He went out to the kitchen to brew more coffee. Knew that he would be sitting up until late. While he waited for enough drops to drip down through the filter paper to make another cup, he called Norbakk. With no apology for the late hour, he related the conversation he had had with the sheriff up in Åsnes.
– You know what it’s like in places like that, Arve; d’you think there might be something in it?
He had expected the sergeant to burst out laughing, but he didn’t.
– I know a lot of sheep farmers who are desperate, he answered. – Åsnes, did you say? Maybe not such a bad idea to take a trip up there.
– Well then that’s settled, Viken said. He already knew who would get the job.
– While we’re on it, Arve: that doctor we interviewed today, there was something about him.
– What do you mean?
– Nothing definite. A gut feeling. We’ll have him in again in a few days’ time.
As Viken was about to end the call, Norbakk said: – By the way, I’ve found something that might be interesting.
– Out with it then, the chief inspector urged him. He had absolutely no objection to discussing the case with his younger colleague, even if it was well past midnight.
– Those tracks around the victims were definitely made by a bear’s paws. But we can’t work out how a bear would be wandering around there. He paused.
– Don’t keep me on tenterhooks, Viken complained.
– I did a search of stolen property and looked for animal-related things. On the fifth of October, that’s to say, two days before Paulsen was found, there was a break-in at a gunsmith’s in Lillestrøm. Only a few minor things were taken. But the thief did take a stuffed she-bear that was on a stand just inside the entrance.
– Give over, Arve, Viken protested. – You think we’re looking for a killer who drives around with a stuffed bear in the boot of his car?
He heard Norbakk laughing.
– You don’t need a whole bear to make a few tracks.
Viken’s jaw worked as he thought this over.
– Good to know someone’s doing his job, he said finally. – The bear prints are probably some sort of signature.
– Or they contain a message of some kind, Norbakk suggested. – The person who has done this is maybe trying to tell us something.
30
Wednesday 17 October
AFTER HAVING BEEN directed to Nytorpet Farm and established that there was no one home, Nina Jebsen again rang the Åsnes sheriff. He was very helpful and within a couple of minutes had called back with more information. He couldn’t get hold of the farm owner, but his wife worked at a home for the mentally handicapped in Reinkollen. Nina groaned inwardly. As though she was supposed to know where that was. At the morning briefing, when Viken mentioned the tip that had come in from Åsnes, she hadn’t been able to resist a few comments about the bear guerrillas and terrorism among the Hedmark farmers. Viken had responded with a wicked grin before telling her that she was going up there. An exercise in punishment, she’d thought, and swore to keep her mouth shut the next time.
For a girl from Bergen, the landscape in the east of the country could be summed up in one word: forest. And here in the border regions it seemed even thicker than elsewhere. She struggled against a sensation of being locked up inside it. No wonder people got depressed living in places like this, she sighed, without really knowing for sure whether there was any more depression here in the forest depths than there was over in the west. But where she came from, things changed all the time: the light, the smells, the moods, and your own moods with them. She even found herself missing the Bergen rain as she sped on between the rows of spruce with no view of the horizon in any direction.
The sheriff had given her detailed directions how to get to Reinkollen, but somewhere or other she’d lost the way. She blamed it on her lack of the genes necessary for negotiating a jungle like this. At a village called Åmoen, she pulled in to an Esso station to ask for help. A man who looked to be in his mid-twenties stood lounging in the doorway to a back room. His head was shaven, with a tattoo that appeared to show two crossed swords standing out against the white of his skull. He glanced at her as she approached the counter, then turned and continued to stare at what was presumably a TV screen in the other room. After drumming her fingers and coughing a few times, she lost patience.
– Closed for the day? she said in a voice that startled the young man. He sloped over and scowled at her. Once she had explained her business, he picked up a map book, tossed it on to the counter, flipped through it and pointed.
– You drove past it three kilometres back, here. You can’t miss the sign. Even the mongos and halfwits that live up there can find the way.
She stared at him in disbelief. Had to pull herself together as best she was able, but still couldn’t resist.
– I see not all the halfwits live up there, she murmured.
On her way out she heard him mention a part of her anatomy he almost certainly wished he had himself.
The woman who opened the door to the home was grey haired and slightly built, with a scraggy turkey neck. She had a stoop, and her gaze flickered between Nina and the patrol car parked outside.
– What… what is it?
– Does Åse Berit Nytorpet work here?
The woman’s jowls wobbled as she gave a slight nod. Nina showed her police ID.
– Nothing’s wrong, she added as she saw the frightened look. – I’d just like to ask a few questions.
She was led into the main room. A person of indeterminate age sat in a wheelchair by a table. She was nothing but skin and bone, and her eyes rolled back and forth. A faint sound like a meowing came from her throat.
A tall, stoutly built woman in a knitted cardigan and skirt and wearing shaggy felt slippers stood up.
– Åse Berit Nytorpet?
– That’s me, yes.
Nina again introduced herself.
– I’m here in connection with a case we hope you might be able to help us with.
The woman looked to be in her sixties. She wrinkled her brow and didn’t seem much friendlier than the woman who’d let her in.
– Is there somewhere we can talk in private? It won’t take long.
Åse Berit Nytorpet glanced over towards her companion.
– We can sit out in the kitchen, she decided. – Signy, will you see to Oswald? He could probably do with a little walk to the living room.
The stooping figure with the scrawny neck still looked terrified, and Nina repeated that it was just a few questions, a routine matter.
Out in the kitchen Åse Berit Nytorpet poured a cup of coffee and without a word put it down on the table in front of Nina, who said thank you as politely as she could and continued.
– We’re working on a case you may have heard of. The two women found dead in Oslo?