Blame The Dead

The girl said, 'You will go, now.'

I looked at Nygaard. 'It's your room, chum.'

But he wasn't looking back. So I nodded and said, 'Thanks for the coffee, anyhow.'

'I thank you for the whisky,' he mumbled back.

'Any time.' The girl stepped aside and let me through the door, then followed. Ruud stayed in and shut the door.

She followed me clear down the stairs and out into the street – and then we just stood there in the drizzle and looked at each other.

She said firmly, 'You are going home, now.'

'Nope. I'm just standing here admiring the view.'

That made her blink thoughtfully. Then she had a bright idea. 'I know some students, very rough ones. They will make you go.'

'Dare say you do know them – every university's got some and they like being known – but they don't know you. Not some pansy do-gooding Christian piece like you. So forget the goon squad; they wouldn't do anything for you.'

She flushed. 'Then I get the police.'

'Try for Inspector Vik.' I was standing by a ramshackle old Volkswagen – so old it had the twin rear windows, and so beat up that it looked as if it had been dumped. I patted a wing and then had to stop it going on shaking. 'Yours?'

'I own one half of it.'

'Give me a lift back into town and I'll buy the beer at the other end."

'I do not drink.' But the rest of the idea suited her; at least it got me clear of Gulbrandsens Gate. As she climbed in, she said, 'I am Kari Skagen.' So now I knew her name, it was all right for us to be alone in a car.

Twenty-six

As we chugged down the patched-up street, I asked, 'How long have you known Nygaard?'

'Since before Christmas.'

'From about when he came to the Home? How did you get to know him?'

'There is a – sort of club. Called Student Christian. We help old people and like that.'

'So it was pure chance you drew him?'

'Ja…' she stirred the gear lever around until she found a noise that suited her. 'But why did you-'

But I was determined to keep this interrogation in my hands for a while longer. 'Hasn't he got any family?'

'His wife is dead for ten years. They have no children. His sister lives in Denmark but she is also very old. So…'

We turned a corner and I got slung against the door – which tried to open. I scrambled back into my seat. 'But can't his old employers at ADP do anything? Like get him out of that dump? Have you seen Mrs Smith-Bang?'

'You know her? Yes, I have seen her. But she says she cannot pay more than his pension – and he says he does not want to leave the Home. He likes being with sailors.'

Come to think of it, whyshould Mrs S-B pay any more? She hardly owed a bonus to a crew that had done at least its fair share of running the Skadi into legal history, at whatever speed. And overpaying a star witness can look bad in court.

Then we turned on to the main road and she bollicksed the clutch work and we crossed two lines of fast traffic hoppity-hoppity-hop like a storybook bunny. A white Mercedes swerved around us and vanished ahead in a dying scream of its horn and my nerves.

Kari said seriously, 'I am a better driver with boats.'

I nodded breathlessly and she finally got a question in. 'Why did you come to see him – and bring the whisky?'

'Just as a present. Is that bastard Ruud going to steal it?'

'No. I asked him to, many times. If he did, he could stop Engineer Nygaard drinking very soon."

'And clap hands if you believe in fairies,' I murmured.

'Pardon?'

'Never mind. Just believe I wouldn't have brought the Scotch if I'd known he was an alcoholic.' Wouldn't I, though? Well, it was a moral problem I didn't have to solve right now. 'But you know Nygaard's an important witness in a legal affair?'

'Ja. He was on a boat that burned up.'

'So I'm hardly the first person to come asking questions, right?'

'Ja,'she admitted.

'And did you ever hear of a man called Jonas Steen?'

'Engineer Nygaard said about him. He did not like him.'

'Maybe, but that wasn't why he got murdered.'

'Hva?'she said incredulously.

D'you want to know why women will never rule the world? Because they can't be bothered to read a newspaper to find out if they've taken over the world, that's why. Spread all over the front page, that story had been -and the radio, according to Mrs S-B.

I tried to explain. When I'd finished, she asked carefully, 'But you do not think it was this man Lie who did it?'

'Well…' Come to that, Lie might easily have done it; certainly he was an accessory. 'It's more a question of why it was done. Did Nygaard ever tell you what he told Steen?'

She tried to remember, her forehead crinkling into a small frown. With that fine long hair, firm profile, and fair skin, she was quite a looker. Just too much character behind the blue eyes for me. 'I think he talked about the accident… and the rescue.'

Great. Bloody marvellous. They wouldn't have mentioned the weather, as well? Or pollution or politics or the traffic problem?

'Well,' I growled, 'if you can ever get him to tell you more about what Steen knew, it could help.'

'Why should I help you?'

I kept my temper for about the next five yards. 'Because Steen was murdered because oíit! And another man was murdered because of it ten days ago – a man Steen had been talking to! And Lie himself – oh hell's feathers, never mind, just go on being Christian charitable.'

She was staring at me. Left to itself, the Volkswagen jumped like a terrier and snapped at a passing van. Both of us grabbed at the steering wheel.

When we'd got it back on the leash again, she said, 'Do you mean that Engineer Nygaard may be killed also?'

'I don't know. I really don't.' And I really didn't. 'Maybe they're counting on him doing it to himself. Drop me off at the railway station; I want to pick up my bags.'

In the end, she offered to drive me to the airport as well and I accepted out of sheer devotion to duty. If anybody could get through to Nygaard, she seemed the likeliest -if s he wanted to try. And on her side, I think she was feeling a bit guilty about giving me the heave-ho from his room so promptly.

At intervals when it didn't seem likely to distract her from keeping us alive, I learned that she wasstudying history and English, that her parents lived somewhere farther south, that she wasn't engaged. She didn't learn as much from me; I tried to give the impression that I worked for a big legal firm in London.

At the airport, it turned out that the only way I could get home that night was to fly a local to Oslo, change for Gothenburg in Sweden, then pick up the eleven-thirty-five pm for London. The ticket desk thought I was crazy and ma›be insulting their country; besides, the trouble I was going to to get out of it, but they wrote me out a whole pack of tickets.

Then we had half an hour to wait for the Oslo plane, so she took a coffee while I had a beer – despite her disapproving frown. I honestly don't think the girl could help it any more than Nygaard could, by now, help the opposite approach.

I asked casually, 'Did Nygaard ever talk to you about the collision?'

'No – not truly. I asked him, but he said he cannot remember much.'

'How was he rescued?'

'He was on a… a raft, you call it. For all the night and in the day also. Then a fishing-boat found him. I think it, with the burns…' she tapped her forehead. 'Made him forget, you understand?'

'Yes.' I could also understand what impression he'd make in court. But you aren't supposed to pick your witnesses like casting a movie, though I've known it happen. Kari added, 'That is why he drinks so much now, of course.'

'Uh-huh? And who buys him his booze? You?'