Cnut - Deadly Premise

By Stig Larssen

The German conductor of the West Norge Philharmonic Orchestra, Klaus Steiner, drops dead while conducting. A sexual predator, who drugs his conquests, so that he can rape them, he has dozens of enemies – all of them potential killers: the members of the orchestra he has raped recently, and the women he has raped in the past, their husbands and boyfriends, German haters, and the local drug dealers.

Cnut believes that it is also possible that the murder was impersonal, and carried out in order to hurt the sole owner of the orchestra, Karl Brekke.

With so many suspects, and no clear motive, Cnut decides to tackle the most obvious one - revenge, first, and he and his team begin to investigate the female members of the orchestra, uncovering a web of sexual deceit.

He and Ilse, by sheer chance, had made a booking to attend a performance by the orchestra a couple of nights later, and are enjoying the music, when Cnut, himself an accomplished pianist, notices a couple of wrong notes played by the pianist, Kurt Vogelsang, and sees that he is unwell.

A few seconds later, Vogelsang drops dead, and the possible motives change again, but since both the victims are men, it seems logical to continue to investigate the women.

Viv Blenke, who does the autopsies, is stymied. That the victims have been poisoned is obvious, and she knows from the low protein levels in the corpses that a plant-based toxin similar to ricin must be responsible, but whatever poison was used, she can not find it in the bodies.

Then, a woman is killed, but this time with a knife.

Two women make confessions, which muddy the waters, and Cnut is nowhere near finding an answer, until he begins to go well outside the box, acting on a tiny clue.

He uncovers a most intriguing plot, and the final ironic twist astonishes everyone, but most of all Cnut and the killers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TONY NASH
• Release date: Jun 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223276852

Stig Larssen

Stig Larssen is the Norwegian pen name of Tony Nash – acclaimed author of over thirty detective, historical and war novels, who began his career as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, later re-training at Bletchley Park to become an electronic spy, intercepting Russian and East German agent transmissions, during which time he studied many languages and achieved a BA Honours Degree from London University. Diverse occupations followed: Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school, ocean yacht skipper, deep sea fisher, fly tyer, antique dealer, bespoke furniture maker, restorer and French polisher, professional deer stalker and creative writer.

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Other works by this author:

THE TONY DYCE/NORFOLK THRILLERS:

Murder by Proxy

Murder on the Back Burner

Murder on the Chess Board

Murder on the High ‘C’

Murder on Tiptoes

Bled and Breakfast

THE JOHN HUNTER/MET. COP THRILLERS:

Carve Up

Single to Infinity

The Most Unkindest Cut

The Iago Factor

Blockbuster

Bloodlines

Beyond Another Curtain

HISTORICAL NOVELS – THE NORFOLK TRILOGY:

A Handful of Salt

A Handful of Courage (WWI EPIC)

No Tears For Tomorrow  WWII EPIC)

A Most Capricious Whim

THE HARRY PAGE THRILLERS:

Tripled Exposure

Unseemly Exposure

So Dark, The Spiral

THE NORWEGIAN SERIES – author Stig Larssen:

LOOT

CNUT – Past Present

CNUT – The Isiaih Prophesies

CNUT – Paid in Spades

CNUT – The Sin Debt

CNUT – They Tumble Headlong

CNUT – Night Prowler

CNUT -  Cry Wolf

CNUT -  When The Pie Was Opened

CNUT – The Bottom of the Pot

CNUT -  Mind Games

CNUT -  Nemesis

CNUT -  Cut and Come Again

CNUT -  The Man Who Did It Doggy Fashion

CNUT -  The Man From Next Week

CNUT -  Tontine Trauma

CNUT -  Hidden Agenda

CNUT -  Cabal of Silence

CNUT -  Hide the Lady

CNUT -  Deadly Relations

CNUT -  Deadly Premise

OTHER NOVELS:

The Devil Deals Death 

The Makepeace Manifesto

Panic

The Last Laugh

The Sinister Side of the Moon

Hell and High Water

Hardrada’s Hoard

‘Y’ oh ‘Y’

The Thursday Syndrome

"Murder’s out of tune, and sweet revenge grows harsh" (Shakespeare. Othello, sc.5.)

CHAPTER ONE

Klaus Steiner slammed the baton down repeatedly for the eleventh time that morning, beating time to his words: ‘No! No! No! No! No! The third movement is still too slow! Are you all morons today? Did you not sleep last night? You two – second and third violins – have you broken your arms? Again now, from the andante moderato.’

The queasiness that had been with him since breakfast was much worse, breathing was like drawing air over red-hot sandpaper, and under his breath, he was swearing about the bitch last night, who must have given him ‘flu’. Sweat was running into his eyes, making the music blurred. He was conducting from memory.

Elin Matson, second violin, whispered to her neighbour, ‘I’d like to ram that damned baton down his throat, or better yet, up that stiff arse. That movement was perfect.’

Kari Baem whispered back, ‘You’ll need to join the queue. Why Karl keeps him on, God alone knows.’

‘Because he was the best he could get, and you have to admit he’s good.’

‘And a sex-mad, chauvinist pig.’

‘I’ll certainly go with that.’

For months she’d looked forward to a night of sex in his bed, after listening to the tales from the other girls, but he ignored her, even though she’d made it blatantly obvious that she was available. Then, one evening four months ago, when she looked at her worst, wearing an old grey woollen skirt that had seen better days, and a wrinkled sloppy Joe pullover, and with face cream just applied before going to bed, he’d knocked on the door of her room. When she answered, he’d said just the one word as he turned his back, ‘Come’, making her think of the article she’d read somewhere about German soldiers during the last war, who used the words, ‘Komm, Frau’, before they dragged off and raped the conquered women. Cassi Stellen had told her a long time afterwards that she had been honoured only because Linda Rendessen, his intended sex-partner for the night, had ‘come on’ early. It was true that he did look like a Greek god, with his patrician features and dark brown, wavy hair, but Elin had been disappointed both with the size of his ‘tackle’, and his once only use of it. If she had to describe the experience, she would use just one word – clinical. Definitely one of the more forgettable shags of her life. She got nowhere near coming, and he couldn’t have cared less. Most of all, she burned with indignation at the way he’d told her to get lost, as soon as he was satisfied. She had never spoken to him since.

The music swelled, and it was time for the violins to join in, but as their bows touched the strings, they were amazed to see Steiner drop his baton and sway, holding fast with both hands to the lectern, then fall hard, off the stage and into the pit.

His baton broke under him.

The music stopped dead. Total silence reigned for just a few seconds, before pandemonium broke out.

Karl Brekke, the musical director, and sole owner of the West Norge Philharmonic Orchestra, ran down the aisle from his seat at the back of the auditorium, with Reidun Jenssen, his personal assistant, hard on his heels.

Though he was on the heavy side, with the fat face that goes with that kind of weight, Brekke liked to think of himself as sartorially elegant, and spent a great deal of money to achieve that effect. His dark grey pinstripe Ralph Lauren Black Label wool suit, of which he had four, was his everyday uniform, and the RL Darwin loafers, which cost just on ten thousand kroner a pair, his choice of footwear. His Windsor-knotted tie was always an Oslo University one. He bent over and shook Steiner’s shoulder viciously.

‘Klaus! Klaus! What the hell’s the matter? What are you playing at?’

The body lay still.

Brekke pushed it over, and tried to find a pulse in the wrist. Unable to feel anything, he blurted, ‘Christ! I think he’s dead.’

A pragmatist, he ordered Reidun, ‘Quick – go and start ringing the list for a replacement. Don’t bother calling for an ambulance. I’ll do that in a minute or two. He’s not going anywhere.’

‘Shall I try Stefan Grieg?’

‘Oh, sure! Why don’t you try Andre Rieu, while you’re at it? Who do you think we are, the bloody New York Philharmonic?’

He shouted to the orchestra. ‘Back to your digs. Ring in for instructions at two o’clock. Performance as usual tonight.’

Failing all else, he thought, I’ll bloody well have to step in myself. It was twelve years since he’d last conducted, and he had no experience of two of the set pieces for that evening’s performance.

Back in the theatre office, Reidun had already dialled 113, and an ambulance was on its way. She knew all the respected conductors by name, and began calling the few not presently employed with large orchestras.

Jan Bennessen and Per Pederssen had just delivered a stroke patient to the A and E department at the Oslo Universitetssykehus, and were heading back in their ambulance to their base in Gammle Oslo when the call came in. They were nearest, and responded, arriving just nine minutes after Steiner had fallen. The sweat had already dried on the dead man’s face.

They tried resuscitation techniques for half an hour, only giving up when Doctor Brin Halten arrived, and pronounced the conductor dead. 

He asked Brekke if Steiner had shown any signs of illness.

‘Illness – no. He’d have been screwing another one of the girls last night, so there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with him then. How can he bloody do this to me? The bastard.’

Halten had the distinct feeling that Brekke would have kicked the body, had no one been watching.

‘Did he have any heart problems?’

‘You’re joking. Ask any of the girls – the bastard didn’t have a heart.’

Halten decided it was not worth pursuing the point, at least not with Brekke.

There was something strange about the death – the man had been conducting for almost two hours, apparently without a problem, and then suddenly dropped dead. A relatively young man, he appeared to have been in good health. On the surface, it didn’t seem to be a suspicious death, requiring investigation by the police, but for the sake of safety, there should be a searching post mortem examination. He rang his good friend, Viv Blenke, the resident Chief Forensic Pathologist at Police Headquarters.

‘Viv – Brin Halten. Yes – fine, and you? I have an unexplained death here, and wondered if you would like to do the post. Don’t ask me why, but I have a funny feeling it’s suspicious.’ He explained the circumstances, and lack of any symptoms.

Viv would normally have declined, and let the corpse go for post mortem to the City morgue, where they dealt with most deaths occurring in and around the City, but she had, for once, a day free of autopsies, and knew what he meant. She had those same feelings herself from time to time, and her intuition had always proved right in the end. Some doctors were pedestrian in their practice; happy to jog along with the knowledge they began with. Brin was different – always researching. He had often consulted her on cases, and she knew he spent all his spare time going to symposiums and lectures on the more advanced medical techniques. If he thought it was unexplained, there was more than an even chance that he was right.

‘Send him in, Brin. I’ll let you know what we find.’

The ambulance men had heard the doctor’s end of the conversation, and at a nod from the doctor, they picked up the stretcher with the corpse and headed for their vehicle.

Brekke was still furious when he got back to the office, and started to take his anger out on Reidun, ‘How far have you got? Have you found anyone?’

‘Not yet. Pieters was free, but went to the Berlin Phil yesterday.’

‘Christ Almighty! Yet you had time to phone for that bloody ambulance. Have I got to do everything myself? Give me the bloody list, and go and get me a strong coffee.’

Reidun gave him her usual sweet smile, hiding the churning feelings of anger that her boss instilled in her on the rare occasions he was in that mood, thinking, ‘Would that be with the arsenic, Sir?’

CHAPTER TWO

The Philly Forum, as its members called their meetings, was in session round the big table in the comfortable, recently restored lounge of the Elgin Hotel, with for once something other than music as the main topic of conversation.

The original ten members had recently been boosted by Mason Breen, the blatantly gay, English double bass player, and the Dutchman, Pieter Shayler, whom everyone suspected of being gay, but who hadn’t yet ‘come out’. Mason had made every kind of advance, from friendly innuendo to straight-out offers, but had got nowhere. He was beginning to get the suspicion that the man from the Netherlands only fancied young boys.

Elin Matson had told several of her friends that she thought he was asexual. He had got her attention the moment he joined – he was so attractive. But despite using all her wiles, she’d had no more success than Mason. Not very tall, at just one metre seventy-five, Shayler was a Matt Damon look-alike, with the most attractive grey-blue eyes, and what Elin termed ‘a pussy-kissing mouth’. A blatant extrovert, she was the unofficial leader of the group, with her friend Kari Baem a close second, and she was not one to pull any punches, ‘Which of you did it to old Klaus, then?’ She looked searchingly at the faces around her, deliberately stopping at Marit Cranvik.

‘You look guilty, Marit.’

The little piccolo player’s cheeks flushed red, and she stammered, ‘El..Elin. I...I.. ..c’couldn’t....’

They all laughed good-naturedly, and after a few moments of indecision, Marit joined in the laughter. The very idea of the small-framed, almost anorexically thin piccolo player committing murder was plainly ridiculous, though most of them knew she was one of Steiner’s regular sexual partners. Elin, discussing it with the others, dismissed it as the conductor’s liking of ‘meat that’s sweetest next to the bone.’

Elin wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily, ‘Go on, Marit. Tell us how you did it. Did you give him some poisoned mother’s milk?’ She looked pointedly at Marit’s unusually small breasts – no bigger than those of a twelve year old.

Mason Breen liked Marit, and was unhappy at her discomfort. He said, ‘You’ve shared his mattress too, Elin, what about you?’

She gave him a direct look, then told the congregation, ‘I would happily have murdered the bastard. I’m just sorry someone got in before me.’

Bebe Lund was dubious, ‘Are we even sure he was murdered? He might just have had a heart attack.’

Mason was not so sure, ‘Didn’t you hear what the doctor said? I heard him on the phone. Not only did he have to go through the police central switchboard operator to get the doctor who was going to do the autopsy, but he said it was suspicious. I think the bastard was murdered.’

Kylie Ranvik, the first clarinettist, agreed with him, ‘Did you see him just before he fell? Sweating like a pig. Something had hit him pretty hard. It wasn’t a natural death. He was always so meticulous with his Norwegian too. Did you notice how thick his accent was at the end? He was losing it.’

Elin wasn’t going to let her first thought go, ‘It’s got to be one of his latest lays who killed him. He was so bloody finicky about cleanliness, it had to be someone who got near enough to him to give him something. Christ, he even made you take a shower before he let you into bed with him. Can we make a calendar of his bed partners for the last seven days? Any of you?’ She looked at the women, one by one, ‘Come on, now. Own up. We’ve all been there, so there’s no need to be shy.’

Katja Dahl lifted a finger, ‘Last Friday.’

Bebe Lund almost proudly joined her, ‘Monday.’

Linda Rendessen whispered, ‘Tuesday.’

Elin asked, ‘Marit?’

After much hesitation, Marit admitted, ‘Saturday.’

Stieg Halvorssen , the bass player told them, ‘I saw Wenche  near his room just after midnight on Sunday night.’

Linda was indignant. ‘I heard her say she would never go near him again, after that first time.’

‘When our Wenche’s on heat, she’ll tear the trousers off anyone.’

‘She’s obviously torn yours off, Stieg.’

They all laughed to see his face go bright red.

Elin asked, ‘Did he ever try to give you anything to....heighten the excitement?’

Katja asked, ‘What do you mean - drugs?’

‘Well, whatever. He was a bit weird, wasn’t he?’

Linda Rendessen said, ‘I woke up in his bed one morning, and couldn’t remember anything about the night before.’ She hesitated, before adding, ‘He’d done something I’d always refused as well.’

‘You mean...from behind?’

Linda nodded. ‘I was bleeding the next morning.’

Mason was piqued, ‘If he was into that, why didn’t he come to an expert?’

Bebe Lund had been listening with interest. ‘It happened to me too.’

‘You probably just got pissed, and passed out, Bebe.’

‘Oh, no. You know I don’t drink much.’

Elin laughed, ‘What you mean is, you don’t inhale.’

The comment caused a lot of laughter. Bebe drank far more than she should, of anything that was going, and didn’t know when to stop. One or other of them had often put her to bed, after she passed out.

‘So what do you think he used?’

‘His eyes? Maybe he put the ‘fluence on you.’

‘There was certainly something about him in that way, but no, seriously....’

‘R2 maybe?’

Stieg asked, ‘What the hell is R2?’

Mason told him, ‘Roofies, rib, rope, Roche, Mexican vallium, ruffies.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘The Forget-me pill – rohypnol.’

‘Do you use it?’

Mason hesitated, ‘Let’s say I have experienced it.’

‘On the giving or receiving end?’

‘Pass on that one.’

‘You dirty bastard.’

Mason was not put out, ‘Mea culpa.’

Elin asked, ‘Do you think he used it with all the girls?’

‘It’s beginning to sound like it.’ He hesitated before asking, ‘Did he ever offer you anything else?’

Elin blushed, ‘No. No. Of course not.’

‘I see.’

And he did.

Katja asked, ‘What about Silje Andersen?’

Kari Baem was not so sure. The girl kept to herself, and would not share a room with any of the others. At one time, she seemed to be in love with the conductor, but now? ‘Not lately, I don’t think. Hard to tell, really. She plays it pretty close to her well-formed breast, and you know what they say about dark horses.’

Elin put it in a nutshell, ‘Well, you have to admit one thing – whatever else old Klaus might have been, he was certainly one dirty, lucky bastard.’

Mason agreed, but with a slight amendment, ‘One dead dirty, lucky bastard.’

CHAPTER THREE

Silje Andersen had never been sure if the burning ambition to become a top-flight musician had been her own idea. Pushed and controlled by her cold, single-parent executive mother, Sonya, she had missed out on all the usual enjoyment of her teenage years, and spent most of those years in front of sheets of music, with the instrument tucked under her chin. Friends were labelled a waste of time, and boyfriends banned, though many of her testosterone-fuelled male classmates would have