Frølich stood up. The room swayed. He was plastered. He said it out loud: ‘I’m plastered.’
‘What I mean to say is,’ Yttergjerde unflaggingly pointed out, ‘the world is full of women, Frankie. I mean people like me, divorced, can relax. What about people like you who have never worn the ball and chain? I’ve got a pal, thirty-something, he’s up to his eyeballs in women. Single mothers, Frankie, trips on the ferry to Denmark, dances. You don’t have to get fucking depressed because of this woman.’
‘I know you mean well,’ Frank Frølich said. ‘But the only thing I need now is a taxi and a bed to lie in.’
‘Yeah, go on home, Frankie. Sleep it off, have a lie-in, forget the bloody woman. Last time I felt like that I went to the whorehouse in Munkedamsveien, I mean, just to release some of the pressure. But the one who got the job was one of those sneaky pusses. I’m sure she was married or engaged, and what’s the point of being a whore then, eh? If you think the whole thing is revolting. Eh? She was a looker but she refused to do anything but missionary, so I got angry, didn’t I? I don’t mean to be difficult, I said to the madame in reception, but I’m paying a lot of wonga, so these women of yours should be able to manage a bit of customer service, shouldn’t they, I said, and then I was given a voucher. What about that, Frankie?’ Yttergjerde sobbed with laughter. ‘You know, that’s how it should be in marriage too. You just get vouchers!’
11
When the telephone rang, he tried to lie still, not to disturb his comatose body. Judging by the light, it was afternoon. He had been sleeping like a sunken log on the sofa for several hours, stiff, heavy and torpid. He turned his head and contemplated the phone. The movement brought on a headache, dizziness and nausea. The pain from his liver stabbed at his side like a fakir’s bed of nails – from the inside. My liver is a ball of pain, he thought, and the air a nail, no, the ring tone is like a drill pounding against my temples. He sat up and felt dizzy again. Stood up, dizzy, holding onto the doorframe and grasping the telephone receiver.
‘So you’re at home.’
‘What did you imagine?’
‘You never know.’
Frank Frølich sank back on the sofa. When I die, he thought, the angel coming to collect me will have the same voice as Gunnarstranda. The man is a spook. The spikes continued to attack his liver. He was incapable of thinking; he said: ‘So you’re ringing. Is it anything to do with the job or are you just missing me?’
‘Jonny Faremo is dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Yes, dead. Drowned.’
Frank Frølich had never felt a greater need for a glass of water. The words constricted themselves in his throat, his head. He managed to say: ‘Where?’
‘Some kilometres outside the city boundary, in Askim. He drowned in the Glomma and was picked up by some people working at the Vamma power station. His body was caught in a net.’
‘A net?’
‘Does that mean you know where the Vamma power station is?’
Shit. The intonation. ‘No idea. Where is Vamma power station?’
‘I told you, didn’t I? Fifty kilometres east of the city boundary.’
‘Oh.’
‘Power stations are susceptible to getting logs and other junk caught in the turbines. That’s why they have a net to pick up the stuff. It picked up Faremo last night.’
‘Accident?’
‘If it was an accident we ought to have a heap of circumstantial evidence. In this case we don’t have anything.’
‘Suicide?’
‘Well, he certainly drowned.’
‘What’s your view?’
Gunnarstranda chuckled into the receiver. ‘My view? I had a call from Krimpolitisentralen, Kripos, about ten minutes ago. But, well, I suppose I did run the man in and I did have him appear at a hearing on suspicion of killing the security man in Loenga. He gets off – on an alibi as thin as a pussy hair. Two days go by and then he’s found floating with his lungs full of water in the dam by a power station. Perhaps he was depressed and threw himself in? But why should he be depressed? Because you’d taken up with his sister? And if he was and drove off to kill himself, where’s the car? Where’s the suicide note?’
‘He drives a silver-grey Saab 95.’
‘How do you know that?’
The intonation, the suspicion. ‘I have, as you yourself pointed out, some knowledge of the family.’
‘If he was thrown into the river, he wouldn’t have had much of a chance. It’s late autumn. There’s a strong current. Water temperature, maximum four to five degrees.’
‘Faremo’s well built. All muscle.’
‘The body was in a bad way. The doctor who wrote the death certificate has, it seems, used a local phenomenon to explain why. There’s a place called Vrangfoss just above the power station. It’s a narrow ravine and right there the river bends. This means that a few hundred metres above the power station all the water flowing serenely along in the Glomma is compressed and channelled through the ravine. A horizontal waterfall in other words, a kind of inferno of water and currents. If Faremo ended up in the river above the ravine his body would have been whirled around and thrown against the cliff face for a good long time before he emerged a few hundred metres further down. Most of the bones in Faremo’s body were simply smashed to pulp.’
Frank Frølich saw in his mind’s eye the man of 1 metre 90, dressed like a commando with the same expression as his sister.
‘Is it known where he fell?’
‘Fell, you say?’
‘Or was shoved. Do you know anything about the crime scene?’
‘This power station – Vamma – is the last of three power stations in a row. The highest one is called Solbergfoss, a little lower down there is one called Kykkelsrud and right at the bottom Vamma, where Faremo was fished out of a kind of collecting net. So you can imagine. He was found in front of the last dam. The stretch between Kykkelsrud power station and Vamma is the interesting bit. Frølich?’
‘Yes?’
‘Aren’t you wondering why I’m ringing?’
‘Haven’t thought that far ahead.’
‘It’s not my case. Follo police district is dealing with it, helped by Kripos. You will have to be able to account for your movements over the last twenty-four hours.’
Finally the cat is out of the bag. ‘And why’s that?’
‘You know why.’
‘No, Gunnarstranda, I don’t know why!’
‘You don’t need to take that tone with me. We both know that Faremo may have died as the result of an accident. He could have been arguing with someone who pushed him in – maybe with premeditation, maybe in the heat of the moment. And you’ve already been seen in what was termed a heated discussion outside his home.’
‘Are you having me followed?’
‘No, but I am investigating a murder. You have a lot of good friends here, Frølich, but no one can or will disguise the facts. Until last night Jonny Faremo was among the group of men suspected of murdering Arnfinn Haga. We’ve been watching Faremo’s place. Your discussion with Faremo in the car park has been duly documented.’
‘OK, but will you believe me if I say it cannot have been me who threw Faremo in the river?’
‘Try me.’
‘What you say is correct. I was outside their flat. When Faremo and his gang were released after the hearing, I did as you said. I took a week off. Then I went straight to the Faremo flat. I talked to him, but my voice was never raised and there was no heated discussion.’
‘The question is: what did you do afterwards?’
Frank Frølich stared vacantly at the wall. He had been outside Faremo’s flat last night – for some reason he had taken a taxi up there and puked in a ditch. Why did I go there? What the hell was I trying to do?
‘Are you there?’