The Hunting Dogs (26 page)

The comparison took some time. At the top of the fold in the envelope, Finn Haber
had found a whorl-shaped fingerprint suitable for identification, and made a start
on the laborious task of comparing it with the prints on Wisting’s suspension letter.
He was still crouched over the kitchen table when Wisting left around half past one.

On his way home, he drove past
The
Golden Peace
and saw Suzanne clearing tables, but did not go inside. Instead, he went home and
to bed before she returned. The day had been too complicated to sit up explaining
into the small hours. Besides, he was exhausted.

In the morning he made himself a cup of coffee in the machine. The wind had quieted,
and the rain stopped overnight, but heavy clouds still hung in the sky and the air
was saturated. The phone rang; it was Line.

‘I’m on my way home from Sweden,’ she said. “I’ve collected your package from Maud
Svedberg.’

Wisting stood in the middle of the kitchen, coffee cup in hand. ‘Have you opened it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘There’s a video cassette inside.’

‘A film?’

‘A V-8 cassette, an outdated standard from fifteen to twenty years ago. We’ll need
an old system to play it.’

‘Where will we get hold of something like that?’

‘I think Grandad has one.’

‘I’ll ask him. When do you expect to be home?’

‘There’s a ferry from Strømstad to Sandefjord at half past two. I should make that
and be back sometime before six.’

‘Okay. Drive carefully.’

Wisting missed the rest of what Line said. Directly in front of him on the table lay
a yellow cassette recording, an AGFA cassette, exactly like the one Cecilia had used
in her Walkman, but this had Wisting’s name written on it with a thick, black marker
pen.

He lifted it and turned it round. His name was written in bold letters on both sides.
The phone rang again. This time it was Haber. ‘It’s confirmed. The same person has
held your suspension letter and the packaging of A-3. And it’s not you. I’ve eliminated
your fingerprints.’

Wisting’s bewilderment about the cassette dampened his enthusiasm, although he was
glad of the confirmation. Seventeen years previously, Audun Vetti had been a young
prosecutor with ambitions, a man in a hurry to move up in the world. The Cecilia case
was at a standstill, and so a hindrance on his career path.

‘That still proves nothing,’ Finn Haber said. ‘He could come up with a story to explain
why his prints are on the envelope.’

‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t get away with it,’ Wisting said. ‘Have you documented your
findings?’

‘Everything’s photographed,’ Haber confirmed. ‘It just needs Vetti’s formal registration
in the fingerprint register.’

Wisting replied absentmindedly, barely absorbing what he was being told.

‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

‘No, that’s fine. More than fine.’ Wisting thanked Haber again for his assistance
and put his phone aside before taking the cassette up to his bedroom. Suzanne was
sleeping soundly. Hunkering down beside the bed he placed his hand on her bare shoulder
and shook her gently. She woke gradually, stretching and turning slowly towards him.

‘Wisting held the cassette in front of her. ‘Do you know where this came from?’

Rubbing her eyes, Suzanne licked her lips to moisten her dry mouth. ‘One of the customers
left it on the counter yesterday,’ she said, straightening the quilt. ‘He asked me
to give it to you. It was important, he said.’

Wisting exhaled slowly through his nose and stood up.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

‘This comes from Rudolf Haglund.’

Suzanne sat bolt upright. ‘The murderer?’

Wisting nodded. ‘He was in your café last night.’

‘But …’ Suzanne began, shifting her gaze from Wisting to the yellow cassette. ‘What’s
on it?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ he answered as he headed towards the door. ‘You just go back to
sleep. I have to go somewhere.’

They did not have a cassette player in the house. Thomas had taken theirs with him
when he left to join the army eight years earlier and neither had come home again.
He would have to go to the cottage to play the tape.

The roads were still wet, and in several places there were puddles on the asphalt.
Sheets of water sprayed from his front wheels as he drove through them.

The air was sharper at the coast, the sea still churning white, even though the wind
had dropped.

Letting himself into the cottage, he scanned the room, but saw no sign of unwelcome
guests. Line had been the last person here. She had washed the used cups and stacked
the Cecilia documents tidily on the coffee table. The old portable radio sat on a
shelf below the window. He lifted it onto the window ledge and inserted the cassette
with the A-side facing out before pressing
play
.

First he heard some kind of rustling, as if someone was out walking and their clothes
were rubbing. Then there were two voices: two people saying hello and introducing
themselves with their first names, Gjermund and Rudolf. Rudolf Haglund.

To begin with, Gjermund said most. He thanked Rudolf Haglund for coming and wondered
if many others had made contact. Haglund confirmed that they had, and his companion
asked if it was all right to record their conversation. It was an interview. Rudolf
Haglund had given him the recording he had made of a newspaper interview.

The journalist explained they would like some new photographs, and a photographer
would come. Haglund must have nodded his agreement, because the conversation continued,
soon to be interrupted by a woman taking their order. Haglund wanted a well-done steak,
while the reporter chose a fish course. Haglund ordered a cola and the journalist
asked the waitress for a
Farris
mineral water.

Wisting knew only one journalist called Gjermund. Gjermund Hulkvist of
Dagbladet.
An experienced crime reporter with a friendly manner, who gave a great deal of himself
personally to get what he was after. On the recording, he used Haglund’s first name
and said how grateful he was for the interview.

‘You’re good,’ Haglund said. ‘I like what you write. You stick to the facts. That
was what I liked when you reported on the case seventeen years ago.’

‘Nice of you to say so.’

‘It wasn’t simply that you kept to the facts, but you were also first to break the
news.’

‘That’s the benefit of having a broad network of contacts,’ Gjermund Hulkvist said.

‘In the police?’

‘Well placed.’

Wisting turned up the volume. Seventeen years ago Gjermund Hulkvist and
Dagbladet
had revealed that the police had Cecilia Linde’s tape.

A chair scraped on the floor. ‘I’m not interested in an interview if the person responsible
for me being convicted of a crime I didn’t commit is one of your contacts in the police.’
Haglund was obviously indignant.

‘Not Wisting,’ the journalist assured him, his voice low and intense. ‘Higher up.’

‘The prosecutor?’ Haglund drew his chair back towards the table.

‘Let’s just say he’s working as the chief constable these days, and that it can pay
to cooperate with the press.’

The conversation continued, but Wisting was not listening. The journalist had gone
as far as possible without naming his source. However, this was more than a hint about
who had leaked the information about Cecilia’s tape: Audun Vetti.

Roald Wisting was an energetic man. After retiring as a hospital doctor he accepted
positions of trust in a variety of clubs and associations. It was due just as much
to his busy lifestyle as Wisting’s long working days that they did not see each other
more than a couple of times a month. When Ingrid was alive, his father used to come
for dinner every Sunday. Now they met for coffee at
The Golden Peace
from time to time.

Roald enjoyed walking and had strolled to Wisting’s house with his camera over his
shoulder. ‘I haven’t used it for years,’ he said, placing the black bag on the coffee
table, ‘but I tested it at home before I left. I have some amusing films of Line and
Thomas.’

Producing a cable, he pulled the television set away from the wall. Wisting thought
of telling him about Audun Vetti, but decided to let it lie. He had no need to clear
his name to his father.

‘This cassette was inside it,’ his father said. ‘It must be from the summer before
they started school. We were all in Denmark, at Legoland and Givskud Zoo.’

Wisting smiled, his father had trailed round so enthusiastically with his video camera,
filming Lego cars driving in miniature towns built with little plastic bricks.

Roald squinted through his glasses, trying to locate the right access point for the
camera lead. ‘We ought to transfer them onto DVD discs,’ he said. ‘Colour and quality
deteriorate over time.’

‘You’re right,’ Wisting said. ‘There are probably firms that do that kind of thing.’

‘I’m sure there are …’ his father mumbled. ‘Now we shall see.’ He attached the lead
from the TV set and found a socket to connect it to the electricity supply. ‘When‘s
Line coming?’

Wisting glanced at the clock; the ferry from Sweden should have just arrived in Sandefjord.
‘In an hour or so, I think.’

‘And what kind of video is it she’s bringing?’

‘We don’t know yet, but I think it’s to do with the Cecilia case.’

‘I was on duty at the hospital the day you came in with the murderer. The rumour flew
like a sigh of relief through the departments. I didn’t have anything to do with it,
but the nurses in reception talked about him for ages. A couple of them even knew
him, from when he’d been a patient.’

Wisting recalled the tiny operation scars on the photograph from the time Haglund
was examined by the doctor on duty. This part of his past had not been properly clarified
during the investigation. ‘He had moles removed?’

‘That’s right,’ Roald said, as the memories came back. ‘A number of cell changes were
discovered when he came in for follow-up treatment.’

‘Follow-up treatment?’

‘We operated on him for prostate cancer a few years earlier.’ He pointed the remote
control at the TV.

‘Doesn’t that operation make you impotent?’

‘It can do.’

The television picture flickered on the screen and a red Lego bus drove towards a
bridge, stopping as the bridge opened to let a boat sail by. Wisting took out his
phone and headed for the kitchen.

‘What is it?’ Roald asked.

‘I have to check something.’

He selected the number of the retired psychiatrist who had examined Rudolf Haglund.
If Rudolf Haglund had lost erectile function through the treatment for prostate cancer,
it shone a whole new light on the case. This was something that should have emerged
in the forensic psychiatric examination. It was even stranger that Rudolf Haglund
had suppressed information that could contribute to his acquittal.

The psychiatrist did not answer. Wisting left a message asking him to call back and
returned to the living room. The twins appeared on the TV screen, each with an ice
cream cone. Behind them, Ingrid had a broad grin on her face. ‘That’s only their third
ice cream of the day.’

He had not seen moving images of her in the five years since she died, but it was
probably her voice…

Now the children were in an Indian settlement wearing feather headbands. Wisting sat
down to watch and, gradually, thoughts of Cecilia Linde, Rudolf Haglund and Audun
Vetti faded as he was drawn into the children’s world of gold mining, riverboats,
train journeys, timber slides, and the driving school with Lego cars, and Ingrid’s
infectious laughter. The memories touched him. He was disappointed when the film ended.

Shortly afterwards Line arrived looking tired, with a bulging carrier bag from the
tax-free shop. Her blonde hair was tousled, her clothes dishevelled and she had shadows
under her eyes. At the same time she seemed pleased. She hugged them both.

Wisting put the carrier bag on the kitchen table. When he returned Line was inserting
the video cassette in the camera. ‘It was rewound to the beginning,’ she said, closing
the camera’s cassette compartment. Wisting took charge by pressing the
play
button and they all watched the television screen.

Grey, black and white grains whirled before a kitchen appeared: cooker, kitchen sink.
The image suddenly blurred, the screen went completely black and then fresh images
of a kitchen interior appeared: a window with white curtains, a crocheted valance.
Strong back light made it difficult to see anything outside.

Line perched on the edge of the nearest chair.

The screen went black again. Now: pictures of an empty room, white brick walls, grey
flooring. The film was taken from above, looking down, as if someone was holding the
camera with arms outstretched above him, tilting it to get the widest possible view
of the room. A shadow fell towards the centre; someone was moving outside camera range.

The film jumped, and now the camera had a slightly different angle, though still viewed
from the same raised position. This time someone was standing in the centre of the
room: a naked woman, her head bowed, she lifted it slowly, stared into the camera.
She wore a leather collar round her neck.

Wisting supported himself on the edge of the table. It was Cecilia Linde.

Her eyes were filled with fear and torment and suffering, dried tears glittering on
her cheeks. She closed her eyes momentarily and, when she opened them again, her despair
was even more evident. Her lips moved. At first, no sound, then: ‘
Please
…’

As her bottom lip trembled, tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. ‘
Please,
’ she begged again.

All awareness of her naked body was gone. She stood with her arms by her side, making
no attempt to cover herself. ‘
I
’
ll do whatever you want.
Just let me out of here.
’

‘Spool it back,’ Line said. ‘All the way to the beginning.’

Roald did as she said. The crackling image appeared on the screen again. The picture
rolled.

‘Stop!’

The image froze with the camera held crookedly. Line cocked her head to study the
screen: blue wall, kitchen worktop with dirty glasses and plates, wall cabinet in
the same colour as the walls, white enamel cooker with three rings, kitchen sink and
slop sink in stainless steel.

‘I’ve seen that kitchen before,’ Line said. ‘I know where Cecilia Linde was held.
It was at Jonas Ravneberg’s farm.’