The Cabin

by Jorn Lier Horst

  The names had originally been listed in alphabetical order and Stiller had looked up each individual in the population register. Married men with children were moved to the bottom of the list. Unmarried men with no family responsibilities were pushed to the top. Although this sorting method had its weaknesses, he knew the man they were searching for most likely hid his sexual orientation, which meant he might be found further down the list.

  The selection process brought the name Vegard Skottemyr to the top of the list. He suited the potential profile perfectly. Aged forty-four, he was unmarried and worked as a customer adviser in DNB bank, he had no children and his address history suggested that he had never had a live-in partner either. He had three older sisters and his father was a pastor in the Free Church.

  Stiller started the car and pulled out into the traffic. Vegard Skottemyr lived half an hour away.

  42

  Line sat at her computer in her basement office. She should have gone out to the local playground with Amalie, but for the moment her daughter looked happy enough to sit on the floor with the iPad.

  The file she had received from Adrian Stiller was extensive and the machine worked sluggishly, but it would be far easier to negotiate her way around the electronic edition of the Gjersjø case files than a thick bundle of papers.

  She typed Clausen into the search field and was taken aback when it produced two hits. The first was for Lennart Clausen in the old class lists from the school where both he and Simon Meier had been pupils. The next result was the letter to the Director General that was now included in the inquiry.

  There were eighty-seven hits for Eikanger. Most of these were in connection with the interviews he carried out. In total, he had interviewed nineteen men and eleven women, and this included the man who had been walking his dog.

  With the anonymous letter writer in mind, the male interviewees were of primary interest to her. She would have a thorough read of what they had said, but the search function had sparked an idea. She keyed in the phone number from the note found with the money. No result. Then she searched for the name Daniel. That yielded five results, including one for the Red Cross leader. Neither he nor any of the other Daniels seemed to fit the bill.

  Before she began to read the interviews, she was keen to look at the null-and-void documents that had been omitted from the case files the first time she had looked at them.

  Stiller had collected these into a special subfolder. She recognized many of the documents from her visit to Simon Meier’s brother: letters to and from the victim’s counsel and a copy of the death declaration. Arnt Eikanger’s name appeared in a statement concerning the damaged pump-house door. He was the one who had broken it open during the search activities. The damage was not to the lock itself but to the door and the doorframe. The destruction was repaired and the appropriate council department informed. Three months later, the parents’ committee sent the letter to the police, pointing out that the door to the pump house was still lying open. Arnt Eikanger reported that a representative from the water and sewage board had visited the pump house with a key and locked it up before the police left the scene. In a fairly arrogant tone, the complaint had therefore been dismissed.

  Amalie came over and stood at the edge of the desk. ‘Shall we go out to play?’ Line suggested.

  Amalie nodded.

  ‘Mummy is just going to finish reading this,’ Line told her, moving on to the next page.

  It was a copy of a letter from Oppegård local authority to Østli school, thanking them for drawing attention to the state of the old pump station that had been left unsecured and stating that they had now closed the building.

  Amalie began to play with a stapler on the desk. Line took it out of her hands and patted her daughter on the head.

  ‘OK, then,’ she said, skimming through the rest of the document. ‘Let’s get dressed and go out.’

  She was about to stand up, but something on the screen pinned her to the chair. A tiny detail about to flit past, a name. The letter from the local authority was written by the person in charge of the water and sewage board, Roger Gudim.

  Gudim was not a common name. She thought of the photo of Jan Gudim and the other potential raiders on the wall of the basement in her father’s house. In some way or other, they had obtained the key to the disused pump station.

  Gudim. There could be a family connection.

  Amalie tugged at her sleeve. ‘Mummy.’

  ‘Yes, sweetie,’ she replied, turning away from the image on the screen. ‘Now we’ll go out.’

  She helped Amalie with her shoes and found their cycle helmets.

  The black cat was stretched out on the ground in front of the car when they ventured outside, but leapt up and ran out into the street, with Amalie racing after it.

  ‘No!’ Line yelled.

  She bounded after her daughter and caught her just before she reached the road.

  ‘Cars could come!” Line chided.

  ‘Puss!’ Amalie said, pointing down the street.

  ‘Now we’re going to the play park,’ Line said, donning her cycle helmet.

  No children of Amalie’s age lived in their street, but they usually cycled to the park in Vardeveien, where there were sometimes children they knew.

  Amalie sat in the seat behind Line on the bike and sang as Line pedalled, her little body rocking from side to side.

  Her father had access to the population register, Line thought as they swayed along the road. A quick search would reveal whether the manager of the water and sewage board in Oppegård was related to one of the suspected robbers. In that case, it would draw an even clearer picture of how this all connected.

  There was no one at the playground, but Amalie made a beeline for the slide, clambered up and slithered down. Next time, Line had to go with her. After two turns, Amalie wanted to move on to the swings, and Line pushed her hard as her daughter squealed in delight.

  Her phone rang and she saw that the caller was Henriette Koppang. Line answered and headed towards one of the picnic benches to sit down.

  ‘Are you out working?’ Henriette asked.

  ‘I’m at the park with Amalie,’ Line replied. ‘Have you found out anything?’

  ‘I’ve had a few interesting conversations,’ Henriette said. ‘Will you be at home tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could we meet at the same café as before, so that I can tell you more?’

  Line glanced across at the swings. ‘I’d have to bring Amalie along,’ she said.

  ‘Then I’ll bring Josefine. That’ll be nice.’

  ‘What have you discovered?’ Line asked.

  ‘The rumour is that the robbers were robbed,’ Henriette explained. ‘The money was stolen from them.’

  ‘Does anyone know who the robbers were?’ Line queried, tempted to share the names she already had.

  ‘Let’s chat tomorrow,’ Henriette suggested. ‘I’m meeting an informant this evening.’

  Amalie shouted that she wanted another push.

  ‘OK,’ Line said. ‘Twelve noon?’

  ‘Twelve noon is fine.’

  She put her phone back, crossed to the swing and gave Amalie another big push.

  A dad appeared with two small boys, who started to play in the sandpit, and Amalie wanted to get off the swing to play with them. Line sat down on the bench again and saw her daughter watch the two boys before tentatively borrowing a spade.

  Line had seen the father before. Three or four years younger than her, he lived somewhere in the neighbourhood. He sat down on the opposite side of the picnic table.

  ‘Out for a breath of air,’ he said with a smile.

  Line returned his smile.

  ‘How old is she?’ the man asked, nodding towards the sandpit.

  ‘She’s just turned two,’ Line answered. ‘What about yours?’

  ‘They’re three and four.’

  Amalie toddled over. ‘Thirsty,’ she said.

  ‘I
didn’t bring anything with us to drink,’ Line said, getting to her feet. ‘But now we’re going to visit Grandpa. You can get some juice from him.’

  Amalie did not seem entirely happy with that suggestion but made no protest when Line put the helmet on her head.

  The vehicles belonging to Mortensen and Thule had left when Line turned into her father’s driveway. Taking off her helmet, she went round to the terrace at the back. It looked deserted now that the garden table and chairs had been carried down to the basement. Only a sofa was left.

  The terrace door was closed and she asked Amalie to knock on the glass. Her father appeared and let them in. ‘Have you had a visitor?’ he asked.

  ‘A visitor?’

  ‘A man came out of your house not long ago,’ her father said. ‘I saw him from the kitchen window.’

  ‘We haven’t been at home,’ Line told him. ‘We’ve been for a ride on the bike. Amalie’s thirsty.’

  ‘I have some juice,’ her father said, with a smile.

  Amalie accompanied him into the kitchen and Line followed behind. She stood at the window and looked towards her own house: she had no idea who the visitor might have been.

  ‘Well, it looked as if he came from your house,’ Wisting said, producing three tumblers. ‘He walked on down the road.’

  He mixed some squash and water, gave Line a tumbler and let Amalie drink some before she carried her tumbler carefully out on to the terrace.

  Line sat down in the doorway while her father took a seat on the sofa outside. He held Amalie’s tumbler for her while she scrambled up to join him.

  ‘I think I know where the robbers got hold of the pump-house key,’ Line told him. ‘The boss at the water and sewage board is called Roger Gudim.’

  ‘Jan Gudim,’ her father commented.

  ‘Can you find out if they’re related?’

  Her father fetched his iPad. It took him a while to log into the correct system but, once he was in, the answer popped up quickly.

  ‘Father and son,’ he confirmed, getting to his feet. ‘Thule has produced a folder on him.’

  He disappeared and re-emerged with a plastic folder with Jan Gudim written on it in black marker pen. He drew out the top sheet and skimmed through it. ‘A number of convictions,’ he said. ‘Looks as if he’s in jail now.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Narcotics and breach of the gun laws. He’s served two years of an eight-year sentence. Aleksander Kvamme was charged with the same crimes, but no prosecution was brought.’

  He handed the papers to Line. There was little detail in the printouts, but the case related to the import of a total of twenty kilos of amphetamines. Two other men had received shorter prison sentences in the same case.

  Wisting lifted Amalie on to his lap. She had started to whimper and wanted some food.

  ‘We’re moving towards something,’ he said. ‘Making good progress.’

  Line took out her daughter’s dummy. ‘Henriette Koppang phoned,’ she said. ‘She’s going to meet an informant tonight. The story going round is that the proceeds of the robbery were stolen. She’s coming over here tomorrow.’

  ‘Keep that to yourself,’ her father said abruptly, with a nod in the direction of Jan Gudim’s folder.

  Line stood up, returned the folder to her father and took charge of Amalie.

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  Amalie nuzzled into the crook of Line’s neck, and Line stroked her daughter’s hair. ‘We’d better head home,’ she said.

  Wisting gave them each a hug before she carried Amalie around the house again and wheeled her bike along the street. Halfway there, she put her daughter down to walk the rest of the way.

  Amalie toddled up the steps as Line put her bike aside. ‘Wait,’ she said, rummaging for her keys, but Amalie had already gone inside.

  Line stared at the open door. ‘Wait!’ she shouted sternly.

  Amalie stood in the hallway.

  ‘Wait here,’ Line said, walking ahead of her into the house.

  She might have forgotten to lock the door – that had happened before – but what her father had said about a man leaving her house rang alarm bells.

  She moved through the kitchen and into the living room, with Amalie waddling after her.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said again.

  She checked the bedrooms and the basement to be sure there was nobody inside the house. Then she went out to the hallway and locked the front door before hoisting Amalie on to her hip again and doing another circuit to see if anything looked different. She could not find anything untoward. Her laptop was still on the kitchen table, exactly as she had left it. Her bag was slung over the back of a chair, her purse safely inside it. All the same, she could not shake off the feeling that someone had been in the house.

  The bedroom windows were open slightly to air the rooms. They were old and of the type that could be opened from the outside if you put a stick or something similar into the opening and pushed up the child lock on the frame.

  She entered her own bedroom. The window overlooked the garden at the back. On the window ledge there was a framed photograph of her mother and a glass unicorn. They did not appear to have been moved, and there were no prints or marks to suggest that anyone had climbed in that way, but it was certainly possible to do so before leaving through the front door.

  Amalie squirmed and wanted to get down. Planting her on the floor, Line crossed to the window, pulled it shut and chased away her thoughts.

  43

  Vegard Skottemyr had moved from Kolbotn in 2004 and had been listed at three other addresses since then. The last of these was a modern terraced apartment in a cul-de-sac in Lørenskog. Adrian Stiller drove slowly past and parked at the end of the street. Before he stepped out, he skimmed through the statement Skottemyr had provided in 2003. Several people had noticed a man out jogging in the blue and white colours of the local sports club. Once this had been mentioned in the local newspaper, Vegard Skottemyr had made contact with the local police station. On the afternoon of Thursday 29 May 2003, he had taken a detour from his usual run to take a leak and ran a few metres down the track leading to the disused pump station. He had not noticed anyone or anything, but it was quite possible that he had been observed from cars passing on the main road.

  Placing the papers in a separate folder, Stiller brought them with him and walked up to the apartment. There was only one name on the mailbox and one name on the doorbell.

  A buzz sounded inside when he pressed the button and a man in a tracksuit appeared at the door, his top soaked through with sweat.

  Stiller showed him his police ID. ‘I work on old, unsolved cases,’ he explained. ‘I’d like to talk to you about Simon Meier, who went missing from Gjersjø in 2003.’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘If possible,’ Stiller said. ‘It won’t take long.’

  The man at the door took a step back and ushered Stiller in. ‘Is there any news?’ Skottemyr asked.

  ‘It’s really more of a routine run-through,’ Stiller clarified. ‘We’re talking to everyone interviewed at that time, mainly to confirm their statements.’

  Vegard Skottemyr showed Stiller to a seat at the kitchen table and filled a bottle of water before sitting down himself.

  ‘Do you live alone?’ Stiller asked as he took out the old interview form.

  The other man nodded.

  ‘Do you remember what you said at that time?’ Stiller went on.

  ‘More or less,’ Skottemyr said. ‘I was in the habit of jogging past the track down to the pump house. I ran a short distance down the track to have a piss.’

  With a nod, Stiller pushed the interview form across the table to him. ‘Would you read it through, please?’ he asked.

  Skottemyr drew the paper towards him and read quickly through the statement. It was no more than a page and a half of typewritten text. In addition to the detour from his jogging trip, Skottemyr had described the clothes he had been wearing, when he
had left home, the route he had taken and when he had got back. At that time, he had been living in a basement apartment beneath his parents’ house. They would be able to confirm the exact time when he returned home.

  ‘Did you already know the officer who interviewed you?’ Stiller asked. ‘Arnt Eikanger?’

  ‘I knew who he was,’ Skottemyr answered. ‘Everyone knew the folk who worked in the local police station to some degree. He’s a politician these days.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Stiller replied, smiling. ‘Did you vote for him?’

  Skottemyr returned the smile. ‘Wrong party.’

  ‘Did you tell him anything that isn’t written down here?’ Stiller asked.

  Vegard Skottemyr took a swig from the water bottle before shaking his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Have you remembered anything else since?’

  ‘There wasn’t much to tell,’ Skottemyr replied, handing back the statement.

  Stiller grew frustrated. He was convinced that the man facing him was the anonymous letter writer and had thought it would be an easy matter to persuade him to talk about it. He would have to be more direct in his questioning.

  ‘Do you know who Bernhard Clausen is?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did you see him that day?’

  Skottemyr cast a glance at the interview form. ‘Everything I saw and didn’t see is here,’ he answered.

  Stiller considered querying his sexual orientation but decided against it. ‘What we also do in these run-throughs of old cases is to ask all those involved to give a DNA sample,’ he said instead.

  ‘I wasn’t exactly involved,’ Skottemyr commented.

  With a smile, Stiller produced a testing kit. ‘You were in the area the day Simon Meier disappeared,’ he said. ‘That means we’d like a sample from you. New technology makes DNA more relevant than it was at that time. Is that OK with you?’