Ordeal (William Wisting Series)

by Jorn Lier Horst

  22

  Hammer and Wisting spent the rest of their working day searching though the farm buildings. They did not know what they were looking for, but understood they would recognise when they found it: a scrap of paper with a name, a phone number or a receipt. Something missing from the big picture, a detail that would reveal something they had no knowledge of at present.

  Their efforts were in vain.

  After work Wisting went to visit Line in her new house. They papered the rest of the living room and had dinner together. He refrained from commenting on the results of her earlier attempt at paper hanging, but assured her that it would all look fine when she had placed the furniture and hung some pictures. The late hours of the evening he spent at The Golden Peace, but again failed to find evidence that one of the staff was stealing from the till.

  The days that followed dragged slowly. They went through the documents again. They read and reread the reports, and circulated them in the group. They conducted a fresh round of interviews and followed tip-offs. They shared ideas, thoughts and theories and analysed all possibilities, but nothing suggested they were on the verge of a breakthrough. A couple of footprints on the ground in the potato cellar left by the man who had escaped were the only new developments.

  On Monday 30 July Wisting rose at half past six with a sense that something had changed, although possibly only the weather. For the first time in ages, the sea breeze hinted at something other than overheated air. Rain was not far off, but in the meantime the increased humidity made the heat feel more intense.

  It was now a week since they had found taxi number Z-1086. Two hundred and six days had passed since Jens Hummel had disappeared. The vast majority of serious crimes were solved rapidly in the initial hectic days while the case was still splashed on the front pages. In other instances, it took slightly longer. Very few cases were never resolved.

  At the morning meeting, Torunn Borg gave a report of the previous day’s search in the area around Tanumsaga. They knew that the chances of Jens Hummel being found there were low, but three tiny pieces of sawdust on the rubber mat inside the taxi meant that the private sawmill had to be checked. It was the type of assignment that made it look as though the investigation was moving forward, though in fact it was routine and only likely to augment the piles of paperwork.

  Wisting stood in front of the map on the wall. Coloured pins indicated the few fixed points they were sure of. Hatched areas showed where they had searched with dog patrols or used a line of officers to comb the terrain. His phone rang. He recognised the first digits and realised it was an internal number at Kripos, the national major crime unit. He sat at his desk and grabbed a pencil.

  The caller introduced himself as Erik Fossli from the technical section. ‘Normally we just send a report, but this was so unusual that I wanted to phone,’ he said.

  Wisting’s grip tightened on the mobile phone. ‘Let me hear it.’

  ‘We’ve done test shots on the gun in the usual way. The bullet produced a result in the evidence records.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The policeman at the other end of the line gave a deep sigh, as if tired of having to explain something so obvious. ‘All guns have unique markings inside the barrel that leave similarly unique impressions on any bullet that is fired. It can be compared to fingerprints.’

  ‘Ballistics. I know all that, but what gun are you talking about?’

  The explanation dawned on him the moment he asked the question.

  ‘A Nagant, 7.5 millimetre,’ the Kripos investigator replied. ‘Handed in anonymously. Have you submitted several guns?’

  ‘No, of course not, it’s just that my thoughts were elsewhere.’

  ‘We test fire all guns, no matter how they end up here. It’s purely routine.’

  ‘What case flagged up a result?’

  ‘A murder case.’

  Suddenly his mind was in turmoil, his thoughts in a whirl. It was Line who had brought him the revolver. According to her, it had come from the estate of an old school friend’s deceased grandfather. He guessed that the friend lived in the vicinity, but had not questioned her closely about whom or where, just said that it had been handed in anonymously when he had passed the weapon on, as they normally did. It must either be an old case, from before his time, or else a crime committed beyond his jurisdiction. ‘What case?’

  ‘The New Year Murder.’

  ‘The New Year Murder?’ Wisting repeated. ‘The case that’s about to go to court?’

  ‘The gun was never found. I tried to call one of the detectives in Kristiansand, but couldn’t get hold of anybody. I’m sending them a copy of the report, and they will probably want to know how it got to you.’

  Wisting drew circles on the notepad in front of him. The case had been called the New Year Murder by the newspapers. The victim was twenty-one-year-old Elise Kittelsen who, on New Year’s Eve, had been killed by two shots in Kristiansand city centre. It had taken the police only fourteen minutes to apprehend the perpetrator. What Wisting recalled best was her photo. On her way to a New Year party, she had published a photograph of herself on social media before she left home. There was a special sense of drama about that. A vivacious young girl who takes a photo of herself only minutes before she is killed. Naturally, the media had printed that.

  ‘How sure can you be that it’s the same revolver?’ he asked.

  ‘As sure as we can be,’ Erik Fossli said. ‘Every gun is unique, but this has in addition characteristic wear and tear damage in the barrel. All bullets, both the ones that were removed from the girl in Kristiansand and the ones from the test firing, have identical surface marks.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m sending the gun for DNA and fingerprint testing. It’s been more than six months since the murder, but they might find something.’

  ‘They’ll probably find my prints,’ Wisting said, but he did not mention his daughter.

  ‘You’ll probably be registered in the system, so they’ll exclude those. Besides, the killer’s been caught, so it doesn’t matter much. The most important thing is that the gun is off the streets.’

  The circles on Wisting’s notepad had grown larger, fashioned by his inner anxiety.

  ‘I’ll ensure that all the reports from here are sent directly to the enquiry in Kristiansand,’ Fossli added. ‘So you don’t have to be a middleman. You’ve probably got enough on your plate with this Hummel case?’

  ‘I certainly do,’ Wisting said, thanking him, ‘but I’d like copies too.’

  ‘Yes, of course, you’ll get those.’

  After concluding some practical details, they rounded off the conversation.

  Wisting slumped back, struggling to remember more details of the New Year Murder. The last thing he had picked up was that a prosecution had been initiated and the court case against the young perpetrator was imminent. Arrested in one of the side streets immediately after the homicide, he had already managed to get rid of the murder weapon. Now it had turned up, and it was Line who had brought it in.

  23

  Line had met Sofie and Maja for lunch every day at one o’clock. Rising early she got some household chores out of the way, but in the hottest hours it was pleasant to sit in the shade in Sofie’s back garden. She preferred to continue with the renovation work in the late afternoon and evening.

  As the birth approached, she noticed she was increasingly dreading it. Not only the actual labour, but also what would follow when she was left alone to care for a child. Her chats with Sofie eased her worries. Sofie could answer many of her questions, but their discussions also revealed that she was an insecure single mother who needed support.

  Today the front door was open when she arrived, a vase used as a doorstop. Line knocked and shouted into the house. She stepped inside but was reluctant to call out again in case Maja was sleeping.

  In the kitchen, half a melon and a large kitchen knife were lying on a chopping board. A jug of yellow juice an
d two glasses sat on the kitchen worktop. A bag of ice cubes had started to melt and a little puddle of water had formed beside it.

  Line continued into the living room, where a radio was playing. The doors leading to the terrace were open, and gauzy white curtains were fluttering in the breeze. ‘Hello?’ Line said in a loud whisper, and popped her head round the door.

  The table outside was set with plates, but the seating area was deserted. She went back inside and heard a noise on the stairs. ‘The door was open,’ she apologised when Sofie appeared. ‘I just came in.’

  ‘Have you read the newspaper?’ Sofie asked, brushing past her into the kitchen.

  ‘What newspaper?’

  Sofie lifted her iPad from the kitchen counter, activated the screen and held it up. It was the front page of the Dagbladet online newspaper. The top story was headlined Anonymous Million-kroner Gift may be Robbery Proceeds. The story was illustrated with what had to be an archive photograph of stained banknotes.

  Line took the iPad and read. The manager of the organisation No to Narcotics was the journalist’s source. Three days earlier, the organisation had received a package containing in excess of one million kroner. Every single note was stained at the corners. There had been no information about the sender and the money had been handed to the police.

  A detective from Oslo Police District confirmed that they had received the money, and that it most probably was the proceeds of a crime. Banks, post offices, armoured vehicles and cash machines were attractive targets for criminals, and at least a hundred million kroner was still unaccounted for following a series of robberies in the Østland region at the beginning of the noughties. The notes had been passed to Kripos for tests.

  The press spokesperson at Norges Bank stated that the monetary gift could well be worthless to the recipient. The organisation could apply to have the money exchanged, but if the notes were linked to a robbery it would be out of the question. The No to Narcotics manager was disheartened, as the money would have been invaluable in their work countering the use of drugs by teenagers. Neither the police nor the manager would speculate about the identity of the sender. There had been no letter enclosed with the gift, and the place of origin was not recorded.

  Line handed back the iPad.

  ‘That was really stupid of me,’ Sofie said with a sigh. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have burned the money. Now they’ll find our fingerprints on the notes.’

  ‘Are you registered?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are your fingerprints on police records?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then they won’t find out that you were the sender.’

  ‘You mustn’t tell anyone!’

  ‘No, okay then.’

  ‘Do you promise? Don’t tell anyone about the safe.’

  ‘I promise.’

  Sofie leaned against the kitchen worktop. ‘How could the newspaper actually find out?’

  ‘There are lots of possibilities,’ Line answered, thinking privately that it was a good story, and that she would have liked to be the one who wrote it. It aroused readers’ curiosity and generated a high number of clicks on the paper’s Internet pages.

  ‘It could be that the manager of the organisation went to the newspaper, but it’s common for an occurrence like that to be talked about and the news would spread fast. Detectives talk to their colleagues. They pass it on to their wives when they come home, who in turn chat about it to their friends, and so on. Somewhere along the line there’ll be someone who knows somebody who works for Dagbladet. Many of my best stories came about that way.’

  Sofie began to slice the melon. ‘My intention was to help, you know. Now it’s just led to problems.’

  Line picked up the bag of ice cubes, tore it open and poured what was left of them into the jug of juice. ‘You’ve been a good help even if Norges Bank won’t exchange the money. The news will spread, and Dagbladet will follow up. The organisation will get publicity and sympathy. People will give them money. If they’re smart, they’ll rush to get a fundraising campaign off the ground while the story is still in the media. People will be more generous the next time someone rattles a collecting can or sells flowers with the receipts going to No to Narcotics.’

  Sofie stood motionless, holding the knife. ‘Maybe I ought to send them some of the other money. The notes are still lying in the safe downstairs.’

  ‘Can’t you wait and see what happens? You have to think about Maja as well. The money might come in handy.’

  Sofie put down the knife and took out a dish on which she arranged the melon slices. Line’s mobile phone rang. It was her father. He did not usually phone her from work, not unless it was something really important.

  24

  Wisting would not say over the phone what it was about. He only told her that he needed to talk to her, and asked where she was. She offered to drive to the police station and, in the car, speculated about what could be so urgent. All she could think of was that it must have something to do with her brother. Thomas had trained as a helicopter pilot in the military and served in Afghanistan, among other places. At that time she had been worried about him and followed all the news reports. He still had four years to serve, but at present was not taking part in foreign operations.

  She found a free parking space in front of the police station. The officer behind the counter phoned for her father, who came down and accompanied her to his office. He closed the door behind them and sat while Line took a seat on the opposite side of the desk.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  He sat in silence for a moment or two, as if unsure how to broach the subject, despite having had time to think about it. ‘Who gave you that revolver?’ he asked finally.

  Line felt dizzy all of a sudden; a feeling of nausea spread through her. ‘I told you,’ she answered, touching her stomach where anxiety and foreboding were tying knots, ‘an old school friend. It belonged to her grandfather.’

  Her father’s eyes bored into her. ‘Can’t you tell me who she is?’

  ‘I’ve promised not to.’

  Her father sat in silence. She had not told him about Sofie Lund at all, the times they had been together. She had kept that back. She did not quite know why, but it had something to do with Sofie’s grandfather. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘All guns handed in to the police go through a ballistic examination. The bullets are routinely compared with bullets in both solved and unsolved armed crimes.’

  Line gave a gasp before her father finished speaking. ‘You got a match?’ She was suddenly short of breath. ‘From an unsolved robbery?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Line sat thinking about the money in the safe. ‘If I’d known it would be examined like that, I’m not sure I would have handed it in. It would probably have ended up at the bottom of the sea. I thought it would be anonymous.’

  ‘How long had this friend of yours kept the revolver?’

  ‘She found it the same day I brought it to you.’

  ‘And when did her grandfather die?’

  ‘Six months ago.’

  She saw her father grow pensive. ‘I’ll approach this in another way,’ he said.

  Line waited. Her father looked out the window. ‘Who was that you were with outside The Golden Peace last week? The day Nils Hammer and I chased the man who had been sitting at the next table?’

  Line bit her bottom lip. If she wanted to keep Sofie as a friend she must not make trouble for her. All the same, it would not be possible to keep her secret from her father. ‘Her name’s Sofie, but she has nothing to do with the revolver. She found it when she was clearing out her grandfather’s belongings.’

  Wisting sat in silence for some time. ‘This is going to come out sooner or later. The revolver was used in a murder.’

  The words struck Line like a punch in the belly, making her sit stock still until the cramping pain passed. She took a few deep breaths. ‘What murder?�
�

  ‘The New Year Murder in Kristiansand. It has been solved, but the murder weapon was never recovered. If nothing else, the defence lawyer will be able to make a song and dance about it. I could be asked to explain to them how the gun was handed in. You could be summoned and you would be obliged to give a statement.’

  Line groaned at the thought of how she had messed this up for both herself and Sofie. She no longer had a journalist’s confidentiality of sources to hide behind.

  ‘Speak to her,’ her father suggested. ‘It’s better if you can get her to talk now instead of ending up with a summons.’

  Line struggled to rise from her chair. Her body was hot and sticky and she felt unwell. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll have to talk to the detectives with responsibility for the case.’ Wisting stood up and approached her. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ she said, using the chair’s backrest to support herself. ‘I just suddenly felt so tired.’ She concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply. ‘It’s fine,’ she said, heading for the door.

  ‘I’ll come with you down to the car,’ her father said, and walked ahead of her to the lift.

  She assured him repeatedly that she would be all right. ‘I just need to have a rest,’ she said, as she sat in the car.

  ‘Drive carefully.’

  She nodded and glanced back at him as she reversed out of the parking space. He appeared just as exhausted as she did. His complexion was pale and his eyes troubled. She knew he was in the middle of a challenging investigation and felt a stab of conscience for having burdened him with further worries.

  25

  Wisting sat unmoving behind his desk. The weapon was the very crux of a murder case. As far as he could recall, the Kristiansand police had expended considerable resources searching for the gun, without success. Now it had turned up unexpectedly through Line.

  He touched the keyboard space bar to bring his computer screen back to life and logged into the Population Register. Unsure whether he should follow through with his idea, he hesitated. It felt like investigating his own daughter. He could not remember anyone named Sofie, but the answer would be only a few keystrokes away.