The Katharina Code

by Jorn Lier Horst

  The spouse was always the initial suspect whenever anyone disappeared, but the timeline gave police no grounds for suspicion. Martin Haugen had spoken to Katharina by phone at around ten o’clock on the evening of 9 October. The telephone company confirmed a phone call at 22.06 from a pay phone in the barracks’ dining room to the landline belonging to Katharina and Martin Haugen in Kleiverveien, Larvik. The conversation had lasted eight minutes and seventeen seconds. The next morning, at seven o’clock, Martin Haugen was seated behind the controls of an excavator. There was a nine-hour window, but it would have taken him sixteen hours to make the round trip to Larvik and back.

  After his shift he had tried to phone home but received no answer. Several workmates had seen him attempt to phone his wife in the course of that evening and he had given the impression of being worried. He had called friends and acquaintances, but no one had seen her. Late that evening he had asked his nearest neighbour to go to the house to investigate, but there had been no sign that she was at home. The neighbour had done a circuit of the house and peered in through the windows. Apart from spotting what looked like a handwritten note on the kitchen table, he had nothing else to report.

  Just before midnight, Martin Haugen had driven home. At 8.47 on 11 October he had phoned the police to report his wife missing.

  They knew no more today than they had at the time. They knew a great deal about what had not happened, what Katharina had not done, and where she had not gone, but nothing about why, how or where she had.

  3

  Wisting left his office at quarter to twelve to drive to Kleiverveien. By now it had almost stopped raining and the sky was brighter.

  His relationship with Martin Haugen had changed over the years. The interactions between them had gone from being purely professional to increasingly informal. They were able to share jokes and talk about things far removed from the case. A few years ago Martin Haugen had borrowed an excavator and helped Wisting to get rid of some tree stumps in his garden. Every autumn Wisting bought a few bags of firewood from him, and before Christmas he usually showed up with a Christmas tree from the woods behind his house. They had been on fishing trips to Haugen’s summer cabin, and Martin had attended Ingrid’s funeral when she died. But it was not a true friendship, and never could be. Their relationship had its roots in tragic circumstances and something indefinable still caused Wisting to keep his distance. They were around the same age, and from time to time it crossed his mind that, in different circumstances, Martin Haugen could well have become one of his few good friends.

  Two years after Ingrid’s death Wisting had embarked on a new relationship. Although it was over now, it had been tender and loving while it lasted, and he wished it could have continued. Martin Haugen had never entered into a new relationship, even though he had been married before he met Katharina, a short-lived union with a woman eight years older than him. One of the ring binders in the case files was marked with her name: Inger Lise Ness. In the weeks following the disappearance it had grown bulky, but yielded no answers.

  The windscreen wipers scraped the glass and Wisting turned them off.

  The houses flanking the road became more scattered as he approached Kleiver, and the road grew narrower and less well maintained. He passed a market garden and a smallholding. On the left-hand side he saw the old car-repair workshop and noticed that some of the wrecked cars outside had been there since the previous year.

  He slowed down as he neared the intersection and the exit road where the mailbox was situated. A sign had been erected at the road verge since his last visit. A No Entry sign, with an exception made for permanent residents.

  As Wisting drove past the sign, he glanced in the mirror at the red house across the road. Steinar Vassvik lived immediately opposite the turn-off, and Wisting spoke his name aloud now. He was the closest they had come to a suspect in the case. He was the nearest neighbour, the last person to have seen Katharina, and he had no alibi. To make matters worse, he had a previous conviction for assault.

  The gravel track zigzagged through the trees. After a hundred metres Martin Haugen’s house appeared. It had been given a fresh coat of paint since Wisting last visited and some of the forest around the house had been cleared. It now looked brighter and more open.

  The rain had formed a puddle in the yard and Wisting parked to avoid stepping into it.

  The cat rose from the doormat, arched its body and approached to inspect him.

  It was not usually necessary to ring the doorbell. Martin Haugen normally came to the window when he heard a car in the yard. Looking up at the house, Wisting let the cat curl round his legs while he waited for Martin to appear at the door.

  Nothing happened.

  Wisting climbed the few steps and rang the doorbell, the cat following at his heels. He heard the sound of the doorbell reverberate inside the house but nothing else.

  In the tiny crack between the doorframe and the door he could see that the lock was engaged. He rang the doorbell one more time and bent down to pet the cat’s wet fur.

  Wisting turned his back on the door. Haugen’s car was not parked in the yard, but that did not necessarily mean anything, since he usually kept the car in the garage. However, the door to the garage was locked and there were no windows to afford a view inside.

  He crossed to the kitchen window and stood on tiptoe. The room was tidy, with the exception of a writing pad and pen on the table.

  ‘Martin!’ he called, hammering on the windowpane.

  Something was written on the top sheet of the pad, but from where he stood it was impossible to see what it said.

  The pad lay in approximately the same place as the coded message had done twenty-four years earlier. It was most likely Katharina who had written the code back then. Her fingerprints had been found on the paper.

  Handwriting experts had also studied the paper, but they could not say for certain that the handwriting was Katharina’s. They had made comparisons with handwriting samples from letters and other papers they knew Katharina had written. The numbers on the paper were slightly more slanted than on the reference samples, and the results were inconclusive.

  Chemical analyses showed that the ink in a ballpoint pen on the kitchen worktop contained identical ingredients to the ink on the paper. The pen was a promotion for the National Directorate of Public Roads, in all likelihood one that Katharina had brought home from work, and had been manufactured in Germany in a factory producing nineteen million ballpoint pens annually. From a purely theoretical point of view, a pen other than the one lying there could also have been used.

  Somewhere in the woods behind him, a solitary magpie screeched. Apart from that, he was surrounded by silence.

  He walked round the house, across the damp grass on the lawn and up on to the verandah at the rear, with the cat trailing in his wake.

  The garden furniture was still outside, and dead leaves were collected in wet heaps. A spade caked with earth was propped against the wall, and beside it stood a pair of wellington boots flecked with clods of dried clay.

  Wisting approached the window and peered inside. Many of the fixtures and fittings were the same as when Katharina had lived here: pine furniture and a few colourful prints on the walls. The dark leather settee was new, and on the coffee table in front of it, a partially completed construction set divulged Martin Haugen’s hobby. It seemed likely to be a lorry once it had the finishing touches. On the bookshelves, previously filled with Katharina’s books, a number of finished models were displayed.

  The cat mewed and scratched at the verandah door. On the inside, he could see the blanket it usually claimed as its own.

  The animal must be old now, Wisting thought. Martin Haugen had told him how, scrawny and with a dull, matted coat, it had slunk out of the woods one summer’s evening and sidled on to the verandah where he was sitting. He had offered it his plate of leftovers, and ever since then it had made its home with him. That had been five or six years ago.

&nbs
p; Wisting turned to face the woods, denser now than twenty-four years earlier. He could only just make out the small lake down between the spruce-tree trunks.

  They had combed the woods twice in their efforts to find Katharina. First with sniffer dogs, and then with volunteers who had walked in rows at arm’s length from one another. They had dredged the lake and also dispatched divers. She was nowhere to be found.

  Another magpie screech broke the stillness. It flew up from one of the nearest trees, hovering and flapping its wings as it swooped and shrieked.

  Wisting pulled his coat closer around his neck and returned to his car. He was taken aback that Martin Haugen was not at home. He had expected him to be here, just as he had been last year and all the years before.

  He glanced up at the house before climbing into the car. Maybe Martin Haugen had just nipped out to run some errands, but Wisting doubted it. The cat was rolling on the mat in front of the door, its coat soaked through, as if it had been out all night in the rain.

  4

  The car bumped over potholes on the gravel track. Wisting came to a halt by the mailbox marked with Martin Haugen’s name. It had been pictured in the case documents, revealing that it contained newspapers for 10 and 11 October, as well as an electricity bill. The newspaper dated 9 October was on the chest of drawers in the hallway of the house.

  Martin Haugen must have had Katharina’s name taken off the mailbox at some point, as it now showed only his name.

  Lifting the lid, he found it empty, though that did not necessarily mean anything. It was probably too early in the day for the postman to have called, and Martin lived so far out of the way that very few delivery services would go to the bother of making the trip.

  A man with a dog came walking out of the woods on a footpath further along the road. He called the dog at once and attached the lead.

  Wisting returned to his car and peered at the No Entry sign linked to a chain that could be stretched across the track to block the route. Maybe Martin was bothered by hikers who parked their vehicles on his property. The sign itself must be something he had picked up from work. After Katharina had disappeared he had secured a job in the operations and maintenance department of the roads authority, a position that had changed somewhat over the years. Initially he had been involved in clearing vegetation, snow ploughing and removing roadkill. Gradually the practical aspects had been subcontracted to various private firms and Martin Haugen’s task became more supervisory in nature, but he had always had flexible working hours and normally took 10 October off. Perhaps that had not been possible this year.

  Wisting considered phoning or sending him a text but worried he might seem pushy. It would be better to call in again after work.

  At the time of Katharina’s disappearance mobile phones were not common, and it was before the Internet and social media. No electronic traces existed at that time to point in the direction of where she was or what had happened to her.

  He glanced at the house on the other side of the road as he drove off and thought he saw Steinar Vassvik at the window. It had been difficult to obtain any kind of worthwhile statement from him. He was the type of person who did not let anyone come close, who usually answered questions mainly in words of one syllable, and who never took the initiative to change the subject in conversation. When Wisting had spoken to him, he often turned away and looked in a different direction. His answers were always evasive, and every conversation left Wisting with the distinct impression that he was withholding something. That there was something he was concealing.

  Steinar Vassvik had confirmed Haugen’s statement: he said he had been phoned on the afternoon of 10 October and asked to go up to the house to look for Katharina. He had done so. When he was phoned again half an hour later he had told Haugen she was not at home but it looked as if she had left a message for him on the kitchen table.

  Wisting picked up his mobile and rang Line. He was still anxious about his granddaughter. Her voice sounded flat when she answered.

  ‘How’s Amalie?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s a bit unsettled today,’ Line replied. ‘Whimpering a lot.’

  ‘Is she sick?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure. I’ll just have to keep an eye on her.’

  ‘Did you manage to get rid of the blue dye?’

  ‘Not all of it.’

  Wisting cleared his throat to fill the ensuing silence.

  ‘Do you need anything?’ he asked. ‘Do you want me to buy anything from the shop?’

  ‘No, we’ll manage,’ his daughter assured him.

  Wisting swerved on the narrow road to avoid an approaching lorry. He apologized again and told her how dreadful he felt about it before saying goodbye.

  He returned to the police station at five past one, and in the corridor bumped into Nils Hammer, who acted as Wisting’s deputy.

  ‘I’ve arranged a meeting for us tomorrow,’ Hammer said.

  ‘What sort of meeting?’

  ‘Somebody’s coming from Kripos,’ Hammer explained, referring to the National Criminal Investigation Service based in Oslo.

  Wisting frowned. ‘Who is it, then?’

  ‘I don’t know him,’ Hammer admitted. ‘Adrian Stiller?’

  Wisting shook his head. The name was unfamiliar to him too. ‘What does he want?’

  ‘It’s to do with an old case. He wants to go down to our archives and take a look. He’ll explain it all when he arrives. I arranged a meeting for nine o’clock.’

  Wisting entered his office and made a note on the calendar. It happened relatively often that Kripos or Økokrim, the national police squad dealing with financial crimes, investigated cases in which witnesses or other leads brought them across borders into their district.

  His restlessness had returned, and he headed for the conference room, where the coffee machine was located, and poured a cup. It tasted foul on an empty stomach, but he brought it back to his office, where he pushed it aside as he picked up the phone to call Martin Haugen. It was easier to call from his office rather than standing outside his house, he thought as he let it ring. Now he could simply ask whether it was convenient for him to drop by.

  After ten rings he was diverted to voicemail and hung up without leaving a message.

  He took out the papers referring to the new police reforms. They claimed that fewer yet larger police districts would allow the police greater capacity and improved competence to discharge their core duties in a better, more effective fashion throughout the country. It meant that the district Wisting worked in would be joined together with Telemark in the west and Buskerud in the east. He saw obvious advantages in such a large combined criminal-investigation department, but he still lacked the willingness to change. Only a few years from retirement age, he would prefer to spend his time solving cases rather than adjusting to a future in which he would play no part.

  He made an effort to bring the plans and visions down to a practical level and sketch out a picture of how the changes would impact their everyday workload. From time to time he was interrupted by phone calls, conveying enquiries and requests about urgent matters, which he could either answer or refer to the appropriate person. The section he led was just large enough for him to manage the necessary supervision.

  Just before half past three it began to rain again, heavy rain that battered the windowpane. He sat for another half-hour before logging out of his computer and leaving his office.

  On his way back to Kleiver he hung behind the school bus, the only form of public transport in the vicinity. It made the journey twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon, stopping where the schoolkids lived or where someone waiting at the road verge gave a signal that they wanted to board. On 10 October twenty-four years ago, it had been the same driver both in the morning and the afternoon, and he had been absolutely certain that Katharina Haugen had not been one of his passengers.

  The bus in front of him pulled in to the side of the road and stopped. The road was too narrow for
him to overtake, so he sat waiting until it discharged a cloud of black exhaust and drove on.

  Two boys wearing satchels crossed the road before he could follow.

  Katharina Haugen had driven a silver Golf and a Kawasaki Z650 motorbike. She mostly used the motorbike, but both vehicles were parked in the garage when she went missing.

  He slowed down and turned off in the direction of Martin Haugen’s home. The rainwater had gouged deep ruts in the gravel. He bumped along the track and drove into the yard in front of the house.

  No other cars were parked there.

  He drove up to the same spot as last time and the cat, slightly more rumpled than a few hours ago, came running towards him when he stepped from his car. Wisting followed him to the door and rang the doorbell, not really expecting Martin Haugen to open the door.

  Wisting fished out his phone and called him, but it again went to voicemail.

  The cat rubbed against his legs and Wisting stood motionless, feeling a sense of anxiety begin to tie knots in his stomach. He was trained to assume that the worst had happened, but all the same he tried to come up with reasonable explanations for Martin Haugen’s absence. A work seminar, overtime, another appointment. For all Wisting knew, he could have met another woman, was now living with her and had gone home to her after finishing work.

  He stepped out into the rain again and dived round the corner of the house. A sweet scent of damp earth drifted from the edge of the woods. Where the lawn ended and the tangle of shrubs took over, a footpath led into the forest. It had always been there, and they had searched for Katharina all along that path. Over the years it had become increasingly overgrown, but now it looked as if it had been cleared.

  The cat stood gazing at the opening into the forest while Wisting sheltered under the eaves on the verandah. He peered inside, but nothing had altered from when he had been here several hours earlier.