Sohlberg and the Gift

by Jens Amundsen

  “Chief Inspector . . . where should we wait?”

  Sohlberg thought carefully about his answer. He gave detailed instructions because he could not make any mistakes with the type of ruthless criminal he was about to ensnare. “Wait in the car. I need you to park your car as inconspicious as possible on Løkkeveien . . . where Dronning Mauds gate and Ruseløkkveien and Løkkeveien converge. Yes . . . that’s it . . . the driveway between the old large white building and the new brown building where the Eksportfinans offices are on Løkkeveien. If someone’s taken that spot then park on Arbins gate.”

  “When Chief Inspector?”

  “Now. Come over as soon as possible . . . the suspect’s flight arrives in an hour or less.”

  Sohlberg hanged up before Høiness could ask more questions. The detective fell into a gloomy silence while he thought about the trap that he had sprung. His mind reeled with the essential questions that had to be asked to break the suspect. From time to time Christoffer Løvaas glanced at his guest while both men silently rehearsed what each was going to say.

  The ringing buzzer shocked Sohlberg and Løvaas out of their respective reverie. The security guard downstairs went overboard as he rang the buzzer again and again—a herald of terrible fate and deceit and harsh justice. An irritated Løvaas called the man on the office phone and yelled:

  “Enough! We heard you.”

  Three minutes later the door swung open and the shrieking began.

  “I hate Oslo! . . . What a dump . . . especially in winter. . . . Løvaas . . . I resent your demand that I come here to meet with you. . . .”

  Sohlberg and Løvaas turned to look at Liv Holm. Her long blonde hair framed an excessively tanned face that could be considered sensual but for the thin bloodless lips.

  She yelled: “I want to see the trust papers you said you found in a safe. Where are they?”

  “Liv . . . please,” said Løvaas. “How about if you sit down?”

  “Stop ordering me to sit down. Don’t you remember? . . . I don’t work in this toilet anymore.”

  The skinny blonde was even less attractive when her thin-lipped mouth spewed forth a steady stream of foul language that caught both men off guard. She threw off her ankle-length Russian sable coat on the sofa. Both men stared at the enormous Russian sable hat that she then flung next to the coat. The Schlumberger diamond earrings and matching necklace from Tiffany & Co. left the men with no doubt that they were looking at more than $ 250,000 dollars in furs and stones.

  “Løvaas . . . time’s a-wasting! . . . Let’s get this over and done with. I want to fly back to London tonight.”

  Liv Holm plopped herself down on the chair opposite Sohlberg. Her black silk Nehru jacket and pants made her look like a North Korean dictator in mourning. Her exquisite Le Parfum Sur Mesure by Guerlain filled the room—as well it should have at $ 30,000 an ounce.

  “Well . . . well,” said Løvaas. “The prodigal returns.”

  “Enough! . . . Let’s get this over and done with. I don’t believe a word of what you told me over the phone. It’s . . . it’s impossible that Olan Eide changed his will or his trust papers . . . or the structure of the foundations.”

  Løvaas picked up a thin folder and before he could say a word Liv Holm jerked her head towards Sohlberg and said:

  “Who’s this?”

  “Harald Sohlberg. He’s helping me. Actually he’s the one who gave me the idea that you have been looting the trusts and the foundations.”

  “What?” she yelled as her eyes narrowed into hate-filled slits.

  “Yes Liv. I checked and—”

  “Checked have you? . . . Been busy have you? . . . You always resented me and my relationship with Olan and Janne Eide.”

  “Liv. Let’s focus here. Now . . . indeed . . . I have been busy. I spent all day yesterday on the phone with our London offices . . . we found out that you set up an investment scheme whereby more than seventy-three companies took funds from the Eide trusts and foundations to make so-called investments for them.”

  “So what if I did?”

  “Well . . . it doesn’t look good. . . .”

  “What are you talking about?” said Liv Holm. Her face twisted into a mask of arrogant disdain. “At least ten of those companies are major players . . . big banks . . . well-known hedge funds . . . like Barclays . . . Goldman Sachs . . . Carlyle Group.”

  “Liv . . . that’s true but most of the money went to investment companies that have never sent back any money to the Eide trusts and foundations . . . no dividend payments . . . no interest payments . . . no payments on capital gains . . . no payments on any income whatsoever during the past three years. The only thing that the trusts and foundations have received are fancy account statements indicating great profits and returns . . . not a single penny has ever been paid out from these ghost returns . . . paper profits.”

  “But these are all long term investments. They don’t pay out anything immediately.”

  “Liv . . . sixty-five of those firms will never pay out anything. They’re all shell companies in Luxembourg and Cayman Islands. . . . No one else has ever heard of these companies . . . no one else has invested any money in them . . . they are fronts . . . fronts for your lies and thievery. I ordered an emergency audit and we found out that you looted more than a two hundred million dollars from the Eide trusts and foundations by liquidating their securities and investments and then transferring the cash to your companies.”

  “Watch your mouth or I will sue you for defamation in London. . . . Surely you . . . Mister Managing Partner . . . you of all people should know how easy it is to win a defamation lawsuit in England.”

  “Truth is a defense my dear Liv.”

  “What truth? . . .Your deranged accusations?”

  “It’s over Liv. Over.”

  Liv Holm laughed and directed her ire at Sohlberg. “You. What are you staring at?”

  “Long prison terms. Here and in England.”

  “You’re as crazy as the idiot behind the desk.”

  “I,” said Sohlberg, “have someone who wants to say hello to you. Please patch the call through.”

  The LCD screen over the credenza came to life. Sohlberg scrutinized Liv Holm’s face to gauge her reaction. The giant face of Patient # 1022—Jakob Gansum—flickered on the screen.

  “Hello darling.”

  No surprise or shock registered on the frozen Liv Holm face mask that appeared to be utterly unmoved. Sohlberg however noticed the tiniest of tremors on her mascara-plastered eyelids. She blanched as soon as she heard Jakob Gansum speak:

  “So . . . here I was thinking all this time my love that you were Janne Eide. You tricked me into thinking that you were Janne Eide . . . that you were interested in me . . . and maybe even in love with me. You played me like a fool with all your swinger sex games. I should have known you were playing me . . . you never once let me touch you. I’m glad you didn’t because I’d hate to be thinking about your body when I’m killing you. I swear I’ll get you for what you did to me. You set me up! You made everyone think I killed Janne Eide! You rotten lousy hag. I will cut your lying tongue out when I go free.”

  “That’s enough,” said an off-screen voice which Sohlberg recognized as coming from Dr. Bergitta Nansen. “Inspector Sohlberg . . . I can’t have him more agitated. Can we end the call?”

  “Yes,” said Sohlberg. “But I need him to identify the man who posed as her husband. Earlier this morning I sent you an e-mail with an old driver’s license picture of Ludvik Helland. Were you able to show Jakob Gansum the picture? . . . Has he looked at it?”

  “Yes Chief Inspector. He says it’s the same person who used to hang around with her as her husband . . . Ludvik Helland himself.”

  “Thank you Dr. Nansen. I’ll be in touch.”

  The screen went black. By now a sweaty pallor had spread over Liv Holm’s face. She looked like an epileptic exhausted after a particularly violent grand mal seizure. Her arrogant demeanor had vani
shed—replaced by the defeatist slouch that Sohlberg recognized from all those suspects whose doom finally dawned on them. And when she spoke her cocky aggressiveness was replaced by a whining plaintiveness:

  “Inspector? . . . Are you police?”

  “Yes I am . . . Chief Inspector Harald Sohlberg. Oslo district.”

  She shook her head slowly and she kept on shaking her head until Sohlberg felt dizzy if not nauseous from looking at her wobbling. He said:

  “Liv Holm. I know what you did. It’s over.”

  “You know nothing.”

  “Oh but I do. You see . . . ever since yesterday when I met Mr. Løvaas . . . your former partner and colleague . . . I’ve been doing some research on you. I then made a few phone calls. I spoke to some people who know you very well. They mentioned that you had a boyfriend in law school.

  “Remember him? . . .

  “Mohammed Sidhwa . . . a refugee from Pakistan who came here under an alias . . . Hakim Qureshi . . . an alias to hide the fact that Sidhwa was a violent Islamic fundamentalist who started a terrorist cell that’s wanted in Pakistan for a car bomb that killed an army colonel in Islamabad.”

  Liv Holm answered by lowering her eyes.

  “Liv Holm . . . your old law school friends and professors told me that you and Mohammed lived together . . . very much in love. Lived in poverty as squatters. You even converted to Islam and wore a veil. You two were very committed to liberating Pakistan from all evil Western influences.

  “Then you suddenly broke up with Mohammed because you found out that he liked to liberate other young women of their clothes. Of course a short time later someone turned him in to the police with an anonymous tip and that someone also collected a large reward from the Pakistani authorities. And that someone became a Miss Prim-and-Proper Lawyer who wanted to live the good life of a capitalist who later on happened to marry Herr Olsson . . . the name partner of this law firm. Correct?”

  An open-mouthed Christoffer Løvaas stared at Liv Holm. She on the other hand remained tight-lipped. She frowned. Her legal training and experience took over even during the greatest catastrophe of her life. She knew better than to start a conversation with Sohlberg without a criminal defense lawyer.

  Her silence was deafening.

  Sohlberg thought for a moment that he could hear his wristwatch ticking away. Time stood still. For 24 minutes he said nothing and simply stared at her with a kind if not paternal gaze. He began wondering if he was ever going to pressure her into talking. But his favorite technique worked. The silent treatment rarely failed. She caved in and said:

  “You don’t know anything. And I’m not going to tell you anything.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’re keeping silent because I don’t even need a squeak from you to convict you. Now . . . as far as your partner in crime goes . . . well . . . the one thing you can help me with right now is telling me where I can find Ludvik Helland.”

  “Never.”

  “Tell me,” said Sohlberg softly as he laid out a trap that was as effective as any wolf trap which cuts down the mighty beast of prey with steel-hard teeth. “Tell me or he will escape and enjoy the money that you stole with some other honey.”

  “No. Never.”

  “Ludvik Helland will go far with the fortune that you two have stashed away all over the world. You . . . well . . . I tricked you into coming here . . . but Ludvik? . . . I won’t be able to trick or force him into coming here since he’s going to hear all about your arrest. He’ll take off and disappear in some jurisdiction where we can’t extradite him . . . or he’ll find some country where he can buy himself a new identity and plenty of protection. Plus . . . I’m sure he’ll find himself a new and younger woman . . . or many women . . . exciting young lovers to enjoy life and the Eide money while you rot away in prison.”

  She mulled the proposition over. Her clamped lips and eyes wide shut told Sohlberg nothing. He wondered if she would refuse to roll on Ludvik Helland. That could happen although that loyalty would be as frequent as a herd of albino African elephants swimming up the Oslofjord to spend winter in Norway. Sohlberg had yet to meet a suspect who had refused to turn over a co-conspirator or an accomplice.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you. Ludvik killed his wife. He’s in London right now . . . at our home.”

  “Where?”

  “One Hyde Park . . . Knightsbridge . . . in central London. Unit number five-five.”

  “Thank you. Now . . . what name or names . . . and nationality or nationalities . . . does he go under?”

  “His favorite is Paulus van der Hugen . . . Antigua passport. Or you can try Carlos Paz . . . a Bolivian passport.”

  “Very good.”

  “I can’t believe I just did that.”

  “Did what?” said a surprised Sohlberg.

  “Betray Ludvik.”

  “But . . . my dear . . . you . . . you already betrayed so many . . . even yourself.”

  Her incredulous eyes rejected his statement.

  Sohlberg continued:

  “Don’t you see? . . . First you betrayed Mohammed Sidhwa and had him deported to Pakistan where he was tortured until he confessed to the car bomb. According to Pakistani newspapers your old boyfriend is now a demented hunchback . . . a street beggar who’s six inches shorter after the security services broke his spine and mind in their torture chambers.”

  A wide-eyed Christoffer Løvaas stared at Sohlberg and then at Liv Holm.

  “Second. You betrayed Olan Eide your client . . . by having your lover . . . Ludvik Helland . . . kill his wife . . . Old Man Eide’s daughter. . . .

  “Third . . . you betrayed Olan Eide by looting his estate with your fraudulent scheme to have his trusts and foundations invest in fake investment companies that you control.

  “Fourth . . . you betrayed Janne Eide by sleeping with her husband and plotting her horrific murder.”

  “No. No.”

  “Fifth . . . you betrayed Ludvik Helland . . . your partner in crime.

  “Stop. Please stop.”

  “Look . . . you did what you had to do . . . you turned him in. That will help cut your sentence. Also . . . for what it’s worth . . . I’m sure that you are not the one who killed and dismembered Janne Eide. I’m sure it was Ludvik Helland. But it’ll be up to a judge . . . and not me . . . to decide which of you is ultimately going to take the blame for the actual act of murdering Janne Eide. Of course both of you are also on the hook for the conspiracy to falsely accuse and convict the innocent Jakob Gansum for the murder of Janne Eide.”

  Liv Holm shrugged.

  Sohlberg smiled to hide the contempt that he felt for Christoffer Løvaas and Liv Holm. The two intelligent and well-educated lawyers personified the amoral Empty Suits and Empty Skirts that he loathed. The disgusted detective whipped out his police-issued cell phone and called up Constable Høiness:

  “Please come over right now by the main door on Munkedamsveien. Your prisoner is here . . . at the law firm of Johansen Olsson and Mortvedt. The security guard in the lobby will tell you what floor. We’ll wait for you by the elevator doors.”

  Sohlberg next dialed Fru Sivertsen and he said:

  “I’m glad you’re at home. I apologize . . . I have to impose on you and ask you a special favor because you’re the only person in the department who knows how to do this . . . can you please come over to the Zoo and prepare domestic and Interpol arrest warrants for a Ludvik Helland? . . . Yes . . . a Norwegian citizen . . . he resides at unit number five-five of One Hyde Park . . . in Knightsbridge . . . central London . . . Helland needs to be picked up tonight or before sunrise tomorrow.

  “In a few minutes I’m going to call my friend Job Pinkman . . . yes the Superintendent with the Metropolitan Police in London. I’ll explain the situation and ask him to find Helland tonight and put him under surveillance so he won’t escape.

  “What? . . . Yes . . . Ludvik Helland is using an alias . . . he uses the alias of Paulus van der Hugen under a passport from Antigua.
He also goes by Carlos Paz . . . with a Bolivian passport. Please make sure everyone understands that these aliases and passports may all be legitimate because they have been bought with huge bribes. . . .

  “The charge?

  “Homicide.

  “Victim?

  “Janne Eide. Yes . . . . Finally. We got him. Also . . . please call Constable Høiness in a half hour because she’s bringing in a co-conspirator of Ludvik Helland. . . . Yes. So please start the paperwork for a Liv Holm. Yes. A Norwegian citizen. . . . Good. Thank you.”

  Sohlberg hanged up and kept the cell phone in the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He caught—from the corner of his eye— a dark flash of movement. Sohlberg saw Liv Holm moving her right hand towards her purse.