He walked slowly on.
He might have forgotten to switch off the light.
Or the cleaner might have forgotten.
It was probably the cleaner.
He rounded the corner and entered the hall with the lift and the staircase. Stared at the lift. Decided to take the stairs and was slightly out of breath when he pushed open the door leading to the corridor on the second floor. The chair beside the coffee machine was empty.
He went back to the Coke machine and inserted some coins. A can of Coke rumbled in the machine and fell. He took it. And managed, with the use of his elbow, to hold the kebab, the Coke and the pitta in one hand and the key in the other. Unlocked the door. Kicked the door open with his right foot. Went in.
For one second he caught the whiff of after-shave. The next he was in free fall towards the floor and as he fell he noticed the meat and Coke in mid-flight with him.
71
There was nothing to break his fall. He hit the floor like a sack of flour. His head banged down on the lino, temple first.
Everything went black. When he saw light again, his ears were buzzing. He tried to sit up. Another blow hit him across the back and he fell forward again. This time his chin hit the floor. His teeth crunched. Another blow rained down. And another. He thought: I mustn’t lose consciousness.
He rolled over onto his back.
Snorre Norheim stood by the door weighing a baseball bat in his hand, ready to strike again.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You’ve been ringing my wife and pestering her.’
He didn’t feel any pain. It must have been the shock. What he felt was numb. He tried to sit up.
‘Don’t move.’
Snorre Norheim’s pose with the baseball bat was warning enough.
He lay motionless on the floor, but shouted: ‘Take it easy. I just want to see if anything’s broken.’
‘Nothing’s broken. You rang my wife. Why?’
‘You asked me to find out if Guri Sekkelsten died of natural causes. To be able to say anything useful, I had to find out who she was with the night Andersen was killed. I had reason to believe one of the people she was with was your wife. I called her to have this confirmed, but she rang off before I could say anything.’
Snorre Norheim lowered the bat.
‘From now on my home, wife and children are out of bounds to you. Have you got that?’
‘I’m not very comfortable down here. Is it alright if I sit up? Then we can talk, calmly, like two sensible adults.’
‘Have you got that?’
‘Yes!’
Norheim took a step back, but held the bat ready to strike.
Frølich needed time. Now that he was getting over the shock, he was beginning to feel the pain. He struggled to his knees, went giddy and had to hold on to the desk and pull himself up. Nausea swirled in his chest. He took a deep breath and let it out again to gather himself. Turned to the determined man standing by the door. Once again he had his concept of idiocy incarnate confirmed: an angry man with a weapon in his hand.
He went dizzy again. Rubbed his neck. He had never been more fed up with his job than at this moment.
He shot a glance outside. No commotion in the windows across the street. Heads were dutifully bent over computer screens as always. Then he knew. He could be killed in his own office without anyone realising.
He staggered over to the window, supporting himself on the wall. Saw the pitiful remains of his meal on the floor.
The nausea trapped in his diaphragm was getting stronger. He swallowed, not that that did any good. He had to sit down and groaned with pain as the chair fell backward and hit the wall.
‘Tell me what you’ve found out.’
‘Guri Sekkelsten hired me on behalf of an asylum seeker – the aim was to trace your wife.’
‘I know the story. Fantasies. A sister that doesn’t exist.’
‘If you’d let me finish.’
Norheim didn’t answer.
‘When I started searching, I met a woman who became nervous when I showed her a photo. I gave her my business card and asked her to contact me if anything occurred to her. She never did. Instead I was contacted by Fredrik Andersen. He asked about my assignment and pumped me for information. I understood one thing from what he said, namely that the woman I was trying to trace – Sheyma – was alive and lived in Norway. But Andersen refused to tell me anything about her. After Andersen left here, I met Guri Sekkelsten. I told her about Andersen. She contacted him and wanted him to tell her what he knew. Andersen and your wife met Guri Sekkelsten that night.’
‘How do you know that’s true?’
‘Guri told me on the phone.’
‘She promised not to say anything.’
‘Well, she broke her promise and she’s dead. There’s very little you can do about that.’
‘Did she tell many other people?’
‘I have no idea. I know Guri went into hiding after Andersen was killed. She contacted me about twenty-four hours later. We arranged to meet at her place. She got there before me. When I arrived I found she’d been killed.’
‘Why do you say she was killed when the police reject that version of events?’
72
Why do I claim Guri was killed? he thought, as he waited for another wave of nausea to pass. It didn’t. He had to swallow again. He said:
‘Experience. I’ve investigated murder. Lots of murders. And I saw her car fleeing the scene before I found her. Someone must’ve been driving that car, and whoever it was must also have had a reason to want to leave the place. There was a kettle boiling on the hob when I went in. I don’t think anyone about to commit suicide puts on coffee. She’s supposed to have texted a final farewell to her employer. That stinks.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the person who drove off in her car also had her phone. And if she’d sent a final message, she would’ve sent it to someone she cared about.’
‘Who?’
‘How should I know? Her mother? Father? I could’ve sent you all this in a report. Instead you turn up here and attack me with a baseball bat. I’d like you to leave now.’
Norheim eyed him, without moving.
‘Well?’
‘Have you told the police about all this?’
‘Yes.’
‘If you’ve explained to the police that it was murder, why do they see the case as suicide?’
‘Don’t know. But my guess is they don’t consider my testimony credible enough.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m not a mind-reader. I don’t know.’
‘Have they dropped the case?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Guri told my wife she occasionally had a guy living with her. An asylum seeker.’
‘So?’
‘If he was there that night it could’ve been him driving off in her car.’
‘That,’ Frølich said, inhaling deeply. ‘That may well be right.’
‘He may also be the person who killed her.’
‘Of course, that is possible, too.’
‘If you find the guy, you have the final proof.’
Snorre Norheim lifted the bat and tapped it lightly on his left hand. It was made of metal.
Norheim’s face split into a good-natured smile. ‘My apologies for the walloping I gave you. How much do I owe you so far?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t be afraid to say what I owe you.’
‘I don’t want anything to do with you. Please get out of my sight.’
‘You work for me.’
‘I don’t wish to work for anyone who breaks into my office and tries to kill me.’
‘I’ve apologised. I want you to carry on.’
‘Why?’
Snorre Norheim held the metal bat under his elbow while he fished a thin wad of notes from his pocket.
‘Why?’ Frank Frølich repeated.
‘Why what?’
; ‘Why do you want to find out about these things?’
‘Focus, Frølich. Your job is to find the man who lived with her.’
Norheim counted the notes.
‘Look upon this as an advance,’ he said and placed the wad of notes on the desk. ‘When you’ve found the man who lived with Guri Sekkelsten, you’ll get three times the amount.’
‘What’s your wife’s real name?’
Snorre Norheim’s eyes blackened again. He supported himself on the bat and leaned across the desk. ‘As I said, focus on the job. My wife has no relevance for you. Is that understood?’
It wasn’t difficult to nod in the affirmative.
Snorre Norheim tucked the bat under his arm and was gone. This situation reminded Frank of a previous one. But there was a difference. He didn’t run after the man to return the money this time. He leaned his head against the wall and contemplated the money on the table. Filthy lucre. As filthy as the motives of all those who were circling around him and around the deceased: Fredrik Andersen and Guri Sekkelsten.
He asked himself: Why don’t you run after the man and give the money back?
Because, he thought, Snorre Norheim is playing his filthy game, and I’m sitting at the table and playing with him, whether I like it or not.
And because, he told himself in the next breath, I am or have been very close to the heart of all this.
The nausea and the pain he could feel now were proof enough. He had been on to something. But what?
The conversation with Alicia Norheim. He had told her to report what she knew to the police. Why had her crazy husband come here, really? Was it because Frank had rung Alicia or was it because of what he had told her to do?
Alicia Norheim had been to the refugee centre and asked after Shamal. Did her husband know that?
Impossible to know. Frank hadn’t asked.
Guri and Shamal had worked together, closely. It must have been Shamal who occasionally slept over at Guri’s.
He thought back to the minutes when he had searched her house. The room where someone had obviously slept in the bed. The duvet and the smell of after-shave that still hung in the air.
Norheim had a point. Shamal was a potential killer. But what would his motive be for harming Guri?
She had been on her way home. She arrived at the house. Pulled up in front. Stopped and switched off the engine.
He tried to imagine what might have happened next. She got out of the car. Walked inside. Kicked off her shoes. Went into the kitchen. Put on the kettle. Left the kitchen. Met Shamal, who had got out of bed.
What sort of person was Shamal? The person who killed her had done it quickly. She hadn’t been able to resist for long. And afterwards it was arranged to look like suicide. It seemed planned: the surprise and the orchestration. Had Shamal been lying in bed waiting for her; had he waited and planned what would happen? Had he heard her car drive up, got out of bed and made his preparations? If so, why? What was the motive?
He recalled the short telephone conversation that morning. The silence, the noise of the car in motion: I’ll find you.
Could it have been Shamal who uttered those words? It was impossible to know.
Snorre Norheim wanted to pay him to locate Shamal. He wanted to get hold of Shamal as well. To question him. And somewhere out there this very Shamal might be wondering about him. From now on, it was perhaps simply better to sit on the fence.
He got up and looked around. The floor needed a wash. He pulled out a drawer and checked the calendar. The cleaner would be coming tomorrow. He grabbed the wad of notes and stuffed them into his pocket without bothering to count them. Ignored the mess on the floor and left.
73
There was a note from Matilde on the kitchen table. And lots of red hearts. She wrote that she had made an omelette with the last two eggs and she’d had to leave for work and she was sorry she hadn’t had time to go shopping.
He went to the fridge. It was ominously empty. A carton of milk past its sell-by date, a bit of ham and cheese, and a lunch packet from Fjordland. A few dishes of dried-up leftovers, the composition of which he didn’t even dare speculate on. He was embarrassed. Knowing Matilde didn’t like a badly stocked fridge. But he was no great shakes at food shopping.
He took the lift down to the cellar and unlocked the door. Went to his storeroom. The padlock was on. No one had broken in trying to get to his bike. That was good news. The bike had become a bit dusty in the course of the winter and spring, but the tyres were hard. On the shelf there was a red can of oil. He lubricated the chain and tried the brakes. Everything was in order. He pushed the bike to the stairs and took it with him in the lift up to his flat. Here he found the cycle lock hanging on a hook in the hallway. He opened the wardrobe and found his cycling uniform: shorts, jersey, helmet and sunglasses. Inside the wardrobe was a rucksack, which he swung onto his back. He caught the lift back down. Cycled the eight or nine hundred metres to the Manglerud shopping centre. Locked the bike in the stand outside, but kept his helmet and sunglasses on as he went in. He took a shopping basket at the entrance to Meny supermarket and made a beeline for the freezer counters.
Then he caught sight of a familiar figure in an aisle between the shelves. A grey-haired old gentleman was leaning on a crutch and pushing a shopping trolley. It was his client – Jørgen Svinland, Fredrik Andersen’s uncle. As Svinland was shopping here, he had to live close by.
He thought he should introduce himself and went over. But he pulled up short.
An elderly woman was walking towards Jørgen Svinland. She was carrying a packet from the meat counter. It was the sight of the woman that had made Frank waver.
She was wearing a blue dress and glasses. She was reading the information on the packet and talking about the best-before date, then put it in the trolley. The woman had to be Svinland’s wife.
But Frank Frølich had seen this woman once before. She had come out of Fredrik Andersen’s place while he was waiting in his car outside. She was no longer a mystery. He could ring Gunnarstranda and say that the mysterious woman was a relative of Andersen’s.
If it was in his interest at all to assist the police with whatever they were doing.
He stood observing the couple. Svinland stopped by a shelf, took an item and read the data. A soup in a bag. The husband talked to his wife, who nodded and gave him a hand. There was an intimacy about the elderly couple shopping together; it was a kind of idyll. Then a young man came down the same aisle, carrying a cardboard box full of Coke cans. He stopped by the couple and put the box in the trolley. The woman said something and laughed out loud. The young man smiled. He was dark-haired and thin, with slightly severe, central-Asian features, which suggested he might be from Tibet or around there. His hair was black, thick and reached down to his shoulders. When he laughed, his face opened, he showed white teeth and became a good-looking young man. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and worn jeans and sandals without socks. He probably wasn’t even twenty years old.
The three of them looked like a grandfather and grandmother shopping with a well-loved grandchild. But herr and fru Svinland didn’t have any grandchildren, according to Svinland. They had lost their only daughter on the Sea Breeze.
Perhaps Svinland had a well-loved nephew? A nephew from Nepal?
The three of them came towards him. Frank Frølich removed his sunglasses.
‘Well, hello there,’ he said to Svinland, who stopped and regarded him for a few confused seconds before recognition shone through in his eyes.
‘Must be the sports gear,’ Svinland said. ‘I hardly recognised you. Meet my wife.’
Svinland opened a palm in the direction of the woman. ‘This is Frølich. The man I talked about. The investigator.’
‘But we’ve met before,’ Frølich said, shaking her hand.
She didn’t answer.
Svinland looked from him to his wife, taken aback. ‘Met before?’
Her hand was limp and her eyes were puzzled. �
��We met outside Fredrik Andersen’s house,’ he said. ‘I told you I was waiting for him. You were coming out.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, freeing her hand.
Svinland looked at his spouse, who looked back. ‘When was that?’ he asked, still taken aback.
His spouse didn’t answer. Frølich didn’t feel it was his call. The question hadn’t been directed at him.
The young man and Frank Frølich were now spectators of something it was hard to describe in words. All he could think was that he must have said something wrong. The woman grabbed the trolley and pushed it ahead of her, away from this stand-off. The husband let her go, then took his crutch and hobbled after her. Leaving behind Frank Frølich and the young man, who made an apologetic gesture and followed the couple.
Frank watched them go until he got the point that not one of them was going to come back. Then he spun round and went back to the freezer counter, thinking that whatever an elderly couple had unspoken between them was their business. He picked up a couple of frozen pizzas and grabbed a six-pack of beer on his way to the cash desk. Here he paid and then went out.
74
It was evening when Matilde phoned.
He apologised for the empty fridge and promised that next time she would be able to have a proper breakfast in his flat, too. Matilde didn’t answer. She was unusually taciturn.
In the end, he asked her straight out: ‘What’s eating you?’
Well, she was wondering if he could take a few days off.
He considered the suggestion. A couple of days off? Nothing would please him more, he concluded. He could escape from crazy bastards carrying baseball bats. He could queue in Rome at some tourist site or go to the mountains. Go to a spa in Budapest or some other exotic place. The wad of notes he had been given by Snorre Norheim gave him the freedom to forget work for a few days.
‘Think I can,’ he said. ‘I’m free and can do as I like. What’s your plan?’
She wanted to go to Tingvoll.
He consulted his geographical knowledge. Nothing. ‘Where’s Tingvoll?’
‘Vestland, between Ålesund and Trondheim.’
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