Dregs (2011)

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘There isn’t any news,’ Wisting hastened to say.

  Oddmund Lauritzen pulled a chair over to the table and invited Wisting to sit down.

  ‘We were wondering a little about what was happening,’ Marie Lauritzen said carefully.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any answers,’ Wisting explained. ‘I had hoped that you could tell me something that would shed new light on the investigation.’

  The married couple sat silent for a short time before the husband started to speak: ‘There is one thing,’ he began. ‘I haven’t yet told to my brother.’

  Wisting nodded for the other man to continue.

  ‘I don’t know if it’ll make you any wiser, but it’s something you ought to know. Perhaps it’ll be useful when you look at it in connection with something else.’

  Wisting straightened up. He had experienced this before, with people sitting on important information, reluctant to go to the police with what they knew, exactly because they didn’t understand its importance.

  ‘I’ve just finished the first week of my holidays,’ Oddmund Lauritzen expanded, ‘and have had some time to go through some of my father’s papers. All of his post is forwarded to me, and I look after all the practical details. We agreed on that, Mathias and I.’

  ‘Mathias isn’t so smart with paperwork,’ Marie Lauritzen said.

  ‘There will of course be a distribution of the estate from all this, but that takes time,’ her husband went on. ‘As long as he’s just missing, we can’t have the estate wound up. Only after a year can we go to the district court and have him declared dead.’

  Wisting nodded. It was called a ‘presumption of death judgement’.

  ‘Father was always meticulous with his papers. I do his income tax returns, and know what he has by way of income and assets and all that. I haven’t bothered to look in his folder of receipts, but thought I should go through it now to make everything easier later.’

  ‘It was Mathias who asked you to do it,’ his wife reminded him. ‘He wanted to know how much there was in the estate.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the man agreed, nodding. ‘I knew from the tax assessment that he was left with a lot when he sold the house and moved into the nursing home. There could be a few hundred thousand for each of us.’

  ‘You have to get to the point,’ his wife said.

  ‘Yes, it concerns his bank statement for August last year. The statement shows a cash deposit of 2.4 million.’

  Wisting tried to gather his thoughts.

  ‘2.4 million?’ he reiterated.

  Oddmund Lauritzen nodded.

  ‘Altogether. There are seven deposits in seven different banks in Oslo. Wednesday 27th August. Paid in over the counter.’

  ‘In Oslo? Do you know where the money comes from?’

  ‘No, and it has gone again.’

  Wisting sat back in the chair, as though he needed space to take in this new information.

  ‘Two days later, he goes round to banks in Sandefjord and Tonsberg and takes the money out again.’

  ‘Somebody must have driven him around,’ Marie Lauritzen said.

  ‘Do you have the bank statement?’ Wisting asked.

  Oddmund Lauritzen got up and returned with two sheets of paper. Wisting studied the summary of the large sums that in the course of a few days had gone in and out of Torkel Lauritzen’s account. He had seen it before, how money could be the motive for the most gruesome crimes people could commit against one other. He stared at the numbers and thought that he could sense it. The case was finding its bearings.

  CHAPTER 40

  Most things were about money, Wisting thought. Follow the money, that was what the anonymous source had said to the Washington Post journalist when the Watergate scandal was on the go in 1972 and Nixon had to resign as president.

  Money always left a trail. Follow the money had become a basic rule for all investigations after the Al Capone case in the 1930s. The American authorities never managed to catch the infamous Mafia boss for the murders he had in all probability committed. Instead it was an accountant who had him imprisoned for tax evasion.

  He wondered why this financial evidence had not turned up before. It was purely routine to check the movements within bank accounts when people were reported missing, but this, of course, concerned movements after the person had disappeared. Nevertheless, they had work to do when the banks opened in the morning.

  He was hungry and lifted a strawberry from one of the punnets he had bought earlier in the day. He put it in his mouth and felt the sweet flavour spread. He ate one more berry before swinging into a petrol station to buy a hot-dog and a carton of cream. He put it on the floor beside the berries and drove home to Suzanne.

  There had always been a kind of conflict between work and family when Ingrid was alive, especially when the children were little. He had a bad conscience when he couldn’t manage to get everything done in his working day and his wife and children had to take second place.

  His relationship with Suzanne was completely non-committal. The little they had talked about the future, contained a common understanding that neither of them had any need to make long-term plans. They were both busy with their own lives and were willing to give each other space for that. At the same time, he understood that she wanted them to spend more time together. He wanted that, too, but his work held him back. It gave him a sense of uneasiness and the old feeling of bad conscience.

  She was not at home. Her little red car was in the driveway, but she didn’t open the door when he rang the bell. He walked round the house to the terrace, but it too was empty. He approached the large windows, put his hand up to the glass and peered inside without really knowing what it was he was looking for. Then he carried the strawberries and cream back to the car.

  It was actually for the best. Dropping in on her in this way felt like a duty. He refrained from phoning her and instead drove to the police station. He could try to call in again when he finished work.

  Torunn Borg drove into the basement garage in front of him. She got out of the car before him, and stood waiting by the door to the stairwell.

  ‘Finished with the old folk?’ he asked.

  Torunn Borg nodded.

  ‘I don’t think anything came of it.’

  ‘Think?’

  ‘There was no one who knew anything, but there’s one of them who perhaps knows more than he was willing to say to me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Alf Storeggen.’

  ‘The lawyer?’

  ‘He’s lived there for two and a half years,’ Torunn Borg explained while Wisting opened up the metal door at the foot of the stairs. It divided the basement of the police station, where the cells were situated, from the rest of the building. ‘He has Parkinson’s.’

  Alf Storeggen’s name had been listed for many years as the first of several partners in one of the town’s largest firms of solicitors. He had conducted a number of criminal cases, but was first and foremost a commercial lawyer. He was highly respected and had a string of directorships in companies and organisations.

  ‘I don’t know if he was just making himself look important or if he really knows something,’ Torunn Borg continued. ‘But he had to think through a problem first, then he would possibly contact you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘He wanted to talk to the boss. The person who had responsibility.’

  Wisting didn’t believe that Alf Storeggen had any need to make himself look important. The lawyer had a long professional life behind him. His file of clients must be large and would probably contain many secrets.

  ‘What about you?’ Torunn enquired. ‘Has your day been productive?’

  He smiled at her.

  ‘I have found a money trail,’ he explained. ‘We can talk about it with the others.’

  They found Nils Hammer in Espen Mortensen’s spacious office, sitting with his feet on the desk eating peanuts from a bag while he watched the underwater pictures beamed
from the archipelago and a depth of more than 300 metres. Mortensen was sitting in front of his computer writing a report.

  ‘Seen anything?’ Wisting asked, nodding towards the living images. A grey, carpeted landscape spread out across the screen.

  ‘A helluva lot of empty bottles,’ Hammer explained, pointing at the screen where the neck of a bottle was sticking out of the sludge. ‘We could get rich if we picked them all up.’

  Wisting smiled and started to leaf through a bundle of screen printouts that lay on the desk beside Hammer. There was scrap iron, chains and twisted metal.

  ‘There’s quite an enormous rubbish dump on the seabed there,’ Hammer gave as his opinion, pulling out a picture of a completely rusted and buckled pram that was covered in algae. ‘People throw away all sorts of things.’

  Wisting stopped at the picture of a shipwreck. The mini submarine must have been manouevred around it several times and had taken photographs from various angles. A registration number on the bow was visible on one of them.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘An insurance fraud,’ Hammer said. ‘It’s an Uttern boat that was reported stolen from Skottebrygga harbour last summer. The owner was paid 180,000 kroner.’

  ‘Financial motive,’ said Torunn Borg.

  Wisting nodded.

  ‘It’s possible that this case too has an economic motive,’ he explained. ‘2.4 million kroner passed through Torkel Lauritzen’s bank account during the days prior to his disappearance.’

  Espen Mortensen glanced up from the computer screen and frowned.

  ‘Passed through?’

  ‘Seven deposits totalling 2.4 million kroner on one and the same day.’ Wisting went on to give an account of the meeting he had had with Oddmund and Marie Lauritzen. ‘Two days later, the money was taken out again, divided into sixteen withdrawals.’

  ‘Who was it who paid in the money?’ Hammer wanted to know.

  ‘That we don’t know. They were cash deposits over the counter in different banks in Oslo. The videotapes were probably erased long ago.’

  ‘Why haven’t we known about this before now? The man’s been missing for nine months, for goodness sake.’

  ‘The family didn’t find out about it until now. They have, in the same way as us, only looked to see if there have been any movements in his account since he disappeared.’

  ‘But we’re talking about a lot of money here. There should have been reports about it in the register of money-laundering or some such?’

  ‘Only if it’s reported by one of the bank employees. They don’t monitor individual accounts. Each withdrawal is for 150,000 kroner. It’s not initially so very striking that an old man comes in and takes out part of his savings.’

  ‘What about the other old folk?’ Hammer asked. ‘Has anyone paid in money to them as well?’

  Wisting shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’ll need to find out about that as soon as the banks open tomorrow.’

  CHAPTER 41

  Suzanne had still not come home. He rang the doorbell twice, but had to carry the cream and berries back to the car once again. Putting one into his mouth he tasted how soft they had become from being in the warm car. The cream would probably turn sour soon too.

  He sat behind the wheel and glanced up at the door while he phoned her. Eventually his call was forwarded to a voice that asked him to leave a message. He munched another berry and started the car. When he was almost home, he called Line’s number. She had surprised him with seafood the night before - now he could repay by serving dessert.

  Her voice had laughter in it when she replied, so infectious that Wisting had to give a broad smile.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked, hearing conversations in the background.

  ‘At a cafe down in Stavern. Why?’

  ‘I was wondering if you were at home. I’ve bought some strawberries.’

  ‘Then we’ll drop in. We’ll be there in half an hour.’

  It took some time for him to realise that she was with Tommy Kvanter, and that she was going to bring him with her. He had distanced himself from his daughter’s relationship with the Danish man of her own age, mostly because he had a past and a criminal record. He had chosen to keep his distance, at least until he saw how their relationship developed.

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ he managed to say all the same as he parked in front of the house.

  He placed the cream in the refrigerator and cleaned the berries before pouring them into a bowl and sprinkling sugar over them. Then he took a can of beer from the fridge and put a CD on the stereo system as he walked through to the garden terrace. He stood there with his elbows leaning on the railings and took a large slug, Leonard Cohen’s deep voice filling his mind.

  It was a warm evening, and a layer of still air covered the town like a blanket. He turned the can of beer between his fingers. In the distance, the church bell rang lazily to mark the end of a late evening service. Accompanied by the melancholy sound from the loudspeakers, the ringing sounded ominous. That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.

  All important cases had a turning point, he thought. A point when something significant emerged and made all the inexplicable pieces of the jigsaw fall into place. He thought he could sense it, that they were reaching that point now.

  The breeze caused the flimsy curtains in the living room doorway to move.

  There was a noise at the outside door. Line called out that they had arrived and Wisting went in to greet them and shake hands with Tommy. He was wearing a tight, white T-shirt that was stretched at the shoulders. A tattooed serpent’s head protruded from the sleeve, colourful and drawn in such fine detail that it seemed to be alive.

  He led out to the verandah and covered the table with a wax cloth before setting down the bowl of strawberries and three dishes.

  ‘Do you need any help?’ Line asked.

  ‘You can get something for you both to drink,’ Wisting suggested.

  She gave Tommy one of his cans of beer and took a glass of water with ice cubes for herself.

  ‘Fantastic view,’ Tommy commented as he stood beside the railings.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ Wisting nodded, pointing out the lighthouse at Svenner for him. ‘Will you be travelling out again soon?’

  ‘I’ll be at home for three weeks this time,’ Tommy answered, turning his back on the sea. ‘Then I’ll be going out again, but this might be the last time.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Some pals of mine are taking over a restaurant in Oslo. They want me to take responsibility for the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh yes? I thought you enjoyed being a ship’s steward?’

  ‘Yes I do, but you get fed up with it. Anyway, I think it’ll be good for our relationship.’ Tommy nodded towards Line. ‘And it will of course cut the accommodation costs in half.’

  Wisting simply nodded. He didn’t like the thought, but decided not to say anything. Instead he pulled out a chair for Tommy and sat down across from him at the table.

  Tommy helped himself first.

  ‘Did you pick them yourself?’ he asked.

  ‘I bought them,’ Wisting had to admit.

  ‘We have strawberries in the garden,’ Line pointed out. ‘Mum planted some.’

  Wisting craned his neck and looked over at what was beginning to be an overgrown spot in the garden. It was really an informal garden, with just a small lawn at the front, but Ingrid had planted flowers and berries in cracks in the hillside and in the less stony patches.

  ‘You can go and see if you can find any afterwards,’ he proposed.

  ‘Have you spoken to Suzanne today?’ Line wanted to know.

  The question embarrassed him.

  ‘No,’ he replied, putting a strawberry into his mouth. ‘I dropped by after work, but she wasn’t at home.’

  ‘So it was for her you actually bought the strawberries?’ Line laughed.

  Wisting smiled, shrugging his shoulders. He was caught out.

  ‘They tasted good al
l the same,’ his daughter confirmed, reaching for a refill at the same time as Tommy. He withdrew his hand and knocked over the jug of cream. Line quickly righted it and tried to save some of the contents.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said at once. ‘That was my fault.’

  ‘It was me who knocked it over,’ Tommy said.

  ‘She’s always been like that,’ Wisting said, using a bundle of napkins to dry it up.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Line asked. ‘Clumsy?’

  ‘No, you’ve always taken the blame for things,’ Wisting explained. ‘Taken responsibility. It was like that when you and your brother played together when you were little as well. You took the blame when anything went wrong.’

  Line laughed and changed the subject, but Wisting was no longer listening. His thoughts suddenly turned to the investigation. It was as though something fell into place. He had a feeling that something had opened up somewhere inside him and then closed again. It didn’t last longer than a second. It was like having a glimpse of understanding about how things were connected. The feeling of almost grasping something, and then it was gone.

  ‘What did you say?’ he asked when he couldn’t manage to gather his thoughts after all.

  ‘Do you remember the living room window Thomas broke with his football, I was asking?’

  Wisting nodded. ‘He gave you ten kroner to say it was you, but then you told tales when I deducted two weeks’ pocket money for it.’

  ‘Brotherly love,’ Tommy Kvanter commented.

  Wisting became serious all of a sudden. What had been said caused him to think about the brothers Ken Ronny and Rune Hauge. He had known the whole time that the story of the police murder was not all it seemed to be. Could it be that Ken Ronny had remained silent to cover for his brother?

  He wondered if the same thought had struck Line. She had a serious expression on her face now. Her eyes stared like magnets back at his.

  CHAPTER 42

  He took out the folder from the police murder just as soon as Line and Tommy had left, and withdrew the bundle containing all the statements, reading from the beginning, looking up only when the dim light from the outdoor lamp made his eyes feel tired.