Jo Nesbø - Headhunters

‘Until they found a buyer they had to hide the painting somewhere secure. So they went to a cabin Kjikerud had rented from Sindre Aa for several years.’

‘Outside Elverum.’

‘Yes. The neighbours say that the cabin wasn’t used much, from time to time there were two men around the place, but no one had ever exchanged words with them. It seemed almost as though they were in hiding.’

‘And you believe this was Greve and Kjikerud?’

‘They were incredibly professional and extremely paricular in their dealings with others. And they didn’t want to leave any traces that might connect the two of them. We don’t have any witnesses who ever saw them together, and no phone records to show they had spoken.’

‘But then an unforeseen event took place?’

‘Yes. Precisely what, we don’t know. They had gone to the cabin to hide the painting. Not unnaturally when the sums are so huge there is a tendency for suspicions to sneak in about the partner you trusted before… Perhaps they started arguing. And they must have been high: we found traces of drugs in both their blood samples.’

‘Drugs?’

‘A mixture of Ketalar and Dormicum. Strong stuff and very unusual among addicts in Oslo, so our guess is that Greve must have brought this with him from Amsterdam. The combination may have made them careless and in the end they totally lost control. Which ended up with them taking the life of Sindre Aa. Afterwards-’

‘One moment,’ Dybwad interrupted. ‘Could you explain to viewers exactly what happened in connection with this first murder?’

Sperre raised an eyebrow, as if to express a certain displeasure with the presenter’s undisguised bloodthirstiness. Then he gave in.

‘No, we can only guess. Kjikerud and Greve may have taken the party down to Sindre Aa and boasted about the famous painting they had stolen. And Aa rea-ted by threatening to or actually trying to contact the police. Whereupon Clas Greve garrotted him.’

‘And a garrotte is?’

‘A thin piece of wire or nylon which is tightened around the victim’s neck, blocking the flow of oxygen to the brain.’

‘And he dies?’

‘Er… yes.’

A button in the control room was pressed and on the live monitor – the screen showing what was being transmitted to the thousands of TV viewers – Odd G. Dybwad was nodding slowly while staring at Sperre with a studied mixture of horror and earnestness. He let it sink in. One, two, three seconds. Three TV years. The producer was presumably sweating now. And then Dybwad broke the silence. ‘How do you know it was Greve who carried out the killing?’

‘Forensic evidence. We later found the garrotte on Greve’s body, in the jacket pocket. Sindre Aa’s blood and traces of Greve’s skin were found on it.’

‘And so you know that both Greve and Kjikerud were in Aa’s sitting room at the time of the murder?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you know that? More forensic evidence?’

Sperre squirmed. ‘Yes.’

‘What evidence?’

Brede Sperre coughed and shot a look at Dybwad. They might have had discussions about this point. Sperre may have asked him to skip the detail, but Dybwad had insisted it was important to fill out the story.

Sperre braced himself. ‘We found some evidence in the vicinity of Sindre Aa’s body. Traces of excrement.’

‘Excrement?’ Dybwad interrupted. ‘Human?’

‘Yes. We sent it to the lab for DNA analysis. Most matches the DNA profile of Ove Kjikerud. But there was also some from Clas Greve.’

Dybwad opened his palms. ‘What on earth was going on here, Inspector Sperre?’

‘It is difficult to form a detailed picture, of course, but it looks as if Greve and Kjikerud…’ Another pause to brace himself. ‘… smeared their own excrement over themselves. Some people do that, don’t they?’

‘In other words, we’re talking about some very sick individuals here?’

‘They’d been taking drugs, as I mentioned before. But, yes, it is undoubtedly… er, deviant behaviour.’

‘And it doesn’t stop there, does it?’

‘No.’

Sperre paused as Dybwad raised his forefinger, the agreed signal for Sperre to take a tiny break. Enough for viewers to be able to digest the information and prepare themselves for what was to follow. Then the inspector continued.

‘Ove Kjikerud, in his drug-fuelled state, discovers a sadistic game to play with the dog that Greve has brought along. He skewers it on the prongs of a loader at the back of a tractor. But this is a fighting dog and in the heat of the struggle Kjikerud receives deep bites to the neck. Afterwards Kjikerud drives the tractor around the area with the dog hanging from the loader. He is obviously so high that he can barely keep the tractor on the road and is stopped by a motorist. The motorist has no idea what he has stumbled upon and does what any right-minded citizen would feel duty-bound to do – he puts the injured Kjikerud in his car and drives him to hospital.’

‘What a contrast in… in human qualities,’ exclaimed Odd G. Dybwad.

‘One might indeed say that. It was this motorist who was able to tell us that Kjikerud was covered in his own excrement when he met him. He thought Kjikerud had fallen into a muck heap, but the hospital staff who washed Kjikerud said that it was human ex-rement, not animal. They have had some experience of… of…’

‘What did they do with Kjikerud at the hospital?’

‘Kjikerud was semi-conscious, but they showered him, bandaged the wound and put him to bed.’

‘And it was at the hospital that they found traces of drugs in his blood?’

‘No. They did take blood samples, but they were routinely destroyed. We found traces of drugs in his blood during the post-mortem examination.’

‘OK, but let’s go back. We’ve got up to Kjikerud being admitted to the hospital with Greve still at the farm. What happens then?’

‘Greve, naturally enough, suspects something when Kjikerud doesn’t return. He discovers the tractor’s gone, fetches his own car and starts driving around the district searching for his companion. We assume that Greve has a police radio in his car and through it hears that the police have found the tractor and – getting on for morning – the body of Sindre Aa.’

‘Right, so now Greve is in trouble. He doesn’t know where his accomplice is, the police have found the body of Sindre Aa, the farm is a crime scene and in their search for the murder weapon there is a chance the police may uncover the Rubens painting. What is going through Greve’s mind?’

Sperre hesitated. Why? police reports always avoid descriptions of what people think, keeping only to what can be proved At most, one might refer to what those involved said they were thinking. But in this case no one had said anything. On the other hand, Sperre knew he had to come up with something, had to help bring the story to life so as to… to… He probably hadn’t allowed himself to think that thought through to its logical conclusion because he had an inkling what lay at the end. That he liked being the person the media rang, the one they wanted a sound bite from if a comment or an explanation was needed, the nods of recognition on the street, the unsolicited photos on the mobile phone. But if he stopped delivering, would the media stop ringing? So what did it all boil down to? A question of integrity versus media attention, respect from colleagues versus popularity with the man on the street?

‘Greve is thinking…’ Brede Sperre said, ‘… that the situation is tricky. He drives around searching, and it is morning by now. Then he hears on the police radio that Kjikerud is going to be arrested, collected from the hospital by the police and taken in for questioning. And now Greve knows the situation has gone from tricky to desperate. You see, he knows that Kjikerud is no hardboiled thug, that the police won’t need to push him very far, that Kjikerud may be offered a reduced sentence if he informs on his partner and, of course, that Kjikerud will not accept the guilt for the murder of Sindre Aa.’