PART II
16
Sunday 7 October
DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR Hans Magnus Viken was standing high above the gully. He’d been there for several minutes. Below him the crime scene was bathed in light from the two large lamps the technicians had rigged up.
He had still not been down there. Not because he dreaded getting a closer look at the deceased, but because first impressions were important. He raised his eyes and looked into the darkness between the pine trees. The actual location in which a body was found always had something to tell. It was usually not possible to describe exactly what it was at first, but it might be useful later, perhaps even crucial. He referred to this to himself as intuition, but called it a gut feeling in conversation with colleagues. He was convinced that this power to think intuitively was what distinguished an unusually skilled detective from one who was merely competent.
Viken remained standing up there another couple of minutes before climbing down and nodding to the three guys in white coveralls who had completed the first round of examinations of the body and were now searching the surrounding forest floor.
One look at the dead person was enough. The DI was certain this was the missing woman. She was wearing walking gear, Gore-Tex jacket and trousers in some rough fabric. The jacket had been pulled up over the back. She lay with her legs curled under her, in a foetal position. He bent closer, switched on his torch. A gaping wound ran across one side of her neck and up on to her face. It looked almost like deep claw marks, five furrows in the same direction. When he carefully lifted up part of the ripped jacket, a second, similar gash appeared, diagonally down across the back. He peered towards the top of the gorge, where he’d just been standing. A fall on to the stones at the bottom could cause a lot of damage. But these gashes were different. It looked like something done by an animal. Ten days had passed since the woman had been reported missing; she must have been lying there exposed to the elements, and a natural target for scavengers.
One of the technicians shouted. He was standing doubled over at the end of the gorge, where it emerged on to a slope. The others joined him. Viken heard them talking loudly together and climbed closer.
– Found something?
One of them, a raw-boned, grey-haired man he’d known since police college days, beckoned to him.
– Better come and see this for yourself.
Viken shone his torch beam on to the ground, where the moss had been scratched up. Shone it further away; in several places there were similar marks on the forest floor. On a muddy patch of ground distinct tracks were visible. They looked like claw marks.
– Shit, Viken muttered. – They don’t exactly look like a dog’s prints.
He straightened up.
– How much longer do you need here?
The grey-haired man measured the gully with his gaze.
– Five, six hours to begin with.
Viken thought it over. It was now 8.45. It looked highly unlikely that this was a case for his Violent Crimes section. He had come up here on his own initiative when he heard about the discovery. He was well aware of the fact that not everybody in the Crime Response Unit would be equally pleased at his presence, but having seen the dead woman, he was confident that it had been time well spent. He had seen body parts fished up from the sea. He had entered flats in which corpses had lain rotting and putrefied in the summer heat for weeks. He had seen them disfigured with Sami knives, shot at close range with shotguns. But he had never seen anything resembling these gashes. Carefully he picked his way down the slope, shining the torch on the ground in front of him. A few metres further down he came across two new tracks.
He climbed up above the gully again, pulled the plastic coverings off his shoes and removed a cloth from his pocket. Even when working in terrain like this, he disliked seeing muddy spots on them. Afterwards he stood looking down at the brightly lit scene with the white-clad figures crawling around as they examined the ground around the body. He pulled out his mobile phone, called a number from the address book. A sergeant in the section had at one time been a member of the Hunting and Fishing Regulations committee in the area he came from, somewhere away up in darkest Hedmark. The type of guy who devoted two weeks of his holiday to elk hunting every time autumn came around.
– Hi, Arve, he said when his call was answered. – I know this is a holiday weekend for you, but there’s something I want you to see. Are you in town? Good, how quickly can you make it up to Ullevålseter?
Viken stood on the grass with a cup of hot coffee in his hands. The people at Ullevålseter were more than accommodating. The café had closed several hours ago, but they’d offered him something to eat as well. He said coffee was fine, even though his stomach was acid and complaining. In the distance he heard the sound of an engine, and a couple of minutes later a small, light car came up the slope. Sergeant Arve Norbakk, the man he was waiting for, usually drove a big four-by-four, and Viken immediately had a pretty good idea of what was happening.
His hunch turned out to be right. A blond woman he recognised at once jumped out of the passenger door even before the car had come to a halt.
– Well let me tell you, Fredvold, said Viken. – VG are usually on the scene long before I’ve even got my shoes on. I’ve been here for hours now and not seen hide nor hair of a journalist. No wonder the tabloids are struggling.
The woman was in her thirties, with a jutting lower jaw, and was about a head taller than the detective chief inspector. She wore a leather jacket and boots with heels that gave her another couple of centimetres on him. Tall women always made him feel uneasy.
– Well we’ll see about that, she answered. – But finding you here is good news.
Viken grimaced.
– It isn’t murder every time I show my face, you know that perfectly well. Did you get permission to drive up here?
– I didn’t reckon on meeting any traffic wardens in the middle of the forest, the journalist smiled. Cute as a pike, Viken thought.
A fat little man with an enormous photographer’s bag over one shoulder squeezed his way out of the car. The detective chief inspector hadn’t seen him before, and when the man approached, clearly intending to shake hands, he turned his back on him, trudged back into the café and refilled his cup. An hour had passed since he’d called Norbakk. He wanted to finish up here and get back down into town as quickly as possible.
Kaja Fredvold and the photographer followed him inside.
– Are you still serving coffee? the journalist exclaimed happily when she saw the steaming pot standing on the counter.
She helped herself and walked over to the table where Viken was now sitting.
– Is the body you’ve found Hilde Paulsen?
– Looks pretty much like it.
– What happened to her?
Viken drummed on the edge of the table.
– She’s lying in a gully, been lying there for a week and a half. Fell, I expect.
– Where?
– Not too far away. Couple of kilometres.
– But this area has been thoroughly combed for days. Dogs and helicopters and an army of volunteers.
– Give us a day or two, Fredvold.
– Us? You mean Violent Crimes?
Viken heard a car outside and stood up.
– Don’t try it on. That’s all you’re getting for now.
They drove up the forest road in Norbakk’s SUV, the journalist following them in the little Japanese car.
– Let’s hope they get stuck, said Viken.
Arve Norbakk chuckled. He was not much more than thirty, at least twenty years younger than his colleague. He’d joined straight from college and been in the section for eighteen months. Viken, who every semester led a course in investigatory tactics for the students, had personally recommended him to the head of the section. The gut feeling that stood him in such good stead as a detective was every bit as useful when it came to assessing a colleague’s personality and qu
alities. It enabled him to make quick judgements of their weaknesses and strengths, and he had not been mistaken in his opinion of Norbakk. The sergeant might not have been all that quick, but he was thorough and dependable, and smart enough when given the time. And he was someone who thought about what he was going to say before saying it, not the type to shoot his mouth off about anything and everything. The section had enough chattering magpies – an issue on which Viken’s tolerance was severely limited.
– You could have forbidden them to drive on any further, Norbakk suggested.
Viken fumbled out a paper hanky and blew into it. Not because he had a cold, but because the smell of the corpse he had been bending over still seemed to be in his nostrils.
– They would have been up there whatever. You know, when the mongrels pick up the scent of blood … Apropos mongrels, it was a dog that found the body. A few hundred metres off the track.
Norbakk glanced over at him.
– They’ve had search lines going across this area several times.
– I know. Our people with tracker dogs, and the army and the Red Cross, with hundreds of volunteers trawling every square inch. No one finds a damned shit. But a retired dentist out walking with his Gordon setter comes across it straight away.
A few minutes later they were stepping over the crime-scene tapes and climbing down into the gully. Norbakk took a quick look at the body.
– Fucking hell, he muttered, and looked up at the top of the gully.
– What do you make of these?
Viken pointed to the deep scratch marks on the back and neck.
– Can’t be the result of a fall, Norbakk said. – Must be an animal.
Viken glowered at the journalist and the photographer, who were leaning over the tape and following their every movement. Then he shone his torch on the marks in the moss.
– Bloody hell, Norbakk exclaimed.
– There’s a couple more here. We’ll need to get the experts on this, but I wanted you to see it first.
Viken shone the torch on the muddy area at the end of the gully.
– What’s your guess, Arve?
– Guess? It’s a stone-cold certainty.
The three technicians had arrived back by this time. Sergeant Arve Norbakk studied the ground for a little while longer before he raised his gaze and looked from one to another.
– Bear, he said.
17
Monday 8 October
VIKEN WAS IN excellent spirits but for obvious reasons contained himself.
– Are you trying to say that this is not our case? asked Nina Jebsen in her laid-back Bergen drawl. – That this is something for the Hunting and Fishing Regulations people?
Viken rested his gaze on her face. He’d only worked with her a couple of times before. She was in her early thirties, the type most men would undoubtedly have described as pretty, he thought. Meaning a face that was feminine and symmetrical and all that. Not very exciting, perhaps, but she definitely had a woman’s body, something the light grey suit with the short cinched jacket did nothing to hide. She just needed to lose about five or six kilos, he said to himself, not for the first time. But all things considered it was best for her to be the way she was. He didn’t want any babe working next to him, not on the job; that would be bound to cause trouble.
Seen from that perspective, working with the head of the Violent Crimes section, Detective Superintendent Agnes Finckenhagen, was a pretty straightforward business. She was a bag of bones about his own age, with a crooked nose and thin lips. Nina Jebsen’s question had been directed at her. Now Finckenhagen’s mouth narrowed even further. Viken had long ago worked out that this was a sign she was trying to appear authoritative.
– We’ve had a wildlife expert up there, she said. – He confirms what we already suspected. She flashed a quick smile at Arve Norbakk, who was sitting directly opposite her round the table. – That is, that the murdered woman, Hilde Sofie Paulsen, has injuries consistent with those inflicted by a bear.
Viken adopted a look of relaxed inscrutability as Finckenhagen spoke. The case had been well handled, and she had praised him before the meeting. Taking Arve Norbakk up to the scene had been a smart move. The sergeant had experience with attaching radio transmitters to bears and was as qualified as any expert to identify the wounds on the deceased and the tracks found nearby. From the moment the body had been found they had been in control of the situation, and they had been firm in dealing with the press. Viken had discreetly reminded Finckenhagen that he was the one who had recommended Norbakk when he applied to join their section and that, probably as a result of this, he had been given the job ahead of people with a longer record of service.
– If it was an animal that did this, then surely we can take responsibility for tracking it down, suggested Inspector Sigmundur Helgarsson with a grin in Norbakk’s direction. – There’s others can hunt here besides Arve.
– Excellent idea, Sigge, Viken responded tonelessly. – I imagine you grew up hunting polar bears.
– Do they have polar bears in Iceland? Nina Jebsen wanted to know.
Finckenhagen raised both hands.
– Let’s drop the macho stuff, shall we. This is a deeply tragic case, it’s a very special case, and it’s going to be headline stuff all week. We don’t yet have a cause of death, but as of this moment there’s been no talk of transferring the case formally. Let’s hope it goes to the Crime Response Unit and not us.
Viken wasn’t all that convinced she really meant what she said. For some reason or other she had already been interviewed in VG and Dagbladet, and she had an appointment with TV2 later in the day. The uniform she was wearing had been freshly ironed, and if she’d had time she would probably have spent the morning at the hairdresser’s having something done about those wisps. None of the higher-ups have any doubt about my qualities as a leader, he thought. Not just on the technical side, but also in dealing with people. Finckenhagen had got the senior post for which they’d both applied for a very different reason. He gave her a disarming smile. Enjoy it while you can, Slinkenhagen.
Arve Norbakk sat up straighter in his chair. His eyes were brown below the fair fringe. They were quite large and round and gave the impression of someone mild and cautious, but Viken knew the sergeant could be tough enough. He’d noticed how Nina Jebsen, and Finckenhagen too for that matter, changed whenever Arve was around. They moved in another way, their voices went up a touch. He didn’t object to it at all.
– I’m certain this isn’t a matter for Hunting and Fishing, said Norbakk.
– Are you? asked Finckenhagen. – How so?
He looked to be thinking before he continued.
– Those tracks up there, they were reasonably fresh.
– You don’t say, Hawkeye? Helgarsson grinned.
– Cut it out, Sigge, warned Viken. – Let Arve finish what he’s saying.
– Paulsen has been missing for a week and a half, Norbakk noted. – But the tracks we found aren’t as old as that.
– In other words, said Viken, who had already discussed this with Norbakk, – it looks like we aren’t done with this case after all.
He went on:
– We’ve got to keep our eyes on the doughnut and not the hole. And anyway, how many of us here really believe there’s a killer bear wandering around up there in the marka?
Finckenhagen blinked a few times.
– Let’s wait until we have the pathologist’s report, she said.
Viken didn’t smirk. He knew she always used phrases like that when she didn’t have anything sensible to say.
18
STILL ANOTHER THREE quarters of an hour before the office opened. Axel Glenne usually managed to get a lot of work done in the time before the patients arrived. Go through the mail, finish off the referrals. He turned on the computer. While he waited for it to load up, he looked again at Aftenposten. MISSING WOMAN FOUND DEAD was the front-page headline. Tragic accident, it said underneath. Body lay in
forest for ten days.
He put the paper aside. Opened a letter from the surgical department with an appointment for Cecilie Davidsen’s operation. They’d been quick; he hadn’t needed to send them a reminder. Given what they’d found, there was no time to lose. He remembered that he’d dreamt about her. He’d opened the door of a house he recognised. The villa in Vindern. He hadn’t rung, just gone right in. It was dark inside, but he heard sounds coming from the floor above, a woman groaning. I shouldn’t be here: the thought flashed through him as he started to climb the stairs. Someone was following him; he sensed a shadow but couldn’t turn round.
He looked through his list of patients again. Had to be finished by four. He hadn’t visited his mother last week. Hadn’t been back since she got him mixed up with Brede.
He found an updated article on whiplash injuries in the online edition of The Lancet. He wanted to give Miriam the best possible advice regarding the case she was handling. If she even showed up today … Was he hoping she would still be off sick? So he wouldn’t have to say anything about the visit to her flat the Monday before? Wouldn’t have to joke about it. Or apologise. Maybe that was why she’d stayed away all week.
At 7.40, he heard Rita let herself into the office. A few moments later, he went in.
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