Where Monsters Dwell (15 page)

Odd Singsaker,
police investigator

Jon Vatten,
suspected of murder for the second time

The scene is an interview room at police headquarters in Trondheim. The walls are white. On one wall there is a one-way mirror, which gives the impression that someone is always standing on the other side looking into the room, unless someone closes the Venetian blinds in front of the mirror, as Singsaker does before he sits down with Brattberg. Vatten is facing them, seated at the table, which has a white laminated top. He looks stressed. A digital voice recorder, Olympus brand, is switched on. Before the interview begins, Chief Inspector Singsaker receives two phone calls in quick succession. One is from his son Lars. The other is from Vlado Taneski at
Adresseavisen.
The detective declines to answer both calls and turns off his cell phone (which he should have done before the interview). The scene begins in silence following these interruptions.

Singsaker:
Interview of Jon Vatten, September 5, 2010. The purpose of the interview is to discuss the death of Gunn Brita Dahle. Vatten has the status of witness. [Looks at Vatten.] Just had to get through the formalities. Are you ready?

Vatten:
Yes.

Singsaker:
This is Gro Brattberg, my boss. She will be sitting in with us for parts of this interview.

Vatten:
Interview?

Singsaker:
Interrogation, if you like. But I remind you that for the time being you are considered only a witness. Naturally you have the right to decline to speak to us and to demand that an attorney assist you during the questioning. Do you think that’s necessary?

Vatten:
I have nothing to hide.

Singsaker:
Fine. We know each other from before, Vatten. Wouldn’t you say so?

Vatten:
You have questioned me before, yes.

Singsaker:
Do you have any objection to going back a bit in time, to that previous case?

Vatten:
I can’t see what that has to do with the present investigation.

Singsaker:
I think that it’s relevant, although not directly. But let’s not play to the gallery, here. This is the second time you have been involved in a serious case. The last time it was a disappearance. Now it’s a murder. I assume you realize that it’s important for the police to clarify whether there is some connection here or not. For your own sake, it’s also good to remove any misunderstandings.

Vatten:
I see. It’s just that I’ve made an effort to put that matter behind me.

Singsaker:
And have you managed to do that?

Vatten:
No, I certainly have not.

Singsaker:
Some things never lose their grip, I presume. I’d like to talk a bit about your bicycle.

Vatten:
My bicycle?

Singsaker:
Yes, that’s right. The day you got on the bus from Dragvoll five years ago and came home to find your wife and son missing. You rode your bicycle to work that morning, didn’t you?

Vatten:
Yes, I suppose I did.

Singsaker:
You did. I looked it up in the case file. What I don’t remember was whether we ever asked you specifically about why you didn’t ride it back.

Vatten:
I was drunk.

Singsaker:
Precisely. You got drunk after one glass of whisky. You’re hypersensitive to alcohol, isn’t that so?

Vatten:
Yes, that’s correct.

Singsaker:
So tell me, How does that work? Hypersensitive to alcohol. It’s not something you hear about every day. Teenage girls who get drunk after a bottle of beer, sure. But hypersensitive? Is that a medical diagnosis?

Vatten:
Not that I know of. But I’ve asked doctors about it, and there
is
a medical explanation. Or perhaps several.

Singsaker:
And what are they?

Vatten:
Apparently I lack one or more enzymes in my intestines. These enzymes prevent alcohol from being assimilated by the intestines. This makes most people react more to the third or fourth drink than they do to the first two. If you don’t have these enzymes, the alcohol goes straight into the bloodstream, starting with the very first drop. You mentioned teenage girls. Well, it’s been shown that women have fewer of these enzymes than men. So that’s why they get drunk faster. Teenage girls also tend to have a lower body weight than their older sisters.

Singsaker:
Vatten, you’re not a large man, but you’re certainly no teenage girl.

Vatten:
That’s true. In me it’s apparently the lack of these enzymes, combined with a number of other factors.

Singsaker:
Such as what?

Vatten:
Such as various physiological conditions. The biology of the brain. I honestly don’t know.

Singsaker:
So the fact that you get drunk after one glass of whisky is not something you can prove medically. Am I right?

Vatten:
If you want to take it to its logical conclusion, then yes. But don’t you think it’s odd that I would make up a story like that? It would have been easier for me to say that I’d had more than one glass and got drunk in the usual way.

Singsaker:
That’s something we can investigate, as you know perfectly well. If that’s what you claimed, where did you get the other glasses of whisky from? Your colleague? Or did you go and buy beer at the canteen in Dragvoll? We could have had those things checked.

Vatten:
I’m sure you could. But it would have been a lie. And I didn’t lie. You also found out back then that it wasn’t so important why I was sitting on that bus; the fact was that I was on the bus, and you never managed to disprove it.

Singsaker:
Are you saying that there was proof to the contrary?

Vatten (sighs heavily):
No, that’s not what I’m saying. I was sitting on that bus. Now I’ve voluntarily come in for an interview about a totally different matter. Maybe we should start talking about that instead.

Brattberg:
Yes, let’s do that. So it’s true that you were the one who found Gunn Brita Dahle dead in the book vault?

Vatten:
That’s correct. I found her, along with a colleague.

Brattberg:
And who was this colleague?

Vatten:
Siri Holm. A newly hired librarian.

Singsaker:
Why did the two of you go to the vault?

Vatten (after a brief pause):
We wanted to try out Siri’s new code.

Singsaker:
Siri’s new code?

Vatten:
Yes. As I told you at the scene, two codes are necessary to open the book vault. I have one and the librarians have the other.

Brattberg:
All the librarians?

Vatten:
No, just one trusted librarian.

Singsaker:
And this Siri Holm had just received such a code? She took it over after Gunn Brita Dahle? Dahle had already quit her job, isn’t that right?

Vatten:
That’s correct.

Singsaker:
But you said that Siri Holm was just hired. Was she supposed to take over from Dahle?

Vatten:
That’s also true.

Singsaker:
So that means it was her first day on the job?

Vatten:
Yes, officially.

Singsaker:
But perhaps she had been inside the library earlier?

Vatten:
I met her on Saturday.

Singsaker:
On Saturday. Wasn’t that also when you saw Gunn Brita Dahle?

Vatten:
That’s right; they were there together. Gunn Brita was giving her an orientation.

Singsaker:
I see. Is it normal for a newly hired employee such as Siri Holm to be entrusted with the code to the book vault?

Vatten:
No, it’s not. I don’t know why Hornemann gave it to her. But you never know what he’s going to do.

Singsaker:
Do you know exactly when Hornemann gave Siri Holm the code to the book vault?

Vatten:
I think it was Monday morning. Just before we opened it.

Singsaker:
This past Saturday, was that the first time you met Siri Holm?

Vatten:
Yes. She just graduated from library school in Oslo. She’s from eastern Norway.

Singsaker:
And you didn’t see her again until Monday morning?

Vatten:
Is that relevant?

Brattberg:
It’s important for us to map all movements throughout the weekend. We don’t yet know when the murder occurred.

Vatten:
I met her by chance on Sunday, when she was walking her dog on Kuhaugen. It turned out that she lived nearby, and she invited me home for tea.

Singsaker:
What time on Sunday was that?

Vatten:
In the morning. Maybe around twelve. I didn’t stay long.

Singsaker:
Why not, wasn’t the tea good?

Vatten:
There was nothing wrong with the tea. It was green tea.

Singsaker:
They say it’s supposed to be so healthy. Has a cleansing effect on the body. But back to Saturday. Did you drink anything that day?

Vatten:
Tea, then too. Tea and coffee.

Singsaker:
No, I mean, did you drink any alcohol?

Vatten:
I haven’t touched alcohol since that day five years ago.

Singsaker:
So when our technicians have combed through your office, they won’t find a drop of alcohol there, no empty bottles, no old spills on the floor?

Vatten:
I’m sure of it.

Singsaker:
And other places in the library, would it be possible to find any there?

Vatten:
Alcohol? I can’t answer that. It’s not common to drink on the job at the Gunnerus Library, but we don’t keep track of everything that people do.

Singsaker:
If I told you that we’ve just received a preliminary analysis of some red spots under the table outside the book vault, and that they proved to be red wine, what would you say?

Vatten:
I have nothing to say about that.

Singsaker:
Precisely. Just as I thought. There are surveillance cameras in the Gunnerus Library. Isn’t that so?

Vatten:
That’s correct. There are five cameras: one inside the book vault; one in the office wing; and one in Knudtzon Hall. Then there’s one in the reading room and one outside the main entrance.

Singsaker:
And your job is to monitor these cameras?

Vatten:
I’m in charge of the system. It doesn’t mean that I sit there and watch everything that happens. It’s recorded and stored on DVD. Then transferred to hard drives. We retain the recordings for six months before they have to be erased. The idea is that we should be able to refer to the recordings if anything illegal occurs.

Singsaker:
Such as now?

Vatten:
Yes, such as now.

Singsaker:
So when we’re finished here, would you accompany me to the library and help me gain access to these recordings?

Vatten:
Of course. But I’m afraid there won’t be any recordings from parts of the weekend.

Singsaker:
And why not?

Vatten:
Saturday I discovered that I’d forgotten to insert a new DVD when I removed the old one on Friday. So the system recorded nothing between Friday and Saturday evening.

Singsaker:
Saturday evening. Didn’t you say you were in the library on Saturday morning?

Vatten:
I stayed there until evening. Sometimes I sit and read for a while.

Singsaker:
And when were you planning to tell us about this? You’re saying that you were in the library during a large period of the time when the murder may have been committed?

Vatten:
I was sitting in a completely different part of the library. I couldn’t have seen anything that happened in the administrative wing.

Singsaker:
Where were you sitting?

Vatten:
Up in the stacks.

Singsaker:
In the stacks?

Vatten:
Where the books are stored. I like to read. That’s how I spend my afternoons. I’m a single man. Is there anything wrong with that?

Singsaker:
Not really. But why didn’t you mention it the first time I spoke with you?