Medusa (25 page)

– As you will also note, these wounds are similar to those we have seen on the other recent murder victims. Here, however, is what is left of the lower body. Both legs have been severed, directly below the hip joint.

– For fuck’s sake, Helgarsson exclaimed.

– Precisely, Sigge, Viken observed. – I couldn’t have put it better myself.

He showed an enlarged image of one of the stumps.

– Does this look like a leg that has been bitten off by an animal?

– It’s been sawn off, Norbakk said.

– Dr Plåterud’s conclusion precisely. So we are dealing with a perpetrator who goes further each time in the mutilation of his victims. This is a well-known feature of this type of crime.

Viken clicked on, stopped at a picture of an arm, zoomed in. A tattoo of a muscular naked male body appeared.

– I would ask female members of the gathering to avert their eyes, he suggested, after debating with himself how far it was permissible to joke about such things under the circumstances. – It was, by the way, the tattoo that the neighbour recognised.

He zoomed in further still.

– What is this? he asked, pointing to four small dots under the shoulder.

He magnified the image to show a slight swelling under each of them.

– Needle marks, Norbakk volunteered.

– No doubt about it. What do we make of that?

– She takes drugs, suggested one of the new members of the team, a young man with cheeks pitted with acne scars. He was on loan from Majorstua and was hardly likely to contribute anything to the investigation. When Viken had requested more resources, he had been thinking of quality, not making up the numbers. Now he stood swaying back and forth on the soles of his feet, like a teacher savouring the pleasures of correcting a boy who should have known better.

– Apparently gave it up years ago, he informed him. – And this is on the outside of the arm, nowhere near the larger arteries. In addition, no trace of the usual narcotics in the blood. And as you will remember … He showed a new picture. – Cecilie Davidsen’s upper right arm: three similar pinpricks, five on the thigh. And here, Paulsen: four pricks in the upper left arm, four in each thigh.

– Tranquillisers, the new man from Majorstua corrected himself.

– Precisely, said Viken in an amiable tone. He had no objection to greenhorns, provided they weren’t too green. – Dr Plåterud found traces of the same narcotic as was used on the other victims.

– I’m guessing she was subjected to similar treatment, Norbakk ventured. – Tranquillised a few times before being given the fatal overdose.

– Exactly.

Viken clicked up a new picture.

– Someone has left us a footprint in this mess on the floor. The party concerned was wearing a black sock, one hundred per cent cotton, shoe size 47. We’ve got people examining the fibres to see if there’s anything unusual about them.

– How many black socks are there in this town? was Sigge Helgarsson’s comment.

– That’s for you to find out, Viken grinned. – It’ll keep you busy for a while. We also found plenty of skin cells under the victim’s fingernails. Let’s just hope it wasn’t herself she was scratching.

He clicked on and continued.

– Here is the door jamb she was found propped up against.

He magnified the image and pointed.

– Five deeply scored marks across the woodwork, running downwards almost to the threshold.

The recruit from Majorstua exclaimed: – Like scratch marks from a claw.

– What do you think, Arve? Could this have been made by a bear’s paw?

– Looks like it. Pretty sick stuff …

– I quite agree, Viken said quietly. – Sicker than anything any of us have ever come across before.

He switched off the computer.

– I’ll bet a fiver that the neighbour, Miriam Gaizauskaite, had a visitor last night, even though she says not. She doesn’t sit up of an evening drinking out of two wine glasses, one with and one without lipstick. I want to find out everything we can about her background.

– Sounds like a lot of spadework for me, said Arve Norbakk. – Just so long as I don’t have to go to … where was it, Lithuania? he added with a big grin.

Jarle Frøen spoke.

– What about the actual investigation so far?

– Relax, Mr Prosecutor, Viken said patiently. – We’re about to get on to that right now. Jebsen, you can start.

Nina looked down at her notes.

– I spoke to the newspaper delivery man. Mehmed Faruq, fifty-three years old, originally from Kurdistan. His papers all appear to be in order. Speaks passable Norwegian. I’ve got a list of things he noticed in the course of his morning route, from Carl Berners Place and on down. Three, possibly four cars in Helgesens gate. A couple entering a block. A person getting out of a taxi at Sofienberg Park, right next to the scene of the crime. I traced the taxi driver and he confirms the time. He drove past the same place an hour earlier and on that occasion noticed a cyclist with a child-trailer. We’ll take a closer look at all these, but the most important thing is this: the delivery man encountered a male as he was passing through the gate at the address where the victim lived.

– Not bad, Nina. Description?

– The person in question is thirty to forty years old, well above medium height, powerfully built, wearing dark clothes, a coat or long jacket, dark hair. This was about ten past five. There was a light in the entrance, so the delivery man got a good look.

– The timing agrees with what the neighbour told us, that she heard someone opening the gate at around five. Have a good look at the delivery man, including his alibis for the other times that are of interest to us.

– Apparently he’s just returned from a fortnight in Germany seeing his relatives. Gardermoen airport records confirm that.

– Excellent.

– Some of you may have noted, continued Nina, – an obvious connection with what we have here and witness observations relating to the Paulsen case.

The child-trailer, Norbakk suggested. – You mentioned that a cyclist pulling one of those was seen earlier this morning too.

Nina winked at him.

– No flies on you. It took me a while longer to notice it. We’ve been assuming that Paulsen was transported from the woods to the place where the body was found. A car on a private forest road would have attracted attention. A child-trailer, on the other hand …

Viken noticed that she didn’t seem to mind at all that Arve Norbakk was following her with his droopy eyes.

– But that’s for transporting small children in, he interrupted.

– In the bigger models there’s room for two large children, Nina explained. – And note that this bicycle with the child-trailer was observed right next to the scene of the crime at quarter to four in the morning. Who cycles around with children in the middle of the night?

Sigge Helgarsson woke up.

– Not everyone detaches the trailer every time they go out. Mine is always on, whether the kids are with me or not.

Norbakk offered his support to Nina.

– Hilde Paulsen was 157 centimetres tall and anything but overweight. She was found with her legs doubled up under her. And Anita Elvestrand’s body was partially mutilated.

– My trailer’s down in the garage, said Sigge. – We can check it for size.

Nina smiled brightly.

– I saw it not long ago and took the liberty of trying it out myself. There would definitely be room for a small, lightly built woman inside it.

Viken had a witty comment on the tip of his tongue but at the last moment decided against sharing it.

– You’ve certainly not been wasting your time, Jebsen, he said instead, and almost patted her on the head. – A description of the man at the gate will be released to the media if he has not reported himself to us within, – he glanced at his watch, – precisely five hours from now.

A
XEL HEARS A
phone. He recognises the ringtone but it isn’t his. He searches around the room. The sound is getting closer, but he can’t find where it’s coming from.

He woke with a start and looked around the strange room. It took a few moments for him to realise he was in Rita’s apartment in Tåsen. A few moments more before the memory of what had happened fell over him like an avalanche. He sat upright on the leather sofa. The clock on the wall showed 1.45.

His feet felt cold. He’d thrown his socks away in a rubbish bin in Sofienberg Park. He picked up the phone, turned on the sound. A long list of unanswered calls. Four from Bie, three from Miriam. He called her.

– Where are you, Axel? Why aren’t you answering your phone?

– I needed to sleep for a few hours. Are the police there?

– They’ve been here asking all sorts of questions. After that they rang me twice. Some of them are still out there on the landing. They’ve been in here too, looking all over the place, looking for something. And there’s a man standing guard down in the back yard. I just wish I could wake up soon and all this was only a nightmare.

– The woman lying there, was it your neighbour?

He could hear she was crying. Couldn’t think of anything to say to comfort her.

– What did you tell them?

She didn’t reply at once.

– You didn’t tell them I’d been there?

– No, Axel, please … but they rang just now and asked if I’d seen a man who went out the gate early this morning. The description fitted you.

– The delivery man. He saw me.

– You’ve got to go and talk to them, Axel. Straight away.

He called Bie.

– Axel, she cried. – Are you trying to kill me? Have you any idea how many times I’ve called you? Rita says you’re not well but she has no idea where you are. I was just about to start ringing round the hospitals.

– The hospitals? Pull yourself together, Bie.

– You’re the one who needs to pull himself together, she screamed. – Don’t you know how worried I’ve been?

He tried to breathe calmly.

– Listen to me, Bie. Don’t interrupt. Something’s happened. I can’t tell you everything yet. I’ll talk to you when I get home. I’m not sick, do you hear me, I am
not
sick. There’s something I have to sort out first.

– But where are you?

– With friends. They’re helping me.

– Can’t you come now? she pleaded, her voice suddenly small and frail.

– Brede, he said suddenly. – I must find Brede.

– Brede? Does this have something to do with him? She sounded almost relieved.

– I have to find him. Then I’ll come home.

After ending the call, he sat thinking for a while. This idea about Brede was something that had just occurred to him. He couldn’t tell her the truth. Not yet. He slumped down into the sofa again.

As he had closed Miriam’s door behind him and tottered down that crooked staircase, it had struck him. This is about me. First the physiotherapist up there in the woods. Then Cecilie Davidsen, his patient, whom he’d visited at home. And now the remains of that body lying outside the door. Not until a few minutes later, as he was staggering through Sofienberg Park, did the memory surface, of Brede raging at him:
One day I’ll destroy you, just the same way you destroyed me.
Now, after a few hours’ sleep, this was the thought he clung to: This is about me. And Brede. I betrayed him. No one else could hate me this much.

Rita returned at about 4.30.

– Are you still here, Axel? she exclaimed, sounding pleased and shocked in equal measure.

– It’s up to you whether you believe your own eyes or not, he answered.

She took off her coat, pushed her feet into a pair of red slippers with plush trimming and took three plastic bags of shopping into the kitchen. She came back in and sat in the easy chair at the end of the table.

– No problem cancelling the appointments?

– In a manner of speaking. They realise that even you can be ill. But now tell me what’s going on.

He leaned back in the sofa, let his eyes trace the line of the joints between the ceiling tiles.

– How long have we been working together, Rita?

She thought about it.

– Soon be twelve years.

– Do you think you know me?

– Yes, I would say so.

– Do you trust me?

– Give over, Axel. There aren’t that many people I’d let sit by my death bed. But you’re one of them.

He gave a quick smile up at the ceiling.

– I hope you feel the same way once you’ve heard what I’m about to tell you.

Rita had heated up some leftover fish soup.

– You surely can’t believe that, Axel, she exclaimed as she placed the steaming pan on the table. – No one would go so far as to kill three defenceless women just to get at you.

– So you think it’s coincidental that all the victims have a connection to me?

She ladled out a portion of soup for him.

– It’s not up to me to think anything about anything. That’s a job for the police.

– You’re right. I’ll talk to them. But not until tomorrow.

– Are you out of your mind?

He didn’t answer immediately. Slurped down some soup; he hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. When he was finished he said:

– I’ll talk to them first thing tomorrow. But there’s something I have to do first. This evening.

Rita gave a long, demonstrative shake of the head.

– Don’t think I haven’t noticed how she’s been throwing herself at you from the very first day. That student.

– This is not about her.

Rita didn’t buy it.

– I get so angry about things like that.

Axel pushed his plate away.

– Three people have been killed, Rita. In some way or other I’m involved. Let’s keep Miriam out of this. Do you have a pair of socks I could borrow? And a torch?

V
IKEN CLICKED HIS
way briskly through the net editions of the newspapers. The police hadn’t announced that they suspected the same person was responsible for the murders, but the media had no doubt about it.
VG
quickly dubbed him ‘the Beast’, having suddenly stopped telling its readers that a killer bear was loose in the city. A memo from Finckenhagen dated that same morning had gone out to everyone with instructions in bold type that from now on, all communications with the media were to go via her to the Chief Superintendent. That was fine by Viken, because it would keep her busy for a while and out of the way of the investigation. On the other hand, she had no real overview of what was going on. Viken had seen enough leaders lose their heads when things began to get hectic. As for himself, the more adrenalin that was pumping round the corridors, the calmer he seemed to be. Perhaps the most important quality of all for a leader in our business, he thought as he opened Jebsen’s notes to take a closer look at the interview with the newspaper delivery man.