Ordeal (William Wisting Series)

by Jorn Lier Horst

  A lawnmower started in the garden next door and woke Maja. They brought her inside and let her crawl around on the living room floor. An hour later, Line stood up to leave. Sofie wanted her to stay longer, but she had things to attend to at home.

  The mowing of the neighbour’s lawn was completed, and the old lady who lived there stood at the gate paying a young lad with his torso bare. She looked at Line. ‘Have you moved in?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Line said. ‘I was just visiting.’

  ‘You’re Wisting’s girl, aren’t you? The one who writes for the newspaper?’

  This was how it always went. Most people knew her father.

  ‘I’m on maternity leave now,’ she said, running her fingers over her bump.

  The boy who had cut the grass hopped on to a bicycle and the woman took a few steps closer, obviously keen to satisfy her curiosity. ‘Do you know the woman who’s taken over the house?’

  ‘We were at primary school together,’ Line said, unsure how much she should tell her about Sofie’s past. ‘But then she moved away. We hadn’t seen each other for years when I suddenly ran into her in the street. It’s a beautiful house.’

  ‘Yes, and we are pleased to have new neighbours.’

  Line was about to round off the conversation by hoping she enjoyed the rest of the summer, but a thought occurred to her. ‘Did you know the man who lived here before?’ she asked. ‘Frank Mandt?’

  The woman shook her head decisively. ‘We had nothing to do with him.’

  Line took a few steps back towards the gate. ‘Were you at home on New Year’s Eve?’ she asked.

  ‘Both Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Was Frank Mandt was at home?’

  ‘Yes, but we didn’t speak to him.’

  ‘But he was definitely at home on New Year’s Eve?’

  ‘I seem to remember that I saw him, but I don’t think he had any visitors. Not that night at least. He kept himself to himself. I don’t think he had any family.’

  ‘What time on New Year’s Eve was it you saw him, do you remember?’

  ‘Our son came to visit with our grandchildren at about half past five. We’d invited them to come at five. It had started snowing, and it was difficult to park the car. Mandt didn’t exactly make it any easier. He was outside clearing all the snow on to the street, but I didn’t say anything. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘No particular reason, really,’ Line replied, walking towards her car. ‘I just wondered if he could have been somewhere else.’

  32

  At 15.15, electronic access to the New Year Murder was opened. Wisting printed out all the documents, filled a pot with coffee and began to read.

  The first document was a call-out report that explained how the police had received a message about the shooting and what the first patrol to reach the crime scene found. The message had arrived via the ambulance central switchboard from a woman in one of the nearest flats. She had been in the stairwell when she heard two shots but, since it was New Year’s Eve, she had not reacted with any great surprise. When she let herself out, she had heard a shout for someone to phone for an ambulance, and saw two men crouched beside a woman on the ground. A doctor who had by chance been passing had begun resuscitation attempts, but the woman was already dead. The police arrived before the ambulance.

  Among the members of the public who had gathered on the spot were three men who were listed as witnesses. One had seen the incident, while the other two had heard the shots and seen the perpetrator flee. They had given a remarkably concurrent description that had been relayed over the police radio.

  Wisting highlighted individual sentences and made notes in the margin, understanding that he would probably find answers to the questions he was raising further on in the documents.

  The next report dealt with the arrest of twenty-five-year-old Dan Roger Brodin. Patrol car Kilo 2-0 was on its way to the crime scene when the police bulletin was put out. At the Ernst Hotel, they had spotted someone who matched the description and who changed direction and broke into a run when he saw the patrol car. The officers pursued him through several back yards but lost sight at the bus station. A short time later he was apprehended behind the rubbish containers at the Color-Line ferry terminal. He had the previously-mentioned map in his back pocket, suggesting to the police that he had planned in advance where to strike.

  He was driven back to the crime scene where the waiting witnesses identified him as the killer. Wisting placed an asterisk in the margin.

  This immediate confronting of witnesses with a suspect was unconventional but effective. Witnesses’ powers of recall were at their best shortly after an incident, while they were still unaffected by the media and other influences, and doubt and uncertainty had not yet set in. Later, the value of their evidence could be reduced when a suspect was not picked out from a line-up, as in a photo identification parade when witnesses had a number of faces to choose from.

  The crime scene report did not add much. In addition to the description of the murder victim there was a description of the location and factual information about the weather, wind speed and temperature. About thirty centimetres of snow had fallen in Kristiansand city centre, but most had been cleared away. The asphalt in the street where the murder victim was lying had been dry and bare, making it impossible to secure any footprints.

  Wisting flicked through the folder of photographs. He had no need to study the details, but left it lying open at a map on which the crime scene was plotted.

  The post mortem report described a narrow bullet track through the victim’s back with large tearing injuries in the chest cavity, and another bullet track at the nape of the neck. The shot to the neck was described as causing death instantaneously, but the wounds in the chest would have been fatal in themselves. There was sooting around the entry wound in the neck, which indicated that the shot had been fired from a distance of less than one metre. It was estimated that the shot in her back had been fired from a distance of between one and three metres.

  Wisting underlined the words ‘back’ and ‘neck’. Then he found a Post-It note, drew a question mark and used it to mark the page. The New Year Murder had been described as a robbery that had gone wrong. The perpetrator had taken the victim’s mobile phone, but her handbag had been left lying. The shots, however, seemed purposeful.

  He refrained from looking at the photographs of the naked cadaver on the autopsy table, but scrutinised the two deformed, mushroom-shaped projectiles that had been removed from the body.

  A lengthy report described the search for the murder weapon. Neither it nor the mobile phone had been found.

  Wisting consulted the map as he read about which streets were searched using dogs, which rubbish containers had been rummaged through, and where they had used divers. They had even searched on house roofs, with the idea that the murderer could have thrown the gun up there.

  The explanation given by the key witness left little doubt about what had happened. Einar Gjessing, like the victim and many of the other witnesses, had been making his way to a party. However, unlike many of the others, he had not yet started drinking and was sober when he witnessed the murder.

  He had walked round the street corner where Holbergs gate intersects with Dronningens gate when he noticed the perpetrator and the victim. The woman had torn herself free of the perpetrator and he had pointed a revolver at her and fired two shots in rapid succession. The shots hurled her to the ground. The perpetrator had run towards him and passed at a distance of only a few metres. The witness ran after him but gave up after only a block, returning to the crime scene where two other witnesses had already arrived. Eventually there was a throng of people, including the doctor who declared that the woman was dead.

  Einar Gjessing had been interviewed twice, giving statements on both occasions, the second the more detailed. His description of the perpetrator and his clothes was more comprehensive and he explained in greater detail wher
e he had come from and how long he had spent chasing after the murderer. He qualified himself by saying that it had not all necessarily happened exactly as he remembered. The report was more than eight pages long, but some questions had not been posed, to Wisting’s mind, as for example about whether either of the two had said or shouted anything.

  The two other witnesses were friends of the same age, Terje Moseid and Finn Bjelkevik, who had been heading for the same party and seen and heard the same things: the shots, the woman on the ground and a man running from the scene. They had done their best to check her bleeding, but it had not been possible to save her life. They thought she was dead even before the doctor arrived on the scene.

  The interview with the accused twenty-five-year-old was brief. Dan Roger Brodin, known as Danny, denied the murder and denied that he had anything to do with the crime. Most of the account of his questioning was him giving a list of his previous convictions. He had been released on parole on 22 December after having served a sentence for violence and misuse of drugs, among other things, and he lived in a council flat outside the city. On New Year’s Eve he had been wandering around the centre of Kristiansand at a loose end.

  Some of the questions and answers were reported as dialogue:

  ‘Why did you run?’

  ‘Because the police arrived.’

  ‘And why did you hide?’

  ‘So that they wouldn’t find me.’

  The interview was wound up after less than an hour. It was the only police statement that Dan Roger Brodin had given. In the next interview report, his defence lawyer declared that his client had nothing to add.

  Wisting dipped more deeply into the bundle, where he found interviews that gave an impression of Brodin’s background. His father had been out of the picture since before he was born. His mother had subsequently married and divorced twice, and she and Danny had moved around a lot. In the course of his first seven years of education, he had attended eight different schools. Arrested for the first time when he was thirteen, his mother lost custody and he became one of the Child Welfare Service’s revolving door children. Until they gave up on him at the age of seventeen, he had been through three different foster homes, three Child Welfare and Youth Psychiatry Service institutions and four treatment centres. He had run away from most places and in others his behaviour was so challenging that he was thrown out for the same reason he had been sent there in the first place.

  Witness statements about the victim constituted the next folder in the bundle. Elise Kittelsen was the youngest of three siblings. Her parents ran a shoe shop where she worked in the evenings and at weekends. She was in her second year at teacher training college and had a large circle of friends.

  The interviews confirmed that she was a kind and pleasant girl. However, some of the investigators had made an effort to scratch below the surface. Her eldest brother had warned Elise several times that some of her friends were unsuitable. Some were involved with drugs, particularly an older boy with whom she had struck up a relationship. Few people would speak ill of the dead, but some of her many girlfriends confirmed that she had inappropriate friends and hung out with the wrong crowd. This did not alter the fact that Elise was an innocent victim and it was the glossy side of her that was reported in the media.

  Finally, Wisting tackled the lab reports. There were traces of gunpowder on the accused’s right hand and jacket sleeves. Blood tests showed that the victim had 0.08 per mille alcohol in her blood, which tallied with the empty bottle of pear cider in her room. Dan Roger Brodin had a per mille alcohol count of 1.79. In addition, traces of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, were found.

  Nothing appeared to have any connection to the Hummel case. The closest came with the questioning of two taxi drivers who had witnessed Brodin’s flight through the streets, but he did not spot anything of relevance to their own missing taxi driver.

  The bundle of papers was almost twenty centimetres high, but he was keen to have access to the null and void documents as well – the tip-offs, intelligence information and analyses that were not included in the case papers – but he doubted whether Ryttingen would agree to share them.

  He collected the papers into a single pile and sat with them on his lap. The material was comprehensive, but nevertheless he felt that there was something missing. The investigation had not revealed what became of the murder weapon, or where it had come from. Where had Dan Roger Brodin got it? None of the people who knew him had ever seen him with a gun or heard him talking about one.

  At nearly seven he felt he needed to eat before he could put his thoughts in order, and it dawned on him that he had agreed to eat at Christine Thiis’ home tonight. He got to his feet and stacked the bundle of papers on his desk. When the top documents slid to the floor, he left them lying.

  33

  He had never visited Christine Thiis at home, but knew she lived in Bekkegata in Langestrand. This was the oldest part of town, where the streets were narrow and criss-crossed with no discernible system. He had always had problems finding his way around here. The house, white with a green front door and a small garden, was situated under the hillside.

  As he stepped from the car it occurred to him that he should have brought something, a bottle of wine or a bunch of flowers, but it was too late. He rang the doorbell, took two steps back and gazed at the house as he waited. Newly painted, it had fresh flowers at the windows. Christine Thiis, barefoot, appeared from the rear in an ankle-length cotton dress. It looked as if the warm summer had added to her freckles.

  ‘Sorry, I’m late,’ he said.

  ‘That’s okay, as long as you’re here. I’ve made too much food to eat by myself.’

  He followed her round to the back of the house. ‘I was sitting reading the case documents from Kristiansand.’ When she didn’t pass any comment he remembered that his visit was meant to be a break from work.

  The table in the garden was set for two with a white tablecloth and a profusion of flowers. Disappearing inside, she returned carrying plates with a variety of small dishes: stuffed eggs, skewered meat, asparagus with smoked gammon, meatballs, chicken and lefse, the traditional Norwegian flatbread.

  ‘Is it just the two of us?’ he asked.

  ‘I wasn’t sure what you liked.’

  ‘You didn’t need to go to so much trouble.’

  She was heading back through the patio doors. A gust of wind made the flimsy fabric of her dress cling to her body when she returned to place a bowl of salad on the table. ‘It’s all from the delicatessen counter,’ she said, ‘but I made the salad myself.’

  As they ate she told him about a tapas restaurant in Spain, and he shared his experiences of food when he had been on a business trip to France. She wanted to know how Line was and how her renovations were progressing. He filled her in and asked how her children were getting on. She was fifteen years younger than him and they were still living at home, but spent a month during the summer holidays with their father in Oslo.

  The continued talking about a variety of experiences and incidents, but eventually the conversation came to a standstill. ‘Did you learn anything from what you read?’ she asked.

  Wisting put down his cutlery. ‘Not really.’ He gave her a brief summary. ‘I think I want to talk to him.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Dan Roger Brodin.’

  ‘The murderer?’

  ‘I need a sensible explanation about how the gun ended up here.’

  ‘It’s not our case,’ she said. ‘You can’t start asking questions of the accused in another case.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s already refused to answer any questions.’

  Wisting lifted the bottle of apple juice and flipped off the cap. There was also a bottle of wine on the table but, since he had come by car and would have to drive home, it sat untouched. ‘Maybe he’ll answer mine.’

  ‘They won’t let you near him. It’s their case.’

  ‘We have a case too. In pri
nciple, Dan Roger Brodin is a witness in the Hummel case. He’s the last person we know had the revolver.’

  ‘It’s a long way from there to Jens Hummel. The only link we have is that the gun was found among Mandt’s possessions, and Hummel’s taxi was found in his barn. That’s not much to go on.’

  ‘In addition to that, Hummel was in Kristiansand when the murder was committed.’

  Dusk had fallen as they chatted, and Christine stood up to light some candles. It was now past ten o’clock, but still warm enough to sit outside. ‘His defence lawyer won’t let you proceed with it either,’ she said. ‘His client denies having anything to do with the murder. He will never discuss the murder weapon.’

  Wisting shrugged. ‘I can ask him about other things.’

  ‘What, for instance?’

  ‘Whether he knows Frank Mandt or who Jens Hummel is. It can’t hurt to give it a try.’

  ‘Apart from your relationship with colleagues in Kristiansand and my relationship with the Public Prosecutor.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, leaning across the table and chasing away a moth fluttering dangerously close to the candle flame.

  She shook her head. ‘You’re right, of course. If you believe that Dan Roger Brodin might have information of importance to us, then naturally you must go to the prison and pay him a visit.’

  ‘Let’s see what tomorrow brings,’ Wisting said.

  At that moment his mobile phone, buried in his trouser pocket, rang and he fumbled so much in his efforts to retrieve it that in the end he had to stand up. It was Suzanne. He thought about not answering, but decided to do so. ‘Hello,’ he said, taking a few paces away from the table.