Closed for Winter

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘Burned to death?’

  ‘No one had heard from him for a few days, and on Monday his flat in Grorud burned down. They haven’t finished examining the site of the fire yet.’

  She had heard about the fire on the news. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘I don’t know, but the flat was totally destroyed. I went up and had a look yesterday. It will be a job well done if they find the cause.’

  He emptied his cup before getting to his feet. ‘When are you coming home?’ he asked.

  She didn’t answer. She had told Tommy to pack his belongings and find somewhere else to stay before she returned, but now everything had been turned upside down. Now she understood that she regretted what had taken place. The relationship was not worth building on. A passionate night and a trip to the sun did not change that. ‘We’ll see,’ was her only response.

  Tommy did not seem happy, but said nothing. Placing his cup in the sink, he stopped at the door and pulled on his trainers. ‘I need to get going,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll come with you to the car.’ Line finished her coffee standing up.

  Tommy had arrived in a blue Peugeot. The silver van, a VW Caravelle, sat beside Line’s car, the inside of the windscreen clouded with condensation. She glanced into the driving compartment as Tommy opened his car door. It was tidy, apart from a pair of training shoes on the passenger seat. The rear door was locked. She mentally noted the registration number and crossed her arms in front of her chest while she waited for Tommy to leave.

  When he tried to kiss her she turned her cheek and threw her arms around him so that it became a hug instead. ‘I’ll phone you,’ he said when she released him.

  She watched Tommy’s car drive away, feeling empty and drained. The decisiveness she had been so proud of only a few days before had vanished and now she was simply confused, and alone. Again.

  47

  The restaurant was close to a park where the trees were bright with autumn leaves. Wisting followed Antoni Mikulskis’s recommendation and ordered the potato pudding. While they waited, they were served Kvas, a sweet, light beer that was a paler version of the kind Wisting’s mother used to make at Christmas.

  ‘All that remains is to speak to Darius Plater’s mother,’ Mikulskis said. ‘Perhaps she’ll be able to tell us where the other three are.’

  ‘We have a practical problem,’ Wisting said. ‘We don’t know with certainty that the dead man is Darius Plater. Identification is based on fingerprints from last year when he was arrested in Norway. He identified himself with a passport which we have no guarantee was genuine. We can’t visit his family until we’re sure.’

  ‘When will you be sure?’

  Martin Ahlberg replied: ‘He is registered in the Lithuanian fingerprint records as well. Interpol is dealing with the prints from both countries as we speak. It’s a merry bureaucratic dance, but we should get an answer today or tomorrow.’

  ‘What do we do while we’re waiting?’ Mikulskis asked.

  ‘Can we go to the Gariunai market?’ Wisting suggested. He wanted to see how stolen goods from Norway were traded. ‘Maybe we’ll find the men there.’

  Mikulskis drank as he considered this suggestion. ‘There are seven thousand stalls. It’ll be a hopeless task, but we can drive you there. I have admin work waiting at the office.’

  Martin Ahlberg nodded. ‘We can take a taxi back to the hotel, and meet again tomorrow.’

  ‘Good,’ Mikulskis said. ‘You have my card. Phone me and we’ll try again to make contact with these men.’

  It took almost half an hour for the food to arrive. The traditional dish smelled faintly of oregano or some other culinary herb. Reminiscent of creamy potato gratin, it consisted of bacon and sliced potato layered in the casserole from which it was served. The top was decorated with lingonberry jam and crème fraiche. Afterwards, Wisting insisted on paying the bill, and brushed aside all protests by mentioning a government travel budget. He calculated that the entire meal had cost him less than one hundred and fifty Norwegian kroner.

  Antoni Mikulskis lit another cigarette as they clambered into the car. The trip to Gariunai took fifteen minutes, a gigantic market place situated behind a wooden fence several hundred metres long, beside the motorway to Kaunas. The driver stopped in front of a police presence at the entrance gate and Mikulskis stepped from the car to speak.

  Wisting stared at rows of sales booths, tin shacks and workmen’s sheds with tarpaulins stretched across. Car tyres, stones and other heavy objects had been placed on the makeshift roofs to prevent the wind from blowing them away. He had visited markets in Turkey and Spain, but had never seen anything as colossal as this, with long stretches of shelves with car stereos, mobile phones, power saws, loudspeakers, vacuum cleaners, lawnmowers, car parts, music systems, refrigerators and a dozen or so white bridal gowns on display. It looked like multiple outdoor branches of Clas Ohlson, Biltema and IKEA, wrapped into one. ‘What sort of place is this?’ he asked.

  ‘This is the centre for people who can’t afford to buy clothes or food in ordinary shops,’ Mikulskis said. ‘Most of what you buy here is second hand, and the prices are low.’

  ‘Stolen goods?’ Wisting enquired.

  The policeman shrugged. ‘Probably small quantities. We have bigger problems with pickpockets,’ he said, pointing to a CCTV camera.

  ‘But you don’t have any guarantee that the goods aren’t stolen?’ Ahlberg asked.

  ‘Having a certain amount of crime in a market such as this can’t be avoided.’

  ‘Why don’t you just close down the whole place?’ Wisting asked. ‘There must be an enormous turnover that’s never reported to the tax authorities.’

  ‘There are too many people working here,’ Mikulskis said. ‘Nearly seventy thousand people live off that turnover. If we were to close Gariunai, there would be a social catastrophe. It’s cheaper for Lithuania to battle crime at the market than get rid of it entirely.’

  Wisting was speechless. An entire economy was based on the trading of smuggled goods and stolen property.

  ‘What a bloody cheek,’ Martin Ahlberg said.

  The CID Chief, having no wish to discuss the topic, returned to the car. ‘Let me hear from you tomorrow,’ he said, signalling to the driver.

  Wisting and Ahlberg wandered among the stalls and a cacophony of noisy haggling.

  ‘No matter what they say,’ Ahlberg said, stopping in front of a display of razor blades, deodorants and other cosmetics, ‘this is a thieves’ market.’ He picked up a tin of shaving foam and showed Wisting the price ticket from Rimi, the Norwegian supermarket chain. ‘The world’s largest commercial centre for stolen property; it’s a disgrace to both the country and the local police.’

  Much of what was on offer was obviously stolen but, eventually, as they advanced, the market increasingly resembled a recycling station for the gently used surfeit of the western world’s consumer goods. Most were discarded white goods repaired for re-use, and outmoded home appliances.

  ‘It’s not so very different from eBay,’ Wisting suggested. ‘Here, everything is physically gathered into a single location while, in Norway, we offer stolen goods digitally and call it a market full of opportunities.’

  ‘It’s not quite the same,’ Ahlberg said.

  Wisting dropped the subject. When he started in the police force, the street was the most usual place for selling stolen goods. Now the internet had taken over. In the second hand market in electronics, at any time there would be 300,000 appliances for sale. The turnover was reckoned to be three quarters of a million kroner every year. Cautious estimates suggested that one tenth involved the resale of stolen property.

  When a fine drizzle started, the vendors carefully placed transparent covers over the front of their booths.

  Wisting halted at a jewellery table, with mostly gold rings, bracelets and necklaces. He lifted a broad ring while the man behind the table glowered suspiciously at him. Your Kari, he read. 12th August 1966. A we
dding ring, probably a precious memento lost forever.

  ‘One hundred litas,’ the man behind the counter offered.

  Shaking his head, Wisting replaced the ring.

  Outside a steel container, a man stood with legs straddled and arms folded across his chest, watching everyone who went in and out. One person heading for the exit carried a huge box with a picture of a flat-screen television. LG – Life’s Good, the box proclaimed.

  Wisting and Martin Ahlberg entered to find the container stacked with television sets, DVD players, home cinema systems, computers and games consoles. Some were in their original cardboard boxes, but most lacked any kind of packaging. Two men haggled over a thirty-two-inch Samsung flat-screen TV, identical to the one stolen from Thomas Rønningen’s cottage. The price was in the region of five hundred litas, or twelve hundred kroner.

  ‘I’m not enjoying this,’ Ahlberg said. ‘It upsets me.’

  As the rain drummed more heavily on the roof of the container, the guard at the door huddled inside the opening. Standing at the entrance, they waited for the weather to ease. A man hurried along the row of stalls using a newspaper for protection and, as he passed them, raised his head, snatching a glimpse of the two policemen. His eyes widened but remained on Wisting. As his mouth dropped open, he lost his footing, stumbled and fell.

  ‘That’s him!’ Wisting exclaimed, pushing past the doorman.

  Scrambling to his feet, the man started to run, with Wisting ten metres behind. Valdas Muravjev had recognised him, just as Wisting had recognised him. Their previous encounter had been brief – five days earlier, the Lithuanian had fallen down at the road verge outside Nevlunghavn in a dramatic performance that had ended with him felling Wisting and stealing his car.

  ‘I want to talk,’ Wisting shouted, chasing after him between booths and rows of seats, casting aside flapping clothes, scarves and shawls on display along the pathway.

  Muravjev ran through a narrow passageway into a more crowded street, twisting and turning through swarms of people who stepped aside, but closed again when he had passed.

  Wisting ploughed on, angry cries ringing in his ears. Halfway down an alleyway he caught sight of Muravjev’s broad back as he dodged down the next side street. Wisting forced his way through a sales booth overflowing with clocks, spectacles and belts, almost managing to intercept him. He grabbed hold of his jacket sleeve, but the other man tore free, staring furiously at him.

  ‘I want to talk about Darius,’ Wisting shouted.

  The man took to his heels again, and Wisting thought he spotted a gleam of metal in his hand, a knife or some other weapon. He hesitated momentarily, but continued the pursuit, zigzagging through the market place, until they were stopped by a grey brick wall. On the left several containers were stacked one on another; to the right, a man was selling jeans from a shed.

  Valdas Muravjev stopped, and Wisting stopped with him. ‘I want to talk to you about Darius Plater,’ he said.

  Muravjev eyed the wall calculatingly before taking a couple of backward paces to gain momentum and haul himself up. Wisting did not manage to reach him before his feet disappeared over the top.

  Rain cascaded down the side of his face, and his breath heaved in laboured, staccato gasps. He rested his hands on his knees.

  His mobile phone rang. It was Martin Ahlberg. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he asked.

  Wisting looked around. ‘I’m not sure,’ he replied, and described the chase.

  ‘Madness,’ Ahlberg said. ‘I’m waiting for you at the entrance – we can take a taxi back to the hotel.’

  Wisting headed in the direction of their arrival point. On the way, he stopped underneath a parasol where an old woman was selling vegetables and beverages from a fridge with glass doors. Purchasing a bottle of water, he drank half while waiting for his change, and felt his heartbeat return to its normal pace.

  Martin Ahlberg shook his head when he arrived at the entrance to the car park. ‘What on earth were you thinking?’ he asked. ‘These are dangerous men.’

  In the course of the day, Wisting had formed a different impression. They now appeared more like confused young men with no hope for the future, than an organised criminal gang.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’m too old for this.’

  Running his hand through his wet hair, he looked back at the countless sales booths. He had the feeling that many of the people were staring back, checking him up and down, before he turned his back and crossed over to one of the waiting taxis.

  48

  The grimy silver van belonged to Gunnar B. Hystad from Sandefjord. The text message from the Roads Department did not contain any information other than that his road tax had been paid. Taking out the Yellow Pages, Line found that he was listed with a landline and a mobile subscription, at an address in what she knew was an established residential area west of the town centre. A woman was listed at the same address and number.

  She found him again in the tax lists and noticed he was born in 1950. There was no indication of what the B in his name stood for. He had a small amount of capital and an annual income of just under half a million kroner.

  A simple internet search produced no hits. The newspaper’s text archive did not contain any information either. A search with only the words gunnar and hystad produced too many results, making it impossible to sort through them.

  Gunnar B. Hystad might be the mysterious man with the binoculars.

  She wondered whether she should phone Benjamin Fjeld and give him the registration number, but from what she had discovered online, Hystad did not seem particularly interesting.

  Sunlight shone diagonally through the smudged cottage windows, causing glittering dust to dance in the air. Closing the lid of her laptop, Line concluded that it had provided no answers. Nevertheless, there was something about Gunnar B. that titillated her curiosity. The vehicle had been parked overnight. Of course, he could be staying at one of the other cottages, but she had a growing conviction that he had spent the night in the makeshift shelter she had discovered.

  She fetched her camera and looked through the photos she had taken a day or two earlier before putting on her outdoor clothes and going out. The sea lapped gently and softly on the shore and the air was crystal clear. Two fishing boats were heading towards the Skagerrak, their masts in sharp silhouette against the horizon.

  Line followed the path westward, through the dense woodland. The waterlogged forest floor softened beneath her feet and, with each step she took, her Wellington boots sank deeper into the mud.

  She reached the sea at the same spot as before; waves were beating rhythmically on the beach below. Windswept, crooked pine trees hung over the stony outcrop, and wild flowers grew in the clefts between the rocks. Raising her camera, she located the hidden shelter with her lens. For a long time she waited, hoping to catch a movement. Eventually her arms became tired, and then she caught sight of him.

  He was standing on a plateau beside the sea, scanning in an oblique line along the pebbly coastal edge. His back was half turned towards her, so she could not see what he looked like other than he had stubble covering his cheeks, chin and throat.

  Line took a couple of photographs before squatting again in the undergrowth. Several black crows took off from the treetops, screeching and fluttering through the foliage before coming to rest a short distance away.

  A trail across the springy carpet of moss led her closer to the man. She halted just before the woodland met the hillside to prevent him from spotting her and looked again, but could no longer see him.

  Leaving the woodland behind, she scared several more birds. The sun’s rays were intense now, and steam rose from the glistening rocks on the shore.

  A narrow crevice led down from where she stood. Holding her camera to her chest with one hand, and supporting herself on the slope with the other, she followed the path downwards until she reached the plateau. She could find no trace of him, but looked in the direction he had been facing.<
br />
  Breakers rolled in from the sea, crashing onto the pebbled beach. Further inland lay the woodland, almost grey in its bleakness. The wind had wrenched the autumn leaves from the trees, leaving only fragile branches.

  While she stood there, a flock of black birds, probably a hundred times larger than the one she had seen several days earlier, took flight, gathered into a huge oval ball and soared into the sky like a dark cloud. The roar created by the flapping of their many thousand wings drowned out the sound of the waves, and a fluttering shadow from the massive flock slid across the landscape. It was like an enormous flying carpet as it veered and writhed through the air.

  When the flock moved out to sea, the temperature dropped as the birds covered the sun.

  The flock then divided into two pointed groups heading back inland. The sun reappeared, and just as suddenly as the birds had materialised they vanished, descending into the woodland. She was left with only the sound of their flapping wings in her ears. Not until then did she lift her camera, but it was too late to capture the spectacular sight.

  ‘Did you see that?’ a voice behind her asked.

  Line wheeled round. The man was standing two metres away. He must have been sheltering in a cleft at the outer edge of the hillside and had climbed unnoticed to where she stood. His binoculars were hanging from his neck, and he carried a camera. He seemed delighted to have someone to share the experience with.

  Line nodded. ‘Yes, it was fantastic.’

  The man was still peering in the direction the birds had disappeared. ‘I’ve been waiting for something like that for days, but that was even better than I expected.’ Letting the camera rest, he lifted the binoculars to his eyes. ‘There it is,’ he said suddenly, letting go the binoculars to point out a huge falcon or eagle flapping its wings to catch the air currents. ‘They gather here to search for food before they journey on. Then they’re especially vulnerable to attacks by birds of prey. That’s why they fly in flocks, just like a shoal of herring in flight. They change direction hither and thither to fool the enemy.’