nodded in passing to a tall, blonde woman in a black skirt and a short jacket. If it hadn’t been for the police warrant card dangling around her neck he would have taken her to be a bank clerk. He chucked the snus into the green rubbish bin at the end of the bridge and walked down to the riverbank, scanning the ground with his eyes as he did.
‘Chief Inspector Kefas?’
Elias looked up. The woman who had addressed him was the archetypal Scandinavian female as imagined by foreigners. He suspected she thought she was too tall, which was why she stooped slightly and wore flat shoes.
‘No, that’s not me. Who are you?’
‘Kari Adel.’ She held up a warrant card around her neck. ‘I’ve just joined the Homicide Squad. They told me I would find him here.’
‘Welcome. What do you want with Simon?’
‘He’s supposed to mentor me.’
‘Lucky you,’ Elias said and pointed to the man walking along the river. ‘That’s him over there.’
‘What’s he looking for?’
‘Evidence.’
‘But surely the evidence will be in the river where the body is and not downstream.’
‘Yes, so he’s assuming we’ve already searched that area. And we have.’
‘The other CSOs say it looks like a suicide.’
‘Yes, I made the mistake of trying to bet a beer with him on it.’
‘Mistake?’
‘He has a problem,’ Elias said. ‘Had a problem.’ He noticed the woman’s raised eyebrows. ‘It’s no secret. And it’s best that you know if you’re going to work together.’
‘No one told me I would be working with an alcoholic.’
‘Not an alcoholic,’ Elias said. ‘A gambling addict.’
She brushed her blonde hair behind one ear and squinted against the sun. ‘What kind of gambling?’
‘The losing kind, as far as I understand. But if you’re his new partner, you can ask him yourself. Where are you from?’
‘Drug Squad.’
‘Well, then you’ll know all about the river.’
‘Yes.’ She narrowed her eyes and looked up at the body. ‘It could have been a drug hit, of course, but the location is all wrong. They don’t deal hard drugs this far up the river, for that you have to go down to Schous Plass and Nybrua. And people don’t usually kill for cannabis.’
‘Oh, good,’ Elias said, nodding towards the boat. ‘They’ve finally managed to get him down. If he has any ID on him, we’ll soon know who—’
‘I know who he is,’ Kari Adel said. ‘It’s Per Vollan, the prison chaplain.’
Elias looked her up and down. He guessed she would soon give up dressing in smart clothes like the female detectives she had seen in American TV series. But apart from that she looked as if she had something about her. Perhaps she was one of those who would go the distance. Perhaps she belonged to that rare breed. But he had thought that about others before.
5
THE INTERVIEW ROOM was decorated in pale colours; the furniture was pine. Red curtains covered the window which faced the control room. Inspector Henrik Westad from Buskerud Police thought it was a nice room. He had made the trip from Drammen into Oslo before and sat in this very room. They had interviewed children in a sexual assault case and there had been anatomical dolls here. This time it was a murder inquiry. He studied the long-haired man with the beard sitting across the table. Sonny Lofthus. He looked younger than the age stated in the file. He didn’t look as if he was drugged up, either; his pupils were normal-sized. But then people with a high drug tolerance rarely did. Westad cleared his throat.
‘So you tied her up, used an ordinary hacksaw on her and then you left?’
‘Yes,’ the man said. He had declined his right to a lawyer, but answered practically every question with monosyllables. In the end Westad had resorted to asking him yes and no questions. Which seemed to work. Of course it bloody worked; they were getting a confession out of it. But it felt wrong. Westad looked at the photos in front of him. The top of the