The Last Fix (25 page)

    'Any
more?'

    'Nothing
stands out.'

    'No
rings?'

    'Yes,
of course, she always wore a lot of gold.'

    'And
in her ears?'

    'Yes.
I bought them myself. A present. Two cannabis leaves - in gold, one for each
ear.'

    'I
thought she was clean.'

    'She
was.'

    'But
cannabis leaves…?'

    'Yes,
what about it?'

    Frølich
waved him away. 'Nothing,' he mumbled, waiting for Gunnarstranda, who
shouldered his way past the much taller and stronger Ole Eidesen. 'You are
instructed to attend the Institute of Forensics within the next twenty-four
hours,' said Inspector Gunnarstranda, putting a cigarette in his mouth. 'There
you need to give a DNA sample. You have twenty-four hours. Good evening.'

    The
rain was attempting to wash away a small, narrow biro mark on Frølich’s
left thumb. A raindrop struck the line about every third second. He hardly felt
it; he was about as wet as it was possible to be. The material of his rain
jacket was as stiff as cardboard, and the water trickled down his sleeves and
dripped off both hands. The blue line contrasted with the summer-brown skin of
his hand.

    He
went into a crouch and checked around the area of the trodden-down raspberry
bushes. He examined the ground and tried to trample as little vegetation as
possible. Whether the flattened edge of the ditch had been a crime scene or not
was of less importance now as the pouring rain was washing away any clues there
might have been. His green jacket hung down to his hips. On his legs he was
wearing dark jeans and high green waders. He had tried to fold the stiff rain
jacket at the bottom so that not too much rain would trickle down on to his
thighs. But it was no use. Both his trouser legs were dark blue with the rain,
and every time he moved he had the unpleasant sensation of his trousers
sticking to his skin. His hood fell forwards like a helmet and obstructed his
vision on both sides. Every time he turned his head, he had to pull back the
hood with his right arm in order to be able to see anything apart from the
inside material. Frølich stood up and headed for the other crime scene
investigators.

    'I
don't know,' he said.

    He
didn't need to say any more. The others understood what he meant. Someone may
have committed a murder in this place, but it could equally well have been deer
moving around and trampling scrub and thicket.

    'No
clothes anyway,' said Yttergjerde, the oldest policeman in the group, a
bow-legged man with a powerful, almost barrel-shaped upper torso, long upper
arms and a stooping posture.

    'Have
you been on leave yet, Frankie?'

    Frank
shook his head inside the hood.

    'You
haven't been out to catch the great pike?'

    Frank,
who knew of Yttergjerde's passion for pike fishing, said, as was the truth, 'I
tend to concentrate on trout.'

    'Pike
have never turned you on?'

    'No,'
said Frølich, staring into the rain. 'Fly fishing is an art form all its
own - finding out what's in the area, making up the right fly and holding on
when you have a bite.'

    'Pikes
are toughies,' said Yttergjerde. 'On Sunday I caught one weighing four kilos.'

    'I'm
never allowed to go away at the weekends,' Frølich responded. 'My
partner isn't at all interested in fishing.'

    'Four
kilos,' Yttergjerde repeated. 'I had to kill it with a hammer axe, bang away at
the head until it cracked, and afterwards I put the pike in a black bin bag at
the bottom of the boat while I tried for a couple of hours to catch a few more.
When I arrived home the missus wasn't in, so I put the pike in the utility sink
and wrote a message to Mum to scrape it and make fishcakes for supper! That
evening the missus came home and went looking for a knife. The pike flapped its
tail and jumped into the air. Yup, it had been lying there, drying out and
breathing air for half a day, but down on the floor it wriggled over towards my
missus snapping its jaws like a hungry croc!'

    Frølich
gave a weak smile. 'Must have been one of the ones that eats kiddies swimming
in the river,' he said drily.

    'You
think I'm bull-shitting, don't you,' Yttergjerde said. 'But it's almost
impossible to kill them. They're jungle creatures. Bury themselves in the mud
when it's dry season. As the pools dry out in July you can see them burying
themselves with their eyes poking out. The good old boys take time off to go
and kill pikes day in, day out, but the buggers are hard to kill! Then the
rains come and they smack their tails on the surface of the water like small
whales and swim off.' He was not smiling. There were deep furrows in the man's
face. He had long, narrow teeth he hid by pressing his lips together, which
gave him a surly expression - and which gave even the tallest of fisherman's
tales an appearance of credibility.

    Frølich
nodded. 'Long time yet to a dry summer,' he said looking up at the sky. 'What
have we found so far?'

    'A
crushed, empty can of Coke,' Julius read from a list he had made. 'A used
condom - washed out and rotten, several bits of paper that were once packets of
cigarettes… a load of rusty beer-bottle caps… and an electric motor, a water
pump at a guess.'

    'Who
would throw away a water pump?' Frølich asked.

    'Anyone,
if it was knackered,' Yttergjerde said. He nodded towards the water's edge
further down. 'Just wait until you deploy the divers. We'll be wallowing in
stolen cars and caravans.'

    'We're
only looking for fresh clues,' Frølich said in a tired voice, rubbing
the blue biro mark on the back of his hand. 'Clothes, a woman's party frock, I
suppose nylons with lace, that sort of thing… underwear… and jewellery.'

    Yttergjerde
shook his head in despair. At that moment a young constable came round the bend
with an object in his hands. Both Frølich and Yttergjerde turned to face
him. Rain was dripping from the shadows on the young constable's police cap;
there was one drop hanging from the underside of his nose. The policeman held
out what he had found. It was a woman's high-heeled shoe soiled with mud and
dirt. 'That must have spent at least three winters in the woods,' Yttergjerde
said gloomily. He focused on Frølich and heaved a wordless sigh, which
expressed what they all felt, all of those who were searching the area in the
torrential rain. 'Shall I put the shoe on the list?'

    The
policeman who had made the find was standing in the same military posture as Frølich,
at ease, so as not to feel the soaked clothes on his skin. 'There were a couple
of empty plastic bags, too,' he commented.

    'She
was last seen on her way up to Holmlia,' Frølich said. 'And she was
found less than five hundred metres from here.'

    He
pointed past the white bathing hut and across to the other side of the inlet.
'There,' he said, 'where the road bends and there is just the safety barrier
leading down to the beach. Someone tipped her over the barrier. She was
strangled somewhere close by.' He looked at his watch. 'Hope you can stand a
bit more,' he mumbled. 'I have…' He cleared his throat as he searched for the
right word. 'I'm afraid I have… an interview with a witness.'

    He
left them and strolled over to the car. They could think what they liked. There
were more useful things he could do elsewhere.

    He
found an old plastic bag in the boot of his car and put it on the seat before
getting in. He needed dry clothes and so drove home first. As he was unlocking
the door he heard the telephone ringing in the sitting room. At once he
remembered he had promised to phone Eva-Britt. He took the call on the cordless
and continued to search for dry clothes while talking. Eva-Britt reminded him
of the arrangement they had on Friday night. That was just what Frank had been
dreading. 'I may be able to make it on Saturday instead,' he answered airily,
taking a pair of dry jeans out of the wardrobe. The silence on the phone did
not bode well. 'I know you don't like that,' he mumbled, wondering whether he
had an ironed shirt. Doubtful. 'But I can't say no to Gunnarstranda, not on
that day. When the man asks me to his mountain cabin, it's not a cabin, it's
the Holy Grail.'

    He
found socks in the drawer and a pair without holes in the heel while Eva-Britt
was gasping for air, wherever she was. Holy Grail or not, that was not the
point. The point was that he was a past master in putting her in second place.
It was humiliating and it made her doubt his feelings - it was the usual story.
He put the cordless down on the window sill, lay on the bed and peeled the
saturated trousers off his thighs as her voice cut through the room: 'Are you
listening to what I am saying?'

    Frank
grabbed the phone. 'Oh shit,' he said.

    'What?'

    'I
dropped the phone. Can you repeat the last thing you said?'

    He
wrenched off his trousers as her voice crackled like a radio. Eyed himself in
the mirror. Too fat, too white. He picked up the phone again and raised it to
his ear. 'I see that,' he said as she paused for breath. 'And I am really
sorry. But can you do Saturday or not?'

    She
was stuttering with anger. This was the phase before she began to lay into him.
He had to interrupt: 'Then I'll buy a bottle of red wine for you and some beer
for me. I'll invite you to salted cod, bacon and mushroom ragout, which you can
make - and I won't start work on Sunday until ten, I promise.'

    He
held the phone away from his ear before she progressed into mid-rant.

    'Well,'
he repeated. 'I'm afraid appeals won't help. I have to work on Sunday.' He put
down the phone again, pulled on his dry trousers and buttoned up the fly. Then
he lifted his trousers from the waistband and studied his stomach side on.

    The
telephone! He put it to his ear. It was dead. He hunted through the wardrobe,
found a drip-dry shirt and inspected it - bit of a wrinkle on the breast pocket
but it would have to do. He rang her and pulled faces at himself in the mirror
as the phone rang. He let it ring forever. 'We must have been cut off,' Frank
said before she could get a word in.

    'At
times you don't seem at all interested,' she bawled.

    'Don't
start all that again,' he parried. 'I promise to be here all Saturday evening.
I promise not to be late. I promise to switch off the phone. I promise not to
watch TV. I won't put on any 70s music. I will be fascinated by all the problems
you're having at work. I won't hire a film. I promise to drink red wine with
the meal. I will think up at least five compliments and I promise to light
candles on the table. All right?'

    'My
goodness, you're such a romantic, aren't you,' her voice groaned.

    'I
can be if I want to,' Frank grinned, pulling faces at himself in the mirror. He
was dry, and ought to be presentable enough for the force now.

    Georg
Beck worked at the Nydalen Skills Centre, a kind of institution where most of
the patients seemed to be psychologically handicapped. Frølich entered,
but couldn't catch anyone's eye in reception. The young man sitting there was
chewing gum and disappeared without bothering about the approaching policeman. Frølich
ventured further into the low-ceilinged building and stopped a man in his
forties coming out of a door. Frank assumed he worked there since he was
carrying a file under his arm. A man with a short brown beard, a crooked mouth
and a crooked fringe. An eloquent smile played on his lips at the mention of
Georg Beck's name. Then he showed him the way through the corridors to a red
door inscribed with activity room n in white letters.

    Frølich
knocked and went in. There were two people inside. A thin elderly woman was
sitting in a wheelchair by a table. Georg Beck was leaning over her. The two of
them were trying to glue together two pieces of cardboard. Beck was plump,
medium height, with brown hair and a fine middle parting and kiss curls over
his forehead. 'That's it, Stella,' he said in an amicable tone and with a wink
to Frølich. Beck camouflaged the flab well with loose clothing: a blue
V-neck jumper, baggy white cotton pants and sandals. He guided the elderly
woman's hands towards one of the bits of the egg box on the table. 'Hold this,
Stella,' he said with infinite patience. 'You've had your fingers in lots of
things over the years, Stella. Grip this, that's it, yes. And now the tube of glue.'