The Cabin

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Knut Sandersen was still head of the news desk. Line stood outside the security barrier, waiting for him to come down to collect her.

  When she had started at VG seven years earlier, she had thought this was the beginning of her future. That she was here to stay. At that time she had only herself to think about, but now her life was different, and she tried yet again to convince herself that she had made the right choice. That she enjoyed being her own boss.

  Sandersen greeted her with a hug.

  ‘Thanks for agreeing to meet me,’ Line said.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Sandersen told her, ushering her through the barriers and into the lift.

  She had delivered a number of front-page stories and been awarded the prestigious Golden Pen and Scoop prizes for her work.

  Sandersen had checked his wristwatch twice by the time the lift reached their floor. Line appreciated that she would not have much time with him.

  ‘I’ve started to look at an old missing-person case,’ she said as she sat opposite him in his glass-walled office.

  ‘What case is that?’ the chief news editor asked.

  He reclined into the soft padding on his chair, giving her the benefit of his steely gaze.

  ‘One that no one remembers,’ Line answered. ‘Simon Meier. Disappeared at Gjersjø lake in 2003.’

  ‘Have you got anything new on it?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Sandersen canted his head, looking sceptical.

  ‘The Cold Cases Group is going through the files,’ she added.

  ‘That’s just routine,’ Sandersen said, looking at his watch again. ‘They look at all old, unsolved missing-person cases. What’s special about this one?’

  ‘It could involve errors made by the police,’ Line told him, repeating what Adrian Stiller at Kripos had said, that the investigation should never have been called after the vast lake.

  ‘Police error is nothing unique,’ Sandersen broke in. ‘As a rule, that’s the reason these cases weren’t solved in the first place.’

  ‘There were also tip-offs that were never followed up,’ Line went on. ‘I don’t have too much to go on as yet, but I’d like to put my work on a formal footing when I begin interviewing people, so that they know it’s for a VG story.’

  ‘You’re a bit too late, I’m afraid,’ Sandersen said, straightening up. ‘We’ve already commissioned a story about an old disappearance. We’ve put a lot of resources into it – podcasts, articles, videos, the whole caboodle. You know how it goes.’

  ‘What case is it?’

  ‘Much the same thing. A case that almost nobody paid any attention to when it took place and that everybody has forgotten today. We have a source who says she knows what happened and where the body is. We’ll probably start publishing it next week.’

  Line understood what that meant. Sandersen would not want to have competing projects running in parallel. She considered showing him the letter with the anonymous tip-off about Bernhard Clausen, but that would be a mistake.

  ‘I’d be happy for you to come back again in six months’ time,’ Sandersen said. ‘Or if you manage to come up with something definitive.’

  Line stood up. It would have made things easier if she’d had an editor backing her, but she was not reliant on that. She was not reliant on VG at all.

  ‘Thanks for taking the time to see me, anyway,’ she said, and saw herself out.

  25

  Yesterday’s rain was gone. The air had grown colder, but it was still pleasant enough to sit outside. Wisting had put Amalie on the settee on the terrace, well tucked in with plenty of cushions and holding the iPad. Her little face was deep in concentration, and now and again noises came from the game she was engrossed in.

  Audun Thule had phoned an hour ago to say that he was on his way and asking for a meeting place. Wisting had given his own address and explained that he was not at work but at home on babysitting duties.

  He leafed through to a blank page in his notepad and narrowed down the timeline to a few days at the end of May 2003. In the middle of the line he inserted a red dot and wrote 29.05.2003 14.40. That was the date and time of the airport robbery. Further down on the right of the line he put a pencil mark and wrote SM – circa 17.00. That was the last time anyone had seen Simon Meier.

  Mortensen sat with an electronic version of the same information. He had been sent Clausen’s calendar of political meetings in 2003. It corresponded with the diary they had taken from Clausen’s home office but was more comprehensive. On Thursday 29 May, Clausen had participated in a team meeting in the department at 9 a.m. before fulfilling an engagement at the Health Department’s premises in Einar Gerhardsens plass at ten o’clock. At noon he had attended a briefing by the Norwegian Society of Paediatricians, and at one he had a short meeting with representatives of the executive board of the Norwegian Dental Association. At two thirty there was another meeting, this time with the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board.

  ‘He cancelled all his meetings the following day,’ Mortensen pointed out, showing the screen with a picture of his agenda for Friday 30 May.

  Some of the appointments had been entered with new dates, while a meeting with the chief of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health had been marked with a note saying that it had been conducted by telephone.

  ‘Pretty remarkable,’ Mortensen said.

  Wisting continued to browse through the personal diary. The same appointments were entered. In addition, the annotation cabin had been added on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. ‘Anything in the guest book?’ he asked.

  Mortensen looked it up. ‘Not until the following weekend,’ he replied. ‘He had a lot of visitors then.’

  Wisting checked to compare this with the diary. Cabin. Work Party was entered for the weekend of 7 and 8 June.

  ‘The guest book is used mainly by visitors,’ Mortensen added. ‘Not as a diary.’

  The doorbell chimed inside the house. Wisting got up and looked across at Amalie, who had fallen asleep with the iPad on her lap.

  Audun Thule was a big man with a bushy moustache and a broad nose, dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt and sporting his police ID on a lanyard around his neck. He shifted a thick notebook to his left hand and gave Wisting a firm handshake.

  ‘I’ve never visited a colleague at home before,’ he commented.

  Smiling, Wisting cast a glance at the car he had arrived in.

  ‘The documents are in the boot,’ Thule explained. ‘Eight ring binders. We can pick them up later.’

  They walked through the house and out to the terrace at the rear. Mortensen got to his feet and greeted the investigator from Romerike while Wisting fetched another coffee cup.

  ‘Tell me about the money,’ Thule said when they sat down.

  Wisting looked at Amalie, still fast asleep.

  ‘My granddaughter isn’t the reason we’re meeting here,’ he said. ‘I’m conducting a special investigation under the direct supervision of the Director General. No one at the station knows anything about it.’

  Thule frowned. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing.’

  ‘It’s the first time for me, too,’ Wisting admitted. ‘I’d like you to join us in the investigation group.’

  ‘I need to know what it’s all about first,’ Thule told him.

  Wisting nodded. ‘Everything we discuss today is confidential,’ he said. ‘You can wait to decide whether you want to take part but in either case you can’t speak to anyone about what we’re about to tell you.’

  ‘Fine,’ Thule answered, without taking time to think it over.

  Wisting wondered where he should start. ‘Let me show you the money,’ he said, standing up. He checked that Amalie was still fast asleep before leaving the terrace.

  Thule looked askance at him but pushed his chair out from the table and followed Wisting and Mortensen down to the basement. Wisting let them into the room downstairs and cancelled the alarm.

  ‘You’re storing the cash here?�
�� Thule asked.

  Mortensen pulled on a pair of latex gloves from a box on the table and picked up one of the cardboard boxes. Wisting held the box of gloves out to Thule. He drew on a pair while Mortensen opened the cardboard box and took out a wad of dollar notes.

  ‘There are nine boxes altogether,’ he said, handing the bundle to Thule.

  ‘Five point three million dollars,’ Wisting said, ‘2.8 million pounds and 3.1 million euros.’

  ‘And you have all of that in your basement?’ Thule exclaimed, shaking his head. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘We’ve calculated that the total sum matches the robbery proceeds,’ Wisting said. ‘About 70 million kroner, according to the currency exchange rate at the time.’

  Audun Thule was still shocked. ‘That sounds about right,’ he muttered. ‘I have the exact sums in the case papers.’

  He skirted around the table with the box on it and picked up another wad of dollars. ‘Has anyone been arrested?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’

  Wisting told him about Bernhard Clausen’s summer cabin.

  ‘His appointments diary gives Clausen an alibi for the time of the robbery,’ Mortensen said.

  ‘In any case, it seems highly unlikely that a serving government minister would have been involved in anything like that.’

  ‘He had a son who died in a motorbike accident four months later,’ Wisting added. ‘We’re investigating the son’s circle of friends.’

  Thule returned the money and pulled off the gloves. ‘If Clausen was implicated in the robbery in any way, I don’t understand why the Director General would protect him with a covert investigation,’ he commented.

  ‘If this is the cash from the robbery, the whole case will be downgraded,’ Wisting said. ‘But we can’t be sure. Clausen was a government minister, and there’s enough money here to have impacted his political decisions and, because of that, to have significance for Norway’s national interests.’

  ‘But it doesn’t look as if he’s spent any of the cash,’ Thule pointed out. ‘He’s just kept it all in storage. That doesn’t make sense.’

  Agreeing, Wisting related the story of Aksel Skavhaug, who had been paid in Norwegian kroner to set fire to the cabin.

  ‘Have you found any technical evidence on the banknotes?’ Thule asked.

  Mortensen explained about the fingerprint examinations. ‘We’re waiting for results of the DNA tests, including a component, possibly part of a walkie-talkie radio, that was in one of the boxes,’ he added.

  ‘There was also a key in one box, as well as a scrap of paper with a phone number written on it,’ Wisting went on. ‘It could be for someone called Daniel. Does that mean anything to you?’

  Thule shook his head. ‘Not off the top of my head, but it’s something to work on, at least. The case files contain almost five hundred names.’

  26

  The background check on Tommy Pleym showed that he was living with a partner and worked as the sales manager in a finance company a few blocks away from the VG building. Line took a seat at one of the café tables outside a bakery and phoned him.

  ‘Can you spare a couple of minutes?’ she asked, after introducing herself.

  ‘That depends what it’s about,’ the man at the other end answered.

  ‘I’m working on an article about the mystery surrounding Simon Meier’s disappearance,’ Line explained. ‘Do you remember that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m looking to speak to someone of the same age as him who grew up in the same place. Just to have a few words about what kind of impression the disappearance made and what you think about it when you cast your mind back today.’

  ‘Then I think you’d be better to speak to someone other than me. Someone who knew him better.’

  ‘I’m sitting here with some old class lists,’ Line pressed on. ‘Do you think you could help me to pick someone out?’

  Tommy Pleym gave this some thought. ‘I’m not in touch with any of them these days,’ he replied.

  ‘I’m in the VG building right now,’ Line went on. ‘I called you because I see that the company you work for is located in Grensen. I can be there in five minutes and we could take a look at the class lists together.’

  ‘I have a meeting in half an hour,’ Tommy Pleym warned her.

  Line rose to her feet and started walking. ‘I won’t need any longer than that,’ she assured him.

  ‘OK.’

  She hung up and set off along the street. The office block where Tommy Pleym worked was accessed from a back yard and a receptionist let her in via an intercom. She took the three flights of stairs up to where Tommy Pleym was waiting for her at the reception desk. He was dressed in dark suit trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  ‘So good of you to find the time,’ Line said.

  ‘As I said, I don’t know if I can be of any help,’ Tommy Pleym told her as he led her into the nearest conference room. ‘I remember him from school, but he wasn’t really someone I hung around with and the accident happened years after we left school.’

  Line sat down. ‘You think it was an accident, then?’

  ‘Well, that was what was said, at least.’

  ‘Do you remember the day he disappeared?’

  ‘What I recall was a helicopter flying low above the lake at Gjersjø, but that wasn’t until a few days afterwards. You see, it took a while for them to realize he was missing before they began the search for him.’

  ‘Did you live in Kolbotn at that time?’

  ‘I had a bedsit,’ Tommy Pleym replied. ‘I was working in telephone sales.’

  ‘So you were working on the day he vanished?’

  ‘Probably. We usually worked afternoons and evenings, when people were likely to be at home.’

  ‘What did you think when you heard he was missing?’

  Tommy Pleym shrugged. ‘I can certainly help you with those class lists, but I don’t want to take part in any kind of interview about what happened that day.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Line said, taking out the printouts of the class lists. The list of Simon Meier’s class was on top.

  ‘I remember hardly any of them,’ Tommy Pleym said apologetically. ‘You see, I was a year older than him, and my friends were older, too.’

  Line moved on to the next list, on which Lennart Clausen was second from the top. She had drawn a line through his name and reprinted the list to make it look as if this was how she had received it. ‘There’s one scored out,’ she commented.

  ‘Yes, Lennart,’ Tommy Pleym said. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘A road accident.’

  ‘You were in the same class?’

  Tommy Pleym nodded but volunteered nothing more about what had happened. He picked up the class lists and leafed through them. Line thought she could detect some reluctance in his manner.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘The only one I can think of is Ingeborg Skui.’

  He put his finger on a name near the foot of one of the lists. ‘She edited the school newspaper and was on the pupil council,’ he went on. ‘She was the kind of warm-hearted girl who went out of her way for everyone. If she can’t tell you anything, then she might know who could help you.’ He handed back the lists.

  ‘Thanks, anyway,’ she said, taking her time to sort the bundle of papers.

  The conversation had not produced the answers she was after, but she was disinclined to finish up as yet. ‘So two boys you were at school with are now dead?’ she remarked.

  ‘Lennart was Bernhard Clausen’s son,’ Tommy added. ‘The politician.’

  Line nodded, as if this information were new to her. ‘Did Lennart and Simon know each other?’

  Tommy Pleym glanced at his watch as he got to his feet. ‘Well, they didn’t live far from each other, at least,’ he replied, advancing towards the door.

  Line was groping for a wa
y to prolong the conversation. ‘Did you and Lennart keep in touch after school?’ she asked as she stood up.

  ‘We spent a bit of time together, yes,’ he replied.

  ‘What about the day Simon Meier went missing? Were you together then?’

  ‘I don’t really remember,’ Tommy Pleym said, smiling. ‘It was years ago.’

  ‘My mistake,’ Line said. ‘I’d imagined a story like this would make a lasting impression on local people.’

  Tommy Pleym held the door open for her. ‘Then you’ll have to talk to someone other than me. Sorry,’ he said.

  Line thanked him for his time. She couldn’t help feeling that Tommy Pleym was keen to distance himself from Lennart Clausen and the past. Maybe the motorbike accident was a traumatic memory he preferred not to revisit, but it would have been natural to mention it during their conversation.

  When she emerged into the street, she turned around and looked up at the third floor. She thought she could see a figure at one of the windows looking down at her.

  27

  A train passed outside Ulf Lande’s office window. He had been allocated to a new workplace since Simon Meier had gone missing. The local police station had closed down and his new office was on the second floor of the imposing police headquarters in Ski.

  ‘You’re writing for VG?’ he asked.

  ‘I used to be employed there,’ Line said. ‘Now I work freelance.’

  ‘There was another journalist looking into the Gjersjø case a few years back,’ he recalled.

  Line took out her notepad and digital recorder. ‘When was that, then?’ she asked.

  ‘It was while I was at the local police station,’ Lande answered. ‘Maybe five or six years ago. She’d been in touch with Simon’s brother, but I don’t think anything came of it.’