‘That’s fine,’ I said before he was finished explaining. ‘I’m more than happy to go with you.’
16 PATROL CAR ZERO ONE
THE HOSPITAL WAS set in rural surroundings some way outside Elverum, it transpired. I was relieved to see the mattress-like white buildings disappear behind us. Even more because I couldn’t see a silver-grey Lexus.
The car we were in was an old, but well-kept Volvo with such a wonderful-sounding engine that I suspected it had been a hot rod before it was repainted in police colours.
‘Where are we?’ I asked from the back seat, wedged in between the impressive physiques of Endride and Eskild Monsen. My clothes, Ove’s, that is, had been sent to the dry-cleaner’s but a nurse had brought me a pair of tennis shoes and a green tracksuit bearing the hospital’s initials, with strict instructions to return it washed. Furthermore, I had been given back all the keys and Ove’s wallet.
‘Hedmark county,’ said Sunded from what Afro-American gang milieus reportedly call the shotgun seat: the passenger seat.
‘And where are we going?’
‘That’s none of your business,’ snarled the young, pimply driver, sending me an ice-cold glance via the rear- view mirror. Bad cop. Black nylon jacket with yellow letters on the back. ELVERUM KO-DAW-YING CLUB. I assumed it was a very mysterious, brand-new yet ancient martial art. And that it was his frenetic gum-chewing which had so disproportionately enhanced his jaw musculature. Pimples was so thin and narrow-shouldered that his arms formed a V when he had both hands on the wheel, as now.
‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ Sunded said in a low voice.
Pimples mumbled and glowered at the ramrod-straight strip of tarmac that sliced through the cultivated land, which was as flat as a pancake.
‘We’re going to the police station in Elverum, Kjikerud,’ said Sunded. ‘I’ve come up from Oslo and will interrogate you today and if necessary tomorrow. And the following day. I hope you’re a reasonable fellow because I don’t like Hedmark.’ He drummed his fingers on an overnight bag that Endride had passed forward to him because there simply wasn’t room with us three in the back.
‘I’m reasonable,’ I said, feeling both of my arms going to sleep. The Monsen twins breathed in rhythm, which meant that I was squeezed like a tube of mayonnaise every fourth second. I wondered whether to ask one of them to change their breathing pattern, but refrained. In a way, after standing in front of Greve’s pistol, this felt secure. It took me back to the time when I was small and had had to go to work with Dad because Mum was ill, and I sat between two serious but kind grown-ups on the back seat of the embassy’s limousine. And everyone had been elegantly dressed, but no one as elegantly as Dad, who wore a chauffeur’s cap and drove the car with such style and grace. And afterwards Dad had bought me an ice cream and told me I had behaved like a true gentleman.
The radio hissed.
‘Shh.’ Pimples broke the silence in the car.
‘Message to all patrol cars,’ crackled a nasal female voice.
‘Both patrol cars,’ Pimples muttered, turning up the volume.
‘Egmont Karlsen has reported a stolen truck and trailer…’
The rest of the message was drowned in laughter from Pimples and the Monsen twins. Their bodies shook, giving me a rather pleasant massage. I think the medicines were still working.
Pimples took the radio and spoke into it: ‘Did Karlsen sound sober? over.’
‘Not entirely, no,’ the female voice answered.
‘Then he’s been out drink-driving again and forgotten it. Ring Bamse’s. I bet it’s parked outside the pub. Eighteen-wheeler with Sigdal Kitchens on the side. Over and out.’
He replaced the radio, and I thought the atmosphere had noticeably lightened, so I took advantage of the opportunity.
‘I’ve worked out that someone has been murdered, but am I allowed to ask what this has to do with me?’
The question was met with silence, but I could see by Sunded’s pose that he was thinking. Then he turned towards the back seat and his eyes bored into me. ‘Fine, we might as well get this over with right away. We know you did it, herr Kjikerud, and there is no way of you wriggling out of it. You see, we have a body and a crime scene and evidence that ties you to both.’
I ought to have been shocked, horrified. I ought to have felt my heart skip a beat or sink or whatever it does when you hear a jubilant policeman tell you they have proof that will send you to prison for life. But I felt none of this. For I didn’t hear a jubilant policeman, I heard Inbau, Reid and Buckley. First step. Direct confrontation. Or, to paraphrase the manual: The detective should at the outset of the interrogation make it abundantly clear that the police know everything. Say ‘we’ and ‘the police’, never ‘I’. And ‘know’, not ‘believe’. Distort the interviewee’s self- image, address low-status persons with ‘herr’ and high-status persons by their first name.
‘And between you and me,’ Sunded continued, lowering his voice in a way that was clearly meant to signal confidentiality, ‘from what I hear, Sindre Aa was no loss. If you hadn’t used the rope on the old sourpuss, someone else hopefully would have.’
I stifled a yawn. Step two. Sympathise with the suspect by normalising the act.
When I didn’t answer Sunded went on. ‘The good news is that with a quick confession I could reduce your sentence.’
Oh my goodness, the Explicit Promise! It was a ploy Inbau, Reid and Buckley absolutely forbade, a legal trap that only the most desperate detective would use. This man really did want to get back home from Hedmark in a hurry.
‘So why did you do it, Kjikerud?’
I looked through the side window. Fields. Farms. Fields. Farms. Fields. Stream. Fields. Wonderfully sleep- inducing.
‘Well, Kjikerud?’ I heard Sunded’s fingers drumming on the overnight bag.
‘You’re lying,’ I said.
The drumming stopped. ‘Repeat.’
‘You’re lying, Sunded. I have no idea who Sindre Aa is, and you’ve got nothing on me.’
Sunded gave a brief lawnmower laugh. ‘Haven’t I? So tell me where you’ve been for the last twenty-four hours. Would you be so kind, Kjikerud?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘If you tell me what this case is all about.’
‘Smack ’im!’ Pimples spat. ‘Endride, smack-’
‘Shut up,’ Sunded said calmly, turning to me. ‘And why should we tell you, Kjikerud?’
‘Because then perhaps I’ll talk to you. If not, I’ll keep my mouth shut until my solicitor comes. From Oslo.’ I saw Sunded’s mouth tighten, and I upped the ante: ‘Sometime tomorrow if we’re lucky…’
Sunded angled his head and studied me as if I were an insect he was considering whether to add to his collection or just crush.
‘Fine, Kjikerud. It all started when the person sitting next to you received a phone call about a tractor abandoned in the middle of the road. They found the tractor and a flock of crows which had met for lunch on the rear loader. They had already made short work of the soft bits of a dog. The tractor belonged to Sindre Aa, but naturally he didn’t respond when we rang, so one of us popped over and found him in the rocking chair where you had put him. We found a Mercedes in the barn with a knackered engine and number plates that we traced to you, Kjikerud. At length Elverum police station made a connection between the dead dog and a routine report from the hospital about a semi-conscious man covered in muck who had been admitted with a nasty dog bite. They rang, and the duty nurse told us that the man had been unconscious, but in his pocket they had found a credit card bearing the name Ove Kjikerud. And hey presto – here we are.’
I nodded. So I knew how they had found me. But how on earth had Greve managed it? The question had been churning around in my admittedly dopey brain without yielding a result. Could Greve have contacts inside the local police as well? Someone who had made sure Greve could get to the hospital before the police? Wrong! They had just strolled into the room and saved me. Wrong! Sunded had done that, the uninitiated outsider, the Kripos man from Oslo. I could feel a headache coming on as the next thought announced its arrival: Suppose things were as I
