The Katharina Code

by Jorn Lier Horst

  He carried the rucksack back to the bedroom and returned it to its original spot. Then he rummaged through the bed and the rest of the room without finding anything. If Martin Haugen had brought a gun with him, it was either hidden in the pickup or else he had it on his person.

  The door to Wisting’s room was ajar. He stepped inside and switched on his mobile phone to find the battery capacity reduced to ten per cent.

  He had no new messages, but made use of the opportunity while he was alone to give Hammer a call.

  ‘I must be quick,’ he said when Nils Hammer answered. ‘I don’t have much juice left. Is there any news?’

  ‘Your theory about the road signs might well add up,’ Hammer told him. ‘Stiller thinks he’s located a place to fit the code. We’re going for a site inspection with the roads authority at three o’clock.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘What about you?’ Hammer asked. ‘Are you comfortable being there?’

  ‘It’s going well.’

  ‘Are you getting anything out of it?’

  ‘Nothing apart from fish as yet,’ Wisting answered. ‘I’ll check my phone every hour and a half, but at some point I’m going to run out of power.’

  ‘I’ll let you know if anything new turns up at this end,’ Hammer said, hanging up.

  The brief exchange had cost him one per cent battery charge. Wisting walked through the living room as he switched off his phone. All of a sudden he realized Martin Haugen was standing in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘I had to phone home,’ he said, stuffing his mobile in his pocket as he tried to remember the conversation and whether anything revealing had been mentioned.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Martin asked.

  He could not have heard more than the very last part, which had not contained anything compromising.

  ‘Line’s been to the doctor’s with Amalie,’ he lied. ‘She seems to have an upset tummy.’

  Martin stood motionless, as if weighing up the story. ‘That sort of thing’s not much fun,’ he said. He pulled out a kitchen drawer and removed a roll of tin foil. ‘I caught a little brown trout after you left. If we get more, I thought we could build a bonfire and cook them in the embers.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ Wisting replied, more relaxed now.

  ‘Anyway, you can always borrow my phone,’ Martin offered. ‘If you run out of juice.’

  62

  Line did not like to arrive late. She always erred on the side of caution when calculating her journey time. This meant she was more than half an hour early for her meeting with Nadia Krogh’s ex-boyfriend.

  She drove slowly past the house where he lived. It was small and rectangular, with tiny windows. At one time it may have been creamy-yellow, but now it was grimy and grubby with black mould on the exterior cladding.

  Two cats chased each other through the overgrown garden and disappeared round the back. It looked as if Robert Gran possibly lived by himself in the basement. At least, there were steps leading down at the gable wall of the house. A trailer piled with rubbish was parked alongside the railings, in front of a motorbike covered in a tarpaulin. In addition, a BMW with broad wheel arches stood in the driveway.

  She drove on and found a patch of gravel at the end of the street where she could linger until twelve o’clock. Picking up her notepad, she revised her questions. By way of introduction she would ask him to repeat what had taken place on the night Nadia disappeared. She was also interested in hearing his theory of what might have happened to Nadia. At some point she must also confront him with the different statements he had given, causing the police to focus their suspicions on him.

  She used her mobile phone to check the readership figures for yesterday’s article. Almost a hundred and eighty thousand people had accessed it now. Hopefully, even more would read the story in which they published the ransom letters.

  The figures for the podcast had also increased. They had now passed ten thousand, and the graphs showed a steady growth in numbers.

  Often comments and tip-offs were forthcoming in the wake of major articles. The Internet page was designed in such a way that readers could send messages direct to the journalist, but so far she had not received anything of interest. She checked her email again and spotted a response to a message she had sent to an Internet forum for family-history research, asking for descendants of brothers Ole and Lars Stiller, born in Mysen in the late 1800s. A local researcher was able to tell her they were sons of Anders and Gerda Stiller, but she already had that information. Gerda’s maiden name was Svensson, and she came from Røros: she was connected to Line’s family. However, she had been looking for descendants and the sender had no information about those.

  There would be at least four generations between Adrian Stiller and the branch of her family. It would probably be easier to work her way backwards. She had asked one of the researchers at the newspaper to try to find Stiller’s closest family in the Population Register but had not heard anything. They probably guessed this was not directly linked to her newspaper work so did not regard it as a priority.

  After half an hour she got her recording equipment ready, drove back and swung into the untidy yard. She sat behind the wheel reading out her introduction: ‘Robert Gran was Nadia Krogh’s boyfriend. The suspicion that he had something to do with her disappearance spread rapidly. He was arrested but police failed to build a case against him and so he was released. He has never been willing to talk about what happened. Until now.’

  She left the recorder running as she opened the car door.

  A dark head emerged from the exterior basement staircase at the side of the house. Although he was slightly thinner than in the photograph she had received from Adrian Stiller, Line recognized the man.

  ‘Hi, are you Robert Gran?’ she asked, all the same.

  Confirming this, the man approached her. Their handshake let her know how cold his hands were.

  Line thanked him for agreeing to talk to her and showed him the recorder. ‘Is it okay to use this?’ she asked, explaining about the podcast.

  ‘I listened to it yesterday,’ Robert Gran told her as he led her down the steps to the basement flat.

  ‘What did you think?’ Line asked.

  Robert Gran shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘It’s kind of strange to listen to it. A bit too close to home, you might say.’

  Line expressed her understanding and let the recorder run. ‘I’m just living here temporarily,’ he said apologetically.

  He ushered her in and said she could keep her shoes on before giving her a brief explanation that he had separated from his girlfriend a short time ago, after spending a number of years together.

  ‘Who lives upstairs?’ Line asked, even though she knew.

  ‘My mother,’ Robert Gran replied. ‘She’s away at the moment. In Spain.’

  The apartment was dingy and cramped, and rather nondescript. They sat down at a dining table in the kitchenette, where two glasses and a bottle of cola were already laid out.

  ‘Would you like some?’ Robert Gran asked, unscrewing the lid.

  Line shook her head. ‘Maybe some water,’ she said, placing the recorder in the centre of the table.

  Robert Gran took her glass to the sink and let the water run for a while before filling it. Line waited until he had sat down again before telling him more about the series of articles and saying how keen she was to hear his side of the story.

  ‘How did you and Nadia meet?’ she asked, taking out her notepad.

  ‘We went to the same school,’ Robert Gran told her. ‘We were at the same parties and knew the same people. Even though we were very different, we shared the same interests. We hit it off.’

  ‘How long were you together?’

  ‘Just over a year, even though it was a bit off and on for a while. Her parents made things slightly difficult.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You know who her father is,’ he said. ‘They probably thou
ght I wasn’t good enough for her or something. My father worked in his factory.’

  ‘So your parents knew one another?’

  Robert Gran shook his head. ‘There were a lot of employees – I don’t think he knew who my dad was. Or maybe he did and that was why he was sacked.’

  Line let her pen rest in her hand. ‘Your dad was fired?’

  ‘Downsizing, they called it. He was one of the first to go.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Nadia’s parents since she disappeared?’ Line asked.

  ‘No. I haven’t spoken to anyone.’

  Line could detect an undertone of bitterness in his voice, or perhaps some kind of aggression.

  ‘Or maybe it’s that nobody has spoken to me,’ he corrected himself. ‘I’ve moved around a bit, lived in other towns. Now I’m back. Most people had forgotten all about it, but then you lot brought it up again.’

  ‘It’s the police who have reopened the case,’ Line pointed out.

  ‘I know that,’ Robert Gran said. ‘An investigator from Kripos thought it would be smart for me to be interviewed. To show I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  ‘Yes, we’re trying to shed light on the case from various viewpoints,’ she said. ‘Can you tell me about the night it happened?’

  Robert Gran filled his glass with cola and took a sip before speaking. What he said was broadly similar to the version he had recounted in court while he was remanded in custody, but by then he had already given two other versions.

  ‘What caused the police to direct their suspicions at you?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t they always do that?’ Robert Gran said. ‘Suspect the boyfriend?’

  ‘Often, yes,’ Line replied. ‘But you were remanded in custody.’

  ‘They made a song and dance about something really insignificant. They thought I had lied.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ Line asked, but regretted it right away. This was early in the interview, a bit too early to get under the interviewee’s skin, and she saw his hackles rise.

  ‘I’d been drinking,’ he answered. ‘Some details had slipped my mind.’

  Line considered asking him what he meant by ‘details’, but decided instead that she could edit the podcast later and mention his three different statements. It was entirely possible that a fourth version of what had actually taken place also existed.

  She could return to this towards the end of the interview so instead moved on to another angle. ‘There’s one thing I’m not quite clear about,’ she said. ‘When Nadia left the party, did she take her bag with her?’

  The answer came swiftly: ‘Yes.’

  Line changed position in her seat.

  ‘Are you saying yes because she always had her bag with her, or because you specifically remember that?’

  ‘She always had her bag with her, but I also remember it. She took her jacket from the peg and pulled it on before picking up her bag and leaving.’

  ‘What did she have in her bag?’

  ‘Her purse, with a picture of herself and her younger brother.’

  Line jotted this down, mainly to gain some thinking time. Robert Gran had gone straight to the evidence that had freed him. The kidnappers had been in possession of Nadia’s bag, and they had enclosed the picture of her and her brother with the second ransom letter.

  ‘What else?’ Line probed.

  ‘The usual stuff,’ Robert Gran replied. ‘Make-up and chewing gum, keys. It wasn’t very big, so there wasn’t room for much.’

  He lifted his glass and took a drink. ‘He’s the one who’s the boss now, you know,’ he added.

  Line had no idea what he meant.

  ‘Malte Krogh,’ Robert Gran explained. ‘Nadia’s younger brother – he’s head of the business now. He was only eleven at that time.’ He took another swig of cola. ‘I was with them when the picture was taken,’ he went on. ‘He was only ten then. Nadia was looking after him, and we took him with us into town. She was so good with him, and I remember thinking she would make a good mother.’

  Line glanced at the recorder. This was a personal snippet of information that would enhance the story.

  ‘It’s flashing,’ Robert Gran said.

  He was correct. A red LED was blinking at regular intervals. ‘I might have some batteries,’ he said, about to stand up.

  ‘It has a built-in battery,’ Line explained with a heavy sigh. ‘I thought I had charged it.’

  She lost no time carrying on, and asked Robert Gran to tell her about how the years had been since Nadia disappeared. He spoke about missing her and the psychological damage it had caused, but this sounded rehearsed and did not really elicit much sympathy from her.

  ‘What do you think happened to her?’ she asked, while the recorder was still working.

  Robert Gran replied that he had given this a great deal of thought but had not reached any conclusion. ‘It seemed both unintentional and yet somehow planned at the same time,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine anyone hanging about outside the house in Glimmerveien waiting for her. Kidnapping is the sort of thing that happens in big cities, and really only in films.’

  He stopped, seemingly to review his thoughts.

  ‘But I think somebody took her,’ he said, as if to give a direct answer to her question. ‘Somebody local. Somebody from around here.’

  ‘Somebody she knew?’ Line suggested.

  Robert Gran paused, thinking over the question. He shook his head. ‘In that case, it would have been somebody I knew too, and I can’t imagine that.’

  Line wanted him to explain why he thought it had been someone from the local area, but the light on the recorder cut out.

  63

  The house was empty when Line arrived home.

  Thomas had not mentioned anything about the plans he and Amalie had for the day. She thought of phoning him to find out where they were but dropped the idea. Instead she sat down at her laptop, connected the recording device and downloaded the interview with Robert Gran. She listened to it all, comparing it with her notes and redrafting parts she would use in her article.

  Around the middle of the conversation she noticed something Robert Gran said which she had not attached much significance to at the time. She got to her feet, padded through to the kitchen again and stood in front of the fridge. The strip of photographs of Amalie and Thomas was attached with a fridge magnet in the shape of a ladybird. She slipped it off and stood with the three small pictures in her hand.

  The full impact of what Robert Gran had said dawned on her. She had read the police documents from the Krogh kidnapping for days on end now, but they had not mentioned anything about this.

  Outside, Thomas came sauntering along the street with Amalie hoisted on his shoulders. Her neck was bare. Even though the sun was shining, there was still a distinct chill in the air.

  Thomas changed his pace and began to trot like a horse. Amalie held on tight and Line could hear her laughing.

  She dashed into the living room, bent over her laptop and clicked into the folder marked Krogh case files.

  When the front door opened Amalie was still laughing uproariously.

  Line opened the file with the picture of Nadia and her little brother, and it unfolded on the screen. This version had come from the crime-scene technicians, who had placed the original photo on a grey background and set a tape measure down beside it before taking the photograph. The ransom letters had been photographed in the same way.

  Line had spent time studying the picture. They were going to publish it in the next article, and many of their readers would probably feel the same sense of closeness as Line did when she looked into Nadia Krogh’s eyes. This time she was not so focused on the motif itself but on the white edge around it. It was apparently right-angled but when she studied it more carefully it did not seem perfectly straight.

  Out in the hallway she could hear Thomas helping Amalie take off her shoes.

  With the aid of the cropping tool, she placed the marker in the top-left corner
and drew the mouse diagonally across to the bottom-right corner until the whole image was highlighted. This confirmed her suspicions. The lower edge was not quite straight; it deviated by about a millimetre from left to right, as if someone had cut the picture with scissors. There must be three more pictures of Nadia and her young brother.

  ‘Mummy!’ Amalie called out, toddling across the floor towards her.

  Line got up to greet her daughter and swept her up for a hug. ‘Have you been out for a walk?’

  ‘We’ve been to the playground,’ Thomas told her.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘She’s probably getting a bit hungry.’

  ‘Then let’s eat,’ Line said, carrying her daughter through to the kitchen and seating her in her high chair.

  Line’s thoughts were somewhere else entirely throughout the meal. She was desperate to return to her work, and knew Amalie would have an hour’s nap after she had eaten.

  ‘When are you leaving?’ she asked, glancing across at her brother.

  ‘This afternoon,’ he answered. ‘I’ve got training next week.’

  ‘It’s been wonderful having you here,’ Line said. ‘Both for Amalie and for me.’

  It looked as if Amalie had eaten her fill: she was playing with her food now rather than eating it. Line took her through to the bathroom, where she washed her and changed her nappy. She gave her her dummy and a soft comfort blanket before tucking her up in bed.

  ‘Almost half of all kidnapping cases are fake,’ Thomas said when she returned to the kitchen table. He stood up and carried his plate to the dishwasher. ‘It was a guy from the FBI who said that in a documentary,’ he explained. ‘Victims often stage their own kidnapping, either with others or by themselves.’

  ‘I’ve thought about that,’ Line said. ‘But I can’t make it fit Nadia Krogh’s case. There are so many extraneous circumstances.’

  Thomas was heading for the door. ‘I’m just going up to Dad’s house,’ he said.