Kaja shrugged. ‘He’s a colleague, and I thought he was just drunk, nothing I would spread around, but, yes, I’ve had a glimpse of that side of him. He came to my place and reckoned in a pretty persistent way we should get cosy.’
‘But?’
‘Mikael was there.’
Harry felt himself twitch.
Kaja pushed herself up into a sitting position. ‘You don’t seriously think Krongli might have…’
‘I don’t know. I only know that whoever started the avalanche must have known the area well. Krongli has a connection with some of those girls at Havass. In addition, Elias Skog said before he was killed that he had seen something which might have been a rape at Havass. Aslak Krongli sounds like he can be violent.
‘And then there’s this avalanche. If you wanted to kill a woman you thought was alone with a detective in a remote mountain cabin, how would you do it? Starting an avalanche doesn’t exactly give you a guaranteed result. So why not make it simple and effective, take along your favourite murder weapon and go straight to the cabin? Because he knew that Iska Peller and the detective were not on their own. He knew we were waiting for him. So he sneaked in and attacked in the only way that would allow him to escape afterwards. We’re talking about an insider. Someone who knew about our Havass theories and understood what was going on when he heard us naming a witness at a press conference. The local County Officer at Ustaoset-’
‘Geilo,’ Kaja corrected.
‘Krongli definitely received the urgent call from Kripos requesting permission to land the police helicopter in the national park that night. He must have known the circumstances.’
‘Then he should also have known that Iska Peller wasn’t there, that we wouldn’t have endangered the life of a witness,’ Kaja said. ‘So it’s odd he didn’t keep well away.’
Harry nodded. ‘Good point, Kaja. I agree. I don’t think Krongli thought for a second that Peller was in the cabin. I think the avalanche was a continuation of what he’s been doing for some time.’
‘Which is?’
‘Playing with us.’
‘Playing?’
‘I received a call from Tony Leike’s phone while we were at the cabin. Tony saved my number, and I’m pretty certain it wasn’t him who phoned me. The thing is the caller didn’t ring off quickly enough, voicemail started recording and you can hear something for a second before the connection is cut. I’m not sure, but to me it sounded like laughter.’
‘Laughter?’
‘The laughter of someone who is amused. Because he’d just heard my message saying that I would have no network coverage for a couple of days. Let’s imagine it was Aslak Krongli who had just had his suspicions confirmed that I was at the cabin in Havass waiting for the killer.’
Harry paused and stared into the air, deep in thought.
‘Well?’ Kaja said after a while.
‘I just wanted to hear how the theory sounded when I said it aloud,’ Harry said.
‘And?’
He got to his feet. ‘Sounded half-arsed, in fact. But I’ll check Krongli’s alibis for the dates of the murders. See you.’
‘Truls Berntsen?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Roger Gjendem, Aftenposten. Have you got time to answer a few questions?’
‘Depends. If you’re going to pester me about Jussi, you’d better talk to-’
‘This is not about Jussi Kolkka, but my condolences by the way.’
‘OK.’
Roger was sitting with his feet up on his office desk in the Post Office tower gazing at the low buildings that constituted Oslo Central Station and down to the Opera House which would soon be finished. After the conversation with Bent Nordbo at Stopp Pressen he had spent the whole day – and parts of the night – poring over Mikael Bellman in greater detail. Apart from the rumour that the temp at Stovner police station had been beaten up, there were not a lot of tangible facts. But, as a crime journalist, over the years Roger Gjendem had gathered a number of regular and reliable sources who would gladly inform on their grandmothers for the price of a bottle of booze or a pouch of tobacco. And three of them lived in Manglerud. After a few calls it turned out all three of them had grown up there, too. Perhaps it was true what he had heard someone say, that no one moves from Manglerud. Or to Manglerud.
There were obviously very few secrets in this milieu, because all three remembered Mikael Bellman. Partly because he had been a bastard of a policeman at Stovner. But mostly because he had made a beeline for Julle’s woman while Julle was serving a twelve-month sentence for an earlier drugs conviction, which had been suspended but became custodial after someone had shopped him for pinching petrol from Mortensrud. The woman was Ulla Swart, Manglerud’s finest, and a year older than Bellman. When Julle’s sentence was up and he strolled out of prison having vowed to all and sundry that he was going to take care of Bellman, there had been two guys waiting in the garage when Julle went home to pick up his Kawasaki. They had been wearing balaclavas and beat him black and blue with iron bars and promised there would be more where that came from if he touched either Bellman or Ulla. Rumour had it that neither of the two had been Bellman. But one of them had been someone they called Beavis, Bellman’s eternal lackey. It was the only card Roger Gjendem had when he rang Truls ‘Beavis’ Berntsen. All the more reason to pretend he had four aces.
‘I just wanted to ask if there was any truth in the assertion that on instructions from Mikael Bellman you once beat up Stanislav Hesse, who was depping at the wages and personnel office of Stovner police station.’
Thunderous silence at the other end.
Roger cleared his throat. ‘Well?’
‘That’s a damned lie.’
‘Which part?’
‘I was never given any instructions by Mikael to do that. Everyone could see the bloody Pole was trying it on with his wife. Could have been anyone taking matters into their own hands.’
Roger Gjendem tended to believe the former, the bit about the instructions. But not the latter, the bit about ‘anyone’. None of Bellman’s other colleagues at Stovner that Roger had spoken to had anything directly bad to say about Bellman; however, it was evident that Bellman was not beloved, not a man for whom they would have answered a call to arms. Apart from one.
‘Thank you, that was all,’ Roger Gjendem said.
As Roger Gjendem put his mobile away, Harry rummaged in his jacket pocket and put his phone to his ear.
‘Yes?’
‘Bjorn Holm here.’
‘I can see that.’
‘Christ. Didn’t think you would have bothered to set up a phone book.’
‘I have indeed. You should feel honoured. You’re one of the four names in it.’
‘What’s the racket in the background? Where are you actually?’
‘Punters cheering because they think they’re going to win. I’m at a horse race.’
‘What?’
‘Bombay Garden.’
‘Isn’t that a… did they let you in?’
‘I’m a member. What do you want?’
‘Jesus, Harry, are you gambling on horses? Didn’t you learn anything in Hong Kong?’
‘Relax, I’m here checking up on Aslak Krongli. According to his office he was on police business in Oslo when both Charlotte and Borgny were killed. Not that unusual actually, because it turns out he’s quite often in Oslo. And I’ve just discovered the reason.’
‘Bombay Garden?’
‘Yup. Aslak Krongli has a not insubstantial gambling problem. Thing is, I’ve checked his credit card payments
