Closed for Winter (16 page)

The direct flight to Vilnius took off precisely on time. Wisting and Martin Ahlberg sat in the tenth row with a vacant seat between them.

The plane was no more than half full. Most of the passengers were Lithuanian guest workers on their way home, but there were also a handful of Norwegian businessmen in suits and with financial newspapers on their laps.

On the row of seats diagonally opposite, a young woman flicked through the latest edition of
Se og Hør
magazine. She stopped at a large photograph of Thomas Rønningen. Wisting could read the headline from where he was sitting.
Unknown man found MURDERED AT COTTAGE
. Some of the photographs used were archive images from the summer article about Rønningen in company with well-known colleagues from
NRK
television.

He leaned back and contemplated what he knew about Lithuania. Only a few days ago he couldn’t have placed it on the map. He was shamefully ignorant of the country, although it was less than two hours by air from Oslo. The previous evening, he had leafed through the encyclopedia and read that it bordered Latvia in the north, Belarus in the east and Poland in the south. Once it had possessed an impressive empire stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, but now the former superpower was smaller than the area of Østland county in Norway.

It had surprised him to learn that there were no more than 3.6 million inhabitants, since Lithuanians comprised a disproportionately large proportion of the total number of foreigners in Norwegian crime statistics. Poland, with almost 40 million inhabitants, provided only half the number of criminals in Norway. The extent of criminality in Lithuania became even clearer. Unemployment of almost twenty per cent and a large number of people living under the poverty level had to take a great deal of the blame.

The capital city, Vilnius, with 580,000 residents, possessed a wealth of history, but he had never heard so much as a mention of the Lithuanian president. He had skimmed over the encyclopedia’s information about the system of government and the country’s economy, but had taken a particular interest in how the police force was organised. It was not especially different from Norway.

‘We have an appointment with the Chief of Police at two o’clock,’ Martin Ahlberg said, when they reached cruising height. ‘We’ll check in at our hotel afterwards.’

‘How will we go about this?’ Wisting asked.

‘I’ve sent them information on the case and explained that, in connection with a murder enquiry, we wish to speak to the family of Darius Plater and three other Lithuanian citizens: Teodor Milosz, Valdas Muravjev and Algirdas Skvernelis. I’ve already received a list of addresses and information from the official records.’ He produced a bundle of printouts with photographs of the three surviving members of the Paneriai Quartet.

‘You said that Valdas was sentenced for robbery,’ Wisting remarked, pointing at the man who had attacked him.

Ahlberg let his finger slide along the text underneath the picture. ‘Assault and robbery in 2006,’ he read. ‘Six months’ jail time.’

‘What about the others?’

Martin Ahlberg traced his finger along the page before shaking his head. ‘No convictions,’ he said, handing over the printed pages.

Wisting put on his glasses to read. Darius Plater was the eldest of five siblings and his address was listed as at his mother’s home in Šeše˙liu gatve. There was no father listed. ‘Has the family been informed about his death?’ he asked.

‘I’ve asked them to wait until we’ve spoken to the men he came to Norway with. It’s not a problem as long as we don’t have any more formal identification than the Norwegian fingerprint register.’

Wisting nodded and continued to study the printouts. One of the other men lived in the same street as Darius, also with close family. His assailant lived on his own, but had the same postcode, as did the fourth man. ‘How do we manage with the language?’ he asked.

‘The Lithuanians will provide an English interpreter.’

Wisting stacked the papers so that his attacker’s photograph was on top. ‘I’d like to start with him,’ he said. ‘Valdas Muravyev.’

Ahlberg agreed. ‘Just remember these are only witness interviews. If we’re thinking of accusing them of housebreaking or theft we have to initiate completely different formalities.’

The flight stewardess arrived with coffee. Wisting handed back the papers and lowered his flight tray. Martin Ahlberg exchanged the papers for a laminated collection of documents which he handed to Wisting.

‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a comparative case analysis of the aggravated thefts in Eastern Norway we suspect the Paneriai Quartet of committing,’ Ahlberg explained. ‘Each individual crime scene is described.’

He thumbed forward to one of the last pages where a row of red dots was drawn on a map of Østland county, mostly concentrated in clusters along the Oslo fjord. ‘Sixty-eight cottages,’ he said.

On the next page there was a fine blue line drawn through the red dots along the same stretch of coastline. ‘We’ve tracked Teodor Milosz’ mobile phone on the Norwegian telephone network.’ Martin Ahlberg indicated with his finger how the blue line started at the Swedish border and reached as far as Larvik before traversing in a loop to return by the fastest route along the E18 to Oslo and the E6 back to Sweden.

‘It was his phone number they gave when they booked their ferry tickets. We received the telephone information yesterday and plotted the locations on the map.’ Self-explanatory, the map showed how the group of Lithuanian travellers had left behind them dozens of burgled crime scenes.

‘That’s how we work,’ Ahlberg continued. ‘It’s what’s led to our success. We don’t investigate the crimes, but the people, and see what pops up. If we find DNA or fingerprints at any of these crime scenes, then all the other cases with the same
modus operandi
fall like dominoes.’

‘Do you have the telephone information for Friday evening?’ Wisting asked.

Martin Ahlberg flicked to one of the final pages. A detailed printout showed an overview of incoming and outgoing telephone numbers, with date and time of day, duration of call and the location of the phone apparatus. ‘They arrived in Larvik on Thursday afternoon. There’s little phone activity until late on Friday evening. Then all hell breaks loose, but you know all about that, of course. We’re carrying out a closer analysis of the phone numbers Teodor Milosz has been contacting.’

Wisting noted that the same numbers recurred time after time. He commented that several were Norwegian.

‘They obtain Norwegian pay-as-you-go subscriptions and use them to communicate with each other for as long as they’re in Norway,’ Ahlberg said. ‘So far it doesn’t look as though they’re in touch with any external Norwegian numbers.’

‘What about Spanish or Danish?’

‘I don’t think so. There are calls to and from Lithuania and among the quartet themselves.’

Wisting riffled through the analysis material while he drank his coffee, realizing this was an important case document that pursued the Lithuanian men through place and time. After reading the papers, he laid the folder aside and produced one of the two ring binders he had packed into his hand luggage.

The regular humming of the aeroplane engines made him feel sleepy, and he had not browsed through many pages before he leaned his forehead on the window. Outside, the clouds were grey and impenetrable.

The arrivals hall at Vilnius airport was more modern than Wisting had anticipated, with enormous glass facades and inviting restaurants. After twenty minutes, they had collected their luggage and were strolling to a queue of waiting taxis, without having to show either passport or any other ID papers. After the Schengen agreement, the strict border controls in and out of the former Soviet state had come down. Passengers from other Schengen member countries travelling by car, boat, rail or air had no need to identify themselves by means of passport or visa when crossing the borders.

This same agreement had imported crime to the Nordic countries. The extension of the EU in 2004 provided criminals with a huge market, and after the East European countries joined the Schengen cooperation in 2007, there had been a dramatic increase in crimes against property.

The driver of an ancient but spacious Opel took their luggage and welcomed them to Lithuania. Martin Ahlberg sat in the front passenger seat beside the driver and showed him a note with the address of the main police station. The driver bowed, thanking him for the directions, before heading out of the terminal precincts and keeping scrupulously just below the speed limit on the motorway leading to Vilnius.

The airport was located only a few kilometres from the city centre. The landscape outside the car windows managed all the same to change from thick forest and black ploughed fields to industrial areas and tall, drab blocks of flats. The sun broke through the monotonous carpet of grey covering the skies, and was reflected in the glass facades of the soaring buildings and new office blocks in the city centre. Tall cranes towered above the concrete carapaces of buildings under construction.

The police station was a sombre four-storey building on the northern bank of the river which divided the city. White police patrol cars with green stripes along their sides were parked outside. Martin Ahlberg paid the taxi driver and led the way in. He introduced them to a uniformed man sitting at the desk inside and produced a printout of the email with the appointment details.

They were half an hour early, but a young man dressed in an iron-grey shirt and maroon tie appeared immediately and waved them through a door. Depositing their luggage in a separate room, he accompanied them further into the police station, footsteps echoing as they followed him to the top floor. Halfway along the empty corridor he stopped outside a door marked
Sigitas Lancinskas – Policijos Viršininkas.
He seemed apprehensive about knocking. A young woman opened the door, letting them into an anteroom and thanking the man who had brought them up.

The woman asked them to wait before disappearing behind double wooden doors that led into the next room. Almost at once, she returned with a pale-faced man in his fifties with short silver hair, dressed in a thick green uniform jacket with three stars twinkling on the epaulettes. His chest was decorated with medals.

‘Welcome to Lithuania,’ he said in English, stretching out his arms before shaking with both hands. ‘My name is Sigitas Lancinskas. I am Chief of Vilnius County Police Headquarters,’ he said, translating the title on the doorplate..

His office was large and warm, but poorly lit. Deep-pile carpets covered the parquet flooring and the windows were obscured by venetian blinds and heavy curtains. An oval conference table with its green felt cover, surrounded by twelve chairs, was the dominant item of furniture. In the centre of the green felt sat a carafe of water and several glasses.

Lancinskas suggested that they sit at the top of the table. As soon as they were seated, there was a knock at the door and a man in a dark suit entered. ‘This is Head of CID, Antoni Mikulskis. He has been given responsibility for assisting you.’

The new arrival shook hands with them and handed each a business card with his contact details printed in English. ‘Did your journey go well?’ he asked as he sat down.

‘No problems at all,’ Wisting assured him.

The head of the crime department nodded, as though pleased, before opening a folder containing a number of documents and selecting one with a Norwegian police logo.

‘Let me hear if I have understood this correctly,’ he said in eloquent English. ‘One of our countrymen has been shot and killed in southern Norway. You have come here to conduct interviews with three named persons who travelled with him, as well as with the family of the victim.’

Both Wisting and Ahlberg nodded in confirmation.

Antoni Mikulskis reached for the carafe of water. ‘Has anyone been charged with this crime?’ he asked, filling four glasses.

‘No.’

‘I understand your request to mean that the people who were travelling with him left Norway without talking to any officials. Is it the situation that some of our countrymen may be suspected of having something to do with the actual crime?’

‘The enquiry is more comprehensive than you are aware of, and extremely complicated,’ Wisting replied, producing the ring binders and documents. For over an hour he explained the case in detail, lingering on the photographs and illustrations. As his report progressed the two officers contributed comments, suggestions and advice.

‘Very interesting, and very strange,’ the Chief of Police said. ‘I hope your trip to Vilnius can provide the answers to all of your questions. Now, let’s discuss the practical aspects. The case is of such a type that you want to make simple informal preliminary enquiries before later conducting formal interviews. Am I right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then there is no point in bringing these people here. Instead we’ll visit them unannounced. I’ll accompany you personally. We can collect you in an unmarked police car from your hotel at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, if that suits.’

Wisting would have preferred to start that evening, but agreed anyway. The two Lithuanian police officers exchanged a few words in their own language before standing up. Wisting thanked them for their helpful attitude, and the Chief of CID promised to arrange transport for them to their hotel.

This is where the answers lie, Wisting reflected outside the police station. At the same time he was conscious of an indefinable anxiety. This must be what Suzanne meant when she spoke about the unknown. The thought that something unforeseen and dramatic could happen at any time in this foreign country frightened him.

From the rear seat of the police car they watched the young generation which had transformed Lithuania from a Soviet republic into a modern society. Vilnius was a contemporary, cosmopolitan capital city, reminiscent in many ways of Copenhagen or Paris, with busy city streets and picturesque squares and alleyways. Exclusive shopping centres, chain stores, pavement cafés and designer boutiques were everywhere spotless and spruce. It was not as Wisting had expected.

Martin Ahlberg pointed to a cathedral with a freestanding clock tower and a fortress on the crest of the hill behind the city, landmarks he had visited. Their driver nodded and smiled without seeming to understand what they were saying.

The Astoria Hotel was situated in the city’s old quarter. As they neared their destination, the streets became cobbled, the gaps between buildings narrowed, and many of the old houses looked recently renovated. This part of the city had character and charm.

They were allocated adjacent rooms on the third floor, overlooking the main street of the old town. Wisting stepped onto his tiny balcony and took a firm hold of the cast iron railing. A biting wind gusted between the buildings and the sky was slate grey. Customers sat in the pavement cafés below, leaning back with cups of coffee and glasses of wine. Souvenir stalls offered amber jewellery, knitwear and babushka dolls. From here he could count eleven church spires, which contrasted with his view of Lithuanians as itinerant criminals.

Before dinner, Wisting phoned Nils Hammer who had no further news about the investigation. Wisting could tell from his voice that he was puzzled about something, and guessed that he had completed his analysis of the traffic through the toll stations. He should have spotted Line’s car. His work colleagues were very familiar with her relationship to Tommy Kvanter, and Tommy’s past. Only a few years earlier, his name had figured in several intelligence reports.

‘There’s one thing we haven’t talked about,’ Wisting said. ‘Tommy Kvanter is one of the owners and proprietors of
Shazam Station
.’

‘I know that,’ Hammer answered. ‘I thought it was over between them?’

‘It’s over,’ Wisting confirmed. ‘But I want you to tell me if his name crops up.’

‘Is there any reason to believe it will?’

‘No,’ Wisting said, mentioning his meeting with Leif Malm. ‘The informant thinks that Rudi Muller was in Larvik to collect the cocaine.’

‘Do they know what car was used?’

‘No, but they want you to send them all the material from the toll stations so they can check the vehicles.’

‘I’ll get it sent it over right away.’

Wisting refrained from saying that he had gone through the lists himself and spotted Line’s car. He could not hear anything in Hammer’s tone to suggest that he had made the same discovery and said nothing. After concluding their conversation, he felt that it had been wrong of him and was about to phone Hammer when he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

It seemed that Martin Ahlberg knew of a basement restaurant in one of the side streets where they served roast wild pork and a fantastic local beer.