Faithless, page 9
‘Zahid’s house was under surveillance on Monday night,’ Gunnarstranda said grumpily. ‘No one went to the house. No one left the house – according to Rindal.’
‘Zahid himself says he was at home with two brothers,’ Lena interjected.
‘But no one knows for sure if he was there,’ Frølich countered.
Gunnarstranda angled his head. ‘You’ll have to explain that comment.’
‘The surveillance was scheduled for overnight, to catch Zahid if he made a move. If he stayed away all night, it’s conceivable that our undercover officers were watching an empty house or only the brothers. It’s possible that Zahid may have met Veronika and killed her.’
Gunnarstranda held his chin in thought.
‘The perpetrator is still a person in her circle anyway,’ said Lena Stigersand. ‘Where did she come from that evening and where was she going?’
Gunnarstranda grinned. ‘Where do we come from and where are we going? Isn’t that what we all ask ourselves every day of our lives?’
He looked from one face to another. Coughed, then said: ‘We have to find out what Karl Anders Fransgård was doing that night, OK?’
Frølich decided this was the moment. He squirmed on his chair.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve spoken to him.’
There was a scrape of chairs as officers turned their heads. Silence. Everyone was looking at Frank Frølich, who sat up straight and eyed them all.
‘Come on. What did he say?’
‘He lied about where he was.’
‘And you know that, do you?’
Frølich nodded. ‘He claims he received a visit from his ex that evening. Janne Smith. I’ve spoken to her. She says she was at home – with her son, Kristoffer, who has confirmed what she said.’
‘And you tell us this now?’ This was Lena Stigersand. The bruising around her eye was barely visible.
‘It was only when I spoke to her that I knew he was lying,’ Frølich said calmly. ‘I have, by the way, made it clear to Gunnarstranda many times that I consider myself compromised in this case and shouldn’t be taking part.’
‘Your request is turned down,’ Gunnarstranda said, looking at his watch. ‘From now on I’ll take care of Fransgård and that’s the end of the matter. Well, what are we waiting for?’
14
A fly had found its way into the car. It was crawling up the window. Gunnarstranda pressed the button for it to open. The fly flew off. He drove slowly past the entrance to Frogner Lido. Howls and squeals from children swimming wafted over the fences, along with the smell of chlorine in the water. He continued past the car enclosure near Frogner Park. Somewhere here there was supposed to be a pump sump – whatever that was. When he drew up beside the round Water Resources and Energy Directorate building he spotted a concrete wall with a door on the left. The sign on the wall said Oslo Council. He pulled in.
Actually now he was none the wiser. No one around. No cars parked. He picked up his phone and rang the number he had been given by the council switchboard again. There were three rings before the man answered.
‘Fransgård?’
‘Speaking.’
Gunnarstranda explained that he was in his car outside a large door in Middelthuns gate. Before he could say any more the door opened and revealed an entrance to a tunnel in the mountain.
Gunnarstranda put the car into gear and drove in. Bright paintings adorned the concrete walls on the inside. Graffiti too – homage to Pythagoras and Archimedes, a right-angled triangle with a corresponding mathematical formula and beside it a man in a bathtub shouting ‘Eureka’ as the water overflowed. Gunnarstranda stopped in front of a traffic light hanging from the ceiling which soon changed to green. He let the car roll down in second gear. Passed the Munch graffiti. The cavern wound its way downwards, around bend after bend inside the mountain. Finally, the road culminated in a tarmacked car park. There was one other car, a dark Volvo.
Gunnarstranda got out of his car. There was a stench. Not exactly acrid, just unpleasant. The noise was noticeable. A drone from machines at work, and something louder over the top.
At the end of the car park a huge steel gate was bolted into place. Closer to the tunnel opening, a kind of construction site with cranes and staircases led into the mountain. Here, in a deep hollow, were six enormous blue machines mounted in a line. These were the source of the noise. All of them were bolted to the ground. Every attachment was reinforced with powerful steel stays. Gunnarstranda clambered up onto a metal bridge running above the hollow. There he spotted Fransgård behind a machine – a lean, sinewy man wearing a green hi-vis vest and blue helmet.
‘Fransgård?’
The man swung around and climbed up the ladder. They shook hands.
Gunnarstranda shouted to be heard above the racket. ‘So this is the pump sump?’
Fransgård nodded. ‘Behind the wall there’s a bloody huge basin. Most of the sewage and effluent from the town is collected here. These six pumps take the waste water up thirty metres to a big pipe that falls quite naturally into Slemmestad.’
They stood watching the pumps, without speaking.
‘You spoke to Frølich before,’ Gunnarstranda said at length.
Fransgård nodded.
‘As you know each other from the past, I’m afraid you’ll have to speak to me too – even if it’s not what you’d like most. Shall we go somewhere a bit quieter?’
‘Of course.’
‘My car,’ Gunnarstranda said, walking down and holding the door open for him.
‘Are you responsible for maintenance?’ he asked – after getting behind the wheel.
‘I’m more of a libero,’ Fransgård said. ‘I’m the project leader, everywhere there’s waste water.’
Gunnarstranda nodded, deciding that was enough small talk. ‘What do you think happened that night?’ he asked, remembering he had rung this man on his mobile. Coverage while sixty metres underground. Not bad. As an answer wasn’t forthcoming he turned to Fransgård, who removed his helmet.
‘It’s unpleasant to talk about.’ Fransgård took out a tin of snus and slipped a pouch under his top lip. Wiped his fingers, put the tin back in his pocket and sat thinking, his mouth shaped like a beak.
‘People go into relationships with differing requirements and expectations,’ he went on. ‘You respect the other person, you think you know them. Emotions rule. You define that as love. Animals have it easier than we do, Gunnarstranda. They’re on heat once a year and that’s it. But in a way we humans follow two paths when we enter a relationship. One path is governed by emotion. The other is the rational one, governed by the everyday and work and routines. You find a tone in the relationship; you’re quite open about some topics, others you don’t mention. It’s tied up with personality, I suppose. For some it’s very natural to be open about everything. I have a cousin who can talk to complete strangers at a party about her haemorrhoids in detail. Some people find that revolting; others fall into conversation and think the topic is interesting and natural. Another case in point – one of my colleagues was almost neurotically open with his partner. They pooled their money, he insisted she should have access to his bank account, she should read letters addressed to him and of course expected the same in return. In the end, she couldn’t stand it and moved out. It had become impossible to have any privacy. Why am I telling you this? My friend Frølich, whom you referred to, arrested Veronika one night last week. She told me about it, but only after she met Frølich at my party and realised he and I were friends. Then she told me – to get in before Frølich told me, to give her side of the story, you see? She had a little cocaine on her, but she didn’t tell me why she had cocaine on her. Where or who she’d got it from. She clammed up and didn’t want to talk about it.
‘I had no idea she was taking drugs. What I’m trying to say is that when she decided to tell me these things, she was selective in what she told me. She didn’t mention, for example, what caused the police to stop her or where she had been before she was arrested, where she was when she was arrested or why it happened. But – after this conversation a few things fell into place. I suddenly realised I didn’t know Veronika. And that is quite a shock. You’ve been together with a girl for a long time, you’re engaged to her, you’ve decided to spend the rest of your life with her and you discover you don’t actually know her! Your mind starts working, you examine the relationship in depth and become even more paranoid. You think: she doesn’t want to meet me on that and that day, why not? Why does everything in this damned relationship have to be so calculated? Is she living a double life? Are there friends and people and elements in this other life I know nothing about?’
Fransgård rested his hands on the helmet in his lap.
‘You haven’t answered the question,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘What do you think happened the night she was killed?’
‘There was a lot going on around Veronika. I have to say these things. It’s important to me, and it says a lot about her. Once I had a strange experience. Well, I had it many times. But there was a guy who stuck close to us on the tram. We were going home from town and the tram was full, but he was particularly persistent, if I can put it like that. I thought it was a chance encounter with a loony, but after a while I saw him again. I saw him twice. One night I’d been to see her and was going home and there he was, on the pavement, watching me as I came out. I walked over to my car and was about to get in, then I noticed him still there, looking at me with weird eyes. I returned his stare and then he went away.
‘I remember thinking: goodness me, how is that possible? It’s the kind of thing that preys on your mind, but which eventually you repress. But then it damned well happens again. I come out and almost collide with this guy, who backs off and disappears as though I were carrying a contagion. I didn’t think twice, I ran after the guy, but he got away. I walked back and took the matter up with Veronika, but she didn’t seem to understand anything. A guy? On the tram? Outside here? What are you talking about? And I … well, I dropped the matter. But then I’d promised to look after my niece – she’s ten. My sister and her husband were going on a weekend cruise to Kiel, to regain the spark in their relationship, so to speak. Veronika and I took the girls, my niece and her friend, to Tusenfryd Amusement Park. It was a lovely day. The girls had tickets and money and ran wild. Veronika and I took it easier, had a bite to eat, went on a rollercoaster and so on. Among other things we did what they call the water ride. You can buy photos of yourself afterwards. She bought one of us.
‘Afterwards we went back to hers. In her bag was the photo of us and I went to have a look. Then I discovered there were two photos. One was of her and me. The other was of this pest. The photo was taken a few minutes after ours.’ Karl Anders Fransgård shook his head and brandished a hand, as if to say what was all this. ‘She insists she doesn’t know what I’m talking about when I mention the guy, but then she sees a photo of him in the kiosk at Tusenfryd, buys it without saying a word to me and hides it in her bag.’
He fell quiet.
‘Did you confront her?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s a shock to be lied to your face. A slap is nothing by comparison. Anyway, I didn’t want a scene with the two girls present. Later … I didn’t dare. Or at least I let sleeping dogs lie. I don’t know why. But I’ve wondered about it hundreds of times since.’
Fransgård sat with his eyes closed. A kind of self-reproach pose, Gunnarstranda reflected, and asked: ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘I think this man killed her.’
‘A man?’
Fransgård nodded.
‘This man? And you don’t know his name?’
Fransgård nodded again.
‘What does he look like?’
Fransgård deliberated before answering: ‘Pretty run-of-the-mill, between forty and fifty, thinning hair, few strands over his forehead, otherwise a very ordinary person.’
‘Ethnic Norwegian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that all you know?’
Fransgård nodded. ‘He can’t live so far away from her as I saw him outside her door twice. I’d guess he lived there, close by.’
‘And Veronika has a photo of this man, taken on a water ride at Tusenfryd?’
‘Don’t you believe me?’
Gunnarstranda didn’t answer. Instead he asked: ‘Do you know where she was or where she was going the night she was killed?’
‘No.’
‘She hadn’t said anything?’
Fransgård shook his head.
‘Not even a hint?’
‘No.’
‘There was nothing she used to do on Mondays that could give us a clue as to her plans for that day?’
‘No idea.’
‘You don’t have any suspicions?’
Fransgård glanced across at him without saying anything.
The silence in the car persisted. The din outside was audible through the window. Fransgård looked at his watch. He cleared his throat and was about to say something, but Gunnarstranda got in first:
‘You said you ran after this pest once. When was that?’
‘It was a Wednesday. A few weeks ago.’
‘You remember it was a Wednesday, but not how long ago?’
‘We were together on Wednesdays. That was a fixed arrangement.’
‘You said he got away?’
Fransgård nodded.
‘Can you be a bit more specific?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How did he get away?’
‘I gave up, stopped running.’
‘He was a good sprinter?’
‘What are you driving at?’
Gunnarstranda inhaled and counted. He was going to fire a rocket and so a countdown was appropriate: ‘Isn’t it obvious what I’m driving at? You’re talking bollocks and you know that yourself.’
Fransgård was taken aback. He pressed his shoulder against the door and glared at the policeman with wide-open eyes. ‘What?’
‘Blast off,’ Gunnarstranda muttered under his breath. Aloud he said: ‘According to Frølich, you claim you were with Janne Smith the night Veronika was killed. Is that true?’
Fransgård ran the back of his hand over his forehead. At length he said in a forced voice: ‘It’s true.’
‘Janne Smith says it isn’t. What do you say to that?’
Fransgård regarded Gunnarstranda with a distant stare. ‘I have nothing to say.’
‘Do you wish to change your statement?’
Fransgård twisted his head and stared vacantly into space, as though he hadn’t heard the question.
‘Do you wish to change your statement about what you were doing and where you were when Veronika was killed?’ Gunnarstranda repeated.
Fransgård swallowed and shook his head. His eyes were evasive.
‘May I interpret your answer as that you don’t wish to change your statement? You still claim you were with Janne Smith on Monday night and not anywhere near Veronika?’
‘Yes.’
Gunnarstranda turned the ignition key, put the car in gear and drove into the tunnel that led up to the open air.
‘What are you doing?’ Fransgård asked, dumbfounded.
‘Fransgård,’ Gunnarstranda patronised. ‘Every player with any ball sense knows when the game’s over. I’m arresting you in the name of the law, as they say in old films. Now we two are going to drive to the police station and take your statement properly.’
They passed through all the bends without saying a word.
Gunnarstranda stopped in front of the locked door.
It stayed locked.
He turned to Fransgård, who was staring into the air, perplexed. The Munch painting on the concrete wall behind Fransgård’s head was ‘The Scream’.
‘My car,’ Fransgård said. ‘I can drive my own car.’
‘You’re not listening,’ Gunnarstranda replied in a gentle voice. ‘You’re under arrest.’
Gunnarstranda eyed the locked door and recognised the irony in those words without a smile. ‘Open sesame,’ he mumbled.
As though the mountain had heard him, the door slowly slid open.
He drove out, stopped and saw the door closing again in his rearview mirror.
15
Lena Stigersand always felt ridiculous when she fiddled with the police radio. There was something silly and crime-series-like about fiddling with a radio when you were in uniform, but she was sitting next to Rindal in the leading police car and was obliged to do her job. They had radio contact with undercover officers in Karihaugen and were being updated constantly. Abid Iqbal reported that the delivery van parked on the forecourt of Dekkmekk had now opened its doors.
Rindal grinned and winked at her.
Shortly afterwards there was a report about some activity. The van reversed towards the back of the building. Shutters that were padlocked were opened. There were three men around the van.
‘Can you see Zahid?’
‘No.’
Rindal glanced at Lena and grimaced, started up the car and drove off.
Abid radioed in: ‘The van’s got a logo on the side – Go-getters AS.’
Rindal looked at her. ‘Heard of them?’
She shook her head.
Rindal grinned and informed all the units to stay calm.
Abid radioed in: the three men were inside the building.
Rindal again asked for calm.
He chewed his lower lip.
Lena looked through the side window. They were passing Lindeberg. Rindal was keeping to the speed limit. There was a long tailback of vehicles; no one dared overtake the police car.
Another report by Abid: one of the three men had walked around the building and just opened the shutters of Dekkmekk.
‘Yesss!’ roared Rindal into the mike.
Another report: the man had taken a pallet truck from the Dekkmekk workshop.
Rindal switched on the blue light and sirens. Pressed the accelerator to the floor. The automatic gear gave a jerk and Lena was thrown back in her seat.
