She hurried and put the cleaning cart in a closet, and went quickly up the stairs.
“Was there anything else you wanted, Sørensen?”
“No. Not this time. The rest we can take up at the police station later,” Sørensen answered, turning around.
He passed Milo on his way toward the stairs.
“Bring it up with my lawyer!” Banno shouted at him.
“You’ll hear from me!” Sørensen shouted over his shoulder.
Banno moved his gaze over to Milo, and took a few steps toward him.
“I’m sure we’ll meet another time, boss.”
“I hope so,” Milo answered and left.
* * *
Oriana was nowhere in sight when they came up to reception again. He would have to call her later. It could not be a coincidence that she had not appeared as a witness when she worked at the gym frequented by several of the suspects in the murder of Tormod Tollefsen. She was the link between the two homicide cases, because it was after Ingrid Tollefsen talked with Oriana that she most likely started her own private investigation into the killing of her little brother.
An investigation that had cost her her life.
They got in the car and drove toward Mosseveien. They were heading in the direction of the city center, but they would continue to the other side of the city. To Lysaker.
“What the hell was she doing there? Did you see her eyes?” said Sørensen.
“Yes.”
“I thought she was going to pee her pants,“said the chief inspector.
“Yes, she was scared. I wonder what they have on her? That must be the reason she didn’t report herself that time. She could have risked reprisals. If they could kill a young Norwegian boy on a light summer evening, they would have no problem getting rid of a solitary asylum seeker,” Milo replied.
Sørensen grunted and drummed his fingers on his thigh.
“Did you find out what you wanted otherwise?” asked Milo.
“Yes. I got it confirmed that Ingrid Tollefsen really had been there, asking questions about the killing of her brother.”
“But he denied it.”
“He’s lying.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know when people are lying.”
Sørensen stared out the window at the traffic on its way toward Oslo, while Milo maintained good speed.
“It would have taken us three weeks to bring him in for questioning along with his attorney. Now I know.”
Milo glanced at him.
“And what do you know, in concrete terms?”
“I know that Tormod Tollefsen got on the wrong track and had an ampoule of steroids in his hand when he died, and that his teacher was killed. I know that Ingrid Tollefsen found this out and started nosing around in the killing of her brother. And I am reasonably certain that she confronted Banno and the gang.”
Milo turned off the E18 and found the road to the office and industrial park by the Lysaker River.
“And I know that Forum Healthcare, Ingrid Tollefsen’s employer, is the company that produced the ampoule Tormod Tollefsen was holding in his hand when he died.”
* * *
“Both steroids and growth hormones are completely legal products,” Thomas Veivåg explained.
Alongside the CEO of Forum Healthcare sat the legal director with the forgettable name, nodding supportively.
“I thought steroids were prohibited,” Sørensen answered skeptically, as he leafed forward to a blank page in his notepad.
Veivåg straightened up in his chair.
“Anabolic steroids in themselves are not prohibited. Along with growth hormones, they are used to treat a number of different diseases, and—”
“Which ones?” Sørensen interrupted.
“Well, persons who need to build muscle tissue. And muscle mass. For example, after an accident. Or to correct youth who are behind on the growth curve.”
“Youth? Do you mean that doctors push steroids on young people to get them to grow?”
Veivåg shook his head.
“No, no, no one is pushing these products.”
“Then you haven’t been to a gym,” Milo interjected.
Veivåg stopped in midsentence, and moved his eyes from Sørensen to Milo. He sighed barely audibly.
“Once again. We make completely legal products that every single day give patients all over the world a better life. These are medicines given to patients after careful medical assessment by doctors. Sometimes the body needs help.”
“But what about the illegal sale of steroids at gyms and other places? I don’t expect that all the juicers in Oslo get this by prescription from their doctors?” asked Milo.
“No, of course not. But we don’t sell to them either,” answered the head of Forum.
“But they are the same products, aren’t they? What builds muscle mass in an accident victim can build muscle mass in a bodybuilder too, right?” asked Milo.
“In theory, yes.”
Now it was Sørensen’s turn to sigh.
“But damn it all, Veivåg! Do you deny that your products can end up in gyms and be sold illegally?”
It was as if the word “illegally” was the keyword the legal director needed. He leaned over the tabletop and started talking.
“Just to make this completely clear: Forum Healthcare does nothing illegal. As Veivåg has said, we make products for patients who need them. We are subject to both Norwegian law and the laws of all the other countries where we do business. And since we are a global company, we have adopted an international set of rules. Forum Healthcare is, among other things, part of the UN Global Compact and CSR is high on the agenda.”
“CSR? Cut out the jargon!” said an irritated Sørensen.
“Corporate Social Responsibility,” the legal director explained.
“Which means?”
“I don’t know what the best—”
“Taking responsibility for a company’s impact on society,” answered Milo.
Sørensen looked with confusion from Milo to the two Forum directors.
“Do you sit here and brag that you are taking social responsibility? And that you don’t break the law? Is this racket really so bad that you have to spell it out that you are operating legally?”
Veivåg cleared his throat, but Sørensen continued.
“There’s something a bit Nixonian about it, isn’t there? ‘I am not a crook.’”
Milo could not help smiling, while Sørensen continued the interrogation.
“I understand that you make legal products for patients, but at the same time it’s obvious that these products also get diverted.”
“We only have responsibility for production, and sell through lawful channels—”
Veivåg was interrupted by Sørensen’s palm thundering on the tabletop.
“But the products end up on the black market anyway? How does that happen?”
Veivåg’s expression now showed irritation.
“With all due respect, that is probably something you in the police ought to be able to answer.”
* * *
“What a fucking cocksucker!”
Sørensen was drumming his fingers on his thigh while Milo maneuvered the Fiat between lanes.
“We’ll get to the bottom of what their business is in that building. Are you after the American lawyers and authorities to get more access?”
“Yes, I’ll call them again tomorrow. They’ve promised me an answer then.”
“Good. We should turn that place upside down,” said Sørensen.
“What about the storage facility where I saw the Pakistanis get the living shit beat out of them yesterday?”
“I spoke with the Follo police station this morning. They aren’t aware of any problems there,” Sørensen replied.
“But I was there, damn it! They almost killed them.”
“And now they’ve headed to the hills.”
Milo sighed. He thought about the cart the
two Pakistanis had been pushing, with a number of cardboard boxes.
“It wasn’t a load of furniture they were pulling. I can promise you that. What if that’s just where they have their storage of steroids?”
“That may be, Milo, but we can’t just turn every single compartment upside down and search through hundreds of people’s personal belongings. It just won’t work.”
“I understand that. But what I can do in any event is to get hold of the names of everyone who has a lease there. Then we’ll check the names against our registers,” Milo answered.
“That sounds like a damned good idea,” Sørensen replied.
Milo let him off at the police station. From the car he called Temoor and asked to him to get hold of the list of everyone who rented space from Quick Storage.
“Check all private persons against our registers, and if there are any companies that are listed as renter, then check as many as possible connected with them. I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he said.
“A couple of hours? Loads of time, in other words,” Temoor answered drily.
“Don’t want to press you too hard, you know. Since you’ve been sick.”
Temoor sniffled in response before he changed topic.
“That asylum-seeker woman you brought in…”
“Oriana?”
“Exactly. She was in the vicinity of the kid when he was killed. And she was a friend of his big sister, right?”
“Yes. That’s right. What about her?”
“I don’t know if it means anything, but I checked on her a little. Looked at her papers. By the way, I put the folder on your desk. But did you know she has a sister?”
Milo thought a moment.
“No. Where is she?”
“That’s what’s a little unusual. I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they came here five years ago. Her mother and father. Oriana, who was fifteen then. And Olena, age eight.”
Milo took out his notebook and jotted down some key words while Temoor talked. If Olena was eight when she came to Norway, she must be thirteen today.
“The mother and father were sent back, where the mother died a short time later. And Oriana has explained in the interviews that she got to stay and finish high school, and then she went underground.”
“And what happened with the little sister?”
“She disappeared,” Temoor replied.
21
Oriana was done with the lectures, and he met her outside the chemistry building at Blindern. They found a bench near the building, with a view toward both the university and NRK at Marienlyst.
Despite the autumn wind she wanted to sit outside.
“I sit inside a lot,” she explained.
Young students sauntered past, either on their way to the cafeteria, lectures or the reading room. Most were occupied with their own narrow world, but a few cast glances at the mismatched couple on the bench. The small woman who sat fumbling with the strap on her bag, and the well-dressed man who leaned back and met the eyes of those who looked in their direction.
“How long have you worked at the gym?” he asked her.
“A couple years,” she answered.
“And why were you so scared when you saw us there?”
“I wasn’t scared.”
“You looked like a kid who’d been caught red-handed. And who feared being punished.”
She did not answer.
“But who were you afraid of being punished by? Us or them?”
“Them? Who is them?”
“Do you know who we were talking with?” asked Milo.
“I think his name is Banno.”
“Exactly. And do you know that he’s part of the Downtown Gang?”
She shrugged her shoulders in response.
“And I’m sure you also know that he and several of his friends were indicted for the murder of Tormod Tollefsen? A murder that happened less than a hundred meters from where you live, and about which you neglected to contact the police to testify.”
“You know why I couldn’t do that. I don’t have a residence permit, and—”
“And now it turns out that you work where they exercise, and get terrified when you see us talking with them. What do you know that you’re not telling? What do they have on you?”
“I don’t want any more problems,” she answered, looking in a different direction.
“More problems?”
“I’m living underground. Studying under a false identity, and I have two cleaning jobs to make ends meet. If they realized that you knew me, I would have been without a job that day. I can’t afford that.”
She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck, and they let a noisy group of students pass before they continued.
“I don’t think you’re telling everything you know,” said Milo.
“You can think what you want.”
“I’m going to look at the papers in your residency application and the rejections from the authorities.”
“Why is that?”
“To see what we can do about it, if we can get your situation straightened out.”
He could have brought her in for more questioning, played hardball. But he chose another approach, even if it would take longer. There was something defiant in her slender body and her curt answers. Something told him that she had been exposed to far tougher things than a couple of policemen trying to get her to answer questions.
She looked at him with a mixture of surprise and contempt in her eyes.
“‘To see what we can do’?! There’s nothing more to do.”
“There’s always something you can do.”
“It must be nice to have your inflated self-confidence. Going around believing, no matter how idiotic it is, that you can fix every problem. But my attorney has tried everything. The rejection is final,” she said.
“We’ll see about that. I probably don’t have any more self-confidence than you do. I just have a few more resources available,” answered Milo.
She stood up and threw her pack on her back, getting ready to leave.
“Oh well. Speak up when you’ve hit the wall too!”
He looked up at her. The autumn sun blinded him, so he had to tilt his head a little to the side so that she was blocking it.
“I’ll let you know when I have something to report, yes. But you’re not leaving yet.”
She looked at him impatiently, and then looked in the direction of the university.
“I have to do a little studying before I go to work again,” she said.
But he did not intend to let her run off quite yet.
“First I have to find out what happened with Olena.”
She stiffened and was not able to stop the question.
“How did you know—”
Then she bit off the sentence.
Milo inspected her face. Once again those frightened eyes.
“We’ve checked your papers. You must have known we would find out. But what really happened?”
“She disappeared right before Mama and Papa were forced to go back.”
“Disappeared? How and why?”
But Oriana did not answer.
“You can’t help me. That is, I’m very grateful for the money and the calling cards, but…”
She stopped, looking vacantly into space.
“Oriana, what happened to Olena? She was eight years old when you came to Norway, and must have been about ten or eleven when this happened.”
“She had just turned eleven.”
“But did she go underground, like you?”
Oriana shook her head.
“Not like me,” she said in a low voice.
Milo studied her and saw that she was not lying. Not exactly. But she was holding something back. He had read stories about refugee children who disappeared. And you didn’t need much imagination to begin to speculate about what might have happened.
A quick kidnapping of a little chil
d at the Vestby refugee camp, a waiting truck, right out onto the E18. An hour later they could be in Sweden. Twenty-four hours later she might be in Germany, and put to “work.” Was she one of these little girls you could see in the evening at rest stops along the Autobahn? Who got these older men with their twisted needs to stop, and where the money disappeared upward into the system to the men behind it?
“Where is she now?” Milo asked.
“I don’t know.”
* * *
He let her return to her books, while he remained sitting on the bench a little longer. As if the slightly damp air that seeped in through the opening of his topcoat could clear his thoughts.
He did not know what it meant that Oriana’s little sister had disappeared. Or if it meant anything at all. But the sense that Oriana was holding something back had only gotten stronger.
The phone rang, and Milo considered a moment letting it go to voice mail. But when he saw Temoor’s name he answered.
“Hi, Temoor.”
“Hi. I’ve checked the storage things for you.”
“That was quick.”
“Well, you’ll have to do the rest of the work.”
“Okay, but what have you got for me?”
Temoor explained that the cross-checking of all the renters against the police register had produced few hits. He had found one drunk driver among the renters and a couple of tax evaders, but nothing of significance.
“But I have a list of three companies that you should look at more closely,” he said.
“Okay. What are they?” asked Milo.
“I’ll e-mail the list in a bit.”
They finished, and Milo took the car back to the office. On the way he picked up a baguette for lunch, which he started eating while he turned on the computer. He had time to eat the whole thing in the time it took to bring the screen to life and enter all the passwords. The police computer system was not exactly up to date.
In his e-mail inbox were the names of the three companies Temoor thought he should check more closely: Suveren AS, Alfonso AS, and Baltic Services AS. He understood why Temoor had picked up on these three. The names were not exactly self-explanatory, and the fact that none of them even had a Web site of their own meant that it might be worth checking what kind of activity they were actually involved in.
He searched for Suveren AS in the Brønnøysund Register Centre, and saw that it was a company whose business was in “consulting.” Which did not tell Milo anything at all. The owner was a fifty-four-year-old from Nordstrand, and when he googled his name, he got several hits. Apparently the company only had one employee, namely the owner himself, and a short article in Management Weekly Journal told about an employee in Tine who had taken a severance package to work as “coaching for managers in HR and communication.” Milo looked at the accounting numbers for Suveren, and determined that the startup had not gone well at all, and that the company was not making any money. Failed, but hardly criminal, he thought.
The Oslo Conspiracy Page 14
