40
The following morning Frank Frølich had a long lie-in. He didn’t get up until eleven, then had a bit of muesli and prepared to go to the Grand Hotel.
It had snowed a lot in the course of the night. The cars along Havreveien were well packed in. Snowdrifts left thick layers on top of car roofs and bonnets, making them look like cream cakes. A few car owners had wriggled their way out of the drifts, leaving deep holes in the row of cars.
At the Metro station a tractor with rattling chains was clearing the snow. Frølich took the first train to arrive, got off at Stortinget and wandered down Karl Johans gate where the heater cables in the ground keeping the pavements snow-free had turned the snow on the road into a slushy, brown broth.
She was taking a seat at a vacant window table when he came through the heavy doors of the café in the Grand Hotel. She was wearing high-heeled boots, tight jeans and a woollen sweater. Her Afro locks seemed out of place with her regulation Norwegian outfit. The hat she was wearing looked too heavy for her.
He hardly recognized her. Perhaps because she had clothes on, he thought, as he went over to her table. She looked up.
‘I’ve been keeping my eyes open for you,’ she said.
‘Where?’
‘You know.’
He sat down. Met her eyes. They challenged him, but they didn’t touch him. He couldn’t penetrate her façade; he associated it with any one of the many uninspiring media celebs. Heavily made-up face. Studied look rehearsed in front of the mirror. The smile, a practised muscle movement with lips and chin. Today she isn’t wearing a mask. The magic from an earlier evening was long gone.
She flashed her teeth in another fleeting smile. ‘I’ve ordered a French vanilla slice and Coke.’
He looked at her askance. She wasn’t joking.
The waitress was there. Frølich ordered coffee.
‘You’ve done something to your face,’ she said with downcast eyes.
‘That was the key I was talking about.’
‘You told me to pass on the message.’ She was still studying the table.
‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Don’t ask me about him,’ she said quickly. ‘I don’t know anything and if I did, I wouldn’t say.’
‘About whom?’ he asked.
‘Jim,’ she said.
The waitress came with the coffee. Frølich stirred it. She had her vanilla slice and Coke. She tried to cut the cake with the spoon. The cream oozed out over the plate. She giggled and mumbled: ‘Not so easy, this.’
‘My boss says if you want to understand people’s life strategies, you have to watch them eating millefeuilles.’
‘I’m glad your boss isn’t here now,’ she said, squeezing more cream over her plate.
‘I once saw an accountant eating a millefeuilles,’ he said. ‘The systematic approach. This guy removed the top layer with a spoon, neatly placed it on the plate, then he ate the cream, followed by the base and saved the top with the icing for last.’
She scooped up a pile of cream and icing onto her spoon, crammed it into her mouth and closed her eyes in ecstasy. ‘The guy doesn’t know what he’s missing,’ she mumbled.
‘Vibeke,’ he said.
She glanced up. ‘Yes, Frank.’
They looked into each other’s eyes.
She took another spoonful of cream and icing, swallowed and said: ‘You don’t know what you’re missing, either.’
He averted his eyes. Not because of her lack of sophistication, more to avoid having to look through that worn expression of hers. ‘I’m back at work,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m a policeman.’
She didn’t answer.
‘I’m working now.’
‘Rotten excuse for not eating cake,’ she said finally.
She giggled, but the smile went out when she saw his expression.
‘Vibeke,’ he repeated.
‘Yes, Frank.’ Her smile was wry and provocative again.
‘I need to know something about Elisabeth.’
‘I’m sure you know more about Elisabeth than I do.’
‘But you knew her when she was with Ilijaz.’
‘Are you jealous?’
‘No, what Elisabeth and I had is gone.’ He considered his words while scanning the room. Most of the people were hotel guests passing through. The rest were frail-looking ladies with blue-rinse hair and delicate wrinkles. The low winter sun pierced the tall windows. Outside, people in Karl Johan were hurrying past. A police car from the dog-patrol unit had pulled up in front of Stortinget. An elderly man was sitting on a bench playing blues on an electric guitar beneath one of the Storting lions; the music was just audible in the café. When he turned back to her, she had finished eating.
She said: ‘Ilijaz is Elisabeth’s great love. She would die for Ilijaz, however ill he is.’
He reflected on what she had said. For a second he saw a chalet burning in front of him. He cleared his throat, plucked up courage and asked: ‘Was Elisabeth bisexual?’
‘What makes you wonder that?’
‘I believe she was.’
‘Bisexual?’ She sampled the word. ‘That sounds very much like pigeon-holing.’
‘Oh?’
‘Sort of condescending.’
‘I suspect Elisabeth was in a relationship with a woman.’
‘I can imagine that,’ she said, deep in thought. ‘I think Elisabeth…’ She pulled a face and said: ‘Have you never played with the idea? Of probing the physical side of a relationship with a good friend?’
‘No.’
She giggled. ‘I believe you. But as far as Elisabeth is concerned – I can easily imagine her going to bed with women. That doesn’t change anything about the totally all-consuming passion that existed between her and Ilijaz, though.’
‘Tell me more,’ he said.
‘I don’t know much more,’ she continued.
‘Was it stormy?’
‘Did they quarrel? They probably did. You know what it’s like for some – when the relationship is so intense that negative emotions are released with almost the same energy as positive emotions.’
For an instant he caught a flash of Elisabeth’s naked foot. Her red varnished nails. His hand around her ankle with the thin gold chain.
‘And some of that was because Ilijaz was not always good.’
‘What do you mean by “not always good”?’
‘He went with other women. Often.’
‘So it wasn’t a fixed, long-term relationship on his part?’
‘Yes, it was. I’m sure he was just as hooked as she was. But he was also very macho at that time, a little childish, really. Always had to prove what a man he was, constantly on the pull. She got sick of it in the end and found someone else.’
Someone else. Frølich thought about what Gunnarstranda had said about a fourth man. ‘Who?’
‘Someone upfront.’
‘Can you remember his name?’
‘No.’
‘Can you remember what his job was?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘When was this?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Try. It must have been five to six years ago, or longer. Ilijaz was jailed six years ago.’
‘Was he? Time passes. I can never tell one year from another. It’s easier to pick out the school years but…’
‘What work were you doing then?’
‘Bar work. I’ve always worked in bars.’
‘Which bar?’
‘Six years ago? It was a bar in Bogstadveien. Closed down now.’
‘And you knew Elisabeth at that time?’
‘She was working in a shop. Ferner Jacobsen.’ She motioned with her head towards Stortingsgata. ‘In the basement. Elisabeth’s the type who looks good in everything she wears. Anyone who sells clothes knows she’s worth her weight in gold in a shop. I think she met the guy there. He was a customer. A guy with lots of money.’
‘A criminal?’
‘Either that or… it’s just rich people who shop there. And this guy kept inviting her to dinner and wouldn’t take no for an answer. That was how it was. And once when Ilijaz got in too deep with some woman, she accepted the invitation and they became a couple. Ilijaz must have been nabbed at about that time.’