The Hunting Dogs

by Jorn Lier Horst

  She looked up the address in Minnehallveien and found four mobile subscriptions registered there. From the names, a family.

  She returned a short email of thanks and asked them if anyone else was listed at the address at the same time as Jonas Ravneberg.

  She entered the series of maps on the council’s website to key in the farm and title numbers. The segment that appeared was in the area known as Manvik. The blue marker was just beside a river. At a larger scale she homed more closely into the property, two large buildings and one smaller. A winding road led some considerable distance to the nearest neighbour.

  An aerial photograph of the area revealed an agricultural landscape, with the river dividing the picture in two. Fields of varying hues made a patchwork of the terrain. The marker was surrounded by densely growing woodland and a small, barely visible cluster of houses among the trees. Jonas Ravneberg was still listed as the owner, though he had moved from Larvik seventeen years earlier.

  Line moved to the map view again and clicked out to an overview picture. The property was situated five kilometres as the crow flies from the spot where Cecilia was last seen. The distance to the place where her body was found was even shorter.

  44

  The smell of the bonfire still hung about his clothes as Wisting aired his jacket on a hook beside the door, acrid smoke still in his hair.

  Darkness was closing in around the cottage.

  Line had taken his place on the settee, settled with her laptop in front of her. The documents lay spread across the table and settee cushions, several of them marked with yellow post-it notes. On the wall where he had hung three pictures, she had added a map and a number of extracts from the document folder including the transcript of Cecilia’s tape message.

  ‘Have you discovered anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing decisive, but I can’t get away from the fact that Rudolf Haglund had no injuries.’ She pointed at the photo of the reconstruction. ‘The guy was wearing only a T-shirt, but Haglund didn’t have as much as a scratch on his arms.’

  ‘He was arrested a fortnight after the abduction. Scratch marks can heal in that time.’

  ‘Cecilia must have put up some sort of resistance. When her body was found, she had only been dead for a few hours, hadn’t she? That was two days before you picked him up.’

  ‘She may have been weak and exhausted.’

  ‘She got food,’ Line said, waving the post mortem report. ‘Her stomach contents are listed as undigested remains of potatoes, red fish and wheat grains.’

  No good explanation. ‘He liked to fish,’ Wisting said. ‘Maybe he served her trout he had caught himself.’

  Line recognised a desperate joke. ‘You had a project focused on her boyfriend,’ she said.

  ‘It was in two parts. We were looking into the possibility that Cecilia and Danny were in cahoots and arranged the kidnapping, or that he did it on his own.’

  ‘Did you check his background?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘It’s all in the folder. A few black marks on his credit record and he had been fined for use and possession of hash. There was also a report of assault, I think.’

  ‘Other women?’

  ‘There was a story, almost two years old. A photographer colleague he had been travelling with right after he met Cecilia. She started in another job immediately afterwards.’

  Line picked up the black ring binder and leafed through to a page where she had attached a yellow note. ‘Tone Berg?’

  ‘I don’t remember. We spoke to her.’

  Line returned the ring binder to its place. ‘Did you know Danny Flom has a son who’ll turn sixteen in two days’ time?’

  Wisting was surprised. ‘He’s been married twice.’ He counted the months in his head.

  ‘Born fifteen months after Cecilia disappeared, meaning that before six months had passed, Danny Flom had embarked on a relationship with a new girlfriend and got her pregnant.’

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Facebook.’

  ‘Facebook?’

  Line regarded him. ‘Don’t you use that in the police?’

  ‘It wasn’t invented seventeen years ago. The internet had hardly been invented. Anyway, there’s nothing to suggest he has anything to do with the case. We have Cecilia’s own account.’

  Line turned to the transcript. ‘I’m just pointing out some inconsistencies.’ She removed the sheet of paper from the wall. ‘Wasn’t that what you called it? Snags you can get caught up in.’

  Wisting let her continue.

  ‘I haven’t listened to the tape, but what she says seems a bit contrived.’

  ‘There’s a copy tape in the cassette player,’ Wisting said, indicating the old travel radio on the shelf underneath the window. ‘Just rewind it slightly.’

  Line was unsure whether this was something she really wanted to hear, but she did as he said, and for one minute and forty-three seconds, Cecilia Linde’s voice filled the room, eventually breaking into sobs.

  ‘All the same,’ Line said, stopping the tape. ‘In addition to the factual information there’s a couple of interesting things. She says he smelled foul. Like smoke, but also something else. Didn’t you get anywhere with that?’

  ‘Rudolf Haglund stank,’ Wisting answered. ‘Just as she said. He smelled of smoke, but also something else. He had some kind of unpleasant body odour.’

  ‘When she says smoke, does she mean cigarette smoke or smoke from a bonfire?’

  ‘I’ve always thought of it as cigarette smoke.’

  Line nodded. ‘You had already found the cigarette butts on the ground at Grumserød crossroads when you played the tape.’

  Wisting realised that they had been prejudiced.

  ‘Did Cecilia smoke?’ Line continued.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Her boyfriend or parents?’

  ‘Her father smoked, and her brother. I don’t think Danny did.’

  ‘So she was used to cigarette smoke?’

  ‘I don’t think this is leading anywhere,’ Wisting said. ‘If she had meant smoke from a bonfire, then we could discuss why she didn’t say more specifically that he smelled of bonfire smoke.’

  ‘Fine,’ Line said. ‘But what is really interesting is the sentence, I have seen him before.’ Wisting agreed. Those five words had tormented him. ‘Do you know if Cecilia and Rudolf Haglund had ever met?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘but the abduction seemed planned. We know he was waiting for her. It’s not unlikely they had bumped into each other, or at least seen each other, and that he planned it on that basis. Perhaps even stalked her.’

  Line returned the transcript to the wall and Wisting returned to his seat, understanding that he had fallen into the same trap as all the investigators on the case. Instead of probing what might prove the suspect’s innocence, all such information had been ignored or explained away, a psychological mechanism that made it possible for innocent people to be convicted.

  It was the task of the court to draw conclusions about guilt, but it was difficult for suspicious investigators to retain an objective viewpoint. Through the investigation they had cultivated their own convictions and the question of guilt was decided before the case came before the court.

  He still felt sure that Rudolf Haglund was the right man, but he felt himself wavering. He was not quite as certain as he had been seventeen years earlier.

  45

  ‘I’m going out for a walk,’ Line said.

  ‘Now?’ Wisting asked, peering outside. Only the reflection from the fire in the hearth could be seen on the dark windowpane.

  ‘Just a short walk.’

  Wisting glanced at the time: not long after seven o’clock. ‘Are you coming back here or going home?’

  Line pulled on her jacket. ‘How long were you planning to stay?’

  ‘A couple of hours at least. Suzanne’s at the café.’

  ‘Have you spoken
to her today?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You ought to pop in to see her on your way home.’

  Wisting looked at her. ‘Maybe I will.’

  They stepped out onto the verandah. Pale moonlight shimmered through breaks in the clouds. She gave him a hug and at that moment his mobile phone rang inside the house. He waved her off.

  He found it in the gap between the seat cushion and the chair back. It must have slid from his trouser pocket while he was sitting on the chair. As he fumbled to retrieve it, he touched the keys so that he accepted the call involuntarily, before he had checked the caller’s identity. ‘Hello?’

  The gruff voice at the other end sounded elderly. Wisting moved the phone away from his face and saw from the display that this was an unknown number. ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is Steinar Kvalsvik. I’m a senior consultant, now retired, at the psychiatric department of the Central Hospital in Akershus.’

  Wisting knew who the man was. He had been chiefly responsible for the forensic psychiatric examination of Rudolf Haglund. At the time, they had entered into a number of brief, professional discussions. He had been employed in more recent cases.

  ‘It’s about Rudolf Haglund. I don’t have anything to do with it any longer, but I’m worried.’

  ‘You know I’m suspended?’

  ‘Formalities,’ the man snorted. ‘I can’t think of anyone to contact other than you.’

  Wisting crossed over to the window, where he saw his own reflection, but could also make out the sea and a sliver of moonlight. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘I have conducted hundreds of psychiatric evaluations over the years, but encountered very few like Rudolf Haglund.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘It may not have emerged very clearly from the paperwork, and it’s difficult to put into words. Our remit was to decide whether he was criminally sane, and he was, almost on the border of the calculations. Nevertheless, there was something about him that I felt was terrifying.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘We used a newly developed method of analysis to judge the risk of future violent behaviour. The method comprised variables that assessed relevant past, present and future circumstances. Historic, or constant, factors are allocated equal weight as the combination of existing clinical and future risk management variables.’

  ‘What conclusion did you reach?’

  ‘Rudolf Haglund scored extremely high. He had an early introduction to violence, lacks empathy, is socially maladjusted, holds negative attitudes, is emotionally unstable and devoid of self-knowledge.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Often the risk of future violent conduct is weighed against the likelihood of landing in dangerous situations. For example, if someone is a drug addict with unstable relationships, the risk factor is increased, but Haglund appeared to be more methodical in his actions.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’ll spare you all the jargon,’ the doctor concluded. ‘I haven’t dealt with serial killers before, but I’m afraid that he might do something similar again, now that he’s out.’

  Wisting watched a dark cloud drift across the moon. ‘Meaning he might abduct someone and kill again?’

  ‘Rudolf Haglund is the type to repeat his actions. He has been inside for almost seventeen years. He is probably extremely vulnerable to the desires that have driven him to commit murder before.’

  ‘My God … are you sure about this?’

  ‘Psychiatry is not an exact science, and I wouldn’t have got in touch if it hadn’t been for the girl who has disappeared. Linnea Kaupang.’

  ‘What about his actions in the past? Could he have done something like this before?’

  ‘The murder of Cecilia Linde was hardly the act of a beginner. He has probably used extreme violence before.’

  Wisting suddenly realised how urgent this was. ‘I’m going to ask the officer in charge of the Linnea case to contact you. You must tell him everything you’ve told me.’

  ‘Of course,’ the psychiatrist agreed, ‘but, as a matter of form, this bleak prognosis presupposes that it really was Rudolf Haglund who killed Cecilia Linde. There are other confused and dangerous people out there, apart from him.’

  46

  Line turned at a layby, drove back and parked at the turn-off before the dirt track, her headlights lighting up a rusty old mailbox on a telephone pole. She stepped from the car and peered at the lid, at a white plaque on which the names Ingvald and Anne Marie Ravneberg were engraved. Underneath, it looked like there had once been another name.

  Jonas, she thought. This was his childhood home.

  She drove on, dense vegetation beating the sides of the car, until she noticed vehicle tracks in the soft ground ahead. It could be a police patrol car, here in connection with the murder in Fredrikstad, but she doubted that. She reversed out, turned onto the main road and parked in a layby, an estimated six or seven hundred metres from the smallholding by the river. She changed into a pair of boots and took her camera from her bag. It had an ISO setting of up to 25600, and could take photographs in almost total darkness.

  The forest had grown close to the narrow track, so that overhanging branches formed a sort of tunnel. She set off on foot, the river thundering somewhere to her left behind the trees, in spate after many days of heavy rain. The sky was sprinkled with pale stars.

  Soon her eyes became accustomed to the darkness but she stepped cautiously down the slope. The farther she ventured along the track, the quieter it became. And darker. She was wondering whether she should turn and come back in daylight when she saw a light between the trees. Soon the little cluster of buildings came into sight.

  She approached more closely.

  The red farmhouse had white borders and latticed windows but darkness hid anything that might be seen as pastoral charm. At one corner a solitary light bulb cast a yellowy-grey glimmer. It was a dying house, suffering rot, paint flaking from the walls and a broken porch. Two collapsed, grey outhouses were situated on the opposite side of the yard with, between them, an old car with weeds growing round it. No chance it was the vehicle that had made the fresh ruts on the track. Slightly farther away was a weather-beaten barn with its roof sagged into the shape of a saddle.

  A grassy hill sloped down towards the river and another building, a low structure with a turf roof and a tall, narrow chimney.

  The place looked abandoned, but the electricity was still connected, and the tyre tracks meant that someone had been here not too long ago. Partly eroded by the weather, it was difficult to tell how old they were. Probably a day or two.

  She climbed the grey concrete steps of the main building and put her hands on the door; locked. There was a window, but it was too dark to see inside. She took out her mobile phone and used the flashlight function as a torch. Two paintings hung on a wall, and a rug was spread on the wooden floor, with a pair of clogs on it.

  She waded through the long grass to the next window, which was draped with white curtains and a crocheted valance. She used her mobile phone again and this time pressed her forehead against the glass. It was an old kitchen: enamel stove with three rings, a deep kitchen sink, slop sink, worktop and wall cabinets. A table with a grey top stood directly beside the window and, in the centre of the table, a vase sat on a patterned cloth.

  She placed her phone on the windowpane again. There were flowers in the vase, red roses. A petal had fallen; apart from that, they were quite fresh.

  She turned and let her eyes roam. The trees at the edge of the forest creaked as they swayed in the breeze. Pearly moonlight cast moving shadows. The sound of something scraping against something else. Where? Close. From inside the house. She stepped forward and the sound vanished, but returned with the next gust of wind. It was the branches of a tree scratching against the roof tiles.

  Fear was irrational, but it felt like a clammy hand running down her back. The house should have been empty for seventeen years, but someone had be
en here a short time ago. A light drifted through the trees, headlights moving slowly along the track. The low rumble of an engine followed.

  She hid behind a tree as the car drove past. The headlights had robbed her of her night vision, and she could not see anything more than the driver’s profile. The vehicle stopped in front of the farmhouse, bathing the derelict yard in light. The driver remained seated with the engine idling.

  Line crossed quickly to the other side, in among the trees again, and took a couple of photos of the car and its surroundings. She zoomed in on the number plate.

  Five minutes later the car drove towards the two shacks and switched to full beam. The wrecked car was a Saab, its dull red paint speckled with rust and the rubber on its tyres rotted. Two minutes later the car reversed out again.

  Line pressed against a mossy boulder and, as she heard the car drive past, took a photo of the driver, a man around the same age as her father. He wore glasses and had dark hair flecked with silver at the sides. There was something familiar about him but, whoever he was, his behaviour was very strange.

  47

  Re-reading the forensic psychiatrists’ report, Wisting was brought up short by a paragraph dealing with Rudolf Haglund’s health. The subject was reported to be in good physical condition. He had not been treated for any serious illnesses and had never been an in-patient at any hospital in Norway or abroad. No hereditary conditions existed in his family and he was not prescribed any kind of medication.

  He looked at the photo of the scar where Haglund had been operated on to remove a mole. The psychiatrists had been thorough but the incidence of skin cancer was not mentioned. An operation could have been carried out at day surgery, and might have been on benign skin tumours, but it was strange that it was ignored.

  Wisting called the senior consultant, now retired. ‘Do you know whether Rudolf Haglund had an operation for skin cancer?’