The Man in the Window (29 page)

Chapter 37

Hockey

    'That's nice,' said Eva-Britt from another world as the stereo played the gentle opening tones of Nils Moldvær's
Khmer.
Frølich got to his feet and turned up the volume. Even though the woodburning stove in the corner was as hot as it could be, there was a cold draught coming from the large living-room window. The radiator under the window sill was unable to deal with the cold air. He stood for a few moments meditating in front of the window as he looked out on the illuminated ring road - yellow and snake-like - as it twisted its way through the winter landscape. Cars lost colour under the floodlighting. A shower of sparks moved down the mountainside. It was the electrical current collector of a late-night metro carriage scraping against ice. The moon, which earlier in the evening had hung like a large, yellow rice-paper lantern over the mountain ridges of Østmark, now looked like a bucket of white paint spilt over a watery surface.

    He turned and watched Eva-Britt.

    He was nettled that she had come. She would always sit and wait when she visited him. If she wanted something, she would wait until he got it for her. Would you believe it, he said to himself. We have been sleeping together for years and she still sees herself as a stranger in my flat.

    She was studying the Ikea catalogue from an angle, with a sneer playing around her lips as she quickly flicked from page to page. She looked like someone sitting on a tram reading a tabloid. He caught himself wishing it wasn't her sitting there.

    When the telephone rang they exchanged glances.

    'Will you answer it?' she asked from the chair.

    'Give me a good reason not to,' he retorted wearily.

    Eva-Britt sat up and looked towards the bedroom door, and then at her watch. She conspicuously lowered her arm with the wristwatch. The telephone stopped ringing soon afterwards.

    'I won,' she said, skimming though the catalogue. He watched her cross her legs and snuggle back into the large armchair, knowing very well that she was being observed. A second later her mobile phone began to ring. They exchanged looks again.

    'Will you answer it?' he asked.

    She stared from his telephone to her bag, the source of the ringing. Displeased, she frowned. 'If it's for you, I have no idea where you are,' she said with conviction, nimbly got to her feet and dug out her mobile from the bag by the door. He followed her with his eyes.

    'Yes,' she said with arched back and mobile to her ear. 'No, he's…'

    She turned to him and mouthed: 'Your boss…'

    He sat smiling at her.

    'I have no idea…' she said, listening.

    Frølich had to grin when he heard Gunnarstranda's shouted orders crackle out into the room. Eva-Britt's eyes were beginning to glaze over and she pulled a face as if someone were forcing cod liver oil down her throat. She took three ominous, stiff-legged, aggressive steps forward and threw the mobile to him without a word.

    Frølich caught it in mid-air. 'Hi,' he said.

    'This is a wild goose chase,' Gunnarstranda said, skipping the preamble. 'You talked to Arvid Jespersen about his brother's career, didn't you? About why he started out as an antique dealer? Right?'

    'Yes, I did,' Frølich said. 'But…'

    'And Arvid said something about newspaper production, right?'

    'No, not production. Reidar took the waste paper off the print rolls from a number of newspapers and…'

    'Yes, yes,' Gunnarstranda interrupted. 'And these rolls were pieced together. Where?'

    'Don't know.'

    'And they were sold on. Who to?'

    'Don't know either.'

    'But the nitwit must have said!' Gunnarstranda's voice was cracking with annoyance.

    'Take it easy,' Frølich said heavily. 'The paper was sold to printers in African and South American states. But why are you so fired up about this?'

    'I have another connection with South America, Frølich.'

    There was the dry click of a lighter at the other end of the line as Gunnarstranda took out a cigarette and lit up. 'Back to Arvid and this newspaper story. Did he mention a person by the name of Fromm?'

    'No, I'm positive about that.'

    'Mm, have you got any plans for tomorrow?'

    Frølich looked across at Eva-Britt who had demonstratively planted herself in front of his large living-room window, with her back to him. The clock showed it was past midnight. 'I'll do whatever you ask. You know that.'

    'Great. I want you to go to Reidar Folke Jespersen's office in Bertrand Narvesens vei. If no one's there, I want you to go through the records in the office in Thomas Heftyes gate with a fine-tooth comb.'

    'What are we looking for?'

    'One or more letters, or copies of letters, from a gentleman by the name of Klaus Fromm. Klaus with a "k" and Fromm with two "m"s.'

    'How far back?'

    'As far as there are records.'

    'Anything else?'

    'No.'

    'Anything else you want to say?'

    'Check the years when they were selling paper, in other words the '40s and the '50s.'

    Frølich sighed. 'Anything else?'

    'Do you think Reidar Folke Jespersen might have been a Nazi?'

    Frølich broke off a protracted yawn. 'Are you crazy?'

    'No,' said Gunnarstranda. 'But why is it crazy?'

    'Jespersen was running an illegal printing press in Oslo until 1943 when an informer gave him away and he had to escape to Sweden. From there he went to a training camp in Scotland where he was shown how to carry out sabotage. He was sent on several jobs to Norway - sabotage and…' 'Liquidations,' Gunnarstranda added laconically. 'Right, my mind is at rest. Sleep well.'

    Frølich put Eva-Britt's mobile on the table. He breathed in, got up and stood in the cosy heat radiating from the stove, observing her averted back while nodding to the beat of the music: a long guitar solo, throbbing drums and the pure flow of a synth meandering through the room. From the kitchen came the nauseous burnt smell of coffee that had been on the warming plate for two hours too long.

    She started to turn round. Frank wondered what expression she would have on her face. Whether this was going to be an evening of rows and grumpy faces.

    'You gave that idiot my telephone number,' she proclaimed.

    Frølich did not answer.

    The subdued combination of heavy rock and modern jazz was still oozing from the loudspeakers when his telephone rang.

    He and Eva-Britt exchanged looks.

    'He won't give up,' she muttered darkly.

    Frølich knew. It had been in the air for a long time. This evening they were going to have a row.

    He strode over to pick up the telephone.

    'Richard Ekholt,' the voice said.

    Frølich had seen a picture of Ekholt, a photograph showing an ice hockey player in the Furuset team many seasons ago, a club strip and a face with black stubble and short, black hair - with a fringe. The voice matched the image.

    'It's late,' Frank Frølich said calmly.

    'I hear you've been asking after me.'

    'Come to the station tomorrow and we can talk.'

    'Don't ring off,' the voice demanded.

    'I'm going to,' Frølich insisted. 'Phone us tomorrow.'

    'One-nine-five.'

    There was a rippling sound in the receiver. The ripple of laughter, Frølich realized. The man was laughing at him.

    'Like a password, eh? That's so good…' The stranger was wheezing and groaning with laughter: 'One-nine- five.' The laughter continued. It sounded like the creaking of a rocking chair. A low snort on the line told him that Ekholt was gasping for breath. He continued: 'That's so good… a hundred and ninety-five.'

    Frølich met Eva-Britt's eyes. She was looking daggers at him.

    The voice on the line whispered: 'I know something. You've been asking after me, haven't you? I'm ready now - to talk.'

    Frølich was still watching Eva-Britt, who tilted her head in an aloof manner, as though to signal that she knew what he was thinking. Frølich had had enough of her sulkiness. 'Can you come here, to my place?' he asked Ekholt.

    Eva-Britt tossed her head in the air.

    'No, you have to come here,' the voice said, now clear and composed.

    Liberation, thought Frølich, and asked: 'Where are you?'

    The voice on the line hissed. Frølich tried to identify the other sounds he could hear, the background noise.

    There was another voice. At least one. 'Are you in a pub?' he asked.

    'Just listen,' Ekholt said. 'Come in one hour's time - on your own, to town.'

    Frølich looked across at Eva-Britt again. She was shaking her head - slow, heavy, ominous movements.

    'This is the only chance you'll get!' The voice seemed neither inebriated nor desperate now, but unemotional and business-like.

    Frølich could feel that he Wasn't quite in tune with the mood shifts. The other end of the line was silent now, no voices in the background, no noise. He said: 'How can I know whether you are who you say you are?'

    'You have my number? My mobile number?'

    'Yes.'

    'Ring me and I'll answer.'

    'Wait.' Frank found the telephone number on the notepad sticking up out of the pocket of his leather jacket hanging on the hook. 'Ring off,' he continued. 'Then I'll call you.'

    'Just a moment,' the voice said and Frølich heard a hand being placed over the mouthpiece. Something I'm not supposed to hear, he thought, and tried to work out what was going on.

    'I need to know who you are,' Frølich said. 'Ring off.'

    He stood looking at the telephone for a few instants before making a move.

    'You're not going out now, are you?' Eva-Britt said in a gentle yet forbidding tone.

    'I just have to call this number…'

    'It took me three hours to get a babysitter,' she said.

    'It's weeks since we've had time to ourselves - all on our own. And I've killed myself to get it. You're not going to go and stay out all night, are you?'

    Frølich tapped in the number.

    'Yes, this is Richard,' said the voice.

    Frølich stared at Eva-Britt who stood with her arms crossed, waiting.

    'Where shall we meet?' he asked brightly.

      Frank Frølich left the raised intersection known as the traffic machine, drove down Europaveien, around Bjørvika, past the old customs house and along Langkaia, one of the quays. It was deserted, it was night-time and still. His watch showed 1.33 as he approached the roundabout by Revierkaia. Frølich felt a resigned tiredness sneaking up on him as he was unable to identify a soul on the street. A nagging feeling of doubt throbbed at the back of his mind: the thought that he had been duped.

    He thrust his hand in his pocket for his mobile. He was going to put it on the seat, but changed his mind and stuffed it back. Then he slowed down and let the car roll in neutral until it came to a halt alongside the fence that separated the road from the last strip of quayside. He switched off the engine and waited.

    After almost a quarter of an hour he got out of the car. With his hands in his jacket pockets he ambled back towards the roundabout. It was like a film. A street lamp cast a pale circle of light over the agreed meeting place and at the same time created a transparent wall against the darkness of the night. The light was reflected in the windows of the ticket booths situated halfway along the road leading to the ships bound for Denmark. The water in Bjørvika was frozen - solid black ice with white waves of drifting snow. The ice caught and reflected the flickering lights of Oslo town centre behind the harbour front. It had to be at least minus 20. Frølich shivered, breathed into his scarf and tried to remember which film it was this scene brought to mind. Scattered lights from the buildings along Festningskaia gleamed on the roofs of the parked cars. He sauntered on, out of the glare of a street lamp and into the next. The cold bit into his legs, feet, ears, hands. He wondered what he had done with his gloves. Left them on the seat in the car, he supposed. He twisted his wrist to see the time. Five minutes more, maximum, he thought. The only cars to be seen were parked in a line, a bit further down, near the traffic lights in Festningskaia.

    Apart from the noise of the traffic moving in and out of the tunnel, everything was quiet. He leaned his head back and breathed out, into the light from the street lamp. A circular rainbow in his icy breath stood out against the light. He breathed out again. Another rainbow. A game from his boyhood. The cold began to eat into his toenails. He jogged on the spot and beat his arms against his chest. It was now almost ten minutes past the agreed time. He took his mobile from his inside pocket and with stiff fingers tapped in Richard Ekholt's number. He was trembling, but pricked up his ears when he heard a telephone ringing. He ducked - a reflex reaction. He moved away from the street lamp and pressed the off button. The silence was now as threatening as the sound of the telephone he had just heard.