“I know that. She disappeared several years ago.”
He heard how she dried her tears and tried to get control of her sobbing.
“No, she’s been in Oslo almost the entire time.”
“What?”
“But now she’s disappeared.”
WEDNESDAY
36
“The whole thing was arranged when she disappeared from the refugee camp that time.”
Oriana was sitting at the same table in Sørensen’s office, with a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. There were black circles under her eyes and her voice was husky. Her clothes were wrinkled, as if she’d been wearing them for days.
Neither Milo nor Sørensen tried to interrupt her, even though they had questions ready.
“We knew we would be deported. Mama was sick. Papa was completely desperate when he thought about what was waiting in Chechnya. We had already made preparations for me to go underground after my degree, when the opportunity suddenly came up.”
Through their contacts in the local community a family in Kvinesdal had offered to help. They had a girl a couple years older than Olena, and the family was moving to Oslo. It all happened quickly. Olena was smuggled to Sørlandet, where the cover story was that she was their niece. The family lived in a remote area, and Olena mostly stayed on their property or in a cabin along with the mother in the family. False papers had been arranged, her hair dyed and cut, and Olena turned into “Lillian.”
When they moved to Oslo a few months later, it was as a family of four. Mother, father and two daughters.
“The municipalities don’t talk with each other, and no one in Oslo questioned whether the youngest girl was really their daughter.”
The whole thing had gone without a hitch. The little sister started school in Oslo, made new friends and slipped into the crowd.
Oriana took a sip of coffee while she continued to stare at the tabletop.
“I saw her at regular intervals. It was so good to see that she was doing well. The idea was that I would take over responsibility, but as time passed, we talked about that less and less. I was satisfied that it worked out.”
She remained quiet a few minutes.
“What happened?” Milo finally asked.
“On Sunday, when I let myself in to clean at the gym, someone was waiting for me. There were two of them, but fortunately one of them was on dope. He grabbed hold of me, but I bit him as hard as I could on the hand so he had to let go. Then I ran out and hid in the woods.”
She stayed there lying on the ground for several hours before she started on her way home to the rented room. She knew that the people she rented from were away that weekend, so she went by way of the neighboring lot and hid behind some bushes for almost half an hour to see if anyone was in the room.
“Finally I went in. There was complete chaos. They had ransacked it. Pulled things out of the cupboards and shelves.”
She spent Sunday night in Frogner Park, before she got hold of a girlfriend at Kringsjå where she could sleep on the floor.
“Monday evening the parents called … the ones that Olena lives with, that is … and said that she hadn’t come home from school.”
Oriana paused briefly, wiping away a tear with the sleeve of her dirty sweater.
“But I don’t think they told the whole story to the police.”
Sørensen checked his computer. Entered a few commands.
“Yes, I see the missing persons section has set up a case here. For a Lillian Jacobsen. Monday evening.”
Oriana nodded.
“That’s her. They’ve taken her to prevent me from telling what I know.”
“How can you be sure of that? Have you heard from them?” asked Milo.
She took her phone out of her pocket and held it up toward him.
“Someone sent me this message: ‘You keep your mouth shut and don’t say a word to the police. Then she dies. Wait for further instructions.’”
“What number was it sent from?” asked Sørensen.
“It looks like it was sent from a Skype account. It can take a long time to find out. Too long,” answered Milo.
Sørensen stood up and came around the desk.
“They’re asking you to keep your mouth shut. About the murder of Tormod Tollefsen?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Because you have something to tell, right?” he continued.
“Yes.”
“That means you know who kidnapped her?”
“Yes. In any case, who’s responsible. But I don’t know where they have her.”
“Have you heard from them again?”
She shook her head and swallowed heavily.
Milo got a cup of water and emptied it in one gulp.
“There are two things I’m wondering about, Oriana. Why is this happening now? And how did they find you and Olena?” he asked.
“It’s happening because you’ve started rooting in the case again. Asking questions. That makes them uneasy. And then they must have found out that you talked with me. I don’t know how. Maybe someone saw us. Or tapped my cell phone.”
She met his gaze. There was nothing accusatory in it. It was just a statement of fact.
“And they’ve found her because they know her identity. The false papers came from somewhere, right? Someone made them, delivered them and got paid.”
She slid the fingers on her right hand back and forth across the knuckles on her left hand before she set her eyes on Milo.
“That’s how they operate. Offer help with false papers, and make money on it. At the same time they also have something they can use to pressure you later. If anyone they’ve helped happens to work their way up in life, get a job, or a life, it’s just a matter of threatening them, and they’re happy to pay to keep their new life. Or else they can threaten you into silence. Like now.”
Milo sat down at the table across from her.
“But you’re talking with us anyway?”
She looked at him with clear eyes.
“You have to help me. I can’t live like this anymore. They always want something from us. They’ll always be able to demand things from us. It’s an endless threat.”
He nodded slowly.
“I didn’t come to Norway to clean gyms and live in fear. I could have done that in Chechnya,” she continued.
There was a defiant strength in her voice.
Milo thought about the Polish girl who, a century earlier, had said something similar when she was interviewed on Ellis Island. “I didn’t come to America to clean stairs,” she said, and was welcomed to her new life in the new world.
And Milo understood that Oriana was the toughest person he had ever met.
“Okay, Oriana. We’ll help. But then you have to help us,” he said.
She nodded firmly.
“Do you have someplace to stay? Can you stay with your friend?”
She shrugged her shoulders, and Milo stood up.
“Sørensen, we have to talk with the missing persons section. Oriana, wait here.”
They went into a quiet room to make a call, and put it on speakerphone. A detective named Amundsen answered, and Sørensen explained the situation.
“Okay, I’ll make a note of all that here. But we’re sitting on a couple of other new missing persons cases too…”
“Have you gone through electronic traces? Her cell phone?” Milo interrupted.
“Well, we’ve gotten a pile of data from the phone companies, but haven’t had the capacity to review it yet. But tomorrow we’re having two new detectives transferred who—”
“Can you e-mail all of it to us? We have capacity,” said Milo.
“Uh…”
“Just do it,” said Sørensen.
They ended the call and phoned Temoor. Milo briefly summarized the case.
“Okay. Send it over right away,” he answered.
“As soon as we’ve got it from the missing persons group,” said Milo.
Suddenl
y the cell phone rang, and he answered while Temoor was still on the line.
“Ciao Emilio,” said Benedetti on the other end.
“Ciao. How’s it going?”
“We’ve found Lucca Salvatore. He’s in for questioning now, and we’re probably going to indict him. He was in Rome, and he was caught on a video camera barely a kilometer away from the hotel.”
“Okay.”
“The problem is that we haven’t managed to clearly link him directly to the hotel yet, but we’ll have to see what seven or eight hours in interrogation does for him,” said Benedetti.
Milo and Sørensen went back to Oriana, who was still sitting at the table. The coffee cup was no longer steaming, and she stared blankly out the window.
“We’ve spoken with the department that is investigating the disappearance of your sister,” said Sørensen.
“The kidnapping,” Oriana answered.
“The kidnapping. And we have also put extra resources on the case. But now you need to tell everything you know, so that we can lock these people up. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“I understand.”
Sørensen turned on the recording equipment and read the time and their names out loud.
“Now, Oriana. Is it the case that you saw what happened, the evening Asgeir Henriksen and Tormod Tollefsen were shot at Ingieråsen School?”
She nodded.
“You have to answer so we get it on tape,” said Sørensen as patiently as he could.
“Okay. Yes, I saw what happened.”
“And there were several members of the Downtown Gang there, right?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us what you saw?”
She bit her lip and looked up at Milo, who sent her an encouraging smile.
“Who shot Tormod Tollefsen? Was it Banno?”
“No, it wasn’t him.”
“Was it one of the twins?”
Sørensen rubbed his palm over his bald pate, as he had a habit of doing when he was stressed.
“Can you just say who shot Tormod?” he asked.
“It was Asgeir Henriksen.”
37
“What?!”
Sørensen’s chin dropped even further as he stared at her.
“Asgeir Henriksen was shot when he tried to rescue Tormod,” he said urgently, as if he was trying to convince himself.
Oriana looked at Milo.
“Now I’m sure you understand why I never contacted the police. The national hero Asgeir Henriksen, the man who cared so much about the students that he sacrificed his life, suddenly sees his name dragged down into the mud by a bloody asylum seeker,” she said.
In her eyes was a mixture of annoyance and despair.
“We believe you,” said Milo. As much to Sørensen as to her.
The chief inspector took out a pack of cigarettes as he appeared to be trying to think of something encouraging to say to her.
“Sorry. Please tell what you saw,” he said.
She looked at him, and he held the cigarette pack out in conciliation. She took one, and Sørensen fired up for both of them.
“Okay,” said Oriana.
She had been out running that evening, and was standing at the entrance to her room when she heard loud voices. Automatically she took a few steps toward the road, and realized then that the voices were coming from the athletic field by the school. This was the week before the end of the school year, and it had been a light summer evening.
She positioned herself behind one of the big bushes in the hedgerow in front of the house, and immediately recognized several of the regulars at the gym where she cleaned. Among them was also a young man who looked Norwegian, Asgeir Henriksen.
“It looked like they were arguing. I could see Banno poking his index finger into Henriksen’s chest, who was shouting something right in his face,” Oriana related.
“What about Tormod? Where was he standing?” asked Sørensen.
“He wasn’t there. Yet. He came walking up on the far side of the field, along the fence. He had a gym bag over his shoulder, and appeared to be lost in his own thoughts. He was tossing something up in the air and catching it. At first I thought it was a stone, but later … after I found him … I realized it must have been the ampoule.”
Tormod Tollefsen had come closer, and it was only when he was ten meters away from the others that they noticed each other.
“Banno shouted something to him, so he stopped. Then two of the Pakistanis went over to the fence and said something to him,” said Oriana.
She did not hear what they said. Just saw how Tormod took a short step back before they took hold of him and pulled him over the fence and over to Banno, Henriksen and the others.
“I heard Banno scream to him,” Oriana told.
Her voice had become gradually steadier as she saw the two policemen were listening attentively to her.
“Did you hear what he said?” asked Sørensen.
“Something about not getting mixed up in their business.”
“What did Henriksen do?”
“Nothing. He stood and watched. Until Banno gave him a pistol.”
Sørensen scratched his neck and looked inquisitively at her.
“It was Banno who gave it to him?”
“Yes, I just said that.”
“Continue.”
“Banno called to him.”
“To who? Henriksen?”
“Yes. ‘Shoot him!’ And then something like, ‘You have to clean up this damned mess.’”
For a while Asgeir Henriksen stood quietly with the pistol down along his side, which made Banno even more impatient. He looked around to see if anyone was coming down the street, and then went right up to Henriksen.
“I’m not sure, but it looked as if he was holding a knife against his throat.”
Slowly Henriksen raised the gun, Tormod Tollefsen turned around, and moved a few meters away before he was shot in the back.
“And you’re quite certain that it was Henriksen who fired the shot? There were no others with guns out?”
Sørensen’s voice was quite calm, and he spoke slowly, as if to underscore how decisive this was.
“I’m quite certain. He stood there with the gun in his hand. Completely motionless.” Oriana met his gaze. “Then Banno quietly took the pistol from him, and shot him in the head.”
There was silence. Oriana seemed worn out, but at the same time relieved. As if a weight had been lifted off her. Something that had weighed her down the past two years. Milo stood pensively, trying to sort out the new information. Sørensen took a couple of drags on the cigarette before he tossed it in the coffee cup, which gave off a hissing sound.
“Fuckin’ hell!” the chief inspector said quietly, sitting and staring at a point on the wall.
It was as if his brain was winding back two years. To all the interviews, the technical findings. His chest heaved and lowered.
“Shit!” he shouted, striking both palms on the table so that the glass tipped over and Oriana jumped back in her chair.
Sørensen stood up and paced back and forth in the room.
“They said he’d gotten in trouble, and was hard to deal with. I remember they said he’d been in an argument during PE and—”
“And Asgeir Henriksen was his gym teacher,” Milo filled in.
He sat down at Sørensen‘s computer, logged into the system and started searching.
“How well did you actually check Henriksen back then, Sørensen?”
“Obviously not well enough.”
“I see he was co-owner of a company with an office address in Hølen. Where the hell is that?” asked Milo.
“Between Vestby and Son. Yes, it was some company or other. I think they imported beauty products, as far as I remember. From Asia.”
“Asian Beauty Import,” said Milo, letting his eyes glide across the screen after the crucial piece of information.
He found the history of the company
. The accounts, change reports to Brønnøysund, auditors’ reports.
Suddenly he stopped and leaned back in the office chair. He kept staring at the screen.
“What is it, Milo?” Sørensen asked, coming around the table.
Milo pointed at the screen.
“Today Asian Beauty Import is owned one hundred percent by a Robert Guldbjerg. Two years ago, that is when Tormod was killed, it was owned fifty-fifty by Guldbjerg and Henriksen.”
“Yes, and so?”
“But look here. Look at this report to Brønnøysund the year before that. There was a third shareholder in the company three years ago, whom Guldbjerg and Henriksen bought out. Agari AS. And look who’s the chairman of the board of that company,” said Milo, clicking on the company name with the cursor.
“Reeza Hamid,” Sørensen read out loud.
“Who is Reeza Hamid?” Oriana asked from her seat.
“He’s known as the finance minister. One of the key persons in the Downtown Gang,” Milo replied.
He thought about the well-dressed, robust man he had chased through Oslo and finally arrested a week and a half ago. He was still in custody and in due time would be confronted with this information.
“So Asgeir Henriksen ran a company along with central people in the Downtown Gang a few years ago—” Sørensen began.
“But they sold their share the year before Tormod Tollefsen was killed. Something or other came up between them,” Milo completed.
Sørensen jotted down information on his pad.
“Where is the company located?” he asked.
Milo found the address, entered it in Google Maps and chose the satellite image. He zoomed in.
“It looks like a commercial area,” he said.
“And we’re going there as soon as hell!” Sørensen exclaimed.
His face was red and he almost had to gasp for breath.
“Do you think they have Olena there?” asked Oriana with hope in her voice.
“No idea, but we have to check,” said Sørensen.
Milo scrutinized him.
“But why would they keep her there? They aren’t partners anymore. They own dozens of properties in Oslo where they can hide her, and where—”
“Where they don’t want us to find her. They don’t want to connect her kidnapping directly to them and their companies. I don’t know why, but maybe they’re calling in a favor, maybe it’s off target, but right now it’s all we´ve got,” said Sørensen. He tapped his finger on his notepad. “What do we know about this Robert Guldbjerg, who now owns this racket alone?”
The Oslo Conspiracy Page 24
