The Man in the Window (10 page)

    Arvid grinned. 'If you're thinking about the business with Jonny, then it was just childish. Reidar must have said or done something. We reckoned that time would pass and Jonny would come back with his tail between his legs.'

    'Why antiques?' Frølich asked politely.

    'More coffee?'

    'No, thank you.' Frølich sat looking at the man as he poured himself another port. Two curly white hairs stood out on the tip of his bluish-purple nose. Frølich repeated the question.

    'Oh, it's a long story. It started with paper.' Folke Jespersen folded his hands over his stomach.

    'Paper?'

    'Yes, in those days none of us had any education. Emmanuel did an apprenticeship as a bricklayer. By the way, he built the house next door, which you passed as you came up the hill. Not on his own, of course. He was just one of many. And I began at a bank which disappeared long ago. Reidar was the brightest of us, but he was the one with least education. He worked as a newspaper boy on
Aftenposten.
As a young man, Reidar had idealistic tendencies. For a long time he was one of those few foolish types who think they can get rich by honest means.'

    Frølich looked up and was met by a good-natured smile from the opposite side of the table. 'For example, it always irritated Reidar that things were thrown away, and then he found out that newspaper companies threw away those rolls of paper - that is, they had to change rolls on the presses and afterwards there were a few metres of paper left on the roll, quite a lot actually, because newspaper is so thin, of course. There was perhaps that much on the roll.' Arvid demonstrated with his fingers. 'Waste paper; a pile of excellent raw materials which were just chucked out.'

    Frølich nodded.

    Warming to the topic, Arvid leaned forward in his chair: 'And no one gave a damn about this wasted paper. Reidar got it for free; he undertook to remove it and the newspapers were happy. And at that time, you know, paper was in short supply in many places in the world.'

    'He sold the paper on?'

    Folke Jespersen nodded. 'A business grew out of it. He earned money from waste. Then he moved on to antiques.'

    'Who bought the paper?'

    'Anyone who needed it. There were newspaper businesses in South America, in African states…'

    Frølich nodded. 'But then he turned to antiques?'

    'Exactly.' Arvid nodded.

    'Why?'

    'Well…' Arvid straightened up again. 'There were several reasons, I suppose. But the most important were financial. The paper had to be re-mounted - in other words, put on a new roll so that it could be used for newspaper production. As long as Reidar got the paper free, the production and transport costs could be covered, but one day the free paper came to an end. And then there was an economic downturn - this was before the exploitation of the rain forests. Nowadays they make paper from eucalyptus trees in the jungle and cheap Russian timber… Anyway, it stopped.'

    'But why antiques?'

    Arvid cocked his head.

    'Why not something else?' Frølich asked. 'Why antiques of all things?'

    Arvid shrugged and spread his hands. 'You tell me,' he said with a grin.

    Frølich observed him in silence. Arvid sipped his port and smiled behind the glass. 'I think, firstly, it had something to do with Reidar's love for objects, fine objects,' he said. 'Then there was Margrethe - Karsten's mother, who died a long time ago - she was a terrible snob. She liked to surround herself with beautiful, expensive things. On top of that, Reidar had this idea of making money from waste, that is, from the things that others throw away. He was ahead of his time, Reidar was. Now it's recycling and reclaiming and re-I don't know what. But you're right. It must have begun with something specific. I don't remember what. All of a sudden Reidar began to buy and sell curios, and then it turned out that all three of us were making good money out of it. But how it actually started? I do not remember.'

    Frølich jotted down: Why antiques?
Arvid F.J. doesn't give an answer.
He chewed on his pencil thoughtfully, and asked:

    'Did you contact your brother later that day?'

    'Which brother?'

    'Reidar. Did you get in touch at any point afterwards?'

    Arvid slowly shook his head.

    Frølich formed a tentative smile, unsure how to express himself. 'That's a bit strange, isn't it?' he suggested in a soft voice.

    'Oh?'

    'Yes, he had spoiled your deal, injured your dog…'

    'I didn't contact him.'

    'Did Emmanuel?'

    'You'll have to ask Emmanuel.'

    Frølich observed the man on the other side of the table. All of a sudden he seemed sulky and very distant. 'You and Emmanuel didn't hatch any other specific plans with regard to Reidar that day?'

    'What do you mean by hatch?'

    'I mean,' Frølich said, putting his notes down. 'If I had met this kind of resistance from my sister - I don't have a brother - I think I would have tried to talk to her. That's quite natural, I imagine.'

    'Of course we made plans.'

    'Yes? But you didn't carry them out?'

    'No.'

    'So you didn't try to contact Reidar?'

    'No.'

    Frølich picked up his notepad. 'This is a little awkward,' he said warily. 'But it's part of the job I have been assigned. I have to ask you where you were on Friday night.'

    'I was here.'

    'In this flat? On your own?'

    'My dog - Silvie - was here.'

    'Is there anyone who can confirm that?'

    'Do you think I would be capable of murdering my own brother?'

    Frølich pulled a guilt-stricken grimace. 'I apologize, but this is a question I need to have answered.'

    'I don't think anyone can confirm it, no.'

    'Did anyone ring you?'

    Jespersen shook his head.

    'Did you take the dog for a walk? Did anyone see you?' 'Silvie does her daily business in the box on the veranda..

    'How long were you at the vet's?'

    'It was already dark. I must have got back at about five or half past, I suppose.'

    'Fine,' Frølich mumbled, looking up. 'There is one last thing I was wondering. Does the number one hundred and ninety-five mean anything to you?

    'One hundred and ninety-five…?' Arvid turned his head gravely from side to side. 'No. Don't think so.'

    'Do you think the number had any significance for your brother?'

    'Haven't a clue,' Jespersen said, tossing his hands in the air. 'Why do you ask?'

    Frølich didn't answer.

    Arvid Folke Jespersen was lost in thought. 'One hundred and ninety-five,' he mumbled. 'No, I really have no idea. Sorry.'

Chapter 13

An Old Photograph

    That same afternoon Inspector Gunnarstranda drove straight to Folke Jespersen's warehouse in Bertrand Narvesens vei. The key he had requisitioned from Karsten Jespersen worked like a charm. He stepped over the high doorsill and went inside. The spring-loaded door closed with a bang, creating an echo in the room. He looked around. There were tables and chairs piled up, rocking chairs, trunks, cases, cupboards, clock machinery in wonderful, exquisitely made casings. He stood scanning the walls until his gaze fell on a window high up. There was a light on. He walked down the corridor leading through the clutter. A staircase led up to a landing in front of a door. He turned on the landing and cast an eye over the antiques. Between two cupboards with rusty hinges he noticed a cast-iron coke-burning stove beside a stained wood carving of a negro boy. Inspector Gunnarstranda wondered if these items might be worth anything. A fortune maybe, but for all he knew - nothing.

    He opened the door and went into an ante-room which appeared to function as a kitchen and dining room. Through another door and into an office. Gunnarstranda studied the table. It was big and heavy, English style; the wood was dark, almost red. The table top was polished and bare apart from a smallish plastic desk pad and an old-fashioned-looking lamp. He advanced further into the room and caught a reflection of himself in a wide mirror with a wooden frame. He stopped to have a look and adjusted his scant hair, then turned to let his eyes wander from the desk to the window sill, on which stood a telephone, and a filing cabinet. The top of the cabinet was a complete mess: a bust of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, a Nobel Prize winner, towered over lots of other things. Someone had put a Stetson hat on Bjørnson's head. It suited him. There was a portable radio on its side, a cassette player from the seventies, a hole-punch, a stapler, a roll of tape, a box of paper clips and a pile of loose papers. Gunnarstranda looked from the filing cabinet to the desk and back again. Why were the stapler and the hole-punch on the filing cabinet and not on the desk?

    He moved towards a grandfather clock next to the mirror. A quarter past ten, it said. None of its machinery was working. The weights hanging inside the case looked like pine cones. He walked back to the desk and sat in the swivel chair, an expensive number made of wood and upholstered in leather. It was comfortable. The Inspector swung from side to side as he alternated between studying the filing cabinet and the desk. He pulled out the top drawer. It was full to overflowing with pens, pencils, rubbers, correction tape, bottles of Tipp-Ex, rulers and lots of loose, ancient-looking rubber stamps. He picked out one at random, turned it upside- down and peered from under his glasses to read the mirror-image letters:

REIDAR FOLKE JESPERSEN

OSLO

    Another stamp had a big letter 'B' for second-class post. On a third he read:

CONFIDENTIAL

    He slammed the drawer shut and opened the next. This one was full of screwdrivers, spanners and various kinds of pliers. In the corner of the drawer there was an old tea caddy without a lid. He read the label: Ridgeway's. In the caddy were screws, used nails, nuts and hooks.

    Gunnarstranda opened the next drawer. It contained a folded white tablecloth and a bottle, half full. He took out the bottle and read the label: Bristol Cream. After pulling off the cork, he had a sniff. A potent aroma. He sat looking into the air and musing. Sherry, he thought, and tried to remember if he had ever bought sherry. Perhaps once or twice. Sherry was not a drink he liked. He put the bottle back.

    It was warm inside the office. Extra hot in his thick winter coat. He stood up, went to the window and felt the electric radiator. It was on full, burning-hot. Outside it was dark. Between two buildings he caught sight of a road behind a wire fence. Two figures in winter coats ambled towards a car and got in. The car lights were switched on and it drove out of view. Soon the car reappeared between the two buildings. The rear lights cast a red glow across the banks of snow. He moved away, went to the door and opened it. The ante-room to the office contained a kitchen sink area and a pale wooden dining table. In the sink there were two stem glasses. The dregs had dried at the bottom. He stooped down and smelt. There was a residual scent of fortified wine. It had to be the same smell as in the bottle. He craned his head towards the office. Slowly he walked back to the office where he sat down again in the splendid swivel chair. He opened the bottom drawer.

    
The table has been cleared,
he thought, and looked at all the desk items piled up on the window sill and on the top of the filing cabinet.

    
Someone spreads out a cloth and puts two glasses on the table,
he thought.
Someone drinks sherry. Reidar Folke Jespersen and another person drink sherry. Another person. A woman.
It had to be a woman. The cloth. The sherry. He took his mobile phone from his coat pocket and tapped in a number. The chair creaked in time with the dial tone in his ear. He told the woman who answered the reason for his call and gave her the address. After putting the phone back, he took out a ballpoint pen from an inside pocket. With the pen he closed the drawer containing the bottle and the cloth. Then, also with the pen, he pushed the desk pad to one side. Underneath was a faded business envelope and under the envelope a photograph. The policeman stared; it was a faded black and white photograph - a picture of a woman with thick, dark hair cascading over her shoulders. She had a knowing smile on her face; it was as though she had caught him in the act and was mildly reproving him. She was young, no more than twenty-five years old, maybe younger, with a conspicuous mole on her right cheek, midway between jawbone and lower lip.

    The policeman scrutinized the photograph for a long time. He angled his head and tried to imagine the same face after the ravages of the passing years, with less strength in the cheek muscles, furrows on either side of her mouth and a shadowy hollow in that indefinable area from the nostrils and corners of the mouth where the cheeks fan out flatly. He tried to imagine her with deeper-set eyes, perhaps with age-related bags under the eyes, wrinkles around her mouth. But he was quite sure. This was a woman he had never seen. He pushed the pen under the photograph and flipped it over. There was something written on the back: four words in a line, looped writing, in pencil, written many years ago:
Because I love you.

    Gunnarstranda gave a jump when he heard the echo of the front door slamming downstairs. He got to his feet and scuttled out to the staircase. There he saw a head he recognized. It was Karsten Jespersen and he was pushing a sack trolley. Jespersen had not seen the policeman. He was pushing the trolley in front of him and didn't stop until he reached the back of the warehouse. There he parked the trolley and began to manoeuvre a wardrobe covered in carvings. 'Hello!' the police officer shouted.

    Jespersen started and spun on his heel.

    'What are you up to?' Gunnarstranda shouted.

    'That's what I was going to ask you,' Jespersen said calmly. 'This is private property.'

    Gunnarstranda shook his head. 'Out,' he ordered.

    'What did you say?'

    'This area will be sealed off and searched in a little while. We're looking for evidence. You will have to wait. What are you doing with the trolley?'

    'Picking something up,' Jespersen said unhelpfully.

    'What?'

    'That's my business.'

    'What were you going to pick up?'

    'Something that was mine.'

    'Right,' the Inspector said, still annoyed. 'I'm not going to get mixed up in your inheritance rows. But you are kindly requested to wait.' He descended the stairs with authority. 'Out.'

    Jespersen did not move. A swathe of antique objects separated them.

    'Come on,' the policeman said, impatient now.

    Jespersen coughed. 'My father gave me this wardrobe,' he said after a pause.

    'You'll have to take that up with others, not with me. Don't touch anything. Just leave. You and the other beneficiaries will be informed when this property can be released.'

    'But surely it doesn't matter…'

    'Out!'

    Karsten Jespersen's chin quivered out of control. His mouth was contorted in a grimace. 'You can't treat me in this way,' he hissed as he slunk towards the exit.

    'Take the sack trolley with you,' the inspector said tersely.

    A Toyota van stood outside with the motor running. Someone was sitting in it. Gunnarstranda went closer. A strapping woman sat in the passenger seat. She rolled down the window. 'The wardrobe,' she shouted to

    Karsten Jespersen. 'Where's the wardrobe?'

    The detective officer bent down to the window and reached in his gloved hand. 'Susanne Jespersen?'

    She didn't seem to register his existence. Her head was bent towards Karsten. 'The wardrobe?' she said to her husband as he opened the sliding door and lifted the trolley in. Her next outburst was drowned in the noise of the side door being slammed shut. Her head moved as her eyes followed her husband. 'Can't you do anything?'

    'Would it suit you to appear at Police HQ tomorrow morning at eleven to give a statement?' Gunnarstranda said to the back of her head. She had twisted her whole body round to face Jespersen who was sitting in the driver's seat. 'What? Are we going to leave here empty- handed? Answer me, you oaf!'

    Jespersen sat sullenly with his body bent over the steering wheel. He ignored her and put the van into gear. 'Eleven o'clock!' shouted the Inspector as the van drove off. His shout was drowned in the roar of the engine and the cursing and swearing from the cab. Gunnarstranda peered up at the sky. Snow was falling. A snowflake landed on the left-hand lens of his glasses, but didn't melt. He looked at his feet. The snowflakes lay on the tarmac like down. It was the kind of snow that did not stick and form drifts, the kind that fluttered away when you trudged through it, the kind that would disappoint all the children with sledges. Inspector Gunnarstranda walked back to the warehouse to wait for forensics.

     Two hours later Gunnarstranda met Tove Granaas in

    Cafe Justisen. After coming through the tinkling door, she stood scouring the café for him. Gunnarstranda rose from his seat in the corner. Tove returned his smile. She was wearing a grey-white woollen poncho and a beret of the same colour. He was about to say she looked elegant, but it didn't come out. Instead he waved to a waitress. He ordered another beer for himself and a coffee for her. They sat chatting about inconsequential matters; he knew this was a preamble. Tove Granaas would never be satisfied with talking about the working day; sooner or later she would home in on
them.

    He had been waiting for quite a long time when the question finally came. Gunnarstranda raised his eyes and looked up at the row of pictures by the Oslo-born Hermansen as he examined his emotions. That particular question would have annoyed and alienated him if it had come from anyone else. He was somewhat surprised not to feel annoyance. He straightened the tablecloth and downed the last of his half-litre before making his reluctant admission: 'Yes, I think it is difficult to talk about Edel.'

    Tove raised her cup and swirled the dregs of her coffee around and up the side; then she leaned back in her chair. The hands holding the cup were slim, the nails short and unvarnished. She wasn't wearing any rings. A small gold watch on a slim band adorned her left wrist. She took her time, studying the tablecloth, until she looked up and waited for them to have eye-contact again, and asked:

    'Why?'

    To his surprise, Gunnarstranda heard himself say: 'I find it difficult to come to terms with this kind of sentimentality.'

    'Sentimentality?'

    'Her death has become something which we shared - it is very private. In a way, it would feel like a betrayal to change or modify anything of what we shared.'

    Tove studied the cloth again. 'Who said you should change or modify anything?'

    He sent her a weak smile.
'Taboo
may be a better word. It feels like a taboo to evaluate or… re-work what she and I had together.'

    'Talking? Is that re-working?'

    He reflected before answering: 'I would have to search for words, weigh them. Talking about her is bound to be an evaluation.'

    'Where is the boundary?' she asked with a lop-sided smile. 'Somewhere this sensitivity has to stop, doesn't it? Some of your past must be your own. Some of it must be private enough or sturdy enough to be… evaluated. After all you're sitting here with me,' she said.

    He looked up. She wasn't smiling any more, but looking into his eyes.

    He cleared his throat. 'What do you mean?'

    'Well, you don't invite me out to avoid getting to know me, do you?'

    'You're very direct.'