Closed for Winter

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘I’m afraid there isn’t very much I can tell you,’ she continued. ‘I found a dead man in a boat, and that was that.’

  Benjamin Fjeld produced a notebook and flipped through to find a blank page. ‘Did you meet anybody?’

  She shook her head. ‘A lot of people go walking out here, but it was early and the weather wasn’t too great.’

  ‘Have you seen anyone else here since you arrived?’

  Line remembered the man with binoculars and nodded eagerly.

  ‘He was quite conspicuous,’ she said after describing him. ‘I don’t know what he was looking for.’

  Scribbling notes, Benjamin Fjeld lifted his gaze to look past her. ‘Kettle’s boiling,’ he said.

  Line rushed over and, filling the cups only half-full, returned with them to the coffee table. Benjamin Fjeld lifted his and raised it cautiously to his mouth. His sinewy neck contracted when he swallowed. He rose and walked past her to throw another log on the fire. The flames blazed, and the glimmer of light played in his eyes as he sat down again. They were brown, the pupils completely dark. Blinking, he returned to his notebook. ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘The man with binoculars. What did he look like?’

  ‘I only saw him from a distance. He wore an enormous black raincoat that reached below his knees, and Wellington boots.’

  ‘Anything on his head?’

  ‘An old-fashioned sou’wester.’ Another thing struck her. ‘He must have parked in the space out there.’ She pointed in the direction of the area where she had parked her own car. ‘At least there was a big, dirty van there, a VW Transporter or something like that.’

  Benjamin Fjeld asked her to describe the van before laying aside his notebook. ‘How long are you staying here?’ he enquired.

  ‘A week.’

  He stood up. ‘Well, I may come back. You must phone me or your father if you think of anything else.’ He placed a card with his name and phone number on the table. ‘Or if the man with the binoculars turns up again.’

  Letting the card lie, Line collected their teacups and carried them to the kitchen sink. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ he said, pulling on his jacket.

  Line took down the camera bag hanging from a hook beside the door. ‘I think my news editor will have a different opinion,’ she said with a grin.

  24

  The morning meeting had been postponed until everyone returned, but the only person now missing was Espen Mortensen. Wisting had informed Christine Thiis about the communication from the Oslo police. Now he opened the staff meeting with the same information. ‘Leif Malm from the intelligence section is meeting me here later with the person who dealt with the informant. I’d like Christine Thiis and Nils Hammer to join me.’

  The atmosphere around the conference table became optimistic as the investigators contributed comments and suggestions on how an unsuccessful drugs deal could fit.

  ‘And,’ Wisting continued, leafing through his notepad. ‘Another body found.’

  Benjamin Fjeld started the projector and Wisting indicated the discovery site on the map that appeared on the screen. ‘As the crow flies, it’s less than three kilometres to the cottage where the first body was discovered on Friday. We have every reason to believe there’s a connection. Also, the pattern on the soles of his shoes is strikingly similar to the prints found in the cottage.’

  ‘Do we know who he is?’ one of the detectives asked.

  As Espen Mortensen had entered the conference room, Wisting passed the question to him. ‘No,’ he replied, taking up position at the far end of the table. ‘He only had one thing on him that might help.’ The crime scene technician took a step forward and placed a transparent evidence bag on the table. ‘This photograph.’

  Wisting reached forward and pulled the bag towards him. The photograph was somewhat larger than a normal passport photograph and stained with moisture. A woman in her mid-twenties, she had chubby cheeks, wore rather too much lipstick, and her smile showed slightly crooked teeth. Blonde hair lay in loose curls around her shoulders. ‘A girlfriend?’ he suggested, passing on the photograph.

  ‘Maybe.’

  Espen Mortensen took charge of the computer from Nils Hammer. ‘I’ve just uploaded another photograph, which is extremely interesting.’

  The investigators turned back to the screen. Wisting recognised the receipt found the day before on the path near the group of cottages. Yesterday the ink had been watery and illegible. Now the scrap of paper had been freeze-dried and was bathed in stark blue light. The text remained difficult to read, but it was possible to interpret.

  The receipt was from the Esso station at the exit road from the E18. Someone had purchased a hotdog and a packet of Dent pastilles.

  ‘None of our team dropped it,’ Mortensen continued, crossing to the screen and pointing. ‘It’s dated Friday evening at 20.49, barely an hour before the alarm was raised.’

  ‘Then it must have been the killer or the victim!’ Hammer said. The burly detective stood up and made his way towards the door. ‘I have the DVD from the CCTV camera at that petrol station in my office.’

  Wisting leaned back in his chair, enjoying the satisfactory sound of pieces falling into place.

  ‘Okay,’ Mortensen went on. ‘While we’re waiting for the pictures: I’ve had it confirmed that the tread on the soles of the shoes tramped through the blood is from a Nike trainer.’

  He clicked his way forward to display the photograph of a white leather training shoe. The curved Nike logo was clearly marked in blue on the side.

  ‘A Nike Main Draw men’s shoe,’ Mortensen said. ‘The same print has been found in at least one of the other cottages as well.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The nearest for one, but there are still piles of footprint samples to go through. Probably we’ll find it in other cottages too.’

  ‘There’s a good chance the perpetrator has got rid of them by now,’ Torunn Borg supposed. ‘They must have been covered in blood.’

  Wisting agreed, but avoided commenting that the remarks made by Christine Thiis at the press conference might also have done some damage.

  Nils Hammer returned, holding the DVD aloft before inserting it into the computer. The images were unusually sharp and clear, and the text below showed time and date. Nils Hammer fast-forwarded.

  ‘We can’t be sure, of course, that the clock on the cash register and the CCTV camera are set to the identical time,’ Mortensen reminded them.

  ‘We’ll need to keep a lookout for everybody eating hotdogs.’

  Only the noise of the ceiling projector disturbed the silence as the counter on the CCTV film passed 20.45.

  Two minutes later, a stocky bald man wearing fine-rimmed glasses entered the shop, exchanged a few words with the girl behind the cash desk, lifted a box of pastilles from a display stand and produced a wallet from his back pocket. The girl accepted a banknote and returned his change together with a receipt. The man placed both in the side pocket of his jacket as the girl crossed to the serving counter, where she inserted a hotdog sausage into a bread roll and handed it to him.

  Hammer froze the video picture as the man opened his mouth, about to take his first bite.

  ‘It’s Jostein Hammersnes,’ Benjamin Fjeld said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘One of the other cottage owners. He also had a break-in. I interviewed him yesterday. He arrived at the cottage about nine o’clock on Friday night, using the same path, but didn’t see or hear anything. It must have been all over by the time he arrived.’

  ‘A dead end,’ Hammer pronounced, stopping the video player. ‘Damn.’

  ‘How’s the toll booth project going?’

  ‘The systems will soon be up and running again.’

  Hammer sat down at the conference table again and flicked through his notes. ‘It’s actually quicker getting responses from abroad than from our own data sy
stems.’ He produced a printout. ‘Carlos Mendoza,’ he said, leafing through. ‘The Spanish mobile account for the phone found beside the cottages was opened at a combined Internet café and mini-market in Malaga. The proprietor was imprisoned last month on suspicion of fraud and identity theft. The Spanish police believe that our accounts in the name of Carlos Mendoza are only two of many false identities he has sold to criminals. They aren’t optimistic about finding the actual user. The telephone has been switched off, and the last registered use was here with us.’

  It’s another dead end, Wisting thought, staring through the window. The wind was still gusting, though the rain clouds had disappeared. The photograph of the woman with blonde curls had circulated around the table. Grabbing it, he rose from his seat.

  ‘I want to know who this is,’ he said, slapping it down in front of Torunn Borg. ‘She meant something to the man who was carrying her portrait. I want to talk to her. She may have the answers we’re looking for.’

  25

  The photographs of the man in the rowing boat were inserted into a dedicated folder in the electronic project room. Close-ups showed how extensive areas of his face had been ripped open by the seagulls’ beaks and claws. Despite these ravages, those who knew him when alive should still be able to recognise him. Around thirty years of age, he was slightly built. His small face had a low forehead, narrow jaw and square chin lightly dusted with stubble.

  Wisting wondered what the missing eyes had gazed on not so long ago, and when they had last looked on the woman in the photograph. How often had the man laughed unwittingly as the seconds of his final hours and days ticked away? What had he seen when the truth, inescapably and irrevocably, dawned on him?

  Closing the folder, he lifted the telephone and keyed in his daughter’s number.

  ‘Are you going to scold me?’ she asked.

  ‘Why on earth would I?’

  ‘Haven’t you read the online newspaper?’

  Wisting clicked his way into the online edition of VG, where a photograph of the rowing boat on the beach illustrated the main headline. A number of uniformed police officers had arrived after Wisting left the discovery site, and the salvage vessel was in the process of taking the craft in tow. Line’s name was discreetly mentioned beneath the photo, though it had been tactfully omitted from the bye-line.

  He often experienced the phenomenon of witnesses or others peripherally involved in crimes being tempted by money to be made from major newspapers. Line though, was simply doing her job. Not only that, she had given him a greater understanding of the importance of the police being open, honest and responsible in their dealings with the press, and that positive communication with the media was the best route to follow in order to reduce criticism of the force.

  Many businesses and organisations worked assiduously to gain visibility in the media, but for the police it was a different story. They were the main suppliers of news material, giving them an exceptional opportunity to steer the information. They had to adhere to their duty of confidentiality and the data protection laws, but increasingly had to think of the media as partners.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  The newspaper gave an excellent summary of the case. Another corpse discovered in Larvik on Sunday morning had been connected to the masked murder victim found in a cottage belonging to the well-known TV celebrity Thomas Rønningen last Friday. The police did not know the identity of the new murder victim and were still bewildered as far as the first victim was concerned. Identification work had been considerably hampered after the hearse transporting the body to the Forensics Institute had been stolen and set ablaze.

  ‘I’m fine,’ his daughter assured him. ‘I don’t want you to worry about me.’

  ‘What was it like being interviewed?’

  ‘It’s not the first time that’s happened, of course.’

  ‘But it went well?’

  ‘Oh yes. He was very pleasant.’

  ‘Benjamin. Yes, he’s smart.’

  ‘I think he was a bit annoyed when I phoned the editorial team.’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘Have you found out who he is? The man on board the boat?’

  Wisting chortled. ‘I’ll send you a press release when we know anything further.’ He changed the subject. ‘Won’t you come home this afternoon and have dinner with Suzanne and me?’

  ‘Have you time for that?’

  ‘I’ll make the time.’

  ‘Okay, but I’m going to go back to the cottage afterwards.’ They arranged a time and drew the conversation to a close.

  Benjamin Fjeld indicated his presence in the room by knocking on the open door. Wisting waved him in. The young policeman glanced at the computer screen and Line’s photograph of the discovery site. He seemed upset and Wisting wondered whether he should say something about his daughter’s role as a journalist. Instead he waited to hear what Benjamin wanted.

  ‘I think we’ve found the owner of the boat,’ he said, nodding towards the photo on the screen.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I’ve just had a phone call from Ove Bakkerud.’ Wisting nodded. ‘He saw the online article and thinks it’s his. It was tied to a wooden jetty below the cottage. He hasn’t gone to see whether it’s missing, but thinks he recognises it all the same.’

  Wisting placed one end of his ballpoint in his mouth and started to nibble. ‘That makes sense,’ he said, thinking how one of the men might have thrown himself aboard a fortuitous boat and fled into the darkness. The injuries he had already sustained later killed him.

  ‘The wind had been blowing in an easterly direction,’ Benjamin Fjeld replied, ‘which fits with the discovery site.’

  Removing the pen from his mouth, Wisting jotted down a few keywords. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Are you going to follow this up?’

  ‘We’ve still got crime scene examiners out there. I’ll get them to check the jetty. Then I thought I should talk to the dog handlers about whether all this fits in with their findings.’ Benjamin Fjeld was already on his way out.

  Wisting could now sit undisturbed with the case documents. Ten minutes later the telephone rang.

  The caller introduced the conversation with a heavy sigh. ‘This is Anders Hoff-Hansen.’

  Wisting recognised the name and the slightly brusque, pleasant voice of the pathologist at Forensics. ‘Have you completed the postmortem?’ he asked.

  ‘We have opened and closed the body,’ the other man confirmed. ‘But there’s something that doesn’t add up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve studied the crime scene photographs and read the reports from your technician, and I can’t understand it other than that we’ve performed a postmortem on a different body from the one described.’

  Wisting felt an icy sensation creep along his spine. ‘The body was totally incinerated of course, with charring on both skin and underlying tissue, but I’m not finding any outer lesions in the area of the abdomen as suggested by the crime scene photographs. On the other hand, there’s considerable tissue damage on the neck and throat. That’s where the cause of death is to be found. A projectile has pierced and penetrated the body.’

  ‘Shot through the neck?’

  ‘Precisely! I can find the entry wound, the projectile path and the exit wound, but it means this is a different corpse from the one described in your reports. The height and weight don’t tally either. The burnt corpse is a smaller person.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ was all Wisting managed to say, although the connection and explanation were already clear to him.

  ‘This is something you really should have considered earlier,’ the pathologist continued. ‘There’s obviously a possibility that this is the driver we’ve autopsied.’

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘That’s up to you, but we have secured tissue samples for DNA and taken X-rays of the teeth. It should be possible to obtain reference samples and dental records for the driv
er for comparison. Of course, it should be the ID group at Kripos that deals with all that kind of thing.’

  The conversation wound up with the pathologist promising to send the preliminary postmortem report by telefax accompanied by a summary and conclusion. Wisting rushed to speak to Christine Thiis who was rounding off a telephone conversation as Wisting took a seat opposite.

  ‘I’m sorry about the footprints at the crime scene,’ she said. ‘That should never have been disclosed.’ Brushing this aside, Wisting described his conversation with the pathologist. ‘You’re saying that someone killed the driver and swapped the bodies? That means we’ve got three murders.’

  Wisting nodded. He had never heard of such a thing, but could not see any other explanation. Obviously they were dealing with an unusually calculating and dangerous adversary, someone much like Rudi Muller. Wisting felt icy fingers crawling down his neck once more. It was imperative to make good use of time now. They must not lose their calm nor allow fear to gain the upper hand.

  26

  Leif Malm and William Wisting were about the same age. Malm, wearing a dark blazer and pastel-coloured shirt with a stiff collar, had a lithe physique and strong, heavyset features. Wisting had seen him speak on behalf of Oslo Police in television interviews as well as read about him in the newspapers. His impression of Leif Malm as a leader with authority was confirmed as soon as he opened his mouth.

  The officer accompanying him, Petter Eikelid, was about thirty years old and short in stature for a policeman. He chewed gum, thankfully with his mouth closed, and greeted them with only a nod, dislodging a lock of dark hair. He did not look at Wisting, but glanced around the room instead.

  ‘For a while now we’ve been investigating a circle of people behind the importing into this country of relatively large quantities of cocaine,’ Malm said. ‘Given the size of their organisation they must have brought in almost a hundred kilos since May. The main man is called Rudi Muller.’