The Cabin

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Stiller was first to step inside, with Wisting close on his heels. A beer bottle had toppled on the desktop and the spilled beer had dried up, leaving brown stains on the surface and the pile of papers.

  One of the drawers was half open. Wisting pulled it all the way out and found a bundle of motorbike magazines with a spray can of air freshener and several hanging air fresheners, still in their cellophane wrappers.

  Stiller delivered a kick to the large wooden chest. ‘It’s locked,’ he said.

  Thule arrived with the bolt shears, but Stiller’s phone rang before he had the chance to do anything. ‘It’s Gitte, from the DNA register,’ he said on first glance at the display.

  He answered and switched the phone to loudspeaker. Thule stood waiting with the shears in his hand.

  ‘We’ve come up with a result on the quick analysis of biological material from Vegard Skottemyr,’ the woman from the DNA register explained, and went on to provide a reference number.

  Wisting strained to hear more clearly. Vegard Skottemyr was the man they thought had written the anonymous letter to the Director General.

  ‘You’ve requested a specific comparison with the trace sample marked B-8 in case 15692 for 2003 from what was previously Follo police district,’ the woman continued in a formal tone.

  ‘The condom from the area beside the pump house,’ Stiller explained to the others.

  ‘There’s no match between the samples,’ the woman said solemnly.

  Wisting sighed. The possibility of finding an eyewitness at Gjersjø seemed to be slipping away from them.

  ‘We’ve run an additional search in the trace register,’ the woman at the other end of the line continued. ‘That matched sample B-14 in the same case.’

  ‘What’s B-14?’ Thule asked.

  The woman from the DNA register seemed confused by another voice breaking in. ‘It’s described here as pubic hair,’ she replied.

  Stiller gave a broad smile. ‘It takes two to tango,’ he said. ‘We’ve got him. Vegard Skottemyr was at the pump house, and left a few pubic hairs behind.’

  The woman explained how the analysis and test results would be sent to them.

  ‘Do you have any results from the new investigations inside the pump house?’ Wisting asked. ‘They were submitted by Espen Mortensen in the same case for comparison with the missing person’s DNA profile.’

  ‘We’ve just received that,’ the woman told him. ‘I’ll phone Mortensen next.’

  ‘What do the test results say?’

  ‘It’s a match,’ the woman replied, and now she had dispensed with her formal tone. ‘Trace samples F-1 and F-2 belong to Simon Meier.’

  ‘The steel edge and the floor,’ Wisting clarified, mostly for his own benefit.

  The woman on the line did not catch what he had said. Stiller turned off the loudspeaker function and put the phone to his ear. ‘Thanks for calling,’ he said.

  ‘So Simon Meier died in the pump house,’ Audun Thule summarized when the phone call had ended.

  ‘And we may have a witness,’ Stiller said. ‘I’ll drive down to Kolbotn and have another chat with Vegard Skottemyr. You can both finish up here.’

  He negotiated his way past his colleagues and out of the cramped space. Thule lifted the bolt shears and a metallic click was heard as the hoop on the padlock was snapped through. Wisting lifted the lid.

  The locked chest was almost empty. It contained a few pieces of chrome work, a registration plate and a vehicle registration document. Thule lifted up a bag containing the dried shoots from a marijuana plant and a hash pipe.

  ‘Not particularly exciting,’ he commented as he let the bag drop.

  Wisting closed the lid.

  64

  Henriette was standing at the counter with her bank card in her hand when Line came in. ‘What would you like?’ she asked.

  Line stopped by her side. ‘Caffé latte,’ she said.

  Henriette passed on the order and the barista set to work. ‘How are you doing?’ she asked, placing a hand on Line’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m not really sure,’ Line answered. ‘So much has happened.’

  ‘You must tell me all about it,’ Henriette replied.

  The coffee glasses were placed on the counter. ‘I’ll pay,’ Henriette said, inserting her card into the machine.

  Line took the coffee and stood watching as Henriette keyed in her pin number. The card was declined. She tried again, the same four digits, but the transaction did not go through.

  ‘There must be something wrong,’ Henriette said with a sigh.

  ‘I’ll pay,’ Line offered, and put a hundred-kroner note on the counter.

  ‘Thanks,’ Henriette said as she returned her card to her purse, picked up her coffee glass and led the way to the table.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Henriette asked, lowering her voice.

  ‘I haven’t told anyone and I’ve no intention of doing so either,’ Line said. ‘You have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone about it.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m only telling you because I’m not sure you’re safe either.’

  Henriette merely nodded her head without saying anything.

  ‘It started after we spoke for the first time,’ Line continued. ‘I got the feeling that someone had been in my house.’

  ‘That’s awful.’

  Putting the straw to her mouth, Line drank while making eye contact with Henriette. She wanted to tell her that she knew it was her partner or his associate. That he had been down in her basement and stood in front of her pin board, looking at the line of connection she had drawn between Simon Meier and Lennart Clausen.

  ‘Was anything stolen?’ Henriette asked.

  Line shook her head. ‘Just a child’s drawing,’ she replied.

  ‘A drawing?’

  ‘We’ve had a cat prowling around our house over the past few weeks,’ Line explained. ‘Amalie wanted to draw it and I gave her a hand. We pinned it up beside her bed.’ She felt her eyes brimming and had to steel herself as she went on to tell the story of the dead cat and the warning note.

  ‘My God,’ Henriette groaned. ‘It couldn’t have been some perverted teenager in the neighbourhood or something like that?’

  Line shook her head.

  ‘Did you call the police?’ Henriette asked.

  ‘No. I threw the cat in the bin before Amalie caught sight of it, but I phoned a security company to have a burglar alarm installed.’

  She had been cradling her coffee glass on her lap, and now she placed it on the table. ‘I’ve made up my mind,’ she said. ‘I’m dropping the whole business. It’s just not worth it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Line nodded.

  ‘I respect that,’ Henriette said. ‘But you mentioned that you thought you might know where the money from the robbery was?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘I spoke to his ex-girlfriend,’ Line explained.

  ‘Lennart Clausen’s ex-girlfriend?’ Henriette asked.

  Line nodded. She was reluctant to disclose her name, even though the information about Rita and her daughter had been stored on her stolen laptop. ‘She told me about Lennart.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He had a garage at his father’s house where he used to tinker with motorbikes. He spent hours in there and refused to let anyone else come in.’

  Keeping her eyes on Line, Henriette continued to drink her coffee.

  ‘The garage is still there,’ Line went on. ‘It’s remained untouched since Lennart died, full of motorbike parts. His father didn’t have the heart to clear it out. If that was where he hid the money, it may well still be there.’

  She could see that Henriette had swallowed the bait. ‘How can we check it out?’ she asked.

  Line shook her head. ‘Not “we”,’ she said. ‘I’m not taking part in anything else. His girlfriend will be coming to Norway soon and will take over the ho
use. She’s thinking of selling it. If the money is there, we’ll maybe hear about it when she clears out the house.’

  Henriette seemed nonplussed. She began to say something about them losing control of the story and the money, but broke off abruptly. ‘It would have been a much better story if we’d found the money ourselves instead of it being discovered later, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, but the whole business just makes me feel sick,’ Line said. ‘I can’t take any more chances. If I had the support of an editor, it might be different, but it is just me, on my own, and I have to think of my daughter as well.’

  ‘I understand,’ Henriette said. ‘And I totally accept your decision.’

  The rest of their conversation turned to everyday topics. Line struggled to show interest and hide the tumult of emotions seething inside, and she was relieved when, after only half an hour, Henriette got to her feet.

  ‘I have to get back,’ Henriette said. ‘I hope we can stay in touch.’

  Line stood up and gave Henriette a quick hug. She remained on her feet, watching as she walked out the door. As soon as she had rounded the corner, she would probably take out her phone to call Daniel.

  She turned around to pack up her own belongings and discovered Henriette’s phone left on the chair where she had been sitting, tucked down a gap.

  Her first impulse was to chase after her, as she would in normal circumstances, but she stood rooted to the spot. You had to use a fingerprint or pin code to access it. Line glanced over at the counter and the card machine. 0208. When Henriette had been struggling with her bank card, she had seen that the four digits might well be the date of birth of her daughter or her boyfriend.

  She grabbed the phone and let her thumb slide across the screen. 0208. It could be as easy as that. The phone opened.

  Line glanced at the door. It would not take long for Henriette to discover that her phone was missing.

  She went into the messages. Daniel was number three on the list of contacts. She clicked on the messages and scrolled through until she found a small video file that Henriette had sent to him on Sunday afternoon. At first she did not understand what she was looking at, as the camera wobbled back and forth before focusing on a keyboard. Line was gripped by dread. It was her Mac. Henriette had filmed her, the last time they met, typing in her password.

  She swore aloud and turned her eyes to the door again before scrolling on. The previous day, Daniel had sent a photo. She opened it. It was the noticeboard in the office in her basement.

  Find out as much as possible about these names was the accompanying message.

  Line did not need to enlarge the image to see what names he meant. It was the names pinned around the picture of Lennart Clausen. Tommy Pleym and Aksel Skavhaug. Both had been victims of the robbers’ own investigation.

  The bell above the door tinkled as Henriette reappeared. Line closed the phone and held it up in the air. ‘You forgot this,’ she said, slapping on a smile. ‘It was on the chair.’

  Henriette thanked her and returned her smile. ‘I feel completely lost without it,’ she said.

  Line accompanied her to the door, where they said their goodbyes again and Henriette disappeared around the street corner. Shortly afterwards, she drove past in a blue Audi with her phone at her ear. Line took out her own phone to call her father. The game was on.

  65

  Adrian Stiller followed a young couple into the bank. They grabbed a ticket and sat down to wait their turn. Stiller, meanwhile, strode straight up to an information desk, produced his police ID and asked to speak to Vegard Skottemyr.

  The man at the desk peered at his screen. ‘He’s in a meeting, I’m afraid,’ he answered with a customer-friendly smile.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ Stiller told him.

  The man looked at him as if this was a response he had not encountered before. ‘I’ll go and see if he’ll be finished any time soon,’ he said, sliding down from his stool.

  Stiller followed him to where Vegard Skottemyr was seated in an office with glass walls and a middle-aged woman was preparing to leave.

  ‘You have a visitor,’ the man from the information desk told him.

  Skottemyr looked out and Stiller met his gaze. A resigned expression came over his face. Stiller allowed the customer to leave before stepping inside and closing the door behind him.

  ‘We meet again,’ he said, as he took a seat.

  Skottemyr merely nodded his head.

  ‘You weren’t completely honest with me,’ Stiller continued.

  A disconcerted look came over Skottemyr’s face. ‘I don’t know any more than I told you.’

  ‘I don’t think it was true that you had go for a piss,’ Stiller said. ‘That wasn’t why you jogged along the track to the pump house. I think you went to meet someone.’

  ‘And who would that be?’

  ‘A lover.’

  Skottemyr’s face changed colour. Stiller carried on, explaining how the technicians who had examined the area around the pump house had found traces of sexual activity between two men.

  ‘One of them was you,’ Stiller said. ‘I want to know who the other one was.’

  Skottemyr shook his head, ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he replied. ‘He’s no longer alive.’

  ‘I want to know who it was all the same,’ Stiller told him.

  Skottemyr gave this some thought. ‘He was married, you see,’ he answered. ‘I don’t want to tarnish his reputation.’

  ‘We’re now investigating Simon’s disappearance as a homicide,’ Stiller said. ‘You must tell me the name. Either here or at the police station.’

  Vegard Skottemyr grabbed a pen and twirled it between his fingers. ‘We met at the swimming baths,’ he began. ‘We went to the sauna together, but we couldn’t really talk properly, or be together there, so we found somewhere else.’

  ‘The pump house.’

  ‘That was one of the places. He was married and I lived with my parents. They wouldn’t … they don’t know about me.’

  Skottemyr let the pen slip from between his fingers.

  ‘We met once a week,’ he went on, leaving the pen where it lay. ‘He got a dog to give him an excuse to go out, to take it for a walk. I went jogging.’

  Stiller thought through the list of names he had produced, with Skottemyr at the top. It included a man with a dog who had been placed at the bottom of the list. Stiller could not recall his name, but it would be easy to find.

  ‘Was there someone else there on the day Simon Meier disappeared?’ Stiller asked.

  ‘A car was parked there, so I just turned away and went on running.’

  ‘What kind of car?’

  ‘An estate.’

  ‘Colour?’

  ‘Red.’

  Stiller felt a buzz of adrenaline. This was the car Jan Gudim had used to transport the proceeds of the robbery.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything about it?’

  ‘You were looking for a black car,’ Skottemyr replied.

  That was true. A witness had seen a black car drive down to the pump house. She could not say what day that had been but, all the same, the investigators had made a public appeal for information.

  ‘Reidar arrived after me and saw it,’ Skottemyr added.

  The man with the puppy, Stiller thought. The name fell into place. ‘Reidar Dahl?’

  Skottemyr nodded.

  ‘What did he see?’

  ‘The black car.’

  ‘What else did he say?’

  ‘Nothing else,’ Skottemyr said. ‘It was parked outside the pump house. He turned and left when he spotted it.’

  ‘And that was all he said?’ Stiller asked. ‘He didn’t mention the type of car or whether there was anyone inside it?’

  Skottemyr shook his head. ‘I got the impression that there was something else, but he never shared it with me. There was so much focus on the pump house for a while afterwards that we didn’t go anywhere near it. After what happened, we
never met again, not in that way, and if we bumped into each other, we never mentioned the pump house.’

  ‘Might he have spoken to anyone else about what he saw that day? Stiller probed.

  ‘He certainly spoke to the police,’ Skottemyr replied.

  ‘So he did,’ Stiller said, getting to his feet. ‘Well, thanks for seeing me.’

  Skottemyr glanced up at him, obviously taken aback by his sudden departure.

  ‘I’ll find my own way out,’ Stiller said as he left.

  In the car he found the folder marked Witnesses in the Gjersjø case. He leafed through it and located Reidar Dahl’s interview. Arnt Eikanger was the officer who had taken his statement.

  The statement itself was taken over the phone. Stiller had read it before, but skimmed through it again. Reidar Dahl confirmed that he had been the person spotted with the puppy. It was a seven-month Tibetan terrier called Jeppe and had a grey-and-black coat. He explained where he had gone and gave the name of his wife, who had been at home. At the foot of the page there was a line stating that the witness had no further information to give. But that was presumably untrue.

  66

  Three cameras had been mounted in Lennart Clausen’s garage and another two covered the area outside. In addition, they had an undercover detective posted at each end of the street. A group of officers from the local police district, armed and ready to make arrests, was stationed in a side street one minute away.

  Wisting sat in front of the TV screens installed in Bernhard Clausen’s office. Four hours had elapsed since Line had spoken to Henriette Koppang, enough time for the robbers to swing into action.

  ‘They’re probably waiting until it gets dark,’ Thule commented.

  Wisting checked the computer.

  ‘Where is she?’ Thule asked.

  ‘The same place,’ he answered, turning the screen to face him.