‘We should have thought of that,’ Hammer said. ‘How many places can you hide a body in the middle of winter, and at the same time bring sawdust into the car on your feet?’
Wisting felt they could not blame themselves for not having found the hiding place earlier. ‘We didn’t think of it,’ he said. ‘But the murderer did. What does that tell us? Is he familiar with this place? Has he been here before? Does he live in the vicinity? Does he have a horse stabled here? Or was it just a place he came across by chance?’
There was a host of questions. Only a few days of routine work might provide the answers.
Mortensen readied his camera. He was going to be here all night. The entire cordoned area would be combed in all directions, almost like a farmer ploughing his field, before he could be certain that nothing had been overlooked.
Wisting pulled his jacket together at the neck. ‘I’m finished here,’ he said.
‘I’ll sit with you on the way back,’ Christine Thiis offered.
39
Next morning, Wisting took the inland road from Stavern to the police station in Larvik. Along the way, he revisited the discovery site at Brunla farm. It had stopped raining during the night. The clouds had drifted away, and the morning sun had already dried the mud to some extent.
Trudging across the restricted area, he found Espen Mortensen sitting beside the open sliding door of the crime scene van, a thermos flask by his side, chewing on a baguette. Birds were singing in the trees, and the first of the stable girls was on her way up the ramp.
‘Long night?’ he asked.
‘It’s nearly over,’ Mortensen replied, taking out a cardboard beaker. He filled it with coffee from the flask and handed it to Wisting.
‘Are you any the wiser?’ Wisting asked.
‘He was shot.’
The coffee was hot. Wisting waited for it to cool, nibbling the edge of the beaker.
‘The undertakers took him away about five o’clock. He should be lying on the autopsy table in an hour or so, but as far as I could see, he’d been shot twice from behind.’
The technician stretched out for the camera in a bag at his back. ‘The body wasn’t in too bad a state, considering. In earlier times, they used sawdust for insulation and preservation.’
He located a photograph on the camera display and held it up to Wisting. It showed the back of a skull with an opening the size of a krone coin. The wound was surrounded with bone splinters and filled with an indeterminate viscous substance. Mortensen searched through the images until he found a picture showing a rip in the discoloured jacket, approximately in the middle between the shoulder blades. ‘Reminds me of an execution,’ he said.
Wisting drank his coffee with flies circling in the air around him. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.
Mortensen edged round the van with Wisting following in his wake. ‘The wallet in his back pocket,’ Mortensen said, picking up a bag from the floor of the van. The wallet was of black leather and swollen at the corners. The contents had been removed and distributed into other bags. Wisting lifted the one that contained his driving certificate. The plastic on the taxi permit was blistered, but the name to which it had been issued was completely legible: Jens Hummel.
‘Is there anything here that might tell us more?’ Wisting asked. One of the other bags contained a few banknotes.
‘Just the usual. Bank card, driving licence and old receipts.’
A horse neighed in the stable behind them. ‘Did he have anything in any of the other pockets?’ Wisting asked.
‘I’ve only done a superficial examination. They’ll do it more thoroughly in the course of the post mortem.’
Wisting pointed at a box of small brown envelopes marked with individual numbers. ‘What’s this?’
Mortensen picked up the box. ‘Chewing gum. Most likely they don’t have anything to do with the case. We found more than twenty lumps. Probably the stable girls have spat them into the sawdust and cleared them out with the horse manure.’
Two girls with high boots, each leading a horse down the ramp, loitered at the foot, whispering together, before they swung up into the saddle and trotted off towards one of the paddocks.
Chasing a fly away, Wisting crumpled the cardboard beaker and discarded it in a rubbish bag already full of used disposable gloves and other protective gear. ‘Go home and get some sleep,’ he advised Mortensen, stealing a final glance at the finds. ‘None of this requires an urgent report.’
40
The media splashed the story. Christine Thiis supplied factual information about how the body had been found, and explained that they needed to wait for the result of the post mortem to establish the cause of death and the victim’s identity. How certain the police were that the body was Jens Hummel was something she manoeuvred around by saying he was the only male reported missing in the district.
Wisting took out the newspaper featuring the interview with Jens Hummel’s grandmother in which she called for answers from the police about what had happened to her grandson. He would not simply leave of his own accord. He was thoughtful and caring and she had difficulty believing that anyone would wish him any harm. A kind boy with a generous heart, he had a pronounced sense of fairness.
It was always a challenge to provide family and close relatives with information before the newspapers got their hands on it. Jens Hummel only had an eighty-three year old grandmother who, fortunately, did not have access to the Internet, but news of the discovery would soon reach her. It was only right to let her know immediately.
Erna Hummel had given a statement early in the investigation, before they learned of Jens Hummel’s trip to Kristiansand on New Year’s Eve. They would have to ask her what she knew about that evening. At the same time, she had mentioned things in the newspaper interview that had not emerged in the police questioning. The way she characterised Jens Hummel supported a tenuous theory that Wisting was not yet willing to share with others. He invited Torunn Borg to accompany him on the visit to Hummel’s grandmother in the nursing home.
There is no standard procedure for breaking news of a death. It depended on the situation and circumstances. Wisting leaned back on the green velour settee and listened as Torunn Borg led. One of the nursing home staff was also present. Torunn Borg used simple words, but imparted the information in a truthful and solicitous manner. Erna Hummel had been prepared and accepted the news with apparent calm, though it seemed to take the wind out of her sails.
The old woman had lost many friends and relatives in the course of her life, Wisting realised. First her own children, and now she had outlived her only grandchild. She had no one else. She looked down at her hands in her lap, at the wrinkles and liver spots and dark-blue veins that marked her skin. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with a handkerchief.
Wisting assumed control of the conversation. ‘We’ve found out a bit more since the last time we met,’ he said. ‘We think that Jens may have had a connection to a man called Frank Mandt, and that this might have something to do with the case.’
Erna Hummel raised her eyebrows, as if concentrating hard. Her glasses slid down her nose. ‘I don’t know that name,’ she said, reaching out for a glass of water on the table.
‘What about Phillip Goldheim?’
Erna Hummel raised the glass to her mouth as she searched her memory. Her hand shook and some of the water spilled and ran down her wrist, along her arm to her blouse. ‘I don’t know that name either.’
The care assistant helped her to put the glass back on the table.
‘He lives in Kristiansand,’ Wisting said. ‘Do you know if Jens knew anyone down there?’
‘No, she decided, shaking her head.
‘The last time he was down there was on New Year’s Eve.’
‘Then he was working,’ Erna Hummel said. ‘He always drove when the others wanted time off. He took it on himself. Christmas and suchlike. New Year’s Eve as well. He visited me the next day.’
‘On New Year�
�s Day?’
‘He brought me some cake. We sat here and ate it.’
‘What did he talk about?’
‘I don’t really remember. Maybe we talked about the year that had gone by. I don’t know. We listened to the Prime Minister’s speech, but he mostly sat there using his phone.’
‘This could be important,’ he said. ‘Do you know who he was speaking to?’
‘He wasn’t speaking to anyone. He was reading the news and that sort of thing. He could do that on his phone.’
Torunn Borg interjected. ‘Was there anything special in the news that he was interested in?’
Erna Hummel folded her hands on her lap. ‘No, but he was obsessed with all the injustice in the world. The Prime Minister talked about that as well.’
Wisting pondered whether to ask her about the New Year Murder, but it was a leading question and would probably unsettle her. ‘I understood he was like that,’ he said instead. ‘Kind and with a sense of justice.’
‘He took after his father,’ she said. Wisting could see from her eyes that she was thinking back to the past. ‘They wouldn’t let him into the football team because of it. He was good at playing football, but if the referee made a mistake and gave his team the ball when it was wrong, then he would say so and let the other team have it.’
Wisting searched for the expression Erna Hummel had used in the newspaper interview. ‘He had a generous heart?’
‘He was a kind boy. His mother took him once to the toyshop. He had wanted a fire engine with lights that flashed and a ladder on the roof. He’d got some money from me, but he’d saved most of it himself. When they went into the shop, there was one fire engine left. When they were about to pay for it, another boy came in with the same purpose in mind. Jens felt so sorry for him that he let the other boy buy the fire engine instead.’
She stretched out for the glass of water again. ‘His father was like that too, naïve and kind to a fault. He couldn’t say no to anybody. That’s not always a good quality.’
The care assistant took the glass out of her hands as Erna Hummel let her eyelids close and gave a deep sigh.
‘I think that’s maybe enough now?’ the carer said. ‘Erna usually has a nap about this time.’
Wisting nodded and rose from his seat.
‘You must come back,’ Erna Hummel requested. Her voice had grown rough and raw in the course of the conversation. ‘You must come back and tell me what really happened.’
‘We’ll do that,’ Wisting promised.
41
The provisional post mortem report arrived at 14.30. The corpse had not yet been identified but was described as a man between thirty and forty years of age. The cause of death accorded with Espen Mortensen’s conclusion. It was surmised that the shot in the back had hit him first, striking the spine and shredding nerves and muscles, but had probably not been fatal. The second shot had entered the lower part of the parietal bone and exited through the roof of his mouth. It had destroyed large parts of the brain stem and caused instantaneous death. The time of death was estimated as between four and eight months ago. A more formal date would be established when the deceased had been identified via DNA analysis. In practice this meant that 6 January, the day he disappeared, was the date that would be carved on Jens Hummel’s gravestone.
The most interesting aspect of the report was noted last. A bullet had been found in the chest cavity. No more detailed description was given, but it had been passed to the Kripos representative at the autopsy. Wisting flicked through his notes and found Erik Fossli’s name, the ballistics expert who had phoned from Kripos to tell him that the gun he had handed in was a murder weapon.
Fossli showed immediate interest when Wisting introduced himself. ‘Is there any news about the revolver used in Kristiansand?’ Fossli asked.
‘I don’t know, but we’ve conducted a post mortem today.’
Fossli had obviously read that day’s newspapers. ‘The taxi driver?’
‘Most probably. He hasn’t been identified yet, but a bullet was found in his body.’
‘What kind?’
‘I don’t know any more than that, but it’s on its way from the Forensics Institute to your department. I’m just phoning to ask how quickly you can take a look at it.’
‘I understand. They take so much time on the admission formalities here. Registration and request forms have to be filled out in triplicate before they are sent through the internal mail. I’ll go straight up to the boys in the ID group and find out who was at the post mortem and get the bullet from him myself. You’ll probably hear from me by tomorrow morning.’
Wisting thanked him, rounded off the conversation and lingered with the phone in his hand. The Hummel case was now officially a murder enquiry. He considered phoning Ryttingen in Kristiansand to even the score a little for his arrogance, but restrained himself. The court case would begin on Monday.
42
Line sat in the sunshine outside the police station. Sofie’s interview was taking longer than hers. They had arranged in advance what they were going to say. It wasn’t so much a matter of lying or withholding information, but of leaving out some details. Frank Mandt’s safe contained documentation about his criminal activity and contact network. Even six months after his death, the information would be of interest to the police, but Sofie was reluctant to let them have it. It was not that she did not want to blacken her grandfather’s name, but that she feared what might follow. Her grandfather had inflicted enough pain and sorrow on her while he lived. He would not be allowed to do it after his death.
Line understood, but at the same time felt slightly disloyal towards her father.
They had agreed to talk about the revolver and the discoloured banknotes, which Wisting knew about already. If the police asked to examine the remaining contents, Line would answer that this was up to Sofie, while Sofie would tell them that she had got rid of it all. That was actually a lie. The papers were still inside the safe.
The question had not been asked of Line. The investigator was mostly concerned about getting what they already knew down on paper.
She glanced at the tall brick building. Her father was inside somewhere, pursuing Jens Hummel’s killer. It appeared that he believed there was a connection between the two cases. She had not spoken to him since the discovery of the body, and had no wish to visit him now.
In her job as a crime reporter she had covered several enquiries in which she had written about suspects who had coordinated their statements. As a rule, it meant that they had something to hide. At least that was how it had to be interpreted, that they had lied to the police. The complicity damaged the investigation, but finally implicated the conspirators when they were caught.
The entrance doors of the police station slid open and Sofie came out with Maja in her pushchair.
Line stood up. ‘How did it go?’
‘Okay, but it wasn’t pleasant. They asked all sorts of questions about the Old Man, just as if I was expected to have known him. I couldn’t really answer any of them.’
‘Shall we find a café?’ Line suggested.
‘Great idea.’
They walked towards the square. Sofie received a phone call and, when Line took charge of the pushchair, it occurred to her that she was looking forward to pushing her own pram. Maybe she ought to buy one under Sofie’s guidance.
Line steered the pushchair into the backyard of what had once been a glazier’s workshop with Sofie a few metres behind, talking into her mobile phone. She chose a table where the pushchair could sit in the shade beside them. Sofie ended her conversation and sat opposite. ‘That was my lawyer,’ she said.
‘Have you engaged a lawyer?’
‘Not because of this,’ Sofie said, waving her hand in the direction of the police station. ‘I have to go to a meeting in Oslo next week about parental rights and access. Could you look after Maja for me? I don’t want to take her to a meeting like that.’
‘Of course,’ Line
said, beaming.
A waiter appeared. Sofie took the menu. ‘Did they tell you any more about what this is all about? I mean, you’ve worked on things like this for the newspaper and know something about how the police think.’
Line waited until the waiter had left. ‘I think what they have in mind is that there might be a connection between the New Year Murder and the Hummel case.’
‘How’s that?’
‘The murder weapon from Kristiansand was found in your grandfather’s safe, and Jens Hummel’s car was found in his barn.’
‘Maybe it has something to do with Phillip Goldheim?’ Sofie said, studying the menu.
‘Who?’
‘Didn’t they ask you about him?’
‘No, who’s he?’
‘A guy down in Kristiansand. They wanted to know if the Old Man knew him, but I couldn’t say. I’ve neither heard nor seen that name before.’ Her gaze slid back to the menu. ‘Have you?’
Line shook her head.
‘I think I’ll have the chicken salad.’
Line put down her menu. ‘Me too. When was it you needed a babysitter?’
‘On Tuesday.’
43
Wisting lifted the coffee jug before the machine was finished. Water spat out and sizzled on the hotplate while he poured coffee into his cup. He had a slight headache, as usual when he had too little sleep.
Christine Thiis came into the conference room. He raised the jug and asked if she would like some, but she shook her head. ‘I have the Police Chief in my office. He wants to talk to you.’
Wisting followed her into her office at the end of the corridor.
Chief of Police Ivan Sundt remained seated and greeted him with only a nod. His office was in Tønsberg together with the rest of the district’s administration and management. Only occasionally had he made the half-hour trip to the police station in Larvik.
Ordeal (William Wisting Series) Page 16