The Cabin

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘Wednesday would be fine,’ Line answered. ‘We could meet at your cabin in Kjerringvik? It’s not too far from my house.’

  ‘I can be there. You can come at ten o’clock.’

  Line thanked him and took a sip of coffee while she noted the date and time in her diary. Her father would probably be annoyed that it was five days away, but at least she had an appointment with Johnsrud. Anyway, she had little faith that a conversation with an old Party colleague would lead to anything.

  There was still some time left before Henriette Koppang was due to show up. Line rang Ulf Lande’s number and the chief investigator answered almost at once.

  ‘Sorry for pestering you,’ Line said. ‘I realize I should really collect all my questions together instead of disturbing you every time something turns up.’

  ‘It’s perfectly fine,’ Ulf Lande assured her.

  ‘It’s about the old pump house,’ she explained. ‘You said the police broke the door open. Do you know who it was who did that?’

  ‘It would be someone from one of the patrols.’

  ‘But you don’t know who exactly?’

  ‘I can’t give you a name. I wasn’t there myself, not at that point. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’m just looking at various angles, purely from a story-telling point of view. There’s nothing about it in the case documents.’

  ‘I see,’ Lande said. ‘That’s to do with the administrative side of things,’ Lande clarified.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘That some information doesn’t impinge on the actual investigation.’

  ‘But surely there is a record of who did what?’ Line asked.

  ‘To a certain degree,’ Lande answered.

  ‘Is that something I can take a look at?’

  ‘It shouldn’t be a problem, it’s probably in the null-and-void folder, but I’ve just sent it all over to Kripos.’

  ‘So Adrian Stiller now has the administrative case documents?’

  Ulf Lande confirmed this.

  ‘Do you know who owns the pump house?’ Line continued. ‘Who is the key holder?’

  ‘I would imagine it’s the water and sewage board,’ Lande replied. ‘It’s stated somewhere on the papers Stiller has. You see, we had to break down the door and so received a bill for the damage.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be normal for the person who broke in to be named?’

  ‘If the police have incurred expense as a result, that would have to be accounted for, and then they would most certainly be mentioned in some report,’ Lande confirmed. ‘But not among the actual case documents. The null-and-void folder contains most of the bits and pieces of admin paperwork.’

  Line thanked him for his help and contemplated phoning Adrian Stiller, just as the café door opened and Henriette Koppang looked around. Line recognized her from her photograph on the Internet and waved across.

  ‘Would you like anything?’ Line asked as Henriette sat down.

  ‘The same as you’re having,’ Henriette replied with a smile.

  Line bought another latte and brought over two glasses of water.

  ‘I understand you used to work at VG?’ Henriette asked.

  ‘For almost five years before I got pregnant,’ Line told her. ‘I took a severance package six months ago. Now I’m freelance, working mainly for weekly magazines and periodicals.’

  ‘You’ve achieved a lot in those five years. Loads of major stories.’

  ‘Mostly because I’ve been lucky,’ Line said. ‘Been in the right place at the right time, along with the right people.’

  ‘I had fairly grand ambitions when I started out in the industry,’ Henriette admitted. ‘But I wasn’t the only one. There are a lot of smart people around, and increasingly fewer jobs.’

  ‘Are you still working as a journalist?’

  ‘I keep a toe in the water, but I don’t have a permanent post. Right now I’m engaged as a researcher for Insider, where I’m able to use some of my old contacts.’

  ‘I watch that,’ Line said, smiling. Insider was a true-crime documentary series.

  ‘Everything changed when I got pregnant and had Josefine,’ Henriette added. ‘I didn’t have a permanent job, you see, and couldn’t work as much as I had before. It doesn’t take long to nosedive down through the ranks, no matter how good you are.’

  ‘Are you on your own with her?’ Line asked.

  Henriette Koppang pulled a face. ‘Not really,’ she said, brushing it off. ‘Let’s just say it’s complicated. What about you?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Line said, smiling. ‘But I live alone.’

  Henriette Koppang drank her latte. ‘Do you work from home, or do you have an office somewhere?’ she asked.

  ‘I have an office in the basement at home,’ Line replied.

  ‘And what have you discovered about Simon Meier?’

  ‘Not much,’ Line admitted. ‘But enough to doubt the police’s conclusion.’

  Henriette Koppang agreed. ‘I spoke to a biologist about the conditions on the bottom of Gjersjø lake,’ she said. ‘He was adamant that a human body would not vanish into the mud unless it had been weighted down with something heavy. I still have his name somewhere. I can certainly give it to you.’

  ‘Ulf Lande thought the body might have got snagged on something down in the mud,’ Line commented.

  ‘The divers used sonar,’ Henriette objected. ‘They would have seen something on the pictures if anyone was down there.’

  Line had only flicked through the documents detailing the sonar searches.

  ‘That was the sort of thing we did at Goliat,’ Henriette explained. ‘We picked cases apart and presented the mistakes we found in the investigation to the police. It was quite a job. Sometimes we found fresh answers ourselves or helped advance alternative theories.’

  ‘You thought he could be abroad somewhere?’ Line queried.

  ‘In Spain,’ Henriette said, nodding. ‘There were two different tip-offs that suggested he’d been seen in Marbella.’

  ‘That would suggest he had planned it,’ Line said. ‘And that there was something he was keen to run from.’

  ‘All the same, he left behind a hellish life,’ Henriette said. ‘He was a victim of bullying, had a badly paid job in a shop. No friends or girlfriend, no future.’

  She took another mouthful of coffee. ‘I also spoke to some of his schoolfriends,’ she went on. ‘His family bonds weren’t very strong either. His father was violent and his mother had mental health problems.’

  ‘So you think he ran away?’

  ‘The police never checked passenger lists on planes or boats,’ Henriette Koppang argued. ‘Also, the Øresund bridge had opened by then. You can drive straight to Marbella in thirty-six hours. Even though we live in a world full of computers, electronics and surveillance, it’s still possible to disappear and start a new life if you really want to.’

  ‘But it’s quite challenging,’ Line pointed out. ‘He would have needed money, for a start.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Henriette said, with a nod. ‘Many people who live unfulfilled lives buy lottery tickets and hope for better times. Maybe something happened that brought a large sum of money into his hands? Maybe that was why he disappeared so suddenly?’

  Line shifted in her seat. Henriette Koppang was presenting a very interesting theory, but there was one problem: Simon Meier had not possessed the money.

  ‘How would that have worked?’ she asked.

  ‘Maybe he found a stash of money or narcotics?’ Henriette suggested, not paying much attention to the fact that her theory sounded fantastical. ‘I travelled down there to search for him, you know,’ she added.

  ‘You went to Spain?’

  ‘My boyfriend has an apartment in Malaga and we have a few friends down there,’ Henriette clarified. ‘You have to remember that two separate tip-offs pointed to Marbella. Two independent tip-offs. Considering there are more than ten thousand towns in Europe, those ti
p-offs are interesting, but they were never followed up by the police.’

  ‘Did you find out anything down there?’

  ‘I spoke to the individuals who said they’d seen him. They were pretty certain, but nothing came of it. He could have moved on, of course, changed his appearance or something.’

  Line had little faith in the Spain theory but she was keen to take one premise in a different direction.

  ‘Let’s say he’d found some drugs money or saw something he shouldn’t have,’ she began. ‘Someone else could have spotted him and wanted to get rid of him?’

  Henriette Koppang sat deep in thought. ‘Another crime,’ she echoed. ‘What are you thinking about?’

  Line had no wish to mention the airport robbery, at least not yet. ‘Blackmail, for one thing,’ she suggested, picturing in her mind’s eye what might have taken place inside the old pump house.

  ‘Do you have a suspect in mind?’ Henriette asked.

  In the scenario she imagined, Lennart Clausen would be involved, but it was too early to bring up his name. ‘I’m working on it,’ she said instead.

  Henriette had a gleam in her eye. ‘You have a lead,’ she said. ‘Something new has come up to make you think that!’

  Line felt her blood pumping, unable to hide that Henriette Koppang had hit the nail on the head. ‘I don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘It may not be significant at all.’

  ‘What have you got?’ Henriette asked. ‘Is this something I could work on with you?’

  Line withdrew a little in her chair. She had taken a liking to this woman. ‘Maybe,’ she answered. ‘You’re still working for Insider?’

  ‘Do you think this could be a suitable story for them?’

  Line had not given this any thought, but of course it was a possibility and would displease Sandersen at VG. ‘You said you had contacts that could be useful,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, from the time I worked at Goliat,’ Henriette replied, nodding. ‘We had a series of interviews with known criminals which drew a more nuanced picture of them than the police had done. Those contacts are probably the most valuable data I gained from that newspaper.’

  Line considered whether she should play another card. It was no secret that the airport raid had taken place on the same day that Simon Meier went missing – it was just a connection that had not been picked up before. Talking about it wouldn’t put her father’s case at risk.

  ‘Did you write anything about the airport raid in 2003?’ she asked.

  Henriette Koppang opened her mouth but sat gawping before bursting into fits of laughter. ‘My God,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘Do you think there might be a connection there?’

  ‘The only thing I know is that the robbery took place on the same day that Simon Meier disappeared.’

  ‘That’s absolutely crazy!’

  ‘Do you have any informants that might know something?’ Line asked.

  ‘Well, I do know who to ask.’

  ‘You’ll have to be extremely discreet,’ Line warned her. ‘You mustn’t let anyone know anything.’

  She suddenly regretted sharing the information without her father’s permission, but at the same time this might lead them closer to the truth.

  ‘I know how this game works,’ Henriette assured her. ‘Do you have a name? A tip-off about who committed the robbery?’

  Line shook her head. This was information she was unwilling to share at present. ‘All I know is that no one was caught and that the money from the robbery was never found.’

  ‘This story could be really huge.’

  Line agreed. ‘Just keep it to yourself for now, though.’

  36

  The kitchen was no longer suitable as a centre of operations for the investigation. There were too many papers. Mortensen had helped Wisting to shift everything down into the basement, where the money was still stored.

  They had placed the table in the centre of the room, along with the chairs from the garden, so that they could hold meetings around it. One wall had been cleared and was used instead as a noticeboard. All the ring binders from the airport robbery investigation were on display. In one corner, Audun Thule had made a workstation for himself and linked up his laptop to the police networks. Mortensen sat with his back to him, engrossed in one of the forensic analysis reports.

  Wisting’s mobile phone rang, and he saw it was a number he had saved from an earlier case: Adrian Stiller.

  He considered not answering. Stiller was busy examining Simon Meier’s missing-person case, but it was the same story with him as with any police colleague in the Security Service branch: always looking to receive information, never to share.

  ‘Aren’t you going to take the call?’ Mortensen asked.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Wisting answered, swiping the screen with his finger.

  Stiller came straight to the point: ‘What’s the connection between Bernhard Clausen and Simon Meier?’ he asked.

  Wisting moved the phone to his other ear and chose to be equally direct: ‘I’m trying to find that out,’ he said. ‘Do you have anything for me?’

  ‘That depends,’ Stiller replied. ‘The Cold Cases Group has been sent the old missing-person files for a fresh assessment, but you probably already know that. Could Bernhard Clausen have anything to do with it?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘He’s named in a tip-off,’ Stiller explained.

  ‘I have the same tip-off,’ Wisting admitted. ‘Originally sent to the Director General.’

  Adrian Stiller confirmed that they were talking about the same piece of information. ‘Could there be anything in it?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re investigating other circumstances relating to Clausen,’ Wisting replied. ‘This was something that cropped up, and we had to take a look at it.’

  ‘Cropped up?’ Stiller repeated. ‘How can an old tip-off in a missing-person case simply crop up? What exactly is it you’re investigating?’

  Wisting had no answer to that.

  ‘Bernhard Clausen is dead,’ Stiller said. ‘Does it have to do with that?’

  ‘I can’t discuss that over the phone,’ was Wisting’s response, as his eyes flitted around the room. Mortensen had turned towards him and was listening in to the conversation.

  ‘I can come down to see you,’ Stiller offered.

  Wisting saw no option other than to include Adrian Stiller in the covert investigation group. Although he had reservations about the man’s approach and methods, he could nevertheless bring creative skills that would benefit the investigation. ‘I think that might be a good idea,’ Wisting said. ‘When can you get here?’

  ‘I’ve one thing I need to check on first. What about tomorrow? Are you going to work on this over the weekend?’

  ‘Tomorrow’s fine,’ Wisting confirmed. ‘You can come to my house.’

  ‘I’ll be there at ten o’clock,’ Stiller rounded off. ‘I expect Line’s there too?’ His last remark contained a trace of sarcasm.

  ‘She is,’ Wisting told him before he rang off.

  Mortensen got to his feet.

  ‘Adrian Stiller,’ Wisting said. ‘Cold Cases.’

  ‘You’re letting him join us?’

  ‘The tip-off about Bernhard Clausen has turned up in the old Simon Meier case documents,’ Wisting explained.

  ‘We were going to have to involve him anyway,’ Mortensen told him. ‘I’ve received the results from the examination of the tip-off letter.’

  Thule turned around.

  ‘Several fingerprints, but none identified,’ Mortensen went on. ‘We can collect the prints of employees in the Director General’s office for exclusion purposes, but all the same, we won’t find the sender in police records.’

  ‘It sounds as if there’s a but coming,’ Thule commented.

  ‘The envelope,’ Mortensen answered. ‘It was sliced open with a letter opener, but it had been sealed by moistening the glue on the back flap.’

  ‘Spit,’ Thu
le said. ‘DNA?’

  ‘We have a DNA profile,’ Mortensen said. ‘And we have a match.’

  Wisting felt a frisson of anticipation as he cast a glance at the computer screen behind Mortensen. He had doubted that the envelope would yield any results, but now the case could be about to open up.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t have a name, but there’s an interesting result in the trace register.’ The trace register contained DNA profiles of unknown identities from unsolved cases. ‘The letter writer is the same person as the condom-user in the Gjersjø case,’ Mortensen explained.

  Audun Thule required further elaboration.

  ‘In the area beside the old pump house where Simon Meier disappeared, used condoms and male pubic hairs were found,’ Wisting told him.

  ‘That makes sense,’ Thule replied.

  ‘He was there,’ Wisting said, referring to the anonymous letter writer. ‘He saw something.’

  37

  It was Friday afternoon and the traffic was nudging its way out of the capital city. Adrian Stiller sat with his hands on the steering wheel, thinking of Line Wisting. He could not quite work out her role in this. Whether her father had sent her to gain access to the Gjersjø case files, or whether she actually did intend to write a story about a cold case. Either way, it must have been her father who had tipped her off about Simon Meier.

  He looked down at the sheet of paper on the passenger seat beside him, the note that had dragged Bernhard Clausen into the case. He had understood why the yellow note attached to it had Arnt Eikanger’s name on it. Eikanger had worked as an officer in the local police station in Oppegård when Simon Meier went missing, but he was also politically active. He had been a local councillor and chair of the executive committee, as well as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in the period from 2003 to 2007. The officer in charge of the investigation must have thought it practical to ask him to make contact with Bernhard Clausen.

  Arnt Eikanger lived in Myrvoll, just beside Gjersjø lake, only a couple of kilometres from the fishing spot frequented by Simon Meier. The drive through the afternoon traffic took double the usual time.