The Last Fix (27 page)

    'In
that case the driver would have had to stop in the middle of the bend,' Frølich
interrupted. 'There is nowhere to pull in,' he pointed. 'Would you have stopped
in the middle of the carriageway to get rid of a body?'

    'Maybe
in the middle of the night,' Gunnarstranda said, but was sceptical, and added:
'There's something not right with this.'

    'It's
much more likely that he parked here,' Frølich opined. 'On this side of
the road.' He glanced at his boss. 'Kramer came this way,' he stated with
emphasis.

    Gunnarstranda
returned a cryptic smile. 'Whichever way the killer was going, this is the
place to stop,' he concluded. 'If he was driving towards us, towards Oslo, if
he swung over on to this side of the road and pulled up, why did he carry her
over to the other side of the road?' Gunnarstranda wondered aloud. 'He could
have dumped her here in the ditch. No,' he decided. 'The killer must have been
coming from the other direction, from Oslo - and stopped in the bend.'

    They
got out of the car. They crossed the road and looked over the barrier and down
on to the crag where Katrine Bratterud's body had been found a few days before.

    Gunnarstranda:
'If the car came from Oslo, that may fit with Kramer's statement. On the other
hand, the killer may have disposed of the body and the clothes in this way so
as to confuse us.'

    Frølich
shrugged. A car passed them and he had to shout to be heard over the noise. 'It
all depends on when and where she was murdered. If she was picked up while she
was walking up towards Holmlia and was murdered somewhere between there and
this place, I assume she would have been killed in the car park up there.' He
nodded towards the other side of the inlet where two cars were parked. 'Then
the same car kept going and the driver threw the body out here first and got
rid of the clothes later where Yttergjerde found them.'

    Gunnarstranda
leaned over the barrier and peered down. 'But no attempt was made to hide the
body.'

    He
thought aloud: 'The body was found without any jewellery, but there was no
jewellery in the bag, either. So…'

    'The
killer seems very cold-blooded,' Frølich concluded. 'Cold-blooded with a
singleness of purpose. Clothes separate, jewellery separate and the body
separate.'

    He
cast a last glance over the fjord and followed Gunnarstranda, who was already
on his way to the car.

    'There
are a couple of things I don't like about this theory,' the police inspector
said as they drove on.

    Frølich:
'Which theory?'

    'That
the killer was coming from Oslo. The problem is that we seem to be groping in
the dark. If the car came east from Oslo the killer might be in Sweden now and
we would be none the wiser.'

    She
was sitting and waiting at their usual table at the back of the restaurant. She
must have been sitting there for a while because there was a half-empty bottle
of Farris mineral water beside her. The sunlight from outside made her thick,
dark hair shine. She was reading, and had already seen him because she was
packing away her papers. He gave the cloakroom attendant his denim jacket,
having put his wallet in his back pocket first.

    They
gazed at each other. She was wearing a light summer dress. It was different.
She tended to dress more formally on weekdays. He stood for a couple of seconds
and studied her; her shoulders were tanned, summer-brown, golden.

    'The
usual?' she asked.

    He
nodded and sat down.

    'Good,'
she said. 'I've already ordered.'

    'What
do you think of tattoos?' he asked.

    She
raised her eyebrows in query. 'You're not telling me you have…?'

    'No,
I mean for you. Have you ever thought about it? Having a tattoo?'

    She
shook her head. 'Me with my job?' She pushed out one shoulder and peered down
at it as though there were a design there. 'Me with my image…'

    'The
murdered girl had a tattoo, a big tattoo on her stomach.' His hand circled his
stomach.

    Eva-Britt
looked at him sideways. 'Do you think it's sexy, Frankie?'

    'Maybe.
But not on a dead body. But what do you think? Could it be tasteful?'

    'If
you're a stripper, maybe.' She made room for the waiter to place the food on
the table. 'But I'm not,' she added and began to sprinkle parmesan cheese over
the spaghetti.

    'Lena
has a tattoo, I gather,' Frank reminded her. Lena was Eva-Britt's girlfriend
from way back.

    Eva-Britt
reconsidered the idea. 'It might be tasteful,' she decided.

    'Because
Lena's got one?'

    'No,
Lena has quite a tasteful motif. It's a comic figure. The little yellow bird
with the big head…'

    Frank
had no idea who she meant.

    'In
those old Daffy Duck comics,' Eva-Britt said. 'The bird that always fought with
the cat.'

    'Tweety
and Sylvester,' Frank said.

    'Mm,'
Eva-Britt nodded. 'Tweety'. She pointed to her bare shoulder. Lena has a tattoo
of Tweety here. It's quite tasteful because it's a bit downmarket. And then
it's quite funny. Roses and birds and that sort of thing are worse because they
are supposed to be sexy. It means you have to think about what clothes you
wear. In my job you can't walk around with a cartoon on your shoulder. As a
woman…'

    'What's
so special about your job?'

    'Are
you being sarky?'

    'No,'
Frank assured her. 'I'm curious. I'm thinking about this girl with the large
flower on her stomach.'

    'Well,
she could always cover that one up,' Eva- Britt nodded. 'But being the manager
of a medium-sized company with many male colleagues…' She threw him a lopsided
smile and shook her head. 'I can't provoke men into fantasizing about my body,
Frankie. A tattoo is downright unthinkable.'

    'So
you have considered having one?'

    She
glanced up, but ignored the question. 'And that's without even mentioning the
fact that tattoos are hard to remove. I just consider them ugly. I once saw a
young woman in Felix. She had a snake tattooed over her leg, a python wrapped
around her thigh going down under her knee. Every single man she meets will be
fantasizing about where the rest of the snake is. Do you understand? I'm sure
it's fun for her when she is young and crazy and attractive. But she won't ever
be able to last a day in a serious job that demands respect and professional
distance.'

    'Now
I don't understand what you mean,' Frank said. 'I thought you were for women's
rights and against sexual harassment.'

    'But
I am!'

    'But
should it count against her that she's got a snake tattoo that excites men's
fantasies?'

    'Listen
to what I'm saying. It should not count against her, but she sidelines herself
because every man will focus on her sexuality more than her other qualities
when he meets her.'

    'Hm,'
Frank said.

    'Have
you learned something new?'

    'Don't
know,' Frank said. 'You have a point.'

    'Just
imagine,' Eva-Britt went on. 'I can also feel sexy, feel like being sexy

    'Bring
it on,' Frank said contentedly.

    She
ignored him. 'But why should I paste it all over my body and never be able to
free myself from it again?'

    Frank
grew serious. 'What I'm wondering is whether the tattoo says anything about
her.'

    Eva-Britt
smiled. 'And what do you think?'

    He
deliberated. 'I think she was trying to create a new life for herself. Everyone
says that. She was trying to find freedom.'

    'But
then a symbol of that kind can be interpreted in a great many ways,' Eva-Britt
said. 'If the tattoo is old, she may have regretted ever having it done. But it
could also be a useful reminder.'

    'Useful?'

    'A
kind of stigma, the symbol of something that should never be repeated.'

    He
absorbed her comments. 'You're on the ball today,' Frank said. He started to
eat as well, but was soon lost in thought again.

    Eva-Britt:
'What are you thinking about?'

    'Ragnar
Travis says you can become addicted to tattoos, like cigarettes.'

    'Cigarettes?'

    'Yes,
he says one tattoo is fine, two is OK too, but three - then you're hooked. It's
just a question of time before the whole of your body is decorated.'

    'That
is definitely grim. People like that look as though they have been made in a
factory.'

    He
nodded.

    'Talk
about something else, Frankie,' Eva-Britt said with raised fork. 'Just don't
talk about going to the cabin with that mad boss of yours.'

    Frank
gulped. 'What do you feel like doing afterwards?' he asked at length.

    'Cinema,'
she said.

    'To
see what?'

    Eva-Britt
put on a mischievous smile. 'It doesn't matter so long as it's sexy.'

    The
previous day might have been wet, but this day was drier than white wine.
Police Inspector Gunnarstranda rolled down the car window and watched the
sturdy figure of Frank Frølich approaching. The car park was empty apart
from the odd car frying in the sun. Through the opening in the cypress hedge
that divided the car park from the cemetery came a female gardener. She was
pulling off a pair of filthy gardening gloves and plodding around in shorts and
heavy boots covered in soil and clay. Clumps of earth fell off, leaving a trail
behind her. She wiped the sweat off her brow and lit a cigarette which she
stood smoking while staring pensively at the ground. A minibus trundled into
the car park, passed the gardener, and Frølich too, before parking. A
logo with the name of the rehab centre was painted in large, hazy, colourful
letters on the side of the bus: vinterhagen. A crowd of well- dressed young
people piled out. They seemed fragile in their fine clothes, almost as though
they had been rolled in starch to ensure that they remained erect. Frølich
gave them a nod. The youths looked around with their hands buried deep in their
trouser pockets before ambling off to the chapel where a gentleman in dark
clothes from the funeral parlour was waiting for them. Ole Eidesen was there
too. He stood with his nose in a booklet for the funeral ceremony. He was
dressed in black.

    Frølich
got into Gunnarstranda's car bringing with him a strong smell of deodorant and
sweat. 'Those are the VIPs,' he mumbled, nodding towards the youths in front of
the chapel. 'Shall we go in?'

    Gunnarstranda
shook his head. 'Let them have half an hour to themselves.'

    Frølich
rolled down his window. 'Christ, it's hot,' he groaned. 'And now I have done
most of this area, but there's still no sign of Raymond Skau.'

    The
youths from the minibus stood hanging around the entrance to the chapel.

    'Loads
of bloody great gravestones here,' Frølich said at length.

    'You
don't say!'

    'Yes,
obelixes and stuff.'

    'Obelisks.'

    'It was
wordplay. A comic series.'

    'Really?'

    'A
Gaul, a fat guy who carries around obelisks on his back - called Obelix.'

    'Well,
I never.'

    'Yes,
indeed.'

    'Well,
well.'

    'Have
you seen anyone?' Frølich asked.

    'Henning
Kramer, Annabeth s and the crew you saw from the centre. Ole Eidesen is
around…' Gunnarstranda motioned towards the entrance where Eidesen had gone in.