The Cabin

by Jorn Lier Horst

  A red dot on the map marked the location of Henriette Koppang’s blue Audi. Mortensen had attached a tracker while Line met Henriette at the café in Stavern. After the meeting she had driven along the main road towards Larvik. There, the car had turned into a car park.

  Wisting felt uneasy. He did not like this. There was no reason for Henriette Koppang to stay behind in town. This car park was nowhere near the shopping centre, and they had expected her to drive straight home to speak to Daniel.

  ‘Could there be anything wrong with the system?’ he asked. ‘Could it have stalled?’

  ‘There’s nothing to suggest that,’ Thule told him. ‘But you can always get a patrol car to drive past and see if it’s really there.’

  The phone rang. It was Stiller, and it sounded as if he was in a car. ‘Any news?’ he asked.

  ‘You’d know if there was,’ Wisting assured him, switching the phone to loudspeaker so that Thule could also hear the conversation.

  ‘Has there been any movement?’

  Wisting glanced at the screen again. ‘No,’ he replied.

  ‘Maybe she’s at the spa,’ Thule said, nodding in the direction of the onscreen map. ‘The hotel spa is nearby.’

  Wisting shifted the phone to his other hand. ‘Are you heading here?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Stiller answered. ‘I think I’ve found the anonymous letter writer.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  Wisting shut his eyes and tried to remember the names in the bundle of case documents. Stiller explained what he had discovered when he paid a visit to Vegard Skottemyr.

  ‘He’s married,’ Wisting recalled when Stiller told them about the man with the dog.

  ‘And he’s dead now,’ Stiller replied. ‘But I’m trying to get hold of his wife. His widow.’

  ‘Do you think she might know something?’ Thule asked.

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ Stiller said.

  As Stiller drove into a tunnel, they lost the connection and Wisting rang off.

  Wisting stood up, crossed to the window and looked out behind the curtains. Then he went back and sat down in front of the screens again. None of them showed anything for quite a while. Thule checked the wi-fi to ensure they still had contact with the detectives in the street.

  ‘We should have had surveillance on Lindberg and Kvamme as well,’ he commented.

  Wisting agreed, but there hadn’t been time to track them down.

  ‘White delivery van, two men inside,’ reported one of the undercover officers in the street.

  Seconds later, the van appeared onscreen. It drove past and the detective checked it out at the other end.

  ‘When does it get really dark?’ Wisting asked. ‘Nine o’clock? Half past?’

  ‘Around then,’ Thule confirmed.

  ‘Then we’ve another three hours left.’

  The waiting made him restless. He got up and paced the room before sitting down again. He pivoted round in his office chair, pulled out a desk drawer and pushed it back in again. He pulled out another drawer and found some papers and a glossy brochure from a private hospital in Israel. It advertised new therapeutic methods and experimental treatments for cancer patients.

  He replaced the papers, took out his phone and began to read various online articles. From time to time the radio crackled when the undercover operators reported cars on the way in or out of the street.

  ‘Grey Passat, one man driving,’ he heard.

  Something in the detective’s tone made Wisting look up. ‘That’s the third time it’s passed by,’ the detective went on. ‘Might be doing a recce.’

  The car appeared onscreen and drove slowly past.

  Thule grabbed the two-way radio. ‘Reg number?’ he asked.

  It took some time for the reply to come: ‘Hired car. We’re trying to identify the user.’

  ‘Not good,’ Wisting commented. ‘If our guys have seen him three times, then he’s seen them, too. Our cover could be blown.’

  Thule rummaged in a bag and took out two baguettes. ‘Or it could just be somebody who lives in the neighbourhood,’ he said, tossing over one of them.

  Wisting took it and sat chewing as he stared at the immobile red dot on the map. The longer he stared at it, the more he felt that something was amiss.

  67

  Stiller stood outside a brown-painted house in a street called Bjørnemyrveien, waiting for Ruth Dahl. He estimated it was around fifteen minutes’ walk from there to the pump house at Gjersjø lake.

  Ruth Dahl was not at home when Stiller had called, but when he explained that he needed to speak to her about her husband and the Gjersjø case, she immediately offered to meet him at her house. It seemed as if this was a conversation she had anticipated, which made Stiller feel optimistic.

  When a white estate car turned into the driveway, Stiller stepped out and nodded in greeting to the woman who emerged. Skirting around to the boot, she opened it to release a short-haired, grey terrier that had to be lifted out and set down on the ground.

  ‘This is Jeppe,’ she explained. ‘He’s getting old now.’ Stiller hunkered down and let the dog sniff his hand before he patted its fur.

  They entered the kitchen, with the dog following slowly at their heels. Ruth Dahl filled a saucer of water for it.

  ‘I thought someone might come,’ she said, inviting him to take a seat.

  Stiller pulled out a chair and leaned his arms on the table in front of him once he had taken the weight off his feet.

  ‘At that time it was all hushed up, you see,’ Ruth Dahl went on as she sat down. ‘But he’s dead now.’

  ‘You’re thinking of Bernhard Clausen,’ Stiller said.

  The dog lay down under the table.

  ‘Reidar saw him there at the pump house,’ Ruth Dahl explained. ‘The evening Simon Meier disappeared.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘He told the local police as well, but they didn’t do anything about it.’

  ‘Arnt Eikanger.’

  Ruth Dahl nodded her head. ‘Eikanger insisted that the boy had drowned, but they never found his body.’

  ‘What did your husband tell you?’ Stiller asked.

  ‘He was out with Jeppe,’ Ruth Dahl began. ‘They sometimes went down to Gjersjø lake. He had bumped into Simon Meier there a couple of times.’

  Stiller nodded.

  ‘That evening the door to the pump house was wide open. Reidar stopped at the edge of the track and saw a car drive out from behind. Bernhard Clausen got out of it, opened the boot and dragged a bin bag from the pump house and threw it into the car.’

  ‘A bin bag?’ Stiller repeated.

  ‘I don’t know what was in it,’ Ruth Dahl added. ‘Reidar didn’t know either. He just turned and left, but it must have had something to do with the boy’s disappearance.’

  Stiller sat back in his chair, taking some time to digest this information. According to what Ruth Dahl was telling him, it was Bernhard Clausen who had taken the cash from the robbery. Eighty million was a great deal of money, of course, a tempting amount of money, but he had not imagined for a second that the then Health Minister would risk his career for that. Especially not to hoard it all away in his cabin.

  ‘Was he certain it was Bernhard Clausen, and not just his car?’ he asked.

  ‘I only know what Reidar told me,’ she answered. ‘But he was on sick leave at that time. That was when his heart began to fail. He began to lose track of the days, and Eikanger thought he’d mistaken the day. But he’d spotted Simon Meier’s bike there, too, beside the pump-house wall. It must have been the same day.’

  A loud snore came from the dog under the table.

  ‘And he told all this to Eikanger when he was interviewed?’ Stiller queried.

  Ruth Dahl clasped her hands on the table in front of her. ‘Doesn’t it say all this in the reports?’ she asked.

  ‘Not in as much detail as you’ve given me,’ Stiller responded.

  ‘Reidar suspected
as much,’ Ruth Dahl said with a sigh. ‘He wasn’t sure that Eikanger would do anything about it. After all, he was in politics, too. And Reidar wasn’t the sort of man to kick up a fuss about things, but I asked him to write to someone further up the pecking order about it.’

  ‘And did he do that?’

  ‘Oh yes, he sent a letter to the Director General.’

  68

  The food had made Wisting sleepy. He was about to drop off in the chair when his phone rang. It was the journalist from Dagbladet. He turned the phone to silent and held it in his hand as it rang out.

  The red dot on the map remained at a standstill in the car park outside the hotel in Larvik. Wisting made a mental calculation. Almost seven hours had elapsed now since Line had met up with Henriette Koppang.

  ‘That’s a very long spa treatment,’ Thule remarked. ‘Maybe she’s checked in and is staying the night?’

  Wisting could not figure it out. The sense that something was wrong had crept up on him in the course of the past few hours. Now it had grown so strong that he felt he had to take some kind of action. He wondered whether he should call Line to find out if Henriette had mentioned anything about her plans for the rest of the day. Instead, he rang the direct number for the Chief of Police in his own police district.

  ‘I’m on an undercover assignment outside Oslo,’ he explained after introducing himself. ‘We need help to check out a vehicle that seems to be stationary in a car park in Larvik. Have you a patrol car free that you could send out to take a look?’

  ‘I can have it done within half an hour,’ he replied. ‘What kind of vehicle is it and where exactly is it parked?’

  ‘A blue Audi,’ Wisting said, and went on to give the address and registration number.

  ‘I’ll get back to you.’

  Outside, it was growing dark. Two boys on bikes stopped in the street. They were wearing football kits and each carried a sports bag – probably on their way home from training. They looked around before one jumped off his bike and left the other to hold it steady for him. Venturing into the garden, the first boy peered up at the house before dashing across to an apple tree. He snatched two apples and rushed back to fling himself on his bike.

  The phone rang again. It was Jonas Hildre from Dagbladet again. He might as well answer. ‘It’s about Bernhard Clausen,’ the journalist said. ‘There’s been an incident I thought I should let you know about.’

  ‘What kind of incident?’

  ‘Well, I was down in Stavern last week and took photos of the site of the fire. I spoke to some of the neighbours at the cabins there. One of them told me about all the cardboard boxes you had carried out.’

  Wisting nodded. He had been well aware of where the information had come from.

  ‘The man I spoke to phoned me back again a few hours ago. He told me someone else had been there asking about the boxes. He thought you ought to know about it, but he didn’t want to call you himself.’

  Wisting straightened up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was someone who had read about the cardboard boxes in the newspaper and wanted to know more. Eventually he became almost a bit threatening.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He was a big guy, on anabolic steroids, the man he visited told me. The guy came into his cabin and demanded to know more.’

  ‘What did he tell him?’

  ‘He told him about you.’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘He told him who you were. That you and the other man who carried out the boxes had been back after the fire and talked about the bottles of propane gas that had been stolen. The guy who turned up was very interested in that.’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘In your name and the fact that you are in the police.’

  Wisting’s gaze was drawn to the blank surveillance screens. Nothing was going to happen now. The robbers knew the police had found the money. They had given up.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘When was this?’

  ‘This morning. A woman was there, too, but she stayed in the car.’

  ‘What kind of car was it?’

  ‘A blue Audi.’

  Wisting nodded to himself. ‘Thanks for phoning,’ he said.

  The journalist had not finished. ‘Can you tell me anything more about what is really going on?’ he asked. ‘What was actually inside those cardboard boxes?’

  ‘I’ve already told you,’ Wisting replied. ‘It had to do with the deceased’s estate.’

  Audun Thule nudged him in the side and pointed at the onscreen map. The red dot was on the move.

  ‘Yes, but that could mean anything at all,’ the journalist continued.

  ‘Thanks for phoning,’ Wisting repeated as he hung up.

  The red dot on the screen was on its way back to Stavern. It should have moved up on to the E18 motorway in the direction of Oslo, but instead it followed the main road and drove through Stavern town centre.

  Wisting got to his feet. The dot was moving more slowly now, into a residential area very familiar to him. It stopped outside his house.

  69

  Line worked best when it was dark outside. It was as if daylight gave her a guilty conscience about sitting in front of a computer screen. It was easier for her to concentrate when Amalie was in bed fast asleep.

  She was seated in what had once been her mother’s office on the first floor, where she had used to sit correcting school assignments and drawing up teaching plans.

  Line’s work was starting to take shape now.

  During the last half hour she had written about Lisa Clausen’s cancer. It had been a rare type that originated within the hormone-producing cells of the endocrine system. This kind of cancer was considered one of the most aggressive. There was no known cause for the development of these malignant tumours and this type was therefore characterized as hereditary.

  Line flicked through her notes and located what had been said about Clausen’s plans to sell his cabin and finance the treatment abroad. It was difficult to find out the cost of the treatment and the value of his cabin in 2003. But after some calculations she found he would not have come close.

  She leaned back in her chair. On the other hand, 80 million kroner in foreign currency would have made quite a difference. The problem was that Lisa Clausen had been dead for more than six months when the currency consignment at Gardermoen airport had been stolen.

  A noise made her turn towards the door. It was difficult to work out whether it had come from inside or outside the house.

  She stood up and moved into the room where Amalie was sleeping on her back with her face upturned. Her regular breathing was deep and peaceful. She looked more like her father. Line sometimes thought about him, and how different their life would have been with him. He worked in the FBI, and she had met him when he was on an assignment in Norway. His work meant it was out of the question for him to move here, but there had been nothing to prevent her from joining him in the States.

  Line smoothed the quilt and stroked her daughter’s cheek. A thought began to form in her mind.

  She hurried back to the workroom and took out the photographs Trygve Johnsrud had given her from the work party at the cabin. The picture of Lennart and Bernhard Clausen was still at the top of the pile. They had the same chin but, apart from that, it was difficult to see any similarities.

  In one of the folders on her computer she had a photo of Lisa Clausen stored. When she opened it on the screen, it was obvious where Lennart had inherited his blond hair, blue eyes and round face.

  Maybe he had also inherited his mother’s illness? If nothing else, then perhaps this was something Bernhard Clausen had feared.

  The text she had written claimed that Lennart Clausen had, by chance, come across the cash, and when he was killed his father had found the money and kept it hidden. But maybe Bernhard Clausen took the cash to ensure financial security, should his son be diagnosed with cancer.

  Growing eager, she leafed back through her not
es from the meeting with Clausen’s personal secretary. She’d only jotted down key words and half-sentences, but they helped her remember what Edel Holt had said. Bernhard Clausen had changed after his wife died. His outlook had become gloomy, and he was lost in his own thoughts and had gone for long walks.

  She became more convinced the more she thought about it. It was no different from Amalie taking a packet of sweets from the shelf right beside her pushchair in the shop. The opportunity had offered itself. Many others would have done exactly the same thing, but Bernhard Clausen had had a motive. For him, the money could have meant the difference between life and death.

  Another thought occurred to her. Something Rita Salvesen had said also made sense. Bernhard Clausen had visited her when his grandchild was one year old. He had handed her a business card with his phone number and said that she should get in touch if there was anything she needed help with. When she had asked to borrow money to move to Spain, he had brushed her off and said he would help if either of them became seriously ill.

  If Lisa Clausen’s type of cancer was hereditary, her grandchild was also at risk. That could be the explanation for why Clausen kept the money after his son died. Family was important to him. Trygve Johnsrud was the last person to say that when he showed her the photograph of father and son.

  What had happened at the pump house began to crystallize. A melancholy Bernhard Clausen goes on a long walk to Gjersjø lake. Although he catches sight of Gudim lugging plastic bags into the pump house, he remains unseen. Gudim locks up behind him and drives off. Curiosity makes Clausen take the key from its hiding place. He lets himself in and finds the money.

  She was anxious to call her father, but another thought struck her. If it had really been Bernhard Clausen who had taken the cash, then maybe he was the one who had killed Simon Meier. Just as the anonymous letter suggested.

  Everything suddenly seemed so logical. The explanation had been there in front of her all the time, though fragmented and disconnected.

  She began to put her thoughts into words. Writing them down, she formed specific sentences and summarized facts that pointed towards Bernhard Clausen as Simon Meier’s killer. It also dawned on her that her notes probably held the answer to where the body was located. Finding Simon Meier would provide the definitive proof that her thoughts had travelled along the right lines.