The inspector hurried past his two astonished superiors, opened the door and disappeared down the corridor with long, sinewy strides.
One hour and four minutes later Gunnar Hagen trooped into a hushed K1 with the Chief Superintendent and the Chief Constable. The room was filled to the rafters with officers from Lepsvik’s and Hole’s investigation teams, and Harry Hole’s voice was the only thing to be heard. They found standing room at the back. Pictures of Idar Vetlesen were projected onto the screen, showing how he was found in the curling hall.
‘As you can see, Vetlesen has the syringe in his right hand,’ Harry Hole said. ‘Not unnatural since he was right-handed. But it was his boots that triggered my curiosity. Look here.’
Another picture showed a close-up of the boots.
‘These boots are the only real forensic evidence we have. But it’s enough. Because the print matches those we found in the snow at Sollihøgda. However, look at the laces.’ Hole indicated with a pointer. ‘Yesterday I carried out some tests with my own boots. For the knot to lie like that, I would have to do up my laces back to front. As if I were left-handed. The alternative would be to stand in front of the boot as if I were doing it for someone else.’
A ripple of unease went through the room.
‘I’m right-handed.’ It was Espen Lepsvik’s voice. ‘And I tie my laces like that.’
‘Well, this may just be an oddity. However, it’s this sort of thing that arouses a certain . . .’ Hole looked as if he was tasting the word before he chose it, ‘. . . disquiet. A disquiet that forces you to ask other questions. Are they really Vetlesen’s boots? These boots are a cheap make. I visited Vetlesen’s mother yesterday and got permission to see his collection of shoes. They’re expensive, every pair without exception. And, as I thought, he was no different from the rest of us, he sometimes kicked his shoes off without undoing the laces. That’s why I can say –’ Hole banged the pointer on the image – ‘that I know Idar Vetlesen did not tie his shoelaces like this.’
Hagen glanced across at the Chief Superintendent whose forehead was lined with a deep furrow.
‘The question that emerges,’ Hole said, ‘is whether someone could have put the boots on Vetlesen. The same ones that the individual in question wore in Sollihøgda. The motive would be to make it seem as if Vetlesen was the Snowman, of course.’
‘A shoelace and cheap boots?’ shouted an inspector from Lepsvik’s team. ‘We have a sicko who wanted to buy sexual favours off children, who knew both victims here in Oslo and whom we can place at the crime scene. All you have is speculation.’
The tall policeman bowed his shorn skull. ‘That’s correct, as far as it goes. But now I’m coming to hard facts. On the face of it, Idar Vetlesen took his own life with carnadrioxide by inserting a syringe with a very fine point into a vein. According to the post-mortem, the concentration of carnadrioxide was so great that he must have injected twenty millilitres into his arm. That stacks up with the residue inside the syringe, which showed that it had been full. Carnadrioxide, as we now know, is a paralysing substance and even small doses can kill as the heart and respiratory organs are instantly incapacitated. According to the pathologist, it would take at most three seconds for an adult to die if that dose was injected into a vein, as was the case with Idar Vetlesen. And that simply does not make sense.’
Hole waved a piece of paper on which Hagen could see he had jotted down some numbers in pencil.
‘I’ve done some tests on myself with the same kind of syringe and needle as Vetlesen used. I injected a salt-water solution which matches carnadrioxide in that all such solutions are at least ninety-five per cent water. And I’ve kept track of the numbers. However hard I pressed, the narrow needle means that you can’t inject twenty millilitres in less than eight seconds. Ergo . . .’ The inspector waited for the inescapable conclusion to sink in before continuing. ‘Vetlesen would have been paralysed before injecting a third of the contents. In short, he can’t have injected everything. Not without help.’
Hagen swallowed. This day was going to be even worse than he had anticipated.
When the meeting was over, Hagen saw the Chief Constable whisper something into the Chief Superintendent’s ear and the Chief Superintendent leaned over to Hagen.
‘Ask Hole and his team to meet in my office now. And put a muzzle on Lepsvik and his lot. Not
one
word of this must get out. Understand?’
Hagen did understand. Five minutes later they were sitting in the Chief Superintendent’s large, cheerless office.
Katrine Bratt closed the door and was the last person to sit down. Harry Hole had slid into his chair, and his outstretched legs rested directly in front of the Chief Superintendent’s desk.
‘Let me be brief,’ the Chief Superintendent said, running a hand across his face as if to erase what he saw: an investigation team back at square one. ‘Have you any good news, Hole? To sweeten the bitter fact that in your mysterious absence we have told the press that the Snowman is dead as a result of our unflagging toil.’
‘Well, we can assume that Idar Vetlesen knew something he should not have done, and that the killer discovered we were on his trail and therefore eliminated the possibility that he might be unmasked. If that’s correct, it’s still true that Vetlesen died as a result of our unflagging toil.’
The Chief Superintendent’s cheeks had gone rosy with the stress. ‘That’s not what I mean by good news, Hole.’
‘No, the good news is that we’re getting warmer. If not, the Snowman wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to make it seem as if Vetlesen was the man we were hunting. He wants us to call off the investigation, believing we have solved the case. In short, he’s under pressure. And that’s when killers like the Snowman begin to make mistakes. In addition, it suggests that he dare not resume the bloodbath.’
The Chief Superintendent sucked at his teeth and ruminated. ‘So that’s what you think, is it, Hole? Or is it just what you hope?’
‘Well,’ said Harry Hole, scratching his knee through the tear in his jeans, ‘you were the one who asked for good news, boss.’
Hagen groaned. He looked out of the window. It had clouded over. Snow was forecast.
Filip Becker gazed down at Jonas sitting on the living-room floor with his eyes riveted to the TV screen. Since Birte had been reported missing the boy had sat for hours like this every single afternoon. As though it were a window into a better world. A world in which he could find her if only he looked hard enough.
‘Jonas.’
The boy glanced up at him obediently, but without interest. His face stiffened with horror when he spotted the knife.
‘Are you going to cut me?’ the boy asked.
The expression on his face and the reedy voice were so amusing that Filip Becker almost burst into laughter. The light from the lamp over the coffee table glinted on the steel. He had bought the knife from an ironmongery in Storo Mall. Right after he had phoned Idar Vetlesen.
Just a tiny bit, Jonas. Just a tiny bit.’
Then he made an incision.
18
DAY 15.
View.
A
T TWO O’CLOCK
C
AMILLA
L
OSSIUS WAS DRIVING HOME
from the gym. She had, as usual, driven across town, to Oslo West, and Colosseum Park Fitness Centre. Not because they had different equipment from the centre near their house in Tveita, but because the people in Colosseum were more like her. They were West End types. Moving to Tveita had been part of the marriage deal with Erik. And she had needed to consider it as a whole package. She turned into the street where they lived. Saw the lights in the windows of the neighbours she had greeted, but with whom she had never really spoken. They were Erik’s people. She braked. They weren’t the only ones to have a double garage in this street in Tveita, but it was the only one with electric doors. Erik was obsessed by these things; for her part, she couldn’t give a damn. She pressed the remote, the door tipped and rose and she depressed the clutch and slid in. As expected, Erik’s car was not there, he was at work. She leaned over to the passenger seat, grabbed her gym holdall and the bag of shopping from ICA supermarket, snatched a customary glance at herself in the rear-view mirror before getting out. She looked good, her friends said. Not yet thirty and a detached house, second car and country retreat outside Nice, they said. And they asked what it was like living in the East End. And how her parents were after the bankruptcy. Strange how their brains automatically linked the two questions.
Camilla looked in the mirror again. They were right. She did look good. She thought she saw something else, a movement at the edge of the mirror. No, it was just the door tipping back into position. She got out of the car and was searching for her house keys when she realised her mobile phone was still in the hands-free holder in the car.
Camilla turned and uttered a short scream.
The man had been standing behind her. Terrified, she took a step back with a hand over her mouth. She was about to apologise with a smile, not because there was anything to apologise for, but because he looked entirely innocuous. But then she caught sight of the gun in his hand. It was pointing at her. The first thing she thought was that it looked like a toy.
‘My name’s Filip Becker,’ he said. ‘I rang. There was no one at home.’
‘What do you want?’ she asked, trying to control the quiver in her voice as her instinct told her she must not show her fear. ‘What’s this about?’
He flashed a quick smirk. ‘Whoring.’
In silence, Harry watched Hagen, who had interrupted the team meeting in Harry’s office to repeat the Chief Superintendent’s order that the ‘theory’ of Vetlesen’s murder was not to be leaked under any circumstances, not even to partners, marital or otherwise. At length, Hagen caught Harry’s eye.
‘Well, that was all I wanted to say,’ he concluded quickly and left the room.
‘Carry on,’ Harry said to Bjørn Holm, who had been giving feedback on their findings at the curling hall crime scene. Or, to be more accurate, the lack of findings.
‘We’d only just got going when it was determined it was a suicide. We didn’t find any forensic evidence, and now the crime scene’s contaminated. I had a look this morning and there’s not a lot to see, I’m afraid.’
‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘Katrine?’
Katrine looked down at her notes. ‘Yes, well, your theory is that Vetlesen and the killer met at the curling club and this must have been prearranged. The obvious conclusion to draw is that they were in phone contact. You asked me to check the list of calls.’
‘Yes,’ said Harry, stifling a yawn.
She flicked through. ‘I got lists from Telenor for Vetlesen’s clinic phone and mobile. I took them to Borghild’s house.’
‘House?’ Skarre queried.
‘Of course – she hasn’t got a job to go to any more. She told me that Idar Vetlesen didn’t have any visitors except for patients during the last two days. Here’s a list of them.’
She took a piece of paper from a file and placed it on the table between them.
‘As I had presumed, Borghild has a good knowledge of Vetlesen’s professional and social contacts. She helped me to identify practically all of the people on the call list. We divided them in two: professional contacts and social contacts. Both show phone numbers, the time and date of the call, whether it was incoming or outgoing and how long it lasted.’
The other three put their heads together and studied the lists. Katrine’s hand touched Harry’s. He didn’t detect any signs of embarrassment in her. Perhaps he had dreamt it all, the suggestion she had made at Fenris Bar. The thing was, though, that Harry didn’t dream when he was drinking. That was the whole point of drinking. Nevertheless, he had woken up the next day with an idea that must have been conceived somewhere between the systematic emptying of the whiskey bottle and the pitiless moment of awakening. The idea of cochineal and of Vetlesen’s full syringe. And that was the idea that had saved him from running straight to the Vinmonopol in Thereses gate, and instead propelled him back into work. One drug for another.
‘Whose number is that?’ Harry asked.
‘Which one?’ Katrine asked, leaning forward.
Harry pointed to a number on the list of social contacts.
‘What makes you ask about that number in particular?’ Katrine asked, peering up at him with curiosity.
‘Because it’s the social contact who rang him and not vice versa. We have to believe it’s the killer who’s stage-managing here, therefore he’s the one who called.’
Katrine checked the number against the list of names. ‘Sorry, but that person is on both lists, a patient as well.’
‘OK, but we have to start somewhere. Who is it? Man or woman?’
Katrine gave a wry grin. ‘Definitely a man.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Manly. As in macho. Arve Støp.’
‘Arve Støp?’ Holm burst out. ‘
The
Arve Støp?’
‘Put him at the top of our visiting list,’ Harry said.
When they had finished, they had a list of seven calls to investigate. They had the names to match all seven numbers except for one: a payphone in Storo Mall the morning of Idar’s murder.
‘We’ve got the exact time,’ Harry said. ‘Is there a surveillance camera by the phone?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Skarre said. ‘But I know there’s a camera at each entrance. I can check with the security firms whether they’ve got a recording.’
‘Monitor all the faces half an hour before and after,’ Harry said.
‘That’s a big job,’ Skarre said.
‘Guess who you need to ask,’ Harry said.
‘Beate Lønn,’ Holm said.
‘Correct. Say hello.’
Holm nodded, and Harry felt a pang of bad conscience. Skarre’s mobile went off with the La’s ‘There She Goes’ as a ringtone.
They watched as Skarre listened. Harry reflected on how he had put off calling Beate for a long time now. Since the one visit in the summer, after the birth, he hadn’t seen her. He knew she didn’t blame him for Halvorsen’s being killed in the line of duty. But it had been a bit too much for him: seeing Halvorsen’s child, the child the young officer never got to see, and knowing deep down that Beate was wrong. He could – he should – have saved Halvorsen.