Death of the Demon: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel

by Anne Holt

  The man looked genuinely taken aback.

  “No, she didn’t,” he said explicitly, shaking his head vigorously. “I was in Drøbak with a car and didn’t get back until after midnight. Met an old pal and had a few cups of coffee in a café before driving back. I can prove it too!”

  Billy T. made a face and stared the other man directly in the eye without uttering a word. The car salesman lost the tussle and dropped his gaze.

  “Well,” Billy T. said, “didn’t she know you wouldn’t be at home?”

  “I don’t remember, but I knew at least that she would be working. She had problems at work. Something about someone having let her down. She didn’t say very much about it, but she was extremely disappointed.”

  “Someone? Male or female?”

  “No idea. She was very particular about professional confidentiality. Said very little about the youngsters there as well, even though they took up all her days and nights.”

  Billy T. fetched a cup of burned coffee for the man and started to write. Within half an hour there was nothing more to be heard in the little office apart from Billy T.’s bulky fingers battering the computer keyboard. When he considered himself finished, he had only one question remaining.

  “Was there to be something more between you? Was she talking about a divorce?”

  The expression on the man’s face was impossible to decipher.

  “I don’t know if anything would have come of it. But she told me she had made up her mind long ago, and that she had told her husband so.”

  “Did she say that quite clearly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Straight out: ‘I’ve told my husband that I want a divorce,’ not ‘My husband doesn’t want a divorce’ or ‘He’ll be upset if we get divorced’?”

  “Yes, straight out. Several times. At least . . .”

  He cast his eyes to the ceiling, considering carefully.

  “At least she said it on two occasions.”

  “Okay,” Billy T. said curtly and obtained the witness’s signature on the interview report before bringing the session to a close.

  “Stick around in Oslo, won’t you?” he added as he opened to door to the corridor.

  “Where else would I be?” the man replied as he vanished out of sight.

  • • •

  Tone-Marit was nobody’s fool. She had been with the police for four years and nine months and had only three months to go until she could call herself sergeant and add another stripe to the one she already possessed on the uniform she seldom or never wore. Although she hadn’t been in the section for more than a year, Hanne was already impressed by the twenty-six-year-old. She was thorough rather than innovative, and conscientious rather than actually smart, but thoroughness and conscientiousness had shaped many exceptional investigators.

  Now she was stuck. She didn’t have a great grasp of bookkeeping and sat with three thick loose-leaf binders facing her, terms like “current assets” and “fixed assets,” “operating profit” and “balance sheet” swirling in her head for two hours.

  Something had come to her attention in the meantime. An unusual number of receipts had been authorized by Terje Welby. As far as she had understood, his role as assistant director had largely been overtaken by Maren Kalsvik. True enough, she didn’t have the power to authorize payments, but it would then have been natural for Agnes Vestavik to assume most of the economic responsibility.

  “Ask the boys in Accounts,” Billy T. advised her after leafing through the folders at random. “For the moment, I’ll give this Terje Welby a little shake.”

  He grinned broadly in anticipation, and Tone-Marit gratefully packed up the binders to do as he said.

  “Have you found out anything more about the missing thirty thousand from Agnes’s bank account?”

  Placing her hands on the folders, Tone-Marit nodded.

  “Only that they were withdrawn in three different locations around the city. And that the account was blocked two days later. The same day that Agnes was killed. I’ve asked the banks to look for the actual checks, so we can see what’s going on. But that can take time; everything not on the data system takes an age of course.”

  “So does everything that’s on the data system,” Billy T. muttered.

  • • •

  It was only a week since Agnes Vestavik’s murder, and Hanne felt it had been an eternity. Little response was forthcoming from the superintendent, who was normally a considerate man with great sensitivity to the problems of his subordinates. Today he had brushed her off. The double murder in Smestad occupied all his resources: a shipowner and his somewhat dipsomaniac, decrepit wife had been found with their heads blown off in what seemed to be the most grotesque robbery and murder in Norwegian criminal history. The newspapers were gorging themselves in the borderland between social pornography and gossip column, mixing smoothly with the usual smear campaign against incompetent police officers, and the police commissioner was impatient, to put it mildly. Agnes Vestavik’s fate had aroused a scintilla of interest on the first day, but now it was ancient history. For everyone except the small band of four still fumbling around hunting for motive and opportunity.

  “My God,” Hanne muttered. “Times have changed. Ten years ago, a murder such as this would have turned the department upside down. We would have been given twenty men and all the resources we needed.”

  Erik Henriksen did not know how to take the outburst. Did she mean he was a lightweight? He chose to keep his mouth shut.

  “But . . .” She suddenly smiled, as though she had only just realized he was sitting there. “What have you found out?”

  “The Lover,” the young officer began. “He’s had severe financial problems.”

  Financial problems. Who on earth doesn’t have financial problems? Hanne Wilhelmsen thought, refraining from lighting the cigarette she so longed for.

  “People don’t go around killing other people even if they have financial problems.” She sighed. “Every other person would probably say they have problems of that nature if we asked them. We have to find out something more! Something more . . . passionate! Hatred, contempt, fear, something in that direction. The guy was besotted with the woman. They weren’t married, so he didn’t have any financial interest in her.”

  “But the boys at work say he had been very quiet recently. The past couple of weeks or so. Seemed almost depressed, they said.”

  “So what?” Hanne challenged as she formed a tent shape with her fingers. “What does that imply? If Agnes had broken up with him, or whatever we should say to describe ending a platonic relationship, then he still doesn’t have any grounds for killing the woman! With a knife! And what’s more, it would be remarkable if nobody noticed or heard a distressing argument between two former lovers ending in murder.”

  She shook her head, discouraged, and sat up straight in her office chair.

  “No, now I’m being unfair, Erik.”

  She smiled.

  “I don’t mean to take it out on you. But isn’t this a strange case? No one’s bothered. The superintendent can hardly take the trouble to speak to me. The newspapers are completely uninterested. The foster home continues as though nothing has happened. The youngsters shout and play, her husband remains living where he has always lived, the world goes on spinning on its axis, and a week after Agnes Vestavik was dispatched, it’s almost as if I’m not bothering either. In a month’s time, hardly anyone will remember the case. Do you know one thing—”

  She interrupted herself by digging out an edition of Arbeiderbladet from a pile of newspapers on the floor.

  “Here,” she said, leafing through to a headline. “There are now more homicides committed in Oslo in real life than in crime novels! For the first time in history. Heavens above!”

  She slapped the palm of her hand against her forehead.

  “Novelists can’t even keep up with us! A murder here, a homicide there, who cares? Now there have to be two at once in order to gain any re
cognition. Or else the corpse has to be desecrated or the victim wealthy. Or a prostitute. Or a footballer or a celebrity or a politician. Or even better: the perpetrator is rich or a celebrity. An anonymous woman who doesn’t have any special qualities other than a quiet life with a ‘sort of’ lover, and nobody’s going to get excited about it. Are you bothered by this?”

  The final interrogative was said as Hanne leaned across the desktop, staring him directly in the eyes.

  Erik Henriksen swallowed audibly.

  “Of course I’m bothered about it,” he mumbled, swallowing again. “It’s my job to be.”

  “Exactly! We bother about it because it’s our job. But the superintendent’s not bothered, he’s quite happy to push it all over onto our plates. The newspapers aren’t bothered, because they haven’t found enough gossip in the case. And we don’t bother ourselves either, since we’re able to go home with glad hearts every evening and eat our meatballs and gravy without a single thought for a four-year-old somewhere who has lost her mother in a way that it’s actually part of our task to prevent. Prevent! That’s our foremost task, you know! To prevent crime. When did you last prevent a crime, Erik?”

  He was tempted to explain how he had prevented a friend from drunk driving last Saturday night but sensibly let it drop.

  The phone rang, startling Erik Henriksen. Hanne Wilhelmsen allowed it to ring four times before answering.

  “Wilhelmsen,” she said brusquely into the receiver.

  “Is that Hanne Wilhelmsen?”

  “Yes. Who am I speaking to?”

  “It’s Maren Kalsvik. From the Spring Sunshine Home.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “I’m phoning because I’m worried about Terje Welby. You know, the assistant director. The one with the bad back.”

  “Why is that?”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen placed a finger on her lips as a sign Erik should remain silent, pointing to the door and making a gesture asking him to close it. He misunderstood and was on his way out the door when Hanne placed a hand over the receiver and whispered, “No, no, Erik, come in and close the door. But keep quiet.”

  Then she carefully pressed the loudspeaker button on the handset.

  “He’s on part-time sick leave and finished early today. But he was supposed to drop by to accompany one of the youngsters to a motorcycle class. He should have been here two hours ago. I’ve phoned him several times. Finally I went to his house, as he stays not far from here, but the door was locked. But only with the one lock. The security lock hadn’t been used, and that usually means he’s at home.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen was not in the mood to worry about a grown man who had been missing for only two hours.

  “He might have forgotten about it,” she said wearily. “He could have had something else to do. Perhaps he’s at the doctor’s, for all I know. Going missing for two hours in the case of a person over three years old isn’t a police matter.”

  It went quiet at the other end of the line, and then Hanne could hear sounds that told her the woman was crying. Very softly.

  “Everything’s probably okay,” said Hanne, trying to reassure her, in a slightly less dismissive tone. “He’ll probably turn up soon.”

  “But you see,” the woman began again, before tears got the better of her. It took quite awhile before she was able to pull herself together.

  “There’s so much more to it,” the woman ventured once more. “I can’t explain it over the phone, but there really is cause to be alarmed. He . . . I just can’t bring myself to talk about it now. But couldn’t you please come over here and see if everything’s okay? Please!”

  Erik Henriksen had drawn closer to the desk and telephone and was sitting with his arms folded, elbows leaning on the desktop. She glimpsed his watch, a cheap imitation Rolex Oyster.

  “I’ll be with you in half an hour,” she said, wrapping up the conversation.

  Erik looked quizzically at her, and she nodded. He might just as well accompany her.

  “My God.”

  Hanne halted and looked dejectedly at the young officer.

  “Here I sit, berating you because nobody’s bothering any longer, and yet I try to dismiss someone who is doing exactly that. Bothering.”

  They had a stroke of luck and had to wait only ten minutes for a service vehicle. That was close to a record.

  • • •

  The entrance door was locked, exactly as Maren Kalsvik had said. In the minuscule gap between doorplate and frame, she could see the security lock had not been used, confirming Maren’s account. Thrusting her hand into her pocket, Hanne Wilhelmsen fished out a couple of tissues and attempted to pull the door handle down without touching it too much. Erik Henriksen looked at her in surprise.

  “Just a safety measure,” she assured him.

  They were confronted with a locked door and a grown man who had been missing for barely three hours. Not exactly grounds for a legal forced entry. If her dependable colleague, Police Attorney Håkon Sand, hadn’t been so damn modern as to take an entire year’s paternity leave, she could have sorted something out. At the moment Hanne had no idea who was on attorney duty and she needed a lawyer’s permission to break into the apartment.

  She had to get inside. The information Maren Kalsvik, convulsed with sobs and in a dreadful state, had spent half an hour relating was so alarming that they were approaching a decision to arrest him. However, explaining to a lawyer that a terrific motive had cropped up and that a suspect had in fact been at the scene of Agnes Vestavik’s tragic demise at an extremely critical point in time was not a conversation one ideally had over the phone. On the other hand, it could be a matter of life or death.

  Instructing Erik to stand his ground but not to touch anything, she trotted back to the car and after a great deal of hassle succeeded in contacting the duty lawyer on her cell phone. She was in luck. The attorney was an old—if rather weary—cunning fox. Noting the points, he gave her the green light and transferred her to the crime desk. They promised her backup within half an hour.

  Actually they took three-quarters of an hour to arrive, but it was worth the wait. Two silent types, who knew what they were doing, without any further ado positioned themselves outside the door with a substantial battering ram consisting of a heavy square iron plate attached to a long shaft with hand grips for four pairs of hands. Hanne and Erik posted themselves at the rear.

  “One, two, and THREE,” called the first officer as they swung the battering ram to and fro at one and two, allowing it to crash through the door at three.

  The timber did not have a chance. The door split open, helplessly releasing its hold on the frame struggling in vain to stay firmly attached, and fell back inside the room. It remained lying at an angle, but the upper part was leaning toward the wall of the hallway, only a meter and a half across. Elbowing her way in front of the two assisting officers, Hanne Wilhelmsen rushed into the apartment.

  The hallway was empty, and there was no one in the living room either. She stood still for a second, scanning what appeared to be a typical bachelor’s pad: furnishings were cobbled together, one window lacked curtains, and no attempt had been made to make it attractive or comfortable. No pictures on the walls, not a single potted plant. The kitchen sink was full of dirty glasses.

  “Hanne, come here,” she heard from the hallway.

  Three male backs were blocking the bathroom doorway. She placed a hand on the nearest pair of shoulders, and they all drew back.

  She whistled under her breath.

  Terje Welby was sitting on the toilet seat. Or more correctly, his mortal remains were sitting there. He had kept his shoes on, and apart from those, he was wearing jeans with no belt and a T-shirt. His head had fallen onto his chest, and his arms were hanging limply at his sides. Viewed like this, he might appear to be a man who had collapsed after having too much to drink, if his feet had not been planted in an enormous pool of blood and both of his wrists slashed.

  Hanne slowly stepped int
o the room, where there was hardly space for two people. Without touching either the body or any other item, she leaned toward each of his hands, confirming it was only on the left side that he had reached as far as the main artery. But there he had certainly done a good job. A ten-centimeter-long cut ripped through the bottom part of his lower arm, and despite all the blood, she could discern the white of sinew and bone.

  An empty whisky bottle had been discarded in the basin. On the floor lay a large carpet knife, with the blade fully extended and covered in blood.

  She cautiously placed two fingers on his neck, but he was already quite cold, and there was no sign of life.

  “He’s dead all right,” she said softly, backing out of the bathroom. “Send for Forensics.”

  The final comment was directed at one of the assisting officers.

  “Crime scene technicians? For an obvious case of suicide?”

  “Call them in,” Hanne insisted, hunkering down at the bathroom door without taking time to explain her decision to the random policeman sent to assist her.

  For his part, he shrugged his shoulders, sending a meaningful glance to his colleague, and sloped off to carry out her order. A chief inspector was a chief inspector, after all.

  First they took photographs. Hanne Wilhelmsen, who had to vacate the area to give the technician elbowroom, was impressed by how lithely he moved around in the tiny space without ever coming into contact with the body, the blood, or the walls. He exited the room a couple of times in order to change his film, but did not speak. When the bathroom had been comprehensively photographed, two men began to make precise measurements of the position of the corpse in relation to the ceiling, the basin, and all four walls. They exchanged the occasional comment, and one of them jotted down notes in a spiral notebook once the distances had been ascertained. Hanne noticed that they operated within a millimeter’s accuracy.

  Thereafter, they set to work to obtain prints. It dawned on Hanne that it had been a long time since she had been present at a crime scene examination, because instead of using only the black or white powder she was used to, they sometimes made use of some kind of spray that deposited an indefinable color at certain points.