Lethal Investments (11 page)

‘You’d better check all this out for yourselves, but Engelsviken did go bust. And, let me put it this way, no one is surprised that his companies go belly up. But his creditors have a tendency to pull a face every time his assets are released.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing is an understatement.’

They left the table, went into the foyer where they stopped to part company.

‘On that subject, I’ve heard the name of a solicitor,’ Brother-in-law said. ‘But now for the life of me I can’t recall what it was!’

The detective took out a notebook and consulted it.

‘Brick?’ he suggested.

‘Possible.’ Brother-in-law nodded, putting the briefcase into his other hand. ‘What I’ve heard is that this solicitor sorts matters out for Engelsviken every time he gets into a fix. A kind of legal consultant. Where did you get the name?’

‘Software Partners is the kind of set-up whereby you commit yourself to partners for a sum of money, a kind of equity stake,’ the policeman answered. ‘I understand the concept was devised by Brick.’

Brother-in-law’s hiss was eloquent. He proffered his hand.

Gunnarstranda shook hands. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he mumbled.

Then it was off to the courts, where Gunnarstranda went through the archives and made some enquiries. Made some telephone calls. It all took time. Herr Brick was an industrious solicitor on the letter-writing front. A/S Software Partners was involved in no fewer than seven legal claims, and that in just the last six months. In fact, one case had been withdrawn, but Gunnarstranda took the trouble of writing down the names of the litigants on a sheet of paper. Stuffed it in his wallet. Several of the cases concerned demands from companies wanting the sales contract to be rescinded as a result of defaulted payments. One case was between Software Partners and A/S Rent-An-Office, the lessor of Engelsviken and Co.’s rooms. Rent-An-Office demanded a court eviction as no rent had been forthcoming. Brick, on behalf of A/S Software Partners, demanded compensation for what Brick called a scandalous lack of commitment to the lease contract and demonstrable discrepancies between the said contract and actual conditions.

Gunnarstranda was chewing at the inside of his cheek as he left the courthouse on his way to Kafé Justisen.

It was quite crowded. By and large the usual gamblers and jobless drinkers were there knocking back beer, but with the occasional colleague thrown in. Right at the back sat Reier Davestuen, a detective from the Fraud Unit. Reier shared a table with a fair-haired hobo who kept shouting something over to the gamblers’ table and rocked to and fro with a toothless grin. Poor Reier had shrunk into a corner so as not to be jolted. He did not have much success though, he took up a lot of room himself, and the large pink copy of
Dagens Næringsliv
did not make the matter any easier. Reier of the big hands, size 47 shoes and clothes that always seemed too small.

Gunnarstranda wove his way through to the steep staircase to the veranda that formed the first floor and went up. Almost as full here, too. An empty seat by a wrinkled face under an old felt hat. The person had a mouthful left of beer and had already started to point his galoshes towards the staircase.

‘Is it free?’ the policeman asked.

The man tried to move his lips, but abandoned the attempt and nodded instead, with the result that his hat fell over his face.

‘Special!’ Gunnarstranda yelled at the young waitress sitting with a lit cigarette in front of the kitchen door.

Today’s special consisted of veal, olives, pease pudding, three boiled potatoes with dill on top and an utterly wonderful sauce. He twisted to allow the old boy with the galoshes to dodder off, and he dug in. He relished every bite. Smiled at the waitress who came to the table carrying a bottle of mineral water with a white label because she knew that was the one he wanted. He was of a mind to compliment her on the sauce, but this was beyond him. Instead, in a very effusive way, he ordered a packet of twenty Teddy.

From his seat there was a good view of the tourist deck where Davestuen was still thumbing through the stock exchange listings. Gunnarstranda watched his colleague raise his right arm to disguise a yawn, energetically shake his head and draw breath before looking round with sluggish, withdrawn eyes. Anonymous and grey for as long as he was sedentary. A thin blond fringe and a bony face protruded from a much too small suit jacket around a loud yellow tie that was doing its best to throttle him.

Eventually Gunnarstranda managed to catch his eye and beckon to him. Reier gave a start, then waved back. Got up without knocking over the table, but earned a look of dismay from his toothless neighbour when he drew himself up to his full height.

‘Anything new on the stock exchange?’ Gunnarstranda asked, still chewing, and held on to his plate as Reier’s knees raised the table as he sat down.

‘Nothing,’ he exclaimed, stretching out his legs and thereby lowering the table. He stared Gunnarstranda in the eye, ‘Nothing at all.’

Reier’s intensity could on occasion be tricky to negotiate. Gunnarstranda looked down. ‘I have a computer company increasing the taxpayer’s burden with seven lawsuits all at the same time,’ he informed him. ‘Plus, to a large extent, panicked demands for compensation reminiscent of distress calls from an empty wallet.’

Davestuen nodded and folded his large hands on the table in front of him, two pale hams bristling with wiry blond hair.

‘The MD is a dubious sort,’ Gunnarstranda went on, with the smell of mothballs from Reier’s jacket assailing his nostrils. ‘Several bankruptcies behind him in the course of very few years.’

He picked up a brochure. ‘The company in question is soliciting fresh capital from investors.’

Davestuen took the brochure. Flicked through it and stopped at the picture of the Finance Manager, Bregård. ‘This the dubious sort?’

‘Nope,’ Gunnarstranda answered quickly. ‘The dubious MD is not mentioned at all in the booklet. And I was just beginning to reflect that this was a very astute move on their part.’

He slurped the coffee the waitress had put down in front of him unbidden. Smiled at her and she smiled back, not just out of politeness; she winked, too. He liked that, tapped out a cigarette from the packet of Teddy and offered one to the Fraud Unit officer.

‘No, thank you,’ he answered, raising a deprecatory hand. Gunnarstranda stared at him in amazement. ‘You? Given up the fags?’

Reier Davestuen nodded gravely.

‘When was that?’

‘Yesterday, now that you mention it.’

Gunnarstranda acknowledged his respect, and lit up.

‘I know beardy here,’ Davestuen continued unruffled and pointed a stout yellow finger at the photograph of Bregård. ‘Øyvind Bregård. Ex-bully boy. Big muscles, right?’

Gunnarstranda nodded slowly.

‘Done for GBH at least once.’

Gunnarstranda blew out smoke, waiting.

Davestuen’s bony brow creased as he tried to remember.

‘He was working for some dodgy debt collection agency we snuffed out a few years ago, but for the moment I can’t remember which.’

‘And what did he get?’

‘A prison sentence. For beating to pulp a Pakistani who ran a shop in Oslo West. Don’t remember the man’s name or where it happened, but we can find out, of course.’

Gunnarstranda said:

‘What he’s doing now is definitely not hustling. It’s a computer business. I suspect it is not quite kosher though.’

Davestuen nodded.

‘Bregård’s the Finance Manager.’

Davestuen grinned, displaying pointed teeth. ‘Not at all kosher,’ he declared and revealed a gold bridge in his lower jaw.

‘I’m investigating the murder of a girl working there,’ Gunnarstranda went on. ‘I don’t know if this business is connected with the murder, but it stinks to high heaven.’

Davestuen spat on his hands and straightened his fringe with his palms. ‘There’s not a lot I can do . . .’

‘You could check out the case, find out what these people are actually up to. How can this bully boy possibly be a finance manager?’

Gunnarstranda tapped a nicotine-stained nail on Bregård’s photograph.

Reier peered down at Bregård’s bearded face, took the brochure and studied it closer. ‘Fine,’ he said at last. ‘Just phone calls for the time being.’

Gunnarstranda stood up.
Major things happen in this world of ours
, he thought.
Europe, the collapse of the Eastern bloc and now bugger me if Reier Davestuen hasn’t given up smoking
. He walked towards the telephone on the wall.
Time to reel in Frølich and take a trip to Software Partners
, he thought with satisfaction.

Before Frank received a call from his boss, he had been busy studying Sonja Hager’s list of Software Partners’ business connections. Prospects for a successful trawl did not look too promising. The problem was the range of different commercial activities. Some were shops; some were small businesses you find are obscure broom cupboards in large rental complexes; while others were standard bookshops. Some filtering was necessary.

He summoned up patience and sat down with Bryde’s classified telephone directory and Televerket’s Yellow Pages. He began to sort names of firms systematically by groups: one for buyers of computer solutions, one for potential company owners and one for both.

After two and a half hours’ slog he laced up his boots, put on his green anorak and set off to do some field work.

A bite, first cast of the rod.

The drive where he found himself was at the back of a side street off Rådhusgata. The place was a vacuum. In Rådhusgata cars and people sped to and fro without even so much as a sidelong glance at the quiet nooks and crannies, it was like being behind a breakwater. Here.

The business could not be very interested in having customers because the shop window was characterless, coated in dust, its presence only marked by a worn awning that flapped and creaked to the movement of the heavy traffic beyond. The sun had successfully removed almost all the colour from the posters. Box files, electric typewriters and unwieldy calculators behind the glass.

He went in. A bell jangled. Pure tea-shop stuff. Well, almost. The aroma of freshly baked buns was missing. No comely wench behind the counter, either. The absence of staff was conspicuous. He looked around. Alone. Not a soul to be seen. Dry air. The buzz of a photocopier and the faint drone outside were the only sounds to fill the room.

He shook the door again. Shrill jangle of the bell.

Something stirred.

Then he was there. The man was getting on in years. Erect back. Short and plump with a wig that was as black as the bristles on a paint brush. Tiny tufts of genuine hair, of the thin, grey variety, stuck out of his ears.

‘Morning!’ the man smiled in welcome with an outstretched hand.

Frank showed his ID.

The happy expression on his features was gone, but he politely offered Frølich a seat behind a room-divider where he had set up a little office overflowing with newspapers and unfinished crosswords.

The police officer passed him the photograph of Reidun Rosendal without uttering a word.

The shop-owner ran his hands across the table, lifting piles of paper until he found his glasses. They had black plastic rims and thick lenses. With these on his nose, he nodded again and again at the girl in the photograph.

‘She’s dead,’ Frank said to make him stop. ‘Murdered, and I’m investigating her death.’

The news had an impact. The man chewed the ends of his glasses. ‘Dead?’

‘Did she often come here?’

It took the man quite some time to compose himself. ‘Very often. Last week she was here,’ he began, fidgeting, disorientated. ‘No, no, no,’ he sighed. Strange look in his eyes.

The policeman leaned back in his chair and waited.

‘She handled the co-ownership.’

‘Co-ownership?’

‘I’ve become a co-owner of Software Partners.’

His face suddenly creased. A kind of reaction to the officer’s curiosity.

‘We’re interested in anything to do with Reidun during the last weeks of her life,’ Frølich explained reassuringly. ‘Absolutely everything. We don’t want to go on tapping in the dark.’

The man surveyed him over the edge of his glasses.

Frølich inclined his head with a jovial smile. Wondering at the same time how come this creep with the sixties staplers in the shop window could be a co-owner of a yuppy firm in prestigious Oslo West.

The man stopped staring over his glasses and declared: ‘I own this block where we are now.’

He paused for reflection as though the whole thing was a long story.

‘Over the last few years this shop has been a loss-maker . . . I’ve kept myself afloat with the rents I earn from the block. And that is how I would have continued, had it not been for the biggest tenant.’

The shop-owner named a technical journal. Frank recalled the dusty rows of empty windows on the floors above. He doubted the rental income would make this guy fat.

‘They served notice. You see, without them I would actually have gone bust.’

The eyes under the wig were doleful. ‘Everything’s tight now, the rental market’s at its zenith and there have been too many office blocks built over the last few years. It’s impossible to get new tenants, so the outlook for increasing your income is grim.’

He stared into the distance, then suddenly brightened up.

‘Had it not been for this offer from frøken Rosendal, well, I don’t know what I would have done!’

‘What offer was that?’

‘I’ve become a dealer. Of a new series of commodities. I’ve bought myself into a company . . . and I’m now a co-owner.’

Another partner for Software Partners! The logic was all in the name.

‘How did you become a co-owner?’

‘I bought a share of the firm and thereby an automatic right to sell their products.’

‘A kind of franchising?’

‘No, no, co-ownership.’

‘But isn’t competition fierce in the computer market?’

‘Yes, it is.’

A smile flickered around the man’s mouth. His eyes sparkled as he exclaimed:

‘But now Software Partners have launched a commodity they have sole rights to throughout Norway!’

As if the competition would be any the less for that
, the policeman thought.

‘So you’ve bought shares in Software Partners?’

A shadow of doubt crossed the man’s face again.

‘Shares? I suppose I have . . .’

‘Haven’t you received them?’

Apologetic smile. ‘I gather there’s a technical innovation here, to avoid red tape. A-shares and B-shares or something like that.’

Not completely happy with his answer. Shifted uneasily in his chair.

‘Is it permitted to ask how much this partnership has cost you?’

Defensive furrows above the glasses.

‘I can’t see the logical connection with the case.’

Time to let a silence get under his skin, thought Frank. Met the man’s gaze and allowed a silence to pervade the room. The eyes across the table roamed.

‘Two hundred and fifty thousand!’

‘That was bold!’

His surprise was sincere. Two hundred and fifty thousand kroner was a lot of money, at least for this man.

The shop-owner didn’t like the surprised tone. ‘Calculated risk,’ he boasted. ‘You’re never too old to take a risk.’

Pause. Thoughtful examination of the ceiling. ‘But there is no risk here, either. This new software will have people banging down the doors of whoever has the rights. Software Partners have the monopoly in the country. I’ll be killing two birds with one stone, reaping the benefits from the mother company and getting the profit through the shop!’

The policeman stretched out his legs.

Knew the arguments. They were the same as in Bregård’s glossy brochure.

The guy was a pipe smoker. The pipe had once been red and shiny, made from briar root wood. Now it was stained and matt. The mouthpiece was worn, green at the tip and chipped from a firm bite. The man filled it with tobacco from a tin on the table. Rød Orlich.

‘You’re never . . .’
puff puff
. . . ‘too old . . .’
puff
. . . ‘to take a risk . . .’
puff puff.

Blue smoke wafted upwards. Nice aroma. Used match in the ashtray. Another match.

‘I had the choice . . .’
puff
. . . ‘either to buy myself a life annuity which was not index-linked . . . or . . .’
puff
… ‘you see, I’m thinking about my pension – ahh, tobacco is where I like to indulge myself . . . or invest in a risky project, use my savings to make an investment. I chose the latter. I put in everything I had!’

He is content now. Pipe between his teeth. Thumb in his waistcoat pocket. Rounded stomach straining against his waistcoat. Wig with the Hitler haircut.

‘That’s what the problem is today of course! The private sector needs venture capital. Solid companies like Software Partners have problems when they approach ordinary financial institutions.’

He had forgotten his pipe, waved it around. ‘Tell me why I should hesitate? Why shouldn’t I grab the chance while it’s there? Frøken Rosendal personally calculated a return on my investment that no one would dare dream about in today’s market.’

‘Frøken Rosendal?’

The man nodded. ‘Yes, indeed. Frøken Rosendal in person!’

Frank gasped internally. A/S Software Partners: the revue act woman in flat shoes, Bluto and the snob from the house on the hill. Reidun with a tight skirt and a background in the Post Office. Would these characters provide this gentleman the returns no one would dare dream about? Something jarred.

‘Are there enough funds for others to get in?’

Pipe back in his mouth. Business-like expression, matter of fact. ‘The company has set a ceiling for the number of partners and the minimum stake is a hundred thousand kroner.’

He pondered. Puffed on his pipe. To the policeman’s amazement, he got the pipe going immediately. Nice smell.

‘I must say I’m glad I signed up early.’

‘You really do have faith in this, don’t you.’

A light brown drip of saliva from the pipe stem dropped on to Reidun’s photograph. ‘If you had met her you would have known this business was the real McCoy.’

He had assumed the dreamy expression he had had before. ‘She was from another world.’

‘Another world?’

The detective wiped the photograph with the sleeve of his jumper. The stain would not go away and blurred the girl’s face.

‘Yes, how can I put it, not just tall and attractive, but, well, look around you!’

‘Yes?’

‘I saw it on your face the minute you stepped in here. You saw it straight away, didn’t you! A bankruptcy. Look around you! What sort of turnover do you think I can boast? Nothing. Every summer I have letters from the tax office because they can’t believe my figures! What do you think I could buy from this woman who loyally drops round with her brochures and spends valuable time here? Nothing! But she came! Again and again and again. She was a woman from another world!’

Frank knew he wasn’t going to get his questions answered.

Time to hit the road.

Luckily his pager bleeped.