The Hunting Dogs (7 page)

Line let the hot water run in the shower. At the very least, it would relax her body,
loosening the tension in her shoulders. She stood in the spray for some considerable
time before soaping herself and rinsing off.

The towel was damp and cold from the quick shower she had taken before going to bed
for only four hours’ sleep. She used it to dry her hair as she stood, naked, facing
the mirror, tilting her head and studying herself from various angles. She let her
hands slide over her torso. Everything looked and felt smooth and firm – arms and
legs, breasts and stomach, hips and thighs.

A large bruise was forming on her right hip. She twisted first left and then right,
catching sight of the marks caused by the rake, but not all of them. An idea struck
her, and she lifted her mobile phone from the bedside table before standing in front
of the mirror once again. The display showed an unanswered call from her father.

Opening the camera function, she took a picture of her reflection. Only then did she
gain a proper overview. A couple of iron tines had punctured her skin, and small scabs
formed over the wounds. Apart from that, she had escaped with a row of ten yellowy-blue
roses. She put down the phone and leaned into the mirror to study her face. Her left
eye was black and swollen but, thankfully, her nose looked absolutely fine.

The police had announced they would hold a press conference at ten o’clock. She would
buy herself a pair of sunglasses and find some fresh clothes. Wrapping herself in
a towel, she perched on the windowsill of her hotel room. Higher than the surrounding
buildings, she had a view of house roofs down towards a river that seemed too diminutive
to be the Glomma. The weather remained the same, wind and rain. She pressed
call
and her father answered immediately. The background noise told her he was in his
car, probably on his way to his office.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘I’m sure I’ll get through it. I’m more concerned about you. You, Thomas and Suzanne,
and your grandfather.’

‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘No?’ She tucked her legs underneath herself. ‘You aren’t by any chance in Fredrikstad?’
he asked.

‘I am indeed,’ she answered, reading his mind and bursting into disarming laughter.

The background noise on the phone line subsided, and she guessed that he had pulled
up. ‘What happened?’ he asked seriously.

She told him the whole story, from the time she had left the editorial office in Oslo’s
Akersgata until she gave her written statement at the police station.

‘What are you doing now?’ he asked.

‘There’s a press conference at ten o’clock.’

‘Are you going on with the story?’

‘It’s my story now. I won’t give it up until the police have captured him, if I don’t
get hold of him myself.’

Her father groaned. ‘Line!’

‘Okay then, okay.’ It struck her that her father would be in charge of the morning
meeting at the police station beginning at eight o’clock, in seven minutes according
to the television clock. ‘I have to go now,’ she excused herself so that her father
would not have to terminate their conversation. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

‘Okay, but Line?’

‘Yes?’

‘I look good in that photo, don’t you think?’

She understood this was an attempt to stop her worrying.

‘Very good.’

‘There’s something that doesn’t add up,’ he said. ‘I’ll work it out if I can uncover
the background to these allegations.’

‘You’ll work it out,’ she reassured him, disconnecting the call.

In the bathroom she let her towel drop to the floor and combed her blonde hair with
her fingers.

She had a toilet bag and a change of clothes in the case she carried in the boot of
her car. Putting on a fresh pair of jeans she remembered the toy car, retrieving it
from the trousers she had been wearing the previous evening. An American car with
every detail and refinement included. She should have given it to the police, she
supposed, but had completely forgotten it. Perhaps the man had dropped it, but that
seemed unlikely. She flipped the tiny boot lid up and down before placing it on the
desk. She could use it later, an excuse to make contact with the investigating officers.

She fastened her bra and drew a turtle-necked sweater over her head. Then she lay
down on the bed with her laptop by her side. The online newspapers had all written
about her encounter with the killer; none had revealed her identity, but her name
appeared in the bye-line on the story
VG
ran about the actual murder, and it would not be difficult to read between the lines.

Her mobile phone lit up on the window ledge. The call was from Morten P, one of her
oldest colleagues in the crime section.

Crap newspaper we
work for. Hope you
’
re okay, and Wisting senior too
. Phone me if you
’
re up to talking about it
.

They had worked together many times, and she had learned a great deal from him. He
had a genuine commitment to his fellow human beings, a trait reflected both in what
he wrote and how he treated his colleagues. She invited him for coffee and the whole
rotten story once she could manage to sit down again.

Her own paper was the only news source not to write about the fake evidence in the
Cecilia case in their online edition. The other net newspapers quoted from the coverage
in their paper edition. She read her father’s brief comment that he had confidence
in the Criminal Cases Review Commission, and apart from that there was nothing except
what she already knew.

According to the article, there were two main issues in the petition from Henden,
the lawyer. New analyses could prove that the cigarette end containing Rudolf Haglund’s
DNA profile had been planted, and they had come up with a witness who had provided
an alibi. There was nothing about what types of analysis had been conducted, and Line
found it impossible to understand how it could lead to such a conclusion. There was
nothing about the identity of the new witness, or the alibi he had given Rudolf Haglund.

Biting her lower lip, thoughts identical to her father’s ran through Line’s mind.
Something did not add up.

The conference began at eight o’clock, a joint meeting for the officers coming on
dayshift to be informed about the previous day’s events and given instructions for
the day ahead. Last to arrive, Wisting sat at the head of the conference table. Few
met his gaze. Of those present only Nils Hammer had worked in the department at the
time of the Cecilia case.

‘Before we begin,’ he said. ‘I expect you’ve heard what’s going on in the Cecilia
case. I don’t know any more than is being reported. Sigurd Henden, the lawyer, made
an approach two months ago, requesting case files and investigation material. They
were dispatched from here that same week. Now we wait for the Criminal Cases Review
Commission. It’s up to them to decide whether the case should go back to law.’

One of the younger officers wanted to know what would be required for a retrial.

‘New evidence has to be presented or fresh information found, capable of leading to
an acquittal. Or one of the detectives working on the case might have done something
illegal.’

As he clarified the situation to his colleagues it dawned on him that the defence
lawyer could have a double motive; that the accusations against him would not only
figure in the press, but would also lead to an internal investigation. One would follow
the other.

He cleared his throat to show he was finished with that topic, and embarked on a chronological
review of the previous day’s operational log, dealing with routine matters: attempted
burglary, car theft, stray dogs and drugs misuse.

When the meeting was over, he descended to the basement and followed the corridor
to the door marked
Historical Archive
. He did not often venture here. When he occasionally required sight of an old case
the girls in the criminal cases office usually helped. The fluorescent light tubes
on the ceiling buzzed and flickered and the room was bathed in a blinding light.

Old case notes were stored in a huge sliding cabinet system. In some instances, the
standard cardboard archive box was too small, and these cases had been placed in large
portable containers stacked on shelves along the wall. There was an empty space on
one of the grey shelves. Beside it was a box marked
2735/95
–
Cecilia Linde. Copy transcripts,
Chief Investigator.

Lifting the box from the shelf, Wisting caught the slightly musty smell of old paper.
At the top lay a blue ring binder marked
Tip-offs.
He carried it with him along the row of shelves to another cardboard box.
2694/94
–
Ellen Robekk
, an even greater mystery. Eighteen-year-old Ellen Robekk had vanished into thin air,
just like Cecilia, but had never been found.

Frank Robekk had been her uncle and the case had destroyed his police career. The
feeling of inadequacy caused by being unable to help his own family became a wound
that would not heal, that eventually became infected. The day they placed Rudolf Haglund
in the cells, Frank had taken out the archive box dealing with Ellen’s disappearance,
reading the whole case over again, but this time with fresh eyes. Eyes that had seen
Rudolf Haglund.

When he had been through everything that had been written, he started again. And then
once more, and yet again. It had done something to him. The man who might have the
answer to his niece’s disappearance was within reach, but he could not find a link.

They had been unable to use Frank on any other investigations after he had started
this remorseless reading. He had been unable to pull himself together sufficiently
even to carry out simple tasks and, one month later, left the police station for the
last time, without finding any suggestion of a connection. Without finding an answer
he could give to his brother. Eventually, long-term sick leave was replaced by disability
pension.

Wisting visited him frequently at first, but later there were lengthier and lengthier
periods between visits, and at each visit Frank’s decline was more pronounced. The
last time had been a year ago.

His mobile phone began to ring in his pocket as he carried the cardboard box to the
upper floors. He did not answer until he had set the old files down in the middle
of his desk: four unanswered calls and three voicemail messages from numbers not stored
in his contacts list. Journalists, he assumed, who wanted him to comment on the case.

A couple of pigeons fluttered past his office window. A grey veil of drizzle covered
the fjord.

A fine layer of dust had formed on top of the cardboard box. He ran his hand across
the top folder, collecting the dust into a ball he rubbed between two fingers and
disposed of in the waste bin.

The blue ring binders contained details of tip-offs, while the green folders were
case documents with individual divisions for witnesses, police reports and criminal
technology examinations. A red binder labelled
Accused
on the spine held the interviews with Rudolf Haglund and all attendant information.
In addition, there was a black ring binder containing so-called null and void documents,
internal notes that did not accompany the case documents to the public prosecutor’s
office and were not included in the copy set forwarded to the defence team.

Wisting’s notebook from the case also lay inside the cardboard box, pushed down at
one side, a bound, hardback book, with his name written in the top right-hand corner.
He removed it and placed the box with the remaining documents on the floor before
shoving it under the desk and taking his seat.

At the front of the book was a colour A4 photograph of Cecilia Linde from a publicity
campaign for one of her father’s clothes collections, its white border yellowed by
time. The word
CANES
was written across her chest, with
Venatici
in slightly smaller writing beneath. This image had been used with the missing person
bulletin, which had been more effective than any advertising campaign. The entire
collection of
Venatici
sweaters had sold out in the course of that summer, but no further production had
followed.

Wisting leafed through the first few pages, revisiting his thoughts and reflections.
Experienced and jotted down hurriedly, they were nevertheless clearly presented. He
had spent months on this case, and the ring binders contained thousands of documents
he was impatient to delve into again. Something here must form the basis of the accusations.
Something still lay undetected.

Line had been only twelve years old when Cecilia vanished, but remembered the case
well. What she recollected best was that her father was almost never at home that
summer and their plans for a holiday in Denmark had come to nothing.

The search for Cecilia Linde produced 387 hits in
VG
’s text archive alone. The sheer volume of material made it difficult for her to find
her bearings. She arranged the responses in chronological order, starting with the
oldest.

The first news story referred to Cecilia Linde as a young girl who had been reported
missing after going out for a run. Her height, build and appearance were described,
and the article carried a photograph. The police encouraged members of the public
who had seen her to contact them. There was no reason to believe she had been the
victim of a crime, but all possibilities were open.

The next report dealt with the search, continually expanded in terms of manpower and
range. The following article contained a plea to everyone present in the area on the
afternoon of Saturday 15th July to come forward.

A recurrent feature of the reports was that she had disappeared without a trace. Eventually
the theory that she had been abducted was launched, and the police were questioned
about whether they had heard from the kidnappers, or if ransom demands had been received.
Line continued to skim. Her father, participating in the daily press conferences,
dismissed the idea that extortion was involved.

A longer story concerned Cecilia in personal terms. The newspaper had spoken to her
friends, a former teacher, neighbours. The daughter of one of the country’s most prosperous
businessmen, she worked in his fashion empire in the design department, but was also
a model.

The most clear-cut clue the police possessed was a white Opel Rekord that had been
parked at a crossroads Cecilia had, in all probability, run past. The driver, around
thirty years of age, had been wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, had thick, black
hair, a broad face, strong chin and close-set eyes. He was asked to turn himself in,
but did not appear to have made contact.

One of the headlines at the end of the first week aroused her curiosity.
Desperate search for Cecilia
.
The article described how police patrols throughout the whole of the Østland region
visited farms and smallholdings and that even members of the Emergency Squad were
called in. They had searched within a radius of up to seventy kilometres from the
location of her last sighting. The picture accompanying the report showed police checking
a smallholding at Rønholt in Bamble. Her father’s name was mentioned in one of the
final paragraphs. He would not give the reason for the large-scale search.

In an article two days later, the background was explained.
Dagbladet
broke the story.
VG
quoted them, but had obtained additional comments from a police lawyer. Cecilia Linde
had somehow smuggled out a tape which described what had happened. Line recollected
this as she read, not from the time when it occurred, but from conversations around
the table in the
Stopp Pressen
café-bar when her older colleagues chatted about historical news items. Cecilia Linde,
having taken a Walkman with her when she was out running, had recorded descriptions
of the perpetrator and where she was held captive.

Line jumped back and re-read her father’s dismissive comments about what was described
as a race against time, realising what had made him so taciturn. He had not wanted
the information about the Walkman out. That would have been like telling the kidnapper
they had a clue about where he was keeping the victim. If that went into print, they
risked him attempting to move her, or worse. The papers had got wind of it anyway.

She navigated her way forward through the chronological overview. Two days later,
Cecilia had been found dead.

The ancient newspaper articles had eaten up a lot of her time. Glancing at the clock,
she realised she would manage neither hotel breakfast nor the purchase of sunglasses
before the press conference. She closed her laptop. So much for seventeen years ago.
She would spend the rest of the day hunting for details of what had happened last
night.