Dregs (2011) Read online

  ‘It was a few years ago, when people still wrote letters. A letter with sloping handwriting arrived every other week. Then that came to an end too.’

  ‘You don’t know who they were from?’

  ‘No. We didn’t talk about such things. I think she met him a few times as well. She drove off early in the morning and was back in the evening. He must live a distance away, but not so far that she had to stay overnight.’

  Wisting rose from his seat. ‘Can I look around?’ he asked.

  He got a quick nod in reply and left the room. Torunn Borg stayed with the old woman to go through the list of routine questions.

  Mother and daughter each had their own bedroom on the ground floor, with a bathroom across the corridor. The first floor didn’t look as though it had been used for a long time. It consisted of a loft room where white sheets had been draped over the furniture, and three locked rooms where old clothes and cardboard boxes of books were stored.

  The daughter’s bedroom was the largest. In addition to the single bed with its bedside table, there was just enough room for a writing desk, a small sitting area and a television. Three pictures hung on the walls, all depicting a woman whom Wisting assumed must be Camilla Thaulow. Two were in nurse’s uniform, probably taken in her student days, and a more recent one of her sitting in a verdant garden. Like her mother she had friendly, twinkling eyes that looked directly out of the frame.

  He sat beside the desk and pulled out drawer after drawer. The contents were tidy. There were household accounts, insurance papers, income tax returns and old photo albums. Nothing seemed particularly interesting, so he put them aside to go through more thoroughly later.

  A book lay on the bedside table, a piece of paper sticking out from between the last pages. Wisting lifted it up. Coincidences by Charlie Lie. The slip of paper marked page 316. It was a folded post-it note with nothing written on it, a chance bookmark. He sat on the bed and leafed back through to the end. She had 32 pages left. Presumably she had thought to finish it yesterday evening.

  The drawer of the bedside table contained a packet of lozenges, paper hankies, a tube of hand cream and a poetry collection. Wisting remained seated, looking around, feeling that, somehow, the direction of the case had shifted.

  CHAPTER 12

  The press conference had begun when Wisting got back to the police station. Through the glass wall and voile curtains of the conference room he saw Audun Vetti holding up two pictures of shoes, one in each hand. The room was full. Journalists sat with laptops on their knees, writing up the first released details. He counted five cameras with red lights.

  He walked forward quickly and shut himself into the capacious toilet for the disabled. Turning on the water tap he let it run until it was cold, rinsed his face but felt no better. The mirror above the wash-hand basin showed the face of a tired man and, for the first time, he thought of himself as old. He was 51. His hair had become thinner and lighter, and the corners of his eyes were bracketed by small wrinkles.

  This is not a job that keeps you young, he thought, nor is it a job in which you become old.

  The team gathered in Wisting’s office as soon as the last of the press corps were out of the building. Torunn sat in one of the visitors’ chairs while Hammer hoisted himself onto the window ledge. He opened the window and let in some cool evening air and the scent of the pale yellow blossoms from the chestnut tree in the back yard. The sounds of an orchestra playing in the outdoor restaurant at the Grand Hotel stole in towards them. The Chief Superintendent stood beside the wall with his arm leaning on the filing cabinet.

  Audun Vetti took the last visitors’ chair. ‘I wanted you here at eight o’clock,’ said the Chief Superintendent.

  Wisting disregarded him. ‘It’s happened again,’ he said.

  Vetti frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We have a new disappearance,’ Wisting explained, and gave an account of his last few hours. ‘She was last seen when she left home yesterday around two o’clock in the afternoon.’

  ‘What do we do?’ the Chief Superintendent asked, loosening his tie.

  ‘She drives a red Ford Fiesta,’ said Torunn Borg. ‘The patrols are looking for it along the roads between Stavern and Langangen.’

  ‘How long should we wait before issuing a public bulletin?’

  Wisting shrugged his shoulders. ‘Until tomorrow?’ he suggested.

  Torunn Borg leafed through a bundle of papers on her lap and produced a printout. ‘The police response centre at Telenor has traced her phone. It is either switched off or out of charge. The last time it gave a signal was yesterday evening about ten o’clock. At that time it was in Helgeroa.’

  ‘In our district,’ the Chief Superintendent concluded. ‘She’s here somewhere.’

  ‘We’ll concentrate the search in that area.’

  ‘What about a helicopter?’

  ‘The police helicopter is not in operation just now, but they’re coming tomorrow.’

  ‘Who has she spoken to on the phone?’ Hammer asked.

  Wisting leaned over across the office desk, knowing Camilla Thaulow’s network of contacts might provide a decisive clue.

  ‘No one,’ Torunn Borg replied.

  Wisting glanced at her enquiringly.

  ‘She hardly ever talks on her mobile phone. In the course of the past few weeks she had three outgoing calls. Two home to her mother and one to her work. No ingoing calls. If she had arranged to meet someone, she didn’t make the arrangement by phone.’

  They remained sitting for ten minutes more, discussing the case without any new ideas emerging, before they went their different ways to finish off the day’s work.

  Wisting stared through the window that Hammer had left open. The light summer night was waiting. The longest day of the year was behind him. Around the fjord the Midsummer Eve bonfires were already lit, as a warning of the shorter and darker days to follow.

  So far he had not speculated on what might actually have happened. What lay behind the discovery of three amputated feet? Murder and foul play were seldom rational actions, but it was usually possible to find an explanation. In many cases it was easy to form at least an impression of what had taken place, and a theory about the sequence of events. In this case though, he was stuck and couldn’t come up with anything logical. It frightened him. One alternative was that a completely sick human mind was behind it all. A human being whose actions were impossible to understand, and therefore also impossible to anticipate.

  The telephone drummed against the writing desk and broke his gloomy train of thought. He had turned off the ring tone while they were holding the meeting. It was Suzanne. He should have phoned her earlier but there simply hadn’t been time.

  ‘How are things?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m just finishing up for the day.’ He closed the window.

  ‘I’ve made some salad with shellfish. It’s too much for just me.’ Her voice sounded hopeful.

  ‘That sounds good, but I think I’ll go straight home and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be another long day. Besides, Line’s at home.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘So-so.’

  ‘Have you had the results of the blood tests?’

  ‘No, that’ll take a few days.’

  They made small talk as Wisting closed the office and locked the door. When he reached his car they said good night.

  Concentrating more on his own thoughts than the traffic he drove slowly towards Stavern. He couldn’t remember so chaotic a case. Everything seemed so meaningless and improbable it was difficult to know where to begin, or how to make best use of their slender resources.

  The fjord was filled with small craft. People gathered together on little islands and skerries, the light from their midsummer bonfires reflected on the sea. He sighed heavily, switched on the car radio and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to an old summertime hit.

  At home the courtyard was empty. He parked in such a way that Li
ne would have space to park without blocking him in. Evening darkness was closing in. The cat came creeping out from behind the hedge and stroked his head against Wisting’s leg. He bent down and scratched him behind the ear before opening the door, deciding to set his alarm for six o’clock.

  The kitchen table was filled with Line’s notes, which he glanced at while looking out the cat’s dinner. He filled the cat’s dish and stood in front of the table reading the old headlines proclaiming brutal murder. Most of the cases he recognised. The police murder at Eikeren being one. He had known that she was working on a series of interviews and had an appointment with a man in Helgeroa. Now he realised she had been talking about Ken Ronny Hauge. It must be almost twenty years. He didn’t know that the man had moved back.

  There were several other cases, such as the murder of 37-year-old Stine Nymann in 1989, raped and strangled in a park in Mysen. It was not one of the most brutal murders in history, but memorable because it was the first case in Norway in which DNA had been used as evidence.

  One of her other interview subjects was obviously Age Reinholdt, who had killed twice in his life. In 1974, when he was 23 years of age, he murdered his girlfriend with a knife in a drunken quarrel. That got him eleven years behind bars. Ten years after he was freed, he did the same thing again, and a live-in partner the same age as he was, in Romerike, died of eleven knife wounds. It was evidence of an uncontrollable rage.

  The darkest aspects of the human psyche were portrayed in the newspaper reports and he didn’t like the idea of his daughter empathising with such men or excusing the misery they caused.

  When Buster was full he stretched and padded off to the living room. Wisting opened the refrigerator, which was rarely so well filled, and contemplated whether he should fry the slices of beef. Looking at the time, he decided that it was too late. According to the date stamp they would last another couple of days.

  There was a noise at the front door and Line called from the hallway. He greeted her with a hug. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘No,’ she answered, taking off her shoes. ‘I ate out.’

  ‘I just need to have a sandwich.’

  She followed him into the kitchen. ‘I didn’t mean to leave all this mess,’ she apologised, starting to tidy up all her paperwork.

  ‘Let it lie,’ Wisting waved her away. ‘I’ll eat in the living room.’

  He buttered himself a couple of slices and put them on a plate. Line filled a glass with milk. ‘Are you going to interview all of them?’ he asked, nodding towards the kitchen table.

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  ‘Most people would give a lot to avoid having anything to do with any of them.’

  Line drank from her glass. ‘I’m obviously not like most people, then,’ she smiled, wiping round her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Do you remember the police murder in 1991?’

  Wisting nodded. ‘I saw the newspaper cutting. Has he been freed already?’

  ‘He got 21 years, but was released on licence a year and a half ago. Moved back home to Helgeroa. I’ve an appointment with him on Friday.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

  Line gave no reply. ‘How many murderers have you talked to?’ she asked.

  Wisting took a bite of his sandwich and chewed while he thought.

  ‘Eight,’ he answered, swallowing. From some place or other came a thought that there had been more murderers than women in his life.

  ‘Are there any of them who have killed more than once?’

  ‘You know that of course. You’ve written about some of the cases. A new murder is committed in order to cover up the first one.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m thinking about whether anyone has killed again after they have served their sentence?’

  Wisting shook his head.

  ‘That’s the topic I’m writing about. Whether punishment actually helps.’

  Wisting took another bite.

  ‘Have you found any answers?’

  ‘I’d like the readers to find the answer for themselves, but have you not wondered whether there’s any point in punishment?’

  He had asked himself the question many times. All too many of the people he arrested came back and committed new, worse crimes as soon as they had served their sentences. Prisons functioned as a crime school where new contacts were formed.

  ‘Those who are convicted of murder are an unsuitable statistical group if you want to look at the rate of recidivism,’ he replied, trying to avoid the question. ‘Most people who become murderers find themselves in some kind of extreme situation that they probably only encounter once in their lives.’

  ‘Under those circumstances punishment doesn’t serve any purpose.’ Line rinsed her glass and placed it in the dishwasher. ‘Then it isn’t the fear of punishment that prevents them from committing another crime?’

  ‘Perhaps it doesn’t have any individual preventive effect in murder cases,’ Wisting conceded, ‘but we must certainly have laws and regulations. That someone is punished will hopefully act as a deterrent to others.’

  ‘People who are in such an extreme situation that they commit murder, probably don’t think so rationally that they take into account the possibility of punishment before they kill?’

  Wisting put down his plate and took a glass out of the cupboard. ‘Now you’re pestering me with philosophy,’ he grunted, filling his glass from the tap. He liked these discussions with his daughter, but at the moment he didn’t have the ability to concentrate. ‘It depends on the circumstances,’ he attempted as a final argument.

  Line took out the newspaper article about the man who had first knifed his girlfriend to death 35 years previously, and who had done the same thing again 21 years later. ‘A prison sentence didn’t help Age Reinholdt.’

  ‘Perhaps we should have capital punishment?’ Wisting suggested, to provoke her in the same way that she had provoked him.

  She didn’t take the bait. ‘I’m going to talk to him on Saturday,’ she went on. ‘He lives in Gusland. His parents were from Brunlanes, but moved to Oslo before he was born. His mother died when he was little, but his father moved back and took over the farm from his grandparents while he was serving his first prison sentence. Now he has taken it over.’

  ‘Are you going alone?’

  She nodded. Wisting did not like the thought, but said nothing. He knew he would not be able to persuade her to change her plans.

  ‘Did you know about it?’ she enquired. ‘That there were two murderers in your district? Age Reinholdt and Ken Ronny Hauge.’

  Wisting shook his head. Not two, he thought, thinking of the severed feet. Three.

  CHAPTER 13

  He didn’t switch on the light, but put on the coffee machine and stood at the window looking down at the square in front of the police station, waiting for the water to run through the filter. He was trying to order his thoughts.

  The bulletin about Camilla Thaulow was already prepared and lying on his office desk. The short press release described her, the car in which she had disappeared and the clothes she had been wearing at the time. Dark trousers, white blouse, checked scarf around her neck and a pair of black trainers. A folder of photographs accompanied the report. It had not been easy to find a recent image, as she didn’t have a passport and the photo albums at home had not been updated for many years. One of her work colleagues had, however, found a suitably neutral picture that had been taken at the Christmas dinner the previous year. She neither smiled nor showed other emotions. Her hair was styled in the way that her colleagues said it had been while she worked at the nursing home.

  The coffee machine rumbled lightly and emitted hot steam. He filled a cup and returned to the window. The new day was going to be a fine one. Buildings in the town centre twinkled with a brownish-red hue in the morning sunshine and the streets were quiet. One of the council’s cleansing vehicles moved slowly across the grey asphalt. The cup was slightly too hot to hold. He took a careful gulp, moved his h
and and carried it to the table, deciding to go through the cases of the two men missing from the nursing home one more time.

  Torkel Lauritzen and Otto Saga were both widowers. He would look for people in the circles around them who could tell more about them. The smallest details could turn out to be crucial, but he didn’t find anything that he had overlooked in the files. In the course of the day he would take a trip to the nursing home and look up someone who might know a bit more about the two men.

  The morning meeting was short. Most of the time was taken up with a discussion of how the different newspapers had presented the case. All had pictures of training shoes on the front page. Verdens Gang had presumably realised that all the editors would go for the same spread, and had sharpened up their coverage with a comment from a well-known television actor who holidayed at a summer cottage in Nevlunghavn. The whole thing was unpleasant.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Hammer complained. ‘Not even a murder can be reported without linking it to a celebrity.’

  Wisting wound up the meeting and withdrew to his office. Ten minutes went by before he was disturbed by a knock at his door by one of the police guard’s summer temps. Wisting looked at the young man in the doorway. His uniform was clean and newly pressed, his hair cut short and his shoes polished. Wisting wondered if he had any idea how much human tragedy and misery he was going to experience in the years that lay ahead.

  ‘Yes?’ Wisting said, giving him an obliging smile.

  ‘There’s a lady downstairs,’ the man said. ‘She says she knows who one of the shoes in the newspaper belongs to.’

  Wisting got up. ‘Which of them?’

  ‘The most recent. The one that was found yesterday.’

  Wisting followed the young policeman down to the front desk where a woman in her mid-forties was waiting. She had short, silver-grey hair, was tall and slim and had blue-grey eyes with bags and dark rings beneath them. Wisting shook her hand, but didn’t catch her name. ‘You know something about the shoe that was pictured in the newspaper?’ he began.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, searching for something in her handbag. ‘I think it belongs to my sister.’ She brought out a picture. ‘Look at this.’