Eriksen looked peculiarly tired. Not the way you did after a hard day’s slog, more like he’d been at it all night long and had also been in an accident.
“What happened?” Carl inquired, with a nod in the direction of the bandage stuck to Eriksen’s neck.
“Oh, that,” he replied, lifting his hand to the spot. “Silly, really. It’s what you get for taking the steps in front of your house too quickly.”
Gordon nodded. “Yeah, one little slip and all of a sudden you’re on your back.”
“Exactly,” said Eriksen, sending the idiot a rather too intimate smile.
The corners of Carl’s mouth turned downward. If the idiot was going put words in the mouth of their interviewee, things weren’t going to be easy.
“I can inform you that we’ve spoken to William Stark’s partner, Malene Kristoffersen, and her daughter,” Carl said. “Both of them have forcefully dismissed your suspicion of pedophile activity. That’s only to be expected, of course, but we’ve found nothing at all to substantiate it. Do you have anything more to say that might further support what you told us?”
“I don’t know, really,” Eriksen replied, pursing his lips in thought. “Sometimes you can observe things and overinterpret them. You brought the issue up in our discussion, not me, and it triggered some associations, I suppose.” He shook his head. “I can’t say I’ve anything more substantial, so I can only apologize if I put you on the wrong track.”
Carl inhaled sharply through the corner of his mouth. He wasn’t feeling that good and was also confused by Eriksen’s change of tack. It was almost as if something had happened to the man since last time they spoke. As though the camel were stretching its neck toward another goal altogether.
“Quite an office you’ve got here,” said Gordon, for no obvious reason. “I thought the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in some ancient building.”
Christ on a bike, who did he think he was working for? Ideal Home magazine?
Carl forced an apologetic laugh. “Gordon’s in law school and thinking of joining the civil service. So he’s checking out the territory while he’s here.”
The beanstalk looked surprised. “Actually, no, I-”
The lightning in Carl’s eyes could have slain an ox. Gordon shut up abruptly. Despite possessing truckloads of megalomania and a stranger to self-criticism, he must suddenly have understood who was in charge. About fucking time.
“We’d like to know more about the project Stark went to Cameroon to sort out,” Carl went on. “What was it about, exactly? We have a rough idea, but we’d also like to hear your own rundown.”
Eriksen frowned. Was it a prickly question or was he just thinking?
“Actually, it was a rather simple project, basically motivated by the fact that a large part of the world’s primitive cultures are suffering on account of civilization encroaching upon their domains. In this instance we’re talking about a pygmy tribe known as the Baka people, an ethnic group inhabiting the Congolese jungle in a geographical area known as Dja, which is located in the southernmost region of Cameroon. It was a straightforward aid project whose purpose was to compensate for intensive poaching and the timber extraction their forests have been subjected to. The Baka still live in grass-roofed huts, under quite primitive conditions. The fact of the matter is they can no longer sustain themselves unless major efforts are made to provide them with crops and reasonable living conditions. So all in all it was a pretty basic development project.”
“Was, you say. Isn’t it still running?”
“Yes, but it’s winding down.”
“Hmm. And how have these people been helped, exactly?”
“Mainly by setting up banana plantations and making sure the land surrounding their villages was cultivated.”
Carl eyed him for some time before posing his next question. He sensed Gordon fidgeting impatiently at his side, so he clamped his hand just above the lad’s knee and squeezed. There was a squeak of astonishment, but luckily nothing Eriksen seemed to notice. He was far too focused on Carl’s scrutinizing gaze.
“I can tell you we’ve received information that the project went idle quite some time ago,” said Carl. “As far as we’ve been informed, not much ever transpired in the way of banana plantations or cultivated fields. Could you explain that to me?”
Eriksen put his hand to his neck and scratched beneath his collar. The idea was probably to look relaxed, but something had definitely thrown the man. Carl thought he knew what.
“I don’t understand. It’s news to me, I must say,” he replied. “I’m shocked. We’re still making payments until the end of the year.”
In his mind, Carl ran through the six signs that indicated a person was lying under interrogation. Several of them were as clear as day. Eriksen’s hands were placed flat on the desk in front of him, as if he didn’t dare move them. Suddenly he stared into Carl’s eyes without blinking, then swallowed hard a couple of times, his mouth obviously dry. So basically, all that was left were stupefaction and rage, and he’d have the entire set. But Carl didn’t want to push him that far because then he would stop talking altogether.
“I’m sorry to have to divulge this information to you like this,” Carl said. “But it’s important for us that we understand how a project for which your department is responsible can go off the rails like that.”
He protested now, more offended than angry. Yet another sign. “I can only say it like it is. The Baka project was Stark’s and he was extremely proficient at delegating the work to the recipient countries, which is basically the purpose of our providing aid in the first place. This was a straightforward project of the kind that runs itself as long as the groundwork has been done well enough.”
“So you’re telling me no one was keeping tabs, is that it?”
“Of course there were periodic checks, but in this case they were more at the local level. Like I said, it wasn’t a very big project.”
Carl glanced at Gordon. It didn’t matter what Lars Bjørn saw in the big dope as long as he kept his damn mouth shut until they were done. He looked hurt, but if a dead leg was enough to silence him, Carl was ready to give him a couple more.
He turned back to his prey, who now sat moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue. Clearly he was more than ready to defend himself. But why?
“How big was the project, then? How much money was earmarked?”
Eriksen raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “I can’t remember offhand, but certainly no more than fifty million a year.”
Carl recoiled. Fifty million a year! For that sort of money he’d personally plant bananas from here to Novosibirsk. How much police work could get done for an amount like that? How many street cops could get their overtime paid, and more besides? The number of time-off hours in lieu of wages that they’d save was mind-boggling.
“But I can get you the exact figures after the weekend,” Eriksen added. “The person now in charge is on vacation.”
Carl nodded. “Thanks, we’ll get back to that. We’ve been told as well that the project’s coordinator on-site, a certain Louis Fon, disappeared only a few days before Stark. Any thoughts on that?”
He’d better have, thought Carl. Otherwise, something was very wrong indeed.
“Yes,” Eriksen said with a nod. “That was quite a strange story we never really got an explanation for. But Africa’s like that, I’m afraid. People vanish, and sometimes they turn up again. There are plenty of temptations and dangers, not to mention chance occurrences. Sometimes things go inexplicably awry. We’re talking about the world’s second largest continent, you realize, and in many ways it’s one big shambles.”
Carl wasn’t buying. If Eriksen had been more specific and tried to elaborate, or even denied ever having heard of the man, he might have come across more believably. But this sort of all-purpose waffle could mean only one of two things. Either the man was hiding something or else he was utterly incompetent at his job, and the latter option Carl refused to believe.