The door opened. She turned. Christer Storm Isaksen was escorted in. He looked much older, but she still recognised him from the photos she’d seen in the newspapers.
‘Hi,’ she said, stretching out her hand. ‘Emma Ramm, from news.no. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.’ She could hear her voice shaking.
Isaksen shook her hand and stared at her. She had been face-to-face with a murderer before, but as their eyes met, she felt no fear. Just pity.
He let go. The officer instructed her on how to use the intercom for when the meeting was over. And then they were left alone.
‘Shall we sit?’ Emma suggested.
Isaksen nodded and took a seat.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked.
It dawned on Emma that Isaksen probably didn’t have access to the internet so wouldn’t have read the article she had published about Patricia and Ruth-Kristine. She was prepared for the question, nevertheless.
‘I’d like to talk to you about your daughter,’ she said. ‘And Ruth-Kristine. I don’t know whether you’ve heard that—’
‘I know about the explosion,’ he interrupted. ‘Is that the only reason you’ve come?’
‘I would like to talk to you a bit about … everything that happened to you,’ Emma said. ‘It could be related to what’s going on now.’
‘Have you heard something about Patricia?’ Isaksen pressed. ‘Something new?’
Emma shook her head. ‘Unfortunately not,’ she answered. ‘But what happened to Ruth-Kristine on New Year’s Eve may have triggered some movements in the case. I’d like to talk to you about it.’
Isaksen looked disappointed. Like he had been hoping for something. He opened his mouth and began a new approach:
‘You haven’t…?’ he began, but it seemed as if he changed his mind.
‘Who have you spoken to, before coming here?’ he asked instead.
‘I’ve spoken to Alexander Blix,’ Emma replied.
His eyes flashed. ‘What did he say?’
‘Blix doesn’t say much,’ Emma smiled.
‘Did you talk about the photo?’
Emma tilted her head. ‘What photo?’
Isaksen shook his head. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘Who else have you spoken to?’
‘Just my boss, Anita Grønvold. She wrote a lot about the investigation, at the time. What happened to your daughter, it consumed her. She was obsessed, and the more I work on this case, the more I get sucked into it too. If I can help in any way, to find out what happened, I’ll do it.’
The room was silent. Distant shouts came from somewhere above them. The sound of a metal door slamming shut.
‘Someone out there has to know something,’ Emma continued, gesturing towards the window. ‘Your story could make them come forward. To get in touch, to help you.’
Isaksen leant back in his chair, took a long, deep breath and slowly released it again.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk.’
35
Tønsberg Police Station was located in the town centre. One of the local investigators, who introduced himself as Jan Olimb, met Blix at the entrance.
‘Ahlander has admitted to everything,’ he said, giving Blix a copy of the case file.
Blix flipped through them.
‘What did he have to say?’ he replied.
‘That he mistook the journalist for someone else.’
‘Who?’
‘He wouldn’t say, other than that he thought she was a woman with some issues who had been bothering him for a while.’
Blix nodded, thinking of Ruth-Kristine.
‘On top of that, he admitted to being in possession of and using hash,’ Olimb continued. ‘So we’re all done and ready to release him, but I understand that you wanted to talk to him first?’
‘I would like to see the cabin first actually,’ Blix answered. ‘Do you have the keys?’
‘I can find them,’ Olimb replied. ‘But if we’re going to keep him here any longer, you’ll have to tell the police prosecutor what you suspect him of.’
Blix met his gaze. ‘I’m working on the investigation into the bombings,’ he explained, examining the investigator to see his reaction.
‘Is Sophus Ahlander involved?’ he asked.
‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out.’
‘The journalist said that she had approached him about something connected to an old missing-persons case,’ Olimb said. ‘But she was reluctant to answer as well.’
‘Several cases seem to have become intertwined,’ Blix said, looking down at his watch and noticing how little time he had.
The investigator disappeared inside the station and returned with a clear plastic bag holding two sets of keys.
‘I’ll go with you,’ he said, passing the bags to Blix. ‘The other keys are for his house in Bærum. You might want to have a look round there too?’
Blix thanked him. He had hoped to look through the cabin alone, but couldn’t decline Olimb’s offer.
They took Blix’s car, with Jan Olimb giving him directions all the way to the cabin. A red sign on the brown cabin wall welcomed them in large, ornate letters.
The keys to the front door were attached to a keyring with a Mercedes pendant. The lock was stiff, as if the cabin hadn’t been used that often.
Blix entered first, walking through the small hallway and into a living room that had a white fireplace and a half-full log basket next to it. Empty beer bottles and a plateful of food had been left on the creased, mint-green tablecloth covering the dining table. There was a sofa, two armchairs and a leather foot stool. Old newspapers and magazines were stacked up on the table next to the armchair.
‘What are you looking for?’ Jan Olimb asked.
Blix didn’t answer, and carried on, heading further into the cabin. What he was looking for, was anything that could prove that Patricia had been there. There were two small bedrooms with bunk beds. Blix lifted the mattresses, looked in the cupboards, finding nothing of interest.
A small bathroom with a toilet, walk-in shower and a sink. The cabinet next to the sink contained a few toiletries. A mop and bucket were tucked away in a larger cabinet in the far corner of the room.
The kitchen was small and cramped. It had an old stove, a dark-blue counter and shelves upon shelves of canned food, visible behind the panes of glass.
There was a staircase that led from the kitchen up to the loft. Blix climbed up. There were four beds – with duvets, pillows and mattresses but no covers. The layer of dust on the floor indicated that there hadn’t been anyone there for a while.
Blix went back downstairs and into the smallest bedroom. If Patricia had been there, it would most likely have been this room that they kept her in.
He found a strand of hair on the pillow and wondered if he should bag it up and take it with him, but he let it go. Instead, he lifted up the mattress and shifted the panels aside to look underneath.
‘What exactly are you looking for?’ Jan Olimb asked again.
Blix studied him. The other investigator was quite a few years younger than he was, but seemed experienced and had a jovial manner that radiated confidence.
‘I’m wondering if a child has been here,’ he answered.
‘A child?’ Olimb repeated.
Blix put the mattress down again. ‘Patricia Storm Isaksen,’ he explained.
‘Bloody hell,’ the other investigator exclaimed. ‘I read an article online about that earlier. Her mother was injured in the explosion. They aren’t sure whether she’ll survive.’
Blix hadn’t read the article himself, but he presumed it was Emma’s piece that news.no had released.
He chose not to elaborate on how thin the basis for his suspicions of Ahlander was, or the extent to which he believed Ahlander was involved in the bombing.
‘Patricia was in a pushchair when she was kidnapped,’ he explained instead. ‘The blanket she was covered with was white on one side and pink on the other. It had an ele
phant with big ears and a long trunk on both sides. A pink elephant on the white side, vice versa on the other. The same on the pillow. There was a white, crocheted blanket in there as well, and a toy chain with colourful shapes that had been clipped on to either side of the canopy.’
Jan Olimb pulled out a small torch from a clip on his belt.
‘I’ll search in the other room,’ he said.
‘Great. She was wearing white tights, a bodysuit and a Winnie-the-Pooh jumper,’ Blix continued, now reading from the report he’d just pulled from his jacket pocket. ‘There was a baby-changing bag, a grey one, attached to the pushchair’s handle. It contained a bottle, a few dummies, antiseptic cream, sachets of baby porridge, flannels, nappies and some wet wipes,’ he concluded. ‘Things like that. It was ten years ago, but the cabin doesn’t look like it’s been used that much.’
They worked in silence. Searched every room, every cupboard and every drawer. Blix was just starting to take all the pots out of the cupboard under the kitchen counter when the local investigator shouted to him from inside the bathroom.
Blix stopped and stood in the doorway. Jan Olimb was sitting back on his heels, kneeling in the middle of the floor.
‘Under the cabinet,’ he explained, pointing with his torch.
The cabinet was raised on four legs, about ten centimetres from the floor.
‘What is it?’ Blix asked.
Olimb didn’t respond, but made room for him and passed him the torch.
Blix kneeled down. He leant forwards, bowed his head and aimed the light.
Dust and old bits of fluff had gathered in the space underneath, but tucked into the far corner was a pink dummy with a picture of a teddy bear on it.
Blix could feel his heart rate increasing. His mouth was dry, and he was starting to feel dizzy.
‘I didn’t want to touch it,’ Olimb said in a low voice.
‘Smart choice,’ Blix replied.
He grabbed his phone and took a few photos. He got up, walked back to the doorway and took some more photos of the entire room. He envisioned a child, crying. She had probably spat out her dummy. Imagined how it had landed on the floor and rolled under the cabinet. It could have been there for the last ten years.
Jan Olimb had found a pair of latex gloves and an evidence bag.
‘You do it,’ he said, passing the equipment to Blix.
Blix pulled the gloves on, lay down on the floor and fished out the dummy.
‘Do you think there might be DNA on it?’ Olimb asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Blix said, almost whispering. ‘But you can bet on your life that I’m going to find out.’
36
Christer Storm Isaksen spun the two glasses on the table to face him and filled them with water from a plastic jug.
‘What kind of movements do you mean?’ he asked, repeating what she had said: ‘movements in the case’.
Emma searched for a way to explain the very little she actually knew about it.
‘I understand that you believe Ruth-Kristine was involved in the kidnapping,’ she began. ‘That she had an accomplice, who in turn was helped by Knut Ivar Skage, who looked after Patricia.’
Isaksen took a sip from his glass.
‘The police searched for the accomplice,’ Emma continued. ‘There had to have been a man who Ruth-Kristine knew, and who had no experience dealing with children.’
He gave her a quick nod.
‘They couldn’t find anyone who matched the profile at the time, but perhaps it would be possible to find him now.’
‘How so?’ he asked.
‘They may have resumed contact,’ Emma suggested. ‘What happened to Ruth-Kristine on New Year’s Eve has now prompted the police to look into her again.’
‘The police were here,’ Isaksen said. ‘Blix. He didn’t say anything about that.’
‘Have you heard the name Sophus Ahlander before?’ Emma asked. ‘Was he mentioned at all around the time Patricia disappeared?’
Isaksen shook his head. ‘I would have remembered. Who is he?’
‘One of the last people Ruth-Kristine spoke to the day before the explosion,’ Emma explained. ‘He fits the profile. No children. And no siblings with any children either.’
Isaksen sat, holding the glass of water in his lap.
‘Interesting,’ he said.
‘The police have him in custody,’ Emma continued.
Isaksen’s eyes widened, and Emma had to tell him about what happened to her when she tried to get in touch with Ahlander.
‘What is your opinion now, all these years later?’ she asked. ‘Are you still convinced that Ruth-Kristine had something to do with it?’
It was as if something had awoken within the man. An anger that, although not directed at her, she could feel radiating off him from the other side of the table.
‘I said it from the start,’ he said. ‘She was furious with me when she wasn’t granted custody, and for only being allowed to see Patricia under supervision. It was degrading, she said, and I can understand that, of course. But her temper…’ He shook his head. ‘It scared me, a few times. And even though I don’t think it really meant all that much to her to be a mother, it was definitely important to her that I wasn’t allowed to be a father.’
‘She wanted revenge, you mean?’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘But what do you think happened that day?’ Emma continued. ‘What happened to your daughter?’
Isaksen traced his finger thoughtfully around the rim of the glass.
‘I think she sold her,’ he said finally. ‘It happens. It sounds absurd, but I’ve read a lot about it. Ruth-Kristine never had money.’
Emma put her glass down, pulled out a pen and notebook.
‘But don’t those kind of things take a lot to pull off?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, to sell a child. I wouldn’t even know where to start.’
‘Ruth-Kristine was involved with the wrong kind of people,’ Isaksen said with a sigh. ‘So I have no doubt that she knew someone who knew someone who could get the ball rolling. Human trafficking is big business. It’s not that difficult to imagine that it happens in Norway too. Or that Ruth-Kristine got someone to take her out of the country, or … that something went wrong, and she’s buried somewhere.’
‘But wasn’t Ruth-Kristine involved in the search for your daughter, those first few weeks after her disappearance?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Isaksen said, with a bitter smile. ‘She was. But she was smart, and if she wanted to get away with whatever she had done, she didn’t have any other choice. Of course she had to help. Cry on TV, cry in front of the journalists. Sleep as little as possible, so she could look as devastated as possible.’
‘You think it was an act.’
‘I know it was an act.’
‘What about the neighbour who was with Ruth-Kristine on the day Patricia was kidnapped?’ Emma continued. ‘Jette Djurholm. Do you think she was part of the act as well?’
Christer shrugged. ‘I don’t know much about her,’ he said. ‘I never met her. But I do know that Ruth-Kristine was good at manipulating people. Djurholm was probably just a pawn to her, like everyone else.’
Emma nodded.
‘How did you and Ruth-Kristine meet in the first place?’ she asked carefully. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’
Isaksen looked as if he were reminiscing.
‘I … was drinking a lot in those days. I don’t even remember where I met Ruth-Kristine, but it was at some bar or some party in Oslo. She came home with me. I sent her off in a taxi a few hours later. Didn’t think anything more of it, until she turned up at my door just over three months later, telling me she was pregnant.’
‘And she was sure that you were the father?’
‘Yes,’ he said with a smile. ‘But I insisted on making sure. She was right, I was the father. And it … changed my life. I didn’t want the child to grow up without a fathe
r, so … Ruth-Kristine and I, we tried to make it work. We made an honest attempt, but it didn’t take long to realise that we were miles apart on … too many things. She wasn’t completely clean, but I only realised that later on. She was always tired. Depressed. I caught her drinking, for one thing, and smoking. You shouldn’t do that when you’re pregnant.’
Isaksen raised the glass to his mouth, looking as if he were deep in thought.
‘So we were on a collision course from day one,’ he said, instead of taking a drink from the glass. ‘And it eventually resulted in this senseless battle about custody and everything else under the sun. I’m not proud of what happened back then, but I just thought it wasn’t good for Patricia to have someone like Ruth-Kristine in her life on a daily basis. It could’ve been disastrous. And,’ he added. ‘It was.’
Emma wrote down a few brief notes, then tried to lead the conversation to the night Isaksen had become a killer. Once there, she let him tell the story as it came to him.
‘I had promised a reward,’ he explained. ‘The police had advised me not to. They said it would just coax out the liars and impostors, and that it wouldn’t contribute anything to the investigation other than delays and distractions. But nothing else had worked, so I promised a hundred thousand kroner to anyone who had any information. It was a small amount, if we’re talking about the value of Patricia’s life, but it was a balanced amount too, as Blix called it.’
Isaksen drained the glass before continuing.
‘When I met Skage, he wanted more. We argued. I’d had an uneasy feeling about the whole situation, and had taken a knife … So, yeah…’ He looked away, around the room. ‘You know what happened.’
He cleared his throat before the silence settled between them.
‘But he knew something,’ he added after a long pause. ‘He knew who took her, he just wouldn’t say it.’
Emma nodded. She asked a couple more questions and got some extra details about the sequence of events, as well as Isaksen’s own reflections on everything that had happened. The story that was beginning to take shape was personal, captivating.
They went on to talk about the trial, the prison sentence itself, his doubt and feelings of helplessness. About the time he had had with his daughter, how he missed her, and the grief.
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