The Hunting Dogs

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘This cassette was inside it,’ his father said. ‘It must be from the summer before they started school. We were all in Denmark, at Legoland and Givskud Zoo.’

  Wisting smiled, his father had trailed round so enthusiastically with his video camera, filming Lego cars driving in miniature towns built with little plastic bricks.

  Roald squinted through his glasses, trying to locate the right access point for the camera lead. ‘We ought to transfer them onto DVD discs,’ he said. ‘Colour and quality deterior­ate over time.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Wisting said. ‘There are probably firms that do that kind of thing.’

  ‘I’m sure there are …’ his father mumbled. ‘Now we shall see.’ He attached the lead from the TV set and found a socket to connect it to the electricity supply. ‘When‘s Line coming?’

  Wisting glanced at the clock; the ferry from Sweden should have just arrived in Sandefjord. ‘In an hour or so, I think.’

  ‘And what kind of video is it she’s bringing?’

  ‘We don’t know yet, but I think it’s to do with the Cecilia case.’

  ‘I was on duty at the hospital the day you came in with the murderer. The rumour flew like a sigh of relief through the departments. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but the nurses in reception talked about him for ages. A couple of them even knew him, from when he’d been a patient.’

  Wisting recalled the tiny operation scars on the photograph from the time Haglund was examined by the doctor on duty. This part of his past had not been properly clarified during the investigation. ‘He had moles removed?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Roald said, as the memories came back. ‘A number of cell changes were discovered when he came in for follow-up treatment.’

  ‘Follow-up treatment?’

  ‘We operated on him for prostate cancer a few years earlier.’ He pointed the remote control at the TV.

  ‘Doesn’t that operation make you impotent?’

  ‘It can do.’

  The television picture flickered on the screen and a red Lego bus drove towards a bridge, stopping as the bridge opened to let a boat sail by. Wisting took out his phone and headed for the kitchen.

  ‘What is it?’ Roald asked.

  ‘I have to check something.’

  He selected the number of the retired psychiatrist who had examined Rudolf Haglund. If Rudolf Haglund had lost erectile function through the treatment for prostate cancer, it shone a whole new light on the case. This was something that should have emerged in the forensic psychiatric examination. It was even stranger that Rudolf Haglund had suppressed information that could contribute to his acquittal.

  The psychiatrist did not answer. Wisting left a message asking him to call back and returned to the living room. The twins appeared on the TV screen, each with an ice cream cone. Behind them, Ingrid had a broad grin on her face. ‘That’s only their third ice cream of the day.’

  He had not seen moving images of her in the five years since she died, but it was probably her voice…

  Now the children were in an Indian settlement wearing feather headbands. Wisting sat down to watch and, gradually, thoughts of Cecilia Linde, Rudolf Haglund and Audun Vetti faded as he was drawn into the children’s world of gold mining, riverboats, train journeys, timber slides, and the driving school with Lego cars, and Ingrid’s infectious laughter. The memories touched him. He was disappointed when the film ended.

  Shortly afterwards Line arrived looking tired, with a bulging carrier bag from the tax-free shop. Her blonde hair was tousled, her clothes dishevelled and she had shadows under her eyes. At the same time she seemed pleased. She hugged them both.

  Wisting put the carrier bag on the kitchen table. When he returned Line was inserting the video cassette in the camera. ‘It was rewound to the beginning,’ she said, closing the camera’s cassette compartment. Wisting took charge by pressing the play button and they all watched the television screen.

  Grey, black and white grains whirled before a kitchen appeared: cooker, kitchen sink. The image suddenly blurred, the screen went completely black and then fresh images of a kitchen interior appeared: a window with white curtains, a crocheted valance. Strong back light made it difficult to see anything outside.

  Line perched on the edge of the nearest chair.

  The screen went black again. Now: pictures of an empty room, white brick walls, grey flooring. The film was taken from above, looking down, as if someone was holding the camera with arms outstretched above him, tilting it to get the widest possible view of the room. A shadow fell towards the centre; someone was moving outside camera range.

  The film jumped, and now the camera had a slightly different angle, though still viewed from the same raised position. This time someone was standing in the centre of the room: a naked woman, her head bowed, she lifted it slowly, stared into the camera. She wore a leather collar round her neck.

  Wisting supported himself on the edge of the table. It was Cecilia Linde.

  Her eyes were filled with fear and torment and suffering, dried tears glittering on her cheeks. She closed her eyes momentarily and, when she opened them again, her despair was even more evident. Her lips moved. At first, no sound, then: ‘Please …’

  As her bottom lip trembled, tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. ‘Please,’ she begged again.

  All awareness of her naked body was gone. She stood with her arms by her side, making no attempt to cover herself. ‘I’ll do whatever you want. Just let me out of here.’

  ‘Spool it back,’ Line said. ‘All the way to the beginning.’

  Roald did as she said. The crackling image appeared on the screen again. The picture rolled.

  ‘Stop!’

  The image froze with the camera held crookedly. Line cocked her head to study the screen: blue wall, kitchen worktop with dirty glasses and plates, wall cabinet in the same colour as the walls, white enamel cooker with three rings, kitchen sink and slop sink in stainless steel.

  ‘I’ve seen that kitchen before,’ Line said. ‘I know where Cecilia Linde was held. It was at Jonas Ravneberg’s farm.’

  76

  Line lifted her camera bag from the passenger seat to make room for her father. As she knew the way to Jonas Ravneberg’s smallholding, they took her car. Wisting sat with gritted teeth. Jonas Ravneberg had slipped through his net seventeen years earlier. Cecilia had been held in his cellar for twelve days while they searched in the wrong places and looked in the wrong direction.

  ‘Shouldn’t we phone someone?’ Line asked. ‘Police and ambulance? If it’s him, Linnea Kaupang may have been locked in the cellar for days.’

  ‘We’ll wait till we get there,’ Wisting replied.

  He tried to make it all fit. Jonas Ravneberg was an anonymous figure, but had appeared peripherally in both the Cecilia and Ellen cases. Now he had been murdered himself, shortly after Rudolf Haglund was released and could produce evidence that he had been unfairly convicted. But he could not quite let go of the idea that Haglund had abducted and killed Cecilia Linde, though two perpetrators was a rare occurrence in crimes of a sexual nature.

  Line dropped her speed and turned onto the dirt track. The car skidded from side to side until the tyres gained a grip and she accelerated forward. Dense trees obliterated the faint dusk light. The rutted tracks of another vehicle ran ahead of them.

  ‘Are your colleagues still watching Haglund?’ Wisting asked.

  Line nodded grimly. ‘I spoke to them just before I got home. He hasn’t stepped outside the house all day and his car is in the car port.’

  Line shifted down a gear, shooting out of the ruts and bumping over something solid. Wisting hung on to his seatbelt as they slithered towards the ditch, but she pulled at the steering wheel, the wheels spun and the car swerved back in line. The track narrowed, bushes scraped the sides; they rounded the final bend and the smallholding appeared in front of them. A car was parked in the yard, with mud splashes round the wheel arches.

&n
bsp; Line took her foot off the accelerator too late. A man standing beside the barn was caught in their headlights. ‘Frank Robekk,’ Wisting said.

  They stepped from the car, leaving the engine running. Robekk raised a hand to shade his eyes and they saw he was carrying a flashlight. In the other hand he held something that looked like a gun. ‘Wisting?’

  ‘What are you doing here, Frank?’

  ‘There’s something you need to look at.’ What he was carrying was a cordless drill.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Wisting repeated.

  ‘What we should have done seventeen years ago. Searching this place.’ The barn door was barred and bolted and fresh splinters of wood lay on the ground. Frank pointed at one of two holes he had drilled, holding his flashlight to the other. ‘Look inside!’

  Wisting put his eye to the hole. It was dark inside, and the light from the torch spread out in a cone shape, striking the rear of a car, three or four metres inside. Covered in dust, it looked completely grey. The registration plate was missing, but the light from the torch found the lightning bolt of the circular Opel logo.

  ‘When I read that someone called Ravneberg had been killed not long after Rudolf Haglund was released I remembered the name. From the time my niece went missing. Locating this place was easy, the rest was simply looking.’

  ‘What is it?’ Line asked.

  ‘It’s the car,’ Robekk answered. ‘The car he used when he abducted Cecilia Linde.’

  Line bent towards the hole to take a look, but Robekk directed the light towards the shack at the far end of the yard, where the ancient Saab was parked. ‘We blundered completely,’ he said. ‘The Saab was spotted when Ellen disappeared, but we didn’t get the significance. We totally fouled up.’

  Wisting scanned the yard for something to break open the barn door. ‘I’ve got tools in my car,’ Robekk said.

  He fetched a crowbar from the boot and handed the flashlight to Wisting. The timber, old and dry, splintered as Robekk dug at the bolt mountings. He threw himself into twisting and turning so violently that splinters flew in all directions. There was a crack and the first bolt fell to the ground, then the second. Five minutes later all the bolts were off. Frank Robekk threw the crowbar aside and pulled open the massive, double barn door.

  Wisting entered behind him. Grains of corn crunched underfoot. Minute particles of dust danced in the torchlight beam. The stench of straw and manure filled the air. The barn had a high ceiling, but the space was only wide enough to park a car. Pickaxes, spades, rakes and other tools were propped along one wall, together with two cartwheels. On the other side, dry hessian sacks were piled. A ladder led up to the hayloft.

  The car was covered with a thick layer of dust, which Wisting was about to wipe away when he heard a click. A couple of powerful flashes followed and the room was filled with light. He glanced at Line who was standing just inside the door.

  Frank Robekk opened the rear left-hand door of the Opel. A faded air freshener hung from the mirror. Otherwise every­thing was clean and tidy. The key was still in the ignition.

  Wisting walked round the vehicle. It was rusty, as the witness on the tractor had described, the rust exacerbated by the years spent in the barn. Round the wheel arches, large patches had flaked off, and the bracket holding one of the side mirrors had disintegrated so much the mirror hung by a thread. He halted in front of the boot and pressed his thumb against the button. It was resistant and made a scraping noise as it slid down, clicked, and opened with a little creak.

  Frank Robekk raised the lid.

  A bundle of clothes lay neatly folded on the black rubber mat. A short-sleeved sweatshirt, trousers, minuscule white underpants and a grey sports bra, beside a pair of running shoes with white socks pushed inside. At several places in the cramped space, rust had eaten cracks in the metalwork that, even seventeen years ago, would have been large enough to drop a little Walkman through.

  Wisting turned and looked through the barn door to the main house resting squarely on thick cellar walls.

  77

  His mobile rang while he was still inside the barn. It was Steinar Kvalsvik, the psychiatrist. ‘You called?’

  ‘Yes, but it can wait,’ Wisting said, looking through the open barn to the farmhouse opposite. The light from Line’s car headlamps brought everything into sharp relief.

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘Haglund had an operation for prostate cancer. He was possibly impotent as a consequence. I think it’s odd it wasn’t mentioned in your report.’

  ‘I agree. It should have been, but a psychiatric examination is based on case documents and discussions with the accused. I don’t know why he held those details back, but it doesn’t change anything. If anything, it’s more likely to support and reinforce his motive.’

  ‘How can that be?’

  ‘Sexual impulses are not located between the legs. Their locus is inside the head. Moreover, sexual abuse is more often about power than lust.’

  Wisting glanced at Line as he listened. She had switched off the ignition, but left the lights on. Seeing him looking, she raised her camera and preserved his image for posterity as he ran his hand through his hair. Stepping to the side she took another photograph, with the rusty Opel in the background.

  ‘An erection is actually a complicated interaction of hormones, nerve impulses and muscles in which both physical and psychological factors play a part,’ the psychiatrist continued. ‘Cancer treatment often impairs the capability but not the desire.’

  ‘Haglund was a masochist,’ Wisting commented, thinking of the pornographic magazines they had found at his home.

  ‘Sexual masochism implies enjoyment of domination, or humiliating or inflicting physical or psychological pain. In the extreme case of abducting a woman and inflicting all this on her, well, that could bring about a long-awaited gratification for him.’

  Wisting shifted the phone to his other ear. He did not have time for this call now, but wanted to hear what Steinar Kvalsvik had to say. ‘Do you still believe Haglund kidnapped Cecilia Linde?’ he asked.

  Frank Robekk was making his way to the farmhouse with the crowbar in his hand.

  ‘I’m even more convinced. Surgery on the prostate might explain not finding any semen on her. The sphincter muscle on the bladder can be damaged by the procedure. He would then have what we call a dry orgasm. The semen instead ends up in the bladder and is later discharged when urinating.’

  On the other side of the yard, Frank Robekk started to break open the front door.

  ‘There’s still something bothering me,’ the psychiatrist said. ‘I have a disturbing feeling.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s more a thought that won’t let go.’

  ‘Yes?’ Wisting repeated.

  ‘It’s about this girl with the yellow bow, Linnea Kaupang. I think he may have taken her. That he’s holding her somewhere.’

  Wisting was already striding across the farmyard, suspicions strengthening as he went. ‘Thanks for phoning,’ he said. ‘I’ll get back.’

  Frank Robekk swore as he kicked the door open.

  ‘The cellar!’ Wisting shouted, pointing to the other end of the house. ‘Not inside the house. If she’s here, she’ll be in the cellar!’

  Robekk lowered the crowbar and walked towards the trapdoor at the end of the house. The bushes on either side were pressed to the ground, and branches had been broken. It had been opened recently and set down on either side of the cellar opening. Frank Robekk jammed the crowbar under the padlock mounting.

  Wisting’s phone rang again. This time it was his father. ‘I’m in the middle of something!’

  ‘I’ve watched the rest of the film,’ Roald Wisting said. ‘At the end a man turns up: Rudolf Haglund.’

  Wisting grasped what his father was saying, but did not have time to fully appreciate what it meant for him, for the case and for the nightmare he had been drawn into. How it removed all doubt. ‘You’re certain?’ he
asked.

  ‘I recognised him from the newspaper. It’s him all right.’

  Wisting ended the call and waved Line over. ‘Are you sure Tommy and your colleagues are watching Haglund?’

  ‘Do you still believe he …’ she began.

  ‘Phone them. Make sure they don’t let him out of their sight!’

  Line took out her mobile as Robekk struggled with the padlock. This entrance was better secured than the barn door. Wisting rushed back to the barn and returned with a sledgehammer. His second blow shattered the lock. The hinges squeaked as Robekk lifted one flap and laid it to one side. The stench of rot and mould rose from the darkness. Somewhere they heard water dripping. Nothing else.

  When Robekk switched on his flashlight, a stone staircase glistened damply beneath them. Wisting hefted the sledgehammer and took the first step down to a high-ceilinged room with whitewashed walls. Neither spoke. The walls were speckled with mould and an icy stillness filled the space like an invisible fog. Empty jam jars, tin cans and bottles with handwritten labels were arrayed across a table. There was a door in the middle of the opposite wall. Robekk examined it: locked. Wisting broke it open with two hammer strokes.

  They entered another room. Beside the door Wisting found a switch and the electric current buzzed before an enormous ceiling lamp came on. This room was smaller than the first, and curved in a horseshoe shape. Opposite them was a door equipped with an extra iron mounting and a padlock. Beside the door was a stool and, close to the ceiling, a peephole. An old-fashioned video camera on a tripod was propped against the wall.

  Handing the sledgehammer to Robekk, Wisting stepped onto the stool and looked inside.

  78

  A young, naked woman lay motionless on the floor in a foetal position. The same leather collar worn by Cecilia in the video footage was fastened round her neck, as though she were an animal that someone owned. Wisting pressed his forehead against the cold wall and the foul odour of urine hit him. She twisted her head to look up.