Jo Nesbo - The Son

‘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 Krogn?ss, 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 Krogn?ss 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 Krogn?ss’s table, the other man bent down, asked Krogn?ss 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; Krogn?ss 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 Krogn?ss 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 Krogn?ss 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.