Smoke Screen

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘Hm,’ Kovic mumbled, scrolling up and down twice more.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Blix asked.

  ‘There’s a gap here.’ Kovic pointed at the screen. ‘She uses her phone a lot, but on the twenty-seventh of December, there’s nothing. No calls, no texts.’

  Blix studied the screen. The last time the phone had been in use was in the early afternoon of the 26th of December. A text from Nina Ballangrud. It wasn’t until later the next day that the phone was active again. Then there was a flood of incoming messages, as if the phone had been turned off and the texts had piled up, waiting for it to be turned back on again.

  ‘Her boyfriend said she took his car and disappeared for a couple of days,’ Kovic recalled. ‘But where do you go without your phone?’

  ‘Can you get an overview of which toll booths the car went through?’ Blix asked.

  ‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ Kovic answered.

  She opened up an application form for the road toll department of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.

  Blix felt his phone vibrate inside his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that Emma had messaged him:

  I’m outside. Do you have time for an informal chat about the Patricia case?

  He sat with his phone in his hand, but didn’t reply. Kovic had just found the licence-plate number for Svein-Erik Haugseth’s car and submitted the form. She returned to Ahlander’s criminal records, the page displaying a mug shot taken about eight years ago. A man with a round face, wispy hair and an unruly beard.

  Sophus Ahlander.

  ‘I’d like to know what Ahlander and Ruth-Kristine were talking about,’ Kovic said, returning to the list of phone calls. ‘And what was so important that she had to get hold of him.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  Kovic found the address. ‘In Haslum, on Vallerveien,’ she replied, suddenly realising why he had asked. ‘Gard Fosse won’t be happy. PST are sending us more tasks today, and we’ve not even finished the last ones.’

  Blix stood up.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  19

  The rancid stench of stale cigarette smoke lingered inside the small work car. It was technically Anita’s own car, but anyone in the office was allowed to use it, as long as it was for work.

  Emma had parked on the opposite side of the road to the Police Headquarters. She leant over the steering wheel and peered up at the sixth floor. She had hoped, and believed, that Blix would take the time to discuss the new lead in the Patricia case, but he hadn’t even responded to the text.

  She still had her phone in her hand, waiting. She swiped up and searched for an old article she had read – an interview with Ruth-Kristine that included a photo of her and a friend. The two women had gone shopping together the day Patricia had disappeared. The photo had them both looking solemnly into the camera. Emma noted the name of Ruth-Kristine’s alibi, Jette Djurholm, as a potential interviewee.

  The Danish-sounding name made her think of Kasper. She felt the sensation course through her again, as it had many times since New Year’s Eve. An overwhelming feeling rising in her chest, settling in her stomach. And then a clenched fist that punched and punched. She thought of Kasper’s parents, what she would say to them. In many ways, it felt wrong to still be in Norway, at work, while her boyfriend’s family wanted her to be with them, in Denmark. Emma had said that she just needed some time to work out when she could get over there. It hadn’t been a question of whether she wanted to or not.

  Emma craned her head up at the building again. Still no answer from Blix. She typed out a new message and was slightly more specific about what she was after:

  I spoke to Gard Fosse. He confirmed that Ruth-Kristine Smeplass was one of the injured in the explosion. I’m writing an article about what she’s been through, what happened to her after her daughter disappeared. You know that investigation best. I’d welcome any input, anything that might be interesting to look into.

  She pressed send and sat back to wait for a reply. It was getting cold, and the windows had begun to steam up. Emma turned on the ignition.

  She had just put the heating on when her phone vibrated. A reply from Blix:

  Not now.

  Emma sighed and considered just heading back to the office, when an unmarked police car drove out from the car park beneath the building. A grey Passat, the same kind Emma had seen Blix drive.

  An old woman with a walking frame was taking her time crossing the road. The car came to a complete stop. Blix was behind the wheel. She recognised the woman in the passenger seat: Blix’s colleague.

  Emma slid down in her seat, ducking slightly as she watched the car turn left and drive off. She made up her mind on the spot. Starting up the small car, she followed them.

  The unmarked police car headed south, through the city centre and onto the interchange that would take them into the Opera Tunnel and out of the city. They sped up when they emerged on the other side. Emma made sure to keep at least one car between her and Blix. They passed the exit to Bygdøy and Skøyen. Emma looked at the fuel gauge. A little under half a tank.

  She had been following Blix for about fifteen minutes when they crossed the Akershus county border. Emma wondered whether she should just turn back. She hadn’t really thought this through; she just knew that Blix must be heading somewhere important, seeing as he hadn’t had time to stop and talk to her.

  Then the car turned off the main road, away from the motorway and into the residential area of Høvik, carrying on further north towards Haslum. The tramline ran parallel to the road for a while. The buildings began to change character, from grand, suburban houses to clusters of cramped neighbourhoods.

  Blix’s car began to slow down and eventually swerved into a car park. It was an open area surrounded by terraced houses, with a playground and several paths, only just visible beneath the snow.

  Emma pulled into one of the other vacant spaces, hidden between a substation and a van covered in a thick layer of snow, about thirty metres away. She turned the ignition off and stayed seated as she watched Blix get out.

  20

  A cold gust of wind forced Blix to dig his hands deep inside his jacket pockets. He stood in the car park and looked around. Each terraced house was split into three separate flats – one per floor – and had a small, walled garden out front. Bollards had been installed on the pavement to stop motorists from driving onto the gardens.

  ‘Over there,’ Kovic said, pointing to the ground-floor flat of the house in the centre of the row.

  She reached back into the car, took out a folder full of documents and closed the door behind her.

  The pavement was cloaked in a layer of black ice. Kovic walked ahead, shuffling along with small, careful steps, arms held out to keep her balance. She stopped at the gate and pointed to the post box. The name Molly Ahlander was printed next to the number of the flat they were visiting.

  ‘Is he married?’ Blix asked.

  Kovic leafed through the documents.

  ‘The mother,’ Kovic clarified. ‘She’s dead. He lives alone.’

  Four car tyres were stacked up next to the front door. Two white plastic chairs had been propped against the wall of the house. An old indoor exercise bike was wrapped up in a sheet of tarpaulin.

  Blix rang the bell. He wanted to find out what kind of relationship Ahlander and Ruth-Kristine had and what the phone call two days before New Year’s Eve had been about. Simple questions he could have asked over the phone. But he wanted to see Ahlander’s reaction to them.

  No one answered the door. Blix tried again. He could hear the chime of the doorbell ringing through the flat, but he knocked twice more anyway, hard. There was a large window to the left of the door. The curtains were partially drawn. Blix cupped his hands to the glass and peered inside. A kitchen. There was a cup and a used ashtray on the table. A couple of plates stacked up by the sink. On the counter was a box full of what appeared to be old stereo parts.

 
Behind Blix, Kovic had started rifling through the papers again.

  ‘No employer listed,’ she said, as if she had read his mind.

  ‘I’ll call him,’ Blix decided, taking his phone out. He typed the number in as Kovic read it aloud. Straight to voicemail.

  Blix turned around and looked back at the car park.

  ‘Did you bring the printout from the vehicle register?’ he asked.

  Kovic nodded. ‘He drives an old Toyota.’ She found the right document and read out the licence-plate number. ‘2008 model, RAV4,’ she added. ‘Silver.’

  Blix’s gaze roamed over the parked cars. Some had clearly been driven recently, others were still coated in snow. He couldn’t see any that matched the description.

  There were a few garages behind the car park, but they looked as if they belonged to another part of the housing estate.

  ‘Let’s see if the neighbours are home,’ Kovic suggested.

  Blix nodded and walked to the flat on the right as Kovic took the one on the left.

  A boy of around ten years old opened the door to Blix.

  ‘Hi,’ Blix said. ‘Are your parents at home?’

  The boy shook his head. Blix introduced himself, but didn’t mention that he was from the police.

  ‘I’m actually trying to get hold of your neighbour,’ he said, nodding in the direction of Sophus Ahlander’s flat. ‘Have you seen him today?’

  The boy shook his head. A cat appeared from inside the flat and peered out between the boy’s legs.

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Blix continued.

  The boy shrugged. Blix sensed that he wasn’t going to get anything out of him and ended the conversation.

  Kovic was waiting for him on the pavement.

  ‘Nobody home,’ she explained.

  Blix rubbed his hands together.

  ‘Well, that was productive,’ he stated.

  21

  A fresh layer of condensation had formed on the inside of the car windows. Emma didn’t want to start the car and attract any attention. When Blix and Kovic returned, she slid further down into the seat. She wondered whether she should continue following them, but presumed they would just be heading back to HQ. Anyway, she was more curious about who they had been trying to get hold of. After she had watched the Passat drive away, she opened the door and climbed out.

  A taxi drove past with someone in the back seat. Emma stopped, took her phone out and pretended to be reading something while the passenger paid and got out. It was a man in his forties. He stepped onto the footpath but walked past the flat that Blix and Kovic had visited.

  There was a post box attached to the fence. Molly Ahlander.

  Emma took a picture of the name before she lifted the lid and saw that it was stuffed full of various advertisements and junk mail. She looked around, pulled some of them out and among them found a white envelope addressed to a Sophus Ahlander. There was no return address. The date that had been printed across the stamp was unclear, but it looked as if it might have been the 28th of December. The Friday between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Come to think of it, today might have been the first day the post was being delivered again, after the holidays.

  She put the letter back. An elderly woman carrying a shopping bag was making her way towards her. She had ice grips attached to her shoes and they were making a crunching sound as they met the ground beneath the ice. It looked as if she were heading to the house that Kovic had tried.

  Emma stepped out in front of her.

  ‘Hi, I’m sorry to bother you, but do you know the people who live here?’ she asked, nodding over to the flat behind her.

  ‘I used to,’ the woman replied.

  Emma waited for her to elaborate.

  ‘Molly and I were neighbours for almost twenty-five years,’ the woman explained. ‘When she passed last summer, her son inherited everything. The car, house, cabin. I met him at the funeral. But I haven’t spoken to him since.’

  Emma tried to form a picture of Sophus Ahlander. If his late mother had been about the same age as the neighbour, then she envisioned him as a man around the age of fifty.

  ‘Does he live alone?’ she asked.

  The woman transferred the shopping bag over to her other hand.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone else there,’ she said.

  ‘What does he do?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘He doesn’t work,’ she answered. ‘The last thing I remember Molly saying about him was that he worked in a company that sold firewood and Christmas trees.’

  ‘Do you know where he might be?’ Emma continued.

  The woman moved the shopping bag back into her other hand.

  ‘I haven’t seen him for days now,’ she said, and started walking off.

  ‘Right. Thank you for the help.’

  22

  ‘She’s been in Larvik,’ Kovic said, looking up from her phone.

  From the driver’s seat Blix threw a look; he wanted to know more.

  ‘In Haugseth’s car,’ Kovic explained. ‘I’ve just had a response from the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. On Boxing Day, she drove past a toll booth on the E18, on the way to Larvik. She then came back on the same road the day after.’

  A car with a trailer overtook them. Blix tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Mapping the movements of a victim was a core part of any investigation. At some point the victim would cross paths with the perpetrator. If you could find that crossing point, you could solve the case.

  ‘What was she doing all the way down in Larvik?’ Kovic pondered.

  Blix pulled into the outside lane and accelerated.

  ‘We have to go to Kolbotn,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to Haugseth again. He knows more than he’s letting on.’

  Blix felt a vibration in his jacket pocket as they reached the exit to the motorway. He pulled his phone out a fraction and glanced at it, his other hand still on the wheel.

  He had thought it would be Emma, but it was Iselin. The message began with a ‘Hey’ and a smiley face, then a question about what time he was planning on getting off work. He didn’t read the entire message, resolving to read it properly later.

  Haugseth’s lorry was running idle in the driveway when they arrived.

  ‘There’s the car,’ Kovic said, pointing towards an old, black BMW parked in front of the open garage.

  Blix parked up. Svein-Erik Haugseth came out of the garage, wiping his hands on an old rag. He greeted them with a nod.

  ‘Any news?’ he asked. ‘I was thinking about going to the hospital this afternoon.’

  ‘Her parents are travelling over from Spain tomorrow,’ Blix replied.

  ‘I’ve never met them,’ Haugseth said. ‘Ruth-Kristine didn’t have much contact with them.’

  Kovic pointed to the car. ‘Was that the car she took over Christmas?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can we take a look?’

  Haugseth nodded, pulling a keychain out of his pocket and pressing the fob to unlock it.

  Blix opened the driver’s side door. The car was surprisingly tidy.

  ‘How much money did you lend her?’ he asked.

  ‘Three thousand kroner. And she never paid me back.’

  ‘Did you talk to her while she was away?’

  ‘I couldn’t get hold of her,’ Haugseth replied. ‘I think she’d turned her phone off.’

  ‘Did you know where she was?’

  Haugseth didn’t respond, he just shrugged.

  Blix bent over and looked under the seat. Nothing there.

  ‘The car has been in Larvik,’ he said. ‘Did she know anyone there?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Haugseth answered, rubbing his hands on the filthy cloth.

  He hesitated a moment, before adding: ‘I thought she might’ve been in Denmark.’

  ‘You think she took the ferry from Larvik?’ Kovic suggested.

  Haugseth nodded. ‘I cleaned the car out after she’d used it,’
he explained. ‘It was full of rubbish. Danish drinks cans and take-away boxes. It looked like she’d been living in it.’

  ‘And you didn’t talk about it?’

  ‘She didn’t want to. She was angry when she got back, and stressed.’

  Blix closed the car door. ‘What did you do with the stuff she left in the car?’ he asked, looking over at the bins by the fence.

  ‘It’s all still in there,’ Haugseth nodded. ‘At the bottom.’

  ‘What could she have been doing in Denmark?’ Kovic asked.

  Haugseth’s answer was rather vague:

  ‘She always got involved in things she shouldn’t have been. Had quite the talent for it.’

  ‘What was she involved in this time?’

  ‘I don’t know, but when I found out where she’d been, it got me thinking…’

  Blix was now starting to piece together what Haugseth was suggesting, and realised they were going to have to pull it out of him.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ he asked.

  ‘That she’d been to Denmark to pick something up.’ He hesitated again. ‘Drugs or something else illegal,’ he carried on. ‘Which would explain why she was acting as she was. Why she was so stressed and evasive, and why she’d turned off her phone. You know, so she couldn’t be traced by the police.’

  ‘Has she done that before?’ Kovic asked. ‘Smuggled drugs?’

  ‘Not as far as I know, but she suddenly had all this money and refused to say where she’d got it from.’

  Blix waited impatiently for him to elaborate.

  ‘It always seemed to happen around Christmas,’ Haugseth added. ‘Last year she bought me a new TV, and the year before that she gave me a new iPhone. The most expensive one.’

  ‘And she did the same this year too?’

  Haugseth shook his head. ‘No, this year, I got a jumper and a few bits and bobs. Or, last year, even, seeing as it’s already January.’