The Lion's Mouth (29 page)
Authors: Anne Holt
Something niggled at her, but she could not quite put her finger on it. The guard. Benjamin Grinde. Birgitte Volter. All dead within a single week. One had been murdered with a revolver. One had been killed in a natural disaster. And one had probably committed suicide; at least that was what Billy T. had whispered to her when he had tumbled into bed beside her at about four o’clock that morning. He told her that the man had been found stretched out in his bed, with an empty pill bottle sitting neatly on the bedside table next to him.
Fishing out a pen from her handbag, Hanne placed the dirty plate on a neighboring table and drew a triangle on her napkin. Grinde, the guard and Volter were each allocated a corner. Underneath, she sketched a shawl, a revolver, a pass and a pillbox. The answer lay there. She knew that the answer was right there.
She let the pen run from object to person, from person to object, and her head began to ache as the lines became an untidy and incomprehensible pattern. She had been prone to serious headaches ever since 1993, when she had been knocked unconscious outside her own office during an investigation into a scandalous case involving prominent politicians, attorneys and members of the Intelligence Service, all of whom were mixed up in dealing narcotics.
She swallowed two Paracet tablets with the last drop of her milk.
Kveldsavisen
had adopted a strident tone. The political section was at last beginning to take an interest in Little Lettvik’s crusade, and out of everything in the six pages devoted to the case, the political comment was the most noteworthy.
CAN WE TOLERATE THE TRUTH?
Norway as a nation has been wounded in the past week by dramatic events unprecedented in our post-war history. Last Friday Prime Minister Birgitte Volter was found murdered in her office. Yesterday evening, a Supreme Court judge was found dead in his home, in mysterious circumstances.
Of course, we can look at these incidents from a variety of perspectives. Some might shrug them off, noting simply that even eminent people can be victims of violence in this increasingly violent society of ours, a trend our politicians seem powerless to stop. Such a conclusion would be naïve and would appear to be covering matters up rather than shedding light on them.
During the past week, the Norwegian press has produced countless theories implying that international terrorist organizations could have picked out a Norwegian Prime Minister as a target. However, by focusing too much on this possibility, we are in danger of closing our eyes to explanations closer to home.
This newspaper was the only one to investigate the circumstances of Birgitte Volter’s death. We have not contented ourselves with dutifully repeating the sparse details of the official press releases that the police have seen fit to share with the public.
Through our painstaking work, we have been able to reveal that Benjamin Grinde was probably the last person to see Volter alive. We have disclosed that, for several hours, he was actually accused of the crime. Later, we were able to establish that there were very close ties between Judge Grinde and the Prime Minister.
Today we are able to reveal that the Grinde Commission has uncovered an extremely irregular situation in the Norwegian Health Service. The critical question now is: are the politicians, press and police brave enough to draw the necessary conclusions from these new revelations?
A situation like this is an important test for a state governed by the rule of law. If we are to pass this test, we have to take for granted the independence of the press, police, courts of law, and politicians. It requires, first and foremost, a press that is willing to seek the truth and to speak out, unconstrained by the established authorities.
We must learn from the experiences of other countries that have undergone similar national traumas. Eleven years ago, Sweden suffered a serious blow when Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot and killed on a public street. In the beginning, the investigation concentrated almost exclusively on the so-called Kurd lead. Other possibilities were not evaluated until it was too late. The investigation has suffered from a lack of professionalism and fixed theories. The result is that Sweden will probably never solve its national murder mystery.
Recently, Belgium has been shaken by a pedophile scandal with connections that reach far inside the police force, and in all likelihood into political circles as well. The powers that be have been so close to one another that it has been entirely possible to undermine the investigation of grotesque crimes. When it has been convenient to do so …
We must be on our guard to ensure that this does not also happen in our country.
The information that
Kveldsavisen
can today exclusively reveal to the Norwegian people indicates that the spike in infant mortality in 1965 was probably caused by a serious error on the part of the government. Vaccines dispensed by the National Institute of Public Health proved to be lethal, for perhaps many hundreds of children. Wholesale death was distributed and administered by a national directorate.
The top politician in the country and the chair of the investigating commission obviously had a meeting about this matter just over a week ago. Now they are both dead.
Are we willing to look the truth in the eye?
For the first time in ages, Hanne Wilhelmsen felt like a smoke. The proprietor of the little café where she sat had clearly never heard of the anti-smoking law, since its five other customers were all puffing cigarettes.
The health scandal had only just flared up in the press when she’d left for the USA. She knew of course that Grinde was to investigate the case, and that he had paid Volter a visit on the day she died. But did this have anything to do with her homicide?
Once more she stared at her napkin. The pattern was more indistinct than ever. She carefully drew a little cross above the security guard, then emphasized the line between Benjamin Grinde and Birgitte Volter, making a hole in the soft paper. However, it was as though the guard refused to disappear. She scribbled him out, but then the drawing was somehow wrong. There was something there. She simply could not work out what it was. Her headache returned, and she could not take any more painkillers.
“Hanne! Hanne Wilhelmsen!”
A man slapped her on the head with a newspaper. Quick as a flash, she shielded herself with her arm, before her face broke into an enormous smile.
“Varg! What are you doing here? Sit yourself down!”
The man threw his voluminous, well-worn overcoat over the back of the chair with practiced ease as he sat down. Then he placed his forearms on the table, clasped his hands and gazed at her.
“Unbelievable. You get prettier and prettier with every year that passes.”
“What are you doing so far from Bergen? I thought you only ventured away from the beautiful city of the seven mountains with the greatest of reluctance?”
“I’m on a case. A really strange case. A runaway boy nobody wants, but who seems to be extremely active in IT. The children’s
services are continually finding traces of him on the internet, but they have no idea where he is. And he’s only twelve years old.”
Waving toward the café owner, he ordered coffee.
“Have tea instead,” Hanne whispered.
“No way. I need my coffee in the morning. And what about you? What are you doing these days?”
Varg and Hanne did not recall how they had come to know each other. He was a private detective who seldom visited Oslo. They had some very distant acquaintances in common, and had bumped into each other professionally on a couple of occasions. They had liked each other immediately, which had surprised them both.
“I’m actually on leave,” Hanne said, without divulging anything further. “But I’m busy nevertheless, and taking an interest in this Volter case. Impossible not to.”
“Remarkable, all that stuff in the newspaper today,” he said, nodding toward the disarray of papers on the table. “This health scandal really looks as though it will be major.”
“I haven’t actually managed to read much yet,” Hanne responded. “What’s it all about?”
“Well,” he began, waving impatiently for his coffee, “it appears that an abnormal number of children died of so-called ‘sudden infant death syndrome.’ In all probability, that’s a kind of stock diagnosis used when all other causes of death have been excluded. All the children received the same type of triple vaccine. It was given at the age of three months. It turns out that this vaccine was …”
He fumbled to pick up the copy of
Kveldsavisen
, and leafed through it eagerly, licking his finger at regular intervals.
“… contaminated. Here it is: ‘It probably has to do with a derivative that formed in the preserving agent. A derivative resembles the active ingredient in the vaccine but has a totally different
effect. It may have attacked the children’s hearts, and caused them to stop beating.’”
“Let me see,” Hanne said, grabbing the newspaper.
She was engrossed for a few minutes, and Varg was halfway through his cup of coffee before she looked up again.
“This is really terribly serious,” Hanne said softly, folding up all the newspapers. “They don’t even know where the vaccine was purchased.”
“No, that’s the main point. This commission has obviously asked that it be allowed to undertake investigations in foreign archives to try to get to the bottom of it. The records here in Norway seem to be deplorably deficient. The likelihood is that the vaccine was produced in some uncivilized country where they did not have satisfactory hygiene procedures.”
He drank the rest of his coffee, then stood up abruptly.
“I have to go. But, Hanne …” He hesitated for a second before saying with a smile, “I’ll be fifty in August. Why don’t you make a trip over the mountains? I’ve decided to have a bit of a celebration.”
“I’ll be in the States,” Hanne replied apologetically, opening her arms. “But congratulations all the same! See you sometime!”
He threw on his coat and headed off. Hanne tore out a sheet of paper from her diary and drew her triangle again. Volter–Grinde–guard. In the article it had stated that Health Minister Ruth-Dorthe Nordgarden had given assurances that the matter would be taken extremely seriously, and that the necessary authorization and resources for the investigations into foreign leads would be forthcoming. Hanne hesitated slightly before putting the initials RDN between Grinde and Volter. Suddenly the guard did not seem so important: his presence on the paper interfered with a new triangle connecting the other three. If Benjamin Grinde had killed himself, why had he done so? If it had something to do with the health scandal, she could not see
the logic in it. He should really have considered it a feather in his cap that he had discovered the root cause. It was true that the headlines in recent days must have been extremely uncomfortable for him, but to commit suicide …
Now her headache was unbearable. Suddenly she drew a large cross through the whole picture, and tore it to shreds.
“There’s really no rhyme or reason to this,” she said to herself as she headed out the door to see if some fresh air would do the trick.
Once outdoors, she tapped a number into her cell phone. Without introducing herself, she asked, “Can we meet up tonight?”
Only seconds later, she wrapped up the conversation. “Fine. Seven o’clock. At Tranen restaurant in Alexander Kiellands plass.”
Then she pressed Billy T.’s number.
“Hi, it’s me. You’ll be on your own again tonight. I’ve got a dinner date.”
“Is this off the record or on the record if Cecilie phones and asks for you?” Billy T. laughed at the other end.
“Idiot. I’ve a meeting with Deep Throat. You can tell
that
to Cecilie.”
Now her headache was excruciating. Holding her fingers to her forehead, she decided to go home to Stolmakergata and try to get some sleep.
11.15,
ODINS GATE
3
T
he technical team had been there for several hours yesterday evening. There were minuscule traces of them everywhere; almost imperceptible signs that the apartment had been turned upside down by people who did not live there, even though everything had been put back tidily. Everything apart from an empty plastic container of amitriptyline 25 milligram tablets that had been sitting on Grinde’s bedside table beside half
a glass of water, and the bedclothes, which had also been removed for closer inspection.
Billy T. was standing in the middle of the room, holding a brief report from the crime scene technicians. The body had been found in bed, wearing only boxer shorts. There was no sign of forced entry; the door was locked from the inside and the security chain was in place. The mother of the deceased had phoned a locksmith in order to get into the apartment, but the locksmith had demonstrated the presence of mind to call the police first.
Billy T. folded the paper twice and stuffed it into his back pocket. He had argued to be allowed to attend; after all, Tone-Marit owed him something after that interview with the guard.
“Amitriptyline,” he remarked to Tone-Marit. “Was the guy using anti-depressants?”
“There’s nothing to indicate that,” she replied. “He just knew what he needed to take. He took two Valium tablets to calm himself, and then a fistful of amitriptyline. The tablets were bought on Friday. He issued the prescription himself, in his mother’s name, and fooled the pharmacy staff by saying that his mother was recently widowed and needed some tranquillizers during the transition period. The guy was a doctor. They know what’s required, and they can get most of it at an ordinary pharmacy.”
The kitchen was the most glamorous room in the apartment, with cherry-wood cabinets, and worktops in something that looked like black marble.
“Larvikite,” Tone-Marit Steen said, stroking the hard, polished surface. “Lovely. And look at this!”
A wide American refrigerator had been integrated into the reddish-brown cherry-wood panels; it had a freezer on one side and fridge compartment on the other, and an opening in the middle of the freezer dispensed water with ice cubes in it. He opened the freezer door. Neat parcels marked “Elk tenderloin 1996”,
“Lingonberries 1995”, and “Home-made fettuccine March 20” suggested that the contents of the fridge would be equally exotic. But that was not the case. It contained only a wedge of brie that had begun to go moldy, a shriveled pepper, three bottles of Farris mineral water and two bottles of white wine. Billy T. stuck his nose into the single carton of skimmed milk on the shelf in the door, and recoiled with a grimace. Grinde had not eaten for a while. A lithograph hung above a little table for two under the window and the food processor was exactly the same as the one Billy T. had seen in the canteen kitchen at the police station. The room was stunning, if somewhat sterile.