Kristoffer Nybråthen was sitting at the far end of the open plan office, with slightly less hair than when she last saw him. He popped his head up from behind a computer screen and brightened when he saw her. He gave her a hug and remarked on her bump. ‘That’s some news the editor hasn’t picked up. Do you have time to sit down?’
‘It was you I came to see,’ she said.
Nybråthen put his hand on his forehead to retrieve the hair that had fallen to one side, smoothing it back over his bald crown. The familiar movement brought to Line’s mind the old saying that Nybråthen covered everything apart from his own napper.
‘We could do with a hot news tip,’ he said. The story on screen was about youngsters who spent much of the summer holidays in day-care.
‘It’s not really to do with anything like that,’ Line said. ‘At least not yet.’
Nybråthen took off his smudged glasses and looked at her. ‘How can I help?’
‘When I worked here, you used a little tape recorder.’
‘I haven’t used it for years,’ he said, pulling out a desk drawer. ‘But I think I have it here somewhere.’
‘I’ve come across some cassettes, but have had difficulty finding a player to suit.’
‘You can borrow mine.’
‘Until Tuesday?’
He picked it up and handed it to her. ‘No problem.’
Line removed the cassette inside, the same type as were stored in the safe in Sofie’s home and handed it to him, thanking him profusely.
Before she could leave she had to tell him that she had moved back to her hometown and that the child’s father lived in the USA. If Nybråthen had not been given something to write, at least he now had something to gossip about.
69
Skien Prison was a concrete colossus in an area of moorland south of the city. The atmosphere inside the walls, where Jan Larsen was an inmate, was hot and clammy. No one questioned Wisting’s visit and Larsen may not even have been told that a policeman was on his way.
Shown into a cramped visiting room, Wisting sat and waited until a door slammed in the corridor and a man in tracksuit trousers came shuffling in, escorted by an officer.
Wisting stood up. ‘Jan Larsen?’
The other man nodded and shook hands. Wisting gave his name and sat down. The prison officer backed into the corridor and locked the door behind him. ‘What’s it about?’ Larsen asked, perching on the edge of his chair.
‘Your name has cropped up in a case.’
The man facing him sighed despondently: ‘I’m serving an eleven-year sentence. Isn’t that enough to be going on with?’
‘It’s not about you. I think someone has used your phone while you’ve been in here.’
‘My phone?’
Wisting read out the number. ‘Isn’t that yours? A NetCom pay-as-you-go card.’
‘Could be. I’ve had a few that I don’t remember.’
‘You gave a post box address at the NAV job centre when you registered your subscription.’
‘Sounds like me.’
Wisting returned to his central question. ‘Do you know who has used your phone while you’ve been inside?’
‘There must be a mistake. I haven’t seen that phone since I was arrested. The police took it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s even mentioned in the verdict. I’d used it to deal with. As far as I know, it’s still in the police evidence room in Kristiansand.’
‘Are you sure?’
Larsen got to his feet and walked across to the intercom on the wall. A prison officer answered. ‘I need some papers from my cell,’ he said. ‘Can someone come with me?’
‘Wait,’ the officer said.
Immediately afterwards, they heard footsteps in the corridor and keys rattling before the door opened. Larsen turned to face Wisting. ‘It won’t take long,’ he said, following the officer out.
Five minutes later he was back with the verdict from Agder Appeal Court. He flicked through it to one of the details on the last page.
Wisting read: Jan Larsen is found guilty in accordance with §34a of the penal code and ordered to suffer confiscation of 70,000 kroner in favour of the public purse and in accordance with §35, second sub-section, to suffer confiscation of an Alfa Romeo private car and a Nokia mobile phone in favour of the public purse.
It had become increasingly common. Crime should not pay. In addition to confiscation of the proceeds, the police requested confiscation of possessions that had been used in the commission of crimes.
‘Who had responsibility for this case?’ Wisting asked.
‘Ryttingen,’ Jan Larsen said. ‘Harald Ryttingen.’
Wisting sat, lost in thought.
‘If anyone has used my phone, it must have been the police,’ Larsen said, reading Wisting’s thoughts.
70
The afternoon sun, low in the sky, shone in Wisting’s eyes as he left the prison precincts. He flipped down the sun visor, took out his phone and rang Christine Thiis. The way this case had developed, she had become a close confidante. Her background as a defence lawyer provided an interesting sideways look to his own task, because she spotted the legal complications faster than he did.
‘Are you at home?’ he asked, after telling her what he had learned. ‘I’d like to talk through the case before I go to court tomorrow.’
‘I get the children back then. Why not call in now?’
She had set the table in the living room when he arrived. A summer salad with chicken and focaccia. In front of the table, the TV was on with the volume down. ‘I wanted to see if there’s anything about the court case on the news,’ she said.
They ate while waiting for the broadcast to begin.
The court case was one of the main items. She turned up the sound. A news reporter with bleached hair and an overly tight shirt stood in front of the Justice Building and summarised the first day of the trial:
‘A twenty-five-year-old man is charged with the murder of Elise Kittelsen who was shot and killed on the open street here in Kristiansand on New Year’s Eve.’
The reportage switched to archive photographs while the reporter mentioned the central points in the case. They showed Dan Roger Brodin as he arrived in the courtroom, his face concealed. In the background, Wisting recognised Harald Ryttingen in a suit and narrow tie.
‘When the judge asked the question, the 25-year-old denied having anything to do with the murder,’ the reporter continued, ‘while the Public Prosecutor gave an insight into the huge amount of evidence that will be presented in the days ahead. The court proceedings will continue for the rest of the week. Tomorrow we will hear from several witnesses before the technical evidence is submitted on Wednesday.’
She switched off the TV. ‘What have you considered saying tomorrow?’
‘I have to tell the truth. Hopefully, it’ll be enough for the judge to order a fresh enquiry and suspend court proceedings.’
‘That’ll create problems.’
He was fully aware of the impending difficulties. His own Chief of Police had even warned him against meddling in the New Year Murder case. ‘I don’t know all of the truth either, but I can’t keep silent about what I do know.’
They ate as they discussed the case, trying to look at it from different angles and searching for indications that they might be on the wrong track. Their aim was not to arrive at any conclusion but to explore the facts.
‘Most probably the prosecutor won’t have any questions for you,’ she said, speaking from experience. ‘They’ll tell the court that what you have to say is of no interest and will turn down the opportunity to question you.’
‘That’s what they have done all along. Ignored what doesn’t fit their own picture.’
She accompanied him to the door. ‘I probably won’t see you in the morning,’ she said, lingering, as if hesitating somehow. Then she leaned forward and gave him a hug. ‘Good luck, anyway.’
He thanked her and
stood still for a moment before turning on his heel and heading for his car. When he was inside, he decided to drive out to the riding centre at Brunla where Jens Hummel’s body had been found.
The heat had baked the area in front of the stables dry and hard. He parked the car in the same place as before, stepped out and slammed the car door. Several crows rose in the dull evening sky. Grasshoppers sang in the dry grass all around. The remains of the police crime scene tape were still hanging from the barn ramp. He ripped them off. Inside the stable he heard a horse stamping restlessly.
They did not know where Jens Hummel had been killed, only that he had been shot, stowed in the boot of his own taxi and dumped here before the vehicle was hidden in Frank Mandt’s barn. He stepped closer to the heap of sawdust and dung. It had begun to fill again and big flies were buzzing around. His phone rang: a long, foreign number. He answered and introduced himself in Norwegian.
‘Robert Hansson here. I understand that you wanted to get in touch with me. I’m on holiday in the States, but Ivar Horne says it’s important.’
‘I’ll keep it brief,’ Wisting said. He had prepared what he was going to say when Robert Hansson called. ‘It has to do with a drugs enquiry. I have Aron Heisel in custody in connection with twelve kilos of amphetamines.’
‘I don’t recognise that name.’
‘It turns up in a note from an informant that you wrote last October. About Phillip Goldheim visiting Heisel in Spain. Can you remember? It was in connection with an operation you called Mister Nice Guy.’
A black and white cat came creeping along the barn wall.
‘That might be right,’ Hansson replied after a pause. ‘I had a lot on Goldheim at that time, but we never managed to catch him.’
‘This could be a new opportunity,’ Wisting said. ‘He may have a central role in our case.’
‘That would certainly be interesting.’
‘What I’m wondering is whether your source could know anything more about the contact between Goldheim and the part of his activity that borders on Vestfold and Larvik.’
Again there was silence at the other end of the phone. A young girl pushing a wheelbarrow emerged on to the barn ramp. Wisting followed her with his eyes as he waited for Hansson to say something. The wheelbarrow was full of sawdust and dung that she tipped over the side and on to the heap below.
‘There’s no more information to be had there,’ Hansson said.
‘Have you no contact with him?’
Hansson hesitated again, exhaling noisily, almost as if a valve had opened after being shut for a long time. ‘The informant is no longer alive,’ he said.
71
The child was inconsolable. She screamed until she was red in the face and for a moment or two Line thought she might faint. In the end she distracted her with yogurt and, when she finally settled her in the playpen, Line slipped out of the living room.
It did not look as though Sofie had been in the safe since Line had gone through the contents. Ring binders, pictures, notebooks and the envelope of cassettes were in the same places, the cassettes marked by date. Some of the dates had been crossed out and replaced with new ones, and many had been made far back in time. The most recent were almost two years old. She brought them up to the living room, took out the Dictaphone and sat on the settee.
As Maja crawled around the playpen, Line inserted the cassette with the most recent recording and pressed play. Nothing happened. She tried again, but the tape did not rotate. She removed the cassette, turned it round and inserted it again, but that made no difference. She lifted off the battery cover. They seemed old and, when she examined them more closely, she saw that the date on them had passed well over a year earlier.
‘Maybe Mummy’s got some batteries?’ she said to Maja as she struggled up from the settee.
‘Ma-ma-ma?’ Maja replied, watching Line as she left for the kitchen.
She opened drawers and cupboards, but could not find any, looked in all possible places but had to conclude that there were no spare batteries in the house. She lifted Maja out of the playpen. ‘We’ll go for a walk to the shop,’ she said. Maja gurgled and babbled, making noises that sounded like contentment.
The shop was only a few hundred metres along the street. She placed Maja in her pushchair and pushed her along, the first time she had done this since she had been a youngster earning pocket money. She liked the sensation, and enjoyed the friendly glances.
Faced with a shelf of batteries she could not remember which kind she needed and ended up buying two packs. In addition, she bought a bottle of mineral water and an ice cream cone for Maja. The last of these was a mistake. The ice cream melted in her hands, ran down her arms and stained her clothes.
When they got back, she took Maja into the bathroom, washed her and put on fresh clothes. It felt as if half the day had gone when she finally sat with the Dictaphone again.
It turned out that the smallest batteries suited. The cogs gripped and drove the tape round, but all that came out of the miniature loudspeaker was a hissing noise. When she spooled the tape back her efforts were rewarded. A conversation, two men speaking, and it sounded as if it had been going for some time.
‘Those are tough conditions,’ one man said.
‘It’s the same as last time,’ the other man replied. ‘And we’re completely dependent on his people to get rid of the goods.’
‘We just need to make sure we don’t let him find out how little we’re actually paying.’
They were obviously discussing a business transaction, clearly illegal. They sounded comparatively youthful. She had not heard Sofie’s grandfather’s voice, but from the date on the recording he would have been seventy-seven when the conversation took place. Neither of them sounded as old as that.
She continued to listen. They were talking about how much they would earn on the setup:
‘Then we’ll be left with half a million,’ one said.
‘That’s nice,’ the other responded. ‘Very nice.’
They laughed and chatted about a car one of them wanted to purchase. Line pictured them sitting on either side of the kitchen table.
Then something happened. A door opened and a third voice sounded. ‘Have you come to an agreement?’
This voice was gruffer and more sophisticated. Frank Mandt, Line thought.
‘We’re in,’ one of the two men said. ‘We’ll do as . . .’
The conversation was cut off and the loudspeaker filled with crackling. A radio voice sounded as if someone had wiped out the rest with another recording.
What had happened was unmistakable. Frank Mandt had held a business meeting at the kitchen table and offered to let the two men talk undisturbed. He had left the room, but had ensured that he heard what they were talking about all the same. In that way, he knew where he stood. He insured himself against being tricked, and knew what he could demand next.
Mandt must have monitored his associates for years through his access to police documents and it did not surprise her in the least that he also listened to the ones with whom he did business. However, the recordings could also give him away, so why had he not deleted them? Was it a form of insurance or was he merely careless?
She took out the cassette and chose another at random. The recording began with a scream of pain. Shrill and piercing. Line covered the speaker with her hand to avoid upsetting Maja. When the scream subsided, she removed it again.
‘We just want you to tell us how it went,’ a man said calmly.
‘But I don’t know,’ another man protested desperately.
There was another scream.
‘Okay! Okay!’ he groaned. ‘It was me and Lasse.’
Line reduced the volume and continued listening as he stammered out how he and another had stolen part of a consignment of amphetamines. The recording stopped abruptly.
Frank Mandt’s voice was not on the tape. Others carried out his dirty work for him, but apparently he wanted to hear with his own ears how he
had been betrayed. Line glanced at the kitchen where the ill-treatment had taken place, removed the cassette and picked up another.
72
Wisting was back in the city on the south coast. The sun was just as high in the sky and it was just as hot as it had been two days earlier. Like last time, he drove past the crime scene in Dronningens gate. He was early and took time to stop, get out of the car and look at where the shots had been fired. What he had discovered in the course of the night turned everything upside down. The cogwheels had taken hold. Everything fell into place.
A delivery van drove past, stirring up dust and a crumpled sheet of paper that sank slowly back to the asphalt before another vehicle pushed it farther on. He rehearsed his testimony in his mind, aware that he would be regarded as disloyal by many colleagues and that it would impact severely on individuals and cause damage.
His phone rang. It was Ivar Horne. Wisting sat in the car again before answering. ‘I thought you would want to know that Phillip Goldheim left home before nine o’clock this morning and drove north on route E18.’
Wisting started the car. ‘Then we probably passed each other. Do you know where he’s going?’
‘No. We didn’t have the manpower to follow. I arranged with the surveillance team in Oslo that they would pick him up once he’d reached there, but it looks as if he’s turned off before that.’ The end of the sentence disappeared into the ether as the mobile phone transferred the connection to hands-free. ‘Which is why I’m calling. He’s just turned off for Larvik.’
73
Line took out a cassette that had obviously been used several times. Three earlier dates had been crossed out. The one that remained was 13.10.2005.
Ordeal (William Wisting Series) Page 27