The Katharina Code

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘We have a few Stillers in our family, actually,’ Line went on. ‘Do you think we might be related?’

  Still unable to rely on either his voice or facial expression, Wisting took a long swig of coffee from his cup.

  ‘I’ve never heard of it,’ he said, after swallowing. ‘Is that on Mum’s side?’

  Line put a hat on her daughter’s head. ‘I don’t recall,’ she answered, tying the cord under her chin. ‘Maybe they could take a look at the Katharina case too?’

  Wisting, lost in his own thoughts, had not followed what she said. ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘The Cold Cases Group,’ Line said, as she stood up. ‘Maybe they can look at the Katharina case when they’re finished with this one.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Wisting replied. He was about to say something, but held it back and stood watching as she left.

  25

  On Monday morning, when Wisting woke, there was a message from Stiller which had been sent at 2.23 a.m. It said he would start the day at Kripos and come to Larvik at lunchtime – which suited Wisting very well. The police chief had indicated that the investigation into Martin Haugen should be a top priority, but he still had a department to lead. Nils Hammer operated as his second in command, but he would have more than enough to do in the comms surveillance room for the foreseeable future.

  The weather was fine when he left home but had not managed to dry the streets, and dark clouds threatened more rain to come.

  The weekend had been quiet, so his routine tasks were completed by ten o’clock. He spent the next hour working on the consequence analysis for the new, extended police district. Nevertheless, he felt the points he made were mere platitudes. Larger departments would provide strengthened specialist expertise and improved opportunities for the development of knowledge and experience. However, he was basically opposed to the change. He liked small units and the local knowledge that accompanied them, but at the same time he understood that a pooled investigation team would make the police more efficient and provide a resource that could get to grips with really serious crimes.

  Stiller showed up just after eleven o’clock. Wisting had no idea how long he had been standing in the doorway when he caught sight of him.

  ‘Have you read the comms surveillance data?’ he asked, glancing in the direction of the secret room above them.

  ‘We wanted to wait for you,’ Wisting answered.

  ‘Okay, then,’ Stiller said. ‘Shall we get on with it now?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Wisting said. ‘We need to discuss something else first. Have a seat.’

  Stiller sat down on the vacant chair. ‘Close the door,’ Wisting requested.

  Stiller turned and shut the door before sitting down again. ‘Is this about your daughter?’ he asked.

  Wisting was taken aback that Stiller had broached the subject first.

  ‘I heard you met her on Saturday,’ he said.

  Stiller was suddenly wary. ‘Did you tell her about the connection to the Katharina case?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Wisting replied.

  ‘This business of the fingerprints on the ransom letters is strictly confidential,’ Stiller went on, as if Wisting had not been aware of this. ‘Apart from that, VG will have access to all the Krogh files. They’re planning to run a sort of feature series.’

  ‘I know that,’ Wisting commented.

  ‘Lovely girl, by the way,’ Stiller said. ‘I’m pleased VG have chosen her to write the story. I’ve read other things she’s written. She’s really talented.’

  ‘You don’t think that might pose something of a problem?’ Wisting asked. ‘At some point she’s going to find out about the suspicions against Martin Haugen.’

  ‘That’s been cleared by the public prosecutor. It’s not a problem for him. Will it be a problem for you?’

  Wisting considered this. ‘I’ll have to lie to her,’ he said. ‘Keep things back when she asks questions. Sooner or later she’ll realize I’ve been investigating the case she’s writing about all along, without telling her about it.’

  ‘Is that a problem for you?’ Stiller asked again, but did not leave Wisting sufficient time to answer. ‘Line’s a professional,’ he said. ‘She’ll understand the situation.’

  Wisting knew Stiller was right. He and Line had been involved in similar situations before when her role as a journalist had brought her centre stage in cases he was investigating, and they had emerged from them relatively unscathed.

  ‘The first instalment will be printed on Friday,’ Stiller went on. ‘By then you and Haugen will be sitting in the car en route to the cabin. You’ll have to make sure you drive into a petrol station and buy a copy of VG so that you have something to talk about on the journey.’

  He flashed a smile, obviously satisfied with the arrangement, before getting to his feet.

  ‘Shall we go and check what Haugen’s been up to over the weekend?’

  With a nod, Wisting rose from his office chair. They located Hammer and headed to the CS room.

  ‘We’ll tackle the phone first,’ Hammer said. ‘It looks as if there’s not been much traffic.’

  A short list of telephone numbers appeared on the screen, sorted in chronological order according to date and time and divided into outgoing and incoming calls. The system had performed an automatic search in Directory Enquiries so that all the numbers were identified.

  On Friday evening Martin had rung the Pizza Bakery. An hour later he had been called by a number used for telephone sales. That conversation had lasted only five seconds. On Saturday morning Martin had phoned a number registered to Even Vomma in Kilebygda.

  ‘Play that one,’ Wisting said.

  Hammer pressed a few buttons and the loudspeakers began to crackle. They heard a ringtone and a man with a broad dialect answered.

  ‘Hello, this is Even.’

  Martin Haugen introduced himself.

  ‘I have a cabin at Eikedokkheia near Langen,’ he added.

  ‘I know who you are,’ the other man confirmed. ‘I was thinking of going there next weekend.’

  Pause.

  ‘I haven’t been there for a while,’ Martin continued. ‘What’s the track like?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t been along there since the rain, but I brought out some timber on the Gisholt side last month. There wasn’t a problem then, and there shouldn’t be a problem now. The track is fairly solid, you know.’

  ‘Great. Is it the same key for the barrier?’

  ‘The lock was broken a couple of years ago, or was it three? Someone had smashed it to pieces. Probably poachers, or something of the sort. But I sent you a new key at the time, didn’t I?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Martin assured him. ‘I just wanted to know if the same thing might have happened again.’

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ the other man said. ‘In that case, it’ll be lying open, anyway, so there won’t be a problem.’

  ‘Okay, then. What’s the fishing like these days?’

  ‘The same as usual.’

  The two men exchanged a few pleasantries before winding up their conversation.

  ‘Lies,’ Stiller said firmly, turning to Wisting. ‘I was with you in the car when he told you he’d been to the cabin to repair the roof. Unless he has more than one cabin, he lied to you.’

  ‘He’s only got the one cabin,’ Wisting said. ‘So why would he lie?’

  Hammer turned to face them. ‘I have difficulty believing this has anything to do with the Krogh kidnapping, or the Katharina case, for that matter,’ he said. ‘After all, he can’t know the investigation is up and running again.’

  ‘But he’s been up to something he doesn’t want to tell us about,’ Wisting said.

  Hammer turned to the screens again. There were only two further conversations. The next one was an incoming call from Kirsten Solum in Porsgrunn, which began with Martin Haugen answering and giving his name.

  ‘Hello, Martin,’ said the voice at the other end. ‘This is Aunt Kirste
n.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Fine.’

  What followed were more pleasantries before Kirsten Solum revealed her reason for phoning:

  ‘It’s Uncle Reidar’s birthday soon,’ she said. ‘He’ll be seventy-five. We were planning to celebrate it at home here.’

  ‘At the weekend?’ Martin asked. It seemed from his tone of voice that he was beginning to take some interest.

  ‘Not this weekend,’ Aunt Kirsten explained. ‘Saturday 26 at five o’clock.’

  Haugen’s interest immediately waned.

  ‘It would be lovely if you could come,’ his aunt continued.

  The conversation ended with Martin thanking her for the invitation and promising to show up.

  The final conversation was a call to a man in Sandefjord. They heard Haugen introduce himself.

  ‘I’m calling about the model building sets you’ve advertised on Finn,’ he said, referring to the Norwegian online site for classified ads.

  ‘I see,’ the other man answered.

  ‘You haven’t sold them?’

  ‘I’ve had a couple of calls, but they’re still here,’ he confirmed.

  The upshot of the conversation was that Martin Haugen agreed to purchase a plastic building set for a Scania T142 eight-wheeled tow truck and a Peterbilt 359 conventional big rig truck. He arranged to come and collect them that same evening.

  ‘Has that always been a hobby of his?’ Stiller asked. ‘Model building?’

  ‘He has a huge collection,’ Wisting replied. ‘I think it was something he took up when he was living in workers’ barracks, to pass the time in the evenings.’

  Stiller shrugged but made no further comment. ‘Check the Internet log,’ he requested.

  Hammer switched to another system. This showed that Martin Haugen had visited various online newspaper sites, and also that he had spent hours browsing through Finn.no. In addition to various model-building sets, he had looked at cars and motorbikes.

  ‘He’s preoccupied with that road up in Trøndelag,’ Hammer said, calling up a screenshot from an Internet address Haugen had visited. It was a new article in the Adresseavisen newspaper about the road collapse, now including an interview with some roads chief or other.

  Stiller discovered something else further down the log. The Web address revealed what the page was about: http://research.no/body/effects-death-has-on-body.

  Hammer opened the page to find a popular-science article about research into what happens after death, from the first few hours of post-mortem lividity and rigor mortis to decay and decomposition.

  Stiller swore aloud as he opened and clenched his fists. ‘That’s very revealing,’ he remarked, swearing again.

  Wisting was used to looking at a case from a variety of points of view. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean anything,’ he said.

  ‘Doesn’t mean anything?’ Stiller erupted. ‘The guy has searched for information about the decomposition of bodies!’ He pointed further down the log, where there were clearly several searches on the same topic.

  ‘Oddly enough, he asked me about the same thing when I was with him on Friday,’ Wisting said. ‘He was obsessed about whether or not it would be at all possible to find Katharina, and whether there would be anything left of her after so many years.’

  ‘It’s obvious it’s preying on his mind,’ Stiller said. ‘He has buried her, and now he’s wondering if he should still be afraid of her turning up again.’

  ‘You’re forgetting he has an alibi,’ Hammer said.

  ‘Not as far as Nadia Krogh is concerned.’ Stiller brushed him off as he turned to face Wisting. ‘At what point in the conversation did this crop up?’

  Wisting cast his mind back. ‘He was wondering if we had investigated a body found recently in Sørlandet, a woman who had been washed ashore,’ he explained. ‘That had made him wonder what Katharina would look like if she were found now.’

  ‘Okay,’ Stiller said, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘But was this before or after you had arranged to go on a fishing trip?’

  ‘After,’ Wisting answered, realizing where Stiller was heading. ‘You think Nadia Krogh is buried down there, beside the cabin?’

  ‘What goes on inside our heads is a perpetual series of chain reactions,’ Stiller said. ‘One thought leads to another. And Martin Haugen obviously doesn’t like the thought of you going down to his cabin to dig for worms.’

  ‘Regardless, we should really have a tracker on him to follow his movements, in addition to the trace on his phone,’ Hammer said. ‘If he’s wondering whether there’s anything left of her, there’s only one way he can find out, and that’s by digging her up.’

  26

  A car drew to a halt in the street outside Line’s house, a compact, black Audi. Daniel Leanger craned over the steering wheel and peered out through the windscreen. Line waved to him from her kitchen window to let him know he had arrived at the right place and that she was ready.

  ‘She’s just fallen asleep,’ Line said to Thomas as she showed him a jar of baby food.

  Thomas had ended up being Amalie’s babysitter. She had hoped to persuade her friend Sofie to do it. She was at home full-time and had a daughter only a few months older than Amalie, but she had an appointment with a lawyer in Oslo who was still trying to reach a settlement with her ex-partner.

  ‘How long do you think she’ll sleep, then?’ Thomas asked her.

  ‘Until she wakes,’ Line said, with a smile. ‘An hour or an hour and a half.’

  Thomas had zero experience of children but had practised both changing nappies and feeding Amalie the previous day. He could fly helicopters, and so it could not be beyond his capabilities to look after his niece for a few hours.

  ‘Phone me if anything crops up,’ Line said, as she disappeared out of the door.

  ‘Have you got to grips with the case?’ Daniel asked, once she was settled in the passenger seat.

  ‘Yes, and there are a few things puzzling me, one of them being the woman we’re going to visit now, the one who organized the party …’

  Daniel interrupted her. ‘Wait,’ he said, pointing at the podcast equipment. ‘We’ll discuss that once we have the recorder running.’

  ‘Not everything that crosses my mind will be suitable for broadcast,’ Line warned him.

  ‘We’ll edit it, of course,’ Daniel said, as he turned into the main road. ‘I just want it to be as authentic as possible.’

  Instead of talking about the details of the story and their thoughts on it, they discussed how to divide the instalments and what should be included in the various articles.

  They had three interview appointments. The first was with Liv Hovet, a classmate of Nadia Krogh who had held the party after which Nadia had disappeared. Afterwards, they were to talk to the man in charge of the local Red Cross branch, who had taken part in the official search. Their third appointment was with Kittil Nystrand, a police officer who was a member of the surveillance team that had kept watch over the spot where the ransom money had been left.

  ‘The policeman couldn’t manage today,’ Daniel told her. ‘You’ll have to contact him later in the week, but I’ve made an appointment with the Grey Panther instead.’

  ‘The Grey Panther?’ Line repeated, her mind shifting to the signature on the kidnappers’ letter.

  ‘The Senior General,’ Daniel explained. ‘Vidar Arntzen – he lives in Skien now. It’ll only be a short detour.’

  Line recognized the name from the case documents. It had not been made public that the letters from the kidnappers had been signed The Grey Panthers and The Grey Ones. The police had followed it up and interviewed the leader of the pensioners’ organization, almost grasping at straws, since they had nothing else to go on.

  ‘I thought that could be the title of the second episode, where we reveal what the letter from the kidnappers said,’ Daniel went on. ‘The Grey Panthers.’

  ‘
How old is he now?’ she asked. ‘If he was the Senior General at that time, I mean.’

  ‘Ninety-three, but he remembers the whole business. He said it was the only time in his entire life he’d had the police at his door.’

  ‘We’ll have to report on how the letters were sent as well,’ Line said. ‘That the kidnappers had removed the Krogh family’s address from telephone directories.’

  ‘I tried to get hold of the secretary who opened the letter, but she’s dead,’ Daniel told her. ‘And the telephone kiosk is gone.’

  ‘Maybe we can find one of the people whose fingerprints were discovered on the telephone directory?’ Line suggested. ‘There were three of them. Their names are given in the police reports.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Daniel said.

  ‘If they’re willing to come forward,’ Line added. ‘After all, there must have been a reason their fingerprints were listed in police files.’

  ‘If not, we can try to get hold of the postman,’ Daniel said. ‘We have his name too. The police took his fingerprints to eliminate his prints from the envelope.’

  He followed the final directions from the GPS and swung into a typical seventies residential area with spacious gardens and detached houses, all very similar in style and construction but subsequently added to with contrasting extensions.

  He stopped at a row of rubbish bins by the roadside but left the engine running. ‘There,’ he said, pointing at a house almost hidden behind a tall cedar hedge thirty metres ahead of them.

  ‘We’re early,’ Line said, looking at her watch.

  ‘We’re not ready yet, though,’ Daniel told her.

  He picked up the recording equipment and handed Line the microphone. ‘You have to say where we are and what we’re planning to do,’ he said.

  Line had thought through how she would tackle this and had an idea about what she was going to say. She took her notebook from her bag and placed it on her lap, together with printouts of some of the police documents.

  ‘We’ll do a soundcheck,’ Daniel said, asking her to count to five.

  The equipment was working, and Daniel asked her to begin.