Sandersen spoke up again: ‘Are you interested?’ His voice had grown insistent.
Line raised her pen to her mouth and chewed it as she mulled things over.
‘You could work from home,’ Sandersen went on. ‘Nadia Krogh lived in Porsgrunn, and that’s only half an hour or so from you.’
Stiller filled his glass with water from a carafe on the table. Line turned towards him. ‘Is there a suspect?’ she asked.
Stiller put the glass to his mouth. Although this was a question he had hoped would not be posed, he relished it as evidence of her incisiveness. Line resembled her father, homing straight in on the essential points. Playing for time before answering, he swallowed and put down his glass. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, aware of how surprised the chief editor and news editor appeared. ‘I don’t want to say anything further about that now, but our plan is for the media coverage to play a part in exposing him and lead to an arrest. You’ll have it first, but it really depends on having the first article in print on Friday.’
‘Friday?’ Line asked. ‘As in this coming Friday? I don’t know –’
The chief editor interrupted her, obviously keen not to lose this opportunity. ‘Daniel, you’ve been working on this for a fortnight already,’ he said. ‘Is it possible to have the first instalment completed by Friday?’
‘The conceptual graphics and layout are almost ready. The initial round will be a presentation of the facts in the case. I’ve already put that together, and made a start on the script for the podcast.’
‘So the answer is yes?’
‘Yes.’
The chief editor turned to Line. ‘Are you with us?’
‘Yes, I’m with you,’ she replied, without a moment’s hesitation, unable to resist the challenge.
22
Daniel Leanger had managed to transform one of the smallest conference rooms in the building into a lockable workroom. Line had followed him into the makeshift office. A huge map of parts of Grenland hung on the wall – Porsgrunn, Skien and Bamble. Various pictures were also displayed: press photographs from the official search but also images taken from the police investigation, including two different portraits of Nadia and several photos taken at a teenage party.
‘She disappeared after a house party here,’ Daniel explained, pointing to a picture of a standard brown-varnished Norwegian detached house with a basement and a pitched roof. ‘She quarrelled with her boyfriend and left. He followed her, but never set eyes on her again.’
Line sat down. ‘I’m not entirely comfortable with the assignment,’ she said. ‘We’re being used. That Kripos guy is trying to steer the story.’
‘That’s really the point, don’t you think, for him to decide the angle?’
‘I guess so,’ Line said, with a smile. ‘But there’s something more to it. Why won’t he tell us who the suspect is?’
‘But he was quite open about that,’ Daniel interjected. ‘The investigation is going in a particular direction, but they don’t want to share that with us yet. I think that’s okay. Then we avoid being influenced by it.’
Line reluctantly agreed.
‘He was the one who asked for you, you know,’ Daniel added.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I understood Kripos virtually made it a condition that you would be the one to work on this.’
‘Why was that?’
Daniel shrugged. ‘Maybe he has a hidden agenda?’ he suggested with a grin. ‘Maybe he’s seen photos of you.’
Line pulled a face.
‘He’s probably read your previous articles,’ Daniel said. ‘Like a lot of people.’
He picked up a state-of-the-art recording device from the desk.
‘You’ll have to learn to use this,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘It’s what we use to make the podcast.’
Line took it from him and peered sceptically at it. She liked to write, when she could take time to formulate what she wanted to say, changing the words and amending the sentences. This was something completely different, but she had listened to a number of interesting podcasts lately and liked the medium and the format as well as the oral presentation.
‘Would you like to hear our theme tune?’ Daniel asked. Without waiting for a response, he flipped the lid of his laptop and played a sound file. ‘You have to hear it more than once,’ he said when Line did not come out with any immediate reaction. ‘It has energy – not too much, but just enough to create the right mood.’
Line fixed her eyes on the map as she listened to the theme tune again. The picture of the brown house where Nadia Krogh had been last seen was attached with a drawing pin placed almost exactly in the middle. ‘Have you been down there?’ she asked.
‘I thought we could go together at the beginning of the week,’ Daniel answered, lowering the volume of the music. ‘That would let you spend a couple of days familiarizing yourself with the material before we go at it full throttle.’
Line leaned back in her chair. She had been on maternity leave for sixteen months and still had eight months left. Living on her own with Amalie, she had decided to stay in Stavern. She wanted to use her maternity leave to settle down and earn money as a freelance writer, outside the capital city. She felt ready to be a roving news reporter, but this was something entirely different. This was something she was really keen to do. She was compelled by the mystery. Line really was her father’s daughter.
23
Stiller let himself into the apartment on the top floor of the massive block of flats in Grünerløkka.
Game on! was what passed through his mind. He spoke the words aloud as well.
His shoes echoed on the newly laid floor tiles in the hallway. Kicking them off, he flung his jacket over the coat stand and smiled with satisfaction at his reflection in the large mirror.
Investigation was often compared to a jigsaw puzzle. However, this was not the kind of puzzle he had set up. The clue lay in the name – it became too trivial. He liked games where the stakes were higher. So far he had manoeuvred the investigation in exactly the direction he wanted it to proceed.
He took a glass from the kitchen cupboard and filled it with water from the dispenser on the fridge door. While he drank it he used his mobile phone to switch on some mellow electronica to drown out the sound of the lashing rain outside.
He wondered how the old detective in Larvik would react when he learned his daughter was involved. She would surely tell him she was going to write about the Krogh case, but Wisting couldn’t tell her that he was also involved in the secret investigation. He was too professional for that.
The music on the loudspeaker grew darker and more melodic as it followed him from one room to the other. The apartment was too big for him. It comprised what had originally been two loft apartments, but when his father had bought the entire old apartment block he had combined them and offered it to him as a sort of caretaker flat. However, others attended to the supervision of the rental apartments.
The three boxes of Katharina case papers sat on the coffee table. On Monday he would have to make sure a start was made on scanning the documents so that the whole case could be digitized, but browsing through old papers brought a very special feeling. A feeling he savoured.
He sat down, hoisted his feet on to the table and reached for the nearest ring binder. The traces of Wisting’s work were evident. Coloured sticky notes with keywords protruded here and there, individual words were underlined in the documents and there were occasional marks in the margin.
He chose the black ring binder that contained the police documents. Most of them held information about the investigations that had been carried out but had failed to produce any results. There were reports about dredging and diving, door-to-door questioning and passenger lists of traffic from abroad. Some of the reports had pictures attached with paper clips. One of the photographs showed a bouquet of roses on the chest of drawers in the hallway. The flowers were withered and had no packaging around the stalks, as if some
time had passed before they were placed in water. It emerged from the report that they were fourteen blooms of the genus Acapella. These were imported from the Netherlands and sold in six shops in the town. They were sold in bunches of seven, and the bouquet on the chest of drawers in Katharina’s home had most likely comprised two bunches. The investigators had not succeeded in identifying where the flowers had been sold or who had bought them.
The rain battered against the windows. Stiller laid back his head. Had Katharina received the roses from someone, or had she bought them herself? In that case, did she intend to keep them or give them away? Women sometimes bought flowers for themselves, but seldom roses, and the suitcase on the bed was packed as if she intended to be away for some time.
He straightened up again and looked at the picture fastened to the next report. The clothes were neatly folded and looked as if they had been placed carefully inside the case to make best use of the available space. Wisting had scribbled on a yellow note: Planned?
Stiller agreed. It looked as if she had planned to travel, otherwise she would have thrown the clothes together more haphazardly. There was also something slightly odd about the contents of the suitcase. The report listed ten pairs of socks, ten pairs of briefs, five bras, ten T-shirts, five pairs of trousers, five sweaters, five blouses and a tracksuit. It all seemed so rigid, and gave no indication of the intended destination. All the same, why had she not taken the suitcase with her when she left, if she had gone voluntarily? Nothing in the photographs indicated that she might have been forced out of the house against her will, and there was no evidence of a fight. No furniture knocked over or items torn down, as was usual at a crime scene where there had been resistance. The rugs were tidily in place and the shoes on the floor in the porch neatly arranged in pairs.
And then there was the code, the mysterious note found on the kitchen table. Kripos held a copy, and he had already spent hours studying it. Some kind of pattern with various combinations of numbers and a cross. One line on the cross was slightly longer than the other, so that it resembled a religious symbol. Also, its placement on the paper did not seem random. The X, or cross, marked a spot. Regarded from the viewpoint of Martin Haugen’s involvement in the old kidnapping case, he could not shake off the thought that this had something to do with Nadia Krogh.
He grew none the wiser after scrutinizing the coded message this time either, and eventually laid the photocopy aside. In order to gain an overview of the Katharina case he would have to work systematically through the material. In other words, he would have to start at the beginning.
24
The microwave oven emitted a high-pitched signal and Wisting was afraid it would wake Amalie. He took out the slice of pizza, carried it with him into the living room and moved gingerly across to the settee. Lying on her side, she was covered with a blanket, her dummy in her mouth and half her face buried in a soft blanket.
He had arranged two chairs with their backs to the settee to prevent her from falling off if she grew restless or began to stir, but there seemed no danger of that.
Wisting sat down in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table, weighing up whether to switch on the TV. Instead he opened the tablet Thomas had bought him for Christmas. He had grown accustomed to using it for reading the news.
He logged on to the VG archives and searched for Nadia Krogh. The first mention was nothing more than an announcement describing how an official search had been set in motion. The next day her face was on the front page. After a fruitless search, an investigation had been initiated, on the assumption that a crime had been committed. According to the article, it did not seem as if the police knew anything more. The investigation leader, Gaute Fallet, a man unknown to Wisting, was quoted. They were keen to find witnesses who had noticed anything in a residential area in Stridsklev where Nadia Krogh had last been seen. It was presumed she had intended to walk home to her parents’ house in Heistad, and it was primarily along that route where police were interested in sightings.
Then came the news that her boyfriend had been charged and remanded in custody. The background was that he had denied following Nadia when she left the party after their argument, whereas several other partygoers had stated that he had indeed followed her and not returned. In court, at the custody hearing, he had admitted pursuing her in an attempt to catch up and talk to her, but he had lost sight of her. She had vanished, even though she had not had much more than a minute’s head start on him.
He glanced up from the tablet and across at his granddaughter to see her still sleeping soundly. Wisting returned to the newspaper articles. The kidnappers’ letters had led to a number of front-page stories. The media had learned of the letters only after the kidnappers had failed to pick up the ransom money. And if it had not been for the letters resulting in the boyfriend having to be released, it was far from certain the situation would have been publicized at all.
In the following days, various stories were printed, but none that revealed anything new. Then all went quiet. The Krogh kidnapping disappeared from news coverage, but three years later an interview with Nadia’s mother appeared. She spoke of the uncertainty she had lived with and how Nadia was in her thoughts all the time. Her entire life was on hold, and even her grief had to be held in abeyance until she was given answers.
Wisting wished Thomas could have read it in order to gain some insight into what made him refuse to give up on his cases. Nadia Krogh’s mother could not even bear to look at photographs of her daughter. It was too painful.
Martin Haugen had told him he felt the same way. He had taken down all the photographs of Katharina.
He read on. Hannah Krogh tried to describe her loss and the uncertainty. ‘You hope that eventually the police will find something and uncover a clue,’ she told the newspaper, ‘so that we can have an explanation for what happened. I haven’t given up on it, but it seems to be my lot in life to carry this burden of uncertainty.’
Wisting read the extract one more time as an uncomfortable feeling welled up inside him. Martin Haugen had spoken about that same lot in life, only yesterday. It could easily be that he had reasoned things out in the same way as Nadia’s mother, but it wasn’t only the business of one’s lot in life. Martin had repeated the same thing so many times that Wisting recognized the wording when he spoke about how he hoped the police would find something and come up with a clue.
His immediate thought was that Martin Haugen must have read this interview and imitated Hannah Krogh’s pattern of reactions after Katharina disappeared. Wisting’s pulse pounded in his neck and a cold shiver ran up his spine, all the way to the roots of his hair, but he did not have time to absorb it properly. Amalie began to wriggle about on the settee, and immediately started to whimper.
Wisting lifted her up, found a rattle and let her play with it on his lap while he continued to read about Hannah Krogh’s inconsolable loss. ‘If Nadia had been on a ship that had gone down and never been found, then at least I would have some kind of certainty,’ she said.
Martin Haugen had also talked about certainty.
He heard a noise at the front door. Amalie stopped playing with her rattle and sat listening.
‘Hello!’ Line shouted into the house.
‘We’re in here,’ Wisting answered.
He put down the tablet and lowered his granddaughter to the floor. Her legs were slightly unsteady and he held her by the arms until her mother appeared.
Line lifted her daughter and soon had her smiling and laughing. ‘Did it go well?’ she asked.
‘She’s just woken up,’ Wisting replied, pointing to the improvised bed at one end of the settee.
‘Where’s Thomas?’
‘Out for a coffee. He’s meeting up with Jonny and Rolf.’
As if this jolted his memory, he got to his feet and carried his empty cup through to the kitchen. ‘How did you get on?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ Line replied, following him into the kitchen. ‘They want me
to write about an old, unsolved kidnapping case.’
Wisting wheeled round to face her. ‘What case?’
‘The Krogh kidnapping in Porsgrunn in 1987,’ Line told him. ‘Are you familiar with it?’
Wisting turned to the coffee machine and inserted his cup. ‘I remember it,’ he said. ‘Why are you writing about it now?’ he asked, keeping his back turned.
‘The case is being reopened. I’m going to do a series of feature articles that will run in parallel with the police investigation.’
Wisting kept busy with the coffee machine. An uncomfortable premonition had begun to stir inside him.
‘How did you find out that the case is being reopened?’ he asked over his shoulder.
‘We’re working in cooperation with Kripos,’ Line explained. ‘The initiative has come from them.’ She was seated at the kitchen table and had begun to put on her daughter’s snowsuit. ‘Do you know a Kripos investigator called Adrian Stiller?’ she asked. ‘He was at the meeting.’
He felt himself blushing, and kept his back turned. ‘I know who he is,’ he said, before steering the conversation in a different direction: ‘Have you agreed to do it?’
‘I couldn’t really say no,’ she replied. ‘After all, it’s exactly the kind of thing I love doing. We’re going to make a podcast as well.’
Wisting concentrated his attention on his cup of coffee. Although he was annoyed, he tried to remain calm. Admittedly, Stiller had said they were working to get the Krogh kidnapping publicized in the media, but nothing about this. He must be aware of who Line was, but perhaps he had not known that the editors would pick Line to work on the story.
The Katharina Code Page 11
