The Blind Goddess

THURSDAY 10 DECEMBER

Having worked on it for less than a couple of days, they had reduced the possible locations to a very encompassable number: two. One was a respectable and serious gym in the centre of town, the other a less respectable, more expensive, and more multifarious health club in St. Hanshaugen. Both venues were devoted to physical pursuits, but while the former was legitimate, the latter’s activities functioned with specially imported ladies from Thailand. It had taken a while to discover the manufacturers of the key, but once they found them, they succeeded in narrowing it down in just a few hours to the cupboard it might fit. In view of Lavik’s shattered reputation they were all convinced that the specific one would be found in the brothel. But they were wrong. Lavik had pumped iron twice a week, as on checking the file they realised they already knew.

The locker was so small that the attaché case had only been squeezed in with difficulty. It now lay unopened, its combination lock still unassailed, on Kaldbakken’s desk on the second floor, blue zone. Håkon Sand and Hanne Wilhelmsen were anticipating an early Christmas present and could hardly bear to wait for the leather-covered metal case to be broached.

The combination was no match for Kaldbakken’s screwdriver. They’d fiddled about with the six numbered wheels just to satisfy themselves, but had soon given up. After all, the owner had no use for it anymore, even though it was still new.

None of them could understand why he’d done it. It was incomprehensible for the man to have taken such a risk. The only logical explanation was that he’d hoped to drag others down with him if he fell. He would have been unlikely to need such a thick bundle of documentation while he was alive. It must have been a real security headache for him. In a fitness centre, where he could never be sure that the owner wouldn’t make an inquisitive round of his affluent members’ lockers after closing time, he had stashed away a complete and detailed account of a syndicate none of the three readers had ever imagined they would come across, except perhaps in a crime novel.

“He doesn’t mention the attack on me,” said Hanne, “which must mean that I was right. It must have been the under secretary.”

Kaldbakken and Sand were totally uninterested. If it had turned out to be the Pope himself who’d travelled north to commit violence on a defenceless woman, they wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.

They spent a couple of hours going right through it. Some of the papers they pored over together, some they took turns to read. Occasional exclamations prompted them to lean over one another’s shoulders. After a while they were no longer surprised at anything.

“This will have to go straight to the top,” said Hanne when they’d finished reading and had put it all back into the damaged leather case.

She pointed her finger at the ceiling. And she didn’t mean God.

The minister of justice insisted on a press conference that very evening. The Special Branch and the Intelligence Service had protested vociferously, but in vain. The scandal would be enormous if the media found out that they had kept the matter under wraps for more than a few hours. It was significant enough as it was.

The minister’s striking appearance had taken a severe buffeting in the course of the day. His skin was more pallid and his hair less golden. He could hear the baying of the newshounds outside the door. For various reasons he had decided that the conference should be held in police headquarters.

“It’s only you lot who’ll come out of this affair with any glory,” he’d declared sarcastically when the commissioner had expressed the opinion that they should receive the journalists in the government building. “We’ll have the press conference under police auspices.”

What he forbore to mention was that there was a virtual state of emergency in and around all the government buildings. The prime minister had ordered a tripling of security arrangements and had become increasingly paranoid about the media as the day wore on. Police headquarters would thus afford a welcome diversion.

Taking a few deep breaths he strode into the big lecture hall. It was fortunate that he had some reserves of oxygen, because the crush inside the double doors nearly suffocated him.

Håkon Sand and Hanne Wilhelmsen stood leaning against the wall at the back of the room. The affair was now totally out of their hands. It had progressed up the building at an unprecedented rate. All they’d heard was a brief message to say that the case could now be regarded as fully investigated and finally solved. Which was okay by them.

“It’ll be interesting to see how they get themselves out of this one,” said Hanne in an undertone.

“They can’t get out of it,” said Håkon, shaking his head. “This is something no one is going to emerge from unscathed. Except us two. The heroes. Us in our white Stetsons.”

“The good guys!”

They were both wreathed in smiles. Håkon put an arm round his colleague, and she didn’t push it away. A couple of uniformed constables gave them a furtive glance, but rumours had already been circulating for some time and were no longer so intriguing.

Where they stood they were practically invisible to the crowd up at the front of the room. Five powerful floodlights had hastily been rigged up by the technicians from the three TV channels, and that had left the back of the room in darkness compared with the fierce glare over the table where all the VIPs were sitting. Norwegian Radio and Television were broadcasting live. It was four minutes to seven. The press release, issued through the Press Agency three hours earlier, had said everything and nothing. No details, simply that the parliamentary under secretary had been arrested for a serious criminal offence, and that the government had convened a special session. In fact, everyone who could justify their presence, plus a few more, had got to the meeting in the chamber in double-quick time.

The commissioner opened the proceedings now. If it hadn’t been for the whirr of the camera motorwinds, you’d have been able to hear the proverbial pin drop even from Hanne’s and Håkon’s position.

She seemed nervous, but brought herself under control. She had prepared some notes in advance, several A4 sheets that she kept shuffling backwards and forwards to no obvious purpose.

The police had reason to believe that the parliamentary under secretary in the Ministry of Justice was involved with, had quite possibly masterminded, a group whom they suspected of the illegal importation of narcotic substances.

“Another way of saying that the guy’s a mafia boss,” Håkon whispered in Hanne’s ear. “Now we’re getting the refined legal version!”

The shocked and excited buzz died down immediately when the commissioner resumed speaking.

“As we see it at the present time,” she said, coughing discreetly behind her hand, “as we have reason to believe, the organisation consisted of two groups. The deceased lawyer Hans E. Olsen was responsible for one, the deceased lawyer Jørgen Ulf Lavik for the other. We have reason to suspect that the under secretary directed both of them. He has been arrested and charged with the importation and distribution of unknown quantities of narcotic substances.”

She cleared her throat again, as if reluctant to continue.

“How much?” one of the journalists ventured, without getting a reply.

“He has also been charged with the murder of Hans E. Olsen.”

Now a ton of pins could have dropped unnoticed amidst the hail of questions.

“Has he confessed?”

“What grounds do you have for your suspicions?”

“What kind of money are we talking about?”

“Have you made any seizures?”

It took nearly ten minutes to bring the meeting to order. The head of the CID kept thumping the table, and the commissioner had sat back down in her chair, pursing her lips in mute refusal to answer anything until the room was quiet again. She looked older than ever.

“Don’t see why she seems so tense,” Hanne murmured to Håkon. “She ought to be damned pleased. It’s a long time since anyone in our building has been able to claim such a triumph!”

The head of the CID finally succeeded in achieving silence.

“There’ll be an opportunity for questions after reports from the various interested parties. But not before. We ask for your patience and cooperation.”

Whether the general muttering from the journalists was an indication of assent was difficult to know. But at least the commissioner was able to continue.

“It seems that these activities have been in progress for some years. We think since 1986. It’s too early to speculate on the possible total quantities.” She coughed again.

“That cough comes on whenever she lies or feels threatened,” said Håkon sotto voce. “From the information in the attaché case, I made it fourteen kilos in all. And that was just Lavik’s half of the business!”

“I made it fifteen,” Hanne said with a grin.

The commissioner began speaking again.

“As for the particular circumstances surrounding the use of…”-her coughing now seemed almost a parody of itself-“the… use of… hmm… the profits from this illegal enterprise, I will hand over to the minister of justice himself.”

She heaved a sigh of relief as all eyes turned to the young minister. He looked as if he’d received news of his father’s collapse, his mother’s death, and his own bankruptcy all on the same day.

“Provisionally, and I repeat provisionally, it seems that some of these… some of these… hmm… profits, let’s call them, have been used for… irregular expenditure by our Military Intelligence Service.”

Everyone realised immediately why the minister of defence was also there. His presence, seated beyond the end of the table at the far left of the row of VIPs, almost as if not really belonging, had raised some eyebrows. But no one had had a chance to give the matter more thought.

It was hopeless now to try to stem the flood of questions. The head of the CID banged on the table again in an attempt to do so, but just looked increasingly impotent. The commissioner pulled herself together with a determined effort and, in a voice that was totally unexpected from so slight a figure, took command of the proceedings.

“One question at a time,” she declared. “We’re at your disposal for an hour. It’s up to you to get the most out of it.”

After a quarter of an hour most of them had a fairly good overview. The gang, or mafia, as everyone, including the VIPs on the panel, had now switched to calling it, had been organised on a strict “need to know” basis. The aim had evidently been that each one should know only his direct superior. The under secretary was thus safe from all of them except Olsen and Lavik. But this pair of subordinate officers had gradually felt over-confident, had gone too far, and adopted too active a role. There was reason to assume that they had taken considerable advantage of their unique opportunities to smuggle dope into prisons. The most effective payment method in the world. And enticement.

For a moment at least Fredrick Myhreng caused a hush to fall.

“Is it true there’s been illegal political surveillance?” he shouted from the third row.

The speakers on the podium glanced across at one another, but none of them replied-in fact they scarcely had the opportunity before Myhreng persisted doggedly:

“My information is that there’s rumoured to be near enough thirty kilos of hard drugs. That’s an absolute fortune! Has it all been appropriated by the Intelligence Service?”

The fellow wasn’t stupid. But nor was the commissioner. She stared at him for a moment.

“We have reason to believe that significant sums have been utilised by those in charge of certain surveillance operations, yes,” she said slowly.

The more enterprising of the crime reporters immediately tucked their heads in their jackets to speak into the neat little mobile phones in their inside pockets, exhorting their editors to summon their political commentators. Everything so far would have been of considerable interest for them, too, though they wouldn’t normally have expected to concern themselves with a press conference arranged by the police. But there could be widespread political repercussions when a politician of such eminence turned out to be a crook. Now that information about the use of the money had come out, it was only a matter of minutes before the first of the political commentators slipped in through the door and crept over to his colleague for a muffled briefing. He was gradually followed by another fourteen or fifteen of them. The hubbub from the crime reporters subsided, and some of them headed for the door after passing on the baton.

A flashy type from Dagsrevyen with the face of a forty-year-old but hair and clothes more befitting someone half his age held a giant microphone wrapped in winter fur towards the minister of defence.

“Who in the Intelligence Service was privy to this? How high up did the authorisation go?”

The minister wriggled in his chair and cast a pleading glance at his colleague from the Ministry of Justice. But no assistance was forthcoming.

“Well, it seems… As far as we can tell at present… Nobody knew where the money came from. Very few had any knowledge of the money at all. Further investigations are still in progress.”

The reporter from Dagsrevyen wasn’t going to be fobbed off so easily.

“Do you mean, Minister, that the Intelligence Service has spent many millions on one thing or another without anyone being aware of it?”

That was exactly what the minister did mean. He waved his arms and raised his voice.

“It is important to emphasise that this was not officially sanctioned. We have no evidence to suggest that many were involved, so it’s incorrect to speak of the Intelligence Service per se in this respect. We’re talking of a few guilty individuals, and it’s those few individuals who will be called to account.”

The reporter could scarcely suppress his incredulity.

“Do you mean there will be no consequences for the Service as a whole?”

When he didn’t get a response straightaway he thrust the microphone right into the minister of justice’s face so that he had to jerk his head back to avoid getting a mouthful of nylon fur.

“In view of the fact that your closest colleague has been charged with such a serious crime, shouldn’t you resign as minister of justice?”

The minister was now quite calm. He gently pushed the microphone further away, ran his fingers through his hair, and looked straight at the television camera.

“Yes, I think I should,” he said coolly and deliberately.

The reaction was instantaneous. Even the cameras were stilled.

“I am stepping down with immediate effect,” he declared, and evidently meant it literally. Without any indication that the press conference was being terminated, he picked up his papers, rose to his feet, and surveyed the assembly before squaring his shoulders and walking out.

The two police officers at the back of the hall felt sympathy for the young minister.

“He hasn’t done anything wrong,” Håkon murmured. “Only selected a bit of a rogue as a colleague.”

“Good help is hard to get these days,” said Hanne. “You’re lucky from that point of view: you’ve got me.”

She kissed him on the cheek and whispered good-bye. Hanne Wilhelmsen was off to do some late-night shopping. It was high time she bought her Christmas presents.