Closed for Winter

by Jorn Lier Horst

  As the photo on the screen provided no answers, he logged himself out of the system and stood up.

  Ahlberg was flicking through the channels on the television. ‘Shall we go and eat?’ he asked.

  Wisting did not see any reason to inform him of these new developments, working on a need to know basis. ‘I must make a phone call first,’ he replied, heading towards the door. ‘Let’s meet in reception in a quarter of an hour.’

  52

  Wisting dialled Nils Hammer’s number, and received an immediate answer. ‘Have you spoken to Benjamin Fjeld?’ Hammer asked.

  ‘I’ve got an email from him,’ Wisting replied. ‘It’s extremely interesting, and excellent work. How did he get hold of that witness?’

  ‘It was Line who came across him at the cottage.’

  Wisting frowned out of the window. Night was falling. ‘Line?’ It was strange that she had chosen to share the information with Benjamin Fjeld without first contacting him.

  ‘Fjeld interviewed her,’ Hammer explained, reading Wisting’s thoughts. ‘She had noticed a man and a parked van the day she arrived there, who turned out to be a birdwatcher.’

  Wisting did not pursue the subject. ‘Have you spoken to Leif Malm?’

  ‘Less than five minutes ago. Plans for a robbery on the cash service premises in Elveveien correspond with reports from their security that their cash transports have been under surveillance. Six months ago they reported that a car had parked several times across from the vehicle access route into the centre. That would be a good vantage point for observation. The registration plates were stolen, so there was something going on.’

  ‘I can be home on Friday at the earliest,’ Wisting said.

  ‘It looks as though Oslo’s monitoring this. We’ll take care of the local angle. There are a number of weak spots in the cash centre’s security that make it a likely target. Mainly, the building wasn’t constructed for the purpose of storing money. There are several other tenants in the same building, and the arrangements are not optimal. That’s probably one of the reasons they’re centralising and relocating the whole shebang.’

  ‘How much money are we talking about?’

  ‘They have seven vehicles that uplift and deliver cash the length and breadth of the Østland area. Each vehicle carries an estimated fifteen million kroner, but that’s continually exceeded. At the most, they can have eighty million stored overnight, but it’s not likely to be such a large amount these days. It entirely depends on cash sales in the shops.’

  ‘When do we warn the company’s management?’

  ‘There’ll be a meeting with the Chief of Police tomorrow. Leif Malm and a few colleagues from Oslo will be coming too.’

  Wisting nodded to himself, appreciating that Hammer was on top of things. ‘Any other news?’

  ‘Mortensen has traced the revolver that was lying in the boat with the dead Lithuanian. It was stolen from a cottage in Tjøme two days before our murder. The same gang has obviously been on the prowl out there. They broke into nine cottages in one night.’

  They discussed a number of practical problems relating to staffing and resources, but the entire time they were talking, Wisting’s thoughts returned to Nevlunghavn on the Friday evening almost a week earlier. ‘How well have we searched the territory out there?’ he asked.

  ‘We used dogs and helicopters on the night of the murder, but it hasn’t been finely combed. The roughest terrain was given low priority in the assumption that a killer on the run would choose the easiest paths. With the passing of time, it’s fallen off the radar.’

  ‘So there may be places we haven’t looked?’

  ‘I don’t think the crime scene technicians have been in the scrub and woodland. A search like that would take weeks, without having anything in particular to look for.’

  ‘I want you to organise a fresh search out there,’ Wisting said. ‘Make sure every square metre is examined.’

  ‘Okay, but what are we looking for?’

  Wisting took a deep breath before replying. It was only a theory, but it hadn’t simply been snatched out of thin air. ‘Something went seriously wrong that night. I think we’re looking for another body.’

  53

  After stowing her purchases on the kitchen shelves, Line took an apple, a blanket and her newspaper onto the porch. Folding the blanket, she placed it on the top step before sitting down, leaning against the pillar supporting the roof overhang. She closed her eyes and turned her face towards the low autumn sun. Somewhere close by, a woodpecker hammered on a tree.

  Crunching into the apple, she delighted in the view across the fjord. She was already looking forward to spending summers out here. A mild breeze rustled the branches on the nearest trees, as one leaf after another fell to the ground.

  The case no longer featured on the front pages, but the editor had allocated two pages further back. All of what was printed was already old news. The newspaper had been published ten hours earlier, and the online version had given her updated news since then.

  She also came across a page heading about the fire in the block of flats in Grorud where the brother of Rudi Muller’s girlfriend was missing. The blaze was described as intense and explosive. Twenty-seven people had been evacuated from the adjacent flats and surrounding residences, and an elderly woman had been hospitalised because of heart problems. In addition to the flat, which belonged to the missing twenty-three-year-old, two other apartments had been rendered uninhabitable by fire, smoke and water damage. The firefighting crew had battled the flames for well over an hour and a half before gaining control. The police officer in charge of the operation was interviewed and explained it was too soon to ascertain the cause; crime scene technicians would start as soon as practically possible.

  The report was written by one of the more experienced crime reporters in the news section. That was unusual. Normally, the news editor would allocate such a story to an ordinary reporter. This might mean there was more going on than was evident from the text.

  She finished eating her apple and threw the core into the bushes. Her fingers turned blue with cold as she read the remainder of the newspaper and, as soon as she was done, she returned inside.

  From a seat on the settee, she logged into the newspaper’s computer system, an efficient and flexible platform facilitating cooperation among journalists working on a variety of projects and allowing the retrieval of information.

  The case folder dealing with the fire had been altered since the newspaper hard copy had been published. There would probably be an updated report on the online version. The journalist had also logged a similar story at 12.32 about a fatality taken from the ruins of the fire. She postponed reading this, instead clicking into the case log for information and background material not used in the report. The missing person was twenty-three-year-old Trond Holmberg.

  In the bullet-pointed list of keywords, she found that an unnamed source in the fire service thought the fire had been started deliberately. The police were of the same opinion. The number of crime scene technicians on site was unusually large, and police had conducted door-to-door enquiries. The officers on duty were unusually reticent.

  Holmberg was well known to the police, and had a connection to Rudi Muller. One of the reporter’s informants thought something was afoot around Muller. A job had gone wrong, landing him in enormous debt. This story might grow legs and require more column space. The suspicion that the fire had been staged to cover up another crime was unavoidable.

  Rudi Muller was obviously a familiar name to the crime reporter. In his words, Muller appeared to be a ‘not inconsiderable presence in the criminal world’. Line’s mouth became dry.

  Highlighting his name, she copied it into the search field, and the links came thick and fast. Rudi Muller was mentioned eleven times. One of the background memos was based on a police informant who gave a thorough description. He came from a petty criminal milieu in Sagene that had become more brutal towards the end of the n
ineties, breaking and entering jewellery and electronics shops. Their proceeds were invested in consignments of narcotics. He was known for his aggressive methods and nowadays had emerged as the leader of a criminal gang at the heart of the drugs trade in Oslo.

  He had been sentenced to six months’ immediate imprisonment for being in possession of a gun in a restaurant. The police had ransacked his flat and discovered a machine gun and explosives.

  One of the latest notes was linked to an article about money laundering in the restaurant business. Line went cold inside as she read about how the police presumed that Muller’s share of the proceeds of an unsolved robbery on a jewellery shop in Karl Johans gate the previous year had been invested in the restaurant Shazam Station.

  Rudi had been an active criminal earlier, but seemed now to operate in the shadows, untouchable by the police.

  54

  An older woman smiled at them as they left the restaurant, extending a grubby hand. Wisting dropped her some loose change and she bowed gratefully. At the next corner, they encountered more beggars. Children sitting on their mothers’ laps shouting Prasom! Prasom! with pleading eyes. Wisting had to walk past, his pockets empty. Farther along, a blind man sat in front of a Gucci store. The tin cup placed beside him contained next to nothing. At the wall of the building behind, another beggar lay sleeping off a vodka binge.

  Returning to their hotel in silence, Wisting declined the offer of a glass or two in the bar. He ascended directly to his room where he kicked off his shoes, hung his jacket over a chair, and stretched out on the bed. He had a feeling that the case was heading for a catastrophic finale. One alternative he wanted to raise with Leif Malm before tomorrow’s meeting was that they should arrest Rudi Muller on the basis of what they already knew. It would be a gamble, not least on the security of the informant.

  The most important work undertaken by the police was the prevention and obstruction of crime. By doing so, they saved the public from criminal activities and the criminals from long sentences.

  They had no proof that Rudi Muller was involved in murder. Again though, an arrest might produce fresh evidence. It was like throwing a stone into the water. In some of the spreading rings, information might surface, but they had no guarantee of success and there was a risk that Muller would go free.

  Placing his hands behind his head, it struck him he had not spoken to Suzanne that day. He dialled her number.

  ‘We had such fabulous weather here today,’ she told him. ‘I went for a long walk after work.’

  ‘You haven’t been out to see Line at the cottage?’

  ‘I phoned her, but she was out shopping.’

  ‘How was she?’

  ‘Tommy had been there.’

  ‘Why on earth …’

  He heard Suzanne take a deep breath, pausing before she answered. ‘He spent the night.’

  Stunned into silence, Wisting rubbed his eyes. ‘Are they back together?’

  ‘He arrived late last night after getting soaked in the rain. She let him stay until the morning.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘To talk. It’s probably not easy for either of them. I said I would go out to see her tomorrow. I’m quite excited to see what the place looks like.’

  The conversation changed to a different tack, with Suzanne telling him about the tradesmen at her home who would soon be finished and about a strategy meeting she had attended at her work, before asking how his day had been. Wisting told her about all the poverty he had witnessed, and about all the people who survived with no hope for the future.

  ‘That’s probably what makes them come here to commit burglary,’ Suzanne remarked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That’s probably their opportunity to realise their dreams of a better life.’

  Wisting did not reply. She was probably right, he had to agree. Her thoughts echoed his own. ‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked. It was just past eleven o’clock, ten in Norway.

  ‘There’s a film just starting on TV2. I thought I’d watch it before going to bed.’

  Wisting took hold of the remote control. ‘We have nothing but Finnish and Swedish channels.’

  ‘Finnish TV drama is good,’ Suzanne chuckled. They said good night and disconnected the call.

  On the television screen, Wisting read: You have 1 message. He clicked OK on the interactive menu and received a message telling him there was a letter for him at reception.

  At the desk he gave his room number and received a brown envelope addressed to Mr. Wisting. He turned it over in his hand, but there was no indication of the sender. ‘When did this arrive?’ he asked.

  The receptionist did not know exactly. ‘Maybe three hours ago.’

  ‘Who delivered it?’

  ‘It came by taxi.’

  He opened the envelope as he headed towards the lift. The contents were a short message written in clumsy handwriting.

  Talk about Darius Plater.

  Come to number 1 Birut˙es gatv˙e

  Midnight. Alone.

  Please.

  55

  Wisting looked over the hotel lobby with the letter in his hand. Subdued voices were buzzing in different languages. A woman in a knee-length black dress, sitting on her own in the bar, glanced at him without making eye contact. No one was watching.

  The only possibility he saw was that his attacker, the man he had pursued through the sales booths at the Gariunai market earlier that day, had spoken to the taxi driver who had driven them to the hotel. He could have obtained his name from the internet. It was a small world these days. It would not be strange if they had made an effort to follow the news coverage of the case they were part of. He was featured in the majority of Norwegian media sources with his name and photograph. A few keystrokes would get them an automatic translation into Lithuanian.

  He asked for a map. The woman found a tourist brochure and folded out the centre. She placed a cross approximately in the middle, explaining that this was the hotel where he was staying. ‘Where are you going?’

  Wisting peered down at the note he had in his hand. ‘Birut˙es gatv˙e.’

  She repeated the street name with the correct pronunciation and moved her pen to the east side of the city, pointing along the bank of the river. Thanking her, Wisting folded the map. The clock on the wall behind her showed 23.26. It looked as though the trip to Birut˙es gatv˙e would take no more than ten minutes by taxi.

  The elevator returned him to the third floor, where he paused outside Martin Ahlberg’s door and raised his hand to knock, before lowering it again and letting himself into his own room.

  When the clock showed half past eleven, he put on his outdoor clothes and went downstairs. Before leaving his hotel room, he unfolded the note with the message about the meeting place and appointed time, and left it in the middle of the desk.

  Four taxis were parked outside the hotel. The driver in the first peered optimistically up at him. Drawing his jacket around himself he crossed the street, strolling for half a block before flagging down a taxi that happened to drive past.

  Settling himself into the back seat, he gave the driver a note with the address. The man smiled and nodded, chattering away in his own language before setting off. Complex rhythms from some Slavic band of musicians drifted from the music system. Outside the car windows, darkened shops and warehouses with deserted car parks slipped past.

  The journey ended at the perimeter fence of a football pitch. The driver pointed and posed a question. When Wisting could not answer, he drove in front of a darkened clubhouse and pointed at the meter. Wisting paid and stepped into a bitter wind that blasted from the river, carrying a rotten stench.

  When the taxi disappeared, he stood alone in the empty square, surrounded by nothing but the glow of lights from the city on the opposite riverbank. A solitary lamp in a streetlight high above him cast a sparse glimmer on the grey asphalt and the peeling paint on the wall of the building behind him. A notice boa
rd was plastered with torn scraps of paper on which the word futbolas was repeated. Football was a language everyone understood.

  He glanced at his watch: three minutes to twelve.

  When his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he stepped a few paces from the circle of light and caught sight of a delivery van in a narrow alleyway between two warehouse buildings almost sixty metres away. Its lights were out and its engine switched off. In front of the bonnet, he could see the glow of a cigarette.

  ‘Mister Wisting?’ a voice behind him asked.

  He wheeled to face the man who had attacked him almost a week earlier. His square face was unkempt, with a beard and some kind of rash around his mouth. He wore a navy blue sports jacket that was too tight across the shoulders, and both hands were thrust into his side pockets. ‘Mister Wisting from Norway?’

  ‘Mister Muravjev.’

  The lights on the delivery van were turned on and the vehicle rolled towards them. The driver jumped out and threw down his cigarette butt. Skirting around the van, he pushed open the side door.

  Muravjev’s hand curled around an object in his right jacket pocket, and he made a sign that Wisting should put his hands in the air. The driver patted his hands over his body, appropriating his mobile phone, wallet and passport. Wisting protested vehemently.

  ‘English not good,’ Muravjev said, but managed to explain that Wisting would have everything returned after they had talked. He gestured with his head towards the van. Wisting hesitated, but entered. Maravjev followed and pushed the door closed behind them.

  There was a strong smell of grease, motor oil and rubber. A lamp on the wall near the driver’s cabin helped him find a wheel arch to sit on.

  They drove in silence, Wisting trying to concentrate on the route, memorising right and left turns, braking and acceleration, but quickly losing his bearings. At one point the tyre noise changed and it seemed that they were crossing a bridge.