Wisting recognised that Julian Broch’s number had received an ‘on my way’ text, the only such message. It would have been easy for him to envisage which route she would take. Apart from her family, he was the only one who knew where she would be when the shots rang out at 19.21.
He took out the city map and calculated the distance from the crime scene to the flat where the party was being held. Four blocks would have taken only five minutes to walk. Even though it was early evening, he doubted whether anyone would have noticed if Julian Broch was gone for a few minutes. The problem was that no one had been asked, and now few would remember. In the investigation material, there was not even a comprehensive overview of who had been present at the party.
This was a hole in the investigation, but not large enough to crawl through.
He was about to continue but instead lingered on the printout from the telecommunications company. The list seemed longer than the one he had seen in the police report.
He opened the folder of official enquiry documents once more. The papers were becoming dog-eared now, but he found the paper he was looking for. The chronological overview of who Elise Kittelsen had been in contact with throughout that day contained seventeen rows. The investigator had reworked the list so that in addition to the time and phone number, it included the names the various telephone numbers were registered to. Guro Fjellborg, the friend who had suggested that Julian Broch was jealous, was one.
Wisting counted the contacts on the phone company list and arrived at a total of nineteen. Then he re-counted the reworked list again: seventeen. His first thought was that the investigator had limited the list so that it applied from a particular time, for instance after twelve noon, but both lists began with the first call at 10.32 to Runa Kittelsen, a cousin of the same age in Lyngdal.
Number by number, Wisting went through the two lists. At 14.42 a mobile number cropped up that had been left out of the police report. An incoming call from a number beginning with forty-five, a number series used by NetCom pay-as-you-go cards.
The conversation had lasted for nearly five minutes. Further down the page, the same number appeared again in an outgoing call lasting eight and a half minutes. That was not registered in the police report either.
Wisting took out his own mobile phone. There were two unread messages from Christine Thiis. Two hours ago she had asked if he was asleep. A quarter of an hour later she had sent another message suggesting they meet for breakfast at nine o’clock. He had not heard the messages come in. It was really too late to answer, but he sent her a message confirming breakfast at nine before opening the app for interrogating phone numbers and keyed this one in. He had not expected to find an entry, but the search returned one result: Jan Larsen, Post Box 502, 4605 Kristiansand.
It was a perfectly ordinary first name and a perfectly ordinary surname, but he felt certain that he had not seen it anywhere in the case documents.
The report from which the number had been omitted had been written by a police officer, Robert Hansson, whose name was listed as the contact for the source who had given the Phillip Goldheim information. Could there be a connection? Was Jan Larsen the police informant and had the investigator removed his name and phone number from the list?
Wisting needed a date of birth to search the registers to find out who Jan Larsen really was. Even though it was a pre-paid phone subscription, the phone company could have recorded his personal ID. This was something for Nils Hammer to look into. Without bothering that it was the middle of the night, he put the question in a text message and passed on the assignment.
Wisting opened the camera function on his phone and took a photograph of the telephone printout, securing a copy for himself before handing back the papers. The report was a fabrication. Pretending to copy all the information received from the phone company, it withheld one of the numbers. It was a gross dereliction of duty that could have consequences not only for the policeman who had written the report, but also for the forthcoming court case. This fresh information could allow Dan Roger Brodin and his defence lawyer to win their case.
He crossed to the window. On the opposite side of the street, a man was perched on a ladder, pasting a poster on a billboard. A road sweeper with rotating brushes passed, trailing a pair of damp lines on the asphalt. The city was preparing for a new day.
63
The sound of the fly buzzing around the room woke Wisting. It landed on the vacant pillow beside him but took off again at once. Eager, as if short of time. The clock on the TV set showed 08:43. It had taken time for him to fall asleep, but he had evidently slept like a log.
He stepped into the shower and let the water run for a minute or two while he considered. In every case there was someone with something to hide, but in this particular case it was the police who were holding back information.
Christine Thiis was sitting behind a stack of newspapers when he came down to breakfast. He fetched himself a cup of coffee before taking a seat.
‘Aren’t you going to eat?’ she asked.
‘Afterwards.’ He told her how they had followed Phillip Goldheim on his way to a meeting with Julian Broch.
‘Elise Kittelsen’s boyfriend?’
‘Yes, but we’ll have to hold off speaking to him,’ Wisting said. ‘Does the name Guro Fjellborg mean anything to you?’
He could see that it did, but that she could not decide how.
‘One of Elise Kittelsen’s girlfriends,’ he said. ‘There’s a brief interview with her among the case papers. She talks a little about the relationship between Elise and Julian Broch, and says that Julian was jealous. Elise had to lock her phone with a pin code to prevent him from reading her messages.’
She looked at him doubtfully. ‘A jealous boyfriend?’
‘The question is whether he had reason to be jealous. Whether Elise Kittelsen had secrets that have not been revealed in the course of the investigation.’
‘We’ll need to talk to this friend.’
‘There’s something else as well,’ he said, telling her about the discrepancy between the police report and the phone company printout.
‘Do you mean they’ve manipulated evidence?’
He waited until an elderly man had passed their table. ‘Strictly speaking, we’re not talking about evidence, but they have suppressed vital information.’
‘Who is this Jan Larsen?’
‘I’ve put Hammer on to that.’ Wisting crossed over to the breakfast buffet, helping himself to bacon and egg and two slices of wholemeal bread. ‘I’ll call that friend after breakfast.’
‘We’ll have to press on with this, one way or another. I don’t believe Ryttingen is willing to listen. He’s no longer concerned with what’s right or wrong, just with the outcome of the case.’
‘There must be someone we can talk to. Someone higher up the system. The Public Prosecutor or the Police Chief?’
‘We don’t have anything specific to go on. To make progress we must dig deeper.’
‘The court case starts tomorrow,’ she reminded him, pushing the Sunday edition of VG across. The picture of Elise Kittelsen had returned to the front page, as Line had predicted. Wisting skimmed through to photos of the murder victim and the crime scene. Harald Ryttingen, leader of the investigation, commented on the imminent court case by saying that the police hoped the accused would re-think and give a full explanation in court. Elise Kittelsen’s family needed answers.
Wisting shook his head. This was an indirect way of telling the public that the question of guilt had already been decided, reinforcing a wave of opinion that would wash up against the court of law.
‘They write about the revolver as well,’ Christine Thiis said. Ryttingen had dismissed the idea that the discovery of the murder weapon and the connection to another killing had any relevance for the evidence in this case.
We have expected that the gun would turn up sooner or later by some means or another, he said. It means little to our enquiry. We know who fir
ed it.
‘He’s treading dangerously close to conducting the trial in advance,’ Wisting said.
Olav Müller had given a brief reply to the journalist’s enquiry about his client continuing to claim innocence. Already on the defensive, it seemed he did not believe his client. He was obviously too inexperienced, not only with the media, but also in pleading a murder case. Mere knowledge of law did not help, you also required a command of rhetoric. A case such as this was just as much about convincing as about proving, about how you portrayed and presented the evidence. The person who won was not necessarily the person who told the truth, but the person who succeeded in putting forward the best argument.
Wisting helped himself at the buffet again before returning to his room. Christine Thiis accompanied him in order to take a look for herself at the document with the two missing phone conversations.
‘There is a possible explanation,’ he said. ‘Jan Larsen could be a police informant, so his name has been removed from the case to protect him.’
‘That seems illogical. Why should contact between Elise Kittelsen and a police informant be harmful to him?’
Wisting shrugged. If Jan Larsen’s name appeared in the investigation document, the lead would probably be followed. It was not a problem for the source as long as he did not have anything to do with the case. However, Wisting was searching for an alternative perpetrator to Dan Roger Brodin, and if it was Jan Larsen someone in the police had shielded him to protect both him and the ongoing surveillance operation. That was a thought almost too terrifying to contemplate.
‘It is against the rules of the game, in that case,’ Christine Thiis continued. ‘No matter what, it’s an internal secret that’s not acceptable.’
Wisting agreed. He leafed through his notes to find Guro Fjellborg’s personal details. She and Elise Kittelsen were the same age, but in the six months that had passed since the murder she had reached the age of twenty-two.
He called her number and sat on the bed. It rang for a long time and Wisting was afraid it might be too early in the day. As he was about to disconnect, she answered, cheerful and in high spirits.
He introduced himself and told her what it was about. ‘Is it convenient to speak now?’
‘Oh yes,’ the young woman at the other end assured him, though the sparkle had disappeared from her voice. ‘I was just about to check in.’
‘Are you travelling?’
‘On my way home. I’m in London.’
Wisting switched on the loudspeaker function so that Christine Thiis could hear what was said. ‘Have you time for a few questions?’
‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s about Elise Kittelsen. I just want to follow up on a few minor details.’
‘Yes?’
‘You said in your police statement that Julian Broch, her boyfriend, could be jealous. Is that right?’
‘Yes, he didn’t like her being with other guys.’
‘Was she?’
‘Not in that way. He became sort of annoyed if she sat too long talking to another guy.’
‘You said that Elise had to put a pin code on her phone so that he couldn’t read her messages.’
‘Yes, she discovered that messages she hadn’t read had been opened and realised that he had been snooping.’
‘Was there something she didn’t want him to see?’
‘I don’t really think so, but it’s not the sort of thing you do, reading other people’s phones in secret.’
‘She shared everything with you? I understood that you were good friends.’
Guro Fjellborg hesitated. ‘Not everything. Sometimes she went out of the room when the phone rang. Or she could be sitting in the middle of a conversation and send messages without saying who she was chatting to.’
‘Who was she in contact with?’
‘I don’t know.’
Wisting moved the phone to his other ear. ‘Do you know somebody called Jan Larsen?’
‘Jan Larsen? No. Who’s that?’
‘Just a name that’s cropped up.’
In the background, he heard a flight departure being called. ‘I’ll not detain you any longer. Have a good trip.’
He concluded the conversation and got to his feet. ‘Let’s get going,’ he said, gathering up his case documents.
64
They checked out of the hotel, stowed their luggage in the car and drove back to police headquarters. A tourist coach changed gear and whirled up hot dusty air as they lingered outside the entrance, waiting for Ivar Horne to come and collect them. He seemed tired and exhausted when he appeared in the doorway. ‘Late night?’ Wisting asked.
‘Not very. We managed to attach a fully charged box to Goldheim’s car while we waited. They came back to the quay again after dark. We followed Broch. He went home before going into the city.’
‘And Goldheim?’
‘Went straight home.’ Ivar Horne held the lift door for them. ‘I’m afraid there’s not much more for you to do here.’
‘We’ve a few ring binders to browse through,’ Wisting said wryly.
‘Not any more. When I arrived an hour ago, the conference room had been cleared. Two men on the night shift removed all the documents.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Orders from Ryttingen. You requested access to all the investigation material, and you’ve had that. Now he needs the papers himself. The trial starts tomorrow.’
‘There was never a time limit,’ Wisting said.
Horne threw his arms out in despair as the lift arrived. ‘Sorry.’
‘Where are the documents now?’ Christine Thiis asked.
‘Locked inside Ryttingen’s office.’ Horne led the way along the corridor to the room they had used the previous day. Apart from a ballpoint pen and a blank notepad, the table was bare. He took cups out of the cupboard above the kitchen worktop and filled them with coffee from the pot.
Wisting opened his document case and removed the folder he had brought with him. ‘You can see to it that he gets this one as well.’
Horne nodded and handed each of them a cup.
‘Have you made contact with Robert Hansson in Haiti?’ Wisting asked.
‘I’ve sent him an email, but haven’t had a reply yet.’
‘Is there anyone else here at HQ who knows the identity of his informant?’
Horne smiled over his coffee cup. ‘Ryttingen.’
Wisting sighed.
‘He’s a good boss,’ Horne said, still smiling. ‘I realise that the two of you have had your professional differences, but he’s effective and gets things done. He doesn’t beat around the bush, but says exactly what he means. That gives good results. We have a high clear-up rate and low processing time which creates confidence among our citizens and that’s thanks to him.’
The phone in Wisting’s pocket rang. It was Nils Hammer. Wisting took it over to the window to answer.
‘You wanted to know all about Jan Larsen?’ Hammer began.
‘Have you discovered anything?’
‘The post box address you sent me is for the local NAV job centre.’
‘Does he work there?’
‘I doubt that, but he probably feels at home there.’
Wisting glanced out the window without fixing his gaze on anything in particular. ‘Have you found out his ID number?’
‘Yes, but I took a simpler route. I looked up the phone number in our records. He’s mentioned in despatches.’
‘For what?’
‘Violence and narcotics. He’s currently serving an eleven-year sentence for possession of heroin.’
‘Eleven years?’
‘It’s on the screen in front of me,’ Hammer said. ‘He’s got nine years left.’
Wisting looked at Christine Thiis and Ivar Horne. ‘He’s been in jail for two years?’
Hammer verified and read out the details of his prison term. Wisting turned to face the window again. ‘Where is he now?’
‘Ski
en Prison.’
Wisting thanked him for the information and let the news sink in. Outside, the sky was dull and hazy. Small birds flew overhead, appearing as indistinct, flickering fine lines. It was the same with phones as with weapons, he thought. They passed quickly through the hands of criminals. Any name at all could be concealed behind the phone number.
He waited for a while in front of the window before turning to speak to Christine Thiis. ‘What do you say, then?’ He forced a smile. ‘Shall we head for home?’
‘I have something for you before you go,’ Horne said, not giving her the opportunity to answer. He crossed the corridor to his office and returned with two long plastic parcels. ‘We boarded Broch’s boat last night. The boys found the impressions of the soles of two different shoes on the deck.’
He handed them to Wisting, who held them up to the light.
‘I’ve already checked,’ Horne told him. ‘Neither of them match the prints in your potato cellar. If it was Goldheim who ran away from you in that field, he was wearing different shoes.’
65
The house was pleasant to wake up in. Line opened her eyes slowly and let them slide closed before opening them once more. The sun shone through the window in places the roller blind did not cover, and long strips of light were cut off at the edge of the bed. There were reflections on the ceiling. She lay listening to nothing more than a few gulls shrieking in the distance.
When she bought the place she had been afraid that the two deaths would fill the space with negative energy. That it would be difficult to live there. In fact, she felt that she had made it her own, and it was a joy to wake in your own house.
She swung her feet outside the bed and sat up, gathering her strength before standing and wrapping herself in a dressing gown. Padding into the kitchen she put the kettle on for tea. Since she had fallen pregnant, she had begun to drink fruit tea instead of coffee in the mornings, following one of many pieces of advice. Caffeine could result in a reduction in a child’s birth weight.
Ordeal (William Wisting Series) Page 25