reinforcements from below. Four constables soon succeeded in ejecting everyone for whom there was no space on the single public bench.
The magistrate was delayed; the session was meant to start at one o’clock sharp. He arrived at four minutes past, without so much as a glance at anybody. He placed his file in front of him; it was marginally thicker than the one Bloch-Hansen had been provided with three days previously. Hakon stood up and gave the defence counsel some additional documents. It had taken him seven hours to sort out what he wanted to present to the Court, which was not allowed to have more documents than were given to the defence.
Turning to Hakon, the magistrate asked for the defendant. Hakon nodded towards the counsel for the defence, who rose.
“My client has nothing to hide,” he said in a loud voice, to make certain that all the journalists heard him, “but his arrest has obviously had a devastating effect, both on himself and on his family. I would ask that the committal proceedings be conducted in camera.”
A sigh of disappointment, of resignation even, passed through the little group of spectators. Not because of their dashed hopes for open proceedings, but because they had expected it to be the police closing the doors against them, as more often happened. This laconic, discreet defence lawyer did not augur well. The only one to react with a smirk was Fredrick Myhreng, who felt sure he would be furnished with a continuing flow of information anyway. The
The magistrate struck his gavel on the desk and cleared the court for discussion with counsel. The court attendant stepped out triumphantly behind the last reluctant journalist and hung up the black sign with white lettering:
There was of course no discussion. With a whimsical glint in his eye the magistrate stood up, walked the few paces to the adjoining office, and returned with a ready-prepared ruling.
“I assumed as much,” he said, signing the paper. Then he leafed through the case file for a couple of minutes before picking up the ruling again and going out to announce to the crowd outside what they already knew. When he came back in he removed his jacket and hung it over the bar. He sharpened three pencils with the utmost concentration before leaning over to the intercom.
“Bring Lavik up,” he ordered, loosening his tie and smiling at the woman sitting rigidly erect at the computer.
“It’s going to be a long day, Elsa!”
Even though Hanne had warned him in advance, Hakon was shocked at Lavik’s appearance when he entered through the door at the back of the court. If it weren’t a physical impossibility, he could have sworn that Jorgen Lavik had lost ten kilos over the weekend. His suit hung baggily and he had a sunken look about him. His face was alarmingly ashen and his eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. He had the air of a man on the way to his own funeral, and for all Hakon knew that might be closer than anyone dared to suppose.
“Has he been given anything to eat and drink?” he whispered in a concerned tone to Hanne, who gave him a dispirited nod.
“But all he would take was some Coke. He hasn’t eaten a scrap of food since Friday,” she said in an undertone. “It’s not our fault, he’s been given special treatment.”
Even the magistrate seemed worried about the defendant’s condition. He scrutinised him several times before telling the two police guards to remove him from the witness box and bring a chair. The stern computer operator relaxed her image momentarily to emerge from her enclosure and offer Lavik a plastic cup of water and a paper napkin.
When the magistrate had satisfied himself that Lavik wasn’t as close to death as his appearance suggested, the proceedings finally commenced. Hakon was to speak first, and received an encouraging slap on the thigh from Hanne as he stood up. It was harder than intended and the pain made him want to pee.
Four hours later both prosecuting and defence counsel had followed the magistrate’s example and discarded their jackets. Hanne Wilhelmsen had taken off her sweater, but Lavik looked as if he were freezing. Only the lady at the computer appeared to be unaffected. They’d had a short break an hour ago, but none of them had risked showing themselves to the wolves in the corridor. Whenever the courtroom went quiet they could hear there was still a considerable crowd outside.
Lavik was willing to speak in his own defence, at excruciating length because every word was weighed so carefully. There was nothing new in his story-he denied everything and stuck to the statement he had made to the police. He even had an explanation of sorts for the fingerprints: his client had simply asked him for a small loan, which Lavik maintained was not unusual. In response to a caustic question from Hakon as to whether he was in the business of handing out cash to all his more indigent clients he replied in the affirmative. He could even provide witnesses to the fact. He couldn’t of course explain how a lawfully acquired thousand-kroner note came to be in a plastic envelope with drugs money under a floorboard on Mosseveien, but equally they couldn’t hold it against him if his client did strange things. The connection with Roger had been explained perfectly clearly before: he happened to have assisted the chap with a few minor matters, income tax returns and three or four traffic offences. Hakon’s problem was that Roger had said exactly the same.
The explanation for the thousand-kroner note rang rather more hollow, however. Even though it was impossible to read anything in the magistrate’s impassive face, Hakon felt certain that this element in the indictment would hold up. Whether it would be sufficient in itself was another question, which would be resolved in an hour or so; the case would stand or fall by it. Hakon began his summing up.
The money and the fingerprints were the vital elements; after that he went over the mysterious relationship between Roger Stromsjord and Lavik and the encoded telephone numbers. Towards the end he spent twenty-five minutes on Han van der Kerch’s statement to Karen Borg, before concluding with a pessimistic tirade about the likelihood of destruction of evidence and the risk of disappearance.
That was all he had. His final thrust. Not a word about any links to Hans Olsen through the murdered and faceless Ludvig Sandersen. Nor about the lists of codes they had found. Nothing whatsoever about Lavik’s presence at the time of Van der Kerch’s derangement or Frostrup’s fatal overdose.
He’d been so sure yesterday. They’d discussed and debated, analysed and argued. Kaldbakken had wanted to go ahead with everything they’d got, invoking Hakon’s own absolute certainty of the same course only a few days earlier. But the chief inspector had eventually given way; Hakon had been both confident and persuasive. He no longer was. He racked his brain for the incisive punch line he’d practised the previous night, but it had gone. Instead he stood and swallowed a couple of times before stuttering that the police reaffirmed their application. Then he forgot to sit down and there were an awkward few seconds until the magistrate cleared his throat and told him he didn’t need to continue standing. Hanne gave him a faint smile of encouragement and poked him in the ribs, more gently this time.
“Sir,” began the counsel for the defence even while he was rising from his seat, “we are indubitably embarking on a very delicate case, one which concerns a lawyer who has committed the gravest of crimes.”
His two adversaries couldn’t believe their ears. What on earth was this? Was Bloch-Hansen stabbing his client in the back? They looked at Lavik for a reaction, but his weary, pallid face betrayed no emotion.
“It’s a good maxim not to use stronger words than one can substantiate,” he continued, putting on his jacket again as if to assume a formality that until then had not been required in the big hot room. Hakon regretted not having done the same; it would just look foolish now.
“But it is quite deplorable…”
He paused for effect to emphasise his words.
“It is quite deplorable under any circumstances that Karen Borg, a lawyer whom I know to have sound judgement and a reputation as a very capable barrister, does not seem to have realised she is guilty of contravening Article 144 of the Penal Code.”
Another pause. The magistrate was looking up the relevant section, but Hakon was transfixed until he’d heard how Bloch-Hansen would continue.
