Closed for Winter

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Petter Eikelid silently opened the folder in front of him to produce a surveillance photograph of a thickset man in his late thirties and of medium height, in a linen shirt opened sufficiently at the neck to reveal a thick gold chain. His smile only just lifted the corners of his mouth while the remainder of his face was immobile beneath thick black hair combed straight back. As he squinted in the sunlight, he brought to Wisting’s mind the thought of a sleepy panther wakened from its slumbers at the wrong time.

  ‘Sizeable business,’ Nils Hammer commented.

  Leif Malm nodded. ‘Cocaine has a street value that varies according to its purity. Between two and four hundred kroner is the standard price of a gram.’

  One hundred kilos meant a turnover of between twenty and forty million kroner.

  ‘The money is laundered in the entertainment industry and reinvested in restaurants and bars as well as land and property,’ Leif Malm said. ‘Three weeks ago, we acquired a source close to Rudi Muller, and he’s told us how the organisation functions and operates. Cocaine is only part of it. They bring in ten kilos every third week. The goods are delivered by contacts in southern Europe and transported here by boat over the Skagerrak from Denmark.’

  ‘That fits with our Spanish connection,’ Hammer noted, after explaining about the mobile phone found near the crime scene.

  ‘That’s our understanding of the operation too,’ Leif Malm said. ‘The arrangements are made in advance and, when the deliveries arrive, they give short messages via mobile phones which are impossible to trace. The cargo is shipped ashore and the cash payment transported out.’

  Wisting recognised the smuggling modus operandi. This was how hash had come into the country when he started his police career almost thirty years before. At that time they had used fishing boats; nowadays, probably, large speedboats. ‘However, on Friday something went wrong,’ he remarked, bringing them back to the point.

  Leif Malm nodded, tight-lipped. ‘Petter Eikelid had a meeting with his source this morning.’

  The young policeman stopped chewing. ‘We don’t really know what went wrong,’ he said, his first contribution. ‘Only that the money and the drugs are gone, and two men died.’

  Wisting glanced at Leif Malm. ‘You said that Rudi Muller lost one of his men.’

  Petter Eikelid answered instead. ‘One man failed to return with the boat to Denmark. My source assumes that the guy found in the rowing boat early today is the missing Dane.’

  ‘I’m not quite following this,’ Christine Thiis admitted. ‘Are you saying that two men arrived in a boat from Denmark with ten kilos of cocaine, and two men came from Oslo with money to receive the drugs? Then it went wrong: shots were fired, we find two bodies, and both the money and the drugs have disappeared.’

  Leif Malm smiled at her indulgently. ‘Both we and Rudi Muller believe that a robbery took place when someone learned about the plan. They went off with both the money and the drugs.’

  Nils Hammer rose from the table to fetch the pot of coffee. ‘How much money?’ he asked.

  ‘Two million kroner, but Rudi is being held responsible for the drugs as well.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘The goods have been delivered, but the European backers haven’t been paid.’

  ‘Have we any notion who was behind the robbery?’

  Producing a packet of chewing gum from his pocket, Petter Eikelid pressed out a tab and placed it in his mouth. ‘No,’ was his succinct response.

  Hammer returned to his seat. ‘Rudi Muller must have some idea where the leak sprung?’

  ‘He’s leaving no stone unturned.’

  Wisting looked up from his notes. ‘Do you know who came here to collect the drugs?’

  ‘We think we know who was killed.’

  Petter Eikelid placed a photo of a round-eyed young man whose pale face was marred by acne. ‘This is Trond Holmberg,’ he said. ‘He’s the younger brother of Rudi’s lady friend and hasn’t been seen since Friday morning when he was with Rudi in the bar at Shazam Station.’

  A knot twisted in Wisting’s stomach. He took a drink from his glass of water.

  ‘Shazam Station?’ Christine Thiis asked.

  ‘One of the restaurants Rudi Muller part-owns,’ Petter Eikelid explained. ‘If Holmberg is identified as the charred body in the hearse, we’ll have made good progress.’

  Wisting felt a blockage in his throat, only worsened by his attempts to clear it. ‘It isn’t Holmberg,’ he said. Swallowing, he explained what he had learned from the postmortem. The corpse in the hearse was probably the driver.

  Taking deep breaths, Wisting struggled to control his thoughts beneath the blur of his colleagues’ discussion. Rudi Muller was a part-owner of Shazam Station, of which the man who had been living with his daughter was part-owner.

  He swore inwardly. Where had his head been these past few years? He had distanced himself from his daughter’s relationship with this Dane, the same age as herself, mostly because he knew about his past and his criminal convictions. He had remained silent until he saw how the relationship developed and, after it became well established, had remained silent. He had been too resistant to involvement.

  He had to concentrate furiously to appear unruffled. He had lived long enough to know that his intuition was worth listening to – it had guided him through serious cases, but now it concerned his own daughter, the most important person in his life. For fear of losing her he had kept to himself what he actually thought about Tommy. He had allowed her to live her own life, and now was turned inside out with anxiety.

  During the first period they had been together, he had more than once searched for Tommy’s name in criminal records. Eventually he began to understand the qualities that Line appreciated. Tommy could be attentive and considerate, a good conversationalist who listened and was reflective, but Wisting had been naïve and he cursed his weakness. He should be the first to understand that criminals can have attractive characteristics. Now Tommy Kvanter was bathed in an altogether new and uglier light. Youthful petty criminal behaviour was one thing; involvement with one of Europe’s worst criminals was another. The thought of Line with such people made him feel ill.

  He forced himself to participate in the conversation again.

  ‘So, we have a rational explanation,’ he said, putting into words the hypothesis that had taken shape in parallel with his own concerns. ‘Rudi Muller knows how the police operate. He knew that if the body was identified as Trond Holmberg we would connect him to the case, but we announced that the murder victim was masked and that we had to await the post mortem report before we could say anything about his identity. The television even showed pictures of the hearse leaving the crime scene. We wrote the story for him.’

  ‘All the same, it was an enormous risk to take,’ Christine Thiis said.

  ‘Typical of Rudi Muller,’ Petter Eikelid said.

  ‘What about the other man who was with him on the journey?’ Nils Hammer enquired. ‘Does the source know anything about him?’

  ‘Not yet, but he is meeting Rudi Muller this evening. We might find out more after that.’

  ‘Why did they bring the drugs ashore in our patch?’ Hammer asked.

  ‘It’s possibly an established route that Rudi Muller took over, but we also know he has connections here.’

  ‘What connections?’

  ‘It’s not on record, but he was collaborating with Werner Roos, now doing time, and he operates in the same network.’

  Wisting nodded. Werner Roos was a property investor who had built up his business through narcotics. Økokrim, the financial crime department, led the investigation that put him away for eight years, but his outfit was still in operation.

  Leif Malm held forth again. ‘Our informant says that Rudi Muller is under pressure to pay. A deadline has been laid down and the pressure will increase now one of the suppliers is dead.’

  Christine Thiis turned to a fresh page. ‘How much of this can we use?’r />
  ‘All of it is classified. If any of it leaks our source’s life will be in danger. You’ll have to take it from there.’

  Trond Holmberg’s arrest photograph lay in the middle of the table. Wisting pulled it towards him. ‘Does he feature in the DNA register?’

  ‘No, only photo and fingerprints.’

  Christine Thiis seemed discouraged. ‘So we have a crime scene possibly covered in his blood, but can’t confirm.’

  Wisting replaced the photo. ‘If Trond Holmberg is reported missing we have a way in,’ he said. ‘It would be reasonable to take reference samples from the family and compare them with unidentified bodies and profiles in other ongoing cases.’

  ‘With the exception of his sister, he’s not somebody who keeps much contact with his family,’ Leif Malm said. ‘But we can start a missing person report. We could draft a summons and look up his parents.’

  ‘Where is Rudi Muller now?’ Hammer asked.

  ‘We have surveillance on him. When we came into the meeting he was at his flat in Majorstua.’

  ‘What about monitoring his telephone?’

  ‘We expect to have all communications covered from early tomorrow,’ Malm confirmed. ‘The challenge is that we can’t control what number he uses.’

  ‘The most important thing now is to control the source,’ Wisting said, making eye contact with Petter Eikelid.

  Eikelid looked away.

  ‘We need to know three things,’ Wisting continued. ‘Where is Trond Holmberg’s body? Who was the other man he was with? What is Rudi Muller’s next move?’

  Leif Malm agreed.

  Glancing through his notes, Wisting saw unanswered questions for himself as well. If it was true that Line had been living with a criminal for more than two years, with his silent approval, then he had many sleepless nights ahead. However, he would have to cope with that on his own.

  ‘As the case now stands, we’re looking for unknown robbers,’ he said. ‘But is there any chance that this wasn’t what took place?’

  ‘You’re thinking of a plain and simple showdown between the supplier and the recipient?’

  ‘Either that, or that this is all about something else entirely. Something we’re not seeing.’

  No one had an answer.

  27

  Suzanne prepared a simple and tasty meal, surprising them with puréed strawberries for dessert. ‘I went home to get them from the freezer,’ she explained, placing the bowl on the table.

  ‘How are things at your house?’ Line asked. ‘Are the plumbers almost finished?’

  ‘I don’t really know. I don’t think there was much difference from my last visit.’

  Wisting sampled the dessert. ‘You ought to serve this in your restaurant,’ he said.

  ‘Are you going to open a restaurant?’

  Suzanne’s cheeks turned pink. ‘Not a restaurant, a café,’ she said. ‘Possibly.’

  Wisting supplied additional details.

  ‘It’s going to become your favourite eating place,’ Line said.

  ‘That’s what I think,’ Wisting said. ‘Did you go often to Shazam Station?’

  Line talked while eating. ‘In the beginning, yes,’ she replied. ‘At least a couple of times a week, less often after a while. Tommy was always there though. It took up all his time.’

  ‘Were there many customers?’

  ‘It was never full, but there was always a lot to do. He was partly responsible for the bar as well, so it wasn’t a case of simply coming home when the kitchen closed.’

  ‘Did you get to know any of the others?’

  ‘Not many. There were constant changes, but that’s what it’s like. I didn’t meet anyone I’d imagine becoming friends. I’m much happier with my colleagues.’

  ‘What about Tommy? Did he socialise with colleagues in his free time?’

  ‘Work and free time blended together, I think.’ Line replaced the spoon in her empty dish. ‘What’s this about? You’re more interested in Tommy now it’s over than you were when we were together.’

  ‘Sorry, but it’s difficult to have friends in common when a relationship ends.’

  Slightly ashamed, he glanced down at his dessert dish. What he was doing was actually detective work. His questions only appeared innocent.

  Line cleared the table and put the plates in the dishwasher.

  ‘Everything okay out at the cottage?’ Suzanne asked.

  ‘Absolutely fantastic, and I do enjoy wet and windy weather. It’s lovely to sit at the panorama windows with the fire at my back, although what’s happening to the birds is horrible.’

  ‘What about the birds?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘Dead birds falling from the sky. Haven’t you noticed? It’s grabbed more headlines than your murder case.’

  Line crossed over to the kitchen door and her bag to pull out her laptop. She placed it on the table facing her father.

  DEAD BIRDS RAINING FROM THE SKY was the headline. Wisting recognised the man in the photograph as the farmer who helped him after he had been attacked. He stood with a shovel in his hand on which four dead black birds were laid out.

  As many as a thousand birds may have fallen to the ground, dead, in the course of the weekend around Helgeroa in Vestfold, he read. The mysterious phenomenon started on Saturday morning and continued throughout the weekend. Farmer Christian Nalum had experienced dead birds falling onto his house, the roof of his car, and in his fields, and had gathered more than a hundred on his property alone. The Wildlife Board had taken over collection and intended to have the birds examined at the Veterinary College.

  ‘I ran over two like that on Friday night,’ Wisting remarked.

  ‘And I found one on the stairs outside the cottage,’ Line told him. ‘It’s happened in other countries too,’ she pointed to a lower paragraph.

  The previous week, more than five thousand dead birds had fallen from the sky in the little town of Beebe in Arkansas, Wisting read. The birds had been examined at laboratories in Georgia, where experts had decided they had died as a result of internal hemorrhages and injuries to their vital organs. No real light had been shone on the mystery. There had been a similar event in Brazil.

  ‘Yep, more hits than your murder case,’ Line repeated, closing the laptop.

  They discussed other matters until Line thanked them for dinner and left for the cottage. Wisting had half an hour before he was due back at the office.

  ‘I think you should go ahead,’ he said to Suzanne. ‘Open that café. Follow your dream of the good life.’

  ‘I’m living the good life now,’ she said, snuggling up on the settee and leaning her head on his chest. ‘I’ve always felt that. At least if I compare it with those who were born into the same war as me, the ones who didn’t get away, and are living in starvation and poverty. I’ve bought a winning ticket, William.’

  Suzanne, born in Afghanistan, was studying at the Sorbonne when the Soviets invaded in 1978. She had not returned, and a great deal of both their lives would have been different if she had made other choices at that time. He understood what she meant.

  ‘What is the good life?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s no single answer to that,’ she said. ‘Since we’re all too different, and we all have different dreams and ideas. For the majority, it’s about money and standard of living, but for me it’s about realising a dream.’

  ‘What’s holding you back?’

  ‘The road is long and difficult. I don’t know if I dare change direction.’ She turned to face him. ‘What’s the good life for you?’

  He decided it was about happiness, but he was unsure where it was to be found. No dreamer, he preferred to enjoy life exactly as it is.

  ‘Probably it’s sitting at my regular table in The Golden Peace.’

  28

  The road was always long and difficult.

  Behind his desk, Wisting mulled over what Suzanne had said about reaching one’s goal. In a case it meant trawling through reports
and other documents for a solution you could not be sure actually existed.

  He alternated between reading information logged into the data system and what had been sent as original documents, and it struck him that he actually took satisfaction from this. Life was best when he felt he was doing something important, when he could follow the interplay of thoughts and actions and knew his efforts were going to make a difference. It fed his belief that his work could help create a better world.

  As Benjamin Fjeld entered the office, Wisting looked up and removed his glasses to focus. ‘You’re still here?’

  ‘I was thinking of going now,’ Fjeld replied, ‘if there isn’t anything else.’

  Wisting remembered his dread as a young detective of letting something slip, the fear of not being present when there was a sudden breakthrough. ‘I’ll phone you if anything happens,’ he reassured him. ‘Go home and get some sleep.’

  Benjamin Fjeld was on his way out of the room when he stopped in the doorway, half-turning towards him. ‘Have you seen that we’re being blamed for the dead birds?’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Some birdwatcher is blaming the police,’ he nodded in the direction of the computer screen. ‘It’s in the online VG pages.’

  Wisting opened his browser, contributing another click to the editorial counting mechanism. The newspaper was speculating that the sudden deaths of birds were caused by the police helicopter flying low over the area. The director of the Norwegian Ornithological Association thought the birds had possibly died of exhaustion. If large flocks experienced severe stress, they could quite simply fly themselves to death, he pronounced.

  ‘Everything is connected,’ Wisting said. He reached for his coffee-cup, only to find it empty. ‘How are you enjoying your work?’ he asked, taking hold of the thermos flask.

  The young policeman re-entered the room. ‘Fine, thanks.’

  Wisting filled his cup and found a clean plastic beaker for Benjamin Fjeld. ‘That’s clear from the work you hand in,’ he said, nodding towards his tray of reports. ‘You’re thorough and efficient.’