The Hunting Dogs

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘But …’

  ‘He attacked me. I need photos.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Just come,’ she said.

  As she disconnected the call, the first police dog van arrived. She searched through her contacts for the news editor’s direct number. He replied with a brusque question: ‘Any news?’

  ‘I have a story,’ she said, wiping blood from her face. ‘The murderer attacked me with an iron rake.’

  She heard his chair scrape across the floor. ‘What’s that?’ Line explained while watching a police dog handler open the tailgate of his van. A black German Shepherd leaped out. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘A slight nosebleed, and a few scratches,’ Line played down her injuries as a patrol car pulled up. The driver headed straight for her. ‘Line Wisting?’

  ‘Give me fifteen minutes, and you’ll have something in writing,’ Line said into her mobile. ‘Erik Fjeld is on his way with his camera, so pictures even sooner.’

  ‘You can’t write a report about yourself!’

  ‘I’ll write down what took place, and you can use that material in your own report.’

  The police dog gave a couple of loud barks, but sat still as the dog handler approached her. ‘Are you the one who phoned?’

  ‘I’ll phone you back when I have something written,’ Line said, wrapping her conversation with the news editor. ‘Ten minutes.’

  ‘Which way did he go?’ the dog handler asked.

  Line pointed in the direction of the gravel where her car was parked. ‘He disappeared towards the fortress.’

  ‘Direction of the fortress at Kongsten,’ the dog handler said down his radio transmitter. He set off until the dog halted with its snout in the air. It circled around before tugging at its lead and setting out again, this time leading its handler. Two police officers, each armed with a machine gun, accompanied.

  ‘What happened?’ the remaining officer asked.

  Line repeated what she had explained by phone, aware she was losing precious time. More police arrived, surrounding the area with red and white crime scene tape. Curious neighbours were already huddled in small groups when a man with a camera forced his way through. Erik Fjeld had arrived.

  ‘How did you find your way here?’ the police officer asked Line.

  She told him what had happened at the Falck depot, taking a few steps to one side so that the light from the street lamp fell directly on her face. The police officer interrogating her, the crime scene tape and the terraced house would all be included in the picture. Seeing Erik Fjeld change the lens for a close-up, she ran her hand quickly through her hair. These photographs would haunt her future as a journalist, but without them she had no story.

  ‘Didn’t you think to contact us before coming here?’

  Line heard the sarcasm in his voice. She could have responded by asking whether anyone in the police had thought of finding the dog owner, but let it drop. She did not have time. ‘I need to report to my editor,’ she said, turning in the direction of her car.

  The policeman blocked her path. ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘I explained all that on the phone.’

  ‘And now you have to explain it again to me.’

  Line sighed. ‘I don’t know. He was sort of bundled up.’

  ‘Bundled up?’

  ‘All in black. Trousers, sweater, shoes, gloves and balaclava. He had even taped the gap between his sweater and gloves, and his trousers were firmly taped to his socks.’

  How well planned everything must have been, both the murder and the break-in. She had read about robbers who kitted themselves out like that in order to avoid being trapped by DNA evidence from hairs or skin particles.

  ‘I really need to go now,’ she said, stepping aside.

  ‘Just wait. Our technicians need to take a look at you.’

  ‘Why on earth?’

  ‘Biological traces. He attacked you. You are, in actual fact, a crime scene.’

  Line gave a deep sigh. She had already composed her report in her head, and was eager to get the words down before they slipped her mind. ‘I don’t think you’ll find anything. He was well bundled up, as I said. Anyway, you have a much larger crime scene in there.’ She pointed towards the house.

  ‘This is routine,’ the policeman replied. ‘We’re taking you in.’

  ‘In?’

  ‘To the police station. We need a formal interview.’

  ‘But I’ve already explained myself twice!’

  ‘They have to write it down.’

  Line shook her head. ‘That’ll have to be later. I’m working just now.’

  ‘So are we,’ the police officer brushed her protestations aside. ‘We’re working on finding a killer.’

  ‘At least let me take my laptop from my car,’ Line pleaded.

  The police officer’s head moved as though to refuse her, but changed his mind when he looked into her determined eyes.

  13

  ‘Shall we go?’ Wisting asked. Their glasses were empty.

  ‘’If you want,’ Suzanne smiled.

  After taking the glasses and bottle to the counter, Wisting held her jacket open for her before putting on his own.

  Suzanne locked the door behind them. Rain was still in the air, and it was colder. A taxi pulled up, but Wisting waved it on. The stroll home to the house in Herman Wildenveys gate took no more than ten minutes, and they both liked to walk. They enjoyed the silence of the streets.

  Suzanne opened a small umbrella, which he ducked under beside her. ‘Have you had any contact with Cecilia’s family since then?’ she asked.

  ‘A little,’ he said, thinking of how a murder always had a number of faces. In Cecilia’s case, there were five: her mother, father, brother, boyfriend and her own cold, blue, impassive, dead face. ‘Her mother sends me a Christmas card every year.’

  ‘What does she write?’

  He shrugged, as though he was not quite sure. ‘Happy Christmas.’

  He was well aware of what she wrote. All the cards were lying in the bottom drawer of his desk. The same words every year: I wish you and yours a very merry Christmas and happy new year. With gratitude, Nora Linde and family. He had always felt this to be generous of her, but that was what she had been like. Not a single time in all their conversations during the search for Cecilia had she made a critical remark or negative comment.

  ‘How are they doing?’

  ‘Fine, I think. Even if they won’t ever get over it, at least they’ve managed to move on.’

  ‘Johannes Linde has done well for himself since then. So I’ve heard.’

  He agreed. When Cecilia disappeared, her father had been embroiled in a conflict with a previous business partner over ownership and rights to a number of trademarks and run the risk of losing a great deal of money. The legal decision had gone in his favour, the company had grown and his son Casper had taken over at the top.

  ‘What does her boyfriend do now?’

  ‘Danny Flom is a photographer. That was how they met, when he took photos for the advertising campaign. Now he runs a photographic studio in Oslo. Flomlys, it’s called.’

  ‘Good name. Danny Flom, Flomlys. Did he find himself another girlfriend?’

  ‘I think he’s been married a couple of times.’

  A flurry of wind blew an old newspaper towards them. Wisting drew his jacket more snugly around his neck.

  ‘Perhaps you ought to talk to Thomas,’ Suzanne suggested. ‘So that he knows what it’s all about. They read newspapers down there too, you know.’

  Thomas was Line’s twin brother who was serving for periods of six months at a time as a helicopter pilot with the Norwegian forces in Afghanistan.

  ‘It’s the middle of the night right now,’ Wisting said. ‘Besides, he’s not so easy to get hold of. I really depend on him phoning me.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  Wisting would have to call his father. Eighty years of age and a widower for the
past twenty-four, he had been a hospital doctor. He was a sprightly old man who always followed the coverage of Wisting’s cases.

  They walked on in silence, eyes on the ground. The sound of their footsteps combined in an uneven rhythm, hers slightly faster, shorter; his longer, heavier.

  14

  The dashboard clock read 00.16. Line heard fleeting messages on the radio transmitter with updates on the progress of the dog handler’s team, as well as directions relayed to patrol cars. The plain-clothes police officer in the front passenger seat turned down the volume and twisted round to face her. ‘Is that your blood?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, opening her laptop on her knee.

  ‘Are you sure none of it came from him?’

  ‘He would have to have injured himself.’

  ‘We’ll have a doctor take a look at you.’

  The clock display changed to 00.17. ‘That’s not necessary,’ she said. ‘I can arrange that afterwards.’

  ‘What happened?’

  She glanced up from the image on her screen. ‘Listen. I’ve explained this over the phone and then to the first patrol that turned up. After they’re all done with me, I have to explain it all again to you?’

  ‘It’s important that we know exactly what took place. If I know whether he struck you in the head or the abdomen, then I’ll know where to look for fibres from his gloves.’

  Line logged into the newspaper’s data system. ‘He punched me on the back while I was holding his leg,’ she said. ‘After that, he walloped me with a metal rake. It’s lying in front of the house.’

  ‘What about all that blood on your face?’

  ‘A nosebleed. The door hit me when he burst out.’

  ‘Are you related to William Wisting?’ the driver asked. Older than his colleague, he was thickset and wore a beard.

  ‘He’s my father.’

  ‘I seem to recall that his daughter worked for VG. I was at Police College with him.’

  ‘Mhmm.’

  ‘Tell him Jan Berger was asking for him.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Line said, without really catching the name. She was casting about for her opening words. Only a few minutes ago, she had known how she was going to express herself. Now her mind was in chaos. Instead of beginning, she phoned the photographer.

  ‘You look bloody awful in these photos,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks a bunch.’

  ‘You really ought to go to Accident and Emergency.’

  ‘Later. You need to send those pictures to the news desk. Both the one of me and the one with the dog. Tell them I’ll get the text to them in ten minutes.’

  She closed her eyes for a few seconds to collect her thoughts, before her fingers started moving. She began with the most dramatic element, how the presumed murderer had attacked her. Afterwards she would go back and write the introduction. The most significant and central information took only three sentences. The radio cut through her concentration.

  ‘We’ve lost the scent at the Europris central warehouse. He may have had a vehicle parked here.’

  ‘Fox 3-2 take position on main highway 111 at the Torsnes exit.’

  When her phone rang she answered, cradling it between her neck and shoulder as she continued to write.

  ‘Hi, it’s Nina.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Nina Haugen, from the Statoil Østsiden service station. You phoned me earlier tonight.’ The girl with her mouth full of chewing gum.

  ‘With you,’ Line said.

  ‘I know who the man with the dog is. He comes here regularly to buy tobacco.’

  ‘I’ve found out who he is as well.’

  ‘It’s a Schapendoes, a Dutch Sheepdog.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You mentioned a Labbetuss, and I didn’t know what that was, but it’s a Schapendoes.’ Concentrating on her writing, Line deleted two sentences and replaced them with one. ‘It’s the same kind as Drillo has.’

  ‘I know. I’ve seen it.’

  ‘It was Fredrik who realised. He’s found the pictures on the CCTV camera, if that’s of any interest.’

  Pictures were always of interest. It wasn’t anything they would publish at the moment, but maybe later when the identity had been disclosed or in connection with the court case.

  ‘Can you send them to me?’

  ‘Fredrik can do that.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Line passed on her email address.

  ‘How much do you pay?’

  ‘I’m not the one to decide, but write down your name, date of birth and bank account number and I’ll pass them to the people who arrange those things.’

  The laptop emitted a signal as a dialogue box popped up to warn her the battery was running out of charge.

  ‘By the way, it’s called Tiedemann.’

  Line clicked away the warning.

  ‘Who?’ she asked, saving what she had written.

  ‘The dog. I’ve heard him calling it Tiedemann. It’s probably named after the tobacco brand. He always buys Tiedemann’s Gold Mix number three and cigarette papers.’

  Line peered into the night. The police car had arrived outside a yellowish-brown brick building with an enormous glass façade. Fredrikstad Police Station. ‘Okay, thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know what’s going to happen to it?’

  00.25

  ‘No.’

  ‘Since its owner’s been killed, I mean.’

  ‘I’ve no idea, Nina. I really have to go now.’

  ‘Okay. Bye then.’

  Line disconnected the call. ‘Can I have quarter of an hour?’ she asked, looking at the driver who knew her father.

  ‘We have to go back,’ he replied. ‘We’re setting up road blocks.’

  ‘There’s a technician in an examination room in there waiting for you,’ the other man said. ‘As soon as he’s finished, he’ll go back to the crime scene too.’

  Line slammed the lid of her laptop shut at 00.26.

  15

  The examination room at the police station was cold, with bare walls and a fluorescent ceiling tube. The man waiting for her held a camera. Old and silver-haired, with heavy eyelids, he explained that he would document her injuries with photographs, and asked her to stand with her back to the wall. After each picture, he scrutinised the result on the tiny display. They followed this procedure with both profiles.

  ‘Where did he hit you with the rake?’ he asked.

  ‘Here,’ Line said, twisting her hip towards him and pointing.

  The crime technician looked at the tears in her trousers where the rake tines had dug in. He crossed to a drawer and rummaged for a photo ruler. ‘Can you hold this?’ he asked.

  Line held the ruler against her thigh as he hunkered down, placing the camera at right angles to her injuries. He took one photo that he examined closely before coming in closer and taking another. Then he straightened up. ‘I wonder if we should take one without your trousers on as well,’ he said.

  Line set down the ruler and gazed at the man. These were photos that would be studied by investigators, defence lawyers, judges and jury when that time eventually arrived. She did not take exception to them seeing her in her underwear, but they had already taken more time than she could spare. She would not finish writing her story before the deadline, even though most of it was already inside her head. ‘I have to make a phone call first.’

  The digital clock on her mobile display read 00.44. She cleared it by pressing the speed dial key for the news editor. ‘Did you receive Erik’s photos?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep. The one with the dog is a prize winner.’

  ‘Are we in time to use it on the front page?’

  ‘We won’t be using it, Line.’

  ‘What do you mean? There’s half an hour to go.’

  ‘Frost has decided. The front page spread stays. We’ve put the murder on pages ten and eleven. The picture of the dog with its dead owner takes up most of the space. Then we’ll run the story about the
attack on you in the online edition right after our competitors have gone to press.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Frost has made up his mind. The front page is settled.’

  She said nothing. Swallowed. It felt as if something had crumbled away, the ground beneath her feet, and disappeared. ‘How does it look?’

  ‘To be honest, Line, it looks dreadful.’

  ‘The headline?’

  ‘That’s a quote from Rudolf Haglund’s lawyer – Planted the crucial evidence. I can send you the whole story as a PDF file.’

  A sudden rage erupted within her, a reaction to everything collapsing around her, but she managed to maintain a steady voice. ‘No thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Can we do anything for you? I mean, about what has happened to you. We’ve got people you can talk to in the occupational health service.’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’

  ‘Go back to your hotel and try to relax,’ he said. ‘That photo of the dog is bloody brilliant, by the way, did I tell you? We’ve squeezed it in at the corner of the front page.’

  ‘Tiedemann.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tiedemann. The dog’s called Tiedemann, just like the tobacco.’

  16

  The coffee machine was a Christmas present from Line, hi-tech and easy to use. All he had to do was make sure there was enough water in the container, insert a capsule, and the cup filled at the touch of a button. The aroma was richer than from his old machine.

  He drank a cup of coffee at seven o’clock every morning, with the local paper in front of him and the news on TV. Today it was ten past seven before the coffee had finished trickling through the machine. Suzanne was upstairs asleep. Outside, it was still dark and windy. Raindrops dripped down the windowpane.

  He glanced up at the blank television screen, hesitating before lifting the remote to switch on TV2. The two presenters, one male, one female, on Good Morning Norway stood at one end of a table with a sheaf of daily newspapers before them. Wisting curled his hand around his cup without picking it up.

  ‘Dagbladet features the murder in Fredrikstad where one of VG’s reporters was assaulted, as we heard in the news,’ the female presenter said, holding up the front page, ‘while VG runs with a different story.’