The Last Fix (53 page)

    She
was looking ahead with a scornful smile on her lips. 'It's staring you in the
face. My God, if the rest of the police force is as stupid as you it's not
surprising I got away that time in '77. Can't you see it? How could it never
have occurred to you!'

    Gunnarstranda
kept his eyes on the road and stopped to let a car through from the right.

    All
of a sudden she became serious. 'It's my fault, too,' she said. 'I wanted to
help Katrine that night at the party when she fell ill. So I rang Erik. I
thought he could drive us home. I wanted to escape and I needed to talk to
Katrine face to face. Erik didn't turn up. Henning came to collect Katrine, but
Erik didn't turn up.'

    Gunnarstranda
nodded to himself. The picture was beginning to take shape.

    'I
waited for Erik at the party. When I saw Katrine leaving…'

    'You
saw her leaving?'

    'Yes,
I was on the veranda and saw her go out through the door, close it and walk to
the garden gate. I saw her in the light from the street lamp outside the gate.
I saw her walking down the road. I thought about shouting to her, but didn't.
Instead I went inside and tried to ring Erik to tell him not to pick me up
after all. He didn't answer the phone.'

    'He
was already on the way?'

    Sigrid
ignored the question. She said: 'That Monday you came to the rehab centre
Henning was walking around in a trance. We talked about what had happened, all
of us, about the party and about Katrine. Henning kept hassling us. We had to
tell him again and again what had happened that night. All the time I could
feel Henning's eyes on me. There is only one explanation for that. Henning saw
Erik that night. He drove past Erik on his way up to Annabeth's at around
midnight. He had Erik on his tail when he drove to collect Katrine. But
everyone knew I wasn't picked up until four in the morning. It was repeated
again and again at the meetings on Monday morning.'

    She
paused. The policeman said nothing.

    She
smiled at him. 'I'm beginning to like you, Gunnarstranda. You know how to be
quiet in the right places.' She coughed. 'Henning called us the evening after
the funeral. He demanded to speak to Erik.'

    'What
did they talk about?'

    'I
think Henning threatened to go to you with his suspicions and his sightings of
Erik that night.' 'And your husband asked him not to,' Gunnarstranda completed.

    She
laughed a hollow laugh. 'It would never occur to him to ask anyone for
anything.'

    She
looked out of the car window. 'No,' she said. 'Erik agreed to meet him so that
they could talk it out, man to man.'

    Elvis
Presley's low, metallic voice blared out from the radio's loudspeaker on the
bedside table. But the room was empty.

    He
couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. Once more he went into the bathroom,
into the kitchen and into the small alcove. Not a soul anywhere. He looked down
at himself. A man wearing yellow gloves. They would have to come off. He peeled
off the gloves and put them in his pocket. No, that wouldn't do. He took the
gloves from his pocket and deposited them in the briefcase instead. Where to
get rid of them? He sat in the armchair by the window and slowly ran his eyes
across the room. He peered through the open door to the bathroom - at a dirty
laundry basket. That was where. He slipped into the bathroom and dropped the
briefcase into the half-full laundry basket.

    'Maybe
I didn't treat you quite as good as I should have…
.' Elvis sang.

    He
switched off the radio and stood listening. Not a sound to be heard. No
mumbling, no rushing sounds in the pipes. For what must have been the hundredth
time he checked the bulge in his jacket pocket. He was ready. More than ready
and no one was at home.

    It
was very strange. He hastened back to the window and looked outside. The same
lawnmower he had seen through a corridor window on the lawn, abandoned. Why had
it been abandoned? Why was it so quiet?

    He
was getting hot and ran to the door. Stopped. He didn't want to go, not yet,
not so close to the conclusion.
There's something wrong. Best to get out
now!
He grabbed the door handle. Changed his mind yet again. Locked the
door from the inside. Reached the window in two quick strides. He took the
latch and pushed open the window. It had hinges on both sides, a window it
should be possible to tilt open. A safety catch had been added. It wasn't
possible to open the window wide. He tried again. The window wouldn't move. A
meagre twenty centimetres of air was all the window was capable of supplying.

    The
blood froze in his veins as someone was pressing the door handle behind him. It
could not be Bueng. It was someone else. Thank God the door was locked. He
looked at the brown door - and turned back to the window. He thought: Smash the
window. Now!

    The
person on the outside tried again. Jerked the handle downwards. Knocked.

    How
the hell were you supposed to open this window? He pushed at the frame. It gave
way on the left-hand side. There. A little bolt you had to flick up. Two
seconds later his left foot sank into a tangle of thorns. That didn't help. The
rose bush snagged his leg. He was out. He closed the window behind him.
Struggled out. The thorns tore at his clothes. He was sweating. But didn't stop
to look around. He strode towards the gravel path dividing the lawn into two
rectangles. The area was completely deserted.
You should have known. You
should have known something was wrong when it was so quiet!

    Well,
what had happened? A young woman in reception. That was all. And what had she
seen? A man with sunglasses asking after a patient. That was all.

    He
stopped on the corner and cautiously looked around the house. A police patrol
car was parked in the drive. It was empty.

    Now!
he thought.
Now! The car's empty. So there's only one or two of them. A
couple of second-raters answering a call. They're investigating a call someone
has made. No one is after you! Skedaddle!

    He
set off towards the police car and walked past it and out. He turned left and
kept walking, straight ahead. Every single muscle in his back was knotted.
Every second he expected to hear a shout behind him. But nothing happened. He
was twenty-five metres away now, forty. Five metres to the first crossroads. He
forced himself not to walk fast. One metre to go. He turned left without
looking behind him. He kept going, hidden now by a large block of flats. Five
metres, ten metres. He breathed out. All was well. No one had seen anything.

    The
thought of the empty police car bothered him. Why had the car appeared? Had it
been called because of him? That was very unlikely. If the police knew anything
at all they would not have sent a single patrol car. It must have been called
out for some other reason. But why had someone yanked at the door? He tried to
consider the matter. He hadn't heard any shouting. That was a good sign. A
policeman would have shouted if he was standing outside a locked door trying to
contact someone inside. It couldn't have been a policeman trying to get in. So
why had he panicked? Something must have gone wrong. But what? It was
impossible to know. But if
something had gone
wrong what
proof did they have
against him? Nothing. The police were tapping in
the
dark. The question was: Had it been a blunder to go there, to the nursing
home?
No! It hadn't been a blunder. Reidar Bueng was the only connection
with Sigrid's case. The only person who knew anything at all. The only link of
any significance.

    He
stopped. He was crossing Bentse Bridge.

    Just
a feeling…

    He
turned round. No. No one stopped, no one following. He looked down into the
river and pretended to go through his pockets, and turned round again. Nothing.
Nevertheless, he was aware of a prickling sensation. On he walked, taking his
time, up Bentsebruagata to Vogts gate and the tram stop. He stopped here and
turned round again. Nothing to be seen, just some youth shuffling along the
pavement, a young woman locking her car and an elderly lady pulling a shopping
trolley. The tram rounded the hill to the left by Sandaker. When it finally
slid to a halt in front of him he went through one of the double doors in the
middle. He was the only person to board. He smiled, began to work his way
forward and approached the driver to pay. The tram came to a sudden standstill
and he looked out, but there were no cars or pedestrians in the way. And then a
door slammed behind him. His blood froze to ice. Turn round. See who it is
before the tram sets off!

    He
slowly twisted his head to the right. Nothing. No uniforms, just people
sitting, leaning against the steel poles, chewing gum, talking to each other in
low voices. Nothing. Searching for coins in his pocket, he nodded
absentmindedly to a bearded Sikh who had adorned his head with a dark red
turban.

    He
found an unoccupied seat on the left. And went over the great fiasco in his
mind. Either something had gone disastrously wrong or no damage had been done.
But he had to find out which. A boy with long, black hair and a spotty face was
talking about the relationship between language and understanding. 'If you're
taking the piss, I want you to say you're taking the piss,' he said to his
companion, a plump girl with a lot of sub-cutaneous fat on her thighs.

    He
craned his neck round and looked back. Nothing. Nevertheless a tingling
sensation in his back. Between his shoulder blades he could feel an itch that
was not of a physiological nature. Someone was there. There had to be. He was
sweating. He rubbed his forehead with his fingers. Damp. He fought to stop himself
turning round.

    A
mobile telephone rang. The man who answered spoke very good English. A
Vietnamese-looking boy was playing some kind of game on his mobile telephone.
It was hard to concentrate in these surroundings. The hardest thing of all,
though, was not letting yourself turn around.

    Well,
what could have happened? Nothing. He glanced up. A woman was staring at him.
What was she staring at? He couldn't stand it any longer. He had to turn. He
gave a start. For a few fleeting moments he thought it was
her.
But it
was not. Even though the woman sitting in the seat right behind him was very
similar. The blonde passenger lowered and averted her gaze.

    He
faced the front again. He must not behave like this. He had to be calm. Under
control. Better go home, meditate and work out when to strike again. He
alighted from the tram in Aker Brygge. Lots of passengers got off there. Lots
of casually dressed people without a care, laughing. A few boys were doing BMX
tricks on a ramp. A large crane had been positioned in front of the entrance to
Aker Brygge. Three fit young men were offering bungee jumps.

    He
slowed down, trying to be the last in the group. He soon saw how hopeless that
was. The whole of the City Hall square was teeming with people. He stopped by
the large crane as an elderly lady was being strapped into position. She hung,
dangled, over the tarmac like a cross between a slaughtered animal and Astrid
Lindgren's Karlsson-on-the-Roof. She was really enjoying herself as she was
hoisted upwards.

    He
tore himself away. A little boy shading his eyes as he squinted into the sky
shouted: 'Grandma! Grandma!'

    He
proceeded along the wharf promenade with quickened steps. The itching in his
back was still there. There was someone behind him.
Someone.

    He
veered to the right towards the square, stopped and looked behind him. People.
Throngs of people.

    He
walked close by the fountain and went into the multi-storey car park. He was
alone in the lift. The doors closed. He leaned against the glass wall and
registered a movement to his left.

    Frank
Frølich and Erik Haugom looked each other in the eye for what seemed
like an eternity. Haugom had positioned himself at the back of the glass lift.
They held eye contact as the lift moved downwards. Frank, on the staircase, was
in no hurry. He ambled down with his legs akimbo. On the bends they exchanged
glances. Every time Frank rounded the corner Haugom turned his head; it was
lower at every bend. When Haugom's head was on a level with the policeman's
knee, Frank brought his foot back and kicked the glass with all his might.
Haugom's body jerked backwards. But his eyes gave nothing away. His face was
closed, two vacant eyes above a tightly clenched mouth. Frank noticed that the
doctor had birthmarks on his scalp. There were still a couple of bends left
when he heard the metal door leading to the parked cars bang. Frank reached the
door ten seconds later. Inside there was the sound of running feet. He stood
still and smelt the heavy, exhaust-infested air. He tried to see the closed
face from the glass lift, the expression on the man's face as he ran throwing
hasty glances over his shoulder. But he could not. Still he stood without
moving, trying to hear where the sound of running feet was coming from. But it
seemed to be impossible. The parking area resounded with a slight echo from all
parts at once - it came in waves across rows and rows of empty, darkened car
interiors - an illuminated sign on the ceiling, yellow stripes over the
concrete floor. Frølich lumbered along the central aisle, the broad driving
lanes, with cars on both sides. On hearing the sound of an engine starting, he
stopped. It sounded more like a scream than an engine starting. Haugom was
becoming nervous. Frank gave a smile of satisfaction and wondered how stupid
this man really was. Soon after there was a squeal of braking tyres. The man
must be living on his nerves. The engine screamed again. Frank concentrated. He
ran his eyes along the walls. Not a movement anywhere. Again the howl of an
engine. The sound was coming closer. He just managed to throw himself to the
side at the last moment. The coke-grey Mercedes raced past only one millimetre
away from his foot. He caught a glimpse of an elderly man bent over the
steering wheel. That was probably the most pathetic thing about this person,
Frank thought, struggling on to his knees - the ill-placed single-mindedness
and pugnacity this sad guy could mobilize.
When it comes down to it, all
villains are just as bad as each other, but there's no doubt some villains look
better on film,
as Eva-Britt always said.