Blessed Are Those Who Thirst: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel (19 page)

“Do you really mean . . .”

She stood up, supporting herself by the desk in a vaguely threatening pose.

“Are you telling me you’re refusing to fill out a blue sheet?”

He simply nodded.

“But what the h—”

She lifted her eyes skyward, as though someone up there could offer assistance.

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“I mean that what you’ve got there is nowhere near enough to justify an arrest. Bring the guy in as we usually do. See if you can get anything out of him. Then we can discuss it. With a view to custody, possibly.”

“Custody? I’m not bloody asking for him to be remanded in custody! I’m asking for a normal, simple blue sheet in an insane case that may have cost four girls their lives!”

Håkon Sand had never seen Hanne Wilhelmsen so furious. Nonetheless, he stood his ground. He knew he was right. Two tip-offs about a possible killer were not sufficient grounds for suspicion. Even though he worked in the Immigration Directorate and so had open access to all the information his heart desired about asylum seekers. He shuddered at the thought.

It was not enough. He knew that. And he knew Hanne Wilhelmsen actually knew it too. Perhaps that was why he said nothing more. Clutching both the uncompleted blue sheet and the two reports, she slammed the door hard behind her as she left.

“Shit bag,” she muttered as she walked along the corridor.

A weary chap sitting in an uncomfortable chair waiting his turn for some interrogation or other obviously felt offended and stared uneasily at the floor.

“Not you,” she added, marching on.

Erik Henriksen was sitting in the office, waiting eagerly. He received no explanation, only an overpolite demand—for crying
out loud—to get hold of Kristine Håverstad. They needed her. Now. Right away. An hour since. He rushed off.

She looked in the phone catalog to find the Immigration Directorate’s number. After breathing deeply five times to calm herself down properly, she dialed the number.

“Cato Iversen, please,” she requested.

“He’s on telephone duty between ten and two. You have to phone back then,” replied the dry, flat voice.

“I’m phoning from the police. I need to talk to Iversen. Now.”

“What was the name?”

The lady didn’t give up easily.

“Hanne Wilhelmsen. Oslo police station.”

“One moment, please.”

That was a real understatement. After four minutes of deafening silence, without as much as a little peep of “You are still in the queue, please wait,” she angrily pressed the button to terminate the call and redialed the number.

“Immigration Directorate, go ahead.”

It was the same woman.

“This is Hanne Wilhelmsen, Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape Department, Oslo Police. I want to speak to Cato Iversen immediately.”

The woman was evidently seriously alarmed by the new name given to the Homicide Section. Ten seconds later, Cato Iversen was on the line. He introduced himself by his surname.

“Good morning,” Hanne said in as noncommittal a tone as she could manage in present circumstances. “This is Hanne Wilhelmsen, Homicide Section, Oslo Police, here.”

“Yes,” the man said, without a trace of anxiety, as far as Hanne could discern. She quickly comforted herself that he was probably well used to talking to the police.

“I’d like to conduct an interview with you in connection with a case we’re investigating. It’s fairly urgent. Can you manage to come in?”

“Now? Right away?”

“Yes, as soon as possible.”

The man took some time to think. There was a silence, at least.

“That’s impossible at the moment. I’m sorry. But I . . .”

She could hear him leafing through papers. He seemed to be checking his appointments diary.

“I can manage to come next Monday.”

“That’s unfortunately not suitable. I need to speak to you now. It probably won’t take long.” Which was a downright lie.

“What’s it about?”

“We can talk about that when you get here. I’ll be expecting you in an hour.”

“No, honestly. It’s just not possible. I’m giving a lecture at an internal training session we’re running now.”

“I suggest you come here immediately,” Hanne said quietly. “Say you are sick, say whatever you want. I can of course come and pick you up. But perhaps you’d rather get here under your own steam.”

Now the man was clearly nervous. But who wouldn’t have been after such an exchange? Hanne thought, choosing not to place too much emphasis on the alteration in the man’s demeanor.

“I can be there in half an hour,” he said finally. “Perhaps slightly longer. But I’m on my way.”

*   *   *

Kristine Håverstad did not know what to do. Her father had left for work as usual at eight o’clock. She was no longer sure, however, that this was what he was actually doing. In order to confirm her suspicions, she phoned the dentist’s surgery and asked to speak to her father.

“But my dear girl, Kristine,” the buxom, matronly receptionist answered. “Your father’s on vacation! Didn’t you know?”

Kristine did her best to persuade the lady it was all down to a misunderstanding and replaced the receiver. She had no doubt
that her father intended to carry out his plan. They had talked for more than an hour last evening, at greater length than they had done during all of the previous ten days.

The worst part was that it all seemed liberating. It was grotesque, terrifying, insane. People didn’t do that sort of thing. Not here in this country, at least. But the thought that the man would die nevertheless caused her to feel relieved. She experienced a kind of elation at the possibility of some sort of reparation. He had destroyed two lives. He deserved no better. At least not when the police evidently weren’t doing anything at all to capture him. And even if they did manage to do so, he would probably receive a year in a fancy cell with TV and leisure activities. He wasn’t worth that.

He deserved to die. She hadn’t deserved what he had done to her. He was a thief and a murderer. Her father didn’t deserve what he had to endure. Once she had more or less calmed down into some sense of quiet satisfaction that a decision had been made, she froze. This was madness, pure and simple. You didn’t just kill other people. But if anyone was going to do it, she had to be the one.

*   *   *

It had been ages since Billy T. had been an investigator. He had been in the surveillance team of the drug squad for more than five years. So long that he would probably remain a cop in denims until he became too old for it. However, his skills as an interrogator were still legendary. He didn’t always play it by the book, but he’d achieved a number of confessions that impressed the best of them. Hanne Wilhelmsen had insisted, and he had allowed himself to be persuaded. It dawned on her it might all be a ruse to see him again. The previous night seemed totally unreal, now that she was back in secure surroundings with all her usual defenses in place. Nevertheless, she had a strong urge to see him, talk to him, about everyday things, police business. She simply wanted to reassure herself he was still the same old guy.

It was him. He made a lot of noise, cracking jokes, all the way to her office—she could hear him before she saw him. When he caught sight of her, as she popped her head out the door to greet him, he called out flirtatious remarks without a scintilla of a hint about what had occurred only a few hours earlier. He did not appear particularly tired either. Everything was as it had been. Nearly, at least.

When Hanne Wilhelmsen clapped eyes on Cato Iversen, it gave her a shock. Perhaps he didn’t look so very like the artist’s impression, but he perfectly matched the description Kristine Håverstad had given. Broad shoulders, blond hair receding on both sides. Not conspicuously tall, but his muscular body made a fairly pronounced impression all the same. He was tanned as well, but on the other hand, most people were now. Except the police officers in Oslo police station.

Billy T. on his own virtually filled the room. With the addition of Cato Iversen and Hanne Wilhelmsen, it was really crowded. Billy T. positioned himself with his back to the window, his backside resting on the sill. Against the harsh daylight he became an enormous black figure with sharp edges and no face. Hanne Wilhelmsen sat in her usual place.

Cato Iversen looked noticeably nervous. Still, this was not itself unusual and did not indicate anything untoward. Swallowing nonstop, he sat restlessly in his chair and displayed a peculiar bad habit of perpetually scratching the back of his left hand.

“As you may know,” she began, “we don’t usually use a tape recorder during witness interviews.”

He did not know that.

“But we’re doing so in this case,” she continued, smiling easily, and simultaneously pressing two buttons on a small tape recorder on the desk. She adjusted the microphone so that it pointed at random into the room.

“We’ll start with your personal details,” she declared.

She was given these and reciprocated by informing him he did
not need to give a statement but should tell the truth if he chose to say anything.

“Am I entitled to a lawyer?”

He regretted it as soon as he had spoken and attempted to take it back by smiling faintly, shaking his head deprecatingly, and clearing his throat. He clawed feverishly at an imaginary mosquito bite on his left hand.

“A lawyer, Billy T.,” Hanne said, directing her comment to the monster on the windowsill. “A lawyer? Does our friend here need an attorney?”

Billy T. said nothing, only smiled. Iversen could not see that. From where he was sitting, the man was still only a black outline against the bright blue sky.

“No, no, I don’t need one. It was just a question.”

“You’re a witness, Iversen,” Hanne Wilhelmsen assured him in an exaggerated effort to mollify the man. “You don’t need an attorney, then?”

“But what’s all this about?”

“We’ll come to that, we’ll come to that.”

A siren screamed its way down Åkebergveien at lightning speed, immediately followed by another.

“A lot to do in this weather,” Hanne explained. “Where is it you work?”

“At the Immigration Directorate.”

“What do you do there?”

“I’m an administrator. Just an ordinary administrator.”

“Oh, yes, and what does an ordinary administrator do?”

“Administers cases.”

It was obviously not the man’s intention to appear impertinent, as after a short pause he added, “I take in the applications for residence permission the police have already dealt with. We are the initial decision-making authority.”

“Asylum cases?”

“Both that and others. Reuniting families. Study visits. I deal only with cases from Asia.”

“Do you like your job?”

“Like?”

“Yes, do you find it enjoyable work?”

“Yes and no.”

He thought about it.

“It’s a job like any other, I suppose. I qualified as a lawyer last year. You can’t always pick and choose. The job’s okay, as far as it goes.”

“It’s not sad, then, throwing out all these poor souls?”

Now he seemed genuinely taken aback. He had not exactly expected such an attitude from the police.

“Not sad,” he mumbled. “It’s Parliament that decides. We just carry out the decisions they have made. What’s more, not all of them are thrown out, you know.”

“But most of them, isn’t that so?”

“Well, yes, perhaps the majority.”

“What’s your opinion of foreigners, then?”

Now he had obviously recovered slightly.

“Honestly,” he said, changing his position in the chair. “Now I really need to know what this is all about.”

The two police officers exchanged glances, and Billy T. nodded briefly. Iversen could see that too.

“We’re toiling with a fairly serious case at the moment,” Hanne Wilhelmsen told him. “The Saturday night massacres. You’ve probably read about them?”

He had indeed. He nodded and began to scratch himself again.

“In each of the pools of blood, we found a number. An immigration number. On Sunday we found a body. A body that looks to be from Asia. And do you know what?”

Seeming almost enthusiastic, she rummaged until she found a sheet of paper in the bundle in front of her.

“Two of these immigration numbers are from cases you’re dealing with!”

The man’s nervousness had increased, and now they could possibly begin to read something into it.

“There aren’t so very many of us who work on the cases from Asia,” he interjected rapidly. “It’s not strange in the least.”

“No, I see.”

“I mean, you have to know how many cases we handle every year. Several hundred each. Maybe several thousand,” he added quickly, obviously in an effort to strengthen his argument.

“Perhaps you’ll be able to help me, then, since you have such a lot of experience. How do you deal with these cases, actually? I mean, like, from an administrative point of view. Is it all on computers?”

“Yes, all the data is entered into the computers, that’s right. But we have files as well, of course. With papers, I mean. Interview reports and letters and that kind of thing.”

“And they contain all the details of each individual asylum seeker?”

“Yes. Well, yes, all we need to know, at least.”

“Such things as who they came with, family relationships, whether they know anybody here, why they came to Norway in particular, all of that kind of thing. Is that contained in your files?”

The man squirmed in his seat again and seemed to be considering this.

“Yes, that’s all in the police interview reports.”

Hanne Wilhelmsen knew that. She had spent an hour reading the police interview reports on the four women that same morning.

“Are there many who arrive all on their own?”

“A few. Others have their family with them. Some have family here already.”

“Some of them disappear, I’ve heard?”

“Disappear?”

“Yes, they vanish out of the system without anyone knowing where they are.”

“Oh, yes, that kind of disappear . . . Yes, that happens now and again.”

“What do you do with them, then?”

“Nothing.”