by Lin Anderson
Major organized crime in Norway was mainly centred on drug trafficking, THB and, increasingly, cybercrime, a problem recently prioritized in their move to a new sixteen-district model of policing. Trafficking in human beings was what Olsen had been investigating and what had taken him to the northernmost part of the country and their non-Schengen border with Russia.
What he’d found there wasn’t what he’d expected. In fact the trail that he’d followed had proved illusionary, apart from those two small bodies in the snow. If there had been an increase in trafficking via Russia, it had now dwindled, as the local forces had been at pains to point out. Like all districts, they suffered from itinerant prostitution, often involving trafficked women from Eastern Europe or Nigeria.
Such offences were difficult to monitor and manage, the officer in charge had reminded him, the participants staying for only short periods of time before moving to another district. Even if a suspect was picked up, there was often no prosecution, the trafficked women being too afraid to testify for fear of reprisals on their families at home. Any DNA samples taken then had to be removed from the database, often to be re-entered again via another district, sometimes as little as a week later.
A cat-and-mouse game with little reward.
But not this time, Olsen told himself as he completed his submission. The other three men sitting round the table had listened intently to what he’d had to say. Politiinspektør Harald Hjerngaard, Jonas Silvertsen and Oskar Gerhard, as part of the Criminal Investigation Department, respectively represented Forensics, Organized Crime and Child Sexual Abuse. All were aware of the various organized crime gangs working in Norway and in Politidistrikt Sør-Vest in particular.
Up to now, Olsen hadn’t dismissed the possibility that one or more of the local criminal motorcycle gangs might be the prime instigators. With chapters all over Europe and beyond, they certainly had the reach, and prostitution and drug smuggling were their preferred occupations. Then there were the ethnic gangs from Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Chechnya and Albania, equally on his radar, particularly with the influx of unaccompanied minors flowing into Europe from war zones such as Syria and northern Africa. Minors who, he’d come to suspect, were being shipped between Norway and their near neighbour, Scotland. The news in the early hours of the morning from Glasgow had convinced him he was on the right track.
‘So, when do you plan to go?’ Harald said as the others nodded their agreement.
‘As soon as possible,’ Olsen told them, satisfied with the outcome of the meeting. ‘Anything back from the coastguard?’
It was Silvertsen who answered. ‘No sightings of the vessel you’re interested in as yet, but there’s a hundred square miles of open sea to search,’ he said.
‘And air traffic control?’
‘They’re checking all private flights that took off from Sola during the previous three days as requested.’
As he returned to the flat to finish packing, the snow came on in earnest. Snow wasn’t a feature of Stavanger. Like Aberdeen, its Scottish counterpart, it experienced mostly a wet winter, and often a wet summer too. Olsen had a momentary concern that worsening weather might delay or even prevent his flight, but decided if it did, he would reschedule for the following morning. Meanwhile, he would make contact with MIT Glasgow and inform them of his imminent visit.
Before he’d left the office he’d secured more information regarding the Delta project and the officers involved. Olsen didn’t doubt that cooperation with the Scottish contingent would happen. Being part of mainland Europe, members of KRIPOS were used to dealing internationally, and Scotland and Norway were close neighbours. Both lay on the northernmost reaches of Europe. They shared many words and ancestry in common, something that Marita had often reminded him of. But in the end, it would all come down to the personnel involved, himself included.
The colourful playground constructed with discarded materials from the oil industry was busy with scrambling, excited children, reminding Olsen that it was in fact the school holidays. Holidays were something he rarely took now. Summer hillwalking and winter climbing had been two pastimes he’d enjoyed with Marita. In fact it had been she who’d organized all their holidays. She’d also been in charge of his social life, which is why I no longer have one, Olsen acknowledged, not for the first time.
Turning from the harbour into Kirkegata, he registered that the guest jetty had a superyacht tied up alongside, the Mariusud. A yacht Olsen recognized because the owner was one of the biggest shipping magnates in Norway. He would have liked to take a closer look at the sleek yacht, but glancing at his watch, he abandoned that thought. If it was there when he returned …
Directly across from it, on the other side of the harbour, the World War Two ship, painted white with its red cross markings, lay in its permanent position, a reminder that Norway and its neighbours had oft times been at war.
We’re still at war, Olsen thought, glancing again at the Mariusud. It’s just the enemy that’s changed.
27
Glasgow, 2 January
McNab’s eyes flickered open. Not recognizing the landscape, he wondered for a moment where he was, then a sudden memory brought his head round to discover the place beside him in the bed was empty. Shit. He looked at his mobile with trepidation. He’d heard no morning alarm and was worried he may have slept through it. But no, it had yet to go off. He rose and went to check he was alone in the flat.
A quick glance into the main room suggested he was. Added to which there was no sound from the shower. She’s gone. At what time, he had no idea. McNab tested himself as to how he felt about that. It all depended on her reason for the early exit. Perhaps he’d pissed her off, or disappointed her, and she didn’t fancy an early-morning repeat performance. Then again, if that were the case, surely she would have asked him to leave last night? McNab decided to assume that explanation, mainly because it was better for his ego.
Re-entering the bedroom, he now spotted a piece of paper, nestling where Ellie’s head had been. The words were written in real ink and by an elegant hand. The note also sported a drawing of a small skull that looked like a miniature version of the one she’d inked on his back. Reading it, he smiled.
Morning. Feel free to use the shower and eat any food you’re lucky enough to find in the kitchen. Remember the cling film. I left it in the bathroom for you. Ellie.
So he hadn’t been a disappointment after all.
Under the shower and following Ellie’s washing instructions to the letter, he heard his mobile ring. Jumping out, he got to it, dripping, but just in time.
‘McNab.’
It was Janice. ‘There’s a strategy meeting at eleven.’
‘I know,’ he lied. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’
‘We’d better talk first. I’ll see you at the coffee machine.’
She hung up so quickly that McNab didn’t have time to question the necessity of such a meeting. Her tone had been edgy, he acknowledged to himself, but then again, DS Clark was inclined to worry unduly, unlike him. Swiftly drying himself, he reached for his shirt, then remembered he still had to don the cling film.
No time, he thought, checking his watch, offering a silent apology to Ellie while already working on his excuse, should she find out.
A passing glance in the mirror reminded him of what he had done to his back. Arm tattoos were common enough on the force among both men and women. But a skull on your back, a biker tattoo, was tantamount to being seen as an arse.
What the hell would his work colleagues say if they saw it?
An image of DI Wilson’s possible expression came to mind.
Maybe I could offer to go undercover among the biker gangs to make up for my stupidity?
He may have made a mistake getting inked, but Ellie’s painted body had, he decided, been beautiful. He’d never really reckoned tattoos much. Probably because of the men he’d seen sporting them. At the last European Football Championships, he’d viewed a rioter with an oversi
zed belly emblazoned with a tattoo of Fred Flintstone, for chrissakes.
Who the hell would have Fred Flintstone inked on his belly?
Who the hell would choose to have a skull inked on his back?
And I can’t even blame the drink.
McNab pulled the front door shut and set off down the stairs. His car was parked some way away, and demanded a swift walk.
There had been a thaw overnight and grey slush had now replaced the white stuff. The wind was a Glasgow special: damp and raw, biting at his cheeks and ears. At least I’m not on Cairngorm. That thought made McNab check his mobile, hoping for some indication that Rhona might be back in town, but there was nothing.
And why should there be?
Finally back at his car, he started her up and, glancing at his watch, decided on both the route and speed through the morning traffic that would allow him to turn up at the coffee machine at the allotted time.
28
Inverness, 2 January
All mortuaries are alike, Rhona thought. Same smell, temperature and shining steel, their difference lying mainly in their capacity. The mortuary at the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow could hold up to 200 bodies. This one, situated at the back of the main building of the Highland hospital, considerably fewer.
Looking through the intervening glass, Rhona could see the three climbers lying side by side, with the pilot of the light aircraft lying a little away from them. Rhona suspected that all four bodies probably hadn’t thawed enough yet to allow for a postmortem investigation. Mortuary refrigerators, like those in a domestic kitchen, were maintained at plus four degrees centigrade. A temperature adequate for short-term preservation over a few days, and which kept the body ‘workable’.
Climbers who died in the high Alps and on Everest might remain frozen for years. Ötzi the Iceman, whose body had been found between Austria and Italy, had been preserved in the ice for almost five and a half millennia. Cairngorm wasn’t as high or cold as the Upper Alps or Mount Everest, but the temperature on the plateau had been low enough to freeze all four bodies solid.
Charlie came in as she contemplated the scene, and Rhona knew by his expression that something was wrong.
‘I’m afraid we’re not going ahead with any of the postmortems.’
‘They’re too frozen?’ Rhona said.
‘They are, but that’s not the reason.’ His forehead creased in annoyance. ‘The powers that be are transferring the bodies to Glasgow.’
‘Why?’ Rhona said in surprise. ‘I thought you processed climbing deaths here.’
‘We do, usually, although occasionally they’re sent to Aberdeen.’
‘So why are they going to Glasgow?’ Rhona asked, already having a glimmer of what might be his answer.
‘Because they have a bigger mortuary? Because they think we’re not up to the job? Because of creeping centralization?’
Rhona was aware there had been muted suggestions that all bodies should be transferred to a central point at the Queen Elizabeth. Colleagues in Aberdeen forensic pathology had already voiced a similar concern. It wasn’t only criminal gangs that had turf wars. Academics in every field were known to indulge in them too. And bodies were business. Take them away and the expertise left with them.
‘Do you want to take a look before they’re prepared for transport?’
Rhona did. In the confines of the mountain refuge, the casualties still clothed, with the only light coming from her head torch, it had been impossible to fully establish the state of the bodies.
Now, gowned like Charlie, she could finally examine them in the full glare required.
‘Their clothes have been bagged for forensic examination,’ Charlie told her. ‘All three climbers were wearing vests and leggings as you know, undergarments and hats and gloves. There was a fourth pair of gloves, I assume belonging to Isla.’
The bodies were gradually defrosting. Rhona could both see and feel the difference in the texture of the skin. She checked Gavin first. In the cave she hadn’t registered scratches. Not somewhere visible, anyway. Naked now, she found a group on his chest. Not deep, but enough to draw blood.
‘They all have scratches,’ Charlie said, seeing her interest. ‘Climbing places like Hell’s Lum, it’s inevitable. Like bruises. Around the wrists, shins, ankles, anywhere that engages with the rock face.’
‘Isla, in her delirium, claimed she scratched a man who, she said, was trying to kill her.’ Rhona repeated the garbled story, which had mixed up Gavin’s name with that of the Big Grey Man.
‘Hypothermia will do that. But even experienced climbers with no signs of hypothermia have claimed to see or hear the phantom of Ben Macdui. And that includes me. It’s a trick of light and sound, which is yet to be explained scientifically.’
‘What about what we found in the cave?’
‘The circumstances were odd,’ he agreed. ‘But not without precedence.’
‘And the grit I collected from the female’s mouth?’
‘Climbers melt snow for drinking water. It has grit in it.’
Rhona nodded; everything Charlie had said was reasonable, and as both a pathologist and part of CMR, he knew what he was talking about, but without a postmortem, they were still in the dark.
She moved now to the man they presumed to be the pilot of the light aircraft, although they had no real proof that was the case. Naked, he was muscular, healthy-looking and at a guess in his thirties. Both upper arms bore tattoos, Viking in nature, as did his chest, on which the words Uten Frykt were written in script form.
‘Scandinavian?’ Charlie tried. ‘Or he’s a fan of that TV programme Vikings.’
‘Frykt looks like fright or fear,’ Rhona said, fishing for her mobile to check online. ‘Without fear,’ she said, ‘and it’s Norwegian.’
‘Perhaps the plane came from there?’ Charlie said. ‘Owen said AAIB plan to airlift the wreckage out today, if the weather keeps good.’
Rhona followed Charlie into the changing room and began to degown.
‘You’ll head south now?’ he asked.
Rhona nodded. ‘When the girl wakens up?’
‘I’ll let you know the story,’ Charlie promised.
She caught the first flight to Glasgow. After having told Sean she would follow him, it seemed instead that she would be there before him. Waiting to board the plane, she’d watched the news on the TV screen. Under a blue sky, the footage of the A9 through Drumochter Pass showed it now open, although evidence of the blockage was obvious in a string of abandoned vehicles, whose occupants had had to be rescued at the height of the blizzard.
Then followed the images taken from the media helicopter. She even caught a glimpse of herself at the Shelter Stone with Charlie. The voice-over spoke of the horrifying death of three climbers ‘which required the presence of forensic scientist, Dr Rhona MacLeod’ – how the hell did they know about me? – and the subsequent ‘intrepid’ rescue of a fourth from an ice cave inches from a perilous drop. After which came the story of a ‘mystery plane’ that had crash-landed on Loch A’an. No one, according to the report, ‘knew where this plane had come from, or what it had been carrying’. That was true enough. ‘And,’ the voice-over continued, ‘its pilot was also found dead some distance from the wreckage in suspicious circumstances’.
At that point her flight had been called and she’d had to depart the screen. Now she understood Kyle and Owen’s reticence about giving out information on rescues to the press. No matter what they said, the press would find their own story. Except in this case, the press had got it pretty well right and with a large measure of detail, including her own presence and profession. There were over twenty rescuers that day, Rhona recalled, all of whom would have friends and families. Someone among either the rescuers or the police had identified a juicy aspect to the story and handed it to the press.
Once the plane had landed at Glasgow airport, and they were given the go-ahead to turn on ‘digital devices’, the normal world returned w
ith a vengeance in a flurry of missed calls, text messages and emails. One of which reported the real reason that the pilot’s body had been ordered south.
29
The bus that had brought him down from the hill and deposited him in the village centre had been buzzing with stories of the blizzard. He’d tuned in, and when the guy beside him had asked what his own tale was, he’d said he’d dug a snow hole and left it at that.
For those who’d taken refuge in the ski lodge, and had access to TV reports, the talk was all about the three climbers found dead from exposure at the Shelter Stone, plus a fourth member of the party who’d been rescued and flown out by helicopter to Raigmore. At this point, he’d feigned sorrow at the deaths, and asked if anyone knew how badly hurt the survivor was. No one could tell him.
Now, alighting from the bus, he found somewhere to eat, which had Wi-Fi, and brought himself up to date via his mobile. The footage from a press helicopter concerned him. He didn’t think he’d been caught on camera, but there was no guarantee of that. The snippet he did see of rescuers at the Shelter Stone, together with the report of a forensic scientist at the scene, worried him the most.
How the fuck did that happen?
Mountain rescue teams had all manner of people in them, but a forensic scientist from Glasgow? As he pondered this, the waitress came over with his meal. Catching a trace of his accent, she introduced herself as Annieska and told him she was Polish and from Kraków. He thanked her but didn’t respond with his own nationality, which she seemed disappointed by.
‘Were you on the hill last night?’ she said.
He merely nodded, not wishing to engage in conversation.
‘My boyfriend’s in Cairngorm Mountain Rescue. It was Kyle and the forensic woman, Dr MacLeod, who rescued the casualty and transported her to Raigmore,’ she told him proudly.
Now he was interested. ‘I hope the girl was okay?’
‘They found her in a snow cave over a burn, close to death.’
So that’s why he couldn’t find her body.