He climbed up above the gully again, pulled the plastic coverings off his shoes and removed a cloth from his pocket. Even when working in terrain like this, he disliked seeing muddy spots on them. Afterwards he stood looking down at the brightly lit scene with the white-clad figures crawling around as they examined the ground around the body. He pulled out his mobile phone, called a number from the address book. A sergeant in the section had at one time been a member of the Hunting and Fishing Regulations committee in the area he came from, somewhere away up in darkest Hedmark. The type of guy who devoted two weeks of his holiday to elk hunting every time autumn came around.
– Hi, Arve, he said when his call was answered. – I know this is a holiday weekend for you, but there’s something I want you to see. Are you in town? Good, how quickly can you make it up to Ullevålseter?
Viken stood on the grass with a cup of hot coffee in his hands. The people at Ullevålseter were more than accommodating. The café had closed several hours ago, but they’d offered him something to eat as well. He said coffee was fine, even though his stomach was acid and complaining. In the distance he heard the sound of an engine, and a couple of minutes later a small, light car came up the slope. Sergeant Arve Norbakk, the man he was waiting for, usually drove a big four-by-four, and Viken immediately had a pretty good idea of what was happening.
His hunch turned out to be right. A blond woman he recognised at once jumped out of the passenger door even before the car had come to a halt.
– Well let me tell you, Fredvold, said Viken. – VG are usually on the scene long before I’ve even got my shoes on. I’ve been here for hours now and not seen hide nor hair of a journalist. No wonder the tabloids are struggling.
The woman was in her thirties, with a jutting lower jaw, and was about a head taller than the detective chief inspector. She wore a leather jacket and boots with heels that gave her another couple of centimetres on him. Tall women always made him feel uneasy.
– Well we’ll see about that, she answered. – But finding you here is good news.
Viken grimaced.
– It isn’t murder every time I show my face, you know that perfectly well. Did you get permission to drive up here?
– I didn’t reckon on meeting any traffic wardens in the middle of the forest, the journalist smiled. Cute as a pike, Viken thought.
A fat little man with an enormous photographer’s bag over one shoulder squeezed his way out of the car. The detective chief inspector hadn’t seen him before, and when the man approached, clearly intending to shake hands, he turned his back on him, trudged back into the café and refilled his cup. An hour had passed since he’d called Norbakk. He wanted to finish up here and get back down into town as quickly as possible.
Kaja Fredvold and the photographer followed him inside.
– Are you still serving coffee? the journalist exclaimed happily when she saw the steaming pot standing on the counter.
She helped herself and walked over to the table where Viken was now sitting.
– Is the body you’ve found Hilde Paulsen?
– Looks pretty much like it.
– What happened to her?
Viken drummed on the edge of the table.
– She’s lying in a gully, been lying there for a week and a half. Fell, I expect.
– Where?
– Not too far away. Couple of kilometres.
– But this area has been thoroughly combed for days. Dogs and helicopters and an army of volunteers.
– Give us a day or two, Fredvold.
– Us? You mean Violent Crimes?
Viken heard a car outside and stood up.
– Don’t try it on. That’s all you’re getting for now.
They drove up the forest road in Norbakk’s SUV, the journalist following them in the little Japanese car.
– Let’s hope they get stuck, said Viken.
Arve Norbakk chuckled. He was not much more than thirty, at least twenty years younger than his colleague. He’d joined straight from college and been in the section for eighteen months. Viken, who every semester led a course in investigatory tactics for the students, had personally recommended him to the head of the section. The gut feeling that stood him in such good stead as a detective was every bit as useful when it came to assessing a colleague’s personality and qualities. It enabled him to make quick judgements of their weaknesses and strengths, and he had not been mistaken in his opinion of Norbakk. The sergeant might not have been all that quick, but he was thorough and dependable, and smart enough when given the time. And he was someone who thought about what he was going to say before saying it, not the type to shoot his mouth off about anything and everything. The section had enough chattering magpies – an issue on which Viken’s tolerance was severely limited.
– You could have forbidden them to drive on any further, Norbakk suggested.
Viken fumbled out a paper hanky and blew into it. Not because he had a cold, but because the smell of the corpse he had been bending over still seemed to be in his nostrils.
– They would have been up there whatever. You know, when the mongrels pick up the scent of blood… Apropos mongrels, it was a dog that found the body. A few hundred metres off the track.
Norbakk glanced over at him.
– They’ve had search lines going across this area several times.
– I know. Our people with tracker dogs, and the army and the Red Cross, with hundreds of volunteers trawling every square inch. No one finds a damned shit. But a retired dentist out walking with his Gordon setter comes across it straight away.
A few minutes later they were stepping over the crime-scene tapes and climbing down into the gully. Norbakk took a quick look at the body.
– Fucking hell, he muttered, and looked up at the top of the gully.
– What do you make of these?
Viken pointed to the deep scratch marks on the back and neck.
– Can’t be the result of a fall, Norbakk said. – Must be an animal.
Viken glowered at the journalist and the photographer, who were leaning over the tape and following their every movement. Then he shone his torch on the marks in the moss.
– Bloody hell, Norbakk exclaimed.
– There’s a couple more here. We’ll need to get the experts on this, but I wanted you to see it first.
Viken shone the torch on the muddy area at the end of the gully.
– What’s your guess, Arve?
– Guess? It’s a stone-cold certainty.
The three technicians had arrived back by this time. Sergeant Arve Norbakk studied the ground for a little while longer before he raised his gaze and looked from one to another.
– Bear, he said.
17
Monday 8 October
VIKEN WAS IN excellent spirits but for obvious reasons contained himself.
– Are you trying to say that this is not our case? asked Nina Jebsen in her laid-back Bergen drawl. – That this is something for the Hunting and Fishing Regulations people?
Viken rested his gaze on her face. He’d only worked with her a couple of times before. She was in her early thirties, the type most men would undoubtedly have described as pretty, he thought. Meaning a face that was feminine and symmetrical and all that. Not very exciting, perhaps, but she definitely had a woman’s body, something the light grey suit with the short cinched jacket did nothing to hide. She just needed to lose about five or six kilos, he said to himself, not for the first time. But all things considered it was best for her to be the way she was. He didn’t want any babe working next to him, not on the job; that would be bound to cause trouble.