Death in a Cold Climate (10 page)

‘Didn't you do anything when you didn't hear from him?'

‘He told me not to. The last time he spoke to me. He rang and said he was taking a holiday from Trondheim. He wouldn't say where, but he said he had something big on. He said he'd contact me as soon as he could–and we'd get married soon. I was so happy–it was the happiest Christmas I've ever had. I expected to hear again so soon–he said we could be married some time in the New Year.'

Two tears forced their way out from the corners of her eyes, and Fagermo imagined the hours of hope deferred, ticking by in this dismal house, making the heart sick.

‘How long had you known him?' he asked quickly.

‘Oh, we met in England, just over two years ago. I was there as an
au pair
.'

‘Where did he live?'

‘He was living at home. At Mersea, in Essex. It's a small seaside place with a lot of yachting. He'd been around the world a lot, all sorts of places–he seemed to know so much!–and now he was home for a bit. He wasn't happy there, but he liked the work he was doing. It was to do with boats. He loved anything to do with the sea. I was living with some people who worked at Essex University–sociologists. They rather used me, and I wasn't very happy either. So when it was time for me to come home, he came back with me and he got work in Stavanger for one of
the North Sea oil companies. They're not so fussy about work permits you know, and he hadn't got one then. He didn't like the work much, but then the permit came through–they let him have one because he was engaged to me, or so we said. So then he left Stavanger, came up to Ålesund for a few weeks, and then got this job in Trondheim.'

‘Why didn't he look for work around here?'

Anne-Marie looked at him pityingly. ‘We didn't want to stay
here
. Would you? With that sort of atmosphere in the house? And anyway, he wanted to get on, get ahead. He always knew he could get money if he wanted it–he had brains. But to do that you've got to be in a city.'

‘So he moved to Trondheim.'

‘That's right. And of course by then I was pregnant, so I couldn't go, or he didn't feel I should. He didn't want us to get married until we'd got something to live on and somewhere permanent to live. He said it would be starting off wrong. Of course my parents created merry hell, but he pretended he didn't understand what they were talking about. He was wonderful at letting things just flow over him. He found a flat in Trondheim quite quickly, I don't know how, but he can't have liked the job, I suppose, or else it didn't have the sort of prospects he'd hoped. Because when he phoned at Christmas I assumed he'd decided to move on. I'm sure he had something definite in view this time, and that he intended to call me.'

She said it defiantly, as if this was a bone of contention with her parents.

‘I'm sure he did,' Fagermo said.

‘He didn't realize, you see, the sort of atmosphere in this house. He had the idea people didn't worry much about illegitimate children in this country. He'd met my mother and father, of course, but he hadn't actually lived in the house. They wouldn't have allowed that, even if we'd
wanted it. At that time he didn't know any Norwegian much, and he didn't realize how–how bad they could be. He didn't want us to be married until we could afford it and be really comfortable, and I said I agreed.'

‘Did he send you money?'

‘I told him not to,' said the girl quickly. ‘So we could save.
They
told me I had to get maintenance for Tor from him–they went on and on. Money and the Lord, that's all they think about. Finally I told them I couldn't be sure he was the father . . . That made them worse, of course, but it kept them off that tack.'

‘It wasn't true?'

‘Oh, of course it wasn't. A great big lie. There's never been anybody else, not since we met.'

‘Can you think of anything‘–Fagermo paused–‘anything unusual in his past? Perhaps something suspicious, even. Or anything that happened while he was here–perhaps a quarrel, or a fight with somebody, or something odd? Or could there have been anything connected with his family?'

‘I only met his family two or three times. We went to pubs on Saturday nights . . . Oh, it's nice, looking back on it. Before I met him he'd been all over the place, as I said, and I don't know much about that part of his life. I used to make him tell me about it–Greece, Italy, Libya–all the places he'd seen. We used to sit down near the boats at Mersea, talking about it. He'd never been in trouble in those years, I'm sure. He'd have told me. And he never made any enemies while he was here–except
them
, of course. And no one can stand
them
. I don't think he even realized–I mean we'd be talking, or kissing, and they'd be looking at us with hell-fire and damnation in their eyes, and I just don't think he understood. They don't have religion much in England.'

‘So there's nothing you remember about him that might
suggest any sort of motive for murdering him?'

‘Nothing. He was just a nice, ordinary boy. Not ordinary to me, of course. But he wasn't the type to get murdered, that I'm sure about.'

‘But he wanted money. You said that yourself. It's dangerous to want to make money fast. Do you think he would have–gone along with anything shady to get it?'

‘He wasn't a crook! He would have earned it! He had real talent. He always knew he'd do well, but he didn't need to cheat or steal it.' She paused. ‘You're always hearing these days of people who just take off into nothing. Nothing's heard of them for months, years, and then they come back. They're not crooks–they just live simply.' Fagermo didn't tell her how expensive living simply was these days. ‘He was like that. He'd been all over, but he hadn't done anything crooked. He was the type people liked, and he'd always come off well. He was wonderful: so cool and uninvolved. He was the most wonderful thing that will ever happen in my life.'

Fagermo watched for a moment the traffic under the window, and avoided looking at the enthusiastic face beside him. He had his suspicions about Martin Forsyth and his two women. He thought he took the opportunity of the trip to Tromsø to cast himself off from both of them. But of that, nothing could be said. ‘What will you do now?' he asked finally, turning back into the room.

‘Get out of here. I've been waiting–for him, you know. I always hoped he might ring. And I couldn't trust
them
. I didn't know what they would do if he came, or rang, while I wasn't here. Now I can go, get a job, perhaps study.
Something
, away from here.' She humped her little boy up higher on her arm and turned to see Fagermo to the door. He chucked the baby under the chin.

‘I hope he'll grow up like his father,' said Anne-Marie.

The police at West Mersea regarded Fagermo–emanating, they had been told, from Norway–as a strange bird blown from its accustomed nesting places to land inexplicably on their unlovely marshes. When he told them, in addition, that he was from the far North of the country, from above the Arctic Circle, the information, as it sank in, led them to look at him with the slow country equivalent of curiosity. Even in this age of unaccountable and undesirable migrations, they seemed to feel, nothing like this had been seen there before.

‘Cold up there, is it?' said the local police inspector at last, as they sat in the cheerless little station.

‘Cold–and hot sometimes, too,' said Fagermo.

‘Oh yes? . . . Get a lot of snow, though, I suppose, don't you?'

‘Quite a lot,' said Fagermo, refraining from adding that it had buried one of the inspector's fellow townsmen. He had given them no details of the case, and they had showed no curiosity about it.

‘We had a Norwegian girl living round here, couple of years ago,' said the inspector, after the obligatory pause. ‘One of these
au pairs
' (how he leered), ‘name of Anne-Marie.'

‘I was talking to her yesterday,' said Fagermo.

‘Oh yes?' said the inspector, without surprise, as if Norway to his imagining were about the size of Mersea, and folk could be expected to run into each other almost daily. ‘A bit of all right, she was.'

‘She wasn't looking too happy yesterday,' said Fagermo. ‘How did you meet her?'

‘Can't recall now . . . That's right, she used to go with your lad, with that young Forsyth. Met 'em in a pub, with his family. He likes his pint, does Jack Forsyth.' The inspector drew his own hand across his lip, as if in anticipation.

‘Is that the father?'

‘Aye. He likes his pint, does Jack.' The inspector thought for a bit, as if trying to find something else to say about Jack Forsyth, but he was unsuccessful. ‘If you're ready, I'll drive you there,' he said, getting up and feeling for his keys.

They drove the few hundred yards from the station to the Forsyths' house along the boat-strewn quay, then off it towards a collection of depressingly similar houses–a junk-yard of residences put up by a speculative builder, which looked all too likely to have cleared him a packet. Very soon they would have all of the symptoms of age, with none of the dignity.

‘It's that one,' said the inspector, pointing. ‘Number seventeen. Nice little places, aren't they? Mostly they're retired Londoners live there–we get quite a good type, on the whole. But the Forsyths are local.'

‘I see,' said Fagermo, mentally shutting out the hideous estate. ‘Did you ever have any trouble with the Forsyth boy?'

‘No–there wasn't any trouble from him, that I remember. Wish I could say the same for all the young 'uns round here. All these university students . . . bloody young thugs, most of them. But the Forsyth boy never settled down here, as I remember. He'd be away for a period, then back again for a bit, then suddenly he'd take off. Other than that, we never had any trouble with him.'

‘Do the parents know?'

‘Oh yes, they know.'

‘Did they seem surprised?'

The inspector looked at him in his slow, country way, and scratched his head. ‘Can't rightly say,' he drawled meditatively. ‘You better talk to them yourself.'

As Fagermo went up the path, through a weedy failure of a garden, he was aware by some sixth sense of inspection from behind the lace curtains of the living-room. Mersea was not so different, after all, from any small Norwegian town, he thought. The curtains fell back into position, and a decorous interval passed between his ring and the opening of the door.

Standing in the opening was a fleshy woman of fifty or so, with tinted auburn hair, carefully made-up face, and hard, gimlet-sharp eyes. She wore a navy Crimplene costume, which seemed odd wear for half past five in the evening. Fagermo wondered if she was going out, if this was in anticipation of his visit, or if it was put on as an attempt at half mourning. It must have been some vague mental image of the last, he decided, because the woman was clearly very unsure how to behave: most notably, she was not sure what she ought to do with her face, though finally she decided she might smile.

‘Oh hello-o-o,' she said, in a voice with a sharp country edge like a jagged scythe. ‘They told me you'd be coming. Would you like to come in?'

She stood aside, and Fagermo stepped into the hall. She looked up and down the street, and then closed the door and led the way towards the living-room. ‘You're from Norway, aren't you?' she said. ‘That's nice. I've heard it's very nice there.'

‘Yes,' said Fagermo. ‘It's very nice.'

‘I've heard the countryside is lovely. Mrs Nethercoat down the road went there before it got so dear going abroad, and she said Bergen was lovely.'

‘Yes,' said Fagermo. ‘It's very lovely.'

They had got themselves to the living-room, and Mrs Forsyth's uncertainty seemed to increase. Some show of emotion seemed to be called for, but she seemed to have no idea of what was appropriate. Her notion of tragedy seemed to date back to Joan Crawford in a 'forties melodrama, and she gave a convulsive gulp, her hand on her bosom. Then, even she finding this unconvincing, she gave up and contented herself with a careful dab at her eyes.

‘Well,' she said, looking at the black-stained handkerchief, ‘doesn't do to give way, does it? Will you sit down, Mr –?'

‘Fagermo.'

‘Oh . . . '

They sat down on two soft, unsteady-looking easy chairs. Tentatively the two of them looked at each other appraisingly. Mrs Forsyth seemed to like what she saw. Fagermo, covertly, did not.

‘This must have been a great shock to you,' he said, giving her a cue to display what feelings she had.

‘Oh, it
has,
' she said, stretching down towards her heart for an emotion she did not feel. ‘
Awful
. When they came and told me this morning, I just didn't know what to say!'

Fagermo could believe it. He said: ‘It was a complete surprise to you?'

‘Well, it
was
. Of course it was.' She blinked a dry eye. ‘I mean we
heard
from him only–well, let's see, I suppose it would be about last autumn, or not later than summer, anyway. We had a card from him, ever so pretty, one of your towns over there. So of course we didn't think for a moment there was anything wrong . . . '

‘He hadn't written to you more recently than that, I suppose–at Christmas, for example?'

‘Well, no. But of course Christmas is so
busy
we didn't
think anything of it, you know. We've got the other little girl, you see, and it's all
go
then. He wasn't a great writer–we none of us are in this family. Awful when you think of the amount of money they spend on education, isn't it?'