Blix laid aside his plate, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and logged into the web pages of Worthy Winner, clicking through the various live cameras as he picked a crumb of food from between his teeth with his thumbnail. The slow connection meant it took some time for each video to open.
He found Iselin on a camera out in the garden. She was sitting on a bench with a blanket wrapped around her, staring into space. For a moment Blix thought the image had frozen, but then she raised her hand and rubbed her eyes.
Kovic flopped into her chair beside him.33
‘There’s one toll station on Kongsveien and another on Sandstuveien,’ she said.
Blix closed the video feed.
‘I’ve asked for a list of all the vehicles that passed through yesterday evening and during the night,’ Kovic went on. ‘They don’t have photos of the cars, but I’m trying to do a survey of petrol stations and other CCTV footage in the area.’
Blix nodded. Kovic was a self-starter. She was not going to require much supervision, other than the purely practical – where they kept the office supplies and who you had to speak to if the coffee ran out. He wasn’t often so fortunate.
‘Look for a black Volkswagen Tiguan,’ he said. ‘She’s had a visit from someone in that kind of car.’
Gard Fosse appeared at the other end of the room and pointed at them. ‘We’ll have a run-through in my office,’ he called across.
Blix took a deep breath and rose to his feet, followed by Kovic.
Nicolai Wibe was already seated at the conference table in Fosse’s office. He was a well-built man whose background was in undercover surveillance. A couple of years younger than Blix, he had a dishevelled appearance and down-to-earth demeanour. Police lawyer Pia Nøkleby, responsible for the legal aspects of the case, was also at the table.
‘Abelvik will be here shortly,’ Fosse explained, taking a seat behind the wide desk. ‘What do we know?’
Blix took what had become his regular place – at the far end, nearest the door – and glanced up at his boss.
Blix relished his role as investigator. He was capable, and had no ambitions to climb further up the career ladder. Ranks and stripes had never been important to him. Nevertheless it stung him every time he was reminded that Gard Fosse had advanced further than he had.
‘We know that Sonja Nordstrøm did not turn up as arranged at TV 2 earlier today,’ Blix began. ‘A taxi was booked to pick her up at 7.20 a.m., but left after waiting in vain for fifteen minutes.’
He looked at Kovic, who understood and took up the thread.
‘The last person we know of, so far, who was in contact with her, 34was her publisher, who exchanged a few text messages with her last night: they were discussing their plans for today.’
She glanced down at her notes. ‘Amund Zimmer is his name. He’s coming in later to give a formal statement.’
The police lawyer jotted something down on a sheet of paper.
‘Nordstrøm should have been on the radio too,’ Blix continued, ‘and at a press conference at the publishing house. I’ve tried to get hold of Stian Josefson, the journalist who co-wrote the book with her, but he’s not answering his phone.’
Nøkleby nodded.
Wibe shoved a fresh portion of snuff under his upper lip.
‘We’re not getting any signal from her phone,’ he said. ‘So we can’t trace her position.’
‘Where was it last?’ Nøkleby asked.
Wibe shrugged. ‘I’ve set the wheels in motion to obtain historical telecoms data, but we probably won’t have it until tomorrow.’
‘I can take over that bit,’ Kovic offered. ‘I’ve done a lot of work on electronic traces.’
Wibe glanced at Blix, who nodded.
‘Go ahead, then,’ Wibe told Kovic. ‘I’m happy to be shot of it.’
Tine Abelvik appeared at the door. She and Blix had worked together for eight years. An experienced detective, she still allowed herself to become emotionally involved in particular cases. Somehow, Blix thought, that made her better at her job.
‘Sorry,’ she said, sitting down. ‘I got hold of the daughter, Liselotte. She lives in London. She doesn’t seem to have much to do with her mother. They spoke on the phone last week, but nothing was said that could help us at all.’
Abelvik leafed through her notebook.
‘Then I talked to the ex-husband. He’s not been in contact with Nordstrøm for ages. But he suggested that we check her summer cottage on Hvaler. She was in the habit of going there from time to time. I’ve asked the local police out there to check it.’
‘Good,’ Fosse said, with a nod.35
‘What else do we have?’ Nøkleby asked.
Kovic gave an account of the door-to-door inquiries, mentioning the car that had seemingly left Nordstrøm’s driveway at half past ten the previous night, but she was interrupted by the phone on Fosse’s desk.
‘I’ve asked Ann-Mari Sara to phone in,’ he explained, putting the phone on loudspeaker.
‘What do you have for us?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think she left the house of her own free will,’ Sara answered in her northern accent. ‘There are signs of a struggle in the outer hallway, and her toothbrush hasn’t been packed either. Her toiletry bag is in a cabinet in the bathroom. Her passport is lying in a drawer in the kitchen, and her handbag is in the living room; her purse and car keys are still in it.’
Blix’s phone vibrated on the table in front of him. A call from ‘Emma’. He snatched it up and stuffed it into his pocket to muffle its noise.
‘Have you found Nordstrøm’s mobile phone?’ he asked.
‘It’s not here,’ Sara said. ‘And there’s a rug missing.’
Fosse leaned towards the phone. ‘A rug?’
‘We can see that there was a rug on the floor in the hallway,’ Sara informed him. ‘Large enough to carry someone away in.’
‘To move a body?’ Wibe suggested.
‘Yes, but we haven’t found traces of physical violence. There’s no blood here.’
‘Could it have been on the rug?’
‘Yes, I guess so, but from experience, lethal violence would have produced traceable spatter.’
‘Anything else?’ Fosse demanded.
‘A man’s been here,’ Sara replied. ‘There’s semen on the bed sheets.’
‘Recent?’
‘Impossible to say. It could be from several men, for that matter. We won’t know until it’s analysed, but there could be a link with the wine glasses.’36
‘Explain.’
‘There are two wine glasses and an empty bottle in the kitchen. She had a visitor.’
‘Fingerprints?’
‘Secured from both, but I won’t have an answer for you on that today.’
‘OK, then,’ Fosse said, lifting his hand to the phone. ‘We’ll let you go on with your work.’
‘One more thing,’ Ann-Mari Sara said. ‘Something I don’t like.’
Fosse sat, his hand hovering over the phone, and raised his eyes to Blix. Neither of them was used to Sara expressing personal views.
‘There’s a starting number taped to the TV set.’
‘A starting number?’ Kovic queried.
Blix frowned. He hadn’t noticed it either. Their rapid examination of the house had focused on searching for signs of life – or the opposite.
‘It’s from when Nordstrøm was running the Stockholm Marathon,’ Sara went on. ‘Her starting number was one.’
Silence filled the room for a second or two.
‘How do you interpret that?’ Blix asked.
‘It’s not easy to say,’ Sara ventured. ‘But it’s a bizarre thing to do. It seems to me like someone was leaving a marker.’
‘A message, is that what you’re thinking?’ Wibe probed. ‘To us?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sara answered. ‘But a starting number indicates that something is about to start, doesn’t it? Or it could mean the alternative – that something is over and done with, that you’ve reached your goal.’
No one said anything for a while.
‘In any case,’ Sara said, ‘it’s wrong of me to speculate. But now at least you know about it.’
Blix racked his brains to think what it might mean. A starting number, added to the possibility that something had happened to such a high-profile personality as Sonja Nordstrøm, made him sit bolt upright, impatient to get cracking. It had been a long time since he had felt such enthusiasm. He had missed the feeling.