The Hunting Dogs

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Finn Haber led the way into the kitchen, unrolled a sheet of paper on the table and prepared his equipment. Wisting had envisaged fingerprint powder and brushes, but all that was laid out was a clear plastic box with a lid, a magnifying glass, a camera and a brown glass jar with a cork stopper. Taking the padded envelope from the document folder, he placed it on the table. ‘How will you tackle this?’

  ‘Using iodine crystals,’ Haber replied. He shook the brown glass jar. ‘It’s the oldest method and still the best. When the crystals are heated, they convert to vapour without undergoing a liquid phase. The vapour combines with amino acids from the fatty residues in the fingerprint.’

  ‘Might it destroy the prints or the paper?’

  ‘Iodine doesn’t produce a permanent result. After a few hours, the prints are no longer visible, though they are still present. The iodine doesn’t wash away the fatty oils or proteins from the surface, as silver nitrate does. If we don’t succeed with iodine, we can try other methods.’

  Wisting did not understand a great deal of what Haber said, but he spoke with conviction based on experience.

  Haber drew on a pair of rubber gloves and, carefully removing the seventeen-year-old evidence container from its envelope, placed it on the grey paper. ‘It’s my envelope, to be sure,’ he said.

  He took a photograph before picking up the glass jar and removing the stopper, releasing an odour reminiscent of chlorine. Haber shook three or four tiny brown nuggets into the plastic box and put the jar aside. He placed the envelope marked A-3 in the box and replaced the lid. At the kitchen worktop he inserted the plug in the sink and filled the basin with warm water. ‘It only takes a couple of minutes.’

  He put the plastic box into the water and let it float.

  Through the clear plastic Wisting could see the entire process, watching as several round fingerprints appeared, like a photograph in a chemical bath in a darkroom. He glanced across at Haber.

  ‘It’s almost magical,’ Haber said, lifting the plastic box out of the water. ‘The invisible becomes visible.’

  He opened the lid and picked up the brown envelope. The prints had a lilac sheen; some were more distinct than others, and some overlapped. He laid the envelope on the grey paper and picked up the camera.

  ‘These are from more than one person,’ he said, taking a picture. ‘There are both loop and whorl patterns.’

  Wisting peered over his shoulder.

  ‘The loops may be mine,’ Haber said, examining his own finger. ‘Those are the very faintest prints, but there are several others. This has turned out better than I hoped.’ He took several more pictures. ‘This is just half the job. To establish whose they are, we need something to compare.’

  Wisting produced the document folder from the kitchen table and pulled out his notepad. Between the hardback covers he had inserted a sheet of paper, almost like a bookmark. He laid it open on the table.

  Haber leaned over, peering at the letter. Then he adjusted his glasses and took a step back. ‘Are you serious?’ he asked.

  Wisting nodded and looked down at the letter advising him of his own suspension.

  ‘He’s the chief constable now,’ Haber said.

  ‘Acting chief constable,’ Wisting corrected.

  73

  Wakened by her own shivering, Line started the engine to activate the heater. The dashboard clock showed she had slept for almost three hours. At some time during the night the rain had stopped, and a cloud of mist had formed around the car. She checked her phone. Morten P had texted two hours earlier: ‘H has gone home. We’re standing our ground.’

  Her satnav told her she would reach Ystad at 06.47, too early to ring Maud Svedberg’s doorbell, but giving Line time for breakfast.

  She drove on through the night, wondering whether she should call Morten P. If Haglund had gone to ground for the night, they were probably taking it in turns to sleep, and she didn’t want to risk waking him. She would receive a message if anything occurred. Instead she found a Swedish music channel to help her stay awake.

  Although she stopped at a petrol station to use the toilet and buy a soft drink, it was only 06.34 when she arrived in Ystad.

  Deviating from the satnav’s directions, she continued until she reached a small harbour and from there drove around the little town. A paperboy stood in front of a yellow painted stone house with roses round the door; otherwise the streets were deserted. In the town centre she found a bakery cafe­teria with its lights on and a sign that said it would open at seven o’clock. To kill the time Line toured the surrounding streets. It was an attractive town with small, pretty market squares.

  When the cafeteria opened, she ordered two sandwiches, a bottle of Ramlösa mineral water and a coffee, found an open wifi network and read the online papers on her mobile phone as she ate. Her father was on the pages of Dagbladet, framed by a doorway, glancing over his shoulder. Terminated interview, said the headline. The well-known, experienced head of investigations risked a prison sentence after the revelation that crucial DNA evidence had been planted. A senior officer in the Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs confirmed that William Wisting left before the meeting was over, and explained that the case was not time-barred. Legislators regarded the fabrication of evidence as seriously as murder. The guilty party risked twenty-one years imprisonment.

  A knot of tension twisted in her chest.

  The story concluded with an advertisement for the paper edition and a lengthy interview with Rudolf Haglund on how it felt to be robbed of one’s life.

  A colossal white ferry arrived at the quayside just as dawn broke. In the car again she re-activated the GPS, which led her through the network of cobbled streets to Lilla Norre­gatan.

  Maud Svedberg lived in a whitewashed, half-timbered house with a pitched, tiled roof. The street was so narrow there was no room to park. She turned into the next side street and found a parking space outside a church before returning on foot.

  The woman who had cohabited with Jonas Ravneberg in Norway seventeen years earlier looked just as Line had imagined. Small and slim, her facial features were quite prominent, giving the impression that her head was too large for her body. Her eyes were pale and round, and she had a slightly timid expression. She gave a tentative smile when Line introduced herself, holding out a hand with long, slender fingers.

  ‘I hope I’m not too early,’ Line said.

  ‘I’m an early riser.’ Maud Svedberg ushered her into the house. They sat at a circular table in the living room. Maud Svedberg put her feet up on a stool. ‘I slept badly last night,’ she said. ‘This business with Jonas is worrying me.’ She looked older than her fifty years.

  ‘How did the two of you meet?’ Line asked.

  ‘It was years ago,’ Maud replied, without elaborating.

  Line told her about the murder and what she had found out about Jonas Ravneberg.

  ‘He was always so anxious and uncertain,’ Maud said. ‘That was why he had a disability pension. He was nervous in company. Couldn’t manage to work. We were quite alike in that way, but something happened that last summer. Something made it impossible to live with him.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘He closed himself off. Never talked about anything, and became angry if I asked.’

  ‘Do you know why he changed?’

  ‘No. We lived together, but he had his own life. He inherited the farm from his parents and spent days on end there without me hearing anything from him. In the end we just drifted apart.’ She sat with her hands folded on her lap. ‘He took his clothes and moved to the farm. To his model cars and all the other stuff he collected.’

  ‘Do you remember the Cecilia case?’ Line asked.

  ‘She vanished that last summer we were together.’

  ‘Did Jonas ever talk about the case?’

  ‘He didn’t talk about anything.’

  ‘But he knew the man who was convicted of killing her, didn’t he?’

  Maud
Svedberg reclined against the chair back, her head moving thoughtfully from side to side.

  ‘Rudolf Haglund,’ Line said.

  ‘No …’

  Line tilted her head to one side. ‘Are you sure?’

  Maud rose to her feet. ‘We lived together for nearly two years,’ she said, ‘but I never really got to know him. He never introduced me to anybody, and never talked about friends, although I knew he had some. He occasionally used the phone, but didn’t want me to hear.’

  She crossed the room as she spoke and, opening a drawer in a bureau, withdrew a brown envelope and returned to place it on the table in front of Line. ‘That’s it,’ she said.

  Line lifted the package. It weighed next to nothing. The contents were rectangular with sharp corners, like a small hard box. ‘Can I see what he wrote?’

  Maud returned to the bureau, took out a sheet of white paper and handed it to Line. The script was sloping, apparently written in haste. It said no more than what Maud Svedberg had already explained: that he thought of her and would like to come to Sweden so that they could meet, and in the meantime she should look after the package. There was a great deal he wanted to say, but it would have to wait. If anything should happen to him, she should make sure the package was delivered to Chief Inspector William Wisting in Larvik.

  Line handed the letter back.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Maud asked.

  Line had intended to wait until she was outside in the car, but Maud Svedberg was equally curious about the contents, so she ought to open the package before she left. She tore the paper at one end and upended it over her lap. A video cassette slid out.

  74

  The comparison took some time. At the top of the fold in the envelope, Finn Haber had found a whorl-shaped fingerprint suitable for identification, and made a start on the laborious task of comparing it with the prints on Wisting’s suspension letter. He was still crouched over the kitchen table when Wisting left around half past one.

  On his way home, he drove past The Golden Peace and saw Suzanne clearing tables, but did not go inside. Instead, he went home and to bed before she returned. The day had been too complicated to sit up explaining into the small hours. Besides, he was exhausted.

  In the morning he made himself a cup of coffee in the machine. The wind had quieted, and the rain stopped overnight, but heavy clouds still hung in the sky and the air was saturated. The phone rang; it was Line.

  ‘I’m on my way home from Sweden,’ she said. “I’ve collected your package from Maud Svedberg.’

  Wisting stood in the middle of the kitchen, coffee cup in hand. ‘Have you opened it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There’s a video cassette inside.’

  ‘A film?’

  ‘A V-8 cassette, an outdated standard from fifteen to twenty years ago. We’ll need an old system to play it.’

  ‘Where will we get hold of something like that?’

  ‘I think Grandad has one.’

  ‘I’ll ask him. When do you expect to be home?’

  ‘There’s a ferry from Strømstad to Sandefjord at half past two. I should make that and be back sometime before six.’

  ‘Okay. Drive carefully.’

  Wisting missed the rest of what Line said. Directly in front of him on the table lay a yellow cassette recording, an AGFA cassette, exactly like the one Cecilia had used in her Walkman, but this had Wisting’s name written on it with a thick, black marker pen.

  He lifted it and turned it round. His name was written in bold letters on both sides. The phone rang again. This time it was Haber. ‘It’s confirmed. The same person has held your suspension letter and the packaging of A-3. And it’s not you. I’ve eliminated your fingerprints.’

  Wisting’s bewilderment about the cassette dampened his enthusiasm, although he was glad of the confirmation. Seventeen years previously, Audun Vetti had been a young prosecutor with ambitions, a man in a hurry to move up in the world. The Cecilia case was at a standstill, and so a hindrance on his career path.

  ‘That still proves nothing,’ Finn Haber said. ‘He could come up with a story to explain why his prints are on the envelope.’

  ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t get away with it,’ Wisting said. ‘Have you documented your findings?’

  ‘Everything’s photographed,’ Haber confirmed. ‘It just needs Vetti’s formal registration in the fingerprint register.’

  Wisting replied absentmindedly, barely absorbing what he was being told.

  ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

  ‘No, that’s fine. More than fine.’ Wisting thanked Haber again for his assistance and put his phone aside before taking the cassette up to his bedroom. Suzanne was sleeping soundly. Hunkering down beside the bed he placed his hand on her bare shoulder and shook her gently. She woke gradually, stretching and turning slowly towards him.

  ‘Wisting held the cassette in front of her. ‘Do you know where this came from?’

  Rubbing her eyes, Suzanne licked her lips to moisten her dry mouth. ‘One of the customers left it on the counter yesterday,’ she said, straightening the quilt. ‘He asked me to give it to you. It was important, he said.’

  Wisting exhaled slowly through his nose and stood up.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘This comes from Rudolf Haglund.’

  Suzanne sat bolt upright. ‘The murderer?’

  Wisting nodded. ‘He was in your café last night.’

  ‘But …’ Suzanne began, shifting her gaze from Wisting to the yellow cassette. ‘What’s on it?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ he answered as he headed towards the door. ‘You just go back to sleep. I have to go somewhere.’

  They did not have a cassette player in the house. Thomas had taken theirs with him when he left to join the army eight years earlier and neither had come home again. He would have to go to the cottage to play the tape.

  The roads were still wet, and in several places there were puddles on the asphalt. Sheets of water sprayed from his front wheels as he drove through them.

  The air was sharper at the coast, the sea still churning white, even though the wind had dropped.

  Letting himself into the cottage, he scanned the room, but saw no sign of unwelcome guests. Line had been the last person here. She had washed the used cups and stacked the Cecilia documents tidily on the coffee table. The old portable radio sat on a shelf below the window. He lifted it onto the window ledge and inserted the cassette with the A-side facing out before pressing play.

  First he heard some kind of rustling, as if someone was out walking and their clothes were rubbing. Then there were two voices: two people saying hello and introducing themselves with their first names, Gjermund and Rudolf. Rudolf Haglund.

  To begin with, Gjermund said most. He thanked Rudolf Haglund for coming and wondered if many others had made contact. Haglund confirmed that they had, and his companion asked if it was all right to record their conversation. It was an interview. Rudolf Haglund had given him the recording he had made of a newspaper interview.

  The journalist explained they would like some new photographs, and a photographer would come. Haglund must have nodded his agreement, because the conversation continued, soon to be interrupted by a woman taking their order. Haglund wanted a well-done steak, while the reporter chose a fish course. Haglund ordered a cola and the journalist asked the waitress for a Farris mineral water.

  Wisting knew only one journalist called Gjermund. Gjermund Hulkvist of Dagbladet. An experienced crime reporter with a friendly manner, who gave a great deal of himself personally to get what he was after. On the recording, he used Haglund’s first name and said how grateful he was for the interview.

  ‘You’re good,’ Haglund said. ‘I like what you write. You stick to the facts. That was what I liked when you reported on the case seventeen years ago.’

  ‘Nice of you to say so.’

  ‘It wasn’
t simply that you kept to the facts, but you were also first to break the news.’

  ‘That’s the benefit of having a broad network of contacts,’ Gjermund Hulkvist said.

  ‘In the police?’

  ‘Well placed.’

  Wisting turned up the volume. Seventeen years ago Gjermund Hulkvist and Dagbladet had revealed that the police had Cecilia Linde’s tape.

  A chair scraped on the floor. ‘I’m not interested in an interview if the person responsible for me being convicted of a crime I didn’t commit is one of your contacts in the police.’ Haglund was obviously indignant.

  ‘Not Wisting,’ the journalist assured him, his voice low and intense. ‘Higher up.’

  ‘The prosecutor?’ Haglund drew his chair back towards the table.

  ‘Let’s just say he’s working as the chief constable these days, and that it can pay to cooperate with the press.’

  The conversation continued, but Wisting was not listening. The journalist had gone as far as possible without naming his source. However, this was more than a hint about who had leaked the information about Cecilia’s tape: Audun Vetti.

  75

  Roald Wisting was an energetic man. After retiring as a hospital doctor he accepted positions of trust in a variety of clubs and associations. It was due just as much to his busy lifestyle as Wisting’s long working days that they did not see each other more than a couple of times a month. When Ingrid was alive, his father used to come for dinner every Sunday. Now they met for coffee at The Golden Peace from time to time.

  Roald enjoyed walking and had strolled to Wisting’s house with his camera over his shoulder. ‘I haven’t used it for years,’ he said, placing the black bag on the coffee table, ‘but I tested it at home before I left. I have some amusing films of Line and Thomas.’

  Producing a cable, he pulled the television set away from the wall. Wisting thought of telling him about Audun Vetti, but decided to let it lie. He had no need to clear his name to his father.