He asked Aisha what her sister’s name was.
‘Sheyma.’
‘When was she born?’
The young woman hesitated. Said something.
The interpreter said that Aisha thought her sister was eighteen when she fled.
‘So she must be around thirty now,’ Frank said, appraising Aisha, who could barely be eighteen.
‘You can’t have been very old when your sister fled?’
Aisha didn’t answer.
‘Why did she flee?’
The young woman shook her head. ‘No understand.’
‘She doesn’t understand,’ the interpreter said.
He took a deep breath and waited, wanting to give her time.
There was nothing else forthcoming.
‘What kind of work did your sister do in Norway?’
The interpreter translated: ‘Hotel work. She tidied rooms and made beds and cleaned at a hotel.’
‘You don’t know which one?’
The interpreter asked.
The woman shook her head again. ‘A hotel in Oslo. She made beds, cleaned.’
‘When did you lose contact?’
‘No understand.’
‘You said your sister rang home. When was that?’
‘Two years later, in 2007,’ the interpreter said.
‘Has she contacted you since then?’
Aisha shook her head.
Frank turned to Guri. ‘But you’ve tried to trace her?’
‘We have. But we can’t find her name. She must’ve changed it.’
‘Why would she do that?’
Guri shrugged. ‘Aisha’s sure she’s alive and living in Norway.’
The interpreter translated. Aisha nodded energetically and said something.
‘“I can feel she’s here”,’ the interpreter translated. ‘“I know Sheyma’s in Norway.”’
‘She made a long journey to get here?’
Aisha nodded.
‘Was there any special reason for her choosing Norway specifically?’
Aisha sat thinking after the interpreter had explained. ‘No understand.’
‘I mean, did she know anyone here? Why did she choose to come to Norway instead of Sweden or Germany, for example?’
Aisha glanced anxiously from one to the other and finally shrugged her shoulders.
‘Did she ring home many times?’
‘Once. She was so happy.’ Aisha smiled. ‘Happy to be in Europe.’
‘Did your sister travel alone?’
The young woman eyed him as the interpreter translated, and she gave a curt answer.
‘She doesn’t know,’ the interpreter said.
‘Surely she must know whether her sister fled alone or with others.’
The interpreter sent him a kind look. ‘She doesn’t know. If she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know.’
Frank leaned back on his chair. Trying to make eye contact with the young woman, which appeared to be nigh on impossible. Aisha looked down and away, as though not willing to meet his gaze. An air of helplessness seemed to surround her, but also a vulnerability, which emphasised how lonely she must be. However, none of this made the task any easier.
He glanced at Guri and Matilde for help, thinking they must see how hopeless this all was, but their attention was focused on the young woman on the chair.
‘Help me, sir. Please help me to find my sister,’ Aisha pleaded in English, leaning across the table.
Matilde nodded authoritatively.
Frank realised that everyone else in the room was looking at him, as though he were the main protagonist, someone they expected a few timely words from.
‘I assume you’ve checked other refugee centres to see if she’s there?’ he said to Guri.
She nodded.
‘I need a pic, a photo,’ he said. ‘Something to show people.’
The interpreter translated.
Aisha still appeared confused. She said a name.
Guri intervened. ‘Shamal?’ She turned to Frølich. ‘Shamal. He’s in this section. He can lay his hands on the picture.’
Guri went to the door. The same man in jeans and a sweater appeared and was gone again. ‘Shamal’s off to get the photo,’ Guri said, and closed the door.
8
Half an hour later Frank was standing by Matilde’s car examining a tatty photograph of a girl wearing a long, flowery dress, her hair hidden by a light-blue headscarf. Clean features. Large, dark eyes and finely drawn eyebrows. Full lips and a mole on her right cheek. Quite different from the sister in the dedicated area in the centre. According to Guri, one of the doctors visiting the centre thought Aisha had a personality disorder. Another doctor considered it a variant of PTSS. A gang rape and other abuse during her escape from Iraq had traumatised her.
A cruel fate, Frank reflected, re-examining the faded photograph of Sheyma. And wondered what she looked like now. Was she still alive? If she was eighteen when she left she would be thirty or thirty-one. If she still lived in Norway she might be integrated, employed, with her hair uncovered, the mother of small children, with the appearance of someone who had undergone all the changes family life can impose. Or she might be married to a Muslim of the conservative variety; perhaps she lived in a marriage that didn’t allow her to be seen outside. The photograph he was holding in his hand might be completely worthless.
If Aisha’s sister had a residence permit it ought to be possible to trace her. She might even have Norwegian nationality. But she could also have been deported from Norway, transported back to some transit country. She might be stuck in some refugee camp in Greece or Hungary, or indeed anywhere. Perhaps she was living illegally in Italy or Germany. On the other hand, all the years without a sign of life could just as well mean she was dead.
The sad fates of asylum seekers were only one side of this business. Naturally, Frank felt sorry for Aisha, because she was a victim. She had fled the war, lost her family and been exposed to abuse and mistreatment, and now she had to live an undignified transit life. If he could alleviate some of the girl’s suffering by searching for her sister he would happily try. But he was unsure whether Guri or Aisha understood how pointless the whole thing was. Had he made it clear enough to them? Or was he creating unrealistic expectations by agreeing to this job? Would it be more honest to spell it out? Forget your sister. It’s a waste of time trying to locate her. But how cynical was that approach? The poor girl was alone in a strange part of the world. She was on the threshold of a good life in Norway while the sands of time were running out. The machinery of power was about to close the door on her. Out you go, back to broken dreams. It could happen tomorrow, or in a week’s time. No wonder Aisha was desperate.
Yes, he told himself. You know people at Kripos and Oslo Police. You’re bound to be able to pull in a favour.
The front door of the red building slammed. Matilde and Guri came out, stopped and talked. Matilde said goodbye to Guri, who waved to him, turned and went back inside.
He stuffed the photograph into the breast pocket of his shirt.
‘Thank you so much for doing this,’ Matilde said as they got into the car. ‘I can feel it,’ she said. ‘I can feel your energy and aura. I know this is going to be a success.’
9
Later that evening, driving towards Oslo, he mulled over the strange meeting at the refugee centre. It wasn’t only the futility of the enterprise that bothered him. If he was to have a sniff of a chance of achieving some kind of result he needed more information. But it wasn’t only that, there was something about Guri’s involvement. What made her hire a private investigator on behalf of someone in the refugee centre? Sure it was a shame about Aisha, but it was a shame about anyone fleeing a country. And people who worked with refugees ought to be trained to keep a professional distance. The first commandment in that line of work was not to get involved personally. Why did Guri feel so strongly about Aisha’s fate?
Another thing he should check more thorough
ly was Guri Sekkelsten’s family. He had recently completed an investigative assignment involving another Sekkelsten. The driver who stole beer and cigarettes from his employer. Ivar Sekkelsten had had to go to prison because he already had a conditional sentence. After producing visual evidence against Ivar Sekkelsten, Frølich had also testified against the man at the trial. It was his evidence that had sent Sekkelsten to the slammer.
Could Guri and Ivar be related? If they were, might that be a problem? Should he reject the job?
Well, he thought at once, this was a favour to a friend. Locating Aisha’s sister seemed pretty futile anyway. What he could do was go through the national registers, talk to the right people and have his assumption confirmed: finding Sheyma Bashur in Norway today is mission impossible.
After returning home, he started on precisely that. He tried a few electronic searches for Sheyma Bashur without getting a nibble. That offered three possibilities: she had left the country; she was still living in Norway but had changed her surname, possibly her first name as well; or she could be dead and had died here in Norway. Matilde, Guri and Aisha insisted she was still alive and in this country. They had no basis for this assumption. But if he was going to work on this hypothesis he was looking for a woman with a different name from Sheyma Bashur.
He started the next working day with nothing to tax his brain apart from the photograph in his breast pocket. In other words, he had no employment that offered any prospect of earning an income. He refrained from checking his bank account, but knew from earlier checks that he would have enough for his rent and other necessities for at least a month. The smartest move now would be to sit down and write job applications. With his police experience he would be in with a chance at the biggest security agencies. Looking for work, however, required the kind of motivation he didn’t possess at present.
He rang NOAS, the Norwegian organisation for asylum seekers. Frølich introduced himself and presented the case. A woman fleeing Iraq – reportedly in 2005 – and coming to Norway – possibly in 2006, perhaps later. Which countries she had passed through was unknown, but presumably included Turkey, Greece, Italy and Germany, because that route was supposed to have been used a lot at the time. But no one with this particular person’s name existed in the national registers Frølich had been able to peruse. If she had taken Norwegian nationality or had a residence permit for Norway, she was not registered anywhere under her real name. Nor was she registered at any refugee centre. She had left Iraq in November 2005. Two years later, in late autumn 2007, she rang home from Oslo. She told her family that she was working as a cleaner in a hotel in Norway, in Oslo. She was fine. Thereafter, silence. No one knew why.
‘I’ve checked the missing-persons register at Kripos. No hits.’
The man on the telephone asked if she had travelled from Iraq on her own.
‘I don’t know.’
‘How old was she when she left her home country?’
‘About eighteen, apparently.’
‘It seems rather unlikely that she’d travel alone then. As a woman, she was vulnerable. Presumably she did travel with someone. One other thing: if she’s been in Norway without an official residence permit there are not many jobs she could have taken. She must’ve looked for illegal work, and in the environments frequented by people from the Middle East it is usually the men who get the few jobs there are. As a refugee from Iraq she came from a strongly gender-segregated society. A male society.’
‘Her family insists she worked here in Norway.’
‘Are you sure you have the correct name, then? If she was employed it suggests there was a residence permit.’
‘I had her name spelt to me by a member of the family.’
‘Sure it’s spelt correctly?’
‘Yes.’
‘As I said, paid work suggests a residence permit. Some women fleeing alone can be forced into prostitution or taken care of by someone who either protects or exploits them. Are you sure she wasn’t travelling with a man?’
Frank Frølich hesitated. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Why did she flee?’
‘I don’t know that, either.’
‘What ethnicity? Kurd, Armenian, Turkmen, Sabaean…’
Frank smiled with embarrassment at his reflection in the window and said in all honesty: ‘I don’t know that, either.’
‘She’s a Muslim, not a Christian Syrian?’
‘Her sister’s named after the prophet’s youngest wife – Aisha.’
‘Shia or Sunni?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘The reason I ask is that there have been, and still are, tensions between these branches of Islam in Iraq, as I’m sure you’re aware. But it seems improbable that a woman would flee alone. To escape from a country requires preparation and money. It’s often organised, usually by the family. They collect money. A young woman on her own … Are you sure she set out with the family’s blessing?’
After the conversation Frank sat studying his notes. On the piece of paper were a number of logical questions. They made him wonder why he hadn’t been more persistent with Aisha? Why hadn’t he questioned her in more detail?
Because he hadn’t prepared for the meeting.
He knew nothing at all about refugees. All he had to go on was an old photograph and some hearsay that the sister had worked at a hotel in Oslo. He had gone with Matilde to Lyseren to be accommodating. He’d met Guri to be accommodating and joined them at the refugee centre for the same reason. Deep down, though, he hadn’t taken this assignment seriously.
As he had taken on the job now, it was obvious he would have to talk to Aisha again. And ask the right questions.
It would have to be another day. But he couldn’t let the day go without doing something. The best thing he could do was make a start.
10
Over the last ten to twelve years the hotel business had seen many changes. The acquisition of hotels to form chains was only one side. Several of today’s commercially run establishments didn’t exist when Sheyma Bashur rang home. Travel and tourism were industries that had grown in the capital. If Sheyma had worked in a hotel in Oslo, there was no guarantee the place was still in business.
A woman of around twenty, in transit, with years behind her as a refugee, presumably had to live from hand to mouth, had to deal with people smugglers and border police, possibly without a legal permit to stay in the country, but she still got work as a cleaner, someone who tidied and cleaned up after others travelling through. There was a substantial dose of irony in that. If Aisha’s sister had worked illegally, it would have been in a less luxurious hotel, he reasoned. As though a hotel’s size and standards would tell us anything about its relationship with the tax authorities, he thought afterwards, but he did what he had decided nonetheless. He started at the bottom of the price range, with the youth hostel in Sinsen, continued fruitlessly through Oslo centre, with pension houses and B&Bs. Then he went to work on smaller well-known hotels in the Oslo ‘pot’. On the occasions he met hotel managers, most of them tried to convince him that they didn’t employ illegal staff. However, they had agreements with sub-contractors and couldn’t guarantee what they got up to. Frølich nodded understandingly and asked if he could talk with someone on the cleaning side. Many hotels had delegated this service to agencies. Frølich made the effort anyway to question them. Most of the cleaners he met were of foreign origin. There were Russian women, there were Ukrainian women, Lithuanians, Filipinas, Polish, Somalian, Nigerian, Eritrean, Iraqi, Thai women wearing plastic gloves on their hands pushing vacuum cleaners or trolleys equipped with detergents, cloths, soaps, kitchen scourers and mops. They straightened up, blew strands of hair from their mouths, looked at the photograph, shook their heads and passed it back. He felt like a fisherman with one pathetic rod faced by an enormous sea with only one fish that was worth reeling in. He had, however, been smart enough to collate a list of hotels and overnight accommodation in Oslo and the region. He crossed off the places
he had visited and started on the next. The plan lacked much ambition. He set himself a target of getting through the list, only so that he could sit back with a clear conscience – he had no hopes of actually getting a bite.
When evening came he tried to work out how he could write a report for Guri about his lack of success – but without seeming too negative.
Matilde rang a little before midnight. She had got hold of a CD by a German indie band who had released two records before they went their separate ways in the nineties. She was excited and asked him to listen while she turned up the volume. He said he would rather be with her and listen to the music there, which was the truth. She agreed and asked him how he had got on ‘with his search for the sister’.
He had to be honest. It had gone badly. But he added that he was planning another trip to Elvestad to talk to Aisha again. Some additional information would focus his search better.
Matilde said she would ask Guri to call him.
11
Next day he carried on with the list of overnight accommodation. And after another series of wasted trips he got what appeared to be a nibble. It was at a hotel near Bankplassen. A chain with a low-budget profile. The clientele seemed to be predominantly backpackers, most of them with their noses buried in their mobile phones or iPads. One person stood at the check-in desk in front of shelves of soft drinks and peanuts. The other end of the lobby was fitted out as a breakfast bar. He showed the photograph of Sheyma to a Thai-looking woman who was clearing the breakfast tables. She removed her disposable gloves and studied the picture. Then she took it with her and disappeared through a swing door. Frølich followed her. He found her again, in a kitchen with a line of sinks and dishwashers. She was standing and talking animatedly with a thin African-looking woman in a tight, grey, ankle-length dress. The Thai woman pointed at Frølich and gesticulated. Both women turned their backs on him. Eventually the Thai woman came back, passed him the photograph and said in English:
Sister Page 3
