Lethal Investments (22 page)

It was morning. The sun was shining from an azure spring sky above Oslo’s rush-hour traffic. All the lanes in Bispegata were crammed with fuming commuters, sleepy buses and groaning long vehicles.

Frank Frølich was at the wheel and experiencing butterflies in his stomach. The expectation. Something had happened. What smarty pants call the
breakthrough
in an investigation. They were almost there. It was clear from the way they spoke. The way words were articulated.

The car inched its way forward in the right-hand lane, on its journey west, out of town, under the Traffic Machine, Oslo’s spaghetti junction. The queue was barely moving and he was driving with his bumper up the bum of the next car, to stop cheeky buggers nosing their way in. Gunnarstranda had met him half an hour ago, with red-rimmed eyes and a serious face. The boss was a shadow of his former self, as they say. Hadn’t even bloody said ‘Morning’, just dangled a bunch of car keys and led towards the garage with his coat-tails flapping behind him. The old guy’s silence was unnerving. The jittery atmosphere had made him feel different, too. His mouth had already gone dry. The silence had been intolerable, so he had started to report back on the conversation with the owner of Scarlet. Afterwards he dropped the bombshell, ventured a theory. Not much to brag about perhaps, but the sequence of events was right. He had gone through the whole story. The restaurant-owner had said that Engelsviken had been at Scarlet at the same time as Reidun. So, the woman’s employer, the man for whom she would not be a mattress any longer, this shark, had been there at the same time as her, a short time before she was murdered. Engelsviken, a green-eyed, jilted lover, had stood watching his dream-girl dancing and rubbing her body against an upstart of twenty-five. The MD had had to watch calmly while she was picked up, and he had even made a fuss when the couple went off for further entertainment. Thereafter the man had drunk himself silly and had had so much pent-up aggression inside him that he kicked a glass door to smithereens, causing four thousand kroners’ worth of damage, at half past three in the morning, two hours before Reidun Rosendal was last seen alive.

Frank had described in great detail how the man in the silk suit had been carried out of the room and heaved into his wife’s car, whatever repercussions that might have meant. He didn’t suppose a piss-artist who had just smashed the glass door of one of Oslo’s in-places was likely to be very keen to have his own wife collect him. The man had probably made her stop somewhere close by Reidun’s flat, then he had staggered out of the car, max two hours before she was laid low with her own bread knife.

Frank thought the whole thing was fairly convincing as he listened to himself babbling away. Granted the theory didn’t take much account of the burglaries with which his boss was so fascinated, but there was a good chance they were a dead end, anyway. Nevertheless, he was disappointed at his boss’s reaction. Gunnarstranda had paid close, patient attention, but the excitement had not reached his hands. Nor had he lit a cigarette with a triumphant glint in his eyes. Instead he had lowered his head, with three deep creases in his forehead, and had then begun to talk about Reidun’s damned neighbour, this Joachim Bjerke, and a company called Ludo. And insisted that it was Bjerke who had committed the burglaries, although he hadn’t stolen anything. Just because the guy ran this Ludo company on his own and Engelsviken owed him money.

‘Why did this Joachim Bjerke break in then?’ asked Frølich after his passenger finally shut up and would not say any more.

‘For some letters and a tape.’

Gunnarstranda chewed the inside of his cheek. Eyes in ruminative mode.

‘Evidence. Bjerke was Engelsviken’s accountant. The accountancy company A/S Ludo was employed by Engelsviken on a contractual basis.’

Frank nodded without saying a word. Let his boss continue with his findings unchecked. ‘This is all about Engelsviken’s past,’ his boss declared, gesticulating, and carried on about angry creditors. Lenders who didn’t get either the interest rates, or any instalments, or for that matter payment for goods they had placed with the engineer, who as yet had not gone bankrupt.

‘It’s about Terje Engelsviken, who was still managing to bankrupt companies. Every time Engeslviken went bust the lenders never got what they were due in settlement.’

Frank smiled as the car on the right honked its horn. A plump face with a tightly knotted tie and a bushy beard was cursing him roundly from behind the windscreen.

‘A/S Bodge ’n’ Dodge? As your brother-in-law said?’

‘Exactly. Joachim Bjerke told me everything yesterday. The fellow was unstoppable. It was like pulling the plug out of the bath.’

Gunnarstranda described how the air had gone out of the arrogant toad on the sofa, like a puncture.

The inspector had maintained his mask during the confession, and did not let on that he knew all about the barn outside Drammen where warehouse computers and accessories had been sold before and during the bankruptcies. Nor that the profits from the illegal sales were pocketed by Engelsviken. What was news was that Engelsviken’s accountant knew how little was left for the creditors when the receiver was brought in. Engelsviken had left them nothing apart from the coffee machine and a photocopier. Of course the administrators were angry. Engelsviken and Co. were reported to the police every time. But then, at the eleventh hour, papers and assurances from A/S Ludo popped up. Joachim Bjerke vouched for the accounts and proved that everything was above board; all the items had been sold a long, long time before. The administrator had therefore to accept that all the equity and assets had leached from the company en route to insolvency.

Gunnarstranda shrugged. ‘Of course, the creditors protested,’ he sighed. ‘They claimed that Engelsviken had transgressed time limits and so on.’

Frank nodded slowly. He knew the answer: case shelved for lack of evidence.

‘Each time, the police were faced with a mass of contradictory claims,’ the inspector explained. ‘Vague evaluations of assets, kilos of paper and dates over which no one ever had a real perspective. The cases shuttled to and fro between the Fraud Squad and Oslo Police Headquarters without anyone delving deep enough in the shit to be able to justify a charge being brought. In the end the cases were placed on the shelf marked “unsolved”.’

He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. ‘But it became harder for Engelsviken to gain trust in the business community. Stories started circulating about him. He gained a certain notoriety and had difficulty being taken seriously, black-listed as he was as a bad payer. Engelsviken was a rotten apple long before he hatched the concept of Software Partners. Since the usual creditors could not be milked, he had to find a new target group to bleed dry: computer dealers. The idea was brilliant. To cheat co-owners. The only problem was digging up enough gullible optimists.’

He grinned. ‘Investors, I mean, naturally. At any rate people who would invest, people who would risk their money on the emperor’s new clothes. And, as you know, the poor co-owners have no rights at all when the company goes belly up. They’re owners themselves and are left to face the music.’

Frølich whistled.

‘It’s what Svennebye said,’ the balding officer continued indefatigably. ‘Software Partners consists of two groups of employees. Those who are in the know and those who aren’t. Those who aren’t are the external façade, such as Reidun Rosendal, the babe with the long legs and attractive face who travelled around visiting customers and charming them into ruin.’

Frank Frølich was reminded of the pipe smoker in the fossilized office shop. The old chap would be kissing goodbye to his hard-earned supplementary pension. That much was certain.

‘The company didn’t have any money,’ Gunnarstranda went on. ‘Reputable suppliers were no longer giving payment extensions to Engelsviken. Hence the tango with the legal machinery to have goods returned and compensation paid.’

Frank met Gunnarstranda’s eyes as he glanced up to see if he was following. ‘This in turn hit Bjerke in A/S Ludo,’ the inspector went on. ‘You see, Bjerke had twenty-five thousand kroner invested in Software Partners. But he didn’t get a bean in compensation. That’s why he took up proceedings against SP, as he calls them.’

The inspector wagged his forefinger. ‘Then Engelsviken’s solicitor considered it time to dig up some old evidence. Do you understand what I mean?’

Frank nodded. He had taken his foot off the accelerator. The queue was moving a bit now and he could let the car roll forward in neutral.

‘Brick considered the time ripe to remind Bjerke what an accountant risked as a result of forging documents.’

Gunnarstranda gave a wry smile. ‘Dear Joachim, this bench-vice is going to squeeze your balls. You can do as I say, or would you prefer a falsetto voice?’

Frank closed the window as they drove into Oslo Tunnel. Bent forward and switched off the fan so as not to inhale exhaust fumes. The queue was still slow-moving and the air not exactly pure forty metres under the ground.

‘Bjerke withdrew the lawsuit against Software Partners in an attempt to placate them,’ the inspector went on. ‘But Brick and Engelsviken had tasted blood. They’d won a couple of cases already, and sensed a chance to extort money out of Bjerke as well. So Brick demanded two hundred thousand from Ludo in compensation.’

Frank whistled again. This time sucking his teeth.

‘Bjerke was caught like a nut in a nut-cracker. Software Partners owed him twenty-five thousand in fees, and now there was a risk he might lose his licence or go to prison if he didn’t fork out two hundred thou to the same two bastards.’

‘That’s what I call two cool customers.’

‘Yes, Engelsviken and his solicitor!’

Gunnarstranda nodded to himself. ‘But now I suppose the game is up. Davestuen and the boys were there before eight this morning. Audit and seizure. Davestuen decided after talking to Svennebye for a few hours and an hour with me last night. So we’ll have to hope they can collect enough evidence for a charge. At any rate, the company Software Partners is a con.’

He smiled mirthlessly. ‘And will be bankrupt by tomorrow, I presume,’ he added.

‘What did Bjerke do when he was squeezed for two hundred thousand?’

‘The man knew that Engelsviken and Brick were capable of anything. And the evidence against Bjerke was a bloody good hand to have in that situation!’

‘It’s blackmail, pure and simple.’

‘Precisely. Bjerke had threatened them, tempted them, tried to negotiate with them without any success. As he said last night, the way out was a crowbar at night. He had to try to get hold of the evidence and destroy it. That was why he broke into and went through the premises of Software Partners with a fine-tooth comb, but he found nothing.’

Frank looked left and optimistically switched lanes. He felt a need to ask what he perceived as the crucial question.

‘Why did Bjerke have it in his head that the evidence was in Reidun’s flat? What made him break in?’

‘He received a call telling him to go and look there.’

Frank leaned back in the seat. The traffic was at a standstill again. Listened to his boss’s dry voice:

‘It was the Sunday Reidun was killed. Bjerke was woken up by the telephone ringing early in the morning. There was a crackle on the line and Bjerke knew it was someone with a mobile.’

Gunnarstranda looked across. ‘The voice on the phone said four words,’ he said, aping Bjerke.

‘Reidun has the originals.’

‘The sentence was repeated twice,’ he said. ‘Then the line went dead.’

Gunnarstranda paused.

‘Bjerke lay in bed thinking,’ he said and hesitated. ‘As Bjerke said to me: After all, I hadn’t thought of anything else except the bloody papers for months.’

Gunnarstranda continued with the man’s story: ‘He was surprised. Would a saleswoman in a computer company be trusted with papers? His own neighbour? Could that be right? No, he decided. The telephone call was just another stratagem in Brick and Engelsviken’s war against him. So Bjerke stayed in bed thinking. Then he put on his jogging gear and went for his daily run.’

Gunnarstranda interrupted himself: ‘Just imagine. The man rushes around the streets with sweat flying off him before anyone else has even got up and had a piss. Every bloody day! Just imagine if this misguided country could make positive use of that energy!’

Gunnarstranda slowly took out a cigarette.

‘Not here!’

Frank held his hand over the cigarette lighter. ‘We’re under the ground and need all the oxygen we can get!’

Gunnarstranda put the cigarette back in his pocket and went on: ‘As Bjerke had drawn a blank in the Drammensveien office, he conceded that one of the employees might be looking after the evidence. The girl didn’t need to know what it was she had in her safekeeping. So his jog ended up being shorter than usual. He ran back. Rang Reidun’s bell, but she didn’t open. One look inside and he knew why.’

‘Nice guy,’ Frank blurted.

‘You’re right,’ Gunnarstranda said in a chill tone. ‘He’s a cool customer as well. And now he has an extra problem.’

Frank raised his eyebrows.

‘His wife. She did not appreciate what she heard him telling me.’

Gunnarstranda turned his head. Looked out of the window. He talked about her fury. The accusations. The husband who would expose his child to such trauma on the staircase. Her husband. The pumped-up toad with the fringe. All the arrogance was gone. Huge sweaty patches under his arms and a squeaky voice: “Mia, you’ve got to understand me. Mia!” She’ll sort that out, though. She deserves better than a bookkeeper. Do you know what he reminds me of?’

‘Nope.’

‘The kind of prissy oaf who goes in for dancing competitions. Cheesy grin, not a hair out of place, despite falling on his face and rolling over four times. The man just jumps to his feet and dances
Swan Lake
with a Colgate smile on his chops.’

‘Those porcelain teeth, you mean?’ Frølich grinned. ‘What’s she like, his wife?’