1906413703.(F) by Gunnar Staalesen

Author:Gunnar Staalesen [Gunnar Staalesen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909807013
Publisher: Arcadia Books Limited
Published: 2013-01-27T11:00:00+00:00

30

Hamre’s expression was ironic. ‘You don’t look so good.’

‘Who, me? I haven’t felt this good in a long time.’ Which said more about how I had been feeling lately than it did about how I felt now. And anyway, it was a lie. Whisky the day after tends to leave the ashes of old newspapers in your mouth and you can’t seem to get rid of them. I’d already stopped trying.

Hamre sat on the law-abiding side of one of those desks everybody is issued with in offices that have the personality of a deodorant. The walls are always grey-white, the books are always the same books, the view’s always the same. A beautiful inspiring view of the middle of a bank built in the most forgettable possible style.

I sat on the client’s side – along with the ghosts of all the suspects, all the eyewitnesses, all those who had information they thought might matter to an investigation. It wasn’t a comfortable chair, but it shouldn’t have been. It was the kind of chair you don’t want to settle down in and so you get right to the point and you don’t waste time chit-chatting.

Hamre handed me a typed statement of what I’d said at the scene of the murder.

‘Fill out the personal stuff at the top,’ he said. ‘Otherwise I hope it’s correct.’

I read through it. The letters seemed to bunch oddly into words. My eyes were tired. But it was correct as far as it went.

I filled in the blanks and then signed.

‘He had a girlfriend. Did you know that?’ Hamre said.

‘Umm – who did?’ I said.

‘The Pope,’ he said. ‘Who do you think we’re talking about?’

‘Oh. The Pope. I didn’t know he went in for that kind of thing.’

Hamre moved a transparent green rule carefully from the left over to the right. Studied it for a few seconds. Then he moved it back. It was probably his way of counting to twenty.

‘Jonas Andresen had a girlfriend. Did you know that?’

I looked at him.

‘You knew that,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’

‘I didn’t know her name,’ I said. ‘And anyway, it wasn’t easy with Wenche, with Fru Andresen there.’

‘How close are you two anyway? Good friends?’

‘Who?’

‘You and Wenche Andresen.’

‘She and I? I’ve only known her for about a week. We haven’t had time to be good friends.’

‘But that doesn’t necessarily mean you haven’t slept with her.’

‘No. It doesn’t necessarily mean I haven’t. But it does mean that I haven’t. In this case.’

‘All this – you saw her running, you saw Jonas Andresen going to the door, etc., etc.’ He nodded at the statement. ‘This isn’t some kind of friendly favour?’ He let the question hang there a while. ‘You really saw all this?’

I wasn’t in shape for these questions. ‘Yes, I saw it, and no, it isn’t a friendly favour. If I’d been going to do her a friendly favour, I’d have done her a friendlier favour. I wouldn’t have given Joker – Johan Pedersen – an alibi, for example.

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