Death Deserved

by Thomas Enger

  Sara clambered out again. Blix took her hand and helped her up.

  ‘From whoever threw the phone in there?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably.’

  Kovic and Abelvik appeared out of the darkness.

  ‘A witness observed a man coming out of the graveyard around 7.30 p.m.,’ Kovic said. ‘That could be our suspect.’

  ‘There are a couple of journalists out there,’ Abelvik added. ‘Should I tell them to ring Fosse?’

  Blix shook his head. ‘Officially, at present, this has nothing to do with Nordstrøm,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to them. Say the usual – looking for witnesses – but tone it down a little. Then we’ll meet back at HQ in half an hour.’

  16

  The computer ran faster in the evening than during office hours.

  Blix tapped in the address for Worthy Winner. This time it was The Farmer who had left the house. Iselin was still there. It dawned on him, perhaps for the first time, that his daughter might in fact win the whole shebang. One million kroner. That would be quite a start to adult life.

  He glanced up. The investigators were assembling around a con­ference table in the middle of the open-plan office. The entire room was organised to facilitate day-to-day investigative tasks, but also equipped to allow major cases to be led from here. The walls were lined with whiteboards and a number of flat screen TVs. A digital clock showed the time as 22.43.

  Blix closed down the Worthy Winner website, got to his feet and brought his notes across to his usual place at the end of the table.

  ‘It’s been more than twenty-four hours since anyone heard any­thing from Sonja Nordstrøm,’ he began. ‘The local police on Hvaler have been out to inspect her cottage, and it looks to have been un­touched for a good while. There’s no activity on her credit cards. The data crime unit is trying to hack into her computer and email account. Ann-Mari Sara is working on her mobile phone, primarily with regard to DNA and fingerprints. It’s chock-a-block with calls and messages, but we need her pin code to access them.’

  Fosse stood at the other end of the table with a ring binder clutched to his chest. Blix assumed his boss would soon get on his soapbox.

  ‘We must try to find the junkie from the graveyard,’ he went on, looking ahead.

  ‘I’ve a few contacts in those circles,’ Wibe said. ‘They’re night birds, so I can get a move on with that as soon as we’re finished here.’

  ‘Great,’ Blix said.

  Fosse stepped forwards. ‘Has anyone read her book yet?’ he asked.

  Blix made eye contact with Kovic. He knew she’d made a start, but she didn’t say anything.

  ‘I have,’ Fosse went on. ‘Not from cover to cover, but I’ve read the most important points and skimmed through today’s newspaper coverage of it. There are quite a few people who might have good reason to want to get even with Sonja Nordstrøm.’

  He crossed to the whiteboard and grabbed a green marker pen. This was direct interference in Blix’s role, but he refrained from making any comment.

  The pen scraped across the board as Fosse wrote Cecilie Krogsæther in clumsy letters.

  ‘They were the worst of enemies while they were competitors,’ he said. ‘In the book, Nordstrøm alleges she took drugs.’

  ‘That skinny waif couldn’t possibly have done any harm to Nord­strøm,’ Wibe interjected.

  ‘No, but maybe someone who liked her and didn’t like Nordstrøm blackening her name is behind … whatever has happened.’

  ‘Not very many people knew the contents of the autobiography before it was published today,’ Kovic pointed out.

  ‘All the same,’ Fosse said firmly. ‘Krogsæther or people with con­nections to her have to be eliminated from the case. The same applies to Morten Forsmo.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Abelvik queried.

  ‘Sonja Nordstrøm’s long-term coach,’ Fosse said. ‘Even if it doesn’t say specifically that he’s the one who sexually assaulted her, it’s not difficult to work it out. Having such an allegation thrown into your face in public may well bring thoughts of revenge to the surface.’

  ‘But the same counter argument also applies,’ Kovic said. ‘How could he have known in advance that—’

  ‘He could have found out about it somehow,’ Fosse broke in. ‘Heard rumours, what do I know? The point is that he has to be ruled in or out of the case. He’s been struggling with money and alcohol prob­lems for a while too, according to what I just read in VG Nett,’ he went on, making a note of Forsmo’s name beneath that of Krogsæther.

  Blix disliked seeing Fosse at the whiteboard, full of self-importance as he delivered his lecture. The information he was spouting was banal, things they had already covered. He was simply stealing their time. But he was the boss.

  ‘And then there’s Arne Rakvåg,’ Fosse ploughed on. ‘Nordstrøm’s ex-husband. She criticises his drinking in the book, and discusses what many would probably call his lack of a sex drive.’

  ‘Good God, did she write about that too?’ Abelvik groaned.

  ‘Sex sells, you know,’ Fosse said, flinging out his arms demon­stratively, before consulting the notes in his ring binder. ‘Or it may be that someone in SNS Sportswear is trying to put some pressure on her.’

  He added SNS Sportswear below Rakvåg.

  ‘Rumours have been circulating for some time that Nordstrøm plans to sell her interest in the company. That would dramatically affect the share price, since Sonja Nordstrøm is SNS Sportswear.’

  ‘So people with shares will lose money,’ Abelvik commented.

  Fosse nodded.

  ‘Certain members of the finance industry have close ties with hit men,’ he went on. ‘There could be something along those lines going on here.’

  ‘Or else it may be as simple as someone wanting money from her,’ Kovic suggested. ‘They’ve abducted her and are trying to pressure her into paying for her freedom.’

  Fosse gave a patronising smile. ‘Then they would have taken her daughter instead,’ he said. ‘It’s not so easy for a kidnapped person to rustle up the money for their own ransom.’

  Fosse surveyed the assembled officers before approaching the table and laying down the pen, as if to underscore that he had said his piece. Then he left the room.

  Blix ran his hand through his hair, aware that all eyes were now on him.

  ‘Something else is going on here,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’ Abelvik asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But everything seems very stage-managed. Twenty-four hours after Sonja Nordstrøm disappears, her mobile phone is activated so that we find it – in an empty grave. If the motive lies with something in the book, it wouldn’t have been necessary to stage something like that.’

  Wibe nodded in agreement.

  ‘It’s meant to convey some kind of meaning,’ Blix concluded. ‘A message.’

  ‘Exactly what Ann-Mari Sara implied about the starting number at her house too,’ Kovic said.

  Silence reigned for a while until Wibe said with a sigh: ‘There’s some sick bastard running around, playing us for fools.’

  The same thought had occurred to Blix.

  17

  The recording of the previous day’s live show was made available online overnight. Blix spooled through it while he ate his breakfast, fast-forwarding to the part with Iselin and the 500-kroner note. The video was from CCTV cameras in a grocery store. The initial images were from diagonally above, as Iselin picked up a shopping basket and entered the store.

  A different camera angle showed how a 500-kroner note had been dropped just before Iselin turned into an aisle. She picked it up and looked around, but could see no one else in the vicinity. She walked on to the next row of shelves, where there were several customers, but she didn’t make contact with any of them. Instead she placed a couple of items in her basket and headed for the checkout.

  The faces of the shop assistant and the other customers were blurred out. The recording had no
sound, but Blix saw Iselin put her purchases on the conveyor belt as she said something to the young lad at the till and pointed further into the store before handing over the banknote. The boy took it, stashed it beside the till and then rang up her items. The recording ended with Iselin paying and leaving the store.

  Blix smiled with satisfaction. Back in the studio, Tore Berg Tol­lersrud turned to Iselin: ‘In retrospect, Iselin, are you sure you did the right thing?’

  She shifted position on the sofa before replying: ‘Well, at the time it felt like the right thing to do.’

  Tollersrud put his forefinger to his chin, as if considering whether or not her answer was acceptable.

  ‘Let’s see what happened afterwards.’

  The film clip restarted; the boy at the checkout served one cus­tomer, and then another, but as soon as he had a few minutes free, he looked around furtively, picked up the banknote and tucked it into his own pocket.

  Tollersrud reappeared. ‘What do you think, Iselin – are you still certain you did the right thing?’

  Iselin seemed to weigh this up. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can’t help it if the guy at the checkout was an idiot.’

  One of the other competitors laughed. Tollersrud smiled.

  ‘What about the rest of you?’ he went on. ‘Do you think Iselin dealt with it well?’

  When none of them held up a hand, the presenter challenged the guy at the end of the sofa, who sat leaning forwards with a confident smirk on his face.

  ‘I think it was both right and wrong,’ he said. The strapline at the foot of the screen stated that he was Toralf Schanke, thirty-one years of age and a joiner.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Right, because you shouldn’t take someone else’s property. Wrong, because it passed on the dilemma to another person instead.’

  Blix left the film clip and clicked on to Iselin’s profile. He read some of the comments she had received from viewers the previous evening. The online bullies filled him with anger. Writing such nasty things about Iselin without even knowing her. He wanted to find them, one by one, and take them to task.

  Blix moved on to a live image of his daughter lying asleep beneath a sky-blue quilt. Her left foot jutted out, and the pale sheet was crumpled, as if she’d had a restless night.

  He watched her for a few more moments, and his thoughts strayed to Emma. Wondering if he should say something to her, he decided it might be best to let things lie.

  18

  Emma skipped up the stairs to the open-plan office with huge screens and clean, white surfaces. Several other bloggers were in situ, but Emma didn’t feel much like conversation so early in the morning and contented herself with nodding to one or two of them.

  Emma could barely count on one hand how many times she’d ac­tually been on the news.no premises, but today there was no way to avoid it. Anita had called her in for a meeting.

  She found her boss at the coffee machine.

  ‘Excellent effort yesterday,’ Anita said as she poured herself a cup. ‘Now we just have to give it even more gas.’

  A fleeting smile before she inquired, with a look, whether Emma would like a cup too. She shook her head.

  ‘Let’s go in to see Henrik, then.’

  Anita gestured with her head to the nearby conference room, where a man sat waiting for them, totally engrossed in his mobile phone. Henrik Wollan was the crime journalist at news.no. Emma had studied for her journalism degree with him, and they had started at news.no around the same time.

  ‘I wanted to bring you two together here because Sonja Nord­strøm’s disappearance has turned into a criminal case,’ Anita said. ‘And because I’m keen for Emma to go on covering it.’ She sipped at her coffee.

  Wollan leaned forwards across the table and said: ‘With all due respect, Anita, Emma has zero experience of covering crime stories. Isn’t it better if she continues to write about her celebrities—?’

  ‘No,’ Anita interrupted, looking up at them both. ‘Emma can con­tribute a different perspective precisely because she hasn’t covered crime stories before. And after all, she was the one who broke the story. I want the two of you to cooperate.’ She repeated the word with emphasis on each individual syllable: ‘Co-op-er-ate. Anyway, Sonja Nordstrøm is a celebrity.’

  Emma felt herself grow in stature, even though she didn’t relish the thought of having to share information with a self-righteous guy like Wollan. Ever since their student days he had held his own abil­ities in high esteem, and every time he published a new blog with a touch of news interest, the article was plastered all over social media, usually accompanied by poorly disguised braggadocio. Emma had never completely understood why Anita had employed him, apart from that he was tabloid right to his fingertips.

  ‘Now,’ Anita said. ‘Let me hear your thoughts on this story and how we should cover it.’

  19

  Blix helped himself to his morning cup of coffee and then sat down and fired up his computer. No new instructions had been left for him or messages regarding the Nordstrøm case, which was still officially coded as Missing woman over eighteen years old.

  Kovic appeared beside him. ‘I’ve received the list of calls from her phone,’ she said, dropping into her chair. Her fingers raced across the keyboard as she logged on to her computer, opened her email program and a file attachment from Telenor’s contact centre.

  Blix rolled his chair towards her. The large Excel file contained raw data that could have done with some formatting to make it clearer, but he was quickly able to make sense of the columns and rows of telecoms traffic.

  Kovic removed the data use and they were left with an overview of in­coming and outgoing calls and messages. Then she drew a red line to make a division between before and after Sonja Nordstrøm disappeared.

  On Sunday, 7th October at 21.54, she had received a text message, and after that things had gone remarkably quiet for nearly twenty-four hours – until the phone was switched on and turned up in the Gamlebyen Graveyard.

  ‘Who is it?’ Blix asked and pointed at the final text message.

  Kovic looked up the number: Amund Zimmer, Soleane Publish­ing House.

  ‘Her publisher,’ Blix commented. ‘The time corresponds roughly with what he said himself when we interviewed him.’

  Below the red line there was a long list of incoming text messages, all registered in the first minute after 20.00 hours, when the phone was turned on. There were also individual calls, but no length of con­versation was recorded. These had probably been diverted to voicemail after ringing out.

  One phone number stood out. It had a foreign prefix: +45 – Denmark. The columns for time and date showed that this was the number that had called when they’d found the phone in the grave.

  Blix put his finger on the computer screen. ‘Can you find the owner?’ he asked.

  Kovic opened a Danish net page for tracing individuals. The number produced no hits. She tried a couple of other similar online sites, but the searches were fruitless.

  ‘Unlisted number,’ she said. ‘I can send a request to the Danish police for help to identify it, but that could take time. We might have to complete an official application.’

  Blix nodded. Electronic tracking was an excellent tool, but unear­thing information was often a complicated process.

  ‘Do that,’ he said, trundling his seat back to his own desk.

  20

  Even though Emma had to work with Wollan, it didn’t mean she had to sit beside him. Once the meeting was over, she took her bike to Kalle’s Choice and was soon ensconced at her regular table.

  With a tall, hot latté before her, she noticed with pleasure that a number of overseas Internet pages had referred to the first story she had written about Sonja Nordstrøm’s possible kidnap. She’d never experienced that before. Even though it was gratifying, at the same time she felt she didn’t really deserve it. She wouldn’t have had a story at all without the hints Alex Blix had given her – and when
Emma phoned Gard Fosse’s direct number, he couldn’t exclude the possi­bility that Nordstrøm had been kidnapped. It was enough for Emma to make a headline.

  She drank down the sweet coffee, musing on Blix. There was some­thing about him she could not put into words. A kind of shyness about his manner. Something that whetted her curiosity.

  She used her tongue to remove some milky foam from her upper lip, and logged into a media archive she subscribed to. Tapping his name in, she used the various search tools to exclude everything to do with Sonja Nordstrøm, hoping to discover what other cases Blix had worked on lately. The most recent result was a story published on Aftenposten’s online pages late the previous evening: ‘Witnesses Sought after Attack in Graveyard’.

  She clicked on the article and found a photo of Blix, taken in front of the entrance to Gamlebyen Graveyard. A caretaker had been at­tacked at around 8.00 p.m., and the police were looking for witnesses. It didn’t say much more, other than that the entire graveyard had been cordoned off while police examined the scene. Another pho­tograph showed three patrol cars and a total of seven uniformed police officers. The accompanying caption emphasised that this had been a major police call-out.

  Emma raised her eyes from the screen for a few seconds. Blix led the investigation into the Nordstrøm case, which was in its initial stages, and according to Gard Fosse had top priority. That didn’t chime with Blix being sent out to cover an assault case. Emma packed up her belongings and abandoned her half-empty coffee cup.

  Her bike ride from west to east Oslo made her cheeks sting with cold. The graveyard was quiet. She dismounted and wheeled her bike along the paths, scanning the gravestones as she passed. There were a couple of other people in the cemetery, visiting to remember their loved ones, she presumed, and she felt a stab of conscience. It was a while since she had visited her parents’ graves. They were in different graveyards, which made them awkward to visit. Fortunately, her mother had been laid to rest in the same one as her grandfather, Olav, but even so it was a long time since Emma had tended their graves.