The Last Fix (31 page)

    'No…
Yes, by sight. Attractive girl, breasts, long legs, attractive girl, wasn't
she?'
^w

    'My
understanding is that you drove your wife to the party on the Saturday, and you
picked her up later that night.'

    'Indeed,
that's correct. Wretched business this attractive girl getting murdered, isn't
it!'

    'When
did you collect your wife?'

    'Just
after four o'clock in the morning.'

    'That
was very kind-hearted of you.'

    'I'll
tell you something, Frølich. I've done this job all through our
marriage. I'm no modern man; I don't do anything in the kitchen and I don't
darn my stockings. But I do what is expected of me as a husband. Which includes
picking up Sigrid when she wants to come home.'

    Frølich
glanced up. What is expected of me as a husband, he thought. That was an
ambitious objective. He looked down again.

    'Did
you sit up waiting for her to call?'

    'Of
course. I am her husband.'

    The
policeman took a deep breath. He could not quite come to terms with the
transfixed grimace on Haugom's lips.

    'How
do you pass the time?' he asked.

    'Here?'

    'No,
I mean while you're sitting up for your wife.'

    'It's
the sort of investment that pays dividends over time in a marriage,' the doctor
said with a faint smile. 'In this field I can speak with a certain professional
gravitas. There are many myths about the recipe for a successful relationship.
The secret is the small investments that cost very little, for example patience
and tolerance. Besides, I enjoy such moments. Night time is the best time,
especially light summer nights. Just going for a walk, eh? The silence and the
blue-grey light. Or sitting on the veranda and reading, smoking a good cigar.
It takes over an hour; time slips away without your noticing. You should smoke
cigars. I can see from your fingers you don't smoke much. Perhaps you belong to
this hysterical generation that always has to do things right, stick needles in
rather than take medicine, who think they can prevent cancer by eating wrinkled
apples and unchewable black bread. Well, I don't know. Appearances can deceive.
I'm sure you're a fine man, but you should smoke cigars. It gives your soul a
more profound calm. Recommended by doctors, you might say. So that you don't
have to suffer from an uneasy conscience.'

    'When
you arrived there,' Frølich asked, 'to pick up your wife, that is, were
there many guests left?'

    'None.'

    'Just
your wife?'

    'Yes,
she'd been helping to wash the ashtrays and clear away the bottles and so on.'

    'Was Bjørn
Gerhardsen there?'

    'Yes,
my understanding was that he had just returned from a little trip to town.
Devil of a fellow. Goes to town and leaves his wife at home, eh? At another
party, I wouldn't mind betting. He's a modern man, Gerhardsen is. But he knows
how to enjoy the good things in life, even if he is modern.'

    'Can
you remember what the exact time was when you arrived?'

    'Five
minutes past four.'

    'And
did you have any idea of how long Gerhardsen had been there?'

    'No,
but it can't have been long.'

    'Why
do you say that?'

    'I
leaned on the bonnet of the car he had been driving, and the engine was still
very hot.'

    'Were
they full of what had happened?'

    'What
had happened?'

    'The
business of Katrine's sickness during the evening.'

    'I
don't think so, no. It was the middle of the night after all. My goodness, they
were as tired as hell, the three of them. It was already the day after.'

    The
policeman stood up. 'Thank you for taking the time to talk to me at such short
notice,' he said. He went to the door, but turned as though he had remembered
something.

    'Yes?'
Haugom said from his desk.

    'Mm,
I read your column now and then,' Frølich said after some hesitation.

    'Which
one?' Haugom asked, his chin in the air.

    'Well,
if only I knew,' Frølich said, lowering his eyes.

    Haugom
sent him an indulgent smile. 'You had a question perhaps?'

    'It's
gone from my head now,' Frølich said, grasping the door handle. 'I'll be
in touch if I think of it.'

    Gunnarstranda
was reading through Frølich’s report and smacked the sheet in annoyance.
'Is she stupid or what?' he said, looking across at Frølich who was sitting
in the low armchair beneath the window. Frølich was weighing a green
dart in his hand. He took aim and let his forearm rock backwards and forwards
as if on a spring until he threw the dart at the board he had positioned
between two box files on the shelf above his desk.

    'She
can't be,' Frølich answered from a different world. 'She has a job and
an education.' He took another dart off the coffee table beside him.

    Gunnarstranda
looked up from the report with a grim expression on his face. 'She can be
stupid even if she's educated.'

    Frølich
took aim again. But the dart missed and disappeared behind the box files. He
swore.

    'You're
educated,' Gunnarstranda said caustically.

    'Eh?'

    'But
you don't seem that bright at this particular moment.' Gunnarstranda waved the
papers in a fit of impatience.

    Frølich
got up from the armchair, drew a long breath and sighed. He crossed the room,
sat at his own desk and pulled out the sliding keyboard on the shelf. He said,
'We know that either Merethe Fossum or Eidesen is lying. That much is obvious.'

    Gunnarstranda
nodded. He said, 'You and I put the squeeze on Eidesen that first night. He
made up an unlikely banal story that left him without an alibi. If my memory is
correct he claimed he went home expecting to find Katrine in his bed, but she
wasn't there. Am I right?'

    Frølich
moved the mouse and found the file on the computer screen. He read, 'He said he
came home between half past two and three.'

    'And
Katrine may still have been alive at that time,' Gunnarstranda said.

    Frølich
read: 'Eidesen said he rang Katrine but didn't get an answer.' Gunnarstranda
nodded. 'And he went to bed. So he doesn't have an alibi…'

    Frølich
swung round on his chair. 'Whereas Merethe Fossum maintains she and Eidesen
went back to her place and were in the same bed until late the next morning.'

    'But
why would Ole Eidesen lie his way out of a cast-iron alibi?'

    'Well,
to give a more appealing image of himself. After all, he was the dead girl's
boyfriend, and it sounds a lot better if he was asleep in bed waiting for her
while she was being killed. Better than saying he was in bed with another
woman.'

    'But
if that's the case, he must have known we would see through a lie like that.'

    'Of
course,' Frølich persisted. 'But he was her boyfriend. He had no motive
for bumping her off. And he has an alibi, but to avoid reproaches from others -
remember Katrine was a popular girl - he waits before producing his alibi,
Merethe Fossum. What will all her friends say to him letting Katrine go out
into the night on her own, exposing her to all sorts of sexual offenders and
predatory creatures, and bedding Merethe while Katrine was being murdered!'

    Gunnarstranda:
'If Katrine's adventure with Henning Kramer made Eidesen jealous, he has a
motive. Let's assume he was jealous. There are men who are suspicious of their
girlfriends twenty-four hours a day. Let's assume he spied on her when she left
the party and he saw her walking down the road, saw her getting into a rival's
car… My goodness, there are many such murders committed every year in this
country.'

    'But
why would Fossum lie?' Frølich asked. 'Everyone has confirmed that three
people went to Smuget. Everyone has confirmed that those two stayed together.
It's very unlikely that she would cover up for Eidesen by lying. She has
nothing to gain. We have to suppose that Fossum is telling the truth and that
Eidesen has an alibi. If Eidesen had found out Katrine got together with Kramer
that night, all he did by way of retaliation was to sleep with Merethe. That is
more likely than running off to kill Katrine.'

    Gunnarstranda
listened with a thoughtful groove in his brow.

    Frølich
continued: 'Gerhardsen is the only person without anyone to hide behind.
Suppose Gerhardsen had been turned on by Katrine that night. According to Georg
Beck, he was standing on the veranda, touching her up. So we have this
fantastic coincidence that two cars leave the party at more or less the same
time. They drive down to the city centre. The taxi stops outside Smuget. Kramer
parks the Audi in Cort Adelers gate and the two of them walk down to Aker
Brygge. Here they queue at a takeaway and buy food; she dances with a
down-and-out. Time passes.

    For
the sake of argument let's suppose that Gerhardsen never joined Ole and Merethe.
After all, he was the gooseberry. Let's say he left them in Aker Brygge where
there is no shortage of women. Then he saw Katrine and Kramer. His company car
was in the garage close by. We know he took the car, but he might have done
that a long time before. He could have taken the car and followed them, and
struck when Kramer dropped off Katrine, before driving back home. He could have
managed that in the time. Kramer said he dropped off Katrine between half past
two and three o'clock. That gives Gerhardsen time to rape, strangle and dump
her and still get home by four.'

    They
sat looking at each other. Frølich was excited by his speculation.
Gunnarstranda was silent.

    'What
don't you like about this theory?' the younger policeman enquired.

    Gunnarstranda
got out of the chair and began to pace to and fro in the room. 'Nothing
really,' he said, grabbing the last dart from the low coffee table. 'But I'm
thinking about Henning Kramer. I like his statement less and less. We don't
know, as far as self- control goes, whether he has a low threshold.'
Gunnarstranda leaned towards the window, thinking, while his right hand
fidgeted with the green dart.

    'And
if he's lying,' he mumbled, 'he's doing that to hide something, and what else
could he have to hide other than…?'

    '…
her murder?' Frølich concluded. They sat without speaking. Gunnarstranda
fiddled with the dart. Frølich coughed. 'But can we afford not to
examine Gerhardsen's company car?' he asked at length. 'If Katrine was in the
car, we are bound to find substantiating evidence.'

    Gunnarstranda
nodded. 'We can't afford not to,' he mumbled.

    The
telephone rang. Gunnarstranda strode over to his desk and grabbed it. Frølich
stood up and began to search for the dart that had disappeared behind the files
on the shelf. He gave up and instead turned towards Gunnarstranda who was
nodding and grunting on the telephone: 'Yes… yes… yes… right… well, well…'

    He
cradled the telephone.

    They
stared at each other. 'What jewellery did Katrine own again?' Gunnarstranda
asked.

    'Apart
from the piercing?' Frølich frowned. 'There would have been quite a bit
of gold. Rings, a gold bracelet and most likely a gold chain, a bracelet made
of ivory… all we know for sure is that she was wearing some earrings that
night, two gold cannabis leaves. A present from Eidesen - but we have just his
word for that.' He grinned and looked up with a questioning expression.

    Gunnarstranda
was weighing the green dart in his hand. 'Duck,' he said and took aim.

    Frølich
kicked and rolled his chair back, out of the line of fire; Gunnarstranda threw.
Bullseye. 'That was Yttergjerde,' he said with a smug grin. 'Yttergjerde and a
couple of other policeman broke into Raymond Skau's flat. No one has seen hide
nor hair of Skau, but in his flat they found some lady's jewellery among which
was a pair of gold cannabis leaves designed as earrings.'