The Fourth Man Page 6

  Frølich shook his head and walked back towards Jernbanetorget. Is it possible to sink any lower than being bought a beer by someone you have arrested countless times? He thought: the safest place to go on a bender seems to be further west. He caught the first tram, hung onto the strap as the tram swayed up Prinsens gate, got off at the lower end of Kontraskjæret, crossed to Fridtjof Nansens plass and decided to start on the corner and work his way along all the watering holes around the City Hall. It was a strenuous job. But he didn’t feel drunk; he just needed to keep emptying his bladder. A couple of hours later he wobbled into the lounge of the Hotel Continental. This was the place where original Munch paintings used to hang on the wall, where the male guests are the type of men who look forward to the weekend to try out their new golfing trousers and where the wallflowers are cultivated women with a nose for port wine. This was where an unshaven, furloughed cop could walk around incognito too, he thought, and fell over a sofa in the middle of the room. He ordered a whisky. After drinking another, knocking over a glass of beer and attempting to wipe up the mess with the table cloth from the neighbouring table, he was politely asked to leave. Things are improving, he thought. If I play my cards right now I will be taken to the drunk cells before the night is out. ‘I’m not drunk,’ he said to the girl who had been given the unenviable task. ‘I’m just suffering from a few synchronization problems.’ He stood up, impressed that he had managed to pronounce such a long, tricky word.

  He tottered out and almost collided with Emil Yttergjerde. Yttergjerde must have been in the middle of his own pub crawl because there was a red, almost purple, glow to his face and he had to hold onto the lamppost as they stood contemplating each other. Together, they staggered around the corner and into Universitetsgata. Several bars there. And he still had some money left.

  It was evening, maybe night, at any rate many hours later, when he and Yttergjerde were sitting at a table in Café Fiasco. No, he concluded, it had to be night. He was drinking his beer and struggling not to slide off his stool while concentrating on Yttergjerde’s mouth. The music was hammering away and he was shouting to be heard through the din.

  ‘She was from Argentina,’ Yttergjerde bellowed.

  Frølich put his half-litre down on the table, wishing Yttergjerde would shut up and stop his awful shouting.

  ‘But I didn’t find that out until later,’ Yttergjerde shouted.

  ‘What was that?’ Frølich shouted back.

  ‘The woman from Argentina. She was broke, you see, and I kept her going with cigarettes and some food. I was arseholed when I got into this bus, it was four in the morning and I was going to Milan. Anyway, I sat down in the bus and then she came and sat down beside me. She’d spent all her money on rented cars and expensive hotels in Paris and Rome. She needed somewhere to live because there were still two weeks to go before her return flight left from Paris to cross the Atlantic.’

  Yttergjerde paused for breath and took a drink from his glass of beer.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Frølich asked.

  ‘My holiday,’ Yttergjerde said. ‘Keep up, will you?’

  Frølich raised his head. It was impossible to hear yourself think. There was a break in the music. But not for long. Someone put on some Springsteen. One chord, one riff: ‘Born in the USA’.

  Frølich was about to say something. Just to prove that he wasn’t going to collapse. Instead he had to battle not to fall off his stool. He clung to his beer glass and said: ‘I guess I’ll have to be off now.’

  Yttergjerde didn’t hear. He put down his glass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and roared through the music: ‘I couldn’t talk to her about Swedes, you see. This woman had been with a Swede and he’d been knocking her about for a long time. And she was whingeing and nagging me – that was probably why it finished – always asking me if I was all right and telling me in the morning I looked extremely aggressive. I have no idea what I look like in the morning actually, but I was sick of the nagging, really sick of it. I mean, I’ve never heard that I look aggressive before. Anyway, in the end, I lost my temper and told her in my Oxford English I wasn’t angry. But, I said, if you don’t stop asking me if I’m angry, I’ll lose my temper. Perhaps I was a bit rough. I mean, it’s not so easy to catch the nuances using Oxford English. Anyway, she legged it and that was the last I saw of her. Just as well maybe. I mean, it was a hopeless business. I was on holiday. I put the woman up and kept her in cigarettes for four days – while she was doing the best she could to pay in kind. That’s no healthy basis for a lasting relationship.’

  Frølich stood up. The room swayed. He was plastered. He said it out loud: ‘I’m plastered.’

  ‘What I mean to say is,’ Yttergjerde unflaggingly pointed out, ‘the world is full of women, Frankie. I mean people like me, divorced, can relax. What about people like you who have never worn the ball and chain? I’ve got a pal, thirty-something, he’s up to his eyeballs in women. Single mothers, Frankie, trips on the ferry to Denmark, dances. You don’t have to get fucking depressed because of this woman.’

  ‘I know you mean well,’ Frank Frølich said. ‘But the only thing I need now is a taxi and a bed to lie in.’

  ‘Yeah, go on home, Frankie. Sleep it off, have a lie-in, forget the bloody woman. Last time I felt like that I went to the whorehouse in Munkedamsveien, I mean, just to release some of the pressure. But the one who got the job was one of those sneaky pusses. I’m sure she was married or engaged, and what’s the point of being a whore then, eh? If you think the whole thing is revolting. Eh? She was a looker but she refused to do anything but missionary, so I got angry, didn’t I? I don’t mean to be difficult, I said to the madame in reception, but I’m paying a lot of wonga, so these women of yours should be able to manage a bit of customer service, shouldn’t they, I said, and then I was given a voucher. What about that, Frankie?’ Yttergjerde sobbed with laughter. ‘You know, that’s how it should be in marriage too. You just get vouchers!’

  11

  When the telephone rang, he tried to lie still, not to disturb his comatose body. Judging by the light, it was afternoon. He had been sleeping like a sunken log on the sofa for several hours, stiff, heavy and torpid. He turned his head and contemplated the phone. The movement brought on a headache, dizziness and nausea. The pain from his liver stabbed at his side like a fakir’s bed of nails – from the inside. My liver is a ball of pain, he thought, and the air a nail, no, the ring tone is like a drill pounding against my temples. He sat up and felt dizzy again. Stood up, dizzy, holding onto the doorframe and grasping the telephone receiver.

  ‘So you’re at home.’

  ‘What did you imagine?’

  ‘You never know.’

  Frank Frølich sank back on the sofa. When I die, he thought, the angel coming to collect me will have the same voice as Gunnarstranda. The man is a spook. The spikes continued to attack his liver. He was incapable of thinking; he said: ‘So you’re ringing. Is it anything to do with the job or are you just missing me?’

  ‘Jonny Faremo is dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes, dead. Drowned.’

  Frank Frølich had never felt a greater need for a glass of water. The words constricted themselves in his throat, his head. He managed to say: ‘Where?’

  ‘Some kilometres outside the city boundary, in Askim. He drowned in the Glomma and was picked up by some people working at the Vamma power station. His body was caught in a net.’

  ‘A net?’

  ‘Does that mean you know where the Vamma power station is?’

  Shit. The intonation. ‘No idea. Where is Vamma power station?’

  ‘I told you, didn’t I? Fifty kilometres east of the city boundary.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Power stations are susceptible to getting logs and other junk caught in the turbines. That’s why they have a net to pick up the stuff. It picked up Faremo last night.’

  ‘Accident?’

  ‘If it was an acc
ident we ought to have a heap of circumstantial evidence. In this case we don’t have anything.’

  ‘Suicide?’

  ‘Well, he certainly drowned.’

  ‘What’s your view?’

  Gunnarstranda chuckled into the receiver. ‘My view? I had a call from Krimpolitisentralen, Kripos, about ten minutes ago. But, well, I suppose I did run the man in and I did have him appear at a hearing on suspicion of killing the security man in Loenga. He gets off – on an alibi as thin as a pussy hair. Two days go by and then he’s found floating with his lungs full of water in the dam by a power station. Perhaps he was depressed and threw himself in? But why should he be depressed? Because you’d taken up with his sister? And if he was and drove off to kill himself, where’s the car? Where’s the suicide note?’

  ‘He drives a silver-grey Saab 95.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  The intonation, the suspicion. ‘I have, as you yourself pointed out, some knowledge of the family.’

  ‘If he was thrown into the river, he wouldn’t have had much of a chance. It’s late autumn. There’s a strong current. Water temperature, maximum four to five degrees.’

  ‘Faremo’s well built. All muscle.’

  ‘The body was in a bad way. The doctor who wrote the death certificate has, it seems, used a local phenomenon to explain why. There’s a place called Vrangfoss just above the power station. It’s a narrow ravine and right there the river bends. This means that a few hundred metres above the power station all the water flowing serenely along in the Glomma is compressed and channelled through the ravine. A horizontal waterfall in other words, a kind of inferno of water and currents. If Faremo ended up in the river above the ravine his body would have been whirled around and thrown against the cliff face for a good long time before he emerged a few hundred metres further down. Most of the bones in Faremo’s body were simply smashed to pulp.’

  Frank Frølich saw in his mind’s eye the man of 1 metre 90, dressed like a commando with the same expression as his sister.

  ‘Is it known where he fell?’

  ‘Fell, you say?’

  ‘Or was shoved. Do you know anything about the crime scene?’

  ‘This power station – Vamma – is the last of three power stations in a row. The highest one is called Solbergfoss, a little lower down there is one called Kykkelsrud and right at the bottom Vamma, where Faremo was fished out of a kind of collecting net. So you can imagine. He was found in front of the last dam. The stretch between Kykkelsrud power station and Vamma is the interesting bit. Frølich?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Aren’t you wondering why I’m ringing?’

  ‘Haven’t thought that far ahead.’

  ‘It’s not my case. Follo police district is dealing with it, helped by Kripos. You will have to be able to account for your movements over the last twenty-four hours.’

  Finally the cat is out of the bag. ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘No, Gunnarstranda, I don’t know why!’

  ‘You don’t need to take that tone with me. We both know that Faremo may have died as the result of an accident. He could have been arguing with someone who pushed him in – maybe with premeditation, maybe in the heat of the moment. And you’ve already been seen in what was termed a heated discussion outside his home.’

  ‘Are you having me followed?’

  ‘No, but I am investigating a murder. You have a lot of good friends here, Frølich, but no one can or will disguise the facts. Until last night Jonny Faremo was among the group of men suspected of murdering Arnfinn Haga. We’ve been watching Faremo’s place. Your discussion with Faremo in the car park has been duly documented.’

  ‘OK, but will you believe me if I say it cannot have been me who threw Faremo in the river?’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘What you say is correct. I was outside their flat. When Faremo and his gang were released after the hearing, I did as you said. I took a week off. Then I went straight to the Faremo flat. I talked to him, but my voice was never raised and there was no heated discussion.’

  ‘The question is: what did you do afterwards?’

  Frank Frølich stared vacantly at the wall. He had been outside Faremo’s flat last night – for some reason he had taken a taxi up there and puked in a ditch. Why did I go there? What the hell was I trying to do?

  ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Others, apart from me, are going to ask you, Frølich. I’m just giving you a little head start.’

  He didn’t feel nauseous any more, just thirsty. Lethargically, he got onto his feet and staggered into the kitchen. Nothing in the fridge apart from two cans of lager. No. He closed the door and drank water straight from the tap.

  He lurched towards the bathroom. In the shower, he soaped himself down thinking about Elisabeth and how she had testified on behalf of her brother and two others. He could see her in front of him as she strode out of the court towards Grensen without a look to either side. Why didn’t I stop her? Why didn’t I talk to her?

  He scalded his body with hot water while conjuring up the sight of her hurrying home as fast as her legs could carry her. That delicate frame of hers nervously rushing around her flat, opening drawers, slamming them shut, throwing clothes and other things into a rucksack and bag. A phone to her ear. She had done a runner, but where – and why?

  His brain churned slowly, all too slowly. When he got to her flat, she had already disappeared. Then her brother came. Had she done a runner from her brother? And if so, why? She had already given him an alibi for the murder.

  He remembered his own trembling fingers as he tapped in Reidun Vestli’s phone number: the clear sound of being transferred, the muffled sound of a mobile phone. The conversation that was broken off as soon as he introduced himself.

  Suddenly it became important to ring Elisabeth. Everything that has happened is the result of a silly misunderstanding. If I ring now, she will pick up the phone and give me a convincing explanation of the whole thing. He turned off the water and walked into the living room without drying himself. His feet left big damp patches on the lino. Found his mobile phone and rang Elisabeth. But her phone was switched off. He rang Reidun Vestli. No answer. He stood naked, looking at his reflection. Never seen anything so pathetic.

  At that moment the doorbell rang.

  He staggered into the bedroom, found a clean pair of trousers and a T-shirt and went to open the door.

  A man stood on the mat. Frølich had never seen him before: lean, 1 metre 80, light brown hair and brown eyes.

  The man said: ‘Frank Frølich?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Sten Inge Lystad, Kripos.’

  The man’s face was dominated by a crooked mouth which lent it a twisted appearance. The slanting smile divided his face into two in a peculiar, but engaging, way. Lystad’s face was one you remembered. Frølich ransacked his memory. Lystad … the name was familiar, but not the face.

  ‘It’s about Jonny Faremo.’

  Frank Frølich nodded. ‘Tragic.’

  ‘So you know about it already?’

  Another nod.

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘As I’m sure you know, I work for the police. We’re colleagues.’

  ‘But who told you?’

  ‘Gunnarstranda.’

  Lystad smiled coyly.

  Frank Frølich thought: He doesn’t like this turn of events. The conversation hasn’t taken the direction he anticipated.

  The ensuing silence was a clear sign that Lystad wanted to be invited in. But Frank Frølich didn’t want anyone in and so observed Lystad in silence.

  ‘Have you been to Faremo’s house recently?’

  On the positive side: no beating about the bush. Negative: his method is to keep a distance, be cool.

  ‘You mean Jonny Faremo?’

  ‘Yes, I mean Jonny Faremo.’

  ‘I’ve been there, that is to say, o
utside. I rang the doorbell, a couple of days ago, the same day he was released from custody. I was supposed to meet his sister, Elisabeth. I don’t know if you know the background here?’

  ‘I’d prefer to know as little as possible, apart from what happened between you and Jonny Faremo when you saw him last.’

  ‘OK,’ Frank Frølich said, thinking: high arsehole factor.

  ‘Was his sister at home when you rang?’

  ‘Elisabeth? Does the question mean that your interest goes beyond my dealings with her brother after all?’

  A shadow crossed Lystad’s face.

  He doesn’t like the direction the conversation is taking – positive.

  ‘Frølich, listen.’

  ‘No, you listen. I’ve been a policeman for many years. I can see you’re aware you’re making a mess of this. I’m also the first person to understand that you don’t like the job, but you don’t need to kick people in the balls even if they’re standing conveniently close by. You say the background doesn’t concern you. Well, it concerns me to a very considerable extent. I’ve taken a load of time off because of the background. That’s what has led to this conversation between you and me. Well, if the background doesn’t concern you, don’t ask about it. Either you don’t care or you do.’

  Lystad didn’t say anything and Frølich continued.

  ‘My version is that I started a relationship with a lady who has the wrong connections. The same lady’s brother is dead now. But be absolutely clear about one thing: I’ve never ever been interested in Jonny Faremo, neither when I met him two days ago, nor at any other time. When I showed up at his place – after Faremo was released from custody – that was the first time I’d ever met the guy. I’d never seen him before. But I went there to meet her, to talk to her, and I did that because a situation had arisen in our relationship: she had used my name in her testimony to give her brother an alibi at the hearing.’

  Lystad nodded gravely. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘When I got there, I parked in the visitors’ car park. There are stairs leading from there to the flats. I went down and rang the doorbell. I assume your witness is an elderly man – the neighbour with whom I spoke when no one answered the door. I exchanged a few words with the man. Then I went back to the car and was about to drive off when Jonny Faremo appeared. He was driving a silver Saab. I’d never seen the man before, but I realized who he was and I approached him to ask where his sister was. He didn’t know. At least he claimed he didn’t know. Then I got back into my car and left.’