Ordeal (William Wisting Series)

by Jorn Lier Horst

  According to the papers, he lived with his parents. It was not certain that he would be there now, but a face-to-face meeting was always better than a phone conversation.

  Wisting drove down Prinsegata and took a left turn at the traffic lights in Storgata. The summer evening was warm and still, and he wound down the car window, listening as music drifted in from one of the quayside restaurants. Finn Bjelkevik and his friend had arrived on the scene immediately after the shots were fired in Dronningens gate, and had seen Dan Roger Brodin run from the incident. His statement had taken up less than two pages.

  Experience had taught Wisting that there were always details and nuances in a witness’s observations that had not been committed to paper: words that had been said, the order of events, movements, reactions and thoughts. Although not everything that happened appeared in black and white on an interview form, Wisting had no expectations that a conversation with Bjelkevik would add anything new. His statement contained more than enough to convict Dan Roger Brodin of the murder. He was the nearest thing to an eyewitness you could get. He had heard the shots and seen Brodin flee the scene with a revolver in his hand. It was the revolver that Wisting wanted to know about most.

  Satnav led Wisting into a well-maintained residential area on the west side of the Sandefjord Fjord. The house, a two-storey timber villa with rose bushes climbing the walls, was situated at the end of a cul-de-sac right down at the water’s edge. He turned into the monoblock courtyard. Before stepping out of the car, he used his mobile phone to check the VG web pages. The news was now the top story, illustrated with a picture of Elise Kittelsen. The report had been broken less than seven minutes earlier. He began to read as a woman in her fifties emerged on to the steps.

  He put the phone back in his pocket and approached her. It was Finn Bjelkevik’s mother. He explained that his visit was related to the murder her son had witnessed.

  ‘A dreadful business,’ she said. ‘I’ll be glad when the court case is over.’

  ‘Is he at home?’

  ‘In the back garden.’ She ushered Wisting through the house.

  Finn Bjelkevik was standing beside the barbecue. From his reading of the case papers, Wisting knew that he was twenty-two. He was tall and sinewy with short sandy hair and glasses. At one end of a table, a girl of around the same age was seated. An older man arrived from a jetty down at the water’s edge with a longhaired dog ambling behind him.

  The mother explained who Wisting was and Wisting shook hands with them in turn. The girl was Finn Bjelkevik’s girlfriend. The man with the dog was his father. Wisting guessed that none of them would have read the latest news and saw no reason to pass it on.

  ‘Will you eat with us?’ the father asked, glancing at the grill. ‘There’s more than enough.’ The aroma of sizzling meat hung in the warm evening air.

  ‘No thanks,’ Wisting replied. ‘I won’t take long. I just want to go through what happened on New Year’s Eve one more time.’

  Finn Bjelkevik handed the grill fork to his father. ‘I spoke to Ryttingen on the phone earlier today. We went through all of it then.’

  The mother handed Wisting a glass of Farris mineral water with ice cubes. ‘Thanks,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘We talked about how important it was that I appear absolutely certain,’ Finn Bjelkevik continued. ‘That I don’t leave any room for doubt in court.’

  Wisting had often prepared witnesses. Most of them had little or no experience of a courtroom. It was mainly a matter of making them familiar with practical details, such as where they should stand, where the prosecuting counsel would sit, where the accused would be and what the judge would ask about. He had never instructed witnesses about what they should say. He reminded them that it was important to express themselves with precision but, unlike Ryttingen, he usually asked them to leave room for doubt if they felt unsure.

  They distanced themselves from the others, down at the edge of the fjord. ‘Are you in doubt about what happened?’ Wisting asked.

  ‘Not really.’

  Wisting paused, taking a drink from his glass. ‘What do you mean by not really?’

  ‘It all happened so fast, you see,’ Finn Bjelkevik explained, continuing down to the little private jetty. ‘I didn’t manage to see much, but then of course they turned up with the killer in their car just afterwards.’

  ‘Did you recognise him?’

  The young lad picked up a stone and threw it into the sea. ‘Right away.’

  A gull took off from a spar buoy out in the sound. ‘You’re not in the courtroom now,’ Wisting said. ‘You don’t need to be so positive.’

  ‘I’d had a lot to drink. Terje got a better look at him than I did.’

  ‘How much had you had to drink?’ This was one of the questions that had not been posed during the official interview.

  Finn Bjelkevik shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Six or seven beers, maybe, but I sobered up on the spot, you know. I mean, it was such a shock. A woman was shot and killed right in front of us.’

  ‘Can we take it all one more time?’ Wisting asked. ‘What actually happened?’

  The young boy sighed and glanced at his girlfriend. ‘Well,’ he said, composing himself. ‘We’d been at Terje’s house. He lives in Lund but we were going on to see a friend of his in the city. We walked around, just messing about and drinking. Terje had a rucksack with some beers and a little wine. We stopped so that I could fish out a couple of bottles from his bag. That was when we heard the bangs. Two sharp shots. First of all I thought it was fireworks, since it was New Year’s Eve, but it was sort of different. I turned in the direction of the noise. The girl was already lying on the ground. I hadn’t noticed her earlier, but she’d been walking towards us. The guy who shot her took a couple of steps back while he stuffed the gun into the waistband of his trousers. Then he turned on his heel and took off.’

  Finn Bjelkevik threw out his arms as if to emphasise that this was the whole story.

  ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘We stood rooted to the spot for a couple of seconds. Then we looked at each other and ran over to her, but she was already dead. I lifted up her head to try to make contact, but it was as if there was nobody there. Her eyes were completely empty, and there were clots of blood coming out of her mouth. It was impossible to stop it.’

  Wisting did not say anything.

  ‘More people turned up,’ Finn Bjelkevik said. ‘First of all, the guy who ran after the man who’d done the shooting. I don’t know if he was thinking of trying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and that kind of cardiac massage thing or what, because he turned her on to her back, but it was completely hopeless. Right after that, someone came who was a doctor. He said there wasn’t anything more we could do.’

  His voice had grown fainter as he spoke, and Wisting realised that telling the story again was like tearing open an old wound.

  ‘The police arrived almost at once. It was all just chaotic. Terje and I sat in the back of a patrol car and waited. We listened to everything that was going on through the police radio. How they ran after the murderer and managed to catch him.’

  Wisting stood, lost in thought. Most of what Finn Bjelkevik had told him he had already read in the case documents. He was not entirely sure what he had anticipated. ‘The man who’d done the shooting . . . ,’ he began, fumbling for a way to continue the conversation.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Could you describe him again?’

  ‘A black, turtle-neck sweater with something written on it, a grey windcheater, dark trousers and blue trainers.’

  Wisting nodded. On Dan Roger Brodin’s sweater, the word Magic and the line drawing of a bird were printed.

  ‘Had you seen him before?’

  ‘No, but I’m not from Kristiansand.’

  ‘What was the distance between you?’

  The young man shrugged. ‘We were standing outside an exercise studio or something like that. She was lying on the ground
near the entrance to the school playground.’

  Wisting was not familiar with the street layout. ‘What would that mean?’ he asked, pointing towards the jetty. ‘Such as from here over to the boat?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Approximately thirty metres. ‘What were the light conditions?’

  ‘It was fairly dark.’

  ‘Were there streetlights?’

  ‘There was a streetlamp almost exactly where she fell, but there was no light from it. The light came from the windows on the other side of the street.’

  ‘Did he have anything with him?’ Wisting asked. ‘Was he carrying anything apart from the revolver?’

  Finn Bjelkevik shook his head.

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  Wisting went on asking routine questions to which he had not found answers on the interview form. Most of the questions had, of course, already been posed, but the replies had been considered of such little interest that they had not been recorded. He did not make any notes either.

  Little that was new had emerged, but all the same there was something about the conversation with Finn Bjelkevik that grated. Somewhere in the conversation, something had been said that unsettled him. He just could not quite isolate what it was.

  48

  Line sat with her laptop on her knee, having placed a cushion underneath so that it would balance securely. It had been a long time since she had logged herself into the newspaper’s data system. The dashboard showed at any time how many people were on the web pages of VG’s online edition and showed that the murder weapon story was the most popular by far. Published not much more than two hours ago, it had already received more than 250,000 hits, more than most of her stories.

  The newspaper spread was linked to the New Year Murder. Above an image of Elise Kittelsen they had placed the headline: Mystery Murder Weapon Used Again.

  She would have to pretend to Sofie. She could not tell her that Wisting had given her the information, but as soon as the story was published she had phoned. She was afraid that Sofie would be angry as it was she, Line, who had persuaded her not to get rid of the revolver, but instead to hand it in to the police.

  Sofie’s reaction had not been as anticipated. She had sighed disconsolately, as if she constantly expected bad news, or else she simply did not understand how dramatic the story was. Perhaps she was just tired.

  Line did not like words like mystery, puzzling and inexplicable being used in headlines to arouse curiosity and attract readers, but all three were totally apt when used to describe the revolver. Curiosity had driven her to examine the ring binders and notebooks in the safe, confirming what Sofie had already said, that her grandfather was a criminal, though his activities were on a larger scale than even Sofie had ever guessed.

  She typed Frank Mandt into the search field to see if any of the journalists had saved the name in background material. The search produced one result. The name appeared in a folder with notes in connection with a series of articles on organised crime printed several years earlier. The journalist’s name was Geir Hansen. She had only been on nodding terms with him. He had subsequently resigned and gone to work in the information department of some government enterprise or other.

  She located the paragraph in which Mandt was mentioned.

  Frank Mandt from Vestfold may have a central role. He is an older man who is best known for the import and sale of illegal spirits. Probably on his way out.

  The short note with key words did not make her any the wiser. It was obvious that the journalist had a source inside the criminal fraternity, but the note did not mention any sources or basis. She struggled to remember some of the names she had seen in the ring binders in the safe. One of them was rather unusual, Aron Heisel.

  She keyed it into the search engine. It came up with a number of references, and one of the case logs linked to his name was only a few days old. She frowned when she realised that it was in connection with the narcotics seized from the farm where Jens Hummel’s taxi had been found. Her father had not mentioned his name, but Aron Heisel must be the man remanded in custody who refused to answer any of the police’s questions.

  The case log did not contain much more than had been summarised in print, apart from the name of the accused. The last time Aron Heisel had been mentioned was in connection with a major smuggling enquiry in Østfold three years previously, in which he had been picked out as one of several suspects, but not convicted.

  One of the other names she recollected from the safe was Per Gregersen. It turned up in background material for the series of articles about organised crime together with Frank Mandt’s name, and was mentioned almost incidentally in another paragraph: Phillip Goldheim’s original name was Per Gregersen.

  She scrolled up to read the entire section summarising the source’s information:

  Phillip Goldheim. Released after a lengthy sentence for drugs offences in 2002. Earlier he had worked closely with Hells Angels. Keeps a low profile. Laundering of drugs money. Built himself up as an investor. Purchase and sales of real estate. Vehicle imports. Shares. Shift to financial crimes. Fraud – use of shell companies, front men, false accounting. Still big in amphetamines. Major player in Sørland. Ambitions to become even more powerful. Network little known.

  With a few more keystrokes she arrived at his photograph, taken during his last court case. He was neatly dressed in shirt and blazer, but a thick ponytail and ring in one ear suggested that this was not his everyday attire.

  The doorbell rang before she managed to check whether the newspaper had any further information on Phillip Goldheim. Before she could get to her feet her father called her from the hallway. She answered, closing the laptop and setting it down on the table, and struggled to her feet to meet him.

  Wisting stood with his shoes on in the doorway between the hall and the kitchen. ‘I just wanted to let you know I’m going away this weekend,’ he said.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Kristiansand. I’m setting off early in the morning.’ He stole a glance at her stomach. ‘Is that okay with you?’

  Line nodded. ‘Will you be away long?’

  ‘Just till Sunday.’

  Line stepped aside and used the kitchen table to support herself. ‘How does this hang together? This information about the gun?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m going down there.’

  ‘Has it created problems for you? The article, I mean.’

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘What creates problems is when somebody tries to keep things hidden. How did Sofie take it?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘What about you? What do you think?’

  The thought that she had held a gun that had taken the lives of two people made her feel queasy. She changed the subject. ‘Are you travelling alone?’

  ‘Christine Thiis is coming with me.’ He looked again at her bump. ‘Call me if anything crops up.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘You too.’

  49

  Wisting woke before the alarm clock and listened to the distant screeching of gulls before getting up.

  The arrangement with Harald Ryttingen in Kristiansand was that a detective would meet them at the police station down there at ten o’clock. The drive from Larvik to Kristiansand took two and a half hours. That would give him plenty of time.

  He spread jam on a slice of bread and sat at the kitchen table, eating as he watched the sky brighten and turn a clear summer blue.

  It was not the gulls’ screeching that had wakened him, but thoughts of the New Year Murder case. With the exception of the vanished murder weapon, it appeared a straightforward business that had progressed to a speedy, simple resolution. It had almost gone too quickly. The perpetrator had been apprehended before Ryttingen or any of the other investigators had been roused. When they first reported for work, they had merely followed the lines on which the enquiry had already been steered.

 
Wisting placed his empty cup and plate in the dishwasher before heading for the bathroom, where he shaved and took a shower before packing an overnight bag. Immediately after seven o’clock, he picked up Christine Thiis from outside her house.

  The road was deserted. Neither of them said much. During the hours of morning, Wisting tried to think differently from the investigators in Kristiansand and had possibly arrived at a logical explanation for how the revolver had ended up in Larvik. However, it was premature to share his thoughts.

  Outside the car, signposts with the names of small towns on the south coast whizzed by: Risør, Tvedestrand, Arendal, Grimstad, Lillesand. Just after half past nine they turned off for Kristiansand. Before they drove to police headquarters, Wisting wanted to see the place where Elise Kittelsen had been killed. He manoeuvred through the grid system of streets to Dronningens gate.

  Reading the documents he had not quite understood that she had been murdered outside the abandoned school in Kongens gate, though the address of the crime scene was Dronningens gate. Now he understood it better. The entrance to the school was located in Kongens gate, but the schoolyard faced out towards Dronningens gate. Elise Kittelsen had been shot in front of the opening in the wall around the playground. The case papers suggested that the perpetrator had been hiding there waiting for a prospective victim.

  Wisting rolled slowly past and parked outside the exercise studio where Finn Bjelkevik had told him he and his friend had been standing when the shots were fired. He stepped out of the car and looked at the spot, recognising the street scene from the folder of photographs. The difference was that the pictures in the folder had been taken at night, with artificial illumination from floodlights and a few patches of snow on the pavement, whereas now the sun was shining and green leafy branches were hanging over the schoolyard wall.

  Christine Thiis stood by his side. A young boy on a scratched skateboard rolled past them, wheels rumbling on the asphalt.

  The distance to the spot where Elise Kittelsen had lain was about thirty metres as Finn Bjelkevik had said. As they walked forward to the crime scene, birds took off from the treetops. The old school buildings behind the wall looked empty and, in the schoolyard, they could see the outlines of a handball court, even though the vast empty space was now used as a car park.