‘Eighteen years.’ It was Roy Stille. The officer had followed them and was panting.
‘She’s been here eighteen years,’ Roy said, crouching down.
‘She?’ Aslak queried.
The officer pointed to the hips on the skeleton. ‘Women have a larger pelvis. We never did find her when she went missing. That’s Karen Utmo.’
Krongli heard something he had never heard before in Roy Stille’s voice. A quiver. The quiver of a man emotionally upset. Grief-stricken. But his granite face was as smooth as always, closed.
‘Well, I never, so it was true then,’ said the dog handler. ‘She topped herself out of anguish for her boy.’
‘Hardly,’ Krongli said. The other two looked at him. He had stuck his little finger in a delicate round aperture in the forehead of the skull.
‘Is that a bullet hole?’ the dog handler asked.
‘Yep,’ said Stille, feeling the back of the skull. ‘And there’s no exit wound, so I reckon we’ll find the bullet in the skull.’
‘And should we bet that the bullet will match Utmo’s rifle?’ said Krongli.
‘Well, I never,’ the dog handler repeated. ‘Do you mean he shot his wife? How is that possible? To kill a person you’ve loved? Because you think she and your son … it’s like entering hell.’
‘Eighteen years,’ Stille said, getting up with a groan. ‘Seven years left before the murder was deemed too old. That must be what they call irony. You wait and wait, afraid of being found out. The years pass and then, when you’re approaching freedom – bang! – you’re killed yourself and end up in the same scree.’
Krongli closed his eyes and thought, yes, it is possible to kill a person you have loved. Easily possible. But, no, you’re never free. Never. He would never come here again.
Johan Krohn enjoyed the limelight. You don’t become the country’s most popular defence counsel without enjoying it. And when he had agreed to defend Sigurd Altman, Prince Charming, without a second’s hesitation, he knew there was going to be more limelight than he had hitherto experienced in his remarkable career. He had already reached his goal of beating his father as the youngest lawyer ever entitled to attend the Supreme Court. As a defence counsel in his twenties he was already being proclaimed the new star, the wonder boy. But that might have gone to his head a bit; he had not been used to so much attention at school. Then he had been the irritating top pupil who always waved his hand too eagerly in the classroom, who always tried a bit too hard socially and yet was always the last to know where the Saturday-night party was – if he knew about it at all. But now young female assistants and clerks might giggle and blush when he complimented them or suggested a dinner after work. And invitations rained down, to give talks, participate in debates on radio or TV and even to the odd premiere his wife valued so highly. Such events may have occupied too much of his attention over recent years. At any rate, he had detected a downward trend in the number of legal triumphs, big media cases and new clients. Not so many that it had begun to affect his reputation, but enough for him to be aware that he needed the Sigurd Altman case. Needed something high profile to put him back where he belonged: at the top.
That was why Johan Krohan sat listening quietly to the lean man with the round glasses. Listening while Sigurd Altman told a story that was not only the least likely story Krohn had ever heard but also a story he believed. Johan Krohn could already see himself in the courtroom, the sparkling rhetorician, the agitator, the manipulator, who nonetheless never lost sight of legal justice, a delight for both layman and judge. He was therefore disappointed at first when Sigurd Altman revealed the plans he had made. However, after reminding himself of his father’s repeated admonition that the lawyer was there for the client, and not vice versa, he accepted the brief. For Johan Krohn was not really a bad person.
And when Krohn left Oslo District Prison where Sigurd Altman had been transferred during the day, he saw new potential in the assignment, which in its way, despite everything, was extraordinary. The first thing he did when he got back to his office was contact Mikael Bellman. They had met only once before, at a murder trial of course, but Johan Krohn had immediately known where he was with Bellman. A hawk recognises a hawk. So he appreciated how Bellman was feeling after the day’s headlines about the County Officer’s arrest.
‘Bellman.’
‘Johan Krohn. Nice to talk to you again.’
‘Good afternoon, Krohn.’ The voice sounded formal, but not unfriendly.
‘Is it? I imagine you feel you’ve been overtaken down the final straight, don’t you?’