The Hunting Dogs

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Wisting checked his watch. It was too late to ask Bjørg Karin to look through them and he would not ask anyone else. ‘I’m in Oslo, but I’ll be back tonight. Would it be possible for you to take them home?’

  Bjørg Karin did not give an immediate response and Wisting realised he was asking a great deal. ‘It’s really important to me,’ he added.

  ‘If it can be of any help to you, then …’

  ‘Would it be okay if I come to your house for a look?’

  ‘I’m not doing anything else this evening. When will you arrive?’

  ‘Some time after seven.’

  ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

  Wisting had a number of loose threads that were only a few keystrokes away, but he was removed from both office and computer. ‘Are you sitting in front of a computer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you look something up in the Population Register?’

  ‘Just a moment.’ He waited while she logged in. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘A name: Danny Flom. Apparently he has a son who will turn sixteen next week,’ Wisting said. ‘Can you confirm that?’

  He listened as she worked on the keyboard. ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Victor Hansen.’

  ‘Isn’t he called Flom?’

  ‘He’s taken that as his middle name. Victor Flom Hansen. Wait a minute, and I’ll go to the family profile.’

  Wisting waited. Terje Nordbo came into the corridor to fetch a jug of water.

  ‘It looks as though he’s not the biological father,’ Bjørg Karin said. ‘He’s his wife’s son. Danny Flom is listed as the adoptive father with full parental responsibility.’ Wisting nodded, satisfied that this was one less complication. ‘I’ll see you tonight?’

  ‘Yes, and thanks for your help.’

  He put the phone back in his pocket and returned to the interview room.

  ‘Does it suit you to continue now?’ Nordbo asked tartly, pouring water for them both.

  Wisting was not at all sure. Through his line of questioning, Nordbo had revealed that he was being investigated, not simply the case. The Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs had already made up its mind, and now it was seeking confirmation.

  ‘You work as head of investigations; where do you think you would have been today, professionally speaking, if you had not succeeded in convicting Rudolf Haglund?’

  Wisting took the measure of his adversary. His career progress had never been a driving force. He worked from one case to another, with no ambition other than to solve them. The question had no place in an objective investigation. Terje Nordbo was not interested in solving the case. He would have to do that for himself. It was a waste of time continuing. He stood up.

  ‘What are you doing? We’re not finished.’

  ‘Maybe not you, but I am.’

  64

  An old warning about the danger of forest fires hung from a post, and a rusty road barrier lay in the ditch. Line’s headlights shone on cascades of rain that had made the gravel track soggy. Twilight was advancing, but the ruts from Haglund’s vehicle were easy to follow. Aware that her whole body was shaking, she switched on the heater, filling the car with the smell of engine oil.

  The track climbed past a rocky slope before wheeling to the right with rock face on one side and sheer drop on the other. Patches of white fog appeared in front, but the track soon levelled and the landscape changed. Massive fir trees grew to the edge of the track and heavy branches swept along the side of the car where the track divided. Haglund had gone left.

  Line slowed down. A sign gave a reminder about the cost of fishing permits, but said not a word about where the track led. She eased past the junction. Fifty metres further on she could make out a lake and an open area.

  ‘He’s turned off the track,’ she told the others. ‘Looks like a fishing spot.’

  ‘I doubt he’s going fishing,’ Morten P said.

  ‘I’m driving on. The track climbs. I’ll try to find somewhere I can look down on the lake.’

  The track narrowed, but snaked through a logging area where the terrain opened out, with only an occasional slender tree remaining. At a layby she pulled over and stopped. The area was overgrown with shrubs, but she could see Haglund’s car and the roof of a building below her.

  She rolled the side window down a crack to prevent misting and the scent of heather, juniper and moorland reached her. The rain was drumming on the roof, the wind whistling faintly. She produced binoculars from her equipment bag but could not see any movement.

  ‘I’m going out to try for a better vantage point,’ she said, pulling on her jacket.

  She stepped from the car into a puddle and one of her shoes filled with ice-cold water. She swore, tramping out of the puddle while shaking off water. Then she heard a scream from somewhere behind her but far distant. The second scream was closer. She turned to see a huge black bird flying over the forested slope, flapping its wings and screeching.

  When she turned back, Rudolf Haglund stood in front of her car. Rain ran down his face, dripping from the tip of his nose and chin. His tiny eyes squinted at her without blinking. She took a step back.

  ‘I know who you are,’ he said, over the sound of the rain, his button-like gaze pinned to her. ‘What do you want? Why are you following me?’

  That gaze, she thought, her heart hammering in her chest, so sharp it almost hurt. Those eyes took in everything. He had probably spotted her on the street in Oslo. ‘I’m a journalist,’ she said. ‘Your case interests me.’

  ‘Can’t you leave me in peace?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Tommy demanded in her ear. ‘Line?’

  Shaking his head, Rudolf Haglund turned and headed down the slope.

  ‘She’s not answering,’ she heard Tommy say. ‘We’re going in.’

  ‘Wait!’ Line called out. Rudolf Haglund turned to face her.

  ‘Line?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘Wait,’ Line repeated. ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About Jonas Ravneberg.’

  Haglund let his gaze drift over her without making eye contact, sliding over her breasts before lingering on her hips. ‘Keep away from me,’ he said, continuing down the slope. ‘You’d better keep away from me.’

  His words sounded more like a warning than a threat.

  65

  It was still raining when Wisting turned off route E18, an incessant, chill, heavy rain.

  He had never visited Bjørg Karin Joakimsen’s home and had needed to phone Directory Enquiries for her address. She stayed at Hovland, a district built in the sixties, in a cul de sac secluded from the main road. An extensive property, it had a garden front and rear, but was modest in comparison with the houses that had appeared more recently. The garden seemed well maintained, but the house was in need of attention.

  She had been widowed for ten years. Wisting had not known her husband but, at his funeral, had sat in the rear section of the church with other colleagues. He did not think she had met another man. He parked beside the fence. It was five past seven. He strode unhurriedly to the front door.

  ‘Come in!’ Bjørg Karin invited, shivering as she peered out.

  He wiped the rain from his shoulders and entered into an aroma of coffee and fresh baking.

  She accompanied him into the living room before disappearing into the kitchen. The coffee table was set with candles ready to be lit. A brown cardboard box sat on the dining table at the other end of the room. Wisting remained standing.

  ‘Have a seat,’ Bjørg Karin said, adjusting a picture hanging crookedly on the wall. Jesus Christ and a man beside a ditch.

  It crossed Wisting’s mind that he did not know her. They had worked together for decades, but he had no idea who she was, would not have guessed that she would hang an embroidered picture of Jesus on her living room wall. As with most of his colleagues, they were strangers outside the workplace.

  Bjørg Karin poured the coffee. �
�All this is so strange,’ she said. ‘Everything’s been turned upside down.’

  Wisting raised his cup. ‘What are folk saying?’

  ‘Everybody’s preoccupied with the girl who’s missing, Linne Kaupang, but nothing seems to be happening. I think they’re scared to put a foot wrong, so don’t do anything at all.’

  ‘That’s not like Nils Hammer.’

  ‘No, but Audun Vetti’s prowling round the station.’ Wisting was taken aback. Audun Vetti and the rest of the administration were based at the police station in Tønsberg. ‘It’s Christine Thiis I feel sorry for. She’s the one with responsibility for the prosecution, but he doesn’t give her a chance.’

  Wisting knew Audun Vetti liked to be visible and at the centre. As police prosecutor in Larvik, he had never been short of suggestions or slow to criticise and rebuke. In other words: no leader, a hindrance.

  Wisting ate two buns before heading to the dining area. ‘Is this it?’ he asked, pointing at the box.

  ‘Yes. I don’t know how it might help you.’

  Wisting took a folder from the box and leafed through. The forms were filed consecutively according to the date the prisoner had been released or transferred. These papers were from three years after Rudolf Haglund’s conviction. He chose a different folder, of more recent date. Several different police officers had signed the forms.

  ‘You can take it with you,’ Bjørg Karin said.

  Wisting replaced the folder. ‘I’ll do that,’ he said, drawing the box towards him.

  ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for,’ Bjørg Karin said, ‘and that you’ll come back to us soon. It’s not the same without you.’

  He thanked her and carried the box outside. The top folders were soaked by the time he got them on the back seat. He made a U-turn, waving to Bjørg Karin at the door, but soon he pulled over again, leaned across and rummaged until he found the right folder.

  His fingertips were cold. He made a fist before browsing through the sheets and, in the middle of the folder, finding Rudolf Haglund’s file. He had spent three days inside, and several receipt forms were stapled together.

  Haglund was remanded in custody on the morning of Saturday July 29th, exactly a fortnight after Cecilia Linde had vanished. Every half hour, a name had been signed to acknowledge supervision. In a couple of places there was an additional insertion of the word smoke. At 14.38, Frank Robekk had written escorted leave, casualty department. Just before four o’clock, he was back.

  At the foot of the first page the words interview, lawyer, were cited. One hour later he had been served food, and that same evening one of the police officers had written interview, W. Wisting. Three hours afterwards, he was back in his cell, and the next forty-eight hours followed this pattern: routine supervision, meetings with counsel, nourishment, and interviews. There were not many custody officers alternating on the supervision rota, and the same signatures were repeated.

  On the final night, the name appeared. The page began to shake in Wisting’s hands. At 01.37 hours, on the night of Tuesday the first of August, Rudolf Haglund had received a visitor in his cell. The word smoke was written in large, slightly sloping letters in front of a cursive signature Wisting knew extremely well.

  The name was completely unexpected, but everything fell into place.

  66

  Rudolf Haglund disappeared into the bushes covering the slope. A gust of wind rippled the treetops and swept icily round her. Raindrops seeped through her hair and oozed down her neck.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Tommy asked in her ear.

  ‘He spotted me,’ she said, holding the microphone to her mouth. ‘He recognised me and knew I had followed him all the way from Oslo.’

  ‘How …’ Harald asked.

  ‘Was it only you, or had he noticed all of us?’ Morten P asked.

  Down near the water’s edge, a door slammed and a car engine started. ‘Just me, I think.’ The headlight beam pitched forward onto the track. ‘He’s driving back,’ she said.

  Morten P was clear: ‘This is how we’ll tackle it. We’ll pick him up and follow. You check where he’s been, and then make your way home.’

  Before she could protest Morten P was instructing the others to resume the surveillance operation. Jacket and trousers drenched, she sat in the car and glanced in the mirror. Her hair was plastered to her scalp and her face deathly pale.

  As she turned the ignition, cold water ran down her spine inside her clothes. She shivered and held her hands stiffly on the steering wheel. At the fork in the track she turned back towards the lake. Churned by the storm, the water crashed against the mooring posts of a jetty, tossing an old rowing boat up and down. Close by there was a dam and what looked like an old sawmill.

  She stepped out of the car under the roof of the shabby building. Rusty circular saws, machines with frayed belts, and a pile of offcuts spoke of past activity. In front of an extension with its door closed, a rusty axe lay in the midst of a heap of sawdust. The door was not locked.

  The first room she entered was small and smelled of damp. A wooden bench ran along one wall. Two empty beer bottles stood on a table and an old newspaper lay on the floor. Water dripped from the ceiling, and weeds grew between the timber floorboards. An internal door led into an office, where an ancient filing cabinet stood in one corner and a wheeled chair lay on its side. A faded notice listing timber prices hung on the wall.

  She went outside again, pulling her jacket more snugly round her. In her ear she heard that Morten P had picked up Haglund’s car on the main road and the others were following.

  Line ran her hand through her soaking hair and looked around. This was not a suitable place to hold a kidnap victim. Perhaps Haglund knew it from his fishing and had only used it to trap whoever was following him. Another strange looking building caught her eye between the trees on the other side of the dam: a grey concrete cube with a rusty metal door. From the outside, it measured approximately three metres by three metres, and had no windows. The door was in a recess, which showed that the walls were at least thirty centimetres thick.

  The door was locked with an iron bolt and a stainless steel padlock, which she lifted and weighed in her hand. She hit the door several times with the palm of her hand and listened. All she could hear was the rain. ‘Hello?’ she called.

  Clenching her fist, she tried again. Anyone shut inside would certainly have heard, at least if they were alive and conscious.

  Reluctant to leave without seeing inside she fetched the axe, raised it above her head with both hands and let it fall, missing the padlock and striking the bolt. She raised the axe again and this time the padlock shot round the bolt ring but remained intact. On the third attempt, the lock splintered and tumbled to the ground.

  Line threw down the axe, removed the bolt and pulled the door towards her. Stepping inside cautiously, she took a step to one side to let the light pour in. The room was empty apart from a thick tarpaulin by the opposite wall. She pulled it aside to reveal a stack of wooden boxes, with letters and numbers she could not read. One of the lids was removed to reveal a number of sausage-shaped packages wrapped in brown paper. She picked one up and a sticky liquid seeped onto her fingers. Danger, she read. Explosives.

  Her heart thumped; this was a dynamite store. Probably from when they used explosives to clear paths through the forest. She replaced the block warily and left, pulling the metal door shut behind her and replacing what was left of the bolt and padlock.

  Whatever else, Linnea Kaupang was certainly not here.

  67

  Line crouched forward, straining to see as the wiper scraped across the windscreen. She had never met Rudolf Haglund before, but he had obviously recognised her. How did he know who she was? He might have seen pictures of her in VG, or may have looked into her father’s private life, but it struck her there was something familiar about him too. Had they met before? It might have been Rudolf Haglund who had come storming out of Jonas Ravneberg’s house in Fredrikstad
.

  The idea grew more likely the longer she thought about it. He was in Ravneberg’s limited circle of acquaintances and had committed murder before, but why would he kill Jonas Ravneberg? Was it something from the past? Something he had nursed through the years inside?

  She went down a gear and overtook a lorry, just as she remembered Erik Fjeld’s CCTV images from the railway station in Fredrikstad. She braked and turned into a layby. The lorry she had just overtaken flashed its lights and sent a deluge of water over her as it passed. On the car speaker, she heard that the others were approaching Larvik, in close pursuit of Haglund’s silver Passat.

  She opened her mobile phone emails, downloaded the unread messages, and opened Erik Fjeld’s. The first attachment showed an empty phone box. The next photo was of a video screen, the telephone kiosk from the previous photograph. A man was standing apparently using the phone. He was dressed in black, but nothing more was visible. In the next two photographs he was heading away from the phone box. A possible resemblance to Rudolf Haglund nurtured her theory, but it was impossible to conclude anything definite.

  She turned onto the road again and hung on the tail of another lorry.

  The Cecilia case created a link between Haglund and Ravneberg, a connection between the present and the past, but she could not grasp what meaning the old murder case actually held for the new. She thought about asking her father’s opinion. He should be finished at Internal Affairs, and she was anxious to hear how the meeting with Haglund had gone. What she herself had on Haglund in the Fredrikstad case was so insubstantial though, that she wanted to keep it to herself. She postponed the call.

  Tommy reported that Haglund had turned off the E18 and was heading towards Larvik.

  Line decided to drive home to the house in Stavern for a hot bath. She had only a shower in her flat in Oslo, and missed sinking into a bathtub filled with perfumed bubbles.

  ‘Towards Stavern,’ Tommy corrected.

  Vexed that she could no longer take part in the surveillance, she began to question its value. If Haglund had abducted Linnea Kaupang it was unlikely he would travel to Oslo for meetings and newspaper interviews. Less likely that he would journey to the other side of the Oslo fjord to kill a man. She gripped the steering wheel. If he had not already rid himself of her.