Smoke Screen

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Neither Ahlander nor his lawyer responded.

  ‘Skage owned a car repair shop,’ Blix carried on. ‘You have been convicted of, among other things, car theft. I think that you were delivering stolen cars to him. That you dismantled the cars, and he would use the parts.’

  ‘Knut Ivar Skage is dead,’ the lawyer reminded him.

  Blix looked down at his papers as if he hadn’t heard and ticked off the first bullet point. He wasn’t looking for confirmation about the car thefts. It was just something he had to get through first, to draw a clear picture for Ahlander as to how the police were approaching the case.

  ‘I think that, towards the end of his life, Skage tried to clean up some of the mess he had made,’ Blix continued, pushing a newspaper clipping across the table. ‘Three weeks before he was murdered, Wanted aired on TV3, reporting on a story about an unsolved murder, a hit-and-run. A tip-off came in that named you as the driver of a stolen Ford Focus.’

  ‘That accusation was dropped, I checked out,’ Ahlander commented, pushing the newspaper clipping that referred to the case back across the table.

  Blix left the newspaper clipping where it was and made sure to speak clearly as he continued:

  ‘I think that the car ended up in Skage’s garage, and that it was Skage who, three years later, tipped off the police. He was attempting to clear his conscience, just as he was when he contacted Patricia’s father. He had nothing to lose by telling him what had happened. Skage was terminally ill, he didn’t have long to live. He wanted to give the little girl’s father the answers he was looking for, and he wanted to try and secure the reward too – which he was probably planning on giving to his own children before he died.’

  Rødland made an arrogant hand gesture, clearly indicating that whatever Blix believed, it was of no interest to him.

  ‘You trusted Skage,’ Blix continued without taking his eyes off the interviewee on the other side of the table. ‘He’d kept quiet, even though he knew you had hit someone with your car, had left them for dead. So when you called him for help, to take care of Patricia, you knew he was a man that you could count on.’

  ‘I hope you have evidence to support these allegations,’ Rødland said.

  Blix pushed the newspaper clipping back to Ahlander’s side of the table.

  ‘There were two people in the car that killed that man,’ he said. ‘Witnesses tell us that there was a woman in the passenger seat.’

  Ahlander ran his tongue nervously over his lips. Blix leant back in his chair. The picture he wanted to present had started to take shape.

  ‘The descriptions fit Ruth-Kristine Smeplass,’ he finished. ‘She had something on you. She knew what you had done, so when she contacted you to ask for help kidnapping her own daughter, it was almost impossible for you to refuse.’

  ‘Has Smeplass given a statement about this?’ Rødland interjected.

  Blix ignored the question and pulled a set of documents out, including the report that outlined the results of the DNA analysis taken from the dummy.

  ‘I have a few documents here,’ he said, pushing them over to the defence lawyer.

  Rødland picked them up. ‘I would like to go through these before we continue,’ he said.

  ‘There’s not much there,’ Blix replied. ‘Just an evidence report showing the discovery of a pink dummy with a teddy bear on it during a preliminary search of your client’s cabin in Undrumsåsen yesterday. There is also a copy of the request I submitted to the laboratory for an analysis. The results came in a little over half an hour ago. They’re in there too.’

  Blix fixed his gaze on Ahlander. The man’s eyes had widened, his pupils had expanded, as if the lights had suddenly been turned off.

  Rødland repositioned his glasses. ‘Am I right in understanding that a DNA profile has been found and that there is a consistent profile in the DNA database?’

  ‘Correct,’ Blix nodded.

  ‘It doesn’t say who, it’s just a reference to a case number.’

  Blix leant forwards and pointed to the thick stack of documents on the table. ‘Case 150293 from 2009,’ he said. ‘Patricia Storm Isaksen.’

  Ahlander lowered his head into his hands. Sat like that for quite some time. Blix waited for one of them to say something.

  ‘I think I need to have a few words with my client,’ Rødland said flatly. ‘Alone.’

  ‘By all means,’ Blix said.

  He reached forwards and stopped the recording. Glanced up at the camera and had to force himself not to grin. A surge of emotions erupted inside him. The kind of emotions that only occurred when you were on the verge of a major breakthrough. And with that breakthrough being on a case that had plagued him for nearly ten years, the adrenaline was particularly exhilarating.

  Blix left the room and waited on the other side of the door.

  It only took a couple of minutes before Rødland came to get him, with the words: ‘My client would like to make a full, unreserved confession.’

  Blix glanced at his watch. It was barely ten o’clock. It had gone much faster than he had anticipated.

  ‘About what?’ he asked.

  Rødland sighed heavily.

  ‘The kidnapping of Patricia Storm Isaksen.’

  49

  11th August 2009

  He pushed himself up from his knees, but couldn’t bring himself to look down at the toilet bowl. Swallowed, but wished he hadn’t. The taste of bile, of old, previously digested food, made him groan and grasp hold of the sink. He didn’t bother waiting to see if the water was cold or not, just bent down until his lips met the tap. He opened his mouth and drank a few gulps, swallowing them down, just to have any other taste in his mouth. He turned the water off and straightened up. Came face-to-face with a man in the mirror who he almost didn’t recognise, whiter than a ghost.

  Was he really going to go through with this?

  He thought about Ruth-Kristine. The plans. Carmen’s daily routine, the route she would always take home from the Tangenten Nursery. The park. The bushes. Everything that could go wrong. The money he would get. The bills he had to pay. The aftermath.

  When she had come over the night before, it had been exactly like he had dreamt it would be. They had shared a bottle of wine. They had sex on the sofa while the TV played in the background. She made the first move. She was so grateful and happy that he would do this for her.

  ‘Everything’s going to be great,’ she had said. ‘Our lives are going to be so good.’

  She had repeated the instructions again before leaving. Serious, at that point.

  ‘Remember, you can’t tell anyone I’ve been here today. No one can know. Christer’s going to think I did it, and the police will think so, too. They’ll investigate me anyway. Thoroughly.’

  He had nodded.

  ‘And you can’t, under any circumstances, call me. The police will be keeping an eye on who I’ve been in contact with over the last few weeks. You know I’ll come to you as soon as I can, but it could take a few days. I have to do the kind of things I would have done if it had actually happened.’

  ‘It is actually happening.’

  ‘Whatever. You know what I mean. Go out, look for her, that kind of thing.’ She had looked him deep in the eyes. ‘I need to know that you can do this, Sophus. That you’ll go through with it, that you won’t freak out.’

  He blinked a few times as he stared at his own reflection. He felt as if he were going to throw up again.

  The fresh air did him some good. He felt his skin, warm one moment, cold the next. He climbed into the van and turned on the ignition. He leant over the wheel for a few moments, before hoisting himself up, telling himself it would all be fine.

  He left the car in a side street near the park and walked, legs trembling, in the direction of the nursery. Yanked his hood down firmly over his head and made sure not to make eye contact with anyone he passed. He had made this trip several times over the last few days, so he knew how long it would take. Upo
n arriving outside the nursery, he realised he had taken two and a half minutes less than the day before, and that he was way too early, so he sat on a bench a few hundred metres away, only to jump up again a few seconds later. He had run out of cigarettes. He ran into the nearest corner shop and rushed back, anxious that he might be too late.

  And he was.

  Her pushchair was gone.

  ‘Fuck,’ he swore to himself. He began to run, as fast as he could, and there, a few hundred metres away, on the path in front of him, was her dark Spanish hair. He recognised her quick pace. Sophus glanced around as he slowed down, paying no attention to the weather, nor to the fact that his breathing was now fast and heavy. Again, he could feel his stomach churning. He tried to suppress it. The taste of cigarettes and bile. He hadn’t managed to eat anything that day, and he really needed the toilet as well.

  As he edged closer, he noticed that she was wearing earphones. Good, she wouldn’t hear him coming. There were people everywhere, on the path, on the road, standing around talking to each other, pram to pram. A large, heavyset woman came running towards them at a slovenly pace. Sophus could barely feel the ground beneath his feet. But his heart, he could feel that, in his throat, neck, stomach. In his legs.

  They were approaching the trees he had checked out beforehand. Carmen was only twenty metres ahead of him now. Bloody people! He sped up again. Came a little closer, just ten metres behind her. He matched his speed with hers. Looked around. There were still a few people nearby, but they weren’t looking at him, weren’t looking in his direction. They were heading up a small hill. Five metres behind her. Four.

  People?

  He had no idea. Didn’t think, only heard Ruth-Kristine’s urgent voice in his head. I need to know that you can do this, Sophus. That you’ll go through with it, that you won’t freak out.

  50

  ‘Sounds as if you were lucky,’ Blix said, looking at Ahlander.

  Sophus snorted. Luck only scraped the surface. He had hit Carmen as hard as he could – she hadn’t seen the attack coming. Then he had pushed her into the bushes, tucking her legs in so that they wouldn’t stick out, taken the pushchair and carried on walking with it. To the van.

  ‘And then you drove her to the cabin.’

  Blix’s voice made him jump. Ahlander nodded.

  ‘I need you to answer,’ Blix said. ‘For the recording.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, clearing his throat.

  ‘Did you have a car seat for her?’

  ‘Car seat? No, I … just put her in the van. In the pushchair, like she was when I took her. She was asleep, so I didn’t think about it. And I was stressed as fuck as well, just wanted to get away, fast as I could.’

  ‘You didn’t secure the pushchair with anything?’

  ‘I don’t know … don’t remember. But I must’ve done. Put the brake on anyway. I think.’

  He noticed the policeman’s expression. It was the same on the lawyer’s face. Contempt. Pity too, maybe. It didn’t surprise him. He hated himself as well. Hated what he had done. But he had tried to find a way to live with it. To forget. And now, at long last, he was relieved that he could finally tell someone what he had done. He had held it in for so long.

  ‘So you got to the cabin. What happened after that?’

  Ahlander took a deep breath. ‘Not that much, really. I took her inside. She’d woken up by then.’

  ‘How did she react when she saw you?’

  ‘She cried,’ he said. ‘At the top of her lungs. I … didn’t know what to do. I’d never looked after a child before.’

  ‘Ruth-Kristine hadn’t thought about that part then, when she gave you the assignment?’

  Ahlander threw his arms up. ‘There were obviously not that many people she knew who would go through with it.’

  ‘So you suddenly had a child to look after, a crying child, and you didn’t know how long it would be until she would come back? That was the deal? You would stay at the cabin, with Patricia, for an unknown number of days? And Ruth-Kristine would come … whenever she could?’

  ‘That was the deal, yes.’

  ‘Did she ever mention what her plan would be, for Patricia?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And Patricia continued to cry?’

  ‘Yes, she … I mean, I’m not stupid, I knew I had to try and comfort her, give her food and change her nappies and everything, but … nothing worked, she just cried and cried. It drove me up the wall.’

  ‘And that’s when you called Knut Ivar Skage?’

  ‘Not that early,’ Ahlander said. ‘I tried, for two or three days. She slept and such, stopped crying then, but as soon as she woke up, she’d start again. And that’s when I lost it. And Ruth-Kristine just never turned up.’

  He could hear the anger in his own voice. Still.

  ‘I ran out of nappies,’ he continued. ‘And food, for her and me. And I couldn’t just go to the shops, could I? Couldn’t take her with me, with everyone looking for her. And I couldn’t just leave her there, on her own.’

  ‘How did you get him on board?’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘How did you convince Skage to help out? Just called him up, like: “Hi, I’ve kidnapped a young child, I need help taking care of her?”’

  ‘No, I…’

  Ahlander thought back.

  51

  14th August 2009

  He paced back and forth in the cabin. Stared at the phone, then at the child, who was toddling about, making incomprehensible, high-pitched noises.

  She was hungry.

  That must be it. And he had food, that wasn’t the issue. But there was nothing that she would eat, other than the yoghurt, and he had run clean out. He had tried lapskaus – that chunky kind of stew, the one that comes in a can. Tried sweetcorn when that didn’t work, but she had just spat them out again. The bananas had gone down well, but he had none left. She had teeth, it was just that she wasn’t particularly interested in using them.

  The worst, though, were the nappies.

  And the clothes.

  He hadn’t managed to work out the nappies, and she had already leaked through both the nappies and the clothes that he had bought beforehand, several times. He had tried washing them, and had rinsed her off in the shower, but when she’d been stumbling around the cabin afterwards, nappy sagging halfway down her thighs, she did it again. And then the shit had ended up all over the floor as well.

  Whatever you do, do not contact anyone.

  The very last thing Ruth-Kristine had said to him before she had left that night. That no matter how bad things got, no matter how long he had to wait, he must not call anyone. But that was before the delirium had begun to creep in. Before the sound of constant screaming had made him hold his hand over her mouth a few times, just for a second of silence. When he removed it, she would scream even harder, even louder. And now she was starving, poor thing. That must be what was bothering her.

  Ahlander glanced at his phone. He needed help. He couldn’t go on like this.

  Knut Ivar, he thought.

  Knut Ivar could be trusted. He hadn’t said anything when he and Ruth-Kristine had turned up at his garage in a car with streaks of blood across the dented bumper, as well as a broken headlight. Ahlander was certainly no actor, so he knew that the lie he had fed Knut Ivar, about some unfortunate deer, wasn’t convincing. But it hadn’t mattered. Knut Ivar had kept his mouth shut.

  Ahlander walked into one of the other rooms and dialled his number.

  ‘Howdy!’ his friend shouted down the phone, feigning a Texan accent. Ahlander couldn’t bring himself to say anything at first. One utterance about the little girl and he would be going beyond the point of no return.

  ‘Can … I trust you completely?’ he finally said.

  ‘Trust me?’ Knut Ivar started to laugh. ‘Of course you can trust me, Sophus.’

  ‘I mean it, Knut Ivar.’ Ahlander could hear the desperation in his own voice. ‘I need help, and I don’t think I ha
ve anyone else I can ask.’

  A momentary lull down the line.

  ‘What is it?’ Knut Ivar asked. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I … can’t tell you over the phone. But before I say anything else, I need to be sure that you won’t tell anyone that I’ve called you, not a single word to anyone. Can you promise me that? No one!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, of course,’ Knut Ivar assured him.

  Ahlander heard as Knut Ivar walked from one room into another, presumably the office at the back of the garage, and listened as he closed the door behind him.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Ahlander took another deep breath before continuing.

  ‘I need you to come to the cabin. You know where it is, right?’

  ‘I know the area,’ Knut Ivar said. ‘But I’m sure I can find it if you give me the address.’

  ‘I need you to drive over, straight away. I don’t care what excuse you give your wife, just make sure you can leave for a while without anyone getting suspicious. Especially … now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ll explain everything when you come. How soon can you get here?’

  Knut Ivar seemed to take a moment to consider it.

  ‘Give me a couple of hours, I can probably come straight from work.’

  ‘I also need you to get a couple of things for me on your way over.’

  He was waiting for Knut Ivar outside when he drove up to the cabin, three and a half hours later, a bag full of bananas and yoghurts in hand. Ahlander held his hands up, palms open, and walked towards him.

  Knut Ivar approached him, suspiciously.

  ‘I’m sorry for calling you,’ Ahlander said, almost in tears. ‘There’s no one else I can trust.’

  ‘You said that, and I said that you can trust me.’

  ‘Whatever happens?’

  Knut Ivar studied him for a few seconds before turning to look at the cabin. The sound of the crying child had reached them outside.