Dead Joker

by Anne Holt

  The Chief of Police was newly shaved and sported an unflattering piece of toilet paper glued to his chin with blood.

  “Went for a short run at lunchtime,” he said apologetically. “Had a shave afterward. A bit too rushed.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen sat at the head of the table in the rectangular, windowless room. Behind her hung a blank sheet on the flip chart. She was toying with two felt pens while she waited for them all to sit.

  “The newspapers went to town over the weekend,” Erik Henriksen said loudly. “Mockery all over the place. Verdens Gang and Dagbladet are riding two horses. In the first place, we’ve now got what’s turned out to be one of the numerous ‘police scandals’—”

  “And what’s more, it’s a scandal that the Chief Public Prosecutor was released,” Karianne Holbeck completed, drinking Cola Lite from a plastic beaker. “They should really make up their minds. Either we’re the ones who are doing a dreadful job, or else it’s the difference between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

  “That lot’ll scream blue murder anyway,” Karl Sommarøy said, yawning.

  The Superintendent arrived last. The deep cleft in his forehead appeared to have become permanent. He looked at Hanne and rested his hands on the table.

  “We now have a total of twelve investigators,” she began. “The purpose of this meeting is to summarize where we stand at present, as well as dividing the tasks required in the next few days. I had—”

  She picked at the unflattering headband she had been forced to resort to in order to see anything at all.

  Unabashed, Billy T. chuckled. “Dainty little thing, that!”

  Hanne ignored him and continued. “As I see it, we’ve a great deal to learn from the court’s decision.”

  A murmur of discontent rippled through the room. Hanne raised her voice.

  “Judge Bugge indicated a number of weaknesses in the investigation to date. We must concentrate on three main lines of enquiry.”

  Standing up, she removed the lid from the blue marker pen and began to write on the flipchart.

  “A: the corruption lead. Where are we with that, Erik?”

  Erik Henriksen leaned forward and studied a mark on the table. “Økokrim’s computer team have helped us by going through Halvorsrud’s office computer. Nothing there of any interest. They’ve been damn thorough, looking for deleted documents and that sort of thing. Nada.”

  He raised his eyes. “What’s more, I’ve called in the four people mentioned on the computer disks for supplementary interviews. But I honestly don’t think …”

  He scratched his fiery-red hair irascibly.

  “The prospect doesn’t bloody look particularly bright. I did the previous interviews, and either all four of them are damned good at play-acting, or else they’re all telling the truth. Besides, it turns out that the phone call to that pal of yours – that Turkish guy – it came from a phone box in Olav Ryes plass. Both of them, for that matter. Whoever it was who phoned, in other words, was standing only a stone’s throw away from the Özdemir Import store when he called. I’m beginning to think that this whole corruption—”

  “We’re trying not to jump to any conclusions as yet,” Hanne interrupted. “You and Petter and Marianne are to keep digging.”

  “It’s not that fucking easy,” Erik muttered so quietly that only Karianne Holbeck, sitting next to him, heard.

  Smiling, she raised her eyebrows resignedly without looking at the Chief Inspector farther along the table.

  Hanne sighed demonstratively. “Has the money in the medicine cabinet been traced? Do we know anything at all about it?”

  “No,” Erik replied in a sullen tone. “Nothing other than that it’s all in used notes, none of which are from later than 1993. Old and well used, in other words. With a zillion insignificant fingerprints.”

  “B: Ståle Salvesen,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said, writing on the flip-chart again. “Anything new?”

  Karl Sommarøy cleared his throat. “A total blank. I’ve had another conversation with his son, but nothing more emerged from that than at the first interview. He was just even more bad-tempered. I’ve also checked with the phone company to see if it’s possible to find out which number he asked for when he made his very last phone call to Directory Enquiries. If he asked for the ‘connect to number’ service, it might be possible. Otherwise not. It’s a bit difficult to initiate that kind of trace anyway, since we’re going to need a court order. Is it so important?”

  “And of course the body hasn’t turned up,” Hanne said, without answering.

  “No.”

  Silence descended on the room. The Chief of Police picked the toilet paper off his chin, rolled it into a little pea-sized ball and tucked it into his pocket. The Superintendent’s eyes were fixed on Hanne, who stood there silently, a faraway expression on her face, as if she found the entire proceedings uninteresting. Karl Sommarøy offered candies to everyone gathered around the table.

  “C,” Hanne said all of a sudden. “C is a smokescreen. The motive for killing Doris Halvorsrud might lie in a completely different direction from the lines we’ve been working on up till now.”

  “What about a combination?” the Superintendent suggested softly.

  They all stared down the table. The Superintendent’s dark-brown eyes under his thick black brows were still nailed to Hanne.

  “A combination,” Hanne said thoughtfully as she replaced the lid on the marker pen.

  “Yes. Let’s assume that Halvorsrud did not kill his wife. Until now we haven’t identified anyone who might have a motive for hurting him. Apart from Salvesen. Perhaps.”

  “That case of his was nearly ten years ago,” Billy T. said, shaking his head. “Everyone who works for the police or the prosecution authorities ends up with so-called enemies. Louts and thugs who really hate us because we put them behind lock and key. They almost never take revenge. At least not ten years later!”

  “True,” the Superintendent said patiently. “But if we agree that these different corruption leads—”

  He got to his feet and edged behind the backs of the five detectives sitting on Billy T.’s side of the long table. He reached out his hand to Hanne and was handed a marker pen. He then turned the page on the flipchart, and began to write.

  “1) Phone call to Özdemir,” he wrote, and continued. “2) Money in a medicine cabinet in the basement. 3) Computer disks with documents concerning four dropped cases that are detailed, but nevertheless not of great interest to the police.”

  He turned to face the others.

  “Of which at least two had highly doubtful grounds for being dropped, but all the same …”

  The frown line between his eyes grew even deeper, before he turned around again.

  “4),” he wrote, continuing. “An inexplicably new hard disk in the wife’s computer.”

  As he fumbled with the marker pen, his thumb became stained with blue ink.

  “What’s this?” he said, shooting a challenging look at Hanne, who had remained seated with her arms folded and a blank expression on her face while the Superintendent was speaking.

  “Completely amateurish,” she said softly. “It stinks of a setup.”

  She inhaled, and indicated the points on the paper, one by one.

  “The phone call: entirely unlikely that it actually came from Halvorsrud. The money in the basement?”

  She hesitated as her finger rested on the second point listed.

  “Halvorsrud is smart. When he phoned us, he must have known that the house was going to be turned upside down. The computer disks …”

  Holding her breath again, she rubbed her cheek.

  “I can’t work that out. Strictly speaking, Doris’ computer doesn’t have to mean anything at all.”

  “But what about the divorce papers?” Karianne asked, blushing, which Hanne had come to realize she did at the drop of a hat. “Why didn’t he tell us anything about those?”

  Hanne nodded slowly.

  “
You have a point. But isn’t that quite common? Haven’t we all had to struggle unnecessarily because witnesses and suspects think it’s a good idea to tell little white lies about things they consider unpleasant?”

  Karianne shrugged one shoulder and looked down.

  “But,” Billy T. began, “what did you actually mean when you said we might be talking about a combination?”

  The Superintendent picked out a match from a box in the pocket of his tight jeans and put it into his mouth. “That Ståle Salvesen might not be dead. That he’s the one who has set up all of this. And that there are other factors involved that we don’t know about. In other words …” He flipped back to Hanne’s original list. “… A, B and not least C,” he said. “A smokescreen. There are things we don’t know.”

  “Obviously,” Billy T. replied. “But we could of course stretch this hypothesis even farther …” He grinned as he tugged at his moustache. “What if the intention was for this to look like a set-up? What if there’s a killer sitting somewhere worrying himself sick because the police haven’t discovered it yet? He must be happy, then, that Halvorsrud’s been set free at last!”

  “And your point is?” Hanne asked tersely. “If the murderer isn’t Ståle Salvesen or Sigurd Halvorsrud, the whole idea must have been for one of them to get the blame?”

  “Well,” the Superintendent said, spitting matchstick splinters, “unfortunately I have to go to another meeting.”

  The chair legs scraped on the floor as the assembled company made room for the Superintendent to make his exit. When he reached the door, he turned to stare intently at the flipchart. Then he snapped the matchstick he was chewing, spitting half onto the floor, and said pensively, “For Halvorsrud’s sake, we’ll have to hope Ståle Salvesen’s body never turns up. For the sake of the Chief Public Prosecutor, we’ll have to hope there quite simply is no corpse. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t know what I’m hoping for. Good day.”

  It was Monday March 29, 1999, and almost three o’clock. Hanne Wilhelmsen suddenly thought of a promise she had made to herself three weeks earlier. This case was going to be solved. Today.

  59

  Evald Bromo had heard about the kebab rats in the shrubbery beside the fountain at Spikersuppa but had never actually seen them. Now he was standing on the sidewalk in front of the National Theater watching the huge beasts fighting over the discarded scraps of food tossed under the bushes by late-night drunks. The gray rodents were as large as half-grown cats, and Evald shuddered. Eventually the taxi rank in Roald Amundsens gate filled up and cabs blocked his view. He looked at his watch.

  Kai was late.

  Evald was aware that he ought to visit his mother. He used to pop into the nursing home virtually every day. Now it was Tuesday afternoon and he had not visited the old woman since Friday.

  Evald Bromo felt better now than he could remember.

  The sense of calm that had suffused him when he sat on the steps outside the Deichman Library on Saturday night had persisted. Even though he continually wavered about the decision he had taken, he managed to return to it at regular intervals. That helped. Admittedly, the decision would have catastrophic consequences. Everything would be over. However, it would be better than waiting. These past weeks had almost killed him. There were still five months to go until September 1. It was too long. He knew that now; after sleepless nights and unproductive, anxiety-filled days, it would be better than continuing like this.

  However much he turned it over in his mind, he knew it was the right thing to do. Evald Bromo turned hurriedly toward the City Hall, aware of an aroma of coffee from the quayside. He sniffed deeply and tried to recall whether he had ever felt proud of himself. Pleased, perhaps; he had been pleased when he had got his job at Dagbladet, and even happier when Aftenposten had in effect headhunted him. The offer from Dagens Næringsliv, the financial and business newspaper, had flattered him; and when he woke the day after his doomed wedding, with Margaret sleeping beside him in her pink nightdress, he had felt a sort of contentment about the choice he had made. Pride, on the other hand, was something he could not remember having felt since the onset of puberty, when his lust for little girls had come upon him like a lead weight he had never managed to throw off. When he had completed his marathon run and had won a place in the national top ten or fifteen, he had been satisfied, but nothing more. Never proud.

  Now he knew what that was like.

  It made him excited, and allowed him to take a trip down memory lane to the time when he was a young child and had no need to feel ashamed about anything.

  The decision had been taken, and he hugged the knowledge to himself. At the same time, he knew he was too weak. He would never dare do it without assistance. He needed someone. Someone who would understand without condemning.

  Kai could help him. Kai had helped him before: the one time when Evald Bromo had been in danger of being exposed. Seven years ago. Evald Bromo had escaped, thanks to Kai. He had no idea why Kai had bothered with him. As the years passed, he’d got an inkling, but he’d let it lie. Instead, he had steadily shown his gratitude. Gifts and money initially, small tokens to nurture loyalty. Favors for a friend, eventually, never anything really major, but sufficiently often to blur the lines as to who was actually in debt to whom.

  Evald Bromo waved a friendly greeting when the headlights of Kai’s white Ford Escort blinked twice as he pulled in to the curb. Kai leaned over and opened the passenger door.

  “Hi,” he said cheerfully as Evald settled into the passenger seat. “Long time no see.”

  Evald nodded and fastened his seatbelt.

  “Where shall we go?” Evald asked as they approached Storo and the ring road.

  “Maridalen, I thought. Or somewhere up there, where we can get some privacy?”

  “No,” Evald answered doubtfully. “What about Sognsvann?”

  “As you wish,” Kai said with a smile, taking a left turn at the interchange.

  By the time they drove into the gigantic parking lot at the Sognsvann lake and recreation area, Evald Bromo had related his story. He’d told Kai about the emails, about what was going to happen on September 1, about the package containing a CD and a closely written letter, about the decision he had now taken, and why he needed help.

  Kai parked at the far end of the car park, where joggers and walkers seldom strayed. They sheltered behind a delivery truck with its number plates removed, and Kai switched on the radio. Evald turned it off again.

  “Pokerface,” Kai said, stroking his forefinger in a circular motion on his trousered thigh. “Are you sure you can’t connect that name with anything?”

  “Quite sure,” Evald said. “I don’t even play poker.”

  Kai fingered the leather steering-wheel cover. It was worn, and the leather strap holding the cover in place had become slack.

  “What have you done with the CD?”

  “Here,” Evald Bromo said, producing the case from his inside pocket.

  Kai studied it for a long time before opening it. He took out the CD and held it between his thumb and middle finger. It was shiny like a mirror on one side, grooved and dull on the other. He scrutinized the iridescence on the recorded side as he turned it slowly from side to side.

  “Have you listened to it?”

  He replaced the disc inside the case.

  “No. I know what it contains. It’s described in there.”

  Evald pointed at the letter that had now slid down between Kai’s thighs. The man in the driving seat picked it up, unfolded the sheet of paper, and skimmed it.

  “Or so he says,” he said curtly, handing everything back to his companion. “I think you’re right. You’re doing the right thing, and of course I’ll help you as much as I can. I’ll have a think about it, and then I’ll contact you in …”

  He scratched his forehead before adjusting the automatic toll-recording chip that had slipped out of its holder behind the rear-view mirror on the windscreen.

  “I’ll
phone you on Monday.”

  “That’s Easter Monday,” Evald reminded him, shoving the CD case back into his pocket. “What about tomorrow?”

  “I can’t,” Kai said. “I’m going away for Easter with the whole family early tomorrow morning. Tuesday, then. Tuesday of next week. I’ll call you then.”

  An old man came sauntering out of the woods just ten meters in front of them. He struggled to negotiate his way round an uprooted tree, then disappeared along the course of a stream without looking at the two men in the car.

  “You should hide those things,” Kai advised him. “Hide the CD case somewhere no one can find it. Not your wife, not anyone. Not at home, not at the office. Preferably somewhere outside. Far away. Leave it there until we meet. Bring it with you then.”

  Evald nodded absent-mindedly, touching his breast pocket where the CD was concealed.

  “Just one more thing,” Kai said as he turned the ignition. “You’ve heard that Sigurd Halvorsrud’s been released from custody?”

  He turned and looked at Evald before shifting into reverse gear and backing out of the space between the delivery truck and the woods.

  “Yes,” Evald Bromo replied.

  “Doesn’t that change things?”

  “No. I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “Good,” Kai answered. “You’re doing the right thing.”

  Smiling, he patted his companion lightly and reassuringly on the thigh.

  “Good,” he repeated.

  60

  The night before Maundy Thursday, 1999, Sigurd Halvorsrud made a fresh attempt to leave his home without being spotted. He had hardly been out the door since he was released from custody, apart from his obligatory daily trip to the police headquarters to report in. Both boys had moved home again. They did any shopping that was required. Only in the evening did Halvorsrud dare to venture out for a short walk, usually in the company of his daughter. Thea was better. She was sleeping well at night, and that morning she had managed to concentrate on reading a book for several hours. Halvorsrud enjoyed his evening walks with his daughter. Father and daughter exchanged barely a word, but she sometimes held his hand. When he was in danger of walking too fast, she tugged at the sleeve of his jacket to keep him by her side. Then he would put his arm around her shoulders and, with a timid smile, she would walk even more slowly.