Faithless, page 3
‘Don’t we all have something to struggle with?’ she rejoined. ‘What about you and the darkroom I’ve heard so much about? I’m dying to hear the real story.’
The real story, he thought, and fell into a reverie.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I can see there’s something.’
‘Do you remember the Chinese Politburo once blamed the cultural revolution on the so-called Gang of Four?’ Frølich asked. ‘They as good as rewrote history, airbrushed them off photos and so on. You saw a long row of prominent politicians and holes where the four had been standing.’
‘What’s that got to do with your darkroom? Were you airbrushing photos?’
Frankie took his glass. ‘I’m just not sure how comfortable it is to be the sole witness of Birthday Boy’s younger days.’
It was midnight by the time the dinner was over. He and Janne sat on a sofa drinking liqueur coffees. Gradually there was more liqueur than coffee. The music got louder, but no one was dancing. People sat around in groups chatting. It was only when some started leaving that Frankie realised he had spent the whole evening with Janne and had barely exchanged a word with anyone else.
She blinked when he said as much. ‘Bit late to do anything about that now,’ she said. ‘People are leaving.’
‘I should ring for a taxi too,’ he said.
‘We can split it.’
They behaved like a married couple. When she kicked off her party shoes for boots he stood holding her bag. They said goodbye to the hosts together. Veronika Undset hugged her friend, turned to Frølich and gave him a hug too.
It was three in the morning when he held open the rear door of the taxi. ‘I knew it,’ she said, climbing in. He closed the door, walked around the car and got in on the opposite side. ‘I knew you were a gentleman,’ she said, and giggled as they exchanged glances. ‘Or is that your seduction move – opening doors for women?’
‘Høvik,’ he said to the driver, who started the engine. ‘Høvik first,’ he added guiltily.
Frankie leaned back. Breathed out. It was over. It had been a nice evening. Now he was in a taxi with an attractive woman.
The driver didn’t spare the horses. When the taxi made a sudden turn, Janne moved with the centrifugal force into the crook of Frankie’s arm. ‘Oh, dear,’ she whispered, laughing at herself and glancing up. He tentatively tasted her lips.
Silence fell over the subdued half-light on the rear seat. When they finally decided to come up for air, she withdrew to her corner.
The taxi approached Høvik Church.
She grabbed his hand. ‘I don’t want things to go too fast,’ she said when he found her grey eyes in the semi-darkness.
She cleared her throat. ‘Besides, Kristoffer’s at home.’
‘You don’t need to make excuses,’ he said. ‘I can invite you out.’
She slipped back into his arms. ‘Will you?’
‘I get off here,’ she said to the driver, later.
‘What about—?’
She shook her head. ‘Can’t you ring me?’
The taxi stopped. They had arrived. Frankie looked out at a wire fence around an older detached property.
‘So this is where you live,’ he said, looking at her.
She leaned forward and kissed him lightly. Seconds later she was outside and ran in without a backward glance.
‘Ryen,’ he said to the driver, who put the car into gear. ‘Back the same way and then right through the town.’
4
Sunday was setting out to be another boiling hot day. The sun would bake down from a blue sky, animals would doze in the shade, too lethargic to stand up and graze. The gravel road was already dusty. It was so quiet you could actually hear the sun burning and sweat running – a silence that was only broken by occasional words stealing between the tree trunks, fragments of conversations between people who couldn’t be bothered to do any more than talk.
Gunnarstranda had another week left of his holiday. It was ten o’clock and he was strolling between the post box and his cabin. He had the Aftenposten tucked under his arm and was enjoying the start of a new day.
He hadn’t lit a cigarette for two whole months. Instead he had worked his way through an impressive pile of nicotine gum. He started the day with one piece, continued at a steady rate and consumed several packets a week. Tove thought he looked weird when he chewed, so he would put the chewing gum under his lip like a nicotine pouch.
They had been at the cabin for two weeks. Gunnarstranda had lived his life with Guinness and gardening without giving work a single thought. But once the thought struck him, that was it. Work filled his consciousness the way a sponge absorbs water in a bathtub.
He went into the cabin, lifted the cellar lid, took a can of Guinness and hurried on to the stoop with a glass in his hand.
Tove found him there with the cool glass pressed against his forehead.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Mustafa Rindal,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow’s Monday and there’s only a week left.’
‘Don’t call him Mustafa. It’s so patronising.’ She showed him the bunch of flowers she had picked. Red sticky catchfly, white lady’s bedstraw and meadow buttercups.
‘But that’s his name.’
She went inside looking for a vase, without answering. On her return she put the bunch in and rearranged a flower here and there.
‘They got married,’ he said, sipping the beer.
‘Who did?’
‘Rindal and the engineer who works for Kripos. Leyla. Long, dark hair, much younger.’ When Tove nodded, he continued: ‘She’s from Syria. As she’s a Muslim they did it Muslim-style, but he had to become a Muslim as well. He converted in the mosque in Åkebergveien. When you convert you have to take a Muslim name, and he chose Mustafa, so he’s called Mustafa Rindal.’
‘But you don’t need to call him that.’
‘He received that name at the conversion, upon his encounter with Allah.’
‘Upon his encounter with Allah? Remember you have colleagues who are Muslims from birth. They don’t think this is comical. We both know you don’t like Rindal and you think it’s humorous that you have a Muslim boss, but the conversion he went through was because he loves this woman. And in your heart of hearts you know that’s a wonderful act of devotion. Rindal knows, of course, that you’re all grinning behind his back. He knew that before he converted too. Rindal sacrificed himself for love. What are you laughing at?’
Gunnarstranda whinnied, and repeated: ‘Sacrificed himself for love? Hel-lo? This is Rindal we’re talking about.’
She was about to answer when he got up suddenly.
‘What is it?’
Gunnarstranda raised a finger to his mouth. ‘Listen,’ he whispered.
Tove pricked up her ears. After a while she arched her eyebrows.
‘The buzzing noise.’ Gunnarstranda pointed under the terrace roof.
A handful of bees were whizzing around.
They exchanged glances. She opened her eyes wide and hurried in.
Gunnarstranda stood watching the bees. He knew the buzz. This was scouts looking for a new house and they had chosen the terrace roof of the cabin. He couldn’t allow that.
Scouts on the lookout for a house meant a swarm of bees.
He strode down to the hives. Where was the swarm? It was always close to the hives. He gave a start of alarm when he saw it. This was the queen on her travels. The fat old lady had managed to fly to the closest tree, the ancient oak. But she hadn’t chosen a branch. No, she had clung to the bark, making the swarm long and large, like an excrescence of the tree trunk, a tumour. He walked back to fetch his straw hat, a bee smoker and a white sheet.
Tove stayed in safety behind the windows. She didn’t like bees. She didn’t like insects in general. Some education was required, but it would have fallen on deaf ears anyway. Bees in a swarm don’t sting. They are preoccupied with very different things. He must have said that at least fifty times. She hadn’t taken it in, however.
He spread the sheet in front of the tree. Then he held the straw hat under the fattest part of the swarm and swept them in, turning it as quick as a flash. Face down. Tens of thousands of bees flew into the air, but they were harmless enough. They just wanted to be with their queen. Gunnarstranda found a stick and lifted the hat he had placed on the sheet. One by one the bees crawled in under it. He stood watching the swarm. So he had caught the queen. He lit the bee smoker and used a broom and the smoke to hurry the stragglers. When they were all with the old lady, he tied the sheet around the hat and put it in the shade. It was important to find a new home for the swarm now. He would have to knock together a new hive.
5
Yes, the woman behind the bar was pretty certain. You couldn’t be mistaken. She was such a good-looking woman. Black, wasn’t she; and her hair: It was braided and pinned up and in place. She must have spent hours on her hairstyle. ‘She was just so attractive!’
A bite, Frølich thought contentedly. A bite on his first attempt. This is my day. Lady Luck is smiling on me.
The student pub hadn’t opened yet; the woman was getting things ready for the evening. She was from the north and wearing a black dress with a narrow neck and ruffles on the sleeves, as though she were appearing in a dancing show. She had been at work on Friday too. And it had been impossible not to notice the girl with the Afro.
‘It must have been quite late because there were so many people; in Oslo you don’t go out before midnight.’
‘Was she with someone?’
‘I haven’t the foggiest.’
‘Was she standing at the bar or—’
‘No, she was sitting at a table.’
‘Alone?’
The woman behind the bar pressed her lips together as she considered the question. ‘There were some Tiggers around.’
‘Tiggers?’
‘Tomcats.’
‘Any you knew?’
She shook her head.
‘Can you describe any of them?’
She hesitated. This kind of description wasn’t easy. ‘Students, usual kind, you know. It’s dark in here.’
As if on command, a door opened and sunlight flooded in. A man with a shaven head, tattooed upper arms and white calves made his entrance. He was dressed in summer shorts and a T-shirt which was nearly bursting around his stomach. A Coke in one hand, a DVD in the other, and in his mouth he had a newspaper, like a dog. ‘What’s up?’ The newspaper fell on the counter. Verdens Gang.
Frølich showed him the photo of Rosalind M’Taya. It was obvious that this guy remembered her, too.
‘Did you see who she was sitting with?’
‘Mr Cool,’ came the quick response.
The woman behind the counter gave a start. The two of them exchanged glances.
‘Who’s Mr Cool?’
They exchanged glances again.
‘Come on,’ Frølich urged.
‘He makes films. That’s all I know.’ He nodded towards the woman behind the bar. ‘You know him better than me.’
‘But I don’t know his name,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t see who she was sitting with.’
‘He makes films, you said.’
‘Ads,’ she informed him.
‘Full of himself,’ the man added, starting to put away the glasses. ‘Tall and dark, soul patch and probably a six-pack. A little scar at the side of his mouth.’ He took a sip of Coke and smiled at the woman behind the bar. ‘Women like that. It makes him look a bit brutal.’ He grinned.
Her index finger found some grains of dust on the counter. She pulled them towards her, one by one.
‘Do you know where I can find him?’
‘He’s the type to go to the Business School or the Music Academy.’
‘Westerdal Advertising School,’ she corrected him. ‘He teaches there.’
The guy with the Coke winked at Frølich.
‘He’s cute. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’
He ducked as she threw the duster at him.
*
When Frank Frølich got in his car and checked his phone he saw there were two calls from Rindal. He ought to ring back at once.
Actually he had been planning to call Janne Smith. Had been thinking about it all yesterday and didn’t want to let the intimacy that had grown between them slip away. OK, they had only spent one evening together; they had been pushed together by others. But that was irrelevant. They shared the same sense of humour, liked the same music, read the same books and had similar attitudes. He couldn’t remember the last time he had communicated with a woman so easily. Sitting beside her at the party had been the perfect jam session. No dodgy notes, barely a break of rhythm. Her laughter and eyes, he thought. She seemed like a happy woman. He liked the easy laugh, her maturity. She’d been through tricky times, but she had landed on her feet. A teenage pregnancy, abroad what was more – yet she’d chosen to keep the child, bringing up a son alone. Doing that showed determination, caring, strength, self-sacrifice, optimism and, last but not least, self-belief. And, if he concentrated, he could still feel the brush of her lips on his the second before she jumped out of the taxi.
He started the engine to activate the air-conditioning. Took his phone and chose duty before pleasure. He called Rindal.
Another break-in. The case of Kadir Zahid.
Frølich could feel the twin claws of fear and trepidation taking hold. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.
‘Follow up on the woman we let go before the weekend. The one running the home-help services.’ Frølich opened the door and got out of the car while Rindal brought him up to speed on the case.
‘Go there now,’ Rindal ordered. ‘Question her.’
Frølich hesitated. Should he ask Rindal to send someone else?
‘What’s the problem?’
Frølich hesitated a little while longer. ‘Nothing’, he said, and hung up.
Afterwards he stood thinking about the party. He had felt his stomach churn when his boyhood friend’s fiancée turned and he saw who she was. On the other hand, the evening had taken a very pleasant turn.
Then I’m back on the job, he thought. I receive a call and have to look at Veronika Undset through a policeman’s eyes again.
He got back into the car, but still hesitated.
The invitation to the fortieth birthday party had landed in his post box four whole weeks ago. What happened in the early hours of Saturday, him having to arrest Veronika, was a coincidence.
Anyone could have been sitting in the car outside Zahid’s house on that night. If he hadn’t gone to the party, he would never have guessed the woman he arrested was engaged to Karl Anders. There would hardly have been a relationship between Karl Anders and himself. It had been years since they last saw each other.
The only event of interest on the night of the birthday celebration was that he’d met Janne. The party hadn’t brought him any closer to Veronika Undset, he thought, repeating it to himself without feeling any real conviction: not at all.
He stared at the wheel and the gearstick through distant eyes.
OK, he said to himself. Veronika Undset may not be at home now. If she is, and the conversation becomes too awkward, I will have to ask to be released from this case. That’s how it will have to be. Definitely.
With that, he blinked left and pulled away from the kerb.
*
On the door hung a scrappy sign: UNDSET AS. He tried the handle.
Locked.
Relieved, he backed onto the tarmac area beyond the entrance. Through the window that covered nearly all the wall on the ground floor he glimpsed office furniture. The house seemed abandoned and somewhat in disrepair. The ground floor must have been a grocery shop once, presumably in the Sixties, when there were local shops like this.
His watch showed five past three. Two young girls came walking along the pavement. He wondered whether to ask them if they knew the house. They looked at him, exchanged glances, giggled and walked on.
Then a taxi pulled into the kerb. The driver turned to the rear seat and took some money from the passenger. It was Veronika.
‘Nice to see you again,’ he said, as she opened the door and stepped out.
Her answer was drowned in the noise of the taxi accelerating away. She walked past him, fumbling with keys.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ she asked, holding the door open.
‘Yes, I had … a brilliant time.’
They went into an office, which was a mess – full of cardboard boxes containing cleaning products and piles of plastic buckets. A collection of mops resembling a wigwam stood in the corner behind the desk.
‘I had a bit of a shock,’ she said. ‘Karl Anders has talked about you, of course, but I had no idea it was you.’
Shock, he reflected, and said: ‘I’m here professionally.’
She fell quiet.
He took a breath. Yet she spoke first.
‘I thought the fine cleared up that matter. I paid it today – even though I’ve never touched cocaine before or since.’
‘It’s about something else.’
She tilted her head.
‘Regine Haraldsen.’
She said nothing. Went to the desk. Fiddled with the phone, pressed a key and read the display.
‘Has he rung?’ Frølich asked.
She looked up. ‘Hm?’
‘I was joking. You seem to be expecting a call.’
She straightened her back. ‘Regine Haraldsen, right?’ she said with a disarming smile. ‘Would you have asked me if she hadn’t been one of my clients?’
‘Her house’s been burgled.’
Veronika Undset stopped smiling. ‘Oh, tell me more.’
Frølich took his time. Leaned against the wall. ‘Now we have to play our roles properly,’ he said, trying not to seem too dispassionate or arrogant. ‘I’m a policeman. You have to tell me.’
She looked down. ‘But I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
The silence was awkward. She broke it. ‘How is Regine? I hope she hasn’t been hurt.’
