by Headhunters
‘A cabin I had rented. Not unlike the one where I had hoped to find you last night, in fact. Albeit with a more likeable and less inquisitive owner.’
‘And once there I would be …’
‘Persuaded.’
‘How?’
‘You know. Coaxed a bit. Little threats if necessary.’
‘Torture?’
‘Torture has its entertaining sides, but firstly I hate to inflict physical pain on anyone. And secondly after a certain stage it is less effective than one might suppose. So, no, not torture as such. Just enough for you to have a taste, enough to evoke that uncontrollable fear of pain all of us carry inside. You see, it’s fear, not pain, that makes you malleable. For that reason the businesslike, professional interrogator does not depart from light associative torture …’ He grinned. ‘… at least according to the CIA’s manuals. Better than the FBI model you use, eh, Roger?’
I could feel sweat forming under the bandage around my throat. ‘And what was it you would’ve wanted to achieve?’
‘We would’ve wanted you to write and sign a report the way we liked. We would even have put a stamp on and posted it for you.’
‘And if I had refused? More torture?’
‘We’re not inhuman, Roger. If you had refused, we would’ve just kept you there. Until Alfa had given the job of writing a report to one of your colleagues. Presumably Ferdinand – isn’t that his name?’
‘Ferdy,’ I said fiercely.
‘Exactly. And he seemed very positive. And so did the chairman of the board and the public relations manager. Does that tally with your impression, Roger? Don’t you agree that basically the only thing that could have stopped me was a negative report, and only then from Roger Brown himself? As you will appreciate we wouldn’t have needed to hurt you.’
‘You’re lying,’ I said.
‘Am I?’
‘You had no intention of letting me live. Why would you let me go afterwards and risk being exposed?’
‘I could have made you a good offer. Eternal life for eternal silence.’
‘Rejected husbands are not rational business partners, Greve. And you know that.’
Greve stroked the gun barrel against his chin. ‘True enough. Yes, you’re right. We would probably have killed you. But this at any rate was the plan I put before Diana. And she believed me.’
‘Because she wanted to.’
‘Oestrogen makes you blind, Roger.’
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Why the hell didn’t someone …?
‘I found a DO NOT DISTURB sign in the same wardrobe as this coat,’ Greve said as if he had been reading my mind. ‘I think they hang up the sign outside when the patient’s using the bedpan.’
The barrel was pointing straight at me now, and I saw his finger curl round the trigger. He hadn’t raised the gun: he was obviously going to shoot from the hip the way James Cagney had done in the gangster films of the forties and fifties, with unrealistic accuracy. Regrettably, something told me that Clas Greve belonged to this group of unrealistic expert marksmen.
‘I think this qualifies, too,’ Greve said, already squinting, in preparation for the bang. ‘Death is a private matter after all, isn’t it?’
I closed my eyes. I had been right all along: I was in heaven.
‘Apologies, Doctor!’
The voice rang out round the room.
I opened my eyes. And saw that three men were standing behind Greve, just inside the door that was closing gently behind them.
‘We’re from the police,’ said the voice belonging to the one in civilian clothes. ‘This is about a murder case, so I’m afraid we had to ignore the sign on the door.’
I could see that in fact there was a certain likeness between my saving angel and the said James Cagney. But perhaps that was just down to the grey raincoat, or the medicine they had been giving me, for his two colleagues wearing black police uniforms with checked reflective bands (which reminded me of jumpsuits) looked just as improbable: like two peas in a pod, as fat as pigs, as tall as houses.
Greve had stiffened and stared at me ferociously without turning. The gun, which was hidden from the policemen’s eyes, was still pointing straight at me.
‘Hope we aren’t disturbing you with this little murder of ours, Doctor?’ said the plain-clothes officer, not bothering to conceal his annoyance that the man in white seemed to be ignoring him completely.
‘Not at all,’ Greve said, still with his back to him. ‘The patient and I had just finished.’ He pulled his white coat to the side and stuffed the pistol into the waistband of his trousers.
‘I … I—’ I began, but was interrupted by Greve.
‘Take it easy now. I’ll keep your wife posted about your condition. Don’t worry, we’ll see that she’s all right. Do you understand?’
I blinked several times. Greve bent forward over the bed and patted the duvet over my knee.
‘We’ll be gentle, OK?’
I nodded mutely. It had to be the medicine, no question. This was just not happening.
Greve straightened up with a smile. ‘By the way, Diana’s right. You really do have wonderful hair.’
Greve turned, lowered his head, stared at the paper on the clipboard, and whispered to the policemen as he passed: ‘He’s all yours. For the time being.’
After the door slid to, James Cagney stepped forward.
‘My name’s Sunded.’
I nodded slowly and felt the bandage cutting into the skin of my throat. ‘You came in the nick of time, Sundet.’
‘Sunded,’ he repeated gravely. ‘Ded at the end. I’m a murder investigator and have been called here from Kripos in Oslo. Kripos is—’
‘Kriminalpolitisentralen, serious crime squad, I know,’ I said.
‘Good. This is Endride and Eskild Monsen from the Elverum police force.’
Impressed, I inspected them. Two twin walruses dressed in identical uniforms with identical moustaches. It was a lot of policeman for the money, no question.
‘First I would like to read your rights to you,’ Sunded began.
‘Hang on!’ I exclaimed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Sunded gave a weary smile. ‘That means, herr Kjikerud, that you are under arrest.’
‘Kji—’ I bit my tongue. Sunded was waving what I recognised as a credit card. A blue credit card. Ove’s card. From my pocket. Sunded raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘Sh … it,’ I said. ‘What are you arresting me for?’
‘For the murder of Sindre Aa.’
I stared at Sunded as he, in everyday language, and using his own words, rather than the Lord’s Prayer-like rigmarole from American films, explained to me that I had a right to a lawyer and the right to keep my mouth shut. He concluded by explaining that the consultant had given him the go-ahead to take me with them as soon as I was conscious. After all, I only had a few stitches in the back of my neck.
‘That’s fine,’ I said before he was finished explaining. ‘I’m more than happy to go with you.’
16
PATROL CAR ZERO ONE
THE HOSPITAL WAS SET in rural surroundings some way outside Elverum, it transpired. I was relieved to see the mattress-like white buildings disappear behind us. Even more because I couldn’t see a silver-grey Lexus.
The car we were in was an old, but well-kept Volvo with such a wonderful-sounding engine that I suspected it had been a hot rod before it was repainted in police colors.
‘Where are we?’ I asked from the back seat, wedged in between the impressive physiques of Endride and Eskild Monsen. My clothes, Ove’s, that is, had been sent to the dry-cleaner’s but a nurse had brought me a pair of tennis shoes and a green tracksuit bearing the hospital’s initials, with strict instructions to return it washed. Furthermore, I had been given back all the keys and Ove’s wallet.
‘Hedmark county,’ said Sunded from what Afro-American gang milieus reportedly call the shotgun seat: the passenger seat.
‘An
d where are we going?’
‘That’s none of your business,’ snarled the young, pimply driver, sending me an ice-cold glance via the rear-view mirror. Bad cop. Black nylon jacket with yellow letters on the back. ELVERUM KO-DAW-YING CLUB. I assumed it was a very mysterious, brand-new yet ancient martial art. And that it was his frenetic gum-chewing which had so disproportionately enhanced his jaw musculature. Pimples was so thin and narrow-shouldered that his arms formed a V when he had both hands on the wheel, as now.
‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ Sunded said in a low voice.
Pimples mumbled and glowered at the ramrod-straight strip of tarmac that sliced through the cultivated land, which was as flat as a pancake.
‘We’re going to the police station in Elverum, Kjikerud,’ said Sunded. ‘I’ve come up from Oslo and will interrogate you today and if necessary tomorrow. And the following day. I hope you’re a reasonable fellow because I don’t like Hedmark.’ He drummed his fingers on an overnight bag that Endride had passed forward to him because there simply wasn’t room with us three in the back.
‘I’m reasonable,’ I said, feeling both of my arms going to sleep. The Monsen twins breathed in rhythm, which meant that I was squeezed like a tube of mayonnaise every fourth second. I wondered whether to ask one of them to change their breathing pattern, but refrained. In a way, after standing in front of Greve’s pistol, this felt secure. It took me back to the time when I was small and had had to go to work with Dad because Mum was ill, and I sat between two serious but kind grown-ups on the back seat of the embassy’s limousine. And everyone had been elegantly dressed, but no one as elegantly as Dad, who wore a chauffeur’s cap and drove the car with such style and grace. And afterwards Dad had bought me an ice cream and told me I had behaved like a true gentleman.
The radio hissed.
‘Shh.’ Pimples broke the silence in the car.
‘Message to all patrol cars,’ crackled a nasal female voice.
‘Both patrol cars,’ Pimples muttered, turning up the volume.
‘Egmont Karlsen has reported a stolen truck and trailer …’
The rest of the message was drowned in laughter from Pimples and the Monsen twins. Their bodies shook, giving me a rather pleasant massage. I think the medicines were still working.
Pimples took the radio and spoke into it: ‘Did Karlsen sound sober? Over.’
‘Not entirely, no,’ the female voice answered.
‘Then he’s been out drunk-driving again and forgotten it. Ring Bamse’s. I bet it’s parked outside the pub. Eighteen-wheeler with Sigdal Kitchens on the side. Over and out.’
He replaced the radio, and I thought the atmosphere had noticeably lightened, so I took advantage of the opportunity.
‘I’ve worked out that someone has been murdered, but am I allowed to ask what this has to do with me?’
The question was met with silence, but I could see by Sunded’s pose that he was thinking. Then he turned towards the back seat and his eyes bored into me. ‘Fine, we might as well get this over with right away. We know you did it, herr Kjikerud, and there is no way of you wriggling out of it. You see, we have a body and a crime scene and evidence that ties you to both.’
I ought to have been shocked, horrified. I ought to have felt my heart skip a beat or sink or whatever it does when you hear a jubilant policeman tell you they have proof that will send you to prison for life. But I felt none of this. For I didn’t hear a jubilant policeman, I heard Inbau, Reid and Buckley. First step. Direct confrontation. Or, to paraphrase the manual: The detective should at the outset of the interrogation make it abundantly clear that the police know everything. Say ‘we’ and ‘the police’, never ‘I’. And ‘know’, not ‘believe’. Distort the interviewee’s self-image, address low-status persons with ‘herr’ and high-status persons by their first name.
‘And between you and me,’ Sunded continued, lowering his voice in a way that was clearly meant to signal confidentiality, ‘from what I hear, Sindre Aa was no loss. If you hadn’t used the rope on the old sourpuss, someone else hopefully would have.’
I stifled a yawn. Step two. Sympathise with the suspect by normalising the act.
When I didn’t answer Sunded went on. ‘The good news is that with a quick confession I could reduce your sentence.’
Oh my goodness, the Explicit Promise! It was a ploy Inbau, Reid and Buckley absolutely forbade, a legal trap that only the most desperate detective would use. This man really did want to get back home from Hedmark in a hurry.
‘So why did you do it, Kjikerud?’
I looked through the side window. Fields. Farms. Fields. Farms. Fields. Stream. Fields. Wonderfully sleep-inducing.
‘Well, Kjikerud?’ I heard Sunded’s fingers drumming on the overnight bag.
‘You’re lying,’ I said.
The drumming stopped. ‘Repeat.’
‘You’re lying, Sunded. I have no idea who Sindre Aa is, and you’ve got nothing on me.’
Sunded gave a brief lawnmower laugh. ‘Haven’t I? So tell me where you’ve been for the last twenty-four hours. Would you be so kind, Kjikerud?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘If you tell me what this case is all about.’
‘Smack ’im!’ Pimples spat. ‘Endride, smack—’
‘Shut up,’ Sunded said calmly, turning to me. ‘And why should we tell you, Kjikerud?’
‘Because then perhaps I’ll talk to you. If not, I’ll keep my mouth shut until my lawyer comes. From Oslo.’ I saw Sunded’s mouth tighten, and I upped the ante: ‘Sometime tomorrow if we’re lucky …’
Sunded angled his head and studied me as if I were an insect he was considering whether to add to his collection or just crush.
‘Fine, Kjikerud. It all started when the person sitting next to you received a phone call about a tractor abandoned in the middle of the road. They found the tractor and a flock of crows which had met for lunch on the rear loader. They had already made short work of the soft bits of a dog. The tractor belonged to Sindre Aa, but naturally he didn’t respond when we rang, so one of us popped over and found him in the rocking chair where you had put him. We found a Mercedes in the barn with a dead engine and number plates that we traced to you, Kjikerud. At length Elverum police station made a connection between the dead dog and a routine report from the hospital about a semi-conscious man covered in muck who had been admitted with a nasty dog bite. They rang, and the duty nurse told us that the man had been unconscious, but in his pocket they had found a credit card bearing the name Ove Kjikerud. And hey presto – here we are.’
I nodded. So I knew how they had found me. But how on earth had Greve managed it? The question had been churning around in my admittedly dopey brain without yielding a result. Could Greve have contacts inside the local police as well? Someone who had made sure Greve could get to the hospital before the police? Wrong! They had just strolled into the room and saved me. Wrong! Sunded had done that, the uninitiated outsider, the Kripos man from Oslo. I could feel a headache coming on as the next thought announced its arrival: Suppose things were as I feared, what sort of protection would I have then in a holding cell? Suddenly the Monsen twins’ synchronised breathing did not feel so reassuring. Nothing was reassuring. I felt as though there was no one in this world I could trust any more. No one. Apart from perhaps one person. The outsider with the overnight bag. I would have to lay my cards on the table, tell Sunded everything, ensure he took me to a different police station. Elverum was corrupt, no doubt about that, probably there was more than one undercover schemer in this car.
The radio crackled again. ‘Patrol car zero one, come in.’
Pimples grabbed the radio. ‘Yes, Lise?’
‘There’s no truck outside Bamse’s. Over.’
Telling Sunded everything would of course involve revealing that I was an art thief. And how would I convince them that I had shot Ove in self-defence, indeed, almost by accident? A man who was so doped up by Greve’s potion that he must have been cross-eyed.
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‘Get a grip, Lise. Ask around. No one can hide an eighteen-metre-long vehicle in this district, OK?’
The voice that answered sounded miffed. ‘Karlsen says you usually find his truck for him, since you’re a policeman and his brother-in-law. Over.’
‘I bloody well do not! You can forget that one, Lise.’
‘He says it’s not much to ask. You got the least ugly of his sisters.’
I was being shaken by the Monsen twins’ laughter.
‘Tell the idiot that we’ve got proper police work to do today for once,’ Pimples snarled. ‘Over and out.’
I really had no idea how to play this game. It was just a question of time before my true identity would be revealed. Should I tell them straight away or was it a card I could keep up my sleeve for later?
‘Now it’s your turn, Kjikerud,’ Sunded said. ‘I’ve done a bit of checking up on you. You’re an old acquaintance of ours. And according to our documents you’re unmarried. So what did the doctor mean when he said he would look after your wife? Diana, wasn’t it?’
That card went up in smoke. I sighed and looked through the side window. Wasteland, cultivated land. No oncoming traffic, no houses, just a cloud of dust from a tractor or a car on the distant horizon.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered. I had to think more clearly. More clearly. Had to see the whole chessboard.
‘What was your relationship with Sindre Aa, Kjikerud?’
Being addressed by this alien name was beginning to wear me down. I was about to reply when I realised that I had been wrong. Again. The police really did think I was Ove Kjikerud! That was the name they had been given of the person admitted to hospital. But if they had passed the same message on to Greve, why had Greve visited this Kjikerud at the hospital? He had never heard of any Kjikerud; no one in the whole world knew that Kjikerud had anything to do with me – Roger Brown! It simply didn’t make sense. He must have found me via a different channel.
I saw the cloud of dust on the road approaching.
‘Did you hear my question, Kjikerud?’
First of all Greve had found me in the cabin. Then at the hospital. Even though I didn’t have the mobile on me. Greve didn’t have any contacts, either in Telenor or in the police. So how was that possible?
