The Man in the Window (39 page)

    'No?'

    'He wanted to kill you, not because he's crazy but because he had been deprived of the opportunity to kill your husband. He had been planning the murder of your husband for months…' Gunnarstranda was interrupted by the ringing of his mobile phone. 'Yes?' he said.

    'Strømsted refuses to make a statement until he has consulted his solicitor,' Frølich said into his ear. 'What do I do?'

    'Arrest him,' Gunnarstranda said. 'I'll have a car sent.'

    After ringing off he bent forward and took the radio from between the two seats. 'Your paramour on the other side of the street has just confessed that he visited you on the night your husband died,' Gunnarstranda said to Ingrid. 'So it looks as if you may have to give your third version of what happened that night.'

    Ingrid grabbed his arm. 'Please don't take everything from me,' she whispered through rigid lips.

    Gunnarstranda sat up to his full height and looked her in the eyes. 'Why are you frightened of telling the truth?' he asked in a gentle tone. 'We know Kirkenær came here that Friday night. We know he found the front door open, unlocked. We know he went into the stairwell and found the shop door unlocked. We know Kirkenær had one motive for coming here. He wanted to kill your husband. But he couldn't have done it. It wasn't him.'

    'Why are you so sure?'

    'Because your husband was already dead! Hermann Kirkenær found your husband dead on the floor. Since he was already dead all he could do was expose the body to public humiliation. Kirkenær stripped the dead man and dragged him to the shop window. We also know that he was seen doing that. There was an eye-witness.'

    'An eye-witness?'

    'Yes.'

    Ingrid Jespersen opened and closed her mouth.

    Gunnarstranda smiled like a fox smelling meat through an open pantry door: 'If the uniform jacket and trousers in the shop were not used to cover the trail of blood that night - how did the killer conceal the blood on his clothes and body?'

    He looked straight into her eyes. 'I know the answer,' he said. 'And you know the answer.'

    The silence persisted until Gunnarstranda cleared his throat: 'I've just asked Frank Frølich to arrest Eyolf Strømsted on a charge of murder. Do you really want to be charged with being an accessory?'

    'It was almost three in the morning,' she said in the same monotone as before. 'I had rung Susanne and Karsten in total panic. Afterwards I heard steps on the stairs. A ring on the bell. It was Eyolf.' She went quiet.

    Gunnarstranda coughed and stared at the front of the building, towards which he was beginning to feel a strong aversion.

    'He looked terrible,' she started, wringing her hands.

    'Blood?'

    'Yes.'

    'Go on.'

    'Reidar's blood.'

    'Go on!'›

    'He undressed and had a shower. I put his clothes in the washing machine.' She took a deep breath. 'Not everything came out clean, so he borrowed some of Reidar's things before leaving.' 'What did you do with the clothes that weren't clean?'

    'I put them on the fire.'

    Gunnarstranda turned his gaze onto the car where Eyolf Strømsted was keeping Frølich company. Strømsted's eyes had a hunted, fearful look. 'I think he knows you've spilt the beans,' he said, addressing her.

    'I don't want to see,' she said.

    'Why did he kill your husband?'

    'He said he hadn't meant to.'

    'What did you do while his clothes were in the washing machine?'

    'Nothing.'

    'When did he leave?'

    'At about five.'

    'Two hours without doing anything at all?'

    'We talked.'

    'What was your story for the police?'

    'I would go down and see what had happened when it was light. Otherwise I would stick to the truth. But I didn't even manage to do that. The police arrived before dawn.'

    'The body was seen by a newspaper girl because Kirkenær had put it in the shop window,' Gunnarstranda said. 'What did you think then? When your husband had been put in the shop window and was not lying on the floor as Strømsted had said?'

    'I thought Eyolf had lied to me. I thought he had put the body in the window. Eyolf thought I had done it. He thought I had my own plans and was manipulating him. That was why he told your assistant that Reidar had rung us on the Friday. He wanted to punish me, in the same way as I wanted to punish him. We were wrong, both of us. Of course it was this crazy man who made a spectacle of poor Reidar. But we couldn't know that.'

Chapter 52

Credits

    'Would you believe me if I said it was his own fault?' said Eyolf Strømsted.

    'Probably not.'

    'If I said I hadn't meant to kill him? Would you believe that?'

    'Of course.'

    'With no objections?'

    'Murder is rarely intentional.'

    'What about if I said it was an accident?'

    'That's more difficult, but it's no secret that accidents have an easier passage,' Gunnarstranda answered. 'Death by misadventure is cheap for the state and it helps us to sustain a belief in the essential goodness of mankind. But don't make too much of it. I would advise you to stick to the truth. Leave the legal side of things to those who understand it.'

    'He rang me and said he wanted to meet,' Strømsted said.

    'When?'

    'He rang some time before midnight. Half past eleven, I think. He insisted I went there as soon as possible.'

    'Why did you agree?'

    'Out of concern for Ingrid. She had been very distressed earlier in the day, after her husband's call - at my place. So I put on a jacket and went. The door to the stairwell was open and he met me on the ground floor. We entered the shop. He started talking about my responsibilities towards Ingrid. He asked me if I was prepared to marry her. I asked if he would get divorced, but then he began to laugh.
I'm going to die,
he said and went on talking about Ingrid as if she were a little child.
It's important that you take care of her when I'm gone,
he said. I asked where she was. He said she was asleep in bed in the flat above us. He had just been in to see her.
The simplest thing would be if you killed me,
he said with this weird laugh.
Why do you think you're going to die?
I asked. He didn't answer.
Why?
I persisted.
Because death has finally caught up with me,
he said. Then he passed me the bayonet.

    'I can't remember taking it. But I remember looking at it. I couldn't take my eyes off it. While he was talking about all those he had killed during the war and while he went into detail about the convulsions people suffered as life ebbed away - all that time I was staring at the black steel. I remember thinking about how elegantly it had been formed, how such a gruesome, evil intention had been moulded into an object. He said he wasn't afraid to die. I think he asked me if I would do him the favour of killing him. I don't know if I answered him. I think I did - I refused. I don't remember because I couldn't take my eyes off the blade.

    'When I did, everything had gone quiet. But it was too late. I looked up. Something had happened to his eyes. I have never seen anything like it. As if he had snapped.
Prove it,
he shouted and threw himself on the bayonet.'

    Strømsted raised his head.

    'And that was it?'

    Strømsted flashed a hollow smile. 'That was it? I didn't have a chance. I was standing in his little office, leaning against the wall, when he rushed headlong at me. I felt the steel sinking into his flesh. He put both arms round me, held on tight as his body quivered. We slid down the office wall. He was lying on top of me and kicking with his legs. Blood was spurting out. I had blood over my face, my hair and neck. It was running down the inside of my sweater. And you sit there and ask if that was it?'

    'Were you holding the bayonet?'

    'Of course I was. But this is the incomprehensible part. I can't recall it moving from his hand into mine.'

    'What did you do afterwards?'

    'I can remember freeing myself.'

    'In the office?'

    'After he finally stopped jerking. I rolled over towards the door.'

    'Was the light on in the shop?'

    'No, just in the office.'

    'What happened next?'

    'I remember standing there with the bayonet in my hand and looking down at myself. The old man was dead, that much was obvious. He face was white and his mouth wide open. I felt dreadful - warm blood inside my clothes - and looked dreadful. Don't remember what I was thinking, but I wiped down everything I had been near when I was in the office. Afterwards I went up to Ingrid's flat and rang the bell.' 'Did she open the door?'

    'Yes. I told her what had happened.'

    'What did you do?'

    'I had a shower while she washed my clothes. We dried them in her tumble-dryer.'

    'How long were you there?'

    'Until five.'

    'And then?'

    'Then I went home.'

    'Did you at any point consider calling the police or turning yourself in?'

    'Yes.'

    'Why didn't you?'

    'We agreed it would be best not to.'

    'Who agreed?'

    'Well, it was my decision.'

    'Why?'

    'Friends, lots of people, knew about the incident earlier that Friday, his phone call when Ingrid and I were in bed. I told Sjur, as a joke, because it was funny. I know Sjur had told it to many more people. The phone call was already a good story doing the rounds. I knew that the police would find out sooner or later. But when Ingrid's old man died, the incident wasn't so funny any more. All of a sudden it seemed hard to imagine that I would be believed - that it was an accident.'

    'Did you go back downstairs to the shop?'

    'No. We agreed that Ingrid would "discover" the body when it became light. And call the police.'

    'Did you go through the dead man's pockets?'

    'No.' 'Did you notice anything as you were leaving?'

    'Like what?'

    'Like the shop window, for example?'

    'No.'

    'Where was the body lying when you left?'

    'He was lying on his stomach in the doorway between the office and the shop.'

    'And the front door was unlocked when you arrived?'

    'Yes.'

    'When would that have been?'

    'I would reckon at around half past twelve, maybe closer to one.'

    'And how long after did he die?'

    'At half past one, maybe.'

    'And Kirkenær?' Gunnarstranda asked as Frølich drifted into the office.

    'Still in a coma.'

    'Shame.'

    'Will he go free?' Frølich asked.

    Gunnarstranda shook his head. 'He desecrated the body,' he said. 'He went there during the night. We have Iselin Var
å
s's word for that. He found the body, stripped it, penned his message and placed it in the shop window after removing the keys. Those acts on their own are theft and desecration - enough for a charge.'

    'But can we be bothered?'

    'No,' Gunnarstranda said, lighting a cigarette. 'We'll charge him with murder.' He waved the lists of calls from Ekholt's mobile phone.

    Frølich observed him from under knitted eyebrows.

    Gunnarstranda blew a perfect smoke ring. 'Ekholt was sitting in his taxi and saw everything that was going on in the shop window. He didn't see the killing because that happened in the back office and the shop was pitch black. But he did see who put the body in the armchair by the window. Ekholt put two and two together and got eleven. Of course he thought he was watching the murderer. Iselin Varås said Kirkenær took a taxi back to the Continental that night. She had no idea what was going on. But she was worried when they began to get phone calls from a strange man purporting to be a taxi driver. Kirkenær refused to talk to the man, and he refused to allow her to talk to him. Who else could the taxi driver have been if not Ekholt? Kirkenær thought he was hailing a normal taxi with a normal driver that night, not a witness. For his part, Ekholt thought that Kirkenær had killed the old man, so he made sure his taxi was chosen. According to Iselin Varås, Kirkenær seemed edgy and irritable every time the stranger called. Kirkenær slammed down the phone every time except for once. Iselin said that one evening he had agreed to meet the man and had gone out soon afterwards. I thought it might be interesting to find out which evening it was.' Gunnarstranda waved the paper he was holding in his hand. 'I showed her this list of calls from Ekholt's mobile phone. The stranger's calls matched the list exactly.'

    'Kirkenær met Ekholt the same night Ekholt spoke to me,' Frølich said in a low tone.

    Gunnarstranda flicked the ash off his cigarette. 'Ekholt must have had one single purpose, to blackmail Kirkenær. The phone call to you was a sign that he meant business when he was threatening Kirkenær that he would tell everything he knew. What he didn't take into account was that Kirkenær was dangerous.' Police Inspector Gunnarstranda stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe and gave another sparkling white smile. 'When Hermann Kirkenær wakes up from his coma, he'll be staring right into your mug,' he said softly. 'And you will charge him with the murder of the greedy taxi driver - Richard Ekholt.'