All thought of the skeleton and the old cash consignment was gone. He had found a link from the car thefts to a possible perpetrator. He carried all the papers back to Dokken’s office, without considering how he would present his discovery.
‘Do you remember that holiday cottage?’ he asked.
Ove Dokken glanced up at him. ‘What holiday cottage?’
‘I wrote a memo about a holiday cottage in Tveidalen that had been used immediately after the night safe robbery.’
‘We checked it out,’ Dokken told him. ‘It was a couple of joiners.’
‘Not real joiners,’ Wisting said. ‘It was a nephew and his mate who were going to renew the timber cladding on one of the walls. I’ve just discovered that the very same nephew is Anna and Kai Skaugen’s grandson. I spoke to him when I was at her house.’
The Chief Inspector, realising there was more to come, leaned back expectantly. Wisting put down his copy of the phone list that had been found among Simon Becker’s belongings, and pointed out Jens Brun’s number.
‘I looked at the case last time I was on night shift. I thought it strange that a local car thief would be providing vehicles for a gang of Oslo thieves.’
Dokken appeared sceptical. He looked at the cigarette packet on his desk, but let it be. ‘You mean that first Kai Skaugen robbed the cash consignment from Kristiansand in 1925, and then his grandson is behind the night safe robbery?’
Wisting struggled to find further arguments, weighing up whether to tell him about the coins on the floor beneath the settee in the cottage in Tveidalen. He would also have to confess that he had let himself in.
‘It seems far-fetched,’ Dokken said, unable to let the cigarette packet lie untouched any longer.
‘Don’t you think it’s worth investigating?’
Ove Dokken lit a cigarette and sat deep in thought. ‘Where would you start?’
‘With the car thief. Simon Becker.’
‘He’s not saying anything, but you can have a go. He’s just been interviewed and is down in one of the holding cells waiting to be driven back to prison.’
Wisting protested, ‘Shouldn’t one of the expert interviewers do it?’
Dokken’s reply emerged through a haze of smoke. ‘The experts have tried. Now it’s your turn.’
‘I was the one who arrested him,’ Wisting said. ‘Besides, I haven’t interviewed anyone before. Not like this.’
‘Then it’s about time,’ Dokken said.
28
Wisting did his best to hide how nervous he was as he closed the door of the interview room behind him. He could sense the reluctance of the waiting man, his unease and anxiety.
‘Nice to see you again,’ he said, stretching out his hand.
Simon Becker accepted the handshake, but did not stand up.
‘I was the one who arrested you,’ Wisting said as he sat down.
The man shrugged.
Wisting fed a sheet into the typewriter and committed the formalities of time and place to paper. He turned to Simon Becker and came straight to the point.
‘How do you know Jens Brun?’
Becker sat bolt upright, caught off guard.
‘Who?’
‘Jens Brun,’ he repeated.
Simon Becker repeated the name aloud. ‘He was a couple of years above me at school.’
‘When did you last speak to him?’
‘A long time ago.’
‘What do you mean by a long time?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Is a week a long time?’
Simon Becker squirmed in his chair.
‘A month?’ Wisting suggested.
‘Something like that.’
Wisting showered him with questions. What did you talk about? Where did you meet? Were you alone? The answers that trickled back seemed fictitious. After collecting them all, he turned to the typewriter and began to write his statement. Halfway through, he was interrupted.
‘I can tell you what happened,’ Becker said.
Wisting turned to face him.
‘I’ve stolen a few cars. I’m sick of being in jail. I can tell you what happened.’
One hour later, Simon Becker had confessed to five car thefts and seven car break-ins. Wisting did not doubt his admissions, but knew it was a diversionary tactic to avoid talking about Jens Brun. It had come too easily, but he had no intention of giving up.
He took out the list of items taken in evidence from Becker’s home, placed it in front of him and underlined the Ball sweater, sunglasses and music cassettes.
‘All of this was in a car stolen on Sunday night three weeks ago,’ he said.
‘That could be right. I don’t remember.’
‘From a black Ford Sierra.’
Simon Becker sat in stony silence.
‘You may have read about it in the newspaper. It was used in the night safe raid. If you want to avoid being charged with aiding and abetting a robbery, then you’d better tell me everything you know about that car.’
Becker was at a loss. It seemed he was about to clam up, but instead he opened up. ‘I don’t know anything about any robbery. They said they were going to use it for spare parts. I haven’t even been paid yet.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Jens Brun and his mate.’
Wisting waited for a name. In the end, it came: Geir Tangen.
As he had concealed his uncertainty when he stepped into the interview room, he disguised a triumphant smile when he returned to Dokken’s office.
Dokken took the interview form and began to read. Wisting glanced at the clock, wondering anxiously whether he would let things lie until the following day, or if they would continue into the evening. It was half past five.
Suddenly he remembered that he had promised Ingrid he would go shopping before he came home. Too late now; the shops were closed. He excused himself and went back to his office as Dokken continued to read. Ingrid sounded downhearted when she answered the phone.
‘Sorry,’ Wisting said. ‘One thing led to another here today. I haven’t managed to do any shopping.’
‘You forgot the list anyway.’
‘Can we manage until tomorrow?’
‘I got Mum to come over. She looked after the twins while I borrowed her car.’
‘So, you’ve done the shopping?’
‘Don’t think any more about it.’
He was eager to tell her about the breakthrough in the robbery case, but held it back. The rest of their brief conversation left him with a guilty conscience. He apologised again.
Ingrid was so patient, seldom short-tempered or angry, despite how exhausted she was, how little sleep she got, and how much the twins demanded. He shook off the dismal feeling and returned to Dokken’s office.
The Chief Inspector looked up. ‘How did you manage it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Wisting replied frankly. ‘I think he came to realise which side his bread was buttered.’
Ove Dokken reached out for the phone. ‘Then we’ll gather the troops.’
29
The group of police officers divided into two teams. All were in plain clothes. Wisting sat in the rear of the car sent to pick up Jens Brun. The tyres vibrated slightly on the surface of the snow-packed street. Christmas decorations twinkled in the shop windows.
He pointed out the house and they drove past slowly. A man walking a dog trudged by on the pavement. The ground floor was in darkness, but a light showed in two of the rooms in Jens Brun’s quarters.
The driver circled the block and parked a short distance from the dull glow of the street lamps. The senior officer handed Wisting the arrest warrant.
‘You take care of it,’ he said, positioning one of his colleagues on the corner beside the garage, where he had a good view to the rear of the house.
Wisting approached the front steps, his breath white in the air before him. Music came from inside the house.
He rang the doorbell but nothing happened. Onc
e more and the music was switched off. He could hear footsteps on the stairs inside. The door opened. Jens Brun was wearing a black T-shirt and tight jeans. He recognised Wisting.
‘Gran’s not at home,’ he said. ‘She’s at a Christmas concert with my sister’s children. She’s spending the night there.’
‘We’ve come to pick you up,’ Wisting said, handing him the warrant. The police logo was prominent.
Only now did Jens Brun appreciate that Wisting was not alone. His eyes flickered as he looked around. The hand holding the paper began to shake. He was suddenly like a hunted animal.
Without warning he slammed the door shut. Wisting caught the sound of a lock being turned as he dived forward and tugged at the doorknob.
One of his detective colleagues pushed him aside and threw his shoulder at the door to no effect. The senior officer took hold of the railings and held tight as he aimed a kick at the lower edge of the lock. The door crashed open and splinters of wood exploded inwards.
Wisting followed the others upstairs. At the top, a cold draught greeted them. Through an open window came shouts from the policeman guarding the rear. The others turned and sped downstairs, but Wisting went to the window and leaned out. Jens Brun had jumped and was scrambling up from the snow, heading towards the neighbour’s garden fence. The policeman guarding the rear ran after him, followed by the others.
Wisting ran downstairs, into the street and round the block, aware of the taste of blood in his mouth. As he turned the corner, he saw Jens Brun emerge from the courtyard in front of the neighbouring house. Glancing behind, Brun did not see him approach.
Wisting lowered his shoulders and launched himself, knocking them both off their feet. He flung his arm round him, trying to hold him down, but Brun kneed him in the gut, a hard and ruthless blow. The others grabbed his arms and dragged him away. One of the detectives cuffed his hands behind his back.
A patrol car was called for and, offering no further resistance, he was bundled inside and driven off.
‘I know his mother,’ one of the investigators said, watching the car leave. ‘A fraud case a few years ago. I think she’s still in prison.’
‘It runs in the family,’ one of his colleagues commented drily.
‘The mother was almost worse,’ his colleague said. ‘She fought us in nothing but her dressing gown. Howling and screaming the whole time.’
Wisting brushed snow from his clothes before walking with them back around the block where they divided into two groups. Two began to search the garage while Wisting accompanied the others to the first floor.
The apartment was a typical young man’s digs: LPs displayed on the walls, comic books stacked on the bookshelves, a record collection stored in wooden crates, and clothes strewn over the floor.
‘How much space does two million kroner actually take up?’ one of them asked.
‘That depends on what sort of notes we’re talking about,’ another replied.
They worked through one room without results and then tackled the bedroom. ‘Maybe he’s hidden the money downstairs with his grandmother?’ someone suggested.
‘I can go down and make a start,’ Wisting said.
He descended the stairs, switching on the lights as he entered the cramped living room he had visited earlier. An empty coffee cup was still on the table where they had been sitting. The picture of her husband had been rehung on the wall. Above him he could hear heavy footfalls from the investigators as they searched for the robbery proceeds.
Something different preoccupied Wisting. He had not let go of the idea that Anna Skaugen had tricked him out of a sheet of paper from her husband’s farewell letter, and he tried to reconstruct their meeting. When she had read the letter, she had got up from her chair, gone across to the wall of photographs and taken down her husband’s picture. Then she sat down again in the chair. When she stood up to escort him to the door, one sheet of paper was missing.
He pulled out the top drawer in the chest of drawers beneath the pictures. It was tight and made a scraping noise. He would have noticed that if she had opened it. Nevertheless, he rummaged through it before opening the second drawer. To pull that one out, Anna Skaugen would have had to bend down. He would also have noticed that.
To be on the safe side, he investigated all the drawers. They contained curtains and tablecloths, old magazines, photo albums and bric-a-brac.
A cloth runner decorated with Christmas motifs lay on top of the chest of drawers. Wisting lifted off the pictures displayed on it and looked underneath. There was nothing to be seen.
He went back to examine the chair where Anna Skaugen had been sitting. What was most likely was that she had sneaked the sheet of paper down into one of the gaps between the cushion and the armrest. In that case, she must have removed it later and hidden it somewhere else, because there was nothing there now.
A noise at the front door startled him. He flinched, thinking that Anna Skaugen had come back unexpectedly.
‘Found it!’ shouted one of the investigators from the garage.
The detectives from the floor above came tramping downstairs and Wisting followed them out to the garage.
The money had not been particularly well hidden. Divided into four plastic bags stuffed into a cardboard box, it had been shoved underneath the workbench at the far end of the garage. An old blanket and random engine parts had been placed on top.
Wisting was rewarded with a pat on the shoulder, but could not share his colleagues’ enthusiasm. The knowledge that the case had been solved felt liberating in many ways, but at the same time it meant that something had been put behind him, never to return. Besides, this was not his case. His case remained unsolved.
30
The temperature dropped even further through the night and there was frost on the kitchen window. Two robin redbreasts pecked at breadcrumbs that had frozen to the bird tray outside.
Wisting ate breakfast with Ingrid. Restless, he would have liked to be involved with the Criminal Investigation Department, but he was back on the duty roster and would not be working until the afternoon.
‘ . . . so, are we agreed that we won’t buy each other Christmas presents?’ Ingrid asked.
Wisting had not caught the question. ‘I know what I’m going to buy you,’ he said.
Ingrid began to clear the table. ‘I don’t need anything, really, but when I start working again, we’ll probably need two cars, especially if you go on working such irregular hours.’
‘That’s just for the moment,’ Wisting said. ‘In the spring I can cycle to work.’
‘All the same I think we should save up for another car.’
He agreed she was right and went on, ‘I’ve been thinking of applying for a post as an investigator. It’ll be advertised next week.’
They both knew that he would lose the increment for working unsocial hours – evenings, nights, weekends and holidays. In reality, his income would decrease.
‘If that’s what you want,’ she said.
‘It’s not certain that I’ll get it,’ he rushed to add, as he carried his plate to the sink and began to fill the washing-up bowl with hot water.
The morning passed slowly. He left to clear snow from the driveway and chatted to a neighbour who had ventured outside for the same reason. At midday he returned inside and saw to the twins while Ingrid went out. When she returned he was pacing the room, ill at ease. She ordered him back to the police station.
Ove Dokken was reclining in his office chair when he caught sight of Wisting. ‘Bloody brilliant,’ he commented, with a broad grin. ‘Bloody brilliant.’
‘Have they confessed?’
‘Not yet, but there’s no need. We’ve nailed the connection to the getaway car, and we’ve recovered the robbery proceeds. They’re up the creek.’
‘What about the other cases?’ Wisting asked. ‘In Akershus and Buskerud and Romerike?’
‘Doesn’t look as if there’s any link, after all, apart from our boys stealing
the idea from them.’
Dokken uttered another oath to express how pleased he was with the outcome. To be honest, Wisting felt he had done no more than stumble upon the information that had led them to this result.
He took out his cigarettes and offered them to Wisting before remembering that he did not smoke.
‘The clues are always there,’ he said, sparking his lighter. ‘It’s just a matter of having an alert eye. An investigation consists of many tiny pieces. You need to have a head that’s screwed on the right way to spot the connections that other people think are insignificant.’
Finn Haber passed in the corridor, wearing the dark-blue nylon overalls that he often wore while working. He retraced his steps to poke his head round the door.
‘Do you have a minute?’ he asked Wisting. ‘I have something in the basement that you ought to see.’
Dokken stood up and grabbed the jacket hanging over the back of his chair. ‘I’m coming too,’ he said.
Wisting followed them both downstairs.
The veteran car from the barn was now parked in the centre of the basement car park. It seemed even more dilapidated in the harsh light of the examination lamps, but was a stylish vehicle nonetheless. A radio on the workbench was playing a Christmas carol. Haber switched it off.
‘You were right,’ he said. ‘I’ve found five bullet holes, but only three projectiles.’
‘Five?’ Wisting had only found three.
Haber pointed them out. The bullets had been removed and were lying on a metal table. ‘9 x 19 millimetre. The most common pistol ammunition in the world.’
‘Have you examined the Luger?’
‘I’ve conducted some test firings. The barrel leaves a number of quite distinctive marks on the bullet.’
Wisting leaned forward and squinted at the three bullets on the metal table.
‘They all have the same scratches,’ Haber said. ‘The consignment of cash was held up with the same Luger that Kai Skaugen used to shoot himself. Together with all the rest of what we know, there’s every reason to conclude that he was the one who committed the robbery.’
When It Grows Dark (William Wisting series) Page 14