The Cabin

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘I don’t really see the point,’ Skottemyr replied.

  ‘It’s simply a matter of eliminating you,’ Stiller told him as he took out the swab. ‘It’s over and done with very speedily. You just need to put this in your mouth.’

  Vegard Skottemyr took the swab and followed the instructions Stiller gave him. The sample was then bagged and sealed, and Stiller got to his feet. ‘Is there anything you’d like to add before I go?’ he asked.

  Skottemyr rose slowly from his chair. Stiller had the impression that there was something, but Skottemyr ended by shaking his head.

  44

  Just before 6 a.m., Amalie came padding into Line’s bedroom and crept up into her bed. Line could not get back to sleep. Her laptop lay beside her from the previous evening. She pulled it towards her, flipped open the lid and lay reading the last interviews of the men Arnt Eikanger had questioned. The statements were fairly alike in style and content. The men recounted their observations and their own movements. The one who had been closest to the crime scene was a jogger called Vegard Skottemyr, who had ventured fifteen to twenty metres down the pump-station track to urinate. That had been just before 7 p.m. At the end of his statement, it emerged that he lived in the basement apartment of his parents’ house and that they could confirm the time of his return. This gave the impression that he was single.

  From the introductory personal information, she worked out that he was born in 1971 and had been thirty-two when Simon Meier went missing.

  At eight o’clock, Amalie began to stir. They got up and ate breakfast together. For the next couple of hours Line struggled to get some work done as Amalie kept clinging to her and getting in the way. Line tried to persuade her to play in her room or find something else to amuse herself, but her daughter just threw herself on the floor and lay kicking in a tantrum.

  As her meeting with Henriette Koppang approached, Line grew increasingly restless. Line would prefer to have interviewed the informant herself. This was what she was good at and, anyway, she liked to have control.

  As the time ticked closer to eleven o’clock, she let Amalie help her to pack a bag. They mixed squash and filled bottles, brought a packet of biscuits and two bananas. Before they left, Line checked that the windows were closed tight and made sure the door was firmly locked behind her. Then she put Amalie into the child seat on the bike and wheeled it up past her father’s house to the top of the street. From there, it was downhill almost all the way to Stavern.

  Having left early, she cycled down to the harbour. There, they sat on a bench and shared the biscuits with the swans. Just as they were about to pack up and leave for their meeting with Henriette at the café, she received a text message from her to say that she would be fifteen minutes late. She replied OK and spent the time wheeling her bike through the town-centre streets.

  Amalie had a smoothie while Line chose a latte at the counter. They sat down at the same table where she and Henriette had sat the last time.

  Henriette did not arrive until twenty minutes later and this time she had a little dark-haired girl with her. ‘Sorry for being late.’

  Line half rose from her seat and gave her a quick hug. ‘It’s fine,’ she reassured her.

  ‘You must both say hello to Josefine.’

  Josefine said hello nicely but Amalie turned away and crept up on to Line’s lap to hide her face there.

  Henriette returned to the counter and bought something to drink.

  ‘Did you meet him?’ Line asked, once she had sat down again.

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t get as much out of him as I’d hoped.’

  Line nodded. She had worked in close proximity to criminal circles herself. It could prove to be a test of patience.

  ‘It was as I said,’ Henriette went on in a hushed voice. ‘After the robbery, the money was hidden in what was thought to be a safe place but, when they went to collect it, it was gone.’

  ‘Does your source know where the hiding place was?’

  ‘Only that it was somewhere just outside Oslo.’

  ‘Does he know who took part in the raid?’

  ‘I got the impression that he does, but he didn’t mention any names. Just gave me the brush-off when I asked about that.’

  Amalie began to whimper, wriggling around on Line’s knee and reaching for the dummy she knew Line had in her pocket.

  ‘Was anyone suspected of the theft?’ Line asked, letting her daughter have the dummy.

  Henriette nodded and took a gulp of coffee. ‘I didn’t get any names, but it didn’t seem as if Simon Meier was involved. There was talk of someone who had been killed in a motorbike accident a few months after the robbery. The rumour is that he hid the money and the cash is still there now.’

  Line pushed Amalie’s arms away. Of course, it could be as simple as that. Lennart Clausen took the money and hid it in his family’s summer cabin. When he died, his father continued to hide it.

  ‘What about Simon Meier?’ she asked. ‘How does he come into the picture?’

  ‘No idea. I couldn’t start asking about that – he would have cottoned on that we know more than I was saying.’

  Line agreed. ‘But if Simon Meier has something to do with the case, then the airport robbers must have considered that possibility, too,’ she said. ‘If the cash was hidden near the spot where he disappeared, it must have really stressed them out. I mean, all of a sudden, there’s an official search in operation right by their hiding place. That must have sparked some speculation later about what happened to the cash.’

  ‘True,’ Henriette answered, but she had nothing more to add.

  Line was disappointed about how little had emerged from the meeting with the informer. ‘Didn’t he tell you anything more?’ she asked.

  Henriette shook her head. ‘Not on this occasion.’

  ‘But do you think he knows anything more?’

  ‘Well, he will at least make some inquiries for us, ask around, but that can take time. These are dangerous people, so he has to tread carefully.’

  Amalie had settled and wriggled down from Line’s lap with the dummy in her mouth. Line suggested that she could show Josefine the playroom further inside the café. She was unwilling at first but let herself be persuaded.

  ‘The terrible twos,’ Henriette said with a smile when they were left on their own. ‘Josefine was like that as well.’

  ‘Do you know anyone else you could talk to?’ Line asked. ‘Someone who might know something more? We need some names.’

  Henriette received a text message and took out her phone and read it. ‘What would really make a sensational story would be if we could find out what became of the money,’ she said as she keyed in a response. ‘Do you have your laptop with you?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘There can’t have been too many deaths in motorbike accidents in 2003,’ Henriette continued. ‘I tried to do a bit of a search on the Internet last night, but I didn’t get very far with it.’

  Picking up her bag, Line took out her laptop. She knew the answer already, but it would be too complicated to start explaining that now. She had to keep Henriette in the dark about everything to do with Lennart Clausen and his father. ‘What search terms should I use?’ she asked after logging in.

  Henriette put down her phone. ‘Fatal accident, motorbike, 2003,’ she suggested.

  They found a total of eleven accidents in the official statistics. Three of them had occurred prior to the airport robbery. Line cut and pasted key phrases from the other eight fatal accidents and collated a list. Then she arranged them in order of what seemed most likely. Accidents in the north of Norway were moved down the list and accidents in the Oslo area were given priority. In the end, Lennart Clausen’s accident in Bærum on the night of 30 September 2003 landed in third place.

  ‘A twenty-five-year-old,’ Henriette commented. ‘I think maybe he should be moved up.’

  The accidents in the top two places dealt respectively with an eighteen-year-old on a lig
ht motorbike and a married couple in their fifties who had both died.

  Line highlighted the text relating to Lennart Clausen, cut it out and moved it to the top of the list.

  ‘We have to try to find out more about the people who died,’ she said speculatively.

  ‘Send the list to me,’ Henriette told her. ‘I know someone in the police that I can ask.’

  ‘I have someone I can ask, too,’ Line said, but refrained from telling her that her father was a police officer. It seemed almost odd that Henriette had not discovered that when she had googled who she was and which of her stories VG had published. The crime stories she had covered in the past had often mentioned Chief Inspector Wisting.

  ‘I can check it out,’ Henriette insisted.

  ‘OK,’ Line agreed.

  Something happened over in the play corner. Amalie had obviously not got her way and was starting to complain loudly. ‘She’s getting tired,’ Line explained, rising to her feet.

  She went to fetch Amalie and lifted her on to her knee. ‘When are you going to meet your informant again?’ she asked.

  ‘He’ll phone if he has anything more to tell me.’

  ‘We need more info on the robbery,’ Line told her. ‘Some names.’

  Henriette agreed, and they remained sitting there, discussing the possible connections to Simon Meier.

  ‘The only thing I can think of is that Simon and the motorbike guy were together on taking the money,’ Henriette said. ‘Maybe they shared it. Simon went to Spain with his share, while the motorbike guy died. I used to think Simon had run off with the money on his own, but since I heard the rumour about the motorbike guy, I think it’s more likely he had help.’

  Line had spent the past few days trying to find a connection between Simon Meier and Lennart Clausen. The only thing that linked them so far was that they had grown up in the same street.

  ‘You still believe he might be in Spain, then?’ she remarked, as she returned her laptop to her bag.

  ‘I think if we do find him, we’ll find the answer to everything,’ Henriette replied. ‘Or if we find the money from the robbery,’ she added with a smile.

  Line returned her smile but felt constrained by not being able to tell her everything she knew. It would be difficult to work with Henriette once she realized that Line had withheld crucial information.

  Henriette sat studying her facial expression. ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ she said. ‘Do you have a theory about what happened to the money? Or is there something you haven’t told me?’

  Line busied herself with Amalie. ‘I’m thinking of my news editor at VG,’ she said, in an attempt to laugh off the question. ‘He didn’t want this story. At least, not before.’

  Henriette chuckled along with her. ‘He’ll be sure to kick himself when he reads it,’ she said.

  45

  Mortensen turned his laptop screen to face the others. ‘I think this is blood,’ he said, showing them an image of the steel edge on the pump machinery where one part of the metal was darker than the surrounding area. ‘It reacts to luminol,’ he added. ‘I’ve prepared a sample for analysis.’

  He went on to select another picture that showed a larger portion of the room. The place where Mortensen thought he had detected blood was marked with an arrow. In addition, there was an arrow on the floor, below the first one.

  ‘I have a similar sample from there, too,’ Mortensen told them, pointing. ‘If it proves to be blood, then that will at least tell us something about what might have happened in there.’

  Wisting tried to interpret what he could see. ‘His head may have struck the steel edge before he fell to the floor.’

  Mortensen nodded. ‘It could have been an accident or the result of an argument,’ he suggested. ‘Pushing and shoving.’

  ‘With fatal consequences,’ Stiller commented.

  ‘That’s entirely possible,’ Mortensen replied. ‘But on the other hand, it might not be blood at all or have anything to do with our case.’

  ‘Did you find anything else?’ Wisting asked.

  Mortensen produced a picture of a padlock with a key that he had found lying on the floor under the hatch. ‘It’s possible we may have some fingerprints on this,’ he answered. ‘I’m letting the Kripos lab take a look at it.’

  Wisting was relieved he hadn’t picked it up. ‘Line has found something of interest regarding the pump house,’ he said, explaining that Jan Gudim’s father had held the original key. ‘He was the manager of the water and sewage board.’

  ‘They probably used it to hide drugs for years,’ Audun Thule said.

  Stiller agreed. ‘But the chances of bringing charges are slim,’ he decided.

  ‘Was Gudim’s alibi for the day of the robbery ever checked?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘Only as far as tracing his phone use. It was located at his home.’

  ‘Where was his home at that time?’ Mortensen probed. ‘Where did he live?’

  ‘In Kolbotn.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll talk if we bring him in for interview?’

  ‘Doubt it. He’s never confessed to anything or cooperated with the police in any way.’

  Wisting glanced up at the board with the pictures of the possible robbers. ‘We think Gudim drove the vehicle used in the raid?’ he asked.

  ‘Without a doubt,’ Thule replied. ‘His hobby is rally driving.’

  ‘So, Jan Gudim and Aleksander Kvamme?’

  ‘All the intelligence we have suggests that Kvamme was the main man,’ Thule answered. ‘Everything also suggests that Oscar Tvedt took part and got the blame when the money disappeared.’

  Stiller stood up, walked across to the noticeboard and took down the photo of Jan Gudim. ‘We won’t make a dent in this with traditional investigation methods,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to approach them in a different way, with a different strategy. A tactical move.’

  Wisting leaned back in his chair, realizing that Stiller had come up with a plan.

  ‘Instead of confronting Gudim with shaky evidence, we’ll have to use it to draw out something new,’ Stiller went on. ‘We have to coax out information about who else was in on the action.’

  ‘How do we do that?’ Thule asked.

  ‘We’ll use what we already know and have,’ Stiller answered. He returned Gudim’s picture to the board before taking out one of the boxes of cash and lifting it up on to the table. ‘We use the money,’ he said.

  The three others in the room waited for him to continue. Stiller turned to face Audun Thule. ‘You said Oscar Tvedt’s mother died this summer?’ he asked.

  Thule nodded.

  ‘Then we’ll pay Gudim a visit in prison and show him the picture of one of the boxes of cash and say that it was found at her home after her death. That we’ve found the key to the pump house inside it and DNA belonging to Oscar Tvedt.’

  Wisting liked the idea. It would hopefully provoke a reaction and, because Jan Gudim was in prison, they had complete control over everyone he was in contact with. All phone calls in and out of the prison were monitored, and all visits could be observed.

  Stiller was a few steps ahead: ‘We’ll give him the impression that Oscar Tvedt has begun to communicate,’ he went on. ‘We’ll tell him what nursing home he’s in and that he’s willing to talk to us. That should entice the other robbers to visit him to make sure he keeps his mouth shut.’

  Audun Thule leaned forward across the table. ‘You’re going to occupy the wing where he’s a patient?’

  ‘I’ll equip it with cameras and recording equipment and then pose as a patient or a nurse when he has a visitor,’ Stiller said, smiling.

  ‘That will have to be cleared at a high level,’ Mortensen interjected.

  ‘I can arrange that,’ Wisting promised.

  They discussed the details until Line arrived with Amalie and Wisting updated her with Stiller’s plan.

  ‘Henriette has a source in the circles around the robbers,’ she said, repeating the theory
that whoever stole the cash was later killed in a motorbike accident.

  ‘Lennart Clausen,’ Wisting said.

  ‘That sounds likely,’ Stiller agreed.

  ‘Do you know the identity of her source?’ Thule asked.

  ‘No, but she conducted a series of in-depth interviews with professional criminals when she worked at Goliat,’ Line explained. ‘It’s probably one of them. I have to go into Oslo tomorrow to speak to Kim Werner Pollen, Simon Meier’s schoolfriend, who worked at Gardermoen. Then I thought I’d pop into the National Library and read those interviews. I know someone who works there who can look them out for me. Maybe there will be some interesting names there.’

  Amalie, unsettled, tugged impatiently at her mother’s arm. ‘We’ll have to go home,’ Line said with a sigh as she lifted up her daughter.

  Wisting accompanied her out.

  ‘How much did the burglar alarm cost?’ she asked, hoisting Amalie into the child seat at the back of her bike.

  ‘I haven’t had the bill yet,’ Wisting told her.

  ‘I think I want an alarm,’ Line said. ‘It’s an old house, easy to pick the window locks.’

  ‘I can phone Olve and get a quote,’ Wisting suggested.

  ‘Could you?’

  He nodded and stood watching as she wheeled her bike home.

  46

  The air in the house was hot and stuffy. Line locked the front door behind her, but opened the verandah door in the living room as well as the window in Amalie’s bedroom. Then she headed into the kitchen to butter a couple of slices of bread for her daughter.

  ‘Mummy?’

  Line turned around. Amalie approached, carrying the black cat from the garden. As she held it with both arms outstretched the animal made no protest.

  ‘Be careful!’ Line warned her, afraid that the cat might scratch and bite.

  Her daughter laid her cheek on its unkempt fur. The cat calmly accepted this for a little longer, but then began to thrash about. It twisted out of her grasp, landed on all fours and darted away.