Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

We entered the kitchen where Carl and Shannon were already sitting.

‘We’d like to talk to all of you,’ said Martinsen. ‘But we’d prefer one at a time.’

‘You can wait in our old room,’ I said casually, with a look at Carl, realising he understood my thinking. That they would be able to hear the questions and answers, so we could be sure to be as synchronised as we had been when rehearsing the story in the event of interrogation by the police.

‘Coffee?’ I asked once Carl and Shannon had left.

‘No thanks,’ said Martinsen and Sulesund, talking over Kurt’s ‘yes’.

I poured a cup for Kurt.

‘KRIPOS are assisting me in the investigation into Willumsen’s murder,’ said Kurt, and I caught Martinsen’s slight roll of the eyes to Sulesund.

‘Because this is hardly a suicide here, but murder.’ Olsen’s voice fell to a deep bass on the word ‘murder’. He let it sort of linger in the air and do its job, looked at me as though to check for a reaction before continuing. ‘A murder disguised as a suicide. The oldest trick in the book.’

I felt as though I’d read that very sentence in an article in True Crime .

‘But the killer didn’t fool us. Yes, Willumsen was holding the murder weapon, but he had no gunpowder residue on his hand.’

‘Gunpowder residue,’ I repeated, as though savouring the words.

Sulesund coughed. ‘Actually a bit more than gunpowder residue. It’s called GSR, short for gunshot residue. Tiny particles of barium, lead and a couple of other chemical substances from the ammunition and the weapon that attach themselves to almost everything within a half-metre radius when a shot is fired. It attaches itself to the skin and the clothes and is very difficult to get rid of. Fortunately.’ He gave a quick laugh and adjusted his wire-framed spectacles. ‘It’s invisible, but we’ve brought equipment with us, fortunately.’

‘Anyway,’ Kurt interrupted, ‘we found nada on Willumsen. Understand?’

‘I understand,’ I said.

‘What’s more, the basement door was open, and Rita was certain it had been locked. So our guess is that it’s been jemmied. The killer also turned over the snow to hide his footprints in the garden when he left. We found the shovel – which Rita identified – in a waste container not far away.’

‘Blimey,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Kurt. ‘And we have our suspicions as to who the perpetrator must be.’

I didn’t answer.

‘Aren’t you curious to know?’ Kurt looked at me with his idiotic X-ray-type stare.

‘Of course, but you’re bound by professional secrecy, aren’t you?’

Kurt turned to the two KRIPOS people and gave a short laugh. ‘This is a murder investigation, Roy. We divulge and withhold information in accordance with how it helps our inquiries.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘Dealing with a murder as professionally executed as the one we’re dealing with here, our focus of interest has become a car. More precisely a fairly old, Danish-registered Jaguar that has been observed in the area, and which I suspect belongs to a professional enforcer.’

The one w e’re dealing with here. Our focus of interest. Christ, he made it sound like he was up to his neck in murder cases. And that suspicion involving the enforcer was obviously not his own, it was something the villagers had been talking about for years.

‘So we’ve been in touch with the Danish police and sent them the weapon and the projectile. They’ve found a match with a nine-year-old murder in Århus. That case was never solved, but one of the suspects was the owner of a vintage white E-Type Jaguar. His name is Poul Hansen, and it’s an established fact that he operates as an enforcer.’ Kurt turned to the KRIPOS investigators. ‘He owns a Jaguar, but he’s too tight-fisted to get rid of the murder weapon. How Danish is that?’ he said with a grin.

‘Would have thought that was more typically Swedish,’ said Martinsen expressionlessly.

‘Or Icelandic,’ said Sulesund.

Kurt turned back to me. ‘Have you seen this Jaguar around lately, Roy?’ he said it casually. Too casually. So casually I realised it was a trick; this was where he was hoping to lure me out onto thin ice, get me to make a mistake. They knew more than they were letting on. But not so much more that they had to try to trick me, ergo they were missing something. Obviously, I wanted most of all to tell them I hadn’t seen the car, hear them say thanks and leave; but that would leave us trapped. Because there was a reason they were here. And that reason was the Jaguar. I would have to watch myself now, and the one I instinctively knew I had to be most wary of was the woman, Martinsen.

‘I saw that Jaguar,’ I said. ‘It was here.’

‘Here?’ said Martinsen quietly and placed her phone on the table in front of me. ‘Do you mind if we record this, Opgard? Just to make sure we don’t forget anything you tell us.’

‘By all means,’ I said. Her courteous way of speaking was infectious.

‘So,’ said Kurt, putting his elbows on the table and leaning closer. ‘What was Poul Hansen doing here?’

‘He was trying to get money out of Carl.’

‘Oh?’ said Kurt, staring at me. But I saw Martinsen’s gaze had started to flit around the room, as though she were looking for something. Something other than what was happening right in front of them, and which anyway they had on tape. Her gaze fastened on the stovepipe.

‘He said that this time he wasn’t in Os to extort money for Willumsen but from Willumsen,’ I said. ‘He seemed pretty angry, to put it mildly. Apparently Willumsen owed him money for several jobs. And now Willumsen told him he was flat broke.’

‘Willumsen flat broke ?’

‘When the hotel burned down, Willumsen decided to cancel Carl’s debt from the loan he’d given him. It was a lot of money, but Willumsen felt he was partially to blame for the decisions that were taken that led to Carl’s losses being even greater once the hotel burned down.’

I had to tread carefully here. Those of us at Opgard were still the only ones in the village who knew that the hotel hadn’t been insured for fire. The only ones living, at any rate. But I was telling the truth all right. The documents regarding the cancellation of the first loan and the provision for a new loan were now with Willumsen’s lawyer, and they would hold up in court.

‘In addition,’ I said, ‘Willumsen had cancer and didn’t have long left. So he probably wanted his legacy to be that he generously contributed to the building of the hotel and didn’t let financial complications arising out of the fire stop him.’

‘Wait,’ said Kurt. ‘Was it Carl or the company that owns the hotel who owed Willumsen money?’

‘That’s complicated,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to take it up with Carl.’

‘We aren’t Economic and Environment Crime, so please continue,’ said Martinsen. ‘Poul Hansen demanded that Carl pay him the money Willumsen owed him?’

‘Yes. But of course we had no money, only the cancelled debt. And we still hadn’t received the new loan – that won’t be until another two weeks from now.’

‘Jesus,’ said Kurt flatly.

‘So then what did Poul Hansen do?’ asked Martinsen.

‘He gave up and drove away.’

‘When was this?’ Her questions were delivered rapidly and were intended to speed up the tempo of the answers too, we’re easily conditioned that way. I wet my lips.

‘Was it before or after Willumsen’s murder?’ Kurt blurted out, losing patience. And when Martinsen turned to Kurt, I saw for the first time something else beside the calm and the smile in her face. If looks could kill, Kurt would’ve been dead. Because now I knew what they were after. I’d been shown where the dog’s body was buried, as people say. The timeline. They knew something about Poul Hansen’s visit up here.