Nemesis (7 page)

‘As for myself, I should be familiar to you from other contexts,’ Ivarsson concluded the round by saying. ‘But just for formality’s sake, I am the PAS of the Robberies Unit and have been appointed to lead this investigation. And to come back to what you said initially, Hole, this is not the first time we have had to investigate a robbery with a fatal outcome for the innocent parties.’

Harry tried not to rise to the bait. He really did, but the crocodile grin made it impossible.

‘Also with a conviction rate of just under fifty per cent?’

Only one person at the table laughed, but his laughter was loud. Weber.

‘My apologies, I obviously omitted to mention something about Hole,’ Ivarsson said without smiling. ‘He is said to have a talent for comedy. A real wit, I’ve heard say.’

There was a second’s embarrassed silence. Then Ivarsson gave a brief honk of laughter and a low chuckle spread around the table.

‘OK, let’s start with a summary.’ Ivarsson flipped over the front
sheet. The next bore the title
FORENSIC EVIDENCE
. He took the top off a marker and prepared himself. ‘It’s all yours, Weber.’

Karl Torleif Weber stood up. He was a short man with a lion’s mane of grey hair and a beard. His voice was an ominous, low-frequency rumble, but, for all that, clear. ‘I’ll be brief.’

‘By all means,’ Ivarsson said, putting the pen to paper. ‘But take all the time you need, Karl.’

‘I’ll be brief because I don’t need much time,’ Weber growled. ‘We haven’t got a thing.’

‘Right,’ Ivarsson said, lowering the pen. ‘You haven’t got a thing. Exactly what do you mean by that?’

‘We have a print of a brand new Nike shoe, size 45. Most things about this robbery have such a professional ring about them that the only information I can infer is that it is unlikely to be the size he normally takes. The bullet has been analysed by the ballistics boys. It is standard 7.62 millimetre ammo for the AG3, the most common ammunition to be found in the kingdom of Norway since it is in every military barracks, arms store and home of a reserve officer or volunteer around the country. In other words, impossible to trace. Apart from that, you would think he had never been in the bank. Or outside it. We’ve searched for evidence there, too.’

Weber sat down.

‘Thank you, Weber, that was . . . erm, informative.’ Ivarsson turned over the next sheet. W
ITNESSES
.

‘Hole?’

Harry slumped even further into his chair. ‘Everyone who was in the bank was questioned immediately afterwards, and no one can tell us anything we can’t see on the video. That is to say, they remember a few things which we know to be incorrect. One witness saw the robber heading up Industrigata. No one else has called in.’

‘Which brings us to the next point – getaway cars,’ Ivarsson said. ‘Toril?’

Toril Li stepped forward, switched on the overhead projector, where there was already a transparency with a summary of private
vehicles stolen over the past three months. In her strong Sunnmørsk dialect she explained which four cars she considered to be the most probable getaway cars, basing her judgement on the fact that they were run-of-the-mill brands and models, neutral, light colours and new enough for the robber to feel confident that they wouldn’t let him down. One particular car, a Volkswagen GTI parked in Maridalsveien was of interest as it had been stolen the night before the bank raid.

‘Bank robbers tend to steal cars as near the time to the robbery as possible so they don’t appear on patrol-car lists,’ Toril Li elucidated. She switched off the overhead projector and picked up the transparency on her way back to her seat.

Ivarsson nodded. ‘Thanks.’

‘For nothing,’ Harry whispered to Weber.

The title on the next sheet was
VIDEO ANALYSIS
. Ivarsson had put the top back on the marker. Beate swallowed, cleared her throat, took a sip of water from the glass in front of her and coughed again before beginning, her eyes firmly fixed on the table. ‘I’ve measured the height—’

‘Speak a little louder, would you please, Beate.’ Reptilian smile. Beate cleared her throat several times.

‘I’ve measured the height of the robber from the video. He’s 1.79. I checked this out with Weber, who agrees.’

Weber nodded.

‘Brilliant!’ Ivarsson called out with laboured enthusiasm in his voice. He snatched the top off the marker and wrote: HEIGHT 1.79 m.

Beate continued talking to the table: ‘I’ve just spoken to Aslaksen from the university, our voice analyst. He’s had a look at the five words the robber says in English. He . . .’ Beate peered nervously up at Ivarsson, who was standing with his back to her, ready to take notes. ‘. . . said the recording quality was too poor to do anything with. It was unusable.’

Ivarsson dropped his arm at the same time as the low sun disappeared behind a cloud and the large rectangle of light on the
wall behind them faded away. There was a deafening silence in the room. Ivarsson inhaled and moved forward onto the balls of his feet.

‘Fortunately, we have saved our trump for last.’

The Head of the Robberies Unit flipped over the last sheet of paper.

S
URVEILLANCE
.

‘For those of you who do not work in the Robberies Unit we should perhaps explain that we always bring in the surveillance section first when we have a video recording of a bank raid. In seven out of ten cases a good video recording will reveal the identity of the robber, if he’s one of our old friends.’

‘Even if he’s masked?’ Weber asked.

Ivarsson nodded. ‘A good undercover investigator will identify an old lag by his build, body language, the way he speaks during the robbery, all the small details you cannot hide behind a mask.’

‘But it’s not enough knowing who it is,’ Ivarsson’s second-in-command Didrik Gudmundson interposed. ‘We have to—’

‘That’s right,’ Ivarsson broke in. ‘We have to have proof. A robber can spell his name out to the camera, but so long as he’s masked and does not leave tangible evidence, in the eyes of the law we have nothing.’

‘So, how many of the seven you recognise end up being convicted?’ Weber asked.

‘A few,’ Gudmundson said. ‘It’s still better to know who has committed a robbery, even if they go free. Then we learn something about the pattern and their methods. And we get them the next time.’

‘And if there’s no next time?’ Harry asked. He noticed how the thick veins over Ivarsson’s ears expanded when he laughed.

‘Dear murder expert,’ Ivarsson said, still in jocular mood. ‘If you look around you, you’ll see that most people are smiling in their beards at what you just asked. That’s because a bank robber who has pulled off a successful raid will always – always – strike again. That’s a law of gravity with bank robbers.’ Ivarsson peered out of the window and allowed himself another chuckle before spinning round
on his heel. ‘If that’s the end of adult education for today, perhaps we can see if we have any suspects.’

Ola Li looked at Ivarsson, uncertain whether he should get up or not, but decided in the end to remain seated. ‘Well, I was on duty last weekend. We had an edited video ready by eight on Friday evening, and I got the surveillance folk in to view the video in the House of Pain. Those not on duty were called in on Saturday. In all, thirteen surveillance officers were here, the first at eight o’clock on Friday and the last . . .’

‘That’s fine, Ola,’ Ivarsson said. ‘Just tell us what you found.’

Ola laughed nervously. It sounded like the tentative cry of a seagull.

‘Well?’

‘Espen Vaaland is off sick,’ Ola said. ‘He knows bank robber turf pretty well. I’ll try to get him here tomorrow.’

‘What you’re trying to say is . . . ?’

Ola’s eyes did a racing jig around the table. ‘Not a great deal,’ he said softly.

‘Ola is still relatively new here,’ Ivarsson said and Harry noticed how his jaw muscles were beginning to grind. ‘Ola demands a hundred per cent certainty when identifying people, and that’s laudable, but it’s a bit too much to expect when the robber—’

‘The killer.’

‘—is covered from top to toe, average height, keeps his mouth shut, moves atypically and wears shoes too big for him.’ Ivarsson raised his voice. ‘So give us the whole list, Ola. Who’s in the running?’

‘No one.’

‘There must be some names!’

‘No,’ Ola said with a gulp.

‘Are you trying to tell us that no one had any suggestions, that all of our volunteer slum rats, zealous undercover boys that they are, who take pride in their daily dealings with the worst scum in Oslo, who in nine out of ten cases hear rumblings about the getaway driver, the man carrying the swag, the lookout, are suddenly unwilling even to hazard a guess?’

‘They guessed alright,’ Ola said. ‘Six names were mentioned.’

‘Well, spit them out then, man.’

‘I’ve checked all the names. Three are in the nick. One was seen in Plata market square when the robbery was being committed. One is in Pattaya in Thailand. I’ve checked that. And there was one all the undercover officers mentioned because he has a similar build and the robbery was so professional, and that is Bjørn Johansen from the Tveita gang.’

‘Oh yes?’

Ola looked as if he wanted to slide off his chair and disappear under the table.

‘He’s in Ullevål hospital, and last Friday he was being operated on for
aures alatae
.’

‘
Aures alatae
?’

‘Sticky-out ears,’ Harry groaned, flicking a drop of sweat off his eyebrow. ‘Ivarsson almost exploded. How many have you done?’

‘I’ve just passed twenty-one.’ Halvorsen’s voice resounded around the walls. As it was early afternoon they had the fitness centre in the basement of the police station almost to themselves.

‘Have you taken a short cut or what?’ Harry clenched his teeth and managed to increase the rate a little. There was already a pool of sweat around his ergometer bike while Halvorsen’s forehead was barely moist.

‘So, you haven’t got a bean then?’ Halvorsen asked, breathing regularly and calmly.

‘Unless there’s something in what Beate Lønn said at the end, we haven’t got a lot, no.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘She’s working on a program which can make a 3-D image of the robber’s head and face from the video pictures.’

‘Plus mask?’

‘The program uses the information it gets from the pictures. Light,
shadow, recesses, protrusions. The tighter the mask, the easier it is to make an image which resembles the person underneath. Nevertheless, it’s only a sketch, but Beate says she can use it to match pictures of suspects.’

‘Is it the FBI identification program?’ Halvorsen turned to Harry and with a certain fascination verified that the sweat stain which had started at the dating agency logo on Harry’s chest had now spread to cover the whole of the T-shirt.

‘No, she has a better program,’ Harry said. ‘How far?’

‘Twenty-two. Which one?’

‘
Fusiform gyrus
.’

‘Microsoft? Apple Mac?’

Harry tapped his forefinger on a bright red forehead. ‘Software common to all. Sits in the temporal lobe in the brain and its sole function is to recognise people. That’s all it does. It’s the bit that makes sure we can distinguish between hundreds and thousands of human faces, but scarcely a dozen rhinos.’

‘Rhinos?’

Harry pinched his eyes and tried to blink away the smarting sweat. ‘That was an example, Halvorsen, but there’s no doubt that Beate Lønn is a special case. Her
fusiform
can do a couple of extra turns which, so to speak, allow her to remember all the faces she has seen in her life. And I don’t just mean people she knows or has spoken to, but faces behind sunglasses she passed in a crowded street fifteen years ago.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Nope.’ Harry tucked in his head as he regained enough breath to continue: ‘There are only about a hundred known cases like hers. Didrik Gudmundson said that she took a test at Police College and beat several well-known identification programs. The woman is a walking archive of faces. If she asks you
Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?
you can take it from me, it’s not just a chat-up line.’

‘Jeez. What’s she doing in the police? With talent like that, I mean.’

Harry shrugged. ‘Do you remember the officer who was shot during a bank raid in the eighties in Ryen?’

‘Before my time.’

‘He happened to be close by when the call went out and as he was the first to arrive on the scene, he went into the bank to negotiate unarmed. He was mown down by automatic gunfire and the robbers were never caught. It was later used at Police College as an example of what you
shouldn’t
do when you surprise bank robbers.’

‘You should wait for reinforcements. You must not confront robbers or expose yourself, bank employees or the robbers to unnecessary danger.’

‘Right, that’s what the manual says. The odd thing is that he was one of the best and most experienced investigators they had. Jørgen Lønn. Beate’s father.’

‘Right. And you think that’s why she joined the police? Because of her father?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Is she good-looking?’

‘She’s good. How far?’

‘Just passed twenty-four, six left. And you?’

‘Twenty-two. I’ll catch you up, you know.’

‘Not this time,’ Halvorsen said, increasing his speed.

‘Yes, I will, because here come the hills. And here I come. And you’ll be psyched out and get cramp. As usual.’

‘Not this time,’ Halvorsen said, pedalling harder. A bead of sweat became visible in his thick hairline. Harry smiled and leaned over the handlebars.

Bjarne Møller stared alternately at the shopping list he had received from his wife and at the shelf, at what he thought might be coriander. Margrete had fallen in love with Thai food after their holiday in Phuket last winter, but the Crime Squad head was still not completely at ease with the various vegetables which were flown daily from Bangkok to the Pakistani grocer’s store in Grønlandsleiret.

‘That’s green chilli, boss,’ a voice by his ear said and Bjarne Møller
spun round and looked into Harry’s flushed, sweat-stained face. ‘Couple of those and a few slices of ginger and you can make tom yam soup. There’ll be steam coming out of your ears, but you’ll have sweated out a fair bit of crap.’