‘FIRST OF ALL, I TRIED THE THREE NAMES YOU GAVE ME,’ said Katrine Bratt. ‘Borgny Stem-Myhre, Charlotte Lolles and Marit Olsen. But the search didn’t produce anything sensible. So I put in all the missing persons in Norway over the last twelve months as well. And then I had something to work with.’
‘Wait,’ Harry said. He was wide awake now. ‘Where the hell did you get the missing persons from?’
‘Intranet at Missing Persons Unit, Oslo Police District. What did you think?’
Harry groaned, and Katrine went on.
‘There was one name that in fact linked the other three. Are you ready?’
‘Well …’
‘The missing woman is called Adele Vetlesen, twenty-three years old, living in Drammen. She was reported missing by her partner in November. A connection appeared on the NSB ticketing system. On the 7th of November Adele Vetlesen booked a train ticket online from Drammen to Ustaoset. The same day Borgny Stem-Myhre bought a train ticket from Kongsberg to the same place.’
‘Ustaoset’s not exactly the centre of the universe,’ Harry said.
‘It’s not a place, it’s a chunk of mountain. Where Bergen families have built their mountain cabins with old money and the Tourist Association has built cabins on the peaks, so that Norwegians can preserve Amundsen and Nansen’s heritage and trudge from cabin to cabin with skis on their feet, twenty-five kilos on their backs and a taste of mortal fear in the hinterland of the mind. Adds spice to life, you know.’
‘Sounds like you’ve been there.’
‘My ex-husband’s family has a cabin in the mountains. They’re so rich and revered that they have neither electricity nor running water. Only social climbers have a sauna and a jacuzzi.’
‘The other connections?’
‘There wasn’t a train ticket in the name of Marit Olsen. However, a payment was registered on the cash dispenser in the restaurant car on the corresponding train the day before. At 14.13. According to the railway timetable that would be somewhere between Ål and Geilo, in other words before Ustaoset.’
‘Less convincing,’ Harry said. ‘The train goes right through to Bergen. Perhaps she was going there.’
‘Do you think …?’ Katrine Bratt started, then faltered, waited and went on in hushed tones. ‘You think I’m stupid? The hotel at Ustaoset booked an overnight stay in a double room for one Rasmus Olsen who, according to the Civil Registration System, is resident at the same address as Marit Olsen. So I assumed that—’
‘Yes, that’s her husband. Why are you whispering?’
‘Because the night porter just walked past, OK? Listen, we’ve placed two murder victims and one missing person in Ustaoset on the same day. What do you reckon?’
‘Well, it’s a significant coincidence, but we can’t exclude the possibility that it’s pure chance.’
‘Agreed. So here’s the rest. I searched for Charlotte Lolles plus Ustaoset, but didn’t get a hit. So I concentrated on the date to see where Charlotte Lolles might have been when the other three were in Ustaoset. Two days before, Charlotte had paid for diesel at a petrol station outside Hønefoss.’
‘That’s a long way from Ustaoset.’
‘But it’s in the right direction from Oslo. I tried to find a car registered in her name or a possible partner’s. If they have an Auto PASS and have driven through several toll stations you can follow their movements.’
‘Mm.’
‘The problem is that she had neither a car nor a live-in partner, not officially anyway.’
‘She had a boyfriend.’
‘It’s possible. But the search engine found a car in a Europark garage in Geilo, paid for by an Iska Peller.’
‘That’s just a few kilometres away. But who’s … er, Iska Peller?’
‘According to the credit card info she’s a resident of Bristol, Sydney, Australia. The point is that she scores high on a relational search with Charlotte Lolles.’
‘Relational search?’
‘It works like this, OK. Based on the last few years, names come up for people paying with a card at the same restaurant at the same time, which suggests that they have eaten together and split the bill. Or for people who are members of the same gym with matching enrolment dates or have plane seats next to each other more than once. You get the picture.’
‘I get the picture,’ Harry repeated, copying her Bergensian intonation. ‘And I’m sure you’ve checked out the make of car and whether it uses—’
‘Yes, I have, and it uses diesel,’ Katrine answered sharply. ‘Do you want to hear the rest or not?’
‘By all means.’
‘You can’t pre-book beds in these self-service Tourist Association cabins. If all the beds are taken when you arrive, you just have to doss down on the floor, on a mattress or in a sleeping bag with your own mat. It only costs a hundred and seventy a night, and you can either put cash into a box at the cabin, or leave an envelope with an authorisation to charge your account.’
‘In other words you can’t see who has been in which cabins when?’
‘Not if they pay cash. But if they’ve left an authorisation, afterwards there would be a transaction on their account between them and the Tourist Association. Mentioning the cabin used and the date the payment was for.’
‘I seem to remember it’s a pain searching through bank transactions.’
‘Not if the engine is given the right criteria by a sharp human brain.’
‘Which is the case, I take it?’
‘That’s the general idea. Iska Peller’s account was charged for two beds at four of the Tourist Association cabins on the 20th of November, each a day’s march from the next.’
‘A four-day skiing trip.’
‘Yes. And they stayed at the last one, the Håvass cabin, on the 7th of November. It’s only half a day’s walk from Ustaoset.’
‘Interesting.’
‘What’s really interesting is that there are two other accounts that were charged for overnight stays at the Håvass cabin on the 7th of November. Guess whose?’
‘Well, it’ll hardly be Marit Olsen’s or Borgny Stem-Myhre’s since I assume Kripos would have found out that two of the murder victims had recently stayed at the same place the same night. So it must be the missing girl’s. What was her name?’
‘Adele Vetlesen. And you’re spot on. She paid for two people, but there’s no way of knowing who the other person was.’
‘Who’s the other person who paid with an authorisation slip?’
‘Not so interesting. From Stavanger.’
Nevertheless Harry picked up a pen and noted the name and address of the individual concerned and also of Iska Peller in Sydney. ‘Sounds like you rate search engines,’ he said.
‘Yep,’ she said. ‘It’s like flying an old bomber. Bit rusty and slow to get going, but when you’re in the air … my goodness. What do you think of the results?’
Harry pondered.
‘What you’ve done’, he said, ‘is to locate one missing woman and a woman who presumably has nothing to do with the case at the same place at the same time. In itself, nothing to shout about. But you’ve made it more likely that one of the murder victims – Charlotte Lolles – was with her. And you’ve located two of the murder victims – Borgny Stem-Myhre and Marit Olsen – in the immediate vicinity of Ustaoset. So …’
‘So?’
‘So, my congratulations. You’ve kept your part of the bargain. Now, as for mine …’
‘Save your breath and wipe that grin off your face. I didn’t mean it. I’m of unsound mind, didn’t you realise?’
She smacked down the receiver.