Closed for Winter

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Twenty minutes later, William Wisting and Nils Hammer let themselves into Ottar Mold’s basement flat with the landlord’s keys.

  A glass door led from the porch into a combined kitchen and living room. With all the curtains drawn, the air was heavy and muggy. The kitchen section contained a refrigerator, washing machine, and utilitarian hotplate beside the sink. From the living room a tiny corridor led to the open door of the bedroom, where a quilt with no cover was folded on top of the bed. It seemed as though Ottar Mold spent his nights under a blanket on the settee.

  The place showed signs of only a couple of months’ habitation, with bare walls and belongings still packed in cardboard boxes.

  On the coffee table, Wisting noticed an empty glass and a half-eaten slice of bread on a plate. The meat spread was desiccated, the bread curled at the edges. Beside these lay a bundle of envelopes of varying shapes and sizes, payment reminders and collection notices, together with a number of unopened letters.

  The sparsely furnished flat told them little, testifying only to a lonely man’s uneventful existence. Nothing shed any light on what might have happened. Nevertheless, there was something unsettling about the cramped flat. Wisting could not quite put his finger on it, but it reminded him of a sailing vessel hurriedly and for no discernible reason abandoned by its crew, left like a ghost ship drifting on the sea.

  14

  When Wisting returned to his office, he regretted not stopping at a pharmacy to buy a new pack of Paracet. The single tablet he had found in his desk had eased the pain, but not eliminated it entirely. He rubbed at his tender chin as he logged into the electronic project room where an endless stream of information poured in from all the caseworkers. Sometimes the sheer amount was so overwhelming that it blinded him to the intended focus of his attention, but there was no method of sifting the facts. He was forced to absorb it all and attempt to sort out the most pressing elements, knowing well that the answers often lay in the details.

  Before beginning to read, he phoned Suzanne.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s sore, but I’m okay.’

  ‘You should have let a doctor look at it.’

  He navigated around the computer screen while talking. ‘If it gets worse, I will,’ he said. ‘I’ve taken a Paracet.’

  ‘Are you coming home tonight?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ll be late.’ He cleared his throat before continuing. ‘Line phoned. She’ll be popping in.’ The silence at the other end told him Suzanne was waiting for an explanation. ‘She’s finished with Tommy. She’s coming down to take things easy for a while.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. Is she upset?’

  ‘More relieved. She’s the one who ended it. She’s given him a few days to pack and find somewhere else. In the meantime, she’ll stay at the cottage.’

  ‘At the cottage? But it’s not been fixed up.’

  ‘This is what she wants to do. She’ll pop in to pick up the key.’

  ‘Okay. Do you think I should go with her to give her a hand?’

  ‘I think she wants to be on her own.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay here and prepare something for us to eat, in the hope that you can find the time.’

  Wisting promised to come home if he could and replaced the phone on his desk. His landline and his mobile were constant sources of interruption, and the conversations were too often unnecessarily prolonged. He keyed in his out-of-office message on the office phone’s voicemail, and pushed his mobile aside, not risking a complete disconnect from the outside world.

  Over an hour passed before the decisive call came in.

  15

  Unable to catch the name of the man who phoned, Wisting understood he worked at the central HQ of Oslo police district. ‘The good news first,’ the voice said. ‘I think we’ve found the hearse you’re looking for.’

  Wisting leaned his head back, fixing his eye on a spot on the ceiling. ‘And the bad news?’

  ‘It’s on fire.’

  Wisting closed his eyes; the thought had occurred to him. ‘What else can you tell me?’

  ‘We received a report from some hikers at two minutes past twelve about a vehicle on fire on the eastern side of Vettakollen.’

  Frowning, Wisting glanced at the clock. Forty-eight minutes earlier. Vettakollen was only a few kilometres from the National Hospital, at most a drive of ten minutes. Nevertheless, several hours had elapsed from the time the vehicle had vanished until it had been set alight.

  The man at the other end continued. ‘Police and fire service are on the scene, and it’s swarming with press.’

  Wisting clicked onto the Internet to check whether the news had reached the online outlets. Fires were sources of excellent photographs, even when they were extinguished. ‘Are you sure it is our vehicle?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. The folk who phoned in the report read out the registration number.’

  Verdens Gang newspaper had written about the case under the caption HEARSE SET ABLAZE. A reader’s mobile phone photograph accompanied the report. Wisting squinted at the screen. The firefighters had completed their work, and the police had cordoned off the area surrounding the burnt out vehicle.

  Wisting clicked further into the story to a series of photographs. Steam was rising from the mangled wreckage of blackened metal, but the damage did not appear to be as comprehensive as he had feared. ‘Are there any witnesses?’ he enquired.

  ‘Nobody who’s seen anything other than the actual fire.’

  ‘How does the car interior look?’

  ‘The compartment is empty, but your body seems to be still lying in the rear. If he’d been conveyed in a coffin, perhaps more would have been saved. The plastic of the body bag melted and fed the flames.’

  Wisting closed his eyes once more. He had seen enough charred bodies to fear fire more than anything else. If he had to choose between a body from the sea and a fire victim, he would prefer the drowned body’s swollen, formless mass to the fire victim’s carbonised, flaking remains.

  ‘We’re sending technicians to the scene,’ the man from headquarters continued. ‘As soon as is practical though, we’ll tow the vehicle here and examine it. The Forensics team might get the body early tomorrow.’

  Wisting thanked him and asked to be kept informed.

  The online report had been updated with the newspaper’s own photographs. The photographer had used a wide-angle lens. In addition to the wrecked car covered in foam, he had captured the firefighting crew packing away their equipment, spectators covering their mouths and noses from the stinking smoke, and the surrounding area. The discovery site was a clearing beside a gravel track. In the background, the yellow foliage of autumnal trees stretched up to a leaden sky.

  He skimmed the text, establishing that this was indeed the missing hearse. The newspaper reporter had spoken to a hiker who had passed through the site half an hour before the fire was discovered, when the area had been deserted. The big question was: where had the car been during the hours between disappearance and being set on fire?

  The newspaper neglected to pose the other unanswered question. Where was the driver?

  16

  The rain had begun after Line collected the cottage key. Now, as she drove towards the coast, fog swirled in from sea and she activated the wipers. Overhanging clouds reduced visibility, obscuring the roadsides so much that she took a wrong turning three times before finding the right gravel track, full of bumps and murky puddles. Another vehicle had left behind deep, muddy tyre tracks which made it difficult to manoeuvre.

  The track twisted and turned for three quarters of a kilo­metre through dense woodland before climbing to an elevation which gave her a view of rocky slopes as they rolled down to sea. Fog erased the silvery contours of the landscape.

  The track terminated at an open area about thirty metres from the cottage and a footpath continued from there, the final stretch covered in crushed seashells. A large silver van, its sides splattered
with mud, was parked in the middle of the clearing. Stopping in front of a thick dog rose bush on the opposite side, Line stepped from her car and took deep appreciative gulps of the salt sea air.

  The location of the cottage was exactly as she remembered, slightly secluded, the building painted red with a tiled roof and green window shutters. At the bathing jetty down by the sea, a seagull stood on a mooring post, its beak jutting towards the horizon. Several rungs on the ladder leading to the diving platform had by now rotted away, but the sight nevertheless evoked happy childhood memories of summer visits here at Uncle Georg’s cottage.

  A man wearing a black, ankle-length raincoat was standing on Steinholmen a few hundred metres off, holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes and looking in a northeasterly direction. Obviously he had not seen Line approach. She looked in the same direction, but could see nothing beyond the monotonous grey mist. The seagull on the jetty took flight, rising in a circling, gliding motion, hovering on the air. She carried the bags of cleaning materials and food to the wide wooden staircase which led to the timber verandah on the cottage’s south face.

  A dead bird lay on the top step. She prodded it warily with her foot, causing its wings to spread out. Slime oozed from the yellow, sharp beak, forming a small stain on the timber. She unbolted the door, inserting the key in the lock with some difficulty. It had been so long since anyone had been here that it had become somewhat recalcitrant. Inside she found herself in semi-darkness. The cold and stuffy air had a nauseating smell of mould.

  Leaving the door open she located the light switch. The shade was full of dead flies and moths, subduing the light. She would need to remove the window shutters before she could fully inspect the place and to do that she would have to go outside.

  The furniture in the living room was covered in white sheets. An ancient, sun-bleached maritime map of the Oslo fjord hung on one wall beside three framed black and white photographs. On the opposite side of the room, an overfull bookcase covered the entire wall from floor to ceiling with books stacked untidily and with no discernible system. Hand-woven rugs were thrown across the wooden floor. A large open fireplace divided the living room from the adjacent kitchen. Apart from cold, grey ashes and the remains of a few burnt logs, everything was spick and span.

  The cottage contained four other rooms: a bathroom, storeroom and two bedrooms, one almost as large as the living room. As well as a wide bed, it was furnished with a writing desk and high-backed winged armchair. Two large windows overlooked the sea. She noticed that the fog was now even more impenetrable; rendering the man on Steinholmen invisible.

  Returning to the kitchen, she turned on the tap, sending cold water into the sink. She located the hot water tank underneath the worktop and switched it on, but it would take several hours before she had hot water for washing, unless she boiled some in the kettle.

  The refrigerator had been pulled back from the wall and its door left ajar. She plugged it in before pushing it back into place and filling it with her purchases. In the living room she removed the dust sheets from the furniture and somehow sparked some life into an old portable radio.

  Standing at the windows staring into the fog, she thought about Tommy, his dark, warm eyes, sinewy forearms, and the intensity of his embrace.

  She had never felt so close to anyone before, and had become dependent on this closeness. Possibly she had become more dependent on their physical intimacy as the mental distance between them increased. The impossibility of remaining in the relationship had struck her with full force only a few weeks earlier, and although it had been painful she had also felt a sense of relief. She needed to reclaim her life; she needed to stand on her own two feet. Deep inside, she had known for some time that life with Tommy would end in sadness, possibly worse; it had been clear for all to see. His dark sides, so attractive initially, were now the very aspects that drove her away.

  She shivered as though freezing, and it struck her that this was how it often went. The qualities that the first intensity of passion masked with an indulgent veil became impossible when that initial intensity subsided. Tommy’s hidden life, his nightly jaunts and whispered telephone conversations in the bathroom simply created mounting unease and frustration.

  Outside, the mist began to clear. The trees were being buffeted by the wind, which also blew away the fog.

  Sitting down, she reached for a book that was sticking out from a bookshelf, one of Agatha Christie’s crime novels. A chocolate wrapper near the back had been used as a bookmark. She read a few lines before closing it again.

  Her head was filled with chaotic thoughts: doubt, amazement, and a mixture of memories good and bad. To spend a few days at the cottage was at least to try to escape these thoughts, but she would need more than an old crime novel to help her. The silent solitary feeling now enveloping her did not exactly help, but perhaps this was something she could not escape. Perhaps it was something she had to face. She fetched her laptop, intent on expressing these disconnected thoughts and feelings in words.

  She liked herself better now than she had before she met Tommy. Previously, she had been immature and uncertain. Now she was still uncertain, but in a different way. She knew more about what she wanted and who she was, and had more awareness of what life could offer. She had learned what passion could do to people; how invigorating and destructive it could be at one and the same time. She was more mature, and knew it was time for her to move on.

  She was twenty-seven years of age. Once she had believed a person of twenty-seven must be an adult and ready to settle down. How wrong could one be? It was time to grab life by the throat, time to live. Not inside her head, in the past or the future, but in the here and now.

  Therefore she could not look back, but had to turn to a new chapter. Glancing again at the Agatha Christie novel, she picked it up and flicked through its pages. Everything was so elementary, so easily understood. A community or family is shaken to its foundations by a murder. Miss Marple enters the picture, gathers information, analyses the situation, exposes the murderer, and harmony is restored in a carefully controlled universe that is unambiguous and transparent. She might wish for someone to take control of her life in the same way, arranging it so that everything could be brought to a simple, logical and happy resolution.

  She lifted her eyes to the window again. The sea was about to vanish into the blue-grey twilight. Remaining seated, she let her thoughts drift before deleting everything she had written about herself and beginning again with a fresh sentence:

  They retrieved the body on the eighth of July, just after three o’clock in the afternoon.

  Satisfactory; an excellent opening for a crime novel.

  17

  Benjamin Fjeld’s photographs of the burnt out hearse, with an overview of its stowage space, filled Wisting’s computer screen. They gave no grounds for optimism. Nothing remained of the dead man’s clothing, and the blackened skin was covered in enormous, burst blisters. Wisting opened an attachment and homed in on a close-up of the head: a few tufts of hair still clung to the cracked skull but the nose and lips had been burned away and the eye sockets had become gaping holes.

  Forensics could ascertain little from the charred corpse. Dental records might assist in establishing identity, but very few other clues would be available. He now regretted their reluctance to remove the balaclava at the crime scene to allow photographs.

  Nils Hammer appeared at the door, rubbing his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. ‘That’s what our job has become,’ he said. ‘Sitting staring at a computer.’

  Wisting laid aside his glasses and rubbed his painful jaw. ‘What progress have we made with the toll stations?’ he asked. ‘Have you received the data files?’

  ‘Yes indeed, and I’m beginning to form an overview, but it’s a slow task sorting the information.’ Hammer sat down. ‘There’s more traffic than I anticipated. If we keep within a twenty-minute time window, there are 378 cars passing both tolls on the way south
. Of those there are actually as many as 216 that return the same night. The problem is that the data we receive from the toll company only includes the registration numbers. I have to look up every number manually in the vehicle registers to identify the car model and owner; that done, it starts to get interesting. I just need a break at the moment. Far too many letters and numbers at one time, my head’s spinning.’

  Christine Thiis entered the room. ‘It’s out now,’ she said. ‘The media have discovered that the cottage where the crime took place belongs to Thomas Rønningen. They can’t get hold of him either.’

  ‘Perhaps we should try to make contact with his dentist?’ Hammer suggested, pointing to the screen in front of Wisting.

  Christine Thiis grimaced as she crossed to the window. ‘What should I say when they phone?’

  Wisting opened the desk drawer to see if there might possibly be any loose Paracet tablets lying around. ‘We can confirm it’s his cottage,’ he said. ‘And that we have not succeeded in contacting him.’

  His mobile phone rang. He closed the drawer without finding any more painkillers. Checking the display, he restrained a satisfied smile and held up the phone for the others to read: Thomas Rønningen. He answered concisely, nodding in confirmation to the others when the man at the other end introduced himself.

  ‘I understand you’ve been trying to get hold of me,’ the television presenter said. Wisting confirmed that point. ‘I don’t know how much you’ve found out about what has happened, but we need to talk to you.’

  ‘I’ve heard the news. Is it my cottage? Is that why you phoned?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was afraid of that. I’m on my way over.’

  ‘When can you be here?’

  ‘In an hour, but I had hoped we could meet somewhere other than the police station. I expect there are a lot of press people there?’

  ‘Where did you have in mind?’