The Katharina Code

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Wisting had his own ideas, but none of the three men in the room said anything.

  Hammer played the next recording, another, similar conversation. Martin Haugen arranged to inspect another air pistol. They listened to four more recordings, all about the prospective purchase of air pistols.

  ‘He’s running scared,’ Hammer commented. ‘He doesn’t have a licence to buy a real gun and doesn’t know where to go to get an illegal one. He’s resorting to the next best option. Something he can use to threaten and frighten someone.’

  On one of the screens, the red dot showing Haugen’s pickup suddenly began to move on the map.

  ‘He’s out driving,’ Hammer said.

  All three followed the marker as it progressed out on to the main road in the direction of Tønsberg.

  ‘He’s not going home,’ Wisting said.

  ‘He’s probably gone out to buy an air pistol,’ Stiller told him.

  Hammer played another conversation. This one also concerned an air pistol, as did the final one. Martin Haugen made appointments with all of them to look at the pistols between four and six that evening, apart from one person who would not be home until the following day.

  The red dot had stopped. Hammer checked the address but it told them nothing except that the location was in the centre of town.

  ‘None of the gun sellers lives there,’ he said, consulting his notes.

  Wisting looked at the clock. ‘It’s also too early,’ he said.

  They sat staring at the red dot for ten minutes or so, though nothing happened. In the row of cabinets behind the computer screens, electronics buzzed and hummed. The air in the small room grew increasingly hot and stuffy.

  ‘We should have had someone follow him,’ Stiller groaned.

  Wisting gave a loud sigh as he headed for the door. ‘Let me know if anything interesting happens,’ he said.

  He went downstairs to his office, where he thought for a while, drumming his fingers on the back of his chair. Despite his misgivings, he was beginning to look forward to this fishing trip.

  43

  It was half past six and still raining outside. Wisting had spent the last few hours completing the consequence analysis report about the imminent reorganization, as well as eating leftovers from the fridge in the canteen. The report was not as detailed or as comprehensive as he had anticipated.

  Adrian Stiller came to see him, having changed both his shirt and jacket and put on a tie. Although his eyes were still red-ringed, his enthusiasm ensured he seemed neither tired nor weary.

  ‘I’ll have to be off now,’ he said. ‘To TV2.’

  Wisting wished him luck.

  ‘Are you going to wear that this evening?’ he asked, pointing at Wisting’s shirt.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  Without replying, Stiller crossed to the desk and set down a little cardboard box.

  ‘Have you worn a bug before?’ he asked.

  ‘So long ago that we used a cassette recorder and there was only just room for it in my inside pocket.’

  ‘This is the very latest,’ Stiller told him, opening the box, which contained three items: a tiny tube of glue, a roll of Velcro and a microscopic black chip, which Wisting understood to be the actual recorder.

  ‘All you need to think about is turning it on,’ he said, showing him how the recorder switched on and off by pushing a minuscule button. ‘Even though it’s small and innocuous-looking, it’s important to attach it somewhere it’ll be concealed,’ he added.

  He picked up a pair of scissors from the pencil holder on the desk, snipped off a strip of Velcro and asked Wisting to stand up. ‘Textile glue,’ he explained, as he removed the tube from the box and pressed out a few drops on the reverse of the Velcro. ‘Stand still,’ he said, fixing the Velcro to the inside of Wisting’s shirt pocket.

  ‘Velcro?’ he asked doubtfully.

  ‘NASA uses it,’ Stiller reassured him. ‘Press!’

  Wisting put his hand to his chest and firmly squeezed the tiny strip.

  ‘Martin Haugen has been to the bank,’ Stiller told him, as they waited for the textile glue to dry. ‘He was at DNB in the centre of Tønsberg four hours ago and withdrew a substantial sum of money.’

  Wisting’s thoughts turned to the red dot they had watched four hours earlier.

  ‘I’ve initiated financial surveillance on him,’ Stiller continued. ‘I’ll be notified if there are any irregular movements in his account.’

  ‘How much?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘Twenty-five thousand kroner,’ Stiller told him, gesturing to Wisting that he could now remove his hand. ‘That’s the maximum he can take out without notice.’

  ‘Did he give any reason?’

  Stiller picked the recorder out of the box. It had a fleece backing which stuck to the Velcro strip. ‘He claimed he was thinking of buying a car,’ he said, giving the recorder to Wisting.

  Wisting fixed the recorder to the inside of his shirt pocket.

  ‘You’ll have to prepare the clothes you’re taking with you on the trip, so that you’re ready to wear it all the time,’ Stiller said.

  ‘Won’t there be too much interference, from clothes rubbing?’

  ‘Minimal. Anyway, that can be filtered out.’

  Nils Hammer came in and closed the door behind him.

  ‘Can you see it?’ Stiller asked, giving Wisting a meaningful look.

  ‘What?’ Hammer asked.

  ‘The microphone.’

  Hammer scrutinized Wisting closely but had to shake his head. Wisting tore the recorder from his shirt pocket and showed it to him.

  ‘No cables, no LEDs,’ Stiller clarified.

  Taking the tiny chip between his fingers, Hammer examined it before handing it back. ‘Martin Haugen has bought a Walther CP88 air pistol,’ he said, explaining how he had followed the man’s movements to five addresses. ‘The final two appointments were cancelled by text. He had obviously found what he was looking for.’

  ‘How much did it cost?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘One thousand seven hundred, if he paid the advertised price.’

  He handed Wisting a printout of the advert. The air pistol, in a blue plastic case, looked like a real gun. Anyone with the muzzle pointed at him would not be able to tell the difference. The magazine took eight shots, and the gun had been sold with five hundred steel pellets. It would certainly sting to be hit by one, but for self-defence purposes it was more suitable for threatening rather than causing injury.

  ‘I need to rush now,’ Adrian Stiller said, as he strode towards the door. ‘The Krogh case will be covered in the first half. I’ll leave at the commercial break and I reckon I’ll be back here just before midnight. Can we meet up then for a debrief?’

  Wisting was about to suggest that they could discuss whatever came up on the phone and wait until the following day for a face-to-face meeting but abandoned the idea. Instead he gave Stiller a nod of confirmation.

  44

  It was now ten past eight, and Wisting let himself into the CS room, where Nils Hammer sat, reading a magazine. There was no movement on any of the screens.

  ‘Is he at home?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘His vehicle’s there, at least.’

  ‘Any other signs of life?’

  ‘He was on the Internet an hour ago, checking various online newspapers.’

  Wisting took out his phone and began to write a text message: Working late today. Would it be okay for me to drop in around half past nine?

  ‘We’ll follow Stiller’s schedule,’ he said, sitting down to wait until 20.15.

  Hammer shot a warning look at Wisting’s breast pocket, where the recorder was in place, to avoid him making any unfavourable remarks about Stiller.

  Three minutes later he pressed Send. Immediately afterwards, the incoming text message popped up on the main screen in front of them, with information about the time, the base station it had been sent through and other technical data, the significance of which
was lost on Wisting.

  Half a minute passed before the text rolled up to include Martin Haugen’s response: That suits fine.

  At the same time, Wisting’s phone buzzed.

  ‘Step one completed,’ Hammer said, with a wry grin.

  At 21.38 Wisting swung on to the bumpy gravel track leading to Martin Haugen’s house. The headlights swept across the building before Martin Haugen’s face appeared at the kitchen window, as if he had been sitting waiting for him.

  Wisting looked down at the recorder in his breast pocket before stepping from the car and striding across to the entrance. He heard the lock being turned just before the door opened wide.

  ‘Come in!’ Martin welcomed him.

  The cat stood between his legs, peering out.

  ‘I just thought we could have a quick chat about tomorrow,’ Wisting said, closing the door behind him.

  He followed Haugen into the kitchen. The sound of the TV in the living room, evidently tuned to a foreign channel, carried out to them.

  ‘When do we plan to leave?’ Wisting asked. ‘It would be good to get there before dark.’

  ‘Then we should leave about four,’ Martin said, taking two cups from the cupboard. ‘We probably ought to stop and do some shopping en route as well.’

  ‘Four is fine for me,’ Wisting told him. ‘I can leave work a bit early.’

  Martin placed the cups on the table. ‘Me too,’ he said, filling them with coffee from the machine.

  ‘I thought we might take my car,’ Wisting continued. ‘Then we can avoid having our luggage lying in the back of your pickup.’

  Martin shook his head as he returned the coffee pot to the hot plate. ‘We have to take my pickup,’ he said. ‘The road is pretty impassable after all the rain. Yours doesn’t have enough clearance.’

  Wisting could not argue with that.

  Amalie was lying on her back, sleeping soundly. Her little lips were slightly dry and parted and her breathing was even and quiet.

  Line could stand for ages, just looking at her. Now she closed the door carefully and returned to her seat in front of the TV in the living room.

  ‘Turn the volume up,’ she said to Thomas when Crime Scene Norway began.

  The presenter opened by welcoming viewers. She knew him; he was a competent crime journalist with an extensive network of contacts, good sources and a thorough grasp of the stories he worked on.

  The evening’s content was introduced. They were going to take a closer look at a new life-threatening type of synthetic narcotics, a series of snack-bar robberies, a brutal burglary in the home of an elderly woman and a group of travelling criminals who had specialized in breaking into electrical-goods shops.

  ‘We are also going to examine one of the most controversial kidnapping cases in Norwegian crime history,’ he went on. ‘In 1987, seventeen-year-old Nadia Krogh was abducted by unknown perpetrators who demanded a ransom of three million kroner. The money was delivered to the arranged site but never collected and no one has seen Nadia since. Now it’s possible that a fresh investigation and modern forensic methods will provide an answer.’

  Line reclined into her chair. It was a suitably dramatic introduction, but superficially executed.

  ‘With me in the studio, as usual, I have our expert panel,’ the presenter continued, introducing two men and one woman who stood beside a table. Line had seen the programme several times before and was familiar with their background. A retired investigator, a former prosecutor and a defence lawyer.

  The presenter carried on. ‘First, though, we’ll follow up on last week’s cases,’ he said, shifting across to the uniformed police officer responsible for the tip-offs that flooded in to the programme.

  Line stood up and went to the kitchen for something to drink.

  Wisting, having adjusted his message signal to the highest volume level, sipped his coffee slowly to avoid draining the cup before Hammer’s text arrived.

  ‘I checked the weather forecast,’ he said, mostly for the sake of having something to say. ‘Apparently, the weather’s going to improve slightly.’

  ‘About time,’ Martin responded. ‘It’s been pretty miserable lately.’

  The cat sat at his feet. Wisting was about to say something, but his mobile phone vibrated and buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and held it up to read the message. ‘Hmm,’ he said, contorting his face into an expression of concern to encourage Martin Haugen to ask him what was wrong.

  Instead, Martin turned away politely before getting up to fetch more coffee.

  ‘It’s from Line,’ Wisting explained, as Martin refilled the coffee cups. ‘Watch TV2, she says.’

  He glanced into the living room, as if to make Martin Haugen appreciate how keen he was to do as his daughter suggested.

  Without a word, Martin Haugen put down the coffee pot and moved into the living room, with Wisting following behind. Martin found the remote control and tuned it to the right channel.

  Stiller had been shown to a spot in the TV studio where he should stand. A small piece of tape on the floor marked where to place his right foot.

  A pre-recorded feature about Nadia Krogh was played, with a map giving viewers the geographical location. A time line spooled back to September 1987, and old press photographs and newspaper reports slid across the screen while a reporter relayed the facts.

  The studio manager counted down to the end of the item before signalling to the presenter with an exaggerated hand movement.

  The presenter looked straight at the camera and began to speak. ‘With us in the studio today we have Chief Inspector Adrian Stiller from the new section at Kripos devoted to unsolved cases.’ He turned to face Stiller. ‘So, Chief Inspector Stiller, why has the investigation into this old kidnapping case been reopened?’

  Stiller met his gaze unflinchingly. ‘Because this is a case with potential to be solved,’ he replied, concentrating on keeping his voice steady. ‘The solution probably lies within the existing investigation material.’

  Pausing, he glanced across at the so-called expert panel to let his absolute certainty sink in with both them and the viewers. He had grounds for his assertion. The fingerprint belonging to Martin Haugen had been there all the time, and when they took up that part of the case the following week the experts would have to agree with him.

  ‘How do you tackle such material?’ was the presenter’s follow-up question.

  ‘Both technically and tactically,’ Stiller explained. ‘All the impounded evidence is re-examined, using new technology and up-to-date methods.’

  ‘With DNA in mind?’ the presenter interrupted.

  ‘Among other things,’ Stiller confirmed. ‘It’s a matter of fresh analysis conducted with present-day technology.’

  The presenter held up a finger to indicate how much time was left. ‘What about the tactical investigation?’

  ‘We have digitized all the written information from the original case,’ Stiller told him. ‘Now we’re picking out the various incidents piece by piece and linking them together with the aid of a modern computer program in order to form a new picture of what might have taken place.’

  ‘Have you discovered anything so far?’

  This was a question that had not been posed in the preparatory run-through. The presenter was improvising but Stiller did not let it faze him.

  ‘The work has only just begun,’ he answered.

  The presenter checked the cards in his hand. ‘What about fresh information?’ he continued, returning to the agreed order of questions.

  ‘That’s why we’re here,’ Stiller said. ‘Bringing old cases into the light of day always leads to some development. We’re convinced somebody knows something.’ He wanted to look into the camera to address this last comment directly to Martin Haugen, who, hopefully, was watching this with Wisting, but instead contented himself with repeating those three words: ‘Somebody knows something. Maybe it was difficult to come forward twenty-six years ago, but now things might
be different. The passage of time may have made it easier.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Someone could have been in a relationship that made them choose to stay silent, but their situation nowadays may have totally changed.’

  ‘So the time aspect doesn’t have to be a drawback, then?’ the presenter asked.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Stiller replied. ‘This also applies to the tactical investigation work. Time can also help there. Because even though a case is thoroughly investigated at the time it was current, we’re now able to examine the evidence with fresh eyes and come up with new questions.’

  The presenter placed one question card behind the others and shifted his feet, as if to indicate an imminent change of subject.

  ‘So, can you countenance the possibility of Nadia Krogh still being alive?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re going to great lengths to look into that,’ Stiller said. ‘It’s precisely why we’ve obtained expert assistance to create a virtual portrait of how Nadia Krogh might look today.’

  Wisting stood in the living room in front of the TV, slightly behind and to the side of Martin Haugen, who was staring silently at the screen.

  ‘Line’s writing about this case,’ he explained, taking a gulp of coffee from the cup he had carried with him from the kitchen. ‘She’s been working on it for a while – it’s a whole series of articles. The first one will be published tomorrow. I bet she’s not very happy that TV2 have stolen a march on her.’

  Martin reached out his hand to grab the nearest chair back, as if he needed support.

  ‘They’re making a podcast too,’ Wisting added.

  They continued to stand in silence, watching the programme. ‘Do you remember when it happened?’ Wisting eventually asked.

  ‘Yes, vaguely,’ Martin answered, turning to face him. ‘Were you involved in the case?’

  Wisting shook his head. On the screen, Adrian Stiller went on talking.

  Martin looked pale. Wisting tried to read his body language. His hand was still curled round the chair back, and there was an almost imperceptible quiver at the corner of his mouth.