'Whowas in the car?'
'Therewas Bjørn, well oiled as always…'
'Annabeth'shusband?'
'Yes,and there was the boyfriend of the girl we're talking about… a cutie withparticularly attractive legs, and a woman who was clinging to him.'
'Youdropped these three off at Smuget?'
'Yes,Bjørn and the woman and the athlete… Ole. Nice name, isn't it? I alwaysgo very solemn when I hear that name. I think of the violinist, Ole Bull, youknow, the piece of music The Herb Girl's Sunday.'
'TheHerd Girl's Sunday.'
GeorgBeck gasped and patted his forehead. 'There you see. This is putting me all onedge.'
'Whydidn't you and Lasse go to Smuget?'
'Wewanted to go to Enka, but the others, above all Bjørn, wanted to go to aplace with more of a hetero feel. So we dropped them off. Lasse and I went toEnka where we met another couple and we went back to my place at half pastthree, all four of us. I suppose, that's what you call an alibi, isn't it?'Beck put on a roguish smile and leaned forward. 'Would you like me to go intodetail?'
Frølichsighed and tore a sheet from his notebook and passed it to Beck. 'Could you jotdown the names here, please,' he said, and stood up.
Chapter Eighteen
Thetwo policemen sat comparing the various witnesses' statements. Frølichfed all the material, about the murder victim's movements into the computer.Gunnarstranda Bad been sitting and looking at the prison photo of Raymond Skaufor a long time. 'This man is central,' he concluded.
'He'snever at home, anyway,' Frølich remarked over his shoulder.
Gunnarstrandastood up. 'We'll have to try his door several times and if that does notproduce results we'll ask someone to batter it down,' he continued, and wentquiet when the telephone rang. A few seconds later he put down the receiverwith a grunt and got to his feet again. 'That was Yttergjerde,' he mumbled inhis excitement.
'Whathappened?' Frølich asked.
Gunnarstrandafumbled with his coat. He couldn't get it on fast enough.
'Theclothes. They've found her clothes,' the police inspector said. With that heabout-faced and went off in a flap. His coat fluttering behind him. His armsoutstretched. Nose bent over like a beak. He resembled a hungry seagullfloating on an up-draught behind a ferry, cheerfully pensive and excited at thesame time.
Frølichturned off the road, drove into the gravel car park and came to a halt. The twodetectives walked the last part, the older one a good two metres ahead.Yttergjerde and his men had blocked off the area beneath the road.
'Thisis not far from where she was found,' Frølich mumbled.
Yttergjerdemet them. 'Floated along in a plastic bag,' he said. 'That is, it was bobbingup and down in the water between the rocks over there.' He pointed.
Thetwo of them followed. The items of clothing lay on the ground packed intransparent plastic on which big puddles had collected in the drizzle. Frølichcould make out a black bra, black panties, a grey shirt, a blouse, but only oneshoe.
'Theother shoe?' Gunnarstranda asked.
'Thisis all there was,' Yttergjerde said. 'And the bag, of course.' He pointed to awhite plastic bag advertising the supermarket chain Joker in green writing. Thecolour was faded.
.'And the bag was found there?' Gunnarstranda pointed to some large rocks at thewater's edge. They jutted out into the water beneath the trunks of two enormouspine trees.
'Yes,and it was knotted, so I suppose it will go to the lab?'
'Didthe bag float there or was it thrown?'
'Hardto say, if it wasn't thrown from up there…' Yttergjerde nodded towards the roadwhere an ageing blue Volvo full of inquisitive youths was slowly trundlingpast.'… It can't have happened very far from here.'
'Nojewellery, handbag or personal effects?'
Yttergjerdeshook his head.
'We'dbetter have a look around,' Gunnarstranda said, walking up to the motorway.'How far away are we from the place where the body was found?'
'Twoor three kilometres.' Frølich, turning, nodded towards the west. 'Andabout the same distance to the area where Henning and Katrine were parked.'
'Thekiller threw the clothes first, then the body?'
'That'spossible,' Frølich mused. 'Depends which way the car was going.' Helooked up and down the road. 'The plastic bag on the right hand side of theroad, the body on the left…'
'Ifthe car was going west from here towards Oslo city centre,' Gunnarstrandaadded. 'Henning Kramer said the girl walked up towards Holmlia, and if she waspicked up there, the car must have been on its way out of Oslo. In that case hegot rid of the body first and then the clothes?'
Theygot into the car. Frølich started the engine. 'Did you notice theclothes?' he asked.
Gunnarstranda:'What do you mean?'
'Isit significant? I think it looked as though she had undressed herself.'
'Disagree,'said Gunnarstranda. 'The clothes didn't seem to have been ripped to shreds,which is quite another matter. We'll have to see what the lab people say.'
Frølichnodded, drove out of the car park and headed back towards Oslo city centre. Asthey approached Hvervenbukta Frølich slowed down and pulled into theside. On the left they could make out the white bathing hut on the jetty, thegreen lawns leading up to the car parks and the pine-clad ridge of Ljanskollen.
'Noproblem at all,' Frølich said. 'If the killer drove as we have just doneand pulled in where we are now, he must have carried her across the road andthen thrown her over the safety barrier.'
'Thatsuggests then the car was going in the opposite direction,' Gunnarstranda said.'So the killer drags Katrine into the car, rapes and strangles her, strips her,drives seven or eight hundred metres down the road, stops, lifts her over thebarrier, gets back in, drives on and…'
'Inthat case the driver would have had to stop in the middle of the bend,' Frølichinterrupted. 'There is nowhere to pull in,' he pointed. 'Would you have stoppedin the middle of the carriageway to get rid of a body?'
'Maybein the middle of the night,' Gunnarstranda said, but was sceptical, and added:'There's something not right with this.'
'It'smuch more likely that he parked here,' Frølich opined. 'On this side ofthe road.' He glanced at his boss. 'Kramer came this way,' he stated withemphasis.
Gunnarstrandareturned a cryptic smile. 'Whichever way the killer was going, this is theplace to stop,' he concluded. 'If he was driving towards us, towards Oslo, ifhe swung over on to this side of the road and pulled up, why did he carry herover to the other side of the road?' Gunnarstranda wondered aloud. 'He couldhave dumped her here in the ditch. No,' he decided. 'The killer must have beencoming from the other direction, from Oslo – and stopped in the bend.'
Theygot out of the car. They crossed the road and looked over the barrier and downon to the crag where Katrine Bratterud's body had been found a few days before.
Gunnarstranda:'If the car came from Oslo, that may fit with Kramer's statement. On the otherhand, the killer may have disposed of the body and the clothes in this way soas to confuse us.'
Frølichshrugged. A car passed them and he had to shout to be heard over the noise. 'Itall depends on when and where she was murdered. If she was picked up while shewas walking up towards Holmlia and was murdered somewhere between there andthis place, I assume she would have been killed in the car park up there.' Henodded towards the other side of the inlet where two cars were parked. 'Thenthe same car kept going and the driver threw the body out here first and gotrid of the clothes later where Yttergjerde found them.'
Gunnarstrandaleaned over the barrier and peered down. 'But no attempt was made to hide thebody.'
Hethought aloud: 'The body was found without any jewellery, but there was nojewellery in the bag, either. So…'
'Thekiller seems very cold-blooded,' Frølich concluded. 'Cold-blooded with asingleness of purpose. Clothes separate, jewellery separate and the bodyseparate.'