routine chores.
Hanne Wilhelmsen and Hakon Sand were the last to leave the room. She noticed that he seemed very satisfied, despite the situation.
“Yes, I do feel good,” he responded to her friendly and surprised enquiry.
“In fact, I feel bloody good!”
Hakon Sand was begging to be allowed to attend. Detective Inspector Wilhelmsen was far from positively inclined. She hadn’t forgotten the blunder with Han van der Kerch.
“I know the man,” he argued. “My presence may put him more at ease. You’ve no idea what power competent lawyers think they have over inept ones. He may well get over-confident.”
She finally conceded, in exchange for an explicit promise from Hakon to keep his mouth shut. He could speak if she gave him a sign, but even then should restrict himself to empty phrases or insignificant comments, nothing about the actual substance of the case.
“Let’s do the good guy-bad guy routine,” she said in the end with a grin.
She would be the surly one, he could contribute encouraging slaps on the back.
“But don’t be too aggressive,” Hakon warned her. “There’s a risk he’ll just get up and walk out, and we’ve got no adequate reason for holding him.”
He came to the meeting with them voluntarily. No briefcase, but otherwise smartly and professionally dressed, in a suit and stylish shoes, too stylish for the slushy streets of Oslo. His trouser legs were wet, and the light brown leather of his shoes had a dark band along the sides, which would probably mean a troublesome autumn cold in store for him. The shoulders of his tweed coat were also wet, and Hakon glimpsed the exclusive label on the lining as Lavik took it off and gave it a shake before turning in search of a hook or coat hanger. He found neither, so draped it over the back of his chair. He was relaxed and cooperative, showing no sign of apprehension.
“I must say, I’m rather intrigued,” he said with a smile, sweeping his hair back from his brow. It flopped forward again immediately. “Am I suspected of something?” he asked, smiling even more broadly.
Hanne reassured him: “Not at the moment.”
Hakon thought she was taking a risk. But with the lesson of experience fresh in his mind, he said nothing. Neither he nor Hanne had anything to write with or on. They both knew that the flow of speech could easily dry up at the sight of a tape recorder or writing implements.
“We’re pursuing various lines of enquiry concerning one or two cases we’re having trouble with,” she admitted. “We have a feeling that you might have something to contribute. Just a few questions. You’re free to leave whenever you like.”
It was scarcely necessary to tell him.
“I’m fully aware of that,” he said, good-naturedly, though they could discern a grittier undertone. “I’ll stay till I feel like going. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Hakon, hoping he was within his remit. He wanted to say something, if only to mitigate his sense of being superfluous. This it failed to do.
“Did you know Hans E. Olsen? The lawyer who was murdered recently?”
Hanne went straight to the point, but Lavik had obviously anticipated this.
“No, I can’t say I did,” he replied calmly. Not too fast, nor too falteringly. “I didn’t know him, though of course I’ve spoken to him on occasion. We work in the same field-as criminal defence lawyers, I mean. I must have bumped into him in the law courts a few times too, and probably at meetings of the Defence Lawyers’ Association. But as I say, I didn’t really know him.”
“What theories do you have about the murder?”
“The murder of Hansy Olsen?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what theories…”
The hesitation was natural, he sounded reflective, as if he was trying to be helpful, like any innocent person making a statement to the police.
“To be honest, I haven’t thought very much about it at all! It struck me it might be dissatisfied clients, which is the explanation that’s going around in the profession, if I can put it like that.”
“What about Jacob Frostrup?”
Hanne and Hakon agreed later that they were almost sure they saw a flicker of uncertainty in the lawyer’s manner when his unfortunate client was referred to. But since they had no tangible evidence for their impression they had to concede it was probably more a projection of hope than sound judgement.
“It was a dreadful shame about Jacob. He’d had a devil of a time from the moment he was born. He’d been a client of mine for many years, but he’d never been arrested for anything particularly big. I don’t understand why he should get involved in something like this now. He didn’t have long to go; he’d had AIDS for more than three years, I believe.”
He’d been staring out of the window as he spoke. That was the only perceptible change since the beginning of the conversation. Apparently conscious of this, he turned to face his interviewers again.
“I heard that he died the same day I visited him. Very upsetting. He certainly seemed terribly depressed. He talked about taking his own life, didn’t want to go on living, what with the pain, the shame, and now this charge on top of everything else. I tried to cheer him up a bit, and told him not to give in. But I have to say that the news of his death didn’t take me entirely by surprise.”
Lavik shook his head slowly in sorrow. He flicked at his shoulders as if to remove nonexistent dandruff; his hair was thick and lustrous and his scalp healthier than Hakon could boast of. Hakon, feeling defensive, looked down at his own black jacket and quickly brushed off the white flakes that stood out so embarrassingly against the dark background. The lawyer gave him a sympathetic and extremely condescending smile.
“Did he say anything about why he had such a large supply of drugs?”
“Frankly,” said Lavik reproachfully, “even if he is dead, I find it highly irregular to be sitting here repeating to the police what he told me.”
The two officers accepted his position in silence.
Hanne gathered her thoughts before playing her final card. She ran her fingers over the shaved area by her temple, a habit she’d developed over the last few days. It was so quiet in the room that she fancied that the others would be able to hear the rasping sound it made.
“Why did you meet a man in Grunerlokka at three o’clock last Friday night?”
Her tone was incisive, as if she were trying to make it sound more dramatic than it actually was. But he was ready for her.
“Oh that, that was a client. He’s in deep trouble, and wanted immediate help. The police aren’t involved yet, but he’s afraid they will be. I just had to give him some advice.”
Lavik smiled reassuringly, as if it wasn’t unusual for him to drag himself out of bed in the middle of the night to rendezvous with clients in the city’s less respectable districts. All in a day’s work, his expression almost seemed to say. All in a night’s work.
Hanne leant towards him and rapped the fingers of her left hand on the desk.
“And you expect me to believe that,” she said in a low voice. “You expect me to believe that?”
“It doesn’t matter to me what you believe,” said Lavik, smiling again. “What matters is that I’m telling the truth. If you think otherwise, you’ll have to try and prove it.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do,” Hanne replied. “You can go. For now.”
Lavik put his coat on, thanked them, and said good-bye amicably, closing the door carefully and politely behind him.
“You had a lot to say,” said Hanne in some annoyance to her colleague. “Not much point in having you here.”
Her head injury had made her more irascible. Hakon ignored it. Her mood was simply the result of frustration at Lavik’s excellent parrying of her questions. He just grinned.
“Better to say too little than too much,” he retorted in his own defence. “Anyway, we know one thing now. The owner of the boot must have spoken to Lavik after the episode on Friday night. He was well prepared. Why didn’t
