Closed for Winter

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘Armed police! Drop your weapon!’ Wisting heard a rough command at his side.

  The leader of the Emergency Squad stood legs apart with a revolver in his hand. The two robbers were at the jetty, and paid no attention to the warning. Wisting could hear one of the armoured cars approaching.

  The boat, already low in the water, was heading back to the jetty. The Emergency Squad leader repeated his command, and the raider carrying the machine gun dropped the bags and raised his weapon. Kurt Owesen fired a shot from Wisting’s flank, and the man fell to the ground.

  Three armoured vehicles rushed forward, forming a barricade between Wisting and the river. Armed police officers spread themselves in fan formation, shouting commands.

  The Zodiac keeled over, capsized and was carried off by the current, the man aboard clinging on desperately.

  On the jetty, the smaller of the robbers let go of his bags and put his hands in the air.

  69

  The man who had played the more active part in the robbery was on his knees, his hands behind his neck. One of the Emergency Squad officers handcuffed him and pulled the balaclava from his head. It was Rudi Muller.

  Blinking his wide eyes, he blew a raindrop from the tip of his nose. Wisting was amazed at how easily he had capitulated, until he looked at the wall of armed policemen.

  Loud cries came from the riverbank when the wreck of the Zodiac drifted to land. A group of policemen dragged the drenched sailor ashore, where he was given the same treatment as Muller. A shock of curly hair was revealed when his mask was hauled off, and Wisting recognised him as the chubby man in the surveillance photographs from Shazam Station.

  The raider who had pointed his machine gun at Wisting writhed on the ground in pain. Owesen’s bullet had struck him in the left knee. His overalls were torn and splinters of shattered kneecap were visible in the open wound. One of the members of the Emergency Squad was administering first aid, while another held him covered.

  Kurt Owesen approached the injured man, with Wisting a few steps behind, wiping his wet face with the back of his hand. The leader of the Emergency Squad pulled his hood off in one swift movement. His hair, saturated with sweat and rain, was plastered to his head. His eyes were evasive, and it was impossible to make eye contact with him.

  ‘Name!’ Owesen demanded.

  The man responded by spitting. Owesen glanced at Wisting, who shook his head. He had never clapped eyes on him before.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Owesen asked.

  ‘He’s called Frode Jessing,’ Leif Malm said from behind them. ‘They call him Yes-man,’ he added.

  The uninjured robbers were placed in two separate cars. Jessing would be transported by ambulance.

  Wisting looked for the two guards. He wanted to speak to them, to provide some reassuring words after their ordeal. He did not see the man, but the woman stood outside an unmarked police car, talking to a uniformed officer. Something was clutched in her hand. The policeman waved him over.

  The woman could not be much older than Line. She was shaking uncontrollably, pain and desperation in her tear-stained eyes.

  ‘We have a new situation,’ the policeman said, nodding towards a mobile phone the woman was cradling with both hands.

  Placing one hand on her trembling fingers, Wisting took hold of the phone with the other. She was reluctant to let go, as though it were extremely valuable.

  There was a photo message on the display, the screen divided into two. In the top section, a little girl was making her way up a climbing frame, smiling as the photo was taken. The lower section of the photograph showed a revolver held behind a newspaper, invisible to anyone other than the person holding the camera phone.

  Don’t phone anyone but me if you want her to live, was the message underneath the picture.

  ‘Your daughter?’

  The woman answered with a nod, covering her face with her hands.

  This was how they had been able to accomplish the robbery, Wisting realised. They had threatened the female guard who let them hijack the security van, making a Trojan horse of it, to take them inside the cash depot.

  Finance people had become smarter at securing their valuables these days, and less attractive to extortionists. More often now, it was guards or employees who were exposed to hostage taking or blackmail. Or police officers – he had heard how police officers in other countries had been forced to remove or delete evidence, or ensure that cases were dismissed.

  ‘They’ve got Emma,’ the woman sobbed. ‘She’s only five.’

  Her narrow back was trembling. Wisting stroked the palm of his hand gently to and fro over her guard’s uniform while the policeman told her story.

  ‘She phoned the sender and was told the robbers were in a car behind them. She was ordered to stop and let them board the security van.’

  Wisting curled his hand around the woman’s shoulder. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he reassured her. The conviction in his voice seemed to calm her. ‘Where was the photograph taken?’

  ‘In a playground near where we live. My mother is looking after her.’

  Wisting pointed at the child’s red and yellow raincoat in the photo. ‘Was that what she was wearing today?’

  ‘I think so. They were going to the playground.’

  ‘Have you tried to phone your mother?’

  The female guard shook her head. ‘Then they would know, you see.’ She broke down again.

  Wisting shut his eyes in an effort to clear his head. He had to focus. The picture was genuine, without a doubt, and had been taken today. All the same, it was likely to be a bluff. If they had actually physically captured the girl, she would have been photographed in a closed environment, and kidnapping both the child and her grandmother would be extremely risky.

  Muller sat in the back seat of a patrol car. The driver was about to sit inside when Wisting shouted over. He hurried to the vehicle and sat beside Rudi Muller. ‘I’m William Wisting,’ he said. ‘I’m responsible for the investigation.’

  Rudi Muller leaned forward, his hands cuffed at his back. He looked back but did not respond. Something about him suggested that he knew who Wisting was.

  ‘We’re going to have a lot to talk about in the days to come,’ Wisting said, ‘but right now the situation is that nothing you say is going to be used against you. At the moment I’m only concerned about one thing.’ The man beside him remained silent.

  ‘The little girl,’ Wisting said. ‘Is she safe?’

  The other man’s eyes narrowed. ‘What little girl?’

  ‘You have only this one opportunity to put right some of what you’ve started,’ Wisting said. ‘The daughter of the woman driver.’

  Rudi Muller twisted to find a more comfortable position for his arms. ‘There’s no danger,’ he said quietly. ‘Nothing’s going to happen without my say so.’

  Wisting asked himself what Rudi Muller’s words were worth. He decided to trust them. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and left the car, tapping a couple of times on the roof of the vehicle as a signal that the driver should leave.

  70

  Line was in an unused office of the police station, with old film posters pinned to the walls, and an internal phone list on the notice board. The desk had been stripped of phones and computers.

  Outside, torrential rain fell across the dirty windows, running slowly down the pane in crooked rivulets. She was on the fourth or fifth floor, looking down on long rows of vehicles, too high to escape through the window, which could anyway be opened no more than a tiny crack. As she looked down, the streetlights came on.

  Returning to the chair, she leafed restlessly through the pages of an old magazine she had now read several times. The door opened and the longhaired man entered, this time with an ID badge from Politiet around his neck. Behind him another policeman chewed energetically on a piece of gum.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to wait so long,’ the first man said, ‘but we had to go about things this way. We were in the middle
of a surveillance operation which you were in the process of wrecking.’

  The gum-chewing policeman introduced himself. ‘I’m Petter Eikelid. Can you come with me for a minute?’

  Line remained silent, but followed him into the corridor. The place was deserted, the offices in darkness, and the level of activity had reduced considerably since she arrived several hours earlier.

  The longhaired detective had roughly explained what had been going on behind her back. Tommy had approached them months before with information about a group of drug dealers. His information confirmed much they already knew. Expressing willingness to help them, Tommy had infiltrated the group.

  The road had been rocky, the central figures more reticent than they had anticipated, and unforeseen events had taken place. A delivery had gone wrong and people had been killed. Today had brought the end with the failed robbery leading to Rudi Muller’s arrest.

  Tommy was waiting for her in an empty room on the floor below, standing at the window with his back turned, his hand on his forehead. His solemn expression changed to a smile when she entered. He embraced her, and she threw her arms around him.

  ‘I’ll leave you alone together,’ said the policeman.

  They sat at the table, speaking almost like strangers, fumbling and hesitant.

  ‘I discovered that all was not as it should be at Shazam Station,’ Tommy said. ‘In another life, I would have shrugged it off or become involved, but I couldn’t let that happen now. I couldn’t risk spoiling things with us. I wanted to do the right thing.’

  She could not understand why he had chosen to keep her in the dark, but accepted and forgave his secrecy. Impulsive, passionate, carefree, thoughtless, that was Tommy. These differences had first attracted her, but she knew she could not endure them for the rest of her life.

  He understood. ‘I’m going to look at a flat in Sagene tomorrow,’ he said. Something in his tone begged her to say it was not necessary.

  Steeling herself, she nodded. ‘That’s fine,’ she whispered.

  71

  Wisting read through the Tommy Kvanter interview that had just been conducted at Police headquarters in Oslo. It described how he had at his disposal a black Golf belonging to Line Wisting. On Friday 1st October he had loaned the car to Rudi Muller, who was alone when he drove from the restaurant at approximately half past six. Tommy Kvanter did not know any more until they were about to close the restaurant and one of the waiters told him the car was back and the keys lying in the office. He did not know where Muller had been or who he had been with. He himself had been at a business meeting with three named men who wanted him to join them in a new restaurant venture.

  It was a thorough witness statement, with Tommy talking about several named people, but the interview was almost free of the sort of contradictions that could be expected. No critical questions had been asked. Nothing indicated that the policeman who had recorded the statement was fishing for particular answers or wanted more out of Tommy than the entirely superficial.

  Leafing forward to the front page, Wisting read the name of the investigator: Petter Eikelid, the detective who had accompanied Leif Malm to their first meeting. One explanation for the interview shortcomings might be that the interviewer was unaccustomed to the task. As such, he might leave the tactical, critical questions to a follow-up interview.

  Another explanation was that the interviewee was their informant. That had been Tommy’s role in this case. That was why the questions were wrapped in cotton wool. There was nothing to rouse Rudi Muller’s suspicions. The information that Muller had borrowed his car was going to be decisive, but it was innocent when viewed in isolation.

  Wisting placed the report beside the other paperwork. The existence of an informant within Rudi Muller’s inner circle would forever be concealed. Anything less would put the source’s life in danger.

  Although no meeting had been called, several of the investigators gathered in the conference room. The CCTV recording of the robbery was being shown on the large screen. Espen Mortensen stopped the footage when Wisting entered, rewinding a few seconds to the moment when the robbers emerged from the security van with the guards. The weak point had not been with the building, but the personnel.

  ‘She’s a single mother,’ Mortensen explained, referring to the police statement the female guard had given. ‘She has worked in the NOKAS cash service for almost two years, and for the past six months has driven regularly with the same guard.’ He stopped the film and pointed at the screen. ‘They were having a relationship, and when her little girl was threatened, they both chose to cooperate and take the robbers on board their van.’

  ‘Are there no systems to guard against that kind of thing?’ Benjamin Fjeld asked, ‘a tracker or something that registers if they make a stop along the route – something like that?’

  ‘The vehicles are monitored of course, but this would be a shorter stop than at a red light. Besides, the vehicle was empty. They were on their way to collect money. The van was not the robbery target.’

  ‘Are they saying anything?’ Christine Thiis asked.

  Wisting shook his head. ‘They’re waiting for their defence lawyers.’

  The police lawyer leaned back in her chair with a resigned expression. ‘An indictment for robbery is unproblematic,’ she said. ‘We’re going to be criticised for not taking preventive action when we knew what was happening, but we’ll certainly obtain a conviction for all three men. The challenge will be to connect Rudi Muller to the deaths and the import of narcotics.’

  ‘We’ll manage it,’ Wisting said, without mentioning Tommy Kvanter’s statement. ‘It’s now our work begins. From here on, the case is going to unfold to our advantage.’

  He let his gaze travel around the investigators sitting at the table, aware of how secure his experience made them feel. All cases reached a breaking point, and they had arrived at that point now. So far, their work had consisted of bringing the investigation onto the right track. From this point onwards, it involved securing evidence, building the case brick by brick.

  He described this to the detectives as the moment the police put their foot down. Stamp on the ground! Something always swirls up that does not favour the suspect.

  ‘Speaking of shoes,’ Mortensen said. ‘The guy they call the Yes-man wears the same size as the footprint in the blood at Thomas Rønningen’s cottage. The Oslo police are searching his flat now for a pair of Nikes.’

  Wisting frowned. Although this day had advanced them, there were still unanswered questions. What had actually happened inside Thomas Rønningen’s cottage being one of them.

  ‘Have we got hold of Klaus Bang?’ he asked, glancing at the clock on the wall. The narcotics courier was one of the unknown elements that might tighten the net around Rudi Muller. He had given Nils Hammer responsibility for the arrest.

  ‘The welcome committee is ready,’ Hammer assured him.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  Nils Hammer and two others put their hands up. ‘It should be straightforward. The customs officers will take him aside for us.’

  Wisting nodded in acknowledgement and the informal meeting broke up. He poured himself a cup of coffee before returning to his office. It was dark outside. Rain was beating against the window and trickling down the pipes from the gutter.

  He had promised Suzanne to be home by ten o’clock, when exactly one week would have passed since the case began. Line was in Oslo so he had not had time to speak to her properly. She had told him she would come home and spend the night in her old room, but he had time to read through some of the last reports.

  At quarter to ten, Nils Hammer came into his office, holding a blank DVD. ‘You were right when you said that the pieces would now fall into place. Three days ago, I discovered that Line’s car passed through the toll stations at the crucial time.’ Hammer sat down. It was no longer a secret, but he had every reason to criticise Wisting for not admitting his discovery. ‘I guessed you knew.’

&nb
sp; It was obvious that criticism was not on the agenda. ‘The car took almost seven minutes longer than the others between the toll stations,’ Hammer said.

  ‘You mean they stopped along the way?’

  Hammer handed Wisting the DVD. ‘I received that half an hour ago.’

  Wisting inserted the disk into his computer and watched Line’s car driving between the pumps at a petrol station.

  ‘This is the Shell station at Grelland,’ Hammer said. ‘It’s the only petrol station between the toll booths.’ The passenger door opened and Trond Holmberg stepped out to fill the car with petrol. Then the door on the driver’s side opened. Wisting leaned forward as Rudi Muller emerged and disappeared into the petrol station building.

  ‘Someone has a problem with his statement,’ Hammer said.

  72

  A different policeman drove Line back to Sjursøya to collect her car. The terminal trucks were still operating a shuttle service in the docks area. Heavy strokes of falling rain carved through the yellow glow of the floodlights. Although it was still parked where she left it, something was different.

  Stepping from the police car, she groaned as she approached, shaking her head. The passenger side window was smashed, and the seat where her camera and laptop bag had been lying was empty, apart from a little puddle of rain.

  I do not deserve this, she thought. After everything that had happened, the last thing she needed was a break-in. She was always careful not to leave valuables in the car, but everything had happened so fast when the surveillance officers grabbed her and took her to the police station.

  She had no backup copies. Neither of the photographs she had taken nor of what she had written during the week in the cottage. Everything was gone.

  ‘Can I help you with anything?’ asked the police driver. Line shook her head. ‘Sure?’ he asked, ’because in that case, I need to get back.’ She could not summon the energy to fill in a whole pile of forms. She just wanted to go home.