Nina Jebsen drove steadily, never exceeding two kilometres above the speed limit.
He leaned back in the seat. – From what I know about the Ylva Richter case so far, it’s worth the price of the air fare at least. And it’s so bloody lovely here.
With a glance up at the peaks surrounding the town he added: – And not a single drop of rain.
– Pretty soon the weather’s going to be just as bad wherever we live, she answered. – In town here the architects have started designing buildings for a sea level two metres above what it is today.
To avoid people asking questions, Nina Jebsen didn’t introduce him to anyone. Roar was led up to the third floor of the Bergen police headquarters and into a tiny office that was remarkably similar to his own.
Nina Jebsen closed the door behind them. – I’m working on three or four cases. No one knows that this isn’t an interview in connection with one of those.
– Am I a witness or a suspect?
– Hard to say. She handed him a folder. – A summary of the Ylva Richter case. I suggest you read that first.
Three quarters of an hour later, he’d got the main outline. Ylva Richter, then nineteen years old, grew up in Fana, south of the city. Father a business lawyer, mother a textile artist. Two younger siblings. No reports of any problems in the family. Clean sheet for both parents, nothing except a number of convictions for speeding for the father. Ylva had finished at secondary school that year, marks were good; she’d started at business college but was still living at home. Active member of the swimming club, some success in the national championships at junior level. Apparently a popular girl, always surrounded by friends. Some boyfriends at secondary school but for the time being unattached. The circles she moved in could be described as constructive and healthy though inevitably with some use of recreational drugs. No one in her crowd with a criminal record. One boy treated for a psychological problem but not regarded as unstable.
On the evening of Friday 15 November 2003, Ylva Richter took the bus from the bus station in the centre of Bergen after spending an evening in town with some girlfriends. She had her own car but wasn’t using it that evening as she knew she would be drinking alcohol. Last seen by the bus driver who dropped her off at the stop nearest her home. The time was then 00.30. Other passengers confirmed this. She did not arrive home and the police were contacted at two o’clock, after the father had gone down to the bus stop to look for his daughter. A patrol car was sent but the full-scale alarm not sounded till the following morning.
Five days later they found her in a wood about twenty kilometres north-east of where she lived, handcuffed, gagged and tied to a tree. She was naked. Her clothes were found later under a pile of heather some distance away. Marks from a heavy blunt object on the temple on one side of the head, a stone possibly, but the blows were not fatal. Probably done before she was dragged into a car. There followed an extensive account of the damage done to her eyes, which had been repeatedly penetrated with a pointed object, possibly a screw. She did not appear to have been sexually assaulted. The conclusion was that she had frozen to death.
The investigation had been extremely thorough. Over five hundred interviews with witnesses. Nina Jebsen had gathered together the most important ones. Parents, siblings, friends, bus driver, passengers. According to one girlfriend, Ylva described an odd experience she had on the way to the bar where they were to meet. Somebody had approached her in Torgalmenningen Square and offered her a tin opener or corkscrew. It was one of the many unexplained details in the case, and Roar was sufficiently struck by it to flip back to the description of the damage done to the eyes. All registered sex and violent offenders who were thought potentially interesting were interviewed, and a couple were given the formal status of suspects; in the case of one of them, an arrest was considered but then dropped. Naturally the case was not shelved, but the chances of solving it were considered minimal to non-existent.
While Roar read, Nina Jebsen had logged on to her computer and punched away rapidly at the keyboard. Once he was finished and laid the folder back on her desk, she wound things up, closed the document and turned towards him. Before she could ask him what he thought, he said:
– Let’s talk to the parents first, then discuss things afterwards.
The Richter family house lay in an affluent suburb just south of the city. The man who opened the door and introduced himself as Richard Richter was of medium height with thin grey hair that was smoothed back with gel or hair cream. He smelled slightly of alcohol, Roar noted, as he and Nina Jebsen were admitted to the living room.
Anne Sofie Richter entered carrying a tray with a coffee pot and cups. She was slender and suntanned, with her hair dyed dark. She put the cups out for them, seemed alert, her movements quick.
Roar was well prepared. As they sat down, he said: – Apologies if any old wounds are ripped open here. We would much prefer not to have to put you through this again.
Richard Richter remained standing at the foot of the table. – Horvath, wasn’t it? Let me tell you, Horvath, that the wounds have never healed, if that is what you are talking about. Just yesterday I found myself recalling the last conversation I had with her. I drove her into town that night. She turned and looked at me with that smile that was like no other smile; she said see you, thanks a lot, and that was the last I ever saw of my daughter.
He fell silent for a few moments.
– The rest is what happens in our imagination, he continued, struggling to control his voice. – We’ve got off the bus with her, walked from the crossroads where you turned off and up the hill. We’ve imagined the car there waiting, because we’re certain about that, someone must have been waiting for her, and we have driven with her in the car out to the place in which she was found.
Roar glanced over at the wife. She sat there smiling like a doll, just as she had done ever since they arrived. Occasionally she nodded as her husband spoke for them both.
– I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this is something we go through every day. So your coming here and asking questions is not going to open anything at all, because nothing ever closed.
Again Richard Richter fell silent. Roar said:
– You will understand, of course, that I haven’t made the trip from Oslo without good reason. But we need to avoid raising any false hopes of getting answers to the many questions you still have. There may be a connection to another case we’re working on, and we want to know as much as possible about the very thorough groundwork our colleagues in Bergen have already done in investigating what happened to Ylva.
He hadn’t intended to use her name, but now it was done, and neither parent seemed to react. There was no reaction either to his words of praise for the work done by the Bergen police.
– No stone must be left unturned. All of them, and not just once, but many times.
A cough from Richard Richter seemed to suggest that he had had enough of the speech-making.