The Cabin

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘I work freelance these days and don’t have a connection to any particular publication,’ Line went on. ‘I can’t guarantee I’ll get anything into print, but since the Cold Cases Group at Kripos is now examining the case, it should be of interest to a number of media outlets.’

  Kjell Meier nodded.

  ‘Can I take a look at this?’ Line asked, turning the pages of the ring binder.

  ‘Be my guest.’

  The ring binder appeared to contain all the press coverage of the case. There were a couple of minor write-ups in Dagbladet and Aftenposten: otherwise, it seemed to be the local newspapers that had followed up the disappearance. In addition to the cuttings, there were copies of correspondence between the victim’s counsel and a police lawyer, complaining that the investigation had been closed down too early. She also found a number of legal documents that declared Simon Meier as officially dead, three years after his disappearance.

  ‘You had engaged a victim’s counsel,’ Line commented as she made a note of the name.

  ‘We had to pay him out of our own pocket,’ Kjell Meier told her.

  Line continued browsing. The ring binder fell open at a photograph of Simon.

  ‘I have to admit I no longer give him much thought,’ his brother said. ‘Days and weeks can pass between the times I think of him, but I’d really like to know what happened and where he ended up.’

  ‘What do you believe yourself?’ Line asked.

  ‘I’ve considered every possibility, but I don’t think he’s in the lake. I think someone abducted him.’

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘The most worrying explanation is that some perverted sadist took him, kept him prisoner and abused him. It’s not particularly rational, but things like that do happen, at least in other countries, and usually to girls. That fear has kept me awake at night. A simpler explanation would be that there was an accident. A car reversed into him or something and the person responsible carted him off and dumped him somewhere.’

  Line took notes. Both scenarios were just as likely as the police’s drowning theory. ‘Have you received any tip-offs from people who might not have approached the police?’ she asked.

  ‘There was a clairvoyant woman who got in touch, but we passed that on to the police. She insisted that Simon was buried under stones and gravel. They checked out the stone-crushing plant at Vinterbro, but stones and gravel aren’t exactly a specific description.’

  ‘What do you remember from the day he went missing?’ Line asked.

  ‘It was a Thursday,’ Kjell Meier said, ‘and the last person to see him saw him on his bike with a fishing rod. I didn’t speak to him that day, but on Saturday his work phoned me and asked about him. So I went to his house, saw that his bike was gone and assumed he had gone fishing. I went to the pump house at Eistern, where he usually went to fish, and found his bike and fishing rod on the path. That’s when I realized that something was wrong.’

  Line wanted to go back to the Thursday, the day of the robbery. ‘Do you remember what you were doing that day?’

  Kjell Meier shook his head. ‘I just remember the Saturday,’ he told her.

  Line made notes as he told her about his anxiety and confusion that day. About when the police arrived, the divers that were sent out and the Red Cross that formed a search party.

  She stayed for another hour, asking about Simon’s friends and his social circle, steering the conversation round to his old school pals to try to engineer an opportunity to talk about Lennart Clausen, but his name did not crop up.

  Line prepared to leave. ‘Did you know Bernhard Clausen, by any chance?’ she asked as she stood up. ‘Isn’t he from round here?’

  Kjell Meier nodded. ‘I heard he died at the weekend,’ he replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I wrote an article about him,’ Line said, hoping this sounded credible. ‘He had a son about Simon’s age who was killed in a motorbike accident.’

  ‘Lennart,’ Kjell Meier confirmed. ‘We grew up in the same street.’

  ‘Were he and Simon friends?’

  ‘When they were younger. Simon spent some time at his house and they played together.’

  Kjell Meier got to his feet and accompanied her to the door. Line thanked him for his time before leaving. She couldn’t help feeling as if she had missed something, but couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

  30

  Just before twelve o’clock, Dagbladet had released the news that a man had been charged with setting fire to Bernhard Clausen’s summer cabin. Wisting was pleased to see that his name was not mentioned in the article. Christine Thiis would be the one to field phone messages from the rest of the press.

  When it clouded over, the three investigators moved inside from the terrace, into the kitchen. Wisting read through the documents from the airport robbery. It was often easy to spot holes and deficiencies when looking back at old cases, but so far he could not identify any errors in the investigation.

  Thule sat down beside him and leafed through the photos from Bernhard Clausen’s cabin. ‘There’s something almost artistic about it,’ he said, peering at the picture of the array of boxes on the bunk beds in the back room.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘That the money’s just been sitting there, year after year, without him touching any of it,’ Thule explained. ‘It’s a bit like an eccentric collector who buys stolen art and hangs it on his walls without showing it to anyone.’

  Mortensen thought aloud: ‘If the son was involved in the raid, Clausen may have found the cash after he died and quite simply had no idea what to do with it. It would have created a humiliating scandal if it had come out.’

  ‘But he could have just got rid of it, then,’ Thule said. ‘Burned the notes in the fireplace or buried them somewhere. Just keeping them here involved taking a risk that they might be discovered some day.’

  They heard the front door open and Amalie glanced up from her drawing book.

  ‘Mummy’s back,’ Wisting told her.

  His grandchild leapt up and ran to meet her mother. Mortensen received a phone call and moved into the living room to take it. Line introduced herself to Audun Thule before admiring the drawing her daughter had made.

  ‘Any news?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘Not really,’ she replied, going on to recount the day. ‘I bought a map in the bookshop,’ she added, and spread it out on the kitchen table.

  She had already marked the fishing spot and the house where Bernhard Clausen lived but, before she had time to update the others, Mortensen returned from the living room. ‘DNA results,’ he said. ‘They’ve found a profile for sample B-2.’

  ‘The radio plug,’ Wisting specified.

  ‘The key and the scrap of paper produced nothing new, but they found a profile on the plug that called up a result in the DNA register.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Oscar Tvedt,’ Mortensen answered, sitting down at his laptop.

  Audun Thule swore. ‘The Captain,’ he said, grabbing one of his ring binders.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘Ex-Special Forces,’ Thule said. ‘He was an associate of Aleksander Kvamme right up until the Alna showdown.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ Wisting commented.

  ‘It was an isolated incident handled by the Oslo police, but we received copies of everything that went on with the hard-core bunch of criminals at that time.’

  He browsed through the ring binder until he found what he was looking for. ‘We didn’t make a connection at the time, but this could be a real breakthrough. His DNA on a component from the walkie-talkie used in the robbery means he may well have been one of the raiders.’

  ‘What happened at Alna?’ Line asked.

  ‘The emergency services received a phone call about a severely injured man in the car park where the Radisson Hotel now stands. Paramedics found Oscar Tvedt severely beaten up. It was categorized as an internal confrontation and no one wa
s ever brought to book for it.’

  ‘What did Oscar Tvedt have to say about it?’ Wisting queried.

  ‘Nothing,’ Thule replied. ‘He was unconscious for weeks and woke with serious brain damage. He was left paralysed and lost the ability to speak.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘When this report was written, he was in a rehabilitation facility at Ullevål Hospital.’

  ‘Could he have recovered from his injuries since then?’ Mortensen asked.

  Audun Thule began to pack up his belongings. ‘I’ll follow it up,’ he said. ‘I have to clear up one or two things back at the office, but I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  Mortensen also prepared to leave. Wisting accompanied them both to the door. It was colder outside now, and the air had taken on a touch of autumn.

  31

  ‘VG turned down the story,’ Line said, going on to tell her father about the meeting with the head of the news desk.

  ‘Maybe just as well,’ he told her. ‘Fundamentally, this is an investigation, not a news item. You’ve landed in a pretty delicate double role.’

  ‘I’ve led Simon’s brother to believe that I’m going to publish something. There was another journalist who worked on the same thing a few years ago, but nothing came of it.’

  ‘In any case, you can’t print anything as long as the investigation is still under way,’ her father said. ‘Maybe VG will show interest later, when we know a bit more about what has happened.’

  Line took out her camera. ‘Maybe so,’ she answered, letting her father see the pictures from the fishing spot and the pump house. ‘If not, I’ll approach a few other media outlets with it.’

  Simon Meier was part of a far bigger story, she thought. That was the story she really wanted to tell.

  ‘Do you have a babysitter for tomorrow?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘I want you to talk to Bernhard Clausen’s old friends, the ones close to him in the spring and summer of 2003.’

  Line looked at her father. Something about the way he had said this annoyed her. ‘Must it be tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘I was thinking of making contact with the journalist who investigated Simon’s disappearance.’

  ‘Clausen has been dead for almost a week now,’ her father replied. ‘The funeral’s on Monday. You need to speak to his friends before it becomes too suspicious.’

  Line sighed at the idea of having to return to routine assignments. It felt like going through the motions and she had no faith that it would yield results.

  Wisting gave her a reproving look, one she had not seen since she was a teenager. He didn’t need to say anything. It was a clear reminder that she was part of an investigation team under his leadership.

  ‘Do you have a list of likely candidates?’ she asked.

  Her father brought out one of the cabin guest books. ‘A whole gang of them did some work at his cabin the weekend after Simon Meier went missing,’ he said, handing her the book opened at the right page. ‘Mainly old Party colleagues. I want you to start with Trygve Johnsrud.’

  ‘The Finance Minister?’

  ‘They were elected to Parliament at the same time and have been close ever since. Besides, he has a cabin down here, too. If you’re lucky, he’ll be around for the weekend.’

  Line doubted she would be granted an interview. ‘I can give it a try,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll speak to the Party Secretary and get his phone number for you,’ he said.

  ‘Great.’

  Once she had packed up Amalie’s belongings, she went home to her own house.

  The black cat that had been slinking around in the garden over the past few days was sitting on their front steps. It looked like Buster, the cat her father used to have after he was widowed but had simply disappeared one day.

  ‘Puss!’ Amalie yelled.

  Letting go of Line’s hand, she ran towards the cat. It jumped down from the step, darted out into the garden and sneaked around the corner of the house, with Amalie tearing after him. Line followed them round to the back of the house, just in time to see the cat vanish under the hedge and into the neighbour’s garden.

  ‘Puss!’ Amalie shouted again, but it was gone.

  Line had to persuade her daughter to come inside. They spent the next few hours together, and at Amalie’s bedside Line downloaded an e-book about Pettson and Findus. Amalie was a bit too young to understand all of it, but she found the idea of a cat that walked around in striped trousers great fun. Afterwards she insisted they draw a cat and then they pinned the drawing on the wall above her bed.

  Line’s father had sent her a message with Trygve Johnsrud’s phone number, and she tried to ring him, but received no answer.

  She checked that Amalie was fast asleep before making herself a cup of tea and heading down to her office in the basement. It had no windows and the desk was placed against a wall where a cork board hung. She had pinned up cuttings from the Gjersjø case, which now filled the entire left side of the board. On the right-hand side she had started working on a relationship chart centred on Lennart Clausen. Post-it notes were displayed around a photo of him, with names of his associates placed depending on how close their relationship to him had been. Those closest were his childhood friends Aksel Skavhaug and Tommy Pleym, and Lennart’s girlfriend.

  In the basement office she also had a desktop Mac with a large screen. All her work was synchronized automatically so that she could begin work on the laptop and continue with it in the basement, but the desktop machine was faster and easier to work on.

  She logged on and conducted a search for Henriette Koppang. It looked as if there were several women of the same name, but only one was a journalist. All the articles were several years old and it appeared as if she had been connected to Nettavisen and various film and TV production companies. Her profiles on social media were private and provided little information. A photo revealed that she was blonde with a round face.

  There was something lively and energetic about the voice that answered when Line phoned. She introduced herself and explained that she was working freelance. ‘I’ve started looking at a missing-person case,’ she said. ‘Simon Meier. I understand you did some work on it a few years ago.’

  The voice at the other end changed character and grew serious. ‘Is there any news?’

  ‘Not really,’ Line answered. ‘Kripos are carrying out a routine investigation, but I was keen to give it some prominence. I’m not so sure that it was an accident.’

  Henriette Koppang shared her opinion. ‘There really are too many unanswered questions,’ she said.

  ‘You never published anything?’

  ‘No, to be honest, I’ve got a guilty conscience about the whole business,’ Henriette admitted. ‘I was working for Goliat at the time and was five months pregnant. Suddenly, they had no money to pay me and I didn’t even get my expenses covered. Then they went bankrupt, and I was heavily pregnant and without a job. It was all just a mess, and I had more than enough to think about.’

  ‘Did you discover anything?’

  ‘Nothing other than that the police had very thin grounds for shelving the case.’

  A child called out in the background. Henriette turned away from the phone and shouted that she would be back in a minute.

  ‘What do you think happened?’ she asked when she returned to the call.

  ‘The way I see it, he was most likely the victim of a crime,’ Line replied.

  ‘You think he was murdered?’

  ‘That’s the way I see it, really,’ Line confirmed, weighing her words. ‘He may have witnessed something and was killed to keep another crime hidden.’

  ‘What kind of crime?’

  ‘Not necessarily a crime, exactly,’ Line said. ‘But maybe he saw someone where they shouldn’t have been.’

  ‘You’re thinking that the place where he disappeared was a well-known shagging spot?’

  Line laughed at the explicit description. ‘What abo
ut you?’

  ‘I actually think he may still be alive,’ she answered.

  Line had not really considered that as a possibility. ‘What makes you believe that?’ she asked.

  ‘Firstly, that he’s never been found – a body usually turns up sooner or later – but there are also other things that point to it.’

  Line’s mind turned to the tip-offs. A couple of them had insisted that Meier had been seen abroad.

  ‘His mother was from Chile, you see,’ Henriette went on. ‘He was fluent in Spanish. That’s a good basis for starting a new life in a different country.’

  Someone spoke in the background again. ‘Let’s have a coffee together tomorrow,’ Henriette suggested. ‘Then we can discuss this further.’

  ‘I live in Stavern,’ Line said.

  ‘No problem. I can come down to you. As I said, I have a bad conscience about it all, because I feel I let the family down, and it would be great if someone else could make something of it.’

  They arranged to meet at a local café before rounding off their conversation.

  Line was still doubtful that Simon Meier could have survived but had to admit she had locked on to the theory that he had been disposed of, in the same way that the police had become fixated on the theory that he had drowned in the lake. If Simon Meier was still alive, he had broken every link with his family. Meaning he wanted to flee from something.

  32

  Just before midnight, Wisting finished his review of the airport robbery files. Some documents he had merely skimmed, but others he had read several times over. He agreed with Audun Thule that the raid had been exceptionally professional in its execution.

  The documents showed how much manpower had been devoted to gathering information, without the investigation ever really taking off. More had happened in the course of the past few days than at any previous point. The entire proceeds of the robbery had apparently been found, and they had also secured DNA evidence.

  Getting to his feet, he walked into the living room and began to pick up Amalie’s toys, which were still scattered across the floor. One of the jigsaw pieces had ended up far beneath the settee.