No Echo Page 18

  “As far as I can see,” Hanne continued, “there’s nothing in Brede Ziegler’s stomach contents to suggest he’d drunk wine before he died. Which leads us to a pretty logical conclusion. He’d been on a real bender the night before. Such a hell of a booze-up that he was still intoxicated on Sunday night. Maybe he was with someone. The killer, for example. One of them, at least. To me it sounds strange that Brede Ziegler had drunk wine on Sunday afternoon or evening. He must have had quite a stomach ache. It’s true that some of the information in this case indicates that Ziegler had an unusually high pain threshold, but drinking wine if you’ve got a pain in your gut? Think not. Do we know anything about Brede Ziegler’s whereabouts on Saturday evening?”

  The room went totally quiet. Billy T. had not looked in Hanne’s direction since she had entered the room. Now he stared demonstratively in the opposite direction. Karianne Holbeck’s face took on a fascinating shade of puce.

  “We’ve mostly, most of all, we’ve …”

  She tried to obtain help from Billy T. as she scratched her ear and studied the shoe soles on the flip chart.

  “We don’t yet know where Brede was on Sunday evening before he was murdered,” Karianne continued, stuttering. “We’ve been concentrating on that. Sort of. It’s a mystery. No one has seen him, no one knows where he was. The only thing we do know is that he left his apartment at five to eight that evening. That’s according to the alarm system. The CCTV was switched off on that particular evening. There was some confusion about changing the cassette, so we don’t know anything about who went in and out of the apartment block after five o’clock that afternoon until late on Monday morning. We’ve concentrated on the Sunday, you see. That seemed to be more … pressing, in a sense. Most important to find out where he was and what he did on Sunday afternoon. Just before he died.”

  Her voice gathered strength as she spoke and broke into falsetto at “died.”

  “Billy T.?”

  He had no help to offer.

  “The body takes about an hour to eliminate an alcohol count of 0.3 in the blood,” Hanne said emphatically.

  She shouldn’t really lecture. Billy T. twisted round in his seat. Karianne could blush as much as she wanted; she was not responsible for this case going right down the pan. Billy T. took the blame for that.

  “It varies a little,” Hanne went on. “Depending on the speed of an individual’s metabolism, tolerance of alcohol, and that sort of thing. From the interviews I’ve gone through, it’s difficult to form an impression of Brede Ziegler’s relationship to alcohol. In any case, he was a fully grown man and we must assume that he had a certain tolerance. Let’s say, then, that at five o’clock, just by way of example, on Sunday morning …”

  She tilted her head to one side, looking reflective. Silje Sørensen was the only one looking at her. The others sat like pillars of salt with their faces averted. For a moment she was unsure whether they were actually listening.

  “At five o’clock on Sunday morning he must have had an alcohol count of 2.5 in his blood. Wasted, in other words. Then he would not be free of alcohol until very late on Sunday night. That reinforces your theory, Severin. About the Paracet definitely going to kill him, I mean. Besides, it makes us look like idiots for not finding out what the guy was doing on Saturday and Friday and Thursday … the entire week before he died.”

  Since no one spoke, she did not give a damn and pressed on: “We can outline a number of scenarios. Of course we could be talking about the most premeditated murder in the history of Norwegian crime. Somebody has got a whole lot of Paracet into Ziegler. The perpetrator becomes impatient because it actually takes time to die of paracetamol poisoning, and stabs the knife into him to hasten his death. Well.”

  She crossed over to the flip chart and tore off the sheet depicting the shoe soles.

  “Each and every one of you can decide for yourself the likelihood of such a modus. As for myself, I discard that theory right away. It’s too crazy. The combination of strength of purpose and almost childish impatience doesn’t add up. On the other hand, if we …”

  Silje Sørensen smiled. Hanne fixed her gaze on Silje’s mouth and felt her anger rise. It was one thing that Billy T. had more than good enough reason to be furious. It was another thing altogether to turn the whole team against her. Silje had obviously been immune. Her smile expressed a mixture of genuine interest and something approaching admiration. Hanne wheeled round and drew two genderless figures on the rough paper.

  “To some extent it’s pretty sensational that two people at one and the same time should get it into their heads that Ziegler must die. But taking the man’s extremely prominent media profile into consideration, compared with all the half-dead characters left at the roadside where this chef has driven past …”

  She stopped and clicked the fingers of her left hand.

  “Hello. Hel-lo!”

  Still only Silje looked up. Hanne let the seconds tick by. Severin Heger finally raised his face to hers. No one else.

  “Fine,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said crossly. “You take over, Billy T. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  She took her time resuming her seat. All the way down to the very foot of the table, on her own, with three empty chairs between her and Klaus Veierød, where she sat with her arms folded, eyeballing Billy T.

  “Well, well,” Severin Heger said with feigned cheerfulness. “Let’s take a closer look at our suspects, then.”

  “But, Annmari,” Silje said, obliging the Police Prosecutor to tear herself away from her notes for a moment or two. “If Hanne is right and we’re dealing with two different perpetrators here … The one behind the poisoning: can he be convicted of homicide? Brede Ziegler in actual fact died from the knife wound, and then of course the poisoning would only be an attempted murder or a—”

  “The finer legal points we can take up later,” Billy T. broke in. “Klaus! Have you discovered whether anyone’s missing a knife, one of these Masa … Masa-something-or-others?”

  “But shouldn’t we look at these first?” Silje ventured. “Shouldn’t we take a look at these suspects and—”

  “Have you?”

  Billy T. nodded at Klaus Veierød, who shook his head, obviously feeling extremely uncomfortable.

  “No one’s missing a knife like that so far. No one at Entré, anyway. I’ve checked eleven other restaurants as well. Nada. Everything points to the murder weapon actually being the knife Brede Ziegler himself bought on Saturday. But we must bear in mind that there are in fact a lot of ordinary people who also own such knives. They’re on sale to the public. Fucking expensive, but available on the open market.”

  “So, we’ve got a poison that’s accessible in every home, and a knife available on the open market,” Billy T. said in a sullen voice. “Bloody great! Anyone else with any valuable information to share with me?”

  Severin put his hand on Billy T.’s shoulder, but he dodged away.

  “We could just have a squint at the suspects,” Severin insisted, writing three headings on the flip chart. “Vilde. V-i-l-d-e.”

  “It’s beginning to dawn on her that she’s going to inherit a small fortune,” Karianne Holbeck said. “The little widow has been in touch with a lawyer, and there’s a bit of a rumpus about that partnership agreement we spoke about earlier. Apparently her rights are more extensive than we first thought.”

  “I know that,” Billy T. said. “I’ve talked to Claudio Gagliostro.”

  “In fact, I was the one who advised Vilde to contact a lawyer,” Karianne said quietly. “She was so desperate and—”

  “Maybe you could put off giving advice without thinking, until you’re dry behind the ears,” Billy T. commented. “Lawyers are the bloody last thing we need in this damn case. Anyway, I’ve spoken to Karen Borg myself.”

  At the mention of the lawyer’s name, he looked at Hanne Wilhelmsen for the first time: in undisguised triumph, since he was not alone among her former friends to turn his back on her. The tru
th was that he had not alluded to Hanne at all. It was a long time since the old gang of friends had stopped discussing her disappearing trick. Karen had no idea that Hanne had returned to Norway.

  “She came out with the same fucking mantra as all the other witnesses in this case. Duty of confidentiality.”

  His mouth twisted in an ugly grimace. His moustache had become more prominent in the past few days. Hanne noticed it had acquired a gray streak under his nose.

  “All in all, we can sum up by saying that Vilde Veierland Ziegler inherits the lot. The net proceeds, as Karen Borg called it, will be considerable.”

  “Okay then. Suspect number one.”

  Severin Heger drew a question mark at the end of Vilde’s name.

  “Motive? Yes. Alibi?”

  “She says she was in town with a girlfriend,” Karianne said. “That’s confirmed. They were at the Smuget nightclub from just before nine until around midnight. After that they went together to the bar at Tostrupkjelleren. Her friend went home at ten to one and Vilde stayed on for a while.”

  “That’s fine, then,” Severin said lamely. “So she’s got an alibi. And that’s been checked thoroughly?”

  “Well, I’m not sure about that,” Karianne said, drawing on a blank sheet of paper in exasperation. “I’ve spoken to her friend, and she confirms all of it.”

  “Confirms,” Billy T. roared. “What the fuck does that mean? Have you had this girlfriend – this … alleged girlfriend – in for questioning?”

  “I phoned her.”

  “Phoned?”

  Karianne tossed her pen down and roared back at him: “Now you’d better just cut it out, Billy T.! You need to stop talking to me as if I’m a second-rate piece of shit you’re forced to lug around with you! It might have been easier for all of us if we had a boss who knew his job. Have you, for example, told anyone that you’ve spoken to Karen Borg, until now, at this meeting? Up till now you’ve mentioned in passing that you’ve conducted an interview with Gagliostro, but where is it? Not in any of my paperwork, at least. I haven’t had a glimpse of any special report about the visit you and Severin paid to Niels Juels gate, either! Have you given me the slightest reason to concentrate the investigation on a skinny girl that the rest of us up till now haven’t been able to link to very much of a motive, apart from the unspecified value of a mortgaged apartment? You fool around with your own stuff and aren’t the tiniest bit interested in what the rest of us have found out. Yesterday, for example …”

  Now she turned to the others, as if giving testimony in a closed sect for unsuccessful police officers.

  “My group found out that the Alexander Schultz painting, which Mummy Johansen was so grateful her son had removed for aesthetic reasons, was subsequently sold at the Blomquist auction house. For one hundred and ninety thousand kroner. By Brede Ziegler. I submitted a special report on that to you, and you haven’t even mentioned it. Some boss and source of inspiration you are!”

  Now she was staring rebelliously at Billy T. and her cheeks were no longer red. Instead they were as white as a sheet and her eyes were shining. Her mouth trembled furiously as if she was about to burst into tears at any moment. Instead she ploughed on. Her rage was not simply a reaction to her superior officer’s surly behavior during the past hour. Billy T. had been a shitbag for more than six months, and Karianne Holbeck had reached saturation point.

  “This whole investigation is a scandal! I know that, you know that. Everybody in here knows that. Bloody hell, it won’t be long until everybody else knows that too. Do you read newspapers, Billy T.?”

  Hearing Karianne Holbeck swear was almost as shocking as her giving her superior officer a bawling-out in the presence of the entire team. Severin Heger sat with his mouth open. Klaus Veierød shuffled his feet on the floor and fiddled furiously with an unsightly wart on his left thumb. It started to bleed. Silje Sørensen looked down her nose at the spectacle and glanced slightly maliciously across at Hanne Wilhelmsen, who was still sitting with her arms crossed, not saying a word. Annmari Skar looked as if she wanted more than anything to pack up her papers and leave. The rest of the assembled company sat with their heads down, waiting for the storm to blow over.

  “Obviously not,” Karianne barked, holding that day’s copy of the VG newspaper in front of his face.

  The entire front page was dominated by a quote from a “centrally placed police source”: “We’re fumbling around aimlessly!”

  “They’re taking the piss out of us. And I really mean taking the piss out of us! With good reason, if I say so myself.”

  Karianne crashed back down on her chair, out of breath and deathly pale.

  Hanne Wilhelmsen was the only one who looked at Billy T. Age had added a bloated flabbiness to his face and shoulders. They had grown rounder and, paradoxically enough, his chest seemed less prominent under the slightly too-tight sweater. She tried to catch his eye, the way she always used to do at the time when everything was as it should be, and they were both for one and one for both. She wanted a truce. She wanted more than that and knew it was impossible; but a truce would help them both, and him not least. Here and now he was the one who needed her. He did not fix his eyes on anything in particular, only straight ahead in a silence you would think there was no room for, in this space where ten detectives and one police prosecutor struggled to grasp an investigation that had long ago run away from them. Ten days had elapsed since Brede Ziegler was killed, and the case was never going to be solved. Not like this. Not under Billy T.’s vacillating leadership and haphazard control. Hanne Wilhelmsen was the only person who looked at Billy T. He never lifted his eyes to meet hers.

  Thirty seconds ticked by, and then a minute.

  Hanne slowly rose to her feet. She walked behind the backs of Severin Heger, Klaus Veierød, and Billy T., hugging the wall to avoid touching any of them. Then she leaned down to Silje Sørensen’s ear. The young police officer listened intently, nodded, and disappeared out of the room at top speed. The noise when the door slammed behind her sliced brutally through the oppressive silence and made them all close their eyes. When they opened them again, Hanne had sat down on the back of a chair at the top of the table with her feet on the seat; she rested her elbows on her knees and stared earnestly at Severin Heger.

  “I’ve gone through all the papers in the case,” she said softly. “Read all the interviews, all the reports, gone through all the lists. I’ve been in Niels Juels gate. My special report is included as attachment sixteen-two in the case file. When I say this, it’s not to put anyone down. I’m saying it to encourage you. There’s a lot of good police work here. What’s gone wrong or …”

  The chair back creaked, but she remained seated. She formed a circle with her hands and held them up to her face.

  “The problem is focus. This case distinguishes itself from all others. As, of course, all cases do.”

  She tried to smile, but no one smiled back.

  “You … We have concentrated on establishing a motive. That’s usually a good idea. But in a case where we’re tripping over convincing motives wherever we turn, it might be a smart move to shift our focus. Instead of asking why, to get the answer who, we should really ask: why that particular place? Then we come closer to the answer who, by approaching it from a different angle.”

  “Eh?” Karl Sommarøy exclaimed, sucking on his dry pipe and putting down the knife he was continually playing with.

  “We ought to ask ourselves: why was Brede Ziegler murdered outside police headquarters? What was he doing there? Nothing indicates that the man was brought there after being killed. He died there and then. On the back steps of police headquarters. So he has gone there – gone into a park where very few of us would set foot after dark, gone into this park late on a Sunday night when he also, to all appearances, must have had severe stomach ache. Isn’t that really bloody weird?”

  Karianne Holbeck was the next one who caved in. She wrinkled her nose as she cocked her head.

  �
��Weird, yes … But there must be a logical explanation, if we can just find out who did it. Don’t you think?”

  “Definitely!”

  Hanne, no longer looking at Billy T., clapped her hands lightly, as if in ill-concealed glee at having an audience at last.

  “This Brede,” she continued, jumping down to the floor. “He’s a man … a man with no echo, none at all.”

  “With no echo?”

  Karianne shook her head, perplexed.

  “Yes! You can see it, Karianne! Think about it! You’re the one who’s had responsibility for coordinating these witness interviews, and you’ve actually done a pretty good job of that, but you have to …”

  Leaning over the table toward Karianne, she lowered her voice.

  “Look at the big picture. You’re frustrated because you can’t find a big picture. Everything’s spread out. Some people idolized Ziegler. Others detested him. Some hated him, some admired him. Some individuals claim he was a cynical, evil alcoholic. Others say he was cultured, well educated, and competent. You’ve dug down into all of this and let yourself become frustrated. Instead of that, lift your eyes! What sort of profile is it that we can actually see? A man with no sounding board! A man who … If you call out to him, you get—”

  “No response,” Klaus Veierød said thoughtfully. “But that hardly leads us any closer to an answer as to what the fuck the guy was doing on our back stairs late one freezing-cold Sunday night.”

  “Maybe not,” Hanne said. “But maybe, all the same. My point is first and foremost that it’s about time to conclude. At least as far as concerns what sort of guy this famous chef really was. What do we call people who are characterized in such widely diverging descriptions as Brede Ziegler?”

  She looked from one to the other and threw out her arms in expectation of an answer.

  “An exciting sort,” Karianne said tentatively, and Hanne shrugged.

  “Psychopath,” Severin Heger added in a quizzical tone.

  “Erratic,” Klaus Veierød stipulated, more enthusiastic now, and he had begun to make notes for the first time during the meeting.