The lad backed away into the room behind him, slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock. With trembling hands he took his mobile phone from his top pocket and punched in the emergency number.
69
Saturday 27 October
AT 1.10 A.M., ARMED police mounted an operation in Åsnes county in Hedmark. Members of the Emergency Response Unit went into action, surrounding a cabin in the forest north of Åmoen owned by Sergeant Arve Norbakk of the Oslo City Police. Snipers were put on alert and a dog team was also on the scene.
The door and the windows on two of the walls were wide open. Through a megaphone the operational leader ordered everyone inside the cabin to come out immediately. There was no reaction, nor was there when the command was repeated. At 2.23 the cabin was bathed in light from mobile floodlights and a combined assault was mounted on three fronts. The first man through the door shouted a warning; again there was no answer.
– I’m hearing sounds, he reported through his radio headset. – Like a child whimpering.
They were given the go-ahead and went in. The smell of rotting meat hit them. The front room was empty. The kitchen too, and one of the bedrooms. Another door was locked and secured. An open trapdoor was found. Obviously where the sounds were coming from. One of the three officers who had entered the premises got down on the floor and wriggled his way over to it. The stench here was even stronger. From the ceiling below him a torch shed a faint light on what lay beneath. It struck him that the cellar was much larger than it appeared to be from the outside. A metal gate divided the room in two. He leaned further forward, shone his own torch around. In one corner, behind the ladder leading down, sat a bent form with its back to him. Now it turned towards the light. The sergeant stared down into the pale, wide face. It looked as though tears were falling from the slanting eyes. The man sat cradling something in his arms. It looked to be about the size of a doll. Behind him lay the twisted shape of a human body.
– What are you doing down there?
He got no answer. One of the others joined him.
– I’ll go down. The guy’s mentally retarded. Looks like there’s someone else there too. Probably not conscious.
He jumped down into the semi-darkness, pistol in one hand, torch in the other.
– You can’t sit there like that, he said. – What’s that you’ve got there?
He shone his torch on the thing the man was holding in his arms. At first he couldn’t tell what it was. Then abruptly he staggered back and supported himself against the ladder. The light from the torch was shining directly on to the face of a severed head.
At 4.15, the remains of the two bodies were carried outside and placed in the clearing in front of the cabin. A pile of excrement was found by one of the cellar walls. The wildlife expert was in no doubt about the kind of animal it came from, and tracks found in and around the cabin confirmed this. Along with the injuries sustained by the two bodies, this seemed a clear indication of the cause of death. As soon as it was light enough, four teams of hunters were sent out into the forest. It would take three days before they managed to track down the bear they believed to be the one that had been kept in the cellar beneath the cabin. It was shot and dissected. In its stomach the hunters found partially digested remains that they were immediately able to identify as human.
At 12.00, a press conference was held in a fifth-floor meeting room at Oslo police station. The room was packed with journalists, over a third of them from foreign media. Representing the police were the Chief Constable, the Deputy Chief Constable and the Assistant Chief Constable, as well as the head of the Violent Crimes unit, Superintendent Agnes Finckenhagen, who briefed the gathering on the so-called bear murders. She announced that the case could now be considered solved, and assured members of the press that they would be kept up to date on any further developments. She also asked for their understanding on this difficult day. It was an appalling tragedy for the victims and their families, and one in which the Oslo police too had suffered.
As soon as questions were invited, all hell broke loose in the room, and it took some time for things to calm down enough for the questions to be heard. Finckenhagen sat there pale and drawn, the make-up cracking around her eyes, and struggled to control her voice. It was obvious that many of the journalists had been unable to take on board the extraordinary details that had emerged from the briefing, and the questions they asked were relatively straightforward to answer. VG, on the other hand, seemed to be particularly well informed. The female reporter immediately asked about Sergeant Arve Norbakk, his role in the investigation, and his relationship to one of the murdered women.
– When a serial killer involved in the investigation of his own crimes has clearly influenced the direction of that investigation, what are the consequences for the police? she added.
Finckenhagen was taken completely by surprise. She had expressed herself in very general terms about an employee in the Oslo city police force. She turned to the Chief Constable, and in his eyes thought she could see what the ultimate consequences of this question would be. She felt dizzy.
– There will be a full inquiry into personnel and leadership routines, she heard him reply. – Obviously it’s much too early to say what the results of that inquiry will be. We can however confirm that things have happened here that should not have happened in the matter of employment practices and follow-up routines.
Detective Chief Inspector Hans Magnus Viken and the rest of the team followed the press conference on the screen in the meeting room. Nina Jebsen sat leaning forward, chewing away intensely at something, while Sigge Helgarsson tipped his chair back against the wall and lounged there, a bemused smirk on his face.
– Heads will roll, he predicted, evidently not realising that his language was a trifle inappropriate under the circumstances. – It’s on days like this you realise how lucky you are not to be one of the bosses.
For once Viken didn’t turn on him with a sarcastic riposte. He stood by the wall, arms folded, expressionless and silent. Images from the previous night were still etched across the light cells of his retinas. Arve Norbakk’s cabin, the bed containing the remains of the missing woman, Miriam Gaizauskaite. He had also been down in the cellar… The smells were even more persistent, he noticed. He shook them away, grabbed his coffee cup and emptied it, felt the acid bubbling and boiling down in his stomach. The burning grew worse when he thought about Arve Norbakk. He’d given himself a day, two at the most, to put these thoughts behind him. He’d spent all night trying to come up with an alternative explanation. In some way or other Arve had to be a victim too. In the minutes before Axel Glenne was wheeled into the operating theatre at Ullevål hospital, Viken had been allowed to ask him some questions. A few of his worst suspicions were confirmed, but shreds of doubt remained.
Not until about ten o’clock had he been able to sit down with the letters from Glenne’s car, and a Dictaphone they found at the cabin. A video camera had also been found there. Viken ran the first clip, from which he understood that the sufferings of the victims in the cellar had been thoroughly documented. He decided that the rest of the clips could wait for another day.