Sister

by Kjell Ola Dahl

  ‘He also spoke to me.’

  Frank turned and stared at Weddevåg, who shrugged.

  ‘What do you think?’ Frølich asked. ‘Does Ole Berg have anything to contribute regarding the Sea Breeze?’

  ‘I know it was an insurance scam,’ Weddevåg said. ‘I don’t need any Ole Berg to tell me that.’

  ‘How can you claim that?’

  ‘I found the diesel evidence. It’s still there. Have you seen the photos of the victims?’

  61

  Frølich had to admit he hadn’t.

  ‘Some of them were cremated. Ashes were all that was left,’ Weddevåg said. ‘There weren’t even any bones. Fossil fuel must have been added to create damage of that order. I doubt that the parliamentary inspectors were allowed to see the photos. If they’d seen body one hundred and fifty-one, for example … just a minute.’ Weddevåg stood up and went through the veranda door.

  Frank continued to gaze across to Oslo harbour as he listened to Weddevåg rummaging around in the cabin.

  A cruise ship was on its way into the fjord. The boat resembled a layer cake. Storey upon storey of cabins, and every one with its own balcony. A few tourists had strolled out. They stood leaning against the railings looking down on the water and the world.

  Weddevåg reappeared with a ring folder crammed with documents. He placed it on his lap. Flicked through, opened the file and passed him a piece of paper.

  It was a photograph of a ruler showing thirty-five centimetres. Over the ruler were some black fragments. They looked like gravel.

  ‘Count,’ Weddevåg said.

  ‘Count?’

  ‘Count the pieces.’

  Frank counted. He found twenty small pieces. ‘Twenty,’ he said.

  ‘This is body number fifteen,’ Weddevåg said. ‘Twenty pieces of coal. That’s all that’s left of a man who weighed ninety kilos. Altogether these fragments weigh less than four hundred grams. Don’t forget this was a person of your stature. For a human to combust to this degree, the body has to be exposed to extreme temperatures for hour after hour after hour. But these were found in a corridor where the fire had supposedly died out after fifteen minutes.’

  Weddevåg stretched across and took the photograph back. ‘No one can tell me this damage came from natural causes.’

  Weddevåg passed Frank another photograph. It showed another charred body.

  ‘This woman’s lying on the floor of a cabin that was completely untouched by the fire,’ Weddevåg said. ‘Have the police tried to explain how it was possible for her body to be so charred? No. But the explanation’s simple. She was lying on the floor, as I said. Right below her, in the corridor, so on the lower deck, the saboteurs had broken off a pipe at the joint. This fractured pipe was used to pump diesel into the corridor. That’s in the fire crew’s log. They had to fight blazing oil here – between passengers’ cabins where there shouldn’t be any fossil fuel. This victim was lying over where the pipe was broken. Between the floor she was lying on and the pipe joint below there was fire-resistant insulation. Yet her body is burnt to a char. Her skull shrank because of the heat. Inside a cabin that wasn’t touched by fire!’

  Weddevåg was angry. It was obvious. Frølich couldn’t look at the photograph for long. He passed it back, but still had to ask:

  ‘If what you say is true, if the sabotage was already proven by photos like these, why was Fredrik so keen to meet Ole Berg?’

  ‘Because the police have had control of the narrative ever since they started fiddling with the case again. The police don’t talk about the damage to the dead bodies. They never have. They consciously avoid the subject – because the police want to tell their own story. Both the police investigators and the parliamentary ones refuse to take account of the diesel evidence and the damage to the bodies. So, if Ole Berg’s willing to show his face he’ll be living proof the police won’t be able to deny. A testimony from Berg will first and foremost smash the police lies. Next, his statement will explain how thoroughly rotten Norway’s state machinery is – from the parliamentary inquiry via the public prosecutor and down to the lowest-ranking police officer.’

  ‘Who do you think he is?’ Frank Frølich asked. ‘Ole Berg? What’s his real name?’

  ‘No idea,’ Bernt Weddevåg said. ‘All I know is that he’s from Møre. Think he’s got some connection with a shipyard or other.’

  ‘Do you know which one?

  Weddevåg shook his head.

  ‘What are your thoughts about the Fredrik Andersen murder?’ Frølich said.

  ‘I have no illusions on that score,’ Weddevåg said.

  ‘And how should I interpret that?’

  ‘Interpret it however you like.’

  ‘Are you saying the police are involved in the murder?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything. But I stopped being surprised by what the Norwegian police do or don’t do a long time ago.’

  62

  When he left Weddevåg Frølich cast a quick glance at his watch. They had talked for a good hour. Presumably he would have to wait for the boat.

  He strolled back to the ferry berth. Small holiday cabins were clustered around it. Nakholmen resembled a village of the allotment variety.

  No passengers were waiting. He passed a red shelter and walked to the end of the embarkation area. Stared down into the water at the clumps of seaweed dancing in the current around the quay poles. He waited to catch a glimpse of a starfish clinging to the pole under the water, or perhaps snails, or the movements of a shrimp in the seaweed. But the city was probably too close by. The water wasn’t that clean. Something flickered in his brain, a sense of how it was when he was a child: feeling the sun-warmed planks of the quay against his stomach as he watched the crabs advancing on the bait he had lowered on a piece of string into the water.

  He turned on hearing footsteps. A man was sitting down on the bench to his right. He was one of the tourists who had stepped ashore with him.

  This tourist is probably beginning to get a little hot in his jumper, Frank thought, and observed that he didn’t have a camera, either.

  As though the man were a mind-reader, he got up and started snapping the City Hall, Piper Bay and the fortress with his phone.

  After a while he sat back down on the bench.

  There was something familiar about the man’s appearance, but he couldn’t quite place him.

  He looked to the right.

  The man looked away.

  Then he thought: Perhaps this tourist just looks like someone I’ve met.

  Nevertheless, he couldn’t help feeling some unease. The echo of a voice: I’ll find you.

  Could this be the voice on the phone?

  He had seen the man on the bench before. But where? It was as though the right side of his body was aglow. He forced himself to stand still. Leaned back and gazed across the water. A pair of swans swam past the quay. They continued towards the sea-smoothed rocks where people from the cluster of cabins had found themselves spots to lie, sheltered from the wind. There were people around. There were witnesses. A man with a fishing rod was walking between the boats in the marina beside the ferry berth.

  Frank Frølich coughed.

  The man with the fishing rod glanced towards the berth before jumping down into a skerry jeep. He unhitched the mooring ropes and used a boat hook to manoeuvre his way out of the marina.

  The ferry arrived. A young woman in a white blouse and black trousers was standing at the stern. The sight of her calmed Frølich’s nerves. She leapt ashore and motioned for them to board.

  He went up to the top deck. The tourist stayed below.

  Frølich found himself a seat where he could keep an eye on the ladder protruding from the lower deck.

  During the trip people came up to the top deck, but they were usually children and their parents. The tourist wasn’t among them.

  The return to the City Hall pier took just over half an hour. The passengers queued on the steps as the boat approache
d land. The tourist wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  Frank trudged after a group of small boys and had almost crossed the City Hall square when once again he sensed the presence of the tourist from Nakholmen. There was something familiar about the shadow reflected in the display window of Hatte Holm. He glanced over his shoulder. It was the tourist, no doubt about it.

  His legs suddenly felt heavy. This man was following him. What did he want?

  He ambled up Rosenkrantz’ gate, crossed on red, continued past Stortinget, the Norwegian Parliament, and on towards the law court. Again he glanced over his shoulder as he ascended the steps in Teatergata.

  The man crossed the tramlines a hundred metres behind him. This area was uncomfortably deserted. Frølich started to sweat and increased his speed. He wanted to be surrounded by people. Jogged the last few metres to the lights in Akersgata. Had to wait for cars passing. Should he turn and check? There was a gap in the traffic. He ran across the street towards the government quarter and in the reflection of a large entrance door saw the man crossing the street behind him.

  He took a left and turned into the portico of the Deichmanske Library, strode up the stairs and through the broad doors.

  Inside, he stood gasping for breath. There were people here. He continued up the staircase to the first floor. Keeping an eye on the doors. They remained closed. He stood by the panoramic window and looked out. The man was standing in the square outside.

  It was clear the man didn’t want to come in. Instead he withdrew a few metres. A tall, thin guy dressed in jeans and a short jacket, with combed-back, dark hair, greying in places, a three-day beard and a little ring in one ear.

  Frank still couldn’t remember where he had seen him. At that moment the man looked up.

  Eye contact.

  The man averted his gaze. A solitary individual on a walkway where people were now rushing back and forth.

  If Frank was going to react, now was the time. He descended the staircase. Continued out of the building and down the steps between the pillars and headed for the passageway over the inner ring road.

  The man was nowhere to be seen.

  He scanned the streets. The man had disappeared. What was this? Two people had been killed and someone was following him. How long had this been going on? Was the man watching him now, at this very moment?

  He stood motionless, going over the previous day’s events. The meeting with Bjørn Thyness, the drive south to Råde and from there to Våler. He had spent most of the night at Guri Sekkelsten’s place. Then he visited Matilde before driving home and talking to the wearying journalist.

  Could the man have been waiting for him at home, as Nicolai Smith Falck had done?

  He didn’t know. He had been too busy with the journalist to notice anything else. But when he caught the metro to Police HQ a bit later to make a statement? He’d had his eyes open for the journalist. Had he observed anyone else tailing him? He couldn’t say. After Police HQ, he had gone home and had stayed there for a few hours before driving to the city centre to meet Gamon. Of course, someone might have followed him there. He wouldn’t have noticed anything because he had been exclusively focused on the woman who worked at the hotel. Afterwards: his office and the meeting with Snorre Norheim.

  A wild thought struck him. Could the man who was spying on him be working for Snorre Norheim?

  The notion seemed inane as soon as it entered his head. The conclusion was actually clear. He had no idea who was spying on him, how long this had been going on or why it was happening.

  He began to make for Brugata. This was a different kind of walk. He had pins and needles running down his spine, and he kept checking behind him.

  63

  Back in his office, at first he stood by the window, studying the streets below. A stream of people was passing on the pavements in Storgata and in the pedestrian area. The man wasn’t to be seen. But that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t down there. He could be anywhere.

  He realised there was little more he could do about his stalker, and he’d simply have to find a new lead. For lack of a better idea he sat down at his desk with the laptop. He inserted the memory stick containing Andersen’s research material.

  Bernt Weddevåg had said he thought Berg was from Møre and had some connection with a shipyard. So he started to search the stick for Møre, Sunnmøre and Romsdal counties. Lots of hits. He went online and searched for Norwegian shipyards. There were quite a few. He started at the top of the list. Found out where the shipyard was, then searched for the address. When he searched for a shipyard in the Ulstein group he got lots of hits. And when he searched for the town Ulsteinvik, he had several hits in which one name kept coming up. It belonged to a woman: Oda Borgersrud.

  He looked at the list of hits. They were the same initials. Could Andersen’s secret source be a woman?

  Who was Oda Borgersrud?

  He tried to search through the documents more systematically. There was no police interview with Borgersrud. So she couldn’t have been a passenger on board the Sea Breeze. But her name appeared in a log signed by a Swedish firefighter – the section leader of the team extinguishing the fires on the ship.

  The section leader wrote that the fire crews arrived on the burning ship by helicopter. They were lowered onto the mooring deck at the front. Afterwards they entered the ship to gain an overview of the situation. They moved towards the car deck and descended below. That was when they found Oda Borgersrud. She had survived the first few hours in a crew cabin. In the log she was referred to as a young woman. The leader wrote that she must have survived because she had been in the aft of the ship and at a level below where the first fire started.

  He searched through more of Andersen’s files and found her again. Oda Borgersrud had testified in the maritime inquiry. It appeared that she was twenty-four years old when the fire broke out on the Sea Breeze. She worked in the perfume section of the duty-free shop. When the fire alarms went off she was asleep in her cabin, but she wasn’t woken up. The fire detector installed outside her cabin was defective. However, in the morning she was awoken by the smell of smoke. At first she had tried to leave her cabin, but wasn’t able to beat a path up to the deck. The corridor outside her cabin was burning hot and thick with smoke. In her cabin, on the other hand, there was no smoke. She had backed into her cabin and stayed there. She had observed the evacuation of the ship from her cabin window and had seen people in lifeboats on the water, people being rescued by other boats, while she was imprisoned in her cabin. She had panicked and tried to smash the cabin window with any object she had to hand. At first she had tried a perfume bottle and afterwards a showerhead. Her attempts failed and she was sure she was going to die. But all of a sudden she heard voices from inside the ferry. Then she shouted for help. This was how she was found and rescued by the fire crews. They had taken her up to fresh air. That was all that the document said about her. Nothing about what she had seen while she was above deck – on the bridge.

  What happened to her later? Why wasn’t she interviewed by the police? The last question was impossible to answer. There were many important witnesses who weren’t interviewed by the police in 1988. The fireman who wrote the log hadn’t been interviewed, either. Frank Frølich began to understand why the police had been criticised over this case.

  He went online and searched for Oda Borgersrud on the Yellow Pages website. There was only one hit. Someone living in Ulsteinvik. Presumably it was the same person. Now she would be between fifty and sixty years old. He sat looking at the telephone number. Should he ring?

  He gripped the phone.

  A woman’s voice said ‘Hello’.

  ‘Is that Oda Borgersrud?’

  ‘I don’t do phone sales.’

  ‘This is about Fredrik Andersen.’

  Silence.

  ‘My name’s Frølich. I’m a private investigator. I assume you know the writer, Fredrik Andersen, is dead?’

  More silence.

  ‘I’
ve been given an assignment by Andersen’s family. I was wondering therefore if you’re the Oda Borgersrud who was working on the Sea Breeze in 1988.’

  Still no answer.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you about Fredrik Andersen and the book he wrote.’

  ‘How do I know you’re who you say you are?’

  ‘You can ring me. My company’s registered in the Yellow Pages. Frølich. Private investigator.’

  ‘I don’t wish to talk to you. Goodbye.’

  Frank stared at the silent phone. She had rung off.

  He tapped in the number again. It rang. It continued to ring. She didn’t answer.

  64

  He opened the door onto Storgata. Looked around for a few seconds, then made for Grønlands torg and the metro. As far as he could see, there was no one following him.

  He was the only passenger to alight at Ryen station. He waited on the platform until the train had departed. Only then, when he was sure he was alone, did he set off. At first the sounds of his footsteps were drowned by the noise of the motorway, but they became clearer the closer he was to his block of flats. No one was waiting outside, it seemed.

  He opened the front door and locked it behind him.

  It was late. He was exhausted. He went straight to the bathroom and then to bed.

  He slept so soundly that he didn’t hear the door open. Nor did he hear any footsteps. He didn’t notice the light from the sitting room that cast a stripe across the floor and his duvet. He didn’t hear the sounds. Nor did he feel the mattress move or see the flash of light when a match was struck.

  Nevertheless, deep in his slumbers, the smell of smoke made a nostril twitch – but it didn’t wake him. He started dreaming about his father. About the stink of tobacco in his nostrils when he was sitting in the back of the car and they were going on holiday. About him opening a window and sticking his head out so as not to throw up.

  Nor did he wake up when the duvet was lifted. He only woke up when he felt her hand.