Matilde pushed in a CD. America. A Horse with No Name.
She opened the glove compartment, rummaged around and took out her raindrop-shaped sunglasses, put them on and searched for the pack of cigarettes that was also there. She put a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. A flick of a sparkwheel told Frank she had ignited the lighter. She held it in front of her, lit up and settled back, rapt in thought.
‘Yes, and?’ Frank said, keen to know more. ‘They met?’
She shook her head. ‘He didn’t show up. So Simon drove to our father’s home, but the flat was empty. He’d moved.’
She smoked in silence behind her sunglasses.
‘Where had he moved to?’
‘Simon didn’t know. Possibly Sweden or Denmark. There’s no one living in Norway under his name, anyway.’
Frank sent her a quick glance. Sunglasses, red lips and fluttering hair.
‘Gone,’ she said. ‘Like a badger out of hibernation. Simon thinks he simply upped sticks and left.’
‘How do you feel about that?’
She stroked his hand. ‘I think I’m going to find him. And maybe I can learn a few detective tricks from you.’
18
It was early evening when they drove into Ulsteinvik.
Now it was Matilde’s turn to ask if he wanted to go in alone or not.
He flashed her a smile. ‘You’re an assistant in my interpretation of this trip. Don’t forget, I’ll be putting you on my expenses.’
With that he accelerated up the hill. The revs attracted attention the whole way. People who were having barbecues in the good weather stood up and spied over their hedges. At the top there was quite a large camper van wedged between a low house and a carport. He stopped by the camper van. The house was white and single storey with a hipped roof and a veranda extension. The people who lived there were spoiled with a wonderful view over the sea.
They didn’t need to ring the bell. A woman in her fifties, wearing a pink tracksuit with light-blue stripes, had heard them and opened the door.
‘Oda Borgersrud?’
The woman nodded, a little confused. She had short, curly henna-ed hair, an attractive face and a quizzical expression in her eyes.
‘Frank Frølich,’ he said. ‘We talked on the phone.’
At that moment a jolly-looking man with a grey beard and fringe strolled around the corner. He was also wearing a pink tracksuit with light-blue stripes.
The man said his name was Roger.
Frank Frølich repeated his own name, introduced Matilde and explained that he worked for Fredrik Andersen’s relatives.
The couple exchanged glances upon hearing the writer’s name. But neither of them made a comment.
Roger invited them around the house onto a large terrace with decorative flowerpots and an eating area. A table was set for two. On the barbecue there was a fish wrapped in aluminium foil. Frank said they could come back later. But Roger replied: ‘Under no circumstances.’ They didn’t often have guests and they had enough fish. This was Vestland.
He took two extra chairs from the terrace shed while Oda Borgersrud announced that she would get some more fish. Roger opened a bottle of beer bearing an exotic label. Matilde was quick to respond: ‘You have it, Frankie. I’ll drive.’
‘And for you?’ Roger asked Matilde. ‘A Coke?’
‘Is it in a glass bottle?’
‘Of course.’
Roger said he was a retired ship’s steward and had worked a lot around Newfoundland and the great lakes. He plied between Saint John’s and Toronto for many years. He had learned to appreciate the real McCoy over there and never drank Coke from anything except a glass bottle. ‘Besides, it’s an environmental thing,’ he added, taking a bottle from a cooler bag by the veranda door. Then he showed them around the terrace and pointed across the sea to the view:
‘What you can see there is Kleven shipyard, and that’s the island of Peholmen and that’s Nordre and South Kloholmen there, and beyond them Skarveskjeret.’
He explained that he and Oda took a dinghy from Rana Plast, the boat builders, when they went fishing. He also pointed out places to fish with odd-sounding names and mentioned other places further away that were only visible on the clearest days.
Frank Frølich struggled to follow. He was focused on the wife, who arrived with a salmon fillet, which she spiced with herbs and wrapped in foil before putting it on the barbecue. He was almost a hundred per cent sure she was the Ole Berg that Jørgen Svinland and Bernt Weddevåg had talked about. However, he was unsure how to go about his assignment in this situation.
Later, when they were sat around the table eating barbecued pollock, and salmon with barbecued potatoes and steamed root vegetables in butter, it didn’t feel natural to bring up the issue, either. All four of them sat chatting as though they had known each other for years. Matilde told them about her new brother in Tingvoll. Roger wanted to know where the man lived. Matilde explained. Roger, with comprehensive knowledge of the local area, asked for details and said that he had been to sea with a guy who lived not so far from the house where Matilde’s brother was, so he and Oda must have driven by the house many times. Roger said he and Oda used the camper van as often as they could, to see new places and, if not to see new places, to meet people. They often met other members of the Caravan Club, but in July and August they went on longer trips, generally to southern Europe. Last year they had driven through Germany, over to Luxembourg, from there to Reims in France and south to Provence. They had driven along the whole of the Côte d’Azur, as the French called it, and into Spain, to Seville.
‘Did you know the pope lived in Provence?’ Oda asked.
Matilde shook her head.
‘He did, and that’s where the wine comes from: Châteauneuf-du-Pape. I always thought it was a pappvin, you know, wine-in-a-box,’ she said, ‘but it’s called after the pope’s residence.’ She chuckled.
There had been a heat wave and it was almost forty-five degrees at its peak down there.
‘Forty-five degrees! In the shade, phew.’
It was only later, when the hostess came through the door with her freshly baked Pavlova adorned with strawberries, raspberries and big American blueberries, that Frølich thought he would have to bring up the subject of the Sea Breeze, while there was still time to go into some depth with his questions. He was already onto his third Samuel Adams Boston lager.
He cleared his throat.
The hosts looked at him with new eyes. They knew what was coming and had been waiting.
19
The unexpected silence took him slightly by surprise. Suddenly he could hear voices in conversation on a veranda nearby, through the piercing sound of a neighbour using a Norsaw to cut boards. Renovation work, he thought, and swallowed a gulp of beer before asking the first question.
‘Did you receive a visit from Fredrik Andersen not so long ago?’
Oda Borgersrud nodded.
The couple observed him attentively.
‘Did Andersen talk to you about a lifeboat?’
She nodded. ‘He asked what I’d seen while I was in the cabin.’
Roger took on the role of commentator and explained the context for Matilde in a low voice: ‘Oda worked in the duty-free shop, and she was asleep while the terrible fire was raging and only woke up when the boat was being evacuated. But she couldn’t get out. She was trapped in her cabin. The corridor was full of smoke and toxic gases.’
‘Ugh, how awful,’ Matilde said.
‘What did you see?’ Frølich asked.
‘I saw the lifeboats in the water.’
‘Did you see the lifeboat that got stuck on the way down?’
‘No. I couldn’t see any of what was going on above the cabin.’
‘Apparently the ropes jammed when the boat was being lowered. For a long time it hung alongside the ferry, and afterwards, when it was in the water, they had trouble freeing the hawser that held the lifeboat to the ship. One of the passenge
rs had to cut the rope with a pocket knife.’
‘Terrible business,’ Roger said, still in a low voice.
‘I couldn’t see what was happening above the cabin window,’ Oda said. ‘But it’s true that a lifeboat was hanging at the side of the ship.’
‘Those on board the stranded lifeboat say they saw another lifeboat being lowered astern. They say there were only two people in this boat. They were making for the horizon, in other words they were escaping. Did you see that?’
Oda Borgersrud shook her head.
‘No?’
‘Fredrik Andersen asked that question,’ she said. ‘He brought with him a report the police had written regarding the number of evacuees. He gave it to me.’
‘A report?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A list. I’ll get it.’
She went inside.
‘Terrible business,’ Roger said again.
They were all staring at the veranda door as it opened and Oda came out with some papers in her hand.
Oda sat down and placed a wad of stapled papers on the table.
‘It says eight lifeboats were used to rescue people,’ she said. ‘The last two were never lowered. Yet there were between twenty and thirty survivors who claimed that they’d seen a lifeboat with two uniformed crewmen leaving the damaged ship. But the list of survivors showed that could not be the case.’
‘A mystery?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Did Fredrik Andersen find this out?’
Oda Borgersrud nodded. ‘That is, it was me who found this out.’
She looked at her partner, who nodded encouragement.
‘The reason Fredrik Andersen came here was that I read his book some time ago. I’d had it lying around for ages – for well over two years, but I couldn’t bear the thought of going back over the incident again. When I finally did get round to it, I read about this rumour of a missing lifeboat. I couldn’t make any sense of that and emailed him. Then he got in touch.’
She took the sheet from under the list of survivors. It was an A4 photograph of a cruise ship. Its name was the Sea Breeze.
‘This picture was taken when the ship was a casino in the Caribbean,’ she said, pointing. ‘These are the lifeboats on the starboard side: numbers one, three, five, seven and nine. There are just as many on the port side. There they’re even numbers: two, four, six, eight and ten.’
‘I see,’ Frølich said.
She pointed. ‘This is the lifeboat that got stuck on the way down.’
He nodded.
‘Can you see anything special?’
‘About the lifeboat?’
‘About the lifeboats.’
He had another look. But couldn’t see anything. ‘No.’
Oda and Roger exchanged glances. Roger smiled.
‘He’s never been to sea,’ Roger said, excusing him.
‘What is it that I’m supposed to be able to see?’
‘Lifeboat number nine,’ she said, pointing to the one astern.
‘It’s different,’ she said. ‘This lifeboat has a covering on the front and at the side.’
Frølich leaned forward. She was right. He could see it now. The lifeboat was different. The covering meant it appeared bigger and more robust. ‘But so what?’
‘When this lifeboat is lowered the passengers in it aren’t visible,’ Oda Borgersrud said.
‘Only the person steering the boat and the person in charge – in other words, those standing up – are seen. So simple. Those people stuck in the lifeboat at the side of the ship thought there were no passengers in boat number nine. That’s wrong. They thought the two men in uniforms were alone and escaping. They weren’t.’
‘Fredrik Andersen came to me to ask what I actually saw. In fact, I saw everything from a slightly different angle.’
‘There,’ she said, pointing at the photograph of a cabin window almost down by the water line. ‘There’s my cabin. I saw straight into lifeboat number nine when it was being lowered. I saw that it was full of people. What Andersen wanted to know was what I saw. The lifeboat never disappeared. It had a motor, left the damaged ferry and was picked up by a Russian freighter that had come to help.’
‘My God, and you were trapped in the cabin right down there, surrounded by flames and gases,’ Matilde said.
Oda Borgersrud nodded. ‘It wasn’t my turn,’ she said. ‘God had decided I wasn’t going to die. When I thought the end was nigh, he sent down an angel to save me.’
‘An angel?’
She nodded. ‘He was Swedish and wearing firefighting gear. The most attractive man I’ve ever met, apart from you, that is,’ she said to Roger.
Frank Frølich inhaled deeply.
Everyone focused on him.
‘There’s another thing I have to ask you.’
‘Go ahead,’ she said.
‘You stayed on board all the time the vessel was being towed. You’re an eyewitness.’
She looked back at him. Waiting for the question.
‘The big question is whether there were any new fires while you were on board.’
‘You’re wondering what I saw?’
‘I have to admit I am, yes.’
‘A short time after I left the cabin all the fires were out. Later I saw raging blazes that burned for hours. After leaving the cabin I stayed on the bridge deck all the time. I didn’t go into the ship once I was out. Everything that happened in those hours happened inside the ship. You ask what I believe. I can tell you, hand on heart, that I believe there was someone lighting more fires. This is not speculation on my part. This is just what I’m sincerely convinced went on. But did I see it? At first I saw firemen putting out fires and then running to fight new, unexplained fires for hour after hour. I know the police were mistaken when they accused a dead passenger of being a mass murderer. He and his room-mate died, both of them, only minutes after the first fire broke out. How would he be able to light fires ten, twelve and twenty hours after he’d died? This tells me the police never did a proper job. Don’t forget: someone tried to kill me on board that boat. I’ve struggled with that all these years.’
‘She’s been to a psychologist,’ Roger said in a low voice.
‘Yes,’ Oda said. ‘I’ve suffered psychologically and I’m not ashamed to say it. But why have I had to struggle? Because the police never found out who tried to kill me. Can you imagine what that’s like? Someone wants to kill you, by a miracle you escape and those supposed to ensure law and order couldn’t care less about what actually happened? They blame a poor soul who himself was killed. Without a single shred of evidence. All they’ve done since is let themselves be driven from one entrenched position to another while refusing to admit their mistakes.’
Oda Borgersrud was angry now. Her eyes flashed. ‘Is this answer good enough?’ she asked in a serrated voice.
‘So you didn’t actually see anyone committing sabotage,’ Frank Frølich established.
Oda Borgersrud didn’t answer. She got up and began to clear the table.
20
Before they took their leave, Roger and Matilde sat discussing various routes to Oslo. Matilde wanted to drive across the Valdresflya plateau. She had dreamed of driving this stretch of road many times.
‘The R15 to Lake Vågå. From there, Valdresflya to Fagernes and afterwards the E16 through the Begna valley to Hønefoss and on to Oslo. That should take you about seven to eight hours,’ Roger said.
Didn’t they want to stay any longer? Oda asked. After all, they’d made the long trip up here, and Vestland had so much to offer.
‘We have to go to a funeral,’ Matilde said.
Oda asked if it was Fredrik Andersen’s.
Frank shook his head, in shame. He didn’t know when Andersen would be buried. He didn’t even know if the funeral had already taken place.
‘A friend of mine,’ Matilde said. ‘She was no older than me.’
‘How awful,’ Oda said. ‘What did she die of?’
Matilde didn’t answer.
Oda glanced at Frølich.
‘We don’t know for sure,’ he said. ‘They can’t agree on what happened or how it happened.’
‘That makes it so much worse,’ Roger said.
Matilde nodded slowly, in sombre mood. ‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ she said.
21
The night was theirs. The T-bird floated all alone across the Valdresflya plateau, and the two of them inside watched a herd of reindeer making their way across the rocks like a moving carpet. The summer night was never completely dark and the snow-covered mountain tops in Jotunheimen towered in front of the violet sky. Matilde insisted she had only seen skies like this on paintings in museums before. She stopped in the parking area of Ridderspranget, the fabled ‘Knight’s Leap’, flicked through the pile of music to find something suitable for driving under the stars and found Pat Metheny’s Upojenie, fast-forwarded to ‘Are You Going with Me?’ and drove on.
They sat in silence as the music provided the backcloth for their reflection. Frank was thinking about Oda Borgersrud. The meeting with her had convinced him of only one thing: the murder of Fredrik Andersen couldn’t have anything to do with the Sea Breeze.
As though my opinion on this case was of any interest, he added to himself. He had to stay away from Fredrik Andersen’s death and the accompanying speculation. He no longer worked for the police. He was an insignificant person working on insignificant cases, work that only had significance for the poor person who paid to have the job done. Even if occasionally he had felt as though he were swirling in the middle of a vortex after meeting Guri Sekkelsten for the first time, Gunnarstranda was right. He had to keep his nose out of everything that didn’t concern him. The Jørgen Svinland assignment was done now, although the result may not be to the client’s satisfaction. The person known as Ole Berg had turned out to be a woman. A woman who was unable to confirm a single one of Svinland’s suspicions. Svinland would be disappointed. But the truth was a stubborn soul who never took others into consideration. Besides, he still had one unfinished job to do. He had committed himself to finding someone for Snorre Norheim. This someone was fairly certain to be the man Guri had called Shamal. It shouldn’t be difficult to find him. Shamal’s interest in Frank convinced him that they would meet face to face before long.
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