‘Water’s like that,’ he said. ‘I have the same experience when I go fishing, by rivers or streams with rapids.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
He looked at her again. She seemed slightly offended. ‘OK, I give in. It’s not like that.’
‘When you say things like that I don’t feel like saying any more,’ she said.
‘You!’ He sat up until they had eye contact again. ‘Don’t be cross.’
‘I’m not cross.’
‘So what’s the name of your beach?’
She smiled. ‘Hvar.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The name. Hvar.’
‘Of the beach?’
‘It’s an island.’
‘Where is it?’
She rested her head without answering.
He caressed her hair and yawned. Soon he would be asleep, he could sense that and he was happy. ‘By the way,’ he mumbled and yawned again. ‘I like the smell of bonfires in spring.’
At one point during the night he opened his eyes and the weight of her head was gone. He heard a soft voice speaking. She was sitting on the chair by the window with her mobile phone to her ear. ‘Aren’t you asleep?’ he asked. ‘What’s the time?’
‘I’m coming now,’ she whispered. ‘Just go to sleep.’
His eyes were closed and he felt her crawl in under the duvet. Before drifting off again he looked at her black hair cascading over the pillow.
PART TWO: The Fourth Man
6
‘We have a customer.’
‘Murder?’
‘A man. Cold and stiff as a Christmas anchovy,’ Gunnarstranda went on. ‘In Loenga.’
The line was cut. There was nothing to discuss. There was never anything to discuss. Frank Frølich turned over in bed. ‘I have to be off,’ he whispered with a croak and stopped short.
She wasn’t there. The duvet she had wrapped herself in a few hours ago was half on the floor. He sat up in bed, massaged his cheeks and cautiously called out: ‘Elisabeth?’
Not a sound.
He looked at his watch. It was half past four. It was night. He got up and sauntered into the living room. Dark and quiet. The kitchen – dark. The bathroom – dark and empty. He switched on the light, splashed water over his face and met his tired eyes in the mirror. Why does she do this? Why does she run away? When did she go? Why?
Exactly six minutes later, he was sitting in his car and driving down Ryenberg mountain. It had turned colder. A sliver of a moon shone in a starry sky. The temperature gauge in the car showed – 5 ° C. And he thought about Elisabeth in her skin-tight skirt and skimpy underwear walking down the road in this cold. Out of bed, out of the house, gone. Inside the car, he was so cold that he was hunched over the wheel, holding it with both hands. The studded tyres made a metallic sound on the tarmac and the bends in the road were frozen. Mist steamed over the water in the harbour basin. The right atmosphere for a murder, he thought, as he swung into Gamlebyen.
A patrol car stood outside the fence with its blue light flashing. Gunnarstranda’s Skoda Octavia was parked across the pavement. And behind the wire fence a small circle of people was standing around a shape on the ground.
Frølich closed the car door behind him and went through the gate with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. He was frozen and pangs of hunger for breakfast were stabbing at his stomach. The figure of Gunnarstranda came towards him. With the shirt under his autumn coat buttoned up wrong. An unlit cigarette bobbed up and down in his mouth.
‘Guard for Securitas. Found at 3.43 by a workmate. Obvious signs of an attempt to break into containers.’ Gunnarstranda pointed. The doors of a green metal container gaped wide open. ‘The container is owned by something called A. S. Jupro. It’s not clear what they took – but presumably it was some kind of electronic equipment.’
From a distance the dead man resembled an unconscious slalom skier. He was lying in a so-called stable lateral position. Wearing a boiler suit. Frank Frølich winced when he saw the man’s disfigured head and all the blood.
‘Pathologists call it “injuries inflicted by a blunt weapon”,’ Gunnarstranda said formally. ‘The back of his head has been stoved in. Finding the cause of death shouldn’t be the most difficult task on earth for the boys. Most probably that’s the murder weapon.’ He pointed towards a blood-stained plastic bag beside the corpse. ‘Baseball bat, aluminium.’
A sudden crackle came from one of the uniformed policemen’s short-wave radios. The man passed it to Gunnarstranda, who barked formally into it.
Frølich was unable to decode the message which came crackling back. But a grinning Gunnarstranda could. ‘Lock them up.’
He turned and checked his watch. ‘We’ve got them and now we can grab a bit more shut-eye. Sorry to wake you at such an ungodly hour, but that’s the job, isn’t it? No two cases are the same. I’ll catch another couple of hours myself,’ Gunnarstranda added. ‘Then we’ll do the interrogation at a more godly time. It’ll be wonderful to hit the sack.’
‘Who have we got?’ Frølich asked, bewildered.
‘A gang of bruisers,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘A tip-off. Not worth a great deal perhaps, but on the other hand there is a clear sequence of events.’ He pointed to the open container. ‘These boys were breaking in when the security guard arrived in his car.’ He pointed to a small Ford van a few metres away. The security company’s logo was printed on the side. ‘The guard saw something, stopped and went to check.’ Gunnarstranda pointed to an object next to the open container. ‘His torch – a Maglite – is over there. The men were caught red-handed, and a struggle ensued. One of them has a baseball bat and wallop. The guard falls there. Unfortunately for these three, he’s dead now.’
‘And we know who did it?’ Frank Frølich said with a yawn.
Gunnarstranda nodded. ‘As I said, a tip-off, and I would be very surprised if it wasn’t spot on.’ Gunnarstranda took a scrap of paper out of his coat pocket and read aloud: ‘Jim Rognstad, Vidar Ballo and…’ Gunnarstranda held the scrap up to the light. ‘Sometimes I can’t read my own writing… Jim Rognstad, Vidar Ballo and… can you read the name of the third man?’ he asked, straightening his glasses.
Frølich read it first to himself before reading out aloud: ‘It says Jonny Faremo.’
7
Frølich had felt the beast gnawing at his stomach all morning and decided to find out what had happened at the court hearing. However, as he was running down the steps between the court and Kafé Gabler he felt a growing reluctance to go on. So he retreated to Kristian Augusts gate to stand and wait on the pavement. Soon a group of people gathered in front of the court entrance. A little later the door opened. Elisabeth came out. He followed her movements. She left alone, taking small quick steps, without looking to the left or the right. He stood watching her slender back until she had rounded the corner and was gone.
The moment Gunnarstranda came through the wide doors, Frølich showed himself and stepped out onto the tramlines to cross the street. Gunnarstranda detached himself from the crowd on the steps, strode down to the pavement and also crossed the tramlines. Frølich joined him.
Gunnarstranda, uncommunicative, continued along the pavement at a brisk pace.
Frølich cleared his throat: ‘How did it go?’
‘How did what go?’
‘The hearing.’
‘Shit.’
‘Which means?’
Gunnarstranda stopped, let his glasses glide down over the bridge of his nose and scowled sharply over the top. ‘Are you wondering whether her brother will have to go to prison? Or whether all of them will have to go? Or are you wondering about your own future prospects?’
‘Just say how it went.’