Jo Nesbo - The Son

But instead he smiled to her, muttered a modest ‘hello’, sat down two rows away and looked dreamily out of the window as if nothing had happened. Good God, what kind of people have we become? A bunch of pathetic old women who don’t even have the decency to be ashamed of ourselves. She was sorely tempted to spit on the floor herself.

‘And they say Norway doesn’t have an upper class,’ Simon Kefas remarked as he held up the white-and-orange police tape so that Kari Adel could duck under it.

A panting, uniformed police officer whose forehead glistened with sweat stopped them in front of the double garage. They showed him their warrant cards; he checked the photographs and asked Simon to remove his sunglasses.

‘Who found her?’ Simon asked, squinting against the sharp sunlight.

‘The cleaners,’ the policeman said. ‘They turned up for work at twelve noon and called the emergency services.’

‘Any witnesses who saw or heard anything?’

‘No one saw anything,’ the policeman said. ‘But we’ve spoken to a neighbour who says that she heard a loud bang. At first she thought it might have been an exploding tyre. They wouldn’t recognise gunshots in a neighbourhood like this.’

‘Thank you,’ Simon said, put his sunglasses back on and walked up the steps ahead of Kari to where a CSO in white overalls was examining the front door old-school style with a small, black-haired brush. Little flags marked the path the CSOs had already cleared and it led right to the body which was lying on the kitchen floor. A ray of sunlight fell through the window, stretched across the stone floor and sparkled in the puddles of water and the broken glass around the ox-eye daisies. A man dressed in a suit was squatting beside the body and conferring with a medical examiner whom Simon recognised.

‘Excuse me,’ Simon said and the man in the suit looked up. His hair, glistening with several different products, and his carefully combed, narrow sideburns made Simon wonder if he was Italian. ‘Who are you?’

‘I could ask you the same question,’ the man said, making no attempt to get up. Simon guessed him to be in his early thirties.

‘Chief Inspector Kefas, Homicide.’

‘Pleased to meet you. Asmund Bjornstad, I’m a DI with Kripos. You don’t look like you’ve been told that we’re taking over this case.’

‘Says who?’

‘Your own boss, as it happens.’

‘The Chief Superintendent?’

The suit shook his head and pointed at the ceiling. Simon noticed Bjornstad’s nails. They had to be manicured, surely.

‘The Commissioner?’

Bjornstad nodded. ‘He contacted Kripos and told us we might as well come over right away.’

‘Why?’

‘I guess he thought you’d end up asking us for assistance sooner or later.’

‘When you would have waltzed in like you have now and taken charge?’

Asmund Bjornstad smiled briefly. ‘Listen, it wasn’t my decision. But whenever Kripos is asked to assist in a murder inquiry, we always make it a condition that we’re given overall responsibility for the investigation, tactical as well as technical.’

Simon nodded. He was well aware of it; it wasn’t the first time that Oslo Police’s Homicide Squad and the National Criminal Investigation Service, Kripos, were stepping on each other’s toes. And he knew that what he ought to do was say thank you and be grateful for one less case to deal with, go back to his office and focus on the Vollan investigation instead.

‘Well, as we’re here, we might as well take a look around,’ Simon said.

‘Why?’ Bjornstad made no attempt to hide his irritation.

‘I’m sure you have everything under control, Bjornstad, but I have a newly qualified investigator with me; she would benefit from seeing how we examine a real-life crime scene. How about it?’

The Kripos investigator looked reluctantly at Kari. Then he shrugged.

‘Great,’ Simon said and squatted down.

It wasn’t until now that he looked at the body. He had deliberately avoided it and waited until he could give it his full attention. You only get one chance at first impressions. The almost symmetrical circle of blood in the middle of the white apron briefly reminded him of the national flag of Japan. Apart from the fact that the sun had gone down and not up for the woman who stared at the ceiling with that dead look he had never grown used to. Simon had concluded the look was a combination of a human body and the totally dehumanised expression, the absence of vitality, a human being reduced to an object. He had been told that the victim’s name was Agnete Iversen. What he knew for sure was that she had been shot in the chest. A single shot, or so it would appear. He looked at her hands. None of her nails were broken and her hands showed no sign of a struggle. The nail polish on the middle finger of her left hand was chipped, but that could have happened when she fell.

‘Any sign of a break-in?’ Simon asked and signalled to the medical examiner to turn over the body.

Bjornstad shook his head. ‘The door might have been left unlocked — the victim’s husband and son had just left for work. We didn’t find any fingerprints on the door handle, either.’

‘Not one?’ Simon let his gaze glide along the edge of the worktop.

‘No. As you can see, she’s very house-proud.’

Simon studied the exit wound on the victim’s back. ‘Straight through. The bullet appears to have gone through soft tissue only.’

The medical examiner pressed his lips together and pushed them out while he shrugged, a gesture that told Simon his conjecture wasn’t unreasonable.

‘And the bullet?’ Simon asked, glancing up at the wall above the worktop.

Reluctantly Asmund Bjornstad pointed higher up.

‘Thank you,’ Simon said. ‘And the shell?’

‘Not found yet,’ the investigator said and took out a mobile with a gold-coloured casing.

‘I see. And what is Kripos’s preliminary theory as to what happened here?’

‘Theory?’ Bjornstad smiled, pressing the mobile to his ear. ‘Surely that’s obvious. The burglar entered, shot the victim in here, took whatever valuables he could find and fled the scene. A planned robbery that ended up with a unplanned killing, I think. Perhaps she put up a fight or started to scream.’

‘And how do you think-’

Bjornstad held up a hand to indicate his call had been answered. ‘Hello, it’s me. Can you get me a list of anyone currently around with convictions for violent robbery? Do a quick check to see if there’s anyone in Oslo. Prioritise those who used guns. Thank you.’ He dropped the mobile into his jacket pocket. ‘Listen, old boy, we’ve quite a lot of work to do here, so I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to-’

‘All good,’ Simon said, proffering his broadest smile. ‘But if we promise not to get in your way, perhaps we could take a look around first?’

The Kripos investigator looked at his older colleague with suspicion.

‘And we promise not to step inside the flags.’

Bjornstad granted his request with gracious benevolence.

‘He found what he was looking for,’ Kari observed when they stood in front of the bed on the thick wall-to-wall carpet in the master bedroom. On the bedspread lay a handbag, an open, emptied purse and a jewellery box lined with red velvet, also empty.

‘Perhaps,’ Simon said, ignoring the flag and squatting down beside the bed.

‘He would have been standing roughly here when he tipped out the handbag and the jewellery box, don’t you agree?’

‘Yes, as everything is lying on the bed.’

Simon studied the carpet. He was about to get up again when he stopped mid-motion and bent down.