Faithless, page 7
‘I had to get out. Couldn’t stand being there.’
Karl Anders shook his head, then leaned back and closed his eyes. ‘I’ve thought a lot about this,’ he said, ‘and I know a lot of people will probably despise me for doing something like this. Her mother rang to tell me that Veronika was dead – and she wanted me to go there, to talk about it. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t sit with Veronika’s mother crying. I was … it was as if I was too charged. All I had in my head – all I could do was go back to another woman and have sex. But we talked about it afterwards. Having sex in that situation made me feel I was alive, Frankie. I needed it, and I think she did too.’ Karl Anders opened his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘After the party, when Veronika said she’d been arrested—’
‘The name, Karl Anders. What’s your ex’s name?’
‘Janne Smith, you know her. She sat next to you on Saturday.’
Frølich couldn’t stay seated. He got up. Stood staring through the open terrace door. There was only one thing he needed. To be alone. He leaned against the door frame and let the cool breeze waft over his face.
‘Janne and I have decided to keep a low profile,’ Karl Anders went on. ‘As Veronika’s dead and all that.’
Frølich turned back to his friend. ‘It’s late,’ he said, ‘it’s been a long day.’
Karl Anders nodded, but didn’t move. The silence was long and awkward. Eventually he got up and stood, swaying. His eyes were downcast and he seemed to brace himself before asking: ‘Was she raped?’
Frølich began to sweat. He could feel his friend’s presence like a clammy, heavy blanket of unease over his shoulders. He wanted to get him out. He said: ‘I can’t discuss the investigation with you, Karl Anders.’
‘It says in Verdens Gang she was raped.’
Frankie made for the front door, wordless and distant.
Karl Anders grabbed his arm.
Frankie looked down at his hand.
Karl Anders let go. ‘I’d like to ask you a favour,’ he said. ‘I’d prefer it if you kept this – what I’ve told you – to yourself.’
‘What?’
‘The stuff about Janne and me. That I was with her while Veronika was being raped and murdered. It won’t sound good.’
Frølich stared at his friend with a weary expression. ‘As I said, it’s been a long day.’
‘For the sake of old friends,’ Karl Anders begged. ‘I’m struggling with this, Frankie. Blaming myself. What could I have done? What would have happened if I hadn’t been with Janne on Monday evening?’
‘Do you know if Veronika had any specific plans that evening?’ Frølich asked.
Karl Anders shook his head. ‘I didn’t speak to Veronika from the moment we parted company on Sunday morning. It’s not comforting to know, Frankie, that we parted on bad terms.’
They stood looking at each other, not speaking, as though these last words were having an effect on both of them: on bad terms.
It was Karl Anders who broke the silence. ‘I’ll have to be off then. I’m not planning to go home. I—’
‘I’d ring for a taxi if I were you.’
They held eye contact for a few long seconds. Once again Karl Anders seemed stone-cold sober.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said suddenly – in a clear voice. Took his phone from his trouser pocket and tapped in a number.
‘What am I thinking?’ Frølich asked in a harsh tone.
Karl Anders smiled coldly. Turned his back on him, went outside and slammed the door behind him.
Frølich stood staring at the closed door for some time.
At length he turned, fell on the sofa and leaned his head back thinking actually he should have put on some music. But he was exhausted. Even the idea of music seemed off-putting now.
He studied the can of beer his friend had drunk from. He took it. There was a bit left. Frølich placed the can on the mantelpiece above the fire. A nearly-empty can of beer, he thought dejectedly. I wonder if this is a monument to a past friendship.
11
When he awoke, his thoughts were immediately with his friend Karl Anders, Veronika and Janne.
This business had become too personal. He couldn’t allow that to happen. Karl Anders’s words had etched themselves in his brain. Having sex in that situation made me feel I was alive.
Frølich tried to recall an image of Janne Smith. It had become a tiny bit blurred. She had kindled a spark in him. There had been something, something or other, between them. He couldn’t allow his friend’s assertions and pompous babble about life and death to extinguish that spark. He wanted to hear her version of events. Talk to her first of all, he reasoned – afterwards decide what step to take next.
*
He parked more or less where the taxi had stopped the night they drove here after the party. When he finally got out of the car he hardly knew where he was. Daylight filled in the details the night had obscured. The contours of the house were the same. The crown of a tree arched over the roof. The little garden was screened by a tall hedge. Many years ago an occupant had laid some flowerbeds which were now overgrown. Gunnarstranda would know the names of the flowers, he thought, studying an old climbing plant clinging to the thick trunk of the maple tree. A black and yellow lawnmower stood by the house. In the middle of the lawn there was a battered, greasy and rusty grill. Frølich looked up. A face was hidden behind a curtain. It wasn’t her, so it had to be her son. He rang the bell, stepped back and examined the house front. It could have done with a lick of paint.
The door was opened by a thin, pale boy with long, black hair and the first signs of a beard carefully accumulated and groomed into a point on his chin. His T-shirt bore the logo of a heavy-metal band and his bare arms were as pale as his face.
‘Are you Kristoffer?’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’d like to talk to your mother.’
‘But who are you?’ the boy insisted, cautiously.
‘Tell Janne this is Frank Frølich here, a police officer. She knows me.’
The boy stood looking at him.
From indoors came the sound of footsteps on the stairs. ‘Kristoffer?’ A hand pushed him aside.
Silence descended as they exchanged glances. ‘It’s you, is it?’ she said in a tone that hit him in the solar plexus.
‘I’m off,’ Kristoffer said, walking down the steps. His shorts reached below his knees. He grabbed a skateboard, jumped on it and pushed off. The head of black hair glided along the hedge. After a few metres he glanced back over his shoulder. Frølich met his look, uncertain what it meant.
He turned to Janne, who was still standing in the same place, in sandals, jeans and a pale yellow top. She was holding a basket of laundry under her arm.
‘Nice boy.’ He could hear how stupid his comment sounded.
Fortunately, she ignored it and said: ‘I was in the cellar. Let me hang this up.’
She walked past him, down the steps and across the gravel path. He followed her. Behind the house there was a clothes line. The ground sloped. A wall of granite ran along the bottom of the slope. He sat down on the wall. Every time she stretched to hang an item of clothing on the line, her belly button appeared.
‘You’ve come to talk about Veronika, haven’t you?’
‘That too.’
‘That too?’ She stopped hanging up the clothes. Her hair fluttered in the breeze. The sun shone on her greyish-blue eyes and made them glitter like two jewels.
‘That was stupid. I’ve come to talk about Veronika.’
Triangular panties of various colours flapped like small pennants on the line. ‘Yes?’ she asked suddenly, still hanging up the clothes, without turning.
‘Did you have any contact with Veronika in the days before she was killed?’
Slowly, she bent down and picked up a red bra, fastened it to the line carefully with three pegs. ‘No,’ she said at length. ‘In fact I didn’t. The last time I spoke to her you and I were leaving the party, when we caught the taxi.’
‘Don’t you do her accounts?’
‘Yes, but I don’t talk to her every day,’ she said. Then repeated ‘don’t’, disconcerted. ‘Didn’t, I mean. It’s so difficult to get used to her…’ She wiped the back of her hand across her face and looked away.
‘We’re trying to work out what she did in the time before she was killed. Do you know if she had any plans for that day, if she was meeting anyone?’
She shook her head.
‘The guests at the party, were they Veronika’s friends as well?’
She nodded. ‘Most of them, anyway.’
She cleared her throat.
‘Could you write down a list of the friends you know, of people who can help us to find out what specific plans she had for that day?’
She nodded. ‘Have you got an email address?’
He dug down in his pocket and passed her his card. She quickly stuffed it into her back pocket without looking at it. ‘Some time during the day,’ she said.
Her tone and body language were cold, a brush-off.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
The basket was empty. She took it and turned to him. ‘Think about what?’
‘What do you think about this murder?’
‘Nothing. It’s just dreadful.’
He didn’t want to, but he had to ask the next question. He braced himself: ‘Have you had any contact with Karl Anders since?’
She nodded. ‘He came here. He’d talked to her mother on the phone and was done in. He almost lives here now; he can’t be on his own.’
‘Is he here now?’
She shook her head. ‘He went to work.’ She looked at her watch. ‘An hour ago.’
‘You say Karl Anders came here after Veronika was found murdered?’
She nodded.
‘What about the evening before?’
She smiled: ‘Why?’
‘Karl Anders says he was with you the night it happened.’
She glanced up warily.
He cleared his throat and asked the unavoidable question. ‘Were you together that night or not?’
‘He came here the day after. He’d received the phone call from Veronika’s mother, saying that Veronika was dead.’
‘You were at home?’
‘I felt it was right to be there for Karl Anders on that day.’
They stood looking at each other. He had to clear his throat several times to make his voice carry:
‘Karl Anders popped by last night. He told me not to tell anyone that you two…’
When he failed to finish the sentence she raised her face and studied him as though searching for a barb in his eyes. ‘You’re different now,’ she said.
He hesitated.
‘From last time.’
He looked away, past the house. Behind the hedge a bit further away there were some kids jumping on a trampoline. Their upper bodies rose and sank behind the foliage. They were squealing with joy and laughing.
‘Karl Anders said you used to be a couple,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘We were together for three years.’
‘Why did it finish?’
She looked down, rapt in thought. ‘What’s the classic excuse? I wanted a break. I was unsure and felt life had been reduced to routines and boring TV nights. Besides, Kristoffer was in the worst phase and needed a lot of attention. I didn’t want to have rows with a man because of my child.’ She took a deep breath and carried on: ‘A lot happened at once. My mother died, the house here became empty. Karl Anders and I were struggling. I felt I had to choose between several roles and chose to be a mother. Kristoffer and I moved here.’
‘And now?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Now you’ve started up again?’
Now it was her turn to let her gaze wander over to the children jumping on the trampoline. She said nothing.
He wished they could have had this conversation under quite different circumstances. But forced himself to ask: ‘Where were you when Veronika was killed?’
‘Here.’
‘Alone?’
She shook her head. ‘Kristoffer was here. It was a normal evening. TV and other ‘highlights’ – like a glass of wine from a box. I went to bed at around midnight. Kristoffer went a bit before me. Which he still does sometimes – surprisingly enough.’
‘Has your son got a mobile phone?’
‘Of course, why?’
He refrained from answering. Instead he asked. ‘Has Karl Anders told you where he was that evening?’
She shook her head.
Frankie rose to his feet. ‘Then I won’t bother you any more.’ He walked past her.
‘Hey!’
He stopped and turned. ‘Yes?’
She looked at the ground and shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
He hesitated for a few seconds. If there was anything she wanted to say, he wanted to hear it. ‘What?’ he repeated, without eliciting any reaction. Then he decided to go the whole hog. ‘As a matter of form,’ he said, ‘why do you think Karl Anders says he was with you all evening?’
Eye contact again. ‘No idea.’
Suddenly she recoiled as though she understood a hidden suggestion in the question. Her eyes narrowed. ‘He would never have hurt Veronika,’ she said in a low, controlled voice. ‘You know him. You know that too. If you’re the friend you say you are.’
Frankie had nothing else to say. He wished it were possible to press a button, rewind the whole meeting and start again.
Janne came towards him with the basket under her arm. When she stopped in front of him her eyes were still narrow slits. ‘Has it ever struck you that you could drop what you’re doing now?’
Her words stung. Nevertheless, he asked: ‘What do you mean?’
‘You said yourself, he asked you not to drag us through the mud.’
She walked past him and up the steps without a backward glance, her neck and back erect. The door slammed shut behind her, and the only thing he was sure of was that he wasn’t going to ask to be released from this case, not yet.
As he walked back to the car he rang Directory Enquiries and got her son’s mobile number. Seconds later Kristoffer Smith’s high-pitched voice answered.
Frølich opened the car door. ‘This is Frank Frølich, the police officer you just spoke to,’ he said, and got in.
12
The corridor was as good as empty. Emil Yttergjerde stood in the TV-room doorway. ‘Do you know who has voluntarily contributed to the case of the African babe?’ he asked with a grin.
‘The man in Lena Stigersand’s life, the asylum-seeker killer himself, in person – Ståle Sender. He dropped by today. It struck me that he might have his finger on the pulse, so I asked him a few questions about Rosalind M’Taya. Strange, I thought, that Lena hadn’t asked him, but they’ve probably had other things on their minds than police work, ha ha ha. Anyway. Ståle rang up Gardermoen and talked to the woman who was at passport control when the passengers from London landed. And, sure enough, she had taken Rosalind M’Taya aside. But our girl had both a visa and a letter of invitation from the university and the whole deal, so after a little check with customs she was let through. But that means we have the precise time of when she left the arrivals hall. So I was able to check the CCTV and looked for a black girl. It was so easy that being a cop was fun. Run the film,’ Emil said.
The picture on the screen showed the arrivals hall with the escalator down to the train platforms. ‘Had a bit of luck,’ he continued. ‘There are about six hundred cameras in Gardermoen. But we’ve got our girl … here!’ He freeze-framed the picture.
On the TV was a curvy woman with wonderful hair. Short jacket that reached to her waist, tight trousers and high heels. Emil started the film. The woman was manoeuvring her suitcase and carrier bags down the stairs.
‘Her? How do you know that’s Rosalind? All we can see is her back!’
‘Just wait,’ Emil grinned.
The woman went down the stairs. Emil fast-forwarded. People jigged up and down. ‘Now,’ he said, and ran the film again. ‘Escalator on the left.’
A black woman was on her way up the escalator. When her top half was visible Emil freeze-framed the picture again. Zoomed in. The quality was poor, but not that poor. This was Rosalind M’Taya. No doubt about it.
‘On her way up? She doesn’t catch the train?’
‘She walks out of the terminal, through the car parks. The interesting bit though is that someone helps her with the suitcase.’
Emil fast-forwarded the film. Rosalind M’Taya flew up the escalator. Behind her was a young man. As he left the escalator you could see he was carrying her suitcase.
‘This is seven minutes later,’ Emil continued. ‘She’s been down to the platform for normal trains, which are cheaper than the Airport Express, but she arrives between two departures. The train from Lillehammer to Skien via Oslo has just left. It’s half an hour to the next, the local train to Kongsberg. My guess is she went down to the platform, got into conversation with this guy who informed her, advised her, to take the airport bus or offered to drive her. What do you think?’
‘He drove her,’ Frølich said.
‘Why do you think that?’
‘I know him.’
*
Less than an hour later Frølich was on the Airport Express train. The air-conditioning ensured a cool breeze. He stared out at the mown fields where the tractors were pulling machines that rolled the grass into white bales shaped like eggs or packed it into squares. Bare chests under the baking sun. His mind went to Janne Smith and Karl Anders. The hypocritical request from friend to friend was exposed: don’t tell anyone. What did Karl Anders expect? Was he supposed to keep quiet about his friend establishing a false alibi? For Christ’s sake, he was a policeman.
He sighed and rubbed his face hard with his hands. Sooner or later he would have to take this further. Or would he? Were his colleagues entitled to know about the past? Well, anyway – he had to say something: Karl Anders lied about his alibi for the evening Veronika was murdered. Nevertheless, Frølich didn’t want to be the one running to Gunnarstranda with his friend’s head on a platter. Sourpuss could work it out on his own.
