Death in Oslo (27 page)

‘I’m coming,’ Mary said and took hold of a huge crowbar that had been lying at the bottom of the box.

With incredible strength, she forced the claw in behind the lock. She used a hammer to win a few extra millimetres’ leverage. Then she stood with her back to the stairwell, grabbed hold of the crowbar with both hands and pulled.

The woodwork split. But nothing happened.

‘And again,’ Mary wheezed.

The woodwork collapsed, but the door remained locked.

‘Maybe the other way,’ Mary said and did the same thing from the other side.

The lock broke. The door buckled. It was hanging at an angle and Mary forced the crowbar into the gap once more. The gap was wider now, so she got a firmer hold.

‘And puuull!’ she screamed. She was surprised to see an opening of about ten to fifteen centimetres appear.

She dropped the crowbar. The noise when it hit the floor made her ears ring. She took a firm hold of the door and pulled to make the opening bigger.

‘There now, there now,’ she said to the person sitting on the floor just inside the door, looking at her. ‘I know what it’s like. Now we’ll—’

‘Help,’ rasped a woman’s voice.

A Russian whore, Mary thought and shook her head.

‘I’ll help you, I will,’ she said and bent down to put her arm round the battered woman’s waist. ‘Men can’t just get their way, shouldn’t be allowed. This one bad, eh? And you’re all tied up and everything. Hang on . . .’

She found a sheath knife in amongst all the tools and cut through the plastic bindings that were tied round the woman’s wrists. With great effort, she managed to get her to her feet. The smell of piss and shit was overwhelming. She glanced over at the back of the door. The latch was not there.

‘Crafty buggers, men, eh?’ she mumbled in a comforting
voice and stroked the woman on her bloody cheek. ‘Let’s get you a nice hot bath, eh, love? Come on now.’

The woman tried to walk, but her legs wouldn’t hold her.

‘You smell something terrible, girl. Come along with Mary, now.’

‘Help,’ whispered the woman. ‘Help me.’

‘There, there. That’s what I’m doing. You probably don’t understand what I’m saying. But I’ve been there too, you know, I’ve been where you are now and . . .’

Mary talked like this all the way to the stairs, where she had to half carry the woman up the five steps to the lift. When it came, Mary smiled and steered her in.

‘Hang on to this,’ she said, pointing to the steel rail. ‘We’ll be there in a jiffy now, love. What d’you look like, eh!’

It was only now, in the bright light from the neon tube on the ceiling, that Mary could take a proper look at the woman’s face. She had a great bump on one of her temples, bruising over half her face and one of her eyes was closed. The blood had dried and caked on her neck.

‘Nice clothes you got there, though,’ Mary said, with a hint of suspicion as she touched the red jacket. ‘That’s not from the Salvation Army, eh?’

The lift doors opened.

‘Now you be a good girl and put your arm round Auntie Mary.’

The woman stood without moving, with her mouth open. Her eyes showed no sign of life, and Mary held her gnarled hand up in front of her face and clicked her fingers.

‘Hello, you in there? Come on.’

With her left arm round the woman’s waist and her right hand under her arm, she managed to pull the woman over to the front door. She didn’t dare let go of her to look for the keys, so she rang the doorbell with her elbow instead.

Several seconds passed.

‘Help,’ groaned the woman.

‘There, there,’ Mary muttered impatiently and rang the doorbell again.

‘Mary,’ Johanne said gladly as she opened the door. ‘You were down there so long that—’

‘I found a whore in the cellar,’ Mary replied briskly. ‘Think she’s Russian or something like that, from round there, but she needs help all the same. Poor thing. Some jerk’s taken liberties with her.’

Johanne stood stock still.

‘Move out the way, then!’

‘Hanne,’ Johanne said quietly, without taking her eyes from the woman. ‘I think you should come here.’

‘Hanne’s not the sort to turn away a battered whore,’ Mary fumed. ‘Now get out the way. Now!’

‘Hanne,’ Johanne called again, louder this time. ‘
Come here!
’

The wheelchair appeared at the end of the hall, silhouetted against the glass wall where the trees cast long evening shadows into the flat.

Slowly she rolled towards them, the rubber wheels squeaking ever so slightly on the wooden floor.

‘This one needs a bath,’ Mary pleaded. ‘And something to eat, maybe. Be nice, Hanne, please. You’re a kind-hearted soul.’

Hanne Wilhelmsen rolled closer.

‘Madam President,’ she said and bowed her head before looking up again and holding her breath for a moment. ‘Come in, please. Let’s see what we can do to help you.’

‘S
o, let me just sum up,’ Adam said. ‘So there’s no misunderstandings.’He ran his fingers through his hair, then turned the chair round before sitting down so his stomach was against the back of it. He was balancing a red felt pen between his index finger and his thumb.

‘You were rung by a man you’ve never met before.’

Gerhard Skrøder nodded.

‘And you don’t know where he’s from or what he’s called.’

Gerhard shook his head.

‘Nor what he looks like, obviously.’

The arrestee scratched his neck and looked at the table, embarrassed.

‘It wasn’t exactly a video phone.’

‘So.’ Adam spoke with exaggerated slowness and put his hands over his face. ‘You’re sitting here saying that you took a job from a man you have only spoken to on the phone and you don’t even know his name. Someone you’ve never met.’

‘It’s not that unusual, that.’

Ove Rønbeck, his lawyer, twitched his hand in warning.

‘I mean, it’s not so strange . . .’

‘Yes, I think it is. What did he sound like?’

‘Sound like?’

Gerhard wriggled back on his chair like a teenager who’d been caught taking liberties with a reluctant girl.

‘What language did he speak?’ Adam asked.

‘He was Norwegian, I think.’

‘I see,’ Adam said, and let out a long breath. ‘So he spoke Norwegian?’

‘No.’

‘No? So why did you come to the conclusion that he was Norwegian?’

Rønbeck raised his hand and opened his mouth, but immediately sat back in his chair again when Adam turned to face him.

‘You have a right to be here,’ he said. ‘But don’t interrupt. I don’t need to remind you how serious this case is for your client. And for once I’m not actually that interested in Gerhard Skrøder. I just want
to know as much as possible about the anonymous man who gave you the job.’

He screamed this at Gerhard, who pulled back even more. His chair was right up against the wall now, so there was no room to tip it, as he normally did. His eyes were evasive, so Adam leant forward and pulled off his cap.

‘Did your mother not teach you that boys should take their hats off indoors?’ he asked. ‘Why did you think the man was Norwegian?’

‘He didn’t speak proper English, like. More like . . . with an accent.’

Gerhard was scratching his crotch furiously.

‘You should go to the doctor about that,’ Adam said. ‘Stop it.’

He got up and went over to a cabinet by the door. He picked up the last bottle of mineral water, opened it, and drank half in one go.

‘Do you know what?’ He suddenly laughed. ‘You’re so used to lying that you don’t know how to tell a story properly, even when you’ve decided on it yourself. Talk about occupational injury.’

He put the bottle down and sat on the chair again. With his hands folded behind his neck, he leant back and closed his eyes.

‘Carry on,’ he said calmly. ‘As if you were telling a fairytale to a child, if it’s at all possible for you to imagine something like that.’

‘I’ve got two nephews,’ Gerhard told him curtly. ‘I bloody know what kids are like.’

‘Good. Excellent. What are they called?’

‘Huh?’

‘What are your nephews called?’ repeated Adam, with his eyes still closed.

‘Atle and Oscar.’

‘OK, I’ll be Atle, and Rønbeck over there can be Oscar. Now tell us what happened when Uncle Gerhard got a paid job from a man he’d never met.’

Gerhard didn’t respond. He was poking at a hole in his camouflages.

‘Once upon a time,’ Adam started. ‘Come on. Once upon a time, Uncle Gerhard . . .’

‘. . . got a phone call,’ said Gerhard.

There was silence.

Adam made a circular movement with his hand.

‘. . . from an anonymous number,’ Gerhard continued. ‘It didn’t show up on the display screen. I answered. The man spoke English. But it was as if . . . as if he wasn’t English, like. He sounded kind of Norwegian . . . in a way.’

‘Uhuh,’ encouraged Adam.

‘There was something . . . weird about his language, anyway. He said that he had a really easy deal to offer and that there was loads of dosh to be had.’

‘Can you remember if he said “dosh” or something else?’

‘Money, I think. Yes. Money.’

‘And this was on . . .’ Adam leafed through his notes, ‘the third of May,’ he said, and looked askance at Gerhard, who gave a faint nod and continued to pull at the hole in his trousers. ‘Tuesday the third of May, in the afternoon. We’ll
get a printout of your log so we can check the time.’

‘But, it’s—’

‘You can’t—’

Rønbeck and his client protested at the same time.

‘Take it easy,
take it easy
!’ Adam groaned in exasperation. ‘Your telephone log is the least of your problems right now. We’ll come back to that. Carry on. You’re not very good at telling stories. Now concentrate.’

The lawyer and Gerhard exchanged glances. Rønbeck nodded.

‘He said that I should keep the sixteenth and seventeenth of May clear,’ Gerhard mumbled.

‘Keep them clear?’

‘Yes. Not make any plans. Stay sober. Be in Oslo. Available, like.’

‘And you didn’t know the man who rang?’

‘No.’

‘But you still said that was fine. You would drop the biggest street party of the year because a stranger phoned and asked you to keep the day clear. Well, well.’

‘It was the money. It was a lot of bloody money.’

‘How much?’

There was a long pause. Gerhard grabbed his cap and almost by reflex was about to put it on when he changed his mind and laid it back on the table. He still didn’t say anything. He was staring at the hole in his trousers.

‘OK,’ Adam said eventually. ‘We get the amount later. What more were you told?’

‘Nothing. Just that I should wait.’

‘For what?’

‘A phone call. On the sixteenth of May.’

‘And did you get one?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘In the afternoon. Can’t remember exactly. Around four, maybe. Yes, just after four. I was going to meet some mates in Grünerløkka for a beer before the match. Vålerenga versus Fredrikstad at Ullevål. The guy rang just before I went out.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing really. He just wanted to know what I was up to.’

‘What you were up to?’

‘My plans for the evening, like. If I’d stick to the arrangement. That I wouldn’t drink and all that. Then he said that I had to be home by eleven at the latest. He said it would be worth it. That it would pay well. So I . . .’

He shrugged, and Adam could have sworn that he blushed.

‘I had a beer or three with the boys, watched the match and went home. The score was nil–nil, so there wasn’t much to celebrate anyway. Was home before eleven. And . . .’

His discomfort was tangible now. He scratched his shoulder under his sweater and rolled his buttocks from side to side on the chair. His right thigh was shaking noticeably and he was blinking continuously.

‘Then he rang. About eleven o’clock.’

‘What did he say?’

‘I’ve told you a thousand times. How long do we have to carry on with this?’

‘You’ve told me twice before. And I want to hear it for a third time now. What did he say?’

‘That I should be up by the clock tower at Oslo Central Station a few hours later. At four a.m. I was to stand there until a man came with a woman and then we would all go over to a car and drive away. The route would be left in the glove compartment. With half the money. And then they all lived happily ever after.’

‘Not quite yet,’ Adam stated. ‘Didn’t you think there was something odd about the job?’

‘No.’

‘You’re told to drive around southern Norway with two passengers you don’t know, and to make sure that you’re noticed by the staff at various petrol stations, but to avoid being seen on the security cameras. You don’t have to do anything else, don’t need to steal anything – just drive around. And eventually park the car in a wood near Lillehammer and take the train back to Oslo, and then forget the whole thing. And you thought that was all hunky-dory?’

‘Yep.’

‘Don’t “yep” me, Gerhard. Get a grip. Did you know either of the other two? The woman or the other man?’

‘No.’

‘Were they Norwegian?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No, we didn’t speak.’

‘For four hours?’

‘Yeah. I mean, no. We didn’t say anything the whole time.’

‘I don’t believe you. That’s not possible.’

Gerhard leaned forward over the table. ‘I swear. I said a word or two to them, but the guy just pointed at the glove compartment. I opened it and there was a note lying there, like the man on the phone had said. Telling me where to drive and things like that. It also said that we shouldn’t talk. Fine, I thought. Fuck it, Stubo, I’ve told you all there is to tell. For Christ’s sake, you’ve got to believe me!’

Adam held his hands over his chest and wet his lips with his tongue. His eyes were trained on Gerhard.

‘Where is that note now?’

‘It’s in the car.’

‘And where is the car?’

‘Like I’ve said a thousand times, in Lillehammer. Just by the ski jump, where there’s a—’

‘It’s not there. We’ve checked.’

Adam pointed at a memorandum that a policeman had come in with ten minutes earlier.