by Jo Nesbo
“Yes.”
“That must mean they’re over thirty years old.”
“Impressive, isn’t it? We had one Norwegian lieutenant colonel in Kabul who used to say that if these bootmakers had been in charge of the Soviet Union, it would never have collapsed.”
“Do you mean Lieutenant Colonel Bohr?”
“Yes.”
“Does that mean he had a pair of these boots as well?”
“I don’t remember, but they were popular. And cheap. Why do you ask?”
“Roar Bohr’s number appeared so frequently in Rakel’s phone log that they checked his alibi for the night of the murder.”
“And?”
“His wife says he was at home all evening and all night. What strikes me about those phone calls from Bohr is that he seems to have called her about three times for each call she made to him. That may not count as stalking, but wouldn’t a subordinate return their boss’s calls more often?”
“I don’t know. You’re suggesting that Bohr’s interest in Rakel could have been more than professional?”
“What do you think?”
Kaja rubbed her chin. Harry didn’t know why, but it struck him as a masculine gesture, possibly something to do with stubble.
“Bohr’s a conscientious boss,” Kaja said. “Which means that he can sometimes come across as a bit too engaged and impatient. I can well imagine him calling three times before you get around to returning the first call.”
“At one o’clock in the morning?”
Kaja grimaced. “Do you want me to argue, or…”
“Ideally.”
“Rakel was assistant director of the NHRI, if I’ve understood correctly?”
“Technical director. But yes.”
“And what did she do?”
“Reports for UN treaty organisations. Lectures. Advice to politicians.”
“So, in the NHRI you have to fit in with other people’s working hours and deadlines. UN Headquarters is six hours behind us. So it isn’t that remarkable for your boss to call you a bit late every now and then.”
“Where does…What’s Bohr’s address?”
“Somewhere in Smestad. I think it’s the house he grew up in.”
“Mm.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Random thoughts.”
“Come on.”
Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “Seeing as I’m suspended, I can’t call anyone to interview, request a search warrant or operate in any way that might attract attention from Kripos or Crime Squad. But we can do a bit of digging in the blind spot where they can’t see us.”
“Such as?”
“Here’s the hypothesis. Bohr killed Rakel. Then he went straight home, and got rid of the murder weapon on the way. In which case he probably drove the same way we did to get back here from Holmenkollen. If you wanted to get rid of a knife between Holmenkollveien and Smestad, where would you choose?”
“Holmendammen is literally a stone’s throw from the road.”
“Good,” Harry said. “But the files say they’ve already looked there, and the average depth is only three metres, so they would have found it.”
“So where else?”
He closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the wall of albums behind him and reconstructed the road he had driven so many times. Holmenkollen to Smestad. It couldn’t be more than three or four kilometres. But still offered endless opportunities to get rid of a small object. It was mostly gardens. A thicket just before Stasjonsveien was a possibility. He heard the metallic whine of a tram in the distance, and a plaintive shriek from one right outside. Caught a sudden glimpse of it. Green, this time. With a stench of death.
“Rubbish,” he said. “The container.”
“The container?”
“At the petrol station just below Stasjonsveien.”
Kaja laughed. “That’s one of a thousand possibilities, and you sound so certain.”
“Sure. It’s the first thing that came to mind when I thought what I’d have done.”
“Are you OK?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look very pale.”
“Not enough iron,” Harry said, getting to his feet.
* * *
—
“The company that hires out the container comes and collects it when it’s full,” the bespectacled, dark-skinned woman said.
“And when was the last time that happened?” Harry said, looking at the big grey container standing next to the petrol station building. The woman—who had introduced herself as the manager—had explained that the skip was for the petrol station’s use, and was mostly used to get rid of packaging, and that she couldn’t recall seeing anyone dumping their own rubbish in it. The container had an open metal mouth at one end, and the woman had pressed a red button to demonstrate how the jaws compacted the rubbish and pressed it into the bowels of the container. Kaja was standing a few metres away making a note of the name and phone number of the container company, which was printed on the grey steel.
“The last time they replaced it was probably a month or so ago,” the manager said.
“Have the police opened it up and looked inside?” Harry asked.
“I thought you were the police?”
“The right hand doesn’t always know what the left hand is doing in such a large investigation. Could you open the container for us so we can take a look at what’s inside?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to call my boss.”
“I thought you were the boss,” Harry said.
“I said I was the manager of this petrol station, that doesn’t mean—”
“We understand.” Kaja smiled. “If you could call him or her, we’d be very grateful.”
The woman left them and disappeared inside the red and yellow building. Harry and Kaja stood there looking down at the artificial grass pitch where a couple of boys were practising the latest Neymar tricks they’d no doubt seen on YouTube.
After a while, Kaja looked at her watch. “Shall we go in and ask how it’s going?”
“No,” Harry said.
“Why not?”
“The knife isn’t in the container.”
“But you said…”
“I was wrong.”
“And what makes you so sure about that?”
“Look,” Harry said, pointing. “Security cameras. That’s why no one dumps anything in here. And a murderer who’s had the presence of mind to remove a well-camouflaged wildlife camera from the crime scene isn’t going to drive straight into a petrol station with cameras to get rid of the murder weapon.”
Harry started to walk towards the football pitch.
“Where are you going?” Kaja called after him.
Harry didn’t answer. Largely because he didn’t have an answer. Not until he reached the back of the petrol station and saw a building with the logo of the Ready sports club above the entrance. There were six green plastic bins beside the building. Outside the reach of the cameras. Harry opened the lid of the largest one and was hit by the rancid smell of rotting food.
He tilted the bin onto the two wheels at the back and moved it out into the open. There he tipped it over, spilling its contents.
“What a terrible smell,” Kaja said as she caught up with him.
“That’s good.”
“Good?”
“It means it hasn’t been emptied in a while,” Harry said, crouching down and starting to hunt through the waste. “Can you start with one of the others?”
“There was nothing about poking through rubbish in the job description.”
“Given the terrible salary you’re on, you should probably have realised that rubbish was going to crop up at some point.”
“You’re not paying
me a salary at all,” Kaja said as she tipped over the smallest bin.
“That’s what I meant. And yours doesn’t smell as bad as mine.”
“No one can say you don’t know how to motivate your staff.” Kaja crouched down, and Harry noted that she started with the top left, the way they were taught to search at Police College.
A man had come out onto the steps and was standing under the Ready sign. In jeans with the Ready logo on. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Harry stood up, walked over to the man and showed him his police ID. “Do you know if anyone might have seen anyone here on the evening of the tenth of March?”
The man stared at the ID, then back at Harry with his mouth half open. “You’re Harry Hole.”
“That’s right.”
“The super-detective himself?”
“Don’t believe everything—”
“And you’re looking through our rubbish.”
“Sorry if you’re disappointed.”
“Harry…” Kaja called.
Harry turned round. She was holding something between her thumb and forefinger. It looked like a tiny piece of black plastic. “What is it?” he asked, screwing his eyes up as he felt his heart start to beat faster.
“I’m not sure, but I think it’s one of those…”
Memory cards, Harry thought. The sort you use in wildlife cameras.
* * *
—
The sun was shining into the kitchen on Lyder Sagens gate, to where Kaja was standing, removing her memory card from the slot of what looked to Harry like a cheap camera, but which Kaja had said was a Canon G9, bought in 2009 for a small fortune, and which had actually stood the test of time. She inserted the memory card from the rubbish bin into the empty slot, connected the camera to her MacBook with a cable and clicked on the Pictures folder. A series of thumbnails appeared. Some of them showed Rakel’s house in various stages of daylight. Some were taken in darkness, and all Harry could see was the light from the kitchen window.
“There you go,” Kaja said, and went over to the hissing espresso machine that was working on cup number two, but Harry realised that was mostly to leave him alone.
The thumbnails were marked with dates.
The second to last was marked 10 March, the last 11 March. The night of the murder.
He took a deep breath. What did he want to see? What was he worried about seeing? And what was he hoping to see?
His brain felt like a wasps’ nest under attack, so it was just as well to get it done.
He clicked the Play symbol on the thumbnail for 10 March.
Four smaller thumbnails appeared, with the times marked.
The camera had been activated four times before midnight on the night of the murder.
Harry clicked on the first recording, which was labelled 20:02:10.
Darkness. Light behind the curtain in the kitchen window. But someone, or something, was moving in the darkness and had triggered the recording. Damn, he should have followed the advice of the guy in the shop and bought a more expensive camera with Zero Blur technology. Or was it No Glow? Either way, something that meant you could see what was in front of the camera even in the middle of the night. Suddenly, there was light on the steps as the front door opened, and in the doorway stood a shape that could only be Rakel. She stood there for a couple of seconds before she let a different shape in, then the door closed behind them.
Harry was breathing hard through his nose.
Several long seconds passed, then the image froze.
The next recording started at 20:29:25. Harry clicked on it. The front door was open, but the lights in the living room and kitchen were switched off, or dimmed, so he could hardly see the shape that came out, closed the door behind it and went down the steps before disappearing into the darkness. But this was half past eight in the evening, an hour and a half before the window suggested by Forensics. The next clips were the important ones.
Harry could feel his palms sweating as he clicked on the third thumbnail, labelled 23:21:09.
A car swept across the drive. The headlights lit up the wall of the house before it came to a stop right in front of the steps and the lights went out. Harry stared at the screen, trying in vain to make his eyes bore into the darkness.
The seconds ticked past on the clock, but nothing happened. Was the driver sitting inside the dark car waiting for someone? No, because the recording hadn’t stopped, so the camera’s sensor was still detecting movement. Then, at last, Harry saw something. Faint light fell across the steps as the front door opened and what looked like a hunched figure went inside. The door closed, and the image went dark again. And froze a few seconds later.
He clicked on the last recording before midnight. 23:38:21.
Darkness.
Nothing.
What had the camera’s PIR sensor detected? Something that was moving and had a pulse, at least; a different temperature to everything else.
After thirty seconds the recording stopped.
It could have been someone moving across the drive in front of the house. But also a bird, a cat, a dog. Harry rubbed his face hard. What the hell was the point of a wildlife camera with sensors that were far more sensitive than the lens? He vaguely remembered the sales assistant in the shop saying something along those lines when he was trying to persuade Harry to spend a bit more money on the camera. But that was back when Harry was first starting to have trouble financing his drinking and still keeping a roof over his head.
“Have we got anything?” Kaja asked, putting one of the cups down in front of him.
“Something, but not enough.” Harry clicked the thumbnail for 11 March. One recording. 02:23:12.
“Cross your fingers,” he said, and pressed Play.
The front door opened, and a shape could just be made out in the weak grey light from the hall. It stood there for a few seconds, looked like it was swaying. Then the door closed and everything was completely dark again.
“He’s leaving,” Harry said.
Light.
The car’s headlights came on; the rear lights glowed red as well. The reversing light came on. Then they all went out again and everything was dark.
“He’s switched the engine off again,” Kaja said. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” Harry leaned closer to the screen. “There’s someone approaching, can you see?”
“No.”
The picture jolted, and the outline of the house became crooked. Another jolt, and it was even more crooked. Then the recording stopped.
“What was that?”
“He pulled the camera down,” Harry said.
“Surely we should have seen him if he walked from the car to the camera?”
“He approached it from the side,” Harry said. “You could just see him approach, from off to the left.”
“Why walk around? If he was going to get rid of the recordings, I mean?”
“He was avoiding the area with most snow. Less work to get rid of his footprints afterwards.”
Kaja nodded slowly. “He must have reconnoitred carefully in advance if he knew about the camera.”
“Yes. And he carried out the murder with almost military precision.”
“Almost?”
“He got in the car first, and came close to forgetting the camera.”
“He hadn’t planned it?”
“Yes,” Harry said, lifting the cup to his lips. “Everything was planned, down to the last detail. Such as the fact that the light inside the car didn’t come on when he got in and out of the car. He’d switched it off beforehand in case any of the neighbours heard the car and looked over to see who it was.”
“But they’d still have seen his car.”
“I doubt it was his car. If it had been, he�
�d have parked farther away. It looked almost as if he wanted to have the car at the scene.”
“So that any eventual witnesses could mislead the police?”
“Mm.” Harry swallowed the coffee and pulled a face.
“Sorry I haven’t got any freeze-dried,” Kaja said. “So what’s the conclusion? Was it perfectly executed or not?”
“I don’t know.” Harry leaned back to pull his cigarettes from his trouser pocket. “Almost forgetting about the camera doesn’t fit with the rest of it. And it looked like he was swaying in the doorway, did you see? Almost as if the person coming out isn’t the same person who went in. And what was he doing in there for two and a half hours?”
“What do you think?”
“I think he was high. Drugs or drink. Does Roar Bohr take any pills?”
Kaja shook her head and fixed her gaze on the wall behind Harry.
“Is that a no?” he asked.
“It’s an I-don’t-know.”
“But you’re not ruling it out?”
“Ruling out the possibility that a Special Forces officer who’s been on three tours to Afghanistan is on pills? Absolutely not.”
“Mm. Can you remove the memory card? I’ll take it to Bjørn, maybe Forensics can get something out of the images.”
“Sure.” Kaja took hold of the camera. “What are your thoughts about the knife? Why doesn’t he get rid of it in the same place as the memory card?”
Harry inspected the remains of his coffee. “The crime scene indicates that he had some idea of how the police work. So he probably also knows the way we search the area around the scene for a possible murder weapon, and that the chances that we’d find a knife in a rubbish bin less than a kilometre from the scene is relatively large.”
“But the memory card…”
“…was OK to get rid of. He wasn’t counting on us even looking for that. Who would know that Rakel had a camouflaged wildlife camera in her garden?”
“So where’s the knife?”
“I don’t know. But I’d guess it’s in the perpetrator’s home.”
“Why?” Kaja asked as she looked at the camera screen. “If it gets found there, he’s as good as convicted.”
“Because he doesn’t think he’s a suspect. A knife doesn’t rot, it doesn’t melt, it needs to be hidden somewhere it will never be found. And the first place we can think of good hiding places is where we live. Having it nearby also gives us a sense of being in control of our own fate.”
