Most people made terrible witnesses. Exactly the same situation or exactly the same person could be described afterwards in completely different ways. Witnesses would talk about things that didn’t exist, events that had never taken place. Animatedly and in detail. They weren’t lying. They just remembered incorrectly and filled the gaps in their memory with their own experiences and fantasies.
At the same time, facial composites could sometimes be absolutely key. The artist had to be skilful and the witness particularly observant. There were advanced computer programs that could do the work more easily and in certain cases more precisely, but she preferred drawings done by hand.
And that was what she’d got.
She studied the portrait.
The man was white, and probably somewhere between thirty-five and fifty. From the notes in the file she could see that Martin Setre wasn’t absolutely sure whether the man had shaved his head or had actually lost his hair. He was bald, at any rate. Round face. Dark eyes, no glasses. The nose was straight and the chin broad, almost angular. A narrow double chin framed the lower part of his face. He was heavily built, she could see that from the full-length drawing too, but not necessarily overweight. His height was estimated at around one metre seventy.
A short, stocky man who was smiling.
Silje presumed the picture had been drawn like that because the man had been smiling all the time. She glanced through the notes and her theory was confirmed.
Nice teeth.
His clothes were dark. A dark overcoat and a dark shirt. The tie was also dark, and the knot seemed loose. The drawing was in black and white, and all the monochrome tones made her feel pessimistic. When she held up the full-length picture and examined it more closely, it struck her that there must be thousands of men who looked more or less like this. Admittedly, Martin had said that the man spoke English or American, but using a different language from one’s own was an old and well-established trick.
He had just a suspicion of dimples.
Knut Bork came in without knocking, and she gave a start.
‘Sorry,’ he said in surprise. ‘I didn’t know you were here. Haven’t you got anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon?’
‘If I hadn’t been here, the door wouldn’t have been open, would it?’
‘I…’
Knut Bork was tall and fair-skinned, almost pale, with red-blonde hair and ice-blue eyes. When he blushed he did it properly: he looked like a traffic light.
‘It’s fine,’ said Silje, holding out her hand. ‘What did you want to leave me?’
‘This,’ he said amiably, handing her a thin folder. ‘It’s to go in the Marianne Kleive file.’
She took the papers and put them down next to the sketches without looking at them more closely.
‘Exactly what we needed right now,’ she said. ‘A spectacular murder at one of the city’s best hotels. Have you seen the evening papers?’
He raised his eyebrows and let out a long, slow sigh.
‘Anything new?’ she asked, nodding at the folder.
‘Only a couple of new witness statements. Half of Oslo seems to have been at that bloody hotel that night. And you know how it is – everybody thinks they have something interesting to pass on. The phones are red-hot with people wanting to talk.’
Silje picked up her cup of coffee.
‘Sometimes no witnesses are better than a thousand witnesses,’ she said. ‘The worst thing is that we have to take them all seriously. Someone might actually have seen something relevant. Cheers!’
The coffee was bitter and lukewarm.
‘Shouldn’t you be going home soon?’
‘The same applies to you,’ he said. ‘You got the drawings? Can I have a look?’
He came around the desk and leaned over the sketches.
‘No particular distinguishing features,’ he murmured.
‘No. He’s below average height, but the very word “average” tells you he’s not the only one-’
‘Do you think we’re barking up the wrong tree here?’
He held one of the pictures up at eye level.
‘Maybe,’ she sighed. ‘But it’s the only tree we’ve got.’
‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing to the sketch of a lapel. ‘A pin?’
‘Something like that. Do you recognize it?’
‘It’s a clover leaf, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘All the pictures are black and white, but the clover leaf is red.’
‘Martin insisted he was absolutely certain. We generally prefer not to have any colour in these sketches, because it can be confusing. But this pin – or whatever it is – was evidently red, no doubt about it.’
‘And these… flourishes, what are they supposed to be?’
They both examined the picture. On each leaf was a shape that might possibly be a letter in an unfamiliar alphabet.
‘Martin said there was a letter on each leaf,’ said Silje. ‘But he couldn’t remember what they were.’
Knut Bork picked up a box of lozenges from the desk.
‘Can I have one?’ he asked, sticking his finger in the box before she had time to answer.
‘Help yourself,’ Silje mumbled. ‘Have five. There’s something familiar about that logo, isn’t there?’
‘Yes,’ said Knut Bork, and suddenly he started to laugh. ‘You’re right there! My grandmother has one on every single jacket she owns!’
His laughter broke off abruptly. Silje looked up at him. His face was bright red once again, and he was gasping like a fish on dry land.
‘Knut,’ she said tentatively. ‘Are you all right? Have you…’
She got up so quickly that the desk chair rolled away and crashed into the wall behind her. Knut Bork was considerably taller than her. For a moment she thought about climbing up on to the desk, but dismissed the idea. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and linked her hands in front of him with her right thumb pointing in towards his body. Then she squeezed with every scrap of strength she could summon.
Three black projectiles flew out of his mouth.
He coughed and took a deep breath, and she let go.
‘Thanks,’ he panted. ‘I couldn’t get… Look at that!’
He pointed to the wall opposite them. The throat lozenges had stuck to the wall in a triangle, with less than half a centimetre between them.
‘Bang on target,’ he puffed.
She looked at him, her eyebrows raised, and sat down again. ‘Perhaps now you can tell me about this logo?’
His voice still sounded hoarse as he cleared his throat and said: ‘
‘What?’
‘The letters are N, K and S.
She pulled the drawing of the logo towards her, as if he had insulted her. A red clover leaf with a stalk, and a letter on each leaf.
‘I need to check,’ she muttered as she put down the sheet of paper and typed the name of the association into the search box on her computer.
‘There you go,’ said Knut Bork. ‘What did I tell you?’
She was staring at the association’s homepage.
The logo was a red clover leaf with the letters NKS in white. One on each leaf.
‘What the…?’
She couldn’t marshal her thoughts.
