The Fourth Man (7 page)

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Authors: K.O. Dahl

Tags: #Police Procedural, #Police, #Oslo (Norway), #Mystery & Detective, #Detectives, #Crime, #General, #Suspense, #Fiction

BOOK: The Fourth Man
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When the telephone rang, he tried to lie still, not to disturb his comatose body. Judging by the light, it was afternoon. He had been sleeping like a sunken log on the sofa for several hours, stiff, heavy and torpid. He turned his head and contemplated the phone. The movement brought on a headache, dizziness and nausea. The pain from his liver stabbed at his side like a fakir’s bed of nails – from the inside. My liver is a ball of pain, he thought, and the air a nail, no, the ring tone is like a drill pounding against my temples. He sat up and felt dizzy again. Stood up, dizzy, holding onto the doorframe and grasping the telephone receiver.
‘So you’re at home.’
‘What did you imagine?’
‘You never know.’
Frank Frølich sank back on the sofa. When I die, he thought, the angel coming to collect me will have the same voice as Gunnarstranda. The man is a spook. The spikes continued to attack his liver. He was incapable of thinking; he said: ‘So you’re ringing. Is it anything to do with the job or are you just missing me?’
‘Jonny Faremo is dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Yes, dead. Drowned.’
Frank Frølich had never felt a greater need for a glass of water. The words constricted themselves in his throat, his head. He managed to say: ‘Where?’
‘Some kilometres outside the city boundary, in Askim. He drowned in the Glomma and was picked up by some people working at the Vamma power station. His body was caught in a net.’
‘A net?’
‘Does that mean you know where the Vamma power station is?’
Shit. The intonation
. ‘No idea. Where is Vamma power station?’
‘I told you, didn’t I? Fifty kilometres east of the city boundary.’
‘Oh.’
‘Power stations are susceptible to getting logs and other junk caught in the turbines. That’s why they have a net to pick up the stuff. It picked up Faremo last night.’
‘Accident?’
‘If it was an accident we ought to have a heap of circumstantial evidence. In this case we don’t have anything.’
‘Suicide?’
‘Well, he certainly drowned.’
‘What’s your view?’
Gunnarstranda chuckled into the receiver. ‘My view? I had a call from Krimpolitisentralen, Kripos, about ten minutes ago. But, well, I suppose I did run the man in and I did have him appear at a hearing on suspicion of killing the security man in Loenga. He gets off – on an alibi as thin as a pussy hair. Two days go by and then he’s found floating with his lungs full of water in the dam by a power station. Perhaps he was depressed and threw himself in? But why should he be depressed? Because you’d taken up with his sister? And if he was and drove off to kill himself, where’s the car? Where’s the suicide note?’
‘He drives a silver-grey Saab 95.’
‘How do you know that?’
The intonation, the suspicion
. ‘I have, as you yourself pointed out, some knowledge of the family.’
‘If he was thrown into the river, he wouldn’t have had much of a chance. It’s late autumn. There’s a strong current. Water temperature, maximum four to five degrees.’
‘Faremo’s well built. All muscle.’
‘The body was in a bad way. The doctor who wrote the death certificate has, it seems, used a local phenomenon to explain why. There’s a place called Vrangfoss just above the power station. It’s a narrow ravine and right there the river bends. This means that a few hundred metres above the power station all the water flowing serenely along in the Glomma is compressed and channelled through the ravine. A horizontal waterfall in other words, a kind of inferno of water and currents. If Faremo ended up in the river above the ravine his body would have been whirled around and thrown against the cliff face for a good long time before he emerged a few hundred metres further down. Most of the bones in Faremo’s body were simply smashed to pulp.’
Frank Frølich saw in his mind’s eye the man of 1 metre 90, dressed like a commando with the same expression as his sister.
‘Is it known where he fell?’
‘Fell, you say?’
‘Or was shoved. Do you know anything about the crime scene?’
‘This power station – Vamma – is the last of three power stations in a row. The highest one is called Solbergfoss, a little lower down there is one called Kykkelsrud and right at the bottom Vamma, where Faremo was fished out of a kind of collecting net. So you can imagine. He was found in front of the last dam. The stretch between Kykkelsrud power station and Vamma is the interesting bit. Frølich?’
‘Yes?’
‘Aren’t you wondering why I’m ringing?’
‘Haven’t thought that far ahead.’
‘It’s not my case. Follo police district is dealing with it, helped by Kripos. You will have to be able to account for your movements over the last twenty-four hours.’
Finally the cat is out of the bag
. ‘And why’s that?’
‘You know why.’
‘No, Gunnarstranda, I don’t know why!’
‘You don’t need to take that tone with me. We both know that Faremo may have died as the result of an accident. He could have been arguing with someone who pushed him in – maybe with premeditation, maybe in the heat of the moment. And you’ve already been seen in what was termed a heated discussion outside his home.’
‘Are you having me followed?’
‘No, but I am investigating a murder. You have a lot of good friends here, Frølich, but no one can or will disguise the facts. Until last night Jonny Faremo was among the group of men suspected of murdering Arnfinn Haga. We’ve been watching Faremo’s place. Your discussion with Faremo in the car park has been duly documented.’
‘OK, but will you believe me if I say it cannot have been me who threw Faremo in the river?’
‘Try me.’
‘What you say is correct. I was outside their flat. When Faremo and his gang were released after the hearing, I did as you said. I took a week off. Then I went straight to the Faremo flat. I talked to him, but my voice was never raised and there was no heated discussion.’
‘The question is: what did you do afterwards?’
Frank Frølich stared vacantly at the wall. He had been outside Faremo’s flat last night – for some reason he had taken a taxi up there and puked in a ditch.
Why did I go there? What the hell was I trying to do?
‘Are you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Others, apart from me, are going to ask you, Frølich. I’m just giving you a little head start.’
He didn’t feel nauseous any more, just thirsty. Lethargically, he got onto his feet and staggered into the kitchen. Nothing in the fridge apart from two cans of lager. No. He closed the door and drank water straight from the tap.
He lurched towards the bathroom. In the shower, he soaped himself down thinking about Elisabeth and how she had testified on behalf of her brother and two others. He could see her in front of him as she strode out of the court towards Grensen without a look to either side.
Why didn’t I stop her? Why didn’t I talk to her?
He scalded his body with hot water while conjuring up the sight of her hurrying home as fast as her legs could carry her. That delicate frame of hers nervously rushing around her flat, opening drawers, slamming them shut, throwing clothes and other things into a rucksack and bag. A phone to her ear.
She had done a runner, but where – and why
?
His brain churned slowly, all too slowly. When he got to her flat, she had already disappeared. Then her brother came.
Had she done a runner from her brother? And if so, why? She had already given him an alibi for the murder.
He remembered his own trembling fingers as he tapped in Reidun Vestli’s phone number: the clear sound of being transferred, the muffled sound of a mobile phone. The conversation that was broken off as soon as he introduced himself.
Suddenly it became important to ring Elisabeth.
Everything that has happened is the result of a silly misunderstanding. If I ring now, she will pick up the phone and give me a convincing explanation of the whole thing
. He turned off the water and walked into the living room without drying himself. His feet left big damp patches on the lino. Found his mobile phone and rang Elisabeth. But her phone was switched off. He rang Reidun Vestli. No answer. He stood naked, looking at his reflection. Never seen anything so pathetic.
At that moment the doorbell rang.
He staggered into the bedroom, found a clean pair of trousers and a T-shirt and went to open the door.
A man stood on the mat. Frølich had never seen him before: lean, 1 metre 80, light brown hair and brown eyes.
The man said: ‘Frank Frølich?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Sten Inge Lystad, Kripos.’
The man’s face was dominated by a crooked mouth which lent it a twisted appearance. The slanting smile divided his face into two in a peculiar, but engaging, way. Lystad’s face was one you remembered. Frølich ransacked his memory.
Lystad …
the name was familiar, but not the face.
‘It’s about Jonny Faremo.’
Frank Frølich nodded. ‘Tragic.’
‘So you know about it already?’
Another nod.
‘Who told you?’
‘As I’m sure you know, I work for the police. We’re colleagues.’
‘But who told you?’
‘Gunnarstranda.’
Lystad smiled coyly.
Frank Frølich thought:
He doesn’t like this turn of events. The conversation hasn’t taken the direction he anticipated.
The ensuing silence was a clear sign that Lystad wanted to be invited in. But Frank Frølich didn’t want anyone in and so observed Lystad in silence.
‘Have you been to Faremo’s house recently?’
On the positive side: no beating about the bush. Negative: his method is to keep a distance, be cool.
‘You mean Jonny Faremo?’
‘Yes, I mean Jonny Faremo.’
‘I’ve been there, that is to say, outside. I rang the doorbell, a couple of days ago, the same day he was released from custody. I was supposed to meet his sister, Elisabeth. I don’t know if you know the background here?’
‘I’d prefer to know as little as possible, apart from what happened between you and Jonny Faremo when you saw him last.’
‘OK,’ Frank Frølich said, thinking:
high arsehole factor
.
‘Was his sister at home when you rang?’
‘Elisabeth? Does the question mean that your interest goes beyond my dealings with her brother after all?’
A shadow crossed Lystad’s face.
He doesn’t like the direction the conversation is taking – positive.
‘Frølich, listen.’
‘No, you listen. I’ve been a policeman for many years. I can see you’re aware you’re making a mess of this. I’m also the first person to understand that you don’t like the job, but you don’t need to kick people in the balls even if they’re standing conveniently close by. You say the background doesn’t concern you. Well, it concerns me to a very considerable extent. I’ve taken a load of time off because of the background. That’s what has led to this conversation between you and me. Well, if the background doesn’t concern you, don’t ask about it. Either you don’t care or you do.’
Lystad didn’t say anything and Frølich continued.
‘My version is that I started a relationship with a lady who has the wrong connections. The same lady’s brother is dead now. But be absolutely clear about one thing: I’ve never ever been interested in Jonny Faremo, neither when I met him two days ago, nor at any other time. When I showed up at his place – after Faremo was released from custody – that was the first time I’d ever met the guy. I’d never seen him before. But I went there to meet her, to talk to her, and I did that because a situation had arisen in our relationship: she had used my name in her testimony to give her brother an alibi at the hearing.’
Lystad nodded gravely. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘When I got there, I parked in the visitors’ car park. There are stairs leading from there to the flats. I went down and rang the doorbell. I assume your witness is an elderly man – the neighbour with whom I spoke when no one answered the door. I exchanged a few words with the man. Then I went back to the car and was about to drive off when Jonny Faremo appeared. He was driving a silver Saab. I’d never seen the man before, but I realized who he was and I approached him to ask where his sister was. He didn’t know. At least he claimed he didn’t know. Then I got back into my car and left.’
‘Where did you go?’

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