Closed for Winter (20 page)

Wisting emerged from the shower in his hotel room. His mobile phone was ringing.

Wrapping the towel around his waist, he stepped out of the bathroom. The caller’s number was not shown in the display. He raised the phone to his ear, announced himself, and immediately recognised Leif Malm’s husky voice.

‘Any news?’ Wisting asked.

‘There’s a few things, but I waited until now to phone you. I expect you’ve had plenty to do today.’

Wisting ran his hand through his wet hair. ‘Let me hear anyway.’

‘Rudi Muller was in Larvik last night.’

‘In Larvik?’

‘We followed him down from Oslo yesterday evening. He booked into that new hotel, the
Ferris Bad
.’

‘On his own?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was he doing there?’

‘We don’t know. Nobody known to us has gone in or out of the hotel, and there are no interesting calls on the phone number we’re monitoring.’

‘Is he still there?’

‘No, he drove back early.’

Wiping the condensation from the mirror, Wisting leaned towards his reflection. The wound had healed into a bright pink mark. He ran his hand over his chin, realising he ought to have shaved before his shower. ‘What does that mean?’ he asked.

‘It’s possibly some kind of reconnaissance trip. He went out for a drive last night around all the side roads in the area for almost three hours. It was hopeless trying to follow, so we let him go and waited for him at the hotel.’

‘Could he have met someone?’

‘No, we mounted a tracker on his car after he’d checked in, and he was on the move the entire time.’

‘You said he might have been reconnoitring. Do you mean the target for the robbery may be in Larvik?’

The reply came rather more swiftly and with slightly more assurance than Wisting had anticipated: ‘Yes.’ He waited for his colleague to continue.

‘
NOKAS
, the Norwegian cash handling service, has five cash centres, one of which is located in Larvik. We know that plans for a raid have been circulating for a long time. The plans seem to be worked out down to the finest details, but so far no one has seized the opportunity. The risks are too high, but from the New Year, the centre in Larvik will be moving to Oslo. If the plan is to be carried out, it has to be done sometime in the autumn.’

Wisting knew that, at one point, plans had circulated for a raid on one of the town’s
Norges Bank
branches, but this was before the Stavanger premises were raided. Nevertheless, it did not surprise him that plans existed for a robbery on the cash.

‘Do you think Rudi Muller has bought the plans?’

‘Some things suggest that he is interested in taking them over for a share of the proceeds. An hour ago, we got hold of the list of guests from the hotel. One of the other guests last night was Svein Brandt.’

The name was familiar to Wisting, but he allowed the intelligence chief to continue.

‘Svein Brandt is a central player in criminal circles in the Østland area, but always operates in the shadow of others. His name is included in previous intelligence material dealing with possible robbery plans for the cash handling service in Larvik. He lives in Spain, but it seems he’s paying a visit to Norway.’

Wisting let the information sink in. ‘What does the informant say about it?’

‘He hasn’t been in touch, but we’re hoping to arrange a meeting for this evening.’

‘How imminent do you think the robbery might be?’

‘We’re probably talking about days rather than weeks. Rudi is really under the cosh.’

Wisting rubbed his hand over the stubble on his face. ‘I have a return ticket for the day after tomorrow, but I’m not sure whether that will be possible. We haven’t actually achieved anything at all.’

‘Take whatever time you need,’ Malm said. ‘We’ll take care of this.’

‘What’s your plan?’

‘Rudi will need three or four men to carry out the plan. What’s more, he needs vehicles and weapons. Usually we get signals when something like this is going on. We reckon also that the informant’s involvement will continue.’

‘What do we do if we find out when and where they’re going to strike?’

‘At the end of the day, that’s a decision for your Chief of Police to make, but I would recommend that we grab them there and then. The alternative is to take preventive action by being conspicuous in the vicinity, but that would just postpone the raid.’

Wisting agreed. Besides, everything that turned up in the wake of such events would help to clear up the murder case. ‘Have you found Trond Holmberg?’ he asked.

‘He was removed from the scene of the fire four hours ago, or at least what was left of him. We have the skull and teeth. It was obviously a simple matter for the forensic odontologist to confirm it was him. It will take longer for us to find out whether we have DNA, but the crime scene technicians are optimistic.’

Wisting gripped the phone underneath his chin as he looked for clean underwear in his suitcase. ‘Cause of fire?’

‘That’s not so good. The idiot was a motocross fanatic and had two motorbikes in his living room, ditto petrol tanks. Inflammable liquid has been detected in several places, but it will be difficult to establish whether it has anything to do with the cause of the fire.’

They exchanged a few more words, and Leif Malm promised to keep him informed about developments.

Wisting dressed before going into the corridor to knock on the door of Martin Ahlberg’s room. They had to discuss their return journey. In his present location, he felt far too distant from the centre of forthcoming events.

Martin Ahlberg’s hotel room was slightly smaller than Wisting’s, but just as elegantly furnished with a crimson carpet on the floor and paintings of the Old Town hanging on the walls. ‘We’ve verified the ID,’ Ahlberg said, sitting at the computer on the massive desk. ‘Interpol confirms it was Darius Plater who was found on board the rowing boat.’

Wisting leaned towards the screen where an open email with the logo of the Organisation for International Police Cooperation was visible. ‘At last,’ he said. ‘We’ll make an early start tomorrow. Things are happening at home that make it difficult to postpone our departure.’

Ahlberg placed a ballpoint pen between his teeth and looked at him.

Wisting gave a brief outline of how the parallel enquiry was developing. ‘Can I borrow your computer?’

‘Of course.’

Martin Ahlberg logged himself out and relinquished the chair to Wisting. His computer was equipped with software that allowed him to access the police systems via an encrypted mobile broadband connection. As it was an expensive arrangement Wisting had never requested one for himself. He was usually at his office when anything happened, and had no wish to take the electronic aspects of his work home. Emails rolled in as soon as he entered the system. Sorting according to relevance, he read rapidly through mostly formalities and banal information.

‘How about dinner tonight?’ Ahlberg asked. ‘We could try somewhere different?’

Wisting agreed just as a new email arrived. The sender was Benjamin Fjeld, and the subject
Danish narcotics supplier in Norwegian waters
. The message was marked as extremely important. Have tried to phone you, were the young policeman’s opening words.

Patting his trouser pocket, it dawned on Wisting that he had left his mobile phone in his hotel room.

The email was a short summary of how an elderly birdwatcher had taken photographs of a fast boat that had been scouring the coastline at the Gusland fjord, travelling to and fro as though searching for something, the day after the discovery of the first body. Investigation had revealed that the boat was of Danish manufacture. The photograph had been sent to the Danish Police in Copenhagen and they had identified the man on board as Klaus Bang, known to them for repeated drugs violations.

Wisting clicked on the file attachment: the photograph of the boat with a man surveying the coastline. His eyes were concealed behind dark glasses, but he would be easily recognised.

He composed a quick response, confirming that he had received the email and telling Benjamin Fjeld to pass the information to the others in the group. He forwarded the message to Leif Malm, requesting him to assess it in relation to his information.

This fresh information was a huge leap forward in establishing a complete picture. It corresponded well with the case involving a drugs delivery to Rudi Muller that had gone awry. At the same time, there was something that did not add up.

The source had informed the police that one of the couriers who had crossed the Skagerrak was assumed to have been killed in a confrontation, and that people in Muller’s circles believed he was the man found in the rowing boat. However, now that he had been identified as Darius Plater from Lithuania, there were no grounds for thinking he had arrived from Denmark. Who, then, was the man in the large inflatable boat looking for along the coastline?

As the photo on the screen provided no answers, he logged himself out of the system and stood up.

Ahlberg was flicking through the channels on the television. ‘Shall we go and eat?’ he asked.

Wisting did not see any reason to inform him of these new developments, working on a need to know basis. ‘I must make a phone call first,’ he replied, heading towards the door. ‘Let’s meet in reception in a quarter of an hour.’

Wisting dialled Nils Hammer’s number, and received an immediate answer. ‘Have you spoken to Benjamin Fjeld?’ Hammer asked.

‘I’ve got an email from him,’ Wisting replied. ‘It’s extremely interesting, and excellent work. How did he get hold of that witness?’

‘It was Line who came across him at the cottage.’

Wisting frowned out of the window. Night was falling. ‘Line?’ It was strange that she had chosen to share the information with Benjamin Fjeld without first contacting him.

‘Fjeld interviewed her,’ Hammer explained, reading Wisting’s thoughts. ‘She had noticed a man and a parked van the day she arrived there, who turned out to be a birdwatcher.’

Wisting did not pursue the subject. ‘Have you spoken to Leif Malm?’

‘Less than five minutes ago. Plans for a robbery on the cash service premises in Elveveien correspond with reports from their security that their cash transports have been under surveillance. Six months ago they reported that a car had parked several times across from the vehicle access route into the centre. That would be a good vantage point for observation. The registration plates were stolen, so there was something going on.’

‘I can be home on Friday at the earliest,’ Wisting said.

‘It looks as though Oslo’s monitoring this. We’ll take care of the local angle. There are a number of weak spots in the cash centre’s security that make it a likely target. Mainly, the building wasn’t constructed for the purpose of storing money. There are several other tenants in the same building, and the arrangements are not optimal. That’s probably one of the reasons they’re centralising and relocating the whole shebang.’

‘How much money are we talking about?’

‘They have seven vehicles that uplift and deliver cash the length and breadth of the Østland area. Each vehicle carries an estimated fifteen million kroner, but that’s continually exceeded. At the most, they can have eighty million stored overnight, but it’s not likely to be such a large amount these days. It entirely depends on cash sales in the shops.’

‘When do we warn the company’s management?’

‘There’ll be a meeting with the Chief of Police tomorrow. Leif Malm and a few colleagues from Oslo will be coming too.’

Wisting nodded to himself, appreciating that Hammer was on top of things. ‘Any other news?’

‘Mortensen has traced the revolver that was lying in the boat with the dead Lithuanian. It was stolen from a cottage in Tjøme two days before our murder. The same gang has obviously been on the prowl out there. They broke into nine cottages in one night.’

They discussed a number of practical problems relating to staffing and resources, but the entire time they were talking, Wisting’s thoughts returned to Nevlunghavn on the Friday evening almost a week earlier. ‘How well have we searched the territory out there?’ he asked.

‘We used dogs and helicopters on the night of the murder, but it hasn’t been finely combed. The roughest terrain was given low priority in the assumption that a killer on the run would choose the easiest paths. With the passing of time, it’s fallen off the radar.’

‘So there may be places we haven’t looked?’

‘I don’t think the crime scene technicians have been in the scrub and woodland. A search like that would take weeks, without having anything in particular to look for.’

‘I want you to organise a fresh search out there,’ Wisting said. ‘Make sure every square metre is examined.’

‘Okay, but what are we looking for?’

Wisting took a deep breath before replying. It was only a theory, but it hadn’t simply been snatched out of thin air. ‘Something went seriously wrong that night. I think we’re looking for another body.’

After stowing her purchases on the kitchen shelves, Line took an apple, a blanket and her newspaper onto the porch. Folding the blanket, she placed it on the top step before sitting down, leaning against the pillar supporting the roof overhang. She closed her eyes and turned her face towards the low autumn sun. Somewhere close by, a woodpecker hammered on a tree.

Crunching into the apple, she delighted in the view across the fjord. She was already looking forward to spending summers out here. A mild breeze rustled the branches on the nearest trees, as one leaf after another fell to the ground.

The case no longer featured on the front pages, but the editor had allocated two pages further back. All of what was printed was already old news. The newspaper had been published ten hours earlier, and the online version had given her updated news since then.

She also came across a page heading about the fire in the block of flats in Grorud where the brother of Rudi Muller’s girlfriend was missing. The blaze was described as intense and explosive. Twenty-seven people had been evacuated from the adjacent flats and surrounding residences, and an elderly woman had been hospitalised because of heart problems. In addition to the flat, which belonged to the missing twenty-three-year-old, two other apartments had been rendered uninhabitable by fire, smoke and water damage. The firefighting crew had battled the flames for well over an hour and a half before gaining control. The police officer in charge of the operation was interviewed and explained it was too soon to ascertain the cause; crime scene technicians would start as soon as practically possible.

The report was written by one of the more experienced crime reporters in the news section. That was unusual. Normally, the news editor would allocate such a story to an ordinary reporter. This might mean there was more going on than was evident from the text.

She finished eating her apple and threw the core into the bushes. Her fingers turned blue with cold as she read the remainder of the newspaper and, as soon as she was done, she returned inside.

From a seat on the settee, she logged into the newspaper’s computer system, an efficient and flexible platform facilitating cooperation among journalists working on a variety of projects and allowing the retrieval of information.

The case folder dealing with the fire had been altered since the newspaper hard copy had been published. There would probably be an updated report on the online version. The journalist had also logged a similar story at 12.32 about a fatality taken from the ruins of the fire. She postponed reading this, instead clicking into the case log for information and background material not used in the report. The missing person was twenty-three-year-old Trond Holmberg.

In the bullet-pointed list of keywords, she found that an unnamed source in the fire service thought the fire had been started deliberately. The police were of the same opinion. The number of crime scene technicians on site was unusually large, and police had conducted door-to-door enquiries. The officers on duty were unusually reticent.

Holmberg was well known to the police, and had a connection to Rudi Muller. One of the reporter’s informants thought something was afoot around Muller. A job had gone wrong, landing him in enormous debt. This story might grow legs and require more column space. The suspicion that the fire had been staged to cover up another crime was unavoidable.

Rudi Muller was obviously a familiar name to the crime reporter. In his words, Muller appeared to be a ‘not inconsiderable presence in the criminal world’. Line’s mouth became dry.

Highlighting his name, she copied it into the search field, and the links came thick and fast. Rudi Muller was mentioned eleven times. One of the background memos was based on a police informant who gave a thorough description. He came from a petty criminal milieu in Sagene that had become more brutal towards the end of the nineties, breaking and entering jewellery and electronics shops. Their proceeds were invested in consignments of narcotics. He was known for his aggressive methods and nowadays had emerged as the leader of a criminal gang at the heart of the drugs trade in Oslo.

He had been sentenced to six months’ immediate imprisonment for being in possession of a gun in a restaurant. The police had ransacked his flat and discovered a machine gun and explosives.

One of the latest notes was linked to an article about money laundering in the restaurant business. Line went cold inside as she read about how the police presumed that Muller’s share of the proceeds of an unsolved robbery on a jewellery shop in Karl Johans gate the previous year had been invested in the restaurant
Shazam Station.

Rudi had been an active criminal earlier, but seemed now to operate in the shadows, untouchable by the police.