She heard Viken letting himself into his office. Waited a couple of minutes before knocking and showing him the documents she had printed out from STRASAK. He sat there for a while, his head moving from side to side, the deep furrow prominent over the bridge of his nose. He pulled at his jawline, smoothing out the wrinkles on his cheeks. Presently he said:
– I’ll give the sheriff up there a call. He sounds like an okay sort of bloke.
Five minutes later he popped his head round her door.
– Prepare for another trip out into the bush. We’ll leave straight after the morning briefing.
Heading north along the E6, she wondered what it was that had persuaded Viken to set aside yet another half-day in following up such a vague lead. He could have left it to the local sheriff’s office to take care of. It was becoming more and more obvious to her that Viken was the type who was rarely satisfied with work done by others. A lone wolf who only delegated jobs with reluctance. Not very efficient, she thought, even if the man did have an enormous capacity for work. And why bring her along, and use up a whole day’s man-hours? Not that she minded working with him; she handled it better than most of the other detectives. Some, like Sigge Helgarsson, avoided Viken like the plague. No wonder really: Viken had a go at him every chance he got. It was obvious he preferred having Arve Norbakk along when possible. And Arve knew the countryside up there in Hedmark. But today Viken had chosen Nina, and she didn’t bother trying to work out the possible reasons why.
– What are you expecting to get out of this trip? she took a chance and asked.
Viken was a surprisingly careful driver. He was wearing a pair of pilot sunglasses, which he’d taken from the glove compartment, and was sitting back and taking in the open Romerike landscape.
– Not exactly a breakthrough, he said, and didn’t sound worried. – Even if this Roger Åheim has been involved in some pretty violent stuff. And the environmental crimes.
She didn’t ask why, in that case, they should be spending half a day on it, but he seemed to guess what was on her mind.
– Often you find it’s the detours that lead you to the solutions in difficult cases, he told her.
Nina needed a smoke. She sat there trying to summon up the voice of the psychologist who had led the course on how to give up.
– We’re struggling because we can’t see a motive, she said.
Viken glanced over at her.
– And how often do you find an obvious motive in murder cases?
She thought about it.
– It depends what you mean by motive.
Viken said: – Before I started in Violent Crimes, I worked on white-collar crime. An accountant embezzles money to pay for a holiday home in Spain. An impatient broker doubles his fortune by selling insider information. Clear chain of connection between motive and deed, a calculated risk, possible to work it all out in terms of cost and benefit. But in my twenty years with Violent Crimes, I don’t think I’ve come across a single case of murder where the motive has been easy to understand. And certainly not where it’s premeditated.
Several times over the past few weeks Nina had been struck by how unaffected he appeared to be by the gruesome nature of the case they were investigating. This ability to observe things from a distance was probably what made him a top detective.
– The last murder case in Manchester I was involved in was back in ’98. The Shipman case.
– That doctor who killed huge numbers of his patients?
– It might have been fifteen or two hundred and fifty, or twice that many, we’ll never know. As you’ll remember, he hanged himself in jail. So we’ll never know either what turned him into a mass killer, even if they write a mile of books about him. There were just a couple of cases where there was even a hint of financial gain in it for him. To understand what drives a man like that, you have to look at the psychological profile.
Not many of his colleagues in Violent Crimes had turned up to hear Viken when he lectured on this subject, but Nina had. Now he glanced at her as though trying to see whether she understood what he was talking about.
– He was probably damaged early on in life, she offered, a little reluctantly. – Abuse of some kind, and then later an extreme need to manipulate the facts of life and death. The control of intolerable pain by inducing it in another.
– That’s all very well, he nodded. – Shipman ticked every box. And yet what he did remains incomprehensible. There’s something at the heart of every killing that evades any attempt to explain it. If you get too obsessed by motive, you’ll often find yourself going astray.
Nina sat back in her seat. Covertly she studied the chief inspector’s hands. Not exactly nice, she thought, but fascinating. Narrow and bony, with unusually long fingers.
– So that’s why we’re on our way to the forests of darkest Hedmark, she said, trying to neutralise the irony with a slightly sing-song childish voice.
Viken burst out laughing. He laughed for a long time – she couldn’t remember ever hearing him laugh so long before – and she felt relieved, and perhaps even a touch of pride too, at having been responsible for it.
– I think maybe you do get the point, he said, the laughter stopping abruptly.
Nina thought about it.
– So you’re saying we shouldn’t be looking for motives.
– I’m saying that shouldn’t be what dominates the investigation in a case like this. Something will start to add up after a while. But never everything. Not even after a full confession and sessions with the shrinks. Especially not then.
– All the same, you sound optimistic, she said.
He drove faster, even though they had left the motorway and were now on a road with only two lanes.
– I don’t doubt for a moment that we’re going to solve this case, Jebsen. We’re hunting a killer who has already told us a lot about who he is. The question is, can we get to him before anything else happens?
A few kilometres past Åmoen, they saw a sign for Åheim. They pulled off the main road and headed north through forest.
– Do you think people are influenced by the landscape they grow up in? Nina wondered aloud, peering at the thick lanes of pine.
Viken seemed to have no special view on the matter. They passed a left turn-off, and he glanced at it before driving on. He had just spoken to the sheriff at Åsnes and been given a detailed description of the route. The sheriff had offered to come along with them, but Viken had rejected the idea. As he explained later, he didn’t want local people hanging around while he was working; it would be more of a hindrance than a help.
– I could never live in a place like this, said Nina abruptly. – I’d get claustrophobia after about ten minutes.
Viken ignored her.
– To find the person who’s committed these murders, we have to put ourselves in his shoes, he said. – It’s not enough to proceed analytically. You’ve got to take a leap away from your own common sense and morality. Get in tune with that part of yourself that makes it possible for you to follow a human being who doesn’t think like a human being.