Bøgerud smoked. ‘Informed sources’, he puffed, ‘tell me that the cops have shot an old man taking a dog for a walk.’
‘When did you ever start checking a good story?’
‘Sunday newspaper, Frølich. Since we’re competing with the church we have to bang on the tables with cold facts.’
Ivar Bøgerud’s expression was devoid of humour. He had pulled out an old notebook. ‘What was the message on the radio?’
‘Old man dead in water.’
Frank stared down at Kampenhaug, who had now left the redhead in peace. The man was drifting around with the radio by his face and his sleeves rolled up.
Bøgerud flicked his cigarette in an arc and took notes.
‘The man could have fallen in by accident, but so early in the process you can’t rule out a criminal act.’
They strolled up the road. Round the school.
‘Of course the police are interested in contacting anyone who might have seen or heard anything unusual along the river banks from Beier bridge to Foss in the last few days.’
‘The shot?’
Bøgerud had stopped writing.
‘Rumours as with every police call-out.’
‘There was a dead dog lying there, Frølich!’
‘The story’s covered under the Press’s Code of Ethics. You know, role of the press and all that shit.’
‘Was the dog shot by the police?’
‘Talk to Kampenhaug.’
Bøgerud nodded. ‘Informed sources tell me you’ve arrested a suspect.’
Frank considered. ‘We are in contact with a dog owner who was beside the dead animal when it was found. The man will be questioned as a witness in the usual way.’
‘Is it usual for the police to knock witnesses unconscious while they’re being questioned?’
Frank sighed. Headed for his car.
‘We saw what happened, Frølich!’
Frank opened the car door.
‘Was the dog or the owner at any point deemed to be a threat to the police?’
The detective addressed the journalist. ‘Ivar,’ he began, weary. Changed his mind: ‘Bøgerud! This is not my case. I know nothing about the dog or whether it was shot at all or who shot it! The dog is dead. An old man was found floating in the river Akerselva. That’s all I know. Talk to Kampenhaug. He’s in charge here, and he knows everything that happened. All right?’
‘You stood two metres away from the police officer who attacked the dog owner. Have you any comment to make?’
Frank looked Bøgerud in the eyes. Which did not deviate. Lips that tightened. Am I like that as well? he wondered, sighed with resignation and got into the car. Closed the door in the journalist’s face.
He switched on the ignition. Glanced briefly up at Bøgerud who had a camera in his hand. My God, he despaired. The flash went off in his face. What a shit day! What a truly shit job!
43
It was early Sunday morning. The industrial areas of Tøyen and Enerhaug lay deserted. Now, without people, the noise of machinery and the sound of metal on metal, the place seemed completely forlorn. Like a film set after the shooting, Frank thought.
They walked arm in arm along Jens Bjelkes gate. Eva-Britt, who had never got over Frankie ending up as a police officer, still came back to how strange this was. Now she had an opportunity to revisit the topic. Twice they had walked up and down the footpath between Beier bridge and Foss, where the old man had been dragged ashore. Eva-Britt hung on Frank’s arm, strode out and swung her hips with every step. ‘Becoming a cop is the last thing you should have done,’ she informed him yet again.
They were on their way back to Eva-Britt’s. One of the girls in the collective was looking after Julie while Mummy was on a Sunday walk trying to find slide marks on the slope down to the Akerselva.
He nodded, in another world. Still thinking about their walk. Along the footpath to and fro between the two waterfalls where the old man might have slipped. No one so far had uncovered anything that might explain Johansen’s death. Not even they had.
‘I would never have believed it,’ repeated Eva-Britt, musing aloud.
‘Why not?’ he said to show he was mentally present.
‘Don’t know. You’re not the type.’ She smiled. ‘Can’t see you beating people up.’
He sighed.
She rolled her eyes when she heard his sigh. ‘Now, don’t you tell me the cops don’t beat people up!’
Frank grunted and threw his arms in the air. ‘The job’s all right. It’s like all jobs, I suppose. You want to be thorough, see results. And for that I definitely have world-class opportunities. The find-the-murderer scenario.’
He fell quiet. Noticed her staring at him. ‘The problem is all the night work on poor pay,’ he added. ‘The only difference from other jobs is in fact the opportunity to fail, to be part of a fiasco. It’s immense. The whole time.’
‘Are you thinking about the dead girl?’
They had reached the busy road they had to cross. So they stood waiting to dash over when there was a gap in the traffic.
‘You meet the world in a different way,’ he shouted over the noise of vehicles, pulling her on to the other side. ‘It’s difficult to grasp that you’re still on the same planet as you were before you joined the police. People’s madness is in your face. Just the fact that anyone can be so bonkers as to visit a girl and stab her with a bread knife! Just imagine it! A bread knife! And then she falls down dead!’
He paused. Moved aside to let a man in a leather jacket scoot past. Went on: ‘To clear up a case like this you have to be totally involved.’ He stopped. ‘Like Gunnarstranda last night!’
They resumed walking. ‘I don’t understand it,’ he added. Remembered Gunnarstranda with the coffee cup between his hands, the feverish face with the sharp eyes. His tongue going like a clapper regardless of external conditions, circumstantial evidence, assumptions or a hung-over colleague.
‘The man’s always on form at all times of day or night! Take this case. All along we’ve thought that a man forced his way into the girl’s flat, turned it upside down, got caught, stabbed her and legged it. However, Gunnarstranda realized that there must have been two people. Two perps who may not have known about each other. First, this girl has a visitor who kills her and buggers off. Then someone else comes, and searches the flat. This turkey has broken into her workplace earlier. He does what he has to do around the body, ransacks the entire place, but presumably doesn’t find whatever it is he’s after. So he breaks in a second time, two nights ago, to do a more thorough search.’
‘Why should it be the same person who broke into her workplace and her flat?’
‘We don’t know. We reckon it is, but we have no way of checking.’
‘What about if you’re wrong?’
‘That’s the point. Then everything collapses. The opportunity to fail is immense.’
They walked on in silence.
She stopped and laughed, revealing the gap between her front teeth.
‘What is it?’
‘I was just thinking about the time you and Dikke used to share a crate of beer at all the parties. There you were, without fail, sitting on the sofa, boozing away and grooving to Pink Floyd and…’
She frowned, racked her brain. ‘And…?’
Frank glanced at her. ‘Van der Graaf Generator!’
‘What a name! No one else would have liked them.’
‘Van der Graaf were great! Shit-hot!’
‘Of course! It’s just so odd to think that you joined the police. What’s happened to Dikke by the way?’
‘He’s in clink.’
She became serious. ‘What for?’
‘Dope.’
He and Dikke had drifted apart. Gradually, slowly but surely. They had met once in two years. One summer evening. Warm air in the streets. Restaurant terraces full to overflowing. Stunning women on the go, taxis with open sun roofs and wild music. People congregating in groups. Dikke was alone in a corner of the square outside the railway station. A portable stereo at his feet. Twitchy head, tapping feet and hands that ran up and down his body without cease. ‘I get so nervous if I have to stand in the same place,’ he had said, talking to a point somewhere among the stars.