Authors: Anne Holt
“There’s a man sitting in the road on Bogstadsveien. We can’t get anything out of him, his clothes are covered in blood, but he doesn’t look injured. No ID. He’s
not putting up any resistance, but he’s obstructing the traffic. We’re bringing him in.”
“Okay, Bravo Two-Zero. Report when you’re back on patrol. Received Zero-One. Over and out.”
Half an hour later the suspect was standing at the reception desk. His clothes were certainly bloody: Bravo Two-Zero had been right about that. A young rookie was searching
him. With his unmarked blue epaulettes lacking even a single stripe as insurance against all the vilest jobs, he was terrified of so much possibly HIV-infected blood. Protected by rubber gloves, he
pulled the open leather jacket off the arrested man. Only then did he see that his T-shirt had originally been white. His denim jeans were covered in blood too, and he had a general air of
self-neglect.
“Name and address,” said the duty officer, glancing up wearily over the counter.
The suspect didn’t reply. He just stared longingly at the packet of cigarettes the young officer was shoving into a brown paper bag together with a gold ring and a bunch of keys tied with
a nylon cord. The desire for a smoke was the only sign that could be read in his face, and even that disappeared when his eyes shifted away from the paper bag to the duty officer. He was standing
nearly a metre away from the policeman, behind a strong metal barrier that came up to his hips. The barrier was shaped like a horseshoe, with both ends fixed into the concrete floor, half a metre
from the high wooden counter, quite wide in itself, over which projected the nose and thinning grey hair of the police officer.
“Personal details, please! Name! Date of birth?”
The anonymous man smiled, but not in the least derisively. It was more an expression of gentle sympathy with the exhausted policeman, as if he wanted to indicate that it was nothing personal. He
had no intention of saying anything at all, so why not just put him in a cell and have done with it? The smile was almost friendly, and he held it unwaveringly, in silence. The duty officer
misunderstood. Needless to say.
“Put the bugger in a cell. Number four’s empty. I’ve had enough of his insolent attitude.”
The man made no protest, but went along willingly to cell number four. There were pairs of shoes in the corridor outside every cell. Well-worn shoes of all sizes, like door nameplates announcing
the occupants. He must have automatically assumed the regulation would also apply to him, because he kicked off his trainers and stood them neatly outside the door without being asked.
The cell was about three metres by two, bleak and dreary. Floor and walls were a dull yellow, with a noticeable absence of graffiti. The only slight advantage he was immediately aware of in
these surroundings, so far removed from the comforts of a hotel, was that his hosts were obviously not sparing with the electricity. The light was dazzling, and the temperature in the little room
must have been at least twenty-five degrees Celsius.
Just inside the door there was a sort of latrine; it could hardly be called a lavatory. It was a construction of low walls with a hole in the middle. The moment he saw it, he felt his bowels
knotting up in constipation.
The lack of any inscriptions on the walls by previous guests didn’t mean there were no traces of frequent habitation. Even though he was far from freshly showered himself, he felt quite
queasy when the unpleasant odour hit him. A mixture of piss and excrement, sweat and anxiety, fear and anger: it permeated the walls, evidently impossible to eradicate. Because apart from the
structure designed to receive urine and faeces, which was beyond all hope of cleansing, the room was actually clean. It was probably swilled out every day.
He heard the bolt slam in the door behind him. Through the bars he could hear the man in the next cell continuing where the duty officer had given up.
“Hey, you, I’m Robert. What’s your name? Why’ve the pigs got you?”
Robert had no luck either. Eventually he had to admit defeat too, just as frustrated as the duty officer.
“Bastard,” he muttered after several minutes of trying, loud enough for the message to get through to its intended recipient.
There was a platform built into the end of the room. With a certain amount of goodwill it might perhaps be described as a bed. There was no mattress, and no blanket lying around anywhere. Well,
that was okay, he was already sweating profusely in the heat. The nameless man folded up his leather jacket to make a pillow, lay with his bloody side downwards, and went to sleep.
When Police Attorney Håkon Sand came on duty at five past ten on Sunday morning, the unknown prisoner was still asleep. Håkon didn’t know that. He had a
hangover, which he shouldn’t have had. Feelings of remorse were making his uniform shirt stick to his body. He was already running his finger under his collar as he came through the CID area
towards the police lawyers’ office. Uniforms were crap. At the beginning, all the legal specialists in the prosecution service were fascinated by them—they would stand in front of the
mirror at home admiring themselves, stroking the insignia of rank on the epaulettes: one stripe, one crown, and one star for inspector, a star that might become two or even three depending on
whether you stuck it out long enough to become a chief inspector or superintendent. They would smile at the mirror, straighten their shoulders involuntarily, note that their hair needed cutting,
and feel clean and tidy. But after an hour or two at work they would realise that the acrylic made them smell and their shirt collars were much too stiff and made sore red weals round their
necks.
The chief inspector’s duty was the worst of the lot. But everyone wanted it. The job was usually boring, and intolerably tiring. Sleep was forbidden; a rule most of them broke with a foul,
unwashed woollen blanket pulled up over their uniforms. But night duty was well paid. Every legally qualified officer with one year’s service got roughly one duty a month, which put an extra
fifty thousand kroner a year in their pay-packets. It was worth it. The big drawback was that the shift began at three o’clock in the afternoon after a full working day, and as soon as it was
over at eight the next morning you had to start on a normal working day again. At weekends the duties were divided up into twenty-four-hour shifts, which made them even more lucrative.
Sand’s predecessor was impatient. Even though the shift, according to the rules, should change at nine, there was an unspoken agreement that the Sunday duty officer could come in an hour
later. The person being relieved would always be drumming their heels. As indeed was the blonde female inspector today.
“Everything you need to know is in the log,” she said. “There’s a copy of the murder case from Friday night on the desk. There’s always a lot to do on this duty.
I’ve completed fourteen reports already, and two Clause Eleven decisions.”
The devil she had. With the best will in the world Håkon Sand couldn’t see that he was any more competent to make decisions about care proceedings than the child care
authorities’ own staff. Yet the police always had to sort things out when a juvenile caused bureaucratic inconvenience by needing help outside normal office hours. Two on Saturday, which
meant statistically none on Sunday. He could but hope.
“And it’s full out the back; you’d better make your round as soon as you can,” she added.
He took the keys, fumbling as he attached them to his belt. The cashbox contained what it should. The number of passport forms was also correct. The log was up to date.
Formalities completed, he decided to go and collect some fines straight away, now that Sunday morning had laid its cold but calming hand on last night’s revellers. Before going, he flipped
through the papers on the desk. He’d heard about the murder on the radio news bulletin. A badly mutilated body had been discovered down by the River Aker. The police had no leads. Empty
words, he’d thought. The police always have some leads, it’s just that they’re all too often very scanty.
The photo file from the scene-of-crime people hadn’t been added yet, of course. But there were a few Polaroids lying loose in the green folder. They were grotesque enough. Håkon
never got used to photographs of the dead. He’d seen plenty of them in his five years in the force, the last three attached to Homicide, A.2.11. All suspicious deaths were reported to the
police, and entered on the computer under the code “susp.” Suspicious death was a broad concept. He’d seen bodies that were burnt, deaths from exhaust fumes, stab wounds, bullets,
drowning, or torture. Even the tragic elderly folk who were only victims of the crime of neglect, found when a neighbour in the flat below noticed an unpleasant odour in the dining room, looked up
and saw a damp patch on the ceiling, and rang the police in indignation at the damage—even those poor devils were input as “susp” and had the dubious honour of having their final
photographs taken postmortem. Håkon had seen green corpses, blue corpses, red, yellow, and multicoloured corpses, and the pretty pink carbon monoxide bodies whose souls had been able to
endure no more of this world’s vale of tears.
The Polaroids were stronger stuff than most of what he’d seen before, though. He threw them down abruptly. As if to forget them as soon as he could, he grabbed the report of the findings.
He carried it over to the uncomfortable “Stressless” posture chair, a cheap imitation-leather version of the flagship model from Ekornes, much too curved in the back, lacking support
where the lumbar region needed it most.
The bare facts had been typed up in a style that could hardly have been more unhelpful. Håkon furrowed his brow in annoyance. They said the admission criteria for the Police Training
College were getting steadily higher. Ability in written presentation was obviously not one of them.
He came to a halt near the end of the page.
“Present at the scene of the crime was witness Karen Borg. She found the deceased while walking her dog. There was vomit on the body. Witness Borg said it was hers.”
Borg’s address and occupation confirmed that it was Karen. He ran his fingers through his hair, regretting not having washed it that morning. He decided to phone Karen during the week.
With pictures as gruesome as that, the body must have been an awful sight. He absolutely must ring her.
He replaced the file on the desk and closed it. His eyes dwelt for a moment on the name label at the top left: Sand/Kaldbakken/Wilhelmsen. The case was his, as prosecuting attorney. Kaldbakken
was the chief inspector responsible, and Hanne Wilhelmsen the investigating detective.
It was time to sort out the fines.
There was a thick bundle of arrest sheets in the little wooden box. A full house. He skimmed quickly through the forms. Mainly drunks. One wife abuser, one obvious mental case who would have to
be transferred to Ullevål Hospital later in the day, and a known and wanted criminal. The last three could stay where they were. He would take the drunks in turn. The point of fining them was
admittedly rather unclear to him. The majority of the tickets ended up in the nearest litter bin. The few that were paid were charged to the Social Services. A merry-go-round of public money that
made a contribution to employment of some sort, but could hardly be regarded as particularly rational.
One set of arrest forms remained. It had no name on it.
“What’s this?”
He turned to the custody officer, an overweight man in his fifties who would never achieve more than the three stripes he had on his shoulders, stripes no one could deny him: they were awarded
for age rather than merit. Håkon had realised long ago that the man was a dimwit.
“A nutter. He was in here when I came on duty. Bastard. Refused to give his name and address.”
“What’s he done?”
“Nothing. Found sitting in the road somewhere or other. Covered in blood. You can fine the sod for not giving his name. And for breach of the peace. And for being a scumbag.”
After five years in the force Sand had learnt to count to ten. He counted to twenty this time. He didn’t want to have a row just because of an imbecile in uniform who couldn’t see
that taking a person’s liberty involved a certain responsibility.
Cell number four. He took a warder with him. The man with no name was awake. He stared at them with a despondent face, and was obviously in some doubt about their intentions. He sat up on the
bed stiffly and spoke his first words in police custody.
“Could I have a drink?”
The language he spoke was Norwegian and yet at the same time not Norwegian. Håkon couldn’t put his finger on it; it sounded accurate, but there was something not quite right. Could
he be a Swede trying to speak Norwegian?
He was given a drink, of course. Cola, bought by Håkon Sand with his own money. He even got a shower. And a clean T-shirt and trousers. From Sand’s own cupboard in the office. The
custody officer’s grumbling at the special treatment grew louder with every item. But Håkon Sand ordered the bloodstained clothes to be put in a bag, explaining as he locked the heavy
metal doors behind him:
“These articles could be important evidence!”
The young man was certainly taciturn. A searing thirst after many hours in an overheated cell may have loosened his tongue, but it soon became clear that his need to
communicate was extremely temporary. Having quenched his thirst, he reverted to silence.
He was sitting on a hard spindleback chair. Strictly speaking there was only space for two chairs in the eight-square-metre room, which also housed a solid and rather stately double filing
cabinet, three rows of ugly painted-steel bookshelves full of ring-binders arranged by colour, and a desk. This was fixed to the wall with metal brackets, so that the desktop was on a slant.
That’s how it had been ever since the medical officer had had the idea of subjecting the staff to an ergonomics therapist. Sloping work desks were supposed to be good for the back. No one
understood why, and most of them had found that their spinal problems were exacerbated by all the groping around on the floor for the things that slid off the desk. With an extra chair in the room
it was hardly possible to move about without shifting the furniture.