The Fourth Man by K.O. Dahl Read Free Book Online

sauntered into the living room. Dark and quiet. The kitchen – dark. The bathroom – dark and empty. He switched on the light, splashed water over his face and met his tired eyes in the mirror. Why does she do this? Why does she run away? When did she go? Why?
    Exactly six minutes later, he was sitting in his car and driving down Ryenberg mountain. It had turned colder. A sliver of a moon shone in a starry sky. The temperature gauge in the car showed – 5 ° C. And he thought about Elisabeth in her skin-tight skirt and skimpy underwear walking down the road in this cold. Out of bed, out of the house, gone. Inside the car, he was so cold that he was hunched over the wheel, holding it with both hands. The studded tyres made a metallic sound on the tarmac and the bends in the road were frozen. Mist steamed over the water in the harbour basin. The right atmosphere for a murder, he thought, as he swung into Gamlebyen.
    A patrol car stood outside the fence with its blue light flashing. Gunnarstranda’s Skoda Octavia was parked across the pavement. And behind the wire fence a small circle of people was standing around a shape on the ground.
    Frølich closed the car door behind him and went through the gate with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. He was frozen and pangs of hunger for breakfast were stabbing at his stomach. The figure of Gunnarstranda came towards him. With the shirt under his autumn coat buttoned up wrong. An unlit cigarette bobbed up and down in his mouth.
    ‘Guard for Securitas. Found at 3.43 by a workmate. Obvious signs of an attempt to break into containers.’ Gunnarstranda pointed. The doors of a green metal container gaped wide open. ‘The container is owned by something called A. S. Jupro. It’s not clear what they took – but presumably it was some kind of electronic equipment.’
    From a distance the dead man resembled an unconscious slalom skier. He was lying in a so-called stable lateral position. Wearing a boiler suit. Frank Frølich winced when he saw the man’s disfigured head and all the blood.
    ‘Pathologists call it “injuries inflicted by a blunt weapon”,’ Gunnarstranda said formally. ‘The back of his head has been stoved in. Finding the cause of death shouldn’t be the most difficult task on earth for the boys. Most probably that’s the murder weapon.’ He pointed towards a blood-stained plastic bag beside the corpse. ‘Baseball bat, aluminium.’
    A sudden crackle came from one of the uniformed policemen’s short-wave radios. The man passed it to Gunnarstranda, who barked formally into it.
    Frølich was unable to decode the message which came crackling back. But a grinning Gunnarstranda could. ‘Lock them up.’
    He turned and checked his watch. ‘We’ve got them and now we can grab a bit more shut-eye. Sorry to wake you at such an ungodly hour, but that’s the job, isn’t it? No two cases are the same. I’ll catch another couple of hours myself,’ Gunnarstranda added. ‘Then we’ll do the interrogation at a more godly time. It’ll be wonderful to hit the sack.’
    ‘Who have we got?’ Frølich asked, bewildered.
    ‘A gang of bruisers,’ Gunnarstranda said. ‘A tip-off. Not worth a great deal perhaps, but on the other hand there is a clear sequence of events.’ He pointed to the open container. ‘These boys were breaking in when the security guard arrived in his car.’ He pointed to a small Ford van a few metres away. The security company’s logo was printed on the side. ‘The guard saw something, stopped and went to check.’ Gunnarstranda pointed to an object next to the open container. ‘His torch – a Maglite – is over there. The men were caught red-handed, and a struggle ensued. One of them has a baseball bat and wallop. The guard falls there. Unfortunately for these three, he’s dead now.’
    ‘And we know who did it?’ Frank Frølich said with a yawn.
    Gunnarstranda nodded. ‘As I said, a tip-off, and I would be very surprised