The Katharina Code

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘Can we look at the history?’ Wisting asked. ‘See what pages he was looking at yesterday, for example?’

  Hammer shook his head. ‘For that we need to examine his computer,’ he said. ‘What we’re doing now is standing outside sniffing up the Web addresses downloaded via his broadband connection. If we want to find out what’s on his computer, we’d have to hack into it. We don’t have the equipment to do that remotely.’

  ‘Okay,’ Stiller said, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair. ‘We’re up and running.’ He pointed to the screens. ‘It’s unlikely anything exciting will happen until we start to apply some pressure. I suggest we break for the weekend. I’m returning to Oslo, but I’ll be back here on Monday.’

  Hammer agreed and began to log out. It dawned on Wisting that he had to buy the pizza ingredients. He excused himself and dashed out of the room ahead of the other two.

  19

  The carrier bag split open when Wisting lifted it from the car and most of the contents spilled out on to his drive. The bag of flour burst, and the rain made the fine powder damp and sticky.

  He swore under his breath as he began to pick up the groceries. He had hoped to arrive home before Thomas showed up, but his son’s car was already parked in the street. Thomas had not lived at home for twelve years, but he still had a house key and was sure to have let himself in.

  Wisting gathered the shopping into his arms and stumbled to the front door. Struggling to open it, he discovered that it was locked. With a groan, he set down the various items on the steps and dug out his key. Before he stepped inside he looked over his shoulder and it crossed his mind that Thomas must have gone to see Line and Amalie.

  After he managed to unlock the door he dumped the shopping on the kitchen worktop, and it then struck him that he had forgotten to buy something at the supermarket. Yeast.

  He crossed to the cupboard to check the packets of dried yeast. There were three sachets left. He had to use his glasses to read the date stamp and, as he had thought, they had expired almost four months earlier. He decided he might get away with using two sachets instead of the one the recipe called for.

  He took out the baking bowl, threw the dough ingredients together and left it to rise before making a start on frying the minced-beef topping.

  Thomas arrived with Line and Amalie while he was cooking. He dried his hands on his apron and gave all three a hug. Thomas had grown too old for hugs while at junior high school but a few years ago he had been the one to greet Wisting with a warm embrace again. That had been after his first tour of duty in Afghanistan. He had undertaken seven tours altogether, handling medical helicopter evacuations. Despite not fighting on the ground, he had witnessed more than most the impact of war on its victims.

  ‘I brought you a present,’ Thomas said, tossing a parcel across to him.

  It was a bundle of cloth inside a plastic bag. Wisting unrolled it and saw it was one of the Norwegian Army’s khaki-coloured T-shirts. Captain Wisting was embroidered in black thread on the left side of the chest.

  Captain was Thomas’s military rank. A squadron leader, his responsibilities included air support for the police and the military’s own Special Forces. It made Wisting feel very proud.

  He thanked his son as he held the T-shirt up in front of himself to see whether it would fit.

  ‘I’m not too sure this will be such a success,’ he said, lifting the tea towel off the bowl where the pizza dough was rising.

  ‘Why not?’ Line asked. Approaching him, she peered down into the bowl with Amalie on her hip. The dough had risen slightly, but far from sufficiently.

  ‘It’s been set aside for almost an hour,’ Wisting told her. ‘But I used yeast that was out of date.’

  ‘It’ll probably be okay,’ Thomas said. ‘I like a thin base.’

  Wisting shrugged as he divided the dough in two. Line carried Amalie into the living room, leaving Thomas in the kitchen while Wisting laid the dough on some greaseproof paper.

  ‘There’s beer in the fridge,’ he said as he began to roll out the dough.

  Thomas grabbed a bottle for each of them. ‘Have you solved the code yet?’ he asked.

  ‘The Katharina code?’ Wisting said, smiling, and shook his head.

  A few years ago he had allowed Thomas to try to unravel the code. They had been talking about navigation and how people had found their way before the use of GPS. Thomas had shared Wisting’s view that the numbers were reference points on a map, but they were not something he recognized from cartography or navigation.

  Line popped her head round the kitchen door. ‘What are you two talking about?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘Nothing of any interest to you,’ Wisting joked.

  ‘The Katharina case,’ Thomas told her.

  ‘He’s finally taken the case documents back to the police station,’ Line said, disappearing into the living room again.

  ‘Maybe it was about time,’ Thomas suggested.

  ‘Maybe so,’ Wisting replied with a smile, as he poured the sauce on to the pizza bases.

  ‘Why does that case mean so much to you?’ Thomas asked him.

  All of a sudden, Wisting felt a sense of guilt. The world was so much vaster than his police district. Thomas had engaged in military service in a part of the world which was more brutal and ruthless on a scale far greater than he could possibly imagine. Despite countless individuals meeting their doom, very few in the Western world showed as much as a scintilla of concern.

  ‘Is it wrong of me, do you think?’ he asked, aware of sounding defensive. ‘That I spend so much time on a single case, a single person?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘I was just curious about why,’ he said.

  Wisting wondered whether he should explain that the case had become a kind of obsession for him, one he was unable to let go.

  ‘I just don’t like leaving a job unfinished,’ he answered simply, sprinkling grated cheese over the pizzas.

  Thomas nodded as if he recognized the feeling.

  Line returned to the kitchen again, and the conversation moved on. ‘Have you remembered you’re looking after Amalie tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Wisting replied. ‘I’m old, but I’m not senile.’

  The pizzas appeared on the table half an hour later. The bases were dry and hard, but neither Thomas nor Line made any complaint.

  ‘How are things?’ Line asked her brother.

  She was really asking whether he had a girlfriend. He had never had a long-term relationship. The army was to blame for that – he had served in the military in numerous locations before being stationed at the Rygge airbase.

  The rolling tours of duty in Afghanistan had lasted for more than four years and taken up much of his twenties.

  Thomas deflected her by asking her the same question.

  Line had put one lengthy relationship behind her, with a Danish man of her own age called Tommy Kvanter, but he was not Amalie’s father. He was an American who worked for the FBI and had only been in Norway for a few weeks, working on a case, when he had met Line.

  Line, too, wriggled out of the question. ‘How long are you staying?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Until Tuesday,’ was her brother’s response. He was in the habit of meeting up with old schoolfriends when he came home.

  After he’d eaten Wisting lifted Amalie on to his lap. He was sitting with the three people who meant the most to him in his life but nevertheless could not quite manage to concentrate on the conversation around the table. His thoughts kept being diverted. He was dwelling on death and on the Katharina code. A cross was a symbol of death. If Katharina had been the one who had left behind the coded message on the kitchen table, it did not seem to convey any meaning. Unless it was about Nadia Krogh, and the code revealed where she was.

  20

  A new entry system had been installed to access the VG building, and Line had to seek help from the security guard to negotiate the locked gates before being to
ld to upgrade her pass.

  Once past the barriers, she lined up behind a group of unfamiliar people waiting for the lift. They stood aside to let people leave before crowding into the confined space. Line, with plenty of time to spare, waited for the next one. However, it was just as packed and stopped twice before she reached the fifth floor.

  She cast her mind back to the occasion when she had entered the editorial offices for the very first time. Her hands had been clammy and her head aching after a sleepless night. The clocks on the wall showing the time in New York, Tokyo and other major cities in the world were one of the things she remembered most. Her only experience as a journalist had been a temporary post at her local newspaper. She felt like an inexperienced trainee and thought the job would be far too much for her. But the simple fact of entering the huge editorial office had done something to her and she quickly adapted to the demands of the environment. In VG, the prevailing culture was that only the best was good enough, and from the very first moment the bosses had told her how they wanted her to work. There was not so much talk of knowledge and experience but more about skills and abilities. This included far more than being able to master the technology and create headlines. Skills and abilities were also a matter of something else: focus, strategy and attitude. It had not taken her long to establish her place and she filled her role with more aplomb than could ever have been expected of her.

  Hoisting her bag further on to her shoulder, she headed for the coffee machine and searched for a cup. One of the sports journalists approached, though Line could not remember his name.

  ‘Have we run out of cups?’ she asked.

  The sports journalist gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘The plastic cups have been done away with,’ he said, pointing at the cupboard beneath the worktop. ‘You’ll have to borrow one of those mugs.’

  ‘Cutbacks?’ Line asked as she took out a porcelain mug.

  ‘Respect for the environment,’ her colleague explained, putting a Thermos mug to the machine.

  Line waited for her turn and selected coffee with milk. The machine rumbled, belching out steam while slowly filling her mug. She carried it into the open-plan office, where the rows of desks were sparsely populated, since it was Saturday. However, she spotted a number of familiar faces, and she smiled and said hello. Her usual seat was empty, but a box of snuff and half-empty cola can beside a stack of scrap paper told her it was in use.

  Harald Skoglund rose from his place by the window, came across to her and gave her a hug. They had worked together on several assignments.

  ‘Are you back?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not entirely,’ Line answered. ‘They want me to do some feature articles, on a freelance basis.’ She glanced at the glass walls of the office belonging to the head of the news section. ‘Isn’t Sandersen here?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s in a meeting,’ Skoglund told her, pointing in the direction of the staircase leading to the floor above.

  ‘What about Frost?’

  ‘He is too.’

  Line suddenly wondered whether she had got the time wrong. These were the two people she had arranged to meet.

  Still carrying her mug, she trudged upstairs. The conference rooms also boasted glass walls. From the top of the stairs she saw Frost and Sandersen ensconced inside the nearest one, sitting with a man Line did not know. He was wearing a dark suit and looked like a lawyer.

  She busied herself with her mobile phone, anticipating that they would catch sight of her. Behind her, Daniel Leanger, one of the youngest journalists in the crime section, jogged up the stairs.

  ‘Hi!’ he said, giving her a hug. ‘So you’re early too?’

  He spotted her confusion. ‘Looks like we’re going to be working together,’ Daniel added.

  Line peered into the conference room. None of the three men sitting inside had noticed them.

  ‘Do you know what this is about?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve been working on the project for a couple of weeks, but I’m not allowed to say anything,’ Daniel replied, and was prevented from providing any further explanation. Sandersen had noticed them and appeared at the door.

  ‘Come in!’ he said.

  Line was given a fresh round of hugs. She then walked round the table to offer a greeting to the man in the dark suit.

  ‘Adrian Stiller,’ he introduced himself, taking her hand. ‘Kripos.’

  Line’s curiosity was piqued. She had met many police officers, including Kripos investigators, but never in the newspaper offices, and certainly never in a meeting with the editorial chiefs. Her eyes flitted from him to Frost and Sandersen on the opposite side of the table.

  She put down her bag and mug and took a seat.

  ‘Stiller is the reason we’re all here,’ Sandersen said by way of introduction. ‘He works in the newly established Cold Cases Group at Kripos. They have just reopened a case they’re keen to investigate in cooperation with us.’

  Line took out her notepad.

  ‘The Krogh kidnapping,’ Frost said, sliding the front page of an old newspaper across the table.

  Boyfriend Released was the headline above a picture of a girl in her late teens with a full backcombed hairstyle. The subheading beneath the photograph read Ransom Money Demanded for Nadia.

  21

  Stiller sized up Wisting’s daughter. The sight of the old newspaper ignited a spark of curiosity in her big blue eyes. Her hair was still slightly damp from being out in the rain. Longer than in the pictures he’d seen of her when he’d done his preliminary research, it fell forward over her face as she leaned over the newspaper. While she read, she tucked the stray locks behind her ear.

  ‘The short version is that Kripos wants us to write about this case,’ the chief editor said. ‘And we’d like you to be the one to do it.’

  ‘I’m not familiar with it,’ Line said. ‘I was only about five years old at the time.’

  Stiller leaned across the table, closer to Line. Close enough to catch a faint whiff of her perfume, some kind of flower from the lily family.

  ‘That’s a good starting point,’ he said. ‘Look at the case with the fresh eyes of a journalist.’

  Line moistened her lips with her tongue. ‘Why this case?’ she asked.

  ‘It deserves an answer,’ Stiller responded.

  This reply failed to satisfy Line. ‘I mean, what’s the reason for opening it again? Have you somehow obtained new information?’

  Stiller offered her a disarming smile. He knew she was smart. She’d come straight to the point, but he was not willing to tell her about the new fingerprint evidence. Not yet.

  ‘That’s where we hope a series of articles in VG can play a part. We want renewed attention focused on the case, in the hope that someone who knows something will choose to speak up.’

  Line glanced across at her two bosses. ‘But surely we need to have something new to write about?’ she said.

  ‘We’ll have that,’ Sandersen told her. ‘Including publication of the ransom letters.’

  Stiller opened the leather portfolio in front of him and produced the two photocopies of the letters.

  ‘The kidnapper is one of our readers,’ Sandersen continued. ‘He’s cut these out of our newspaper.’

  Line picked up the two letters, holding one in each hand. ‘Will we have exclusive access to police information?’ she asked.

  Stiller agreed. ‘We’re dependent on public interest,’ he explained. ‘But at the same time we need to retain a certain control in order to have the best possible impact. So it’s entirely natural to release this by some means or other. You’ll have access to all the original case documents.’

  ‘All of them?’

  Stiller agreed again. ‘They’re digitized and searchable,’ he said. ‘What’s important for us when the case is brought to light again is that it’s done with consideration for the relatives and others involved. According to your bosses here, you have the necessary empathy for that.’

  ‘Have th
e relatives been informed?’ Line asked.

  Stiller gave her yet another enticing offer: ‘Yes, and the boyfriend is willing to give an interview. At first he was suspected of killing her, but he was released when the kidnappers’ letters turned up. He has never spoken to any journalist about it.’

  ‘What about the rest of the family?’ Daniel asked. ‘Her younger brother, for example?’

  Stiller said that he had outlined the plan to them but they had made it clear they had no desire to speak to the press. ‘Not all the pieces are in place as yet,’ he replied.

  Sandersen cleared his throat. ‘Let’s clarify a couple of things,’ he said, turning to face Line. ‘First of all, are you interested?’

  ‘Yes, but how in-depth have you considered making it?’

  It was Joachim Frost, the chief editor, who answered: ‘The idea is to reignite the old case by running a series devoted to the Krogh kidnapping. Of course, this depends on how the case progresses, but we thought it could run weekly for six weeks, focusing on a different point each week. First an overview of the case, then the ransom letters, an introduction to Nadia Krogh and the boyfriend interview, a look at the old investigation and finally a police angle from Stiller. At least, that’s how we’ve sketched things out, but of course you’ll have a free hand to give other things a whirl too.’

  Sandersen took over: ‘Daniel Leanger is here to produce a podcast, but we’re keen for you to be the voice of the story.’

  Line’s eyebrows shot up on her forehead. ‘A podcast?’

  ‘A radio documentary,’ Frost clarified, as if the terminology might be unfamiliar. ‘We already have advertising in place. Daniel, could you give us some idea of how you intend to tackle it?’

  ‘It will be a multimedia presentation of the whole story,’ he explained. ‘With graphics and animation, but the podcast will be the most important element. We were thinking you could talk about the approach to each week’s instalment. What investigations you’ve undertaken, what your thoughts are, recordings of conversations you’ve had – quite simply take the listener with you on the job, out into the field on research.’