The Man in the Window (16 page)

    'So you don't think she has someone?'

    Jespersen gave a shy smile. 'No, that…' He shook his head. 'No,' he concluded.

    'But, Reidar, was he angry during the meeting?'

    'No. He didn't say much, well, while the buyers were there, but as soon as they had gone, all hell broke loose.'

    'In what way?'

    'He rejected the whole proposal without any discussion, without even
wanting
to enter into any discussion, although that was nothing unusual actually, but what was new was the rest. When we started arguing he got so angry that he kicked Arvid's little dog.' Jespersen grinned. 'I've never seen Reidar react like that, I mean, it was so childish, to smash things and so on, it's what young sweethearts do when they're jealous.' He shook his head. 'It was very strange.'

    'He didn't give a hint of what was to come when he arrived?'

    Jespersen shook his head. 'That's what's so weird. Because he wasn't play-acting. Arvid, you see, was knocked sideways by what happened to the dog. And it was impossible to go on with our discussions. The meeting had been torpedoed. Afterwards I wondered if that had been Reidar's intention.'

    'What do you mean by that - his intention?'

    'Well, to bring the meeting to a close, get out and away from us. You see we stood up to him. We were not going to give in, Arvid and I. And it was when we applied pressure, two against one, that he kicked the animal.'

    Gunnarstranda ran his fingers across his lips. 'I see,' he murmured and looked around. 'You like crosswords?'

    'Yes.' Jespersen followed Gunnarstranda's gaze to the bookcase where there were rows and rows of crossword books and reference works. 'I can see you are a detective…' He nodded, and pointed to the magazines under the table: 'Yes, indeed, all my grandchildren come here with magazines and newspapers. Crosswords and puzzles, they're my passion. What about it?'

    Gunnarstranda shook his head. 'I was just wondering. You see I have a puzzle I'm still trying to solve, but I can't crack it.'

    'Come on then,' Jespersen ventured.

    Gunnarstranda looked him in the eye and said: 'There are four symbols. The first is J for Jorgen. Then there's a number, one. Then nine and lastly five: J - one hundred and ninety five.'

    Jespersen cocked his head. 'Hm,' he sighed. 'Have to think about that one.'

    'Do that,' the policeman said and went on: 'Did you contact Reidar later?'

    'Mm… there are no other clues… there are only four symbols - the letter J and a one and a nine and a five?'

    Gunnarstranda nodded. 'J one-nine-five - that's all there is.' He repeated: 'Did you contact him?'

    'I tried. I rang him.'

    'When was that?'

    'At about six, early evening. I tried a couple of times, first at home, but Ingrid said he would be late home - he had rung home to tell her. Then I rang the Ensjo number, but no one answered.'

    'What sort of time?'

    'At about half past six. I don't remember exactly.'

    'Mm?' Gunnarstranda lit one of his roll-ups. 'When did you try next?'

    'Half past ten in the evening. Reidar said he didn't want to discuss the matter. Karsten and the family were there and he kept things brief.'

    'Did you visit him later?'

    Jespersen stared glumly at the policeman and gave an emphatic shake of his head.

    'No, I did not.'

    'When did you go to bed?'

    Jespersen considered the question. 'At one, maybe half past.'

    'And you were alone in the house?'

    The man nodded.

    'How did you find out about the murder?'

    'I rang the next day. A priest answered. The one who was with Ingrid.'

    Gunnarstranda inhaled and focused for a few moments on the cigarette glow. 'I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I have to ask you these questions,' he apologized and for a second their eyes met. Emmanuel Folke Jespersen understood. At that moment he was a sad man with heavy jowls, a large stomach, doleful eyes and an extinguished cigarillo in his hand.

    After calling on Emmanuel Folke Jespersen, on the way back to Oslo, Gunnarstranda took a detour via Roa. He drove down Griniveien, but turned off before Sorkedalsveien, into Røahagan, one of the typical West Oslo streets where the old houses set in large grounds have been cut up and divided over the years, so that an ever-increasing and more status-conscious middle class can build kitsch palaces in what once had been shaded apple orchards. Karsten and Susanne Jespersen's house was red, an obviously ex-functionalist house, built in the 1930s, and converted out of all recognition. The Police Inspector stood hesitating for a while in the drive. Many years ago a colleague and he had developed a secret code. They had given interviewees their own labels when they talked about them in the presence of others. A woman could be LH; a man might be LTP. These codes were used so that witnesses and interviewees would not understand the internal messages they were sending to each other, but also because this kind of categorization is important when you are trying to establish an overview. LH stood for
lognhals
(liar), LTP stood for
liker trynet pa'n
(like the look of him). They had devised a list of such codes and used them to great effect.

    Gunnarstranda and Frølich had never worked in that way. The reason, Gunnarstranda thought, was that they were on the same wavelength. Now and then, though, he and Frølich were way off beam. At that moment he was trying to make sense of something which he knew his younger colleague would overlook, on purpose or otherwise. Police Inspector Gunnarstranda took the view that people built up the armour that would benefit them most at all times. He was very conscious that this theory of a self-serving morality had its weaknesses, and so he was constantly trying to test and refine his own conclusions by adopting new angles. The problem here, standing outside Karsten Jespersen's house, was that he could not make sense of one single signal. He knew that a detached house in the west of Oslo at today's prices would be unaffordable for many. On the other hand, he couldn't begin to guess how Karsten and Susanne had acquired this house. For all he knew, it could be the house where Susanne had grown up. Nevertheless, for the time being, the house's geographical location was quite irrelevant. He studied the house front. The steps by the main door were made of brick, but the foundations were poor. Many years of ground frost had caused the steps to move and introduced cracks which had been forced open by snow and ice. But the cracked brickwork showed no signs of collapse. As the house was among the oldest on this road, there were none of the fake status symbols the newer buildings came with: rough wood cladding, grass roofs or Dutch glass tiles. Since there wasn't a car in the drive either, the façade of Karsten Jespersen's residence was as plain and impenetrable as the man himself. He wondered then if this was an important conclusion, whether Jespersen's anonymity was conspicuous and therefore genuinely worthy of his fuller attention.

    When at last he rang the bell, it was a long time before the door was answered.

    'I dropped by on the off-chance that you were at home,' Gunnarstranda said with good grace. 'As we've closed your shop.'

    From the hallway they went straight into Karsten Jespersen's workroom. Very appropriate, Gunnarstranda thought wryly. But the room seemed pleasant. There were full shelves of books reaching up to the ceiling. An old brown writing desk stood in front of the window. On it an old-fashioned, black typewriter, a Royal, a sharp contrast to two enormous loudspeaker columns on the opposite wall. Gunnarstranda turned with satisfaction to the immense hi-fi system, and thought that there he might find an expression of this man's deeper emotions. The low but very wide amplifier rested on a slab of polished marble-like stone. The speaker columns were triangular and almost touched the ceiling. In front of the speakers were two modern designer chairs with adjustable backs.

    'I've come by to ask what you discussed with your father on the evening before he was killed,' Gunnarstranda explained, after taking a seat in one of the reclining chairs.

    Jespersen sat at the desk. 'Did I talk to my father that evening?' he asked tentatively.

    'When you went to your father's house for dinner.'

    'Oh… well, just chat, general chitter-chatter - over the meal. We talked about food and whether children should eat everything on the plate - that sort of thing.'

    'And afterwards? I was told you and your father had a cognac on your own.'

    'That's right, we did. For the most part we talked about the shop - I wondered about prices for various items and we discussed them.'

    'What sort of items?'

    Jespersen pulled out a drawer from the desk and rested one foot on it. 'A table, an old uniform, two glasses from Nastetangen. They were new acquisitions and - they're all down in the office.'

    'Which office?'

    'My office. In the shop.'

    'And this was the only thing you talked about?'

    'This wasn't such a little thing. You don't price antiques in two minutes. I suggested we took our drinks down to the shop so that he could see the things for himself, but he wasn't in the mood. And that was not so strange. After all, it was a Friday. He said he would have a look in the morning, the day after, that is, Saturday…'

    'Could that be why he went downstairs after you and your family had left that evening? Might he have gone to the shop to look at these items?'

    'Possible,' Jespersen said. 'I don't know.'

    'Why do you think he went downstairs?' Gunnarstranda asked.

    'He must have wanted to check the items - since they had just arrived…'

    'But he didn't want to go down with you when you suggested, did he?'

    'True, so it is perhaps a little odd that he went downstairs later that evening. I don't know. He was always so unpredictable.'

    'But what did you think when you first heard he had been found dead in the shop? What did you think he had been doing there?'

    'I suppose I thought he'd been checking everything was all right, that the doors were locked, or he just wanted to get something. I didn't give it a lot of thought.'

    'But if we were to work on the reason why he went downstairs, how many options are there?'

    'I reckon he must have gone to check the doors. I cannot imagine he was so keen to inspect the few items I had been talking about. After all, he'd said he would do that the following day.'

    'Do you think he might have arranged a meeting with his killer?' Gunnarstranda asked.

    Jespersen stared back.

    'Does that sound bizarre?'

    'No, but it means that it wasn't a burglary, doesn't it?'

    'There's no sign of a break-in anywhere, but we don't know yet if anything has been taken.'

    'If you would let me in, I could tell you on the spot whether anything has been stolen or not.'

    Gunnarstranda stretched out his legs and adjusted the back of the chair. It was very comfortable. 'We can't do things in that way. Not yet at any rate. We have to finish the forensic examination of the room. You'll get a list of the objects we log in the shop, then you can have a look.'

    'But why…?'

    Gunnarstranda interrupted him. 'Because the shop is a crime scene. There is nothing to discuss.'

    Jespersen went silent.

    'You use a typewriter?' the policeman asked, pointing to the black machine on the table. 'Not a computer?'

    Jespersen shook his head. 'Typewriter and fountain pen. They have style. I couldn't imagine writing in any other way.'

    'But it's ancient.' The policeman nodded towards the machine. 'No correction key, nothing.'

    'That's how Hemingway wrote,' Jespersen said.

    Gunnarstranda considered this riposte and made a mental note of a new crack in the man's grey façade. 'What else did your father talk about?' he asked.

    'Otherwise?' Jespersen shrugged. 'I don't actually remember.'

    'Did he mention a meeting he had with his two brothers?' 'Yes, he did mention it. That's right.'

    'What did he say?'

    'Almost nothing. He said he had turned up at Arvid's and had put an end to the sale of the shop.'

    'And you'd forgotten that?'

    Jespersen grimaced. His chin quivered with tiny tics. 'No,' he said. 'I hadn't forgotten, but it… well…'

    Gunnarstranda said nothing and waited.

    Karsten Jespersen rested his head in the palm of his hand, as though pondering how he could express what he had on his mind. 'If you had met my father when he was alive,' he began, peering at the ceiling. 'You see I knew about these… these…' He waved his hand in the air while searching for words; '… these sale negotiations. Arvid had talked to me. I suppose he and Emmanuel were frightened I would be against selling since I run the shop…'