Dregs (7 page)

Wisting felt a nerve in his temple start to vibrate, anticipating what was coming. ‘Her name?’ he asked.

‘Thaulow. Her name is Camilla Thaulow.’

CHAPTER 11

Wisting sat in the front passenger seat of the police car and leafed through the papers he had received by fax, a short report that had been recorded at 09.23 hours earlier that day. The woman who had been reported missing was the same person that he had tried repeatedly to contact by telephone.

Camilla Thaulow was 58 years of age and lived with her mother in Langangen, a small village of over 500 inhabitants, on the Telemark side, and right on the county border. It seemed that she had left home about two o’clock the previous afternoon to work the afternoon shift at Stavern nursing home. Her mother had gone to bed early and did not discover until the next day that her daughter’s bed had not been slept in. She had called her mobile but received no answer. After that she phoned the home for the elderly to learn that her daughter had not turned up for work. Later, the mother had asked advice from a friend and agreed that she should phone the police.

The new missing person case could, of course, simply be an accident. She could have driven off the road and be lying in a ditch, out of sight of the traffic. The old road through Tvedalen and on towards Stavern was winding and narrow, and in a few places there was no safety barrier. However, they were already working on three similar disappearances and, statistically speaking, it was like coming up with a royal flush several times in a row. Wisting did not believe that this disappearance was simply another coincidence in a series, and was anxious to start investigating.

Langangen lay only a quarter of an hour’s drive from the police station, but Wisting had not been to the little place for years. Like most people, he drove past at top speed on the motorway bridge that ran between the hillsides.

Torunn Borg was driving, and he was pleased to have her as she had a special empathy with relatives. If it was not established in the course of a few hours that Camilla Thaulow had skipped her job and stayed overnight at a friend’s house or that she was the victim of an accident, her 84-year-old mother might not only play a central role in the investigation but also be a media focus. Wisting knew from experience what a great strain that could be for the family of the missing person, and old people often had less strength to resist. Anxiety and insecurity, anger and displacement were common reactions, and it could become more difficult to extract important information. At such times the role of the police also entailed providing care and support.

‘Number 23,’ Torunn Borg said aloud, stopping the car close to a white picket fence that enclosed a large but simple garden.

The house was half hidden behind a couple of tall elms, and the shadow from the treetops made the white walls dark grey. The iron gate squeaked and there was a crunching sound as they strolled along the gravel path. Somewhere far off, children were laughing.

A thin lady with her hair pulled back in a tight, grey bun peeked out from behind the window curtains before they reached the door. Wisting knocked and heard her move slowly on the inside before a key was turned. A little, wrinkled face appeared at the crack in the door, with small eyes that lay in deep hollows.

‘Yes?’

A seam of wrinkles appeared around her narrow lips. Wisting could actually hear that her mouth was dry, she had such difficulty speaking.

In a raised voice he explained who they were and gave the old woman a grateful nod as she waved them in. She was hunchbacked and supported herself with difficulty on the furniture as she led with small steps into a light and spacious living room with a view over the fjord.

‘Coffee?’ she asked, supporting herself on the backrest of a chair.

Wisting declined and sat beside the coffee table. The furniture in the house was old and faded, but smelled clean and pleasant. Torunn Borg took out a notebook and sat in a chair beside him.

‘We have some questions for you about Camilla,’ he said. ‘Won’t you sit down?’

The woman’s blue, bloodless lips trembled as she sat painfully down. ‘My body is full of aches and pains,’ she explained. ‘I’m not young any longer, but there’s nothing wrong with my head all the same.’

Wisting smiled.

‘She’s gone,’ the old woman continued. ‘That’s something I’m not muddled about.’

‘She’s gone,’ Wisting agreed. ‘We’ll try to find her.’

The old woman mumbled her thanks, smoothing the pleats in her skirt.

‘When did you last talk to her?’

‘Yesterday,’ the woman sighed. ‘She was going to work.’

‘When did she leave?’

‘Just before two o’clock.’ She cleared her throat. ‘She doesn’t usually leave before about half past three. The evening shift doesn’t start until four, but there was something she wanted to do. We like to eat together before she leaves, but yesterday we only managed a cup of coffee.’

Wisting glanced over at Torunn Borg. Any irregularity in the daily routine was important to understand. ‘What was it she wanted to do?’

The old woman closed her eyes for a short time, thinking carefully. ‘She usually tells me everything,’ she said, opening her eyes again. ‘But not about men.’

Wisting wanted to ask a question, but stayed silent, waiting for her to continue at her own pace.

‘Five years ago she had a beau,’ the old lady went on. ‘Then she became secretive. Didn’t say where she was going or what she was doing. But I didn’t think it would happen again. She was burned.’

‘How was that?’

‘I don’t know what happened. She loaned him money that never came back. That was all he was after. Money.’ She moistened her lips with her tongue. ‘She was burned,’ she repeated. ‘Swindled.’

‘How much money?’

The old woman swallowed. ‘She never talked about it, but I think it was everything she had.’

Torunn Borg straightened herself up in the chair. ‘Do you know his name?’ she enquired.

‘Gunnar Moland, I think. I have it written down somewhere. He said he was a medical intern, but that wasn’t true.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘But that was long ago. She has got over it.’

‘Did she have a new man?’

The old woman looked down at her lap and she clasped her wrinkled hands. ‘Who knows,’ was her mumbled response. ‘She used to have a pen pal, but what she has now I don’t know.’

‘Pen pal?’

‘It was a few years ago, when people still wrote letters. A letter with sloping handwriting arrived every other week. Then that came to an end too.’

‘You don’t know who they were from?’

‘No. We didn’t talk about such things. I think she met him a few times as well. She drove off early in the morning and was back in the evening. He must live a distance away, but not so far that she had to stay overnight.’

Wisting rose from his seat. ‘Can I look around?’ he asked.

He got a quick nod in reply and left the room. Torunn Borg stayed with the old woman to go through the list of routine questions.

Mother and daughter each had their own bedroom on the ground floor, with a bathroom across the corridor. The first floor didn’t look as though it had been used for a long time. It consisted of a loft room where white sheets had been draped over the furniture, and three locked rooms where old clothes and cardboard boxes of books were stored.

The daughter’s bedroom was the largest. In addition to the single bed with its bedside table, there was just enough room for a writing desk, a small sitting area and a television. Three pictures hung on the walls, all depicting a woman whom Wisting assumed must be Camilla Thaulow. Two were in nurse’s uniform, probably taken in her student days, and a more recent one of her sitting in a verdant garden. Like her mother she had friendly, twinkling eyes that looked directly out of the frame.

He sat beside the desk and pulled out drawer after drawer. The contents were tidy. There were household accounts, insurance papers, income tax returns and old photo albums. Nothing seemed particularly interesting, so he put them aside to go through more thoroughly later.

A book lay on the bedside table, a piece of paper sticking out from between the last pages. Wisting lifted it up.
Coincidences
by Charlie Lie. The slip of paper marked page 316. It was a folded post-it note with nothing written on it, a chance bookmark. He sat on the bed and leafed back through to the end. She had 32 pages left. Presumably she had thought to finish it yesterday evening.

The drawer of the bedside table contained a packet of lozenges, paper hankies, a tube of hand cream and a poetry collection. Wisting remained seated, looking around, feeling that, somehow, the direction of the case had shifted.

CHAPTER 12

The press conference had begun when Wisting got back to the police station. Through the glass wall and voile curtains of the conference room he saw Audun Vetti holding up two pictures of shoes, one in each hand. The room was full. Journalists sat with laptops on their knees, writing up the first released details. He counted five cameras with red lights.

He walked forward quickly and shut himself into the capacious toilet for the disabled. Turning on the water tap he let it run until it was cold, rinsed his face but felt no better. The mirror above the wash-hand basin showed the face of a tired man and, for the first time, he thought of himself as old. He was 51. His hair had become thinner and lighter, and the corners of his eyes were bracketed by small wrinkles.

This is not a job that keeps you young, he thought, nor is it a job in which you become old.

The team gathered in Wisting’s office as soon as the last of the press corps were out of the building. Torunn sat in one of the visitors’ chairs while Hammer hoisted himself onto the window ledge. He opened the window and let in some cool evening air and the scent of the pale yellow blossoms from the chestnut tree in the back yard. The sounds of an orchestra playing in the outdoor restaurant at the Grand Hotel stole in towards them. The Chief Superintendent stood beside the wall with his arm leaning on the filing cabinet.

Audun Vetti took the last visitors’ chair. ‘I wanted you here at eight o’clock,’ said the Chief Superintendent.

Wisting disregarded him. ‘It’s happened again,’ he said.

Vetti frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We have a new disappearance,’ Wisting explained, and gave an account of his last few hours. ‘She was last seen when she left home yesterday around two o’clock in the afternoon.’

‘What do we do?’ the Chief Superintendent asked, loosening his tie.

‘She drives a red Ford Fiesta,’ said Torunn Borg. ‘The patrols are looking for it along the roads between Stavern and Langangen.’

‘How long should we wait before issuing a public bulletin?’

Wisting shrugged his shoulders. ‘Until tomorrow?’ he suggested.

Torunn Borg leafed through a bundle of papers on her lap and produced a printout. ‘The police response centre at
Telenor
has traced her phone. It is either switched off or out of charge. The last time it gave a signal was yesterday evening about ten o’clock. At that time it was in Helgeroa.’

‘In our district,’ the Chief Superintendent concluded. ‘She’s here somewhere.’

‘We’ll concentrate the search in that area.’

‘What about a helicopter?’

‘The police helicopter is not in operation just now, but they’re coming tomorrow.’

‘Who has she spoken to on the phone?’ Hammer asked.

Wisting leaned over across the office desk, knowing Camilla Thaulow’s network of contacts might provide a decisive clue.

‘No one,’ Torunn Borg replied.

Wisting glanced at her enquiringly.

‘She hardly ever talks on her mobile phone. In the course of the past few weeks she had three outgoing calls. Two home to her mother and one to her work. No ingoing calls. If she had arranged to meet someone, she didn’t make the arrangement by phone.’

They remained sitting for ten minutes more, discussing the case without any new ideas emerging, before they went their different ways to finish off the day’s work.

Wisting stared through the window that Hammer had left open. The light summer night was waiting. The longest day of the year was behind him. Around the fjord the Midsummer Eve bonfires were already lit, as a warning of the shorter and darker days to follow.

So far he had not speculated on what might actually have happened. What lay behind the discovery of three amputated feet? Murder and foul play were seldom rational actions, but it was usually possible to find an explanation. In many cases it was easy to form at least an impression of what had taken place, and a theory about the sequence of events. In this case though, he was stuck and couldn’t come up with anything logical. It frightened him. One alternative was that a completely sick human mind was behind it all. A human being whose actions were impossible to understand, and therefore also impossible to anticipate.

The telephone drummed against the writing desk and broke his gloomy train of thought. He had turned off the ring tone while they were holding the meeting. It was Suzanne. He should have phoned her earlier but there simply hadn’t been time.

‘How are things?’ she asked.

‘I’m just finishing up for the day.’ He closed the window.

‘I’ve made some salad with shellfish. It’s too much for just me.’ Her voice sounded hopeful.

‘That sounds good, but I think I’ll go straight home and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be another long day. Besides, Line’s at home.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘So-so.’

‘Have you had the results of the blood tests?’

‘No, that’ll take a few days.’

They made small talk as Wisting closed the office and locked the door. When he reached his car they said good night.

Concentrating more on his own thoughts than the traffic he drove slowly towards Stavern. He couldn’t remember so chaotic a case. Everything seemed so meaningless and improbable it was difficult to know where to begin, or how to make best use of their slender resources.

The fjord was filled with small craft. People gathered together on little islands and skerries, the light from their midsummer bonfires reflected on the sea. He sighed heavily, switched on the car radio and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to an old summertime hit.