by Jo Nesbo
‘Oh, thank you,’ Katrine said with a smile she must have felt was too sweet, as she quickly replaced it with her serious expression.
‘The victim was a young girl at home on her own,’ Beate said. ‘And we were also aware then that the methods used bore similarities to those in the Tryvann murder. But what is crucial for us is that it’s an unsolved murder. And it was committed on the seventeenth of March.’
It was so quiet in the room that they could hear joyful shouts from the school playground on the other side of the trees.
Bjørn was the first to break the silence. ‘That’s in three days’ time.’
‘Yes,’ Katrine said. ‘And Harry, the sicko, has suggested we set a trap, hasn’t he?’
Beate nodded.
Katrine slowly shook her head. ‘Why did none of us think of that?’
‘Because none of us knew exactly how the murderer lured the victims to the crime scene,’ Ståle answered.
‘Harry could still be wrong,’ Beate said. ‘Both with regard to how the murderer operates and that this is the next crime scene. Since the first officer died we’ve passed several dates for unsolved murders in Østland and nothing has happened.’
‘But,’ Ståle said, ‘Harry’s seen a similarity between the Saw Man and the other murders. Disciplined planning combined with apparently unbridled brutality.’
‘He called it gut instinct,’ Beate said. ‘But by that he meant-’
‘Analysis based on non-systematised facts,’ Katrine said. ‘Also known as Harry’s method.’
‘So he says it will happen in three days,’ Bjørn said.
‘Yes,’ Beate said. ‘And he had another prediction. He pointed out, like Ståle, that the last murder was even more like the original with him putting the victim in a car and rolling him over a cliff. That the murderer was continuing to perfect the killings. The next logical step would be for him to choose the identical murder weapon.’
‘A jigsaw,’ Katrine gasped.
‘That would be typical of a narcissistic serial killer,’ Ståle said.
‘And Harry was sure it would take place here?’ Bjørn asked, looking around him with a grimace.
‘In fact, that was where he was least sure of himself,’ Beate said. ‘The murderer had easy access to all the other crime scenes. This house has stood vacant for many years as no one has wanted to live where the Saw Man had been. But nevertheless it is locked. It’s true the Tryvann hut was broken into, but this house has neighbours. Luring a policeman here would involve much greater risk. So Harry thinks he might change the pattern and entice the victim somewhere else. But we’ll set the trap for the cop killer here, and see if he rings.’
There was a tiny pause as they all appeared to be chewing on the fact that Beate had used the name the press had adopted, the cop killer.
‘And the victim. .?’ Katrine asked.
‘I have here,’ Beate said, patting her shoulder bag again, ‘everyone who worked on the Saw Man case. They’ll be told to stay at home with the phone switched on. Whoever is called will act cool and just confirm they’re on their way. Then he will ring the Ops Room, say where he’s going and then we’ll swing into action. If it’s not Berg but somewhere else, Delta will be moved there.’
‘So we have to act cool when a serial killer calls?’ Bjørn queried. ‘I dunno if my acting’s up to that.’
‘They don’t need to conceal their trepidation,’ Ståle said. ‘Quite the contrary, it would be suspicious if a policeman’s voice didn’t quiver when he got a call about the murder of a colleague.’
‘I’m more concerned about Delta and the Ops Room,’ Katrine said.
‘Yes, I know,’ Beate said. ‘Too much going on to avoid Bellman’s attention. Hagen is informing him as we speak.’
‘And what happens to our group when he finds out?’
‘If this has a chance of succeeding, that’s a minor matter, Katrine.’ Beate impatiently rubbed the button dangling from her ear. ‘Let’s make a move. No point hanging around here and being seen. And don’t leave anything behind.’
Katrine had taken a step towards the door when she froze.
‘What’s the matter?’ Ståle asked.
‘Didn’t you hear it?’ she whispered.
‘Hear what?’
She raised one foot and sent Bjørn a narrow-eyed look. ‘The crunching noise.’
Beate laughed her surprisingly light laugh while, with a deep sigh, the Skreia native took out his notebook and crouched down again.
‘Well, I’ll be. .’
‘What?’
‘It’s not crumbs,’ he said, leaning forward and peering under the table. ‘Old chewing gum. The rest is stuck under here. It’s probably so desiccated that bits crumble off.’
‘Perhaps it’s the murderer’s?’ Ståle suggested with a yawn. ‘People stick chewing gum under their seats in cinemas and on buses, but not under their own dining-room table.’
‘Interesting theory,’ Bjørn said, holding up a piece to the window. ‘I reckon for months we could have found DNA in the spit of a lump like that. But this is all dried out.’
‘Come on, Sherlock,’ Katrine grinned. ‘Chew it and tell us what brand-’
‘That’s enough, you lot,’ Beate interrupted. ‘Out now.’
Arnold Folkestad set down his teacup and looked at Harry. He scratched his red beard. Harry had seen him plucking spruce needles from it when he came to work, after cycling from the little house he had somewhere in the forest that was still so bizarrely close to the city centre. But Arnold had made it clear that colleagues who pigeonholed him as a progressive environmental activist because of his long beard, bicycle and house in the forest were wrong. He was only a tight-fisted weirdo who liked the silence.
‘You’d better tell her to rein herself in,’ Harry said. ‘It would seem more. .’ He couldn’t find the word. Didn’t know if it existed. If so, it was somewhere between ‘correct’ and ‘less embarrassing for all concerned’.
‘Is Harry Hole frightened of a little girl in the front row who’s got a bit of a crush on her lecturer?’ Arnold Folkestad chuckled.
‘More correct and less embarrassing for all concerned.’
‘You’re going to have to sort this out yourself, Harry. Look, there she is. .’ Arnold nodded towards the square outside the canteen window. Silje Gravseng was standing on her own a few metres from a throng of students chatting and laughing. She looked up at the sky, followed something with her eyes.
Harry sighed. ‘Perhaps I should wait a bit. Statistically speaking, I suppose these teacher infatuations are short-lived in a hundred per cent of cases.’
‘Speaking of stats,’ Folkestad said, ‘I’ve heard they’re claiming that that patient Hagen had under guard at the Rikshospital died of natural causes.’
‘So they say.’
‘The FBI ran some statistics on that. They examined all the cases where the prosecution’s key witness had died in the period between the official summons as a witness and the start of the trial. In serious trials, where the accused faced more than ten years’ prison, witnesses died of so-called unnatural causes in seventy-eight per cent of cases. The stats led to several witnesses being given a second post-mortem, after which the figure rose to ninety-four.’
‘So?’
‘Ninety-four is high, don’t you think?’
Harry stared out at the square. Silje was still looking at the sky. The sun was shining on her upturned face.
He cursed under his breath and drank the rest of his coffee.
Gunnar Hagen, balancing on one of the spindle-back chairs in Bellman’s office, looked up in surprise at the Chief of Police. Hagen had just told him about the small working group he had set up, in direct conflict with the Chief’s instructions, and the plan to set a trap in Berg. The surprise was caused by the fact that the Chief’s unusually good mood had not appeared to be upset by the news.
‘Excellent,’ Bellman exclaimed, clapping his hands. ‘Finally somethi
ng proactive. May I pass on the plan and the map, so that we can get cracking?’
‘We? Do you mean that you personally-?’
‘Yes, I think it would be only natural for me to lead this, Gunnar. Such a big operation involves top-level decisions-’
‘There’s just one house and one man who-’
‘Then it’s right that I, as the most senior ranking officer, involve myself when there is so much at stake. And it is of paramount importance that the operation is kept secret. Do you understand?’
Hagen nodded. Secret if it doesn’t bear fruit, he thought. If, on the other hand, it leads to success and an arrest, publicity will be of paramount importance, and Mikael Bellman can take the credit and tell the press he was personally in charge of the operation.
‘Understood,’ Hagen said. ‘I’ll get going then. My understanding is therefore that the group in the Boiler Room can also resume their work?’
Mikael Bellman laughed. Hagen wondered what could have caused such a shift in mood. The Police Chief seemed ten years younger, ten kilos lighter and free from the frown he had carried like a deep gash in his forehead since the day he had been appointed.
‘Don’t push it, Gunnar. Liking the idea you’ve come up with doesn’t mean I like my subordinates defying my orders.’
Hagen shrugged, but still tried to capture the Police Chief’s cold, mocking gaze.
‘I’m freezing all activity in your group until further notice, Gunnar. Then we’d better have the requisite chat after this operation. And if in the meantime I find out you’ve so much as run one computer search or made a single phone call regarding this case. .’
I’m older than him, and I’m a better man, Gunnar Hagen thought, keeping his eyes raised and knowing a mixture of defiance and shame were causing his cheeks to flush.
It’s just decoration, he reminded himself, the gold braid on a uniform.
Then he lowered his gaze.
It was late. Katrine Bratt stared down at the report in front of her. She shouldn’t have done. Beate had just rung to say that Hagen had asked them all to stop their work, direct orders from Bellman. So Katrine should have been at home, lying in bed with a big cup of camomile tea and a man who loved her, or alternatively watching a TV series she loved. Instead of sitting here in the Boiler Room, reading case files and searching for possible flaws, hints of something that didn’t sit right and any vague connections. And this connection was so vague it verged on the inane. Or did it? It had been relatively easy to gain access to the reports on the Anton Mittet murder via the police’s own system. The summarised search of the car had been as detailed as it was soporific. So why had she stopped at this particular sentence? Among all the potential evidence they had removed from Mittet’s car was an ice scraper and a lighter plus some chewing gum stuck to the underside of the driver’s seat.
The contact information for Anton Mittet’s widow, Laura Mittet, was in the report.
Katrine hesitated, then dialled the number. The voice of the woman who answered sounded weary, dulled by pills. Katrine introduced herself and asked her question.
‘Chewing gum?’ Laura Mittet repeated slowly. ‘No, he never chewed gum. He drank coffee.’
‘Was there anyone else who drove the car and chewed-?’
‘No one ever drove the car apart from Anton.’
‘Thank you,’ Katrine said.
19
It was evening and the kitchen windows in the yellow wooden house in Oppsal where Beate Lønn had just finished her daily conversation with her son were brightly lit. Afterwards she had talked to her mother-in-law and agreed that if the boy still had a temperature and was coughing, they would have to postpone the journey home for a few days. The in-laws would love to have him for a bit longer in Steinkjer. Beate unhooked the plastic leftovers bag in the cupboard under the sink and was putting it in one of the white rubbish bags when the phone rang. It was Katrine, and she didn’t waste any time on pleasantries.
‘There was a piece of chewing gum under the driver’s seat in Mittet’s car.’
‘Right. .’
‘It was removed, but it hasn’t been sent for DNA testing.’
‘I wouldn’t have sent it either if it was under the driver’s seat. It was Mittet’s. Listen, if you tested every single thing you found at a crime scene, the queue would make waiting times-’
‘But Ståle was right, Beate! People don’t stick gum under their own dining-room tables. Or in their own cars. According to Mittet’s wife, he didn’t even chew gum. And no one else drove the car except him. I think the person who left the gum was leaning across the driver’s seat when he did it. And according to the report the murderer was sitting in the passenger seat and leaned across Mittet to fasten his hands to the wheel with the ties. The car has been in the river, but according to Bjørn the DNA in the spit can-’
‘Yes, I know where you’re going,’ Beate interrupted. ‘You’ll have to ring someone in Bellman’s investigative unit and tell them.’
‘But don’t you understand?’ Katrine said. ‘This could lead us straight to the murderer.’
‘Yes, of course I understand, and the only place this is leading us is straight to hell. We’ve been taken off the case, Katrine.’
‘I can just drop by the Evidence Room and have the chewing gum sent for testing,’ Katrine said. ‘Check it against the register. If there’s no match, no one needs to know. If there’s a match we’ve solved the case. No one’s going to say a bloody word about how we did it. Yes, I’m all ego now. For once we could get the credit, Beate. You and I. The women. And we deserve it, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Yes, it’s tempting, and it won’t ruin anyone else’s work, but-’
‘No buts! For once we can take the liberty of using our elbows. Or do you want to see Bellman standing there with that smug smile being honoured for our work again?’
Silence. A long silence.
‘You say no one needs to know anything,’ Beate said. ‘But all requisition orders for potential forensic clues from the Evidence Room have to be registered at the requests hatch. If they discover we’ve been sticking our noses into the Mittet file, it won’t be long before a note lands on Bellman’s desk to that effect.’
‘Hm, I hear you,’ Katrine said. ‘Unless my memory’s playing tricks on me, the Krimteknisk boss — who on occasion needs to test evidence outside of the Evidence Room’s opening hours — has her own key.’
Beate groaned aloud.
‘I promise there won’t be any trouble,’ Katrine hastened to add. ‘Listen, I’ll pop round to yours now, borrow the key, find the gum, cut off a tiny chunk, put everything back nicely and tomorrow morning the chunk’s tested at the Institute. If they ask, I’ll say it’s for another case. Yes? OK?’
The head of Krimteknisk weighed up the pros and cons. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t OK at all. She took a deep breath.
‘As Harry used to say,’ Katrine said. ‘Just get the ball, for Christ’s sake.’
Rico Herrem lay in bed watching TV. It was five o’clock in the morning, but he had lost track of time and couldn’t sleep. The programme was a repeat of one he saw yesterday. A Komodo dragon was lolloping across a beach. The long lizard tongue flashed out, swept round and was retracted. It was following a water buffalo it had given an apparently harmless bite. Had been following it for several days. Rico had turned down the sound so that all that could be heard was the wheeze of the air-conditioning unit which couldn’t make the hotel room cold enough. Rico had already felt the sniffles coming on the flight. Classic. Air conditioning and summer clothes on the way to a hot country, and the holiday becomes a headache, a runny nose and a high temperature. But he had time; he didn’t have to go home for a long while. Why should he? He was in Pattaya, the paradise of all pervs and criminals on the run. Everything he wanted was here, outside his hotel door. Through the mosquito net by the window he could hear the traffic and voices gabbling away in a foreign language. Thai. He couldn’t understand a word. He di
dn’t need to. Because they were there for him, not vice versa. He had seen them when he was driven here from the airport. They lined up outside the go-go bars. The young. The very young. And further down the alleys, behind the trays they sold chewing gum from, the much too young. But they would still be there when he was back on his feet. He listened for waves breaking, even though he knew the cheap hotel he had moved into was a long way from the beach. But they were out there as well. Them and the scorching hot sun. And the drinks and the other farangs who were there on the same mission as him and could give him some tips about how to go about things. And about the Komodo dragon.
Last night he had dreamt about Valentin again.
Rico stretched out his hand for the bottle of water on the bedside table. It tasted of his own mouth, death and contagion.
He had been given two-day-old Norwegian newspapers with the Western breakfast he’d hardly touched. There hadn’t been anything about Valentin being arrested yet. It wasn’t difficult to surmise why. Valentin wasn’t Valentin any more.
Rico had wondered whether he should tell them. Ring, get hold of that policewoman, Katrine Bratt. Tell her he had changed. Rico had seen that down here you could get that kind of thing done for a few thousand Norwegian kroner at one of the private clinics. Ring Bratt, leave an anonymous message that Valentin had been seen near Fiskebutikken and that he’d had comprehensive plastic surgery. Without asking for anything in return. Just to help them catch him. To help him sleep at night without dreaming about him.
The Komodo dragon had crouched a few metres from the waterhole where the water buffalo had settled down in the cooling mud, apparently unaffected by the three-metre-long, carnivorous monster just lying in wait.
Rico could feel the nausea rising and swung his legs out of bed. His muscles ached. Jesus, this was full-blown flu.
When he returned from the bathroom it was with bile acid still burning in his throat and two decisions made. He would visit one of those clinics and get himself some of that strong medicine they wouldn’t give you in Norway. The second was that when he had it and felt a bit better, he would ring Bratt. Give her a description. So that he could sleep.