The Last Fix (44 page)

    'Aha,'
the woman said with another charming slanted smile. 'I see.'

    Gunnarstranda
nodded and experienced a rare moment of gentle tenderness for a stranger.

    'Wait
here,' she said, patting him on the shoulder, and continued down the corridor
from which she disappeared into an office. Soon afterwards Gunnarstranda heard
a bell ring in the room behind him. It rang for a long time. Eventually the
sound was cut short and a gruff voice said something inside. The office door at
the end of the corridor was opened and the woman with the shawl peered out.
'Knock on the door,' she mouthed and mimed knocking motions with her fist.

    Gunnarstranda
followed instructions.

    Bueng
opened the door a crack. 'Yes,' he said in a friendly, inquisitive voice.

    Gunnarstranda
introduced himself. 'I'm a policeman,' he added.

    'Oh
yes?' Bueng said. 'Policeman, yes. Policeman.'

    The
man suffered from Parkinson's disease. The shaking of his arms caused him to
keep hitting the door frame with his hand - as if he were tapping a melody.

    Gunnarstranda
glanced towards the office door whence the woman with the shawl sent him her
broadest beam yet.

    Gunnarstranda
took a deep breath. 'Would you like to come for a walk with me?' he asked and
heard the woman with the shawl approaching from the right.

    'Bueng's
legs are not very strong,' she explained.

    'But
we have some wonderful benches in the garden.'

    Bueng
managed to walk unaided although his progress was slow. His hands and arms
shook without cease. Gunnarstranda held the front door open for him. They
exchanged glances. Bueng raised one shaking arm. 'Bloody shakes,' he mumbled
and shuffled slowly into the sun. It was a beautiful garden with high cypress
hedges, gravel paths and fine, waxlike begonias growing in lines along the
edging stones by the path. But those who tended the flowers didn't have a clue
about roses, the policeman noted. In the middle of the lawn was an ailing shrub
rosebush with no flowers. A strong, thorny, light-green sucker had shot up
between the sparse leaves, like a spear. In front of this monstrosity of a rose
was a green bench around which a dozen or so small sparrows were hopping and
pecking at biscuit crumbs on the ground. The two men took a seat on the bench.
The conversation flowed without a hitch as long as they talked about nurses and
medication. However, Bueng clammed up when Gunnarstranda asked about Helene
Lockert. 'This is about her daughter,' the policeman explained. 'Katrine. She
has been killed.'

    'The
daughter,' Bueng mused.

    'Yes,'
said the policeman.

    'Births
can't be undone,' Bueng mumbled, then added, 'It's the only dream you wake up
from and you can never go back to sleep.'

    'Mm…,'
Gunnarstranda said, wondering how to proceed.

    'And
now you say she's dead. The girl, too,' the old man declared. They sat looking
into the distance. Gunnarstranda felt an ache in his fingertips to search his
pockets for a cigarette.

    'We
were going to get married,' Bueng pronounced at length. 'Though nothing came of
it.'

    'No,'
the policeman concurred.

    Silence
descended over both of them once again. Gunnarstranda stuffed his hands in his
pockets to rummage around for cigarettes while trying to devise a strategy to
proceed. On a bench further up two elderly ladies were sitting and eating
muffins.

    After
a while they heard steps on the gravel and Bueng glanced up. 'Don't let him get
his hands on anything,' he murmured. 'He ruins everything he touches. The other
day he was fiddling around with the hedge clippers for hours and as soon as the
handyman started them up they fell apart. Some help. And then afterwards he had
to tamper with a brand-new lawnmower. It was kaput by the time he'd finished
with it.'

    'Who
are you talking about?' Gunnarstranda asked in a whisper.

    'Him
over there. The one with the grey hat. Now he's off to do some repairs. I can
see that by the way he's walking.'

    The
policeman followed his gaze and saw an elderly man wearing a grey beret on the
gravel path, striding out with his legs splayed to the side. In his hand he was
swinging a large wrench to and fro.

    'Bueng,
you had a lot of women apart from Helene Lockert in those days,' Gunnarstranda
interrupted with a firmness of purpose. 'Now those days are gone. A lot of
water has flowed under the bridge. No one is interested in past sins any
longer. Who were you with at that time?'

    'Ah,
death, yes,' Bueng said philosophically. 'You only have to walk down Karl
Johans gate to see how ineffective death is. No, you can see it here. Look at
all of us!'

    'OK,'
Gunnarstranda said, impatient. 'I have a list here, from the police report made
at the time. It says they questioned, among others, a woman by the name of
Birgit Stenmoe, one called Grete Running, Oda Beate Saugstad, Connie
Saksevold…' The policeman glanced up and sighed. 'Connie,' he grumbled.
'Imagine calling a poor Norwegian child Connie…'

    'Connie
was half-American,' Bueng said. 'She drank coffee with milk and sugar, and then
she had psoriasis. Terrible complexes she had because of psoriasis… although it
was mainly in her scalp. Who cares whether a woman has dandruff in her hair?
You should have seen Connie's legs. They were as smooth as polished aluminium.'

    'I
have been led to believe these women considered themselves to be in love with
you while you were engaged to Helene Lockert?'

    'It's
not easy to say no all the time,' Bueng said in reflective mood. 'It's not easy
to disappoint others.'

    'No,
it's not easy,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'But
things have a tendency to go wrong if you lie too much.'

    'That's
right,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'Two
lovers at once, that's fine,' Bueng said. 'Three at once is too much. It's
difficult to remember what you said to one and not to the other, and then
there's the problem of time. Most women want at least two nights a week and
with three the week is too full… it's difficult to make things fit. You drive
yourself mad with the lies.'

    'You
had five,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'Yes,
it had to come to a sorry end.'

    'Right.'

    'But
two lovers - that's fine. You don't get locked into specific patterns. Of course
you know that women's tastes vary. Their kissing does, too.'

    'Indeed,'
said Gunnarstranda.

    'You
can tell a woman's nature from the way she kisses,' Bueng said.

    'You
must have been much older than her… than Helene I mean?'

    'I
was more than twenty years older, yes, but age is not important in love.' 'Did
she have a daughter?'

    'Yes.
She's dead now, you said.'

    'Helene
Lockert's daughter, did you see much of her?'

    'I
don't remember her very well. It was the mother I was interested in.'

    'And
she was killed, of course.'

    'Yes,
that was a sad story. We didn't get married. And I never got married later,
either. I had never imagined I would grow old alone.'

    'Have
you ever received a visit from Helene Lockert's daughter?'

    Bueng
twisted his upper body round. His head shook as he regarded the policeman.
'What do you mean by a question like that?'

    'We
have reason to believe that she knew the identity of her biological mother…'

    'But
my dear man, who doesn't know the identity of their mother?'

    'This
case is complicated, Bueng. Please answer the question. Have you ever received
a visit from Helene Lockert's daughter?'

    'Never.'
Bueng stared into the distance again. A puff of wind brushed a lock of white
hair across his forehead. 'Never,' he repeated to himself.

    'It
will be my destiny to die alone…' Bueng continued in a louder voice. 'And I
would never have imagined…'

    'So
you gave up the idea of marriage after Helene?' the policeman asked.

    'Helene
knew it wasn't always easy.'

    'She
knew about her rivals?'

    'They
were not rivals in fact. There was only Helene.'

    'However,
one of the police's theories was that one of her rivals…'

    'I
didn't agree with the police.'

    'Did
you have any suspicions as to who might have killed her?'

    'I
think it must have been one of Helene's ex-lovers who killed her.'

    'But
witnesses - many witnesses - said they had seen a woman walking down the street
where she lived, a woman behaving in a strange manner, at roughly the time
Helene was killed.'

    'Yes
indeed, but the only man they checked was the girl's father and he had an
alibi. But Helene was a good-looking woman…'

    'But
the witnesses…'

    '… so
he must have dressed up, I reckon. Men wearing women's clothing is nothing
new.'

    'The
years have drifted by now,' Gunnarstranda said with a sigh. 'You've thought
about this case for many years now. Are you sure that…?'

    'You
mentioned Connie,' Bueng interrupted. 'And you mentioned Oda Beate…'

    'Grete
Ronning,' the policeman read from his list, 'Birgit Stenmoe…'

    'Yes?'
Bueng said, waiting.

    Gunnarstranda
said nothing.

    'Yes?'

    The
policeman cleared his throat. 'There are no more names.'

    Bueng
turned his head and they exchanged glances.

    'I
have to go now,' Bueng said and staggered to his feet. 'I'm tired.'

    Gunnarstranda
watched him go. The figure tottered down the gravel into the building. There
was no doubt that he did not look like a murderer. But appearances can deceive.
He had discovered that before.

    The
policeman took a cigarette from his jacket pocket, lit up and inhaled deep. He
crossed his legs and wondered whether he ought to be annoyed. He had no idea. A
moment later something made him turn his head. The woman with the long skirt
and the shawl was standing by the entrance. She made an embarrassed movement
with her arms when she realized she had been seen. Stuffing some papers under
her arm, she advanced at a measured pace. She stopped by the bench.
Gunnarstranda stood up and gave an involuntary smile upon realizing they were
the same height.

    'Do
you know Bueng well?' she asked after they had sat down.

    He
sighed and shook his head. 'I'm a policeman.'

    She
was quiet and waited for him to go on.

    'It's
about an old case.'

    'He
almost never has visitors,' she said.

    Gunnarstranda
managed a faint smile. 'He didn't want a visit from me, either' He glanced over
at her. Read her name on the badge fixed to her shawl: Tove Granaas. She
assumed a serious face until it softened with her captivating, slanting smile.
'He usually loves talking to people.'

    'But
then I suppose he doesn't talk about himself,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'That's
true,' she grinned and fell silent.

    Gunnarstranda
wanted to extend the conversation. 'Lovely garden,' he said. 'Lovely begonia
semperflorens.'

    'Yes,'
she said, pointing to the ugly rose in the lawn in front of them. 'But we can't
do much for that one.'

    'Roses
are pruned from the rootstock,' Gunnarstranda said with a nod towards the
protruding, pale green, thorny spear. 'When that happens, it means the root has
decided to grow on its own.'

    'You
don't say?' She seemed impressed. 'Fancy me meeting someone who knew what the
problem was. A policeman who knows about flowers.'