Lethal Investments (9 page)

It was very odd. The old man made no attempt to disguise what he was doing. Not at all.
They headed upwards, along Christies gate, towards Lilleborg Church and on to Torshov Park.

Frank Frølich knew where this was leading, he knew where Klavestad lived. So he trailed a fair way behind. For now the task was clear. Tail the tail. And the young man with the hair had all his attention focused on the old codger behind him. Sigurd Klavestad kept turning round, didn’t run, but walked faster, apprehensive. At the bottom of Ole Bulls gate he stopped and faced the man, who froze in his tracks. The distance between them was a touch under a hundred metres. Frank Frølich tried to pretend he was waiting for a bus, strode over to the published schedule, stared at the arrival times and scowled at his watch. Nothing happened. The two of them just watched each other. Until Klavestad began to walk slowly towards Johansen. Who didn’t move, just poked around with his stick. The distance shrank by twenty metres. Sigurd stopped. Frank Frølich stuffed both hands in his pockets and mooched around the timetable. Nothing happened. Two pairs of eyes glaring at each other.

Until Sigurd finally turned. Took a few steps. The old man followed. Klavestad spun round. Again Johansen froze in his tracks. Frølich yawned and checked his watch again. Ten minutes had passed. Sigurd was still staring at this man he didn’t know. Then slowly turned round again. Went on now without looking back. Though faster. Johansen had to pick up speed. They walked along Torshov Park until they were there.

Journey’s end.

Frank strolled at a leisurely pace. Right first time. The door had closed behind Sigurd. The man with the hat and stick stood by the front door studying the name plates.

Soon the policeman found refuge behind a rotary dryer. From there he loped across the road to the block opposite where Klavestad lived. This could have been quite tricky had it not been for a telephone booth hidden amongst some dense bushes.

He slipped in and flicked slowly through the frayed yellow scraps of paper that had once been telephone directories. A blue, a brown and a red wire protruded from the line left bereft of a purpose. The remains of the receiver lay scattered on the ground.

Frank leaned towards the glass and observed the man on the opposite side of the street. He was completely nuts. Talking to himself, scrutinizing the doorbells, shuffling to and fro in front of the entrance. A bent old fellow, his legs and stick jabbing the ground, to and fro outside the door. My God, Frank thought, shaking his head and tut-tutting. You are completely bonkers!

‘So he left again, did he, without going in?’

Frank nodded and stopped the car at the crossroads between Karl Johans gate and Dronningens gate.

‘And you’re sure he took the bus back?’

Another nod.

It was evening. It was dark. They were keeping a watch on the pedestrian zone. There were shady figures hanging around on both sides. Most of them dropping comments and aiming disapproving glances at the car. Frank noticed the charmer with the crooked glasses and rotten teeth he’d seen from the tram earlier in the day. Now he was holding a short leash, at its end a Dobermann with restless legs and a pointed snout. At the same time he was chatting to a prostitute with swollen lips and thin thighs that strained to keep her upright. The woman was trying to light a cigarette. So far she had dropped three Marlboros on to the tarmac. They had slipped between her bony white fingers.

Gunnarstranda searched the inside pocket of his coat. ‘You had a useful outing,’ he continued. ‘But I think there’s little point doing any more undercover stuff. Except that the old chap worries me a bit.’

‘He doesn’t exactly seem dangerous.’

‘True,’ Gunnarstranda conceded, not totally reassured as he continued his search. ‘Nevertheless, there’s something funny going on there. Here it is!’

He passed Frølich a passport photo.

Frank stared at the picture of a man in his late forties. Pointed face, thick neck, mouth with a very narrow top lip and pronounced eyebrows. A thick comb-over from his left ear across the crown to hide a shiny bare patch. The man had set the stool too low in the photo booth. Resulting in him stretching his neck and making his eyes seem enlarged.

‘Who is it?’

‘Egil Svennebye. Marketing Manager for Software Partners. I was given the photo by his wife.’

‘Have you been there?’

‘Yes, she told me he was having a terrible time with his colleagues and he was fond of a drink. That is, he’s always been fond of a drink. So I’ve asked the boys to check the usual haunts.’

At that moment Glasses-man had to struggle to keep his dog under control. An unshaven rocker wearing jeans and a quilted sleeveless waistcoat came down Skippergata. Strolled towards the car. An Alsatian padded alongside him on a slack leash. It didn’t grace the Dobermann with a glance although it had barked up a storm, growling and baring its teeth. Frank rolled down the window.

But the man showed no sign of recognition as he bent down to the window. ‘Go to Bankplass,’ he said in a low voice, lowering his head to light a fag while talking.

‘Totally wrecked! He was chucked out of Original Pilsen an hour ago and now he’s sitting and drinking his own supplies on the steps of the old bank building.’

Message over. The man straightened up and strolled off without looking back. He could have asked the way, seen them or passed on a message. It had happened quickly. It is all a bit speculative when someone bends down to a police car, whether marked or not. You can always recognize the police. The Dobermann shut its mouth when the Alsatian was gone. But a nervous uneasiness had settled over the clientele, which was heightened when Frank switched on the ignition and started the car.

They stopped at the red lights. Frank turned to his side. Gunnarstranda’s bald head went red and green as the neon advertising changed colour. Green. The car moved away without a word being said. It was cold outside and the wind had picked up in Tollbugata. The prostitutes huddled in doorways and gateways to get away from the freezing snow. Just one solitary young girl with an open fur coat trudged straddle-legged down the right-hand side. Frank liked the roundness of her thighs between stocking tops and the short skirt. He waved to another undercover man eating a hot dog beside a patrol car. Two drunken men were pushing each other on the pavement in the blue light of a restaurant sign. They stood on either side of a man stretched out with his face in what might have been blood or vomit.

He steered the car into Bankplass, pulled in to the kerb and parked. A woman who had been standing in a doorway turned and slunk back when she saw what kind of car it was. A brief glimpse of silken skin above polished black leather boots could be made out before she merged into the shadows.

Frank cast his eyes around. There wasn’t much traffic, and the few cars cruising the street were soon flagged down by bystanders. A guy with blond hair and jeans stood pissing between the rusty railings outside the Museum for Contemporary Art. Beyond that, a mini-skirt sashayed over to a car. She bent down in time-honoured fashion and gave the customer a once-over before getting in. But there was no one on the steps.

His eyes wandered further afield. The officer had said by the steps. If the man had gone, he wouldn’t have got far.

‘There!’

A man was staggering across Kongens gata away from them. His coat hanging off him and what looked like a half-empty bottle of spirits dangling from his right hand. The man had to use the whole pavement and kept bumping into cars or signposts or other inconveniences.

They opened their car doors and followed him. The man stumbled on. Comb-over flapping. It had fallen the other way and was flying like a flag from his left temple. The two of them set off at speed and caught him up as he fell over a block of stone by the lawn.

‘Svennebye!’

Frank crouched down beside him.

The man raised his head. His eyes swimming. His coat and shirt soiled with vomit. Any similarity with the passport photo was minimal. It was the same person, but the face was bloated and this changed his appearance. His lips stuck out from his face like a handle. Two unusually listless eyes swam on either side of a pronounced, pointed nose.

‘Police,’ Frank stated with authority. Stupid thing to say. He could hear it himself.

The lower lip stuck out even further. Head crashed down. The man tried to rest a forearm on each thigh. Head drooping like a ripe pear between his shoulders. Frank stood up and let Gunnarstranda take his place.

The man put out an arm to move him away but as he did so a gush of white vomit surged from his mouth on to the pavement. The bottle slipped from his fingers and smashed on the ground.

A few chunks of carrot and some green peas enlivened a liquid mass of slime that stank of alcohol. Gunnarstranda had recoiled two paces so as not to get the next jet on his feet. Droopy-Head slowly raised his right hand to wipe away the snot that had collected under his nose. With the support on his thigh taken away he tipped over and fell into the sick, bottom uppermost. At the same time he supported himself on the tarmac and a shard of glass went into his hand, colouring it red with blood.

Gunnarstranda bent down and deftly tied his handkerchief around the bleeding hand that was now quite limp.

‘Svennebye!’ he said in a low, familiar voice.

The head dangled from side to side.

Gunnarstranda held the man’s forehead and pushed it backwards. The face was awash with puke and snot.

‘Svennebye!’

No reaction.

Gunnarstranda grabbed the lobe of his left ear and twisted. The head fell back further and his eyes rolled, so that you could see only the whites. The policeman let go, but the head stayed put. Mouth agape. Then suddenly his chest gurgled and another cascade spurted out of his mouth, upwards this time, like a fountain.

The two men stepped back. They let him finish being sick before Gunnarstranda leaned over.

‘Reidun,’ Gunnarstranda whispered, ever the optimist. ‘Reidun Rosendal!’

No reaction.

Frank could see that the vomit had soaked into the man’s trousers as he sat on the pavement, with legs apart like a child in a sandpit.

A middle-aged couple hurried past. She gave them a wide berth and both sent the police officers quizzical sidelong glances.

Svennebye tried to whistle. Only air came of the attempt. Then he hiccupped. Snivelled something or other. Twisted his mouth to the right. Things were about to happen.

Svennebye was making noises. Some coarse grunting sounds from down below. He shifted, fell on to his side. The man’s head banged into the wing of a parked car. Frank dragged him back into a sitting position. Now he was bleeding from his temple as well. Still grunting. Fiddling with his flies. Soon he was able to jiggle out his apparatus and gave a loud groan as the piss began to run across the tarmac. It didn’t get far. It collected in a puddle and was absorbed by his trousers.

They ambled back to the car.

Svennebye sat as before, in his own piss, vomiting with his legs spread out. His head dangling to and fro.

Frank left the radioing to Gunnarstranda.

Soon a vehicle arrived with a flashing blue light and skidded into the square. Two uniformed policemen grabbed the man under the shoulders and dragged him to the van and heaved him into the back where he landed upside down and stayed put, like a ball of dough you smack down on a kitchen worktop.

Gunnarstranda shouted to the nearest uniform:

‘Get a doctor to see to his hand!’

The uniform nodded and clambered in the police van with the Marketing Manager of Software Partners.

Sigurd Klavestad did not sleep well. He dreamed about white skin against a dawning window, about telephones ringing and no one speaking. And he knew the whole thing was a dream. Knew he ought to wake up and regain consciousness to escape the anxiety that made the dream so horrible and sticky. For that reason he finally gave in and opened his eyes wide.

The first thing he noticed was the sweat making the duvet cold and unpleasantly stiff. But he didn’t move. He lay there staring out into the dark. It was night. Grey light from outside. The night dimly illuminated by street lamps. He wondered what the time was. The silence told him it was late. There was a complete absence of traffic noise. So the time had to be somewhere between two and half past four at night. That was when it was still. After the night-taxis had broken the back of their work and before the first shift workers were roaring off to their jobs.

It was always horrible to wake up in the middle of a dream. With a jolt. The feeling you were falling God knows where, without any control. Unsure whether someone was out there in the dark and would attack you.

He was unable to move right away. Scared to make a noise. Scared someone would hear. Idiotic. But it had ever been thus. From when he was a small boy and he thought there was a man waiting with a black hat and a raised sword in the wardrobe. That was how it had always been. Too scared to move, rigid, staring into the darkness, skin tingling. Until he either went back to sleep or forced himself to fight through the barrier and plucked up the courage to switch on the bedside lamp.

Living alone now, he knew very well it was the nightmares of his childhood that tormented him. Nevertheless, the clammy stiffness had succeeded in locking his arms. As indeed it always had.

At last he moved. Heard the soft rustle of the duvet. Managed to stick out his hand and switch on the lamp. A dim light. Barely enough to illuminate the corners of the bedroom. But enough for him to dare to sit up and grab the cigarette packet on the bedside table. No taste. He immediately regretted having taken the first drag. Not because of the taste, but because he had to open the window. For some reason he didn’t want to open the window.

He smoked with jumpy, darting movements. Thought of the crazy old man from the day before. The dark eyes. Must have been gay. The town was full of crazy gays. And he was always bumping into them. The old man’s mug had reminded him of a face from many years ago. Once he had been sitting and waiting for the tram to leave. Then this man bounded in through the door, and sat on the bench opposite. He said: ‘Come to my place and jerk off, and you’ll get a thousand kroner.’ That was what he had experienced again with the old codger. The dank fear of what sort of nutter he had to deal with. People like that are bloody unpredictable; you can’t know what they are capable of doing. Like yesterday. When he turned and stopped. The old man’s moist, staring eyes.

The telephone rang.

He wasn’t surprised. It was as if he had been expecting it to ring. It was all tied up with the old queer. As if that was why he had woken up, for something like this to happen. He put the cigarette in his mouth and watched the jangling telephone. Answered it. ‘Yes,’ he said, hardly using his larynx. Cleared his throat. ‘Yes,’ he repeated.

Not a sound at the other end. He twisted round and wrenched his arm in such a way as to see his watch. Half past three. As he had guessed.

But then he went cold. There was the sound. He had heard it before. Someone smacking down the receiver. A clatter. And then the silence.

A kilo of lead in the pit of his stomach. Legs rigid and numb under the duvet. Mind on the blink.

The image of her. That resigned smile when no one announced their presence. The receiver being banged down. That morning.

Slowly he cradled the phone, too. Even more slowly he lay back and slid down the bed. Remembered the photograph the short, vicious cop had thrown at him. Her mutilated upper body and the transfixed expression on her face. As though she had hurled herself backwards to avoid the lunges with the knife, but had been impeded by the floor, nowhere else to go.

The bedside lamp lit up almost the whole room. Almost. The bedroom door was closed. Now he could hear the silence. It was much too silent.

Was someone there?

His legs ached. The bedroom door shone out at him.

He struggled to restrain the rising panic. He was at home. All alone. The front door was locked. He tried to calm himself.

Someone had called a wrong number. The front door was locked. But the chain? Had he attached the chain? Of course not.

He never did. Security chains are for old dears. He closed his eyes. The door. His legs went heavy again.
There’s no one here! Someone dialled the wrong number! There’s no one here! Get up, go into the hall and put on the chain.

This bloody anxiety. Had he locked the door?

He watched his hands lift the duvet. Watched himself get up.

At that moment there was a ring at the door. The lead in his stomach lurched upwards. He felt the cold in his neck, under his chin. His mind froze. His hands seemed to wither, lose strength, go cold and wax-like; they no longer belonged to him.

He didn’t feel the clothes as he dressed. He had no contact with his body. A repugnant numb sensation. He sat down on the bed. Didn’t move.

Was he imagining things?

The familiar ding-dong. Had he heard it or not?

First the telephone ringing and now this, one ring on the doorbell. At this hour. Half past three in the morning. He remembered the knife on the policeman’s desk. The flash of metal.

He found himself standing in front of the bedroom door. Grasped the handle. Slowly, ever so slowly, he opened the door without making a sound. The sitting room and the kitchen lay before him, silent. The grey night outside allowed him to make out individual contours in the gloom. A yellow strip through the thin crack between the door and the frame told him he had forgotten to turn off the light.

Perfectly still, he stood listening by the front door.

So unbelievably quiet. The doorbell. Had he heard it ring or not? Why didn’t he have a peephole in the door
? Everyone had a peephole in the door. Imagine being able to see out!

There.

Another ring. The sound echoed in the quiet hall. The sound seemed to boom. His knees gave way.

Someone was there. Waiting.

His mouth went dry. Should he say something, ask who was there?

His mind wouldn’t work. His voice wouldn’t work. He was just breathing, through an open mouth. But he had to change position. His knee cracked. The sound exploded in his ears. It sounded like a twig cracking.
Could it be heard through the door?

Not a sound from outside. His body ached. His posture was unbearable. How long had he been standing like this? It felt like an eternity.

Then. The sound of footsteps. Someone walking. No question about it. He closed his eyes, breathed out. Shoulders slumped. Knees gave way. Whole body had been tense. All the muscles that had been straining found peace. He looked at his watch, measured the time and listened. He stood there for ten minutes. Ten minutes.
Couldn’t be anyone there now. Not any more.

His hand went a strange bright white as he unlocked and opened the door.