He got off at Ryen station and walked slowly down Havreveien. The weather had become even milder. It was drizzling. He stopped – held the palm of his hand out to feel the drops falling. But he didn’t feel anything.
He heard the motorbike, but didn’t see it. He only felt himself flying through the air. Then the cold, wet, hard tarmac as his hands broke his fall. He didn’t feel the crack on his head either. But he heard it and it stunned him. As the air was knocked out of his lungs, he saw the rear lights of the motorbike. The powerful figure in the leathers and helmet rested the bike on its side-stand. He had been run over. The air had rushed against his face as he flew. The man had run into him deliberately. He tried to get up, but was too slow. A kick and he was down again. The man with the motorbike helmet was holding something in his hand. A voice in his head screamed: Get to your feet! Run! But his legs crumbled. He held his hands over his head as the man struck. Everything went black and he could feel hands groping his body. He lay there with his eyes closed and everything was still. He blinked but couldn’t see. He dabbed his face with his hand. Wet. Blood. You have to get help! He dragged himself up on all fours, but passed out and collapsed in a heap. He ran his hand over his face again, caught a brief glimpse of the street and the parked cars. The motorbike started up. The red rear light and the exhaust. The outline of a rider who didn’t look back. He managed to crawl. Slowly he clambered up onto the pavement as the sound of the motorbike faded into the distance. His clothes were soaked. He leaned back against a parked car. He felt his scalp with his fingers, found the wound and took his fingers away. He patted his pockets. The wallet was there. What had he stolen? He knew the answer and didn’t bother to check his pocket. Instead he searched for his mobile phone. No one would have seen anything here between the blocks of flats. He would have to call emergency services himself.
It wasn’t yet five o’clock in the morning. Gunnarstranda hadn’t eaten, hadn’t had a cup of coffee. He was irritated and irascible. Not even the sight of his sorry-looking colleague sitting beside him in the car could lift him. Frølich had been bandaged up with all the expertise at the disposal of Oslo Accident and Emergency Department, but was still in shock from the attack and stank of beer and vomit.
‘Didn’t you even catch a glimpse of his registration number?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘No idea who it was?’
‘No.’
‘You said it was just one man. Are you sure there weren’t more?’
‘I’m not sure, but I think there was only one man.’
‘And he took the key. That was bloody clever of you to take it with you.’
Frølich didn’t reply.
‘The thing that disturbs me most is the fact that they knew when to strike.’
‘What do you mean?’
Gunnarstranda opened the car door and said: ‘Come on.’ He half-guided and half-supported the heavy Frølich out through the door of the Skoda and into the entrance of the apartment building. It was morning. A newspaper boy on his bike rattled past. A man who came shooting out of a door stared wide-eyed at Frølich’s distressed condition.
They stumbled into the lift. The door closed with a bang and the lift jolted into action.
Frølich repeated: ‘What do you mean?’
Gunnarstranda narrowed his eyes with annoyance. ‘Do you think I’m daft, Frølich? These men struck tonight, pinched the key but didn’t touch your money, your phone or your watch. How could they know you had the key on you? They haven’t made a move before tonight. I didn’t talk to anyone about the key. If you want any sympathy from me in this case, I want to know how they knew that tonight of all nights was the time to attack.’
‘There was just one man. I suggest you ask him.’
‘Bloody hell, you’re pathetic.’
Frølich went quiet. The lift stopped. Gunnarstranda pushed open the door. They went out. Frølich searched his pockets for his bunch of keys, found it and opened the door.
‘You were allowed to keep those keys then?’
Frølich glared at him. ‘I haven’t got anything to offer you, I’m afraid.’ He sank down into the sofa.
Gunnarstranda stood in the doorway. His eyes were aflame. ‘You came to me with the key for help. You serve me up some idiotic justification for wanting to take the key with you. Then you almost get yourself killed, only to ring me and wake me up instead of calling emergency services. Well, you got some help. But if deep down you’re the man I take you for, and you still want my help, I have to bloody know what you’ve been up to!’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘And why can’t you tell me?’
Frølich went quiet again. He put a cushion behind his neck.
‘Answer me! Why can’t you?’
Frølich closed both eyes and let out a heavy sigh. ‘Before going to yours last night I went to the club where Merethe Sandmo used to work. I talked to someone working there, a woman.’
‘A woman.’ Gunnarstranda pulled a face, as if he had been eating lemons. ‘A woman,’ he repeated with revulsion. ‘What is it with you and women?’
‘Wait a moment – she put me onto Ilijaz Zupac. I went there a few days ago on a pure hunch and had his name presented on a silver platter. And yes, I went back there last night. But she’d been told to keep away from me. I took a risk. Thought I could smoke them out by asking her to tell these people – no idea who they are – that I had the key. She must have done that, at least it wasn’t very long before the motorbike smacked into me.’
‘What’s the lady’s name?’
‘No idea.’
‘Frølich!’
‘It’s true, I don’t know. She’s got red hair, or black hair dyed red, a pretty fiddly hairstyle – you know, Afro locks and so on. She’s about twenty-eight, give or take the odd year. But what’s more important is that the banks open soon.’
‘I knew it,’ Gunnarstranda said, exasperated. ‘You think I’m stupid.’
Frølich breathed out.
Gunnarstranda turned in the doorway and said: ‘I’ve thought a lot about the work we’ve done together, Frølich, and it’s gone well. I sort of thought we complemented each other. But now – it’s no good you keeping things to yourself and going round behaving like an idiot. There are too many dead people in this case: Arnfinn Haga, Jonny Faremo and Elisabeth Faremo. Add the academic at Blindern who killed herself and we’re up to four. You’re a policeman. I would never have believed I would see you lying there with one foot in the grave or that you’d be telling me tales during an investigation.’
‘I would never have believed it either,’ Frølich said. ‘But I know who it was,’ he mumbled.
Gunnarstranda shook his head. ‘Even if we’ve arrested a man on a motorbike before, it’s not certain he was the one who knocked you down.’
‘How much do you bet?’ Frølich mumbled. ‘I bet you a hundred it’s Jim Rognstad.’
‘Maybe he lent his bike to someone,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘If he did you’ve lost a hundred kroner.’ Gunnarstranda shut the door and left.
27
Inspector Gunnarstranda had opted to go by train. One glance at the timetable told him that the journey would take a good hour. He would arrive there at roughly the same time as the bank opened. Yttergjerde and Stigersand had already taken up positions nearby.
The train journey was a long, tedious business. He remembered he had done the trip before – it must have been in the sixties, to see a cup match between Vålerenga and a team from Sarpsborg. With the exuberance of youth and faith in technology he and a friend had caught the train, only to arrive in Sarpsborg well after the match had started. Forty years on, he had forgotten that the railway track had been laid between the majority of the milk-churn collecting points in central ∅lstfold. But now – before the October sun rose – there was neither the chance nor the time to enjoy the view of stubble, farmyards or the black-ploughed fields. Gunnarstranda was co-ordinating the troops by phone and running through his logbook.