by Thomas Enger
Blix turned off from Sørkedalsveien and accelerated up Holmenkollveien, checking all the while in his mirror that Wibe and Abelvik were directly behind them.
‘He won a hundred and eighty-four million kroner in the Viking lottery last year,’ Kovic continued. ‘He was the only ticket holder with six correct numbers.’
Blix remembered the newspaper reports. Usually lottery millionaires tried to remain anonymous, but Opsahl had not shunned publicity.
‘It’s over there,’ Kovic told him, indicating the direction.
Blix turned into a one-way street flanked by old houses with extensive gardens. Opsahl’s villa was situated almost at the very end of the cul-de-sac. Painted white, it had a black tiled roof that glinted in the lights from the neighbouring houses. A garage as large as a normal house had been built beside it, with a silver Audi Q8 parked outside. Blix pointed at the registration number, a personalised number plate with a specially chosen combination of letters and numbers.
‘AFTER 8,’ he read aloud. ‘Does that match the lists from the toll company?’
‘It’s automatically converted to the ordinary registration number on the list,’ Kovic explained, but she then stopped abruptly, as if something important had suddenly occurred to her. ‘Eight was the decisive number when he won,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘Six other people had exactly the same numbers, minus the eight. So that was the number that made him wealthy. I remember it now.’
They stepped out of the car and peered up at the house. An exterior lamp lit up the façade around the entrance.
‘He refused to share the jackpot with anyone,’ Kovic said. ‘One or two newspapers dubbed him the greedy bastard of the year.’
Blix’s phone rang. He saw it was Emma calling, but he had no time to speak to her now.
‘Number eight,’ he said as he approached the Audi.
Wibe and Abelvik had now parked and were already beside him. Wibe switched on a flashlight and directed the beam in through the side window.
A copy of Forever Number One lay on the driving seat.
‘Get hold of Ann-Mari Sara,’ Blix said, glancing up at the house again. ‘This is a crime scene.’
Wibe skirted around the car, shining the flashlight inside. ‘It’s empty,’ he said. ‘But there’s something on the seat beside the book.’
‘Is it locked?’ Kovic asked.
Blix produced a pair of disposable gloves before touching the driver’s door. It opened easily.
‘It’s a garage door opener,’ he said, picking up the tiny remote control from the seat.
He looked at the others before pointing it at the garage door and pressing the button. Slowly the garage door began to slide open. The light inside came on automatically.
Thor Willy Opsahl was hanging from one of the beams on the ceiling in the middle of the garage. His feet only just touched the floor. There was nothing nearby he could have climbed on to manage this by himself. Suicide was out of the question.
The four detectives hovered outside the open door.
‘How long do you think he’s been hanging there?’ Blix asked, staring at the blue-black face.
‘More than a week,’ Wibe reckoned. ‘The body’s about to detach from the head.’
Blix nodded. More than a week placed the homicide chronologically prior to the murder of the Danish footballer.
‘His car was last used early on Tuesday morning,’ Kovic pointed out. ‘At any rate, it’s not recorded at any toll station after that.’
‘Dahlmann must have been driving around in it,’ Wibe said. ‘While Viking Willy’s been hanging in the garage.’
‘So he’s been strung up here for more than a week, and no one’s missed him?’ Abelvik asked.
‘He had no job or family,’ Kovic explained. ‘No one who would miss him.’
‘It’s so fucking devious,’ Wibe said. ‘Calculated and cunning.’
Blix nodded, but this description did not fit the Dahlmann he knew, which only reinforced his suspicion that Dahlmann, too, was a pawn in this game.
His phone rang again. It was Emma, for the second time.
‘I have to take this,’ he said brusquely and drew back slightly.
The others stood talking among themselves. When Blix was sure no one could overhear him, he answered the call.
‘She’s alive!’ Emma shouted.
‘Alive?’
‘Sonja Nordstrøm,’ Emma clarified. Her voice was shaking at the other end. ‘I’ve received an email with a link to a web camera that shows live footage. I’m sitting here watching her right now!’
‘What the hell are you telling me?’ He couldn’t help raising his voice, and he saw Kovic look over.
‘She’s alive, Blix. Sonja Nordstrøm.’
Blix shifted the phone to his other ear. ‘Describe what you can see.’
‘She’s sitting on the floor,’ Emma told him. ‘A concrete floor, I think – it’s not easy to make it out. She’s in a small room. It looks like a dungeon or a cell or … I don’t really know. In any case, she’s alive.’
‘What’s she doing?’ Blix asked.
‘Nothing,’ Emma replied. ‘She’s just sitting there. There’s a plate of food on the floor. Slices of bread. She’s only eaten half of one.’
Blix used his free hand to rub his face. He watched Kovic approach with a quizzical look on her face.
‘That email you received – does it say it’s from Dahlmann?’
‘No, it’s not signed … but … wait a minute.’
‘Wait for what?’
‘Just … wait a minute. I’ve got another email from the same sender.’
‘What? What does it say?’
Emma did not answer immediately.
‘Who…?’
‘My computer screen’s frozen,’ she said. ‘It’s running a bit slow.’
Blix waited. And waited.
‘Oh bloody hell,’ Emma said. ‘This is just not happening.’
‘What is it?’
He heard Emma take a deep breath. Then she said: ‘He says that I have to publish the link on news.no. And that I must do it before twelve noon tomorrow, Saturday. If not…’
‘If not what?’
‘If not, Sonja Nordstrøm will die.’
62
Sonja Nordstrøm was still seated on the floor. She made a slight movement with her head, and ran a hand slowly over her knee.
Emma checked the time and stood up. Eight minutes had gone by since she’d phoned Blix. Her heart felt like a drum beneath her sweater. She could only imagine what it must be like for Nordstrøm.
Blix arrived just after eleven. He was accompanied by the same investigator who’d been here the previous evening – Kovic. Emma had first met her outside Nordstrøm’s house in Ekeberg.
‘Let’s see it,’ Blix said, marching in without taking off his shoes. Emma showed them into the kitchen where her computer was still on the worktop. The live images were in full screen mode.
‘Shit,’ Sofia Kovic said, craning forwards towards the worktop. ‘She really is alive.’
Blix merely stared wordlessly at the screen.
‘Show me the emails,’ he said. Emma squeezed between the two investigators and selected the email program.
‘He didn’t sign the second email either,’ Emma told them, making space so that Blix could operate the machine. ‘But there’s no doubt it’s from Dahlmann, surely?’
Kovic glanced at Blix, who gave no answer.
‘What shall we do?’ Emma asked.
‘I’ve called for the top IT folk,’ Blix said. ‘We’ll have to take the computer with us to the police station and examine it there. See if we can manage to trace where this was sent from.’
‘I didn’t mean with the computer,’ Emma interjected. ‘With Nordstrøm. We’ll have to do as he says, won’t we? We can’t risk anything happening to her, now we have proof she’s alive?’
When Blix did not give an immediate response, she went on: ‘Well – if
it gets out that we didn’t bother following his instructions, and then that leads to her murder…’
‘What if he kills her anyway?’ Blix interrupted her. ‘On live video. With everyone watching. We can’t let him do that either.’
Emma had no good answer to that.
‘What I can’t fathom is why he doesn’t just broadcast the link himself,’ Kovic said. ‘Use a comments section on a blog or something like that. You can remain anonymous there too.’
‘He’s making us share responsibility,’ Blix said. ‘And landing us in a hell of a predicament at the same time. If we publish, we’re giving in to a terrorist, and we have no guarantee whatsoever that he won’t kill her anyway or come up with further demands. And if we don’t do as he says, Nordstrøm dies.’
‘Terrorist?’ Kovic repeated.
‘Yes, that’s exactly what he is, don’t you think? He’s stirring up fear. Throughout the city. Across the entire country.’
‘And it’s policy never to accede to terrorists,’ Emma said.
Blix crossed to Emma’s kitchen sink and turned on the tap. He rinsed his hands and rubbed them quickly over his face while they were still wet. He shut off the tap with a little too much force.
‘This is his finale,’ he said. ‘It all kicked off with Nordstrøm, and it’s going to end with Nordstrøm. The circle will be closed. That’s the master plan.’ He pivoted towards them. ‘And he wants everyone to watch.’
‘Then … he must have taken number two already?’ Kovic speculated. ‘Since he’s ready to kill Nordstrøm as soon as twelve noon tomorrow?’
‘Maybe,’ Blix said. ‘Or else it’s imminent. Or maybe it doesn’t matter to the killer anymore what order the bodies are found in, now that the countdown plan has been revealed.’
Emma saw from his demeanour that something else had happened.
‘Have you looked into Mona Kleven’s death, then?’ she asked. ‘Number nine?’
Blix looked at Kovic.
‘The woman with nine lives,’ he clarified. ‘There’s no CCTV at the subway station where she died, but a great deal to suggest she did not jump or fall.’
Emma absorbed this information.
‘We found number eight instead,’ Blix went on. ‘Just before you called.’
Kovic looked as if something was on the tip of her tongue, but she kept it to herself.
‘Who was it?’ Emma asked.
In two short sentences, Blix explained before heading for the door.
‘But now it’s a matter of finding out how we can save Sonja Nordstrøm’s life,’ he said.
63
Blix stood by the window, looking down at the entrance. A man carrying a bag in each hand was on his way out.
‘He uses Tor.’
Blix turned around. Øyvind Krohn sat hunched over Emma’s laptop, which was linked to one of Krohn’s own computers. Blix was unable to follow the numbers, columns and letters flickering on the screen.
‘Who or what is Tor?’ asked Emma.
Krohn flashed a smile. ‘It’s a browser people use when they want to remain anonymous on the Internet,’ he said. ‘You just download the Tor program and install it on your computer; it has a pre-uploaded browser. Then you use Tor instead of Chrome or Firefox or whatever you normally use. So when you open a new window, your IP address is concealed.’
Krohn turned his head ever so slightly to make sure everyone in the room was following this. ‘In fact, Tor was originally developed by the American navy,’ he added. ‘Edward Snowden published everything he’d collected via Tor.’
‘But how does it really work?’ said Emma.
Krohn turned to face the computers and continued his work. ‘The Tor network hides your identity by moving your Internet traffic over a number of Tor servers, which are actually computers belonging to other people. In addition Tor encrypts and re-encrypts the Tor traffic, something an ordinary Internet connection cannot do.’
‘Layer upon layer of packaging,’ Emma said.
‘Correct. In the end these thoroughly encrypted packages of data are sent out at random via the various servers. For us, that’s only one problem.’
‘What’s the other?’ Blix demanded.
‘That it’s a Me2b video. It’s almost the same as YouTube. The same set-up anyway.’
Kovic was standing beside Blix. ‘What does that mean?’ she asked impatiently.
‘It means that it’s going to take time to find out which computer the feed is run from. Another thing is the encrypted labyrinth we have to negotiate our way through. Me2b is just as obsessed with privacy protection as YouTube and Facebook and all the other big companies. We can’t hack in to find out by ourselves. We have to talk to someone at Me2b and get them to find the stream’s original IP for us.’
Krohn looked at the time.
‘It’s the middle of the night in Norway and evening in the USA, so it certainly won’t be easy. People have left work. Plus they’re miserly about personal security.’
‘Even though we’re talking about saving a life?’ Kovic asked.
‘Personal privacy is personal privacy,’ Krohn told her. ‘We have the same discussions here in Norway. Where do we set the limit on the information we can extract about people’s computer use without their knowledge?’
‘When they do something criminal,’ Kovic insisted.
‘You won’t get any opposition from me on that point,’ Krohn said. ‘But it’s obvious that others won’t be so—’
‘Let’s concentrate on this right now,’ Blix broke in. ‘We don’t have many hours left. Are you saying there’s nothing you can do to find out where this feed comes from?’
Krohn stopped tapping the keys. He whirled his seat around and looked up at Blix, Kovic and Emma.
‘We have a few things we can have a crack at, of course. But it won’t be done in a flash, and we probably can’t do very much without help from the USA. But I have a channel into Me2b I can try. I just hope I can get hold of her.’
Blix looked at his watch. Less than eleven hours to go until the deadline expired.
‘But can’t just anyone access this feed, since it’s been put out on Me2b?’ he asked.
‘It’s a so-called unlisted link, and the person who uploaded it has invited only one user. An email address.’ He turned towards Emma. ‘Yours.’
Blix ruminated for a few seconds.
‘So the link can only be followed up if you’re logged on as Emma?’
‘Yes,’ Krohn answered. ‘But we can send on the link if we choose to post it.’
Blix nodded and said: ‘OK. We’ll stay here all night. Give us a shout if you find out anything.’
64
Before they had arrived at the police station, Blix had called both Gard Fosse and Pia Nøkleby to explain the situation. They had both come in straight away.
Fosse’s eyes opened wide when he saw that Emma was also present. Blix had left her at his desk for the moment.
Blix dashed towards his boss to prevent a public argument.
‘What the fuck are you up to?’ Fosse whispered.
‘Dahlmann,’ Blix began, also sotto voce, ‘or whoever it is who’s running the show here, has used Emma twice to pass on vital information. Either he has a bigger plan for her, something that makes it natural for us to want to look after her, or else there’s a possibility he’ll contact her again. In either case she’s essential to the progress of the investigation.’
Fosse ran his hand over his head, with a sigh.
‘This has nothing to do with Teisen,’ Blix said. ‘You know that yourself.’
The superintendent put his hands by his side. Deep in thought for a few seconds.
‘OK. But she can’t sit here listening to everything we say. You’ll have to find somewhere else for her.’
Blix accepted this. And when he installed her on the sofa in a spare office she made no protest.
‘Try to get some sleep,’ he suggested.
Emma shook her head a
nd produced a tablet from her bag. ‘I need to hand in an article,’ she said.
‘You can’t write about this,’ Blix objected.
Emma gave him an indulgent look. ‘I do know that,’ she replied. ‘But I have to put out something about Viking Willy and that you’re looking into Mona Kleven’s death. Number eight and number nine.’
Blix surveyed the room. ‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘But there’s no need to inform your readers you’re working from inside the police station.’
He closed the door behind him and returned to the others. Fosse had taken a seat at the head of the conference table.
‘The chief of police has called in the top brass for a crisis meeting,’ he announced. ‘I’m seeing him and the public prosecutor in fifteen minutes. They want our advice. What do you all think? What action should we take?’
‘Go live with the link,’ Abelvik suggested. ‘Enough people have died in the last few days. We don’t need another death on our consciences.’
‘It won’t be on our consciences, though,’ Wibe said. ‘We’re not the ones who’ll be killing her. It’s not our fault, either, that we have a crazy murderer on the loose here in the city.’
‘A lot of people would disagree with that,’ Abelvik protested. ‘It’s our job to stop people like him, and we haven’t managed to do that. Now we have the chance to prevent another life being lost, and we should seize the opportunity.’
Fosse looked at Blix. ‘What are the chances of finding her before noon tomorrow?’
‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ Blix replied. ‘It’s a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, if I’ve understood Krohn correctly. Of course, we may have a real stroke of luck, but we should make plans in case Krohn and his team don’t come up trumps.’
Blix sat in his own chair, while Fosse stood in the centre of the floor. The others had sat down at their desks around the room.
‘Maybe he’s bluffing,’ Kovic suggested.
‘There’s nothing so far to indicate he won’t go through with what he’s threatening to do,’ Blix said.
