by Jo Nesbo
Mikael Bellman nodded.
‘Then you know what I mean.’
‘Was she unfaithful?’
‘No. I think I can count that one out.’
Since she was so fat? Bellman felt like asking, but he dropped it. He had what he was after. The hesitation, the twitch at the corner of his eye, the almost imperceptible contraction of the pupil.
‘And you, Olsen, have you been unfaithful?’
Same reaction. Plus a certain flush to the forehead under the receding hairline. The answer was brief and resolute. ‘No, in fact I haven’t.’
Bellman angled his head. He didn’t suspect Rasmus Olsen. So why torment the man with this type of question? The answer was as simple as it was exasperating. Because he had no one else to question, no other leads to follow. He was merely taking out his frustration on this poor man.
‘What about you?’
‘What about me?’ Bellman, said, stifling a yawn.
‘Are you unfaithful?’
‘My wife is too beautiful,’ Bellman smiled. ‘Furthermore, we have two children. You and your wife were childless, and that encourages a little more … fun. I was talking to a source who said that you and your wife were having problems a while ago.’
‘I assume that’s the next-door neighbour. Marit chatted quite a bit with her, yes. There was a jealous patch some months ago. I had recruited a young girl to the party on a shop-steward course. That was how I met Marit, so she …’
Rasmus Olsen’s voice disintegrated, and Bellman saw that tears were welling up in his eyes.
‘It was nothing. But Marit went to the mountains for a couple of days to think things over. Afterwards everything was fine again.’
Bellman’s phone rang. He took it out, saw the name on the display and answered with a curt ‘yes’. And felt his pulse and fury increase as he listened to the voice.
‘Rope?’ he repeated. ‘Lyseren? That’s … Ytre Enebakk? Thanks.’
He stuffed the phone in his coat pocket. ‘I have to be off, Olsen. Thank you for your time.’
On his way out Bellman briefly stopped and looked around the room Terboven, the German Nazi, had occupied.
It was one o’clock in the morning and Harry was sitting in the living room listening to Martha Wainwright singing ‘Far Away’, ‘… Whatever remains is yet to be found’.
He was exhausted. In front of him on the coffee table was his mobile phone, the lighter and the silver foil containing the brown clump. He hadn’t touched it. But he had to sleep soon, find a rhythm, have a break. In his hand he was holding a photo of Rakel. Blue dress. He closed his eyes. Smelt her scent. Heard her voice. ‘Look!’ Her hand exerted a light squeeze. The water around them was black and deep, and she floated, white, soundless, weightless on the surface. The wind raised her veil and showed the white feathers beneath. Her long, slim neck formed a question mark. Where? She stepped ashore, a black iron skeleton with chafing, wailing wheels. She entered the house and vanished from sight. And reappeared on the first floor. She had a noose around her neck and there was a man by her side wearing a black suit with a white flower on his lapel. In front, with his back to them, stood a priest in a white cloak. He was reading slowly. Then he turned. His face and hands were white. Made of snow.
Harry awoke with a start.
Blinked in the dark. Sound. But not Martha Wainwright. Harry grabbed the luminous, vibrating phone on the coffee table.
‘Yes,’ he said with a voice like sludge.
‘I’ve got it.’
He sat up. ‘You’ve got what?’
‘The link. And there aren’t three dead. There are four.’
22
Search Engine
‘FIRST OF ALL, I TRIED THE THREE NAMES YOU GAVE ME,’ said Katrine Bratt. ‘Borgny Stem-Myhre, Charlotte Lolles and Marit Olsen. But the search didn’t produce anything sensible. So I put in all the missing persons in Norway over the last twelve months as well. And then I had something to work with.’
‘Wait,’ Harry said. He was wide awake now. ‘Where the hell did you get the missing persons from?’
‘Intranet at Missing Persons Unit, Oslo Police District. What did you think?’
Harry groaned, and Katrine went on.
‘There was one name that in fact linked the other three. Are you ready?’
‘Well …’
‘The missing woman is called Adele Vetlesen, twenty-three years old, living in Drammen. She was reported missing by her partner in November. A connection appeared on the NSB ticketing system. On the 7th of November Adele Vetlesen booked a train ticket online from Drammen to Ustaoset. The same day Borgny Stem-Myhre bought a train ticket from Kongsberg to the same place.’
‘Ustaoset’s not exactly the centre of the universe,’ Harry said.
‘It’s not a place, it’s a chunk of mountain. Where Bergen families have built their mountain cabins with old money and the Tourist Association has built cabins on the peaks, so that Norwegians can preserve Amundsen and Nansen’s heritage and trudge from cabin to cabin with skis on their feet, twenty-five kilos on their backs and a taste of mortal fear in the hinterland of the mind. Adds spice to life, you know.’
‘Sounds like you’ve been there.’
‘My ex-husband’s family has a cabin in the mountains. They’re so rich and revered that they have neither electricity nor running water. Only social climbers have a sauna and a jacuzzi.’
‘The other connections?’
‘There wasn’t a train ticket in the name of Marit Olsen. However, a payment was registered on the cash dispenser in the restaurant car on the corresponding train the day before. At 14.13. According to the railway timetable that would be somewhere between Ål and Geilo, in other words before Ustaoset.’
‘Less convincing,’ Harry said. ‘The train goes right through to Bergen. Perhaps she was going there.’
‘Do you think …?’ Katrine Bratt started, then faltered, waited and went on in hushed tones. ‘You think I’m stupid? The hotel at Ustaoset booked an overnight stay in a double room for one Rasmus Olsen who, according to the Civil Registration System, is resident at the same address as Marit Olsen. So I assumed that—’
‘Yes, that’s her husband. Why are you whispering?’
‘Because the night porter just walked past, OK? Listen, we’ve placed two murder victims and one missing person in Ustaoset on the same day. What do you reckon?’
‘Well, it’s a significant coincidence, but we can’t exclude the possibility that it’s pure chance.’
‘Agreed. So here’s the rest. I searched for Charlotte Lolles plus Ustaoset, but didn’t get a hit. So I concentrated on the date to see where Charlotte Lolles might have been when the other three were in Ustaoset. Two days before, Charlotte had paid for diesel at a petrol station outside Hønefoss.’
‘That’s a long way from Ustaoset.’
‘But it’s in the right direction from Oslo. I tried to find a car registered in her name or a possible partner’s. If they have an Auto PASS and have driven through several toll stations you can follow their movements.’
‘Mm.’
‘The problem is that she had neither a car nor a live-in partner, not officially anyway.’
‘She had a boyfriend.’
‘It’s possible. But the search engine found a car in a Europark garage in Geilo, paid for by an Iska Peller.’
‘That’s just a few kilometres away. But who’s … er, Iska Peller?’
‘According to the credit card info she’s a resident of Bristol, Sydney, Australia. The point is that she scores high on a relational search with Charlotte Lolles.’
‘Relational search?’
‘It works like this, OK. Based on the last few years, names come up for people paying with a card at the same restaurant at the same time, which suggests that they have eaten together and split the bill. Or for people who are members of the same gym with matching enrolment dates or have plane seats next to each other more than once. You get the picture.’<
br />
‘I get the picture,’ Harry repeated, copying her Bergensian intonation. ‘And I’m sure you’ve checked out the make of car and whether it uses—’
‘Yes, I have, and it uses diesel,’ Katrine answered sharply. ‘Do you want to hear the rest or not?’
‘By all means.’
‘You can’t pre-book beds in these self-service Tourist Association cabins. If all the beds are taken when you arrive, you just have to doss down on the floor, on a mattress or in a sleeping bag with your own mat. It only costs a hundred and seventy a night, and you can either put cash into a box at the cabin, or leave an envelope with an authorisation to charge your account.’
‘In other words you can’t see who has been in which cabins when?’
‘Not if they pay cash. But if they’ve left an authorisation, afterwards there would be a transaction on their account between them and the Tourist Association. Mentioning the cabin used and the date the payment was for.’
‘I seem to remember it’s a pain searching through bank transactions.’
‘Not if the engine is given the right criteria by a sharp human brain.’
‘Which is the case, I take it?’
‘That’s the general idea. Iska Peller’s account was charged for two beds at four of the Tourist Association cabins on the 20th of November, each a day’s march from the next.’
‘A four-day skiing trip.’
‘Yes. And they stayed at the last one, the Håvass cabin, on the 7th of November. It’s only half a day’s walk from Ustaoset.’
‘Interesting.’
‘What’s really interesting is that there are two other accounts that were charged for overnight stays at the Håvass cabin on the 7th of November. Guess whose?’
‘Well, it’ll hardly be Marit Olsen’s or Borgny Stem-Myhre’s since I assume Kripos would have found out that two of the murder victims had recently stayed at the same place the same night. So it must be the missing girl’s. What was her name?’
‘Adele Vetlesen. And you’re spot on. She paid for two people, but there’s no way of knowing who the other person was.’
‘Who’s the other person who paid with an authorisation slip?’
‘Not so interesting. From Stavanger.’
Nevertheless Harry picked up a pen and noted the name and address of the individual concerned and also of Iska Peller in Sydney. ‘Sounds like you rate search engines,’ he said.
‘Yep,’ she said. ‘It’s like flying an old bomber. Bit rusty and slow to get going, but when you’re in the air … my goodness. What do you think of the results?’
Harry pondered.
‘What you’ve done’, he said, ‘is to locate one missing woman and a woman who presumably has nothing to do with the case at the same place at the same time. In itself, nothing to shout about. But you’ve made it more likely that one of the murder victims – Charlotte Lolles – was with her. And you’ve located two of the murder victims – Borgny Stem-Myhre and Marit Olsen – in the immediate vicinity of Ustaoset. So …’
‘So?’
‘So, my congratulations. You’ve kept your part of the bargain. Now, as for mine …’
‘Save your breath and wipe that grin off your face. I didn’t mean it. I’m of unsound mind, didn’t you realise?’
She smacked down the receiver.
23
Passenger
SHE WAS ALONE ON THE BUS. STINE RESTED HER FOREHEAD against the window so that she wouldn’t see her reflection. Stared out into the deserted, pitch-black bus station. Hoping someone would come. Hoping no one would come.
He had been sitting by a window in Krabbe with a beer in front of him staring at her, motionless. Woollen hat, blond hair and those wild blue eyes. His eyes laughed, penetrated, implored, called her name. In the end she had told Mathilde that she wanted to go home. But Mathilde had just started a conversation with an American oil guy and wanted to stay a bit longer. So Stine had grabbed her coat, run from Krabbe to the bus station and got on a bus to Våland.
She looked at the red numbers on the digital clock above the driver. Hoping the doors would shut and the bus would start moving. One minute left.
She didn’t raise her eyes, not even when she heard the running footsteps, heard the breathless voice request a ticket from the driver at the front, nor when he sat down on the seat beside her.
‘Hey, Stine,’ he said. ‘I think you’re avoiding me.’
‘Oh, hi, Elias,’ she said without shifting her gaze from the rain-wet tarmac. Why had she sat so far back in the bus, so far from the driver?
‘You shouldn’t be out alone on a night like this, you know.’
‘Shouldn’t I?’ she mumbled, hoping someone would come, anyone.
‘Don’t you read the newspapers? Those two girls in Oslo. And now, the other day, that MP. What was her name again?’
‘No idea,’ Stine lied, feeling her heart rate gallop.
‘Marit Olsen,’ Elias said. ‘Socialist Party. The other two were Borgny and Charlotte. Sure you don’t recognise the names, Stine?’
‘I don’t read newspapers,’ Stine said. Someone had to come soon.
‘Great girls, all three of them,’ he said.
‘Course, you knew them, didn’t you?’ Stine regretted the sarcastic tone immediately. It was fear.
‘Not well though,’ Elias said. ‘But the first impression was good. I’m – as you know – the kind who attaches a lot of importance to first impressions.’
She stared at the hand he cautiously placed on her knee.
‘You …’ she said, and even in that one syllable she could hear herself begging.
‘Yes, Stine?’
She looked up at him. His face was as open as a child’s, his eyes genuinely curious. She wanted to scream, jump up, when she heard the steps and voice up by the driver. A passenger. A man. He came to the back of the bus. Stine tried to catch his eye, to make him understand, but the brim of his hat covered the upper half of his face, and he was busy checking his change and putting the ticket in his wallet. Her breathing was lighter when he took a seat right behind them.
‘It’s incredible that the police haven’t discovered the connection between them,’ Elias said. ‘It shouldn’t be so difficult. They must know that all three women liked to go cross-country skiing in the mountains. They stayed at the cabin in Håvass on the same night. Do you think I should tell them?’
‘Maybe,’ Stine whispered. If she was quick perhaps she could squeeze past Elias and jump off the bus. But she had hardly articulated the thought in her mind before the hydraulics hissed, the doors slid shut and the bus set off. She closed her eyes.
‘I just don’t want to be involved. I hope you can understand that, Stine.’
She nodded slowly, her eyes still closed.
‘Good. Then I can tell you about someone else who was there. Someone I’m sure you know.’
PART THREE
24
Stavanger
‘IT SMELLS OF …’ KAJA SAID.
‘Shit,’ Harry said. ‘Cow variety. Welcome to the district of Jæren.’
The dawn light leaked from the clouds sweeping across the spring-green fields. From behind stone walls cows stared mutely at their taxi. They were on their way from Sola Airport to Stavanger city centre.
Harry leaned forward between the front seats. ‘Could you put your foot down, driver?’ He held up his ID card. The driver beamed, gave it some gas, and they accelerated onto the motorway.
‘Are you afraid we’re too late?’ Kaja asked as Harry fell back.
‘Didn’t answer the phone, didn’t turn up for work,’ Harry said, not needing to complete his reasoning.
After he had spoken to Katrine Bratt the night before, Harry had skimmed over what he had noted down. He had the names, telephone numbers and addresses of two living persons who had probably stayed in a cabin in November with the three murder victims. He had checked his watch, worked out it was early morning in Sydney and rung Iska Peller’s n
umber. She had answered and sounded very surprised when Harry broached the topic of the Håvass cabin. She hadn’t been able to tell Harry much about the overnight stay because she had been stuck in a bedroom with a high temperature. Perhaps because she had been wearing wet, sweaty clothes for too long, perhaps because skiing from cabin to cabin had been a baptism of fire for an inexperienced langlaufer like herself. Or perhaps simply because flu strikes at random. At any rate, she had only just managed to drag herself to Håvass, where she had been ordered straight to bed by her companion Charlotte Lolles. There, Iska Peller had drifted in and out of dream-filled sleep as her body ached, sweated and froze in turn. Whatever had gone on between the others in the cabin, whoever they were, well, she hadn’t picked up anything, as she and Charlotte had been the first to arrive. The next day she had stayed in bed until the others had left, and she and Charlotte were collected on a snow scooter by a local policeman Charlotte had managed to contact. He had driven them to his place where he had invited them to stay overnight as the only hotel was full, so he informed them. They had accepted, but that night they changed their minds and caught a late train to Geilo to stay at a hotel there. Charlotte hadn’t told Iska anything in particular about the night in the Håvass cabin. An uneventful night, apparently.
Five days after the skiing trip Iska had left Oslo for Sydney, still with a temperature, and had kept in regular email contact with Charlotte but hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Until she received the shocking news that her friend had been found dead behind a wrecked car on the edge of a wood by Lake Daudsjøen, just outside the urban sprawl of Oslo.
Harry had explained to Iska Peller with some care, but without beating around the bush, that they were worried about the people who had been in the cabin on the night of the 7th of November and that, after ringing off, he would call the head of Crime Squad in Sydney South Police District, Neil McCormack, whom Harry had worked for on one occasion. McCormack, he said, would require further details from her and – even though Australia was a long way from Oslo – provide police protection until further notice. Iska Peller seemed to accept this with equanimity.