The Cabin

by Jorn Lier Horst

  When the local police station was closed down, Eikanger had quit the police and concentrated entirely on politics. In the run-up to that autumn’s general election, he was in fourth place on the Labour Party’s list vote for members of parliament for the region in Norway’s proportional representation system. Stiller had not given Eikanger notice of his visit. The whole trip could prove to be a wasted journey, but he liked to speak to people without giving them an opportunity to prepare.

  He located the house and turned into a paved courtyard. As he stepped out of the car, it crossed his mind that police officers ought to be careful about expressing political viewpoints. A neutral political standpoint in the force would surely instil greater public confidence and trust.

  Arnt Eikanger was at home. A grey-haired man with glasses, he stood in the doorway while Stiller introduced himself.

  ‘I don’t mean to disturb you,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I was in the neighbourhood and thought I’d swing by and see if you were at home. We’ve taken up the Gjersjø case again and I’m following up some leads.’

  ‘I see,’ the former policeman answered. ‘Then you really must come in.’

  They sat down together at the kitchen table. ‘Is there anything new?’ Eikanger asked. ‘Has he been found, or something?’

  Stiller shook his head. ‘There’s nothing new,’ he said. ‘But there are a few unanswered questions from that time.’

  ‘It was Ulf Lande who led the investigation,’ Eikanger pointed out. ‘I had more responsibility for the operative details, such as organizing the search party. Ulf still works in the police force, at the police station in Ski.’

  Stiller drew out the letter that named Clausen.

  ‘I’ve spoken to him,’ he said. ‘But he couldn’t answer everything. He didn’t know how this was handled.’

  He pushed the letter across the kitchen table. Eikanger adjusted his glasses and read the brief text several times over before tearing off the note with his own name and then attaching it again.

  ‘I checked it out,’ he replied.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I spoke to Bernhard Clausen.’

  ‘You knew him?’

  Arnt Eikanger nodded. ‘We knew each other for years.’

  ‘Through the Labour Party?’

  There was a trace of reproach in his voice as Stiller posed this question.

  ‘Loads of police officers are politically active,’ Eikanger replied. ‘We see all the dysfunctional aspects of society and experience in the force is a good thing to bring into the political arena. The aim has always been the same, as far as I’m concerned: taking part in the creation of a safer and better society. I left the police a few years ago and actually believe I can help to make a greater difference when I become a Member of Parliament.’

  The reply seemed rehearsed but Stiller refrained from passing comment.

  Instead, he replied: ‘There’s no record of your conversation with Clausen.’

  ‘There was nothing to record,’ Eikanger explained.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Stiller asked, trying not to sound churlish. ‘If you spoke to him, surely you wrote a report about what he said?’

  Arnt Eikanger pushed the paper back across the table. ‘He didn’t have anything to contribute to the investigation,’ he said. ‘He knew nothing about it.’

  Stiller left the document lying between them. ‘Is that what you call checking him out?’ he queried. ‘You spoke to the person highlighted in a named tip-off, and when he says he doesn’t know anything about it, you’re satisfied with that?’

  ‘Listen!’ Eikanger said, obviously annoyed. ‘I knew Bernhard Clausen. I’m going to his funeral on Monday. There’s nothing to suggest that he had anything to do with Meier. There was no reason an anonymous tip-off should drag him into the investigation and place him under suspicion. He had enough problems on his plate at that time.’

  ‘What kind of problems?’

  ‘He’d been widowed and was finding his son very challenging.’

  ‘Did you ask him where he was on the evening Simon Meier went missing?’

  ‘He’d had a long day of meetings before returning to his parliamentary apartment in Oslo,’ Eikanger said. ‘He was there all week and just went home to Kolbotn at weekends, if he wasn’t at the cabin in Stavern.’

  ‘Did you check that this was correct?’

  ‘I saw no reason to question it. There was nothing to suggest that any crime had been committed.’

  ‘So you didn’t even commit any of it to paper?’

  ‘I reported back to Ulf Lande.’

  ‘Verbally?’

  ‘I told him what I had done. I’ve no idea whether he entered that information anywhere. If it hadn’t been for the letter being sent directly to the Director General, we probably wouldn’t have done anything about it at all. We were investigating a drowning accident.’

  ‘Why do you think someone would bring him to the Director General’s attention?’

  Arnt Eikanger shrugged. ‘A political opponent trying to tarnish his name?’ he said.

  Adrian Stiller retrieved the letter from the table. ‘So, you reckon it was politically motivated,’ he commented.

  ‘Clausen thought it had just been a misunderstanding.’

  ‘What kind of misunderstanding?’

  ‘He occasionally went for walks in the forest around Gjersjø lake when he needed time to think. That happened more often after Lisa’s death. He liked to be on his own. To be left in peace. Sometimes he parked his car at the pump station. He thought someone might have seen him there and mixed up the days.’

  ‘Mixed up the days? In what way? What day had he been there?’

  ‘Another day.’

  ‘But he was in Oslo all week, wasn’t he? When had he been at Gjersjø with his car?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Stiller said. ‘By his own admission, Bernhard Clausen links himself to the crime scene, but you don’t write a report on it or follow it up in any way whatsoever?’

  A deep frown appeared on Arnt Eikanger’s forehead. ‘There is no crime scene,’ he said, unruffled. ‘The case was filed away as a drowning accident. Are you really intending to spend time on this?’ he continued, rising from the table. ‘Bernhard Clausen is dead. If you were thinking of blackening his name, it will be without my involvement.’

  Stiller also stood up. ‘Good luck in the election!’ was his parting shot as he headed for the door.

  38

  At 7 p.m. the house was empty. Wisting activated the alarm, locked the basement door and climbed upstairs to the kitchen. Unearthing some sausages in the fridge, he put three in a pan with water and turned the heat up high.

  When his phone rang in his pocket, he fished it out, saw that it was Line and crossed to the window to gaze across at her house before answering.

  ‘Have you seen Dagbladet?’ she asked.

  He looked around for his iPad. ‘No,’ he replied.

  ‘They’re reporting on the book that Clausen was working on,’ Line told him.

  Once he located the iPad on the coffee table in the living room, he sat down and found the story.

  POSTHUMOUS MANUSCRIPT VANISHED WITHOUT TRACE was the headline.

  He read the report with Line still on the line.

  Former Finance Minister Trygve Johnsrud confirmed that, prior to his death, Bernhard Clausen had been working on a book about his time in the Labour Party. It had been a topic of conversation when Johnsrud had visited him at his cabin three weeks ago. He was unwilling to divulge anything about the contents, but from what the newspaper had learned, the book would be regarded as controversial. A number of issues were raised on which Bernhard Clausen had voiced opinions contrary to Party policy and put forward a more liberal political viewpoint in which he became a spokesman for a greater degree of economic and personal freedom.

  ‘The police are accused of running errands for the Party leadership and helping them to ge
t their hands on the manuscript,’ Line continued.

  Wisting found the paragraphs she was referring to. Christine Thiis, the police prosecutor, confirmed that they had removed several boxes of Clausen’s personal effects from the cabin shortly after the politician’s death but refused to confirm or deny that a manuscript featured among those or that the material they took included his computer. This meant that the manuscript had possibly been lost in the fire, the online newspaper concluded.

  ‘Krom,’ Wisting said. ‘The Party Secretary. He said he was in the cabin on Sunday to check that the windows were closed and the doors were locked. That was how he came across the cash. Of course, he must have been after the manuscript.’

  ‘So he’d have nicked it?’

  ‘He’d at least have wanted to get hold of it before anyone else did,’ Wisting told her.

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  Wisting was about to answer when a noise from the kitchen caught his attention.

  ‘The sausages!’

  He dashed out to the stove and found the water had boiled over and was sizzling on the hotplate. He pulled the pan aside and made his apologies to Line.

  ‘You can come and eat with us,’ Line offered. ‘I’ve got a lasagne in the oven.’

  The sausages in the pan had burst open.

  ‘That would be lovely.’

  ‘Can you come down after Amalie’s gone to bed, then?’ she asked. ‘I might have some information for you about the gang behind the airport raid.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Wisting promised.

  He left the spoiled sausages in the pan and phoned Christine Thiis.

  ‘Have you read the Dagbladet report about Bernhard Clausen?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Christine Thiis answered. ‘But I expect, as usual, to be cast in a bad light on behalf of the police force and get blamed for running errands for the Labour Party top brass.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Wisting said. ‘I had no idea about any book manuscript. We didn’t take anything like that out of the cabin. What I’m working on has to do with something entirely different.’

  ‘I’m longing to ask you what that is, but I’ll just have to resist.’

  ‘You’ll be one of the first to know,’ Wisting promised.

  When he hung up, he tracked down Walter Krom’s number.

  ‘This manuscript,’ Wisting said when Krom answered. ‘I want you to send it to me.’

  Krom was wise enough not to deny that he had it. ‘I’ve read through it,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing in it that might explain where the money came from.’

  ‘We’re interested in every aspect of Clausen’s life,’ Wisting replied. ‘If he wrote anything resembling memoirs, then I’d like to read them and decide for myself.’

  ‘We regard the manuscript as an internal Party matter,’ Krom said.

  ‘But I don’t,’ Wisting snapped. ‘If you send it over by courier, then it’ll reach me some time tomorrow.’

  Krom had nothing more to say on the matter. ‘Have you found out anything else?’ he asked instead.

  ‘We know where the money came from,’ Wisting replied. ‘When the time is right, you can read about it in the newspapers,’ he added, closing down their conversation.

  He headed to the kitchen drawer, where he found a fork, and fished the three sausages out and on to a plate before wolfing them down with a generous dollop of mustard.

  Line had served a portion of lasagne and placed it in the microwave by the time her father arrived.

  ‘Is she asleep?’ he asked, glancing towards Amalie’s bedroom.

  ‘She went out like a light,’ Line said, smiling. ‘Have you spoken to anyone about Bernhard Clausen’s manuscript?’

  Wisting drew out a chair and slung his jacket over the back. ‘I’ll get it tomorrow,’ he replied as he sat down.

  The microwave beeped a signal. Line took out the plate, added some salad and set it in front of him.

  ‘I had an interesting meeting today,’ she said, and went on to tell him about Henriette Koppang. ‘She tried to write a story about Simon Meier a few years back. Nothing came of it, but she thinks he ran off to Spain.’

  Wisting began to eat. ‘What did she base that on?’

  Line put on the kettle for tea. ‘There were two different sightings in Marbella,’ she said. ‘But her theory hinged on the idea that he’d found a stash of drugs or money, and had taken either the hush money or the cash and run.’

  ‘She does have a point there.’

  Line was reluctant to tell him the rest of the story. Her father would not be happy that she had introduced Henriette Koppang to the link with the airport robbery.

  ‘I thought so, too,’ she said. ‘I pointed out that the raid at Gardermoen had taken place on the same day that Simon Meier went missing.’

  Her father put down his fork.

  ‘It is information in the public domain, after all,’ she added.

  ‘Do you know her from before?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you checked any references?’

  ‘She works as a researcher for Insider,’ Line told him.

  ‘The TV programme?’

  ‘That’s the whole point. She has contacts in criminal circles. She knows people who might have some information.’

  ‘But you can’t trust her!’ her father groaned.

  Line raised her voice. ‘You have to trust me!’ she said. ‘This might lead us further, as opposed to going around in circles talking to old Party colleagues. She’s a professional and knows how to handle informants.’

  Her father did not say anything.

  ‘She won’t publicize any connection to the Gjersjø investigation,’ Line went on. ‘She’s putting out some feelers about the robbery under the pretext that Insider is keen to make a programme about it.’

  Wisting seemed slightly pacified. ‘You didn’t mention Bernhard Clausen?’

  Line glanced up at him in dismay, shaking her head. ‘You must have some faith in me and give me some room for manoeuvre,’ she told him. ‘You don’t micro-manage what the others are doing.’

  ‘The others are experienced investigators,’ her father pointed out.

  ‘You were the one who wanted me in this group,’ Line said. ‘You have to let me use my own experience, let me do things my way.’

  ‘I just don’t want you to make a wrong move,’ Wisting said. ‘Sorry.’

  The kettle was boiling. Line poured water into a cup and left it while she filled the infuser. ‘Would you like a cup?’ she asked.

  Wisting shook his head.

  ‘By the way, do we know whether the money found in the cabin is all the cash from the robbery?’ she asked.

  Her father resumed eating. ‘Audun Thule went through that today. There is a few thousand kroner difference. But that can be blamed on miscounting or the raiders taking a handful before they stashed the money away.’

  Line took a seat and they sat in silence.

  ‘Adrian Stiller phoned today,’ Wisting said after a while.

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He came across the tip-off that named Bernhard Clausen in the Gjersjø case,’ her father explained. ‘It was passed on by the local police.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘To begin with, his inquiry was only a shot in the dark, but, once he’d scored a hit, I couldn’t give him the brush-off. He’s coming here tomorrow.’

  ‘So he’s going to join the investigation group?’

  ‘We need full access to the case documents from that time,’ her father said, nodding.

  Line heaved a sigh. She should have envisaged this situation arising, but she did not like it one bit.

  ‘He’s going to see through me and realize what I was up to.’

  ‘I think he already has his suspicions, but you haven’t done anything wrong. Besides, I think he’ll respect you for it.’

  Line had to agree. To Adrian Stiller, his investigations we
re games of strategy in which he set the players up against one another, held the cards close to his chest and did not always play fair.

  A faint, high-frequency noise sounded in the distance. Line carried her teacup to the window and looked out but was unable to place the sound.

  ‘We had a DNA result today,’ Wisting said.

  Line turned to face him.

  ‘The sender of the anonymous tip-off about Clausen is the same person as the condom-user at Gjersjø,’ her father went on to say.

  ‘And you don’t mention that until now?’ Line complained. ‘That gives the tip-off credibility. The letter writer has been at the pump house!’

  They heard the buzz of a text message and Line checked her phone.

  ‘It was yours,’ she said to her father.

  Wisting fumbled for his phone in his jacket pocket on the back of the chair. Another message arrived.

  ‘The alarm!’ he yelled, rushing for the door.

  It took a couple of seconds for Line to realize what he was talking about. She raced after her father and caught up with him halfway up the hill. The noise of the alarm siren grew louder.

  ‘Wait here!’ Wisting ordered.

  Ignoring him, she stayed hot on his heels all the way to the front door.

  Her father had the key ready. He let himself in, located another key and opened the door to the basement.

  Line switched on the light. Everything looked normal. Her father reset the alarm before inspecting the room. The boxes of money sat untouched.

  ‘False alarm,’ he decided.

  ‘Something set it off,’ Line said, looking around to find an explanation.

  Wisting stood clutching his phone.

  ‘There’s a camera in the detector,’ he said. ‘I’ve received some footage.’

  Line hovered by his side, gazing at the images on his phone that followed the alarm alert. There were two detectors, one on either side of the room, and the one that had triggered the alarm covered Audun Thule’s workstation and the windowless wall.

  ‘Maybe it was a mouse or something,’ her father suggested.

  Line walked across to the wall being used as a noticeboard. Audun Thule had pinned up photos of the suspects in the airport robbery.