Lethal Investments by Kjell Ola Dahl

Author:Kjell Ola Dahl [Dahl, Kjell Ola]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571277735
Publisher: Faber
Published: 2011-08-31T12:00:00+00:00

25

‘So this is where you are,’ Frølich said.

Gunnarstranda studied the façade. Oslo West, he thought. And mumbled: ‘This building is no more than five years old, max.’

‘And not fully occupied,’ Frølich added. He pointed to a row of empty windows on one wing.

‘The rent must cost an arm and a leg,’ Gunnarstranda remarked and went in first.

Kristin Sommerstedt nodded with a blank expression. ‘No one up there,’ she informed them.

‘But the Finance Manager’s in the fitness room, I suppose,’ she hastened to say when she saw Gunnarstranda’s look. ‘That’s what he said anyway as he dashed past half an hour ago.’

The policeman, taken aback, glanced at the clock. It was half past twelve.

The fitness room was in the cellar. Down there you were spared the luxury with which the rest of the building appeared to be saturated. The corridor walls were not painted and the concrete floor was untreated. They had to pass through some large steel doors that rumbled and a hollow echo reverberated along the bare walls. From somewhere deeper in the bowels they could hear the sounds of someone doing weight-training.

Gunnarstranda first stepped over the high threshold. Bregård was lying on an exercise bench forcing up a bar with a considerable number of weights attached. He was in the middle of a routine and showed no signs of stopping. The man was panting like a hippo. His face was red and dripping with sweat, and the mouth with the impressive moustache inflated like a frog’s every time he sucked in air for the next press.

At last. With a huge clang the man dropped the bar and sat up on the bench. The veins in his temples were bulging. His pectoral muscles were clearly outlined under his T-shirt.

‘That looked hard,’ Frølich said. ‘Nice to see you again, by the way.’

Gunnarstranda, though, was looking for somewhere to sit.

Bregård puffed, ignoring Frølich’s small talk. Gunnarstranda glanced at them. Both big men. Bregård was most concerned with the palms of his hands.

The room was sparsely furnished. The police inspector clambered up on to the seat of an ergometer bike. Smiled, did a couple of circuits on the pedals and leaned forward over the handlebars.

‘Probably harder steering the finances of A/S Software Partners, isn’t it,’ he stated in a measured tone.

Bregård got up and stretched both arms back.

‘You’re unknown to the Company Register,’ Gunnarstranda went on.

Bregård placed his right hand against the wall and did a long stretch with his upper arm. First right, then left. His heavy breathing was all there was to hear in the small fitness room. The man immediately started a new round of stretching, first right, then left.

Frølich, who had found some barbells to play with, whistled a tune.

The athlete bent down to pick up his towel from the floor.

‘The Brønnøysund Register Centre is always late,’ he panted into his towel.

‘But Brønnøysund didn’t register anything last year, either.’

Bregård turned to Gunnarstranda while drying his neck. The police officer smiled.

Frølich was whistling.

The Finance Manager raised his voice imperceptibly. ‘We only set up the business last year.

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