Dregs (12 page)

‘The parole period. Although you’re released, you’re not completely free. If I do something wrong in the course of the first two years, then I’ll have to go back inside and serve the rest of my time. I’m not allowed to travel abroad until January.’

‘What did you do with your time apart from studying?’

‘Most of my time was spent dreaming about a normal life.’ He scratched the dog behind the ear. ‘A good, quiet life with a wife, children, an estate car, a job as a mechanic and a salary. Boat trips out to sea. Pull up a cod or stand far out on a rock and feel the sea spray on my face. I dreamed of ending up with too little time, of being able to fill my time with so many activities that I didn’t have time for them all.’

The conversation flowed easily. Ken Ronny Hauge talked about his feelings of sorrow, loss and pleasures behind bars, coming out with little stories and anecdotes of daily life. Two hours later, Line’s reporter’s notepad was filled with keywords and quotes. Ken Ronny Hauge had such a colourful way of speaking she looked forward to stitching his story together into a thrilling character portrait. She could feel within herself that it was going to be a good account. Folding up her notepad she placed it inside her bag.

‘It felt good to talk about it,’ the man facing her said unexpectedly. ‘Nice to talk to you. I don’t talk to so many people, and prison is not really a subject that anyone brings up.’

Line smiled. It was good when interview subjects had a comfortable experience and were not simply left feeling empty. ‘You’ve never spoken about what really happened,’ she ventured. She had decided to let that aspect of the case lie until a natural opening appeared.

‘What is there to talk about?’ Ken Ronny Hauge sat down again, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I can’t do it over again or change anything.’

‘Many people must ask themselves why you did it?’ She paused before playing a new card. ‘The wife and children of the man who died have got answers about who and how, but never why.’

‘It’s not so easy to answer. An event with little planning that had consequences which I didn’t foresee.’

‘But what were you doing there? Why did you carry a gun with you? There are lots of unanswered questions.’

Ken Ronny Hauge opened and closed his mouth and, for a moment, it looked as though he might tell her the whole story. ‘That wasn’t what this interview was supposed to be about,’ he said. ‘I’ve served my sentence, and told you what it was like.’

Line nodded as a sign that she respected the fact that he did not want to talk about the murder. ‘Has it helped?’ she asked instead. ‘Are you a better person now than before you went to prison?’

Ken Ronny Hauge stared at her while he thought and suddenly there was something in his eyes that made her uncomfortable. It was almost like staring back at something dark and unfathomable. ‘No,’ he finally answered. ‘On the contrary.’

CHAPTER 21

The name of the psychiatrist was engraved on a nameplate on his office door, Jon Terkelsen.

Wisting had been waiting in the corridor for ten minutes when the door opened and a tall, thin man of around sixty, with a receding hairline and short hair, emerged. As Wisting was about to introduce himself he noticed a man in a white coat inside the room. There was something familiar about him, but the crossover points between psychiatry and the police were many. He waited until the patient had left.

‘Sorry for the delay,’ the psychiatrist apologised, ushering Wisting inside.

The room was small and functional, with four bookcases filled with medical literature and a filing cabinet in which the top drawer did not quite shut. Various medical references and diplomas hung on the grey walls, and there was a photograph in a pewter frame on the desk, facing the doctor.

It felt strange to sit on the visitor’s side of the desk, in a chair in which countless people of unsound mind had sat before him. Psychologists, psychiatrists and clergymen were people Wisting never felt completely comfortable with. He had a feeling that they could see right through him and read his innermost thoughts.

‘Hanne Richter, yes,’ the psychiatrist said, opening a thick folder. ‘I’ve cleared the issue of patient confidentiality with the Chief County Medical Officer. We can speak openly, but I’m afraid I have little to contribute.’

‘A little is better than nothing,’ Wisting smiled. He crossed one leg over the other and placed his notepad on his lap. ‘Why was she admitted?’

‘Hanne Richter had an increasing paranoia since 2005. Without admission and treatment she would have lost all prospects of real improvement and recovery.’ Wisting waited for him to continue. ‘In the autumn of 2007, she was sectioned and admitted to a locked ward in Tonsberg. A few weeks later, she was transferred here. To begin with, she wouldn’t permit herself to be corrected, but after a while she adapted to the department’s routines. She was happy to co-operate, but lacked any insight into her illness.’

‘What kind of treatment did she receive?’

‘An important part of the treatment is dependent on the patient acknowledging that he or she is unwell,’ explained the doctor. ‘Hanne Richter participated in a psycho-educational programme predicated on her learning about the symptoms of schizophrenia and being trained in social skills.’

‘What about medicines?’

‘Anti-psychotic medication was crucial in bringing her out of the psychosis, and the paranoid delusions eventually went into remission. She was discharged after six months, but kept in touch with the department through weekly interviews and medication.’

‘What kind of delusions did she have?’

‘She reported fairly classic delusional symptoms.’ The psychiatrist leafed through his papers. ‘She thought she was the victim of a conspiracy between the Russian intelligence services and the Italian mafia who had apparently operated on her to insert a radio transmitter into her head that allowed them to observe her via satellite.’

‘I visited her home,’ Wisting said. ‘She had taken apart almost all of the electrical equipment.’

‘In the most recent consultations I noticed something of a deterioration,’ the psychiatrist admitted. ‘A kind of shift in the state of her illness.’

‘In what way?’

‘The delusions changed in character.’

‘Is that usual?’

‘Most often you can observe a clear continuity and a conspicuous pattern in a patient’s delusions, but sometimes new ones crop up.’

‘What did you talk about the last time she was here?’

‘She was certain that strangers entered her house when she was away or while she slept. She said that furniture had been moved. The milk in the fridge had been adulterated with a sleeping draught so that she didn’t waken when they were working in her house during the night.’

Wisting drew a hand through his hair, wondering where the distinction between imagination and reality lay in a psychiatric patient. ‘What about these abductions?’ he asked. ‘Did she talk about those too?’

The psychiatrist nodded.

‘That was a part of her perception of the world. She had notions that this mafia organisation had doped her, carried her off and operated on her to insert the radio transmitter. At regular intervals, they repeated this to exchange the transmitter for a new, more up-to-date version with a greater operating distance.’

Wisting squirmed in his seat, not knowing how to shape a stray thought he had. ‘You’re sure these abductions were delusions?’ he eventually enquired. ‘That nothing might actually have taken place, but in a different manner and with a different purpose than she described?’

The psychiatrist indulged in a smile. ‘I have been practising for more than thirty years,’ he said. ‘Believe me, Hanne Richter was diagnosed correctly.’

Wisting’s eyes narrowed. Cocksure certainty was a quality he disliked. ‘She’s away now, of course,’ he pointed out.

CHAPTER 22

Two unanswered calls were shown on his mobile when he came out of the psychiatrist’s - both from his father. Now 79 years old he had been a widower for 22 of them. He was independent and wanted to be as little bother as possible, but recently he had been asking his only son for help more often. The clock on the phone showed 13.23. He had forgotten that he had promised to drive the old man to a two o’clock appointment at his eye specialist. He still just had time but was exasperated to be held up.

His father had been complaining that he couldn’t see clearly, his vision foggy and sometimes double. He had made the cataract diagnosis himself. It was simply part of being old, he knew, almost as common as grey hair, but it tormented him. He had to read newspapers with one eye closed, and couldn’t manage with books. Wisting phoned him, to reassure him that he had not forgotten.

‘Let me take a taxi,’ his father said. ‘You’ve got a lot to do.’

‘I’m already on my way,’ Wisting said dismissively and a quarter of an hour later, his father was sitting beside him in the car, wearing a large pair of sunglasses that fitted tightly on his head.

‘Has it got worse?’ Wisting enquired.

‘A little,’ his father conceded. ‘Line’s home,’ he continued quickly, as if he wanted to talk about something else. ‘She called in yesterday. I could’ve got her to drive me.’

‘It’s fine,’ Wisting assured him.

‘How’s the case going?’ Wisting admitted that they were groping in the dark. ‘Oh, I know all about that,’ his father commented, removing his sunglasses. The pupil of his left eye was covered by a greyish haze.

‘Did you know them?’ Wisting asked abruptly, suddenly realising that his father was about the same age as the men who had disappeared.

‘Not well, but more than some others.’

‘But you knew them?’

‘Many years ago,’ his father nodded. ‘Sverre Lund was probably the one I had most contact with.’

‘The head teacher?’

‘Your mother was at school with his wife. I’ve forgotten her name.’

‘Greta.’

‘Yes, that’s right. Is he one of the ones you’ve found … remains of?’

‘We don’t know for certain, yet.’ Wisting reached for a bag on the back seat. ‘I’ve got something I’d like you to look at,’ he said. He took out the photograph he had borrowed from the nursing home and handed it to his father while he drove. His father held it up to one eye and screwed up his face. ‘Do you know any of them?’ Wisting asked.

‘That’s Sverre,’ his father replied, pointing to the man furthest back on the stairs. ‘Is that Torkel?’ he asked, pointing to the person who sat diagonally below the old head teacher.

Wisting nodded. ‘And then that’s Otto Saga and Christian Hauge,’ he explained, pointing.

‘Christian Hauge, yes,’ his father mumbled. ‘He’s dead now, poor man.’

‘Poor man?’

‘He was widowed early, and had a daughter who got mixed up with a drunkard. There were two grandchildren. You know about it of course? The police murder?’

‘Yes indeed,’ Wisting admitted. ‘He’s out now and living in Helgeroa.’ He neglected to tell him that Line was going to meet him. ‘What about the one with the pipe?’

His father held the picture up so that the reflection of the sun on the glass didn’t get in the way. ‘There’s something familiar about him, but I can’t think what.’ He laid the picture on his lap. ‘Is it important?’

‘It might be,’ Wisting answered. ‘The four others are probably dead.’

They had reached the eye specialist’s when the phone rang. It was Nils Hammer. ‘Where are you?’

‘In town.’

‘You need to come out to Blokkebukta cove. There’s a severed foot lying there.’

Wisting glanced over at his father, who held up his hand to prevent his son from saying anything. ‘I’ll manage,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a taxi home.’

CHAPTER 23

Blokkebukta cove was situated in the lee of the Skaggerak, behind a large spit of land covered in pebbles that had been left behind after the ice age, a moraine spine extending from Finland through Sweden to enter the sea at Molen. A pleasant spot, the area had been used as an overnight stop for bathing tourists for almost a century. The caravans were sitting on flat areas extending to the encircling grove of trees. Three sandy beaches stretched out one after the other, separated by steep hillocks and sections of dense, shady oak forest.

Part of the most northerly beach was closed off. Wisting drove as close as he could before leaving the car. Journalists stood like a wall in front of the red and white crime scene tape, but quickly gathered round him, bombarding him with questions. Wisting ignored them and crouched under the tape.

Nils Hammer was standing with Espen Mortensen on the pebbles. The beach was a bit rougher at the discovery site, consisting of small stones and broken shells, and waves rushed backwards and forwards, almost in rhythm with Wisting’s own breath.

The foot was a left limb, exactly like the three others, but this find was different. The shoe did not have the same faded appearance from having been in water for a long time. The pleats of skin and flesh protruding from a thick, yellow sock had taken on a grey colouring, but the rotting process had not set in completely.

‘Camilla Thaulow?’ Hammer suggested.

Wisting squatted down, studying the foot in the sharp sunlight. ‘The type of shoe matches, at least,’ he said. ‘Black Nike.’

All the same, there was something different, Wisting thought, examining the shoe with the curved logo of one of the world’s biggest sports equipment manufacturers. The other feet had drifted to land several nautical miles from here. This had to have been dumped somewhere else to have washed ashore at this place. Since it was only three days since Camilla Thaulow disappeared the dumping spot had to be somewhere in the vicinity.

Wisting turned and peered at the barrier. In a huddle beside the journalists were the amateur spectators, seaside visitors, tourists from the campsite, and summer cottage folk. He scanned them - it was a habit he had adopted. It wasn’t unusual for the perpetrator to appear among the spectators. Pyromaniacs were especially known for it - returning to the scene to watch what they had set off. However, it could also apply to other criminals. The fact that the guilty party dared to show himself could even, in a way, serve as an alibi.