Sister

by Kjell Ola Dahl

  Frølich heard a few more cars brake to a halt.

  It’s not over, he thought. Through the window he could see Gunnarstranda’s weary features.

  45

  A police officer was cordoning off the drive and house-front when, an hour later, Frølich went to get into his car and drive away. His former colleagues seemed too busy to worry whether he was fit to drive or not.

  As he was putting a leg in, he heard the front door of the house open.

  ‘Hey!’

  He turned to see Snorre Norheim walking over to his car. He stopped. His eyes were cold and the muscles in his jaws knotted.

  ‘See what you’ve done,’ Norheim said in a low growl. ‘I have two children who’ll lose their mother now for God knows how long. I had to take my children from their beds. They’re waking to a house full of strangers. I have to leave here with the girls, now, in the middle of the night to find a hotel. The two of them have to see their home invaded by uniformed police and they have no mother to console them. You’ll suffer for this, Frølich.’

  ‘I’m not Guri Sekkelsten,’ Frank said. ‘You won’t have such an easy time with me.’

  ‘I was angry,’ Norheim hissed. ‘And I had every reason to be. She’d warned Shamal. He wasn’t there. He’d done a runner. She sat in the car, lying to my face. She pretended she didn’t know that he’d gone. She was that type, the kind that believe they’re doing good, but end up creating a hell for others. All I wanted was to tell her the truth. But I was much too angry. And if you ask me whether I have any regrets, I won’t give you the answer you want.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m alone now. I don’t know what tomorrow or the future will bring. You and Guri Sekkelsten have put me in this predicament. It’s you who bear the responsibility for my being alone with two children. You and I still have a score to settle.’

  ‘I don’t believe your version of events.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what you believe or don’t believe.’

  ‘You planned it. You didn’t let your wife meet Guri that night. You met her instead. When you got to her house and found it empty you realised what you’d done wrong. Guri knew who you were. You realised she might tell Shamal. He would then be able to trace his sister. You killed her to keep her quiet. That’s premeditated murder, Norheim. The worst and the most spineless kind.’

  ‘So what?’ Snorre Norheim said.

  ‘I’ll tell you so what,’ Frank said, leaning on the car door. ‘You yourself bear the responsibility for the fact that your children will soon be all alone in the world.’

  Behind Norheim, the officer with the roll of cordon tape stopped. He straightened up and watched them.

  Frank stepped closer to the colonel. ‘You’ll soon be all alone in the world,’ he repeated. ‘Because you’ll be convicted. You planned it. You’ll get the heaviest sentence the law can give. Believe me.’

  Snorre Norheim didn’t answer. He seemed to digest what Frølich had said, then he spun on his heel, walked to the house, up the steps and inside, without looking back.

  46

  Driving home, Frank thought about what Alicia Norheim had said. Could she be right? Could it have been Shamal who killed Fredrik Andersen?

  Had Guri contacted Shamal after the meeting with Alicia Norheim and told him about the meeting at the restaurant? Had she confronted him with Alicia’s description of her brother? Had Shamal gone there, to the writer’s house, in the middle of the night to force Andersen to tell him where his sister lived?

  Could that be how it happened? Shamal threatening Andersen and finally killing him?

  It wasn’t unlikely that Shamal had found out about Fredrik Andersen. Guri hadn’t discovered Sheyma’s real name at the meeting. But she could have contacted Shamal, maybe even before she turned up at the restaurant to see Sheyma and Andersen. She had been so happy at the café bar when he told her the name of the writer. Guri had rung Matilde to pass on the happy news. She could equally well have rung Shamal too, to share the glad tidings – that Sheyma was alive and living in Norway. Then she might have mentioned the name of the writer who knew her.

  There was a good chance that Shamal had gone to the writer’s house and waited for him that night. The intention must have been to force him to reveal Sheyma’s Norwegian name. Andersen had refused and the outcome had been fatal.

  But why had Shamal taken the money, the credit cards and the man’s watch and put everything in the bin?

  Why would he try and disguise the assault as burglary?

  Would Shamal have been able to dispose of cash, credit cards and a valuable watch? After all, he was a man who lived from hand to mouth. He didn’t have solid ground beneath his feet.

  However, it struck him at once that Shamal had been a man with a strong sense of honour. Shamal might have seen Andersen’s valuables as dirty, as something he didn’t want any part of.

  Thirty-three stabs to the chest. That was a frenzy of violence.

  The more he thought about it, the surer he became. It must have been Shamal who did it. He could imagine how it had happened:

  Fredrik Andersen walks down the street to the wrought-iron gate. A car door opens. Shamal steps out and introduces himself. Andersen tells him to clear off and goes to his front door. Shamal follows him.

  Frølich had no wish to follow this line of thought any further.

  47

  He parked in Våronnveien. The gap he occupied was huge. He got out of his car and realised he had parked in the gap left by the T-bird.

  Matilde’s car had gone.

  She had been here and had left.

  In which case, she would have left a message. He hurried to the entrance. Stopped to open the post box, but dropped his keys and bent down for them. Finally he opened the post box.

  No letter. No message. But there was something at the bottom. He struggled to pick it up. Managed to get a grip on it. It was a key.

  He stood holding the key in his hand. It was to his flat. She had given it back.

  The message was loud and clear. No misunderstanding possible.

  Inside the flat her bag was gone. The dress draped over the back of the chair had been taken. He went into the bathroom. The clothes in the washing machine had gone.

  He had been all in when he drove home. Now it felt as if he had gone without any sleep or rest for weeks.

  He went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed fully dressed.

  He dreamt about Guri Sekkelsten. She was wearing a traditional costume and sitting on a black horse and talking. But it was impossible to hear what she was saying. He kept trying to get closer to hear the words issuing from her mouth. But the closer he came, the further away she and the horse were. They became smaller and smaller. He began to run towards them. Then all of a sudden they were gone and he opened his eyes.

  That night he went to a drinking den, but there was no one of a like mind there. He just got drunk. They played Coco Montoya’s ‘Am I Losing You’. He moved on to the next bar.

  Here they were showing a football match on a big screen and after a while he realised that despite having watched for ages he was still unable to work out who was playing. Then he got up, went out and searched for a taxi to take him home.

  It was almost midnight when he let himself in, lay down on the sofa and fiddled with the remote control. He dropped it on the floor and left it there. He was lying like this – on the sofa and fighting nausea until he was woken by the phone in his pocket.

  Then he registered it was a new day.

  It was Matilde.

  ‘Hi,’ he said sleepily.

  ‘Are you asleep?’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  She didn’t answer. He waited. But silence reigned. In the end, he broke it. ‘When will we see each other again?’

  Her voice was barely audible as she told him she needed a break.

  He didn’t answer. He had nothing to say. Waited for the accusation.

  ‘You held things back
from me. Guri’s brother, Ivar, said you testified in court against him. You’d been snooping around his home.’

  ‘It was a job. It wasn’t snooping.’

  ‘But you didn’t say anything to me, did you.’

  ‘As I said, it was work.’

  ‘But you were there, in their house. You were there searching for stolen goods long before we met. You knew about Ivar all the time.’

  ‘There was nothing I could do about it.’

  ‘But you asked me questions, pretending you didn’t know who he was.’

  ‘I felt I had no choice.’

  ‘But it was lies. Bluff. You lied to me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it badly.’

  The silence lasted longer this time.

  ‘Will we see each other again?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Matilde said.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Search.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘I can help you.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Give it some thought anyway.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll give it some thought. But don’t expect anything. I need a break.’

  48

  The phone conversation changed nothing. He had already known this for a while. Now it was confirmed. But he didn’t want to accept it. He just wanted to get away from the situation, maybe away from himself as well. It was while he was lying there, unable to do anything sensible, that he discovered the key Matilde had put in the post box. It had slid out of his trouser pocket onto the floor. Now the key was on the carpet. He lay staring at it. There was something about a key. Something that had gone over his head. But what?

  He closed his eyes. Thinking: key. What do you use a key for? You open something. You lock something.

  He opened his eyes again. There was a white object under the chair. He stretched as far as he could. It was too far away and he fell off the sofa.

  The object on the floor was Jørgen Svinland’s business card. The second he read the name he knew what he had missed. All of a sudden he understood why the attack on Fredrik Andersen had been disguised as a burglary.

  He rose to his feet and walked over to the window. He looked out. Good weather. Blue sky. He went to the bathroom and took a shower.

  Svinland’s address was on the business card. He lived in Oppsal, in a street called Motbakkene.

  He donned shorts, jersey and helmet. Fetched the envelope from his desk drawer. Pushed his bike from the hall into the lift.

  The sun was a throbbing yellow globe above the mountain ridge as he set off. It was a quarter of an hour’s bike ride to Oppsal. He took the footpath past the ice rink and the hill down to Østensjø. He passed flocks of Canada geese and ducks as he rounded the northern end of the lake. Pedalling up Skøyenåsveien, he didn’t see much traffic. Just the odd oncoming car. He continued along Østmarkveien to Motbakkene, which turned out to be a narrow, tarmac path between two walls of wire fencing and green vegetation. He pedalled up slowly. Detached houses glittered in the sun. Someone was sitting on a veranda under a gaily coloured parasol.

  The yellow house was hidden behind a wall of pine bushes by the fence. Only one window peered out from above the hedge, like a sleepy eye. He stopped a few metres from the entrance. Pushed the bike the last few metres to the gate. Leaned his bike against it and locked it.

  He rang the doorbell.

  He heard footsteps on the staircase inside. Light, quick footsteps.

  The door opened and he was looking into the face of a young man. It was the same person he had seen with the couple in the Manglerud shopping centre a few days ago.

  ‘Hi, Alan,’ he said, proffering a hand.

  49

  The young man didn’t answer. He shook hands and bowed, but appeared confused and very nervous.

  ‘I’d like to talk to Svinland,’ Frølich said, letting go of Alan’s hand. ‘Jørgen Svinland.’

  ‘Who is it?’ came the sound of Svinland’s voice from above.

  The young man backed away and held the door open.

  Frank Frølich went in and flipped off his shoes.

  He followed the young man and removed his sunglasses as they went upstairs.

  The staircase led to a comfortably furnished living room. The veranda door was open. The sunlight was filtered through a white gauzy curtain in front of the door.

  Svinland was sitting bent over in an armchair. At first, his expression was only curious. But when he saw who was following the boy up the stairs, his lips trembled with fury.

  ‘I thought I’d told you in no uncertain terms…’

  ‘I’ve come to settle our differences,’ Frølich answered. ‘I don’t like owing people money.’

  ‘What is it, Jørgen?’

  The voice came from an adjacent room. It was a kitchen.

  All three of them looked towards the open door as Lise Svinland appeared.

  She was wearing a red dress with a white apron in front.

  Like a grandmother in a cartoon, he thought, and said: ‘Nice to see you again.’

  She gaped at him without answering.

  ‘This is Frølich,’ Jorgen Svinland said. ‘He’s leaving.’

  Svinland raised himself with some exertion. The young man hurried over to him with his crutch. Svinland hooked the crutch onto his arm and supported himself on it.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to Frølich, hobbling to the stairs.

  ‘First of all, I’d like to talk to your wife,’ he answered, standing his ground.

  Svinland turned to him. ‘You can talk to me.’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ Lise Svinland said.

  She and her husband exchanged glances. ‘Let me sort this out,’ Jørgen Svinland said.

  ‘And I’d like to have a few words with your guest,’ Frølich said.

  Both spouses looked at Frølich expectantly. He said:

  ‘Alan’s at home here. But that’s hardly surprising, is it. He’s like a son to you now.’

  Svinland was still furious. His voice shook when he spoke.

  ‘Don’t you get on your high horse with me and sound off on things you know nothing about.’

  Frølich unhitched his rucksack, rummaged around inside and passed Svinland the envelope he had once been given by Fredrik Andersen.

  ‘What is it?’ Svinland asked.

  ‘Open it and see.’

  Svinland held the envelope in one hand and the crutch in the other.

  ‘I hereby regard our differences as over,’ Frølich said.

  ‘They were over before you came here.’

  ‘In a relationship the person who finishes it has a certain status. In my opinion, I’m finishing ours.’

  ‘Alright, you’ve given us the money. Now would you be so kind as to leave.’

  ‘Your nephew, Fredrik Andersen, was killed. Doesn’t that mean anything to you anymore?’

  ‘You have no right to speak about things you don’t understand.’

  Frank Frølich tossed his head. ‘Your guest, Alan, lived with Fredrik Andersen until a short time ago.’

  Jørgen Svinland chewed his lower lip.

  ‘You didn’t know that at first, did you?’

  No one said a word.

  ‘Where did you think he came from?’

  The answer to this question wasn’t forthcoming, either.

  ‘The police want to speak to the boy,’ Frølich said.

  Now Lise Svinland spoke up. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘They think he was in the house when Fredrik was killed.’

  A silence hung in the air now.

  ‘When we first met, you’d let yourself out of Fredrik’s house. What had you been doing there?’

  Lise Svinland didn’t answer.

  ‘You were visiting Alan,’ Frølich said. ‘Was it Fredrik who asked you to see to the boy? Did Fredrik come to you and say: “Pop by; keep an eye on Alan. He’s a foreigner here and has no one.” Was tha
t how it was? He gave you the key to his house. I saw that for myself. You locked the door when you left. Alan was inside. He had to go back to his country. Fredrik had convinced him that was best.’

  ‘It’s not best. It’s dangerous to go there. The government strongly advises people not to.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what’s best, but according to the police Alan was supposed to leave. He even had a ticket, but he didn’t go. Was this what you wanted to talk about with Fredrik that night?’

  ‘Are you insinuating that Alan killed Fredrik?’

  ‘Fredrik Andersen was killed and Alan changed his plans. Why don’t we ask Alan right now what happened?’

  The young man seemed bewildered. He knew he was being talked about, but he didn’t understand what was being said.

  ‘No,’ Jørgen Svinland said. ‘Let’s leave the boy in peace, and you go on your way.’

  ‘You know what happened that night,’ Frølich said. ‘But when you and I met for the first time, you didn’t. You didn’t know that your wife had a key to Fredrik’s house until I told you. Was that when you found out what happened?’

  Frank looked at Lise Svinland. ‘You told your husband what happened, isn’t that correct?’

  Lise Svinland didn’t answer.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me, of course. But you can’t keep it secret, either.’

  He showed them his watch. Shook it. There was a clinking noise.

  ‘Something’s loose inside,’ he said. ‘A screw or who knows what? What’s certain is that sooner or later the loose part will touch something vital and then the watch will stop. It’s just a question of time. It’s the same with the boy you’ve taken in. It’s fine now. Perhaps it’ll be fine tomorrow and the day after. But sooner or later you’ll have to explain. Who is he? Where’s he come from? And why’s he here? That moment isn’t far away. The police could be knocking on your door at any time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the police know that your wife visited Fredrik the day before he was murdered. They know she let herself out with her own key, so that she could go back and let herself in whenever she wanted. One of the two of them – Alan, who lived in the house, or your wife – knows what happened to Fredrik, or both do. The police want to find that out.’