The Hunting Dogs (29 page)

The double newspaper stand in the reception area of the
VG
building was almost empty. The editor had crammed as much information as possible
into two lines of front-page caption.
Murderer charged again. Kept third kidnap victim alive.
Different sizes of font had been used so that
alive
was what caught the eye. The familiar photograph of Linnea Kaupang was placed so
no one could be in any doubt about who was
alive
. In the main picture she had her back turned, blankets round her shoulders, on her
way into an ambulance, the camera flash bright on police uniforms. Line’s name was
printed in small letters under the lower edge.

The editorial office hushed when she entered. Journalists who seldom lifted their
eyes from their computer screens turned towards her. The news editor at one end of
the room began to clap. The applause spread, followed by whistling and cheers. Joakim
Frost came out from his glass office and stood with his hands by his side, smiling
broadly. More from satisfaction at the circulation figures than recognition, Line
suspected.

When the spontaneous ovation from her colleagues subsided, she sat down behind a desk.
Frost approached her. ‘I’m pleased the news about your father didn’t get in the way
of the journalist in you,’ he said. ‘Fresh newspapers come every day. Readers soon
forget. What we wrote about yesterday, no one remembers tomorrow; by then there are
new villains or heroes on the front page.’

He made the accusations against her father sound trivial.

‘Now we need a follow-up,’ Frost continued. ‘Everyone’s trying to get hold of Linnea
Kaupang, but you were the one who rescued her from the cellar. Line, can you take
Harald or Morten with you and do an interview?’

Line shook her head. ‘I’m busy with another story. Morten P and Harald are busy too.’

‘I don’t think you quite understand,’ Frost said. ‘This i
s
the story.’

‘No, it’s not! Morten P has just received confirmation that the Ministry of Justice
is about to bring a summary dismissal case against a chief constable. I’m going to
write about the reasons …’ She produced an old-fashioned cassette tape from her bag.
‘… And this will be a story that isn’t based on speculation and assumption.’

The sky had been clear since early morning, but grey clouds had formed and it was
now overcast and dark. William Wisting left his car and gazed up at the autumn sky
and a large, black bird that wheeled repeatedly before landing on a mountain ledge,
screeching hoarsely. A raven in the mountains had given the little smallholding the
name
Ravneberg
.

Frank Robekk was already standing beside the turf house situated where the river curved
past what had once been pasture. The tiny building was a small smokehouse with a hole
in the roof for the smoke to escape, almost like a Sami
lavvo
. Rudolf Haglund had built it. Above the fireplace he had hung eels and fish to absorb
the taste of smoke from burning juniper bushes.

Wisting opened the narrow door. The acrid smell of smoke permeated the walls. This
was what Rudolf Haglund had smelled of at their first meeting in the interview room.
Exactly as Cecilia had described on the tape: an unpleasant smell came from him, of
smoke, but also something else.

The crime scene examiners had been busy for several hours following the directions
Haglund had given Wisting during their interview. It was too cramped to hold them
all. The men in white suits left to make room for Wisting and Frank Robekk.

Where the fireplace had been, a pit had been dug. Gradually, the remains of the young
woman buried there had been unearthed: brittle knucklebones, a cracked skull. Fragments
of fabric and remnants of a shoe had been placed in a plastic bowl.

‘How long …?’ Robekk asked, clearing his throat. ‘How long did he hold her prisoner?’

‘Seven days,’ Wisting said.

The muscles in Frank Robekk’s face contracted. He picked the remains of what looked
like a belt buckle out of the plastic bowl.

‘He used a pillow,’ Wisting explained quietly.

‘It would have been better if he had thrown her into a ditch,’ Robekk said, brushing
earth from the buckle belonging to the young girl whose uncle he had been. ‘Like Cecilia.
Then we would at least have known where she was.’

‘That was different for him,’ Wisting said, using Haglund’s own words. ‘Letting us
find Cecilia was a diversion to stop us looking for the hiding place.’

He stepped outside, giving Robekk time on his own. An unmarked police vehicle parked
beside his own car at the farmhouse and Christine Thiis and Nils Hammer trudged down
the grassy slope, Hammer carrying a folded newspaper. Wisting could see part of the
front page where Audun Vetti’s face was splashed.

‘The investigators from the Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs picked
him up for interview this morning,’ Christine Thiis said. ‘The public prosecutor has
charged him.’

Hammer walked towards the crime scene technicians. Christine Thiis put her hand into
her coat pocket. ‘You should have this back,’ she said.

He accepted his badge, turning it over in his hand, noticing how worn it was at the
edges, how it had come unglued at one corner. For four days, he had not been a police
officer. He had not only lacked his accustomed authority, he had also been accused
of breaking the law. He had always thought what made him a good detective was his
ability to see more than one side of a case. This was the first time he had actually
been there. On the other side.

He ran his thumb over his picture, feeling the scratches on the little plastic cover.
The photograph was old. He had looked better then. His hair had been thicker and darker,
and his cheeks fuller, but he was a better policeman now. His hand closed tightly
round it.