The Son (32 page)

‘How do you know . . .?’

‘I saw the photos. The Drug Squad thought it was a message to show potential competitors what would happen if you try to bite off more than you can chew in the coke market.’ She looked up quickly at Simon and added: ‘Coke bottle as in Coca-Cola.’

‘Yes, thank you, I get it.’

‘The police launched an investigation, but got nowhere. The case was never actually abandoned, but very little happened until Sonny Lofthus was arrested for the murder of the Asian girl. He confessed to murdering Jovic as well. In the interview records he states that he and Jovic had met in the park to settle a debt, that Lofthus didn’t have enough money and that Jovic had threatened him with a gun. Lofthus had attacked him and floored him. I guess the police thought it sounded reasonable, given that Lofthus used to wrestle.’

‘Hm.’

‘The interesting thing is that the police lifted a fingerprint from the bottle.’

‘And?’

‘And it didn’t belong to Lofthus.’

Simon nodded. ‘And how did Lofthus explain that?’

‘He said he’d found the empty bottle in a nearby bin. That junkies like him do this all the time to get the deposits on them back.’

‘But?’

‘Junkies don’t collect recyclables. It would take too long to get together enough money for that day’s fix. And the report stated that the fingerprint was a thumb and that it had been lifted from the bottom of the bottle.’

Simon could see where she was going with this, but didn’t want to spoil it by beating her to it.

‘I mean, who puts their thumb on the bottom of a bottle when they drink from it? If, however, you were forcing a bottle down someone’s throat . . .’

‘And you don’t think the police considered that at the time?’

Kari shrugged. ‘I don’t think the police ever prioritise drug hits. They hadn’t found a match for the thumbprint in the database. So when someone offers them a confession to a case they’ve had lying around for a while . . .’

‘Then they say thank you very much, mark the case as solved and move on?’

‘That’s how you work, isn’t it?’

Simon sighed.
You
. He had read in the newspapers that the police’s reputation among the public was starting to rise after the last few years’ scandals, but the force was only slightly more popular than the railways.
You
. He imagined she was thanking her lucky stars that she already had one foot out of this open-plan office.

‘So Sonny Lofthus was convicted of two murders, but in both cases suspicion pointed to drug dealers. Are you saying that he’s a professional scapegoat?’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘Perhaps. But there still isn’t anything that links him to either Farrisen or Agnete Iversen.’

‘There is a third murder,’ Kari said. ‘Kjersti Morsand.’

‘The shipping owner’s wife,’ Simon said, although his thoughts had now turned to coffee and the coffee machine. ‘That’s Buskerud Police’s case.’

‘That’s correct. Had the top of her head sawn off. Sonny Lofthus was also suspected of that killing.’

‘That can’t be right, surely? He was banged up when it happened.’

‘No, he was out on day release. He was in the area. They even found one of his hairs at the crime scene.’

‘You’re joking,’ said Simon, instantly forgetting all about coffee. ‘There would have been something about it in the papers. Notorious killer linked to crime scene – what could be more newsworthy than that?’

‘The Buskerud officer who is heading the investigation has chosen not to make it public,’ Kari said.

‘Why not?’

‘Ask him.’

Kari pointed and Simon noticed a tall, broad man walking towards them from the coffee machine with a mug in his hand. Despite the summer temperature he was wearing a thick woolly jumper.

‘Henrik Westad,’ the man said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m an inspector with Buskerud Police. I’m leading the Kjersti Morsand investigation.’

‘I asked Henrik to drive over here this morning for a chat,’ Kari said.

‘You drove all the way from Drammen in the morning rush hour?’ Simon said, shaking the man’s hand. ‘We’re very grateful.’

‘
Before
the morning rush hour,’ Westad said. ‘We’ve been here since six thirty. I didn’t think there was much more to be said about the investigation, but your colleague here is very thorough.’

He nodded to Kari and sat down in the chair opposite her.

‘So why didn’t you make it known that you had found a convicted killer’s hair at the scene?’ Simon said, looking enviously at the mug Westad was raising to his lips. ‘It’s as good as saying you’ve solved the case. The police don’t normally hold back good news.’

‘That’s true,’ Westad said. ‘Especially when the owner of that hair had confessed to the killing the first time we interviewed him.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Leif happened.’

‘Who’s Leif?’

Westad nodded slowly. ‘I could have issued a press release with what we had after the first interview, but something didn’t add up. Something about the suspect’s . . . attitude. So I waited. And the second time we interviewed him, he retracted his confession and claimed that he had an alibi. A guy called Leif who drove a blue Volvo with an “I ♥ Drammen” sticker, and who Lofthus for some reason thought had heart problems. So I checked with the Volvo dealers in Drammen and the Cardiology Unit at Buskerud Central Hospital.’

‘Yes?’

‘Leif Krognæss, aged fifty-three. He lives in Konnerud in Drammen and he immediately recognised the suspect from the photo I showed him. He had seen him at a lay-by on the old main road that runs parallel to Drammensveien. You know, one of those areas with picnic benches and tables where you can enjoy being outside. Leif Krognæss had gone for a little drive in the sunshine, but had pulled over and sat in the lay-by for several hours because he felt strangely exhausted. I don’t believe it’s popular with motorists, they prefer the new road, and besides there’s a pond with midges. Anyway, on that day two men were sitting at another picnic table. They just sat there, without saying anything for hours as if they were waiting for something. Then one of the men glanced at his watch and said that it was time to go. As they passed Krognæss’s table, the other man bent down, asked Krognæss what his name was and then told him to see a doctor, that there was something wrong with his heart. Then the first man pulled the second man away; Krognæss assumed that he must be a psychiatric patient on an outing, and they had driven off.’

‘But he couldn’t shake off the episode,’ Kari said. ‘So he went to see his doctor. Who discovered that he did indeed have heart trouble and had him admitted to hospital immediately. And that’s why Leif Krognæss remembers a man he met only briefly at a lay-by on the old main road by the River Drammen.’

The River Drammen, Simon thought.

‘Yep,’ Westad said. ‘Leif Krognæss said the guy saved his life. But that’s not the point. The point is that the medical examiner’s report states that Kjersti Morsand was killed at the very time the men were sitting in the lay-by.’

Simon nodded. ‘And the strand of hair? You haven’t checked how it could have ended up at the crime scene?’

Westad shrugged. ‘Like I said, the suspect has an alibi.’

Simon was aware that Westad had yet to mention the boy’s name. He cleared his throat. ‘It could appear that the hair was planted. And if Sonny Lofthus was granted day release in order to make it look like he committed the murder, then one of the prison officers from Staten must be in on it. Is that why it’s been hushed up?’

Henrik Westad pushed his mug across Kari’s desk; perhaps the taste no longer appealed to him. ‘I’ve been told to hush it up,’ he said. ‘Someone higher up has made it very clear to my boss to leave the matter alone until they’ve had a chance to have another look at it.’

‘They want to double-check the facts before the scandal becomes public,’ Kari said.

‘Let’s hope that’s all it is,’ Simon said quietly. ‘So why are you talking to us if you’ve been told to keep quiet, Westad?’

Westad shrugged again. ‘It’s tough to be the only one who knows. And when Kari mentioned that she was working with Simon Kefas . . . Well, people say you have integrity.’

Simon looked at Westad. ‘You know that’s just another word for troublemaker, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Westad said. ‘I don’t want any trouble. I just don’t want to be the only one who knows.’

‘Because it feel safer that way?’

Westad shrugged a third time. He no longer seemed quite so tall and broad when he was sitting down. And despite the jumper he looked like he was cold.

There was complete silence in the rectangular boardroom.

Hugo Nestor’s attention was fixed on the chair at the head of the table.

The high-backed chair covered with white buffalo hide was facing away from them.

The man in the chair had demanded an explanation.

Nestor lifted his gaze to the painting on the wall above the chair. It depicted a crucifixion. Grotesque, bloody and excessive in rich detail. The man on the crucifix had two horns on his forehead and burning, red eyes. Apart from those details, the likeness was obvious. Rumour had it that the artist had painted the picture after the man in the high-backed chair had cut off two of his fingers because he owed him money. The bit about the fingers was true, Nestor had witnessed it himself. Rumour also had it that only twelve hours had passed between the artist exhibiting the painting in his gallery and the man in the chair removing it. That, along with the man’s liver. That rumour wasn’t true. It had taken eight hours, and they had taken his spleen.

As far as the buffalo hide was concerned, Nestor could neither confirm nor deny the story that the man in the chair had paid 13,500 dollars to hunt and kill a white buffalo, the most sacred animal for Lakota Sioux Indians, that he had shot it with a crossbow and when the animal had refused to die even after two arrows to its heart, the man in the chair had straddled the half-ton animal and used his thigh muscles to wring its neck. But Nestor saw no reason to doubt the story. The weight difference between the animal and the man was minimal.

Hugo Nestor shifted his eyes from the painting. There were three other people in the room apart from him and the man on the buffalo hide chair. Nestor rolled his shoulders and felt his shirt stick to his back under the suit jacket. He rarely sweated. Not only because he avoided the sun, poor-quality wool, exercise, lovemaking and other physical exertions, but because he – according to his doctor – had a fault in his inbuilt thermostat which would otherwise cause people to sweat. So even when he did exert himself, he never sweated, but he risked overheating. It was a genetic disposition which proved what he had always known: that his alleged parents weren’t his real parents, that his dreams about lying in a cradle in a place that looked like photographs he had seen of Kiev in the 1970s were more than just dreams, they were his earliest childhood memories.

But he was sweating now. Even though he was the bearer of good news, he was sweating.

The man in the chair hadn’t raged. Hadn’t fumed about the money and drugs that had been stolen from Kalle Farrisen’s office. Not screamed how was it possible that Sylvester had gone missing. Or roared why the hell hadn’t they found that Lofthus boy yet. Despite everyone knowing what was at stake. There were four scenarios and three of them were bad. Bad scenario number one: Sonny killed Agnete Iversen, Kalle and Sylvester and he would continue to kill anyone they work with. Bad scenario number two: Sonny is arrested, confesses and reveals the names of the real killers in the murders he has served time for. Bad scenario number three: in the absence of the boy’s confession, Yngve Morsand is arrested for his wife’s murder, can’t handle the pressure and tells the police what really happened.

When Morsand had first come to them and said that he wanted his unfaithful wife killed, Nestor had taken it to mean that he wanted to hire a hit man. But Morsand insisted on the pleasure of killing his wife himself, he just wanted them to arrange for someone else to take the fall since he, as the cuckolded husband, would automatically be the police’s prime suspect. And at the right price everything is for sale. In this case, three million kroner. A reasonable hourly rate for a life sentence, Nestor had argued, and Morsand had agreed. Afterwards when Morsand had explained how he wanted to tie up the unfaithful bitch, put the saw to her forehead and look her in the eyes while he cut off her head, Nestor had felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in a mixture of horror and excitement. They had arranged everything with Arild Franck: the boy’s day release, his geographical location, and sent him off with one of Franck’s trusted, corrupt and well-paid prison officers, a hermit of a chubby chaser from Kaupang who spent his money on cocaine, paying off his debts and on hookers so fat and ugly, you would have thought the money would change hands in the opposite direction.

The fourth and only good scenario was very simple: find the boy and kill him. It should be straightforward. It should have been done long ago.

And yet the man spoke calmly in his deep, murmuring voice. And it was the voice that made Nestor sweat. From the tall white chair the voice had asked Nestor for an explanation. That was all. An explanation. Nestor cleared his throat, hoping that his voice wouldn’t betray his terror, which was always present when he was in the same room as his boss.

‘We went back to the house to look for Sylvester. All we found was an empty armchair with a bullet hole to the back. We’ve checked with our contact in Telenor’s operations centre, but none of their base stations has picked up a signal from Sylvester’s mobile since late last night. This means that either Lofthus destroyed his phone or his phone is somewhere with no coverage. In any case, I think there’s a real risk that Sylvester is no longer alive.’

The chair at the head of the table turned slowly and the man came into view. The bulging body, muscles that strained all the seams of his suit, the high forehead, the old-fashioned moustache, the dense eyebrows over a deceptively sleepy gaze.

Hugo Nestor tried to meet that gaze. Nestor had killed women, men and children, he had looked them in the eye while he did it, without even blinking. Quite the opposite, he had studied them to see if he could see it – mortal fear, the certain knowledge of what was about to happen, any insight the dying might gain at the threshold to the hereafter. Like that Belarus girl whose throat he had cut when the others were unwilling. He had stared into her pleading eyes. It was as if he got off on a mixture of his own feelings, his rage at the others’ and the woman’s capitulation and weakness. Got off on the excitement of holding a life in his hands and deciding whether – and indeed when – he would carry out the act that would end it. He could extend her life by a second, and then another second. And another one. Or not. It was entirely up to him. And it struck him that this was the closest he would ever come to the sexual ecstasy which people spoke about, a union which for him was only associated with mild discomfort and an embarrassing attempt at coming across as a so-called normal person. He had read somewhere that one individual in every hundred was asexual. It made him an exception. But it didn’t make him abnormal. On the contrary, he could concentrate on what really mattered, build his life, his reputation, enjoy the respect and fear of others without any distractions and the loss of energy that came from the sexual addiction other people were slaves to. Surely that was rational and – consequently – normal? He was a normal person who wasn’t frightened of, but, rather, curious about death. And, in addition, he had good news for his boss. But Nestor managed to hold his boss’s gaze for only five seconds before he had to look away. Because what he saw in it was colder and emptier than death and annihilation. It was perdition. The promise that you had a soul and that it would be taken from you.