‘Watched a film, looked at the walls, had a few beers.’
‘And the day after?’
‘Nothing. Looked at the walls. Got sick of that and went on the town in the evening.’
‘And can anyone confirm that?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you get home last night?’
‘Don’t remember.’
‘What time did you get to Blindern the day before yesterday?’
‘I don’t remember, but it was in the afternoon.’
‘Well, Frølich…’
The same smile, a touch patronizing, sympathetic.
‘I’ll find out and let you know.’
‘Were you in Ekebergveien last night?’
‘Possibly. I have no idea.’
‘And what do you think I’m supposed to make of that answer?’
‘I don’t think anything.’
‘You were seen in Ekebergveien last night.’
‘Well, then, I must have been there.’
Lystad waited for more.
Frank Frølich breathed in. ‘I was drunk. It wasn’t meant to happen, but I became sentimental. The last thing I can remember is that I was talking to a colleague in Café Fiasco. It’s by the main station – they sell cheap beer. Met a colleague there, Emil Yttergjerde. He and I stayed there drinking and chatting about this and that. At some point in the night I got into a taxi. The cabs are, as you know, parked just around the corner between Oslo Spektrum and Radisson Hotel. I don’t remember much about the drive, but I didn’t go all the way home because I was feeling ill. I got off in Gamlebyen because I had drunk too much and needed to throw up. And I began to walk to freshen up a little. I walked up and down the streets all night. I got into my own bed at eight o’clock this morning. I’d been wandering the streets for several hours, along Ekebergveien too, I’m sure.’
‘Did you try to get in touch with Faremo or his sister during the night?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re absolutely positive?’
‘Yes.’
‘One of Faremo’s neighbours thought he saw a powerfully built man sneaking around outside their door.’
‘I don’t sneak.’
‘What time was it when you got home?’
‘As I said, at eight. Came right in and straight to bed.’
Lystad shoved his hands in his pockets and gave a crooked smile. ‘We’ll have to come back to this story, Frølich.’
‘I wouldn’t have expected anything else.’
The silence hung in the air for a few seconds. The lift shaft hummed.
Then stopped. The door opened. A woman with a stoop came out. She peered up at them. ‘Hello,’ Frølich said.
The woman stared at him, then at Lystad, then turned her back on them and rang the neighbour’s bell.
Lystad said: ‘You haven’t seen anything of his sister – since she vanished?’
‘No.’
‘If you see her, tell her to get into contact with us.’
Frank Frølich nodded. The antipathy he had felt towards Lystad was gradually dissipating.
After closing the door he stood motionless staring, first at the door, then at the floor. His mind was a blank. Finally he went to the fridge. His liver should have something to do, but only a little bit. A tiny little bit.
12
Next morning it was cold, but there was no frost. It was a day for the last yellow leaves to exhibit themselves, another attempt to clothe the grey-green countryside in colour. Reidun Vestli’s house lay to the west, on the slope over the river Lysaker, roughly midway between Røa and the Kolsås Metro bridge – an affluent, modern estate. Here there are lines of terraced houses between apartment buildings, each house with its own patch of lawn, each drive its own BMW. Frank Frølich passed a man wearing suit trousers and rubber boots washing his car with a small high-pressure cleaner. He passed two more drives, two more BMWs and one more man in suit trousers, rubber boots and a high-pressure sprinkler over the roof of his car. A clone, he thought, or maybe just a déjà-vu experience. Anyway, neither of the two men had seen him. No one sees anything, no one remembers anything. Only in police interviews do they see and remember much more than you could imagine.
Her doorplate was made of brass. He stood in front of the door and rang. Above the brass plate was a bronze lion’s head with the doorknocker hanging from its jaws. He banged the doorknocker. One single knock. The door was opened.
He hardly recognized the woman at the door. That time, in the lecture hall, she had given the impression of being strong. Then, she would have typified the profile of the terraced house, fitted the row of house fronts – decorated in cleverly devised earthen colours, brown and dark red shades which matched her skin, her hair with the henna tint and her brown eyes. The Reidun Vestli standing in the doorway now was a shadow of herself. Her face was harrowed through lack of sleep; her lower lip had unhealthy coffee stains. She was wearing an unbecoming track suit, which emphasized the impression of decline. The smell of unventilated smoke wafted through the front door. ‘You,’ she said in a rusty voice. ‘I know who you are.’
He cleared his throat. ‘May I come in?’
‘Why?’
Frølich didn’t answer.
Finally she took a decision and stepped aside.
The room smelt of smoke and full ashtrays. Reidun Vestli stood in front of an enormous coffee table overflowing with loose sheets of paper and old newspapers. There were a few unframed canvases hanging on the walls.
Frølich guessed one had been painted by Kjell Nupen, another, a darker motif, by Ørnulf Opdal. He didn’t dare hazard a guess at the last. But there was something clean and tidy about the two walls. They reminded him of her meticulously tidy office and dominated the room like immovable pillars. On the floor, empty wine bottles and crisp packets, a half-open pizza carton and empty packets of cigarettes. A mini stereo balanced precariously on a mass of loose cables beside a makeshift unmade bed which looked like a divan. A large number of CDs were scattered around the floor. A dusty, greasy, rusty tea maker had pride of place on the window sill, surrounded by dead flies.
This is what Elisabeth was drawn to! He took care not to step on any CDs. To this woman with metallic-coloured teeth from the previous day’s red wine, smelling of nicotine, coffee, lack of sleep and dust. Her longings brought her here.
The woman lit a cigarette from the stub of the one she’d just finished. Her hand shook. When she stood like that, concentrated and bent forwards, she also revealed the pouches of fat on her hips and thighs, a network of wrinkles between cheek and chin, a head wreathed by lifeless, unwashed hair, in turn wreathed by blue cigarette smoke. She was the crowning glory of a total work of art: the materialized essence of litter, blaring radio, mess and an aura of liberated indifference. The hoarse voice said: ‘What do you want?’
‘I rang you a couple of days ago. But you broke off the conversation and switched off your phone.’
‘Have you come here to have that confirmed?’
‘You were driving a car.’
‘You really are a detective. No wonder you work for the police.’
‘You were suddenly taken ill.’
‘The detective is correct. I’m still ill.’
‘It happened at the same time as Elisabeth chose to disappear.’
‘Really? Has she disappeared?’
‘You know very well she has.’
‘Your imagination is running away with you. You should stick to the facts, Sherlock.’
‘Tell me them.’
‘What would you like to know?’
‘Everything.’
‘Everything?’ She went closer and pulled her lips into a venomous grimace.
Frølich sensed a feeling growing inside him: irritation at everything she stood for, the snobbish arrogance, academia, all the mess in this room, all the secrets she had hoarded in this nest of hers. ‘Everything,’ he repeated in a thick voice.
Reidun Vestli went in closer. ‘But can you take it?’