The Cherry Blossom Corpse (9 page)

“You are forgetting the fjord,” I said.

“We
never
forget the fjord,” he said, emphatically. “But remember how exposed you are, travelling by water. Remember how people love to look out over water at the end of a fine day, at sunset, during the last light. There are rooms in the guest-house that surely overlook the water. Over on the island there, there are summer cottages—see, their lights are on at the moment. Anyone would be taking a most terrible risk.”

I looked. Yes, even in twilight a murderer arriving by boat would feel horribly exposed . . . I said reluctantly:

“There is one more thing. The guest-house has a young
man, a sort of odd-job man who turns himself to anything that needs doing so far as I can see. He was waiting at the end of the path that leads to the road most of the evening after dinner. He was supposed to be meeting guests off a bus. He would know if anyone came down the main path.”

Stein Bjørhovde nodded contentedly.

“Again, you see.”

“Oh, I
see
all right.”

The fair man stood there, quiet as still water.

“Who exactly was in the guest-house tonight?”

I had already got that worked out in my mind.

“Of the house-staff, I can't say. Probably some went home after dinner—maybe all of them did. The proprietress was alone in the bar. Of the guests: there was a party of Germans—you spoke to one at the top of the path. There was an American family, apparently casual tourists. And there was the romantic novelists' party. I can give you a list of them later, but there'd be about nine or ten. Of these, two had guests for dinner, who are still here. One was my sister—you saw her with her young man at the top. He was supposed to go back to Bergen on the last bus, but of course the accident prevented him.”

“I see. And you know all these people?”

“All in the ‘romantic party,' if that's the right description, though only on a casual basis.”

“How well did you know—” he gestured with his hand towards the sodden pink bundle on the landing-stage.

“Very little. We met up on the boat from Newcastle—oh—three days ago. She is the sort of woman I fly from, and in the time since I've mostly flown. Still, we've inevitably come across each other now and again.”

He thought.

“You are here to accompany your sister?”

“Yes. Just to get her over her first shyness. She's not used to these gatherings—though, God knows, neither am I.” A touch of bravado entered my tone as I said: “I'm joining my wife at Oppheim tomorrow.”

Stein Bjørhovde shook his head, and made a sound that I took to be a Norwegian “tut-tut.”

“That is not possible. You know it is not possible.” I put on my obstinate expression, a male version of Cristobel's party-piece. “You are one of the people at the guest-house. I have no reason to suspect you, but I have no reason to suspect any of the others either. I cannot just let you—” he waved his hand into the darkness—“take off, because you are from Scotteland Eeyard.”

I withdrew my obstinate expression, and sighed.

“No.”

“On the other hand, if you would take the matter in hand . . .”

“How on earth can I take the matter in hand if I am a suspect?” I asked, exasperated.

“I mean only that you
blir med,
that you are with us, as we go along, helping, perhaps interpreting, even suggesting . . .”

“I am on holiday,” I said.

“Of course we get authorization from your headquarters. No doubt you get time off as compensation . . .”

He seemed to think we had the same sort of working conditions as factory hands. Probably they did in Norway. I seemed to remember that when their navy was searching for a Russian submarine, they all knocked off on Sunday. It wasn't like that at the Eeyard.

“I don't know,” I said. “I'd be in a very ambiguous position. I don't see what the alternative is . . .”

“Of course, to remain here, with the other . . . people,” he concluded delicately. “Until the investigation is
concluded. It is said, perhaps unfairly, that we in the Norwegian police work very, very slowly.”

I looked at him, and he looked back with blue infinity in his eyes. I turned away from the body and we trudged up the hill.

T
HE NATURAL PLACE TO START
was Amanda's room, with the other rooms coming a good second. Most of them, luckily, were already vacated. Stein Bjørhovde stood on the lawn for a bit, organizing his subordinates to take preliminary statements from everybody staying, working or merely happening that evening to be at the guest-house. The ones they were primarily interested in, however, were obviously the English and American writers. Stein told them they could stay on the porch or in the lounge, but they should not go back to their rooms. The two policemen with the best English were given tables and chairs in the dining-room and in the bar, now closed, so that they could interview the conference delegates one by one. On my advice Stein despatched the most
stalwart of his men to fetch down Lorelei Zuckerman, but to my surprise she came like a lamb.

As we stood there on the lawn, making last arrangements, the boy arrived from the road with the new guests. At last the bus had got through. Momentarily nonplussed, the proprietress darted inside, and within two minutes she was out again, directing the boy to bring round the guest-house car, and drive the guests to the Kvalevåg Hotel. The situation was explained to them, and at least two of the party expressed the strongest determination to stay. The proprietress smiled a steely smile, and ushered them into the car. They went.

So now Stein, Svein and I could go to Amanda's room, or invade her private sanctum as she might have put it. I stood outside the door, almost nervous, as if she were still there to shout “Come in” and then swallow me in pink. But I knew she was not there: I had given mouth-to-mouth to that sodden bundle of pink on the landing-stage. I squared my shoulders, turned the key in the door, and we all three trudged in.

The work divided itself up almost without our discussing it. Stein and Svein took charge of all the technical stuff—the fingerprinting and whatnot—and began a thorough inspection of clothes, bed, luggage and so on. I was happy to leave that work to them, for Amanda had in the few days she had been there left her imprint of frilly self-regard on the otherwise almost Spartan room. I took on the little desk under the windows, at which Amanda had presumably sat to write the last pages that there ever would be of
The Pretender's Sweetheart,
while looking out, with deadly appropriateness, at the cherry blossom that stood immediately under her window, in indecently full bloom.

In fact, there was no copy of the manuscript of
The Pretender's Sweetheart
on the desk, nor was it to be found
in any of the drawers. I can't say I was very surprised. I couldn't see Amanda spending her holiday beavering away at romance-in-the-heather, whatever she might pretend. There was, in fact, no “work in progress” anywhere in the room. There were paperback copies of some of her earlier candy-floss dreadfuls, probably to be given away to any of her admirers in Norway who might happen to present themselves. I put them aside, to peruse them if absolutely necessary. I turned to the desk, and the writing that Amanda had really been engaged on.

The first thing that took my attention, on the right of the little desk, was the English draft of Amanda's letter to the editor of
Bergens Tidende.
It was, perhaps surprisingly, almost as short as she had claimed.

Dear Sir,

If my romantic novels are the trash Ms. Sørby claims them to be in her article, the logical deduction, in view of the millions who read me, is that women are idiots. Is this what Ms. Sørby believes?

Yours faithfully
Amanda Fairchild

Succinct and to the point. It was this letter that the boy had translated and posted at the box on the Bergen-Kvalevåg road while he waited for the bus. Two days later it appeared in the paper in an inconspicuous position, the editor not having realized who it was from. Stein told me then that the boy had translated it into a virulent form of Nynorsk, which is apparently a sort of official dialect spoken mainly by peasants and university lecturers. I never found out whether he had done this as a joke, because that's what he spoke, or as some form of revenge.

That letter, though, was the one Amanda had written
before dinner, and had translated immediately afterwards. How she had spent the time between her visit with me to the bar and her fatal visit to the boathouse was clear from the writing-pad in the centre of the desk. It contained letter paper of no great distinction which could have been obtained at any British stationer's. Though not exactly cheap paper, it was quite ordinary. The handwriting was the same as on the draft letter to
Bergens Tidende,
and was surely therefore Amanda's own. I took the letter carefully in my hand.

“That's odd,” said Stein, rummaging in the wardrobe.

“What is?” I asked, tearing my attention away.

“Are you an expert on women's underwear?”

“I don't make a fetish of it.”

“There seem to be two quite different types here. There's a lot of this—what would you call it?—frilly satin petticoats and . . . things, with lacy edges and all that . . .”

“Yes, I can see. Tired businessmen underwear.”

“Is that what it is? For fairly old businessmen, I should think. Then there's some—not so much—perfectly sensible stuff: tights and pants and all that. My wife goes over and gets that sort of thing at your Marks and Spencers.”

“Is the same thing noticeable with the ordinary clothes?”

Stein rummaged around.

“Yes, it is. Two quite different types of outfit. There's ordinary navy slacks, and thick shoes, and two or three heavy duty pullovers—they're old, too.”

“Not bought specially. So if she was going on a walking holiday after these junketings are over, it looks as though that was something she had done before. Wait a minute—her travel folder may be here somewhere.” I rummaged through the drawers and pigeonholes, which were surprisingly orderly, and came up with Amanda's folder. “Here we are. Yes—the conference ends on the twenty-second,
and she isn't booked on the boat back to Newcastle until the twenty-ninth. Presumably she was going on somewhere else . . . though I can't see that the travel agent has booked anything for her . . .”

“OK,” said Stein, putting back the clothes. “Probably going up into the mountains. Not interesting.”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said, frowning. “It could be . . .” But I couldn't formulate my thoughts, and I turned back to the letter in the centre of the desk.

Dearest Robbie,

You whispered before you “went your way” that it was wonderful to be together, to touch each other. Darling,
how
you summed up my thoughts! My eyes were so full that I couldn't see you, though I think you waved. I can only hope nobody saw. Because remember, love, that we
must
show care,
must
remember that I have a job to do, one that is very important to me, and that for the moment you don't fit in too well!
You
must see that!

So let's remember that we have a wonderful week ahead of us after the twenty-second, and try not to be together too much until then—both of us have so much on, so many people to meet, that that shouldn't be difficult.

By the way—tremendous fun!—I just got a note

But there the letter broke off. I read it through a second time, found it hardly less puzzling, and then looked towards Stein and Svein, who were pottering in and around Amanda's bed.

“Hey, listen to this,” I said. “It's what she was writing just before she died.”

When I had read it, Stein creased his brow.

“Some boyfriend or other. Someone who saw her
off at Heathrow, and is joining her here after the conference.”

“She came here by sea. It would have been Newcastle, or perhaps King's Cross. She didn't inflict herself on us till after the boat had sailed, so I didn't notice if anybody saw her off. But I don't think that quite squares with the letter anyway.”

“Why not?”

“She says they must show care, and remember that she has a job to do. And she hopes nobody saw her tears. It reads as if what she's referring to is the days ahead—the remaining days of the conference. They must try not to be together too much until the twenty-second, she says, as they both have so much on. Obvious inference: she's writing to someone who's actually at the conference. Only when the conference is over can they really be themselves.”

Stein came over and read it through again.

“Yes, it does hear like that—sound like that . . . Wait, I think there's a list of people at the conference by her bed . . .”

“Good. Look through it for all the Roberts. There certainly isn't one at the
Gjestgiveri,
but then, if there was, that wouldn't be who she was writing to. Presumably she was either going to post it, or give it to him at tomorrow's session. It has to be someone staying somewhere else.”

“Has there been any sign of a boyfriend?” asked Stein, going through the list and taking notes.

“None. It's all been totally professional so far: fans and fellow-writers, publishers and critics. There hasn't been anyone, that I've seen, with whom Amanda had a personal relationship. And however much she may have liked men, they didn't flock round her, of course.”

“Why, ‘of course'?” Stein asked.

“You never encountered Amanda's manner. It died with her. Men didn't flock around her because she put them off. It was a manner—if we may generalize about the sexes—that would tend to make men cringe. Especially today. The feminist movement has all but destroyed that manner. I noticed the chap from Kenya seemed to be able to put up with it, but it may be he is more used to it: in a place like that the whites would probably be thirty or forty years behind the current ways of behaving. No, Amanda certainly had conversations with men—fellow writers like Arthur Biggs, for example—but there never seemed anything but a purely professional interest in them: it was all about sales, contracts and such-like, even when she talked to Wes Mackay, the Kenyan. Right—what candidates have you got for ‘Robbie' there?”