FrankFrølich switched the television back on.
'Areyou bored?' she asked.
Helifted the remote control and pressed. 'Bored? No…'
Chapter 18
Thepick-up arm refused to lift. The sound in the loudspeakers was reminiscent of wornwindscreen wipers rubbing against a dry windscreen. At last Gunnarstranda gotout of his chair, went over to the record player, activated the lever to raisethe arm and blew away the dust that had gathered on the stylus. Then he loweredthe stylus down. The old Tandberg speakers emitted scratching sounds until thefirst guitar notes of Peggy Lee's 'Love is Just Around the Corner' stole intothe room. Gunnarstranda stood for a few reflective moments by the window. Heheld his hand against the glass and felt the cold penetrating the pane. Then healmost pressed his face against the glass to read the temperature on theoutside thermometer with the fading blue numbers. Minus 23. Down on thepavement in Bergensgata a woman wearing a coat walked into the yellow glare ofthe streetlamp. She was taking a lean setter for its evening walk. The dog didnot enjoy the cold weather. Its movements, which would normally be supple andbouncy, were reluctant and stiff; its head and tail trailed along the ground.The woman seemed to be dragging it along. The policeman watched them for alittle while until he sat back at his desk. He stared down at the scrap ofpaper on which he had jotted the code that been written in pen on the murderedman's chest. He rested his head on his hands without taking his eyes off thenumbers. In the end he grabbed the almost full bottle of Ballantine's which wason the tray beside the typewriter and twisted off the cork. He poured twocentimetres of whisky into a tumbler. As he raised the glass to drink, thetelephone rang. He took the receiver.
'Isthat you?' It was Yttergjerde's voice.
Gunnarstrandaswallowed and felt the spirit burn its way down to his stomach. 'What did yousay?' he rasped.
'You'reusually so abrupt on the phone,' Yttergjerde said. 'I was beginning to wonderif there was something wrong.'
'Whatdo you want?' Gunnarstranda asked.
'She'sgot a man,' Yttergjerde said.
'Name?'
'EyolfStrømsted. Runs a dance school. Looks like that anyway. This evening there wasa salsa course and African dance. You should have seen it, a black man with adrum and about fifty Norwegian women shaking their butts.'
'Andour lady?'
'Atfirst I thought she was on the course, but she went straight to this guywearing yellow pants and a silver shirt. He had a microphone round his neck,the kind of loop thing in front of his mouth that TV hosts have. He gyrated andjigged through the dancers, and when he screamed into the mike, you could hearhim in the speakers along with the music – what are you listening to you by theway?'
Gunnarstrandalooked across at the record player. 'A singer. Jazz ballads.'
'Notquite the same beat, no, this was salsa. When she arrived, there was a bit of acommotion because the guy had to get someone else to take over.'
'Didshe see you? Were you in the same room?'
'Therewere loads of people there. She didn't see me.'
'Goon.'
'Theywent outside to the car and drove off. So I followed them. They parked in thecar lot outside the Munch museum. Sort of discreet, under the trees by thefence around Toyen Park. And there I watched them sitting and smooching foralmost forty minutes, so I guess it must have been more than smooching. Shedrove the guy back to the dance school and went home.'
'Andyou?'
'Whenthe widow had gone, I was off duty and went back to the dance school. At lastthe guy came out and locked up. He walked home. Lives in Jacob Aalls gate, inMajorstua. That's where I found his name. He shot up the stairs about fiveminutes ago.'
'Goodwork, Yttergjerde. It's cold. You should go home and get warm.'
'I'mnever cold,' whinnied Yttergjerde. 'In this freezing weather people take codliver oil and vitamins, but there's no point – what counts is eating spicyfood. You should remember that. Just add three or four cloves of garlic to youreggs for breakfast, and red chilli peppers, best if they're so hot you can'tbreathe and break out into sweat. With that kind of firepower on board yourhands will never be cold. You can walk around in minus 2o with your shirt offand still the steam will be coming off you. Not one germ, not one virus, willget a hold inside your mouth. Your breath will kill healthy potted plants. Youbecome immortal, man, immortal.'
'Yes,yes,' said Gunnarstranda.
'Yes,'said Yttergjerde.
'Sleeptight,' Gunnarstranda said and put down the telephone before his colleaguecould give him the recipe for a good night's sleep. He took the tumbler and drankthe rest of the whisky. Then he picked up the ballpoint pen and drew a triangleon the scrap of paper. In the two bottom corners he wrote the names Ingrid andReidar Folke Jespersen. In the top corner he wrote Eyolf Strømsted. Finally, heput three crosses under the triangle. Three crosses, and he was careful to drawthem like those on the forehead of Jespersen's body.
Chapter 19
WhenFrølich entered the office, Gunnarstranda was engrossed in the Aftenposten.'Anything about us in there?' he enquired.
Gunnarstrandashook his head.
'Andthe will?' Frølich asked.
Gunnarstrandalowered his paper. 'Disappointing. Just a list of specific items of property -Karsten would get some wardrobe, that sort of thing. The old boy doesn't sayanything about anyone being cut out or favoured. No secret beneficiaries,nothing. There's just a list of about twenty to thirty items and who will getthem – that is to say: Ingrid and Karsten.'
'What'sthe upshot of him revoking the will?'
'Itmeans his estate will be thrown into one big pot. Ingrid will get half of thebroth plus her share of the old boy's legacy. Karsten will be paid off. That'sall. The revocation of the will just means that Karsten and Ingrid have toargue about who gets what.'
'Butwhy change such a crappy will a few hours before he is murdered?'
Gunnarstrandasighed in response. 'Yet another mystery in our files.'
'Whatsort of things were on the list?'
'Wardrobes,pornographic Chinese carvings, that sort of thing. I wrote it all down. Whatabout you?'
Frølichsighed and rubbed his eyes. 'I've interviewed every single occupant of theirblock,' he said, consulting his notes. 'Interested?'
'Giveme the edited highlights.'
'Onthe ground floor only shops. As far as the first floor is concerned, it'soccupied by Ingrid Jespersen. On the second there's a married couple in oneflat – herr and fru Holmgren. Both between fifty and sixty. He works for a toolagency. She's his secretary. They didn't hear a thing on Friday. They werewatching TV and went to bed at about half past twelve. The man's mother, AslaugHolmgren, lives in the adjacent flat. She's almost eighty, same age as the deadman, and she thinks Reidar Folke Jespersen was an arrogant, snobbishbuffoon, but had nothing to tell us about the evening in question. Herhearing isn't so good, and she usually goes to bed after watching a seriesabout the FIB, as she called them. She didn't approve of NRK putting on crimeprogrammes so late. Also, she wanted Oberinspektor Derrick back on TVand thought we police could learn a lot from it. Said she went to bed at elevenand didn't hear a thing.'
InspectorGunnarstranda chewed his lower lip, deep in thought. 'And that's all the peoplewho live in the building?' he asked.
'I crossedthe street too,' Frølich said. 'Got a nibble there. A mysterious car.'
'Ohyes?'
'Itried to work out who would have had a view of the shop. Since the killing tookplace at night, in practice that meant quite a lot of flats.'
'What sortof people?'
'Cross-sectionof Oslo 3: a typographer who works on a newspaper - Vart Land. He liveson his own with a dog. Then there's a young couple – he's a cameraman with TVNorge; she works for Dagbladet. I spoke to a publishing editor who saidshe would also ask her children. She has two teenagers who weren't there at thetime. She thought she had seen a taxi parked outside the antiques shop for atleast an hour – that's what she maintained anyway.'