He found a parking space and stepped out, aware that rain was in the air. The Oslo police patrol stayed at their post at the nearest intersection. He raised his hand in greeting, and they responded with a brief flash of their headlights.
‘Looks like a tradesman’s van,’ Mortensen said, nodding in the direction of the grey van.
Wisting cast a fleeting glance inside as they walked past. The driver’s cabin was dirty and messy, filled with empty bottles and scraps of paper.
The woman on the balcony pinched her cigarette butt and tossed it down to the grass without paying any heed to them.
Wisting and Mortensen crossed the street. The name was listed beside a doorbell at the entrance, but they waited for a few moments to see if anyone might arrive to let them in, before Wisting shrugged and pressed the button.
Some time elapsed before a man answered and Wisting gave his name. ‘I’m here to see Aksel Skavhaug,’ he added.
The lock release buzzed and Mortensen pulled open the door. High in the stairwell they heard a door open and, when they reached the second floor, Aksel Skavhaug stood in the doorway waiting for them.
Wisting presented his police ID. ‘We’re from the police,’ he said, noticing a worried expression cross the face of the man in front of them.
‘I see,’ he said.
Wisting pointed into the apartment. ‘Could we do this inside?’
They walked into the living room, where his partner was seated on the settee. There was no sign of any children.
‘The police,’ Skavhaug clarified.
The woman picked up the remote control, switched off the TV and looked around with a touch of panic, as if something had to be hidden.
They remained on their feet while Wisting held out a copy of the charge sheet.
‘It concerns the fire at Bernhard Clausen’s summer cabin,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ Aksel Skavhaug asked.
‘We believe it was you who set fire to the cabin,’ Wisting replied. ‘You’ll have to come with us.’
Skavhaug read the papers signed by the police lawyer. ‘He asked me to do it,’ he said.
Wisting looked at Mortensen. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Bernhard. He asked me to do it.’
‘You know that Bernhard Clausen is dead?’ Wisting asked.
‘Yes, but this was a long time ago. Three years or so.’
Wisting pointed to a table, suggesting that they should sit down. He put his phone on the coffee table, turned on the recorder function and asked Skavhaug to repeat what he had just said.
‘He phoned me,’ he continued. ‘He asked if I could come out to his cabin in Stavern. He had a job for me, he said. I thought it was something he wanted fixed and wasn’t really keen to do it. It would take a lot of time to drive all the way out there, but he insisted he would pay for all that.’
Wisting produced his notepad, but remained seated, listening.
‘I knew him from before,’ Skavhaug added. ‘His son and I were childhood pals. I was there a lot in the summertime when I was little, as well as at their house in Kolbotn.’
‘So you went out to meet him?’ Wisting asked, in an effort to move the conversation forward.
Skavhaug nodded. ‘He wasn’t well,’ he went on. ‘He’d just got out of hospital. Heart attack. That was probably why he’d started thinking about it.’
‘About what?’
‘That he didn’t want any strangers raking around in his belongings after he died. That was why he asked me to do it.’
It began to dawn on Wisting what Aksel Skavhaug meant.
‘He wanted me to burn it all down as soon as I heard he was dead,’ Skavhaug said, getting to his feet. ‘I’ve got documentation confirming it,’ he added, crossing to a sideboard drawer. He rummaged for a while before placing a sheet of paper before Wisting.
The text was typewritten:
I, Bernhard Clausen, wish to confirm that it is my express instruction that, after my death, my cabin at Hummerbakken in Stavern is to be burned to the ground so that all of my posthumous papers are destroyed. For this purpose I have engaged the services of Aksel Skavhaug, who must not be held criminally responsible for the setting of the fire.
Under the signature, a handwritten note was added: The alarm code is 0105.
‘I was given a key as well,’ Skavhaug went on to say. ‘It’s in my van.’
Wisting looked across at his partner. It looked as if she was familiar with all of this.
‘Couldn’t he just get rid of the papers himself?’ Mortensen asked. ‘Burn them in his fireplace or something like that?’
Aksel Skavhaug shook his head energetically, as if he had arrived at the same thought himself.
‘He was working on a book,’ he explained. ‘His memoirs. His whole desk was littered with papers. He needed them for as long as he was working on it but, if he were to die suddenly, he didn’t want anyone else looking at them.’
‘So you went along with it, just like that?’
‘The cabin was insured, so Lena would receive a large insurance settlement all the same.’
‘His grandchild,’ Wisting noted.
‘Lennart’s daughter,’ the other man agreed. ‘She’s his sole heir. He told me the insurance money would be more than enough to build a new, modern summer cabin. In addition, she’ll get the house in Kolbotn and the money in the bank.’
‘But the house wasn’t to be burned down?’ Mortensen asked.
‘No, it was the cabin where he kept all the papers he didn’t want anyone to see.’
‘What did you get for doing it?’ Wisting probed.
‘One hundred thousand in advance. He had the cash ready. If I didn’t accept the job, he would get somebody else to do it.’
‘Norwegian kroner?’
Aksel Skavhaug looked confused by the question, but nodded his head. ‘In addition, there was another hundred thousand in a pre-arranged place that I could collect when the job was done.’
Wisting sat back in his chair. ‘Tell me what you did, then,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘When you went down to the cabin on Monday night,’ Wisting elaborated. ‘In as much detail as possible.’
Aksel Skavhaug stood up, approached his partner and picked up a pack of cigarettes from the table in front of her. ‘They announced it on the news on Sunday,’ he said, taking out a cigarette. ‘That he was dead.’
He lit the cigarette before continuing: ‘I drove down to Stavern on Monday night and let myself in, but the code I’d been given wasn’t the right one.’ He pointed at the sheet of paper with Bernhard Clausen’s statement on it.
‘Apart from that, everything was as agreed. There was a full can of petrol ready, and the rest of the money was where he had shown me. I just poured out the petrol and tossed on a match. When I was sure it had really caught fire, I ran back to my van.’
‘Where was the rest of the money you received for the job?’ Mortensen asked.
Skavhaug tapped some ash from his cigarette into a cup. ‘In an envelope taped beneath a shelf in the cupboard,’ he explained. ‘He showed me it when I was there three years ago.’
‘In the back room?’ Wisting asked.
‘Eh?’
‘Was the envelope with the rest of the cash hidden in Lennart’s old room?’ Wisting pressed him. ‘Was that where you lit the fire?’
‘No, in the room next to that,’ Skavhaug corrected him. ‘That was the agreement. In the adjacent room.’
Wisting picked up his phone. He believed that Skavhaug had lit the fire on Bernhard Clausen’s orders, but not because of his papers. It was the cash Clausen had been keen to get rid of.
‘What happens now?’ Skavhaug asked.
Wisting gazed at the man in front of him. He seemed naïve enough to believe that Clausen’s letter would absolve him. Wisting did not want to be the one to tell him that he had conspired in an insurance fraud and arson was a crime in itself. Even the misu
se of police and fire service resources could lead to a sentence of six months’ imprisonment. They would charge him, but there was no longer any reason to take him into custody.
‘Do you have a lawyer?’ Wisting asked.
Aksel Skavhaug nodded.
‘Speak to him or her, then,’ Wisting suggested as he stopped the recording. He returned his phone to his pocket but remained seated. ‘I understand you were with Lennart when he died,’ he said. ‘In the motorbike accident.’
Skavhaug inhaled loudly. ‘It was fucking awful,’ he said, pinching the cigarette and blowing out smoke.
‘Who else was there?’ Wisting asked.
‘There was me, Lennart and Tommy. Tommy Pleym.’
‘What were you doing out so late at night on the other side of town?’
Aksel Skavhaug looked at him as if he did not understand the question.
‘Where were you coming from, and where were you going?’ Wisting added.
‘Nowhere in particular,’ Skavhaug answered. ‘We were just out riding.’
‘Didn’t you have work or college to go to?’
‘I did a bit of work for my father, whenever he needed help.’
‘What about the others?’
‘I don’t really remember. Lennart didn’t do much after his mother died. He lived at home, but sort of on his own, really, since his father had the parliamentary apartment in Oslo. We spent a lot of time at his house and sometimes Lennart would borrow the apartment in Oslo.’
‘Are you still in touch with Tommy?’
‘Not really. He won some money on the lottery not long after that, almost 6 million kroner. Started investing in stocks and shares and suchlike and changed completely.’
Mortensen spoke up. ‘Who else was in that gang of yours?’ he asked.
‘We weren’t a gang,’ Skavhaug protested, but he went on to rattle off a few names.
‘Lennart had a girlfriend, didn’t he?’
‘Rita Salvesen,’ Skavhaug confirmed. ‘She gave birth to Lena after he died. It was just tragic, all of it.’
Wisting stood up. He wanted to use Line’s ploy of steering the conversation round to the time of the airport robbery but without mentioning it directly. ‘How old were you at that time?’ he asked.
‘Twenty-five.’
‘Did you know the boy who went missing, the fisherman?’
‘You’re thinking of Simon?’ Skavhaug asked.
Wisting nodded.
‘We went to the same school, but we didn’t hang out with him. He kept himself to himself.’
‘Did you take part in the search for him?’
‘There wasn’t much to take part in,’ Skavhaug replied. ‘They used divers and boats but never found him. Why do you ask?’
Wisting put on a slightly apologetic smile. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘My daughter’s a journalist. She’s going to write an article about the case. We talked about it earlier today. She was looking for some people of the same age who could tell her what it was like growing up in Kolbotn at that time.’
‘Don’t think I can help her, sorry.’
They moved towards the front door, where two boys were kicking off their outdoor shoes.
‘We’re finished here now,’ Wisting said.
23
For the third day in succession, Wisting had gathered the small investigation group for a morning meeting around the kitchen table. Line sat with Amalie on her lap. The case was now taking a clear direction, as they were focusing their attention on the airport robbery. Various theories were tossed around, and Mortensen maintained that both Lennart Clausen and his father must have been involved.
‘He was covering for his son,’ he said.
‘It’s an incredible way of going about it,’ Line pointed out.
‘Do you think Clausen was directly involved?’
Line shook her head. ‘But I think it’s about something other than the money.’
‘It’s always about the money,’ Mortensen said.
‘About something more than the money, then,’ Line revised her comment.
Mortensen turned to Wisting: ‘We have to take a look at how the robbery was investigated,’ he said. ‘Officially, there were no suspects, but there must be a lot of information on file.’
Wisting’s phone vibrated on the table. He held up the display to show Line that it was another call from the Dagbladet journalist.
‘Take it!’ Line encouraged him, putting Amalie down on the floor. ‘Tell him that a man has confessed to setting fire to the cabin.’
Wisting switched the phone to loudspeaker.
‘It’s about Bernhard Clausen,’ the journalist began.
‘I expected as much,’ Wisting said.
‘Is there any news?’
‘We’ve charged a man with arson,’ Wisting replied. ‘He’s admitted it all, chapter and verse.’
They heard the clatter of Hildre’s fingers on the keyboard at the other end of the line. ‘Can you tell me anything about his age and where he comes from?’
‘He’s in his thirties and comes from the Østland area.’
‘What was his motive?’
Wisting glanced at Mortensen, uncertain of how to respond. ‘He expressed a personal motive,’ he said.
‘What does that imply?’
‘I can’t go into any details,’ Wisting replied.
Line made a sign that he should wrap up the conversation as they heard the journalist shuffle some papers.
‘You told me yesterday that you took some old scraps of food out of the cabin,’ he said. ‘But according to our source, a number of large cardboard boxes were carried out, so it can’t just have been food.’
‘As I said yesterday, it had to do with the deceased’s estate. I can’t be more specific than that.’
‘So you won’t say what was in the cardboard boxes?’
Wisting refrained from answering.
‘It’s rumoured that Bernhard Clausen was spending time at his cabin writing a book in which he criticizes his own Party’s politics,’ the journalist continued.
Wisting curled his free hand around his coffee cup on the table. ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ he said.
‘So you deny it was something of that nature that you carried out?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about his computer?’
‘Nothing like that,’ Wisting said.
Line signalled again that he should conclude the conversation.
‘Just one more thing,’ the journalist said. ‘You had a meeting with Georg Himle and Walter Krom at the Party offices on Tuesday. What was that about?’
Line rolled her eyes as she picked up her own phone.
‘Practical matters,’ Wisting answered. ‘Clausen has only one surviving heir,’ he added, knowing that the strict rules about reporting on minors would come into play. ‘A grandchild, but Clausen’s son died before the child was born and the mother had no wish to be in contact with Clausen.’
‘I see,’ the journalist replied.
‘I have another call waiting,’ Wisting said as he saw Line’s name flash up. ‘If there’s anything else, you’ll have to ring me back later.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Hildre said.
Wisting ended the call.
‘He must have a source in politics,’ Line said. ‘Centrally placed inside the Labour Party. Someone who saw you there. You should have ended the call earlier.’
‘Skavhaug also mentioned that Clausen was working on a book,’ Mortensen said. ‘I thought it was something Clausen had used to persuade him to set fire to the cabin, but maybe there was something in it after all.’
‘In that case, I’d really like to read it,’ Wisting commented.
His phone rang again. This time it was a number he did not have stored. Wisting hesitated, but after a moment he answered.
The caller introduced himself: ‘Audun Thule, Romerike police.’ His voice was gruff but carried authority. ‘I see you’ve asked to have one of
my old cases sent over to you.’
This was a conversation Wisting had hoped to avoid. Audun Thule was head of the investigation into the airport robbery. He had addressed his request for the files directly to the admin office, hoping they would send them without involving anyone else.
‘Good of you to call,’ he said.
‘I worked on that investigation for nearly two years,’ Thule continued. ‘I’m phoning to find out if there’s any special reason you want to see the file.’
Wisting understood where he was coming from. He had cases himself that he’d invested a great deal of time and energy in, without reaching any kind of resolution. If someone from another police district suddenly asked to borrow the file, he would not have handed it over without asking why.
‘I’m working on a case that involves a large cash consignment of foreign currency. So far, we haven’t managed to trace where it comes from, and I want to look into the possibility that it might be the cash from the robbery.’
‘How much money are we talking about?’ Thule asked.
‘A considerable sum,’ Wisting replied. ‘There were dollars, euros and pounds, all dated before 2004.’
‘Where did you find it?’
‘That’s a bit complicated,’ Wisting answered, his eyes roving around the table to Mortensen and Line. It was about time the investigation group expanded.
‘Would it be possible for you to come down here and bring the case files with you?’ he asked. ‘I think what we’ve unearthed will interest you.’
‘I’ve been waiting for an approach like that for years,’ Thule said. ‘I can be there in three hours.’
24
Line was no longer known to the security guards at the VG front desk and she had to key in her name and the person she wanted to see on a screen.
It had been six months since her last day at VG. It had not been commemorated in any way whatsoever. She had gone from being on maternity leave to being a former employee. In the course of her eighteen months of leave, the editorial office had been reorganized, colleagues had changed places, some had left and new faces had arrived. No one had suggested going for a beer or doing anything to mark her departure from the team.
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