Frølich shook hands and had to confess he had no idea which emperor he was talking about.
‘Good,’ Manuel said with a grin. He was wearing a creased grey suit and a white T-shirt. There was a big gap between his front teeth. He continued: ‘Every time you hear the name Manuel you’ll think: Which emperor?’
Frølich took to him from the very first second. They walked out of the arrivals hall together towards the car park. The wheels of Frølich’s suitcase rumbled over the tarmac. Manuel stood behind a sloppily parked Toyota Corolla and opened the boot. Frølich put the suitcase in and said he had the same car at home. ‘Well, almost – an Avensis.’
They waited behind the car. An aeroplane was hurtling down the runway in a crescendo of noise. Manuel lit a cigarette and waited for the din to subside. The aeroplane took off and rose like a hungry shark moving towards the light.
Manuel told him that Merethe Sandmo had hired a car from Hertz on 1 December. ‘A Toyota.’ He closed the boot lid. ‘At least she knows a thing or two about cars.’
They both grinned.
Frølich looked north. An aeroplane was coming in to land. Far up in the blue he could glimpse aeroplane number two, also on its way down.
‘She drove north and handed in the car at an office in Patras,’ Manuel went on to say.
‘She didn’t hire another car?’
‘No.’
‘Just disappeared?’
Manuel nodded. ‘Didn’t check in at a hotel.’
‘But what about the other woman?’
Manuel grinned again and took a deep breath. ‘She appeared.’
‘Where?’
‘On the ferry quay. Bought a ticket to Bari.’
‘Bari? That’s Italy.’
Manuel waved the car keys. ‘Still interested in the car?’
Frølich nodded and took the keys. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I know where I’m going.’
The beach wound round the blue-green bay like a goldenwhite new moon. Heavy, leisurely waves unfurled onto the shore, stretched out, washed inland, lapped their way up the sand before retreating into a rolling wall to smash the next wave to pieces. There was a rhythm to it, first a lapping surge, then the next wave is shattered by the previous one, over and over again. Frank Frølich observed the spectacle, musing that if you stood there long enough you could eventually believe it would never end.
No one had ventured into the water. Bodies lay scattered across the sandy beach on sunbeds. Some sat up and looked around through sunglasses or rubbed sun cream over their sunburned arms. Some fat men in shorts with sun visors shading their eyes strolled along the water’s edge where the sand was firmer and cooled by the sea. A woman was walking. She was wearing a skyblue, baggy, sleeveless dress which flapped in the wind. Also an alice band in matching blue. He realized he had never told her – blue suited her.
He stood still and waited for her to discover his presence. It pleased him that she didn’t falter, but continued at the same sedate pace as the waves washed over her feet and ankles.
When she was one and a half metres away, she stopped. They looked into each other’s eyes.
‘I’m actually on my way for a swim,’ she said. ‘Would you like to join me?’
An appraising gaze. Calm. He shook his head. ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said, passing her the folded piece of paper – Reidun Vestli’s suicide note.
She took the letter. Her head dropped as she read. In the end she folded the paper and tore it into small pieces while focusing on a point in the distance. The white scraps of paper fluttered in the wind and disappeared in the froth of the waves.
‘How touching to see the impression it made.’
‘I’m unable to concentrate.’
Frank Frølich followed her gaze, to the two uniformed men looking down on them, each with a foot on the stone wall by the road.
‘Are they with you?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
Her eyes, scrutinizing. ‘Why?’
He didn’t answer. The wind caught hold of her hair. She had to stroke it away with her hand. ‘I found her,’ he said eventually. ‘She had taken tablets. Sent me the letter through the post. She asks you for forgiveness, but why?’
‘No idea. Now and then Reidun was difficult to fathom.’
‘You need to be able to concentrate to love,’ he said.
She looked at him side-on. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘What for?’
‘For how you feel. It doesn’t have to be like this between us.’
He had to examine her more closely before he answered. ‘What there was between us was ground to dust a long time ago.’
‘I don’t believe that. You’ve come here, to me.’
‘The Elisabeth I knew is dead,’ he said gently. ‘She was burned, but I have recovered.’
‘Don’t talk like that.’
‘I apologize,’ he answered. ‘I know it was Merethe Sandmo who physically died in the fire, and the knowledge of that is only one of the many things I cannot ignore with regard to us.’
‘I’ve found out a little about you since I saw you last,’ he continued, his mind focused. ‘I know, for example, that you met Inge Narvesen when you were working at Ferner Jacobsen six years ago. I know you started a relationship and went with him on a romantic holiday to Mauritius. That was more than you and I managed in the time we had together. But then I have less money to splash around.’
‘Keep Inge Narvesen out of our relationship. Inge and I – it was just stupid. It was nothing.’
‘Ilijaz wasn’t very happy either, was he?’
She clammed up. Her blue eyes were inscrutable.
‘I visited Ilijaz at Ullersmo.’
‘He wasn’t like that before.’
‘How was he before?’
‘Strong, amusing, a man who took the world for granted.’ She searched for words. He waited. She faced into the wind and added: ‘Who took me for granted.’ She was lost in thought for a few moments. ‘But Ilijaz needed to be reminded that I could be hurt, that I had feelings.’
They began to walk along the beach. The waves washed over their feet. Frank Frølich stopped and rolled up his trousers. Her feet and legs were bronzed by the sun. She had painted her nails red-brown. For a fraction of a second he imagined the scene: she was sitting in the sun with her knees raised, concentrating on varnishing her toe nails.
Her flapping dress stuck to her body, her legs clearly outlined with every step she took. She walked with her head erect, the wind tossing her black hair.
He said: ‘Perhaps you went with Inge Narvesen to punish Ilijaz, but I don’t think Narvesen realized. Not even when you told Ilijaz about the safe with the painting in it.’
‘Ilijaz is one of God’s lost sheep,’ she said. ‘Completely lost.’
‘At that time Ilijaz was in total possession of his faculties and had to take responsibility for his actions. He shot a man dead – he didn’t have to do that.’
‘He’s destroyed. You’ve met him and you know he has completely snapped. How does it feel to work for a system which does something like that to people?’
‘There’s only one person to blame for Ilijaz being sent to prison – and that’s Ilijaz. He didn’t need to steal the safe. He didn’t need to shoot anyone.’
‘Prison is there to deprive people of their freedom, not to cause them to rot from the inside.’
‘I know you feel a need to vent your feelings of guilt, but elevating your status to a kind of avenging angel is sick.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about you.’
‘Are you accusing me of converting emotions into actions?’
‘Actions are your problem, Elisabeth, because people die.’
‘I can’t take responsibility for anyone except myself.’
He stopped and laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Your pompous nonsense.’ He imitated her: ‘“I can’t take responsibility for anyone except myself.” You, the person who asked Ilijaz and your brother to steal the painting so that you could sell it back to Narvesen afterwards. You, who started off all this business, you cannot take responsibility for anyone except yourself?’