The man returned to his chair and sat down. Surly now. ‘Yes, I have slept with her.’
Dismissive expression.
‘Did you often sleep with her?’
‘You’ve got what you wanted now, for Christ’s sake! Do you want to know how long we were at it as well?’
Love and Geography, Frank thought. The Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson play in which a man is forever fussing around and yelling about his maps while neglecting his family.
‘Was it a relationship?’ he asked in a friendly tone.
‘No! We were not in a relationship.’
‘So it’s a while since you last slept together?’
Bregård didn’t answer.
‘Or could you just ring and order a quickie when it was convenient?’
Bregård slowly removed his glasses. His fingers were not trembling. But he looked daggers across the table. ‘You can count yourself lucky you’re here on official business. Otherwise I would…’
‘Oh, right!’
Frank shrugged his comment aside and lifted his notepad to remind the man what they were doing. He went on: ‘When you asked if she wanted to join you on Friday, and she turned you down, do you think she had another date?’
‘You mean, was there someone else?’
He had calmed down. Swivelled round on the chair and stared thoughtfully at the wall where the woman with the hair was still trying to roll up her fishnet stockings. She was standing with her back half turned to the camera. And a silver tanga up her ass like a thread. The head with all that hair faced the photographer and she was pursing her lips into a kiss.
Bregård had fallen into a reverie. ‘No,’ he said at length. ‘She didn’t have another date.’
The detective held his gaze. ‘In other words, she was keeping you at a distance?’
Bregård formed his mouth into a resigned smile. Didn’t answer.
‘What was she like?’
The smile dissolved. His eyes were two black dots.
‘You mean, was she hot?’
The detective paused, waited. The idiot wasn’t finished yet. His face was agitated. He gripped the desk with white knuckles.
‘She liked it from behind,’ he hissed. ‘Why don’t you take a wander down to the red-light area and buy yourself a bit of skirt? That would be a lot better than taking notes on what others get up to!’
Frank felt his lips moving into a patient smile. ‘When Reidun Rosendal was not being taken from behind, or the front, but was working here with you, what did she like? What was she like as a person?’
‘Clothes,’ the man suggested mechanically. The outburst was over. Bregård was caught in the same melancholy as a moment before. He stared dreamily into middle distance again. ‘I think she loved clothes… and her dog. Of course she couldn’t keep it in her bed-sit, so it was at her mother’s place, in Vestland. By the way, she always talked about her home area, the south-west coast.’
‘Wasn’t she happy in Oslo?’
‘I think she was happy enough. It was just the way she was.’
He snapped his fingers to find a suitable description. ‘She was… herself!’
He was satisfied. ‘She was herself,’ he repeated with a nod.
‘You said she loved clothes, what was her style?’
‘No special style.’
He breathed in. ‘All-rounder. If you get my drift. She could wear anything. One day she looked like a schoolgirl, the next she wiggled her hips like a jailbird’s dream. She… I suppose that was what made her a bit special, maybe.’
Jailbird, he jotted that down and looked up. ‘Yes?’
Bregård was gazing into space. No more putting on an act. ‘She was… no,’ he broke off. ‘It just sounds so flat in retrospect.’
Frank Frølich waited, but the man had dried up. His profile was pale and somewhat featureless. One of the bristles in his moustache had dislodged itself and was wedged between his lips, which were thin and bloodless.
‘Who did she have most contact with here?’
‘Sonja.’
The man with the moustache swivelled back and gave a resigned sigh. ‘Sonja Hager. She’ll be here soon.’
Frank pulled his boots back on. Taking his time. Tying them up, tight. Stood up. Bregård was still seated and rocking his chair. His mind elsewhere. Frank left. Turned in the doorway. Bregård was absentmindedly rolling a biro between his fingers.
‘If you should think of something that might be helpful,’ the detective said in a friendly tone of voice, ‘get in touch with us.’
He didn’t wait for an answer, just about-faced and went back to the large room with the lift doors.
10
Lisa Stenersen’s face was smooth and girlish. Nevertheless, now that she was wearing her outdoor clothes, her age came clearly to the fore. She had thrown a padded cloak over her shoulders. That, and two flat, slipper-like shoes, made her look like a revue act. All that was missing was a flower in her hat. She seemed shy now. Glanced nervously at her watch as soon as he appeared. An anxious smile on her face as she fidgeted with a piece of paper.
‘Is this an inconvenient moment?’ he asked, to be obliging.
She blushed. ‘Not at all!’
Ran her eyes down her clothes, bewildered, down the cloak, and her face went even redder.
At that moment the telephone rang. She hurried over to one of the desks in the middle of the room. Grabbed the receiver while Frank sprawled on the sofa immediately behind her. Gazing at the window to study her reflection there.
‘No, I’m afraid he hasn’t been in today,’ she said formally and was about to ring off. But she didn’t get that far.
‘What’s that?’ she exclaimed in a loud falsetto voice, suddenly engaged, pacing up and down, ill at ease as there wasn’t a chair close by. ‘Yes, I see, yes, of course.’
At the start of the conversation the well-rehearsed phrases streamed out in a relatively sincere way. However, the sincerity waned as time passed. And the more she writhed, the clearer it became that she was having difficulty bringing the exchange to a close.
After finally cradling the receiver, still disconcerted, she stood biting a nail and convulsively clenching her other hand. It looked as if she had a problem.
‘You’re going to be late after all,’ Frank remarked.
She released the nail, and chewed her lower lip instead. ‘I suppose I will.’
‘Who were you talking to?’ he asked, feeling no shame at exhibiting his curiosity.
‘Egil Svennebye’s wife. He’s the Marketing Manager here.’
She perched stiffly on the edge of the seat some way from him.
‘She’s worried. It seems he didn’t go home last night. She claims he’s gone missing.’
Eyes downcast, she smiled. Frank Frølich waited for her to look at him. ‘Has she reported it to the police?’
Lisa shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t suppose she wants to get the police involved.’
‘But she did sound pretty alarmed, didn’t she?’
‘She was alarmed, yes,’ Lisa confirmed, lost in thought. ‘Perhaps you could talk to her?’
Frank met her eyes. ‘We can’t do much unless she wants us to.’
‘But it might calm her nerves,’ Lisa countered with optimism. The paper she had been fidgeting with was crushed into a tiny ball in one hand. ‘She seemed… frightened!’
Frank nodded. ‘Of course we would very much like a chat with her husband as he works here,’ he said reassuringly. ‘So I can pop by his house, can’t I.’
She brightened up a bit.
Frank hastened to change the topic. ‘You used to work with Reidun Rosendal, didn’t you?’
The woman threw a swift glance at her watch. ‘Not so much. Reidun was out a lot, visiting customers. I deal mostly with correspondence and so on.’
‘But you got to know her a little?’
‘Yes, I did.’
She shuddered. Pinched her eyes shut. ‘Was… was she tortured?’ she asked, full of apprehension.
Frank looked her in the face. ‘We don’t know.’