The Frozen Woman

by Jon Michelet

  ‘She sells inline skates,’ Stribolt says. ‘From Latvia.’

  ‘Let’s have a look, shall we. If this is a sales site why isn’t it called com or dot com?’

  ‘How the hell should I know why it’s not Dotti dot com?’

  ‘The question is whether there’s more to Dotti than dots,’ Vaage says. ‘She certainly uses enough kohl.’

  ‘Kohl?’

  ‘Eyeliner.’

  Suddenly the complete picture pops up on the screen. A full-length young woman. She is the type we used, in the very old days, to call robust.

  ‘She’s absolutely starkers!’ Vaage bursts out in triumph.

  ‘Rubbish,’ Stribolt answers. ‘She’s wearing a flesh-coloured bikini, roller skates and elbow and knee protectors. It’s certainly the right gear if you’re selling a modern, youthful sports product. In fact, she’s also wearing round glasses, as you can see. John Lennon glasses.’

  ‘She’s got very modest boobs, but big hips.’

  ‘I can’t do anything about that,’ Stribolt says.

  ‘Have you checked the references of this potential crown witness?’ Vaage asks.

  ‘I’ve called a teacher at the college in Østfold where she studies. He confirmed that she was observant and reliable.’

  ‘Are you going by car to Halden?’

  ‘Too hot to drive. I’ll catch the train. Unless you detain me any further I can catch the four o’clock.’

  ‘Have a good trip,’ Vaage says, giving her colleague a pat on the highest point of his body when he bends down to pick arctic berries on the marshes in Skaidi.

  *

  Vilhelm Thygesen has drunk two drams of ice-cold Calvados from the bottle he keeps in the fridge since he returned from Paris and has promised himself he will save.

  With the taste of burnt apples on his tongue he calls the Kripos number again. He asks for Vaage and he gets her.

  She appears to be in an unusually good mood.

  Thygesen tells her about the anonymous letter he has received and the picture of Picea which was taken while she was still alive.

  He hears Vaage tapping on the keyboard while asking him short, precise questions, which he tries to answer succinctly.

  ‘May I come and see you after I clock off at four?’ Vaage asks.

  Thygesen hesitates and searches for an excuse to avoid a visitation from Kripos. He fails. Having said A, he will have to say B.

  ‘OK,’ he says.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Home. Where else?’

  ‘You’re ringing from a mobile. It could be absolutely anywhere in the western world.’

  ‘Right now my mobile’s in Bestum.’

  11

  Unknown to the boss, the employees of Statens Nasjonale Oljeinvesteringsfond, SNOIF for short, have sneaked out of their offices on the top floor into Tordenskjoldsgate on this boiling hot Friday afternoon to get the earliest weekend possible.

  Only MD Gerhard Ryland’s anteroom is manned as the clock approaches four and knocking-off time. John Olsen sits there sweating and scratching his walrus moustache, musing glumly whether Ryland has hanged himself behind a locked door.

  His boss has been even more absent-minded and reticent than usual all day. After lunch he cancelled a meeting with two reps from Norpaper, Helsinki, holed himself up in his office and said he wasn’t taking any calls.

  Olsen notices that Ryland has rung a couple of times from his mobile after going into hiding. The electro-magnetic waves from his phone make the computer in the anteroom flicker slightly. Otherwise everything has been quiet. He put through one call, from a man who refused to give his name but said it was a matter of life and death. Other incoming messages for his boss he has noted down on his jotter.

  It is now 15.50. Olsen has other plans for this Friday than sitting and waiting for a signal from the social-democratic sphinx. It is definitely time for a beer on the quay in Aker Brygge. He dials 01 on the intercom. It rings and rings. Eventually Ryland answers.

  ‘I was wondering whether I could call it a day,’ Olsen says.

  ‘Not just yet,’ Ryland answers. ‘Pop in before you leave. I’ll be with you in five minutes.’

  Olsen hears his boss’s door being unlocked. He leans out of the window and waits. The heat rises from the tarmac on the street seven floors down. He can see straight down the low-cut dresses of two winter-pale girls from the Employment Office who are standing on the pavement smoking. Summer has arrived in a single day. A sweet perfume mingles with the stench of exhaust fumes rising upwards. Could it be from the maple trees? Or from the cherry trees in full flower all over this heat-shimmering city?

  The wall clock shows 15.55. Olsen does up the top button of his shirt, knocks and enters Ryland’s office. The room stinks of tobacco in the semi-gloom. Not a single window is open. The curtains closest to Ryland’s desk are drawn. His boss is nowhere to be seen.

  The windows are shut, so at least he hasn’t jumped out, Olsen thinks.

  He must be in the toilet.

  The only luxury Ryland allowed himself when Bondevik’s government set up the Oil Fund was that he had a private toilet attached to his otherwise spartan office. Ryland also instituted a deal with Health & Safety that the smoking law would not apply to the MD.

  After he was employed to work for Ryland, John Olsen began to doubt the truth of the old proverb that the sum of all vices is constant. In his experience his boss has only one vice and that is his bloody pipe-smoking.

  Stalin is in the ashtray reeking of burnt nuns, as though there were witches’ trials going on in Ryland’s office.

  Olsen doesn’t know whether Ryland knows that his employees call his favourite pipe Stalin or if his boss knows how much they dislike the aroma of Three Nuns tobacco. Whereas the other offices are copiously decorated with lithographs from the state’s stock of visual art Ryland has no adornment on his walls other than a drawing in framed glass. It is a puzzle he tries out on all his new staff. Olsen was given advance warning by the chief accountant and therefore managed to think on his feet: the cigarette holder symbolises USA’s President Franklyn D Roosevelt, the cigar Britain’s wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the crooked pipe Joseph Stalin.

  There are equals signs between these symbols of smoking, and the equation concludes with a V, which stands for victory, for victory in the Second World War.

  Ryland is almost morbidly preoccupied by the history of war and especially the Russians fighting on the Eastern Front. But being a spy for the Russians in his youth is probably just one of those malicious rumours that hound every boss of a certain heft.

  And Ryland has heft, despite his peculiarities and his extremely withdrawn personality, all his decency and virtue. He has cleverly manoeuvred SNOIF through the tainted waters of the Norwegian financial world. Stood up against the capital moguls when necessary, ducked when it was prudent. The return for the fund has been as good as in the best share funds. The boss’s integrity is undisputed. He hasn’t allowed himself to be led by his crooked nose, his hawk beak.

  A wallpapered door that merges indistinguishably with the rest of the dark blue office wall opens. Out comes the tall, skinny Gerhard Henry Ryland, his hair dripping with water. He is wearing his light grey suit, and the jacket and garish tie – a present from the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees – are stained with dark patches.

  ‘You have to comb your hair,’ Ryland says, wiping his colourless face with a paper towel. He has combed his dark hair back and parted it at the side. A perennial discussion amongst his staff is whether it is dyed or not. Olsen thinks his hair colour is natural. ‘Now that summer’s here it’s best with water. Would you like a coffee, John?’

  Olsen looks at the steel coffee flask on the pedestal by the suite of sofas. It is the one he brings in every lunch time. He declines the offer. />
  ‘You put a call through to me,’ Ryland says, taking his place in his chair behind the desk and offering Olsen a chair in front.

  ‘Yes, sorry, but he was insistent.’

  ‘It was a threat,’ Ryland says.

  ‘From the bloody Finns?’

  ‘No, this was about something else.’

  Is that a smile his boss is putting on? If so, it is extremely suspicious.

  ‘We log and record all calls digitally, don’t we?’ Ryland asks.

  ‘In accordance with your orders after you felt threatened by Kingo, and there hasn’t been any change to my knowledge.’

  ‘And the machine connected to the switchboard records on the HD and a diskette?’

  Olsen nods. It is a mystery to him why his boss always asks him about things he already knows and never asks about things he doesn’t know.

  ‘I’d like you to bring me today’s diskette.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, this minute,’ Ryland says. ‘ASAP, as they say.’

  Olsen takes the diskette from the switchboard computer. He places it on his boss’s desk. Ryland doesn’t look up; he is studying a couple of letters in front of him. They are brown around the edges, scorched, as if someone had tried to set fire to them.

  ‘Is that a map of Treasure Island you’ve got there?’ Olsen asks to break the silence.

  ‘Not at all,’ Ryland replies, looking up. His gaze couldn’t be more distant. The moisture on his forehead is sweat, not water. ‘We, that is I, I personally… am in a bit of a spot. So I’d like you to do me a couple more favours. Firstly, I’d like you to drive me to a meeting in Østfold this evening, to a place called Bærøe estate. I’m in no shape to drive myself.’

  ‘Actually, that’s a little inconvenient, Gerhard.’

  ‘You’ll get paid double the overtime rate.’

  ‘Triple,’ Olsen says. He doesn’t head the Union of Commerce and Office section of SNOIF for nothing.

  ‘Let’s say triple then. Before we leave you’ll have to pick up Natasha from home in Røa. You take me to Bærøe. I’ll make my own way once the dinner and meeting are over. You drive straight to my cabin by Skjeberg Bay and stay there until Monday with Natasha. She’s fairly balanced at the moment, so there’ll be no problems if you guard the medicine cupboard and the bar like a dragon.’

  ‘That’s my weekend gone for a burton,’ Olsen says. ‘In fact, I did have other plans.’

  ‘No surprises there,’ Ryland answers drily. ‘You will be well rewarded.’

  ‘Triple overtime rate?’

  ‘Plus some.’

  Ryland pulls out a drawer from his desk, locates a pile of share certificates and fans them out in front of his secretary. There is an elephant printed on the certificates. Its legs are designed in such a way that they form the word ‘Moss’.

  ‘This is ten shares in the Peterson Group,’ Ryland says. ‘The one that owns Cellulosen in Moss and much more. They’re yours if you do me the favours I’ve asked you about.’

  ‘You’re trying to bribe me,’ Olsen says, dumbfounded. ‘This is tantamount to corruption!’

  ‘Every good firm has to have a bit of corruption,’ Ryland answers wearily.

  After union leader John Olsen has calmed down and stashed the Peterson shares in his sporty rucksack, he is ordered to make his way to the quay at Akerbrygge and relax. He is also instructed not to drink anything stronger than a Clausthaler, or alternatively a Norwegian Munkholm.

  Ryland sits in the stale air of his office studying the two letters scorched at the edges. He thinks he understands the purpose of the scorched letters. It is to give them a sense of being documents from fantasy literature, a touch of The Hobbit or something like that.

  The first letter he received is entitled ‘The Forest’ and reads as follows: ‘Herr Gerhard Ryland, Oil Investment Fund. I, a warrior, hereby demand one million kroner for a biker clubhouse. Place the money in the old camo-painted, or camouflage-hued as snobs like you might say, warehouses by the Bærøe road in Hobøl, which were formerly used by the Våler rocket battery. You will find the precise location by consulting the Directorate for Civil Protection. It was people like you who made sure the battery was closed down and who destroyed great plans in connection with another place in the forest. Labour Party big shots! Traitors of the people! I know storage space was builded in the mountain at the Våler battery so as to be able to take American nuclear warheads that could be fired by Nike rockets. Not big weapons, tactical ones. If we get the warehouse the club will then expand and take over several of the buildings and make a nuclear missile museum in Våler. I assume you will be a key sponsor. Initially, I want only one million of all the kroner you administer. I will tell you how the money is to be handed over after you have replied to this letter. Send your response to Reidar Isachsen, Aspedammen 112, 1766 Halden. Then I will get it. Do not try to contact Reidar Isachsen. This is, by the way, impossible. He is a zombie. If you don’t reply, the following will happen: your connection with the unidentified woman who was found murdered in Vilhelm Thygesen’s garden in Oslo last winter will be revealed to the whole world. I know that a piece of paper with your name and private address on – Anton Tschudis vei 30, 1344 Haslum – was found in the woman’s bag. How will you explain that when tabloid journalists start ringing you up, Ryland? You have a problem. Which can be solved by paying me a little money, on behalf of the club. The problem will get bigger if you don’t bother to answer or contact the police. I am in constant contact with the police, you see. If you don’t reply, I will make sure the police put a picture of the murdered woman in the papers. That will almost certainly cause an outcry and total panic. Best regards, Banzai Boy.’

  When Ryland received this clumsy blackmail letter at the beginning of April he didn’t place any importance on it. He put the letter in the drawer for begging letters and strange enquiries addressed to the MD of SNOIF. It was, and is, a full drawer. As a matter of form, he checked the national register to see if there was a Reidar Isachsen with a postal address in Aspedammen. He speculated where this Banzai Boy had got his private address from and concluded the boy – judging by the handwriting it had to be a young boy – had also used the national register.

  What slightly concerned him was that it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that a piece of paper or a card bearing his name and address had actually been found on or near the dead woman, by the person or persons who killed her or found her. All over Europe there were potential female victims to whom in an unguarded moment Natasha might have given his name, followed by assurances that if he was contacted on the arrival of said poverty-stricken or persecuted woman in Norway, the gates of the kingdom’s heavens would open.

  Natasha has a heart that is greater than her common sense.

  Ryland casts a glance at the photo of his wife which he keeps under his transparent plastic blotter. The picture is only a couple of years old. She took it herself, with the self-timing release, on a sea-smoothed rock by their cabin. She is holding an armful of summery flowers and beaming to the world. But the eyes with the raven-black, endlessly long lashes are closed because she doesn’t want to see a world that is too evil for her.

  He has loved Natasha ever since he met her in Leningrad, as the town was called in those days, during a study tour arranged by the Norway-Soviet Friendship Association in 1966. He was twenty-five at that time. She was twenty-three. An orphaned child from a besieged town where a million people, including Natasha’s parents and two eldest sisters, starved to death during the war. A child, yes, an eternal child who had no wish to be an adult.

  ‘I still love you,’ Ryland says, trying to light his pipe, a Danish Stanwell, which his employees have dubbed Stalin. They should have known the model was called a Rhodesian. He has carefully filed off the brand name as he doesn’t think it seemly for a man in his position to have a pipe which is engraved
with a clear reference to a former colonial power.

  He skims the second letter, which is entitled ‘The Strand’. It is even crazier than the first: MD RYLAND! You didn’t answer my letter about the million. Either you are a coward or too dumb to see the seriousness of the matter. I want a good upbringing for children and teenagers. A fair distribution of goods! A fight against capitalist powers. Let the rich foot the bill! Let the oil money be used for the good of the people instead of making the rich even richer. I am angry. I want my demands met NOW. You know what you got to do. Otherwise you will be “blown away” as criminals say and I am, as I’m sure you have realised, a criminal who can do a variety of dangerous things if I have to. The big danger for you is that your name was found near the woman who was murdered. You can’t wriggle out of that. When the papers discover that, they will think she was your little whore, won’t they? They might get it into their heads that YOU were the person who killed her, in cold blood. That won’t be very good for you or for your fund. A million from your chest is just a crumb from the rich man’s table. I reckon you will pay when you see the picture of her in the papers. The police is interested. Check out Chief Inspector Stribolt in Kripos. I have just spoken to him. I have examined my heart and racked my brains and concluded that nothing will be as OK as the club getting one million kroner from YOU via the fund. Unfortunately at the moment I can’t win a million on Big Brother or any reality series, although I would be a clear candidate to win the TV jackpot. But in my present situation that is not possible, unfortunately. No way! Fucking impossible, Mr Scrooge Ryland!!! And when everything is sorted with the clubhouse I will fly round the globe to all the great beaches like a Beach Boy. Why shouldn’t I? Why should I graft away in the forest in the freezing cold when the sun is shining in the tropics? Think about it. Treat Beach Boy to a trip to Bali, Barbados, the Bahamas, Brazil, Copacabana, Ipanema and you got no more problems. I will be as silent as a coral reefer, ha ha. Get the joke? Coral reefER? As quiet as the Pacific in a conch shell. As mute as a coconut. Kripos is getting more and more interested. The night is falling around me but I have taken a little pill, so that’s fine, the net is closing in on you. Answer me NOW and I will arrange a drop-off place for the bag of cash worth 1 MILLION KRONER in unmarked one-hundred, two-hundred and five-hundred notes. Impatiently yours, best regards, Beach Boy alias Banzai Boy. COUGH UP! JUST DO IT! Nike Boy is using his FORCE.’