‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t intervene in your life. We do a job. It’s only a job.’ She could hear her voice was about to fail her and hurried to add the rest: ‘And of course you’re right. There must be rules and limits. Goodbye.’
‘Beate. .’
‘Sleep well, Harry.’
‘Beate Lønn.’
Beate had already opened the front door, trying to get out, out before he could see the tears in her eyes. But Harry stood right behind her holding a hand against the door. His voice was next to her ear.
‘Have you wondered how the murderer got the officers to go voluntarily to their old crime scenes on the same date as the murder was committed?’
Beate let go of the door handle. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I read newspapers. I read that Nilsen had gone to Tryvann in a Golf that was left in the car park, and they were his footprints in the snow down to the ski-lift hut. And that you had CCTV images from a petrol station in Drammen showing Anton Mittet alone in his car before his murder. They knew police had been killed in exactly this way. Yet they still went.’
‘Of course we’ve wondered about that,’ Beate said. ‘But we haven’t found the right answer. We know they were called from phone booths not far from the crime scenes, so our guess is they knew who it was and this was their chance to catch the murderer on their own.’
‘No,’ Harry said.
‘No?’
‘Forensics found an empty gun and a box of ammo in Anton Mittet’s glove compartment. If he had thought the murderer was there he would have at least loaded the gun first.’
‘He might not have had the time and the murderer struck before he could open the glove compartment and-’
‘He was called at 22.31, but he filled up with petrol at 22.35. So he had time after he’d received the call.’
‘Perhaps he ran out of petrol?’
‘Nope. Aftenposten has put the petrol station video online under the heading: “THE LAST IMAGES OF ANTON MITTET BEFORE HE WAS EXECUTED”. It shows a man filling up for only thirty seconds before the pump trigger clicks, meaning the tank is full. So Mittet had plenty of petrol to get to the crime scene and back home, which in turn means he wasn’t in any hurry.’
‘Right. So he could have loaded the gun, but he didn’t.’
‘Tryvann,’ Harry said. ‘Bertil Nilsen also had a gun in the glove compartment of his car. Which he didn’t take with him. Accordingly we have two officers with experience of murder cases who turn up at unsolved crime scenes even though they know a colleague has recently been murdered in this way. They could have armed themselves, but they didn’t and apparently they had plenty of time to do so. Veteran policemen who have stopped playing the hero. What does all this tell you?’
‘OK, Harry,’ Beate said, turning, leaning back against the door and shutting it, ‘what should it tell us?’
‘It should tell you that they didn’t think they were going to catch a murderer there.’
‘Well, so they didn’t think that. Perhaps they thought it was a rendezvous with a beautiful woman who got a kick out of having sex at crime scenes.’
Beate meant this as a joke, but Harry answered without batting an eyelid. ‘Not enough notice.’
Beate considered the matter. ‘What if the murderer pretended to be a journalist interested in talking about other unsolved cases in the wake of these? And told Mittet he wanted to talk late at night to get the right atmosphere for the photographs?’
‘It takes a bit of an effort to get to the crime scenes. At least to Tryvann it does. I read that Bertil Nilsen drove from Nedre Eiker, which is a thirty-minute drive. And serious police officers don’t volunteer their time in order to give the press another shocking murder headline.’
‘When you say they don’t volunteer their time, do you mean. .?’
‘Yes, I do. My guess is they thought it was work.’
‘And it was a colleague ringing?’
‘Mm.’
‘The murderer rang them, pretending to be a policeman working at the crime scene because. . because it was a potential scenario for the cop killer to strike next time and. . and. .’ Beate rubbed the uniform button in her ear. ‘. . and said he needed their help to reconstruct the original murder!’
She could feel herself smiling like a schoolgirl who had just given the teacher the right answer, and she blushed like one when Harry laughed.
‘We’re getting warmer. But with the restrictions on overtime I’d imagine Mittet would have been surprised to be summoned in the middle of the night and not during working hours.’
‘I give up.’
‘Oh?’ Harry said. ‘What kind of call from a colleague would make you go anywhere at all in the middle of the night?’
Beate smacked her forehead. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘We’ve been such idiots!’
18
‘What are you saying?’ Katrine said, shivering in the cold gusts of wind as they stood on the steps outside the yellow house on Bergslia. ‘He rings his victims and says the police murderer has struck again?’
‘It’s as simple as it’s brilliant,’ Beate said, confirming the key fitted, turning it and opening the door. ‘They get a call from someone pretending to be a detective. He says he wants them at the crime scene right away because they know all about the previous murder and they need information to see if it can help them to make the correct decisions while the evidence is still fresh.’
Beate went in first. She knew her way around of course. It was more than a cliché to say forensics officers never forgot a crime scene. She came to a halt in the living room. The sunlight fell from the window and lay in crooked rectangles on the bare, evenly faded wooden floor. It must have been sparsely furnished for years. The family had probably taken most of it with them after the murder.
‘Interesting,’ said Ståle Aune, who had taken up a position by a window overlooking the forest between the house and what he assumed to be Berg School. ‘The murderer uses the hysteria he has created himself as bait.’
‘If I got a call like that I would consider it very plausible,’ Katrine said.
‘And that’s why they go there unarmed,’ Beate continued. ‘They think the danger’s over. That the police are already in position, so they can take their time and fill up with petrol on the way.’
‘But,’ Bjørn said with his mouth full of Wasa cracker and caviar, ‘how does the murderer know the victim won’t ring a colleague and find out there isn’t any murder?’
‘Presumably the murderer has told them not to talk to anyone until further notice,’ Beate said, eyeing the crumbs falling on the floor with disapproval.
‘Also plausible,’ Katrine said. ‘Experienced police officers wouldn’t be taken aback by that. They know it’s important to keep a suspicious death quiet for as long as possible.’
‘Why is it important?’ Ståle Aune asked.
‘The murderer might drop his guard when he thinks the body hasn’t been found,’ Bjørn said and sank his teeth into another bit of the crispbread.
‘And Harry reeled all this off just like that?’ Katrine asked. ‘After reading the newspapers?’
‘He wouldn’t be Harry otherwise,’ Beate said, hearing the tram rattle past across the road. From the window she could see the roof of Ullevål Stadium. The windows were too thin to shut out the drone of traffic from Ring 3. And she remembered how cold it had been, how they had frozen in their white overalls. But also how she had formulated the idea that it hadn’t only been the temperature that had made it impossible to be in this room without shivering. Perhaps that was why it had been vacant for so long. Potential tenants or buyers could still feel the cold. The chill of the stories and rumours circling at that time.
‘Fair enough,’ said Bjørn. ‘He’s worked out how the murderer lures the victim. But we already knew they’d gone there willingly, under their own steam. So it’s not exactly a quantum leap in the investigation, is it?’