owner who was beside the dead animal when it was found. The man will be questioned as a witness in the usual way.’

  ‘Is it usual for the police to knock witnesses unconscious while they’re being questioned?’

  Frank sighed. Headed for his car.

  ‘We saw what happened, Frølich!’

  Frank opened the car door.

  ‘Was the dog or the owner at any point deemed to be a threat to the police?’

  The detective addressed the journalist. ‘Ivar,’ he began, weary. Changed his mind: ‘Bøgerud! This is not my case. I know nothing about the dog or whether it was shot at all or who shot it! The dog is dead. An old man was found floating in the river Akerselva. That’s all I know. Talk to Kampenhaug. He’s in charge here, and he knows everything that happened. All right?’

  ‘You stood two metres away from the police officer who attacked the dog owner. Have you any comment to make?’

  Frank looked Bøgerud in the eyes. Which did not deviate. Lips that tightened. Am I like that as well? he wondered, sighed with resignation and got into the car. Closed the door in the journalist’s face.

  He switched on the ignition. Glanced briefly up at Bøgerud who had a camera in his hand. My God, he despaired. The flash went off in his face. What a shit day! What a truly shit job!

  43

  It was early Sunday morning. The industrial areas of Tøyen and Enerhaug lay deserted. Now, without people, the noise of machinery and the sound of metal on metal, the place seemed completely forlorn. Like a film set after the shooting, Frank thought.

  They walked arm in arm along Jens Bjelkes gate. Eva-Britt, who had never got over Frankie ending up as a police officer, still came back to how strange this was. Now she had an opportunity to revisit the topic. Twice they had walked up and down the footpath between Beier bridge and Foss, where the old man had been dragged ashore. Eva-Britt hung on Frank’s arm, strode out and swung her hips with every step. ‘Becoming a cop is the last thing you should have done,’ she informed him yet again.

  They were on their way back to Eva-Britt’s. One of the girls in the collective was looking after Juli
e while Mummy was on a Sunday walk trying to find slide marks on the slope down to the Akerselva.

  He nodded, in another world. Still thinking about their walk. Along the footpath to and fro between the two waterfalls where the old man might have slipped. No one so far had uncovered anything that might explain Johansen’s death. Not even they had.

  ‘I would never have believed it,’ repeated Eva-Britt, musing aloud.

  ‘Why not?’ he said to show he was mentally present.

  ‘Don’t know. You’re not the type.’ She smiled. ‘Can’t see you beating people up.’

  He sighed.

  She rolled her eyes when she heard his sigh. ‘Now, don’t you tell me the cops don’t beat people up!’

  Frank grunted and threw his arms in the air. ‘The job’s all right. It’s like all jobs, I suppose. You want to be thorough, see results. And for that I definitely have world-class opportunities. The find-the-murderer scenario.’

  He fell quiet. Noticed her staring at him. ‘The problem is all the night work on poor pay,’ he added. ‘The only difference from other jobs is in fact the opportunity to fail, to be part of a fiasco. It’s immense. The whole time.’

  ‘Are you thinking about the dead girl?’

  They had reached the busy road they had to cross. So they stood waiting to dash over when there was a gap in the traffic.

  ‘You meet the world in a different way,’ he shouted over the noise of vehicles, pulling her on to the other side. ‘It’s difficult to grasp that you’re still on the same planet as you were before you joined the police. People’s madness is in your face. Just the fact that anyone can be so bonkers as to visit a girl and stab her with a bread knife! Just imagine it! A bread knife! And then she falls down dead!’

  He paused. Moved aside to let a man in a leather jacket scoot past. Went on: ‘To clear up a case like this you have to be totally involved.’ He stopped. ‘Like Gunnarstranda last night!’

  They resumed walking. ‘I don’t understand it,’ he added. Remembered Gunnarstranda with the coffee cup between his hands, the feverish face with the sharp eyes. His tongue going like a clapper regardless of external conditions, circumstantial evidence, assumptions or a hung-over colleague.

  ‘The man’s always on form at all times of day or night! Take this case. All along we’ve thought that a man forced his way into the girl’s flat, turned it upside down, got caught, stabbed her and legged it. However, Gunnarstranda realized that there must have been two people. Two perps who may not have known about each other. First, this girl has a visitor who kills her and buggers off. Then someone else comes, and searches the flat. This turkey has broken into her workplace earlier. He does what he has to do around the body, ransacks the entire place, but presumably doesn’t find whatever it is he’s after. So he breaks in a second time, two nights ago, to do a more thorough search.’

  ‘Why should it be the same person who broke into her workplace and her flat?’

  ‘We don’t know. We reckon it is, but we have no way of checking.’

  ‘What about if you’re wrong?’

  ‘That’s the point. Then everything collapses. The opportunity to fail is immense.’

  They walked on in silence.

  She stopped and laughed, revealing the gap between her front teeth.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I was just thinking about the time you and Dikke used to share a crate of beer at all the parties. There you were, without fail, sitting on the sofa, boozing away and grooving to Pink Floyd and . . .’

  She frowned, racked her brain. ‘And . . . ?’

  Frank glanced at her. ‘Van der Graaf Generator!’

  ‘What a name! No one else would have liked them.’

  ‘Van der Graaf were great! Shit-hot!’

  ‘Of course! It’s just so odd to think that you joined the police. What’s happened to Dikke by the way?’

  ‘He’s in clink.’

  She became serious. ‘What for?’

  ‘Dope.’

  He and Dikke had drifted apart. Gradually, slowly but surely. They had met once in two years. One summer evening. Warm air in the streets. Restaurant terraces full to overflowing. Stunning women on the go, taxis with open sun roofs and wild music. People congregating in groups. Dikke was alone in a corner of the square outside the railway station. A portable stereo at his feet. Twitchy head, tapping feet and hands that ran up and down his body without cease. ‘I get so nervous if I have to stand in the same place,’ he had said, talking to a point somewhere among the stars.

  Now he always sat in the same place, cooped up in a prison cell, unless he was strapped down.

  He became aware of her silence. Coughed. ‘I suppose I was not exactly your dream-boy at that time?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘What I remember best is the night on the Danish ferry.’ He laughed and felt her grip on his arm tighten.

  ‘Do you know why I fell in love with you?’ she asked, giving him a view of the gap between her teeth again. ‘Your woollen socks.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Grey woollen socks and an erect willy.’

  She smiled. ‘You were completely naked apart from the grey socks which you had half-taken off. You were frantically searching for a condom, knocking things on to the floor.’

  He grinned. Stopped. They had passed Gunder’s garage. He turned and pointed up to the windows where Brick the solicitor had his premises. ‘That solicitor’, he pointed, ‘is tied up in this mystery we’re sweating over, by the way.’

  They peered up at the panes where BRICK was written in large letters.

  ‘Gunnarstranda found out the man had his office here.’

  ‘Is he a suspect?’

  ‘No. The solicitor is the business manager of the dead girl’s employer. Software Partners.

  ‘And a swindler, I suppose,’ he added.

  She leaned towards him. ‘The solicitor is working on a Sunday,’ she said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure I saw someone there. Look! The neon tube in the ceiling’s on.’

  Yes, it was true, they could both see it. There was a light in the window. She squeezed up against him. Bored her chin into his chest and stroked his cheek with a begloved finger.

  ‘If you were a proper cop,’ she whispered, ‘you would go up there now!’

  He smirked. ‘With you here? Dame waiting in the street while Dirty Harry straightens his jacket and goes to work?’

  She sneaked her gloved hand up under his shirt.

  He was a bit nervous with her hands around. With that look in her eyes she was capable of anything.

  ‘I know something nicer we could do,’ she whispered to the shirt button. ‘Little bonk?’

  His eyes twinkled. ‘At your place, with the gang of cheerleaders in the common room?’

  ‘If we go to yours we’ll have to take the little one.’

  Frank kicked the tyre of a fat BMW parked by the kerb. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘This crate must belong to the solicitor by the way. It’s expensive enough.’

  At that moment a man in a blue coat strode quickly through the gate and over to the car.

  ‘Young solicitor,’ whispered Eva-Britt.

  They had to move and make room for the man. He fumbled with the alarm system. Soon there was a brief peep as the alarm went off. The man opened the boot lid and threw in a red briefcase. Then a stout elderly lady rushed through the gate. She attracted everyone’s attention. Waving a piece of paper in her hand. Face red with exertion. Wearing a woollen jacket and tasselled slippers on her feet, she shuffled out to the parked car.

  ‘Bjerke,’ she called. ‘Joachim Bjerke!’

  44

  Gunnarstranda could feel the coffee going down his throat and leaving a thin, unhealthy coating reminiscent of glue over his tongue and the inside of his mouth. It was getting late. He should be on his way home.

  The whole of the Sunday had been spent on futile crap. Now it was the evening. Tomorro
w was Monday. Things should be starting to happen. The thought of going home to the television failed to attract. He could do some reading, but he knew it would be difficult to concentrate. The pieces of the puzzle were churning round his head. The pieces that refused to fit. There was a piece missing. An important one. His brain was in a high gear, pushing pieces all ways to form a picture that made sense.

  In front of him on the desk there was an open newspaper and the autopsy report for Sigurd Klavestad. Lots of mumbo-jumbo in Latin, rigor mortis etc, and other medical jargon. Gunnarstranda was informed that the man had once had jaundice. In addition, his last meal had consisted of bread, milk and red wine, of all things. A sharp object had sliced his carotid artery and damaged the medulla oblongata, the lower half of the brainstem. There was also bruising to the body, caused, it was assumed, by falling down the narrow stairs. Klavestad had died somewhere between three and four o’clock in the morning, before he had been called out.

  Gunnarstranda glanced at his watch once more, lit another cigarette and chewed his thumb nail. Then he glowered at the newspaper lying open at the TV pages. He could take the car and go to Hoffsjefveien and collar Engelsviken, or perhaps the maid, give both of them a course on buttoning blouses and see what happens. But the thought of the drive at such a late hour also failed to attract.

  The telephone rang.

  ‘Gunnarstranda.’

  ‘S’me,’ growled Frølich in a beery bass tone. In the background someone was giggling. The sound reminded him of how tired he was. ‘What is it?’ he asked wearily.

  ‘I’ve been for a walk.’

  Frølich hiccupped.

  ‘A couple of hours ago, along the banks of the Akerselva.’

  Another hiccup.

  Gunnarstranda’s brow began to crease. He could hear Frølich whispering something, probably telling the lady to let him phone.

  ‘I was looking for some signs of where the old boy fell in the river. Between Foss and the bridge.’