Free Lethal Investments by K. O. Dahl

Gazing at the window to study her reflection there.
    ‘No, I’m afraid he hasn’t been in today,’ she said formally and was about to ring off. But she didn’t get that far.
    ‘What’s that?’ she exclaimed in a loud falsetto voice, suddenly engaged, pacing up and down, ill at ease as there wasn’t a chair close by. ‘Yes, I see, yes, of course.’
    At the start of the conversation the well-rehearsed phrases streamed out in a relatively sincere way. However, the sincerity waned as time passed. And the more she writhed, the clearer it became that she was having difficulty bringing the exchange to a close.
    After finally cradling the receiver, still disconcerted, she stood biting a nail and convulsively clenching her other hand. It looked as if she had a problem.
    ‘You’re going to be late after all,’ Frank remarked.
    She released the nail, and chewed her lower lip instead. ‘I suppose I will.’
    ‘Who were you talking to?’ he asked, feeling no shame at exhibiting his curiosity.
    ‘Egil Svennebye’s wife. He’s the Marketing Manager here.’
    She perched stiffly on the edge of the seat some way from him.
    ‘She’s worried. It seems he didn’t go home last night. She claims he’s gone missing.’
    Eyes downcast, she smiled. Frank Frølich waited for her to look at him. ‘Has she reported it to the police?’
    Lisa shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t suppose she wants to get the police involved.’
    ‘But she did sound pretty alarmed, didn’t she?’
    ‘She was alarmed, yes,’ Lisa confirmed, lost in thought. ‘Perhaps you could talk to her?’
    Frank met her eyes. ‘We can’t do much unless she wants us to.’
    ‘But it might calm her nerves,’ Lisa countered with optimism. The paper she had been fidgeting with was crushed into a tiny ball in one hand. ‘She seemed . . . frightened!’
    Frank nodded. ‘Of course we would very much like a chat with her husband as he works here,’ he said reassuringly. ‘So I can pop by his house, can’t I.’
    She brightened up a bit.
    Frank hastened to change the topic. ‘You used to work with Reidun Rosendal, didn’t you?’
    The woman threw a swift glance at her watch. ‘Not so much. Reidun was out a lot, visiting customers. I deal mostly with correspondence and so on.’
    ‘But you got to know her a little?’
    ‘Yes, I did.’
    She shuddered. Pinched her eyes shut. ‘Was . . . was she tortured?’ she asked, full of apprehension.
    Frank looked her in the face. ‘We don’t know.’
    Lisa Stenersen folded her hands in her lap, mumbled something with her eyes closed. A gold crucifix hung from a chain against her throat.
    ‘She was great,’ she said in the end.
    ‘You mean attractive?’
    ‘Mm, lovely hair, nice figure . . .’
    Frank lifted a finger and tapped his temple.
    ‘What about here?’
    ‘Don’t know.’ Lisa Stenersen smiled. ‘Doubt if she was lacking in that department either, but . . . she hid.’
    The woman in the padded cloak stared at the floor. ‘There are some people you can never quite fathom, or so it seems!’
    With more emotion: ‘Who look at you the way people on TV look at you. What they say is clear enough but you never know if it’s you they are addressing.’
    Frank nodded slowly. Lisa Stenersen could have been a member of his mother’s sewing circle. So, it was easy to imagine how Reidun’s words had fallen on stony ground whenever she spoke to her.
    He observed her big hair, registered the roll of women’s magazines beside the brown handbag on her desk. The wedding ring that had become buried in the flesh of her ruddy finger. Lisa Stenersen, a representative of the silent army that knows all about meringues, birthday cakes, England’s dismal royal family and how to grow Christmas begonias from cuttings. An age gap of at least thirty years from Reidun Rosendal. A gap that did not necessarily mean much in some cases, but did bear some significance here.
    Lisa Stenersen squirmed under his gaze and