Death Deserved

by Thomas Enger

  ‘It’s like a war zone here,’ Wollan continued, and then provided an animated description of large-scale activity, with police dogs, patrol cars and helicopters in the air. Wollan reckoned there were at least twenty-five uniformed officers in the neighbourhood.

  ‘We’ll publish the name as soon as we know that the family have been informed,’ Anita instructed.

  ‘I’ll keep you posted,’ Wollan said.

  With that, the conversation ended.

  Emma took out her own phone. She didn’t know where Blix was, but assumed he was being kept in the loop.

  Hans Fredrik Hansteen = number 3? she wrote in a text message.

  While she waited for an answer, she embarked on an article in which she recounted Hansteen’s purported role in the perpetrator’s project. But how did this fit into the bigger picture? she thought. Sonja Nordstrøm had not turned up or been found as yet, but Emma was certain the athletics star who had written an autobiography called Forever Number One, was indeed number one in Dahlmann’s countdown. Which meant he planned another victim before that.

  Her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. Blix’s name flashed at her.

  ‘Is it the pastor?’ she asked, without even saying hello. ‘Is he number three?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Blix. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t call you right away. But you don’t need to worry anymore.’

  ‘Have his next of kin been notified?’

  ‘They have, yes,’ he said. ‘We’re going to issue a public bulletin stating that Dahlmann is a wanted man sometime this afternoon.’

  ‘We?’ she repeated. ‘Does that mean you’re back on the case?’

  ‘Yes, but Fosse’s still the one who’ll make the statement,’ he said. ‘He’s taken me back on sufferance.’

  ‘Do you have any theories about who’ll be the next victim?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Opening the folder in which she’d collected references to Mona Kleven, Emma explained how she’d found her name.

  ‘The woman with nine lives?’ Blix asked.

  ‘She died last Friday,’ Emma told him. ‘Fell in front of a subway train. It was reported as an accident.’

  At the other end she heard someone shout for Blix.

  ‘I’ll look into it,’ he said. ‘I have to run.’

  59

  Blix had his eyes fixed on the computer screen. Iselin was sitting beside Toralf Schanke, the joiner from Tinn. The distance between them on the sofa had diminished each time he had seen them together. He didn’t have the sound on, but their conversation seemed carefree. Even cheerful.

  ‘Great to have you back,’ Kovic announced as she flopped on to the chair beside him. ‘I’m glad Fosse came to his senses.’

  Blix clicked on another window and responded with a brief nod.

  ‘You’ll have to bring me up to speed,’ he said. ‘What else is new, apart from the dead pastor?’

  Kovic produced two reports from the pile of papers on her desk and handed them to him. ‘Calle Seeberg was poisoned, and Jeppe Sørensen was strangled,’ she told him.

  Blix skimmed through the first post-mortem report: the Danish footballer’s air passages had been blocked when a millimetre-thick cord tightened around his neck. The images illustrated the conclusion.

  Blix turned to the report on Seeberg.

  ‘That’s possibly the more interesting one,’ Kovic commented.

  Blix read the description of how traces of digoxin had been found in the radio host’s blood.

  ‘Digoxin is a medication for heart patients,’ Kovic informed him. ‘Seeberg didn’t have heart trouble, but he did take Aerius, an antihistamine for allergy sufferers. Digoxin is easy to confuse with Aerius,’ Kovic said. ‘Digoxin tablets were found in the plastic bottle that contained Seeberg’s allergy pills.’

  Blix glanced at a photo of a clump of hair sitting beneath the shoe rack in the hallway of Seeberg’s home. According to Sara’s report, the hair came from an Alsatian dog.

  ‘So someone swapped his medicine and planted dog hairs to trigger an allergic reaction?’

  ‘It all points to that,’ Kovic said. ‘It doesn’t take much for the dose to be fatal.’

  Bloody hell, Blix thought. So Seeberg, entirely unwittingly, had taken the poison that had killed him.

  ‘What about Sonja Nordstrøm? Any news of her?’

  Kovic shook her head. ‘Nothing, except that everyone she vilifies in her book has been eliminated from our inquiries.’

  Blix flicked through the forensic papers on Calle Seeberg one more time. ‘So unnecessary,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Dahlmann could just have shot him, couldn’t he? Or attacked him in an underground car park, the same as the football player. The same applies to Nordstrøm. He’d no need to abduct her. He could just have shot her at the appointed time.’ Blix waved the papers in the air. ‘This is innovative.’

  ‘It must be part of his plan,’ Kovic said. ‘To exercise control and attract attention. Demonstrate how brilliant he is.’

  Blix nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘What do we actually have on Dahlmann?’ he asked. ‘Is he really capable of devising and implementing such a plan?’

  He looked up from the papers though he didn’t really expect an answer. Wibe was heading towards them.

  ‘That didn’t help much,’ he said, flinging down a bundle of photographs. The picture of Dahlmann slid out and sailed across the desk.

  Wibe had hauled Geir Abrahamsen in for a photo line-up to see if he could identify Dahlmann as the man who had paid him to drop Sonja Nordstrøm’s phone in Gamlebyen Graveyard.

  ‘He couldn’t pick him out.’

  ‘That’s no surprise,’ Kovic said. ‘He could barely describe the man he met.’

  Fosse appeared behind Wibe and clapped his hands to catch everyone’s attention. The investigators gathered around him.

  ‘We’ve just issued a wanted notice for Walter Georg Dahlmann,’ he told them, ‘in the hope that Dahlmann’s friends and acquaintances will come forward and tell us where he’s hiding.’ He made eye contact with each of them, one by one. ‘In addition, it’s important that people take their own precautions,’ he added.

  He then handed over to the leader of the uniformed section, who gave an account of the various security measures implemented in the TV 2 offices in Oslo and Bergen, among other places.

  ‘So, we know who the killer is,’ Fosse went on. ‘It’s just a matter of finding him. Until that happens, all holidays, leave and time off are withdrawn.’

  With that, Fosse left the room. Once he was gone, Tine Abelvik approached Blix’s desk.

  ‘I don’t understand how it’s possible for Dahlmann to keep escaping the way he does,’ she said.

  ‘I’m actually not convinced Dahlmann’s the person we’re looking for,’ Blix told her, aware all eyes were now directed at him.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Wibe asked.

  ‘I’m not sure he’s the man I saw making his way from Hansteen’s property.’

  He turned to face Kovic. ‘Can you dig out the CCTV footage taken at the Stortinget subway station after Ragnar Ole Theodorsen’s murder, and the pictures of Dahlmann in the Radio 4 building that same day?’ he asked.

  Kovic located these and displayed the images side by side on the screen.

  ‘Look at the figure on the left,’ Blix said, pointing at the picture taken at the subway station. ‘There we have a man wearing a cap with a hood drawn over his head – so we can’t see his face, obviously. He doesn’t look up in any of the pictures we have of him inside the subway station. Not a single time. Which makes it impossible for us to ascertain, with one hundred per cent certainty, that this is Walter Georg Dahlmann.’

  Blix looked at the others before gesturing towards the next image.

  ‘Look at the difference,’ he said. ‘In this photo, taken in the Radio 4 building, we see someone making no attempt to hide his identity. The same is
true at the press conference the day after Jeppe Sørensen’s body was found.’

  ‘That could be because he hadn’t committed any crime on those occasions,’ Wibe suggested. ‘It’s a different kettle of fish when you’ve just killed someone. At the press conference, all he was doing was leaving a mobile phone, and at Radio 4 he was delivering a photo.’

  Blix placed his finger on the Radio 4 picture. ‘That photo was taken only a few hours after Theodorsen was shot. Does this look like a man on the run?’

  The chair rocked as Kovic leant back in it. ‘Do you mean there are two of them involved?’ she asked, her voice filled with doubt.

  ‘We can’t rule that out,’ Blix said. ‘It would explain why Geir Abrahamsen couldn’t pick out his picture in the photo line-up. And why didn’t Dahlmann just drop the phone into the grave himself, since he obviously doesn’t have a problem with walking into a press conference the next day and doing something fairly similar?’

  Blix allowed his argument to sink in.

  ‘From the very beginning I’ve had the feeling that someone is coordinating all this. Deciding exactly when the various pieces of the jigsaw are presented to us,’ he went on. ‘Whether it’s a phone, a dead body, a song or a drawing, there’s someone in complete control.’

  ‘So, someone gave Geir Abrahamsen instructions and paid him for his trouble? And they’re doing the same with Walter Georg Dahlmann?’ Kovic suggested.

  ‘It’s an idea I think we should bear in mind,’ Blix said, then looked at Wibe. ‘You were the one who thought the perpetrator was playing a complex game with us. Wouldn’t you say that it simply makes it too easy for us that Dahlmann, all of a sudden, makes an appointment with a famous pastor and then more or less confesses in a drawing he pushes through a crack in Emma Ramm’s door? If it’s Dahlmann who’s doing all this, then it almost seems as if he wants us to nab him.’

  ‘At any rate, Dahlmann’s the key to it all,’ Abelvik said. ‘If he’s going along with something, he can tell us who he’s in cahoots with.’

  There was silence for a few seconds.

  ‘We know Dahlmann’s not at home,’ Wibe said. ‘We know he doesn’t use a credit card, mobile phone or email – or at least he hasn’t in the past few days. Since he showed himself at Radio 4, he’s gone to ground.’

  ‘Someone knows something,’ Abelvik insisted. ‘We’ll talk to everyone he served time with and everyone who visited him in prison. It’s only a matter of time before we get something more on him.’

  Kovic’s computer emitted a message alert. She sat up slightly, studying the text in front of her, and then opened one of the files attached before peering more closely at it.

  ‘I’ve asked an analyst I worked with in Majorstua to take a look at the toll stations,’ she explained. ‘She’s searched for vehicles used in the vicinity of the various crime scenes. It looks as if there’s a match: a car that passed a toll booth close to Sonja Nordstrøm’s house on Sunday evening also passed the toll station near Kråkerøy the following night.’

  She looked up. ‘Kråkerøy is just beside Hvaler, where Jeppe Sørensen was found,’ she added.

  ‘Whose car is it?’ Wibe asked. ‘Who was driving?’

  ‘There are no images taken at the toll booth,’ Kovic replied, squinting at the screen. ‘But it seems the car, an Audi, belongs to a man called Thor Willy Opsahl.’

  Once again silence fell.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ Wibe demanded.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Kovic said. ‘But he lives in Holmenkollen. I suggest we pay him a visit ASAP.’

  60

  Usually Emma walked or cycled everywhere in Oslo, no matter what time of day or night, but this evening she took a taxi home and asked the driver to wait until she’d let herself in.

  Once inside her flat, she made sure she was alone, and only then did she manage to relax and breathe normally again. When she finally sat down on the sofa, with her laptop on her knee, she was furious at herself for allowing fear to take such a grip on her.

  What was it she’d actually been so afraid of?

  Dahlmann, of course. That he still had some kind of plan for her. But when she tried to examine this rationally, she could find no reason for him to do so. He had used her to sound a warning about Pastor Hansteen. Why should she be of any importance to him after that?

  Dahlmann’s face looked out at her from every web page. Speculation was rife in the comments sections and on social media. The hash tag #whowillbenumbertwo had begun to trend.

  A message alert sounded on her phone. She hoped it was Blix, but instead it was Kasper asking if she’d like to accompany him to the cinema.

  So far it had been easy to fend off his advances, and her job had demanded all her attention in recent days. And right now there were also some very good reasons why she was reluctant to venture outside.

  When they’d met in Gothenburg, they had chatted about work, primarily hers. Kasper couldn’t stand celebrities, especially ones who could scarcely sing but became famous and filthy rich regardless, because they had a professional PR machine around them. Worst of all were the ones whose only achievement was an appearance on a reality programme and who subsequently milked their fifteen minutes of fame for all it was worth.

  At first she’d thought Kasper was merely trying to provoke her. At any rate, he had wondered why she wrote about these people, and why it was so important for the public to know the most intimate details of a well-known person’s life. ‘Maybe because people like to dream,’ Emma had answered. ‘Maybe they yearn for a different life. Maybe they dream of being celebrities themselves.’

  ‘I’d prefer to live in a world free from celebrities,’ was Kasper’s response. ‘People are not worth more just because they’re famous or good at playing football.’

  These thoughts drew her back to the case and to Jeppe Sørensen. She glanced at the wall where she’d hung up pictures of the dead celebrities. The Danish footballer stood out in the row of victims, quite simply because he was Danish. All the others were Norwegian.

  Why had Dahlmann gone to Denmark to find one of his victims? Surely he could have homed in on a well-known Norwegian number seven player. Emma wondered whether to discuss the question with Kasper, but let it be. She put down her phone without answering, and instead looked up Wollan’s big story on Dahlmann in the news.no archives. The article was comprehensive, and – Emma reluctantly had to admit – well written. Wollan had really gone into depth, and had explained why Dahlmann – yet again – had requested a retrial. It was obvious Dahlmann was someone who interested Wollan, but Emma could not spot any reference to Denmark in the piece, or to any of the other victims.

  She was about to close down her computer when an email notification appeared at the top right-hand corner of the screen. The subject heading was ‘Sonja Nordstrøm RIP?’, which encouraged Emma to click on the email. The sender was countdown@countdown.com.

  Dahlmann, she thought, feeling her pulse start to race. He must be making contact again.

  There was no text in the email, only a link – and a picture.

  She clicked first on the image, fearing the worst – that this time it would be a photo of Nordstrøm, dead.

  It took only a couple of seconds for the file to open. Initially Emma was unsure what she was looking at. The image was grainy and poorly lit; it reminded her of a screen grab. Then details began to emerge.

  It was someone in a nightgown, sitting with their feet tucked up beneath their body. The feet were slender, dirty. Female. The fingers, also filthy, were folded in front of her legs – as if to keep hold of them. It was impossible to make out the woman’s face, because her head was bowed. As if she were praying, or sobbing.

  Or dead.

  Emma was reluctant to click on the link, but couldn’t resist doing so. An Internet window opened up. It took many long seconds for the page to download, centimetre by centimetre. Emma gripped her laptop tightly.

  Black screen.

  Then …
a digital clock in the top right-hand corner. The seconds were ticking. Emma looked at her own watch. The clock on the screen was showing the actual time.

  Then a light came on.

  That was when Emma realised she was looking at a live image.

  From a real place, a real room.

  And as the contours of the place became clearer, she got to her feet, took a step back and clasped a hand to her mouth.

  61

  Blix glanced up at the green light as they passed the toll station on the ring road near Ullevål stadium.

  ‘Is this one of the ones he clocked in at?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Kovic replied at his side and peered down at her papers. ‘His car was first recorded at Sandstuveien, not far from Sonja Nordstrøm’s address. Time: twenty-two forty-seven. Then he passed through here a quarter of an hour later. The next day, that is Monday night, he passed the toll booth we’ve just driven through, at one oh five – before he was tracked on the E6 on the other side of the city seventeen minutes later. And then he was at Kråkerøy almost exactly an hour later.’

  She thumbed through the pages. ‘It takes no more than twenty to twenty-five minutes to drive on out to Hvaler, where Nordstrøm has a summer cottage, in the middle of the night at least. Then he takes the same route back again towards the city around one hour and twenty minutes later.’

  ‘More than enough time to dump Jeppe Sørensen in Nordstrøm’s boat and make his way back.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Kovic’s phone rang, and she put an earphone in her ear and answered. All she said was ‘yes’ and ‘no’ while taking notes. Blix manoeuvred speedily through the traffic.

  ‘OK, thanks very much.’ Kovic pressed a button on the dangling hands-free set. ‘Thor Willy Opsahl is forty-two,’ she told him, looking down at her notes. ‘Originally from Asker. No family. Clean sheet, apart from six points on his driving licence.’

  ‘Any connection to Dahlmann?’ Blix asked.

  ‘No, but it’s possible this is about something else,’ Kovic replied hesitantly. ‘Thor Willy Opsahl is better known by the name Viking Willy.’