‘How?’ Sundt queried.
‘Haugen has nursed his secret for a long time,’ Stiller told him. ‘We’ll try to persuade him to unload it. This is going to be a case that is brought home through talking,’ he said, now fixing his eyes on Wisting. It was impossible to read anything into his facial expression.
‘Do you have a detailed plan for this?’ the local police chief pressed him.
Nodding, Stiller took on a meditative air to give the impression that the plan was more fully developed than was actually the case.
‘Next week the reopening of the Krogh case by the CCG will be publicized. We intend to publish the ransom letters and expect a great deal of media attention. This will be our way of levering the case open. We plan to ensure that Wisting is with Haugen when the news breaks, so that we pick up his immediate reactions and make sure he is pushed in our direction.’
The public prosecutor sat up in his seat. ‘Are you ready for this, William?’
The answer came faster and clearer than Stiller had anticipated: ‘Yes.’
‘You have no personal or ethical problems with it?’
The experienced investigator shook his head. Stiller was about to progress the meeting further but was forestalled.
‘I crossed the ethical boundaries long ago,’ Wisting said. The room fell silent.
‘When I resumed contact with Martin Haugen after the investigation of the Katharina case was suspended, it was really because I didn’t believe him,’ he went on. ‘I was left with a distinct impression that he was hiding something. I thought, and still think, he knows what happened to Katharina, and I initiated conversations in an attempt to prise it out of him.’
The silence continued.
‘What made you think that?’ Christine Thiis asked after a pause.
Wisting gave this some thought. The Katharina case felt like a piece of music with false notes, but it was difficult to put that into words for other people.
‘It’s really a matter of slight discrepancies,’ he replied. ‘Tiny details in his statement that sometimes change when we’re chatting. Call it intuition or a gut feeling. The entire time, I’ve felt something doesn’t tally, and I’m keen to get to the bottom of that.’
Nils Hammer, a man who would not fare well at a poker table, had turned to face his colleague. ‘So you embarked on a fake friendship?’ he summarized. ‘Based on a gut feeling?’
‘That’s how things turned out,’ Wisting agreed.
‘But he was at your wife’s funeral,’ Hammer reminded him.
‘A lot of people were there,’ Wisting said.
‘What’s come of it?’ Christine Thiis asked him.
‘Nothing, apart from my suspicions being reinforced,’ Wisting answered.
‘Fine,’ the police chief from Telemark broke in. ‘When are you going to start the ball rolling in this investigation, then?’
‘We already have comms surveillance up and running,’ Stiller interjected. ‘Wisting is paying Haugen a visit later this afternoon, so we’ll let it roll from there.’
The meeting continued with the clarification of certain formalities, until the public prosecutor and two police chiefs departed.
Stiller made eye contact with Wisting. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t have got this off the ground without you on board.’
Wisting bowed his head slightly.
‘You seemed doubtful this morning,’ Stiller added. ‘What made you decide to go for it?’
‘VG,’ Wisting replied.
‘VG?’ Stiller repeated in astonishment.
Wisting turned over the bundle of papers in front of him. Stiller recognized the front page of the edition used by the kidnappers to cut out words and letters.
‘Martin Haugen isn’t a fan of newspapers,’ Wisting said, pushing the transcripts across to him. ‘I know him. He doesn’t subscribe to the local paper and I’ve never seen him buy any of the tabloids.’
‘I see,’ Stiller said, lifting the first sheet.
Wisting pointed to the stack of papers, ‘Page seventeen.’
Stiller leafed through the pages. The heading on the article read Improved Surface. It described a new type of asphalt to be laid on the E18 motorway then being built through Telemark. This asphalt would reduce noise and produce less airborne dust.
‘Second from the left,’ Wisting told him.
Stiller peered at the photograph of five road workers in front of a bulldozer, but it was only when he found the name in the caption underneath that he realized what he was looking at. ‘Martin Haugen!’ he exclaimed.
Nils Hammer and Christine Thiis sprang to their feet and came round to look.
‘I thought it was strange that the ransom letter was crafted using words from a newspaper nearly four weeks old, especially when Martin Haugen neither buys nor reads newspapers, but he would definitely have bought the newspaper on the day his picture appeared in it. And then it would be natural for him not to throw it out right away but to leave it lying around.’
Stiller leaned back in his chair. He could not quite fathom how the connection between Martin Haugen and the newspaper was something they had overlooked, but at the time the newspaper had been identified no suspicion had hung over Haugen. He was only a random name on page seventeen. Now he was the person everything centred upon.
Wisting stood up. ‘Let’s get going, then,’ he said. ‘I’m off to visit Martin Haugen.’
17
Wisting had forgotten where he had parked his car. He went to the outdoor car park first, before eventually finding his car in the garage extension and driving out into the rain again, this time in the direction of Kleiverveien.
He had met a multitude of liars and con artists throughout his career. People who did not tell the truth but instead served up whatever stories suited them. He had believed some and seen through others.
Experience had made it easier for him to recognize a liar. When he emerged from an interview room aware that the man inside was lying, it was usually based on gut feeling or intuition. Wisting had come to the conclusion that this actually hinged on picking up tiny discrepancies in emotional reactions. In the case of Martin Haugen, for example, a smile might come a couple of seconds too late, last a bit too long and his lips be too tight. When people told the truth, their body language, facial expressions and tone of voice were coordinated and matched what they were talking about. With Martin Haugen there was often a contradiction between what he said and the way he said it. And then of course there was everything he did not say. At an interview seminar Wisting had taken part in the lecturer had said that liars had a tendency to avoid words such as but, or, except, and while, because they had difficulty with complex thought processes. They also preferred to communicate using fewer personal pronouns. In an unconscious attempt to distance themselves from their fabricated stories, they avoided words such as I, me, and my. All of this applied to Martin Haugen.
He turned off the main road, drove up the bumpy gravel track and parked in the yard. Thick smoke rose from the chimney on the roof, but it was beaten back by the dampness and rain, drifting off like fog towards the edge of the forest.
Wisting took his time getting out of the car and walking up to the front door. Martin Haugen opened it before he rang the doorbell, the black cat between his legs.
‘Dreadful weather,’ he said, as he ushered Wisting inside.
Wisting hung up his jacket and followed him into the kitchen. Martin had been eating at the table. A potato and a slice of meat were left on his plate. He cleared it away and put a flask of coffee on the table.
‘Sorry I wasn’t at home yesterday,’ he said, setting out two cups. ‘It’s so many years ago now, and the days just run into one another.’
Wisting stood at the kitchen window, thinking of how he had forgotten his mother’s birthday the previous year. He usually accompanied his father to her grave on that day, but it had slipped his mind completely. It was easy to forget, but he was sure there was something else
behind Martin Haugen’s disappearing act.
He let it pass. ‘It’s played havoc with your track,’ he commented, looking out. ‘The rain,’ he added.
Haugen agreed. ‘I was wondering about laying asphalt,’ he said, producing a Swiss roll from the cupboard.
‘Well, you’re in the trade, after all,’ Wisting replied, with a chuckle. He considered asking a question about different types of asphalt, to bring the conversation round to the newspaper article from 1987, but quickly dismissed it. ‘I noticed you have your own sign,’ he said instead.
‘Sign?’ Martin asked, unwrapping the cake.
‘No Entry,’ Wisting said, pointing in the direction of the main road.
Haugen crossed to the cupboard again and took out two plates. ‘Perks of the job,’ he said, with a grin. ‘It was lying around at work.’
‘Have you had problems with strangers turning up in cars?’
Haugen shook his head. ‘Not really,’ he answered, as he cut the cake into slices. ‘There have been a few foreign cars turning on my drive. Lithuanians and suchlike.’
Wisting’s thoughts turned to the surveillance cameras installed in the windows and wondered whether he should mention them. If Haugen had watched the recordings, he would know that Wisting had spotted them.
Martin beat him to it. ‘I installed some cameras,’ he said.
‘I saw that,’ Wisting interjected quickly. ‘I walked round the house looking for you yesterday.’
He used the subject to switch the conversation to Katharina. ‘Have you seen anything more of Inger Lise?’ he asked.
Haugen poured coffee into the cups. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘It’s nothing to do with her. As a matter of fact, I saw her this summer, down by the harbour. She was with a new man then.’
Wisting dropped the subject. ‘How were things at your cabin?’ he enquired instead.
Helping himself to a slice of cake, Haugen seemed not to understand the question.
‘You said something about the roof leaking?’ Wisting added.
‘Oh yes,’ Martin answered, nodding and chewing the cake, seemingly playing for time. ‘It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, but I wanted to go down and take a look at it.’
‘Are you going down again?’ Wisting asked.
‘I’ll probably have to,’ Martin replied.
‘I could come with you?’ Wisting suggested. ‘Then we can lay some nets, like we did last time.’
Haugen took another bite of cake. A weekend at the cabin in Bamble would give Wisting the opportunity to draw confidences from him.
‘I could really do with a few days away from it all at the moment,’ Wisting went on before Martin had a chance to brush off the suggestion. ‘It’s nothing but stress at work these days.’
As Haugen continued to chew Wisting lifted a slice of cake on to his own plate. ‘Do you have any plans for next weekend?’ he asked.
The mobile phone pinged with a message alert. Martin got to his feet, headed for the kitchen worktop where his phone lay and read the message. He stuffed the phone into his pocket without sending an answer.
‘Next weekend?’ Wisting repeated as he sat down again. Haugen’s thoughts were obviously somewhere else entirely. ‘A trip to the cabin,’ he added, by way of explanation. ‘At the weekend.’
‘Yes,’ Martin replied. ‘We’ll do it. We’ll take a trip.’
Wisting tasted the cake, noticing that Haugen seemed even less focused than usual. ‘There’s no news,’ Wisting volunteered.
Martin understood what he meant. No new leads in Katharina’s case.
‘Did you check out that report from Sørlandet?’ he asked.
Wisting nodded. It had been on the news that summer. A corpse had washed up on one of the little islands outside Portør. It was the body of a woman who had been in the water for a long time.
‘I phoned them,’ he answered. ‘But they already suspected who it might be, and their suspicions proved correct. An elderly woman who disappeared around Easter.’
‘How do you think she’d look now?’ Martin’s questioning continued. ‘Do you think there’d be anything left of her?’
In the first few years they had talked about Katharina as if she might still be alive but gradually the conversations about her came to assume she was dead.
‘It absolutely depends on where she is,’ Wisting told him. ‘I don’t think we’re going to find her in the sea.’
‘What if she’s buried somewhere?’ Martin asked.
Wisting had put down his slice of cake. This was the first time Haugen had broached such things.
Clearing his throat, he felt a stab of distaste about discussing this.
‘It depends on the soil conditions,’ he answered. ‘If she were buried in a graveyard, only the main bones and teeth would remain. If she’s lying in a dense environment, such as clay or a peat bog, more would probably be preserved.’ He paused for a moment before continuing. ‘But if it is the case that someone has buried her, she would most likely be wrapped up, in tarpaulin or plastic. Then the clothes could also have survived.’
‘Have you found bodies like that?’
‘On occasion.’
Martin’s mobile phone pinged again, but this time he ignored it. ‘It’s the not knowing that’s worst,’ he said. ‘Not knowing what happened.’
Wisting made no comment. Not knowing was a recurring theme in his encounters with Martin. Eventually it had begun to sound rehearsed, and he knew how Martin wanted the conversation to go.
‘No matter what has happened, I’d rather know about it,’ he continued. ‘After all, you hope in the fullness of time that something will be found to provide a clue or an explanation about what took place. I’ve never given up that hope, but I realize it’s my lot in life to carry this burden.’
They changed the subject and returned to chatting about the interminable rain. Martin wanted to know how Amalie was getting on, and Wisting told him about the ink episode.
After a while Wisting stood up and thanked him for his hospitality. ‘I’ll need to buy myself a new rod,’ he said, to remind Martin about their fishing trip.
Martin accompanied him to the door. ‘I’ll bring along some steaks,’ Martin said. ‘In case the fish don’t bite.’
Wisting turned and shook Martin Haugen by the hand and dashed through the rain to his car. Through the rain-spattered windscreen he saw Martin take his mobile from his pocket before closing the front door.
18
Wisting swiped his pass and keyed in the four-digit code to gain entry to the CS room. Very few admission cards were authorized for the small room on the top floor of the police station. Comms surveillance was one of the police’s covert investigation methods. Only a handful of staff knew what type of equipment was installed in the control room, and even fewer were trained in its use.
Hammer and Stiller turned to face him.
‘He received a text message while I was there,’ Wisting said, glancing at the computer screen monitoring current telephone traffic.
‘From a number registered to someone called Henry Dalberg,’ Hammer told him as he turned towards the screen. ‘How are you feeling? Will we see you on Monday?’ he read out.
‘A work colleague,’ Wisting explained. ‘I called and spoke to him yesterday when I couldn’t get hold of Martin. He said he’d phoned in sick.’
‘He told us he’d been out to his cabin,’ Stiller reminded him.
Wisting agreed. Strictly speaking, this was the first time he had caught Martin Haugen downright lying, but that did not necessarily mean anything. He would not be the first person to tell his employer he was ill in order to take some time off.
‘Another message came in, a bit later,’ Wisting went on.
‘From the same number,’ Hammer said, placing his index finger on the screen: ‘Should have taken a look at the revised contract with Bryntesen about ditch clearing. He obviously didn’t respond until after you left: I’ll be back on Monday. We’ll do it then.’<
br />
‘What did you talk about?’ Stiller asked.
‘The weather,’ Wisting answered, pausing slightly before adding: ‘We arranged to take a trip to the cabin next weekend.’
He could see that Stiller was pleased. ‘We’re working on getting a slot for the case on Crime Scene Norway on TV2 on Thursday, and a follow-up in the newspapers on Friday,’ he said. ‘A trip to the cabin sounds ideal.’
One of the other computer screens lit up.
‘He’s on the Internet,’ Hammer explained.
A window with rolling text appeared, showing which Web pages Haugen was accessing. Another screen displayed the relevant page: the weather forecast from the Meteorological Institute.
‘He’s looking at the weather report on the Yr site,’ Stiller commented.
In the window containing rolling text, a new line appeared. The screen beside it showed the weather forecast for Malvik in South Trøndelag.
‘Malvik?’ Hammer said, sounding baffled. ‘Why on earth is he checking the weather up in Malvik? That’s more than eight hours’ drive from here.’
‘He used to live up there,’ Wisting told him. ‘At the time Katharina disappeared he was working on the construction of a tunnel and living in the workers’ barracks.’
‘Does he still have contact with people up there?’
Wisting bit his lower lip, puzzled. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘It’s raining up there too,’ Hammer remarked ironically.
The Google home page popped up on the screen.
‘We can’t see what he’s searching for,’ Hammer told his colleagues. ‘Only what pages he clicks on.’
The text rolled up further in the little window. On the big screen the front page of the Trønder-Avisa newspaper showed up. Eventually Haugen clicked on a story about parts of the E6 motorway south of Stavsjøfjellet having collapsed.
‘He was involved in building that road,’ Wisting said.
The other two nodded, and all three stood in silence for a while as the onscreen image changed: Martin Haugen was visiting the Adresseavisen newspaper website to read about the collapse. The road had been narrowed and traffic forced to drive at reduced speed through the affected area. It was unclear when the road would reopen for normal use.
The Katharina Code Page 9