Dregs (22 page)

Wisting smiled and started to leaf through a bundle of screen printouts that lay on the desk beside Hammer. There was scrap iron, chains and twisted metal.

‘There’s quite an enormous rubbish dump on the seabed there,’ Hammer gave as his opinion, pulling out a picture of a completely rusted and buckled pram that was covered in algae. ‘People throw away all sorts of things.’

Wisting stopped at the picture of a shipwreck. The mini submarine must have been manouevred around it several times and had taken photographs from various angles. A registration number on the bow was visible on one of them.

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘An insurance fraud,’ Hammer said. ‘It’s an
Uttern
boat that was reported stolen from Skottebrygga harbour last summer. The owner was paid 180,000 kroner.’

‘Financial motive,’ said Torunn Borg.

Wisting nodded.

‘It’s possible that this case too has an economic motive,’ he explained. ‘2.4 million kroner passed through Torkel Lauritzen’s bank account during the days prior to his disappearance.’

Espen Mortensen glanced up from the computer screen and frowned.

‘Passed through?’

‘Seven deposits totalling 2.4 million kroner on one and the same day.’ Wisting went on to give an account of the meeting he had had with Oddmund and Marie Lauritzen. ‘Two days later, the money was taken out again, divided into sixteen withdrawals.’

‘Who was it who paid in the money?’ Hammer wanted to know.

‘That we don’t know. They were cash deposits over the counter in different banks in Oslo. The videotapes were probably erased long ago.’

‘Why haven’t we known about this before now? The man’s been missing for nine months, for goodness sake.’

‘The family didn’t find out about it until now. They have, in the same way as us, only looked to see if there have been any movements in his account since he disappeared.’

‘But we’re talking about a lot of money here. There should have been reports about it in the register of money-laundering or some such?’

‘Only if it’s reported by one of the bank employees. They don’t monitor individual accounts. Each withdrawal is for 150,000 kroner. It’s not initially so very striking that an old man comes in and takes out part of his savings.’

‘What about the other old folk?’ Hammer asked. ‘Has anyone paid in money to them as well?’

Wisting shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’ll need to find out about that as soon as the banks open tomorrow.’

CHAPTER 41

Suzanne had still not come home. He rang the doorbell twice, but had to carry the cream and berries back to the car once again. Putting one into his mouth he tasted how soft they had become from being in the warm car. The cream would probably turn sour soon too.

He sat behind the wheel and glanced up at the door while he phoned her. Eventually his call was forwarded to a voice that asked him to leave a message. He munched another berry and started the car. When he was almost home, he called Line’s number. She had surprised him with seafood the night before - now he could repay by serving dessert.

Her voice had laughter in it when she replied, so infectious that Wisting had to give a broad smile.

‘Where are you?’ he asked, hearing conversations in the background.

‘At a cafe down in Stavern. Why?’

‘I was wondering if you were at home. I’ve bought some strawberries.’

‘Then we’ll drop in. We’ll be there in half an hour.’

It took some time for him to realise that she was with Tommy Kvanter, and that she was going to bring him with her. He had distanced himself from his daughter’s relationship with the Danish man of her own age, mostly because he had a past and a criminal record. He had chosen to keep his distance, at least until he saw how their relationship developed.

‘That’ll be nice,’ he managed to say all the same as he parked in front of the house.

He placed the cream in the refrigerator and cleaned the berries before pouring them into a bowl and sprinkling sugar over them. Then he took a can of beer from the fridge and put a CD on the stereo system as he walked through to the garden terrace. He stood there with his elbows leaning on the railings and took a large slug, Leonard Cohen’s deep voice filling his mind.

It was a warm evening, and a layer of still air covered the town like a blanket. He turned the can of beer between his fingers. In the distance, the church bell rang lazily to mark the end of a late evening service. Accompanied by the melancholy sound from the loudspeakers, the ringing sounded ominous.
That’s how it goes. Everybody knows
.

All important cases had a turning point, he thought. A point when something significant emerged and made all the inexplicable pieces of the jigsaw fall into place. He thought he could sense it, that they were reaching that point now.

The breeze caused the flimsy curtains in the living room doorway to move.

There was a noise at the outside door. Line called out that they had arrived and Wisting went in to greet them and shake hands with Tommy. He was wearing a tight, white T-shirt that was stretched at the shoulders. A tattooed serpent’s head protruded from the sleeve, colourful and drawn in such fine detail that it seemed to be alive.

He led out to the verandah and covered the table with a wax cloth before setting down the bowl of strawberries and three dishes.

‘Do you need any help?’ Line asked.

‘You can get something for you both to drink,’ Wisting suggested.

She gave Tommy one of his cans of beer and took a glass of water with ice cubes for herself.

‘Fantastic view,’ Tommy commented as he stood beside the railings.

‘Yes indeed,’ Wisting nodded, pointing out the lighthouse at Svenner for him. ‘Will you be travelling out again soon?’

‘I’ll be at home for three weeks this time,’ Tommy answered, turning his back on the sea. ‘Then I’ll be going out again, but this might be the last time.’

‘Oh?’

‘Some pals of mine are taking over a restaurant in Oslo. They want me to take responsibility for the kitchen.’

‘Oh yes? I thought you enjoyed being a ship’s steward?’

‘Yes I do, but you get fed up with it. Anyway, I think it’ll be good for our relationship.’ Tommy nodded towards Line. ‘And it will of course cut the accommodation costs in half.’

Wisting simply nodded. He didn’t like the thought, but decided not to say anything. Instead he pulled out a chair for Tommy and sat down across from him at the table.

Tommy helped himself first.

‘Did you pick them yourself?’ he asked.

‘I bought them,’ Wisting had to admit.

‘We have strawberries in the garden,’ Line pointed out. ‘Mum planted some.’

Wisting craned his neck and looked over at what was beginning to be an overgrown spot in the garden. It was really an informal garden, with just a small lawn at the front, but Ingrid had planted flowers and berries in cracks in the hillside and in the less stony patches.

‘You can go and see if you can find any afterwards,’ he proposed.

‘Have you spoken to Suzanne today?’ Line wanted to know.

The question embarrassed him.

‘No,’ he replied, putting a strawberry into his mouth. ‘I dropped by after work, but she wasn’t at home.’

‘So it was for her you actually bought the strawberries?’ Line laughed.

Wisting smiled, shrugging his shoulders. He was caught out.

‘They tasted good all the same,’ his daughter confirmed, reaching for a refill at the same time as Tommy. He withdrew his hand and knocked over the jug of cream. Line quickly righted it and tried to save some of the contents.

‘Sorry,’ she said at once. ‘That was my fault.’

‘It was me who knocked it over,’ Tommy said.

‘She’s always been like that,’ Wisting said, using a bundle of napkins to dry it up.

‘How do you mean?’ Line asked. ‘Clumsy?’

‘No, you’ve always taken the blame for things,’ Wisting explained. ‘Taken responsibility. It was like that when you and your brother played together when you were little as well. You took the blame when anything went wrong.’

Line laughed and changed the subject, but Wisting was no longer listening. His thoughts suddenly turned to the investigation. It was as though something fell into place. He had a feeling that something had opened up somewhere inside him and then closed again. It didn’t last longer than a second. It was like having a glimpse of understanding about how things were connected. The feeling of almost grasping something, and then it was gone.

‘What did you say?’ he asked when he couldn’t manage to gather his thoughts after all.

‘Do you remember the living room window Thomas broke with his football, I was asking?’

Wisting nodded. ‘He gave you ten kroner to say it was you, but then you told tales when I deducted two weeks’ pocket money for it.’

‘Brotherly love,’ Tommy Kvanter commented.

Wisting became serious all of a sudden. What had been said caused him to think about the brothers Ken Ronny and Rune Hauge. He had known the whole time that the story of the police murder was not all it seemed to be. Could it be that Ken Ronny had remained silent to cover for his brother?

He wondered if the same thought had struck Line. She had a serious expression on her face now. Her eyes stared like magnets back at his.

CHAPTER 42

He took out the folder from the police murder just as soon as Line and Tommy had left, and withdrew the bundle containing all the statements, reading from the beginning, looking up only when the dim light from the outdoor lamp made his eyes feel tired.

Edgar Bisjord had reported that he had finished work at the scene of the traffic accident at Vestfossen at 03.45 hours. The investigators had worked on the theory that he had been murdered between 04.00 and 04.15. Everyone who had given a statement to the police had been in bed asleep at that time.

Rune Hauge had gone to bed early, as the next day was Monday and he had an early rise. He had just started his apprenticeship at the quarry out at Tveidalen. It appeared that his mother was staying overnight at a friend’s house in Larvik, as she had done fairly often after the summer. His brother was out with the car, and Rune Hauge hadn’t noticed whether he had come home during the night. It was not unusual for him to come home late. He did not have a job, apart from helping his grandfather renovate the house.

The best alibi was the one given by Daniel Meyer who commuted to Oslo where he lived in workmen’s barracks all week, employed by a contractor who was building a large office block at Helsfyr. He got a lift from a work colleague who called for him at his home at 05.30. Theoretically speaking, they could have met Ken Ronny at some place or other along the road, but Daniel had fallen asleep in the car. The driver didn’t know the car, and although there had been little traffic, he could not remember any yellow Ascona.

Wisting gazed at the dark horizon, thinking that it never ended anywhere. Beyond the horizon there was always a new one, no matter how far you travelled. The thought filled him with a sense of helplessness as he returned to the papers.

He didn’t find anything more that was worth noting, but discovered one more detail. He had thought that Ken Ronny Hauge had been arrested at home at the house in Strandbakken, but an address in Tanumveien had been entered on the arrest report form. He had been arrested at his grandfather’s house, where the psychiatric patient Hanne Richter had lived until she disappeared nine months previously.

Christian Hauge’s name did not appear on the list of witnesses. Perhaps he had refrained from making a statement in a case involving his own grandson, or the leader of the investigation had considered it unnecessary. After all, the case had been regarded as solved within twenty-four hours. No one had looked for other possible explanations for what had happened. Ken Ronny Hauge had kept his silence and had not pointed the investigators in any other direction.

He leaned his head back, gazing up at the stars. The moon was almost full. He tried to fix his eyes on its uneven surface, but his eyes were drawn back down to the documents on his lap.

Flicking backwards and forwards through the pages he drank what was left in the beer can, then stacked the papers in a neat pile, deciding that he had had enough. He glanced at the clock, wondering whether he should try to phone Suzanne one last time. When he saw that it was past midnight he decided to let things be.

The cat that had been lying lazily in the chair beside him looked up at a sound from inside the house.

He heard it again. He got up and went inside. There it was again. It sounded as if someone was knocking on the front door.

As far as he knew, there was nothing wrong with the doorbell. He unlocked and opened the door slowly.

It was Suzanne.

‘Hello,’ she whispered. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d gone to bed, so I didn’t want to ring the bell.’

He let her in, glancing out at the yard behind her. A bicycle was leaning against the garage wall.

‘Where have you been?’ he asked.

‘On a cycle trip,’ she explained with a laugh. He realised that she had been drinking. ‘A girlfriend and I, but we didn’t get very far. We’ve been sitting at her house all evening. I’m actually on my way home, but I don’t think I’ll manage to cycle all the way into town. I’d prefer to stay overnight with you.’

He closed the door and pulled her tenderly, carefully, towards him, stroking her in the slightly awkward way he had. She responded by putting her arms around him, letting her head rest on his shoulder and he saw his face in the hall mirror. It looked as if the days gone by since they last saw each other had aged him. New wrinkles were engraved around his eyes and mouth. Silver grey stubble lay like frost on his chin. Then he closed his eyes, pushing her tentatively away and kissing her on the forehead before opening them once more.

‘You know what?’ he asked. ‘I was just thinking about you.’

‘Good thoughts?’

He replied by tracing his finger along her face before bending forward and kissing her lovingly.

‘Shall we have a drink out on the verandah?’ he suggested.