Frølich shook his head. ‘We’ve talked before about an unidentified fourth man, haven’t we?’
‘Unidentified or not, Frølich, you’ve got to wake up. If you’re well enough to sleuth in Askim, you’re well enough to sit at your work desk.’ He stood smoking and gazing thoughtfully at the sky.
Frølich was the first to break the silence. He said: ‘What shall we do with the letter?’
‘We?’ Gunnarstranda shook his head in desperation. ‘I’m going to do what you should have done a long time ago. I’m going to give Kripos a copy of this suicide letter so we can see whether it is enough to revise assumptions about how the fire started. If they do that, someone may ask Jim Rognstad where he was when the chalet burned down. But I won’t be enormously surprised if he coughs up an alibi.’
‘What was the second thing?’ Frølich wondered.
‘Second?’
‘You said there were two things bothering you.’
‘Yes. It was your version of events. If Rognstad and Ballo beat up Reidun Vestli to find out where Elisabeth was hiding, why did they do it after the chalet burned down?’
Neither of them said anything for a long while.
Frølich broke the silence. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked.
‘At least she was found after the chalet burned down.’
‘So you aren’t sure?’
‘I’m just myself, Frølich. Theoretically speaking, maybe it was possible for Rognstad to beat up Vestli, drive to Valdres, kill Elisabeth Faremo and set the chalet on fire before Vestli was found, but to have managed all that he must have been out of bloody breath. And then there is the phrasing: terrible people. The anonymity of it reminds me of Hamlet: he could smell when there was something rotten in the state of Denmark.’
28
Inspector Gunnarstranda sat inert on his swivel chair, staring at the office wall lost in thought. He was still tormented by the death of his fish. It had lain at the bottom of the fish bowl, on the stones and the sand, dead. This sight had destroyed his perception of how fish died. He had always imagined that fish lay on the surface of the water when they died, that they didn’t sink to the bottom. But Kalfatrus had been dead, that much was obvious. No movements of the mouth and no reaction when he took it out with the fish slice. It was also somewhat macabre: his goldfish lying on a fish slice, almost like a piece of fish cooked to perfection and ready to serve. But what tormented him now was the way it had been despatched. He had thrown the fish in the bin, something which – given his period of reflection, doubts and remorse – he considered an unworthy mode of valediction for a companion of many years’ standing. This thought tormented him. However, on the other hand, burying the fish would have been ludicrous. The alternative would have been to throw it down the toilet. Caught between these two courses of action he had felt the solution was obvious and he had thrown the fish in the dustbin on the way to work. The dubious ethical dimensions of his action played on his mind nevertheless; he couldn’t concentrate at work, he went off into reveries, and so when the telephone rang it was like being woken up by a furious alarm clock. He jumped and snatched at the receiver: ‘Please be brief’.
Nothing at the other end.
‘Hello,’ Gunnarstranda yelled impatiently.
‘This is Inge Narvesen speaking.’
‘Yes?’
‘I would like to express my gratitude to you for…’
Gunnarstranda interrupted him. ‘Ring Verdens Gang and tell them. I’m just doing my job.’
‘On the other hand…’
‘There is no other hand. Goodbye.’
‘Just wait a moment, will you!’
‘Narvesen, I’m very busy.’
‘I’m a busy man, too, for Christ’s sake. Do you suppose I’m ringing to pass the time?’
‘Well, come on, get to the point.’
‘I’m grateful to have the money back – even though I lost six years’ worth of interest, five hundred thousand kroner.’ This was said with a chuckle.
‘I thought we’d finished talking about the money,’ Gunnarstranda snapped.
‘I just wanted to make sure that the matter was closed.’
Open sesame. For the first time Gunnarstranda started to get interested in the conversation. His fingers scrabbled around for cigarettes. He knew he wouldn’t smoke the cigarette he found, but this was special. His nervous fingers fidgeted with the cigarette while he pondered and waited for the man’s next words: the bastard had got half a million back and was wasting valuable time stamping down the earth over a hole which had already been filled. What Inge Narvesen had just done was to switch on a blue lamp in Gunnarstranda’s head, a lamp that flashed a clear message: Find a spade and start digging!
Narvesen must have sensed this instantly, though. His voice said: ‘Well, I’m wasting your time. I have my money back and the culprits have been arrested.’
‘So why are you ringing?’
‘As I said, to…’
‘I heard you. To make sure the matter was closed. Why?’
Narvesen’s silence lasted exactly two seconds too long. He said: ‘You misunderstand. As I pointed out at the beginning, I wanted to express my sincere gratitude…’
‘I heard that too. So it doesn’t matter to you that the case has not been closed?’
Two seconds too long once again. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘The case has never been reopened. The money turned up as a result of an investigation into a completely new matter. A murder enquiry. And the investigation is in full swing.’
‘Right.’
Gunnarstranda was quiet.
Inge Narvesen was quiet.
Gunnarstranda was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Nice to talk to you,’ he said softly and put down the receiver.
He sat, deep in thought.
The door opened and Lena Stigersand came in.
‘I’d like you to do me a favour,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘Check all the airline passenger lists for Merethe Sandmo. According to a colleague she was supposed to have caught a plane to Athens a few days ago. Go back two weeks. Don’t limit the search to Athens.’
Lena Stigersand gave a deep sigh. ‘And what about you?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to have a chat with Chicken Brains Sørlie and tell him that Inge Narvesen is feverishly trying to protect his house of cards against winds and wearisome ground tremors,’ Gunnarstranda said with a grin.
There was a soft tap at the door. Yttergjerde poked his head round. ‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘No more than you usually do,’ Gunnarstranda said cheerfully.
‘Do you know a solicitor by the name of Birgitte Bergum?’
‘Had I known her, I would have felt obliged to call her Bibbi, and I would never call anyone Bibbi, least of all a fifty-year-old blonde who does interviews for weeklies and talks about her liposuction experiences.’
Lena Stigersand’s head shot up: ‘I didn’t know you read weekly magazines, Gunnarstranda.’
‘Just as it is impossible to find perfection on earth, it is impossible to comprehend what Norwegian culture correspondents find fit to communicate to the silent majority.’
‘Do I detect prejudice against journalists or liposucted blondes?’
‘Just general stupidity. What do you think of a person who imperiously proclaims that life is too short not to surround yourself with beautiful objects?’
Yttergjerde and Lena Stigersand exchanged glances: ‘What passion!’
‘Let’s get down to business!’